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

17

[rowancrowned]

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.

5. oops.

[luaithre]

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.

[notathreat]

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.

[rowancrowned]

"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.

[exequy]

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.

[notathreat]

"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.