faderift | player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 3

OOC: There is a set-up for an action log for everyone to pile into below, but you're all extremely welcome to also reply to this with your own starters for before/after/whatever! You are also welcome and highly encouraged to control the dragon yourself whenever you want instead of waiting for me to do it.

Edited 2023-08-09 03:18 (UTC)

However big they imagined the dragon would be, when told it was bigger than a high dragon, odds are she's bigger. Bigger and more ancient, in a way they can nearly feel, like neck prickles in an ancient burial ground. She's a creature whose life is measured out in the thousands of years. She's been asleep for nearly all of recorded history. She is utterly furious to have been woken up so rudely—but it's a wise and canny rage. She is not thrashing around after the pests who came into her house and stabbed her in her sleep, not indiscriminately smashing pillars and collapsing walls in the abandoned and isolated thaig she's made her home. She's seething, scheming, stalking. At her size, being silent to them is impossible. Her footsteps thud and her scales rasp together as she moves. But she's careful and clever, pausing every so often to listen for them breathing or running and sticking her massive nose into the doors of the ancient structures along the walls of the cave to flush them out with fire.

The wounds that woke her are not much more than annoyances, as far as she's concerned, but as she stalks through the thaig, she leaves behind a splattering trail of red and glistening blood.

That's what they're here for—to mop up with rags that can be shoved into damp bags that will keep them wet and tacky, to scoop into containers, or to fill bottles and jars, if they manage to lure her to the shallow pools of water in the lowest level of the thaig. If they achieve that, another good stab and fresh spill of blood can only help, blood-wise. It will probably not particularly help with getting away.

Staying at a distance is the smartest way to deal with a dragon. The problem is, the dragon can close that distance with frightening speed, her hide is absurdly thick, and fire and acid and the rest of the old alchemic standbys don't do a whole lot of good.

She's so big that Ellie's never seen all of her at once, and she really doesn't want to.

They've scattered, all of them to corners of the thaig, keeping themselves moving with feverish abandon. Ellie reminds herself that they can't stop. Not for anything. If even one of them survives this, it'll be worth it.

Holding her breath to keep herself invisible and silent, Ellie peeks around a corner, watching the dragon's person-sized nostrils flare. She's sweating buckets inside her armor. Fuck.

Silently, Ellie slides an arrow out of her quiver, going slowly so it won't rustle, and commits to the idea that as soon as she fires, the dragon's going to know exactly where she is.

She steps out, and Gold burns itself into the tip of her arrow as readily as it does her eyes, coalescing on her target: the tender flaring nostril.

She lets it loose, and the magically-guided arrow strikes true. The dragon jerks back, a thunderous roar shaking the earth around them, followed by a wash of hot, dark blood on the stone splattering the stone like rain.

Ellie books it as fast as she fucking can.

Edited 2023-08-09 03:38 (UTC)

Even the wounded shake of the dragon's head is heavy, like she is moving through water. Ponderous, pained, she turns her gaze to the floor. Her eyes are small for her face but still stand larger than a man, and she rakes them across the ground. She is quick to fix on the small figure that is running, and she gathers her bulk to follow. She'll close the gap in two steps.

Next to Ellie's feet, fire threads through the stone on the floor of the thaig--liquid, first, molten. The dragon's first footfall shakes the ground and the fire leaps up with a blast of heat, curves swift between Ellie and the dragon, forms a half wall.

A whistle, rising high over the noise. Matthias, peering out from a hole in one of the tumble-down walls, waves to Ellie. Marcus' staff is on the ground, the source of the fire. He snatches it up before he backs into the space to make room for her.

Some part of Ellie still jumps at a shrill whistle, but she's quick to change direction, to skirt the fire, curving around one of the giant pillars of the thaig and breaking the dragon's line of sight on her.

She draws a breath as she does, plunging into invisibility, and keeps running as hard as she can until she's able to slide into the hole with Matthias. She breaks it, panting, and puts a slightly scorched hand on his arm.

"Thanks," she mouths, automatically laying a hand on his arm, glancing back towards the danger. They can't stay here, they need to keep on moving.

"Where do you need to go?"

And as soon as he indicates, Ellie will draw another deep breath, plunging the both of them into the veiled, ethereal place that makes them invisible to the rest of the world. She'll hold it for as long as she's able.

The slow stomp of the dragon's footsteps wakes tremors across the ground, even here, where they're tucked away--her bellow so low it shakes the air. Ellie's skin smells burnt, a smell Matthias knows well. He touches his fingertips to the raw flesh of her hand. At first the contact will be painful but then it will feel cool, a little brush of healing. Not enough to knit back the skin but enough to temper the pain.

"Back," he says. Dragons see better than they hear--humans are like insects to them--but instinct keeps him quiet all the same. "Back, this way--we can loop around and get some of the blood--"

When she plunges them into invisibility it feels like nothing. Or maybe it's only that they're running, clumsily, squeezed between stone, and Matthias has got to concentrate on that, on putting one foot before the other, on not knocking Marcus' staff about as they go. Once he nearly drops it--he's got to stop dropping staffs--and when he looks down at his hand he doesn't see it, and a little thrill passes through him--but he keeps going.

Out the other side and the dragon's roar comes from behind them now. The blood Ellie had spilled forms shiny blackish puddles on the floor.

There is a split second, just a breath of a moment before Ellie's invisibility takes hold of them.

The timing is narrow, very precise in which to work.

Still, the sweep of Derrica's barrier envelops them both, chilly magic swathing their forms and cinching tight just as they vanish from view.

Go forth, and lure a dragon.

Ellie winces slightly at the touch of Matthias' hand, but then the familiar cool feeling of healing magic soothes the burn, and Ellie exhales, shooting him a grateful look. Adrenaline can keep out the worst of the pain, but burns always fucking suck.

She nods as they make their way, and in a moment, the swath of Derrica's magic rolls over them, wraps around them. It goes with the sigils she'd painted on Ellie's skin before the battle, the wards to keep them all safe.

It's that little edge of protection they need right now, to keep them safe in their audacity.

Ellie and Matthias run hard, and her lungs burn. The puddles are blackish, a little bit rainbow like an oil spill, refracting in the dim light. She moves her hand to the back of his shoulder to give him another one to work with, the better to scoop up as many vials of the stuff as they can carry.

It helps that it's viscous, thick. The thing's so huge it'd have to be. Ellie can't sense magic but if anything had a fucking pulse it'd be this.

The sound of the thing prowling is far enough away for her to risk it.

She takes a breath, struggling to breathe slowly as the invisibility breaks, and reaches into her pack for the vials they were all equipped with. One. Almost two. There. She's got her ear trained on the Thaig, and they have only seconds before she rounds on them again- but she might be clever and switch directions.

Peter signed up to help retrieve dragon blood without a second thought. Still feeling the weight of the losses at Granitefell, he knew he had to do something; staying in Kirkwall and keeping still would only chafe more, would only dig and twist into the recent wounds in his heart.

As soon as he sees the dragon, he has a second thought. In fact, he has several second thoughts; third thoughts, even. He feels himself pale, and he swallows loudly. Chances are he is not going to come out of this unscathed. Or even alive. But no matter. However terrified he is, he can use that fear; he can help. Rushing into danger is what he does, and if they succeed in getting the blood they need, all of this will be worth it.

Peter has some jars and rags, carrying all of them in a bag that reminds him of one of his own bookbags back home, except made from a much sturdier and more reliable material. He keeps said bag close as he watches the dragon, waiting for his moment to sneak in close and grab as much blood as he can.

The dragon is smart, he notices; she knows how to listen for their movements and breathing. This feels like tempting Jaws, except Jaws is a giant ass dragon who knows how to move and isn't confined to the water.

When he sees a wound open up from one of the attacks from their group, Peter rushes over to that wound, jar held out as he aims it for the blood dripping from the wound. He manages to fill the jar half-way before the dragon notices him, and, oh fuck, that sure is fire coming towards him.

He ducks, rolls, and just narrowly avoids being turned into a Kirkwall Fried Spider, though he definitely didn't avoid collecting some burns from the way his skin cracks and burns as he moves. He winces.

Unfortunately, the dragon anticipated this move, and before Peter has time to move out of the way, his Peter Tingle still acting up, he finds himself with a face full of dragon claw.

Welp.

After they retrieve the blood they need and before they make their way back to Kirkwall, Peter collapses by the fire of the camp they set up. He can feel every burn and scratch on his body with every movement he makes, and goddamn, but it all hurts. Nothing hurts quite so much as the vivid scars across his face from when he took that dragon claw right to his face.

He searches through what supplies they have, trying to find the equivalent to ibuprofen and aloe vera.

"So is it like, elfroot I should be looking for or maybe something stronger?" He asks out loud, hoping one of his companions nearby will hear him.

Bastien doesn't hear him. Bastien can't hear anything. The wound behind his right ear is scabbed over and not going to kill him, but the sound hasn't come back, and that was the only working ear he had left.

It might be temporary. That's what he's thinking, while he stares into the middle distance between himself and Peter, until his mouth movement catches his eye. He reads lips well enough to follow.

"Elfroot will help the pain," he says. His voice isn't too loud; he knows better than that. He gets up and comes closer. "It might help you heal up faster. We should have..."

A paste, somewhere, gritty and green, to apply directly to the scars. He crouches to help search, bottles and jars knocking quietly together as he moves them aside—he assumes, anyway—while keeping Peter's scarred face in his peripheral vision.

Peter turns to Bastien and nods as he watches him sort through the materials. "I wasn't sure what supplies we still had after...retrieval," he says. A High Dragon lives up to every aspect of its name, he thinks. He can't believe he thought that they would be able to pull this off without too much damage.

On the other hand, the claw marks across his face look kind of cool, and he wonders if he'll be able to make use of them somehow in making himself look older and more badass then he really feels.

"Do you want some help looking?" He offers. His face burns but he's not entirely out of commission, if Bastien wants some assistance.

"Let me see," comes softly, steady in spite of the state of his face.

He is very young. They have so few options these days, but Derrica wonders if they should have let him stay back at the Gallows. He had been at Granitefall too, and it is—

They've asked a lot of him. She knows this.

Her hands, outstretched, stop just short of touching his face.

Peter turns at the sound of a soft voice, managing not to wince through the movement, thankfully.

He holds himself steady and nods. "Yeah, okay," he says, quiet and subdued, as he gives her permission to examine his face.

He can't afford to be proud about this particular injury, not after...everything he's seen, especially recently.

Bastien could be doing a better job of hiding than he is, sitting in the back corner of an inn just a few streets east of Riftwatch’s slip on the docks, face hidden by nothing but a few days of stubble, name as yet unchanged, Byerly’s dog at his feet and his distinctive freckly horse in the adjacent stable. He could do a better job than being in Kirkwall at all. Ostwick would have been the closer port city to Kaiten. But—he reasoned backwards when he was already halfway down the mountains—there was that trouble with the sea monsters, two months back, and who knows what state things are in now.

If there was some small chance when he set out from Kaiten that he would arrive in Kirkwall and take the ferry back across the harbor to the Gallows and slot himself back into place as if he hadn’t left at all, apologetic smile and no explanation because surely everyone would understand, then it evaporated when he arrived. The stark foreboding fortress out on the water, made darker by a summer squall, thunder trying its hardest to raise the hair on his arms—he is still leaving, he thinks. There’s a ship in two days, stopping first at Denerim and then on to Gwaren, and he’s arranged to be on it.

In the meantime, he’s reading. Eating again, too, and properly, halfway through both a bowl of stew and a novel about a spirit of vengeance terrorizing the family of her murderers is husband after they move into her home. The inn’s other clientele are largely sailors, but a quiet set. A few hours ago one sat at his table, comparatively tiny reading glasses perched on his broad face, and read a book of his own.

He’s easy to find. One would not even necessarily need to be trying. A little less easy to sneak up on, though. He keeps his back to the corner, out of unchangeable habit, and he compensates for his poor hearing by glancing up every time the door opens or someone passes close, even now, when the spirit who’s taken on Lady Ashelineau’s form and rage has just set fire to the linens of her mother-in-law’s bed.

A very specific set of mannerisms are liable to draw the eye even if you are not a person who has made a career out of noticing these things. Tony wanders through the door, stops there, looks around without much in the way of subtlety—

And flows off towards where the bar is being managed, sliding some coins across it and a gesture that indicates the table he is intending to occupy.

Of course it's Bastien's. There's plenty of time, in all of this, for him to scuttle sideways out the back, but maybe the food left in his bowl or the last few pages of his current chapter are compelling enough factors to hold him fast while Tony meanders to the table. Whatever the cause, Tony reaches out a hand to the chair back opposite him, a waggle of his fingers following,

"Mind if I join you?"

So there's another chance. Maybe. Tony's hand is already setting down where it's hovered.

The stew and the book are compelling. So is preserving his dignity. And so is satisfying the dull little ember of curiosity that's been reignited by time and fresh air and hours with only the dog and the horse and the emotional equivalent, out in Kaiten, of sticking his hand into a lightning glyph. There is no scuttling. He glances up from Lady Ashelineau a few times during Tony's journey through the room, to keep track of his progress, then raises his eyes and keeps them up when he arrives.

"No," has a drawl and rising inflection, fine with the joining but wary of what might come after it.

Not unfriendly, though. He retains some manners. He dog-ears his book and closes it to give Tony his attention. It would be too much attention, really, to openly give a friend in situations further removed from tragedy. But under these circumstances his quiet inspection of the details of Tony's face, like he might be ill, is maybe less unsettling? Or maybe not.

The chair comes out, and he sits.

Tony on not a lot of sleep is very similar to a Tony who has gotten his full eight hours, at least in the first minute or so. Not so much because he is good at hiding it as he is good at being a weirdo all the time. Maybe Bastien can split the difference, maybe not, but there is something decidedly unsomber about the rap of fingers against the table.

"We have food at home, you know," he says, with a gesture to the bowl of stew as he sits back in his chair. "How're you doing?"

Bastien's eyes go from Tony's face (just short of completely inscrutable) to his fingers, then back up for raised eyebrows and an asymmetrical smile. "Really shitty," he says. The same tone and cadence he'd use for pretty good.

He stirs his stew, then drops the spoon without taking another bite after all.

"Same as everyone else, I'm sure," he adds. He's not special. He knows that. Everyone lost someone, more than one someone, and Tony—

Bastien really did read his biography. He knows what a Snap is and everything.

The smile drains away. "How are you?"

Maybe if Tony had some other agenda on his mind, he'd say something like: it's okay, you can be King Sad if you want, I won't tell. He'd do it in such a delivery that it would be funnier than it is dickish, perfectly sincere and primed for commiseration. Maybe he wouldn't even be annoyed at Bastien for abandoning ship. Who wouldn't be tempted to do that, if they had a choice?

Instead, he says, "Pretty good," to get it out of the way, and then, "Holding up. We have a plan. You wanna hear it?"

A crack of a smile, as if anticipating the non and prepared to bulldoze over it in three, two—

The non comes silently, in the form of a further dulling of the eyes—the look of someone who has, say, had a very long day, and has just realized that the person who's paused to be kind to them about it is about to invite them to come to their church or sign up for their MLM.

Also silently, but less subtle, is the shrug. He reaches for what little is left of the watery ale he's been drinking with his stew and drains most of it with a swig.

"Sure," is weary, because he is not expecting what Tony is about to say. He's expecting something like: We're regrouping. We're getting revenge. We're going underground. We're taking the war to Corypheus. "But you are competing with the ghost of Lady Ashelineau's horrible vengeance on her mother-in-law," he adds, with a tap on his closed book for clarity, "so don't be boring."

It's immediately annoying. Irritation is so quick and so strong that Tony is fast to abandon the set up, at least for now—

"What's your deal?" is not as irreverent sounding as it might have been, a flash of that irritation in the sharp pivot. The rest is, likewise, not as harsh in delivery as the words might imply. "We lose sixteen people and you decide what's one more? We need all the help we can get right about now."

If Benedict had tried that line a week ago, Bastien would have done the flippant thing and offered to have his replacement here by the end of the month—someone younger, faster, better connected. He could afford to supplement a Riftwatch salary to make it enough for at least a second-rate bard.

But he’s had some time. So he’s a touch abashed, more than dismissive, when he says, “I know,” before circling back to the first question with, “I don’t know.”

Extrospection is more his thing. But he makes an ineffectual stab at it.

“He was the only person who ever had any patience for me when I didn’t have my shit together. Which sounds pointed, right now, probably,” with Tony annoyed across the table, “but I don’t mean—we’re not that kind of friend. You’re exempt.” Although, “I tried to go see my parents,” borders on a that-kind-of-friend thing to tell a fellow, at least in the broader context of generally pretending to have sprung fully-formed from the forehead of Val Royeaux. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know what I thought would—“

Ineffectual, as promised. So he stops there, mid-predictable sentence, and gathers his shit back into a pile. As a gesture of goodwill he scoots the book a few inches further away.

“D’accord. Desolé. I will not be an asshole about your plan.”

'Exempt' gets a brief tug of a smile, listing back into his chair as he listens to the rest. Tony is more given to analysis than visible sympathy, but these things aren't exclusive from one another so much as the arrangement of his face is better at showing the former.

It lowers some hackles enough for plan imparting, maybe, with the sigh-like exhale that follows, which is delayed when a server comes by with the bottle of ale he'd ordered, the cup that goes with it. Drums his fingers on the table edge before picking up the bottle by the neck, and pouring his helping.

"Holding you to that," he says. "Because it's gonna sound nuts."

Beer poured, bottle set aside, he takes up the cup. "We're gonna alter the timeline so that it never happened. Granitefell, everyone that died, all of it. With me?"

Bastien has promised not to be an asshole about the plan, and Bastien has more or less perfect control over his face when he wants it. So there is no outward evidence of the instinctive recoil from this offer of impossible hope, or the several hops of reasoning before it coalesces into a possible hope instead, except the fact that his face remains so carefully placid.

Where his hand rests on the table, a few inches from the book he has pushed out of reach, his fingernail taps the table twice.

"In theory," he says, finally, and counterbalances the wariness with wan smile. "And it is not boring, so that is."

The extent of his capacity to make a joke of it.

"How sure are you? One to ten. I will take a one," he clarifies, "if I can help. But for the sake of moderating expectations."

"Like a,"

and there's a moment of processing his own answer, trying to confine the abstract into a mathematical measure of certainty, Tony's gaze flicking up over Bastien's head as the bottom lids of his eyes raise a little in thoughtful squint, and it's not purely a bit so much as a reflective way of being, and Bastien should at least understand that much,

"solid nine point six."

Which likely doesn't sound very moderate when a one is permissible, but also maybe that's still a huge margin of error. Maybe it should be ten or nothing when you're asking people to believe in something insane. Tony takes a sip from his cup, clarifies, "We're pending a few more proofs of concept," before setting the cup back down. "And stuff goes wrong, sure, that's life, maybe it won't work. But looking at the variables under our control, I'm sure.

"And it won't even matter if you were here or on whatever boat you were looking to catch out of town, but I think you should be a part of it. Plus, some of the margin is devoted to whether or not we can build a good enough team to get us the stuff we need."

"You know 300 royals is twice what a unit of volcanic aurum's worth, and I'm not in the fucking mood," Ellie's in the middle of snapping at merchant with a thick Orlesian accent.

He sniffs imperiously at her.

"Perhaps. But it is clearly worth very much to you," he says, spreading his hands. A curl of a smile touches the edge of his lips. While this man is very much enthralled with the bartering aspect of this, he doesn't seem to sense that Ellie is not on the same page.

Or he does, and he's just not scared. The are in a crowded market.

"You have a fine bow," he continues. "Surely you can afford what little I am asking. A man must make his fortune somewhere, no?"

Someone save her. Please. Or maybe this guy's face, because Ellie is looking to be nearing the very end of her patience.

Edited 2023-08-08 20:58 (UTC)

It's Gela's hand that lands on Ellie's arm, light and reassuring. To the merchant, "I would have thought the man would make his fortune here—do you think you're going to find a better offer anywhere else? What was it again, Ellie?"

They exchange a glance. Gela is playing it up, demeanor light and easy. "Twice the going rate? That's very generous."

It's a game of patience, bartering, honesty and calling bluffs. Ellie won't stand here and smile or play along and she gets that, and this man also gets that, and is only trying to have a rise out of her. Gela won't see her lose that bow, too.

"We'd be grateful for a quick exchange, serah. If the trade goes easy, we'll keep you in mind going forward."

From the look on his face, he's definitely considering it now. He looks less smug.

Thank fuck that Gela's here, actually. Ellie is very visibly reaching the end of her rope, and she's still seething as Gela very prudently draws her back.

"300," she says flatly, trying not to grind her teeth. Normally she'd be at least halfway decent at this, but her patience is shot, and they're running in a ticking clock.

The merchant is looking a little less smug about all of this, and he gives Gela a shrewd look, finding her smile polite and her jaw firm.

"How many units did you say you needed?"

"Five." Things are moving now.

When he meets her eye she doesn't back down, doesn't look at Ellie again. She watches him reach for his stock. She adds, "For now," in case it sweetens him again and he nods, seeming to accept this. Three hundred, for five, and the promise of repeat custom? He couldn't hope to find anything better.

Her hand is still on Ellie's arm. She keeps it there, because she wants to.

"Ellie, do you have the coin?"

"Three hundred each," he says firmly, looking between the two of them band back again. The smug smirk is gone now, replaced with a scowl, which Ellie returns with interest, looking faintly murderous.

Gela's hand on her arm holds her back though, like a hand kept on a hilt of a knife.

"We don't have that much," Ellie says plainly.

"Then you'll have to run back to your Gallows and get it, won't you?"

"Each?" Gela says to him, incredulous, her kindness slipping. Ellie is practically thunderous at her side and it seems to be catching. Seeing the man scowling back, drawing himself up taller just to stare down his nose at them, she raises her voice.

"I've never known volcanic aurum to cost so much—you are swindling us, sir!"

And now other people are pausing in their shopping, stopping to stare.

"See?"

Ellie feels a lot more justified now, and she can't help a small, self-satisfied smirk as Gela also starts to take the man to task over his bullshit.

"I have simply stated my price," the man sniffs at them. "If you choose not to pay it, that is your prerogative!"

... but he is looking distinctly uncomfortable with the amount of attention they're starting to get, especially when the whispers begin. Plenty of people move on with their lives, but every nearby stall has someone with an ear tuned to their direction.

In the absence of a division head to work for, and having come to hate sitting all alone in the empty office trying to keep up with everything, Benedict has shifted gears and begun to play secretary for the entire Research division instead.

He can often be found with a tray of coffee mugs for anybody who needs one, delivering them or offering refills along with various other forms of sustenance from the kitchens; and when extra hands are needed for taking notes, holding things in place, or other menial tasks that any idiot can do, he's eager to step in. Anything to stay busy, to convince himself that this will work.

To his left, Bastien comes out of a room just as Benedict is walking past it, stopping with the same energy as a shopper nearly running into someone coming out of their aisle—an energy he can now recognize as such, having now gone to a grocery store in the Fade.

It may or may not be news, that he’s back. He’s been back a little while. But he’s also avoided Benedict the whole time. That’s probably not why he volunteered for the dragon hunt, but only probably.

Whether Benedict stops or not, Bastien considers him for a moment, then takes however many steps are necessary to steal one of his coffees.

Though Benedict's eyes widen slightly at the sight of him, nothing particularly friendly follows-- his look toward Bastien is immediately cold, and then even moreso when he absconds with coffee.
Fine. He watches him go for a moment, then continues on his way.

It takes a great deal of willpower not to look back and find out whether Benedict has anything to say—because that's the only way Bastien would know right now, is if he looked back.

But he has it. The willpower. He downs the coffee while he walks, in anticipation of half-jogging down the stairs and not wanting to spill it in the process, and turns into the stairwell without a glance over his shoulder.

player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 3

closed | dragon hunt

bloodletting.

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gate crashes

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Peter Parker | After

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Bastien

Closed to Tony

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Ellie

Negotiations (OTA)

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Benedict

Coffee (mostly research but OTA)

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