player plot: the battle for starkhaven.

[luaithre]

WHO: All
WHAT: Riftwatch and the rebel mages come to the aid of Starkhaven
WHEN: Last week of Wintermarch
WHERE: Starkhaven and outlying territories
NOTES: Open to all, with instructions/suggestions below for what your character can do, dependent on skillset and division. Violences within.



The news has been the same for seemingly endless months: the Tevinter Imperium stays encamped, entrenched, at the doorstep of Starkhaven. The Free Marches city is long besieged, strangled and dying, and its proud stone walls that keep Corypheus' forces out also entomb its own citizens as supply dwindles fast over the winter.

The Exalted March has not come. The scattered militias and militaries of the surrounding territories have not rushed to its aid. Riftwatch has done all it can with the personnel it has, sabotaging enemy movement, collecting information, supplying villages and redirecting refugees, but it seems as though all it can do for Starkhaven is stand vigil to its collapse.

That is, until some hasty conversations were had.

A trio of Riftwatch agents approached Grand Enchanter Fiona, ad hoc leader of the rebel mage forces currently under the Inquisition's banner, with a question: what would it take, for the rebel mages to lend aid to Prince Sebastian Vael?

23 Wintermarch: Stoneweale Fort

Closed: The Division Heads, Derrica, Fenris, Julius, Marcus Rowntree, Petrana de Cedoux

It rains for the entirety of the ensuing negotiations, ice wet winter striking the impassive walls of Stoneweale Fort and the tents erected within its walls. The fort stands south of Starkhaven at the edges of Tevinter's influence, and contains the entirety of Prince Sebastian's available forces and, newly, Grand Enchanter Fiona, several rain-swept griffons, and a collection of Riftwatch agents.

Not all of them take up space in the war room (for instance, the griffons don't need to be there), but those that do bear witness to a deal being struck:

Prince Sebastian speaks plainly: the situation is beyond dire. They are at the precipice of surrender, and between himself and his commanders, they've been preparing for a last-ditch effort to save as many of his subjects as he can spare. By directing his forces in a (likely suicidal) full-scale attack against the enemy, he has hope that this will distract them for long enough so that a select few of his soldiers can fell the far gate and evacuate as many citizens as they can. He welcomes any assistance the mages could offer.

Fiona, understanding the lethality of what Prince Sebastian and his men are going to attempt, first states that the rebel mages can be mustered to assist in this evacuation by destroying the wall and shepherding Starkhaven's people to safety. She also pledges to personally join the Prince and his men in their attack on the main force.

It's with gratitude that Prince Sebastian accepts her offer.

And there is little time to prepare.

23-29 Wintermarch: The Minanter River

In the coming days, Riftwatch redirects its focus towards the preparation of Starkhaven's last stand. The movement of a small army of mages from the Orlesian frontline to deep into the heart of the Free Marches is the kind of logistical effort that one would hope to have plenty of time to organise, particularly in the interest of evading the Imperium's notice for as long as possible, but time is a luxury, and there are few of those available these days.

To ensure a swift and relatively stealthy travel time, the rebel mages are broken up into still sizeable detachments – they ride on horseback, or travel on merchant vessels that have been acquisitioned for the war effort, quietly coursing down the Minanter. They camp in thatches of forest or huddle within long emptied warehouses in semi-abandoned trading settlements.

Riftwatch agents of any combat capability join them, ride with them, and stay in contact through crystals to ensure coordination.

In the sky, griffon riders are tasked with keeping close monitor of any Tevinter detachments that might push close to the small army of mages moving in from the west. The going is often lonely, long hours, solo flying with reportage over the crystal network, before gathering together in small camps to feed their mounts, themselves, and sleep in hastily erected tents that protect them from the winter-time rain.

When necessary, members of Forces and Scouting will be deployed to run interference and push back and redirect Tevene scouts or soldiers and Venatori. Sometimes, larger groups of Imperial forces threaten to intercede, in which event, Riftwatch agents may find themselves working together with rebel mages to not only prevent the enemy from interfering with their people, but killing them so as to ensure there is no reporting back of a sudden influx of mage activity.

Members of Research may find themselves based at Stoneweale Fort. After some convincing, Prince Sebastian allows his various commanders to coordinate with Riftwatch to identify locations and pressure points within Starkhaven and its defences for the purposes of sabotage in preparation for Tevinter's taking. Now is the time to plan, analyse maps, prepare explosives or enchantments, and try not to look too excited about it.

Meanwhile, those within Diplomacy, if not hovering helpfully around Stoneweale Fort, are sent to make ready for Starkhaven refugees by speaking to villages further south, negotiating for supplies and accommodations, rallying any militia that are willing to assist in their protection. It's all a little thin on the ground, but if there was ever a time to cash in some of Riftwatch's local goodwill, it's now.

30 Wintermarch: Starkhaven

The wall

A horn sounds out, long and mournful. Voices and horse hooves and sword clashing and magic casting beneath the stormy sky is reduced to a dull roar as Prince Sebastian, accompanied by Grand Enchanter Fiona, leads his forces in a frontal assault against the overwhelming Imperial presence at his gates.

As a result, the far gate has been left undefended.

Slaughtering the remaining unit of Tevinter soldiers guarding it is borderline perfunctory, but there is much still to do. The majority of the rebel mages (less those volunteers who have joined Fiona in Sebastian's host), along with any mages of Riftwatch who choose to join them, gather en masse upon the stone bridge and the shallows of the river – a small army of men and women in robes or in armor, but all holding a staff to mark them for what they are. As they begin to draw from the Fade, the air takes on the scent of bitter-storm, energy crackling and prickling across exposed skin, ruffling hair and clothing in unseen winds.

Stone cracks and wood splinters under gouts of raw magic and white-hot bolts of summoned lightning, slamming in unison against walls that have remained previously unbroken all this time. Beneath them, the ground rumbles and shivers, and debris spills where cracks form and open and widen from the base of proud walls to the ramparts.

A small group within the rebel mage forces then move together in coordination, and the stone wall before them all at once comes apart. Giant broken slabs of stone and support lift into the air as if in an explosion slowed in time, drifting away from one another as magic carries it in shimmering green-tinged telekinetic influence.

The ground shakes, again, as pieces of Starkhaven's walls land safely, if heavily, on the mud-thick river on either side, leaving a yawning opening where once were sealed closed gates of oak and iron.

On the other side, where rain beats down the rising dust, gathered citizens of Starkhaven, frightened and war-worn, stare out at an army of mages.

The sky

In the sky, over the chaos, Riftwatch uses the distraction of battle to send swift-flying griffons over the walls and into the city proper to enact acts of sabotage to Starkhaven's infrastructure. Below them, civilians flood the streets, pressing in a constant stream of bodies towards the crumbled wall. Up here, the sounds of a raging battle drift clearer from the front.

Everyone in the sky knows where they are going and what they are doing, under strict orders to avoid any harm coming to civilians. Either as a passenger or on their own, members of Scouting (and some non-Scouting mages) carry with them precise instructions from Research and the means to enact them in the form of alchemical explosives and enchanted grenade-like items that will detonate in bursts of raw Fade magic (or their own magical ability). Common targets include: the defensive weaponry and ballistae posted up on the ramparts, the chains that man the major gates of the city, certain storehouses and administrative buildings indicated on maps. Likewise, there are wealthy estates to pillage and deprive Tevinter of any coin they might find there.

But soon the city will be overrun, and those on griffonback may find themselves under assault of arrows and magic as they make their escape.

The retreat

On the ground, floods of Starkhaven citizens, soon to be refugees, flow through the crumbled wall, staggering across the bridge and through the shallows of the river that surrounds the city, helped along by mages and Riftwatch alike. It is a lengthy and exhausting process as hundreds of ordinary people, wide-eyed and terrified, are herded out of the valley and onto solid ground, streaming south for where villages have been fortified and prepared to receive them.

Then, the sound of cavalry.

Racing across the rocky plain, under Imperial banner, a horde of dracolisk and their riders come galloping at a furious pace towards civilians, mages, Riftwatch alike. Their presence does not speak well for the main battle, but they arrive all the same. Reptilian screeches and hisses pierce the rumble of thunder above, and frightened cries from the refugees begin to sound out as panic grips them, turning to run in panicked stampede at the sight of Imperial soldiers upon their poison-spitting mounts.

It was enough of a likelihood that the Forces members who have been deployed to ensure the security of the evacuation are prepared to move with the rebel mages to meet them. The battle is quick, bloody, magic crackling through the air in time with clashes of shield and flying arrows. Searing poison sprays across skin and armor and flame ripples across scaly hide as a brutal skirmish ensues.

But the battle breaks when the worth of continued harassment weighed against the potential cost. By order of Itaeus Ferra, astride his own beast, the dracolisk cavalry withdraws, tiding back towards Starkhaven, now lost to the forces of Corypheus.

31 Wintermarch: Southwards and Vallomire

Men, women, children march through the cold and into the night, but blessedly, the rain eases itself to an icy misting of constant damp instead of the driving downpour from earlier that day.

It becomes clear that among the refugees, there had been those prepared for this journey. Temporary campsites, guarded by mages and Riftwatch alike, strike up so that all may take a few hours of rest. There is some food passed around, if not very much, and as the sun rises on a new day, the procession resumes, if no less wearily.

Eventually, all arrive at the half-abandoned township of Vallomire, chosen for its largely empty barnhouses and warehouses on the shores of a distributary from the Minanter. It is not large enough or manned enough to permanently house so many of Starkhaven's people, but it will do for the next few days of recovery and rest.

There is food, gathered in from as many corners as was willing to part with it, and warm blankets, and, just as important, a reduced sense of impending doom amongst those that had lived under its shadow for so long.

Spirits are not high, but they are tired. Mournful, but alive. As the day lurches into the evening, as the rain finally withdraws and bonfires are lit, and mages and ordinary citizens of the Free Marches mingle in this moment of necessity, news finally trickles in from Starkhaven.

It is as feared: the city has been claimed by the Tevinter Imperium. Much of Starkhaven's military has been destroyed, giving their lives to buy this opportunity for escape. And, in murmurs that spread from campfire to campfire, two names in particular are spoken in low, reverent tones: Prince Sebastian Vael, and Grand Enchanter Fiona, have fallen.

Stories of prince and mage charging side-by-side into a wave of enemy soldiers, fighting back-to-back against overwhelming odds after all their fellows had fallen, rising again and again from the mud to continue the fight, to hold back the inevitable tide until the city was emptied. Toasts are raised and tears shed for the saviors of Starkhaven—its people, if not its stones.

Smoke rises in the north, a black mark in the sky, as the sun begins to set.

Comments

[overharrowed]

If he'd been privately hoping for Derrica, it doesn't show; his relief at someone arriving, while muted, is more evidently present. He stands, though he doesn't immediately release Marcus's hand.

"Maybe an hour, or or take a few minutes. I've done a little battlefield healing, but there was no practical way to get him off the battlefield other than walking." Julius isn't a healer, but he knows enough to know that moving around is not ideal for a poison victim.

"Is there anything you need?" He isn't keen to leave, but he's very ready to have something to do, if there is anything. (He probably should have gone back to the battlefield, and he would have if it hadn't been clear that they were pulling out more generally. By the time he'd gotten Marcus to a tent, there was very little to go back to.)

[luaithre]

That sense of conversation happening overhead is familiar, uncomfortable, and there's nothing that can help it. Everything slides by faster than he has time to think, even if he could catch his breath. Clinging to comprehension, though, like a rock in stormy ocean. Richard looms into this small little world, firelight, tight breaths, and the slightly out of place stink of sourceless black smoke underneath blood and sweat.

Recognition in return, a flinty glimmer of it. If Marcus had been privately hoping for Derrica, it really only occurs to him now to do so, a pinch of more open discomfort than he'd normally allow showing in the curl of his brow.

Puncture wounds in a rough semi-circle, closing around his less intensely armored right shoulder. Strong bottom jaw fangs, getting good leverage to crunch down before getting torn away. There's probably some matching wounds behind. Blood, bruising, swelling.

Spends some effort to grip Julius' hand in return, a brief pulse of it. His injured arm he keeps reflexively frozen in its fold against himself.

[nonvenomous]

Cursory glancing-over complete, Richard leans to rap forefinger to the slab of Marcus’ armor, testing at the pectoral muscle beneath. There’s no sweet stink of rot beat out to the time of his tapping, nor any squelch or give.

A pulse is -- present, he determines, and hooks Marcus’ lip down with his thumb to peer at his gums in an extension of the same reach.

“Your discretion,” is the answer, at what he sees.

If there was any question as to his awareness of Marcus’ fully conscious state throughout this inspection, he sews it up neatly with a claw snag of eye contact before he withdraws.

Fastens and straps are weaker than boiled leather or plate. Without apparent concern for permission, Dickerson sets to trimming through the binds of Rowntree’s armor and any clothing beneath. Quick with a knife and confident as an oyster shucker with the curve of the blade. This deep into an envenomation, even a wounded wolf should be hard-pressed to put up much of a fight.

“And your blood.”

[overharrowed]

Julius's reputation is of a man who values practicality. A diplomat with a past on the battlefield, someone who isn't above a carefully incomplete report or a cut corner if it achieves a worthwhile goal. Given that he and Richard don't know one another especially well, it may be a surprise when he goes white at the last three words the other man says.

(Then again, Richard has been in Thedas long enough that it may not be as surprising as all that.)

"No, that's not." Marcus, if he's conscious enough to register it, can feel the ramrod of tension that's gone through the other man's grip. "There are other ways."

Even as he's saying it, he's doing the math of how long it's been since Marcus got the bite. How much he had to walk in the meantime. How much time there is before the damage is too much. He can't help the brief, bleakly funny thought that he's spent his entire life fortifying himself against potential attacks on his pride or his ambition, only to find himself here, struck from behind by something else entirely.

[luaithre]

Down here, things are simpler. Richard takes his pulse, inspects his mouth; Marcus, on a delay, seems to coil in tension as if he could get away by moving down through the cot beneath him. Hostility doing its part to focus his eyeline on Richard's, a warning graze of a look that promises

not very much, it seems, as a knife begins undoing his armor, and there's only a rasping exhale from Marcus at its fast work. The manner of injury made plainer, now, as sodden fabric is peeled back (a hiss, a spasm of his hand in Julius'). Punctures and scrapes, dry and wet blood both clinging to pale skin along with sticky poison that had gotten in under the seams. There's angry looking inflammation around each wound, right arm stiff in its socket.

It looks painful.

They speak. Julius reacts. Marcus' focus swims back to him, his contribution to the above stand off being just his quick breaths. 'Your blood', and it has less to do with sinister connotations, unclean magics, that the next wheezing breath in sounds like protest, than it does the person being asked for it.

[nonvenomous]

Having detected a note of Something in Julius’ voice while he works, Richard is silent as he peels a tatty bit of cloth out of the mat of blood and venom. This is quite the mess, trace contempt to the scruffy lines furrowed in around his mouth.

He slashes the blade through sticky fiber and flicks the cut section aside into a bucket with a wet slap. Then it’s time to change knives, from the mean grey hook at his hip to a slender folding knife from a pocket. It’s polished. Silver.

“I suppose you expect me to use mine.”

Another sting of eye contact. Fleeting, whetted sharp in the lamplight. But it’s Julius he straightens to eye dead on with the knife open in his hand, extending the following offer as a professional courtesy:

“Unless you’d like to prolong his suffering by debating the need?”

[overharrowed]

He can't help looking down at the shuddering breath that registers as a wordless protest, and what he sees doesn't make this any easier. He's aware of how many mages through the centuries must have thought "but it's different this time," even as he has the same thought himself, and the immediate guilt that follows.

"I am not squeamish," he says, hard, looking back up when he's directly addressed. "Blood magic carries a cost, and if I could guarantee that you or I would be the only ones to pay it, it would be a different thing." He looks back down at Marcus, expression strained. "I'd take the entire wound for him myself, if it worked that way."

And what if, he can't help thinking treacherously, he dies because of your delicate sensibilities?

[luaithre]

The stupidity of this has been setting in. Slower than poison, subtler, but there. The absence of decisions that he can himself make, here, for all that he could have pretended at options while trudging through the mud, before he felt like his own throat was strangling itself and his own shoulder was gnawing itself off at the hinge. It sets in as they talk over him, about him.

Burns off some of that anger when Richard next looks at him, bared teeth aside. There is none of it as Julius looks down at him, says the things he says. Marcus twitches the hands they are joining, his other moving stiffly at the wrist as if it would like to add it to the tangle, but the shooting pain that comes with even thinking about doing so lays him back flat with another undignified sound.

Fresh cold sweat, prickling at his brow, shoulders. Focuses, trying to catch his breath enough. Says, sort of, "He," first, giving up, settling on, "It's alright," breathlessly.

That'll have to do, as his vision swims.

[nonvenomous]

Julius looks down at Marcus. He is handsome, dying, dramatic. A good distraction. Richard looks down at Marcus also as he turns the proffered knife to slice slow across the back of his own arm in Julius’ periphery, casually as he might unbutton a cuff. There’s no darkening of shadow, no accompanying swell of sinister music.

Blood forks into runs down the snaky muscle strapped into his wrist; he reaches to flatten his bloodied hand to Marcus’ chest, back to watching Julius in aside.

Cats reach to test the boundaries of others in the same way, no rush, stored tension spring-loaded in anticipation of a fight.

[overharrowed]

This is why Julius is a dog person.

There is a long moment when Julius himself doesn't know what he's going to do. It isn't alright at all, whatever Marcus says about it, and it won't be regardless of what Julius chooses. There is no scenario in which the image of Marcus on this table, a bit gray with pain and sweat, is alright. None where the addition of more blood makes it better.

But while the moment seems to stretch in Julius's own perception, it's only seconds before he's finding that he's already chosen, roughly tugging his sleeve from his wrist up toward his elbow.

"Tell me what," the fuck is almost audible despite not being articulated, "you need." More specifically, as he's already been clear on a higher level.

[nonvenomous]

There’s a static prickle of exasperation to the way Richard clocks the rustling of Julius’ sleeve for what it is, what with cuts already made and so on. He could say something about it, quip back with something snide.

The impulse is there, hard in his nose.

“I’m going to draw the corruption out.”

Professional courtesy wins the day, only a little acidic with the one hand splayed sticky in a mat of chest hair and gore. A sibilant hiss of abyssal speech under his breath sees the blood webbed down his arm take on a hellfire glow, light warming coal red from within. Normal, and fine, in its trickling spread for the wound.

Marcus will feel the instant it connects: a flush of warm, buzzy relief before the blood he has left seizes and tugs stiff in his veins, no longer his for his heart to command.

“He’ll need a substantial donation to replace what I take. Make your own incision.”

[luaithre]

At some point, Marcus' hand in Julius' had gone colder and clammier, not quite gripping save for the absent hook of unmoving fingers. There is no response to Richard laying his own hand flat on his chest, or the words that pass over head, just the struggle of breathing and the way his vision is darkening at the edges for a lack of sufficient oxygen.

Blood runs, glows, reaches for those gauges in flesh and muscle. A heart beat carries through it, before sudden tension lashes tightly through his body. A shuddered out gasp, a growl, where instinctive rageful flinch doesn't negate or disguise bright animal fear, bared teeth and clear eyes.

Not an irrational fear. No one likes to know, this viscerally, that their life is in another's hands, held there as if on a string. That it happens to be Richard Dickerson's is for later consideration.

Instinct moves him. Julius' hand freed for Marcus to instead clasp at Richard's arm, a doggish blunt-clawed hook of fingers against freshly stinging knife slice. Anchoring.

[overharrowed]

Julius is generally a man with an impressive poker face, so the fact that tension is visible in his expression suggests just how much he hates all of this. (It's a great deal.)

Still, when Marcus releases his hand, he draws his knife. "I don't know how you're going to set it up," is even with some effort. "Should the cut be made a particular way?" His instinct leads him to rest the blade, lightly, an inch or two below the elbow on his inner arm, blade held parallel with the joint. It will only be much later that he'll think of an illustration he saw years ago in a text about blood magic, his unconscious mirroring of it here.

[nonvenomous]

Dick jolts in his skin, flecks of blood spun like sparks through Marcus’ clawed fingers, concentration cracked through to the core of that endorphin buffer. For just an instant, his eyes flash with animal fear.

The sensation is as unique as it is painful, fresh blood tearing through clots, searing into starved organs, the bizarre reversal of venom-lysed slurry draining inky dark up out of the wound and into open air. It can’t be more than a few seconds before Richard’s locked it back under a glass case of dissociation, jar over spider.

Doubtless it feels like much longer for everyone in this tent.

Distrust, dislike.

Richard stifles a shudder in his breath and looks hard back over to Julius with his knife.

“Through the root of the tongue,” he recommends. “Or wherever you think a scar would be most handsome.”

The fist-sized mess he’s drawn out already defies gravity, answering instead to the call of his free hand. A flare of his fingers sees it burned through to dust, dead cells and venom desiccated in a burst of flame. And there’s still more coming.

“Don’t worry about spilling it.” He’ll pull it out of the mud if he has to. Germs aren’t real. “I won’t let it go to waste.”

[luaithre]

A few seconds, a few minutes, a few years. This new pain whites out Marcus' vision as Richard's concentration fritters apart, lacking the breath in his lungs to cry out, just giving a dry sounding retch of displeasure. For a second, his hand goes rictus and tight around Richard's arm, just for the time it takes for fresh tears to gloss over his eyes, to spill and mingle with sweat and dirt.

Ow.

It passes. Quick breaths again, after not quite breathing at all. In recovery, he misses rude comments about tongues being cut out which spares him the labour of trying to mount a defense or show of affront (or a vote—handsome scars only for everyone, please), all energy spent in gathering back some sense of self while blood and venom turn into cinder in the air above him.

His fingers loosen from Richard's arm, stiffly straightening out from his palm, a tremor twitched from wrist to knuckle. Apologetic, nearly. Certainly, some sense of sorriness in some direction.

[overharrowed]

Watching Marcus go through the process isn't making anything either, but Julius has made his decision. Having something to do, however briefly, is the smallest measure of relief. He turns his left arm and makes a quick, clean cut across the back, parallel to his wrist but nearer to the elbow. It hurts, but he's fairly sure he hasn't gone deep enough to do any lingering damage. (He supposes he'll find out.) The cut is certainly large enough deep enough to bleed, though, and the blood starts to run briskly along his bared arm. There's nothing particularly handy to catch it in, so he has to trust that Richard meant it when he said he wouldn't let it go to waste.

[nonvenomous]

The first few drops spatter before the stream sparks alight, that same unholy glow sizzled up along Julius’ arm as if following a wire fuse. Spilt blood boils to nothing as it falls, gone before it can slap the mud, and Dickerson says,

“Please take hold of him.”

without mention of where or how or for what purpose. He is distracted, whispering terse between stirs of his hand while Marcus retches and leaks beneath him.

Even accounting for the crumbling chunk of ash he’s caked another blob of venom into, one might begin to understand this to be typical of his bedside manner. He smears his bloodied hand closer to the site of the bite, and in so doing muddies loose soot into the mess they’ve made.

“Near to the wound.”

[luaithre]

The acute agony of a moment ago disperses, leaving behind it—well, nothing pleasant, fresh sweat and over-tense muscles and the knowledge of what is specifically occurring to him on a level more intimate than he appreciates knowing about. The sense that another person could flick their hand the wrong way, and his heart would stop. Or be forced back into motion.

Marcus grits his teeth against further complaint as Dickerson's hand inches nearer to that point, closer to the radial pulse of damage and hurt around which the whole world feels like it spins. Lifts his chin away and aside, as if there's somewhere else to go.

And in whatever is happening to him, Julius is about to be bound into it too. There is nothing he can do. Marcus does not, actually, want to die, the edge of this fact grating sharp and ragged against also hating the process of preventing it.

Nothing more or less complex than that. His hand will find a place to land on Julius if and when the other man does as told.

[overharrowed]

There's another world where the thing he hates most about this is not knowing what is happening or how. Where he would be pressing harder for details. In this world, however, there are so many other objections that curiosity has to take its place firmly at the back of the line.

To get close without getting in Dickerson's way, Julius ends up standing at the head of Marcus's cot, reaching out to press his hands gently but unhesitatingly to the side of Marcus's neck and against his unwounded shoulder. The right hand isn't strictly necessary, he assumes, but if nothing else, it gives Marcus something to hold on his uninjured side.

(There's a moment where Julius almost imagines the scars on his own shoulder ache, but that is purely stress, and he puts it out of his mind.)

[nonvenomous]

“Good.”

Affirmation may be a kindness, it’s hard to say. It’s certainly an indication that Julius should not pull away or adjust, now that the neon glow running down his wrist has eddied into the darker mix of sweat and gore and ash Richard and Marcus are already bleeding into. Marcus is cool to the touch, pale. All the wet isn’t much warmer, but there is a distinct flash of steam in the lamplight when Dick mutters to begin his spellwork anew.

It’s not painful.

Julius’ heartbeat is stronger between the pair of them, an off-rhythm tickle from Marcus’ pulse kicked into matched step after a missed beat. Even the tugging sensation of blood being siphoned into a thicker stream out of Julius’ system isn’t terrible. Easy for him to see the way spirals into an open fanghole for five seconds, ten, fifteen. Easier for Marcus to feel.

Warm.

The mess around it will dry as magic does its work, cold blood burnt off of skin and armor into steam, all the way into a last spit of mist from the trail Marcus left in the mud on the way in. Dirt, ash, and sweat stay behind.

The flow of fresh blood from Julius thins; the glow fades and so does their connection.

Richard wipes the soot on his hand down Marcus’ near pant leg, inside and out, before he steps away.

[luaithre]

They'd had an argument, one time, that featured Marcus' need to not appear as weak to those he loves overriding being glad to have them near him at all. It's an argument that plays out again in an internal sort of conflict about which he can do nothing, let alone express it, just another part of the simmer of his restless discomfort here on the cot.

Recognised only when it flips around, when he feels only sudden and keen gratitude at warm hands placed gently on him. The next exhale out of him is almost a sigh, a relief for the clarity of that, and Marcus reaches up and back with his workable arm to wrap his hand around Julius' wrist.

On the other side, something horrifying is happening. Feels it in the tug at his heartbeat, put to a different rhythm. His mouth twitches at the strange, not-so-uncomfortable pressure of blood finely funneled into him, bleary eyes focused upwards at Julius as firmly as the anchor of his grip. Slowly, easy, drifting steam, the idle illumination of brilliantly glowing blood only just in his view.

He breathes easier. His skin is warmer, losing that deathly grey. The hold on Julius' wrist has less weak desperation, more calmed strength, thumb rotating a circle in silent communication. Fang marks in his flesh are still there, oozing sedately, but the shiny swelling is reduced.

He shifts the arm he was holding paralysed, brow tensing at the predictable twinge of injury, but his hand lifts, fingers curl in. On the edge of awareness, he feels that brush to his leg, senses Richard stepping away.

Makes a noise, feet drawing in, the beginnings of sitting up and out of the mess.

[overharrowed]

Decision made, Julius is regaining the ability to set aside the complications he fears for now and just concentrate on the basics: Marcus in danger, possibly mortal danger, and Richard working to heal him. He holds Marcus's gaze, a steady point, as the magic takes hold. There is something in his chest that releases when he sees Marcus's color change for the better, his breaths coming more steadily and without a ragged edge. The relief is solid and real, and for now it outweighs all the complications.

His grip on Marcus's shoulders shifts when he can feel the other man start to move. "I'm not sure it's a good idea to sit up just yet," he says, looking at Richard. For all the wariness that's evident (and perhaps something a bit sharper that's not), Julius is clearly looking for input on the point from someone who knows more than he does on the subject.

[nonvenomous]

There’s something acrid in the way Dick’s gaze stays sticky on the pair of them in a glance back from the tin he’s slid from his jerkin. He opens it while he watches them, entranced and interwoven with each other as they are. Worried and relieved and uncertain together.

He pinches a rolled joint from the tin and is already on his way to lighting it when Julius looks to him. Grubby fingerprints mottle the paper.

“He’ll be fine,” he says, to the point. “Provided there wasn’t any nerve damage."

[luaithre]

Great news.

Marcus spares a second for his grasp on Julius' wrist to shift and collect up his hand, a clumsy but nevertheless affectionate tangling of fingers that removes the hold on his shoulder as he goes to sit up. A rasp of a sound from him at the uncomfortable peeling away of the oozy wounding at the back of his shoulder from blood-smeared cloth.

Not soaked. The ways in which he is filthy is battlefield dirt, soot, ash, a thin film of fever-sweat. Up off his back, he can breathe even easier, and spends a few moments doing so. Clean, chilly air, no stifling stuffocating.

"Thank you," on the back of one such exhale, looking to Richard. It's not an entirely unalloyed thank you, but there's no resentful simmer or grudging heel-drag to it. He is not dead. Someone would have to have led a very charmed life not to experience real gratitude.

[overharrowed]

But what if there is nerve damage, Julius manages not to say.

Instead, he lets Marcus up, reluctant to remove his hands entirely as if he's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, the one Marcus isn't holding lingers on his back, ready to support him if he finds sitting up harder than anticipated.

He can't quite bring himself to thank Richard too, despite the fact that one of the complicated things he is feeling is, in fact, gratitude. Instead, he nods, a silent yes, me too. It's the best he can do at the moment. Marcus isn't dead, and it's the thing Julius needs to focus on for the time being to keep one foot in front of the other.

On that note, he says to Marcus, "If you think you'll manage for a few minutes, I should go find some clean water so you can clean up." Or, probably, so Julius can help him clean up, but there's no reason to belabor how much help Marcus will or won't need.