faderift | open.

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Late night evacuation drill
WHEN: Early Harvestmere, don't think about it too hard
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: See OOC note below.

Lashes of rain batter at unyielding fortress walls. It is dark, quiet, and peaceful save for all the rolling thunder summoned from over the sea. It is a good evening to be warm in bed.

Until it isn't a couple of those things.

Wherever you are sleeping (or working) late at night in the Gallows, you will hear it: an incessant and noisy bell ringing, handheld, clanging and clanging loud and obnoxious from the top of each tower and downwards, lingering in the key residential halls until there is sign of people emerging from their rooms. Gwenaëlle has been assigned to harass the Central Tower, while Abby takes the Mage Tower and Matthias is assigned the Templar Tower. Even if you happen not to be in either of these places, the muffled cacophony of bells is liable to still reach you.

It may take a second to realise what's happening, and how real this emergency is, but in the past week, all will have received some suspiciously timed updates as to evacuation procedures, including the protocols surrounding what to do when the instruction is to shelter in place (because they do, after all, live in a fortress).

The first step is moving without hesitation when the warning bells ring out loud. The next is to descend the towers, down dim stairwells lit by lyrium glow, in as orderly a fashion as possible. From there, it's a matter off finding the correct subterranean chamber (tonight, indicated with lamplight) and waiting it out.

At least, this route does not take them outside.

In the basement chamber will be Edgard and Marcus, the former equipped with a medieval clipboard and the latter marking the time in his head as people enter, while semi-supervising the other man's work and guarding the exit. The space is large enough to comfortably fit the whole company, although it is also cold, dripping, and musty. There are places to sit, chairs and tables both, and a few blankets if you find yourself underdressed.

And if you attempt to leave too early, you'll be bid to wait it out a little longer to accommodate and cause no disruption or confusion to late comers.

To encourage this, there are a few bottles of wine set aside along with some lukewarm tea. Stay a while.

[ ooc ; feel free to top level at any part of this interaction! I will handwave the cooperation of anyone who doesn't tag in or assume they are out of the Gallows, so don't feel like you have to, but there is also a comment below for anyone who deliberately wants to be on the naughty list of no-shows. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His reaction? Stiff, fearful, bent at the waist, trying both to hunch in close and find some purchase with his arms on the shifting pelt. How does he hold himself? Poorly. Viktor doesn't trust his own body, his spine, the weakness of his leg even in its supported state, let alone that of the creature beneath him.

And this with just one step, when he was so sure a minute ago.

With that thought it rushes back in, a tide of foolish determination that urges him to hug in close and cling with every available limb. It is difficult, it does hurt to use these meagre muscles in ways they've hardly been used, and head down is the worst way to descend any incline—but everything hurts all the time, anyway. In his professional opinion: fuck it. Might as well try.

"Go," he croaks, and squeezes his eyes shut. "Just— one flight. Go!"

Before he changes his mind.

Jude would have preferred to wait, one paw plainly hesitating on the first step, but something in Viktor's voice twists at him, aching. Some part of him wishes they didn't have to do this, but it's a familiar feeling. Like lancing a wound.

He wishes he were surer of the recovery.

Instead, he is smooth as they descend, keeping his back as level as possible in the way a horse would not. His feet are fast, quiet. He's never been one of the ghosts of his pack, but he's studied the way the sentries move in the rare times he's allowed to see them with his eyes.

He tries to channel that, now. Swift, smooth, flowing. They curve, dizzyingly, then even off at the first landing available, where Jude steps well away from the stairs, pausing to check on his passenger, let him adjust his grip, get his bearings.

Swift, quiet, smoothed bounces, a dizzying curve endured with closed eyes. His perception of time stretches out after them, elastic, only catches up at the landing; their descent is as mercifully quick as it is unbearably long. He feels himself slipping, strains to keep back from the wolf's head. Planed shapes, harder than bone, bump the wolf's back where a flat chest should be.

The stairs end, they come level, and Viktor nearly bails on impulse, but rises instead on quivering arms.

"That wasn't so bad."

And that sounded queasy, even to him. He swallows against it, steadies his breath.

"One more?"

Jude pauses on the landing, his tail swishing in mute encouragement. He's still carrying Viktor's walking stick, and he lets it clack in his mouth with a conversational arowrwo, which sounds suspiciously like praise.

(What is under his waistcoat... thing?)

Jude pauses again for all manner of settling Viktor wants to do, then moves when he's given the all clear. He takes the flight just the same as the last time. Oil-slick down the stairs. Even if Viktor's confidence is up, it won't do to get cocky.

He braces for the possibility that it will go wrong. He can shift back in an instant, if arms are needed for catching. He will, rather than let Viktor get hurt. It would be extremely painful and probably awkward, but nothing he hasn't done before.

The commentary, such as it is, hits just right to push an amused sound out of him. Objectively, this is an absurd situation. They've gotten past the first impetuous leap, more or less successfully, so now would be the time to quit while they're ahead.
Right?
Nah.

Having roughly zero knowledge of how to ride any creature correctly, and no guidance beyond supportive dog sounds, Viktor decides to try this one propped up on his forearms, which is both uncomfortable—probably for everyone involved, his elbows aren't the friendliest shape—and unsteady. By the landing, he's pulling a big yikes face and trying hard not to slide off sideways, which happens anyway as they stop.

There he goes, slipping to the floor like a collapsed puppet. A slow cascade of skinny arms and legs. He makes a strangled noise that flutters on the way down, laughter or nerves or both.

It's fine. He's fine. No one else is here to see this and that's terrific.

It's fine, this is fine. This is totally not fine and oh shit there he goes, there he goes.

Thank goodness they're on the landing. As soon as he feels Viktor slipping, Jude goes belly-down on the floor so minimize the distance to fall, sniffing at Viktor's face and hair to check on him without getting up from his side.

Once he determines he's not hurt, he'll thump the floor with his tail and let loose a soft whine. It's not a fully wolflike gesture but he finds that it relaxes people when they view him as more of a giant dog. And better an animal than a human, when considering comfort levels.

He licks Viktor's ear once, lifts his head.

There have been worse falls—Viktor's had a quantity of those himself. As he reaches blindly to pat a furry shoulder, he's quite aware of the points that took impact, the muscles put to uncommon use, and not very concerned with any of it. That'll change very soon, he knows, but that shadow is always looming on the horizon and he's sick of looking at it.

He's sitting up when the tongue finds his ear, sparking a broad cringe, scrunched face, raised shoulder and all.

"Please," is lilting undertone, a good-natured moue as he gathers himself to rise. "Don't make this weird."

He'll need help to stand up, but between Jude and his crutch it'll go smoothly enough; he'll be swiping the ubiquitous thoroughfare grit from his trousers presently.

Jude noses the crutch at him.

The tongue-out panting that shows off every one of Jude's absurdly huge teeth is canine laughter, Viktor will come to realize if they spend more time together.

Between the two of them they get Viktor standing again, and Jude leans just slightly against his legs. Not enough to push him over but enough to steady them both. To stand with him until he doesn't feel so shaky.

The alarms are still going off, though more distantly now, and Jude looks down the stairs, looks back up the way they came, and flicks his ears back, then forward at Viktor. Tilts his head to one side.

That's a plain enough question. Viktor mimics it without thinking, casts glances down, then up, as he considers. The alarm, the stairs they've cleared, what awaits at the bottom. The room full of people with eyes on the door, waiting to see who shows up next—maybe not all, but some, and at least one doing so intentionally. The trouble Marcus went through to arrange this, unprompted. The gesture behind it. The way it tangles even now, even in the middle of this very exercise, when he thinks of it.

"Down," he decides. "We've come this far. I just... need a moment." He's rolling his hand by his torso as he says this, which also ought to be plain enough: either he needs to catch his breath, or he's perilously close to puking. Possibly both. (It's both.)

After one long breath that seems more restorative than those previous, he adds, quietly, "Thank you."

Jude nods; it's a distinctly human gesture wrapped up in the enormous body, but it shows how much effort he's putting into being understood. It is perhaps undermined by the light lick he gives the back of Viktor's hand.

(It's meant to be both an acknowledgement and a reassurance, but maybe it's just gross.)

For his part, though- despite the alarm, he shows not the least shred of impatience. If Viktor wants to stay here until morning, he's committed to doing it.

There's been a priority shift here, the kind that Jude knows is not very like a soldier, and not entirely like a wolf either. He's not worried about his orders.

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