war table: one giant leap.

[propulsion]

WHO: Intrepid heroes
WHAT: Forging a path to the second Crossroads Gate, and then poking it with sticks.
WHEN: Late Drakonis
WHERE: The Crossroads
NOTES: n/a

Comments

ellis / ota.

[heorte]

Every single thing about this mission has been designed to put Ellis miserably on edge.

Beating in the back of his head, endlessly, over and over and over, is the tune as familiar to him as the beat of his own heart. The Calling reached out in greeting the moment his boot touched down on Blight-drenched stone, and it rises and falls as he moves through the ruins where he's bidden and called for.

The Temple itself is on his mind. That lower room, the grotesque tableau they'd found there, what it had shown them. It makes the dragon-shaped doorway all the more unsettling.

Between all of those elements and the sneaking, needling suspicion of observation, Ellis has retained a tight grip on his mace while seeking to keep every single member of their party within his eyeline while they deliberately begin prodding at the poisoned rift. Right up to the point where he considers a stretch of crumbling wall, resigned to doing some prodding of his own.

And so, to whoever is closest at hand—

"Will you stand by a moment? And hold this?"

In which this is his mace, which should not be in his hand while he makes this attempt.

[elegiaque]

“Alright,” a little dubiously, taking the mace from him and stopping where she'd been about to carry on past him, the ache in her anchor-shard probably equal parts the usual and a psychosomatic response to being around something that feels like it should make it hurt more. “What are you doing?”

[heorte]

"Listening."

And there is, regrettably, much to listen to.

But Ellis isn't so concerned with the whispers that come to them indistinct, sometimes clear enough to parse as an observation, sometimes muffled as if from a distant room. They are a fair enough cover for what he really wants to turn his attention to focus on.

The Calling, beating like a second pulse behind his eyes, at his temples, rising and falling and too strong, just like the last time. (Just like years ago, just like in the desert.)

Ellis puts his shoulders to the wall. Crumbling, yes, but still. It's something.

"Have you seen anything?" he asks, casting about for a way to begin, as if there is some possibility of easing his way towards what he means to do.

[armd]

Abby takes it wordlessly from him; now, she is holding a mace in either hand, which feels very powerful. Ellis has, this entire time, been the most on edge she has ever seen him be, and that isn't at all reassuring.

The thought of him touching the edges of the distressed Rift makes the shard in her hand fucking ache.

"Don't."

Whatever he's planning on doing, that is. It can't be a good idea.

[heorte]

The tone of Abby's voice slows him, draws him up short momentarily. It doesn't dispel the decision he's made, but—

"It's my duty."

He can explain. Or try to explain. Abby is a Rifter, hailing from some distant place. What does she know of Grey Wardens? Who in her world is so bound up in a thing bent on destruction and death?

"It can't hurt me," is meant as a reassurance. "It's what we're here for."

It's what Ellis is made for. This is what Wardens do: they cross over the blight-scarred land, feel the sickly pull of the taint scorching at them and shake it off so they might kill what needs killing. That's the heart of their order, the center point that has never wavered for him.

[armd]

Duty. Orders. Doing what you're supposed to. Abby stiffens a little, her knuckles stark on the handles of each mace. "... You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

Bit rich of her to say when she did practically everything Isaac ever asked her to do. She doesn't think she ever wanted to do it, but she didn't not want to do it either, she just... didn't care. About anything, really. Look where it got her.

She doesn't want to see somebody else step blindly onto that path, is what she tells herself. And maybe part of her has grown fond of Ellis over time and doesn't like the idea of him getting hurt no matter what he seems to think, but that's a little harder for her to admit to.

[heorte]

There's no humor in this moment, not really, but some shade of amusement shifts the expression on Ellis' face. This is a little like a joke Abby's telling to him, without anyone in earshot who might advise her how useless it is to implore Ellis to think about what he wants.

She is young, Ellis thinks. He had known this of Abby, though she is taller than he is, capable with a weapon, hard and unyielding in a way that tells him she's been through hardships of her own. But she is still young. And this entreaty—

It isn't enough to shift the calcified core of resolve that Ellis has carried for nearly half his life. But it does hold him there, watching her, while he tries to work his way towards some kind of reassurance.

"I chose this."

It is true, to some extent. Ellis chose to become a Warden. His reasons for doing so are not pertinent to this conversation.

"You're kind to worry," he tells her. "But I'm not afraid. It's what a Warden is meant for."

And he's a Warden. (And he hasn't care what happened to him for a very long time. Barely cares now.) There are very few of them among Riftwatch who can attend to this, and it would be unforgivable if he were to shirk that duty.

[armd]

I'm not, is what she opens her mouth to say. Not worried, but–

Is it so bad that, over time, she's grown to like the people that she works and shares a living space with? (Yes. But that has nothing to do with this moment, and everything to do with old, ingrained fears, she knows that. Maybe she shouldn't let that affect her so badly. It does anyway.)

Ellis is looking at her. He's got a strange expression that Abby can't read perfectly, but she's gathered that he thinks she is being naïve.

"... Okay."

She doesn't know a lot of things about being a Warden. He does, it's his call to make. Her attention flickers toward the blighted Rift, and she wishes she had something to do, some part to play. "What are you going to do?"