The Seeds of Unrest, Phase Two 🌱

[beleos]

UPROOTED

Time has not been kind thus far, and the future will be no kinder.

The slow passage of days to weeks has seen both cities increasingly ravaged by the untamed growth of the enlarging roots. Their size is enough to uproot buildings by their foundations, if not bisect them entirely where they push through unfettered. In the worst-hit areas, entire blocks are left abandoned - if even standing at all, displacing families and leaving businesses in ruins.

Cetina and Kathova have been in near constant contact with Bearers via Communion, feeding them information about which areas to focus their lifesaving efforts. Yima’s Manor and the Seat of the Tribune - despite their closeness to the Trees - have been fortified by your leaders and act as a base of operations for each respective faction. You will be able to return to either to find sanctuary from the chaos beyond, but the innumerable civilians are not so lucky.

Bearers are tasked with rescue and recovery efforts and requested to assist hands on the ground with taking refugees to temporary shelters. Survivors must be dug out of the debris. Those who are capable of healing will be enlisted to assist at hospitals and triage centers. Supplies must be gathered and harvested from areas that are collapsed and too dangerous for civilians to navigate. If you are feeling generous, you can go on search and rescue missions, as many people are considered missing in both Highstorm and Springstar. Some areas are completely cut off to regular foot traffic by the massive, winding roots bearing countless Blight-blooms. Citizens are succumbing to the Blight flower’s effects persistent from phase one with more and more frequency.

While both cities slowly succumb to a deepening catastrophe, the situation worsens.

STIRRING STORMS

As the days pass, inexplicable and unnatural weather occurrences will randomly plague both cities. They can last as long as a full day or as little as an hour before dissolving entirely.

• Flurries: this snow is tainted by the Blight, making the snowfall look like ash. Any organic matter it touches will be affected by reopening wounds, re-infection of illnesses, or re-experiencing injuries that may have healed over years ago.
• Thunderstorms: these storms carry a frigid rainfall and heavy cloud cover, making already difficult-to-navigate disaster zones harder to clear. As each thunder bellow crashes overhead, you might swear you hear a familiar voice reaching out to you in the fading rumble… one that sends a message - either from the future or past.
• Fog: dense clouds of thick, freezing fog will roll in randomly, making visibility even more precarious. In your search for survivors - or your companions, you may find yourself coming face to face with someone else, instead: a version of yourself (or a companion) from another timeline. You may also hear your own voice calling out to you from within the fog, attempting to beckon you further into the mist.
• General Note: Exposure to any of the above weather patterns will increase your Blight infection.

THE BLIGHT COMES FOR ALL

As if it were not enough to see the cities that have become your salvation at the end of the Timestream falling to collapse and ruin, the Bearers will slowly begin to realize their previous immunity to the Blight is eroding. They will begin to show symptoms of infection that increase into May’s event. ( For more information on the effects of the Blight and purification methods, please see the OOC Summary. )

Now that their last bastion - the Bearers - are just as much in harm’s way as everyone else, the populous’s efforts to formulate a temporary stop-gap solution are being rushed to completion. Time is not on anyone’s side. They will continue to work with those who have been kind enough to volunteer their resources and brilliant minds - collecting materials and attempting to figure out a way to avert their otherwise inevitable destiny.

ORDERS

Orders from your leaders will come as soon as infections among the Bearers have been confirmed.

🌙 YIMA will stress for all Zenite Bearers to prioritize their well-being and to avoid unnecessary exposure, to manage their symptoms as much as possible. They must fight for their own survival to bring in the birth of a new universe - and their lives are too precious to risk. Beyond that, she asks them to save what they can of their people and their most critical structures with the understanding that hard choices may be necessary.

🌞 CYRUS will implore all Meridian Bearers to prioritize the general population's lives and turn their efforts to save as much of Springstar as they can. He will note that Bearers have ways to help keep one another from suffering too much contagion and to coordinate their usages appropriately, to keep one another safe, and watch their backs.

ANOTHER EN-TREE-TY

The Tree of Life continues to sicken, yet - thankfully - the progression of the Blight is slow. Still, Bearers will find themselves occasionally compelled to take a moment to sit beneath its boughs and vibrant leaves, even as some begin to show signs of discoloration and rot. Any characters who sit with the Tree with the purple leaf they found on their person after phase one will find it warming to the touch, its veins laced with gold. This effect will be even more effective if taken into the cavernous roots beneath the Tree! While this may fill you with a temporary sense of calm, it doesn't seem to have any other effects... yet still, you are compelled, if not curious.

The Tree has offered you this gift for a reason. Perhaps you will find its use before long.

...As long as you - and Kenos - survive long enough to discover it.

CODING

Comments

Sebastian

[kinaesthesia]

[With things getting worse and worse around the cities, there’s been plenty of work to be done. Gavial’s had her hands full enough as it is with her research, but once streets started getting torn up and buildings coming down, there’s been no end of people needing help to keep her busy. Not that she’s too bothered by all the work, as someone who’d rather be up and moving than wasting time being idle. And hell, there’s nothing wrong with putting in the effort of doing good for others. But it does eventually get a little tiring, even for her.

The moment she does seize a bit of downtime for herself, she doesn’t even use it to really relax; instead she goes on a little mission to track down a fellow healer. Better for folks to work together in situations like this, and she was pretty intrigued to see for herself what this Sieglinde gal can do. She’d mentioned where she was staying during their first conversation, so it’s just a matter of getting to the place.

“Gavial,” you might say, “Wouldn’t it be easier to track her down if you ask her via Communion?” Sure, and it’d be way less fun! Plus she’ll take any excuse to get to know the city a bit better, and it’s easy enough to find out where this Sebastian guy’s house is just by asking around.

So here she is trawling some passingly-familiar streets, keeping her eyes peeled for the place that’d been described to her—and thankfully it’s not all that hard to find. She only takes half a second to glance the place over before marching right up to the front door. She knocks, and without even another second of waiting she tries the door handle—and delightfully finds it unlocked. So she pushes it open and steps right in, relieved to get out of that damned cold as quickly as possible.]

Knock knock! Anyone home?

[Does it even cross her mind that this might be the wrong house? Absolutely not.]

[gravings]

[ The cold of the Blight in Gray is so complete that Silco's communion is ice poured upon ice: still unpleasant, jolting Gray where she lies, but simply another discomfort for the list. By now she shivers uncontrollably, and a spark of self-preservation urges her to roll to her side, then slowly push to her knees.

She doesn't recognize the voice communing with her, and she can't keep a tint of uncertainty from their connection... but right now, she's a beggar without the luxury of choice. She shows him what she can see: a street name, a landmark. Providing real directions is currently beyond her; she doesn't remembering walking here, and the roots have twisted the city beyond recognition. ]

I need help with my Blight... if that's alright.

[ Dire straits or not, she hates to be an imposition. Especially on a stranger — but again, she has no choice but to put aside her manners. ]

[gravings]

[ Gray blinks at the handkerchief suddenly mopping her face and raises a hand to take the handkerchief herself. She feels confused, like someone cut out a section of her memory, but she must look to be in quite a state if Rin looked that surprised — as quickly as she tried to hide it. Ever one to avoid being an imposition, Gray responds automatically. ]

I'm okay. I'm sorry if I worried you.

[ In other words, Rin isn't wrong. Gray frowns a little as she feels the rawness of her scar (now an injury), her finger tracing the vicious split of her skin. It makes her wonder if there isn't some sort of time distortion going on, which is an amazing thing to even be able to consider.

She's pulled from her confusion by the rapidly thickening fog around them, casting a ghostly haze over the sight of Rin. It makes Gray nervous, especially with all the magic-tinged weather events of late. ]

... Maybe we should speak somewhere else.

[ Maybe it's just her imagination, but she gets an impression of shadows in the fog... ]

closed to amos:

[eyesite]

( before, when highstorm had existed in the held breath before the storm, john had felt the streets running wild with the low-ampacity current of new fear. what it is that people hold in their hearts as a new and emergent horror is an invisible landscape that few think about, but to the Archivist, whose role historically has been to gather statements, inscribe the fears described within upon themself, and ruminate on the current Powers and their trajectories, it is something he is intrinsically aware of. the people of highstorm had feared the Blight. they had feared what john might have hazarded as the End — Terminus, the fear of slow-approaching and inevitable death. but perhaps that is too inexact, too vague. an affliction like the Blight also brings to mind the Corruption, or perhaps it hearkens to that Fear which had never fully emerged but perhaps had existed among the other Fourteen all along: the Extinction, the slowly-swelling dread that by their own faults they will seed their own annihilation, and that which came to inherit what they left behind would be far worse than anything they could dream of in their nightmares.

Fear is a beast with many heads and many stomachs, but they are all the same in the end, likened by their desires, their hunger, and their nature. ultimately it's pointless to draw distinctions and attempt to enforce order on what is by nature chaotic, reactive to that which it naturally feeds upon.

with the seeming corruption of the Great Trees leading to their roots spilling out into the streets, wildly inflicting both inanimate objects and living creatures alike with the Blight, the situation seems very much like the potential fear had been an egg, and now that egg has split, spilling the actualization of that dread onto all that had concerned themselves with it. just as one might smell smoke on the breeze when standing distant of a wildfire, john can sense the thrill of fear and anguish in the air — it both pains and excites him, wretched in its ambivalence. the people of highstorm might be a faceless mass to him, but they do not deserve to be trapped in a state like this, just as all of those people he had damned to torment before Oblivion had mercifully claimed them instead hadn't deserved their fate. unable to help those he felt culpable for, john is desperate to help those he feels he can save here —

though, with all his ability to find those gripped by immense fear, he's powerless with this paltry human body to do anything to actually help them. it's a hideous feeling of powerlessness.

he is aware of the orders dispersed from yima through kathova: that they are not supposed to risk their well-being to save the citizens of this city. impetuously, and likely foolishly, john discards these out of hand. moving through a thoroughly devastated street close to the city's heart, he stops for a moment before racing to where a root grasping around a building like a clenching hand has collapsed its structure into a heap of rubble. in there. he can sense them, and then he feels like he can see them, just as he had seen that corrupted bullet lodged within the flesh of melanie's leg, even through meat and skin. his hands skate uselessly across the sheer rock, and he grits his teeth in frustration before turning and shouting about himself, ) Can anyone help? There are people trapped in here!

[exhound]

[It’s good to have another strong pair of hands when it comes to work like this, and Dimitri is proving to be that and then some. Definitely the right man for the job. Vander helps with clearing some of the smaller bits of debris along the other side at first, aiming to clear up the path as Dimitri works his way down to some of the larger ones.

It’s slow, methodical work. They’ve got to keep an eye on the remnants of the building as they move things, careful not to nudge something that shouldn’t be nudged. But so far it’s looking steady, and their combined effort has cleared up much of the easily accessible hazards blocking their way in.]

So far so good, eh?

[He takes a step back to assess their progress, with a respectful nod toward Dimitri and his impressive display of strength. There still remains one rather large and intimidating piece of wreckage that’s wedged itself up into the entranceway at an odd angle. If they can move it off to the side a bit more, they might be able to squeeze their way in, but there’s no telling what might be disturbed as they try.]

That one there might be a two-man job.

[exhound]

Ah, you might be right about that.

[That’s the thing about wreckages like this—it can be deceptively easy to underestimate how delicate a balance there might be in keeping it from falling apart completely. Collapsed buildings on a scale like this might be outside of his experience, but he didn’t grow up working down in the mines without witnessing the aftermath of a tunnel collapse or two. It’s enough to tell him that they’ve got to watch their step here.

He kneels in front of the rubble, looking it over carefully. True enough, despite how straightforward this mess looks at first glance, the foundations surrounding this entranceway have indeed taken a pretty big hit.]

Does look like this side’s leaning pretty heavily on it. [He straightens back up and glances over at Quetzalcoatl.] Could be risky if we go at this too fast.

[But they can’t dally too much either, since there’s no telling what the state of the people inside might be.]

YEEEE TY

[wolof]

[ She had been hoping, that perhaps if she made it to Highstorm, and had gotten samples of the branches, plants, and yes, even a few blighted individuals here, she could take them back down into Kowloon to the labs that she shared with Bondrewd. It would be at least be of some use, since She had little competency with science -- and more of the magical arts -- and while her Walin-Falme had wandered off into the mist after some roots, she'd gotten... lost.

The creature wasn't far, and she could call it at any time, but...

She turned, when Misa spoke up, and Akua's lips quirked into a smile. Though she had recently offloaded her Blight onto someone unsuspecting, it did not take long to accrue more. She could feel it, that chill feeling, settling into her bones, threatening to tip closer into something that made her feel stiff, and weak. She presented a brave front to Misa, but she had wronged the woman, back on the Scorching Isles. It would be within her right to seek revenge, though Akua did not intend to let her simply take it.

She shifted her fur mantle up and a little tighter around her shoulders. The cut of her coat and britches still left enough exposed skin to see the hint of her shard beneath it. ]

Why, Miss Misa. How lovely to see you again.

Would you be a dear, and escort me?

[ She'll try to start it out friendly, at least. ]

amos burton | exalt | zenith

[baltimores]

i. uprooted (highstorm)

[ These are his people. Amos doesn't have much to anchor him to this world — to any world — but one thing he knows for sure is that as a Zenite, as a citizen of Highstorm, these are his people.

He's tried to help throughout the month, and as the situation worsens, it's all he can do but try to keep up. Try, and fail, because things have grown exponentially worse, as though all of his previous efforts were for naught. Maybe a few lives saved here, a building preserved there, but with the way the roots have grown and the flowers won't stop—

He suits up and gets to work, because it's the only constructive thing he knows how to do.

Technically, he should maybe be at a triage centre; harmonizing with the Zenith has taught him how to heal people. Strengthens that connection he should have with them. But Amos can also near-singlehandedly excavate a collapsed building, so it makes more sense to him to be out in the field. Anyone he locates he can heal on the spot, at least. Why go through the extra steps of moving injured citizens somewhere else when he can take care of it as soon as he finds them?

Speaking of...

It's when Amos is in the midst of lifting a particularly hefty piece of debris out of the way that he has to momentarily pause, tilt his head as though he's trying to listen for something. He finishes following through on the motion, standing up straight again as he lifts with his legs — but without disposing of it just yet, he turns to his closest companion. ]

Did you hear someone?


ii. blighted (highstorm)

[ He's heeded Yima's words. He has. Amos had noticed the chill creeping along his body, had seen the beginnings of frostbite along his extremities whenever he'd stopped to take a break, but hadn't thought too much of it. It's fucking cold here, and he's been outside a lot. It was probably inevitable.

What is probably not inevitable is the way he can't even remember when he'd lost his appetite; just that he has. When his insides start to churn for no reason at all, when things start to feel painfully, painfully wrong. When his skin pales, when he appears flushed, when his reliable body starts to falter in a way it never has before. It's not a cold, and for as much as he wants to listen to Yima — for as much as he's already started to pull back — he knows he's already fucked himself.

It's out at one triage centre or another where, when reaching for a blanket — as if that's going to do anything for this persistent cold he feels — it falls apart in his hands, threadbare and rotted. It is also then that he realizes he is completely useless as a healer at the moment, that all he's doing here is taking up space — and it's not like he can take a bed or anything, because the way things are going, that'll probably fall apart on him, too.

He's left standing there for a moment, helplessly staring down at the blanket's remnants, before he abruptly excuses himself. Steps outside, and... shit, he should probably just sequester himself in his home, shouldn't he. And not touch anything, because that's probably going to go poorly now. So asking for help wouldn't make much sense either; who is he to condemn someone to his own shit?

Except, of course, he could really use someone's help. It's maybe the one benefit to feeling so crappy that his pace is slow; that virtually anyone could catch up to him on his way out. ]


iii. wildcard

[ feel free to modify either prompt above, or go with whatever works best for you! arii#6412, cadiai if we need to plot. ]

[grunehexin]

A wheeled chair would not do me much good on terrain like this... and my manor had many stairs.

[Sieglinde looks down at the root-broken cobblestones and fractured streets, nibbling on her bottom lip as they carry on through the slowly increasing fall of sudden snowflakes.]

I used witch balloons on occasion, but... it was simply never an issue. I was always attended by my manservant Wolfram when I required it.

[As if her body knew it was the topic of conversation, she feels an imaginary little twinge of pain in the inches-long appendages she calls feet.]

- But he is nothing but a shard now.

[vallt]

[it's been a long day, and patience is being tested. of course it is — and especially for jyn, who never has much in her arsenal to begin with.

maybe she should regard the man by the wall, clearly as exhausted as anyone else, with some of what she can muster, but the thought of it is parsecs away. it's a raised brow she gives him instead, and an unchanged voice, with:]

And what, knock him into the wall because I trip over you? [with a jerk of her head, she gestures at the child who's fallen asleep in her arms. he'd appeared small at first glance, but his weight is becoming known more and more as time passes; as he starts to slip a small distance, jyn takes a pause to hoist him back up.] I think there are other places you can go.

[vallt]

[that should be the end of it, right? snapping generally seems to work to widen the berth around her, and jyn's not lying — she's fine. or, at least, she will be. all she needs is a moment to breathe, and then she can carry on just as she has for the past twenty-odd years.

(if she stops, she'll have to face something that's lurking at the back of her mind that she's not putting a name to. she can't afford that.)

but snapping doesn't work on this man.

of course it doesn't; she remembers him, and a lot doesn't seem to work on him. when a particularly bad shudder moves through her and she closes her eyes for a second, she opens them to find him... still there. still staring at her, flatly. before he even says a word, she's readying a retort to fire right back. only —

what he ends up saying has a snort, faint, maybe even some fraction amused, escaping her.

that's before the next shiver comes, and she wraps her arms around herself, tightly, for what warmth she can get out of them. (if she isn't putting a name to what's in the shadows at the back of her mind, she's not putting an acknowledgement to any idea that, maybe, she should've put on a coat several hours ago.)

her next objection, in the end, is far from a snap at all. it's given in a quiet voice, with dropped eye contact.]

I can keep going.

[hauntedking]

[ Dimitri pauses to wipe sweat from his brow. Even with his prodigious strength, it's hard work. But he knows that they're trying to find people who need help. That if they save even one life, it's worth it. But like Vander, he's wary of the building falling in on them or of shifting wreckage that might crush a trapped survivor. So the work remains slow, even if the urge to go quickly is there. He pauses to examine the large piece of debris in their path, his eye tracing it and how it's wedged into the opening.

Dimitri steps forward to crane his head and get a better look, trying to see if the doorway itself is stable or if removing this piece will bring it all crashing down. ]

I think you're right. Do you think it will hold, once we remove this? I'd rather not bring more down on us.

[cutlery]

[ Really, this is all an annoyance.

Were Sebastian to have his proper say of things, he would simply shore up his household and wait this Blight out. Now that it’s affecting Shard-Bearers, it’s not a threat, and so the best thing to do is to simply retreat to the sort of behavior that he had observed during the last major plague. That is, don’t bother with anyone else, simply protect yourself (and your loved ones, technically, but for Sebastian that’s more like “those of higher value”). He’s glad that Lady Yima at least agrees, but reputationally, he's set himself up for a bit of trouble in this respect. He’s a bit too well known in the neighborhood as being reliable and dependable.

So, while he would prefer to just lock his door and shoo anyone away that came to call, preserving the work he’s done thus far necessitates staying friendly. Thus, the door is unlocked still.

He’s in the process of cooking dinner for Sieglinde, which is what Gavial will immediately smell as she walks in. It’s rich and warm smelling, as well as nothing short of delicious. Naturally. He leans back in the kitchen to see who’s let themselves in from down the hall, since he expects it to be Amos or another “friend”, but he’s surprised to see… Someone he doesn’t know at all. ]

Hello there?

[ There’s a question in his voice, but with the softest of sighs, he straightens again. No doubt someone that’s heard of him being helpful, he assumes. The fact that she might be here for Sieglinde doesn’t even cross his mind. ]

If you would, please come to the kitchen? I am nearly done with what I am working on, so I cannot step away.

[bakedapple]

[ The voice succeeds in snatching Link's attention not for how desperate or strained it sounds — and it definitely does — but for how clear and unmuffled it is. Whoever called out to him, it wasn't someone buried beneath stone or speaking from behind a barely ajar door. But what he finds when he doubles back to look around the corner is... definitely not what he was expecting. It's not even in the same neighborhood as what he was expecting. ]

Um... What happened?

[ The best he can do is blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. He does not even begin to walk towards him, instead standing there at the corner, taking in the bizarre sight. He's sure that he's never met this dog-eared man before, nor has he seen a single person in this kind of... predicament? since the vines began to take over. ]

[fishfearme]

[Byleth didn't correct him, his gaze sliding away to stare into the middle distance instead. Byleth gave up on others all the time, and it wasn't a case of 'liking' or 'disliking' it. He simply did it.

('Survive at all costs', Jeralt had said. 'Even at the cost of everyone else. Honour's for dead men, kid.')]

...what do you do with lost causes, Dimitri?

[hauntedking]

You fight them to the bitter end. Because that's all one can do.

[ He glances up at the ceiling, as if it might have answers. ]

Some causes can't be given up.

[fishfearme]

That's illogical.

[But that was always the case with most people, Byleth found. Faerghan knights baffled him, with how readily they threw themselves into hopeless causes for no material gain - and for what? For their kith and kin to daub their eyes and say 'oh, he died so honourably'? For them to dig in their heels and fight and their deeds immortalised in tales around the campfire, when a retreat and conceding ground and ambitions would ensure survival and possible victory later in the future?

For some reason, he felt mildly agitated at the thought of Dimitri doing something so pointless, in the same way he felt agitated when Claude had dug in his heels about Adelfoúla, even though Byleth had told him to give up on those like her as it'd just bring him pain to be continuously attached. It was logical. Pragmatic. It was basic survival.

Annoying, he thought, how annoying is it that those he was close to didn't understand how to protect themselves from the pain of living. Even Jeralt was a hypocrite, as much as Byleth loved him - Jeralt would never give up on him, no matter how hopeless Byleth became... and in turn, Byleth was the same. He'd never give up on Jeralt, no matter how hopeless.

It was confusing. So Byleth shoved it all aside and ignored it.]

Survival is all that matters in the end. That's what I believe.

[hauntedking]

If I have to choose between my life and the lives of the people I hold dear or even the lives of the people I have promised to protect... it is not even a choice.

[ Survival does not concern him much. But perhaps that's not a surprise considering what he's been through and what he's been through. Or the culture he was raised in. While he tries not to throw his life away pointlessly... there are things which are worth staking his life on. ]

If I survive and lose everything I hold dear, everything I fight for... what good is it?

[intervener]

[ this is not exactly a picture-perfect, knight-in-shining-armor sort of rescue. Rin's being carried like a sack under his right arm, Illya given a much more dignified perch tucked in the crook of his left - and they're leaping through the gate, right into the residential street at a fast pace. hopefully he isn't jostling his, uh, luggage too much,,, ]

Hey! Gem girl-- you hanging in there?

[ that actually was not intended to be a pun, for the record.

Vash breathes it out as he follows her directives and permits her to call the shots, immediately diverting course toward the church as he climbs the slope of the hill. his gun was reholstered as soon as he had to free his grip for Rin-catching, and it seems rather apparent she's in no state for fighting; he can tell she's flagging, and hard. whatever she'd been exposed to by her sister's ministration had been dangerously close to wiping her clean out of stamina. he doesn't want to think of what might've happened to her had she been drowned in it much longer.

he doesn't want to think what's happening to this entire city for the state of the sky - a sick, unnatural eclipse of the sun tainting it an eerily familiar red. he's in no rush to be caught unarmed against that girl - nor anything else that might manifest in this nightmare-state. (...it feels so real.) ]

[intervener]

--OW-ow-ow-ow--

[ Vash yip-yelps as his poor wrist is smushed under Gen's foot, recoiling and nearly toppling himself right back down into the hole he's managed to climb (mostly) out of. he's holding on with his other hand for dear life, scrabbling with the other gloves fingers before securing a solid perch. ]

What was that for?! What, are you trying to kick a man while he's down?! Can't you see I'm--

[ there's a closer THUD, one that rumbles the entire street from beneath them, sending some debris tumbling from the other side of the sinkhole into what appears to be part of the sewer lines below. Vash's eyes go wider, and he's abruptly trying to heft his weight up, grasping desperately for anything of Gen he can reach. ]

Uh, hey-- we can work that out later, haha! You mind getting me out of here before this guy decides to--

[ another feral, bellowing outcry - closer, still - interrupts his pleas for help.

a....... a little hand, here?? ]

[fishfearme]

If you die, you'd be subjecting those you leave behind to the pain of your loss.

[Physical pain, Byleth can withstand without flinching. Emotional pain...? Those were splinters that could never be teased out, digging and biting and aching no matter what one did, weeks, months or years into the future. Entertaining the hypothetical scenario of Jeralt's death made him feel an emotional agony so acute it was worse than any physical pain he had endured.

To experience it in reality...?

To realise that, at some point, Dimitri and Claude were gaining that state too: that considering the purely hypothetical scenario of their death was... painful, of the worst kind. In their current situation, with the Blight and the two cities slowly being torn apart? That hypothetical was inching dangerously closer to reality with each moment.

There were no words to explain this, though. Not in a way that Dimitri would understand.]

But it doesn't matter... I can see I won't change your mind on this stance. I can only ask that you try to prioritise your own safety when things continue to deteriorate.

[hauntedking]

I will stay safe for as long as I can. But if I feel that I have to throw myself into danger... I will.

[ He cocks his head at Byleth. ]

Surely you understand that. You throw yourself into battle without hesitation.

[ Although, to be fair he doesn't quite understand Byleth's thoughts at the moment. ]

[fishfearme]

Not recklessly. I only engage in battles where victory is heavily weighted in my favour due to either my superior skill, strength or strategy. If defeat is inevitable, I retreat or surrender.

[It was why he had joined the Kingdom forces in the first place. He and Jeralt saw the writing on the wall and wiggled through a loophole in their contract to the Empire to secure a contract with King Dimitri instead. Some may call that a betrayal, but it was simple logic. Defending the Empire was pointless. It was a lost cause.]

The same applies here. I'm assisting with the healing, as it allows me to maintain distance from the Blight while still fulfilling my obligations to our faction. The moment the situation worsens however, I will distance myself to minimise contact with the Blight. Perhaps I'll transfer my efforts to Alenroux and ensure the occupation there remains stable, despite Springstar falling into ruin.

[erbe]

[She is most certainly not okay, so it really rankles her when Rin receives Gray's apology. Why are Meridians like this? It makes her want to claw and tear at the fabric of the universe to know that people live this way. To know he lived this way. Why couldn't she just sit them all down and scold them?

Tohsaka nods in agreement as she folds her handkerchief. She'll have to toss it later because of the blood, but for now she'll keep it just in case that wound opens again.]

Things have been strange in Highstorm as well. Do you have somewhere in mind?

[Gray knows Meridian better than Rin does. After a moment of internal debate she holds out her hand, palm upturned, to the other young woman. So they don't get separated.]

[erbe]

I am going to be quite frank with you. I apologize in advance, but mages are solitary creatures so I am not always delicate with my words.

[She allows a few moments for her warning to settle in. Carefully she shifts Sieglinde's weight to hold her more secure as they continue. The snowflakes catch in hair and on eyelashes. They melt against clothes and gather atop shoulders.]

Unfortunately there is no guarantee on anything. Even Sebastian may not be a constant, for all we know. If I were in any position to advise you it would be to endeavor for any type of autonomy you can get your hands on. In the end it is only your own strength that you can promise to yourself.

["Easy for you to say," will be a no-brainer retort. Yeah, it is easy for her to say. People aren't given the same privileges, and Tohsaka's list of such things could be quite long. Even so, that does not detract from the fact that every recognizable face could some day all disappear from this life and Sieglinde would be left with no one to rely on but herself.

Rin at least knows that intimately — losing a support system. Having those meant to guide and lead the way stripped from her life and replaced with someone who savored her misery.]