faderift | 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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And she realizes that she's fucked it all up. That she has the right to is indisputable. But that doesn't mean she should have. She knows this, knows it fucking well, but living by that credo is hard, always has been. She's always too rough, when people need ease and comfort.

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.

A flame can’t carry without air to keep it burning, and her admission serves all too suddenly as cut fuel for whatever spark his own hateful heart had been working hard to ignite. She stalls him there, where he still looms, stance still posed as if he means to be a threat: back hunched, shoulders drawn too far forward, but—

The sharp huff that leaves him is clearly one of disbelief, not malice.

What is this? Why does she—

“ —what?”

She doesn't move. She doesn't have any right to.

He needed something, and she didn't give it; it's simple, really. It's her job to protect him, as much as he sees it necessary to protect her (that order barked at Ben flickers in her mind, now free of battle's heat). And she fucked it up and hurt him.

She doesn't say that; she's not a completely fucking thick.

"I failed you," she repeats, neither sorrowful or angry. It's just a fact. "I never know... I always hit too hard."

Metaphorically and physically. She'd done the same thing with Ben, at first-- pushed him too far and scared him senseless. That she hasn't done it again is a testament to her own caution, which she's sure will fail with time.

(She always expects people to just take the blow, like she does, while knowing she'd hate to see such a fall under her fists.)

He doesn't like it. To look at someone else and see himself.

Maybe that was the problem with his brother as well, for everything he so despised was only ever the shadow of his own reflection, staring him fully in the face— reaching out for acknowledgement. All bitterness aside, all oaths forgotten, even after an eternity of waking nightmare he still finds himself utterly incapable of bearing it on his own.

"I..."

He'd asked her not to think too much of him, once. What must she think of him now?

"We shall not speak of this now." said as if he means to bargain for time, or perhaps a better frame of mind for the both of them— but what it really means is that not now, if left alone, will become ever.

Jone nods, taking his words at face value. The thought of never seeing his face again inspires fledgling feelings of fear. "Get some sleep," she says instead. "We'll leave late tomorrow; I'll want to see everyone out of the Planes first."

She turns back to the stars.

CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject