player plot | when my time comes around, pt 2

[cozen]

WHO: Anyone who didn't die here.
WHAT: A sad week.
WHEN: Approx Solas 21-30
WHERE: Granitefell, the Gallows, wherever else you want.
NOTES: A second log for this plot. Additional posts/logs will cover the time travel/fix-it components—this one is for the time period where no one knows that's a possibility.

Those who fly out to Granitefell arrive a few hours after dawn to find a smoldering gravesite and fewer than twenty living souls, Riftwatch's five included. The survivors have done what they can in the intervening hours, but there's still work to be done to tend to wounds, move the bodies—especially the delicate ones—and help the remaining villagers, mostly children, build pyres to see to their own dead before they're relocated somewhere safer. Somewhere with roofs that aren't collapsed or still lightly burning.

Carts to carry Riftwatch's dead won't arrive for some time afterward, and bringing them back takes just as long. It's a few days before they're returned to the Gallows, preserved from decay as best everyone could manage but nonetheless in poor shape from the battle. Pyres are an Andrastian tradition for a reason—to prevent possession—but burials and mummification aren't so unheard of that anyone will be barred from seeing to their loved ones as they see fit.

Before, during, and after any funerary rites, there are absences. Empty beds, empty offices, voices missing from the crystals, pancakes missing from Sundays. Belongings that need to be sorted and letters that need to be written. And, perhaps most pressingly, work that still needs to be done, including the work left behind by those who can no longer follow through on their own projects or tie up their own loose ends, as the world and its war keep moving steadily onward as if nothing happened at all.

Comments

Closed to Flint

[overharrowed]

There's no taking time off in a war.

It's a blessing, in some ways. Julius has been thinking, the last day or two, of Kinloch Hold in the aftermath of Uldred, how the Blight gave them all an urgent reason to keep moving forward. He's aware that in a larger organization, or in peacetime, it's likely someone would insist he stop. He's truly not sure how he would avoid going mad, if they did.

There are, of course, some things to attend to related to Marcus and Granitefell. But generally, he is clinging to his routine with both hands. And so, without advance discussion, he shows up for his regular check-in with the commander at the normal time, notes under one arm. If he's a bit ashen, well, none of them are well. (Julius is the one who found what was left of John Silver.) His expression isn't forced into false cheer, but he's found a businesslike neutral and seems committed to following through on it.

[katabasis]

The division office is as it always is. There are papers and maps strewn about the room's central work table, and further evidence of Flint's occupations are stacked on the desk at the head of the room. The fire is cold, it being summer, and this high up the tower the air is thick enough to warrant loitering by one of the narrow windows as Flint presently is. He's cranked it all the way open some effort to coax a breeze into the room. His coat—he must have one to hand; he usually does—is nowhere to be seen, either on the hook closest to the desk or the one near the door. This, and Flint's rolled shirtsleeves, must be in deference to the weather.

"Julius," in place of a greeting. He doesn't shift from the narrow slip that constitutes the window ledge. In the hard daylight, Flint looks tired. But who doesn't?

A flicking glance to the papers under Julius' arm: "That time already?"

[overharrowed]

"Mmm," a general agreement. "I'd apologize that it's mostly a litany of bad news and constrained resources, but as I expect that's not a surprise, we'll make do." He comes in properly, setting the notes down on the work table. There are, perhaps, a few more papers than usual.

"Do you have anything to start, or would you rather I begin?" His manner is almost aggressive in how much he's attempting his pre-Granitefell demeanor. A coat that doesn't truly fit, but that he's committed to wrestling on all the same.

[katabasis]

Propped in the window, Flint makes an unconscious motion—turning one of the rings on his right hand about the finger its on, a gleam of metal catching and disappearing in quick succession—, and then rocks forward off his hip.

"Go on," he says, making his way around the desk to join Julius at the room's heavy work table. There are a few stools clustered in under the table's edge. When he reaches it, a matter of a half dozen strides, he pulls one out and perches himself on it.

No, bad news and capacities stretched thin sounds more or less correct.

[overharrowed]

He nods and pulls out the first paper. "I started with a list of Sashamiri projects. Ongoing research, reports without outstanding next steps, that sort of thing. We're down to three permanent project members, four if I include myself, so I thought it would be useful to try to do a bit of preliminary triage."

He slides the paper over to where Flint is settled on the stool. "I've tried to cross-reference by degree of time sensitivity, how well they can be done by just an agent or two, and potential gain to the war effort." There is a system, perfectly legible but perhaps over-elaborate, of stars, rankings and sub-rankings. It is clear that he spent some amount of time on it. However, it's not his only paper, and he withdraws the next.

"I also took the liberty of summarizing the Diplomacy projects I've been working on or aware of. I know it's obviously a larger task, but I thought whoever takes over the division might find it useful, and the three of you might want to refer to it in the meantime. If anything comes up." It's not quite as long, but just as extensively annotated. "Obviously absent some fairly aggressive recruiting, we'll need to scale back operations, and such decisions are time-sensitive, so I thought I'd save you what I could."

A brief pause, and then he adds, "That is, of course, assuming the organization intends to carry on." He is certain he's not the first person, in a leadership position or otherwise, who has had the thought that they might need to head for other allies in order to remain effective. Still, he offers the point lightly, willing to take Flint's lead on exploring it or leaving it alone.

(If nothing else, Julius plans to go wherever the rifters go, and the rifters will presumably have to largely stay together for practical reasons.)

[katabasis]

As to what that lead looks and sounds like—

Flint, sat there on the stool, has taken and examined each page as it's been produced. Maybe not a comprehensive reading, but certainly more than thorough enough a scan to parse the shape of the document. He has only just moved to the second page bore mention of this third obstacle, and now hums a low note of acknowledgement in answer to it but doesn't immediately revert his attention from this in media res image of Diplomacy division's filings. Maybe that's answer enough. If he were concerned as to the Riftwatch's longevity, what purpose would there be in even a cursory study of any of this paper?

"Is that the thing being talked about below our feet?" Meaning, inevitably, the central tower's sixth floor division offices and the network of too-large, too-empty rooms that populate the Gallows. Gossip. It's inevitable. If not for the faintly canny quality in the look that turns from the page and in Julius' direction, it might be little more than an offhand remark.

"I'd heard Bastien has gone."

[overharrowed]

"I thought he might, when we last spoke," is muted but more tired than sad. He's generally respected and liked Bastien, but after everything, he doesn't have many reserves left for reacting to bad news with more than a grim nod, metaphorically or literally. "I think we may lose a few more, regardless of whether or not Riftwatch itself continues; some of our number were always here for personal reasons. On that note, you'll see I mentioned in the Diplomacy summary, we might want to consider recruiting Gwenaëlle Baudin's cousin promptly if we wish to keep receiving his grace the duke's infusions of cash." Not the largest possible concern, he knows, but one with a limited time window. He'd gotten the letter about Gwenaëlle's bequest, and he'll be surprised if de Coucy lingers after executing her will (or if he leaves his grandsons when he departs).

"I think more broadly, people are sad and shaken. Those who were committed to the cause remain so, but there's a level of concern as to whether we even can carry on at our current level of membership. I've heard a few murmurs of going, or going back, to the Inquisition. But most of what I've heard ... people want to try to stay. If we can last long enough to do some recruiting, I think people will regain some confidence." Julius certainly gives no indication of planning to leave himself, either in his current conversation or in the work he put into the memos Flint is now holding.

[katabasis]

That looks fixed in Julius' direction lingers. But only for a moment, and then Flint turns to the next page in the packet saying, "I can think of worse news."

His attention lowers to the page. He can think of better too, but that's neither here nor there. Gwenaëlle's cousin—

The thought briefly glazes something over in him, a bitter reflex. Fuck the duke's cash, is not, in fact, a very helpful impulse and is a distraction from the point besides. De Coucy's involvement isn't the part of that equation which stings.

"I'm taking a ship to Estwatch," he says, offhand as if it isn't a turn in conversation. "Word has it they've had their own encounters with the Venatori's red lyrium bestiary. Yourself and Madame de Cedoux should consider undertaking the trip alongside."

[overharrowed]

It gives him a moment of pause, though only one. "If you think we'll do the mission good," he said. "I'll speak with her."

In another time, he'd have a fairly confident prediction of her reaction to the suggestion. Currently, he can't claim any sort of certainty. On the other hand, he can't think staying in the Gallows is helping anything just at present.

"If it would help," he adds, "I can prepare some notes on animals infected with red lyrium specifically before we go. I believe," hardly a pause, "Ser Niehaus had collated some of that information, and her notes were generally quite neat. Stark may have more, beyond what was Sashamiri-specific. But then, I wouldn't delay you if you plan to depart too soon to make that practical."

[katabasis]

"I would advise you gather whatever papers you think most important, red lyrium related or otherwise, and see them brought along. I suspect we may be away from the Gallows for some time, and it would be best to carry what this fight may require with us."

Here, Flint's attention rises from the page to look straight at Julius. There's something like expectation in the point of his attention, waiting to judge a reaction he anticipates will come.

So not an ordinary mission to Estwatch, then.

[overharrowed]

Julius has been doing his best to avoid pausing, not only in this conversation but in his life more broadly. Now here is again, this pause very slightly longer than the previous one.

"My understanding is that for a trip of this length, Mme de Cedoux would need at least one more shardbearer to avoid growing uncomfortable or ill." Not something he thinks Flint has missed, so much as a thing that he's not going to present the idea to Petrana without addressing. Now that they're having a slightly different conversation, Julius is no less practical; if he has any emotional reaction to the shift, it's not evident. But the practicalities have somewhat changed. If they're going to have the conversation, he'd rather actually have it.