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[img]https://i.imgur.com/6yZrd18.png[/img][/center]

[color=Burlywood]Time:[/color] Evening
[color=Burlywood]Location:[/color] Tough Tavern
[color=Burlywood]Interaction/Mention:[/color] [@TpartywithZombi] Ariella [@Lava Alckon] Drake [@CitrusArms] Stratya [@ReusableSword] Roman [@Samreaper] Kazumin [@Potter] Olivia [@Apex Sunburn] Sjandehk, Cynric, etc.

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The tavern finally fell stunned silent as the battle ceased.

The worst of the shouting had sunk into ragged breathing and the occasional cough, into the sounds people made when adrenaline left them and pain arrived in its place. Bodies lay where they had dropped. Some survivors sat in the wreckage like they had been placed there, too shocked to move. Others crawled without lifting their eyes, as if staring at the floor might keep the night from becoming real.

Outside, the street knew there had been magic. Some had seen the girl who had seemed to siphon darkness itself from the tavern and then retch it up into the open air, and word traveled faster than sense ever did. A crowd formed in minutes, edging closer in slow increments as people argued under their breath. 

Then the doors banged inward.

Duke Gideon Edwards came through with his staff guards at his heels, and the room fixated on him. He did not hesitate at the threshold. He did not pause to count bodies or name horrors, because his eyes were already hunting with a singular focus that made everything else in the room expendable. His guards spread, hands on weapons, not raised to fire blindly but ready to kill anything that moved wrong toward their duke.

[color=Burlywood]“Drake.”[/color] His voice landed heavy in the wrecked room, not a plea so much as a command to the world to give his son back. [color=Burlywood]“Ariella.”[/color]

He stepped over a shattered chair like it was nothing, coat hem catching dark stains, jaw locked so hard the muscle jumped. Somewhere near the edge of that movement, Gideon’s eyes found Stratya. It was a brief look, but he could already see the shape of the story the street would tell once the Crown arrived. He crossed just enough distance to make the warning private.

[color=Burlywood]“You,”[/color] he said sharply. His gaze flicked toward the windows, toward the press of bodies outside. [color=Burlywood]“Do not let anyone see you here. Out the back. Now.”[/color]

Then his attention snapped, catching Charlotte in the periphery, and something protective flashed across his face. [color=Burlywood]“Where are they?”[/color] he demanded, and even when he looked to Charlotte, it did not soften into gentleness.

Charlotte, Olivia, and Kazumin did not waste time trying to summarize a nightmare. They moved because there was no other choice, leading Gideon through the wreckage toward where Drake and Ariella had been found. Gideon barked orders over his shoulder without looking back.

[color=Burlywood]“Home,”[/color] he snapped at them, voice low with urgency. [i][color=Burlywood]“All of you. Now.”[/color][/i]

When he reached his children, the control he had been holding together with sheer will fractured.

Drake was alive, but he did not look like himself; he looked like a young man forced to survive something that had gone far beyond fear. Ariella was worse.

She was too still, lashes unmoving, her body slack in the arms holding her up as if the fight had simply unplugged something inside her. There was blood at her hairline—only a little, but enough that Gideon’s eyes locked onto it with the terror of a father.

He was at her in an instant, catching her face between his hands, thumb skimming her cheekbone with shaking fingers, gaze flicking from her mouth to her throat to the shallow rise of her chest. The duke’s composure failed him entirely. His lips parted, and whatever he meant to say did not make it out.

[color=Burlywood]“Ari,”[/color] he whispered, and the name cracked in the middle. His staff surged in around them, forming a shield without being told.

[color=slategray]“Your Grace—carriage. Now,”[/color] one urged, already pulling a cloak around Ariella’s shoulders.

[color=gray]“Pulse is there. She’s breathing. Keep her warm,”[/color] another said.

Gideon nodded once, and he moved with them—one hand never leaving Ariella, the other gripping Drake’s forearm as if he needed Drake to feel that he was real and still here.

But he turned back once, eyes snapping to Charlotte again, taking in the way she held herself as if adrenaline was the only thing keeping her upright. The fear he felt for his children had not left room for anything else, but now it widened to include her.

[color=Burlywood]“Charlotte Vikena.”[/color] The name came out blunt. [color=Burlywood]“You are leaving this place. [i]Now.[/i]”[/color]

She looked like she might argue. Gideon cut it off with a stare that left no room for negotiation.

[color=Burlywood]“The Crown Guard is coming,”[/color] he announced. [color=Burlywood]“They will want a clean story, and clean stories always need someone to hang. You do not stand here and give them the chance.”[/color]

His gaze swept Olivia and Kazumin, then Roman, then back to Stratya as if confirming she’d understood. He swept over Sjan-dehk and Cynric as well, eyes sharp with the same warning: [i][b]leave[/b][/i]. His staff shifted subtly, opening a corridor toward the back with their bodies. [color=Burlywood]“Out, all of you,”[/color] Gideon ordered. He was already turning with Ariella in his arms when he saw it: [color=red]a grateful young woman stumbling up to Roman, pressing a small glass bottle into his hand. The liquid inside was red, too clean to be wine, and Gideon’s brows furrowed.[/color]

Without breaking stride, he tipped his head toward two of his staff. [color=Burlywood]“You. Stay,”[/color] he said under his breath. [color=Burlywood]“Get the injured out the back. Keep them moving.”[/color]

Then he raised his voice again so everyone still standing could hear it. [color=Burlywood]“Take whoever can walk,”[/color] Gideon barked. [color=Burlywood]“No heroics.”[/color]

A handful of patrons seized that mercy immediately. They moved like shipwrecked people who had spotted shore, slipping into the narrow gap Gideon’s guards created. Others hesitated, paralyzed by shock, by loyalty, by fear of what waited outside, and Gideon did not have time to drag them.

Outside, the crowd tried to swell forward at the sight of Drake and Ariella being brought out. The Edwards staff did not allow the street to touch them.

[color=Burlywood]“Hospital,”[/color] Gideon snapped, and the carriage door shut.

Only when that door slammed, sealing them away from the world, did the sound he made stop being a command at all. It was a broken, helpless exhale that turned into a sob he tried to swallow and failed. Gideon bent over Ariella, pressing his forehead to her knuckles, and tears fell in silence, tracking into his beard as he cupped the side of her face again.

[color=Burlywood]“Breathe, sweetheart,”[/color] he said, voice wrecked, thumb brushing her cheek. [color=Burlywood]“Come on. Stay with me, baby girl.”[/color] Then he dragged in a breath that shook. [color=Burlywood]“If anyone delays this carriage, I will have them thrown under the wheels.”[/color] Only then did his hand find Drake’s again
.
[color=Burlywood]“You did good, my son,”[/color] he managed. [color=Burlywood]“You’re safe. I’ve got you. I’ve got you both.”[/color]

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[center][h1][color=gold]The Arrival of the Guards[/color][/h1]
[sub][@TpartywithZombi] [@Lava Alckon] [@CitrusArms] [@ReusableSword][@Samreaper] [@Potter] [@Apex Sunburn] [@Tae][/sub][/center]

Constables surged in first, forming a hard cordon and forcing the crowd back by steady increments that turned inches into yards. Behind them came armed guards in proper uniform with muskets and fixed bayonets, not leveled at civilians but held where everyone could see them—an unspoken reminder of what happened when a street decided it could become a mob.

[color=lightslategray]“Clear the road!”[/color] an officer shouted. [color=lightslategray]“Back—keep moving!”[/color]
 [color=gray]“If you see a runner, you take him!”[/color]

When the entry team pushed into the tavern, they slowed despite themselves. They were trained for violence, but training did not make one immune to the sight of too many bodies in one room, to blood drying black against wood, to the way furniture looked like it had been used first as cover and then as a bludgeon. A flicker of awe crossed a few faces briefly before they started shouting.

[color=dimgray]“CROWN GUARD!”[/color] the lead sergeant bellowed. [color=dimgray]“DOWN ON THE FLOOR. HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM. WEAPONS DOWN—NOW!”[/color]

Those who remained obeyed with shaking hands and wide eyes. Some sobbed. Some stared into nothing. A few clung to one another like the room might collapse if they let go. And when the constables began asking questions—probing for a story that fit neatly into a report—the survivors answered with stubborn unity.

It had been thugs, they said. Armed masked men, and two mages on their side.

When a constable’s gaze narrowed, and his questions slid toward the rumors boiling outside—toward the way the air had twisted, toward the shadows that had been swallowed whole—the patrons did not give up their saviors. They did not point at the ones who had fought for them.

However, that did not mean suspicions were satisfied. [i]After all, it was unlikely that the patrons of the tavern had been able to fend off two mages without the help of others.[/i][/color]