The Shadowfell

[lysoke]

Shadowfell

During the early, blue dawn of the morning, a hole opens in the Material Plane. The energy hums no differently than it had in the facility in Duplicity that had brought them here in the first place. This time, however, just before breaching the glowing white surface of light, a chill greets those who pass through. One, two, three, four shadows step through the light before it closes with barely a pop of energy beside the austere white marble of the recently recast temple.

Waiting on the other side of the gate is a land of barren monochrome. Plants like ash, rivers with the consistency of blood, and pools of thick, dripping ichor decorate a land of black and grey stone that connects to an equally grey sky. The life, like the color, seems gone from the land, and where there should have been unearthly silence, there were low murmurs and ominous creaks and noises that didn't quite make sense at the periphery of everything.

The landscape, at least, could not be called flat. Great, black mountains broke the dim, grey sky like blotches of ink on canvas. Even the group of armed visitors stood now upon a tall, but sloping hill marked with a single, gnarled tree. At the foot of the hill, ahead of the group, sat the hazy, black scar of what was once a city.

Spires of buildings stood as broken bones in the place Melvaunt had as its mirror, with the shattered docks even dipping into a charcoal ocean beyond it. Maléfell, once a town inhabited and infested in equal measure with ghosts, gasts, dopplegangers, and malice, now festers with a malevolent haze that visibly shrouds the city. At its edges, just outside the haze, is a pulsating mass. It's upon closer inspection that the mass gains definition: bodies. Undead. Skeletons. Ghosts haunting black ooze and rotted corpses that press at the Darkland's edges, daring to neither venture in nor go too far from their home.

Hundreds of the displaced mill about, gorging on more of the black ichor that fills the waterways into the city. Here they wait, trapped, the sounds of them muffled and nearly silent in the blanketing nothing of the Plane around them.

♥

Comments

[rogueinladysclothing]

The dark mirror moves before Chris does and Amelia sees red far beyond what's running over the cleric's fingers when he withdraws the blade. She moves without thinking, instinct taking over as she rushes forward. A blade sinks into the undead's side, drawing attention and causing the creature to spin around sharply. Amelia deflects a hit aimed at her, letting it bounce off her stomach as she raises her knives high. The first cuts through the arm that dared to hurt her cleric and sends it to the ground in a heap of ash. The second cuts through the creature's head at the eyes, removing the top of her head to end the threat, permanently. The body falls over, helped by Amelia elbowing it out of the way to assure herself that what should have been dead before is well and truly dead.

She spares Chris and Wolfe a glance, nodding to them both before turning her attention back to what's left of the horde around them. They've thinned significantly, though a few are still more than close enough for Amelia to remove the threat of them with her enchanted dagger. It's after she's taken another half dozen that she finally takes a breath and sets her feet more firmly in the dirt.

"Are you all right?" she calls over her shoulder. "And are there any more like that we should be following that mass into the city for?" They shouldn't go there at all, but if there's something else that needs to be done, she'll do it. If it means their family, her family, are safer and their debt to the Raven Queen paid, she'll go to whatever level of hell is required to see the work done.

[compellingstatement]

"But even Sumner couldn't hold what the darkness took," the Archivist intones as Wolfe races away and Chris is stabbed. "She'd grabbed for Hemlock, tried to pull her as the tiefling's flesh turned to charcoal. Her arm went with her... mistress? Friend? Comrade? They'd never put a label to it, not one they'd agreed on, anyway. But their fates had been intertwined for years, monstrous people feeding on one another, victimizers and victims.

"Sumner's here for Lord Sonom, a shell of what she once was, but that smile... Oh, that vicious smile, all teeth and aggression. She's struck Lord Sonom, a blade beneath his armor. The ravens he'd cast on Lady Royer have faded, but she's next to him now, and Lord Hawke's just joined them."

As he's speaking, a pair of undead lurch up into the Guardian's light. It lashes out, obliterating first one, then the other. Jon spares them a brief glance before returning to the trio. They look... right together, and for just a moment, he falters. This is their world, their reality. Maybe not in a literal sense like it is for Chris, but in essence. All three have been fighting their entire lives. They're warriors. And he's... Jonathan Sims, a man who's spent his life looking at books and records, scrolling YouTube. He'd encountered Mr. Spider as a boy, but he'd never known true danger beyond that until the Institute. Not anything apart from the usual struggles of daily life in London. Even Duplicity's madness wasn't this. It was a city most of the time with normal city things.

In spite of the sense of wholeness drinking the Raven Queen's vial had brought, he doesn't belong here. Not yet, certainly.

"Ah... Lady, uh... Lady Royer's just killed Sumner. Or ended her, as the case may be. The horde continues to thin and with one of the stronger-willed undead gone, it looks like it may be a matter of minutes before the rest retreat... apart from another pair coming up the slope. The Guardian of Faith from the Raven Queen is proving to be an adequate guard for the time being."

[chrisisofaith]

Amelia doesn't just take her hand, but her whole head, and for a moment, Chris' stomach drops before a pulse of pain shakes the feeling. This was better. This was needed. It wasn't her just as Topher isn't him. Topher and Rhyt could both be free of Sumner's shadow.

He takes his eyes from the falling ashes of the corpse and gives a delayed nod to Wolfe's directive. The dagger was likely at least diseased, if not poisoned. They'd all need healing, just in case. He casts a restoration spell on himself and then a low amount of healing that sees the wound mostly closed. He shouldn't move too suddenly until he can do more, but it's something. He puts his free hand on Wolfe's arm but calls back to Amelia. "If they weren't with her, then they're already gone. We've done our part...thank you. I need to heal you, you're likely poisoned."

He glances from Amelia to Wolfe, even as his head spins lightly, and then looks to Jon to see the pair of corpses shambling towards his partner. Did the guardian have enough hits left in it? Would it have enough in its damage threshold to strike both down or leave one still standing?

"Jon-!"Could he get up there in time? Maybe...but what if he didn't? Were zombie attacks magical? Would it affect him differently because of the eye or because he was sort of undead in his own way? There were too many variables.

Chris takes a step, his wings flaring even as his grip on Wolfe tightens. "The guardian vanishes after three hits- how many have there been?"

[wolfehawke]

"Two before I came down here but I didn't see after that," Wolfe replies gravely, tearing his eyes and thoughts away from Amelia's brutally deft display of skill and power that has him feeling entirely inappropriate things for the occasion.

Two more, meaning the guardian would only get one and then vanish, leaving Jon defenseless. Chris is still wounded enough he's moving stiffly, and even if he wasn't his wings likely can't get him there terribly much faster than his feet, and neither he nor Amelia are fast enough to make it either. Not on foot.

There's no helping it.

Wolfe darts forward two steps, swinging his staff around with a spin and slamming it down into the ashen ground so the blade sinks in nearly two inches. As he does, the temperature around them drops significantly, causing their breath to become visible in the chill. Lines of vaguely-glowing white race from the point of the staff's impact in cracks that mimic an ice floe about to break apart. They grow as they crawl up the hill in the space of an inhale, widening and brightening until great fingers of ice, jagged and wicked, suddenly claw from the ends of the cracks and jut up into the two approaching zombies, freezing them mid-lunge just at the edge of the Guardian's protective circle.

The Guardian attacks, shattering one frozen zombie on impact, and then dissipates in a shower of golden motes that retain their light for a long moment, illuminating the remaining zombie in a soft glow as if it were an intentional, if eerie, ice sculpture.

Wolfe lets out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, unsure if he was going to be able to get the spell off in time, or how he would feel once he had. Maybe its the adrenaline, but he feels no different than he would normally having cast a similar spell. Small favors.

"Let's get back up there and regroup. See to your wounds," and maybe what superficial ones he has as well. If they've done their part, though, he's ready to be rid of this place and the danger it poses to his family and himself.

[rogueinladysclothing]

Amelia waves off the need for healing immediately. With the adrenaline running through her, she'll be fine for a little longer. If she's a copy of the woman from Ragneux, her body will be used to it; the original Amelia Royer was poisoned many times before Duplicity.

It's because she's turned away from the other men that she's ready for Chris' call to action for Jon's defense. Hesitation doesn't exist right now and she's on the move knowing she won't make it before the Guardian dissipates and knowing even more deeply that that means she needs to run. Her legs carry her across the field as she readies her enchanted dagger, hoping she'll get close enough to be a distraction or slow the undead down. Only the need for it doesn't come when the temperature drops and the creatures up the hill ahead of her are encased in ice.

"Wolfe." She utters his name in fear, voice too small to carry beyond her ears. Her eyes peer over her shoulder to check on him, to be certain he's still there and still whole, but her chest tightens.

It was a last resort. It had to be done. Jon's safety was at risk.

Her twisted gut still aches at the thought that Wolfe is one step closer to Tranquility.

She pushes it all down as she rushes up the hill and all but throws the frozen creature back down to shatter across the steps. She's heaving terrified breaths for several seconds before she manages to calm herself and turn to look at the cleric and mage coming to join them. Still together. Still well enough. Still them. Still him. Her eyes move to Jon, soft and concerned.

"Are you all right?" It didn't look as though they'd touched him, but if they did... She winces as the gouged claw marks on her left arm start to burn, though she makes no effort to check it. "None of them touched you, did they?"

[compellingstatement]

Chris' voice is barely a whisper for how the air seems to soak up any sound, but Jon does see the man looking up at him, at the undead shambling along. He starts to move, Amelia sprints, and Wolfe-

"Gah!" The ice springing up directly in front of him and the Guardian vanishing are enough to startle the Archivist. He trips backward and falls hard onto his side. His tape recorder skitters a few feet away before it catches on the rocks, and Jon scrambles to sit up. Amelia is there a moment later, shoving the remaining ice zombie down the hill and looking over him with a concern he'd expect from a friend, not from her.

"I..." He checks himself over as he pulls himself up. "No. I-I'm fine. You're hurt, though." Jon looks past her to Wolfe and Chris, already making their way up. "You should have Chris look at it." There's a bit of a pause as he fetches his laptop and adds a final note.

"The battle's won. Lady Royer, Lord Sonom, and Lord Hawke seem to have taken out at least a hundred creatures, if not more, and at least one very powerful 'leader' amongst them. While we've no notice from the Raven Queen this meets with her requirements, the rest of the horde has retreated into the city. Given the danger inherent in the Darklands, it seems unwise to pursue them further. This concludes my observations."

cw: brief refrence to self-harm as a coping mechanism

[chrisisofaith]

It's over in a second, and Chris is left with both relief and remorse he'd needed to rely on Wolfe's magic at all. And guilt for being thankful that he used it. Could Jon have survived? Probably...but if he hadn't...
But Wolfe had been there, expending himself to save their friend. What did it cost him? Hours? Days? How much shallower was his well?

The hand he'd pressed to his wound as they headed up the cliff pressed a little tighter than it needed to for the lance of clarity it would grant his thoughts. He didn't have time for that; he could fret in the Material Plane.

As they're coming to the crest of the hill, the words on his tongue fall away from his thoughts. Something's coming.
No.
She's coming.
A pull from inside that makes Letherna all at once right next to them and still miles away, when a mass of ravens swirls at the top of the hill beside them. It grows tall. Fifteen feet tall and it masses into the form of a woman, her three faces staring at nothing as the image finishes forming from the wings of her servants. Then she looks at them and Chris can't tell if this is his god or simply a projected image, but the weight of that black gaze feels as weighted as it had in her presence. A watching knowingness that shook his soul.

He was the discarded thing of a discarded thing...if he'd felt she must have been taking up another god's refuse before, it held twice as true now, and he's on one knee before his next breath.

"Good. Satisfied. Restful, that which was restless. Put right. Gratitude." Again, concepts and images and thoughts make up the dark lady's message where someone else might use sentences, and they're pressed into his mind like a gently folded veil of darkness over a weary head.

Not just his head, all of them...he can feel them too.

[wolfehawke]

He's mid-gesture, reaching towards Amelia and Jon with one hand gently on Chris' arm as they crest the hill, when She appears.

Never has Wolfe ever felt the urge to prostrate himself before another being in supplication, but the midnight form of the Matron of Ravens pulls at something in him so roughly that it takes his breath away. Standing before Her he feels he knows the difference and the similarity between awful and awesome, comparing this overwhelming sense of power and presence and being to the Nightmare, the only other time he'd been overwhelmed by a power this strong.

He can feel his knees go weak simply in her acknowledgement of them and half-unintentionally drops down to one knee as well. Her thoughts slip through his like a shroud, like peace. The equal weight and lightness of a finished task that bids him take the earned rest.

Wolfe swallows, quietly trying to catch his breath while he says nothing, not because he's unable but simply because he has no idea what you say to indisputable divinity.

[rogueinladysclothing]

It's the tug that Amelia notices first. A pull from deep inside her that's not physical, not emotional. It simply... is. And then the Raven Queen appears and Amelia implicitly understands that it comes from Her and the connection they have since she got a soul thread.

There's never been anything divine in her life that could prove it was that. Great acts of power and magic were commonplace enough, but it was all easily understood as that. The Raven Queen is something more, something fully beyond understanding in a way that's unnerving and makes something in her mind itch. It's because She's more than something mortal, something Amelia has no words or comparisons for. It makes sense, in a way that defies logic, and that makes it terrifying to be in Her presence and to feel Her words rather than hear them. The chill feeling across her skin and her soul don't help.

She doesn't know how to show proper deference to someone who literally holds her soul in their hands. Her knees instinctively lock, a reaction to needing to keep her feet against someone who would force her down that didn't deserve to see her that way, and she stares for far too long before lifting her right hand to touch her closed fist to her shoulder and incline her head. A sign of respect among members of the Family, the first 'Amelia Royer of Ragneux' learned when she joined them. It will have to do.

"We did as we were tasked," she offers, voice quiet but strong as she looks up again. "May those you watch over be restful for a time." May it be enough, she thinks. May their actions be enough that She won't take back what she's given and force them apart. May they be able to stay together. May they all be enough.

Dreams, she hopes she is enough.

[compellingstatement]

Jon's breath catches in his throat when he feels the tug inside of himself. For a second there's confusion. He's not sleeping, he hasn't looked up. This sensation is the Ceaseless Watcher dragging him upward and downward and inward. It is gravity, something inescapable, powerful, unknowable. The Archivist's first instinct is to look toward the sky, gaze searching for the endless expanse of pupil he expects to see.

It's darkness up there, but not the unblinking Eye. Instead, there are the empty sockets of the Raven Queen's mask. Chris sinks down, Wolfe follows suit, and Amelia holds her ground. The goddess' thoughts, images, information spills over into his mind, so much like what he's used to and so different at the same time. It's not just horror and terror, but thanks and curiosity.

Amelia's deference is a polite salute, and Jon fumbles mentally for a moment before offering his recorder up toward the Matron. He has no particular sign of respect to give, nothing that feels natural apart from this, sharing the story they've created. "I've recorded what happened, if you wanted to listen. If you, uh... didn't just sort of... watch."

[makingnpcs]

She looms, as she does. She is death and winter and fate and holds those that interest her and casts aside that which does not. She holds doors open and keeps them firmly shut; the Matron of Death.

She is also a sentimental thing.

She turns her masked face from one figure to another, and suddenly she's not fifteen feet tall, but seven and among them, and her hand traces past Amelia's face like a brush of a chill, dawn morning. 'Enough.' An echo or an answer, she doesn't elaborate. 'Shadow of shadows of mistresses of loyalty.'

A feather brushes along Wolfe's arm where he carries his wing tattoo, and the ink feels warm on his skin for a moment. 'Welcome, champion of love.'

She curves her long form around Jon, and a curious finger traces along the odd contraption. 'Soul of watching and knowing and gaining and growing. Oddities and pecularities and interest?'

[chrisisofaith]

Chris keeps his knee and listens and waits. She hasn't addressed him yet, but they're the new souls in her hand; he doesn't mind that she's letting her curiosity run with them. They deserve her interest and fondness.

He keeps his head bowed and waits. He's not even sure if he wants her attention. What would she say of him? Fraction of the thing she was actually interested in? A copy and, thus, useless? A novelty...

It didn't matter, so long as she took a shine to his people, she would ensure their place after their lives ended and perhaps even take a vested interest in putting them in the weave, and that was all he could hope for right now.

nat 20 insight for 33

[wolfehawke]

Champion of love She calls him and he still can't respond, though it fills his heart to hear it. He's always liked what Chris said once, that he's made of love, and to have a literal God that can touch his soul and say as much? He doesn't even know how to thank Her for that certainty. He hopes She knows in the way that deities must simply know things.

She calls Amelia Mistress of Loyalty and that feels right too, as right as Enough. Maybe now Amelia will believe it. Jon She lingers on, running a finger that is a talon but still a pale woman's finger over the tape recorder in admiration, tilting Her head like he's seen Little Thunder do when she has a particularly shiny bauble in her possession. That is a little what they are now, isn't it? Possessions of the Raven Queen to collect when the time comes? Like Chris before them.

Chris, who still hasn't raised his head. The tension is clear through his form, head bowed and very still. Its the same way he acts when he doesn't want to break a moment because he's sure the other side of it will be gutting.

Wolfe reaches to slip his fingers under Chris' palm, threading his with his partner's digits as he leans his shoulder into Chris' shoulder as a supportive weight. It's still a little warm where She touched his tattoo, a warmth he considers for himself and for Chris. After all, that's why he has the a wing on his skin at all.

That's why he, or any of them, are here at all.

[rogueinladysclothing]

Enough, She says. Shadow of shadows, She says. Amelia's heart leaps into her throat and then falls into her stomach.

Shadow of shadows of mistresses of loyalty. Which is she? The shadows or someone made of loyalty? If she is enough, why is she enough? Which part of her is enough? What in any hell makes her enough?

Her cheek still feels cool as she falls to the ground, knees and then ass touching the ground as her feet splay beside her. She stares down at her hands - dirty, ash-covered, a brownish red from her own blood - and tries to keep it in. Jon is right there. The Raven Queen is somehow in her mind. Are the others there too? Can they hear the way she spirals over something likely meant as a title or interesting description?

'Enough' should be all she needs from this. It's what matters. It's all that matters. So why is her stomach clenched and her eyes wide with fear as she stares down at her hands? Hands that kill to protect, that showed their worth in battle today? Hands that soothe and touch with love and desire when they're wanted?

Why can't she still feel like enough?

[compellingstatement]

Even at her smaller size, the way the Raven Queen moves is so reminiscent of Helen or Michael that Jon feels an instinctive desire to pull away. He manages to master that. This is Chris' god and she's not going to stab him. Probably.

Not without reason, certainly. That doesn't make her less uncanny when she curls around him like some shadowy snake and sends Amelia to the ground, confusion and fear pouring off of her.

But the Matron seems to be addressing him directly, and that seems slightly more important to attend to than the rogue's mental spiral. Wolfe is right there along with Chris. He'll at least be able to put a hand on her. The Archivist doesn't dare move with the way he's been encircled.

"Yes. All kinds. Here. You press the button." Jon's own voice fills the dead air from the start of his narration. "It... captures voices." Praise whatever Faerunian god of Knowledge exists for his time in Duplicity giving him the chance to learn how to explain these sorts of things to people with no context. "Captures memories, really, and let's you listen to them when you like."

[makingnpcs]

Her head cocks to the side, then the other as the tape player runs.

Her finger traces along the object…and then dips ever so slightly within it. When she pulls away, a trail of Jon’s voice shaped like the dormant branch on a tree follows along and collects in her hand.

‘Voice of what watches, observes, puts nothing into something. Collects. Collector.’

There’s a small pulse of energy and the batteries in Jon’s cassette player fall out into dust, replaced by a small glowing mote as the recording plays on, uninterrupted.

‘joy. Good. More. We will collect together.’

She uncoils with a chilly breeze through his hair and turns her faces to the others and then to Chris.

She stands before him, a talon-like finger tipping under his chin to raise his face.

‘Lost. Stolen from me. Taken and copied and copied and twisted and found. My missing feather. Two of a kind turned three, my omen caller.’

For a moment, however brief, there is warmth. Eccentric, yes, but what was hers was fiercely and undeniably so.

Just as they all are now.

‘Balance restored. What do you need, fledglings?’

[chrisisofaith]

Wolfe reaches for his hand and Chris takes it and squeezes tight even as he dare not look up. Not even when Amelia falls to the ground nearby, though he reaches to brush any part of her he can reach with his bloodied hand while the Matron is distracted with Jon.

And then she’s there and he’s staring into her fathomless eyes as he had -Chris had? He had- when he’d held no holy symbol, just the taste of chains and a broken oath to a god who’d turned from him. She’d accepted him and his shaken faith then. She accepted him now.

Had he not, arguably, been more dedicated and longer-serving than his original by this point? His transgressions of the undead of Duplicity aside…

Yet she calls him three of a kind. She calls him Omen Caller and his tears feel hot on his cheeks compared to the chill her touch brings.

“My lady.” His voice wavers with soul-shattering relief, but that’s all he can bring himself to say, even in the face of her direct question.

[wolfehawke]

Amelia crumples and Wolfe reaches out with his free hand, the one attached to the arm emblazoned with her leaves. Champion of love indeed. He's inked with it, etched into his skin, a constant declaration, and its that love that spurs him to hold tight to his two partners now.

He can tell Chris is going to cry through that touch. He has a specific tension to him, a silent but full body groan in how much he hates to cry but knows that in some particular instances he can't avoid it. He always fights it anyway, but this time at least its not very hard. Being told you're wanted - needed - by the object of your faith is too much of a relief to combat.

It takes Wolfe a moment to pull his attention from their little knot to the question their Matron has asked, but even when he does he doesn't know how to answer. What do they need? So much, but She's already given them a much needed boon. It seems like greed to ask for more. But She's asking...

Unsure, Wolfe squeezes Chris' hand, but looks to Amelia, and then to Jon. If there's anything to ask for that She could grant in Mystra's steady it wouldn't be their place in the Weave, nor does he think She has the ability to keep them whole when their power fades, but perhaps something that they can use so they're at least not at all disadvantage.

"If you would honor us with a simple boon, Jon and I don't speak this world's Common language, and I fear we won't be able to learn fully before we no longer have the benefit of our waning powers. Is there a way we could be granted that gift? To communicate in this world's tongue?"

[rogueinladysclothing]

Each of her loves - because they are, they must be if it feels so right to have them with her like this - reach for her and she finds she doesn't have the strength to grip them in return. All she manages is to rest a few fingers over theirs as she tries to hold it all in, to keep herself together until they're not in the presence of a god who's granted them so much and yet made her feel so insignificant.

It's not the Raven Queen's fault. Less than two days ago, Amelia thought she was from a different plane, from a city where she had grown up, lost one family then gained another, and become a skilled leader. Now she's a copy - Taken and copied and copied and twisted and found. - and she can do nothing, nothing about it but grieve for what was never hers and once again cast wishes for things to be different into the void.

Balance restored, She says, but not for the rogue. Her shoulders tremble and she shakes her head. There is no balance in her, there never was. It's why hearing Enough simply... wasn't that.

'Who am I? Who am I supposed to be when all that I was, all I believed of myself, was a lie?'

She can't find the strength for the words. It's not her place to ask anyway. She doesn't need to know. She'll find a way through this because she has to. Her family needs her to be whole again, and so she'll make it happen. Someday.

Someday.

[compellingstatement]

Amelia is spiraling something awful. With the Raven Queen's overwhelming presence, the Archivist isn't getting as much off of her as he might, but anyone with eyes can see it. Chris being brought to tears by the Matron's acceptance, by Her welcoming him home and calling him one of three--three siblings, one branch--Her Omen Caller, isn't surprising, but it does pull at him. He wants to kneel down with the rest and pull the cleric into his arms, but that's for another time.

Now? Now his tape recorder has been magically enhanced, granted a power source that won't run out. It's already a boon, but Wolfe asks for more, and Jon can't help wondering if they should be offering something in return.

"Common is just the start for us, for me, at least. Imagine the memories and stories I could collect- we could collect with more languages. I need to be able to understand and speak to ask the right questions, tease out the most interesting things. Common will let me collect some, but I'll keep studying. Elven, Dwarven, any language I can hear. I want to learn it. And... when we come to your halls at the last, they'll all be yours. Everything I've managed to collect on this"--he lifts the tape recorder again--"will be yours. Grant us the language we need to start, my Lady, and you'll have more for your collection."

[makingnpcs]

The Matron of Ravens considers her fledglings, the strings tying her masks to her head shudder, and maybe it was a laugh if a laugh could be ethereal. In a blink, she is twice her own height once more, arms and wings spread wide open. A gentle rain of black and gold droplets of possibility flutter as snow over the group to stick in hair and on skin like the same chilly substance it emulates.

'Individual. Unique. Grow and change and affect and be affected. Learn deep and delve, and then return. Return and share and revel and do it all again.' Along with her words comes a Knowing, and understanding that she does not say but imparts within them: what Common she grants is that of a child's grasp, but what boon she grants is ever more useful: the ability to learn and learn terribly quick. What might have taken years is a trifle of months or weeks in the grand scheme of Fate.

'Until the nest calls for you. Until need beckons once more. My magic to my death to my fledglings. Shine pretty. Soar high.'

Her will is balm and booming proclamation within their souls all at once, and as quickly as she had arrived, the Raven Queen vanishes into shadow.

[chrisisofaith]

He can't look away from her even as her attention shifts to all of the group as a whole. As he listens to and hears Jon and Wolfe's suggestions. They're good suggestions...but the Raven Queen helps those who help themselves, and as the gold and black glimmers of possibility fall on them like the most divine stardust, he already suspects she's answered their request the way she wants even before the soul-deep knowledge of her boon comes to him.

She was ever one to hold to her own rules, but she could be equally kind as she could be wrathful, and there was certainty in that. Comfort.

He barely offers a small prayer and word of thanks before she's vanished back to her castles. Her nests.
And now they need to leave. The shadowlands are ever dangerous, especially so close to a Darkland.

His wing arches out from his back to curve behind Jon and pull him in close, and it doesn't stop touching him as Chris casts his Word of Recall to tug them back to the fresh, chilly air of the lakeside camp and their temple refuge.

As if it had all been an odd dream.

Even once there, he doesn't stand, just shifts back with gritted teeth until he's sitting fully on the ground. They all likely needed a moment.

[wolfehawke]

The feeling of deific pressure leaves at once with the echo of birds in flight but the sense of having been touched, having been changed remains in his soul more than in the shimmering droplets still stuck to his skin. The oppressive darkness remains, though, and he's glad with Chris covers them with his wings. When they recede, he can breathe again.

Thank you, he manages silently, a wealth of gratitude he couldn't give voice to in the moment but hopes she can still receive now. It remains as a little golden knot of emotion lodged in his throat as he turns towards the present and the immediate problem.

Chris' chest is still bloody, or looks it with hsi shirt stained dark just under his breastplate.

Wolfe brings the hand that's holding Chris' tightly down against the wound, the back of his hand cool against the torn barrier of fabric over the skin as he awkwardly applies pressure he knows is needed to stem the flow from the angle at which he's sitting, unwilling or unable to let go of Amelia and use both hands. "Can you heal yourself?"

He'll do it in a heartbeat but Chris isn't moments from death or anything so dire, and if Wolfe did heal when Chris still had it in him to do it, Wolfe knows he would get chastised for not using his magic wisely. Its easier to concentrate on caring for Chris' injury in the moment, though, than in how his words still catch in his throat, and how he's trembling just a little not from the battle but from the encounter and the ramifications of what was done, both by their Queen's hand and what Wolfe may have done to himself in saving Jon's life.

cw: panic attack

[rogueinladysclothing]

It's not for her, the blessing bestowed on the party. It's for Jon and for Wolfe, to help them on their journey to mastery of a language they need to know to survive. She's grateful for that, distantly, because that piece being given to them is going to save them, all of them, headaches and heartache from bruised egos and the metaphorical banging of heads against walls. It should be enough. It is enough.

Why can't she feel like enough?

She's only vaguely aware of the return to the lake. Everything feels far away after their meeting with the Raven Queen, as if the mundane things in life simply don't affect her anymore. Only they do because she notices the tug at her hand when Wolfe reaches for Chris as he should, the cleric is injured and the chill of the air settles over her entire body, not just her face. The land of the living sings around them with birds calling and woodland creatures skittering among the brush and trees not far from where they've set up camp. And... Wolfe's voice? From beside her? He said something, didn't he? Or did she imagine that around the sound of her own breathing in her ears?

Everything feels like too much, suddenly. The Raven Queen, their work in the Shadowfell, the truth of what they are, the breeze, her clothes, Shadow of shadows of mistresses of loyalty, the hand around hers, all of it. Every last bit of it.

Her hands rip away from the others as she struggles to loosen and shove off her boots before she gets to her feet. Her knives and mask fall next, starting a line toward the lake that continues with her bodice, her belts, her shirt, and her pants. By the time her feet touch the cool water the only thing left on her person is a cropped undershirt and her small clothes. She rushes far enough into the water to dunk herself and rinse off the first layer of ash and dust, coming up with a gasp that turns into soft panting as she scrubs at her face. She can't remove everything without soap, but it helps. It's something to focus on that isn't the overwhelming sense of everything that happened in the Shadowfell and helps bring her back to the moment.

Her breathing is steady again when she turns back to look at the others, eyes no longer wide but body still tense as she stands chest-deep in the water. Words aren't there yet either, but she doesn't move to go deeper or to go back under the surface. Things will get better, things will be better, she just needs to bleed out the adrenaline and fear with sensations that can't be mistaken for anything but what they are.

[compellingstatement]

And just like that, they're back on the Material Plane, icy air even colder than the Raven Queen's touch. Her touch, her boon, her presence! The Archivist's mind is feeling with possibilities, curiosity, and a wonder he's rarely associated with anything good. He's stood in the presence of something vast, unknowable, horrifying and beautiful and She had talked to them. Communicated. Granted what they asked for and more gifts on top of that. And she'd never asked for his soul or something terrible in return.

Chris' feathers are Her feathers, and he's in pain and injured, and Amelia's broken, and Wolfe is holding together...

The broken fractures in his own mind buckle as he tips his head back and stares into the sky, white clouds threatening rain or snow or just a chilly day in thin light. There's no eye, but Jon can picture it, the thing filling his soul and slowly leaching out of him.

It begins with a huff, then a giggle, and he's suddenly gone, helpless as manic laughter shakes his thin frame. He's met something terrible and magnificent and it was kind.

He doesn't belong here, he doesn't deserve it, this isn't his world, but it's one he'd wanted for so many years. One he'd hoped his own might be in some deep and desperately small part of himself.