[ OPEN | PLAYER PLOT ] This is how it feels to take a fall

[illithidnapped]

WHO: Tiffany, Barrow, Astarion and...you??
WHAT: an assignment gone terribly wrong
WHEN: week 5, segueing into week 6 of the plot, just after dragon tracking concluded with a terrible, literal bang
WHERE: the most silent portion of the Silent Plains, nearer to Hasmal, and not far from Tevinter's very nicely constructed base
NOTES: cw for injury, darkness, being stranded, absolute idiocy | OOC POST: here

Previously: having successfully scouted Primus Taxarchis’ base in the Silent Plains, Tiffany, Barrow and Astarion make an unsuccessful escape under the fully alerted watch of the base’s active forces— provoking a near lethal counter attack that sees them crash landing not far away, and forcing the stranded trio to desperately petition for help.

That’s where you come in.




The ravine runs like a crooked gash throughout desert sands, deep and layered, sloping inward at an angle too steep to safely (or reliably) climb. Easy to spot from above, not as easy to get into without breaking an ankle or an arm, and impossible to freely clamber out of once inside: the stone is brittle and flaking to the touch, lean too much on it, and you’ll drop right to the earth along with it.

The caverns connected to it are far more accessible— the only downside is they’re labyrinthine in their knotted nature: it’s easy to reach an end too narrow to be traversed, or so broad that it loops back on where you’ve already been, descending downward in steeper layers, becoming a near honeycombed network at points.

Of course, you also might not be alone in the dark. This territory isn’t as unclaimed as appearances might otherwise suggest, factoring in proximity to the base the three had been previously scouting. Luckily no overwhelming force has been sent to give chase and comb the desert in pursuit, but that’s not to say there aren’t still eyes to be found in the depths of lightless pathways. Armor-clad agents working for the exact same reasons you are, their noses to the trail.

Well. Not the exact same reasons.

The temperature is freezing cold at night, and in the fuller depths of the caverns where light doesn’t reach, that’s a near consistent constant. Firelight might draw attention, for better or worse. Magic, too, and— despite earning the label of Silent— there is wildlife occasionally to be found. Proof of life’s perseverance even in the harshes of places, fleeting and skittish.

Or dangerous.

Whatever approach is taken, one thing is clear throughout: none of this is going to be easy.


[ooc notes:

-The trio rest at the very bottom of those lightless depths where they’d initially fallen, in varying states of wellness and action.

-they’re lacking in supplies, warmth, healing, mounts, protection, a way out— you name it they need it.

-time is a given: none of this will go quickly, so feel free to handwave or assume anything you need to to make your dream threads come true.

-this timeline wise takes place at the end of week five segueing into week 6, when Riftwatch forces are free to head home if they care to, but given that this is technically hostile territory between Primus Taxarchis’ base and Hasmal, it’s probably going to be a deliberate choice if your characters decide to come here.

-pls just don’t do anything to officially alert the nearby base in full, that would be Bad— and super difficult to do from a hole in the ground but mostly just Bad. Otherwise chase your bliss and make your wildest spelunking/survival/heroic fantasies a reality.

-ooc post is here, for all your delving needs and details.]

Comments

[broodypants]

"Her love abandoned her to join Andraste's horde," Fenris supplies. He did indeed give the ending away, but not the final details. "For her faithlessness, she was sacrificed to Dumat, the Old God of silence. In those times, it's said, He took the form of a dragon. To honor the god, she did not make a sound."

Quiet permeates the rock, the sand, even their echoes seem muffled. It is a fitting story in more than one way.

"The string is the only meaningful feature of the tale."

[illithidnapped]

“Doesn’t bode well for you, considering your role at the moment.”

He pulls in a breath, the sound of it loud enough to signal the very fledgling start of the thought that chases it— dull and muted in the lightless dark.

“But then again I’ve never been the devout sort— and I don’t think you would ever go down quietly.”

Or for a god, for that matter.

[broodypants]

"I abandoned the Old Gods long ago," Fenris says, "if I ever worshiped them to begin with. They don't seem to have noticed."

They're also dead, but that's hardly the point. Fenris trudges onward.

[illithidnapped]

"Gods don't pay attention to anything aside from their own whims. Not here— and certainly not in Faerûn."

Even curled listlessly against Fenris, greedy in how he leans to leech warmth as if it were blood, too ragged to fully form anything but flickering trains of thought, there's a sharpness to his assertion. To the way his teeth click when consonants catch.

"No, it’s the ones that want to be gods— they’re the ones that seem inclined to notice everything. And even quicker to try and ruin it. All for selfish, pointless ambition."

Scoffs Astarion, also possessed of tireless ambition.

But he’d argue that it’s different.

[broodypants]

Fenris allows one self-amused chuckle to break the silence. Like a popping soap bubble, it echoes off the cavern walls, before popping, muffled into nonexistence in the sand. "Your grievances with Corypheus only grow."

[illithidnapped]

Music to his ire filled ears. If his answer from earlier was Fenris’ victory, this one is his.

And for a little while, with the ceding admission of 'so they do', silence prevails. The sound of bare footsteps in sand, the soothing glow of azure markings in the dark, a touch more silver in their more docile state.

He’s thinking, and he isn’t thinking at all— the oscillating pattern of consciousness and drowsiness working him over in waves. And it comes to him eventually, carried by the current of thoughtful tides rolling in and out, the memory of something he’d tried to pin down earlier. To not forget, if the opportunity arose.

“...I owe you an apology.”

Sentimental when wounded indeed.

[broodypants]

Fenris lets himself bend to the peace of the moment. He checks, occasionally, that Astarion yet draws breath, but he isn't too worried. He doubts the man is capable of dying quietly.

He shifts when Astarion speaks, something nearing, but not quite, shock. His grip tightens. Still, his talons to not find Astarion's leg, his shoulder.

"How so?"

[illithidnapped]

He feels those talons jolt just so, but it’s all dulled sensation; his nerves too wearied to work up any amount of concern over something so faint as fleeting pressure in the cold.

It’s a wonder Fenris’ toes haven’t fallen off, but he finds himself often amazed of that regardless of the setting.

"I didn’t want to hear it when we first met. About your— markings, I mean." Fenris had thought it an obvious allusion at the time, but even the most obvious of signs need to be observed in order to take root. "You see I’d only been free of my master for a single day when I arrived here. Just one. And because I had no control of myself before that I..."

He stops— starts again— it isn't the hazy screen of a blood starved mind that's entirely to blame for how difficult this is for him to confess; he'd be a poor hand at this even with his wits about him.

"When you said your master had marked you, I set it aside. Ignored it. I thought you meant something more akin to my own scars, not— "

Not the vivid stripes winding bright across sharp features. Those strange patterns, so obviously unique to Fenris alone, now.

"So when I went to touch you and you recoiled, well." His breath is a low-stitched thing, catching softly against the roof of his mouth as he stares at nothing at all beyond a stretch of rock that looks exactly the same as every other one they've passed thus far.

"I was an ass."

[broodypants]

Fenris' posture relaxes. A lone chuckle, deep and muffled in the back of his throat, finds its way out. He shakes his head, making odd shapes in the moonlight. "That is what comes now to your mind?"

[illithidnapped]

"Are you— "

He bristles at the sound of that faint amusement, as much as he’s capable of bristling. It’s the best possible outcome, and yet there’s no keeping the embarrassment from trying to flush its way across his features, even without a drop of blood to give.

A short puff of air escapes him.

"Yes that’s what comes to mind. One of the healers— I."

How can he say I know what it’s like, and that makes all the difference? Maybe before Fenris was smiling.

Now he just feels stupid.

[broodypants]

And Fenris, spurred on by Astarion's evident distress, keeps on smiling. "I'm honored," Fenris says, voice dry, "you think so much of my feelings."

[illithidnapped]

“Right now I’m thinking a great deal about you at the bottom of this glorified ditch.”

No. Damn it. Wait— that’s not what he wanted to say. Come on, Astarion. Get it together. It’s not so hard to be decent for once.

yes it is

“Would you just shut up and let me finish—”

[broodypants]

"Of course," Fenris says, voice thick with repressed laughter. He continues forward, gracefully moving his way around the cave walls, so Astarion's head isn't bumped into rock. "Please continue."

[illithidnapped]

There’s a dull thunk of a sound when Astarion drops his temple back against the plating of Fenris’ armor. Apparently whatever Fenris tried to spare him, he does to himself in indignance.

There was more to be said. Something thoughtful. Permeating. Profound, maybe, by Astarion's standards.

In the end, after all that bluster, all he manages is a single, frustrated:

“—I’m...sorry.”

Spoken so deeply that the 's' in sorry somehow catches like a 't', for how much force he puts behind it.

There. Laugh all you want, lanky bastard.

[broodypants]

Fenris does not laugh. He doesn't think anyone's ever apologized to him and meant it so truthfully as Astarion seems to. The fact that Astarion clearly doesn't have to is irrelevant.

"You hold yourself to a higher standard than I'd thought," he murmurs. "Accepted."

[illithidnapped]

Astarion aches.

He only remembers it once Fenris accepts his strangled offering. Only lets a held breath slither out as he winds down, surrendering to the demands of exhaustion once more.

How stupid. How utterly absurd. All this trouble for the paltry prize of friendship.

And yet.

“You smell nice,” he adds, as his mind winds back down into perfect uselessness. As if the prior conversation had never happened at all.

[broodypants]

"I... smell nice." Fenris frowns, trying to process this new bit of information. It reminds him of- "I once knew a woman who said I had pretty eyes. It was her way of telling me to stop talking."

So, are you...

[illithidnapped]

"You barely talk as it is." Astarion mutters just as drowsily, certainty still managing to linger in his commentary.

Which isn't true— or isn't fair, maybe. Fenris might be curt, but he's done more than enough to rescue Astarion from boredom since the moment he'd first set foot in this world. So, yes. A little unfair. A little uncalled for.

Maybe that's why he musters up the energy to press on in asking:

"Did it work?"

[broodypants]

"For her? Of course."

What Isabela wanted, she got.

"I was at fault. I asked about her past. One should know better than to ask about such things, when you're talking to a pirate queen."

[illithidnapped]

"A queen." Astarion scoffs, eyes blinking open to steal an upwards glance at Fenris' expression in the dark— whatever he can make out of it, anyway.

"No wonder you were so in love."

[broodypants]

"A queen... according to her."

He scoffs, as though the suggestion of love is humorous, but there is no embarrassed denial. Astarion is simply wrong.

"We were allies," he says, "she was kind to me. Nothing more."

[illithidnapped]

“Undoubtedly a queen, then.”

Spoken slyly. The pride of a well-placed punchline despite all current miseries— and completely fumbled a beat later. Dropped like a coin in a drain.

“—oh. I just thought. Well. The way you talked about her...”

He's in over his head. Too foggy and faint to properly navigate the waters he's foolishly stomped his way into. Not because Fenris is reeling from the suggestion, or even bothered by the intrusion of it—

But because Astarion can't seem to shut up.

“Kindness can be a sort of love, I imagine. Not that I’ve any experience with it, but um. Hm.”

A beat, his pale brow pinching as he shuts his eyes, muttering, “You know, I’m suddenly very tired.”

[broodypants]

It is because Astarion is so clearly out of sorts that Fenris feels he can admit some quiet truths. "I have never been in love." It doesn't concern him much. His life is shaped differently, away from such concerns.

He keeps walking. "Sleep, then. When you wake, we will be above ground."

[illithidnapped]

There are parts of this conversation he’ll remember, and parts he won’t. Funny, how close to being drunk it is, that combination of exhaustion and duller pain wreathed around his mind. In the moment, he thinks it’s a shame.

Ten years.

No one left.

Probably a lesson to be learned somewhere in there. For now, he does the only thing he can: Astarion relaxes in that hold, and drifts away with absolute certainty that Fenris will keep his word.