Dreadlords Ganfarred Keep

[Hilteliren]

Expression immutable, Fennec's eyes drifted to follow his gesture within their sockets; dark irises against whites against dark smudge. For a moment she did nothing but stand there contemplating, but then her eyes slid back to his and her hands lifted again.

[You might have said it more quietly.]

Then without warning, three of her myste tendrils shot straight for him, aiming for multiple parts of his body.

 

[Zael Castomir]

Zael slipped off of the edge upon which he sat, and the thunder which followed was enormous, a resounding BOOM that shook all the stone of Ganfarred Keep's remains. Swirling fire and smoke was left where Zael once sat. The trees on the outside of the walls, those great green canopies, shook violently.

Zael was gone. Flying away. His form lost among the treetops. No subsequent propelling explosions ensued, no trail of sound by which to follow.

He did what he thought was necessary here. But he knew well that many Initiates, many Dreadlords, wouldn't understand, wouldn't care, and most certainly wouldn't talk. They had to do what they thought was necessary too—some of them, at least. This, even if it was not Zael's wish to fight them. And so to avoid that fight, while only one Initiate was even aware of him, he escaped. A luxury today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe some day long after, he wouldn't be able to. He'd be forced to fight the very people, some of them even friends, he was trying to liberate.

But today was not that day.

He thought to himself, when he got to the very edge of Anirian lands, that he had some letters to write.

[Exit thread]​

 

[Hilteliren]

Fennec's mystes pulverized the stone behind where Zael had once been, the remaining three curling around her front to shield her from the blast of fire. She lifted her arms to cover her face and by the time the smoke and flames had cleared, he was gone.

Smart move.

Standing there alone now, Fen calmly straightened herself to walk to the edge, overlooking the forest below. After a moment she turned and began the climbing descent back down to the interior of the keep. The tail of her cloak trailing small flames that had caught from before.

 

[Caeso Diemut]

Caeso glanced up when the sound of the blast hit his ears. He saw some wisps of smoke from around the ruins of the citadel.

He said to Lumen, "That came from where Fennec went."

Seemed it was no survivor.

Lumen

 

[Leander Urahil]

“What a waste of time.” Leander announced to everyone who was alive, somehow beating Mieri’s shouts. “There’s no one even here.” He poked at another corpse. “What do they even need reinforcements for?” It was at that moment a blast sounded off, catching Leander’s attention. Immediately, he released his null dome, just big enough to cover himself.

His pale gold eyes looked at Caeso and Lumen, probably huddling together and scheming on how to make Leander look stupid. The Urahil huffed. At least no one would know he had protected only himself. Not like he was scared, it was just better to be safe than sorry.

Speaking of safe rather than sorry, maybe it should be those two to get attacked— oh there was Fennec. Climbing down a wall like the little squirrel she was.

Leander cleared his throat.

“I told you all the culprit was still here.” He said to no one in particular.

 

[Lumen]

When the blast sounded, she instinctively went to cover whoever was near her with her own body and shield. It just happened to be Caeso Diemut. When she was sure no rubble or blast was about to engulf them, she lowered her shield. But stayed close.

Tawny-eyes finding the small figure of Fennec quickly scaling down.

A call to the nimble girl.

"Who was it? What happened?"

 

[Mieri]

Mieri's head turned suddenly as she heard the sound of an explosion. "Uh oh."

The young girl said, quickly turning on her heel and running.

Whomever Fennec had found apparently was still alive, and had either exploded or was attacking with an explosion or-well whatever the fuck! Within a few seconds Mieri darted around the corner, catching the last glimpse of a figure disappearing in the distance.

She heard Leander call out, then Lumen echoing him more curiously. "The fuck was that?"

Mieri added to the inquisitive chorus.

 

[Hilteliren]

Upon reaching ground level again, Fennec's tendrils lifted and walked her over a pile of charred corpses to set her down in the opening of the courtyard. She'd barely time to realize her cloak had several little fires caught along its edges when multiple shouts from the others came her way. Blinking, she snatched irritably at her cloak with her mystes, one of each moving to smother the flames on the material as her feet carried her across the short expanse toward the other initiates.

She did not bother to even meet them halfway. Frankly, she had no desire to linger here any longer and no reason to either.

[Z A E L] signed the mute, [he did this, and then he ran.]

Her dark gaze shifted from Mieri to Caeso, standing much farther away.

[I am leaving to report in.]

With that, she turned on her heel and made her way back toward the keep's entrance to find her pony and do just that.

 

[Lumen]

She just stared and stared into the space of air that Fennec signed, long after she'd left.

Zael?!

She blinked. Replaying the gestures in her mind. Surely, there had to be a mistake. Surely...jaw clenched until her teeth ached.

No, no, no, no, NO-NO-NO-NO.

no

It couldn't possibly be true?

Could it?

Head finally swept away from empty air, back to the charred bodies. Back to how they lay. And the immediately next question.

Why?

"Zael," she finally managed in a strangled whisper, loth-cat like eyes flickering to Caeso. She didin't expect to feel this hurt. This betrayed. And she fought to keep her emotions from her face but couldn't quite keep them all from slipping out.

 

[Caeso Diemut]

Caeso froze for a moment when Fennec signed the name. Ostensibly, it might be from the unexpected surprise, not so dissimilar from that which gripped Lumen, of one of their former Initiates having done all this.

Inwardly, it was because to Caeso that Zael had effectively been risen from the dead. He thought that Kimble would have surely killed him, that he might hear about it in passing sooner or later. After having thawed from the entrapping ice which bound him in the Blackwood, Caeso had surreptitiously returned to the Academy with this thought in mind, and he kept the whole incident to himself, telling no one. He would not risk his future as a Dreadlord, as a noble, for a dead man; he and Zael had indeed been doing something which they weren't supposed to, and it was this situation which led to the latter's capture.

But now he was here. Or had been here, at least. And he was on the other side of this great divide which now fractured the Dreadlords as a whole.

Caeso saw the depths of Lumen's betrayed look, and it was more affecting than any stolid or impassive or dismissive gaze from Fennec or Soleil or Leander could ever be. Far more affecting. Because that gaze of Lumen's held up a mirror to Caeso and forced him to reckon with the greatest moment of dismay he had faced himself: when Quinctus, his brother, had been made to turn on him, doing so with eagerness and vigor.

"He is gone," Caeso said, forcibly bringing about a granite resolution to his expression. "Like Edric, like Gaage, like Delaney, and all the others who revealed their traitorous colors."

Caeso had no love for the Republic. But he had undying loyalty to Vel Anir, and to House Virak's place within it.

Lumen

 

[Aelita]

Some time after all the noise and chaos, Aelita found herself at the gate to Ganfarred Keep. She caught Fennec heading toward her horse and looking to mount it. She clutched the staff she uses to conjure magic in her hands. Her eyes scanned the area as best as she could.

Looking upon Fennec while atop her horse, Aelita urgently asked, “What happened?!”

 

[Hilteliren]

With every intention of leaving this place, it was with a tethered sense of duty only that Fennec brought her horse to a halt in order to gain use of both her hands. As if Aelita thought for any moment that the mute would simply tell her.

[Z A E L]

And that was all she said.

Her heels snapped at the pony's sides and off she went at a brisk lope. Whatever became of the bodies piled here was none of her concern or business. Reporting the betrayal of an exile? That was of the highest priority.