player plot | when my time comes around, pt 1

[cozen]

WHO: Abby Anderson†, Byerly Rutyer†, Clarisse La Rue†, Cosima Neihaus†, Darras Rivain†, Ellis†, Evelyn Farrier†, Florent Vascarelle, Gwenaëlle Baudin†, Jayce Talis†, John Silver†, Josias di Jaconissa†, Jude Adjei†, Julius, Marcus Rowntree†, O. Barrow†, Peter Parker, Tiffany Hart, Valentine de Foncé†, Xiomara Novoa†, Yseult
WHAT: A bad end.
WHEN: Solace 21
WHERE: Granitefell, Free Marches
NOTES: This is the first log for this plot. Use this for fight scenes, death scenes, poignant (or not) last conversations before anyone knows they're going to die, etc. Characters who are not dying or on the limited list of survivors can't participate in person or be on-site during this log, but they can appear via sending crystal as needed/desired. (Or you can inbox that stuff, but please link it somewhere so I can find and read it.)

I. BEFORE

The attack that brought them here happened a few days ago, leaving the village of Granitefell a smear of ashes on the plains between Starkhaven and Ostwick and its surviving population scrambling for shelter, food, and medical supplies. That's what Riftwatch is doing here, mostly. Helping. There's also a report that the dracolisk-mounted soldiers who burned their way through the village were looking for an elf in particular, whom they searched out by name and plucked out of the flames to carry off into the dark, and looking into that—questioning the elf's family and acquaintances, examining the belongings that survived the fire, searching the surrounding cave- and ruin-dotted landscape she used to hunt to see if she might have stumbled across anything in the process—is helping, too, in a bigger-picture sense.

The first day they spend there is hot and quiet. Even the injured villagers succumbing belatedly to their injuries do so without much noise and fuss, and the survivors not strong-backed enough to work alongside Riftwatch hide in the shade and talk quietly about what they could possibly do now that everything is gone.

The night is a little noisier. First in a normal way: the heat lifts, people are more willing to move about, the children and teenagers who spent most of the day in heat-induced dozes are suddenly full of energy. So while all or most of Riftwatch, having forgone naps themselves, may be asleep in the early hours of the morning, someone is awake to shout in alarm when something dark briefly blocks out one of the moons. Which is all the warning anyone gets.

II. DURING

The sky rains fire, and once the camp is burning, the flames light the dragon from below, glinting off the red lyrium crusted along its joints and ridges.

Not long after, attacks come from the ground as well: Tevinter and Ander soldiers, some mages, some mounted on dracolisks that breathe fire or electricity, others effective enough with their swords and morningstars, coming at the camp from multiple directions to sweep anyone who tries to flee back toward the center. They're not surprised to find Riftwatch there; perhaps that's why they came back in the first place.

But they're not distinguishing between soldier and civilian in the carnage, indiscriminately crushing bones with magic or running bodies through with swords, taking the time to pause and kill anyone who cowers and screams rather than focusing only on those who put up a fight. They're led by Itaeus Ferra, a figure who may be familiar to some, riding a dracolisk that seals the fate of many of the injured by spewing poison over their burns and other open wounds.

Still, it's a closer thing than they expected. What begins as an obvious plan to wipe out everyone they find transforms, as time wears on, into an attempt to merely take out as many as they can before their own losses become too great and their remaining soldiers withdraw. When they do, the dragon lands to guard their retreat, with a tall figure—not Corypheus, but a cackling and corrupted man of similar stature—riding astride it, urging his dragon into giving the encampment one last torching while inviting whoever may be left alive to come out of the dark and try their luck against him. (Maybe someone takes him up on it, but if they do, it does not end well for them.) It is only after a long lull when no one stirs or answers his taunting that he announces they're boring him and departs.

III. AFTER

The survivors are much fewer this time. A handful of Riftwatchers; only a slightly larger number of villagers, mostly children whose protection was prioritized. The numbers will dwindle further over the next few hours, as the sun rises and people succumb to their injuries before even the fastest-flying help can arrive.

Comments

Barrow OTA

[thereneverwas]

I. Before (Evening)

"Soldiers they will come, and soldiers they will go,"

Barrow, having built up his customary campfire in the clearest available spot, is perched on debris beside it while he uses it to make coffee for the survivors.
And he sings quietly, a lilting and pensive tune in his untrained baritone, as much to comfort himself as it is for anyone else.

"The war will lay the lot of us in urns of polished stone;
and if I join the cavalry and perish far from home,
a life beside my lady I will never live to know."

He's quick to offer a smile and a cup to anyone who might come to sit down and partake.

II. During (for Jude + anyone else who wants)

He'd been trying to sleep, which means Barrow isn't wearing his breastplate when he hurries out into the mayhem. His sword is at his belt and his hammer hangs loosely from one hand as he scans the scene, and at the sight of Jude (and whomever else) with a cluster of civilians, he hurries over as quickly as his arthritic knees can take him.
Announcing his presence by smashing through the head of an assailant, he meets Jude's eyes: they can do this.

[foolsmakeitcolder]

They weren't at Starkhaven for nothing.

The both of them haven't been sleeping well, but the only armor Jude needs is fur. He's shifted when they meet, snarling. Fire's raining from the sky, screams rising up to meet it.

There is a dragon.

They can't do this. But that doesn't for a minute stop either of them.

Jude races to Barrow's side, splitting from him to help herd the civilians to any semblance of safety, away from the fires. If they can run and take cover, they might live through the night.

A firebolt comes out of the sky, and Jude hurls himself at Barrow, spilling them both into the grass.

before

[armd]

The cup is welcome because the heat is dry. Abby sits down next to him, grunting, "Keep going."

The singing. It's nice. She lifts the cup to her lips, and closes her eyes when she drinks because they're sore. She's pretty exhausted, but she's had less sleep than this. Hopefully tomorrow they'll have a breakthrough; then she can rest.

Death Death Death

[thereneverwas]

It might as well have happened this way.

Barrow is too slow, he thinks-- he knows-- as he swings his hammer, braining this person and knocking out the knees of that, leaving himself wide open for the slash across his chest from the sword of whomever's ribcage he just crushed. If it weren't so fucking hot he'd have just kept his breastplate on while he slept, but he runs warmer than many and even moreso in weather like this.
If wishes were fishes, and so forth.

Ambassador Rutyer is near, and if he stays down where he is he's a goner for sure. Barrow helps him up, smiles-- steady now-- there's no time to waste, we've got work to do.

He's good at persevering through ridiculous pain, has done it more than once on Riftwatch's behalf, and it's not until the arrow (and then the other arrow) punches through him that he finally buckles, landing hard on the knees that have been so sore for so long. A third, and he's on the ground, blacked out and motionless as he seeps out of himself, long enough to be thought dead and left alone, but this will take a long time.

He remembers the cave, falling down into it with Astarion and Tiffany. How they lay there for days, how she had to help him take his lyrium. His lyrium is in his tent, probably, if it hasn't been smashed. What a funny thing to worry about.
It was worth it, to spend the time with her.

He awakens at an indeterminate time later, somewhere slightly else, blood in his mouth and his vision a dark cloud. He must have dragged himself here, or someone else did. There's Marcus, that terrifying son of a bitch, carving a swathe through the enemy.

Good.

He's given his body to these fucking people, he thinks with a grim humor as if in a drunken haze, watching these fucking people (his people) be tossed about like rag dolls, collapsed from the braid inward, shattered, beaten, torn apart. What's a little arthritis, the occasional nightmare?

Prudence will be upset. He regrets that. He should have stayed longer.

The ranks on both sides have thinned when he comes to again, and the sky is red and clouded with dragon smoke.
A single star is visible through the smog, shimmering in the heat coming off the ground and the fire, and he watches it for a time as he listens to the dwindling combat like a faraway dream. Maybe he's survived. Maybe that's not fucking worth it.

"My lady is asleep," he rasps in a vaguely tuneful whisper, the song from earlier sifting back into his consciousness-- he'd sung it for Abby, she's got no face now,

"in darkness and in peace,
and my heart fills the silence with its happy little--"

A passing sword thrusts down, finishes the job, and continues on its way.

marcus rowntree.

[luaithre]

during. ota.

[luaithre]

Maybe, by the end of the evening, good fortune can be measured in the small steps removed from the very worst of possible outcomes, and maybe Marcus' contribution to these checks and balances is: he is awake when the attack begins. Donning his armor slowly in the dark tent, murmuring a little to the semi-sleeping body he had been sharing a bedroll with, collecting his staff and moving out to the quiet borders of the campsite. Even in this midsummer evening, dawn is far enough away that the sky is pitch black.

He might say it's a bad feeling that has him join the watch set up around the campsite, but it's simply habit. A sense of responsibility for some specific thing, this, settling at the edges and watching the gloom. Without any real expectation of anything happening between now and when the sun rises to lighten the sky by slow shades of grey, he is currently counting out his cigarettes in the copper case. It isn't hard. There are four of them. He sets one between his teeth as he closes it. Good fortune: he pockets it, in the moment before—

A shift in the wind, and from the other side of camp, where he is not looking, explosive light.

Defense against the dragon attack is an exercise of kiting, distraction, scrambling. Here, a swiftly summoned whirlwind of Fade-tinged rock is fired with enough force to cut across dragon maw, and so the jet of fire that poured heavy between its fangs disperses, only coating a small huddle of tents in flame rather than completely incinerating them to ash. Marcus, running forwards as the dragon veers away, using magic to dispel the flames and his hands to grab at the canvas to help free anyone inside.

And then when the soldiers and cavalry arrive, Marcus' approach is not merely defensive. He, personally, sets about contributing to the sense of mayhem: he becomes a gust of smoke that leaps and unhorses a rider from their dracolisk, tackled to the ground when he resolves back into blade and armor; a summoned wall of fire separates charging soldiers from the gaggle of civilians trying to find a direction to run; a soldier sinks a blade between the gaps of his armor, and suddenly crumbles to their knees as entropic magic peels the life from them as Marcus closes gloved hands around their weapon and wrenches it back out of himself.

His good fortune will run out, soon, but not just yet.

[ ooc ; some examples for action-y moments above, but likewise just feel free to place yourself in the camp and i'll reply with some chaos. feel free to lend help, require rescue, or save him from a quicker end. ]

during. closed to john silver.

[luaithre]

The kind of exhaustion that comes with extensive magic use has, finally, begun to eat at the rest of him. It is with a certain reckless abandon, the next time Marcus hefts his bladed staff and brings it swinging overhead, cleaving it down into the fallen Imperial soldier, and when he jerks iron edge free of broken armor and meat, he staggers backwards. Manages, barely, to stay on his feet.

Smoke hangs in the air. Smoke drifts off the edge of his blade, gore burning black and sizzling on the iron edge that is bright orange beneath. Smoke clings to the edges of armor, wreathing him. It itches his lungs and his eyes, and obscures his surroundings. This campsite could be a dozen other battles, with a dozen other enemies and a dozen other allies. There are bodies, crumpled. He recognises some of them.

For a beat, there is nothing to attack or be attacked by. Blood runs out from his hairline, cutting through the soot on his face. Blood, elsewhere, runs free enough to gather as low as his bootheel that when he takes a step, the earth cling to it while he leaves behind a rust-coloured mark.

Two things manage to pierce through the haze.

First, movement. He turns, defensive, when he sees someone approach, his eyes bright and posture coiled in readiness to fend off attack, or start it himself. The second, the sound of cavalry that has regathered, and is circling, and setting up another attack to run the space through like a knife.

after. closed to julius.

[luaithre]

There had been a huddled group of civilians nearby, when Marcus is finished casting. When three soldiers forced their way past the smoke and the pools of lava and fire, when they circle him, their only concern is killing something that requires putting down. In the space between his moments of awareness as a more animal fury takes a hold of him, that group is gone.

It's over after the first swing. The morningstar cracks into his shoulder and shatters bone beneath leather. There is no retaliating magic, just a cry of furious pain, his staff falling from his hands. A hacking slice of a sword cleaves into his side. Something he doesn't quite feel destabilises a leg and he crashes down. A finishing, piercing pain enters his back. Lacking magic, it's all very efficient.

Then nothing.

Then something. Quiet. No shouts, no stampeding. The taste of his own blood, some lingering pulse of magic (rather discourteously) tethering his life to his bones, a little longer, drawing on grievous wounds to force him awake and little else. He cannot move, save for fingers clutching at the warm earth. Aware that Silver is not so far away from him, that Silver hasn't moved, that he knows why ever since he felt himself siphon off the last of whatever the other man had to give him.

Realises he is on his back. Must have been flipped over. Muscles spasm beneath his leathers and he gives a harsh growl of pain as they pull at broken bone, his vision shrinking back down to a pinhole.

byerly rutyer

[bouchonne]

i. before the attack, just for some light-hearted threading, open

[bouchonne]

The child's mother was injured during the attack. She'll likely survive, thank the Maker; she suffered a burn on her arm, nasty and painful, but treatable. But because she was injured, she's struggling to tend to her child, a boy of four with immense energy.

Of course I'll look after your child, Byerly had said, like an idiot.

Now: the boy yanks on his hand and screams, a yell of no clear intention or request. By has no damned idea what the child wants - "Food? Do you want food?" gets no verbal response from him - and so now he's reduced to just staring at the boy like somehow that screaming will resolve itself into something comprehensible.

Help.

ii. during the attack

[bouchonne]

He has become accustomed to the battlefield. In his time with Riftwatch, Byerly has trained, drilled, and learned to be a soldier, and he has been at war. And so he isn't helpless or hopeless out here. He's not the boy who trembled behind the barricaded door, hoping the darkspawn didn't find his hiding place as they ravaged Denerim; nor is he the young man who learned the code duello and added his little flourishes to his foppish swordplay; nor is he the man who learned to kill like a spy, deadly moves disguised under apparent incompetence. He is sharp-eyed, crossbow in hand, bolts finding purchase in the cracks between armor.

But he is also a man who's pushing forty, with bad knees, who spends most of his days behind a desk lately. And he is also a man with no ability to perceive color - his sacrifice at the Temple all those months ago - struggling to distinguish gray from darker gray and determine what's happening. And he is also someone who is, fundamentally, fatally ordinary: average speed, below-average strength, no magic, no mabari, no legendary sword. Just a man.

He's found a villager to help him - an elf, her eyes in the dark keener than his. "There," she says, pointing; he turns, sees what she's indicating, and fires. The soldier drops to the ground. She searches again - And then some blast knocks them both from their feet.

Byerly rolls, comes to a stop, winded but uninjured. The elf - Byerly spots her lying apart from him, and he scrambles over. Whatever had caused that blast had hit her harder, and it's clear at once that she's dead, head tilted at an angle that makes his gorge rise.

He's a soldier now, he tells himself. He's a soldier. And yet for some reason, looking at this brave young woman whose name he didn't learn, he finds himself utterly paralyzed. He finds himself just sitting there, staring down into her vacant eyes, thinking about her family.

iii. closed to yseult

[bouchonne]

"If we take out Ferra - "

It's a desperate hope. But what else is there at this point? This has not proven to be a battlefield, but an abattoir. Children have been cut down in front of them. The sick, the elderly, the defenseless. Byerly is shaking, and weeping, tears rolling down his cheeks in a steady stream that he's not even aware of, for he doesn't pause to wipe them away or hide his face.

"They might lose some of their morale. Some of their organization, at least. It might give some small opening."

At the moment, they're hidden away, he and Yseult. They won't be for long, of course; they won't allow themselves much time away from the slaughter. But it feels like a blessing to, even for these few minutes, not see it - even if they can still hear it and smell it, they at least don't have to look.

iv. die die die

[biggame]

Here is an elf to replace the villager who fell at his feet—same clearer vision in the dark, and this one has a bow of her own. She is beside him with her back pressed against a wall that is not burning yet, but will be soon, as the fire on the other side of the half-destroyed structure works its way around to them.

"Fucking Tevinter bullshit bastard shitfaces," she says half-sensically as she nocks an arrow. "I've killed so many things bigger than them—"

She pivots around the edge of the wall and lets the arrow loose after only a moment's consideration, lodging it not into the soldier who's pursuing them, but into the dracolisk she's riding. She's more familiar with the weak spots on animals than on people. It screeches—a sound unfortunately accompanied by a blast of fire—and tumbles. It will take the soldier a bit to recover from the spill, if she recovers at all.

"—they do not get to kill me, that would be so stupid."

Back beside Byerly now. She looks up at him—quite a distance up. There's no fear on her face now, and there won't be until later, until the moment she realizes her luck has truly run out.

"Alright. What?"

She'd heard the very beginnings of a proposal, before they had to duck behind the wall.

v. self-indulgent bullshit, closed

[bouchonne]

Protect your sister, his maman would say to him. And she would read him tales of chevaliers, honorable and virtuous knights who would slay the wicked and defend the defenseless. And so, when he was small, that became his play. He would lay the infant Nadine on the ground before a copse of trees, and would shout unhand her you blaggards! and strike those make-believe soldiers with his make-believe blade.

The first time he met a chevalier, the man pissed in his drink and beat him like the Fereldan dog he was. And long before that happened, he’d already discovered that there was no way to protect his sister. That even if he kept her from physical harm, the cruel wagging tongues would always evade him and find her and would break her heart. There were no true knights. There was no way to save anyone.

And so Byerly had gone through life wisely. When tales of knights and chivalry were told, he’d jeer. Here’s what knights are really like, he’d say, and retell the story of that chevalier. He’d retell every cynical anecdote he’d ever heard, tell every story where the moral is don’t try. The frog and the scorpion, he’d repeat endlessly. The story of the little boy made of shortbread who was tricked and eaten by the fox. That the Maker let Andraste die.

But there’s a difference between knowledge and belief. An example: He knew that only fools let themselves be tricked more than once. And yet when Alexandrie had told him that she loved him, he’d let her hold his heart once more. There had been something in him that had been more powerful than wisdom.

Or this: He knew that a few people alone could not make a difference. And yet he was here.

Here he was, because he had craved this all his life. Not this, dying with venom in his veins on a hot night far from home. But his life with Riftwatch. His life with those who would lay down their lives for what was right. Who looked at a tyrant and said, no. Who took up sword — or pen — or cooking-pot. Like no one else before, these were his people. Those for whom knowledge was subjugated to belief.

Don’t you want something a little bit more than this? Tomas had asked, on the day he recruited him into Ferelden’s spy ring. Tomas had done everything, strangely and uniquely, for love of the Maker. When I die, he’d said, years later, when they’d both had rather too much brandy after a strange and painful mission, I hope the Maker will call me to His side. I want to be good enough that I’ll see Him. A queer little line of reasoning, Byerly had thought at the time. But no more queer than his own, was it? The search for the Maker’s love was no more foolish than Byerly’s own quest for honor. His quest to become a true chevalier, like the ones in the stories. His need to stand between the wicked and the world.

They’re all chevaliers. The dead on this battlefield, and the living back home. He can see them clearly with their banners flying, standing proud beneath a blue sky, burnished by the sun, and he is among them. These are his people. All of them are his people. Rowntree, whom he’s feared, is a chevalier, honorable and true. Yseult is a knight, with her firm hand and her grim mien and her unflinching dedication to moving forward. Abby, just a child, who will never become older than a child, with all the ferocity and resolve of any warrior. Josias, nothing but a frightened bookkeeper, who had nevertheless come and fought with them in his way. Barrow, brave and stalwart, making jokes in the face of death. Xiomara, slight and ferocious. Ah — how many had died here —

They will be called to the Maker. They have been good enough. La bonne chose a faire has had them by the necks, but the secret is this: The Maker is a keeper of hounds. They will go to Him, His hands gentle on the leash, and they will sleep at His feet. They will go on the hunt, and with their teeth they will rip the wickedness from the world.

And what will happen, when his true love dies? When he shows up, ink on his fingers, gray in his mustache, wrinkles around his eyes? The years spent without him will have been restless, because even in a land of bliss there is no real happiness without Bastien. And when Bastien comes to him, then Byerly will hunt no more. On that day, Byerly will slip his lead, and take Bastien by the hand. And they will become two spirits dancing in the Fade. They will become Love, that makes all cruelties bearable, that gentles pain, that excites the soul. They will bring soft dreams. They will make new knights.

A tug of the leash. He’s gone.

III. Survivors (threadjacking encouraged if desired)

[overharrowed]

a. Immediate

Julius is a man who is most comfortable when he is aware of how he is being perceived. Depending on how well someone knows him, this may be more or less obvious; still, he spends a great deal of time calibrating his presentation and a certain persona has arisen as a result of spending so long with Riftwatch, and the Inquisition before it. He's built "Julius" into something consistent and reliable and capable.

And he can't do it right now.

Anyone who gets close enough can see by the light of the lingering fires that Julius's own injuries aren't terribly dangerous. There's a superficial slice along his left forearm that he should probably bandage eventually, and when he moves, he'll be limping a little from where he's aggravated an older injury. But in the immediate aftermath, he's just sitting near Marcus Rowntree and, he's spotted not far off, John Silver.

He knows there are things he should do. Maybe they'll come to him in a moment. There are streaks in the dirt in his face, but for now, even weeping seems beyond him.

b. A bit later

His fellow Riftwatch agents probably would have gotten him up eventually on their own steam — he'd even registered Yseult, had the passing thought that she'd expect him to be helping — but it's ultimately the children who get Julius on his feet. Years of teaching finally break through the white noise in his head when he sees a few young villagers wandering aimlessly, clearly frightened and unsure what to do now that the battle is over and the need for hiding has passed.

He's a sight, and he can't fully pull himself back together, but when he speaks to them it's kind and assured, the way a grown-up who knows what to do next would sound. He starts gathering them, checking them for injuries for all he's still so drained he can't cast even a simple healing spell yet. At least he can help triage them and get them all together for when they're ready to leave.

Eventually, momentum builds on momentum, and he can say to the next Riftwatch agent who's near enough: "We need to get moving sooner than later." He's still not himself, clearly, but at least in motion again, it seems less as if he's likely to just lie down next to the dead and refuse to get up.

a. + b.

[hassaran]

There's no telling how long Yseult has been sat on her knees beside what's left of Darras when some flutter of movement finally draws her attention, turns her head on instinct. A strip of cloth caught in the breeze is dismissed as quickly as identified, but it takes her gaze to Julius. She notes without thought the similar pose, recognizes the soot-stained color of Marcus's coat from when it had flared into view earlier, interposing between her and a likely end. She doesn't think now he's dead and I'm still not. It doesn't need thinking, the knowledge hung in the air with the smoke, settling in her hair, sticking itself to the inside of her mouth and throat and lungs. She watches Julius for a moment with the sensation of being watched herself.

At some point, she turns away. Eventually, she is on her feet again.

She does what she's supposed to do: makes a survey of the survivors' status, helps corral the wounded and those capable of treating them, delegates to the aimless simple tasks necessary to prepare for a retreat that will be both hasty and too late. She nods when Julius speaks, finishes fastening a wagon harness on one of the horses that has wandered back now that things are quiet. It's all just muscle memory.

"Civilians are nearly ready. But there will be trouble about the dead."

III. After | Crystal - Closed to Flint & Stark

[hassaran]

This is Yseult.

[ A rote preamble. She doesn't linger over it. The smoke has scraped her throat raw, and every word sounds like it threatens a painful crack. ]

Granitefell was an ambush. Almost everyone was killed.

[propulsion]

[ It sounds like a joke he would make. Everyone was killed. Just kidding. ETA two days.

Which is only announced in the skeptical pause that follows and not, say, laughing, which is good. What he says is, ]

The villagers?

Peter Parker

[heartstumbles]

I. Before

[heartstumbles]

The sight that greets them is harrowing and devastating all at once; Peter shudders. But he squares his shoulders and he pushes down as much of his sorrow laden thoughts as he can manage. They are here to help, after all.

Peter throws himself into helping out where and when he can. He helps with first aid, and he uses his strength to help push aside heavy debris as they seek out survivors. He passes out food, water, and blankets when he isn't doing heavy lifting or assisting with first aid. He remembers to eat and drink, if only to keep his strength up.

When the heat breaks at night, it's a relief; Peter can barely tell where his sweat ends and his skin begins at this point. Before it all goes to Hell, Peter is catching a brief rest, more like letting his eyes fall closed for a few minutes than anything resembling sleep.

florent vascarelle.

[deuselfmachina]

during. closed to gwenaëlle.

[deuselfmachina]

Someone, running in a different direction than he, slams into the back of him. Painful, the jolt where knees hit firm ground and palms scrape on stone.

There is no clear way to go. No obvious place to hide. For a moment, Florent huddles in place. Dirt and soot cling, now, to the silken nightshirt he is wearing. His anchor shard flares in his palm as if in response to his own sense of brimming panic. He watches, without really reacting beyond mute shock, as a steady gout of flame scorches across the campsite, and he watches the fire engulf a pair of fleeing bodies, and light up some carts, and incinerate half-collapsed tents, and then with a gust of wind that buffets the smoke in new directions and lifts of the ash and dust from the ground, the winged creature above pulls itself back out of sight.

There is, also, the sound of galloping. Screams. Riders tearing through the campsite. Florent laces his hands over the top of his own head, curling up where he kneels to make himself small, and the slightly hysterical thought that soon someone will find him and put a sword through his back doesn't compel him to move. It seems less scary than the prospect of attempting to run.

A little like a nightmare, you hope it will be over soon.

Abby, OTA

[armd]

I. BEFORE
There is a feeling of restlessness in the camp. Abby tries to sleep and finds she can't even though she's so tired from the day's effort of searching cave and hillsides, looking for dirt and shoe prints, even blood. If there was any trace of that elf woman's disappearance, she took it with her. Or somebody cleverly erased it as they went.

She sits up near a campfire in tired contemplation, watching children run around and laugh, generally immune to the current mood. They're playing games.

She says to someone near her, "What's tomorrow looking like?"

In terms of next steps.

II. DURING
Feels kind of like an infected outbreak at home, there's that same flavour of panic and hopelessness in the air. Abby might have thought she was somehow back there if it wasn't for the lack of gunfire but Granitefell falling for a second time is just as loud. Maybe louder. People are screaming and dying. Dragon roaring splits the scene in two. It's hard to fight back around those who are fleeing in the dark.

One of them crashes into Abby, knocks her over. They go down together, Abby cursing, and the woman pushes up and off of her in her haste, disappearing into the dark.

She has no idea where the others are. For a moment she lies there, lifts an arm to wipe sweat out of her eyes. God. It's so fucking hot.

When the soldiers arrive it doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel like they're winning. Feels like something is going wrong. Abby's still comparing it to an outbreak in her head but where she'd typically take her group and beat a hasty retreat, she knows that isn't an option here. They're staying, they're fighting.

Finding herself in a pocket of calm, she stills, panting. She's injured. There's a ripple of disgusting, burnt skin on her hand and wrist where one of her gauntlets came off and was lost in the dark but it's not like she can do anything about it. Hurts like a motherfucker though.

during.

[heorte]

It’s an intrusion, how abruptly Ellis wedges himself into her space. Without invitation, he grasps her hand.

His eyes flick up to her face, grip tightening against any instinctive attempts to yank free. Ellis anticipates it, attempts to head off the prospect as he yanks the strips of fabric at his throat free.

No salve. Nothing to heal, only a barrier of fabric against dirt and spewed poison.

Ellis is breathing hard. There is a crossbow bolt puncturing his armor, but no way to tell how deeply it’s pushed in. His eyes drop from Abby’s to focus on his work, moving briskly to secure the fabric before the tide of battle shifts around them again.

clarisse

[laruetheday]

ota

[laruetheday]

i. before
She wouldn't consider herself good with kids, necessarily, but desperate times call for desperate measures. As the sun goes down and the village kids start to come out of their sun-baked stupors, she finds herself sitting among a small crowd of the younger ones and teaching them one of the stupider songs from her camp days—the one about how grandma gets dressed for war. It's full of goofy gestures to represent the different parts of the armor, and the kids get surprisingly into it.

It's kind of nice to see them laughing.

Still, once she feels like she can manage it without too much notice, Clarisse gets up and makes her way back over to the campfire where it looks like most of their group has set up for the evening.

"Kids," she says in explanation, like the whole dumb thing wasn't her idea.

ii. during
Clarisse pushes through panicked villagers. People are running, but there's no singular direction that anyone seems to be heading in. There is no good place to send them, either, other than away. There's no place to run, and a quickly dwindling number of places to hide; soldiers are moving in from each direction, and the camp is burning to ash all around them.

Still, the ones who seem able to listen, she tries to direct. Get low, move fast, don't stop. Most of the people she calls to won't make it out.

At some point she slips in blood and goes down, almost face to face with a man she recognizes vaguely from the day before. His leg had been hurt in the first attack. He'd been using a makeshift wooden crutch when he walked. She can't see it now. Did he leave it behind and try to run?

She wonders how far he made it before he was cut down.

Clarisse is barely back on her feet when the dracolisk surges out of the darkness and plows into her like a freight train, driving her back into the dirt with a choked gasp. One of its hind legs comes slamming down on her right forearm as its rider urges it to circle back around to finish the job, and she hears the bone snap. It's a branch breaking, it's ice cracking on a frozen pond, and it doesn't hurt yet. There's only a static numbness, and she feels her fingers go limp, the shaft of her spear rolling out of her grip and settling in the grass beside her.

II. During

[youwonscience]

OTA

Long experience has taught Cosima that the moment combat begins, she can best help by getting out the way so none of her compatriots have to worry about her. The problem, currently, is that the camp and the village are both on fire, and they seem to be surrounded, so her options are not the best.

(Inanely, the active shooter awareness campaign from her home world — run, hide, fight — flits across her mind. It's not especially helpful now, either.)

Fight's no good, and she hasn't yet found a place to hide, so for now it's running. She's not sick anymore, so at least her lungs don't burn beyond the smoke in the air, but she's still always been more keen on swimming than sprinting and the running is really only an end to finding a viable escape or shelter.

She'll gratefully take any help that's offered if someone calls out, but she's not going to risk distracting anyone asking for it.

The End

She's seen it. A building, mostly stone, that looks like it will be more fire-resistant than most. A meeting hall, maybe, or a school. If it has a cellar, she thinks she can bar the door. It's only a few yards away when a yell catches her ear and she turns her head.

Two teenagers have drawn the attention of a mage who is clearly toying with them. They're in the doorway of a house, and the slightly older, short-haired youth is deflecting bolts with a battered shield, but they're pinned down and the shield won't be enough if they try to make a run for it. It's clear the mage isn't hitting them with anything larger because he's aware he doesn't have to. They won't last long at this rate.

She isn't a fighter. She knows this. But she also can't leave them.

Cosima doesn't read as a threat, even in her uniform, so she's nearly there before the Venatori even registers her. It lets her get close enough to raise her hand, and suddenly a glowing green dome is between her and the mage, the villagers at her back. There's a moment where everyone involved pauses in shock and it streches long enough that she has to raise her voice: "Go, get out of here, right now."

It breaks the spell. She can feel the impact of magic hitting her shield even as she can hear the teenagers behind her scrambling to take the opening she's made them. The mage isn't smiling anymore, his eyes narrowed as he tests her shield with various spells. Cosima grits her teeth. She can't last, but she can keep his attention to give them as much of a lead as she can. And maybe she'll surprise everyone. Maybe she'll hold out long enough for someone she knows to arrive.

If someone does arrive to see the end of this, though, Cosima never has a chance to notice them. The spell that shatters her shield sizzles with necromantic energy and she turns to make a dash for it —

— directly into the sword of the Ander soldier she didn't hear approaching while the mage had the entirety of her focus. The pain is so intense she can't really process it as he twist the blade in her gut. She notices that there's nothing in his face, in particular. No pleasure, no satisfaction, the carelessness with which someone might swat a fly.

He pulls his blade free and her knees hit the packed dirt. She thinks he might finish her off, but apparently he doesn't feel the need. He, and presumably the mage, move on. As her blood soaks into the road, she notices that he glasses must have flown off when she fell. She thinks she should try to pull herself into the doorway and out of the rain. But moving feels like it will make everything worse, and she is already starting to fade.

before.

[heorte]

Riftwatch had traveled here with such a large party. In the seconds that had followed the telltale signs of an ambush, Ellis had understood instantly, immediately, that there was very little to be done for those among them who were not given to battle.

Ellis doesn't call out. He is moving, passing, the visor of his helmet flipped up. Metal frames his face. The world around them is cracking apart, and he is weighed down already with the potential of this moment, of how bad things can get.

His grip on Cosima's arm is very gentle, in spite of its firmness.

"Not that way," is brisk. Not that way because Ellis is running that way, towards the gleam of armor approaching at a distance.

This is a diversion, a brief break in his focus as he turns with Cosima, moving her along with him.

"Run to the edges, and then farther than that. Until you can't hear us anymore."

Val de Foncé || OTA

[degenere]

i. before, during the day

"You!"

It might surprise some--or many--that Val de Foncé possesses the nuance to register a thing like tension. Surely tension is a thing that happens to others, never to him, in his charmed life. But it has been, by now, a rather lengthy charmed life, with its own peaks and pitfalls, and yes, he has learned, along the way, to notice tension--and then, in turn, learned to avoid it whenever possible.

The air of grim tension that had greeted the arrival of Riftwatch was not of Riftwatch's making. It was the tension of the sick room, the death bed, the aftermath of tragedy when there are plans to be made but no one yet strong enough to make them. The arrival of Riftwatch and their limited succor was not disdained. Nor were there parades in the streets. There were merely sad-eyed people and sun-baked dirt roads and funeral pyres already under construction. A sense of a great breath held in.

Out in the lands around Granitefell, the heat remains, but tension gives way to nature. Here the stilted breeze rifles through dry grass and wildflowers and blooms their scents, perfumed and weedy. Here there are the dark mouths of caves to be searched, and the tumbled-down ruins that rise like dirty teeth from the earth.

"Get away! You are blocking--" Dispatched to search the countryside for information on the elf, one will find Val seated upon a rock, his common-place book open in his lap and a sketch of a larger bit of ruin nearly completed. He gestures impatiently. "That bit behind you--move out of the way!"

ii. during

The night is burning and the sky is alive with fire and with screaming and Val de Foncé is--

Well. What he is not, is a soldier. And yet he is also no coward. When the attack comes, he is finishing a sketch beside the fire. Then there is a bloom of heat, a glow like the door to some great oven has opened--he looks up, and his eyes go wide.

"Oh," he says. And he closes his book, and puts his charcoal pencil behind his ear.

Later, on his feet, with his back to a bit of debris, he is waiting out the passing of a dracolisk. The creature is riderless, its master unseated or otherwise dispatched, and the dracolisk, given its head, is undertaking a personal rampage. The street dead ends in a wattle and draub garden wall, where the boughs of a burning apple tree sheds cinder onto the cobblestones. The cottage to the left is also burning, while the cottage to the right remains untouched, at least for the moment. And here the dracolisk prowls, blood on its brutish muzzle. Val looks at the sky and begins to count, his lips moving. His book is clutched to his chest.

closed to Evelyn

[degenere]

"Ah! Here!"

A book slaps into Evelyn's hand. This is likely surprising. There is no library in Granitefell. There are, somewhere, probably, books. In the midst of a battle, one would not expect to be armed with a book.

Val, soot-stained, bearing a percolating burn across one shoulder, stoops to pick up a charred shard of wood, both thicker and smaller than a sword. He beams at Evelyn. Like the book, it is incongruous to the moment.

"You are in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, mademoiselle. Are you able to walk? To run?"