faderift | III. SEMI-CLOSED.

WHO: Alistair; Gavin; Hercules Hansen; Malcolm Reynolds; Martel; Sabine
WHAT: When a small team go out to close a rift on the frozen river, Sabine catches an errant ~~pain laser~~ shard.
WHEN: Now's good?
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: Demon violence, and a rude elf.

It's the first time Sabine's seen one of these things up close without immediately running away.

The rift twists several feet in the air, an unsettling green-tinged distortion, and tongues of brighter emerald magic touches the thickly frozen surface of the river. Occasionally, these touches seem to strike the ice with the force of a lightning strike, demons erupting out of nowhere, shrieking and maddened and twisted by the overwhelming sensory input of the waking world.

In the background, a snoufleur pays no attention.

It's hard to walk, let alone fight. The three shades that remain seem to glide along the craggy ice with ease, and the heated run off from the rage demon in the midst of it all makes slush out of the ice in the paths it cuts, steaming pillowing off its molten hide like smoke. Leather scrapes ice as Sabine skids to her knees, aiming her arrow towards the rage demon, and firing. She is dressed more for battle than cold weather, her nose and the tips of her long ears pink, her fingers bare as they nimbly take another feathered end of an arrow from her quiver, lining it up again.

They're winning, slowly. Two disintegrated demons mark the spot they perished on the ice, and the shriek of another conveys imminent death.

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He can't exactly keep his balance - skidding across the ice as he races toward her, arms out as he slams into the ground and gets up again to approach a little more cautiously.

He sees the green light but barely registers it - too immediately concerned as he reaches out to help her up, planting his feet to give them both support.

"Sabine, are you hurt?" He asks, his voice too loud over the sound of the battle, even as the rift crackles hotly with green light.

"Come on," Herc murmurs, and he's not sure who or what he's talking to. The rift, hoping it'll close. Gavin, hoping he gets to Sabine quick smart and that she's all right, or maybe Max. Maybe he's just talking to himself, flame enveloping Striker Eureka's blade as he lays into a terror. Feints might not be all that necessary fighting a demon, rather than another warrior with a sword, but damn if he doesn't find it effective, the mislead and the quick re-direction of energy to clatter his sword into the thing. They're exchanging blow pretty evenly, him and this demon, but the focus is still on him, and that's not so bad.

Max, meanwhile, is loping back towards Sabine as well, lurking as a secondary guardian. Good - except Herc just took a hard strike across his face, slashing across his brow.

"How's closing that thing going?" he calls out, to Mal and Martel both. Doesn't need to let them know its urgent, they aren't stupid, but he'd like to get an idea of how many more demons they might need to deal with spawning up outta the ground, seemed like, as he blinks away the sting of blood from his eyes.

Martel doesn't give him an answer - but the tonal shift of the connection from shard to rift speaks for itself to those who have a bit of practise, now, at this business of closing the fucking things. It bursts loud and sudden into nothing and he staggers backward, dropping his hand into the grip of the other and gritting his teeth where he might have sworn.

A moment later he spins on his heel and marches toward Sabine, brushing Gavin aside not roughly but without so much as a by your leave to see her uninjured for himself.

Or not, as the case may be. A shard. He does swear, this time, under his breath.

The sudden quiet is disconcerting, like a plunge underwater—it's Alistair's first rift, and for a moment gaping at the clear, empty air where the tear had been supersedes all other concerns, like checking that Hercules doesn't still need assistance or worrying about Sabine's thrashing and growing audience.

Just for a moment.

A glance around confirms the demons are as dead and gone as they ought to be. Sabine needs a closer look, and he treads and slips his way across the ice until he's near enough to catch a glimpse of green light from her wrist.

"Maker's breath," he contributes usefully. He doesn't come closer than he is, which is still a few yards away, out of both courtesy and helplessness. He doesn't want to crowd her. He isn't sure what he could do other than crowd her.

Sabine is a handful, not quite struggling against Gavin so much as just being a difficult quality to manage as she tries to get her balance under her, whacking him in the face with a thick red braid at least once and then twisting away once she's fairly sure she can stand, still undecided about whether she should give in to instinct and flee.

Instead-- "Non," she replies, nearly at a snarl, but then the lake is silent.

No more demon shrieks, or that strange hum and throb and whine of the tear in reality, green light gone. She looks towards where the rift used to be, eyes big, and then down at her arm, reluctantly pulling her hand away to see that flicker of green light through the slice taken out of her sleeve. Still there.

Alistair's useful contribution gets a sharp glance, remembering herself, and Sabine immediately claps a hand back over her wrist, mouth pinched tight. "Mon tabarnak j'vais te décalisser la yeule calice," is a savage, rapid-fire stream of Orlesian, and she stamps a boot heel down against the ice in a fit. She looks up at Martel, and complains; "It fucking stings."

Telling everyone not to tell anyone seems like not the way to go.

He stumbles backward as he's wrenched away, and doesn't try again. Instead, he carefully extracts a red hair from between his lips, and brushes it off into the snow.

"At least the rift is closed?" He points out, just as helpful as Alistair, because to be fair he knows nothing about the shards beyond the fact that they weren't fatal, and despite the cursed Orlesian that he didn't understand, she seems otherwise unharmed.

He thinks.

(He is not a doctor.)

Last bastard of a demon down, courtesy of a bit of help from Max and a final strike with his blade. He's quick to turn towards Sabine and the people gathering around her. Angry, Orlesian - well, she's alive and feisty, at least.

"Do you need a medic?" Herc asks as he moves towards all the rest, blood still helping stinging his eye and forcing him to keep it closed. Only a small gash, really, but it's the location that's the real pain. He's not all the way over to them, hasn't seen the shard, and people standing about not doing much but looking aghast isn't clearing much of this up for him. He's never seen someone get hit by a shard for that matter, either.

Jayne, well. Jayne does what Jayne does- runs around to clear the field, make sure what all's down stays down. Were there people with armor and things to pick over, Mal'd start that up to but everyone's huddl'n up over li'l miss archer and he don't see much reason to not walk over his own self. Mal ambles, peers at her arm, at her, and promptly offers the only appropriate help a non healer can give.

He unhooks a flask from his belt and offers it over. "Makes it hurt less."

All good bog whiskey tends to make everything hurt less.

III. SEMI-CLOSED.

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hi guys sorry guys

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