#amiri cd

[clan-fuildarach]

yaint

[clan-fuildarach]

rúth’s prosthetic arm has all the mechanisms (including the nerve links) fully enclosed and unreachable. it’s even water proof 

amiri’s arm, on the other hand, is open on the ventral surface and all the mechanisms that can be safely laid bare are on show - including the nerve wires connecting the hand to the arm. it’s like this because amiri keeps experimenting on the limits of what he can do with magitech and often times he fucks up really badly and the arm either goes dead or seizes up. with the mechanism open, it’s a very simple matter to just have somebody reach in and cut the power lines (or yank out the nerve wires if it’s the hand that’s acting up). unfortunately, it’s also very dangerous to have the machinery open like that and if u grab his arm without thinking u could literally get your hand mangled horribly by the machinery. and it is not water proof 

[clan-fuildarach]

orress and amiri are on the northern coast, trying to use amiri’s charge instincts to navigate. amiri does vaguely know which direction pastore is (and by extension, faolín, luke, et al) but it’s so imprecise that he and orress have had to resort to dropping in to random villages and clans and basically asking for directions 

the pirate ship with all the captured dragons, by the way, is sailing west. if orress and amiri travel along the coast too far west, they’ll stumble into the starfall isles and rezann’s territory. 

rezann and the greater body of the arcane division are also afloat, alarmingly close to the pirate ships in fact. he’s travelling home as fast as possible to re-capture his citadel 

rúth is also on the northern coast, waiting on a beach for orress and amiri to show up. once all three of them are together, rúth will be a far more accurate guide than amiri’s charge instincts.

and that’s what everyone’s doing on the coast 

[clan-fuildarach]

the chase

orress has some difficult choices to make 

~

There it was, a flash of plain white eyes, Faolín lying completely still, and the eyes, the eyes didn’t release her, she couldn’t - she couldn’t - couldn’t feel her legs, her wings, her voice, he simply stared and she could only - the ground hard and smeared with blood and soot, wingbeats, white eyes. 

Orress jolted awake. Before she’d retrieved her senses she was scrambling to her feet, but when she got upright her head ached. She sat down again in the churned earth, pain growing behind her eyes, and concentrated on breathing. Whatever foul magic the wildclaw had hit her with had left its mark in the form of a splitting headache. She knew she had to wait and recover. She also knew she didn’t have the luxury of waiting. 

Through dizzy flashes of thought she saw it again; the line of prisoners, Faolin tossed to the ground as if she were no more than livestock. 

Her nails cut into her palms. Her shoulders shook. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t deserve the indulgence of tears. 

Slowly, Orress pushed herself upright again and took stock of her surroundings. Morning had come to the mountain, pale sunlight washing out the colour of the earth. The flames had gone down to embers and smoke, and tentative birdsong echoed across the ruins of the camp, but this was no reassurance. The wildclaw had been gone for too long. The trail - if there even was a trail - was growing cold. 

She stood in the centre of a ridgeback’s front paw-print. One of her own, most likely. The memories were still fuzzy, but she did recall falling, losing her grip on her shape. It was a wonder she hadn’t crushed anyone. 

A few tattered scraps of black cloth stuck out of the ground nearby. She stumbled over, hoping to find her own clothing, but it was a half-buried body. One of Rezann’s soldiers. Dispassionate, she stripped the man and dressed herself. A few paces away, she found a cheap and dented sword. She stuck it into her borrowed artillery belt and moved on. 

There wasn’t much else to find. The wildclaw’s gang had ransacked the place. With a stiff, mechanical stride she crossed the camp. The wind scoured her skin, burning her mud-clotted wounds. She hardly cared. The world narrowed to a pinpoint, repetitive motion - walk, search, stoop, walk... 

Amiri had to catch her arm to get her attention, shocking her out of her reverie. 

“Captain?” he said, loudly, as if he’d been calling for her already for several minutes. 

She blinked down at him, her eyes widening fractionally. He’d wrapped a piece of canvas over his face in place of a mask, and trailing from his hand was Flick.

“Is he with you?” Amiri said bluntly. “Did you see him?” 

He couldn’t be talking about anyone but Pastore and yes, Orress had seen him. Lying with the others, unmoving and covered in bloody earth. Suddenly she was there again, and Faolín was crumpled on the ground in a spreading pool of blood.  

Her breaths hitched and she took a step back. What was she doing? Faolín still needed help, and Orress was uselessly pacing the camp. With a hiss of pain she pressed her palm to her forehead, as if to force the headache back down. 

“Cap - I mean - Orress,” Amiri said, his voice trembling. “Did you see him? Please tell me.”

It took her a moment to find her voice again. It was raw after all the shouting earlier. “They took him,” she said. 

He didn’t look surprised. With a faint gasp he turned away and seemed to crumple in on himself, his spare hand rising to his chest. Flick stared at him, their eyes huge.

“I’m sorry,” Orress said, resting a tentative hand on his shoulder. “They - they took Faolín, too, I don’t - I don’t know what they wanted with them.” Her voice broke, embarrassingly. “They’ve flown off, we can’t find them alone.”

“He’s still alive,” Amiri said quietly.

She frowned, then her eyebrows rose. The beginnings of a plan stirred into life in her aching head.

“Can you track him?” she said. “He’s your charge - you should know where he is, you can tell if he’s in danger...”

“No, no,” Amiri said, “I was never that kind of guardian, he was always better at that touchy-feely charge shit.”

There was a long silence. Flick stared from Orress to Amiri, trembling. 

Suddenly, Amiri clapped his hands together. “Well,” he said, “I’ll have to try. No choice. And I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty good about north right now...”

Orress glanced round to face north, narrowing her eyes against the morning glare. Fuil Darach’s mountain was the northern-most tip of the range that began with Fortress Dorchadas. There was nothing north of Fuil Darach but a massive stretch of wasteland, and then the sea. Once the wildclaw reached the sea, following him would be nearly impossible. Flight over open water was too much of a risk. 

Once they had their bearing, there was nothing to do but pack as quickly as possible, scouring the clan for food and waterskins. Orress gathered weapons, patching together a modest arsenal from blades ripped off (and sometimes out of) dead bodies. Amiri was more particular, establishing a base around the remains of his dragon-sized prosthetic arm, organising his screws and oil canisters into piles. Flick ran through the camp, grabbing whatever they could find. 

“It’ll be difficult,” Amiri said, making a very brave stab at a cheerful tone, “I’ll have trouble landing without my leg but I’ll make do - no, sweetie, don’t touch that, it’s enchanted -” He waved Flick away from the bundle of supplies; they’d been pawing curiously at his surgestream coat. 

“As long as you can point us in the right direction,” Orress said, wrapping up a pile of whetstones. 

“And, er,” Amiri said, lowering his voice, “Flick... poses a bit of an issue...” 

Orress watched the wildclaw thoughtfully. They were clambering over the giant prosthesis again, using it as a lookout post. Every so often they called for Pastore. The sound of it made Amiri flinch. 

“We can’t bring them,” Orress said firmly. “It’s not safe.”

Amiri dropped his sack of screwdrivers. “What?” he demanded. “Well we certainly can’t leave them, either!”

“They’re too young to keep up,” Orress said, “and a liability in battle - Amiri, you can’t seriously suggest that bringing your child towards hostiles is safe?”

“Of course not!” His voice, so tightly controlled earlier, was starting to break again. “I just - gods, I can’t strand Flick either. You can’t make me do that. Pastore-” His voice cracked and he reached up to hastily dash away tears; this was the first time he’d mentioned Pastore’s name all morning. “Pastore would hate me for it,” he said, after a tearful pause. 

“Da!” Flick yelled, fluttering to the ground near their pile of supplies. “There’s a guardian out on the plains! He looks like Dad!”

Amiri leapt to his feet and clambered onto the prosthesis, craning his neck. Orress tried to see, too, but staring too hard at the pale sand of the plains made her eyes sting. 

“It’s Delta,” Amiri said, after a pause. “He made it out.”

“Great,” Orress said impatiently. “He can look after Flick. We have to leave, right now.”

[clan-fuildarach]

Btw how are ya boys Pastore and Amiri doing? We haven't heard about the Happy Guardians in awhile

haha... happy... yeah....

pastore was taken by some unknown force following the destruction of clan fuil darach, and it seems that amiri and orress are in pursuit. flick is staying with delta rn but he misses his dads 

these are not happy guardians any more

[clan-fuildarach]

amiri's surgestream coat and lead spinner blows my mind

i know right i can’t believe it

[clan-fuildarach]

never get me started on the charge talk i can’t help it oh god here i go again

an example of a healthy relationship between mutual guardians is pastore and amiri, but it didn’t start off that way. pastore’s personality is so high-energy that he tends to fall into the more overbearing protective style camp, while amiri is much more laidback. early on in their relationship, this caused a lot of problems - pastore was even a little possessive, but it’s kind of understandable since amiri was still recovering from his injuries. pastore could go a bit overboard sometimes, constantly checking up to see if amiri was safe, patrolling their little camp for enemies, and - sometimes - trying to restrict amiri’s freedom for his own good. 

now pastore doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, all he wanted was to keep amiri safe and a lot of his behaviour was unconscious. amiri, meanwhile, could be a little too laid back about the whole thing, sometimes leading pastore to worry excessively that his feelings were not reciprocated. so the two of them had to sit down and have a serious discussion about relationship and guardianship boundaries, what is acceptable and what is not, and how much they could allow their species quirk to interfere with the relationship. once they’d both agreed on a relationship model, things progressed a lot more smoothly, until the new rules simply became second nature to them, the end result being a much happier and healthier relationship

on the other side of the camp there’s luke and serraden. i wouldn’t really call it an unhealthy relationship? it was barely a relationship in the first place. but if serraden hadn’t died, it would have ended badly for both of them. like there wasn’t really anything serraden personally could do to hurt luke’s feelings (they were wayyy past that tbh), but that doesn’t really matter. if rúth had confronted luke, serraden would take the blame (in a guardian-charge way i mean) and experience a touch of i-hurt-my-charge discomfort (not guilt - serraden’s style of guardianship was possessive and uncaring to the extreme and he would never feel guilt over a charge’s hurt feelings). though all this is a lot more minor compared to amiri and pastore since 1. the relationship wasn’t deep or meaningful and 2. luke and serraden hated each others guts

i am Sorry for all the charge shenanigans, i tried to cut back but it didn’t work :’)

[clan-fuildarach]

haha whoops 

never let me have gems because i am irresponsible with them