The Sky Breathes All Life - IC

Sye looks up and she sees Alister trying to gain some semblance of control considering what just happened. Deciding to add to his support Sye adds as loudly as she can muster despite the throbbing head and the pain in her side from the crash, "Follow that man, all you who can hear! If you know me, you know my allegiance lies with him. Respond to the call for aid, people!"

Sye jogs over to Alister's position and adds, "I'm with you, sir." She looks at the elven boy and then back to Alister. "And if you don't mind me saying, sir, I can sell a cart full nothing but normal ice to a frost giant and get twice what I should for it, too. If you catch my meaning. What I'm trying to say is that if you need someone to do some talking, I'm your girl. Just tell me how I can help."

Sye pulls out her fiddle, greatful that it wasn't broken in the process. While waiting for the people to gather around Alister she begins to absent-mindedly check the tuning on the strings. Her eyes dart around the people to see if anyone struggles or needs help. As she scans the crowd of people she adds, "If you think a song might help out everyone's confidence level, let me know. But I don't want to sound innappropriate, either."

As she scans the crowd, Sye sees who she thinks looks like the girl from the previous night. "Lily?" She peers harder in Lily's direction. "Lily, is that you? Get over her, girl ...we've got a lunch date to keep, remember? Although I certainly didn't think we'd have to go to such extremes to keep it!" Sye smiles, hoping that the slight jocularity would help ease some of the tension in the air.

Duncan rose from the earth as if the air were miasma. He felt weakened by the crash and wasn't happy that the humans were so unprepared for such a minor inconvenience as a few thousand cloakers. He lifted himself with a groan and lokked toward the elven boy. He could off sworn he had killed a boy looking like that some years before, course all elves did look alike as far as he was concerned.

"What is it you need boy?" Duncan sounded calm, far too calm for the situation. He looked over to his left noticing his pack with his gear neatly stowed with it under some rubble. Moving the debris he equipped himself and readied his spiked chain in his hands.

"Its time too move out sir." Duncan said to Alister in an almost venomous tone. Looking to the elven whelp he spoke in perfect elven.

[sblock]"Lead on boy"[/sblock]

Lily, pulling herself to her feet not far off, jerked around at the sound of her name. Her eyes were open slightly too wide, and her breathing shallow and rapid.

"All these people," she stammers in horror. "We...they need help."

Despite what she's saying, Lily does stumble towards Sye and the others, almost toppling over when her foot catches briefly on some debris. She manages to shake it free and join them though.

Alister gives Sye a grateful nod and - yes, that might even be a small smile emerging. Her enthusiasm even manages to buoy him high enough so that Duncan's gruffness and obvious disregard for his authority don't bother him too much, though he is worried by the signs that Duncan thinks he's running the show. Now more than ever order must be kept, and some shipwright with delusions of grandeur trying to usurp his position isn't going to help that one bit.

"I'm glad you agree," is Alister's frosty reply to Duncan, and he holds eye contact with him for just a second before turning to Sye. "I don't think it would be a bad idea at all to make an attempt to lift spirits, but I need you with me for now and we have no time to tarry here. Perhaps you could take care of... Private Foster, is it?" he says, indicating Lily as she stumbles forward, "and we can go."

"I'd be happy to, sir." Sye responds regarding the direction to help Lily. "And if you don't mind me saying, sir - its good to see you try to smile. The smile will go along way with the troops right now. They'll depend on you for order, but they'll want to know you are there for them too. Nobody could have predicted this - they'll look to strength from you."

Sye dutifully goes to Lily as Lily approaches. "I'd ask how life is treating you, Lily, but my guess is that its treating you about the same as me right now. We've been approached by an elven pageboy and they're pleading for help. While it goes against my better judgment, no civilian should have to face cloakers alone - elf or not."

Realizing that she's not lived up to her ideals, she stops and asks, "Lily - are you hurt badly anywhere?"

"Cloakers," Lily repeats with a shudder. Then she snaps back to the present and looks down at herself. Her clothing is torn in a few spots, but her armor is intact and with the exceptions of a few minor bruises and scrapes she seems fine.

She looks back at Sye and shakes her head. "No...I'm all right. I got lucky." She rubs the back of her head, catching sight of the others. "All right. Maybe if we help them, they can help the rest of...of us."

At that, Lily looks around the scene of carnage again, and realizes sickly that even if there was an entire city of priests and paladins not ten feet away, most of the survivors would still not make it. Lucky indeed.

"Let's go," she says thickly, turning away from the wrecks and hurrying to join Alister and Duncan.

Wordlessly Sye also returns to Alister's position and gives him a look that says 'I'm ready to leave this carnage as soon as you are.'

Once it seems as though no one else is coming, the young Elf makes eye contact with Alister. "Right then, follow me, he's just inside the town!" The boy begins to walk at a fairly brisk pace towards the village, and following him is quite the trip. Passing over the bodies of fallen Human and Elf alike, the boy seems to be forcing himself to stare straight ahead, as his gaze will occasionally pass to either direction, only to snap back to its original position almost immediately. A few people rush to and fro carrying bandages and all manner of first aid supplies, ranging from a kit for stitches to potions of every color. As you enter what seems to be the outskirts of the town, the grass turns to a slight dust with a small amount of gravel around. Most of the houses are untouched and complete, but a few are not, having been destroyed by the falling airships. One nearby house even has half an airship sticking out the smoking roof, a fire having recently been put out.

You begin to approach the center of town containing the mayor's home, as you see two men speaking to two others as a myriad of people move around them near a seemingly untouched fountain. The fountain is situated in the center of a circle of dirt and grass surrounded by buildings - some damaged, some not. The two pairs stand between the fountain (now non-functional) and a partially ruined building on one side of the circle. Once in plain sight, the boy leading you breaks into a run towards the men, as one of the pairs takes some papers from the other and hurries off across the circle, past the fountain heading elsewhere. "Sir! Sir, I found them! Here they are!"

The men look up and over towards the boy, one slighty older looking, the other younger, their vision scanning over to you and across each of your faces. His eyes stop for a moment on Alister, looking him up and down with apparent recognition on his face. "Ah, yes yes, bring them inside." He turns with a wave over his shoulder to the man standing beside him while the young boy looks to you with eyes expecting you to follow.

They lead you inside the building behind them, through a door still standing near some damage on the left. The inside of the large room looks well-kept, though there is a large hole on the ceiling to your left that looks recently made. "I apologize for the lack of seating, so I suppose we can just stand. I am mayor Galanda, the one in charge of the town and the people in it, and barring some of the pleasantries, I would like to know what has happened here - and more importantly, what is being done about the destruction." He extends his hand to Alister.

Alister takes the proferred hand, somewhat in a daze. "Captain Alister Delbraeth," he introduces himself. "I... I'm afraid that I don't have a lot of answers for you. I have very little idea myself what has happened. I am... was... an officer on board the Rose 3. We were preparing to engage the Elven fleet when... when all hells broke loose. Both fleets were attacked by a mass force of... of monstrous things. I have no clue for myself what they were, or where they came from." He gives a glance back to those following him, inviting any of them to speak up if they have a better idea than he does.