#daphne ironstar

[many-voices]

Who do they consider as a mentor?

“My father,” Daphne says without a pause.  “He taught me to shoot, to fight, to plan, to see soldiers trained and fed and assigned to posts.  …he wanted my training to go to the Vanguard, not the Vigil, but that doesn’t take away the teachings.”  She digs a small insignia from within one of her trousers’ many pockets.  It’s a Vanguard pin, and as she tosses it on the table between you, you can see how bent it is, and how tarnished.  “Ironstars don’t die easy.  That’s what he taught me.  And I keep this to remind myself that I chose my life.  I keep choosing it.  Exactly as it is.”

[daphneironstar]

Flashback (I)

“The Vigil.”  Daphne’s father stated it flatly, and it took effort for Daphne to stand at silent attention rather than snap a reply.  “You said you’d apply to the Vanguard.”

Stay calm, stay calm.  She kept her voice even, or at least she hoped she did. When her temper flared, it was near impossible to tell.  “I was wrong.  The dragons are twenty times the threat a few Seps and renegade Charr might be.  A hundred times.  A thousand.”  

“The Vigil’s green as an outfit.  An experiment.”  The Captain shot Daphne an irritated look from behind his field desk.  Outside his tent, men and women called cadences as they drilled.  Foewatch was never at rest.  “And headed by-”

“A Charr, yes.  A Charr who survived a dragon.”  From the sudden muddy red on her father’s cheeks, Daphne realized her intention to do anything but shout had fallen aside.  Well, if it was too late, then into that pool she would dive.  No quarter.  “A Charr who thinks we can beat the dragons instead of hiding back in Ascalon with our cods in our hands.”

Ah, Gods, he didn’t speak.  That was the worst, when she bellowed and raged and he went silent.  She waited for his gaze to slide toward the little image of Kormir he always kept in his tent -- there.  There it went, and she swore he was counting under his breath.

“You’re of age,” the Captain finally said.  “I can’t stop you.  Do what you want, like you always do.”

“Father -”

“No,” the Captain said, more wearily than in anger.  “You don’t get to shout in one sentence and play sweet daughter in the second.”  He shook his head. “You don’t get everything you want.  Someday you’ll learn that.”  To her wary silence, he said only a brisk, “Dismissed.”

[finlaygibbs]

Letter to the Old Regiment

Captain Ironstar Eighth Regiment, Ebon Vanguard Foewatch Encampment

Sir -- 

I’m well aware that you and I parted badly, and I’m well aware that I’m about to bring up the subject that got me kicked from my regiment and busted back to the First and the city.  I don’t give a damn.

Did Daphne go back to the Vigil after her leave?  She told me after your tantrum that she was done with you and me, and heading right back to Trinity to rejoin her Vigil unit.  Did she go?

I’m sure you know full well that the First is heading right into the crash zone. If I need to be looking for your daughter, I will, gladly.  If I need to be looking for her and you don’t tell me so, then Dwayna protect you.

Gibbs

[many-voices]

Character Profiles:  Daphne

Daphne Ironstar, 32, Vigil lieutenant currently stationed in Amnoon.  Daughter of an Ebon Vanguard captain (check out the NPC at Foewatch), who chose the Vigil over her home forces -- a rift that’s yet to be healed.  While she’s enjoyed liaisons with fellow soldiers and civilians alike, they’re usually of short duration, given how blunt she is about her priorities.  She’s a canny commander, a natural soldier whose stoicism and willingness to be on the front lines is either inspiring or a little scary, depending on perspective.  Discipline, preparation, courage, single-mindedness: she’s 100% Vigil, and proud of it.

((Pic is of Jaimie Alexander.  Just an inspiration, not a faceclaim, though the hair is dead-on.))

[many-voices]

Daphne: We Regret to Inform You

The letter was brief, perfunctory.  She’d written enough of them herself to recognize the tone.  “...Corporal Gibbs named you as his beneficiary...” was a surprise, though, and she set the paper down and stepped outside into the fragrant Amnoon night for a few gasping breaths under the moon.

Almost immediately she noticed a strange shimmer in the air, a patch of translucent oddness that turned the regular stone courses of the pyramid behind it to indistinct waves.  The scent of Ascalon filled the air in a rush: scrubby trees, hard clay, fire.  Gibbs’s pipe-smoke.  And just like that, she knew.

She pivoted to face the shimmer, the man-sized form.  “The letter wasn’t enough?” she said.  “You had to visit too, on your way Mistward?”  Smoke wreathed around her, drawing her skin into hard gooseflesh.  She let out a long sigh.  “I’m sorry, Finlay.  You came closest, so you know.  Out of all of them,  you came closest to making me stay.”

But the past was done, and with it, all regret, all remembrance.  Daphne lifted a hand to brush through the shimmer, to see it wrap briefly around her fingers.  “Go on,” she said quietly.  A year ago, she would have told him to go to his Gods, but where would that have taken him?  “The Mists need some cheering up,” she said instead.  “Go tell a few jokes.  Lighten the mood.”  

A breeze teased her black curls before the shimmer faded.  She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw stars in the blackness.  When she dropped her arms, it was in the service of moving back toward her desk, to the orders beneath the letter.  Living beings had need of her, more than the dead ones.  The past was done.  Let it lie.

(( Daphne Ironstar was a character I only wrote about before my long hiatus, and I think she’s going to come out to play.  She’s bidding farewell to @finlaygibbs. ))

[many-voices]

OOC: The Great Tumblring

Thanks for your advice earlier, tumblr!  I‘ve split up most of my characters into their own blogs (some of which have existed for a few years, some new).  I’m going to keep this one around for asks, a general hub, event boosts, and so on, but my content is switching to the tumblrs below.

Characters I’m currently playing more than others:

Nora Duvall, girly-girl Krytan patriot who falls a lot -- @nora-duvall​ Karla Braunfels, private investigator -- @karla-braunfels​ Polly West, torch singer -- @pollywestgw2​ Hamish Abbot, cartographer -- @hamishabbot​ Jovan Rogala, would-be gentleman -- @jovan-rogala​

Characters I want to be playing ALSO:

Efren Sorenze, cloth merchant -- @efren-sorenze​ Zeneva Nasim, casino worker with an eye for grift -- @zeneva-nasim​ Hannah Burke, baker -- @bitterandstrong​ Daphne Ironstar, Vigil badass -- @daphneironstar​ Ourida Asabana, Joko-worshipping necromancer -- @ourida-asabana​ Liselle Violante, ritual candle-maker -- @liselle-violante

I am so happy to rp with friends new and old -- feel free to message if any of my little people intrigue you.  Thanks!

[many-voices]

OOC Character Update

Putting this on the right blog this time.  This is to both organize my brain AND to help me figure out who to toss at a few of you.  <3

Polly West ( @pollywestgw2 ) is in jail in Garenhoff, but that mini-plot is rapidly approaching resolution, and then she’ll be with @mavrosaerosrae...wherever Mavros wants to be.  And catching up with @lidiamerula and putting herself out there for the festival/tavern singing circuit again.  She doesn’t need to be famous -- girl just wants to sing and be free.

Hamish Abbot ( @hamishabbot ) is meandering around the Elon Riverlands with @meadnbookpiles, mapping Brand scars, buying skimmers, and being followed by eight gabillion choya all the time.

(Rest behind a cut; this’ll get long.)

Zeneva Nasim ( @zeneva-nasim ) is a casino dealer in Amnoon.  Happy to engage in confidence schemes, casino theft capers, and similar criminal activity. She thinks her hands are clean; I’m willing for them to not be.  She’s also super anti-Joko, which means that this minor criminal may also be willing to do some very targeted and specific good.

Karla Braunfels ( @karla-braunfels ) is due for dinner at the home of a scary rich sea captain in Lion’s Arch, where some long-planned detective hijinks with @rhynna will begin.  Together they fight crime!

Thank you to @nolan-royce and @rookmenagerie for helping me get more of a handle on candle-maker Liselle ( @liselle-violante ).  Liselle sells candles for temples and events, some of which have an additional magical kick. She’s DR-based.

Nora Duvall ( @nora-duvall ) is currently tackling one of @raine-ic ‘s characters outside Seraph offices in DR, because she thinks he’s a criminal and Nora’s gotta Nora.  When not tackling, she watches you fancy Roses and dreams of being purty and sophisticated.  

Jovan Rogala ( @jovan-rogala ) is heading off to Lion’s Arch to check on @rookmenagerie ‘s Rabiah, who may not at all be happy to see him.  He’s DR-based, trying to establish himself as a wealthy philanthropist -- but the edges of a life violently lived are hard to smooth away.

Ourida Asabana ( @ourida-asabana ) is at an Ascension camp in the Riverlands, bored and hostile, and gathering to her some of the refugees who seem a little less certain about leaving Joko’s kingdom.  

Daphne Ironstar ( @daphneironstar ), Vigil lieutenant, can do pretty much any made-up Pact thing we can imagine.  Amnoon for now; may be in Ebonhawke pretty soon on a sad family matter.

Hannah ( @bitterandstrong ) bakes in Lion’s Arch and tries to help Elonian refugees.  Her life ( and that of her best friend @tmorrowstide​ ) may be getting more interesting shortly.

Also:  Efren Sorenze ( @efren-sorenze ), whose life will soon take a turn ( hi again, @odelynv! ), and two ha ha ha ha new people I have in mind, one of whom is a boxer dude in Ascalon Settlement ha ha new character ha.

[many-voices]

What do they think is the meaning of life? (Daphne)

“Service.  Isn’t it?”  She holds up a finger to forestall more questions and takes a moment to hear the report of a Pact patrol in shattered Amnoon.  That done, she adds, “Some people feed other people, or clothe them, or bind up their wounds.  I do this.  It’s all service.”  She shakes her head.  “If a person lives entirely for themselves, what’s the point?  We all have to help each other, or everyone dies.  So…service.”

(( @daphneironstar ))

[many-voices]

[Finlay] Dead Man

The Pact pilot flipped onto her stomach and wiggled her bare backside, but after Finlay gave it the smack she so obviously wanted, she laughed and curled away.  Naked, she displayed a whole range of spring colors:  carrot-orange hair, dusty freckles, warm skin.  “So I heard a rumor,” she said while trailing her toes up his shin.  

He propped himself on his elbow just to see her better, languid now with exercise and some blessed relief.  Some squiggling bit of conscience told him he couldn’t both pine for Daphne and pound Marie, but other bits of him were perfectly happy with the arrangement.  After all, Daphne was the one who’d told him he was an fool when he’d said soft words.

“What rumor’s that, strawberry?” he asked.  Gods, it felt good when the woman knew what she was doing and didn’t attach sentiment to it.  A series of friendly, acrobatic fucks, and all the world looked better.  

Marie smiled.  “You’re Grenth-promised, I know that.  Not a priest, but the magic, right?”

“Right,” he answered.  “I can’t think of any other quip that doesn’t involve ‘bone’ in it, and that’s just lacking in class.”

Her laugh almost inspired him to a second rising in one encounter, and at forty, those were as rare as pigs flying down Kestrel Street.  “I heard you died.  When you were little.”

Well, that took care of the second rising.  He flopped back down on the camp cot, the left one of the two they’d shoved together.  “I did,” he said simply. “Before that, normal as any dumbass boy.  After, magicked well and good.”

“What was it like?”  Her voice was breathy now, and he kept his smile friendly while his good mood evaporated to ash.  It’s not like he hadn’t been asked the question before, and in the same situation.  Death and fucking seemed to go together in some odd way that turned people curious and stupid and regretting their questions in the morning.

Still, Marie had turned out to be a decent friend, and one he could talk to when Keser was out in the jungles killing the Dragon’s remnants.  So he answered with a sliver of the truth.  “Cold.  Wintry.  But not terrible.”  He shrugged. “Cold.”

She slid forward and set a hand on his belly, then laughed when muscles twitched.  “You warmed up.”  But he was done now, caught more in memories of mist and ice than in her good hands.  “Outside I did,” he answered, nodding, and after a while she stood to dress and go.

[many-voices]

Forget -Daphne

Daphne forgets nothing.  That’s what she tells herself, crouched beneath a canopy of broad purplish leaves in a canyon with no name.  Creatures she has no words for push and snort at the edge of the little ledge where she takes shelter, but she’s chosen well - they can’t get to her, not this time.  She sits back on her haunches in her filthy, ripped linens, and lets her mind drop back into memory like sinking into a bath.

Her mother’s face, her father’s face.  The grin of her little sister a few days before she died, when Daphne gave her a stuffed dolyak toy, wool stuffed with straw.  The pain of burst blisters after her first day with her warhammer, and the fourth day, and the tenth.  The red-tinged satisfaction of mowing down Risen with a speed she hadn’t thought she could achieve.

Beasts are gathering at the base of the ledge now, attracted by the attentions of the first ones who scented her.  A frilly backplate is tall enough to see, but she’s still safe.  For now.  There’s no escaping, but for now:

The fumblings of her first lover.  The almost detached expertise of her most recent one.  The skin powder her grandmother wore, despite the expense.  The bitter-sharp scent of Ascalon in Scion.  The faces of friends, the press of hands, a surprise kiss from a stranger and the slap she landed on his cheek a second later.  Sunshine.  Drying off after a bath.  Safety.

The ledge somehow shakes, and the rocks by her feet sag an inch, then two. The beasts are burrowing beneath her, another attempt to get at their prize.  It’s a good tactic, she says to herself.  It’s what she would have done.

[many-voices]

Daphne in the Jungles IV

(( Part I here, Part II here, Part III here. 

So far, Our Heroine has survived the destruction of her airship and a daring escape from the vine on which her wreckage was temporarily suspended.  Her rescue by Vigil helicopter pilot Nijjak and Priory old-timer Micah has just taken a frightening turn... ))

The helicopter lurched sideways, hung, and dropped again, all accompanied by a sickening crunch of metal.  “Vine!” Nijjak called while fumbling with the belt that held him to his upside-down pilot’s chair.  “We must have landed on a vine instead of ground!”

The helicopter rolled again.  Daphne landed hard against a rack of rifles, then slammed into the opposite bulkhead.  Micah crashed into the bare metal beside her as the vine finally ripped the rotors free of the fragile craft.  Nijjak’s howls of dismay echoed through the tiny space.

With the next rotation, a metal support near Micah ripped free of its housing and slashed the man’s forehead as he tried to keep his balance.  He stared at Daphne, dazed, while blood welled in a thin line and then poured over his craggy features.  Nijjak hollered Micah’s name even as the asura finally freed himself from his seatbelt and crashed down onto a control panel.  

The older man’s knees crumpled and the rest followed suit, pitching him forward into a row of metal lockers.  “We’ve stopped,” Nijjak said while ripping off his uniform coat and pressing it to Micah’s bleeding forehead.  “Woman. Can you see anything?”

Daphne turned and swung beneath the co-pilot’s seat.  A few hard punches freed most of the windshield’s spiderwebbed glass from its bent frame.  She wriggled between shards, only to be sucked half out of her precarious perch by the swirling winds.  Beside her, vines shot up into the cloud-wreathed sky from within an impossibly deep, steep-walled canyon.  The ground below looked solid enough, but things moved on it.  Small, fast..alien.

She wrenched herself back into the ship.  “We’re between two vines. Suspended, maybe fifty feet up.  The next time one of them moves, we’re either dropping or we’re ground like meat.”

“I’m not meant to die smushed by plants,” Nijjak announced.  He set his mouth near Micah’s ear.  “Micah!  Wake up!  It’s just blood!”  Nijjak drew back, frowned, and opened his mouth to holler again.

Daphne pushed the asura back.  “Just ...don’t,” she said.  She snagged a waterskin from Nijjak’s belt and up-ended it over Micah’s head.  “Some water will --”  The alcohol fumes rose up like a cloud even as Nijjak let out a despairing cry.

Micah roared back into consciousness, his arms thrashing.  “What the-”

“I made that from my own still!” the asura sputtered.  “That was worth-”

Daphne cut him off with an abrupt, not entirely ladylike gesture.  “I’m good for it. Ask me later.  Someone get the emergency ladder through the hatch.”  Nijjak kept grumbling as he shoved storage lockers aside, and the same ladder that saved Daphne half an hour before soon tumbled out into the wind. 

She grabbed the still-swaying, reeking Micah by the shoulders.  “Can you climb?”  The wind howling through the open hatch and windshield forced her into shouting.  “Micah!  Can you climb?”  He patted her shoulder reassuringly, nodding.

“Smartest out first!” Nijjak called, and with his feet braced on either side of the dangling ladder, slid out of sight.  

“You next!” Daphne called.  Micah again nodded, and with tentative, slow motions, began the journey downward.  Daphne glanced around the jumbled piles of equipment.  A rifle caught her eye; she slung it and its strap over her shoulder and followed Micah down just as one of the vines shuddered and shifted.

“Gotta jump the last biiiiit...”  The asura’s voice, far below, dwindled to nothing. Daphne looked down between her bare feet to where Micah still clung to the ladder.  Thirty feet separated them from the ground, and only that.  Below was brackish water, a hump of land, rocks.  As she watched, Nijjak broke through a thick layer of algae to emerge from the water.  “Jump!” he called.

“Micah.  Jump.”  He clung, with blood still slowly trickling down his forehead.  “Micah.”

His voice barely reached her with the wind so fierce.  “Can’t.”

“You don’t have much of a godsdamned choice,” she called.  “Micah, jump.” The man closed his arms around the ladder even more tightly as she barked the words.  His eyes were glassy, his grip shook.  “Damn it.  Damn it!”  She slowed her breath as a red, furious temper rose.  “Fine.  We’ll just stay here a moment longer.  But then you’ve got to -”

The vine shifted sideways a few feet, then bashed back into the helicopter like a cat swatting a toy.  One of the ladder’s bolts snapped and the ladder sagged. Daphne yelped as the Priory scholar’s hand closed around her bare ankle. “Jump,” she cried, but the vine had robbed them of the choice.  With another violent lurch, the helicopter rolled free from its perch, bearing the two Pact soldiers along with it.

[many-voices]

Daphne in the Jungles (III)

(( Part 1 here, Part 2 here. ))

For a second, Daphne thought she’d miss.  The Priory man hollered for the chopper to stay steady.  He locked his legs around the bottom rungs of the ladder and let himself hang upside-down to give her just a few more feet of chance -- and still, she thought she’d miss.  She wondered if it’d hurt when she landed.  If she’d be awake the whole time, if she’d see the ground rush up to meet her, foot by murky foot.  

She caught the slender metal links with her body, not her hands.  Something scraped her face.  She slid a few feet, grabbed for a rung, slid again, but then an arm slammed hard around her hips and the Priory man hollered, “Go, go,” to the unseen pilot above.

The chopper veered away from the vine and the dangling ladder followed.  The Priory man kept her between him and the ladder, with his mouth by her ear. “Thank the gods!  You’re the first survivor in the canopy that we’ve seen.”  

“And below?”  The wind nearly stripped the words away, and she choked back a gasp as the chopper swept around vine after vine.

“We see movement.  Fires, groups of people.  They’re finding each other, it looks like.”  The chopper began a sudden descent and Daphne was briefly, heart-stoppingly weightless.  Like falling again.  She let out a tiny noise and buried her face against the Priory man’s robe-covered arm.  

He barked a laugh by her ear when the chopper’s descent slowed.  The air was warmer here, thicker.  A broken landscape seemed tossed around like a child’s forgotten building blocks.  A ruin poked out of lush growth to the south.  To the north, vines and cliffs and canyons disappeared into shadow.  The Priory man called, “We’re steady enough now -- climb!”

She did, arm over exhausted arm, until she flopped on metal decking.  Her eyelids slid shut.  Familiar smells rushed in:  engine oil, the sweat of men, someone’s spilled meal.  Tears welled, but she pushed them back ruthlessly.  Not the time.  A hand splayed on her lower back.  A higher-pitched voice called, “Is she all right?  Will she live?”

“She’ll live,” the Priory man said.  “This one fights.”  The questioner let out an arch, “Hmph,” before the chopper began another steady descent.  A bladder of water was placed with one end by her mouth.  Her greaves were eased away from her legs.  A hand settled on her wound for a quick prayer and a flash of soothing magic.  Salve followed. Bandages.  She slurped water bit by bit and imagined a raisin plumping, becoming a grape again.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw the man sitting nearby, cross-legged. His mustache was a spectacular, drooping grey thing.  Warm brown eyes regarded her from beneath wrinkled lids.  Twice her age, if not more, and he’d dangled off the ladder like a circus man.  

He laughed as if she’d spoken some of it aloud.  “The Pact needed more than its greenest and strongest,” he said.  “You’re alive, aren’t you?  Call me Micah.  That’s Nijjak.”  The dark-skinned asura at the pilot’s station waved once before clamping his hand back on the wheel.

She sat up slowly.  “Daphne.  How did you survive?”  

Nijjak called back, “We were doing reconnaissance away from our ship.  Mapping!  Looking for good landing sites.  And then WHAM.”  He slapped his hand against the wheel.  “A vine came for us too, but I’m the best -- “

“He’s done well, for someone who earned his wings about five days ago,” the Priory man, Micah, said wryly.  “So here’s your crew, Daphne.  An old man and a new pilot.  Thoughts?”

She rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes.  The decking felt strange against her bare feet.  Vulnerable.  Without her armor, vulnerable.  “We need to land.  If the chopper takes a vine to the hull, we’re gone.  On the ground, we can use it as shelter and start forays into the jungles, find more survivors.”  

“Sure!” Nijjak said.  “Because we never thought of that.  Hold on!”  With Micah’s assistance, Daphne rose and stood behind the asura pilot.  “Readings indicate our distance from the surface as ...two hundred meters.  One hundred and fifty.  One hundred!  Seventy-five! ...wait.  One hundred again?”  He aimed a savage kick at the dial’s housing.  “Work!”

Micah took up the count.  “One hundred -- no, fifty.  No -- Nijjak perhaps you need to -- “

“Twenty-five, ha!  Almost -- “  She watched the dial turn suddenly to 0, and with it, an impact that sent her crashing into a rack of weapons and tools.  Nijjak’s triumphant call of, “Landed!” was drowned out by the groan of blocked rotors.  Smoke plumed somewhere above.  Somehow, the ship began to rise again, the dial’s hand swiveling to twenty-five, to fifty.

“Ohhhh,” Nijjak said, just before the chopper rolled sideways like a toppled vase.  “Maybe that wasn’t ground.”

[many-voices]

Daphne in the Jungles (II)

“You know what an enemy looks like?” her father asked from his place at the head of the column.  Daphne struggled to keep up, with her short legs pumping and her calf muscles burning at the steady climb.  She held his helm tightly to her chest - an honor, his aide had told her.  

“Charr,” she said in immediate response.  “They want to kill all of us.”  It was something she’d heard a soldier say, though the sheer scope of the statement escaped her.  Still, her father looked down at her with something like approval.

“Anyone who isn’t for Ascalon is an enemy, Daphne.  Charr, yes.  But anyone who isn’t for Ascalon.  Anyone, everyone.  Do you understand?”

She didn’t, but she nodded yes and polished the heavy Vanguard helm with the sleeve of her brown dress.  “Good,” her father said.  He ruffled her black curls with a heavy, gauntleted hand.  Crickets chirped in the dry fields, and the air smelled of dirt and dung.  A cornflower blue sky spread to the horizon.  Anyone who isn’t for Ascalon.  It sounded right.  She would remember it.

Daphne jerked awake when her weight shifted.  One leg slumped off the vine; momentum dragged her into empty space until the rope around her waist and chest snapped taut.  She hung in her makeshift harness, staring down at the distant ground -- gods, had she ever been this high?  Never, not even on top of the Hawkgates. The Hawkgates were nothing compared to this.  She was nothing compared to this.

Panic rushed up from her stomach in an acid tide.  She clawed at her makeshift harness.  Gods.  Gods.  She had to piss, she was hungry , she couldn’t begin to consider the crew of the Queen, the lost, the dead, the sylvari and their madness.  Her calf throbbed dully where  Selaina had slashed her. Thirsty.  She was so thirsty.  Wind twisted her one way and then the other.  

Below, the mist was thinning, and she could make out a tangle of massive vines, a broken parapet of rock, a downed airship. Impossibly far, but maybe -- no.  Lethargy tugged at her.  It would be all too easy to slip the dagger from her boot and cut the ropes that held her.  The last flight of the Glorious Queen.  Her hand twitched at her side.

Up, Ironstar.  Up.  The voice was her father’s and her sister’s, her Warmaster’s, her recruits’.  Finlay’s, Soren’s, ...Selaina’s.  And Daphne’s own, quiet at first, but then snarling at herself out loud in the cursed jungle.  “Up.  You climb up, you live.”  She threw her weight back, caught the rope between her hands, and climbed.

She clambered onto the small vine that had held her and wrapped legs and arms around it.  A few more falls, and she’d be too weak to pull herself back up.    Rot would set in in her leg unless she did something.  Time to go, Ironstar.

Before she could consciously consider it, she swept her dagger from her boot and buried it in the meat of the smaller vine.  Something shuddered minutely within the green mass, but nothing shifted or bucked or threw her.  Just a vine. Just a vine, but it was a godsdamned effort to pull the dagger free again, and the main vine was sloped just enough that the daggers wouldn’t have to hold all her weight.

Ice picks.  Just like ice picks in the Shiverpeaks. She tugged her second dagger free from its sheath and scooted closer to the main vine.  She let her Vigil gorget fall, her tasset, her breastplate.  Weight would mean everything when her muscles burned and the ground was still a world away.  

In gauntlets and padding and greaves, she twisted to face the main vine.  She sank one dagger to its hilt, then eased off the smaller vine until her weight hung.  With the other dagger she sliced the rope at its knot.  No going back.  No staying.  The rest of the rope remained around her, too handy to give up, but -- down was the only option now, one way or the other.  

The world resolved itself into tiny movements, minutes blurring together into mindless hours.  Sink the dagger into the vine, shift her weight.  Clench the curve of the vine as hard as she could with her legs.  Dagger, weight.  Shift.  Down.  A foul, thick sap soon slicked her gauntlets.  Her daggers, sticky now, were harder to retrieve with each blow to the vine.

Her grip slipped; suddenly she hung by one arm, one sap-covered gauntlet, one thin Ascalonian blade.  The wind picked up, suddenly obscuring her face in a tangle of lank black curls.  Her linen shirt and breeches rippled.  Daphne set her face against the vine and gasped hard for breath.  She was seeing her mother’s face now, the kindness in it, the wry, amused tolerance her mother had always managed to aim Daphne’s way.  

The wind kept buffeting her in waves, first slow and indistinct and then somehow rhythmic, steady.  A whup-whup-whup of a noise began quietly and grew by the second.  Couldn’t be.  Her heart leapt; she twisted and stared.

The Pact chopper hovered as close as it could to the vine.  A ladder dangled, and at its bottom, a Priory man waved and beckoned.  She had to jump for it, but between the chopper and the ground, she was always going to end up jumping anyway.  She braced the toe of her boot against the vine.  The man signaled for the chopper to stay put, wait, wait.  It’d be a miracle of a jump, a mad jump, but ...a smile stretched across her face.  Her dry lips cracked.  Do it, Ironstar.  Now.  

She leapt into the abyss, sap-covered hands outstretched.

[many-voices]

Daphne in the Jungles (I)

((While my Vigil character Daphne levels OOC, I’ll be writing her adventures as a survivor of the downed Pact fleet.  It’s an awful place, so be aware that she (and others) will be going through pretty awful stuff.  I won’t spoil anything from the Living Story.))

“Daphne.”

She swam out of darkness into murky green, thick heat, and ferocious wind. Her hands and cheek rested on hot, uneven metal.  She shifted a hip, and the world tilted.

“Daphne.”  The voice calling her was urgent now, familiar.  A sharp pain rocketed up her leg and hip when she shifted up onto her elbow.  “Daphne, don’t move.”  A pause followed the words, then a soft cry of distress.  “Dear, please don’t move?”

Daphne Ironstar opened her eyes as a flaming piece of wreckage careened out of the sky from far above.  She watched it fall past burning ships and twisted, unrecognizable metal.  Airship envelopes billowed in the air like giant cloaks. The vine a few feet from her face pulsed with an obscene, musky vitality.

“You’re awake.  Oh, that’s good.  That’s very good.”  The voice was female, lilting, melodic.  Sylvari.  Sylvari.  Daphne scrambled back, all feet and knees and elbows, even as the sylvari on the other side of their teetering bit of wreckage cried, “Don’t!  Please!  We’ll both fall.”

The sylvari clung to girders on the opposite side of the massive vine.  Selaina, that was it.  Purple-hued, female in appearance, chirpy, kind.  She’d played a hundred rounds of Duke’s Gambit on Daphne’s worn playing cards during the journey.  Not a friend, not yet, but she had the potential.  She’d had the potential.  “Are you tainted?”  Daphne barked.  “Are you mad?”

“I’m not,” Selaina replied quickly.  Her eyes were a brilliant teal, and as Daphne watched, the massive vine and Selaina’s eyes suddenly pulsed brightly in time with each other.  “I’m —“  The sylvari choked back a cry.  “Slipping.  But not yet.  There’s time.”

A quick look around the area confirmed the worst:  the girders and decking had once been part of the Glorious Queen, and Mordremoth’s vine had punched through steel like an awl through leather.  A ferocious wind snarled Daphne’s black hair and yanked her sideways on the wreckage.  As she rolled, the deck shifted and tilted.  “We’re balanced on a branch, I think,” Selaina said.  “It’s hard to say.  But we’re — we’re very high.”

“Parachutes.”

“None, Crusader.”  Selaina gripped her hands into fists.  “Crusader, the voice — the voice is very bad.”

Six gods.  “Recruit, hold on.  Hold on.  Rope.  Do we have rope?”  As Daphne watched, Selaina drew a length of rope up from her side and set it weakly in front of her.  “Throw it to me.”  The sylvari tried, but the rope fell short, its nearest loop a full meter from Daphne’s outstretched fingers.

“All right.  Selaina?  When I say so, you shift left while I shift right.”  The sylvari’s head dipped.  The leaves wound around the crown of her head quivered. “Selaina!  I shift right, you shift…”

“Left, Crusader.  On your mark.”

“We will get out of this.  Just…one, two, three…now.”  Daphne crab-crawled sideways as Selaina rolled left.  Beneath them, metal groaned and snapped.  Daphne scrambled for a rail as the whole mass twisted, slanted, then settled hard against the vine.  “Selaina!”

The sylvari’s voice was thin now, most of its music gone.  “I am here, Crusader.  If you wish anything from me, you should ask for it quickly.”

“Hold on.”  Somehow, Kormir be praised, the shift had exposed the stem end of the branch that held them high.  Daphne flung one end of the rope over it, then dipped down through a jagged-edged hole in the hull to retrieve it.  For a breathless moment she hung upside down over mist and fire.  The rope fluttered in the heavy wind.

She locked both legs around the railing that held her.  On the first swing, she batted the rope away instead of grasping it.  On the second swing, one of her legs gave way when the rail slammed sideways over the hole in the decking.  Though she kept her ankle locked and her foot flexed, her boot began a slow slipping away.  Her howl of “Selaina!” went unanswered.

One more swing.  One more chance.  No Ironstar dies easily.  The rope bounced off her hand, but she swept it back with the tip of her middle finger.  Got it.  “Got it!” she cried up to her companion.  She swung up, tied off the rope, pivoted.  “Come on.  Hold on to me, we’ll - “

The sylvari clung to the very edge of the wreckage, a fragile purple figure among twisted steel.  “No, Crusader.  You go on.  You were good company on the journey, so you know.  I thought it might be far more tedious.”  Selaina took a shuddering breath.  “Thank you for that.”  She rose to her feet carefully while the wind tore at her robes.  “Hold on to your ropes now — oh, it hurts.”

The decking beneath Daphne slammed high, shoving her sideways.  She twisted her hands and wrists in the rope while shouting the sylvari’s name.

“Goodbye, Crusad-“  As quick as an inhale, it happened.  Selaina’s unfocused, pained gaze turned sharp.  She turned, bent, and ripped a ragged panel of steel from the rest of the decking.  A smile spread across her angular face.  “Crusader,” she purred, and leapt.

With the sylvari’s leap, the unbalanced decking finally broke free.  Selaina moved hand over hand through the wreckage even as it slid away from the vine.  The jagged bit of metal in her right hand slashed the air; a second later, pain flared along Daphne’s calf.  The world fell away.

Wind grabbed and twirled her before the rope snapped suddenly taut.  Daphne slammed against the vine once, then again, as Selaina - what was Selaina - tumbled silently into the fire-lit mist below.

[finlaygibbs]

Any romantic interests?

He scruffs floppy curls back from his face.  “Romantic.  What a word.  No, no romantic interests.  Because Foewatch is such a destination, and soldiering in deep Ascalon such a delight.”  His dry laugh is followed by a boyish sort of shrug, despite the grey at his temples and the feathery lines at his eyes’ outer edges.  “I get a tumble when I need it, and …heh.  It’s Ascalon, miss.  Your pretty tales of romance belong in places that aren’t cracked dry with magic and fire and hate.”

He chuckles.  “That said.  Daphne godsdamm Ironstar.  Even if I never see the girl again…damn.  That’s a woman.”

[finlaygibbs]

They find a genie and are granted three wishes, what do they wish for, and why?

The first would involve Southsun beaches and some good bottles of wine and Daphne Ironstar (or whoever’s most recently in his thoughts, though she shows sign of lingering).  Second would be peace in Ascalon, a lasting sort of peace that didn’t feel like two shards of glass rubbing hard against each other.  Third, he might wish his own necromantic powers away, though it’d only occur to him in the moment as a request, and he’d likely regret it after.