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player plot: the battle for starkhaven.
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?
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.And there is little time to prepare.
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.
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.
no subject
Instinct says, not enough pain for it to be remarked on. Not enough that he would compel her to use the rest of her stores on him, or have to negotiate deciding against it on her own. "Only tired," is near enough to true.
Given to explanation, so she needn't wonder or extract it out of him with more questions. "Dickerson saw to me and removed the corruption. The wound itself is scarcely anything."
But a healer would know the other forces at work. The need to replenish what the poison took, the need to rest and heal what it had damaged. There's a world where Marcus is walking around instead of laying here, if a little ill-advisedly, but it's likely not one where he'd pushed himself as much as he had over the past week. As much as they all had.
His hand rests in hers, still, a little clammy. In normal life, he wears rings sometimes. On the field, he only wears one, the braided signet he received not so long ago with its overlapping initials, representative of those two others who wear their own rings to match.
"You?"
no subject
Whether or not her injuries could have been worse isn't necessary to the conversation. Marcus has no reason to be worrying about what transpired. She is here, in one piece. In better condition than him.
"Will you let me see?" she presses, sweeping the entire topic aside. "I know Richard is an excellent healer, but—"
But he likely did as much as was responsible when there are so many others who will need him.
But there's no need for Marcus to carry a wound when she could ease it, even in some small way.
But Derrica needs to see for herself.
no subject
Marcus does not get up, or start rearranging the dressing for her to gain access to what the dracolisk left behind. There is a barely conscious movement to his hand, a circled rub of his thumb against the edge of Derrica's knuckle, as if he could work away her anxiety through both his will and that one minor gesture.
Can see the need there. It makes it is less of a simple equation. Can imagine he would be no different, if healing was his talent, if Derrica were laying in recovery.
"You're tired," he says, anyway. "We could all use some rest, now, yourself included."
It doesn't feel very nice, to know that he's speaking with a shade of deception, of something held back, but it is as it is.
no subject
But it feels inherently wrong to take the choice from him. Knowing all she does of him. Believing as she does that even the most benign spellwork deserves a choice.
Her hand tightens around his.
“I know you’ll rest better if you’re not in pain,” should be true; Derrica is operating as if she is certain it is true for him. But that doesn’t stop her from adding, “And I’ll rest better knowing I did even the smallest thing to help.”
Whenever she could be spared to rest.
no subject
is quiet, and full of earnest weight, in spite of his disadvantage. In spite of knowing she isn't lying, that it would likely ease her, to do something for him. The furrow at his brow seems to imply consideration, that fidgety gesture against her hand going still again, keeping that clasp.
Knowing he's risking her reassurance, Marcus says, "It wasn't my best showing," and it is more conversational than confessional or self-pitying. Reflective. "Some distant spellwork, breaking the line, but it was over fast as soon as they were among us. Between Julius and I, we took down only a couple of riders, and then he had to see me off the field. It was my error. Too slow."
He looks down at their joined hands. How much of that Julius had been doing, too. "Part of me doesn't mind sitting with it," finally.
no subject
But Derrica sits with what he says instead, looking at him where he lies. He is so pale. She has very rarely seen Marcus in such condition. (Does seeing him unconscious in a dream count towards that tally?) Knowing that some of his misery must come from being unable to contribute to their efforts on the field—
"We need you now," she tells him. "You can't help the rebellion if you're too hurt to stand."
And she doesn't want to leave him this way. But that's an appeal she can save, for the moment.
no subject
Granted, from a different direction.
A breath in, and his hand slides from hers. Grips onto the edge of the cot, levers himself up to sit. More awake now, the movement is less arduous than it had been when he'd begun it, moments ago. There's no sign of bleed through the bandaging that wraps around his shoulder, crosses his chest, a perfectly competent seeing to. He shifts blankets so as to preserve some modesty, half-dressed as he is.
"Is it that you wish me to rest better or that I should be out there?" he asks. "You'll have to choose one."
(He might tell her this is just his complexion when even the littlest bit unwell. More things to blame the cloistered lifestyle of the Circles for.)
no subject
Obviously.
That being said—
"But I think if you stay here, on this cot, letting this injury keep you hidden, you won't thank yourself tomorrow."
And so maybe Derrica's wish for him will have to be set aside too.
no subject
"It's not so much the injury," finally, the beginnings of concession. "I'm just not very well."
Which is not quite as manfully dignified as being too brutally injured to leave his bed, suggests the hint of self-deprecation in his tone as he settles into his sit. That he still has wounds beneath his bandages are less his concern than the way he feels at once too warm and too cold, and the way fatigue grips him at the slightest provocation.
Who knows. Marcus is disinclined to blame the purging of Richard's magic on his current state, having felt a little like he could rematch the dracolisk for a solid hour after, but likewise does not want to think he isn't capable of maintaining certain levels of exhaustion when he definitely could, like, merely ten years ago.
no subject
She reaches to him, sweeps it around his shoulders. It is a graceful little movement, if requiring some care in how she balances herself at the edge of his cot.
"Poison?" she questions, gentle over the words.
no subject
A shake of his head. "I trust Dickerson to've been thorough," he says.
If nothing else.
His gaze finds her again, like perhaps focused attention will ease some of her concern for him. He can summon that well enough, a considering kind of study that reads from one eye to the other. Strikes him as foolish, all of a sudden, this fussing over himself when he is far beyond that knife edge of death he'd flirted with. And with all that has happened.
And not all of it bad. "You know I'm proud of us," he says, quieter. "And of you. It felt right, didn't it? Fighting with them all?"
no subject
Yes, she trusts Richard Dickerson to have been thorough too. Derrica has never been untruthful, when she spoke of her esteem for his skills.
And even pale, the focus he directs to her draws her attention in kind. A shift in topic, away from his health and towards the events of the day. Not just the battle, but what had come before it too. That moment, standing bound together with so many other mages, working as one.
She is quiet for a moment, remembering.
"It did," she tells him, a little reverent. "Was it like that always, during the rebellion?"
More fraught, she imagines. Difficult in a wholly separate way. But the sense of unity, feeling the energy moving through all of them, feeling herself grow strong because of it—
That must have been present. She can't imagine it wasn't.
no subject
and he can say so as simply as that because Derrica knows better, he thinks, than to imagine that a war like that, a war of any kind, free of any dissent, of doubt. But Marcus answers her question in a way that speaks to something deeper than surface turmoil, and does so with certainty.
There are those who might object, but they aren't here.
"For most of us, it was the first time we'd all acted together to do something we believed to be true," he goes on, quietly. "And to do as we felt, instead of denying ourselves of it. To have that power, to change things, to defend each other, protect ourselves. And feeling all of that manifest through our magic. Fearlessly, openly."
How stifling he'd already known the Circles to be when he'd lived in it. How worse it all was, in retrospect, compared to the sense of freedom in splitting the earth open, summoning fire and smoke, and over head, all around, the singing crackle of every other mages' wills made manifest.
no subject
She is aware of tears pricking her eyes. Blinks them back as her grip tightens hard on Marcus' hand.
"Have you missed it terribly while you've been here with us?"
no subject
Plainly honest, though the twinge of some nearly-smile, a raised eyebrow, seems to assure her that it's not as bad as all that. Sees that shine of feeling, returns the grip at his hand with a tight clasp of his own. They've all given up something to be here instead, haven't they? Whether by choice or otherwise.
Marcus watches her for a moment before he asks, "Was it anything like that, when Dairsmuid stood?"
no subject
Derrica understands why. It is painful to talk about those last days. It must be painful to think of them too, to wonder what it might have been like if they'd succeeded in standing against the Chantry's army instead of falling to their swords.
She has nothing to say for a long moment, feeling out the edges of this newly-stirred grief, sharper for how long it has gone uninvoked. Finds her voice, eventually, to tell him:
"Yes," she settles on, though it must be followed by, "And no. I think we felt so desperate then. Here, we had spent so much time preparing, and even though we knew we were going to lose, it was..."
A pause, sorting through her words and trying to judge whether or not it is helpful to give him a full answer before she finishes, "It wasn't a death sentence, to let the walls fall here."
Not like it had been in Dairsmuid.
"At Dairmsuid, I didn't realizing that feeling, the thing we had today, was something I could lose."
It had been so brief: having all that power linked between so many mages, and brought to bear as one, more than she had ever felt in her entire life and binding them so securely together. Like everything else about Dairsmuid, it had been wrenched from them in blood and ash.
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And if Derrica had no wish to speak of it, she wouldn't. But she does, and he listens, watching her face and keeping his hand warm in hers. Considers the difference between the last twitches of a dying thing, and first gasps of something coming to life.
"I'd like to think," he says, after a moment, "that we can find something like it without war bringing it out."
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"We can."
Simply put. No qualifiers, no hinge to set the possibility upon. Yes, they will find something like this again. She holds no space for obstacles, for futures in which the only place they feel that unification, that harmony, is in combat.
Her thumb runs over his knuckles. Marcus' fingers are cold, perhaps a lingering effect from what had poisoned him.
"I'm certain of it."