[SWE] Where Angels Fear to Tread

Giving Edy a look, Loren opened his mouth to make a snarky comment, but before he could, she was dragged off. Shrugging, he made his way over to the alchemist, who’d stood up by the time Loren had arrived. However happy Remi might’ve been to see Loren, it was nothing compared to how happy the librarian was. Returning the other man’s hug tenfold, Loren let his other concerns wash away for a moment; even if there were still other people who he needed to find, with Remi, Loren knew they’d get through it. After everything the two of them had been through, Loren very much felt that he had earned the right to hold the other man in the librarian’s arms. Whatever else had happened, this relationship was something they’d both decided they were going to fight for. Just because there was something really strange going on didn’t change that, at least not in Loren’s mind. Maybe the alchemist felt differently, but it didn’t seem that way.

Returning Remi’s smile, Loren felt his own fade before too long. “I’m here. We’re here. We're okay.” They could have a discussion about where here was and what that meant and all of that. But later. For now they should get organized. Turning to look at the woman, Loren nodded. “Follow me.” If she wasn’t going to take over and just make suggestions, he would; Loren was also pretty sure that the alchemist would follow suit, but if not, the librarian would make his way over to Ronin.

If the captain would allow it, Loren would give Ronin a hug: it would be slightly less affectionate than the one the librarian had exchanged with Remi, but for once the Launceleyn needed some comfort, even if he was keeping it together well. Regardless, he'd greet the other man. “Hey. It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re okay. We can talk later, but for now, where do you need us?” There didn’t seem to be much of a plan right now beyond ‘gather everyone together.’ That made sense, but they needed some guidance and Loren didn’t think people would listen to him. If he had to, though, he could and would start whipping people into shape.

Mimora was having one of the nicest dreams in a while. Meat and cheese were arranged into a throne, which she had sat upon and napped. It was amazing. It truly was.

But then, the sensation of the water Mimora had been resting in had all but vanished. Her feral instincts reared its head, causing her to snap open her eyes and look around. It was wasteland everywhere, with one big black stick in the middle. Gross.

Mimora stood and saw vaguely familiar faces around, and decided with a sigh to head towards the gathering group, making sure to stay on the edge in case she needed to run.

For a long time, there was nothing.  All Moses-Joel knew was that an unnamed man assaulted him in the black of night and rid him of his consciousness.  And he never woke up.  Yet it was darkness afterward.  No end, no continuation of anything.  He had no time to make his peace, to say his goodbyes and to wish those he loved well.  He was simply gone.

And yet, in the blink of an eye, he was awake again.  He was stirring, moving, without rhyme or reason.  He coughed himself awake, pushed himself up and into a sitting position.  His vision grew fuzzy, shifting in and out of focus.  But after a rubbing of the eyes and a shake of the head, it all came into perspective.

Perfetti looked about himself, unaware that he was breathing once more.  The shock of it all, the numbness of it tingled in his fingers and his toes.  He forced himself to stand, to use his legs and to wake the rest of his body up.  His face was loose, blank with misunderstanding and confusion.  Had he finally woken up?  Or was this the second phase: life after death?

He then heard coughing, hacking of a woman's voice.  Moses turned towards it, unsure of who it was and where it came from.  Eventually, the voice gained a body, and his steps hastened in making sure that this person was alright.  But when they ventured towards each other, they stopped, hearts sunk and chests caving in disbelief.  Joel's own face dropped at the sight of her, and after a moment of pause, they ran at each other, embracing and devolving into a fit of weeping and sobbing.

It was his wife, Enya Perfetti.  A woman who died in his arms years and years ago.  But what was she doing here?  And moreover, what did this all mean?

When they finally came to a point where they had settled, they had no questions.  None of their minds could comprehend what was going on.  All they could do was move on together, to try to find someone or something that could explain what was going on.  They walked for some time, nothing coming to light for a while.  In the wake of it all, Moses' tracking skills had led them to discovering others.  Others who had collected in a specific area of this place.

They announced their arrival as they decreased their proximity.  By a waving of the hand and shouting, they signaled to the group that they were coming.  Yet as they closed in and met up with them, Perfetti couldn't believe his gaze.  There were people here he knew, he met before, from Northaven.  What were they doing here?  This was too much, there was too much going on...  What was going on?  And that was when his gaze found Ronin  Enya remained quiet, as she knew he had a little more standing with these folks than she.

"Ronin?  ...Ronin Taliesin?"

Brus blinked. His eyes wildly scanned his surroundings. Where the hell was he? What happened to the feif he'd snuck into? The lord who's blood should be dripping outside of his body by Brus's very hand? This place made his nose burn, and he sneezed.

After a few moments he noticed that it looked veryuch like the aftermath of his poor village that had been attacked and destroyed. It brought a scowl to the man's face, and he looked at all the people who were around.

Northaveners. That's what they seemed to call themselves. Not any place he'd ever heard of, so the alerts clearly didn't pertain to him. He crossed his arms, listening and watching the group from a distance, but all the while his mind on the revenge that had just been taken from him by who knows what.

What happened? Amaya was lost. She vaguely remembered being bullied, chased into an icy forest to hide out in a tree stump overnight. She'd been sick, and cold, but she couldn't remember much of anything after that.

Names failed her, faces failed her. It was as if she was starting completely over. She hugged herself, and followed the sounds of voices, and it wasn't long before she was among so many faces she recognized from her time as a servant in the Center. But...who exactly were they? She couldn't remember their names, or did she ever know them?

She joined the crowd, but said nothing. She felt small, out of place, and lost. This place wasn't pleasant. It wasn't home. Even situations that were familiar were now foreign. What could she do? How could she help? Or should she just fade into the background and be invisible, like she was most of the time as a servant.

This was new... Celosia was finding that ‘new’ was getting really old. New friends who influenced her new - much less ethical - ethics, new governments turning their settlement upside down, and even a new race known only to herself and her sire. How many new places were they going to be forced to survive? And was this even a new place, or some nightmare that she was enduring? No... She hadn’t had one of her episodes since  she had been sired. This had to be real.

She had just stepped outside to go to the training grounds, but instead of the cobblestone outside of her townhouse, she stepped into what she imagined was the origin of the ghost stories she had heard as a child.

A sudden wave of relief hit her, as she felt her father’s sword at her hip. Convenient that she had been going to train. Cel heard @Ronin’s voice call everyone to attention, but her eyes drifted to the ominous spire jutting into the overcast, as the sky opened with a clap of thunder. She moved her braid over her shoulder, and approached the crowd gathering.

She wasn’t a soldier by any means, but she had been a public servant. People at least knew her as some kind of leader. Cel knew, however, that she was out of her element. This wasn’t Northaven, and she decided to take a step back, to let the guardsmen and women do their jobs.

Her ruby cloak moved at her ankles as she walked, approaching Remi and Vervain with a grin. She nudged the alchemist’s shoulder playfully with a closed-lip grin. “Up for some more adventure?”

Ashetta had been… relaxing. Relaxing, because for the first time she could ever remember, she felt at ease. Enough to lounge across a rooftop, one leg dangling over the side of the roof and her arm cast over her head. She was riding a euphoric high that was dangerously close to crashing, and she clung to its pinnacle, willfully ignoring the thread of the dark that could no longer be held back by the constant war her life had been up until a few days ago. She certainly didn't have to worry about that for very long.

The raven-haired girl gave a sharp gasp when she just was suddenly.. not… on the rooftop… is that where she had been? Was she on her way home from Cel's place? Going to train? Ashe couldn't remember.

It didn't matter. Not as she sat bolt upright, one hand on the satchel she carried after finishing her shift, the other groping for Reckoning at her side. The sword was her newest companion, acquired only days before under.. strange circumstances. It had been days, hadn’t it? Or weeks? Months? She stumbled to her feet as the scent of the coming fall was violently replaced by the taste of ashes on her tongue, brimstone burning in her nose. Her heart started racing in her chest, and she felt.. something behind her. A door shutting, but there was no sound. She didn't bother looking back, only ahead as she shouldered her satchel and held Reckoning before her.

Dread coiled in her gut at what she beheld.

Ashe made her way forward, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she took in her surroundings with swift efficiency. She recognized others… where were they? Where was the wall? The town? Not even these ruins looked like Northaven, and that towering spire left her feeling unsettled as she moved forward, boots crunching over rubble.

Then she spotted a flash of brilliant red hair, and in the same moment, she spotted more familiar faces. Ashe let out a breath and jogged forward, shaking away the dizzying feeling of everything being wrong and strange. Things felt different, beyond the desolation and confusion. She made herself ignore the icy claws of panic, keeping her electric blue eyes locked upon the group of her family, her friends.

”Mom!” Ashe immediately called when she was in earshot of Vervain , and she immediately threw her arms around her mother when she reached the small group if she allowed it. She'd hang on a moment, her sword behind the huntress's back, and she breathed her in. Something deeply familiar and safe in this place that was the opposite of those things.

She’d release her, eyes wide as she glanced between Remi , Celosia , Ronin , and even Loren … fear clawed at her chest, and there was something reassuring about Ronin's call. Others would follow him, go to him. All she wanted was her family. Ashe turned eyes that had suddenly hardened to her mother. ”Papa?” she questioned, her panic ebbing into a steely resolve. Surely her mother knew where Devrum was. ’Alistair!’ she cast out with her mind. The bond was still strong, clear.. but where was he? Her husband, her father... they had to be here. Either here, or safe at home. There was no other alternative allowed into her thoughts.

Vervain had no issue following Loren and Remi for now, making her way with them over to the gathering crowd. She recognised more and more faces as they all began to come together, and her heart leapt into her chest as finally - finally - the one face she'd been desperately hoping to see made itself known to her. "Ashetta !" Vai's smile was brilliant, her eyes pricking at the corners with tears she would not allow to fall. Her arms moved firmly around her daughter so she could clasp her close, breathing her in deep.

There was a rightness in this - it didn't matter where they were or why, or what they were going to do next. Vai did not have to spend another decade or so looking for her daughter. Ashe was here, and that most important piece of her puzzle had been found. Releasing her with obvious reluctance, Vai carefully tucked a lock of her daughter's raven hair behind her ear. "He will be here," she said quietly, determinedly. Devrum would be here, the same as the rest of them.

Ronin sighed internally, relieved to see Edrei and Elyna get to work with as much swiftness and reliability as ever. They were successful too, it seemed, and the captain hopped down from the boulder he'd been standing upon just in time to spot some familiar faces approaching with the rest of the crowd. He offered a smile to Vervain and Remi, and as Loren stepped forward Ronin hugged the Launceleyn back tightly, giving his shoulders a gentle squeeze as they stood back from each other.

"It's good to see you," he murmured back to the librarian, smiling weakly. "I don't know how many more of us there might be, or how we got here. But no one seems to be hurt, so the next step seems to be to find some shelter." It was starting to rain, after all.

Struck by a sudden idea, he glanced to Koel and tried to hail the other man's attention. "Overseer - are you able to fly around this spire and see if there's anywhere nearby we might be able to go?" Hopefully the eagle's eyes would find somewhere suitable so they weren't standing in this dusty plain, out in the open.

Just as he'd made that suggestion, a frighteningly familiar voice rang out behind him. Ronin turned, confusion written clear on his face as blue eyes fell on a captain he'd known to be dead with such certainty that he'd... well. He'd taken up the role in his stead. Captain Moses-Joel Perfetti stood, hale and whole as though death had never touched him, and if the other man was bemused by the situation, it was nothing to how Ronin felt.

"What-- how are you-- is this where you've been all this time?" he asked Joel - from Northaven's perspective, after all, he'd simply vanished.

Delphine inhaled sharply, panic settling into her chest. She was on her knees, gasping for air, and grasping at dirt. She was almost certain she had been holding onto Bryony and Acantha. Practically certain--after all, she was never far from her girls.

At least the air was breathable; she was in one piece. Her gaze shot up, roaming the people around her, looking for two little bodies that she knew so well. Yin and yang. Hazel eyes roamed the bodies around her, frantically. She needed to know they were safe.

She spied Remi, and she hardly paused long enough to take in that her best friend was there, before her gaze was flitting between everyone else. She hadn't paid enough attention to her friend to realize that her girls were already on their way to him, holding hands tightly.

Bryony clung to Acantha, who was fearless. The little shadow mage was scared easily, while her opposite was easily excited and thrilled by new things. Acantha had always been the more open, curious one. Bryony was happier snuggling to her mother's side.

Eventually, both girls reached Remi and his various gathered, and Bryony immediately reached upward, silently demanding to be picked up. Delphine had taught the girls that uncle Remi was safe.

"Mama?" Bryony inquired. They couldn't see past all the people, the toddlers were quite small for their age. Acantha voiced her demand of 'mama', as well. Neither toddler was a daddy's girl; and the crowd they'd entered truly prevented Delphine from catching sight of them.

By this point, Delphine was moving toward the crowd herself, calling out: "Remi?" She was trying to hide the fear in her voice; she was afraid of one thing: losing the twins. After all, they were the only thing she truly wanted.

The little voices that squealed at hearing her, caused her to grin, and she came to a stop on the outside of the crowd. She was still not one for crowds, after all. Kneeling, the blonde scooped both twins into her arms, and hugged them tightly.

"Papa?" Acantha inquired, burying her face in her mother's shoulder. The question made Delphine pause. She'd not even looked for her husband, or for Iris and the boys. Guilt flooded her briefly, before she shook her head. No... Her husband would want her to be safe before she fretted over him.

"Where... are we?" She inquired, as she stood, holding tightly to both girls' hands. She wasn't asking anyone in particular, just... well, this wasn't Edgemore, and it certainly was not Northstar. So where exactly were they?

Ronin was swift to meet him, the questions and the confusion readily reflected between both men. But in Taliesin's voice, Moses heard a hint of betrayal, sadness. Could he blame him? He didn't have the full story, and in honesty neither did the resurrected man. But there were things that Ronin had to know now, so that there could be some semblance of understanding.

"Ronin, I only awoke minutes ago. I have no memory of this place. That night, the night I went out to recollect, when we had expanded into the jungle for the first time, I knew nothing beyond it." Enya's eyes jumped between her husband and the soldier in his short pause, uncertainty written on her face. Moses also scanned the others who were with him, few faces he briefly knew but none that left an impact on him. He then returned to the face that stared him down in disbelief.

"That night, an unknown assailant attacked me. That much I know. I never saw his face, never figured out whom it might've been. All I know was that he pinned me down and I registered the metal of a blade sink into my neck. Then my consciousness left me and I knew nothing afterward." At that comment, his wife covered her mouth in shock and her eyes flung wide. So he had also found death. That was when MJ turned to her, inviting her to step forward to involve herself in the conversation.

"Ronin, this is my wife, Enya. I married her three years ago and she died from disease two months before the second wave came through," to which she nodded in affirmation. "Whether I was dead or not I am unsure. But we both have agreed to this point that she embraced her fate. So if I was not dead and she was, why is she here?" At that point, their hands naturally found each other, and they gripped each other in only a grasp marked by marriage. Yet as she took Perfetti's hand in hers, she looked down, an abnormality striking her features and bringing it to light.

"Joel..." And he turned to her. She held up his hand, revealing that his ring finger was missing. His eyebrows knotted up at seeing that, and she inquired of him further. "When did you lose your ring finger?"

"Never to my knowledge." He naturally looked to his other hand, to find the ring he'd used to promise his life to her. But it was not there, and his head shot back to the other. He then patted down his leathers, his furs, any small bags he had. Where was his wedding band?! He couldn't find it, and after searching to no avail, he turned to her fully. Complete guilt and shame flooded his face and his eyes grew wet.

"It's gone. I-I can't find it... Enya, I'm sorry-" She stopped him right there, his eyes finally spilling tears as a clenched hand found his mouth. Enya placed a hand on his face, her eyes also welling up as she shook her head.

"No. No, you will not apologize to me, Moses," she ordered. "You were attacked, murdered. Whatever heathen took it from you- Moses, it is not your fault."

Kalt wasn't sure what he had been doing before suddenly finding himself in an unknown world. And that worried him. His memory was perfect down to the last detail of every moment of his life from after age four, so the fact that he felt like he was missing a piece disturbed him greatly. Was he...? He was wearing his pack and uniform, so he assumed he was camping or coming back from camping or something of that nature.

His crystalline eyes observed the area. Clearly, they weren't in Northaven anymore, but that begged the question of where the fuck were they? That wasn't a question that would be answered any time soon, so he decided to put it from his mind. Kalt adjusted his grip on the girl who had stirred in his arms. "Papa?" Theea mumbled into his shirt.

"Keep quiet, star," he said, bringing his hood over his head as he adjusted his pack over his shoulder and accounted for the weapons hidden over his body.

He took easy breaths, approaching the gathering crowd of Northaveners all trying to figure out where they were. He recognized a few familiar faces, including the Launceleyns, but the one he centered on was Ashetta and her mother. A flash of red blurred his vision then.

Kalt stayed off to the side, his eyes burning with intensity as Northwind's two most elite assassins stood so near each other without a hint of recognition from the Assassin in Blue. He could've been outraged at that fact alone.

Everyone gathered, and he joined them, keeping his face out of view of Ashe. Those who knew him knew him as Count Stefan Westbourne, an upstanding Veteris supporter with his toddler daughter, all he had left of his dead wife. Of course it was a lie, but they didn't need to know that just yet.

Some were gathered around the former captain, some were on the verge of panic... It didn't matter to him. He was focused on the girl in his arms, and the woman who escaped him over a year ago.

Glancing around at their surroundings, Koel sighed. Whatever was going on, all his instincts were clamoring that splitting up was a bad idea, but he knew that an individual or a small group would cover more ground than  ”Not much to oversee here, Captain. But I can do you one better. I’ll lead a scouting party, see what turns up. First, though, let’s get these people in some semblance of order.” At that moment it appeared that Ronin got distracted by the arrival of a familiar face; the eagle’s eyes widened as Moses-Joel approached. The man had been dead—or missing, at least—so his presence here was baffling. "Moses-Joel?" Koel shook his head, not believing his eyes. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to wait. Seeing as Ronin was temporarily distracted, the Overseer decided to take matters into his own hands. Raising his voice, Koel made sure it was pitched to be heard across the clamoring crowd. "Everyone, listen up! I know you’re confused, but I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of this. For now, let’s restore some order. Soldiers, I’d like you to keep an eye on the perimeter, noncombatants come to the center of the group. If there are any wounded, bring them to the healers, who will be set up where I’m standing right now. Once we’ve got everyone sorted we can work on sorting through our supplies." That seemed to be everything he could think of: there was more they needed to do and probably more he needed to say, but the basics came first. That meant taking care of any injuries, avoiding panic, and then finding food, water, and shelter. Everything else would just have to wait. Once people had time to organize themselves, Koel spoke up again. "I’m going to look for somewhere less exposed where we can take shelter. Volunteers, follow me!” With that, he set out towards the area around them that looked least damaged; it wasn’t much to go off of, but it was better than nothing and he preferred the semblance of a plan to fumbling around in the dark. Hopefully this wouldn’t get anyone killed. koel  ambray Taking the path of most resistance

All these people and so far Mimora could only see one person she even remotely liked: Ashetta. It was a bit of comfort to her to know she was there, an odd feeling for sure, and so she scooted soundlessly towards her. She stayed a comfortable distance away but was close enough to feel safe.

Hopefully, other people she liked would arrive soon as well. It would be a pain to try to make new friends.