[Mini Event] just the way of things

stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires

At least there was some sense in their heads: they were open to the idea of not rushing headlong into death. Rory considered it a small victory so bitter that it was hardly a victory at all.

Then, Ronin let slip a bit of news: it does not seem to be organic. Rory felt his eyes blink rapidly a couple of times, yet his head did not move, but the hand that somehow had stayed in a fist beneath his chin twitched. Not organic? He couldn't say that he was surprised to hear it, not even slightly. What else could explain its infallible sense of when someone approached? How it was always around? Never slept, never tired, never ate? No; that it was inorganic was not a surprise.

He just didn't know what it made it instead, nor how the information would help them defeat it. Inorganic or not, it was still lethal.

Then—

“You’ll stand a better chance with me.”

At that point, the voice was painfully familiar, but it usually lacked such sentiment. He associated it with discussing leather qualities, thickness and suppleness, how to combine cover with flexibility.

Claws of some sort glittered in the firelight, and Rory had deadpanned in her general direction, unsure of what he was feeling. Relief? Disbelief? Anger? Was he finally going insane, and hallucinating her at the back of the crowd?

She used the talons to lift the hood from her face, and Rory's lack of expression became a glare. "What the fuck, Wessex," he said, something like frustration snaking around the words. What was she doing here? She had been dead. Or hadn't she been dead? Had he just stood up here and delivered a whole load of bull, thinking she'd been shredded good and proper, just because he'd found one of her knives and some strips of her gear? Or had she actually somehow come back from death?

The combination of the subject and her sudden reappearance ignited something not entirely benign in him. They'd stand a better chance with her? Yeah, because it went so splendidly the last time she faced the monster—dying or not the thing had still got to her good. That much he knew, at least.

Remi only pieced together who the woman who'd just entered was by Rory's reaction. Even though this woman had apparently come back from the dead, it was Rory that Remi's pale stare focused on. He'd never heard the man speak with anything near the quietly venomous tone he had now, nor seen his face sharpened into the glare that it now wore. Saying nothing of course, Remi felt the urge to shy away from the leather-worker. Instead he hazarded a glance over his shoulder at Ronin to see if the bounty hunter had any idea just what was happening here. If Wessex wasn't dead ... was that somehow a benefit to their cause? Did it mean...something about the creature who guarded the spire? And if so, what? Clearing his throat slightly and biting down on the urge to grab Rory by the arm and drag him away into the darkness with him, Remi nodded awkwardly towards the crowd before stepping down off of the platform upon which they'd been stood. Regardless of the implications of what had happened with Wessex, Remi had nothing more to add. He was no decision maker, no strategist. The alchemist had said what he knew and now? Surely it was in someone elses hands. remi Trying to teach my common sense to not waver with my confidence

Despite her cheeky, rather dramatic entrance, Wessex isn’t smiling. She rarely smiles - but that isn’t the point. This isn’t a joke. This thing they’re talking about, it’s life and death - literally. Wessex was stupid and died, and now she has a second chance to be alive again. And after about 24 hours of thinking, she’d come to the conclusion that something or someone wanted her alive. The answer to ‘for what?’ hasn’t come to her yet, and it might never, but she’s going to be smarter about this whole living thing from here on out. Not nicer (before some you get ahead of yourselves), just smarter. That means working together even when she’d much rather shove some of the Outlanders into the Spire Monster’s open jaws. “I am,” she says to Kalt, meeting his questioning gaze with a frank, almost vulnerable one of her own. “And I don’t know how I came back, I don’t remember much of anything beyond being torn to pieces.” She pauses and looks down at her hands and then holds them out in front of her. “But I came back with some new toys, so this is… deliberate.” Edy’s voice pipes up, and Wessex turns to search for her in the crowd, and when she finds the girl, offers a wink and then a shrug turns back to the group. Before she can continue, Rory’s voice cuts through, angry and loaded. The blonde woman simply spares him a leveling glance before continuing. “It’s not a joke. She -” a jerk of her head towards Edrei - “saw me die. Fluid everywhere. Limbs scattered, eaten maybe - I felt the loss of every one. That’s not the point. The point is that it took a bit to wear me down - there’s strategy in Ascended’s perks. I think I heard some mention of fire magic? There’s strategy in that too. In numbers and sequence of attack types.” Wessex pauses and flexes her arm muscles, pulling the talons back in. “Train and learn to work together, which I will tell you now, I’m fucking terrible at - and we’ll be ready for a much more successful attack in Flowerbirth.” Well. That didn’t go like it normally does. In all her thirty-eight years, Wessex has rarely been a team player; death must really have changed (some) part of her. She looks for Rory again, as if to say, satisfied? WESSEX She whispered back, I am the storm

stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires

He wasn't sure if he was even listening, or if it was just her mouth moving and his pulse roaring—their faces were a crowd of wolves and he, the hart, trapped at the front of them. Between them and the torches he saw no way out, so his absent gaze roamed and roamed, never quite stopping anywhere.

“It’s not a joke.” His breathing was fast and shallow.

It still felt like one, like one sick fuck of a joke, and he was still up there, up there, up there (defenseless and exposed) when all he wanted to do was—find his tongue and say—

"I'm glad you're alive," but it came out leaden and dead, just like everything else in that moment.

His heart was too fast. He was done there and Remi had retreated at some point, lost, lost among the people, or just lost to his flighty eyes. He wasn't equipped to handle any of this—losing a friend and getting her back within the span of a few hours; these bold claims of defeating the monster; the wild, violent feeling that had briefly sung through the crowd—so he fled. Looking more lost than angry Rory stepped off the dais and ghosted to the the side of the Temple, slinking down along the wall, passing into the night close behind Wessex.

He wanted.. he wanted to tell her that he was proud of her: proud, because she so readily admitted to one of her own flaws. Proud, that.. that.. that she was here? That she was trying to do something? But he was too overwhelmed, sought only the refuge of the cold air and the bright stars, spilling out into the dark like an errant ray of light with tears threatening in the corners of his eyes.

Half-running he made it to Talys, not noticing the fox curled up on her saddle, just pressing his face against hers, burrowing into her thick forelock and inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of horse.

R O N I N

---

Ronin glanced from speaker to speaker as it became very evident that this was indeed Wessex, and she had indeed died out there by the Spire. But now she was back - and with new weapons, as she herself pointed out.

Remi and Rory had both slipped away and Ronin was left alone on the dais, looking slightly awkward as he shuffled to the centre. He hadn't expected to front this whole thing, no less for his two companions to vanish at random.

One thing was certain though - Wessex was absolutely right. Ronin nodded to the Ascended and let a grim, determined smile flash across his face. "Then it's settled," he murmured. "Thank you, all of you who have agreed to lend your help. Here's to Flowerbirth, and finally ridding this place of that thing."