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

[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.