plot roll | gulliver's travels

[groundrules]

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GULLIVER’S TRAVELS | EIDRIS

The dragons of Eidris remain agitated after Aiva hatches her eggs and her mate Ariste is allegedly wounded by a Minaras reconnaissance ship, the Relint. Outraged, Eidris aristocracy demands satisfaction, but war-wary king Thivar III soothes tempers until Minaras’ involvement is proven. Scouts report the Relint has crashed in the Sibilant Sands wasteland near Serthica, where dragons used to roam and mate. Dragon warlord Cain d’Ubiq organises a three-day flight expedition to recover the Relint, accepting companions.

✘ OBJECTIVE: locate and investigate the Relint.

■ Thirty dragons and riders, led by Cain d’Ubiq, leave once Eidris rises overground at 6:00am. Cain and two of his companions fly martial, fire-breathing dragons.

■ Every dragon rider is given three days of smoked meats for their dragons, food and water supplies for themselves, two blankets, binoculars and climbing hooks and gear. Riders are advised to wear warm full-body clothing and to cover their mouths.

■ Departing Eidris, you learn that you fly in the middle of the sandstorm season, amid deep reddish mists that rapidly exhaust you and vicious whirlwinds prone to unsaddle you. Don’t get lost and catch anyone who falls!

■ Through mental links, riders can sense their dragons are unnerved by the weather and the thought of confronting the Relint. Many transmit image glimpses of the Eidris-Minaras conflict, when dragons frequently battled warships.

■ Dragons are wilful and predatory creatures: try not to slip off when they suddenly pair up to play tag, hunt large birds or chase the flocks of nocturnal peaceful cloud whales.

■ The Sibilant Sands are a long, red, arid and withered stretch of land east of Serthica, littered by fog-drenched peaks and abyssal, sudden canyons. You may experience spells of inexplicable thirst, dizziness and listlessness.

■ Each night, the dragon party alights at watch points — very high plateaus, that host a few man-made caves. Cain d’Ubiq recommends sheltering your dragons. Squeeze in with them, or negotiate warmth with your fellow travellers: the Sibilant Sands are fiercely cold at night, and large fires can alert hungering man-sized hawks.

■ The stormy weather and recent events have left your dragons exceptionally skittish, prone to fits of anguish. Your physical presence — stroking, feeding, or grooming — reassures the dragons, as can your explicit efforts to send them happy, positive feelings. Think. Happy thoughts.

■ At long last, you reach the Relint: a small plane vessel that has crashed and remained stranded at a vast height between two steep cliffs that house several hawk nests.

■ Dragons are too large to fit in the space occupied by the Relint without being seen and attacked by the hawks — but you can leave your mounts behind and ascend with your climbing gear. Beware brutal hawks and storms.

■ Those who finally enter the Relint find no human remains — only two man-sized, straw-filled burlap mannequins, with a puddle of cold dark water at their feet. The mannequin ‘pilot’ wears a crudely painted fox face. The ‘navigator’ has a bear one.

■ Drop a line if your character plans to touch the dark water: you can get information, but please be aware there will be some unpleasant consequences.

■ The ship is very battered, showing Serthica markings: only RELINT remains visible from a distance, from the originally engraved AERIAL HEALING UNIT.

■ Dried blood is smeared on the back of the ship, where a fresh indentation has taken out the Relint’s engine. Any dragon that smells a sample can convey through images this is the blood of Ariste.

■ Grab whatever you need and fly home: the Relint creaks, rattles, and is at all times just about ready to fall.

QUESTIONS

NPC ACCESS: CAIN D'UBIQ

Comments

[valeas]

Emilia's hand settles on her dragon's side, the smooth of her palm stroking over shimmery white scales. Opal's lavender eyes close as she leans into this tactile reassurance, a gesture that quiets some of her internal anguish, as does Lethe's closeness. It is not the all-consuming anguish of that night Aiva's children were born, but it is present and it is heavy.

She turns to Wei Wuxian, to the figure that he cuts, and thinks of Lan Wangji's commitment to be a learned cook. She thinks of that aforementioned cliff, and the bones, if not skeletons full of heartache, they all have in their closets.

"No," she answers at last, soft and not without some heaviness, too.

"No, I don't believe I was. Sa-Hareth?"

[weifinder]

"Sa-Hareth," he says, a smile and the summoning of an energy he doesn't have to be the easy figure he is, when allowed to simply be himself. Lethe huffs and flexes a wing, briefly overshadowing Emilia and part of Opal in the process of settling further down, tail curving round and coming to rest at their feet.

Wei Wuxian, patient, steps over it, anticipating the slight lift up as Lethe thumps back down, a gambit to see if he'll be tripped this time. Thus far, it's only worked the once. Lethe continues to try, simply getting more creative with time.

He pats his front, the padded jacket for flight a strangeness in being short to his estimates, but functional enough. From within come talismans on paper, and a handful of small stones, thralled and blossoming with heat with a brush of his finger and a whispered word.

Better to have a stone which would not run all its heat at once, ah? Better to have held on to such trinkets for the year and more that passed since Karsa had begrudgingly roused to assist; since he had bought and traded with the thrallers of Sa-Hareth, to prepare for their party, to keep his ragtag group safe and cared for in the ways he could.

He holds three stones out to her now.

"Karsa as you know her was tasked to helping with the thralling, and I went to find and procure some others from one of the more reputable thrallers in Sa-Hareth. Very cold there, not just from the weather. We woke up all in chains or chained in cells, the first of us." A jangling tinkling tap of three stones against each other, laid into her palm.

"Did you know, it was one of us who freed Anurr? There was a war there as surely as each place we've been since, but also wraiths we've not yet seen again, powerful, dead creatures watching over us until the Merchant's agents gave us chance to flee. Who, perchance, I believe also includes Anurr, which is a delightful absurdity on several levels. Only to call back on him, from one of ours, when Unhalad closed in, and I arrived from the citadel bearing the resentment of all its dead along with."

He settles, as if this is a cheery conversation, against Lethe's side. The settled wing adjusts, offering partial shelter and the cupped space for Emilia too, in Lethe's chosen boundless grace... to sandwich them between one draconic bulk and another.

[valeas]

Opal, not one to be outshone, is quick to catch on to Lethe's intentions, and adjusts her own wing from across him, partial shelter becoming whole. It does shield from the unforgiving chill of the night, and so Emilia hardly complains.

She takes the three stones offered to her, weighs them in her palm.

"More subtle than my fire," she admits, a touch of rue and humor.

It was an option she had considered and quickly discarded, lest they be seized upon by hawks. Emilia is still re-learning to control the fire humming inside of her, when to let it burn and when to put it away. Even now, the mention of Karsa threatens a flame, albeit internally. She still needs to tell Wei Wuxian what she learned of the Merchant, how it roils in her.

"I did not know, but I am unsurprised. Better Anurr than Unhalad, I suppose." Sometimes there are no good choices. Sometimes there are only terrible choices, and one must pick the less terrible one. She considers what Wei Wuxian has said, his bearing of so much resentment, the presence of so many undead... "Did Lan Wangji offer ablution?"

[weifinder]

He chuckles, shadows under his eyes lightened by their crinkling, as he tucks himself further down and pats Lethe's side with the sort of distracted fondness that's balanced on a wire of were you ever real at all.

Too much to question, time to time. None of it is in kindness.

"I'm rarely accused of subtlety," he says, "Though I have my moments."

It's a jest in and of itself, Wei Wuxian a far more subtle man than his at times too laid back appearance can lead others to believing. He's not overt, or showy, in the ways he was when younger; even Taravast's show was bombast for a role he'd been assigned, and his tackling of it being part of showing up in Emilia's rooms to collect an errant spouse, before he'd known he was twice married.

The question leaves him cuhckling, then laughing, fondness softening his features. The shadows settle there under his eyes, but smudges, not sharp things; it's a newness, to allow himself the happiness of a thought of someone else for his sake, and not simply their own. Not as equals, hard fought as it was in the finding.

"When doesn't he? His clan taught him well, and Lan Zhan has been slow in the learning of compromise... but he's learned. He's learning. Arche wasn't interested at the time, though I'd have advised he find a way to... digest or disperse or contain what he swallowed. It was a dramatic battle."

The one time Wei Wuxian had pulled out stops with the permission of those resentful energies he'd guided, and it had been as horrific as one might expect.

[valeas]

His jest coaxes a slight smile from Emilia. When her temper is not getting the best of her, her neutral state is reserved and thoughtful, the boldness of her fire simmering just underneath the surface.

Of the two di Carlo twins, Vittoria was the one with a penchant for theatrics. But much like Wei Wuxian, she was capable of engaging people with an ease that felt effortless. Her ability to make friends and dance for hours on end was unparalleled, a quality Emilia has always admired and wished to possess. But looking at the Yiling Patriarch now, shadows under his eyes and gauntness to his frame, she is reminded there's a vastness to those she meets, ocean-deep, and there is much to learn still.

And she — some long-forgotten part of her knows if she is ever truly seen for all that she is and all she can do, she will be feared. Emilia does not want to be feared. Not by those she has not deemed an enemy.

"It sounds it," she answers after some contemplation. It sounds dramatic and the sort of story her Nonna would have told at bedtime long ago, except this is no tall tale. And for now, no end in sight, either.

"Where is he now? Arche."

[weifinder]

To be known is to be feared, and to be, perhaps, cared for too. Wei Wuxian doesn't have the matching scale, wouldn't strive for it in so many ways. Pushing his own limits, tackling questions people think are unsolveable, finding new approaches: he's a man of creation, and it's the irony of a lifetime that his steps are steeped in death, borrowed, loaned, and bought, to survive, and survive in spite of wishing otherwise.

Tented as they are now, dragons acting as warmth and living, breathing support, he lets some of his bond with Lethe bubble over into a sort of reassuring hum. Lethe, dropping fast toward slumber in the way of a wise creature, sends a questioning feeling back, but has no return answer.

"Long gone," he says, shoulders lifted a fraction, "In the way of so many of us. Whatever magics call us here, they're not steady. The gateways make it a choice, a sort of guarantee we return, but it's not the only way we're swept away."

A litany of names, those who had gone fast, those who had gone slow. Not spirits harvest and collected; not energy converted. Simply here, then gone.

(He preferred them leaving through the gateways. Those were easier, more certain. Less steeped in uncomfortable, melancholy truths that companionship here is no guarantee.)

[valeas]

Long gone. In the way of Lily and Wrench and indeed so many others. Her gut twists with the urge to refute that which is irrefutable, as though she could through sheer force of will alone change the truth. It is not in her nature to be resigned, and her heart is weary of the intolerable compromises this world has forced her to make. The world that came before it, as well.

Opal, as though sensing her roiling emotions, nudges her drowsily. Like Emilia, the dragon has worried sick for that which was missing. Like Emilia, she knows what it is like to exist with a hunger so bottomless.

"No," she allows. "If they were steady, we'd have found a working beacon by now."

Among other factors, she well knows.

"You've been here from the start. How do you do it?"

How does he bear this?

[weifinder]

Lethe sleeps, apparently undisturbed. In truth, it's the divide Wei Wuxian has taken upon himself since the discovery with the hatchlings, keeping more of himself in reserve as he's compartmentalised most his life. Lethe needs rest. He does too, but it catches up with him only when his mind stills, and Lethe's presence is more calming as the dragon sleeps than in any other moment in time.

That, he might thank the dragon for. Before or after learning if the great beast was as caught between true life and distanced death as so many in Serthica might be.

"One step at a time." His head drops back, resting against Lethe, looking up toward the membranous wing arched over them both. "Remembering the ones worth remembering. Hoping for their journeys where eyes can't see to be filled with more joys than bitternesses."

One hand lifted, fingers curled in, then opened again. Showing itself empty, and his head tipped forward, to regard that emptiness.

"By learning what no one wanted me to learn, so that when the inevitable strikes, the losses we bear don't become happy additions to this world's machinations."

Resurrection. Applied just the once to any of their group, and for the man's hubris. He disappeared in the time following, more riddance to him.

"Finding reasons to laugh in the meantime. Aren't good memories worth preserving more than any other kind? You need to make them to hold them dear, but that's a good challenge. Best kind I can think of."

[valeas]

One step at a time. His answer moves her, for the truth held within, and also that it should so heavily focus on others as opposed to himself. She holds in high regard the way he cares for others, the way he cares for justice.

"I am learning this patience," she confesses to him. The admission is not too difficult to make when they are high above this world so strange death fell in love — it truly does feel like they're the only people in it.

Well, and also the dragons.

Emilia places the warming stones back in his unfurled hand as he studies its emptiness, considering her choice of words before she shakes her head to rectify. "I'm re-learning it. I'll have you know I was an extremely patient and cautious child."

Too cautious, perhaps. The reminder has some ruefulness returning to the curve of her lips.

"I took my time. There was not a rule I would not obey if my grandmother gave it. I can scarcely recall what it is to be that dutiful young woman, but she would have been satisfied this way, once: a simple life crafting happy memories, surrounded by books and recipes."

[weifinder]

His fingers curl into loose claws around the thralled stones, humming a note of affirmation, or of acknowledgement to her words. To patience, which had been his inverse, or perhaps had been the devoured roots of his childhood. Filial piety has never been tempered so much as acknowledge as complex, deeply woven into his culture, and only irreverent when he allows its delivery to imply so.

"Then something changed." He doesn't ask what, simply rolls the thralled stones around in the palm of his hand. "The moments where simply satisfied lives evaded us."

The moment life became more complex, and the cascade of decisions that followed as the paths stretched on before them.

"Relearning patience can be one of the most difficult things, but I wish you luck. It's worth it, for ourselves, and for those we care for."

Having patience with both is a delicate balance he's still searching for, but these days, at least he always feels like a man in his own skin, not a creature ill-fit to the trappings of its confines.

[valeas]

Us, he states, as though he understands the sentiment keenly.

Emilia suspected he would, or perhaps she would have said nothing.

"Mm. It can be. Wrath says I am ruled by fire," is an answer that comes with the slight twitching of her lips. She makes no apology for her passions, for her forcefulness. "I suspect Wangji would agree. But there is a line between patience and complacency, and I worry about ever falling prey to the second."

Being here so long that she starts to accept what should never be tolerated. Compromise is important, and she decided long ago her ambitions would be achieved through a slow burn, but —

Sometimes it's hard to remember the ground they've gained, as well. It's good to have the reminder.

[weifinder]

Eyes closing, he chuckles, a low rumble in his chest that slips past his lips as so many secrets he never told had not.

"Complacency is what Serthica has steeped in. What Taravast was drowning in. It's saying it's okay that this happens, that it's good enough, and losing the will to move forward. Or backward. Or any direction at all, if you're just still enough, if you just hold your breath a little longer..."

A sigh, slow inhalation, long and slow in exhalation.

"Patience is stepping forward without rushing. Observing, to take action. Not hesitating when everything goes poorly, but not letting anger be your only guide when it flares. Or something," he says, flicking his fingers and slitting his eyes open once more. "Fire cleanses and consumes. There's a good and bad in all of us. How we balance that, that matters more than most things."

[valeas]

Or something.

She arches a brow at him in mild amusement, though she continues to listen. It isn't the first time this lesson is imparted to her. Wrath once said mortals live by archaic notions of light and dark. Celestia, too, suggested there is a hero and a villain in them all. Nonna raised her as a light witch, but Emilia does know now magic is a neutral force, determined by their intentions. "As above, so below," she tells Wei Wuxian in agreement.

Balance.

Destruction and creation are ever present themes in her life, in her power so rooted in nature. Emilia turns her hand over to summon a frangipani blossom. The control she's been learning keeps the flames back, though the petals do glow with a bit of moonshine. The blossom hovers above her palm, and she stretches it out toward him in offer. Her voice is quiet when she speaks again after some prolonged silence. "You seem tired, Wei Wuxian."

The kind of tired that reaches the bone.

[weifinder]

His eyes slit open, studying the flower before it's offered, studying it further as the light of it dances in reflection where his eyes would otherwise swallow the sun. Three warming stones thralled for their purpose slip beneath the collar of his outer robe, and he holds out a hand, not first to take but to touch one petal, to see what it is, to be the man he's always been.

Not gentle enough for some things, too willing for others, in fascination with a world that claimed certain truths he challenged simply because accepting what he's told is as foreign as it is to trust that others intuit a world they do not question better than one which is tested, proven, true.

"Beautiful," he remarks, as if that's all there is to say, as if the pause that follows means he might gloss past her words that parted the silence.

Perhaps he's a more honest man in the company of women. Or perhaps he learned at his shijie's feet what it meant to trust, and at her mother's whip what it meant to persist in the face of spite, merited and not.

"I ache from death. I shouldn't, in enough ways—I resisted death until I sought it, and then death denied me, until one who sought death pulled me out of the lightless abyss. Then here, it never stops calling."

The rise and fall of Lethe's ribs beneath them a subtle reminder of what should be, but may not be.

"Finally it quiets, and I worry more, because it's the lie that hides so much worse beneath its surface. I keep hoping exhaustion will be enough to let me sleep."

Instead of dreams wrenching him into nightmares and poor rest, night after night, waking up to silent screams and tears or heart-racing confusion, settling back while Lan Zhan sleeps, before the dawn calls to him and he leaves the bed as cold as Anurr's touch.

[valeas]

His answer is expected, in some ways. How could it not be when they find themselves in a world so death-touched? But it is strangely comforting to hear him say it, to hear him give name to the weight. Less strange the comfort that comes when he touches the petals of the blossom, and they do not burn him.

Emilia lets the silence rest where it may. For what feels like a lifetime, she has been driven by a near-frightening need to right some terrible wrongs. But she also knows certain things are not meant to be rushed. He does not make his admission so that she may fix it, only that he found her ears willing.

That she cares for him and this group they have made, even when it would be smarter not to, to sit with it. With him.

Her chest rises with a lasting inhale. She has tended to the grief of her own deaths, largely by turning them into anger instead, with the understanding that loss in itself is so unremarkable.

"I don't know if the ache will ever cease, if it should. The truth we will find, one way or another." Whether they are prepared for it is another matter entirely. "If it is sleep you seek, I've a spell that may help."

Emilia would not hold it against him if he is not trusting of the method, so she does eventually add, "And if you do not wish it, we can at least remain sleepless in company."

Each other's company, and the light snoring of their dragons.

[weifinder]

"Without dreams?" He says, half smiling when his eyes open and he turns his face toward her. "Might be easier for you. I can't stay waking forever, and I'd hate to disturb you when I wake."

Which he will, he always does. He knows it well enough to be honest, caught between wings and gently lifting lungs, with the winds howling outside and the cold slipping closer, nipping at whatever it may find.

"Unless you sleep as soundly as Lan Zhan does, in which case: the company, please."

There are no solutions, only stop-gaps before the next night, the next day, the enduring persistence of a universe that will move forward, expansive, until it consumes itself, if it ever does.

To be small in the face of a vastness that extends beyond all their selves, their worlds, their anythings. And to be infinitely treasured, each moment lived, for existing, for having been present at all.