Reign of Discord - Silence Falls IC

[Cerulean]

Swing High. Turn. Block. Punch Punch. Block. Kick. Swing Low. Kick. Kick. Duck.

Working out wasn't quite the phrase that would be used to describe this. Warming up would be closer. These pre-determined set of movements he created each tell a story. At least, they do to him. Everything has and is apart of a story. Right now, he is telling himself the one about the young boy who became a man. The story isn't about him. Not yet anyways. With this he reminds himself of the past and foresees a hopeful future. One last whip of Baibell and he slows to a stop. Cheeks red from the blood flow and exertion, Blainkos wiggled his shoulders slightly. Good movement. The need to crack someone in the head seemed to just fall away back into the darkness of the back of his mind...for now.

Blainkos began to wonder about the courtyard, looking for something to do. Everyone seemed busy but it wasn't like him to go so unnoticed. It wasn't like the singer went out of his way to stay in the shadows. He was supposed to be heard and seen, as hard it might be for him to admit.

A sound pulled him out of his thoughts just long enough to hear a familiar voice ordering the Citadel to defend itself. As much as he wanted to, this wasn't the place for him. He had been called to The Theater, and that was where he must go.

"Damn."

And swinging Baibell behind his back and putting it into her sheath, the Skylark took off like a exploding projectile.

 

[RiverNotch]

It seemed to Adelia that the Meranin who had so hatefully treated her before had, by the time of the attack, a change of heart: as the spooked Adelia recomposed herself, Arien ran up to her and pulled her aside, saving her from a succeeding barrage of flame. Before the shadow of a nearby tower the two landed; and there, as another salvo flew for the Citadel, and as Arien writhed in pain upon the raw ground, Adelia thought of a plan.

A plan that was ultimately ruined by Arien's presumed panic: when another projectile opened a wide-mouthed crater by the couple's feet, Arien, taking up a rather overzealous and ill-informed resolve, got up, wrapped his arm around the left sleeve of Adelia's linen dress, and pulled her towards the nearest staircase.

Frustration filled Adelia. Her plan had meant for them to go up, closer to the theatre, wherein the two would have found greater security; instead, the path to which Arien pulled her went the opposite way, back to where she earlier had passed. She would've spoken up, if Arien were not so clumsy in guiding her: as he pulled her down the staircase, he slipped, forcing their bodies upon the blackened floor.

The mild concussion she received, coupled with the increasing concentration of ash in the air, dazed her. She did not notice Arien push her aright, and pull themselves farther away from the proper course, until a few long moments later.

"Arien!" she bawled, when she had returned to her senses, "Stop! We need to stop!" Arien didn't respond. "We-hell, do you even know where we're going?" Again, no response. "Arien?!"

"Arien-dammit, are you even listening to me?!" Righteous anger began seething in Adelia's heart, when once again Arien did not respond. Little noise filled the air around the two, so she knew Arien could hear her clearly; she thus supposed that Arien was ignoring her, perhaps due to the chauvinistic nature he had so readily exhibited a few good minutes ago. Plans to escape his tyranny began to flower in her mind, though they were plans that, by the uneven rush of their path, and the thickening ooze of grey subtly robbing her of her breath, kept being jogged out of her mind.

Her dissipated temper left rampant the fire that consumed her soot-covered cheeks. "Arien! Arien! I said stop! Stop!" Now she thought of Singing to thwart him, but the two of them were moving too quickly, too unsteadily, for such an action; and the air was too hot and choked in darkness.

"ARIE-Ach!" The smoke reached its zenith, and instead of shouting, her throat turned to the more immediate matter of clearing all the dust blocking her airways. A storm of coughs blurred Adelia's vision of the rest of their escape, and on reaching relief, breathlessness overcame her.

When she comes to, the first thing to greet her senses is the voice of her current guardian. "Know where we are?" Arien asks her. Her eyes widen, and the pinkish-white hue of the granite surrounding them is revealed to her. The light flowing into the chamber is a bright strain of gold, somewhat tinted a faint grey yet undimmed by the chaos outside. A swift rhythm echoes throughout the chamber: the hard footfall of passers-by.

"I think I do", she whispers. Her left arm tries to stand her up, but she finds it unresponsive. The arm, she feels, is covered in a damp warmth. Pain creeps in, and her brows knit in agony.

Her response is sudden. With the aid of her jaw, she tears a large swathe of cloth from the skirt of her gown. Then, after spitting out what dirt got caught in her mouth, she draws the fabric over her wounded arm, and presses into the wound with all the force she could muster. Her sour expression intensifies.

She relieves herself of the some of her anguish by answering more definitively Arien's question. "Ye-yes! I do know", she shouts to the top of her lungs, as if she was addressing God, "this-this tunnel, it's right under the Halls-Halls of Learning!" She pauses to catch her breath. "Close to-Unhh!" A sharp sting runs through the bones of both her upper limbs. "-close to the Maestro's Tower."

Her face lightens; though her suffering is far from over, she now finds it more tolerable. Her voice, though still quite loud and stern, is no longer unrestrained, and the newfound emptiness of the tunnel is made more apparent. "Yes. All those people who ran about here, er - I couldn't actually see them - but, er, they're probably Maestros, all heading into the-into the fray.

"Ach-er, I don't think we can join them, however. Not in the state we're currently in." She faintly motions to her left arm, and what she assumed to be Arien's hands. "We-we'll need an Instrument." A hard brown gum covers her right palm: her temporary bandage is spent. "And....and maybe more-more, er, cloth...." Faint laughter sweetens the atmosphere. "Say, do you happen to have a needle and thread with you?" Her pale countenance beams weakly.

 

[Malkuthe Highwind]

For the first time in decades, the Maestros were out in full force. Two dozen of the Citadel’s finest lined the top of the second wall, their Instruments in the courtyard below. There were also a number of Instruments there whose Maestros were elsewhere in the Citadel, seeing to other aspects of the defense against the siege that was inevitably coming. The Instruments had their own musical instruments, far more powerful at amplifying the power of the Maestros compared to simply the voice. These were those trained specifically for the art of war, unlike Gwyne, who was himself trained merely for both healing and small skirmishes.

The first strains of music echoed almost hollowly through the Citadel. The sound of the exploding barrels raining down around the Swordsingers muffled as the Instruments began to draw their bows across their violins. Then, one voice rose above the rest, soft and slow, almost like a lament. Nevertheless, the voice grew stronger, power rippling through the very stones of the wall they were standing on. The oncoming bombs slowed in their descent, the fire wreathed around them being extinguished by a strong wind that had been called forth by the single Maestro that had begun to sing.

Soon after, as the brass and percussion began to take part in the Song, so too did the other Maestros, raising their voices in tandem with the single singer that began. The wind blew even stronger, the pennant banners around the Citadel snapping in the sheer wrath of the gale. The barrel-bombs faltered in their trajectories, blown off course by the powerful zephyr that screamed past. For all the noise that the Song created, with the moaning wind and the exploding barrels, the Song that was being sung did not seem to falter, nor did it ever seem muffled. Its strains of music were loud and clear and reverberating. This was the power of Maestros in tandem, and they were still not using their entire potential.

A mile away from the First Wall of the citadel, the ground rippled, shaking, groaning, cracking under the weight of something that seemed to be pressing down against it. The air above the ground shimmered with light that seemed to be brighter than even that of day. It was a light that began to creep up, forming a dome as the Maestros continued their singing. The masters of the Song were creating a barrier to protect the Citadel from further sieging from the sky.

The barrels exploded harmlessly on the barrier, their molten contents spilling down the side and creating a veil of smoke that made it even more difficult to see amidst the chaos. As the barrier slammed against the side of the mountain to complete the seal, the Song faltered for a moment. Then the music returned, louder than before, as the Maestros began to sing a different song. With each note, a pulse of power emanated from the courtyard below. It pushed out against the airships, knocking them around, jarring them. With a final crescendo, an immense wave of pressure erupted from the Swordsingers and it ripped a few airships out of the sky. One or two crashed against the barrier, bursting into flames and likely immolating any poor unfortunate souls that remained within.

The grisly deed done, the Maestros watched for any sign of wavering in their barrier before they began to direct their energy to cleaning up what could be cleaned up in a short time around the Citadel.

 

[Malkuthe Highwind]

GWYNE KORTAN

---

"It is the only choice!" said the young man as he grabbed Lyrael's arm and dragged her along with him as he ran off in the direction he'd come from earlier. "The theatre is probably the safest place right now, in any case" he continued in between breaths. People were running everywhere, the Citadel utter chaos as preceptors, initiates, and novices alike rushed around looking for cover from the barrage of fire that was headed their way. "I know the way. Make sure you follow me" yelled Gwyne over the cacophony of noise that was going on around them. He let go of Lyrael's arm, only to jump to the side moments later to avoid a large, still-smoldering crater surrounded by splinters of wood. There was a substance there that was still burning, spitting out thick black smoke that Gwyne had to hold his breath through.

The two of them made it inside the inner sanctum of the Citadel, the part hidden from prying eyes, the tunnels within the walls of the mountain. The young Instrument was shaking. The explosions that rocked through the solid walls and floors of the citadel were more than a little bit jarring. It came as a relief when he heard the Song of the Maestros and the Instruments begin, the sonorous chords of the music ringing through the stones of the citadel. He was certain they had more than enough power to repel this attack for the moment, though how they would manage against all the chaos and discord that was going on within their stronghold, he did not know. He leaned against a wall, panting from the exertion of running across the citadel into the tunnels.

There were others here, but they were huddled to the side. There seemed to be none that had come with their expedition to Cataline. They would not have heard of the call to the Theatre, but Gwyne knew it was his responsibility to the order to assure the safety of as many people as he could. "Head to the theatre" he told the men and women he saw. "Tell everyone you meet on the way there the same thing. Go!" he continued, sternly, just as he managed to catch his breath again. He leaned with his back against the wall. Even telling other people what to do took a toll on him. He didn't like it. Nevertheless, desperate times called for desperate measures. Slowly, the Swordsingers in the tunnels shuffled past him in the direction of the theatre.

"Come on…" he said to Lyrael, careful to avoid the crackling flames of the torches. At some point down the line, the Instrument took a wrong turn and found himself on the way to the Eyrie. Deep in thought, he did not notice the other young man coming down his way until it was too late and he ended up running into the other man. "S-sorry!" he stammered, before realizing that it was Tomas. "Tomas?"”

 

[Cerulean]

Step after step, he moved as hastily as possibly.The tunnels rumbled from the battle outside. Thankfully, he was nearly at his destination. The Theatre. Echos of his brothers and sisters danced down the hallway, giving him reason to pause. Was the battle going that drastically out of our favor? In any case, people were seeking refuge from the violence. And that had Blainkos pressing on. In case there were things that needed to be done, he would be there.

When the last few twists and turns, he was there. The great Theatre. Visits were not as often as they should be, because this place was a beauty, to him. It's passionately blue interior often ignited his attachment for his art. Now, it just seemed to reflect the fear of those inside of it. It was almost fitting for a place where tragedy is acted out many of the nights. Hopefully, this would not be the last time he would see this with living eyes. Slipping past the doors, this Skylark was admiring the architecture while trying to keep calm. It was easier than it should have been, mostly because the admiration distracted him from the death going on outside. He thought about taking a torch, but just in case someone else needed it, the singer let it lay.

Blainkos moved through the rows, making a way for the stage. The call for him on his comrades was slowly being answered, but he was there, for now.