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FLIGHT TO THE FORD

The Palace is not a safe place. It's far too open and elegant, its walls broken down, its doors thrown open. There are far too many places their enemies can crawl in through. But there is an entirely different land on the other side of the palace, with an entirely different climate.

It's a land of cool temperate forests. It has a gnarled look to it. While things glow, they're knotty and thorny and a little dreary. Every so often a petrified troll can be found, covered in moss. These aren't like the trolls some of them saw frozen in Trollmarket - they're larger, uglier, and more menacing. But they're permanently frozen and no longer a danger.

Otherwise it's just misty forest. Mountains can be seen in the distance. In some areas, a road is visible, but it's perhaps not a safe place to travel, given they have enemies after them. The forest is a genuinely good place to hide. The Shadowhunters have given up chase, frightened off by the Nazgul.

And while the occasional Nazgul screech can be heard far off in the distance, they don't try to attack again.

But this is not because they've given up. They're simply waiting. Because some of the group have been poisoned by the shards of Morgul-blades. They're simply biding their time until those people turn into wraiths under their command.

They're biding their time until they can command them to destroy the group from within.

OOC DETAILS
❧ Quest magic: Players can handwave that the quest bond magic is tugging the group together, so they can regroup.

❧ Archivist Spells: There will be little eddies of magic left near the occasional little bit of human ruins. These spells run a little dark.

Death flashback spells: This spell causes a target to get stuck in a 15 second traumatic flashback of a death of a human warrior in the ancient realm of Arnor, a place that was once filled with people that were gradually culled by the dark forces of one o the Nazgul - the Witch-king. The target is completely distracted during this time. Archivists can bank up to 3 iterations of this spell. Casting the spell causes a temporary Necromancer style curse effect on the Archivist: eyes going completely black for 2 minutes, and plants withering and dying around the caster. The effects are not permanent.

❧ Network: Feel free to use the network in parallel with the log events. The log can be where characters regroup, get first aid, etc. A network post can go up to allow everyone to coordinate their efforts. The mods will leave that up to one of the players.

❧ Resources: As far as food goes, there are not many edible plants in the area, just the occasional edible root. Deer and rabbits can be found but they're rare. The occasional beehive can also be found but one has to somehow get rid of the bees or mop up honey that's dripped below it. There are not many supplies to be found here. However, there are a few plants and substances that can be used for first aid, if some among their number know about them:

Athelas: A sweet smelling green plant with small blue flowers. It can be used to cure the Black Breath by boiling it in water and allowing the victim to breathe in the vapors. It can also slow the transformation caused by Morgul-blades if the wound is washed by water that has had athelas boiled in it. This can also help relieve some of the pain and cold. It smells extremely fresh and sweet, often reminding people smelling of it specific scents that remind them of home. This means it can smell different ways to different people, such making one person smell apple orchards from back home, and another fresh cut grass after a rain. Use of this herb is more potent in the hands of a king. Thanks to the magic affecting the land, it will do so for any king.

Honey: This can offer some help for disinfecting puncture wounds, but works especially well for burns, like ones caused by the grazes of the Shadowhunters' angel blades.

Foxglove: A mashed poultice of this can be put on wounds to help with healing and prevent infection.

Pine sap: Can be used as a wound disinfectant.

Willow Bark: A tea made from willow bark can be used for pain but is not recommended if someone is still bleeding heavily, as it is also a blood thinner.

Poppies: There are a few small patches of poppies. Poppies can be used as an opioid pain reliever, by eating the seeds or making a tea out of them.

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[ Maybe it’s more, but it’s being received and interpreted by someone who can be a bit of an unreliable narrator with physical affection. Scarcity makes it all seem more intense than it is, and Tim can’t duck away without quite managing to get away as usual.

(Like that’s ever folded anyone. They do it because they know he likes it.)

He makes a half-hearted half-hearted-attempt to swat the hand away; it’s barely a formality. ]

You better live your best life with Rosie Cotton if I do. There’s only room for one drama queen in this fellowship.

[ Kon can call him a nerd as much as he wants, but Tim is more comfortable with allegory than just… talking about the possibilities.

He still doesn’t want to go into detail about how he feels physically or emotionally. Tim isn’t even sure he agrees with that plan. If they stay with the group, and Tim is too far gone, then there are other people to take care of it.

If Kon and Dick break off from the group, then one of them has to do it. Tim would rather turn into a wraith. ]

You need to stay with the group, Mr. Genre-Savvy. Glad you exist, but CADMUS could’ve cut me a break and left Tolkien out of it so you didn’t argue so much.

[ Tim pokes Kon’s chest. Try not to think too hard about how he hits the surface above the exact spot he’s describing. It’s where the pain is, and where he assumes the shard has migrated. ]

7th intercoastal, midclavicular, posterior axillary line. It hasn’t gotten far enough to nick a lung, so I’m breathing okay unless I move too much and the pain gets sharp. I’m cold, but you knew that already.

[ Who knows what it means. Tim thinks it means he has time, probably a few days, before it reaches his heart.

Of course he’s scared, but he can’t tell Kon, of all people, that he’s afraid of dying this time. Scared is what they’re supposed to push past. It’s okay to act on fear and concern for others, but Tim’s scared reaction has been broken for a long time. So has Kon’s, and Dick’s, because scared doesn’t fly off to get killed or almost killed by Superboy-Prime. Kon’s gotten a precise physical description; he can’t have everything. ]

We'll stay as long as it makes sense. But if it takes too long, we're leaving. If you're worried about the...

The alternative. We can have someone else come with us.

But it's not going to come to that.

[And of course he got the medical textbook rundown on his injuries. Tim doesn't do "vulnerable" well. Kon isn't going to force him, he just wanted to let him know there was a space open for it. ]

Hmm. I can at least do something else to help with the cold. Be right back.

[He briefly gets up and leaves, and comes back with an extra blanket he scrounged up from someone that could spare it.]

[Then he lays down next to Tim, on the uninjured side, and wraps it around himself and tosses part of it over Tim.]

C'mere.

[He gently slips one arm behind Tim's head and around the top of his shoulders, providing a convenient pillow. He tosses the other arm over him, careful to keep it up high, against his chest and shoulder so it's not near the injured side.]

[It is instantly warmer. All that muscle puts out a lot of heat. The blanket trapping it makes it even warmer.]

Better?

[ The technical description is vulnerability. Specifics with no wiggle room - it doesn’t get more vulnerable to Tim than being openly precise. No one wants to have conversations about this. To acknowledge what they’re actually agreeing to do or have done to them. This is probably why the Justice League haven’t stormed the Batcave for Batman’s kryptonite stash yet. Tim just freezes it out and agrees. Don’t think about how other people must’ve felt when they knew they were done. ]

Sounds like a plan.

[ Expecting more blankets or to be moved closer to the fire, Tim gets bemused look when Kon decides it’s naptime too.

Which gets temporarily stuck on his face when Kon makes himself into a pillow. And makes Tim into a cuddle pillow at the same time.

There’s a valid, logical reason for this. Blankets reflect and trap body heat. The “warmth” of a blanket is relative to the person under it; if Tim’s body heat is low, then someone else’s will help raise it. That’s prudent and clear.

But is. This. A thing they do?

And where do you look because away seems like the best option so he’s just going to look straight out at the sky and not at Kon at all.

(Is it weird to not comment on this? It’s probably weird. They don’t normally share blankets - it’s weird if he doesn’t acknowledge the embrace. He should make a joke.)

(No, he can’t make a joke because the only related thing he can think of are either that he thought that the common advice was to be naked for this.)

(And this isn’t an embrace.)

(Except that being held closely in someone’s arms is the definition of an embrace.)

(This is not that kind of embrace.)

At least he has gloves, socks, and boots, so he doesn’t want to stick any frigid extremities under Kon’s hot, heavy arm.

(Warm. Just warm. This is only about keeping warm.) ]

…yeah. You’re really warm. Is that a Kryptonian thing, or am I that sick?

[Kon, unlike Tim is very relaxed. To him it is just about warmth. Yes, there's some love for his best friend there and indulging in the feeling of throwing protective arms around him. But that's a perfectly platonic thing to do, isn't it? He's upset he's hurt and wants to keep him warm and safe.]

It's a Kryptonian thing, a being 90% muscle thing, and also probably a "you're that sick" thing.

[A pause.]

I know this is, uh, a lot more in each other's grill than we usually get, but we might as well take advantage of the fact I'm a walking space heater.

That was important in the book. Keeping warm.

Was it?

[ It’s been awhile, and as good as Tim’s memory is, admittedly he never thought he would need to know exactly how Frodo was treated after Weathertop. The stabbing, the athelas, and a mad dash to Rivendell by Glorfindel - or Arwen, in the movie.

There won’t be any miraculously well-timed appearances of eleven royalty on horseback. ]

It’s fine. I know why you’re doing it, and it’s not the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t even think it’s the craziest that invokes you. It’s a hug.

[ There is an entire catalog of weird. They could open a Ripley’s. Tim very much wants to be kept warm; now that it’s been thrust on him, continued warmth is to be encouraged and that means being normal about this. ]

If you’re going to be a furnace, might as well be here. Just as long as you’re comfortable and don’t say grills again.

It's cool.

[It's a balanced answer. Not too eager, not making it sound like a chore.]

[A pause.]

Grills.

[It's almost reflex, the being contrary. Even now, so long after he stopped rebelling against Tim's leadership at every turn. But it's far more jokey than it once was. Instead of it being heated, it's him tugging on Tim's pigtails.]

Edited 2022-01-20 04:56 (UTC)

Don’t make me ask someone else to keep me warm.

[ Must you Kon? Can’t he just leave it and not say grills, like either of them have ever worn a grill in their lives? Tim is wasting energy being grumpy about this, and wasting oxygen with a frustrated sigh. ]

I have never, and will never, wear a grill.

[ Even if he had any chance of pulling off the look, they’re really bad for your oral hygiene.

(Maybe Kon’s trying to distract him, but Tim could really use the distraction and will get swept along willingly. ]

Just because you own a leather jacket doesn’t mean you pull off anything you want. You belong in a varsity jacket, not a Bape hoodie.

Ew, no.

Yes, I know the tremendous muscles can be deceiving but I'm not actually a jock. I refuse to self-identify by wearing a varsity jacket. If I really wanted to wear a jacket again I'd probably go back to the leather.

[Way more punk rock.]

The jocks at school have completely ruined the jock life for me. A man can be towel-whipped only so many times in the locker room before deciding to never become like the enemy.

[His tone is light, though. Yes, he deals with bullies. He's seen as a quiet and slightly awkward weirdo who freakishly disappeared during the Crisis (apparently the school even had a form for that, because the federal government found it that common). He's also friends with Lori, a relative of Lex Luthor's (who doesn't know she's his cousin) and also the school mad scientist. He's also lorge yet not on any sports teams.]

[But... he's Superboy. His inherent coolness - far greater than theirs - is a vast and powerful thing. Immutable. Their foolish towel whips are like unto a fly trying to cause harm to an elephant.]

Edited 2022-01-21 05:22 (UTC)

[ Tim suppresses a smile at the irony of someone like Kon - athletic, smart-mouthed, and with enough personality for an entire gaggle of theater kids - being picked on. If only the jerks knew. They’d fawn all over Superboy. ]

If you want, I’ll go undercover and protect you from the jocks. I’ll start as a transfer student and infiltrate the lunkheads to overthrow the high school hierarchy so you can finish senior year in peace.

[ And then he shrugs under Kon’s arm. Maybe Tim would’ve been punk rock if he’d grown up how he was supposed to, rebelling his way through boarding school. ]

Or I can lend you a motorcycle to go with the leather, and you can lean hard into being a rebel without a cause.

[ The way to keep this all normal is to just… be normal. It feels like something of a quiet revelation, even though Tim knows how to pretend everything’s normal. He tries not to pretend with his friends.

But if he just holds it all apart, friendship, feelings, fear - he can keep it all balanced still. ]

[It is...strangely comfortable, holding him like this. The only things throwing off the dynamic are the roiling anxiety in his gut over the monster thing - which he's desperately attempting to ignore right now - and the fear over Tim's injury.]

[But that just makes him want to hold him even more, like doing it can protect him from further harm and let him absorb enough warmth to stay alive longer. If Kon could project his life force into him the way yellow sunlight could be beamed at a Kryptonian to sustain and heal them, he'd do it.]

[Unfortunately he can't. This is the best he can do.]

[But the best he can do is still giving him body heat, and comfort, and his love - uh, friendship, his friendship - and distracting him just a little from despair. And hopefully all that - and carting his ass towards Rivendell toot suite - will be enough.]

[Kon laughs a laugh that's almost a giggle at the idea of Tim as a transfer student infiltrating and over-throwing the lunkheads - the polar opposite of the first time Kon was in high school, going undercover with all that nonsense with Risk.]

[(That was the first time he got thoroughly bullied and towel-whipped- at least until he whipped off the nerd outfit and everyone saw his leather jacket and early super threads. Then, yes, they'd fawned.)]

[He tries to imagine what kind of costume Tim'd go for and comes up with the same ridiculous greaser outfit for some reason - a rebel with a cause.]

Look, they've got statues of me all over the place, and half of them were put up after I got back. If anything, being a big nerd at least somewhere is my insurance against getting a giant head like when I was younger and had a cartoon and a branded toothpaste.

[He takes on the airy tone of a contestant on Undercover Millionaire, or a movie star slumming it somewhere.]

It reminds me of the plight of the little people. Keeps me humble.

[He goes back to sounding like himself.]

Besides, the instant it seems like I'm actually getting mad, they scatter like cockroaches the second a light bulb goes on. I'm bigger than the biggest football player in the school. It's just I only start to actually get mad when they're picking on Lori or Simon.

[Lori now has the best doctors Wayne money can buy for her mother thanks to Kon bringing it to Tim and Kal (and by extension Bats') attention, but the town is still no less cruel to her. It's just one of the hazards of being related to the guy who ruined his own presidential term by wearing a mad scientist kryptonite-powered robot suit.]

[And speaking of mad scientists that's like 99% of the cause of Simon's problems: being one.]

Edited 2022-01-22 03:45 (UTC)

[ At the mention of the statues, Tim shuts his eyes and doesn’t open them. It’s a little too close to talking about death, and Tim isn’t going to be a missing piece in Brainiac 5’s next multiverse-correcting plan. He isn’t important. ]

I kinda miss your giant head. You were harder to ignore when your ego could crush a skyscraper.

[ Tim still ignores everyone when it’s convenient to him. Kon less than the others but - yeah. Harder to ignore someone conceited enough to make fun of Batman in Gotham.

(He kinda loved it, but would never admit it because he wants to live his life in peace.) ]

On the other hand, you’re a much better blanket now.

[ Tim moves, maybe a quarter inch closer to the warm human blanket next to him while it’s part of the joke and not alarming. Can’t ask for more than that, really.

As for what he would wear to infiltrate the school, he’d probably spy on the in crowd for a few weeks and then dress as one of them but eeeever so slightly better. Sorry, Kon, that probably means not a greaser, but a crewcut or undercut with the good Walmart jeans and carefully selected too big shirts. And an entire crash diet of music and tv choices.

But it’s a lot to explain, how he could possibly make it work, and he’ll probably never work out the kinks of how he spends months uninterrupted in Smallville. Distractions don’t need to be logical; they just need to be. ]

I wouldn’t let them pick on Lori or Simon. And I wouldn’t pick on you -

[ His neck and jaw stiffen as he stifles a yawn. ]

- because you’d blow our covers insulting me back.

[Okay, the body language means what he's doing is comforting and welcome. He adjusts a little, but to try to envelope him just lightly more. It only suggests wanting to keep him warmer.]

[He can tell he had to hold back a yawn. That's good. He wants to nudge him towards sleep when he's in pain and probably scared as hell. Sleep will help him have the strength to hold out longer. Tim is very much professionally good at staying awake, especially when there's a problem that can't be immediately resolved.]

No no no, don't try to go back to the undercover thing.

You just said I'm not annoying enough anymore. That was a challenge. I heard it.

Well, challenge accepted.

The undercover thing would be fun, though. High school like I never got to have it. Do you think I could make varsity football team and become king jock?

[ Tim is at crossed purposes. He wants to be be warm, and comfortable, and he doesn’t want to fall asleep. The warmer that he is, the sleepier he feels. But there’s this awful thought gnawing away at the back of his brain - that sleeping is wasting time. And he doesn’t have a lot of time.

But he can be warm and annoyed. That would keep him awake. ]

You’re going to have to work to annoy me now. I’ve had to put up with you, Bart, and Gar for years now. And I live in Gotham City. I have to look at Condiment King and not just walk off.

[ This is on purpose to reinforce the vow by making it a more tempting challenge. ]

I’m inoculated. Things just don’t hit the same anymore.

Clearly I need to revisit the fertile ground that's making fun of your mentor.

[There is a light little tap of a finger against his shoulder before his large hand settles again, gently wrapped around it.]

...little chum.

[ See, some nice irritation. It’s just what the doctor ordered, but it doesn’t wrest Tim free from the combination of growing warmth and exhausted. ]

Good one, King Shark.

[ This time, it’s harder to hide the yawn, and Tim’s hand moves towards to his face to cover it instinctively.

But the instinct to physically cover the yawn might as well announce that it’s happening. He misses coffee like fish miss the sea. ]

[Kon gently squeezes the shoulder his hand rests on.]

Buddy, you should try to sleep.

[ Tim shakes his head, but doesn’t try to explain that he’s afraid he won’t wake back up. That would be his luck, wouldn’t it? Narrowly escaping dozens of times, just to not wake up when everything’s finally getting back to normal.

Except for the kidnapping.

But they were going to see the elves.

… at least this time, Kon was… right here… (zzzz…) ]

[He doesn't know what he's feeling right now, watching Tim sleep.]

[Part of him thinks it's just the adrenaline-soaked worry, the hoping he can put his money where his mouth is on getting him help in time. He's so pale.]

[Part of it is...]

[It's something else. It's how it feels to, for once, use more than words to comfort him, to try to make him feel safe.]

[He's so pale, but also it doesn't change anything. He could be inches from death and still Tim. Even with his flaws, even with him sometimes dancing up to the edge of certain things, he's still always Tim in the end.]

[He got into wearing the mask because he thought Robin was supposed to be the light to Batman's dark, and even as he got more grim and sad, that had never completely changed. He still always claws his way back towards the light, whether it's doing it to doggedly survive, or to escape certain sides of himself. He still hasn't let himself fall all the way down into the place Bruce can't leave. He still can lay here as he's dying and joke around, letting himself accept warmth and comfort.]

[He still can love and accept love.]

[Kon can see it. The good. The flaws. How the former always overwhelms the latter in the end.]

[How did it go in the books? He searches the programmed part of his memory, far more perfect and indelible than anything else he's had to actually learn.]

[Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo's face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiseling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: 'I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no.']

[Kon freezes for a few seconds, then winces, and says internally, Craaaap.]

[Because the complexity of those feelings is a giant hot mess of something he just suddenly realized was there. But he can't even touch it right now, because now when Tim's hurt, and when Kon is reeling from some strange new darkness inside himself, is not the time. No, he has to shut his brain up and examine those feelings later.]

[Still. Motherfucker.]

[He breathes deep and shoves it all aside, resting his cheek against Tim's head, and tries to take solace from the rise and fall of his best friend's chest under his hand. Right now, it's all he can do.]

Edited 2022-01-26 04:34 (UTC)

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FLIGHT TO THE FORD

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