chivalread | INBOX ↣ FELLDEN

[The runes are doing their jobs and holding at night, but that doesn't keep the monsters from rattling around out there all through the pitch dark hours. They seem to get closer, bolder, with each hour before dawn. There's talk among those who call Forsvar home that the walls themselves might not hold at this rate.

So up Lightning has gone, with Ashe, to hold the line. She's done her time toe to toe with these damn things and another run is not something she wants to do. At least the faint glow of the lanterns and torches on the walls lets her see the Spartae as they draw close, Clary's rune stark on her arm. A burst of wind flies from her hand and at the mobile piles of bones, sending two of them clattering apart.

It does nothing to the ones behind.]

Dammit. They just keep coming. [Baring her teeth against the cold, she sends off a fire spell. Her target goes flying back, but though it crashes to the ground in a heap of bones, the two of its fellows that her Aero spell twisted up are gathering themselves together again. Dammit!] What does it take to kill these things?!

[They're already dead, Farron. How many times can you destroy the dead?]

[ This is Ashe's worst nightmare. He's seen monsters before, that part isn't new, but the demonic beasts of his world have never seemed half as scary as the thought of the dead crawling out of their graves and gone walking. Anyone who has had to venture with Ashe into a dark space is well-aware of his deep, deep fear of ghosts - he couldn't keep it a secret even if he wanted to.

So how in the name of the Goddess and all that is good did he end up here, trailing nervously after Lightning to engage skeletal soldiers from atop Forsvar's walls? He's not totally sure himself, but despite the shaking of his knees and the way his heart feels like it's ready to jump out of his throat and make a run for it, he knows that he'd never be able to live with himself if he stood idly by while others put their lives on the line.

His bow is held loosely at his side while Lightning looses her spells to little to no avail, a frown creasing his features. ]

I... I heard some of the soldiers talking. Silver and gold, they said. It... it'll cleave the s-soul out of the skeleton.

[ Hopefully they won't have an angry ghost if that happens. Ashe shivers at the thought. ]

I've got a few arrows, but there's no way I can g-get all of them...

[This is trying to step the tide with her bare hands! It's holding for now, buying time for others to get on the walls, but she can't keep this up forever. This town can't hold forever. Hell, it might not even hold the night.

If there's any way to take even a few of these out, they have to take it. She tosses another Aero, sends the skeletons pell-mell and helter-skelter, and takes the few seconds of breathing room to look at Ashe. He's shaking, terrified, pale in ways the cold alone couldn't do, but he's still standing. It'll do.]

Which ones can you hit from here? I can keep the rest back while you get more arrows.

[There's smiths down below, somewhere. If the soldiers are talking, they have to have the weapons to do such killing. Hold the line until the ones who can finish these things are in position.]

[ It will have to do, because for as many battles as Ashe has fought – a surprising amount in his twenty-one years – there’s something about ghosts that terrifies him like nothing else can. That He’s even upright feels like a miracle. ]

Um…

[ His wide, owlish gaze turns to the hoard of approaching skeleton. Goddess, he feels faint just looking at them, knowing they’re powered by the souls of the dead, but he purses his lips and forces his knees to stop quaking for a moment. Easier if he thinks of them as normal soldiers, easier if this is just another battle in a long line of battles. ]

I can g-get some good distance. [ Ashe may not have the look of a sniper, but distance is what he’s good at. He motions with an unsteady hand towards a skeleton in a feathered helm a good ways off. ] The one in the helm there? That’s probably as far as I can get with what I have.

[Feathered helm. Midlines, closer to the back, which means he can get more than halfway across the field from here. In the dark. Shaking and scared.

Damn, Ashe. She's impressed. She nods firmly, reassessing their location and what options they have. If he can hit midway, that means she's free to keep pushing the front line back into the night. Just keep buying time while others do the killing. It's not quite the l'Cie way, but...it'll do.

Calling up another fire spell, she eyes him sternly.]

Take the shot. I'll handle the ones who get too close.

[ Take the shot, she says, and though Ashe volunteered his serviced but a breath ago, the notion of having to follow through fills him with dread. He has to do this, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’ll essentially be firing arrows at ghosts wearing bone suits.

Goddess help him.

He swallows hard, nodding briefly before turning his sights back out to the advancing horde. He’s gripping his bow tightly, gloves hiding the way his grip has gone white-knuckled with fear, as he brings it to bear and nocks an arrow. They’re just soldiers, he tells himself, but the moment he feels he has a good shot, one of the skeletons’ heads twitches in his direction, empty eye sockets seeming to stare right through him. It’s probably just coincidence, but it unnerves him all the same and his arrow flies wide, glancing off a skeletal shoulder, chipping the bone and doing very little to slow the thing down.

He can just hear the Professor admonishing him now, but the Professor has never been one to scold without offering encouragement as well. Somehow the memory grounds him. He sucks in a steadying breath and tries again.

This time his arrow flies true, the bronze arrowhead taking the skeleton through the eyehole and punching out the back of the skull. It drops without ceremony, lost in the crowd. ]

[This is no time to be timid, Ashe! Lightning holds back her spells, waiting for him to line up the shot without distraction, but if those get much closer--wait! It's down!

Well. That was a good shot!

Shame it only took down one of them. Its fellows just keep on walking like it was never there to begin with, showing no signs of slowing down. Gritting her teeth Lightning calls on Fira instead, the heavier spell slamming into the ground between knots of Spartae and sending bones flying...but also revealing that, out of the darkness, more are coming.

The wards are holding, for now. But they need to do something to clear this line or they're all screwed when those wards go down.]

Dammit. Where do they keep coming from?

[ It's been a blur since then. Mustering the dwindling remnants of energy to go out and assist more people, the truly stubborn ones who kept fighting and fighting and going back out to fight some more. Mercedes doesn't quite find it frustrating at this point, only wishing that her own abilities would settle back beneath her skin as comfortably as they once had. That her efforts wouldn't drain her as much as they have.

But that's a thought and a sigh for later. The worst has passed. For now, she puts herself to the task of locating Ashe-- for many reasons, truly, but largely because she wants to check on him. He isn't in the kitchens, nor can he be found after a thorough sweep of the library, and now she stands before his door, knocking her knuckles against it politely. ]

Ashe? Are you in?

[ Now that Ashe seems to have found a mote of confidence, something to focus on rather than the fear that buzzes around in his head and his heart like angry wasps, he’s quick to keep going. Another arrow nocked and released, even as Lightning looses her spell. It’s sort of comforting, actually. It reminds him of fighting alongside Annette, or Mercedes or any of his other magically-inclined friends. ]

I don’t know.

[ In a war that’s been going on for as long as this one has, there’s probably no shortage of souls or skeletons available. Two to replace every one they manage to fell. ]

Do they have a commander of some kind? Maybe we could get them to break ranks and scatter.

[ The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. Fighting and planning and securing and escorting. Ashe is used to the trials of war, used to long marches and even longer battles. Harsh conditions and daunting enemies. But having to deal with all that while terrified to his very bones has drained him more than even he realized.

The very moment the threat abated and they were allowed a few seconds to breathe, exhaustion hit him hard and he dropped fully clothed into bed like a lead weight, not rising until well in the afternoon the next day. As it is, he’s still kind of sluggish, still kind of hurting, so he hasn’t made it far out of his room.

He didn’t expect anyone to come looking for him, but it would be Mercedes of all people to show up at his door. ]

Yeah. It’s open.

[ The door opens, then, and Mercedes pokes her head in-- and, of course, brightens at the sight of him. ]

I'm sorry, I hope I'm not bothering you... I just wanted to see how you were doing. Does anything still hurt? Do you need to talk about anything? Are you hungry?

[ Many questions. ]

[The only thing keeping them from being overrun is the runes on the walls, and the fact that the sun has to rise. Calls go up along the wall: keep them back and hold steady 'til morning!, but there's people out there on the road, people like she and Dimitri had been.

Just trying to make it to safety, one way or another. If they can break this charge, then maybe--they have to try. So she peers into the dark, scanning the heads for anything.]

I don't think they have a rank system. [Her eyes narrow. It's bare skull after bare skull out there. The occasional helm or cap, but nothing to designate leadership. They probably don't need a leader when they're this driven and mindless. They're almost like Cie'th in that respect.] Not anymore. We could take the whole line out and they'd keep coming.

[Even if it meant walking over their fallen comrades to do it. She grits her teeth.]

We need a better plan.

[ Ashe’s room doesn’t look much different from his room back at Garreg Mach – which is to say, there are already books everywhere. His bow and quiver sit propped against his bed, while his coat and the sweater he wears beneath it (both still ruined, still blood-stained) have been tossed haphazardly over a chair. Ashe himself has finally seen fit to change into loose-fitting clothes for sleeping, though he has been awake for a while now, sitting up in bed with a book.

He glances up from the tome as Mercedes enters. There’s still a weariness that seems to permeate his very being, but he smiles warmly at her all the same. ]

You’re not a bother Mercedes. [ Even with that bombardment of questions, which he answers in order: ] My side still aches every now and again, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m not really sure that I have much to talk about, and… now that I think about it, I am pretty hungry.

[ She’s right – if someone or something is giving these things orders, he can’t see it. Okay, so conventional battle strategies are out. They sure didn’t teach how to do battle with mindless, skeletal soldiers at Garreg Mach, so he’s a little (a lot) out of his depth here.

Ashe also sweeps his gaze over the advancing horde, lips pursed as he considers their precious few options. ]

If we’d had more time to prepare, a pitfall might have worked. Explosives might also slow them down a bit, or at least create a gap?

Probably. Fill a trench with explosives and that'll slow anything down.

[But that takes time to get going. Even if these things vanish come morning, would they have the time they need to get it up and running? Probably not. The only thing to do is hold the line. Not to mention...

One of the other arches on the wall gets off a good shot, but their arrow was steel, not silver or gold. The Spartae falls to pieces, but bones rattle their way back into order all too soon. It's not just for every one they fell two more take their place, but they can't even fell the first one to begin with! She grips the wall tight, fingers going white beneath her gloves.]

But we're going to need a lot of explosives to slow down this mess. Detonating that much would take out the wall, too.

[Which. Defeats the point. Urgh! They're stuck between a bone and a hard place, aren't they? Dammit.]

[ This is... so very much like him, though she can't help but frown slightly at the blood-stained and torn clothes draped over a chair. It's a reminder, and one she can't help but feel slightly bad about, even if she knows avoiding injury altogether was going to be next to impossible.

Well, he's... improving, if nothing else, so Mercedes smiles back and perches on the side of the bed. ]

How about this, then? We can do a quick round of healing to ease some of that ache, and spend some time in the kitchen together. If you're up for it after eating something, Dante did finally tell me what pepperoni was.

[ He seems to be much on the same page as she is – they don’t have the luxury of options, of human opponents with human weaknesses and a human commander. They have a wall, they have the high ground, and they have to pray it holds until sunrise. ]

Then we just have to keep doing what we’re doing and hope we can hold them back until morning.

[ “Should haves” won’t serve them now. Ashe draws another arrow back and releases, the silver-tipped bolt managing to take one of the skeletons between the ribs. That seems to be enough to cleave its soul away, and it drops to be trampled by its brethren. ]

[ He keeps meaning to get his ruined clothes to the Court’s staff, but he still feels a bit bad for making them deal with it. He got himself – and Mercedes and Dimitri – into that whole mess with the fury, and some torn and stained clothing are a small price to pay. ]

Peppero—? Oh! For the pitsa? I think that would be a great project!

[ A pause, as he looks her over ]

Just promise me you’re not straining yourself when it come to healing, okay? I can handle a little ache so there’s no need to push yourself.

I promise I'm not straining myself. [ She says it dutifully, with a hint of a laugh in her tone. ] I've had plenty of time to rest, so right now, I want to do what I can for my friends.

And if we're about to embark on a project, then I need my cooking partner in proper shape! It's rather selfish of me, I know.

[ He gives her another look over. Not because he doesn’t trust her, but rather because he knows how all of them can be. “I’m fine, just a little further” may as well be the class motto for the Blue Lions, after all, but he’s pleased to see that she doesn’t seem to be any worse for wear. Weary, perhaps, but they all are. It’s been a harrowing few days. ]

When you put it like that, how can I refuse?

[ Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he sets his book atop the pile of tomes on his bedside table. ]

Where do you want me?

Where you are is fine. Here--

[ And she extends her hand, letting the healing spell kick in without a word, working to ease some of that tightness and the ache that's been making him move so gingerly. ]

Really, you know if you're in any pain at all, you can always talk to me.

[ Except again, the Blue Lions are a bunch of determinators who hate admitting when they need help for multiple reasons. ]

[ As much as he’d like to put on a tough front, pretend that the wound slowly healing under the bandages around his middle doesn’t twinge and bother him when he moves too quickly or breathes too deeply, that sort of acting has never been his strong suit. The instant Mercedes’ all-too familiar healing spell seeps into his skin, warming away the ache, he lets out a little sigh of relief. ]

I know that, but I don’t want to be a burden.

[ It’s his own fault that he’s hurt like this, which would be one thing, but he also caused Mercedes and Dimitri to be hurt as well. They can tell him it’s fine all they like, but there’s a part of him that might never be able to let that go. ]

How’s your shoulder?

As good as new!

[ To prove her point, she gives her shoulder a solid pat once she's done tending to Ashe's wound. ]

Just like it never happened, really. Except for the tears in my sleeve, so I'll still need to sew them...

[ But then Mercedes leans closer, giving Ashe a solemn frown. ]

You do know I'd never consider you a burden, don't you?

I'm glad to hear it.

[ Some tension that has nothing to do with his wound eases out of him, a worry he didn't realize he'd been harboring now let go.

But then Mercedes is really close. Ashe's eyes go wide in confusion, and he leans back a smidge. ]

I... I know. I'm sorry. I guess the last few days have me feeling kind of... doubtful. Like maybe I'm not cut out for knighthood after all.

[ Upon realizing that she's probably invading his personal space (in no part due to the fact that he's definitely inching back a bit), Mercedes also leans back. She's still frowning, though there's a tinge of something pensive to her expression now. ]

... Ashe, if you don't mind my asking... what do you think a knight is?

[ He doesn’t know what to make of the look on her face, and for a second he wonders if perhaps he’s said something wrong. ]

Um. Someone brave and kind, who always does what’s right no matter what. A defender of the weak.

[ There’s no room for cowardice there, he thinks. The knights in his stories would have never run with their tails between their legs to hide in a shed. ]

Oh, Ashe...

[ There's something soft and sad in Mercedes' gaze as she listens, looks him over. Why can't he see it? After everything, the times they'd fought together, surely he must realize it--!

So she rests a hand on his shoulder, carefully shaking her head. ]

Didn't you act to shield me against the debris when the Fury attacked? Despite your... problems with ghosts, didn't you work with us to help bring it down? You didn't hesitate at all when it came to helping people, Ashe.

Mercedes…

[ It’s so very easy to look back on those moments and remember only the fear, all-encompassing as it had been. He hadn’t acted out of bravery to shield her, only concern, and it felt more like desperation that guided him to nock an arrow to his bow and fire at the thing in the dark.

But Mercedes offers him a new perspective on the matter. No matter what, he’d helped, and he’d done so without succumbing to the very real urge to run and hide yet again. ]

Do you really think I was brave back there? I sure didn’t feel like I was.

Of course I do! Truthfully, I think that the bravest moments are when we're so scared we can hardly think straight but we act anyway.

[ And he certainly had done that, shielding Mercedes, stumbling through the darkness with injuries to help them in the fight... regardless of what he thinks, she knows better. ]

You were amazing, Ashe.

[ That’s a good point, and one that he ought to keep in mind. It’s easy to write a story, to make the hero fearless and strong, but real life is so very different. How many of the people in his tales had been shaking in their boots when the time came to act? Probably a lot more of them than the stories would suggest. ]

… Thank you, Mercedes. I really am sorry you landed in that mess in the first place, but… I’m glad we all came out of it okay.

We work well together, after all.

[ She says it softly, calmly. It's the truth, as far as she's concerned. ]

We'll be prepared for any future encounters, I'm sure of it. But when they happen... please try to keep in mind that none of us are truly feeling fearless when we fight.

Thanks.

[ He said that already, but it probably bears repeating. ]

I needed that. And thank you for the healing, too. I feel better already.

Of course! Then, should we get started on finding some food for you and complete your state?

[ Before Ashe can properly answer, his stomach does it for him, giving a loud growl that has him starting a little. ]

… I think that’s a yes.

... Goodness! Then I think it's about time we get you out of here.

[ His poor stomach. ]

Yes, please.

[ He’s so embarrassed! Betrayed by his own stomach!! ]

Besides, I think I’ve been cooped up enough as it is.

I'd have to agree. Your room was actually the last place I would have thought to look to find you. You're usually so active and out and about.

Yeah, I guess all the commotion wore me out worse than I thought it would.

[ Amazing what spending actual days in a row being terrified will do to a person. ]

It looks like you fared a lot better than I did.

INBOX ↣ FELLDEN

10/28; night in Forsvar (Action)

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post-october event, action

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