// I'd take the fall—I got you covered when there's no one at all //
He joins the last boat out of Stormbreak, traveling with this group bound for Torchline to ensure the proceedings are going as well as they can hope. Koa is still doing a final sweep and will meet him later in King’s End, but for now, Kaisel is anxious to confirm the civilians they directed to safety are managing. He fights the numbness creeping in. He forces himself to see the clouds the skyship cuts through, not the rubble left behind, not the dust clouds rising like smoke.
When the vessel finally docks, the jolt of it rattles him out of the spiral. He blinks, breathes, glances around. Faces meet him—terrified, tear-streaked, dazed. Some are bloodied. All of them are dust-covered and hollow-eyed with the realization that it wasn’t just the tower that fell. It was everything. Their homes. Their safety. The shape of their lives. All of it, torn away by a monster pretending to be merciful.
Kaisel swings down onto the dock, moving to help. He passes family members into one another’s arms, watches over tiny piles of belongings—each a heartbreaking echo of a life left behind. With each handoff, something drains from him. Not strength. Hope.
At last, he’s left with an elderly woman and her bundle of leashes—an impossibly tangled mess of cords ending in a dozen snarling mouths. Tiny dogs, each more determined than the last to prove they’re the fiercest beast. Kaisel’s eyebrows lift in tired alarm just as she thrusts the leash at him like a curse. He catches it—and the dogs erupt.
They explode in a cyclone of yapping fury, teeth flashing as they spin around his legs in a rabid carousel. He yelps, stumbling backward, trying not to fall overboard as the chaos drags him in. The woman follows, shrieking a litany of wildly specific threats, accusations, and warnings about her precious angel babies, and how he better not drop a single one or she’ll bury him in the sand herself.
Every move he makes to untangle the leash makes it worse. He’s helpless. Flailing. Being eaten alive by two-pound terrors. His gaze whips down the dock, desperate, searching—and then he spots a familiar face amid the crowd. "Ronin!" he calls, his voice cracking with a desperation far greater than he'd like given the situation.
When the vessel finally docks, the jolt of it rattles him out of the spiral. He blinks, breathes, glances around. Faces meet him—terrified, tear-streaked, dazed. Some are bloodied. All of them are dust-covered and hollow-eyed with the realization that it wasn’t just the tower that fell. It was everything. Their homes. Their safety. The shape of their lives. All of it, torn away by a monster pretending to be merciful.
Kaisel swings down onto the dock, moving to help. He passes family members into one another’s arms, watches over tiny piles of belongings—each a heartbreaking echo of a life left behind. With each handoff, something drains from him. Not strength. Hope.
At last, he’s left with an elderly woman and her bundle of leashes—an impossibly tangled mess of cords ending in a dozen snarling mouths. Tiny dogs, each more determined than the last to prove they’re the fiercest beast. Kaisel’s eyebrows lift in tired alarm just as she thrusts the leash at him like a curse. He catches it—and the dogs erupt.
They explode in a cyclone of yapping fury, teeth flashing as they spin around his legs in a rabid carousel. He yelps, stumbling backward, trying not to fall overboard as the chaos drags him in. The woman follows, shrieking a litany of wildly specific threats, accusations, and warnings about her precious angel babies, and how he better not drop a single one or she’ll bury him in the sand herself.
Every move he makes to untangle the leash makes it worse. He’s helpless. Flailing. Being eaten alive by two-pound terrors. His gaze whips down the dock, desperate, searching—and then he spots a familiar face amid the crowd. "Ronin!" he calls, his voice cracking with a desperation far greater than he'd like given the situation.
Kaisel
// When you need somebody to turn to—Nobody got you the way I do //
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
