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CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.
WHO: Erik Stephens, Gabranth, Diana, Benedict, Edgard, Tiffany, Dick & Jone.
WHAT: The Gang Fights A Dragon.
WHEN: Cloudreach.
WHERE: The Thenuviet estate on the Exalted Planes.
NOTES: if something looks wonky or is misspelled, please know I’m typing this on mobile & have mercy.
WHAT: The Gang Fights A Dragon.
WHEN: Cloudreach.
WHERE: The Thenuviet estate on the Exalted Planes.
NOTES: if something looks wonky or is misspelled, please know I’m typing this on mobile & have mercy.
GETTING THERE isn’t a short journey, and they’re hardly traveling in comfort. Most of the horses are carrying equipment, armor, weaponry, and anything else those volunteered for this expedition thought to include. And there’s camping equiptment. Anyone who said the travel overland involved staying at inns was lying. Inns are notoriously stuffed with murderers, anyway.
Every night, there’s a campfire and food. Sometimes it’s fresh caught, but if it is, Jone certainly didn’t catch it. Just as likely that it’s rations, salt pork and jerky and whatever dried fruits and nuts Riftwatch can spare.
There’s a STOP AT A BATHHOUSE in the town near the Thenuviet estate, however. It’s stupid, they’re just going to dirty themselves up later, but presentation is important to these people.
Surely all of you brought fancy dress and masks, because IT’S TIME TO SCHMOOZE. There’s a small party of Orlesians dressed to their finest, having a cozy little soirée on the edge of a cliff. Literally on the edge. Don’t indulge too much in the fine wines and cheeses, because there’s a dragon waiting, but for now? It’s never a bad idea to look good in front of rich people of influence. At least, not these days.
Eventually, it’s time to move forward, which means PREPARING FOR BATTLE. Climbing down the cliff is easy stuff, if you’re good with rope or have basic upper body strength. But now is probably the time to set up any traps, get in good positions... because it’s not long before the party on the cliff above begins to cheer.
...Because a few dead swine are unceremoniously kicked off the cliff to fall into the ravine now filled with you and yours.
The cheers from the cliff face only increase as loud thrashing, howling sounds start and become increasingly closer. How long have they been feeding the dragon like this?
But then it’s DRAGON KILLING TIME. You probably know how that goes. Stormriders are huge, dark scaled, and shoot thunder instead of fire. This one is angry you’ve interrupted lunch time.
AFTERWARD, it’s time to heal, take a breath, poke around the dragon bits for fancy heirlooms, and climb back up that cliff.
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But then— knowing who he is, how could he possibly forget?
"So you return to look for him, under the guise of work." Or perhaps her work simply is the search itself. Whatever the make of it, Gabranth finds the prospect of their long journey more appealing for that alone. She is right, after all: better that he's there for it. As brace or shield, or willing witness, she'll not lack for a steadying hand in the worst of her own memories.
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A long breath, and finally her eyes drop from the stars, to the distant trees, bare and broken. "Thank you. After this-- anything you like. I mean it.
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His own brother had never done so much for him, after all.
“There’s no need.”
What could he ask her for? This place might well be a graveyard to his mind— albeit a beautiful one at times. A strange world, deeply in need of his aid for the time being, and a welcome one to seek out rest in once the matter of otherworldly turmoil is inevitably seen to.
“...I hope you succeed.” Softer, sober in solemnity and not some hopeful promise of what they might find against all odds. Only the idea that he wishes it so.
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Jone looks over at her companion, considers her next move, and carefully leans over to rest her head on the cool metal of his pauldron. "Like to do something for you, though. You've done me more favors than I can count."
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She pats the armor circling his arm as though it was the cloth-covered skin of any man.
"It ain't that I don't wanna see what's under there no more, but... it ain't my business, innit."
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And was it not Gabranth who had told her such things could make a man as worthy as any King or Judge.
“...say it, then.”
His voice is low. A hushed thing, reverberating in the silence of his own helm, though the meaning held in that demand remains unclear.
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"Say what?"
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They are alone. There is little chance of being interrupted or found out when much of the forest’s nettled brush and tree line paints them both in mottled shadow and light.
So then, he supposes, if ever she desired to know what lies beneath adamantine platework, now would be the time.
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And she feels a little scared at the prospect, as though this is some test, hers to fail.
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He can hardly blame his twin for this misery that still haunts him.
"The laws which once bound me are so long-ago lost, neither shame nor searching retribution would do what remains of my pride undue harm."
He pauses there, as if considering the weight of something near-within his grasp. His throat feels dry, his armor heavy.
"I have shattered that oath myself already."
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Her hand slides under his pauldron again, touching the rough outline of a real, human shoulder.
"Alright, then," she says, trying for soft instead of just raspy, "show us your pretty face."
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To the sunken feeling of loss, and how pity always arrived too late.
Instead, he cinches his jaw so tightly that it aches.
Gloved hands square themselves beneath his helm's twin horns, pulling it free in a single fluid motion— and perhaps it's better that she'd called him here at night, as waning light affords her more time to adjust to the sight of a face unsullied by any past assumptions: a map of sharp angles offset by finer features, clear eyes, blond hair tangled about his neck where that dark collar ends— not a scar in sight.
He hadn't lived long enough for them to take shape.
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She'd considered hiding her eyes as a jest, peeking out behind them, but it's too cheerful for the solemn expression this new face wears. He's beautiful like well bred gentry, fine-featured and sharp-eyed. Why is she surprised by that? Why does she feel the urge to turn her face away, to hide it.
Why you can stand me, I don't know.
She opens her mouth, willing to say something, but nothing comes out. Closing it, she looks down-- how stupid, how silly-- and studies the grass instead. Her hand snakes away. She can feel a storm inside herself, billowing heat lightening between her ribs, but instead of the usual rage, it all feels distant.
She can't square with that, so it's set aside. Look at him, no matter how it makes you want to squirm under that gaze. No bloody wonder he called himself a judge.
"You..." she murmurs, hating the fleeting tone in her voice, almost shy-- except she'd burnt that part of her away long ago. A hand reaches up, moving toward him, only to flick back when she realizes what she was doing on instinct. She wants to touch him. She doesn't want to touch him. She wants to scream at him. She wants to live in this moonlight silence until the end of everything.
"You should be in paintings. A bloody museum, for you. Don't you know..." She looks down at herself. "I can't understand it. You. I don't."
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Ironic that the armor served as better comfort than his own face.
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"So bloody much for being able to handle it."
It's her game to lose, and she has.
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What is he to say? What kindness can he offer? He is more ill suited for the matter of ease than his own brother (and Basch was nearly just as stoic in mercy given or outstretched hand)— he hardly means for his voice to bear a cutting edge, but it's there all the same: lingering in his tone like a command, though he knows she's hardly one to tolerate it.
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"Don't you fucking tell me what to do, prettyboy. Bloody- it's perfectly bloody reasonable, getting spooked. How's I to know there was a fucking- a fucking statue under there. Maker!" Another push. "You're an arse, Gabranth."
Which is to say, her confidence is back. She's never known what to do with kindness.
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Instead, she reaches out to push him, and his lip twists back into a scowl for it.
Gauntleted hand rising to snare her outstretched wrist, working to pull it aside in order to cease that volatile shift, rather than weather it without consequence.
He’s always expected more from those around him than from himself.
“Be silent before you are heard—“
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Why? Why does she reel, and falter and fight—? What has he offered her that she did not ask for from the moment they first met? She makes him to be the villain, so far as he understands, and—
And he's tired. So much so that his hold on her recedes to settle instead on his own helm, warring somewhere inside as to whether or not he'd played the fool in thinking such a revelation suited either of them.
"You wanted to know the truth," words dripping with vitriol, with the sting of what feels akin to rejection in that moment prickling along the back of his neck— soon covered by the weight of his helmet once more. "Bask in it, Daughter of Denerim."
"And do not think to depart without me."
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"I did," she says, still whispering, not giving an inch. "And I lost me bloody mind over it. Told you, people call me a monster. But you know what? I don't regret it."
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He pauses where he’s already risen to take his leave, his fist clenched so tight at that whispered little addendum that the leather in his grip gives an audible creak. It takes a single breath for some sane part of his mind to urge dignity— discipline— and another before he’s whirled on her, that heavy cape fluttering at his back where he leans in with an index finger pointed furiously at her seemingly satisfied expression.
The first to break his own demand for hushed caution, growling words without suppression:
“Was that all this was to you? A means to mock me?"
No, Of course not— if he’d take a moment to even look back on her fearful response to the sight of him surely he could recognize that it wasn’t done in jest at his expense.
But he’s beyond rationality now, such as he's always been too quick to burn.
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Gabranth did, and- "I failed you."
The words pop out of her mouth, unbidden. So much for self control.
She can't make any excuses for herself. It feels like lying. Better to stay small on the grass, an easy target, ready to be hit. Her bell is overdue for a ringing.
"I'll make it up to you. I will." She doesn't think she can, but an impossible promise, in this moment, is too tantalizing to pass up. The inevitable failure is what she craves, ample punishment for ruining a fledgling friendship.
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The sharp huff that leaves him is clearly one of disbelief, not malice.
What is this? Why does she—
“ —what?”
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