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

[acreage]

"We were lucky," he agrees. He does know that. He does. "We were also lucky neither of us died on the battlefield today. Sometimes luck is enough."

I don't know if I could have gotten away from them by myself, and that's something that'll haunt him too. There was always the possibility of losing anyone he cares about here, whether it be from battles or missions or disease or capture or any of a thousand things, but the attacks on the Gallows and this day have brought that awareness to the forefront of his mind. It's not just a matter of fellow rifters disappearing. Anything could happen to anyone. They're at war.

Maybe he just feels it more strongly because the friends he's made here are all he has left.

They were lucky, today. He's always getting lucky. There was no real reason he survived the Canterbury, or Eros. No real reason the protomolecule spoke to him. No real reason he wasn't blinded on Ilus. And no real reason why he's here, when Naomi and Amos aren't. None either, why he lived and Tantervale burned around him. He'll be lucky, it seems, until luck is done with him.

[tender]

"It wouldn't have been on the battlefield," Derrica points out gently. "It would have been sitting right here, beside me and Richard."

Her finger taps gently over his heart, watching his face.

"Your pain matters as much as mine," she presses, soft. "I'm worried that you think you have to...that you don't need to take care of yourself the same way you take care of me."

[acreage]

It's such a strange thing for her to say.

His whole life, he's always known that his responsibilities flowed outward. Of course he needs to take care of the people he loves. Of course that means paying whatever price is needed to ensure that. He was responsible for the farm, until he wasn't; he was responsible for the Cant, even when he didn't want to be; he was responsible for the crew of the Roci, until Thedas. Why wouldn't he be responsible for people here?

"If it had been nothing," he says slowly, "and it could've been, what would've been the point of making you wait?"

[tender]

"Certainty," she tells him, fingers curling beneath the weight of his hand against his chest.

Will this convince him? Derrica thinks it's unlikely. This thread in Holden runs so deep. It won't be so easily unraveled.

"Do you think I'm a poor healer, Holden?"

[acreage]

That's not worth it, is his first thought. It's not that he can't understand what she's saying, what her worry is. But, but, but. The answer to her question comes as easily.

"You know I don't."

[tender]

"Then you should trust that I know what can wait. I wasn't bleeding. I wasn't in danger. It wouldn't have harmed me if we took care of you first."

It's not exactly the point she wants to make. This shouldn't hinge on her being a healer. But it's a starting point, at least.

[acreage]

The fear of loss is too tightly wound around his bones for him to not see it in her. They were lucky, she said, and it's true. He'd come close to dying here, in this very tent, because of a Tevene poisoned arrowhead. If he'd spoken up a few moments later; if Silas didn't have the power to extract poison; if the stuff had worked faster, been more lethal. He knows the dangers. Point of fact, he lives with the long-term effects of toxic exposure every day of his life. If their positions were reversed, if it had been Derrica and not him, he'd be terrified. He was terrified for her.

Your pain matters as much as mine.

He can see how and why she feels that way. He knows how much she cares. But it still doesn't feel true.

"I get that. I do." Not the first time he's been told to defer to a healer's expertise. He meets her eyes as he goes on, "And I'm sorry for scaring you."

[tender]

"I don't want you to be sorry."

There is such intensity in her voice, even with each word weighted down with empathy.

"I just..."

Trailing off, her fingers tapping fretfully against his chest beneath the weight of his palm.

"You care so much about everyone else," she says gently. "I want you to care about yourself too."

[acreage]

The tapping seems to remind him of the fact that he's holding her hand. He lets go slowly, his dropping into his lap. It's less a pulling away than giving her the option to pull away, if she wants. They're still so close together on this cot; the faint scent of ozone on her cutting through infirmary smells, his unhurt leg brushed against hers.

"What would that look like to you?"

Hopefully they won't be in another situation where they're both injured like this, though as part of Riftwatch, they likely will be. But she clearly isn't only talking about situations like today, not really.

[tender]

No, she doesn't want to pull away. If anything, she winds a little closer, against the possibility of Holden drawing back.

"I can't say what would be right in every situation," because she doesn't know what might happen in the future. How often is Riftwatch wrapped up in some bloody battle? How often is there too much chaos and too little healers? She can't pretend to know what would be right in the future. "But I'd like to know that you won't sit by and quietly hurt until someone notices you're in pain."

[acreage]

Derrica takes comfort from touch, he knows. Of course he knows; he's spent a lot of time today trying to give her just that. So she moves closer, and one of his hands goes to her knee — he's here, he's here. Right here.

"You're not going to lose me like that." Isn't that the crux of this conversation, really? "I made a mistake today. You're right. But it won't happen again, I promise."

[tender]

She wants something binding from him. A promise. Holden always keeps his promises to her.

But Derrica doesn't know what to make him promise. She doesn't know the right words. How can she make him promise to value himself as much as he values her? It feels like such an impossibly large feat.

If she could make him swear to her that he'd at least entertain the idea of putting himself first—

"I want to believe you."

It would be nice if it were that easy.

[acreage]

It would be nice if it were that easy.

James Holden is an honest man. He was raised on the ideas of openness, of always talking things through, of refusing to let disagreements fester unspoken. He brings these principles to his relationships in his adult life. He generally prefers to have things out, even when it's confrontation. He always encourages the people in his life to talk about their feelings.

But that means he also knows that sometimes words aren't enough. Sometimes things take time. There isn't anything he can say today that will make Derrica feel better about this. It's a reflection on him as much as her. They will need time, and then they can try to talk about this again.

"Okay."

He means, that's okay. He means, I understand. His fingers brush at the fabric of her trousers, tracing idle patterns.

"Do you want to lie down?"

She needs the rest. They both do. It won't be long before they both feel compelled to set aside their respective hurts to do more of the work that needs doing. Better if they can get some sleep before they do. And, well — it is doctor's orders.

[tender]

The brief, stubborn set of her jaw says no.

But okay is as far as they can get right now. Derrica recognizes that pushing against that answer isn't going to bring them anywhere productive.

Still.

There is a moment of overwhelming feeling, frustration clenching like a vise around her chest. It becomes a lump her throat. It pricks at her eyes. Her fingers tighten in his shirt before she breathes out hard against the urge to cry or shake him or some other useless thing.

Instead, quietly, Derrica tells him "Yes" without any real movement to disentangle herself from him.

[acreage]

He softens, in turn.

Derrica doesn't want him to be sorry, but there is something of apology in the way he looks at her now. In the warmth of his hand at her knee. In the way he leans in, closer, and presses a kiss to her hair. He lingers for a moment, like that can say the things he doesn't know how to express. There's a fundamental level on which he does not know how to live the way she wants him to, or how to bridge the gap between that person and the person he is. Or whether, in some ways, he wants that. He's so very tired.

But then he does lift his head, and his hands go to her elbows, and he says, "Come on."

He'll lie down with her, on his side facing her, with their legs entangled and an arm slung around her waist. The best he can do right now is this: the implicit promise to stay.