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

gwenaëlle baudin — open

[elegiaque]

THE CITY

Hauling ass to the eyrie, Gwenaëlle is on the back of the first griffon and its rider available and willing to take her up when the Keep's explosion rocks the city. Faced out with her back to the rider and treating the safety harness as more of a suggestion than a rule, Hakkon's Wrath is in her hands (one gauntleted, one gloved) and — rising up with her knees gripping the griffon beneath her, the blades in her coattails tucked not to slash at animal or rider behind — she focuses her efforts on the dracolisk wings.

The goal is a simple and straightforward one: it's got to be hard for a mage to concentrate if he's plummeting from the sky to the chaotic streets of Kirkwall beneath.

On the other hand, they can also aim at her.

THE GALLOWS

At the Gallows, her focus turns to targeting the Venatori efforts to sabotage the work to protect the central tower — rolling out of the way of a lobbed explosive and colliding with a wall hard enough to set her head to ringing, she staggers to her feet and blinks her eyes (her one remaining eye) hard to focus, her already lacking depth perception thrown off for several crucial moments by the way it feels as if there's about five of everything around her.

The thing is, there might be.

Her reflexes are still good enough, however, that when the dracolisk rider who'd thrown the first bomb in her direction wheels around to throw another, she —

doesn't use her fade shield. No, she plants her feet and sends a powerful force blast to meet it midair, sending it careening explosively back toward its origin— and she's already running, seeking shelter in which to regroup and avoid a third, so hears and feels more than sees the outcome.

THE AFTERMATH

“Fuck.”

La Souveraineté has, all things considered, come through the chaos remarkably unharmed. The built up barge looks just as she ought, if perhaps as though there may be some flooding in the lowest upper-deck levels to be dealt with, but unfortunately, she is also in the middle of the fucking harbour. Although the animals usually aboard are safe enough with the new spirit healer, that doesn't mean this is a problem that can be easily left for tomorrow: there are more people aboard her than usual, and resecuring the mooring therefore becomes something of an urgent proposition.

At least, if it becomes urgent, there are still griffons—

but the immediate aftermath will find Gwenaëlle (with her crystal, too) on the docks, vigorously bargaining with a local captain for what's going to be a substantially higher price than she last paid to have her (beautiful, perfect) boat towed securely back to her mooring on the Gallows island. Under the circumstances, she expects it to be nothing less than eye-watering, but with the thought in mind that she's sending the bill to her grandfather and he already doesn't love her (again, flawless and very lovable) boat she is at least making a sufficient effort that she can say, later, she did her best to bargain the woman on the docks down within reason.

“There are people— Gela still needs to be monitored by our healer, I don't want to have to evacuate her on a griffon—”

WILDCARD

( feel free to be the griffon rider she's with, and I'm happy to roll with "she had to switch at some point" or if anyone wants to thread a dramatic mid-air leap from one to another I would very much like to do that. otherwise, toss a wildcard at me if none of these prompts is vibing for you, or hmu to customise something. )

city;

[dissolving]

"Shit!"

He flattens on Agathe’s back, as heat ripples out over their heads. This is fucking unwieldy in plate: Has the brief, stupid thought that the demon was right, that there are more dimensions to worry for -

The dracolisk keens, a warble echoing between smoke and stone. Cedric drags the reins sharp, pulls them out from range just as a second, stranger thing billows forth: Magic, the Fade drawn heavier than breath.

"He’s throwing spells around." Below them, an archer drops, stone asleep. Getting close enough to take its wings may end their own ride. The harness is only liability on a falling bird. "Can’t do anything about it until we’re cl -"

The rest of that is lost to another rattling boom. Someone’s screaming. A lot of someones are screaming tonight.

[elegiaque]

“—et higher then I can make it,” she is insisting, when they can hear each other again. “All I need is a good angle—”

Probably Ellie, and that new man, Farnon, would very rightfully have about fifty apoplectic fits if they were to, for instance, ginger the griffon's arseholes, but consider the immediate benefits of being able to make the fucking thing go faster? Imagine. Nothing she does back here is going to be of any help to that end, though, and she resists the urge to slap Agathe's backside, instead flinging up a shield around the three of them to at least buy them some breathing space for Cedric to do as she damn well tells him.

“Better angle, it'll split his focus if we do it fast enough—”

[dissolving]

The murmur of something in swift, repetitive Nevarran. His knees press in. Agathe banks steep against cloud, and Cedric hauls an arm back for Gwenaëlle and her suggestion of a harness -

(And though we are few against the wind, and though we are few against the wind.)

Ice needles the shield, splintering off and away. Stray points clip the griffon's wings and Agathe screams, levels,

Not high enough. Not high enough, and still too close. The rider pulls his hands back, ozone threading the night. They're square in the center of his aim.

He's in theirs. Cedric lets go of her - the telltale spark of magic catches, and then,

Doesn't. A pulse in the air ripples white. The rider leans forward, caught sudden in the thrust of a spell that isn't there. He's open.

(They're not high enough.)

[elegiaque]

They're not fucking high enough

but she could be. Gwenaëlle calculates in the space of not even a moment, the distance, their momentum, and— Clarisse, just close enough. Maybe close enough. Angling downwards has to be easier than upwards. She's certain that she can hit him, and pretty sure if she screams loud enough Clarisse can catch her. If she's wrong, she is almost certainly about to die.

She wraps the safety harness around her fist, pulling her feet onto the griffon's back underneath her— lets go, leaps, before she can think it through and think better.

“Clarisse!” comes out at a pitch that dogs and hopefully teenagers can hear as she looses the shot, a frigid, ozone-sparking arrow slamming home into the throat of the dracolisk rider and bearing him backwards off his mount with the sheer force of it—

There's no time, and there's nothing underneath her.

one last tag before i dip out

[dissolving]

She is almost certainly about to die.

He doesn't have time to take it in, to rip Agathe around and down, after her before griffon collides bodily with dracolisk, talons splayed to shred its soft throat.

She's faster with half a load. They're high enough, now. What fucking odds.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse moves almost before she knows where she's supposed to go. She certainly hears Gwenaëlle before she sees her, and only later it will occur to her how much of a fucking miracle it was that their angle wasn't off, that the timing was right. In the moment there's no time to think about that—about anything—so she just moves.

"Go!" She squeezes her knees against Blunder's sides, inward pressure stronger on the left side than the right. Seamlessly, Blunder turns in midair and rockets in the exact direction Clarisse needs her to go.

She didn't see the initial leap into the air, or the shot that followed. All she sees is Gwen falling like she's been slam dunked out of a fucking cloud, Blunder's back the only thing standing in between her and a short trip straight into the fire below.

Wind deafens her, makes her eyes water. Clarisse has her spear in one hand and prepares to grab onto Gwen with her other arm, ready for it to rip out of the socket if necessary, ready for the bone to snap if it comes down to that—Blunder points herself forward and down at the perfect angle, if they can just get close enough—quick enough—

the gallows.

[charmoffensive]

Almost simultaneously—

Having slid into place from the opposite directions, Gwenaëlle and Loxley find themselves halted behind cover by way of gentle collision. He is wild-haired and wild-eyed, just the one neighboured by the plain black patch he was already wearing, and in his hands is a heavy-ish crossbow he is currently reloading.

Despite himself, despite the taste of dust and smoke and fire in the air, the undoubted body count that will emerge in the coming days, the fact that if the battle turns badly, the entire organisation if not all of its people could be wiped out, he flashes a bright grin at her in greeting. Or maybe because of those things. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

"Nice shot," because it must be said.

[elegiaque]

Shoulder to — well, mid-upper arm at best — Gwenaëlle flashes him a sideways grin almost in spite of herself,

“If I can repeat the trick, even better. Had some luck aiming for the wings, above the city,” a nod in the general direction back towards the other hub of smoke and screaming, which had in some moments almost felt balletic and removed in the skies above. Not so here, covered in dust and smelling of burning, bleeding sluggishly from a scrape at her temple where she'd hit stone before. It's probably fine; head-wounds bleed terribly.

“What've you got?”

Quick inventory. Plan before they move, if they can manage it,

though they mightn't be able to manage it.

[charmoffensive]

"Fifteen bolts," Loxley says, as one of them is levered into place, bowstring pulled back taut with a click of mechanism. "A rope and grappling hook. A bit of magic better for keeping me alive than making them dead," but not none of the latter, says a shrug.

A tip of his head indicates the looming central tower. "Saw some moving bodies going for whatever the thing is that's destroying everything. Doubt we can convince the Venatori that we're better targets than them, but my thinking is we could work our way up, provide cover out the windows."

Or, you know, whatever holes get blown in the walls during.

Smiles aside, it's a daunting prospect, with the ruins of other two towers transforming the topography around them. The warm bodies he'd sighted could fail. They could get turned to paste within. His eyebrows hike: what does she think?

[elegiaque]

The prospect is not not daunting, the thought of being crushed within if all goes to shit,

her ribs piercing through her lungs, Florent's eyes huge beneath her

but they're in the thick of it, now, and the explosives being lobbed from dracolisk-back put paid to the idea that it'd be any better if they're out here should those warm bodies fail. Besides, if the tower comes down with them at the bottom of it, they're probably still getting taken out by falling rubble.

Decision made: “We can always do something really fucking stupid with your grappling hook if we absolutely have to,” probably does mean fling it out a window at a dracolisk-rider, but if there's anyone in Riftwatch that Gwenaëlle presumes is most up for the most hair-raising feats of death-defying lunacy, it's definitely Loxley. She remembers his flying boat. One doesn't swash their buckles as hard as he does because he wants to just do fights normal.

“I can grab arrows faster than you can load bolts,” she says, thinking of who to cover who, “on three, you first?”

[charmoffensive]

"Alright," is the quickest and therefore best thing to say. Whatever argument can be made about who ought cover who is an active detriment as far as wasting time goes; she can knock her arrows faster, and that's enough.

He murmurs something—not Trade, not any language that sounds like it could possibly be produced by Thedas—and moves. A blur, and it's like there are three, no, four of him, all a little out of sync, gauzily overlapping in space, trailing behind or launching in front. A confusing sight for an ally, and a worse one for an enemy. He runs, moving fast and sure and without bothering to look up, crossbow held down and aside.

Hairs raise, remote awareness of something swooping overhead. Don't look up.

[elegiaque]

It's disorienting — which is, she imagines, the point — so she swerves her gaze immediately, exploiting the confusion to take a shot at the hesitating figure on dracolisk back who is almost certainly making her mind up even in this moment that a big enough spell just needs to hit the vicinity. That Loxley draws her to slow enough, that that decision must be made, is a lot to do with how Gwenaëlle makes to land an icy arrow in her thigh and bolt in his wake, timing it—

the anchor-shield will get her the rest of the distance, but if she uses it too quickly then it only draws the eye and a great big spell doesn't need to hit him if another, clearer target presents itself too quickly. It has to be strategic, timely,


now, and she runs.

gallows, wildcard

[pathlit]

Jayce is barely a few minutes in the air on griffon-back when, in a roar of magic and flame, the Mage tower explodes. He would've gotten knocked clean the fuck out were it not for Uggie's instinctive roll mid-air to avoid the brunt of the blast.

"Atta boy," he half-laughs with the skittering mirth of a near-miss with grievous harm -- a split-second of noise drowned out by the shouts of allies and enemies alike as stone and glass and mundane evidence of residency blows in every which direction. They strike against the anchor-shield Jayce tosses up as Uggie navigates downward, and it's by pure chance that Jayce turns his head just in time to see the shadow of a dracolisk sweep above and beyond him, its rider casually dropping a--

"Shit!" is as much a curse as a hope as he swings the anchor-shield up to intercept the explosive. It detonates on impact.

For a split-second, Jayce doesn't remember existing. Then, a ringing in his ear. Then, the hiss of air rushing past his head-- his entire body--

another body--

[elegiaque]

It happens so suddenly that she doesn't immediately understand what's happened, just impact, the feel of her shoulder rolling unpleasantly underneath her as she impacts stone with force enough to knock the breath from her— it's a blur of heat and motion and she's grasping blindly for a knife at her thigh before she realises that the throat she's held it up to belongs to,

“Talis?” which would sound more dramatically incredulous if she weren't coughing, gasping for breath through the dust and debris. They've exchanged a handful of words, she thinks, but the Gallows are small and she's been in them a long time now; there's scarcely a face here she couldn't put a name to, if pressed.

Not that she won't feign otherwise if it suits her, but this one she knows to associate with Viktor, and she likes Viktor, which is not the reason why she draws the knife back hurriedly — on my side is enough for that, surely, he's not on the much shorter list of people she'd consider how plausible her deniability might be in a crisis situation and Maker knows hardly any of them are to hand these days anyway — but it is, probably, what slows her from just rolling over him and carrying on. “Are you alright? What the fuck?”

Her head's still ringing. She might not be alright. It's fine, they're probably going to nearly die at least a hundred other ways before this is over. If they live.

[pathlit]

She's coughing, he's coughing, and it means they're both still alive. All the same, he's not of the mind to appreciate that fact just yet, still stunned enough by the impact and immediate physical hurt to lack any awareness of the knife at his throat, however transiently.

He's grunting, rolling onto his palms, when the clarity of adrenaline cuts through the ringing haze. At once, Jayce is shoving himself up from the ground, reaching for the mace strapped to his backside, only to stumble sideways. Then, recognition -- not the enemy -- and a searing pain rushing through his shoulder--

"--bomb," he gasps, clutching his upper arm. Jayce staggers backward, right into Uggie as the griffon tucks its wings from landing, his tail whipping agitatedly. "One of the towers--"

[elegiaque]

The knife is still in her hand, the hilt in her fist as she levers herself up from the ground, and the sheer noise of everything makes it feel like it's probably all of the towers—

it will become clear how difficult it is to know, later, if that was just her head ringing or how quickly it all happened. It is breathtaking in its impossible immediacy; a quiet day wrenched into pieces, wrenching this city and this stronghold into pieces. There's no time, now, to try to fully grasp it all: they have to keep moving.

“Which one?” is urgent, all the same, though for all she aims the question to him her head is already on a swivel, trying to take in through the dust what she's looking at. What it means. Where they need to be— “Your griffon's not hurt?”

He's going to need to be in the air again.

[pathlit]

"--not sure," he says, a second's hesitation in trying to reorganize the last few minutes in his mind. "Not central. Mage," is said with more confidence, as Uggie's beak gently nudges over his chest, assessing. Aside from the aforementioned agitation, the beast remains whole and fit.

An experimental roll of his shoulder is cut short by a hiss of pain. Injured, yes. Torn? Unlikely, given the direction of impact, but Jayce is ginger with his arm as he remounts the griffon, just in case -- but even as his body is moving, his mind is still green-- a neophyte on the battlefield compared to Gwenaëlle, and though he barely knows of her, somehow, unconsciously, he still knows this.

So he doesn't ask if she's all right. The fact that she's standing, weapon in hand, with pertinent questions -- that all reassures him that she is functioning. Calculating. Instead, a glimpse of his apprehension slips into his voice as he says, "I need to get back up there."

And the question behind it: What are you going to do?

[elegiaque]

Great question.

Gwenaëlle squints at him and Uggie for a moment, and then past them; from the ground it's so hard to see through the chaos, to strategize, and she nods once and sharply to herself before she says, “Take me with you. Once we can see what's going on— we'll have a better view of things from the sky, you can give me a lift and I'll find somewhere to be useful.”

He will learn, in due course, that it's probably best to shake some details out of her when she starts saying vague things like somewhere to be useful and you can give me a lift, but in this moment precisely it sounds like a good start on a plan that involves neither of them having a tower dropped on their fucking heads. She seems sure of it, at least, as she pats herself down to make sure she isn't bleeding from anywhere she hasn't noticed (or at least not anywhere important) and that all of her weapons, which she is certainly about to fucking need, are where she expects them to be. Secure.

aftermath wildcard.

[portalling]

They’d had fleeting contact via the crystals at the end of the day, just enough to ensure that each of them was alive, before parting ways again with, respectively, I have work to do over here and a flurry of Orlesian which he couldn’t parse out; half of it seemed to be affectionate, the other half blisteringly annoyed, presumably at the boatsman charging an arm and a leg to tow her boat back to shore.

And Stephen does have work to do. Colleagues to see to. Checking on injuries. The wreckage of the towers and trying to find any other personal belongings is a lost cause, so he focuses on the people: binding wounds, testing concussions, parcelling out painkillers, and barely noticing his own injuries.

It’s desperately late by the time he calls it quits, past midnight and exhausted once he finally turns and— realises he doesn’t have anywhere to go. His bedroom literally doesn’t exist anymore. Others have been coordinating some dismal tents, and he’s heard murmurs of some cramped shared rooms down at the warehouse across the water, but…

In the end, the choice isn’t even a choice.

So Stephen shows up at Gwenaëlle’s houseboat. Looking exhausted and wan, a large mass of heavy scarlet fabric slung over a shoulder, carried curiously delicate in his arms so it won’t drag across the ground. He smells of smoke and ash, the latter streaking his hair greyer than usual. The moment Gwenaëlle opens the door to him, a weight seems to sag from his shoulders, relaxing at the sight of her.

“I would’ve climbed to your window,” a joke, “but I didn’t trust myself not to lose my grip and fall into the canal.”

[elegiaque]

At this hour and at the distance between door and bedroom — the number of stairs between her inner sanctum and the outside world — the fact that it's Gwenaëlle and not Guilfoyle who opens the door at least means he certainly hasn't woken her. She doesn't look pulled from sleep, but as if she hasn't yet managed to be still enough to consider it, scrubbed clean enough the unhealed, deep, yellowed bruising stands out all the more starkly but nothing like settled or at ease. It still feels as if she should be doing something else,

probably, if he'd left it any later than this, she'd have settled on taking this matter into her own hands for a task.

She wants to have some clever thing to say, at once — workshopping some kind of threat of making Guilfoyle fish him out if he did, just to teach him a lesson — but can't quite pull it together in time to do anything except step forward and wrap her arms around him (and his cloak, between them), taking a great breath of ... mostly the smell of smoke.

“Have you eaten anything?” is slightly muffled for being delivered into his shoulder.

[portalling]

It’s an automatic thing, folding Gwenaëlle into his arms and drawing her closer.

And Stephen finds himself considering, distantly, if this is their first time simply embracing while standing? Yes. He thinks so. Because this is his first time noticing the height difference properly and realising exactly where Gwenaëlle’s face fits against his shoulder, his mouth at just the right height where he can press a kiss to the top of her head. He breathes her in. The smell of her hair and the now-familiar scent of her soap; cleaner, for all that he comes in still reeking of disaster.

“Not properly. Just some bread.” Someone had been handing out a loaf, not even slicing it up, just enough to rip off a piece and stuff it in your mouth and pass it on and then keep going. Prevent people from passing out, blood sugar crashing.

After all the noise and chaos of the night, it is so indescribably good to return to this quiet, familiar setting, to the warmth and pressure of Gwenaëlle’s arms cinched tight around him. He exhales.

“I thought they might let us stay in the lower levels of the templar tower, but it’s not structurally sound. Could I stay here for—” The night? The duration? How long are the repairs going to take? Stephen has no idea. He pauses, hesitating. “Well. I don’t know. For a while.”

Why is he even asking. But still.

[elegiaque]

The sigh she lets out is something more felt than heard, and probably means exactly: why are you even asking. Ridiculous. She's going to make him go sleep in a tent? She takes a deeper breath before she starts to loosen her grip, only because they're standing in the open door and he could be inside, eating something, cleaning ash out of his hair, settling.

“Yes,” she says, “of course you will.” Stay. Frankly, after today, the prospect of his being here is a deeply selfish one on her part and she's not going to pretend otherwise; at least half the reason she's still up is an unwillingness to face an empty bed and her own darkened ceiling. “I don't— the bath isn't fresh at this hour, but it was only me and it's still hot. If you want to clean up, I can find something more than bread, it's a bit wet in the galley but we haven't lost anything that can't be dried out, I don't think.”

It'll need looking at in proper light, but all told the houseboat has come through rather miraculously and she's not looking that gifthorse in the mouth.

“Do you want me to...?” lilts into a question, her hands hovering just beneath where he's holding his cloak, not quite taking it from him.

[portalling]

Her immediate ticking through the to-do list and the practicalities, lining them up in a neat row: these are some of the things he loves about her.

Stephen’s usual sharp, incisive attention has gone a little distant, foggy around the edges from exhaustion, when he looks down and finally remembers that cloak he’s been clutching so protectively in his arms, cradling it like it’s some sorry dog he rescued from the blaze. Absurd. He almost died for this. People could rightfully take the piss out of him for this, going back into a collapsing tower for a piece of clothing.

But it’s not just a pile of fabric; it’s more like the corpse of a friend.

So Stephen reaches out and gently presses the heavy cloak into Gwenaëlle’s arms. She’d seen him in it in the early days, but he hasn’t worn this particular one in over a year; he’d replaced it with one of Fade-touched silk instead, which still hangs from his shoulders. (Still very impressive, but not quite the same.)

“It’s,” he starts, stops. “Parts of it got torn during the attack, and it needs some repairs. At some point, can you…”

An uncustomary hesitance. He’s so delicate when it comes to the few people and things which matter to him. He clears his throat. “It’s the Cloak of Levitation. It’s from home; it came with me through the original rift. You’re a good seamstress, so I figured…”

He trails off.

[elegiaque]

So.

Gwenaëlle doesn't resist when he presses the cloak into her arms; folds them around it tightly like she's holding Small Yngvi, already nodding along before he's finished not finishing his sentence, looking down at the bedraggled bundle in her arms. She's never touched it before, she realises, and she handles it accordingly as if it is (because it is) something precious—

“Go take a bath,” she says, sparing a hand to briefly press his arm before she steps back to usher him inside, her feet bare, her lightweight robe swaying around her knees. “You know the way. I'll bring a tray to you, I can get the ash out of your hair better than you're going to be able to. I'll put this with my sewing things, first.”