Snippet #2099612

Suicide wasted little time after the order (though it was phrased more like a request) was given, giving a nod to the Dreamer before hopping up upon the ship’s railing and leaping off, bursting into raven form mid fall and flapping away from the ship, gaining altitude. The sun was lazily working its way into the sky, and was it not for what lay below him the world would have seemed an entirely warm, peaceful place at the moment.

They were not far from the city of Val Royeaux, and with his wings, it took little time for Suicide to reach it. Perhaps it was simply due to the morning hour, but everything seemed quite still, far too still for any city, even one as embattled as Val Royeaux. The first motion he noticed from the skies were the plumes of smoke drifting slowly upwards towards the heavens. He flew close to one of these. The smoke smelled of death. Bodies were being burned in piles around the outsides of the city. Perhaps it was simply disposal of the dead, slain by the darkspawn. But Suicide smelled corruption, darkness in the wind. The taint of the darkspawn was strong among them. No doubt they were fighting it as much as the actual spawn.

His attention was drawn towards the center of the city next, to the magical barrier of which he had heard. It was indeed a dome that enveloped entirely the area in which it covered. It was black, opaque, although slightly shimmering. As he drew closer, he began to question if the corruption on the wind had been the taint from the bodies. The barrier was exuding something foul, something utterly corrupt. A disgusting perversion of nature. It made him caw in anger, though that certainly did little good. And it reeked of the Fade. As though the barrier was the Fade itself, even. It called to him as though he were in a dream, and for a moment he felt himself drifting towards it, before ripping himself away with an internal growl. This magic was not something he was familiar with. Perhaps Ethne would be able to fare better, or have some way of bringing it down.

Around the magical barrier the darkspawn had their wall set up, sharpened stakes around a wooden wall as was predicted. Beyond that, the signs of resistance were clear. Walls quickly constructed between buildings by the locals in their attempts to both protect themselves from the darkspawn, and to lay siege to them in turn. As much as the darkspawn were terrorizing the people, they too were trapped in the city, surrounded by the Templars and Chevaliers. Whether either side had the strength to make a push, it was unclear.

There was something of a concentration to these fortifications on the western edge of the city. Gliding over for a closer look, the shapeshifter discovered greater, or perhaps simply more numerous, fortifications from the Templars. The reason for this was clear: this was where the darkspawn gate was located. No doubt the Orlesians hoped to better defend the people by confronting the creatures where they had to come and go. This would be their way in, if the plan still held. He banked a sharp turn back towards the group, to relay the sights.

---

"I'll start things off, then. I spy with my little eye, something... ooh, big, and black, and probably going to kill us all..."

She'd get something out of him yet. It had been... what, a week now? Not constantly of course, but Mira had been poking the poor Rivaini Templar off and on for most of that time. In that time, she'd decided a few things. One, she was correct about how little fun Templars were. Two, this guy would make an excellent Grey Warden, much better than herself, obviously. And three... she'd concluded that there was a good chance this man was just as big without the armor on. Not that there was any chance of confirming that.

His name was Emil, though he hadn't actually been the one to tell her that. She'd been firmly denied his name, even as generously offering her own name, in its entirety. It seemed he was not satisfied with the way Mirabelle Desmaris rolled off the tongue, and so she had to go hunting instead. Wasn't that his job, hunting? She thought she'd heard as much. Anyway, one of the younger, softer, less deadened by the constant violence and threat of death Templars that happened to populate this hellhole had been kind enough to pass along the information for free! The guy's name was Emilio Alessandro, but everyone called him Emil. Emil. Lovely. She'd gone promptly back to Emil and said hello. He seemed as good a man as any to die alongside.

Though they weren't exactly fighting for their lives at the moment. The ugly stinky barrier was still there, of course, and the darkspawn were still skulking about behind their wall doing... darkspawny things inside, or something Mira didn't really care to know the details of. The Templars and the Chevaliers fought them off whenever they poked their heads out, and the darkspawn kept everyone adequately depressed and hopeless. It was a good relationship they had going. Mira and Emil currently had a view of the whole thing, lounging about on top of a building that was Emil's watchpost or some such Templar business. Lounging likely didn't describe Emil's posture very well, but it certainly did for Mira. She was seated on her rear, elbows propping her up, slender hands folded neatly across a bare midriff, shoeless feet kicked out in front of her, one leg draped lazily across the other, the foot bobbing up and down slowly.

"Come on, Emil. Give it a guess. I bet you'll never get this one."

"By the Maker's bloody grace, I deeply hope it kills us all. It would save me from listening from your incessant chittering," Emil muttered with obvious disdain. Surprisingly, that was the most he had said to Mira in the week he'd been stuck with her. If only she wasn't a woman, if she wasn't unarmored, and if she wasn't a Warden... The local Chevaliers frowned upon laying hands upon a lady (the self-righteous bastards), and he'd have to play their game for now. That didn't stop him from hoping that a Darkspawn would happen upon them and put him out of his misery. As it stood, he was placed a fair distance away from the frontline, set up perch on the corner of a building like a hawk, upon orders of the Knight-General himself. He scanned the area waiting while leaning on his heavy bow, wishing for anything, anything to poke it's head out from the blighted barrier to at least alleviate some of his frustration.

Believe or not, Emil wasn't always this cheerful. The certain mix of Darkspawn sieges, Darkspawn Barriers, and even more bloody Darkspawn could turn even the brightest moods dour. Unluckily, Emil didn't have a bright mood to begin with, and the Darkspawn only made this worse. A lot worse. He glanced back at the woman reclining with a cold stare and couldn't help but feel frustrated and angry with her. She was a Warden (at least that's what the other Templars said. Emil had his doubts), how was she that relaxed at a time like this?! Emil sighed and resumed his lookout, the need to find something to shoot quickly intensifying. Alas, sadly it was relatively quiet, and a number of deceased Darkspawn at the entrance of the gates already had a number of arrows protruding from their bodies. No use to fill them up any more, they've served their purpose.

Though there was an odd raven flying above. No doubt checking out the carrion for it's next meal. The thought of testing his aim on the bird crossed his mind, but he thought better of it. No need to waste arrows on something trivial like that. He hated the waiting the most. Waiting for the Darkspawn to attack at their leisure. It made him sick. What he wouldn't give just to storm that bloody barrier and take out as many of those tainted bastards out with him as he could. Instead of doing something fun like dying in a blaze of glory, he had to put up with a silly Warden who he doubted would last a couple of seconds against the Darkspawn.

"If the Maker has a sense of humor, it's not bloody funny," Emil growled. He had to put her out of his mind, and put it on the job at hand. He was a look out. As he peered out across the streets of what was once beautiful Orlais. He wasn't a remorseful sort, but the devastation they had caused... It was something else.

"But seriously. Big. Black. Going to kill us all," she repeated, her face settling into a contented sort of amusement. This was a success already, so far as she was concerned. He'd practically just given her a speech, compared to the other responses she'd gotten. Much more than the straight-faced no from before. At this rate, they'd be inseperable friends by month's end.

It had crossed her mind that there were other things she could be doing. She certainly looked the part, but Mira was no civilian. Not anymore. It was well within her power to actually help the Templars with the whole siege and battle thing, rather than just take advantage of their hospitality and the fact that she was a Warden. Call it cowardice, or laziness, or a case of having a cruel heart (which she didn't, really!), but Mira just didn't want to throw herself out there like that again. Not yet. That was what that group of Wardens that had saved her had done, and look where that got them! Splattered across rocks and streets and walls, turned into a fine gooey paste by the horde. She'd barely been able to scamper away from that one. A few timely stun vials helped to put enough distance between her and them for her to get clear. A few knives in a few throats, too.

And now she was the last one left. The only one here wearing the magically prepared blood of the Joining in a pendant around her neck. Not that she really considered herself a Warden. She'd gone through the ritual half-coherent and fading fast. They'd never even given her a uniform, not that she minded, those things were hideous. And while a few of them had certainly made something that came dangerously close to an impression on her before they died, she hadn't really gotten close enough to them for her to consider herself as one of them.

That didn't change the fact that her blood was now tainted, that she got to happily enjoy the Archdemon screaming at her every she wanted to get a few winks of sleep, and that she would eventually go waltzing down into the Deep Roads to go find a good looking darkspawn spear to fall on. It was either that, or the fact that she may have liked a few of the poor bastards, that kept her hanging around these Templars. Her fellow Wardens had been given a mission, and she was the only one left who could complete it for them. They had saved her life, after all. Mira wasn't much for charity, but a debt she understood. She wasn't in the habit of paying off debts to dead people... but just this once, she supposed it would be best.

"Hold still," she commanded suddenly, rising to a more sturdy cross-legged sitting position, before sliding her fingers around the blade of a very small knife at her belt, swiftly twirling it into a throwing position, and then deftly flicking it towards Emil's feet. The blade stuck into the head of a rather large, black rat that had been creeping about behind Emil's heels, remarkably quietly, in fact. It twitched for a moment, before laying still. Mira let out a satisfied exhale. "See? Big. Black. Maybe it wouldn't have killed us all, but it's a pretty fearsome little guy."

She rose smoothly, sauntering over towards the Templar, placing one delicate-looking foot in front of the other before she reached his side, at which point she bent over and swiped the knife back, wiping the small amount of blood off on the rat's fur, before sliding it back under her belt. "The Maker's funnier than you think. He's a bit of an ass sometimes, but we'll laugh about all this someday, I'm sure."

"I highly doubt that," Emil answered. It was the closest he'd came to personable the whole week. Though the icy stare he gave her defaming the Maker as she did was a different story...