All Mortals Shall Know - Part II

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: A hit close to home
WHEN: Beginning of Cloudreach 9:50
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post! General CW for war-related violence, NPC death mentions, and significant peril to PCs. Use other CWs in your subject lines as needed.

Just after sunset, an hour or so after the news begins to arrive of mass Venatori action in Minrathous—a second coup, if it can be called that when the power already behind the throne finally steps out in front of it—comes another alarm, this not through the crystals at first but from Kirkwall itself. The watchtowers Riftwatch once helped repair burst with signal fires. Just one at first, to the northeast, and then after a time two more at once, and a fourth, bright against the falling dusk. On each the shutters begin to flash, two short interruptions and one long: the signal for a dragon attack.

Not even a high dragon like the one Corypheus's has tainted with red lyrium and enthralled could cover the distance from Minrathous to the Free Marches so quickly. But the watchtowers continue to blink the signal until, one by one, they're snuffed out.

I. THE CITY

Griffon riders and ranged fighters are called out as soon as the dragon signals come in, taking flight to wing across the harbor and spread out to locate this dragon, still not visible even from the roof of the Gallows. In the time that word is spread, lift ridden or stairs climbed, griffons mounted and launched, the watchtowers go dark, the sun falls deeper below the horizon, and Riftwatch arrives in the city proper just in time for a massive explosion at the Viscount's Keep to light up the twilight. Silhouetted against it, and now seared into the backs of everyone's eyes, is the shape of two small draconic creatures with riders on their backs wheeling away from the Keep.

Now that they know what they're looking for, Riftwatch's griffon riders will realize there is no single large dragon over the city. Instead there are a dozen or more of these creatures, smaller than griffons, bodies like large horses between leathery wings. The first time one wheels close, its rider flinging a spell or a grenade, they'll recognize the shape of the heads, the shrieking cries, the burst of fire or ice or acid poison from their mouths—they're dracolisks, now with wings.

Below, a hue and cry in the streets brings citizens with bows and buckets, joining the fight against attack and fire both. The city guard mobilized as soon as the first watchtower was lit, and arrows and crossbow bolts spray from atop the walls and roofs, but their range is too-easily evaded. The enemy on their dracolisks wheel above the city, some attacking Riftwatch's griffon riders, attempting to herd them into the path of a spell, others breaking off to drop explosive grenades on the city below, pillars of smoke rising beneath them.

Just as Riftwatch's griffon riders are beginning to come to grips with what they're dealing with and engage the enemy in the skies, another explosion lights the falling dark. Just as large as the one that has taken the top off Viscount's Keep, this comes from the stairs to Hightown. The noise alone is tremendous, the sound of the explosives almost drowned by cracking stone and the earth-shaking crash of buildings tumbling down from the edge of the cliffs above as Darktown splits open and sends a slice of Hightown cascading down into Lowtown. As it falls, a cadre of dracolisks breaks off from their current paths and heads for the Gallows.

While much of Riftwatch will need to follow them to defend the Gallows and the work contained in its towers, others may remain in or over the city to continue assisting with defense there. The remaining dracolisk riders will attempt to target the Twins—the large statues outside the entrance to the harbor, connected to the chains Kirkwall uses to control ship traffic through the Waking Sea—in an apparent attempt to down them and block that passage entirely. But between Riftwatch and the force of guards and civilian militia members mustered by Guard-Captain Aveline to shoot arrows from the walls and skybridges, they'll be driven off without success.

II. THE GALLOWS

At the Gallows, those who don't ride griffons have also been instructed to prepare to assist the city. As the explosions in the city are felt, large enough to rattle the furniture even from this distance, and news of the flying dracolisks arrives, all hands are ordered to get themselves to armor or infirmary and make ready to venture across the harbor. Those who can provide healing are an obvious need, but just as urgent will be assistance with evacuating damaged buildings and protecting those on the ground, especially if this proves to be followed by a ground attack. But the first ferry hasn't yet left the Gallows dock when the battle comes to them.

There is barely time for a crystal alert of incoming dracolisks before they arrive. They wing circles around the towers, flying close enough to touch the sides, hovering for seconds here and there in pairs as if trying to look in the windows. Almost as soon as they've come they draw back–

And then the Mage tower explodes. A burst of light and force engulfs the uppermost floors, flinging stones the size of a man outwards. It is immediately apparent to anyone remaining within (though there should be few, given how lightly occupied it is to begin with) and those watching from without that the blast has destablized the entire tower, which teeters for only a moment or two, just barely long enough to allow for a race to safety, before toppling over with a thunderous crash. It tips outwards before it drops, crushing a chunk of the outer wall and flinging the remains of its top floor into the sea. The impact sends out a shockwave, followed by a cloud of dust and debris that sweeps across the Gallows courtyards.

The other devices—because now that they know to look, there are devices fixed to the sides of the other two towers, up near the top—do not explode immediately. The dracolisk-riding Venatori continue to circle above, throwing spells and arrows and the occasional small grenade down at the denizens of the Gallows, while two of them also appear to be focused on the devices, trying to get near enough again to hit them with some sort of spell. It quickly becomes clear that there is a chance to save these towers, if the attackers can be fended off long enough to remove or disarm the magical devices before they're triggered.

Of course, it's not going to be easy. The devices are each attached to the outside of the tower between the top two floors, meaning they must be accessed by climbing out a window or off the roof and rappelling down to them. Once there, they'll prove to be attached with some impossibly sticky substance, such that trying to pry them off would damage the workings and risk explosion. The only option is to deactivate them where they are—whether by lowering someone knowledgeable down a rope, or by conveying instructions to someone good with heights by crystal or from the nearest window. The insides prove to be a complex combination of machinery and magic, clockwork mechanisms, enchanted or carved with delicate runes, panels inscribed with glyphs, glass tubes full of Maker knows what volatile compound, brass spinners like thaumoscope sensors, and so on. If attempting to defuse a bomb while dangling from a rope weren't difficult enough, the Venatori on dracolisks remain active overhead, doing their best to wreak havoc below while trying to hit the devices with the activation spells, which (thankfully) require concentration, time, and very precise aim.

They succeed in activating the device on the Templar tower first. Unlike the Mage tower, it doesn't immediately explode, but instead begins sending tendrils of ice racing out along the stone, finding its way into every crack and fissure, every weak patch of mortar, forcing the tower apart stone by stone. But the interference of those working to stop it has done something—weakened the device, or distracted the mage on dracolisk-back sufficiently to throw off the spell she casts to detonate it—and the ice only spreads so far.

But it does spread. Those defending the Templar tower will have to abandon it as the uppermost floors begin to crumble, aided by force and telekinetic spells that can target the frozen weak spots without needing so much precision. Climbing down, catching a griffon ride, or jumping across the gap to the main tower (if someone's good enough at jumping) are all rational choices, under the circumstances, but those who choose none of the above and take the stairs may be able to make it to the lower floors before the upper three collapse.

In the meantime the Venatori shift all their focus to the Central tower, home to Riftwatch's painstakingly-assembled library of rare volumes, records of all of its work, and storerooms full of irreplaceable artifacts. There, a third type of device. When an activation spell gets through, it at first seems to do nothing, but then the stones of the tower begin to shake. At first just a tremor, but the shaking intensifies and spreads, like an earthquake spell amplified throughout the building. Those trying to defuse the device must race to deactivate it before the building rattles to dust beneath them, taking most of Riftwatch's resources with it.

The Venatori do their best to disrupt this work, trying to pick off those on the outside or top of the tower, lobbing spells and explosives at those on the ground, and doing battle with the griffon riders in the air, but eventually, the device is disarmed, its shaking stopped before it can bring the tower down, and the enemy forces retreat.

III. THE AFTERMATH

The sun rises on a changed, chaotic Kirkwall. While the attackers didn't manage to inflict all of the damage they'd planned, Viscount's Keep is still rubble—with reports indicating Viscount Bran Kenric is among the dead, caught by debris while trying to organize an orderly evacuation—and Hightown, Lowtown, and Darktown alike suffered losses from the decimation of the staircase. The gap in the stairs is quickly bridged to facilitate movement, but the solutions begin makeshift, starting with a rope and wood bridge only wide and reliable enough for a few people at a time, and will take days and weeks to progress into sturdier scaffolding and wooden stairs to cover the missing piece. In the meantime, travel between the high and low parts of the city is slower, often involving long queues for either the narrow bridge or a ride on the industrial lifts straight up the cliffside from the docks.

Despite the damage, the mood in the city is more defiant than anything, anger primarily directed at Tevinter. There are some who blame Riftwatch, claiming that it's only their presence in the city that drew the attack, that they would all be safer if these foreign troublemakers took their problems elsewhere. But this idea doesn't get a whole lot of traction, especially not after the warning system they helped repair and Riftwatch's efforts to fight the enemy above the city at the expense of leaving the Gallows vulnerable. Their assistance with clean-up efforts in the city doesn't hurt, either.

In the Gallows, meanwhile, things might feel more destroyed than not, with the dust and debris from the collapsed Mage tower and the upper sections of the Templar tower scattered across the rest of the island. On the side of the Mage tower, the damage is extensive, with a whole section of the outer wall collapsed and a significant amount of the debris—including the residents' belongings—spilled across the rocks and down into the harbor. On the Templar side, stone walls from the upper floors have fallen more or less straight out and down around its perimeter, blocking walkways, with a large chunk of wall nearly flattening the smithy and all of its doors. Debris litters the training yard and has knocked a few holes into the thinner roofs of outbuildings and covered alcoves.

The Central tower is least affected, save the eyrie, which had previous holes and damage from the mage rebellion in Kirkwall and fell further apart, in turn causing the ceilings of the Scouting and Research division offices to partially collapse and bringing the structural integrity of the entire floor into doubt. The brand new lift, on the other hand, has come through largely unscathed. So too has the new tavern, as yet unnamed, and its first shipment of ale. So there is some good news.

The first two days after the attack, while the extent of the damage and possibility of further collapses are still being assessed, Riftwatch members are barred from sleeping in or near any of the standing towers, instead directed either to Riftwatch's warehouse near the docks or to tents set up around the debris of the Mage Tower, which can't really fall any further than it already has. As days pass, other options will open up: setting up cots in the outbuildings, dragging mattresses from the groups quarters into library alcoves, staying with various Riftwatch members and allies who have space to offer in the city, or continuing to camp out in the courtyards and among the debris as the weather warms enough to make it more or less pleasant. But between the time for reconstruction and the need to fund it, it will be at least a month before anyone can move into the remaining residential tower.

Assisting with relief in the city and sorting through the scattered debris in the Gallows or helping the hired labor brought in to help clear and rebuild will be an ongoing effort. In the meantime, everyone still has as much—or more—of their usual work to do as ever: adjusting plans and forming new ones to account for Corypheus' open takeover of Minrathous and the problems and opportunities that provides, or dealing with the news of other attacks that begins to arrive through contacts and field agents.

Comments

[pathlit]

In that cavernous silence between them, Jayce frowns, then closes his eyes and slowly inhales. The creak of the cot expels his breath; he glances up at Viktor, still frowning, assessing.

No. This is still wrong.

Biting the inside of his lower lip, Jayce rises to his feet, shoving his gloves between his torso and belt. He has a suspicion that Viktor intends to leave his cot -- and for what? his mind supplies, exasperated -- but gods help Jayce if he tries to stop him, so he casts a glance for Viktor's crutch, because he doesn't think it would cross any boundaries to touch that.

[grindset]

For what is this: one hand raising, long and pale, knobby knuckles and dirty blunt fingernails. The relaxed shape of it expects to be clasped. Viktor's gaze, meanwhile, has yet to raise after his partner, instead hovering to one side with a sense of tolerance, as if his own gesture is something he must endure—

—but really, he's waiting without enthusiasm for the effort he's about to make.

[dissolving]

"- C’mon and breathe," Strange to get this many words in. Talking fast, shuffling faster, "It's only the lyrium. We were too close to the towers, you could’ve hit a device -"

There’s only one left, and the rumble of the ground below promises it may not hold longer. He reaches that hand up,

(If she's close, it's gonna be harder to shoot him.)

ii

[dissolving]

A moment, squinting back, before he picks out the face. It’s been a long night - a long week - will be a longer year ahead.

"Monsieur," In broken, halting Orlesian: "I give you my arms."

Reaching to take broom or pile, and free up one hand for another. Even if Bastien likes a skirt, these can’t be his size, so Cedric breaks back to Trade to ask,

"Anyone make it out?"

[pathlit]

For fuck's sake.

Their world's turned over yet again. They could have been killed (again). He doesn't know if the casualties are made of anyone either of them have a personal interest in. Maybe Viktor knows, but Jayce doesn't. Who knows what of their work survived, but they're both still alive. To entertain this fracture between them, this ugly, constant tension even now -- especially now -- cracks through his apprehension.

He sets the crutch down onto the cot and grasps Viktor's expectant hand, lifting him up and into an embrace against Jayce's chest.

standard disclaimer to change this around however u want for ur own character and any lasting fx etc

[wythersake]

"I’ll be cross if there aren’t fresh sheets under that stone," He lets her cling, threading a hand into her hair for - reassurance, sure. Call it that. She was knocked enough about the skull enough to need check. "Might have to write the staff."

Does she know them? Etcetera. An eye to her leg. The thigh's thick and crawling with veins, any break there is - bad. Small blessings for shock. Isaac angles his shoulder so as to not dislodge her, reaching for a vial.

"This is for the pain," Marcus got options, because Marcus would bite if he hadn’t. "You’ll feel a bit dazed when you drink it."

He waits until she does to proceed: Lays her down as gently as he can manage, peels cloth free. An unfortunate time to afford so little discretion. It took the force of a tower to snap the thing, and he’s wary now of other injury, a bruised organ; a chipped spine, hemorrhage. Too many ways for this to go bad quickly, and nothing sturdy enough for splint. So,

"I’m going to hold you still. Just for a moment," The Veil already twines, hungry. "Focus on your breath."

Immobility doesn’t spread, but blinks - in the space between one moment and another, effort grows impossibly heavy. A struggle to do any more than suck air, push it out again. Nerves itch in stifled protest. She can’t move her leg, she can't move very much at all.

Which is convenient, when Isaac yanks her ankle out hard and straight; a horrible twist of bone that his other palm pushes to shape. The potion has had short time to act, will only ever do so much. It hurts,

Blue shimmers hot against skin, searching deeper for the wound. Blood pulses, collects thick strands into new, soft-woven bone; darned as the heel of a sock. Hardening, true strength, are the work of days and weeks ahead. She shouldn't stand on it. They'll want for a brace. But,

But he's spent. Both spells release her, leave him hunched and winded; sucking air between the taut grip of two hands. Magic slips away, back through the eye of a needle.

It takes a moment to gather himself. To find her face, for blood or trouble,

(He'll be burning more lyrium tonight than planned.)

[wythersake]

With eyes off him -

The guard is still breathing. The Fade twines about his hands to find the man beneath, and finds him wanting. The great death that knife stuck has already crashed along gut and vein, a hungry spiral of collapse.

The guard is still breathing. The guard is beyond saving. It is,

Not such a difficult thing, to draw away the last of that life. Call it mercy. His own blood is very loud in his ears. Every soul punctures the Veil, and his fingers curl to widen it now, hasten its departure. Some piece catches, hangnail,

"My friend here,"

Loud enough to catch, to break him from daze. Shit. Isaac stands, smears hands across trousers to rummage at the cart. He comes up with - a whole onion? No, there - bread -

(Somewhere in this the shank vanishes, kicked below the stall.)

"He’s gone. Shrapnel," A breath. Isaac offers out the roll. "Let’s see that leg."

[portalling]

“Well, I’m not the one who got knocked out, so,” Strange answers, dryly. There’s the slightest acerbic edge to his voice, just the sound of the day wearing away at him, his habitual sarcasm.

Tav had been carefully dropped onto the nearest bed, and the Head Healer had crossed the room to start digging through drawers and closets. He’s now wearing a belt with various pouches and loops for potion flasks, and he’s rifling through the infirmary supplies: loading up on potions, elfroot, bandages, cloths, water. Anything which might be able to help people out there.

He keeps half his attention on the ceiling above them. He hadn’t wanted to be here. The roof of the infirmary feels precarious, but hauling Tav into the central tower might’ve been even worse if that building’s about to go down too.

(He wonders how they’re doing over there. If they need help. If there’s time to get up to the walls. Probably not—)

“Suspect you pushed yourself a little too hard. You got the vines up, but you passed out.”

[portalling]

To likely no surprise, he’d liked Sidony,

but Strange gives the smallest sigh at that warning, the mild sound of a man stymied once again. With his hands as they are (fucked), he’s always trying to find more people willing to take that plunge. Even if just for smaller procedures: an emergency tracheotomy, a sutured vein.

“Suppose the creation magic will have to do. What a non-mage could do with needle and thread, you’ll be able to accomplish with your spellwork regardless.” He’s chewing over it. He’s reminded, a little, of Wysteria’s horror over surgeons. Annoying.

“Well. Either way. I’m open to suggestions or to hear how you work best. Once…” The doctor looks out over the ruined wreckage, his own mouth thinning. “Once we’re past this part.”

[youwonscience]

Cosima comes closer then, moving carefully over the rubble. "What is it?" At least the second reaction doesn't suggest purely bad news.

She makes it over to Ellie's side, crouching down. "Whoa... those look... here, I can help." They're going to have to be careful, but even the little bit she can see suggests there's something unexpectedly recoverable here. The last thing she wants to do is add any more damage while getting them out.

[ipseite]

“Here you all are,” certainly includes Vysvolod, essential as either of her men for what one can safely and correctly assume to be vastly different reasons. She relinquishes her hold on the trunk and gathers herself into Marcus's side, a hand coming up to his wounded arm and fluttering there, hesitant to put pressure on it but unable — as ever — to leave well enough alone.

How much of Petrana's life has come from that simple truth? Unable to leave well enough alone. If there is one thing that binds the three of them tightest she thinks, sometimes, it is that in their own ways (more and less alike to one another) they are born meddlers, all three.

And even when she is infuriated at what that leads most often Marcus to (illiteracy, injury—),

here they are, and an emperor's ransom could not move her to trade it.

“Is anything salvageable? How much has been lost?”

—and, hopefully, despite the way she cannot but think of these things, even clutching them to her, they wouldn't trade her, either.

[exequy]

If there's anything that could make Kostos decide Mouse is right about running away to the mountains, it's the fracture point of cobalt alloys under different runic combinations.

But no, not even that.

He bites, "Working on it," into the wind and his sending crystal. They're turning back, using the distance to gain the altitude Mouse needs to be above the fray instead of in the center of it.

He adds, "Incoming."

Not him. A V-formation of dracolisks, two defensive escorts for one gunning for the north side of the tower.

[wythersake]

"I work best with my head attached,"

Dry. Strange can sigh all he likes - if Isaac goes down as a maleficar, it will be for a damn sight more than a Rifter’s stray interest. Even so: He stands, offers a hand down to the doctor's elbow. They’ve all had a shock or two today.

"I do hope we live to see it," Quieter months, softer years; but an ugly decade ahead and behind. "The part past this one."

Practicalities. Priorities. Lists, tasks, a running tally. Race it far enough, and you can dream to keep up. War owns longer legs.

[succise]

Her mouth obviously forms the word lyrium with great affront; she doesn't think about going for her bow where it's slung across her lap. Blanche is shifting her weight idly, enjoying the mid-battle reprieve. When Cedric reaches up Vega slaps his hand, then the top of his head with the flat of her palm before she slips from the griffon's back.

She is shorter than him, but her silent fury makes her seem bigger. She has her bow held tight in one hand but raises it suddenly, eyes locking on to something over his shoulder. Her fingers pull from her quiver, the point of the arrow slipping through the air like a silver fish and she knocks it, goes still, releases.

The tip finds a dracolisk rider's leg. A howl splits the air.

They've got to keep moving. She grabs Cedric's arm, yanking his sleeve to propel him toward the griffon.

[galvanising]

"It's not my fault they're built on shit foundations." She's not in much better voice than he, but she grins, sharp and bright as ever, before dropping some of her slight weight onto his shoulder and following to the tent.

"What?" she is looking around at the tent's insides, and using both eyes and ears at once is not coming automatically at present. She follows his attention down to her arm and guesses. "Ice grenade, quarter hour ago? Even I'm not mad enough to leave that long. I need both hands for the reins. And the blood for--" a vague loose-wristed gesture. You know, whatever blood's for. She's not a scientist.

"When'd you get back?"

[galvanising]

Nell, still at the top of her out-swinging arc, watches the formation react. The one dracolisk's path veers, turns erratic as its rider pulls on the reins without conscious purpose. The others adjust their courses to account for it and for Marcus's attack, their attention now turned upwards even as they begin to urge their mounts into a dive. One lifts a crossbow, aiming a bolt at the griffon above, while another twists in her saddle to lift a short staff and ready a spell.

Nell puts her heels hard to Coupe (lol) and lets their path carry them back toward the group in a sudden burst of speed, hurtling out of the dark toward the enemy just behind a blast of force magic that cracks the air and sends one dracolisk careening toward the other, Nell and Coupe punching through the space they've just cleared and immediately wheeling around to come back for another pass.

[galvanising]

"You got it!" might be an arrogant sort of reply given the circumstances, especially coming from someone who picked a griffon out an hour ago based on a joke alone, but whatever, she's got this.

Nell gives Coupe 2 a kick, still giving into an instinctive snigger as she does, and the pair loops away to send a blast of telekinetic force at a passing dracolisk and then climb steeply over it, Coupe's claws raking at the rider as they go. The Venatori manages to dodge, and turns off its course to give chase.

[overharrowed]

Julius meets Marcus's expectations, drawing close once the trunk is out of the way (careful, still, of Marcus's injury). "We're proceeding carefully for now, but it seems likely the central tower and the former templar tower will be usable again, eventually." He rests one hand on Petrana's shoulder, the closeness doubly reassuring after the immediate relief of seeing her.

"Teams have been picking through what's left of the former mage tower," he adds, "but anything intact there is only due to luck. I think a few people have managed to retrieve a handful of items, but not much more, as far as I've heard." He hasn't not been helping, but he's been finding reasons to stay where Marcus is in his eyeline, too.

[grindset]

Up he comes, swifter than he would alone, smoother. The strain of it plays out in Jayce's arms: the stiff pause and snagged breath, the cautious relaxing, the concurrent clutch and slack of grip on his partner's hand. The fracture's barely discrete edges stubbornly squeezed together.

Thin arms don't fully encircle Jayce in turn, but both hands do come to rest on him. Viktor slides a fractional step in to get his weight under him comfortably, rests his mouth by Jayce's collar, and breathes against him, infusing fabric with the slow warmth of a sigh.

A moment later, he replaces lips with chin and says, "Your griffon riding skills have improved."

[sprent]

"Ah." Conveniently before her time. Gela glances over her shoulder. She can see people in the distance picking at rubble, lifting things together; they aren't far and would come running if she shouted but this doesn't make her feel much better.

Looking back she says, "A bit."

A lot.

"Are you self-aware as part of the trick?"

[wythersake]

A reasonable line to plunder. The cant of his chin is concession:

"Let us game it out," Isaac sinks back against the wall, arms folding. "I’d be a dull infiltrator to not stop by before the show. One might have joined up in the weeks ahead, traded information, and drawn considerably less suspicion of it. You could even scapegoat a newer recruit or two. After all, they came in after you,"

He glances at her, sidelong.

"But I am very dull, so I’ve arrived with the attack itself, bidding upon that incompetence for cover. The appearance of harmlessness," A healer is intimately familiar, "Useful, save that no one imagines a mage harmless to begin with."

"At any rate, Rowntree will vouch for me."

He might have led with that.

[wythersake]

"Mn, mid-afternoon? I was just beginning a lovely dinner when the roof caved in -" Someone’s laid out a mat (mind the stains). He shrugs her down, digging in a bag. "- I can’t melt this safely. We’re going to dig it loose."

Isaac's never owned subtlety with fire, and Petronella Voss does not do small magic. Given proper time and care, they’d heat water to warm her, gentle; wait for the splinters to lose shape, for blood^* to breathe. They don’t have that. So he clacks an ugly little pair of tongs, and hands over a vial: Drink. This is going to hurt.

"I expected to find you north of here. Didn’t take to the new Grand Enchanter?"

As though she were Fiona’s biggest fan. This is a bald-faced play at distraction, as he fiddles and yanks a dozen little new holes in her; the ice pulling a skim of dead tissue with it. They're doing their own damage, here. Frostbite is near enough a burn.

^* Whatever it's for.

[galvanising]

Melting it honestly hadn't occurred to Nell (again, she's not a nerd), so she takes the removal of that option in stride, thumping down onto the mat and taking a minute to get her legs folded in front of her. Once she has she tips forward until her weight rests on her good elbow planted in the bend of a knee, bloody knuckles against forehead. She groans when forced to immediately sit upright again to drink from the vial, but it's exaggerated annoyance more than pain and she takes a quick swig and swish with a considering squint. Isaac's treated her enough times to know she's judging how much she can take and still be clearheaded enough to get back out there when this is done.

"Eurgh," is for both the Grand Enchanter and the visible collar of skin the latest nugget of ice wears. "He wasn't keen on the idea that we'd be better off contracting our services to Nevarra or Orlais directly." She smothers a yelp with the back of her hand at a deeper splinter, and takes another sip from the vial with a grimace.

"Especially wasn't keen on me saying so to a receptive crowd. Or in a leadership meeting with Chantry folks present but that's his own fault for inviting me. He should've known. Maker's fucking--! Did you get a chunk of bone with that one? Andraste. Where've you been, anyway?"

[untiltheyarent]

It takes a moment for Fifi's laughter to die down enough that she can drink the potion, which she obediently does, giving a shuddering sigh of relief at its dulling. She almost begins again when Isaac lays her back, but takes a breath, steeling herself against the awkwardness of it-- his hand in her hair isn't unwelcome, she realizes in spite of herself-- and finds herself watching his face just in time for her own to contort with anguish at the one-two punch of involuntary stillness and the correcting of a bone.

The cry she gives is a thin one, and she sits up as soon as she can, tightly gripping both sides of her calf as if that alone will still the aftershocks of pain shooting through her leg.
"Thank you," she gasps, despite everything, and even manages a breathless smile, "I'm glad you were here."

[wythersake]

"Orlais, contracting my services directly." Obviously, not to the same employers or ends. "But the leech market is fickle."

Oversaturated. He tips an eye over the asteroid of her arm. A touch of dead tissue to tweeze - yoink - and then, magic will see to most. If he's the first healer today, the wound will still hold a spell.

(If she’s done no more bleeding than necessary. What’s blood for? What isn’t it, in a pinch?)

"A bad sign, that he's scrambling for contrast,"

The Grand Enchanter should have known - Isaac would lay money that he did. Nell owns needed support, but the March was already losing extremists. She's a tidy villain to excise for clerical cooperation. She'd have the College for a mercenary company, and so forth.

"He always was a weasel. Did you pull any of them away? Kostos doesn't count."

There’d been some shitshow in the sky earlier, lightning. Too wild for Tevene military. Isaac braces the arm, spots a finger each over puncture; a red little game of connect the dots.

Heat pushes slow against skin, air; before the Veil gives way, abrupt. It feels as though he’s turned nails in to dig: Numb nerves come alight, vessels drawn up from within. Filled in reverse. Skin blisters beneath his touch, puffy-red and whole, as he moves up her shoulder.