[In terms of starting off a mission, Dan's finding this all a lot more pleasant than the sterile sheetcake party back on the Rig; so far, it's largely having jovial conversations with faire-goers, enjoying the free ale, watching the live music, collecting all the information they need in the most joyful and friendly way possible, by getting to meet people. Dan's in his element, schmoozing with the faerie folk and, currently, listening to a summer faerie break down the properties of the wards around the event.
What exactly are you warding against? Dan asks, and then, as if on cue, the fog rolls in and the screaming starts.
Dan launches himself up onto Concrete Blonde and brings her around, moving towards instead of away from the incoming attack. He makes eye contact with Bunny and gives a quick nod; they tend to operate in a certain rhythm together, Dan doing crowd control and sniping from a distance while Bunny more directly addresses the threat. And there's a lot of crowd to control here, with people stampeding through the fairgrounds and smoke monsters belching up from the fog. Somehow, even in this chaos, the laughter of the two people who seem to be behind this rings loud and clear.]
I got your back. I can chauffeur the injured out. [Dan gestures to the horse.]
II. Open to Ace
[While Bunny's occupied with one sister, Dan's doing his best to get people away from the warpath of the second. He's got an unconscious woman draped over the back of his horse, and he only just manages to jump the creature over some wooden fencing and into the clear as some of the second sister's smoke creatures claw at her hooves.
Take her, he says to a faerie folk escaping the faire, lowering the unconscious woman into his arms. I'm going back for anyone still back there.
He wheels the horse around, nocking an arrow into his longbow, something he used a few times growing up but woke up here with an absolute mastery of. He sees a large man on the ground, trapped in a net as a laughing sister drags him and struggles to bring him in. Dan's arrow makes a whistling noise as it zips through the air and lodges in the sister's shoulder. It doesn't seem to affect her.]
Get out! Get out now! [Dan yells at the man on the ground, hoping untangling from the net is even an option.]
III. Open to Kaworu and Jon CW: Dead Children
[Dan's never looked more like the Sagittarius he derives his stripper name from than right now, firing arrows off a longbow at nightrenders atop his stolen mare. He's ferried a half-dozen injured people out of the line of fire, and has, by now, realized that pinning nightrenders to whatever's right behind them is more efficient than going in for a kill shot.
He sees a teenager from the faire - a gangly, barely-past-puberty kid Dan remembers mostly for trying to look down the bosoms of all the women around the free ale cart, a kid named Brent - fall down in front of a nightrender's massive claws, and Dan directs the horse to peel around so he can take a shot. He snipes the nightrender right through the bicep, impaling the limb and pinning the nightrender to the shop wall behind it, right out of reach of the kid.]
Get up, kid, this way- [Dan grabs Brent by the arm and hoists him up onto the shoulders of the horse, trying to position Brent so they can ride off. It's that split second where he's trying to adjust the kid that the nightrender yanks the arrow out from its arm and thus frees itself from its bondage. Instead of going for Brent, it aims for Dan.
Dan doesn't even notice himself falling off the horse, nor does he notice the nightrender standing on his chest and forcing him to exhale a small, glittering thing, what looks like a precious diamond being coaxed into the mouth of the nightrender.
Dan doesn't notice anything, because he isn't on the battlefield anymore. He's somewhere in his past, so overwhelmed with flashes of kids that look just like him dying with horrific grotesquerie, of being in a beat-up van while he watched his brother's bones vanish from his body or his sister's skin turn to acid, so overwhelmed that he forgets that he ever came to the faire or ever left that bloodstained van at all.]
IV. Open to All
[Thankfully, Dan isn't one of those people who needs time before the next fight; in fact, running straight towards danger tends to be his favored coping mechanism. Kaworu and Jon pulled Dan out of the absolute hell of his own mind, and the only way Dan can see to stay out of there is to go back into the fray.
He finds the horse again and gets astride her, firing arrows off to slow nightrenders down. He doesn't know where Bunny is, doesn't know where Price ran to, but it doesn't matter. There are wounded people trying to get away, and Dan focuses himself on that, backing up anyone he sees struggling and swooping in to haul off anyone he thinks is a sitting target.]
Dan Sagittarius
[In terms of starting off a mission, Dan's finding this all a lot more pleasant than the sterile sheetcake party back on the Rig; so far, it's largely having jovial conversations with faire-goers, enjoying the free ale, watching the live music, collecting all the information they need in the most joyful and friendly way possible, by getting to meet people. Dan's in his element, schmoozing with the faerie folk and, currently, listening to a summer faerie break down the properties of the wards around the event.
What exactly are you warding against? Dan asks, and then, as if on cue, the fog rolls in and the screaming starts.
Dan launches himself up onto Concrete Blonde and brings her around, moving towards instead of away from the incoming attack. He makes eye contact with Bunny and gives a quick nod; they tend to operate in a certain rhythm together, Dan doing crowd control and sniping from a distance while Bunny more directly addresses the threat. And there's a lot of crowd to control here, with people stampeding through the fairgrounds and smoke monsters belching up from the fog. Somehow, even in this chaos, the laughter of the two people who seem to be behind this rings loud and clear.]
I got your back. I can chauffeur the injured out. [Dan gestures to the horse.]
II. Open to Ace
[While Bunny's occupied with one sister, Dan's doing his best to get people away from the warpath of the second. He's got an unconscious woman draped over the back of his horse, and he only just manages to jump the creature over some wooden fencing and into the clear as some of the second sister's smoke creatures claw at her hooves.
Take her, he says to a faerie folk escaping the faire, lowering the unconscious woman into his arms. I'm going back for anyone still back there.
He wheels the horse around, nocking an arrow into his longbow, something he used a few times growing up but woke up here with an absolute mastery of. He sees a large man on the ground, trapped in a net as a laughing sister drags him and struggles to bring him in. Dan's arrow makes a whistling noise as it zips through the air and lodges in the sister's shoulder. It doesn't seem to affect her.]
Get out! Get out now! [Dan yells at the man on the ground, hoping untangling from the net is even an option.]
III. Open to Kaworu and Jon
CW: Dead Children
[Dan's never looked more like the Sagittarius he derives his stripper name from than right now, firing arrows off a longbow at nightrenders atop his stolen mare. He's ferried a half-dozen injured people out of the line of fire, and has, by now, realized that pinning nightrenders to whatever's right behind them is more efficient than going in for a kill shot.
He sees a teenager from the faire - a gangly, barely-past-puberty kid Dan remembers mostly for trying to look down the bosoms of all the women around the free ale cart, a kid named Brent - fall down in front of a nightrender's massive claws, and Dan directs the horse to peel around so he can take a shot. He snipes the nightrender right through the bicep, impaling the limb and pinning the nightrender to the shop wall behind it, right out of reach of the kid.]
Get up, kid, this way- [Dan grabs Brent by the arm and hoists him up onto the shoulders of the horse, trying to position Brent so they can ride off. It's that split second where he's trying to adjust the kid that the nightrender yanks the arrow out from its arm and thus frees itself from its bondage. Instead of going for Brent, it aims for Dan.
Dan doesn't even notice himself falling off the horse, nor does he notice the nightrender standing on his chest and forcing him to exhale a small, glittering thing, what looks like a precious diamond being coaxed into the mouth of the nightrender.
Dan doesn't notice anything, because he isn't on the battlefield anymore. He's somewhere in his past, so overwhelmed with flashes of kids that look just like him dying with horrific grotesquerie, of being in a beat-up van while he watched his brother's bones vanish from his body or his sister's skin turn to acid, so overwhelmed that he forgets that he ever came to the faire or ever left that bloodstained van at all.]
IV. Open to All
[Thankfully, Dan isn't one of those people who needs time before the next fight; in fact, running straight towards danger tends to be his favored coping mechanism. Kaworu and Jon pulled Dan out of the absolute hell of his own mind, and the only way Dan can see to stay out of there is to go back into the fray.
He finds the horse again and gets astride her, firing arrows off to slow nightrenders down. He doesn't know where Bunny is, doesn't know where Price ran to, but it doesn't matter. There are wounded people trying to get away, and Dan focuses himself on that, backing up anyone he sees struggling and swooping in to haul off anyone he thinks is a sitting target.]