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Entry tags:
[CLOSED] SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE
WHO: Tertia, Derrica, Redvers, Stephen Strange, Viktor, & Jayce
WHAT: Riftwatch delivers support and supplies to the People of the Silent Plains
WHEN: Early Kingsway
WHERE: The Silent Plains and the Hundred Pillars, the Tevinter Imperium
NOTES: OOC Info; please include content warnings in your subject lines if applicable.
WHAT: Riftwatch delivers support and supplies to the People of the Silent Plains
WHEN: Early Kingsway
WHERE: The Silent Plains and the Hundred Pillars, the Tevinter Imperium
NOTES: OOC Info; please include content warnings in your subject lines if applicable.
In the last days before Kingsway, a new face appears in the Gallows. Toma Cassel, hailing from Rivain, is in his late forties and has an unhurried air that sits at odds with a wiry, almost too-slim frame. If not for the sword and various armor fragments that communicate his once-association with the Templar Order, he might be an aging field hand or the lean kind of dock worker. He's straight forward about his presence here in Kirkwall—Riftwatch seems to have its head on the most straight, and he'd like to help where he can.
Four days later, a formal escort is assembled to see Cassel, a collection of (cheap but reasonably effective) weaponry scraped out of the Gallows' armory, some basic first aid supplies, and a stock of Research Division-devised supplies such as alchemical hand bombs, artificer's trap components, and Fade-touched poisons delivered safely across the Imperium's border where they might aid the People of the Silent Plains—a rebel faction lurking in the wilds of the Tevinter composed primarily of ex-enslaved.
The passage by griffon into Tevinter is uneventful, studded with a few nights of camping. Guided by Tertia, who is herself a member of the People, Riftwatch eventually successfully links up with a band of approximately twenty ex-enslaved rebels in the rolling, largely treeless plains which abuts Tevinter's southern border.
The group they meet is a mix of elves and humans, albeit (unsurprisingly) primarily the former. They're fairly ragtag—their equipment and supplies have largely been scavenged off Tevinter and Anders soldiers they've killed, or from raiding supply caravans on the roads. Given their cobbled together appearance, it's somewhat surprising that they're as organized and effective as they are. They've based their system of leadership off of Nocen Sea pirates (Tertia's not the only Flint and Silver fangirl in this group), with their general and lieutenant having been elected by general acclaim among their fellow rebels, and with anyone possessing the right to call a vote to oust or affirm those positions as they see fit.
Their current general is Irene, an elven woman in her 40s with shorn hair and sinewy muscle, a rigorous attentiveness that is kind but not nice, and a reputation for being a wanted criminal (having murdered her master). She keeps the People—of which these twenty are only a fraction—nomadic and mobile. They seem to have no permanent base, and part of the reason they've been as effective as they are is that they've perfected the ability to disappear and survive in the inhospitable landscape of the Silent Plains for long stretches of time.
Though guarded, Tertia has consistently written to the People about Riftwatch's decency and so they'll get plenty of benefit of the doubt. Hardcore survivalists, demonstrations of hospitality and comfort are lean and sparing. There is no anti-mage sentiment here; mages are so common in Tevinter that the People consider their enemy the magisters more than they do any mage. It speaks to the frank sensibility at play—an instinct that Riftwatch is playing to by delivering people and supplies geared to assisting their work of killing slavers and robbing supplies being moved to and from the occupied Marches.
During their time with the People, Riftwatch will be responsible for anything from helping to scramble together a training program for the People's less than martially adept members, hunting the lithe ruminants that populate the plain in order to make up for all these additional mouths to feed, repairing, improving and adapting equipment, and running the People's armorer through the various items that Riftwatch is providing. This is in part a diplomatic effort, and building relationships and trust is as important as handing over an armful of swords.
To that end, when news of a Tevinter military caravan passing through Hasmal and into Tevinter by way of a passage through the Hundred Pillar foothills reaches the temporary encampment, it's critical that Riftwatch join in the effort to overthrow the caravan. They'll be accompanied Cassel and roughly 10 members of the People's group, the most prominent of which are Salonae, a human woman in her late thirties with a wide mouth, a quick laugh, and a murderous knife, and Eryx, a young elven mage in his early twenties whose good looks and youthful sense of melodramatic ennui are both amplified by the scar that splits his forehead.
The caravan proves to be a long string of what appears to be loot from the war front, being escorted by what at first appears to be a debilitating number of Tevinter soldiers. But the People (and Riftwatch) have the landscape, a cache of new equipment and supplies, and the element of surprise on their side. With a little luck, it's just possible that they might find themselves on the winning side of the fight, and thus uncover the caravan's precious cargo.
no subject
He’s grateful, at least, for the gadget holding Viktor’s gaze. It means Viktor doesn’t see his faltered starts — the small rise of his chest on the inhale, the unproductive parting of lips, the brief furrow to his brow, or the swallow that sounds so awkwardly loud to his own ears. It isn’t a new affair to disagree with one another, but the depth of this rift holds no precedence.
It feels like the strife upon the bridge, only this time the cacophony of anger, frustration, fire and smoke, and all that narrowly contained violence — it feels like it simmers within. Between, rather than against.
Most of it is displaced, he thinks, but the rest…
His gaze drops. “Look, what I said the other day… to make you leave the way you did.” He turns his head away, eyes closed. “It was shitty of me.”
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To the untrained ear, it may seem as though he intends to leave it just so, no further discussion required. Jayce, on the other hand, may recognize this as further invitation to continue.
It's a position they've shared many times: Jayce tipping out some overflow of feeling while Viktor attends, patiently or otherwise. They've swapped places now and then, but compared to how infrequently Viktor seeks reassurance, Jayce seems insatiable. It's familiar this way, easy to wear almost without noticing, even when he himself is bent out of shape, and despite this aloof simmering, this narrowly contained strife, he is listening.
no subject
There is a note of resignation in his voice as he says, "I should be doing more. Living like I could die again at any moment, but I... I feel so small. Like it doesn't... matter that I'm alive again, and now we're..." Struggling to find the words, he eventually settles on a grimaced, "like this. I can't even maintain what we had."
They've always worked things out, their little disagreements -- but then, what choice did they have? Hextech was their shared dream, their project, theirs. They had to repair the cracks in the road to continue pursuing their ambition because they needed each other to succeed. Jayce had never before considered their partnership in this light until recently; in doing so, found the perspective to incite a terrible anxiety. To him, Viktor is irreplaceable. He would -- and has -- burned bridges for him.
But... what if that isn't the case for Viktor? Viktor collaborated with great minds and skilled hands to defy time and death, and succeeded. What has Jayce done in comparison? What if Viktor detests not only his decision to fight but his rapidly apparent insufficiency outside their realm of Hextech?
no subject
What Jayce describes is not so different from what he himself has been carrying since the moment his feet touched alien soil. Without their life's work, their dream, what is he? Nothing but a doomed man with no reason left to try—
"What we had is gone."
Jayce would be forgiven for hearing an admonishment in this; it's really the sound of Viktor steeled against his own words. It's like looking into a mirror and slapping himself. Through the sting, before Jayce's anxiety can grab this and run completely away with it,
"It was taken from us." He himself traded one precious piece of it away to cling to the scraps of another. He closes his eyes and goes on: "You're not a Councillor anymore, or the face of Hextech. Nothing is resting on your shoulders or relying on your reputation. You have no responsibility to anyone—not even me. You can do anything you want to do, now."
He now turns his eyes on Jayce, gleaming, flickering gold. The firelight cuts his cheeks sharp.
"Petrifying, isn't it."
no subject
Smaller. Exposed.
“…yeah,” he says lamely, thumbs digging into their opposite palms. Uncertainty makes for an antsy body, heart thudding, neck warming, stomach churning. There is something in Viktor’s words — something there that he’s missed. He’s sure of it.
His eyes flicker between Viktor and the campfire. His hands twist tighter together. He gnaws the inside of his cheek.
Hesitantly, he says, “Have I… overstepped? Between us?”
no subject
Having needed no time at all to consider that answer, he instead takes the moment after it to think. The friction between them is too complex to lay definitive blame. Though being here has often felt to him like some kind of afterlife, when it comes down to it, Viktor only knows what it's like to be dying—not to die. What does that do to a person? No, overstepped isn't quite right...
"But you should make some other friends."
Even as the sole representative of home, he can't give Jayce everything he needs—not that he ever thought he could, but it's never been more clear to him than now. And without their work to bind them together, maybe... maybe they simply aren't compatible. Maybe bringing him back wasn't enough. Maybe nothing would be.
"Live, like you said. Rediscover who you are."
no subject
Or is this the consequence of years upon years of endurance for the sake of something greater?
A nervous chuckle slips past his lips. "Is this, um... your way of politely asking me to fuck off?"
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From the bridge of his nose his fingers spread across his eyelids, pressing, grasping the ridges of his own skull, seeking the soft valleys of his temples with finger and thumb, his palm like a mask, and for an all-too-fleeting moment he sits like that, arm across his belly, elbow propped in the crook of his wrist, holding his face.
He sighs,
then smears his hand sideways and off the ledge of his cheek.
"How are you still worried about that?"
no subject
Here, his hands attempt to talk for him, but the frustrated motions conjure very little beyond highlighting his fluster. His arms lay to rest on his thighs in defeat.
"--you know what? I don't know what you're trying to tell me, talking about seeing other people and doing whatever I want like this is some sort of weird break-up." His palms turn upward, seeking. "Is this all really because I've chosen to learn how to defend myself?"
Is this a consequence of the magic that stole the memory of me from you? haunts the shadows of his mind because there isn't a goddamn thing Jayce can do about that, and that powerlessness is terrifying.
no subject
Even his anger is charismatic. Viktor's anger, maybe less so.
"It is not some weird break-up," and his ears definitely aren't turning pink, "I'm just telling you what I think. If you don't want to hear what I have to say, don't come to me with your problems."
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(If Viktor detects a hint of projection, he would not be incorrect.)
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"Our friendship, as we knew it, is gone. Everything has changed. We'd be fools to go on pretending it hasn't."
Already predisposed to speaking low, as clear at a murmur or hiss as he is when he projects his voice, he hardly has to try to keep it down. One arm still rests across him, its hand now a fist, while the other pivots its gestures from the elbow.
"You're beating yourself up for failing to maintain something that's out of reach."
no subject
“The next time my life needs saving, don’t.”
And he knows that it needed to be done - that there were other lives, lives more valuable than his own here that warranted salvage, but to have Viktor discard their friendship so impassively leaves a bitter aftertaste. There can’t be a third time Jayce owes his life to him. He can’t swallow that. He won’t.
But he will swallow down the nausea and the hurt, because where else is it go right now but deeper? He does and rises without another word, making his rounds a convenient excuse to leave the rot between.
no subject
at a falling lilt, a note of offended surprise, follows him as he rises. That was uncalled for, it sounds like. That surprise is prying at the knot of Viktor's frown, but succeeds only in lifting it to a dismayed angle. Jayce turns away from him, and he unfolds his arms, leans to see him around the fire's halo, calls out to his back,
"Jayce."
Waits, still leaning expectantly, until he's gone.
As Viktor sinks back down, having had more than his fill of grief these weeks past, he spends not a moment indulging the distress churning in his cold and clenching guts; seconds into his slouch, he's cinching that knot tight again. Don't, he says. Don't, as if telling Viktor he can't or shouldn't do something isn't going to increase that thing's chances of being done exponentially. Idiot.
In a moment he'll snatch up the winch and briskly resume assembling it. He'll scowl the whole time. It will be finished in roughly six minutes. Tomorrow he will show someone how to hoist the tent modified to pair with it and significantly reduce the time required to set up or pack out.
Don't. Just who does Jayce think he's talking to?