faderift | war table: one giant leap.

The ruins they stand in are as though a temple of stone were simply crumbled in half, opening out to the hazy opal-brightness of the Crossroads. Some form of nature has reclaimed this patch of floating building, and the broken tile of the ground is swamped in a few inches of ceaselessly running water. It ripples, pools, and flows off the jagged edge with no sign of stopping. It wets ankles, griffon paws, makes for treacherous footing.

So Marcus is careful when he approaches the edge, water flowing around his boots, as he leans enough to watch the water flow down into nothingness. Most of it seems to disperse into a mist, which disperses into nothing, but some rivers of water wind away like snakes, following invisible pathways in the air until vanishing at a point.

He stoops to pick up a piece of rubble, and drops it over the side, watching it fall, then watching it seem to tumble as though caught in the wind, spiralling off and out of sight.

Somewhere behind him within the shelter of this ruin, his griffon of choice, L.W.M, has found a raised piece of stone to perch on, up and out of the water, feathers and fur hackled in irritation at the strangeness of the Crossroads in general.

Further off, and up, the twisting, pulsing, inky-black spot of the distant corrupted Rift is within clearer sight, surrounded by patchwork temple pieces. There is no sign of an Eluvian that allows them immediate access, and details are impossible to make out in the strange twisting light of this pocket dimension. Various floating islands dot the space between where they stand and their goal, as small as a hunk of rock and earth with a tree growing out it, to more elaborate structures of stone staircases, stable looking platforms.

The closest seems to be the other half of the ruin they are in, some hundred feet away, situated slightly lower in space. It is also upside down.

Far enough away for Mouse's wingspan not to be a problem, Kostos watches Marcus from atop his griffon, which he's been riding like a horse for most of the time they've been in the Crossroads.

It's not his preferred mode of travel, personally. A grounded griffon is a bumpy enough ride without the swirling sky of the Crossroads giving him a headache. But upon first entering through the eluvian, Mouse panicked and made a break for it, nearly wrenching Kostos' arm free of its socket in the process and leaving him with a very clear vision of Mouse flying, tumbling, and vanishing into the endless distance of the Crossroads, more panicked every second, impossible to recover.

So he lives here now. On his back, holding reins. His weight seems to be comforting, at least, even if he can still feel Mouse trembling like a frightened cat.

"Alright," Kostos says, more to the griffon than anyone else. If someone in particular is in charge, or thinks they are, he is choosing not to acknowledge that. "Glide, roll halfway, don't lose your shit. Easy."

He hopes, because—spurred in part by a desire to prove to all the other griffons that Mouse is not a fuck-up, so they won't laugh at him in the eyrie later—he's urging Mouse over the edge and they're going for it.

It helps that griffons are just as comfortable in flight as they are on the ground, or rather, in this case, as uncomfortable. At least it makes no difference.

Big wings flap, propelling Kostos and Mouse forwards after this initial springing off of the edge with a scrape of clawed feet. They hit a midpoint, and Mouse obeys the roll, giving off an echoed screech of discomfort. For a moment, terrible gravity hauls against Kostos in the saddle—and then, a few stressful feet later, gravity shifts around him.

Entering the other half of the temple is an easy enough touchdown.

Marcus watches all of this, after initially whistling for L.W.M to step nearer. He reaches back to grip the reins, and lets out a breath when Kostos appears to reach the other side safely. He looks back to the two others, says, "I'll go last," simply.

But not idly, stepping backwards to climb into the saddle of his griffon.

Ellie sits astride Artichoke, easy in her saddle. He's big, muscled, and is clacking his beak in agitation. Ellie had to rein him in when he nearly went after Mouse, and since then she's draped herself against his neck, either on foot or in the saddle, slowly pulling out bits of impacted down, scratching the places he likes.

They're good friends, and if he trusted her less, she's sure that she couldn't have stopped him.

"I've gotcha, buddy," she murmurs in his ear, her voice lost in the distant hissing of the water, the strangely echoing grotto-noises of unreality.

She nods gravely when Kostos goes to make his leap with Mouse, and forces herself not to hold her breath as they make the leap -- and lets out a hearty FUCK YES as they touch down on the other side. Artichoke steps forward, shuddering his coat as Ellie straightens up, making sure all of her gear's tied down.

"We've got it," she says simply, riding to the edge and gathering the reins in her hands, gripping with her knees in the saddle. They've done similar moves in the past to dodge aerial attacks, and they've just had an excellent demonstration.

"Piece of cake," she mutters, watching where the water and debris turn and spin off into oblivion. Deep breath in and out. Then, she gathers herself, and rides hard for the edge, launching them both into space.

Edited 2022-04-06 19:54 (UTC)

Artichoke's wings spread out wide, catching the air at a glide, and then a powerful flap propelling himself and his rider forth. Steering her mount through the same path Kostos took, Ellie even catches that one moment where gravity flips around at an even more precise moment, spinning in the air with only a momentary second of weightlessness.

With a near graceful scrabble, Artichoke clears the landing. Unless Thrandruil has particular objections to the order, it's his turn next to do better. Or, for fun, worse.

Chittering all the while, Coupe has walked beside Thranduil so far, not minding the damp ground. He's chiefly motivated by the opportunity for more time in the Crossroads, and Coupe by the treats in Thranduil's pockets. She has the benefit of being far more focused on the potential for the small dried fish than the oddities around them, but she does focus on the other two griffons when they make the leap, bumping her head into Thranduil's shoulder hard enough that he has to sidestep when they come to the edge.

He mounts with ease, takes up the reins, and urges her forward. Having watched two of her siblings perform well, and mindful of the potential for rewards, she obeys, Thranduil tucked against her back to make the roll easier.

Coupe meets the other two easily, a smooth running landing as blunt claws rake into the stone floor. Up ahead, in the distance, Kostos, Ellie, and Thranduil can see the next obstacle—the most promising sight of landing appears to be a drifting island of broken stonework, the biggest and most stable of the nearer sites of landing. Around are other strangely drifting parts that indicate possible fluctuations in gravitational pull which might not be so simple as the flip they just accomplished.

But more on that later, even though everyone would be forgiven for thinking that we've moved onto the next phase. Indeed, a split second before Coupe lands safely, Monster has sprung from her perch, eager and restless to catch up with her companions, and Marcus equally keen not to be left too far behind.

And something goes wrong. A weird bend of the light catching their eyes, a late twitch of the reins that has Monster diving into a flip and overcorrecting. Her alarmed screech when she is suddenly unsure of what direction is up or down resounds through the space, and beneath it, Marcus hissing something inarticulate.

Monster bails into a confused dive, and they both disappear past what constitutes as over the rooftop of the temple the rest are gathered in.

Ah, shit.

Ellie clenches her teeth as Marcus and Monster go wheeling over the rooftop. She doesn't hear the sound of an impact, or anything like screaming, or any bursts of light or energy. They should wait and make sure that he actually needs help before diving in recklessly after him; traversing the Fade is far more treacherous than a simple mission through enemy territory. Ellie could easily become someone else needing to be rescued.

"Marcus?" she yells after him, wheeling Artichoke around, hand on her reins to prevent the big, well-intentioned griffon from responding to her own impulse to leap after him.

"Anyone see somewhere to anchor a rope?" she asks, reaching into her pack.

"Everything is ancient," he says. "Fragile."

He doesn't dismiss the possibility outright, but he takes a moment to find a feature of the landscape that doesn't look as though it would love to crumble at an inopportune moment and get them deeper into the shit.

There's a rock. It was probably load-bearing at one point.

"Here," he says, and dismounts Coupe, going to secure the other end for her.

Terrible: the surge of relief, bordering on satisfaction, that he and Mouse weren't the first ones to fuck up. Marcus fucking up first is better. Thranduil fucking up first would have been best—starting with the most collected and adult presence, working their way down.

Would Kostos or Ellie come last?

It's absurd that he even has to wonder. She's only barely an adult. Maybe he needs to think about his choices—

He can multitask, at least. He's not just sitting there wondering. He's trying to coax Mouse into creeping toward and around or over the crumbling temple wall, looking for another path to glimpse of what's behind it.

"Okay."

Ellie feeds out the rope, securing the other end with a good knot to the saddle's horn. She's not at all sure it'll hold, but she's not planning to depend on it completely. Hopefully, it'll just be a guide to help them back.

Feeding it out, Ellie leans over Artichoke's back, guiding him up next to where Mouse and Kostos are keeping watch on the situation, and passes over a portion of the rope between what she's holding and where Thranduil has it anchored.

"You might need to help pull us back," she says, and before she can think too hard about the possibility of failure, she jumps outward, into the current that took Julius and Monster away.

war table: one giant leap.

FORWARD TEAM: Ellie, Thranduil, Kostos, Marcus

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5. oops.

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