You pushed me this far, now I'm pushing you the rest of the way [open]

[wearyallalone]

WHO: Gela, Vanya, TBD
WHAT: They’re home and everything is fine.
WHEN: Now
WHERE: The ferry (to start)
NOTES: Descriptions of the aftermath of mistreatment and malnourishment, probable trauma responses. (More warnings to be added later if needed.)

The Vanya Orlov who is currently confronting the ferryman is notably thinner and much dirtier than the one currently inside the Gallows. His clothes are unidentifiable, whatever they once looked like lost in filth and disrepair; the jut of his shoulders and hips is evident beneath them. An ill-kempt beard obscures his jaw line. He has no weapons or armor, and the remains of his boots are doing almost nothing to keep his feet dry at this point. Gela is behind him and listing to one side; she’s just as dirty, as pinched in the face as he is, matted hair hanging limply over her shoulders, down her back. She’s used a strip of skirt fabric to keep it back from her face.

Whatever else the pair of them has lost, Vanya seems to well and truly lost his temper. It’s unlikely anyone in Riftwatch has ever heard him raise his voice before, and it’s a bit raw when he does now.

“If we had a sending crystal, I would have called for help weeks ago, do either of us look like we were out on a planned mission?” For all he’s undernourished, he’s still got his height and decades of martial training; posture can at least partly make up for the sorry picture he knows he makes otherwise. “If you would contact Commander Flint or Captain Rowntree, I think they would be exceedingly interested in what we have to say. It’s a matter of life and death, and it’s urgent, and I am not trying to invade anything while unarmed and nearly barefoot, for the love of the Maker.”

“Please,” Gela adds, tired, imploring. She’s too exhausted to actually cry but the wobbling lower lip and fine tremor in her hands is certainly selling it, threatening some sort of imminent meltdown. “You won’t come to any trouble, we’ll explain everything to them when we arrive but we need to get there now.”

[Open to anyone not actively suspected of being a demon who could be sent out to deal with the disturbance.]

Comments

[deuselfmachina]

Subtle in the background, over their heads, there's the sound of a heavy weight dragged along wooden floors, a more solid thump as something set down.

Then, a door creaking opening, and quiet footsteps, and from the top of the spiraly staircase that leads down into the room, Florent peers over the railing at what appears to be more guests than he expected they would have. The velveret robe draped over him is a florid turquoise, and smoke streams in a thin ribbon off the end of a cigarette caught between his fingers.

It is curiousity that has him pause in place, peering down, and then concern when he catches sight of Gela in the huddle, before flicking a glance to Gwenaëlle.

[elegiaque]

The sound doesn't make any sense until it does, and Gwenaëlle's expression clears with some relief as she catches sight of Florent, resting a hand briefly on Stephen's arm as she says, “Guilfoyle will bring it down for you,” which the gloomy shadow looming over proceedings correctly interprets as an instruction, passing Florent on the stair as he withdraws to do so. Racking her mind to recall what had been useful after her own long walk back from presumed death—

Gwenaëlle is halfway between hostess and field marshall, directing,

“My love—” sorry, Stephen, that's Florent, “we need something simple from the galley that won't disagree with a stomach, wine if you water it a great deal, and Guilfoyle can draw a bath — he's probably thought of that already — you know how to manage the runes, now,” this to Stephen, more pinning down what does and doesn't need her input than instruction.

“And a comb,” she says. “My oils and all are in with the tub anyway. Will you stay with them, please?”

This, last, to Florent. Barricading himself in was sensible, but now that he's emerged—

[portalling]

Strange nods quickly at Gwenaëlle and Florent, and it’s a familiar kind of businesslike triage: immediately sorting out next steps, the components of treatment, what comes first. His gaze cuts back and forth between the two abductees, sizing up what he can tell of their appearance, their minimising words. If neither of them are actively wounded, not slowly bleeding out beneath their dirty clothes, then that does decrease the urgency here a bit.

There are things he’ll need to say to Orlov, but— later.

“We’ll inform the rest of the company, and send people to look for the others. Was it just the four of you? Where are the others; or at least where did you see them last?”

When they confirm that the Crossroads were involved, he’ll be so very good, and won’t even whisper an exultant I knew it—

He’s ushering Gela to sit down on one of the recessed sofas, rest her weary feet while everything else is being prepared, and as Guilfoyle eventually returns and presses that familiar bag into his hands. He looks at Vanya, still standing, looking as if he already has one foot half out the door. “Get at least something down your throat before anything else. You’ll need some sustenance: people have fainted due to less.”

[sprent]

God, that she spent so much time crammed into that tiny space with Vanya and wishing for solitude, and now that she's getting it she's afraid to see him leave. She nods jerkily at his reassurances and allows herself to be directed toward the boat, onto it, to be seated on one of the sofas, which seems ridiculously soft. She's making all of the motions of somebody about to cry, her face hot and eyes big, voice absent, gone to make way for shivering breaths. The tears don't come.

She hauls herself back together with great effort. Nearly there.

After she clears her throat, "Yes, just the four of us. We were in the Crossroads, somewhere, I don't know." She trails off, scrunching her eyes shut, thinking. "... I couldn't tell. They dragged us out again at some point, to an old tower. We were in the dungeons. Benedict and Edgard are still there.

"Can you please," and here her voice breaks, a sudden fraying of patience as she turns a hard, exasperated look on Strange, "Tell somebody, right now, that they're there. I don't have a crystal, you have to do it, now. They need help. They'll die if we don't help them."

[portalling]

He’d set down the medicine bag, and was about to start burrowing through it, when Gela suddenly cracks. He’s so rarely seen her angry — she has in fact worked so hard to not cause waves — that that surge of emotion feels like like a jolt, an unexpected slap, making his movements immediately stop.

There’s the briefest brief look at Gwenaëlle in case she can handle crystal coordination, but she’s busily readjusting her skirt hikes to give herself better range of motion, the tell-tale signs that she’s about to head out for a fight.

So, he doesn’t hesitate, and obligingly fishes out his crystal and delivers a message, and then sets it down nearby within easy access. See? Done.

“If you can think of any more ways to identify that specific tower, we’ll add to it.”

[deuselfmachina]

It is also clear to Florent that Gwenaëlle is heading out, eyes bigger as she dispenses her orders, and he peers again down at the variety of guests below. The set of his jaw indicates some displeasure at having to deal with an emergency, to do anything that isn't ignoring the current situation and working on his painting (there are smudges of colour on his knuckles, a few speckles of indigo in his hair), but—

A mutter in Orlesian along the lines of I can water down the Lumont before he flows on down the stairs in the direction for the galley.

Not before fluttering a hand over Gela's shoulder, a butterfly-weighted patpat as he goes.

[elegiaque]

Having been at best about seventy-five percent sure that Florent would listen to her rather than simply withdrawing back into the safety and relative quiet of his room, some relief releases in Gwenaëlle's shoulders—

though it doesn't, can't last. The more clearly Stephen has this in hand, the more urgently she needs to be somewhere else. Skirts secured, she rifles through the medicine bag before he can get to it and produces a potion that she thrusts at Vanya, “This will help as long as we're quick,” and maybe don't make eye contact with the head healer while taking it, probably; she expertly avoids getting any incredulous eye contact about passing off what's probably just the alchemical equivalent of an adrenaline shot to get him through the next burst.

That done,

“Everything's going to be under control,” she says, to Gela. “You can borrow something of mine to wear, they know where to find everything,” could mean Florent, Guilfoyle, Stephen or: D, all of the above, “and let yourself rest, I'm not going to turf you out at once. But I have to go,”

and she doesn't, urgently, want to say to deal with your imposter.

Probably it's at least to some degree obvious. She's made it halfway to the door, Vanya in tow, before she changes her mind— spins on her heel, ducking back one step and grasping Stephen by the elbow to rise up on her toes and press a swift, dry kiss to his mouth.

“Keen, Barrow and Carsus are on you, Orlov,” she says, already moving again. She's a swirl of skirts, hair, activity, and then she's gone.

[wearyallalone]

Vanya accepts the potion from her without comment, perhaps tellingly without even asking what it is. (He trusts Gwenaëlle, or he suspects she'll push harder for him to stay if he refuses, or, most likely, both of those things.) He looks at Strange and then at Gela, as if thinking of and rejecting two separate final sentiments, but he finally just nods. They'll have more to talk about later, and nothing he can say now is going to be very helpful. Gela knows everything he does about the situation, and he's already promissed to check on her later. Strange will know where to find him after the fight if he intends to look Vanya over. The nod will have to do. He turns to follow Gwenaëlle, his long stride almost immediately making up for the pause he'd taken.

[sprent]

"Thank you."

Energy spent, she promptly deflates. Reverts back to sitting with her head in her hands, cradling her face for comfort while Gwenaëlle and Vanya prepare to leave and as they leave (which means she misses that quick kiss, a shame, because learning of new gossip may have helped with her mood). It's at least quieter once they're off the boat, though that leaves her behind with Strange and Florent, both of them most likely set to tiptoe around her while she sits in horrible clothes, to say nothing of the state her hair is in, the attention and care it needs.

She leaves silence between them for a few moments, breathing slow and deep. The bath would be good. She should go and get into the bath and wash, it will help so much.

She doesn't move but she does sit up again, hazy-eyed with exhaustion. "What's been happening here? When did you realise...?"

[portalling]

In the wake of the others leaving, Strange finds himself oddly grateful that Gela missed it— because he simply glitches out for a moment, unexpectedly flustered at the public display of affection, staring after Gwenaëlle before he eventually clears his throat and hauls himself back to the matter at hand. He fusses with the bag again, eventually finding a stethoscope, which he gestures for Gela to allow him access. He press the end of the tube to her chest, measures her thready pulse; he gets her to take deep breaths in and out, checking the sound of her lungs. Ways to stay occupied, as he explains:

“The demons have been impersonating all of you for weeks. No one’s been killed or grievously harmed, they haven’t been able to do much damage, but we only found out recently. One of them’s been killed, and people are currently hunting for the other three. Hence the lockdown today; your timing’s impeccable. We’ll capture or dispatch them soon, don’t worry.”

He’s not particularly good at comfort, so he aims for what he does best: a clean recitation of facts. Then, craning his head, he listens for sounds from the galley.

“Florent? You got that food and drink?”

[deuselfmachina]

The answer to Strange's question is, immediately, a muffled stream of Orlesian from the other room, more exasperated than anything else, and those with an ear for it may catch something along the lines of bossy shems coming into his home and treating him like a common servant—

But when he emerges, he has an easy smile, his arms cradling several items. "Do you need anything as well?" he asks of Stephen, and it appears to be a real question, earnest eyes and eyebrow crinkle, but not waiting before he pivots focus. Sets a glass down at Gela's elbow, juggling a pitcher of water and a bottle of red that is halfway empty. A splash of the latter, followed by the former, and push into her hands.

Ducks down as he does so, wishing to catch her eyeline without having her peer up at him. "Hello, cherie," he says. "Drink this. I've put in some water so it won't stain your teeth."

[sprent]

"Weeks," Gela echoes, listening to the steady roll of Orlesian from somewhere else, not understanding a word of it. "They came back to us in the dungeons every so often to... to root around in our memories."

A deeply disturbing, unpleasant sensation. The demons were set on impersonating each of them and did so successfully, apparently, so she is hoping no valuable information about herself left otherwise untold was spilled in the process. She will find out later; it's a testimony to how out of it she currently is that the thought of this doesn't send her into a panic. She simply grips the arm of the sofa very hard, pushing her fingers into it.

Then, Florent. It takes a moment for Gela to register his sudden appearance, even crouched down as he is. She takes the glass from him and says, "Thank you," distantly. "Can I have—"

She is handing the glass back to him as she says it, taking from him the pitcher. Instead, she drains that. In one go.

[portalling]

“No, thank you, I’m fine,” said offhand to Florent with a flash of real gratitude in it. There’ll be a time to worry about trying to carve out a better impression with the elf, but that isn’t today’s priority. And he’s turning back to Gela, sorting through the questions he wants to ask her, and— instead winds up staring as she glugs down the entire pitcher of water.

Well. That makes sense.

Strange waits for her to finish, her gasping breath after the pitcher’s empty. He clears his throat.

“I don’t hear any fluid in your lungs. I don’t think you’re ill as such. You mostly seem physically weak, which is nothing some food and water and rest won’t fix. I’m sorry to ask, Gela, but: is there anything else pressing we might need to know? Anything about the tower? Or any unseen hurts you’ve suffered, concussions or such? Otherwise,” Strange shoots Florent another look, trying to make this more collaborative than commanding,

“I think our plan should just be to get her some food, some clean clothes, and a hot bath. I can help get a hold of whichever.”