MOD PLOT ↠ ALL SOULS WHO TAKE UP THE SWORD

[faderifting]

WHO: Nearly everyone
WHAT: Retaking Val Chevin
WHEN: Late Firstfall into early/mid-Haring, 9:47
WHERE: Val Chevin, Orlais
NOTES: Generated injuries here! CWs for violence, slavery mentions. Use content warnings in your comment subject lines as needed.

THE BATTLE

The battle begins just after dawn, once the distraction at the harbor has drawn as much of the enemy force to that end of the city as possible. Bombardment (magical or otherwise) is fruitless while the elvhen shield artifact continues to magically reinforce the walls and gates, but a Riftwatch team is on its way and will soon have disabled it. In the meantime, while the enemy's attention is focused on the harbor the assault begins. The first waves of soldiers are sent up ladders to try to fight their way over. Some make it, and fight their way along the battlements to try to reach the gate below, in hopes of unbarring it from within even before the shield is broken. The attacking force very nearly manages a lightning-quick victory, numbers pouring over a section of the wall left unmanned by the harbor distraction. They might have managed it when, suddenly, a rush of magic descends down onto the walls, physically, enough to blow their hair back and everything, and a glowing dome spreads over the city—essentially an enormous magical barrier.

Those at the tops of ladders suddenly find their blows absorbed by the magic rather than landing on the overwhelmed guards along the wall, while the defenders' blades still pierce through from within. The tide quickly begins to turn in favor of the Tevinter defenders. Some of the attackers are caught already within the walls when the barrier drops, and without more following behind them are quickly outnumbered, either killed or forced to flee deeper into the city to try to avoid capture. There is traffic jam at the top of the wall as forward progress abruptly halts, and at least one ladder accidentally falls in the resulting confusion, taking a dozen or so attackers with it. Attacks from the walls above now rain down with impunity as the attackers attempt to force their way through the barrier, reasoning that all barriers break eventually and it's just a matter of applying enough force. For a short period that feels longer, the battle stagnates, all the damage being taken by the allied forces, the Tevinters on the wall able to regroup and reinforce their ranks.

It takes longer than anyone had planned but finally the Riftwatch team inside the city is successful and the barrier dome dissipates as abruptly as it had appeared. A cheer goes up, flagging morale restored, and the assault takes on renewed intensity. Without their magical protection the gate is no longer unbreachable. Rams are aimed at it and magical force as well, protected by archers and more mages, with assistance from some griffon riders above. The enemy throws down scalding stones, oil, even Antivan fire, but their force is stretched thinner and thinner, and more and more attackers make it over the walls to harry them back. Finally the gate splinters, and the armies of Orlais and the Divine stream into Val Chevin.

The Tevinter and Ander forces don't give in that easily. They make a stand in the central square of the city, fighting on the steps of the Chantry and the lip of the great fountain itself with its four leaping seahorses. They retreat through the streets, broken up into smaller groups, some barricading themselves inside a building, others seeking to hide in a home, more running, or looking for chokepoints they can defend, mages tearing stones out of walls to block pursuit. Some of the people of Val Chevin, sensing an end to the occupation at last, join the fight, driving soldiers out of their homes and shops with pitchforks and butcher's knives, raining trash and debris down on them from windows, calling out warnings and directions to friendly forces, offering water or aid where they can.

By mid-afternoon, it's over. Some of the occupying force have managed to flee into the countryside or into one of the few ships remaining intact in the harbor. Many more are dead. The remainder, perhaps as many as a thousand, are gradually cornered at various places around the city and give themselves up. Not all surrenders are honored--some, particularly Orlesians and locals caught up in the fighting, are eager to dispatch the enemy occupiers once and for all and unless someone intervenes may ignore the laying down of arms. Stragglers still attempting to hide or escape are rounded up throughout the day (some even later), tracked down by searchers or turned in by locals.

THE "SAFE AND SECURE" SHIP

Anchored at what is believed to be a safe distance just up the coast to the northeast of the city, Riftwatch's shipboard base of operations provides a landing and launch area for griffons, triage for wounded, and on large tables and boards a collection of detailed maps of the area and of the city and its various districts on which action is tracked as crystal reports come in. Some are assigned to shifts manning the crystals: taking in reports, asking questions, soliciting aid, sending griffon riders where they're most needed. Others analyze the information provided, plot it on the maps, or coordinate with allied movements. Supplies are doled out from the ship as well, from spare weapons and armor to food and water, grenades, lyrium potions, healing poultices. Though the breeze only intermittently carries the sounds of battle out here, the ship is still a buzz with activity throughout the day.

Disaster doesn't strike until the afternoon, when a group of Tevinters fleeing the city manage to commandeer one of the remaining mostly-intact ships and somehow make it out of the harbor despite not entirely knowing how to sail. They straggle out into the bay, catch the wrong current, and are suddenly on top of the Riftwatch ship. Though smaller and already beginning to sink, the Tevinter vessel manages to tangle itself with Riftwatch's anchor cable, and the couple of mages on board make a doomed attempt to trade up for the bigger, more seaworthy model. They fail, but not before managing to do some serious damage to Riftwatch's ship, sufficient to sink it as well.

A hasty evacuation follows by griffon and longboat. The ship sinks rapidly, leaving just barely enough time to get all the wounded ferried to shore and still come back for the healthy before they go down with the ship.

THE AFTERMATH

IMMEDIATE NEEDS

First things first: the wounded from the battle need to be attended to, including not only those from Riftwatch's ranks, but also members of the Orlesian military, local civilians, and Tevinter and Ander prisoners—though opinions vary about whether or not to provide them with any assistance. The Orlesian military has supplies and surgeons, and Riftwatch will be welcome to either seek care or help provide it in medical tents that are set up on the outskirts of the city even before the fighting has fully concluded. During this first evening, this area is not a peaceful place to be, filled with shouts and moans and blood-spattered people darting between emergencies. Even with Riftwatch's help (and magic), resources are stretched thin enough by severe injuries that those who look like they're going to survive without help might be turned away to deal with their pain and cosmetic concerns the old fashioned ways: finding elfroot sprouting up between the cobblestones to chew on, or gritting their teeth and getting over it.

Throughout the night, paranoia persists about the possibility that belated reinforcements—or, worse, a dragon—might arrive to prolong the battle. Soldiers keep watch along the walls and at some forward locations, and Riftwatch's griffon riders are sent to observe the portions of the occupying force that fled north and ensure there's nothing amiss. Nothing seems to be, but continuing to lightly harass the Tevinter and Ander forces to hurry them on their way and keep them from pausing to ransack anything won't hurt.

In the morning, back in Val Chevin, those who look strong and uninjured are enlisted to help with clearing debris from the places where the fighting was heavy and magical enough to collapse walls and roofs or topple statues, or else loading bodies onto carts bound for the pyres outside the city. By mid-morning plumes of smoke streak the sky. The bulk of the damage and death is concentrated on the docks, where the dreadnought crashed and where the initial smash-and-burn fighting took place. Meanwhile, throughout the harbor, griffons will prove useful in examining the water for concentrations of floating bodies—which need to be fished out to avoid a walking dead problem in the future—or debris that's potentially either useful or dangerous. Given what the dreadnought assault team reports, there's also a careful search for any red lyrium-infested sea creatures in the harbor, but while other pens like the one that contained the very large red lyrium octopus they encountered, all have been destroyed in the chaos and no other beasts are spotted.

TAKING STOCK

Over the course of the week, supplies arrive by land and by sea from across Orlais—some from the government, some from charitable patriots who put together donation drives as soon as they heard the news. About eighty percent are practical and useful: winter shoes and clothing, flour and preserves and other long-lasting foods, bolts of fabric, apothecary supplies, a few dairy animals and chickens. The usefulness of the rest varies, including a crate of used toys (labeled FOR THE SWEET PEASANT CHILDREN), an assortment of expensive hats that were in season last winter, and collections of plain masks and face paints in case Tevinter was cruelly forcing anyone to go barefaced. Riftwatch is given leave to distribute these to people as they find needs to meet.

The surviving Orlesian civilians who have been trapped in the occupied city for the last two and a half years haven't been as starved or brutalized as popular imagination may have assumed, but the experience has been plenty miserable. Outside of a few public executions, agitators and those who fomented rebellion against the occupiers have by and large disappeared more quietly. Due to its collective general experience with the Tevinter language and magic, Riftwatch is given the fairly depressing task of sorting through the cells and torture chambers in Val Chevin's central keep, where records and other evidence of executions remain. It's enough to determine who died and how. Some had quick deaths; others were tortured or used for blood magic rituals. A handful appear to have been removed from the city and sent north to be held in Tevinter instead. Relaying the specifics to family members will generally be the responsibility of Orlesian officials, but family members eager for information may corner Riftwatchers coming or going from the fortress to press them for details.

Over the next couple weeks Riftwatch is also called to assist with handling other remnants of the Tevinter occupation, such as translating documents, evaluating evidence of blood magic, and sorting through relics and enchanted objects accumulated by the Venatori. Among the things left behind is a trove of elven artifacts seemingly extracted from nearby temples. None are as powerful as the shield; most seem to be completely unmagical cultural relics.

Elsewhere, many locals were evicted from their homes to make room for Tevinter occupiers. While Orlesian officials sort through claims to those homes, including several contentious competing claims, Riftwatch is sent into them to sort through what the enemy left behind and make sure they're safe for their occupants to return to. In many they find the ashy remains of hastily burned private documents and a variety of fairly mundane magical objects: spoons that stir themselves, hats that are always cool on the inside, candles that light and extinguish in response to clapping.Each is the work of a bound spirit that can be released or destroyed—or left to continue its eternal work, if someone wants to pocket an object rather than restore it to its original inanimate state. Throughout the city, there may also be opportunities to reunite grateful civilians with appropriated belongings ranging from fine art to beloved old horses.

Orlesians aren't the only ones in the city in need of assistance. A small number of Tevinter slaves—exclusively those performing menial tasks, as far as anyone can tell—remain in the city now that their masters have been killed or captured. With the Orlesian populace and military inclined, on average, to consider them threats and collaborators, Riftwatch's intervention on their behalf is necessary. Interviewing them and checking their stories against witness accounts and Tevinter records, to ensure none of them are Venatori mages or gleeful torturers in disguise, will allow Riftwatch to vouch for them confidently. They may also be able to find sympathetic locals willing to shelter and hire those who would like to remain in the city, though there aren't that many who do want to stay.

Throughout their time in the city, Riftwatch representatives are asked to report what they find regarding the treatment of the locals and any practice of blood magic. While Orlesian officers ask for Riftwatch members to give this information to them directly, it's quickly clear that it's likely to influence Orlais' decisions about how to deal with the thousand-odd Tevinter prisoners. Individuals identified as responsible for atrocities are being tortured or executed, especially if they're unlikely to have or provide information, and there is nothing ensuring the entire group won't be ultimately executed after the dust settles. With that in mind, Riftwatch receives instructions from the Division Heads to instead bring the information to them so it can be compiled, double-checked, screened for any individuals Riftwatch may need to question themselves, and delivered with a diplomatic touch.

GOING HOME (OR NOT)

Approximately a week after the battle, as the majority of Riftwatch is preparing to leave, Empress Celene and members of her retinue arrive in Val Chevin. They're greeted by a restrained military parade and less restrained enthusiasm from the civilians, who will line the streets to catch a glimpse and celebrate the symbolic return of the city to full Orlesian control. Riftwatch's attendance is not mandatory. Most of the organization leaves that day to return to Kirkwall and their other work. However, a small number remain behind for a few more days, overseen by the heads of Diplomacy and Forces, to provide administrative support while the Ambassador and Commander liaise with the Empress' people about their plans for the Tevinter prisoners. As thanks, they might be invited to endure a few stifling fancy dinners.

Comments

[illithidnapped]

She tugs against fabric, and again his eyes lift skyward as his breath sinks low into his chest, held. Gods above, she does press, doesn’t she.

“I’m used to it,” he counters when he turns, fitting her hand with the whole of his attention instead: red and irritated with split skin, fainter traces of welling red— nothing lethal, but likely nothing that’ll make gripping a sword without it slipping any easier, either.

Reaching back across his belt with his good arm, ignoring the misery of his own withering grip, he offers up a single roll of stolen bandaging, plucked earlier from a Tevinter cache.

“Here. Get yourself squared off before the next entanglement.”

[apocalypsegrown]

This man really is an idiot.

It's a strong, uncomfortable thought as he offers the bundle of bandage, clutched in sharp nails and long fingers that still tremble slightly; and she looks at him as though he's suddenly offering her a dessicated raccoon or something of the like rather than a form of kindness. His concern really should be for himself, and not for a minor injury of her own. She's experienced much worse.

The bandages are taken after a moment though, her hand settling heavily over his outstretched one before she plucks it up, immediately going to work on winding it around the injury as she speaks.

"I am taking this, not because I actually need it but because clearly whatever poison that is has gotten to your brain; and we don't have time to argue when no doubt another round of those tentacle-whatever soldiers are going to show up any minute." Sylvie twists the bandage around, then uses her teeth to pull it tight, her eyes not leaving his. "I'm taking you back if you like it or not. You're in no condition to continue fighting."

[illithidnapped]

"We're not in a position where not fighting is an option," Astarion presses, turning away while she manages binding her own hand (much as he'd normally do it for her, for all obvious reasons, she'll have to make do by herself at present) in order to begin picking over the fallen soldiers for supplies. Useful weapons. Runes. Anything at all.

Done for the exact same reason he hasn't peeled away just yet on his own to rest:

"They're not going to let us waltz our way to the perimeter undisturbed. Anything that we might hope to do will only lead us right to the front lines." And it goes without saying that the less well he feels, the poorer he'll fare in that mess.

And for the most ineradicable of reasons, he doesn't intend to risk being caught by anyone under Tevinter's banner.

[apocalypsegrown]

“I generally waltz where ever I like, disturbed or not.” She gestures vaguely towards the street, littered now with bodies along the long curve of it, their voices the only not distant. The only other sound is the whipping of fabric from flags and overhangs, now shading part of the street from the high sitting sun in this small moment of respite. A long day indeed. It is though a sobering realization that despite how rough she had been living for all of her struggle hopscotching along the sacred timeline, she had really had the freedom to leave a particular battle if she needed or (rarely) was forced. She had gotten quite spoiled by teleporting from one point to another at will hadn’t she? Perhaps that was more suffocating than her currently ignored building exhaustion.

Whatever she would be able to accomplish alone however would obviously be hampered by an injured companion; and it brings the complicated feeling she had about him coming down to her level a little more even. He was poisoned, in enemy territory, and it would benefit him to have support of his own moving forward—especially if this battle drags on longer than his endurance. With no real dog in the fight beyond currently not wanting to be eviscerated or fall into the hands of those who – as Loki had put it – had experimentation until death intentions; keeping him alive definitely was a more focusable goal.

And really, when was the last time she actually had the option of keeping someone alive instead of ensuring their death?

“Look.” She says pointedly, bouncing on her heels as she squats down across from where he’s checking a body, her arms resting across her knees. “You still owe me a con, and I’m not going to get that if you die gloriously or ingloriously in battle. I can keep this up all day, you can’t. If not finding you actual help, what do you suggest?”

[illithidnapped]

“So selfless,” he chides sweetly, glancing up at her through his own mess of sunken, tangled curls. Amused, is the word for it.

Amused despite everything.

“But I won’t be dying— not gloriously or ingloriously, so you can breathe easier, my dear.” Gloved fingers make a pass across one of the pouches slung just beneath armor, plucking up a volatile little grenade of (possibly?) dwarven make by his own estimation, turning it over in his hand while bleary eyes attempt to find their own focus.

Most likely they hadn't used it because of the tight-knit closeness of the fight. The risk of setting themselves aflame as much as either Astarion or Slyvie.

Lucky.

“That said, if you want to roam with me, I’m not opposed.” Standing takes effort. Visible effort. Expended as he holds out that find as an offering to her.

Better the one of them that's still in a possession of a clear head manages it.

“We can move closer to the battle, sticking to the rooftops to avoid the worst of it, if you're willing to give up the thrill of more messy little skirmishes like this one.”

[apocalypsegrown]

"Mmm." She replies to his insistence, in a way that makes it clear that he's not fooling anyone. Even if the poison is slow acting, any kind of limitation and injury opens one up to an enemy blade; especially when it's both. He stands with effort and she rises with him, hands hovering ever so slightly up at her sides as she readies for any wobble in his posture.

Instead he offers her his find, and it's so soon after the bandage that the thought passes through her mind of a magpie --albeit the wrong sort of color-- currently offering her bits of fabric and baubles. Even his wild hair was akin to feathers; and she presses her lips together to fight a smile at the funny thought, taking the small bomb and examining it for a minute as she tries to push the other image out of her head. Failing really.

"I've had enough stress relief for the day." The bomb is carefully tucked away, and while she's not sure exactly how it works she can imagine a few scenarios where it would be useful. "Seeing as you're not opposed, I'll tag along." To make sure this stubborn bird with his broken wing gets where he needs; even if he thinks he's getting his way. "Where did you come down from?"

[illithidnapped]

Broken wing tucked to his side as he smiles in leaving, granting one last cocksure glance before gesturing (albeit with his uninjured arm) for her to follow along in his wake.

"So." He starts, laboring up a stony stairwell attached to the shaded underside of an attached building, broken tiles clicking under their heels. At a distance, something booms softly. Magic. Or explosives.

He ignores the dust that tumbles down around them from its rumble, focused on the task at hand.

And trying not to sound winded in the process.

"Fighting for stress relief, thievery for sport— where do you come from that this reads as a day out in the park?"

[apocalypsegrown]

Sylvie follows, careful to watch behind them as she hears the distant clamor starting to grow closer. Their little break seems rapidly closing, and where Astarion struggles up Sylvie follows with a bit more ease, checking the bomb in her pocket to make sure it doesn't jostle loose.

"Bit of a long story to dig into here, but safe to say I've been around." She replies, finger brushing against his back as a silent suggestion to move faster as she sees the streets start to flood with soldiers again. They are loud, but their growing distance doesn't leave clarity to their words; she could guess it was something about how all those bastards they'd killed were laying about being worthless. So far though no one seems to have thought to look up.

"I could ask you the same actually. I didn't get the air of someone who routinely joined wars to free captive cities back in Kirkwall." There's another boom that shakes the building, and some of the tiles slip off the roof and clatter into the alley below, loud sharp sounds.

[illithidnapped]

Her touch hurts, light as it is. Probably not a good sign— but even so, it’s nice in a way. Touch for the sake of touch, when she could more than easily opt to bark at him instead.

“You’re right. I’m not.” Tiles slough their way into shattering, the noise louder than he hopes for it to be, even to his own poison-dulled hearing. Thankfully, the whole city is suffering at present: battle has a way of upsetting everything down to the plaster splitting around old Orlesian foundations. To the stalls, and planters, and banners now scattered in the streets.

Somewhere below a passing soldier turns for a brief moment. He doesn’t tip his stare upwards...and then moves on.

In turn, Astarion presses on too.

“But people like us don’t exactly get a choice, do we?”

[apocalypsegrown]

People like us.

She really should be watching for more soldiers but that focuses her attention on him, the insinuation there; that they've similar foundations. That he recognizes something in her familiar. It's a strange experience, after so long being completely anonymous, but hadn't she felt the same thing? Something similar enough to make him stick in her mind. She's staring hard enough at the back of his head that her toe catches on a tile and she trips slightly, bringing her attention back to --oh yes a war they're currently entrenched in-- and she laughs once at the ridiculousness of it all.

"Victims of circumstance but eternal opportunists." Sylvie agrees in slightly dramatic amicability; at a minimum they're both here aren't they? Whatever suspicion she had back in Kirkwall that he was just as out of place here as she was is all but confirmed now, for all his bluster about how she had smelled. What world had he come from she can't help but wonder; and how it had fit amongst the sacred timeline. "I thought I broke free of all that before finding myself here, but at least it's somewhat familiar ground."

The last words are forced a bit as a flash of armor comes around one of the decorative turrets ahead, a Tevinter soldier having a similar idea about the ease of travel above, and Sylvie slips past Astarion to engage him before he gets any ideas. The man is already injured, and barely has time to parry one blow before the tip of her blade finds a soft spot between his ribs, and she presses a hand over his mouth to muffle any shout as the life bleeds out of him. Mercy for the wounded doesn't apply when one is in enemy territory. The body slumps after a moment, and she grunts as she hoists him up enough that the turret will keep him pinned. The last thing they need is bodies falling into the streets along with the bits of architecture.

"This would be so much easier with magic."

[illithidnapped]

“What I wouldn’t give for just a taste of what I used to have.” He scoffs in commiseration over lost magic, the words murmured low as he draws past that prone body— meeting upturned, glassy eyes without any real care.

He’s seen so much lifelessness before. It’s numb as deadened nerves, now.

Still.

“You said you broke free? Lucky you.” There’s a mildness that should live there. He means for it to, and that might be apparent— but tiredness has a way of dampening his abundant charms. “Keep talking like that, and you’re going to make me jealous.”

[apocalypsegrown]

"Just took me a thousand years, give or take a few hundred. You start to lose track after a while." She hadn't even gotten to enjoy anything after, not even the relief she had hoped killing that man would have brought her. There's a bitterness to that and she makes no attempt to hide it, glancing up at him as he steps ahead of her again. "I wouldn't get jealous just yet."

It is funny though how revealing such a simple comment was, about his past. "So is this world a new start for you? Or just another prison?"

[illithidnapped]

“Mm.” Light as air, that sound. Amused in the way of anything inherently unamused. “Only eight hundred years for me to go, then.”

Still, her following question’s fair. Something Astarion’s mulled over more than once since coming here, and likely something he’ll reevaluate again, too, at some distant, indeterminable point in the future. Probably with a different answer each time.

“It’s better than what it was.” Even now, with the shine thoroughly dulled, he’ll gladly take whatever this world has to offer compared to the notion of ever going back.

(It lives vividly in his mind, how remarkable arrival was. Truly. The overwhelming scent of ozone eclipsing his own fear. The first time since Cazador that anyone had ever even set so much as a hand out to save him, let alone actually committed to it.)

He realizes then he hasn’t told her he’s a Rifter. The poison peeling back the last few minutes like sloughing paint, inhibitions drowned with shocking potency. Everything he’s said now hints at it. She undoubtedly believes it already.

They’re allies. It doesn’t hurt for her to know the truth. Might as well lean into it.

“But it’s not as if I can shrug my shoulders, leave Riftwatch, and expect my life to be sweet as honeyed wine: the anchor shard will only drag me back to Kirkwall. The war inescapable. And my ears make clawing my way up through society an absolute nightmare— and that's not including plans on either the Chantry or the Venatori's side of things. So.”

People like them. No choice.

[apocalypsegrown]

That does earn him a small smile, more genuine.

She's certainly not looking for pity; the humor is more appreciated. Two hundred years is no laughing matter either, whatever he had endured in whatever world he came from (and of course she's certain now). Especially if this was better, him slightly grey now and wounded as he was. This world that wants them dead or wants to use them, the same sweet stories fed to rabid forces happy to kill and destroy for their beliefs. And of course the biases.

But at least here they do have free will.

"For what it's worth," She replies just as lightly, her head tilting to the side, "I like the ears. Could even go bigger."

There's another explosion, much closer this time. Close enough that Sylvie grabs Astarion just as much to keep her own balance as to steady him as the rooftop rocks under them. "We really should keep moving."

[illithidnapped]

“And here I was, planning on taking a n— ”

From above, on the streetside opposite to them, one of the towering buttresses splits in delayed reaction. It twists in midair as it teeters, tumbles, and it doesn’t take a single thought (in the absence of everything else with that toxin beating hot beneath his skin) for Astarion to shove her away from him in those narrow, razor-thin seconds before that decorative tower slams into the roof where they’d been standing, nearly toppling the building itself, and severely slanting the portion of roofing that’s keeping them both (now on either side of a perilous gap) from crashing into the street far below.

Flat on his back, shattered tile scattered around (and over) him like jagged confetti, his head is spinning. Made worse as he feels something structural buckle. Shit.

“Are you alive, darling?”

Please say yes.

[apocalypsegrown]

The sound of the buttress coming unmoored can be felt in her bones, that 'crack!' splitting the air brings their attention upwards to the now rapidly plummeting mess of stone and metal and decorative metalwork that in any other situation would have been a pleasure to look at, had it not been rushing to kill them. It's a stomach dropping sensation that brings her back to Shuroo, but Loki isn't here to throw it back up with his magic-- and hers is nowhere to be found.

She's also clearly underestimated Astarion's strength, as before she can even react he's shoving her with such force that she slides across the tiles with a yelp, the tower smashing through the roof and building and everything in it's path with such a thundering sound that she can't hear anything else. There's a momentary panic that he's been caught while protecting her, and she tries to right herself even as the building they're standing on succumbs to the force of the impact. Almost misses the loss of weight in her pocket as the building itself sinks a foot, and she and everything else start sliding towards the edge. That tinkling of glass against tile as the bomb Astarion gave her tumbles towards the abyss.

Shit!

Rather than try and keep her position Sylvie throws herself after it, sliding with what feels like terminal velocity down the crumbling roof. She had no idea how to stop her fall, but that is a problem for someone who isn't about to get herself blown to smithereens. Her fingers brush it and send it spinning, and for a second she's certain that's the end --until it catches on a small crack in the tile and it slows just enough for her to clasp it tightly.

Sylvie still nearly goes over the edge, her trailing foot finally catching in a hole in the roof, painfully bringing her to a stop with her hair brushing over the edge. She takes a deep shaky breath, holding the bomb to her chest a moment as she lets the pain radiate from her calf along with the relief, before she hears Astarion's voice over the crumbling and shouts and screams from below.

He's alive.

"I'm fine!" Digging her heel in she pulls herself back up to sitting, her hands shaking a bit from the adrenaline as she peers through the smoke and dust for him. "Can you move?"

[illithidnapped]

Remarkable as her near-disastrous save proves to be, beyond the thicker plume of dusty smoke rising from the gap between them, he only hears—

Nothing. And then something. Above the din of it all, disastrous and unkind, above even the ache of his own muscles as he struggles to claw his way up onto his side, propped at an angle by his good arm. Her voice.

A response.

He lets go of a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

"My dear, you've always been fine." If he has it in him to joke, that's likely a good sign. "But first things first: can you see a safe way down?"

Asked in place of anything resembling an answer to her question because he's still, admittedly, fighting his way through the uncomfortable shock of clambering just onto his heels, let alone standing. The process slow by necessity, and they have so little time.

[apocalypsegrown]

Ridiculous.

"No wonder Loki likes you!" If he's capable of joking he's surely not pinned under something bleeding out, she hopes, so she does focus her attention on looking around as she carefully pockets the bomb again. The building on her side is slanted heavily, but a section has collapsed inwards into somewhat of a ramp. From there a partially crumbled stairwell seems stable enough a path down to the street again. If they moved quickly. "There's a way on this side."

Her leg complains as she climbs to her feet, heading to the edge of the massive gash the falling buttress left. The shambles of a stone fireplace gives her at least some bit of stable ground. The whole building groans in complaint around them and there's too much dust in the air for her to see too far past the wreckage beyond him.

[illithidnapped]

For a moment, Astarion stops.

“—I’m sorry, did you just say that he—”

No. Right. Time and place.

Shedding the last remnants of broken tiling and clinging dust, Astarion finds his way back to standing enough to lurch his way over to the edge, visibly trying to get a feel for just how far across it is. Whether or not he can make it, half pacing on the balls of his feet like an animal, neck slung low. Uneasy.

With every step, bits of shed roofing flake off like old skin, scattering somewhere below.

It’s...far.

“I don’t suppose you have anything else useful tucked up those finely armored sleeves of yours, do you.” he sounds uneasy, if she’s perceptive enough to look past all teasing bravado.

“A pair of wings. Teleportation....A plank.”

[apocalypsegrown]

"I don't have anything. Is there no way down on that side?" Sylvie looks around, smoke still billowing up from the gash, some now turning black as the combustibles inside the building start burning. From the street there's more screaming, who ever had been hunkering down inside now evacuating if they hadn't already. There's wreckage everywhere, but no convenient posts or planks to push over like one would expect in some carefully written cut scene, just splintered stone and wood and tile amongst creaking timbers.The whole structure groans again, sinking a stomach flipping inch as the walls on the far side of the building crumble, and Sylvie has to crouch to keep her balance, eyes still locked on her clearly nervous companion.

It is far, but the distance they're going to drop if they're on this building when it totally gives way is going to be far worse. Even now she can feel the stones beneath her trembling, heat starting to move the chimney from the fire below.

"If you're going to jump you better do it quick!"

[illithidnapped]

If he wasn’t convinced the roof would collapse under his feet in backtracking, he could trudge back the way they’d come. If his arm wasn’t burning like every damn breath in his lungs, he could make that leap with at least a touch more confidence.

Astarion works a fang against his lip, unsettled.

Decided.

A single exhale, weight falling across his back leg. Tiling clattering as it’s displaced— skidding down across the slant into coursing smoke.

He remembers what it was like. His muscles haven’t forgotten all prior grace, the fluidity of vampiric prowess that came from being something other than mortal at heart. He remembers coursing silently through meadows under watchful gaze. City streets, thrill beating high within his chest. It was enough to impress Fenris, once.

Maybe it’ll be enough to save him now.

Long strides over buckling roofing, a deep inhale through his nostrils, one step from the edge, two, and—

Well. Here’s hoping she can see well enough through the smoke to help, because he manages to slam himself into the battered edge of her side of the gap, scrabbling wildly against its splintered (and splintering) framework.

[apocalypsegrown]

There's silence for a moment, only the creaking of the building wheezing their last breaths, and in her mind's eye she can see him collapsing from that poison on the other side, alone and certain to go down into the abyss. She almost calls his name when she hears the clatter of the tiles and through the black smoke a form in midair.

Had she still had her magic, her wellspring of Seiðr that had seemed unlimited in it's depth even though she could barely ladle out magic with her self trained skills, something may have happened when she reached out her hand towards him instinctively. She could have given him a pull, a tug to help him over the last few inches. Instead magic sparks at her fingertips and dies, and she watches gravity take him down instead.

It's an impressive jump either way, and how he doesn't just knock himself out when he hits the edge is just as amazing. The impact reverberates through the stone fireplace, and Sylvie, having once picked her way over weakening beams, now dives for him across them for him. On her belly she manages to grab the back of his shirt, scooping one arm under his good shoulder and using all her (considerably weakened) strength to haul him up, up, onto her knees and then with momentum falls backwards with him on top of her. The weight of him pulls a soft sound out of her chest, and for a second she just holds him as the adrenaline, and relief, courses through this pathetic mortal body.

It'd be nice to say there was a moment of respite, but hardly a few seconds pass before the whole structure groans again and this time finally starts to give. The opposing side crumbles like dominos, the walls of stone and filigree and probably hundreds of years of memories rushing towards the ground.

There's no time for words, and Sylvie half drags him up to his feet as she scrambles to his own, not quite letting him go for fear of whatever damage he just did to himself hobbling him. There's no careful picking across the roof now, it's either make it to the edge or join the burning dolls and furniture below.

[illithidnapped]

It slams into him hard enough to knock the breath from his ribs, that sort-of landing, gloved hands dragging harsh across the cluttered mess of what structurally remains— which admittedly, isn't much at all, growing lesser by the second.

And in a flash, feeling nothing of the pain that ought to exist (merciful at times, the natural beating of adrenaline) Astarion finds himself perched over her: her hold on him so unexpectedly tight, fingers tangled up in tattered silk. Present in the forefront of his mind more so than—

Shit.

He feels the building beneath them shudder in the moment before she's dragged him upright onto his heels, his feet. Staggering pace far from beautiful, but functional nonetheless.

They break free of the upper section just in time to tumble to the street below across ramping refuse and narrow sections of rubble, stars flecking the whole of his vision. His grip on her hand tight as a vice, still.

[apocalypsegrown]

Sylvie's hold on him is just as tight and she keeps their momentum forward even as their feet finally hit solid ground, because that building is coming down and these streets, while far more stable, are about to be filled with the same flaming viscera that threatened them in falling.

"There!" A small passageway ahead is angled just enough to reveal a courtyard, and she drags them both in past the gate, dipping into a shallow alcove and pressing them both into the space that is barely large enough for one person, let alone two, when the creaking horror turns into a thunderous roar as the building fully collapses. Smoke and heat rush through the streets, flames licking up the walls of buildings and through the fine metal gate of the courtyard. Sylvie squints her eyes closed as smoke and dust rushes in to the alcove, thankfully only warm and not burning, the clouds of it temporarily blocking out the sun.

[illithidnapped]

It smells awful, that sickening gout of overwhelming smoke. Stings his heightened senses more than he thought it would.

Thankfully, given their present height— or lack thereof, huddled in tight against the hollowed confines of that richly plastered alcove— the open ventilation and the flow of smoke, it passes by quickly: snaking its way around them in billowing patterns, leaving Astarion to sink back against the wall behind him by the most nominal of degrees, exhaling softly in tired relief.

Hells, that was too close.

He still has an arm slung around her, he realizes. Opposite hand clutching hers just in the space between them, fingers tangled together.

"Are you all right, darling?"