2020-09-13: Inspiration, Force, Vigor

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  • Log: Inspiration, Force, Vigor
  • Cast: Seraph Boudicca, Dean Stark, Avril Vent Fleur
  • Where: Warwing Varukias
  • Date: September 13, 2020
  • Summary: With the Warwing breaking apart, an escape becomes immediately and imminently essential. But is it possible anymore? Just remember, there's no such thing as 'giving up'.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

BGM: Chopin - No. 6 Polonaise L'heroique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSEwfqs-VM

    Gravity is a constant companion. For gravity, you see, is the keynote of atmosphere - of the AIR - existing within its realms and not without. But at the same time, gravity is spurned by the air, rising above it, careless of its constant efforts. Gravity is necessary to life, of course. Without it, bodies would lose shape and form and all things would fly away. Flying has always been a privileged position, earned through constant effort or ingenuity. Or, at times...

    Well, the world cannot be above the petty concerns of the world, and so the world cannot be allowed to fly away.

    These are the intrinsic details understood by Seraph Boudicca, of the air, as she makes her way through a ship which lists and snaps and jolts. She understands it as she corrects one escapee's balance with a buoy of breeze; as she catches another before they can be thrown over the railing they're desperately grasping to.

    The ground under her feet is treacherous, but Boudicca, herself, seems to be okay. Even if she lists a little with the swaying of the ship, she's surely --

    This is when the ship SHUDDERS, pitching sharply to the left, and all a sudden the illusion breaks. Because Boudicca finds herself catching a good many people in that moment, and that is when her Asgard-borne exhaustion betrays her exterior lack of wounds, and a pale green ribbon flutters down through the levels of the Warwing Varukias, suddenly bereft of a woman wearing it.

    Flutter, flutter. It twists in the turbulence, but it's far too long to fly out of any of the many holes in the hull so quickly. Down it goes, past a flaming console, past a broken railing with a scrap of uniform hanging from it.

    It might even flutter past...

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    Dean got up here with Venetia and Colonel Cid, but once the actual battle was underway, he got separated from the two. It was big and chaotic, and with so many people around, it was easy for everyone to get lost in the shuffle. Now the Varukias is in poor shape indeed, and it's dawning on Dean that he doesn't actually know what the exit plan is supposed to be. Now gravity is becoming a rapidly increasing concern, particularly when the ship lists violently to one side.
    
    He stumbles and slams into the wall. "Ow!" he utters, pushing himself upright. "Gotta find the exit...!" A flutter of motion in the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he looks up to see... a green ribbon? It looks awfully familiar. He shoves himself forward and *jumps*, catching it before it can get out of reach. Sure enough, when he gives it a closer look, he realizes he knows it: it's the ribbon Boudicca wears.
    
    "Boudicca? You around here somewhere?" he calls, looking up towards where the ribbon came from. "It's me, Dean! If you can hear me, answer me!"
    
    Of course, shouting like that might draw the attention of others on board. That might be a good or bad thing, considering there's plenty of both Drifters and Odessa soldiers on board. Or maybe less so of each at this point, considering the Varukias is going down in a bad way.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    She had only come here seeking another. She had only come here propelled by the sense that, if she did not, something would happen to someone she cared about deeply, and that thus, she must go. But now...

    The way had been barred.

    That had been, perhaps, the greater cruelty of it all: everything was not only coming down about them, but their escape had been made the more difficult.

    And she still hadn't found him. She had seen him the once, before they breached the place, but after that--

    Avril moves along the exposed deck at speed, the world below seeming close far too close. Once she had fallen from the sky, clutched tenderly in the hand of a Golem, but now there is not any such protection available. If she falls from here, even the sea will be--

    She shakes her head as if to jar that thought aside and races onward.

    The ship lists suddenly; Avril grabs for a nearby railing to steady herself. Gritting her teeth, she moves quickly yet carefully; the ship shudders beneath her and in the same way she knows things about the world without remembering how she knows them, she knows that there are forces at play here that will see the ship torn apart. Physics will have its say. It's only a matter of whether she can get out of here before it happens.

    No. It's only a matter of whether she can find him before--

    When she sees him, all caution she still possesses is thrown to the wind.

    She runs across the deck, heedless of herself.

    "DEAN!"

    And wraps her arms around him in a furious, tight hug.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Dean heroically catches the ribbon! Such inspiration, such force, such vigour..!

    ... he a little confused, but he got the spirit. Literally! She's right there! That's not immediately obvious, though, as he yells and looks up only to find nothing at all. There's no Boudicca up there!

    That is because Boudicca is down here, but Boudicca is very tired. It takes long moments, after he calls out, for her to even think in the comfort of her vessel: oh, that is Dean. It takes longer still for her to put together: Dean is trapped on a falling ship.

    A few more moments of sleepy silence, before she slots those puzzle pieces together and ends up with: Dean is in big trouble.

    With Avril's shout, she adds: it is not just Dean.

    Throughout all this, of course, the ribbon just hangs in his hands, which is precisely what one would expect a ribbon to do. It might just take the surprise of a fierce hug to slip it from his fingers --

    -- which, it turns out, wasn't him dropping it at all. Rather, the pale green energy infusing the ribbon fluttered it into the air of its own power. The reason for this becomes clear as light becomes form once more, and that ribbon weaves itself through long, long braids. That's how Boudicca weaves it through both of them: it's magical cheating.

    And suddenly, there she is. Right there beside them, while...

    oh no they're having a moment why didn't she pay more attention before she reformed

    Boudicca's first instinct is to glance away, scratching at her cheek while she tries to pretend she isn't here. ... being a six-foot woman in plate armour now she's manifested in the world again, this strategy has certain flaws. After a moment of trying to pretend she doesn't exist, Boudicca cedes to reality, and glances back over with a small but quite genuine smile. "I am... glad you are both all right." As much as anyone is all right in their present situation, at least.

    She isn't privileged to feel awkward forever, though - because the grating beneath their feet quakes as an explosion tears through the Warwing, and suddenly the air pressure gets so much more complicated as a small tear in the hull becomes a much LARGER hole, steel ripping from its welding and lashing through the air.

    "This craft's structural integrity is astoundingly compromised!" Boudicca yelps out the obvious, as she brings up the breeze to knock some of that flying debris away before it can find a home in their flesh. "Forgive me, but I must ask you postpone your joyous reunion until we find our way to safety!"

    Boudicca looks out the hole, sees the clouds whipping by. That's not safe.

    Boudicca looks down the walkway, at a pathway strewn with fire and steel. That's not safe, either.

    Boudicca... has no idea how to find safety in this situation.

    But she can't just leave these youth to their fate. She can survive a fall; they cannot. And so, with some adjustments to the wind to help them stay upright throughout the tremors of the shattering airship, she decides: "... this way!"

    The direction she tries to point them in ought to be where their pod drilled into the Warwing's hull. If they can just get back there, then...

    ... then...

    ... Boudicca doesn't know how those things work, but they'll just have to figure something out.

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    Dean is seen before he sees, and when he hears his name, he turns in time to see Avril rushing towards him. "Avril!! You're okay!" he cries back in joy and relief and delight, opening his arms in time for her to all but tackle him with a hug, coincidentally making his hand open just enough for him to drop the ribbon/the ribbon to wisp out of its own accord. Not noticing, he hugs Avril back good and tight; however, the violent rocking of the ship reminds them that they don't have time to hang around. He pulls back and fixes her with a serious look.
    
    "We gotta get out of here right now," he says. "Is Rebecca here too? Or is she still on the ground?" He *really* hopes Rebecca's on the ground still; it's one less person he needs to worry about. "Boudicca's around here somewhere too, so we'd better regroup and--"
    
    oh hey boudicca
    
    "Boudicca!! You're right here!" he utters. He nods firmly when she points out the obvious. "It's fine! Let's get out of here, quick!" He gives another firm nod to Avril and reaches a hand out to her; once they're firmly clasped, he hurries in Boudicca's wake. Obviously she knows what she's doing/where she's going. He trusts her! It doesn't occur to her that maybe she's making this up as she goes.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    It will take her a moment before she actually lets go of Dean.

    It is at this point that she realizes, parting from him, that they aren't precisely alone.

    give her a moment to stare ok

    "Boudicca, I--" Her attention then shifts back to Dean. "No, she is not," she says, on the matter of Rebecca. It's some small relief, in a time like this. "I came here on my own," well, with a few other people of course, "once I had learned where you had gone." There is no judgement or recrimination -- under only slightly different circumstances she might have done similarly. "I am glad you are alright, Dean. However--"

 She ducks her head the once in a nod at Boudicca's remark. "Yes. This ship will soon come apart." She pauses, bowing her head. "...I know not how I know this, but I am certain it will happen. We must find an escape route at once. Perhaps if we--"

    But she shakes her head and reaches out to take Dean's hand, hurrying after the Seraph. The time to explain is already past. Now is the time to run for it!

    Her own thoughts circulate down similar lines as Boudicca's -- if they can get back to the crafts that brought them here, then...

    ...surely Irving Valeria planned an escape route into them?

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Boudicca is, in fact, right here! At least Dean doesn't seem awkward about it, even if Avril trips over her presence a little. (It's okay, she stares right back, with the exact expression of a deer in headlights.) Yes, Boudicca is right here, and she has a plan. A very good plan which will definitely work. Step one is to keep Dean and Avril alive. Step two...

    She'll work step two out as they go. It's fine; this is a plan in motion.

    They are Drifters in motion. Part of that is the way they're making haste through the hulking remains of Warwing Varukias; part of that is the way Varukias is hurtling through the sky. Boudicca finds herself relieved that Rebecca, at least, isn't on the ship; that's one less person to worry about. (Oh, but Ida, and Gwen, and Zed, and... but Clarine is still with them, so surely she'll keep them safe.)

    "If this ship hits the ground at this speed, it will not matter if it is whole!" Boudicca is coming at the knowledge of falling from a different angle to Avril, but evidently, they both have some understanding of the consequences. "Regardless, I must hope your prediction delays for --"

    What is the sound of steel snapping?

    What is the sound of air rushing in?

    Because all the rips in Warwing Varukias, the places it has been sliced like a patient on the operating table, they're all coming to a singular point. There is too much strain on the hull. Whatever that sound is, it's deafening, with the crash of exploding machinery and the whip of atmospheric pressure.

    The grating they're on suddenly finds itself without an anchor, as the very corridor splits into two. The place where it was welded to its fellow suddenly becomes a point of weakness which SNAPS - take care not to be too close. The whole thing pitches to the side, and Boudicca does her best to cushion the fall, with a buoy of air between the falling walkway and the wall --

    -- until --

    -- there's no wall.

    "No! It is already--!!" There's nothing in Boudicca's power to keep an entire SHIP together, not at her current level of depletion. Certainly there is evidence that she tries, as wind struggles to press the pieces of a crumbling craft back to each other; but they fall away despite her, horror painted on her face.

    As they are exposed to open sky, there's only one thing Boudicca can think to say. A plan in motion. They are in motion. They all are falling down.

    "HOLD ON!"

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    "We both have a bad habit of running off, huh?" Dean admits sheepishly to Avril. Still, there's no time to stand around chit-chatting. The plane is on the verge of--oh, nope, nope, there it goes, it is actively falling apart now. That's not good! Did they find their escape route in time? The corridor splits, and if Avril is nearly torn from Dean as a result, he pulls her close while they're still hand-in-hand, holding her close to keep from losing her to the shrapnel forming and falling/flying around them. Holding onto each other is all they can do at this point as what remains of the plane pitches to one side and sends them flying, only Boudicca's power preventing them both from going SPLAT against the wall. The wall, which is now more of a floor.
    
    "I AM HOLDING ON!" Dean shouts back at Boudicca as the wind whips around all of them. He has faith in his friends, but this is getting to be uhhhhh a bit more than even his eternal optimism can handle?? Though this doesn't stop him from gesturing madly at Boudicca for her to join the two of them, nor does it stop him from looking over at his best friend. "AVRIL! CAN YOU USE LUCADIA'S POWER TO SLOW US DOWN OR SOMETHING?!"
    
    Maybe a little too loud? But it's hard to gauge these things with torrential air screaming all around them.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Avril, naturally, has some experience with Seraphs -- but not perhaps as much as would be preferred! Particularly when it comes to the nature of their vessels. That, combined with Boudicca's appearance in the midst of what is without question a tense emotional moment for the young woman, still fresh from that earlier confrontation with Asgard--

    Well, a lot has happened.

    Still, she has always been practical, and quick to recover. She follows in Boudicca's footsteps, hand-in-hand with Dean.

    "No, it will not," she answers Boudicca quite frankly. "I believe the stresses before then, though, will--"

    Steel screams. Her grip on Dean's hand tightens; her heart leaps into her throat.

    The power within her cries out to be loosed. She--

    Dean pulls her close.
    And she plunges into the dark.

    The world around them is thick with shrapnel.
    ...The world around them is thick with ice.

    Avril is cold to the touch, Dean will notice.

    Motoi Sakuraba - Bell Gargoyle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7xpyhEw6H0

    The shrapnel will never touch them.

    "I will not let you be harmed," she says into his ear. Even when he shouts against the deafening scream of the Varukias going to pieces, she doesn't so much as flinch, her arms tight about him.

    Another spar of ice shatters against a blade of metal, bunting it aside. They will not be touched. They will not be touched. As long as breath is in her body, they will not be touched.

    But they may still fall. There's nothing to hold onto anymore except each other. With even this power, will she still--

    "Lucadia!" she says, as if it were an order. Without the Medium even in hand, here light blossoms about the two of them--

    They're still falling, as an earthbound comet of ice.
    they're just falling that much more slowly.

DC: Avril Vent Fleur switches forms to The Ice Queen!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Dean, helpfully, holds on and lets Boudicca know about it. Thank Goddess for Dean!

    Now, Seraphim are not always the most tactilely available of friends. Boudicca, in particular, is far from a touchy sort of person. But Dean wanted to make sure that Boudicca was with them, and so she angles herself through the air to grasp his arm.

    She has just enough time to wonder about Lucadia's power, something she too has less experience with than would be preferred, before...

    The temperature drops just the way they are dropping, and Boudicca looks up to witness ice casting aside the debris as it falls. There is something that does not quite settle well in her heart, as she looks back to Avril, but perhaps that is just how much Boudicca understands about Filgaia's traditions.

    ... she's not holding a Medium, after all.

    Gravity pushes them down and Lucadia pushes against it; the wind rushes by, and air, immaterial, holds nothing. This is the commonality of wind and fire; the body falls through each just as effortlessly.

    But this is Boudicca's element. Gravity may be an elemental truth of the atmosphere, but gravity has never ruled her.

    "Hello," Boudicca says. "This is who I am. Please do not be alarmed."

    Even though the air was so impossibly squeezed from her...

    ... she has enough strength for this.

    The blue-white of Lucadia's light is not alone, as pale green joins it, the airy manifestation of wind made visible to the naked eye. All a sudden the air pressure which pours past them is not so oppressive, and Dean will not need to shout; the wind does not press into them as if it is trying to steal the air from their lungs.

    They exist in a gentle corner of the sky, made softer by a thousand negotiations with the air. With the aid of Lucadia to help them fall slowly, they find themselves falling DELIBERATELY, guided by insistent eddies which correct their course through the air.

    Their icy comet leaves behind a squall, as air against air, made cold, creates a windstorm. But that turbulence does not bother them down here, closer to earth.

    But... where is Boudicca?

    Boudicca is that green light, a ribbon tangled around Dean's arm.

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    Dean is not the type to get physical with people all that often. That being said, he knows right away that Avril is much colder than normal. Heck, only moments ago they shared a hug and she wasn't nearly so cold as this. However, now he has enough experience with her and her mysterious powers to know what's going on. And here it's only been three years or so.
    
    He breathes out a long breath. It comes out white as blades of ice smack pieces of metal aside like a queen giving them a contemptuous smack. Dean tightens his arm around her as she speaks unto him, even as he pulls Boudicca closer with his other arm. The Seraph is practically weightless right now as they fall to the earth--and then *actually* weightless as she vanishes, leaving behind a ribbon now wrapped around his arm as the winds help slow their fall. He blinks rapidly at her disappearance, but he knows what she is, even if he doesn't know all of what that means. More importantly, with a hand free, he remembers that he has a power of his own to call upon, if perhaps with not nearly as much ease and imperiousness as Avril. Dean thus digs into his pocket and pulls out the Artificial Mountain Medium. And while they may be falling towards an ocean, where there are no traditional mountains nearby--who says that a mountain needs to be made of earth?
    
    As wind and light slow their descent, Dean calls out, "Dinoginos! I might not ask you for much, buddy, but this time we really need your help--!" In return, there is a surge of power around them--a barrier that seems to merge with the ice to make it sturdier, to better protect them and keep them safe when they *do* land, for while they might be falling much more slowly, they are still falling.
    
    So between the three of them using their respective powers, when they fall onto the roof of Chateau Valeria, which has lifted off to greet them, why, the ice comet makes hardly any dent at all.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Even snow must obey the call of gravity. Ice, as it were, is not enough to laugh in the face of physics. Yes, it is true -- the Ice Queen is not so limited as to only possess great control over ice. But ice is still the realm in which the bulk of her power lies, and with much of it yet still locked beneath in the great glacier within herself--

    The most she can do is keep Dean -- and herself -- safe.

    She will not let him be hurt. She will not, even if she should push herself to her very limits by the process. Crystals continue to spread and grow in the air, the shards that dance about the two of them in a protective halo doubling, tripling in number. Her gaze is distant: she exhales fog when she breathes.

    She feels cold.
    She is cold, in the sense that it defines her being. But she won't let go of him.

    No -- the most she can do is protect him.
    And buy them time.

    'Hello', says Boudicca.

    "I am not afraid," is Avril's glassy-eyed response in kind. She is here, holding the boy in her arms. She is the fog escaping both of their lips. She is that sparkling nebula swirling through the sky. She is everywhere.

    She is falling.

    She is--

    They are--

    Oh. Now she understands. She knows what will happen.

    Wrapped in Dinoginos' protection, well-coiled in ice, steadied by Lucadia's grace, and guided by the wind, they descend downwards.
    And meet, of all things, the roof of a building. A chateau, to be precise. The roof gets the worst of it. The bureau doesn't have a great time of it, either, and Irving may need to replace that rug. Oh, and that painting.

    But as the ice storm finally fades, as the light dampens out into a faint glow, and as Avril slumps against him, Dean will find that there's not a scratch on his -- or Avril's -- body.

    Is this... the definition of a miracle?

DC: Avril Vent Fleur switches forms to The Amnesiac Girl!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    From somewhere, a voice...

    "Ah--! Marivel!" Even disembodied, the relief in Boudicca's tones as Valeria Chateau rises up is evident. Well - she's had hundreds of years of experience expressing emotion without a face, after all. "You did it..!" She didn't quite understand Marivel's exit from Warwing Varukias, but she understands, now. She understands, even though there's no radio in reach for Marivel to give them instructions.

    It's that understanding which leads her to correct their course through the air to meet the Chateau, where Marivel has evidently finished her work. That work: saving them all. Thank Goddess for Marivel, too.

    And thank Goddess for Avril, unafraid, who slows their descent through the air even as the ice grows. And, of course, Dean, who makes sure that when the two of them still corporeal do land on the Chateau, they land safely. The roof might be a little damaged, but - surely ARMS won't mind.

    That green light retreats back to the ribbon once they're safe, because she's sure Dean will make sure she doesn't get left behind. After expending so much power...

    Well, that's why she has a vessel, after all.