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[bardische]

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[bardische]

Well, at least he isn't too rattled, if he can quip.

Basch just nods, getting the binds off and offering an arm to help him up. He hadn't meant it as a jibe at balance, only a question of skill and and stamina.

"Your bird will follow mine. We go."

Except an arrow pierces the wagon's side, and immediately the heat of flame blooms.

[disarming_prince]

What is the point of being rattled? There's no value to it. He was battle hardened, so he was not going to be shaken by all of this.

He doesn't even flinch as the arrow lands so close to them. There is a little jolt of something around his hand which had already come to lay on Basch's skin. But it's gone just as fast. Ravus ignores it, ducks low, and tackles Basch right out through the open door of the wagon. There. That gets them outside with minimal burns. You're welcome.

rises from the dead on this one. it sure has been a month

[bardische]

He lets out a startled sound, when Ravus lays something on his skin, and stronger yet when he's tackled out.

He says nothing. Rolls the other man and gets to his own feet while offering a hand up, eyes searching.

The camp is ablaze. It's chaos, and hard to tell who is who. The chocobos are still penned. He'll free them, and they'll leave that way.

"This way," he says, taking Ravus's forearm. "You first. I'll steer." He frees the other chocobos, then gets to his knees, offering laced hands as a step onto the bird.

[disarming_prince]

Getting just short of dragged along to the birds is frustrating, but he supposes there's no point to arguing. And he even swallows his pride at having to get a hand up. Which is clearly kind of him. He mounts up and goes his best to tangle his hand into the reins to stabilize himself a bit more. Surely the man doesn't mean sharing a bird... Surely not.

[bardische]

He can't leave Ravus on his own, not as a prisoner and not when he doesn't know how stable the man's riding is. The latter matters more to him. It's hardly a beat before he swings up behind him, oblivious to their closeness outside putting a stabilizing arm around the other. He scans their attackers, but its fire and chaos, and so he clicks in his throat and kicks lightly, urging the chocobo on. There's a safe house east of here, and they can zigzag through some of the desert.

[disarming_prince]

Ravus is too dignified and proper of a man to yelp in shock over a man mounting up behind him. Wrapping himself around Ravus. Which is a reasonable thing to do when sharing a bird.

Which doesn't help with the fact that there is this strange tingling running over Ravus's skin. He hates it.

"Is this bird even any fast?"

[bardische]

"Faster than we are on foot," Basch grunts, attention on their weak flank and the trajectory of another fire spell. When Ravus does not take the reins, Basch reaches around to grasp them, clicking instructions to the bird while kicking its sides lightly.

The bird breaks into a canter, and Basch instinctively moves his thighs to stabilize the other, like he's a new recruit or a civilian.

[disarming_prince]

That's perhaps true, if the thing was carrying but one person. Who knows if that is true now.

"I still cannot fathom why you are so intent upon my safety," he grumbles as Basch gets the bird moving.

[bardische]

Basch has trained double. He's had to rescue too many people not to.

"You are my charge, and it is not your fault you are here," he says, once again missing that the acerbic tone is how Ravus deals with this situation.

[disarming_prince]

And Ravus, of course, was never expected to do rescue duties. So of course he wasn't trained to ride double.

"Is it not? I traded my life for hers," he says, his voice soft and pensive. If he had resisted... But alas, he had failed her.

[bardische]

"It matters not; you are my charge and I will protect you within my ability."

It was not worth arguing beyond that; he understood sacrificing one's life for someone else's, ad he would be a fool and a hypocrite to try to talk that down. But it did not affect his own duty.

"But I respect your commitment and your obligation. Still, are you not more use to her alive?"

Talking helps. It's a distraction. But he's scanning the horizon, expertly steering the bird in the direction of the safe house.

[disarming_prince]

"One cannot be of use to the dead by being alive," Ravus hisses out as they ride. "And my nation will never forgive me that fact. It is not the sons of the line that matter. It was always the daughters of the Nox Fleuret."

And there, he supposes, is that useless secret out in the air between them. Ravus was no mere general being demanded for a hostage exchange. He was a prince, and perhaps key to control being maintained over Tenebrae. No wonder he was so bitter about being turned over to the nation who had been the death of his mother. She had been no incidental lost in the war by accident, she had been actively executed. And his disdain for the Nilfheim superiors had a lot to do with the loss of a sister, not just a rightful queen.

[bardische]

His grip tightens in sympathy, even as he drives them away from the chaos.

“I am sorry for your loss.” He understood what it was to lose someone to war.

It takes him a moment, busy as he is, to link together the information Ravus has revealed. His own queen has lost family in politics for the throne. It makes his chest ache. He wants to intervene somehow, but — what is the cost when nations are at stake? and what does he know of politics. He is a soldier and nothing more.

Still he finds himself saying, “I am not sure my lady has your side of the story. You should speak with her. If it is advantageous to keep you in our country instead, she will be open to it.”

[disarming_prince]

"No one has my side of the story," Ravus dismisses. "Ravus Nox Fleuret died alongside his mother years ago. To all knowledge, the line died with my sister."

Which was not at all accurate of course. He kept it silent for her. He was willing to be dead for her. And now it would help no one.

"They need me, to put a new puppet in charge. Perhaps to try and force your Queen into a marriage into the empire by using me. There are many reasons to not let me survive this trip."

[bardische]

He may not be a politician but he knows his queen. She must be missing some piece of this; he thinks she would have told him Ravus was a prince, and he knows she does not wish to marry. Someone is playing her.

“Perhaps you could be lost on this trip. A fatality of this ambush.”

But — “Would you know how to disappear?”

It isn’t worth helping him escape if the man is just going to let himself wind up dead.

[disarming_prince]

Someone was playing them all. This is not strange. Ravus knows that the Emperor's advisor, one Ardyn Izunia, was quite cunning. If there was a hand moving pieces it woudl be his.

As for knowing how to disappear, Ravus laughs. Of course he does not know that. He is unarmed, literally in two manners. No, he could not survive out here. But he had already made it quite clear he did not care to.

"Of course I would," he lies, confidently, blatantly.

[bardische]

Basch doesn't believe him. He can't say why, but he feels it deep in his gut. He would need to get word to the Queen, would need to give her time to sort this out, but there were other Guards, and others with a better hand in politics. She trusted him to handle those things that were messy, complex, that she did not need to hear.

He'd already made his decision. He would disappear with Ravus, at least until the other was properly settled. And for that they'd need to get out of this country and the adjacent ones.

"How far can you walk without deep rest?"

Because he's judging when to lose the chocobo, perhaps with false evidence of one or both of their demises attached.

[disarming_prince]

"I am not certain," Ravus admitted. If he had been asked before his injury and capture, he could easily have given a good metric.

But that had been a while ago, and the guards upon him in his captivity had been by no means gentle. Nor his meals full. So he had no good measure of what he was capable of now.

[bardische]

It's a valid answer, and Basch is not frustrated, just recalculating. He does wonder at the effects of prison -- his own imprisonment had not been kind.

Close enough to somewhere they can get supplies then. "We ride hard, and then we will walk." He pushes the bird into a canter, gripping Ravus.

It is a hard ride, for near an hour, before they reach an outpost. He loops it twice, checking they were not followed and that it is safe. Then he swings down, pulls Ravus off like he is little more than a child or a recruit, and fishes red clay from the safe house supplies to smear ont he bird. He tears part of his own uniform to leave with the bird, and slaps it back toward how they came.

He watches, out of the corner of his eye, to see if Ravus tries to run or if he stays put. Either are alright.

[disarming_prince]

The movement of the bird, along with a strong and solid weight behind him, lulls Ravus into an unexpected (and honestly much needed) doze. He doesn't wake until he feels Basch move from behind him, and that is a sudden jerking back to full consciousness. He would likely have fallen off of the bird's back if it were not for Bash immediately hauling him down.

Finding his balance is harder than he imagined after that, his legs not adjusting to solid, immobile ground as quick as it once did. He does manage to balance himself soon enough, and is left staring as Basch acts.

"Do you truly believe clay smeared into feathers will be mistaken for spilled blood?" he asks, incredulous. If they caught the bird surely the game would be up.

[bardische]

He noted, silently, that Ravus settled and dozed as they rode. Perhaps something to use again if he needed to. Basch understood; sometimes being so keyed up, the only way sleep came was physical exhaustion and a lulling activity.

"I believe it can fool at a distance, and a few seconds saved often turns a battle. It will also suggest we went east to the marshes where the clay comes from instead of north here. Besides. That chocobo bites."

[disarming_prince]

That was more forethought than Ravus had expected of the other man. Which was probably impolite and wrong on his side. But he hardly cares about that.

"As do I," Ravus mumbles. Though he doubts he can do the same sort of damage as the bird.

[bardische]

Basch is not easily offended, and he prefers to be thought of little than to be over considered. Still, he is good at his job.

He does smile, though, as he works to get the magical guards on the safehouse open, and with it the concealed door.

"Than I shall endeavor to keep my hands safely away from the both of you."

Door revealed, he holds it open. "We rest, and eat."

[disarming_prince]

"You have done poorly at avoiding that," he says with a shrug.

But then he steps past Basch. He's going to allow this, for now. He steps in and looks around, considering the space he is supposed to, in theory, be safe in.

"And you believe this place secure?"

[bardische]

Perhaps he had. He was starting to think he'd done poorly with this entire mission. But all he could do was adjust and push forward.

"It is," he agrees, closing the door and restoring the wards. "There is old magic here; we will not be found while it is shut, but it is not wise to stay long."

The space is small, one central room with a small stove, a single modest sized bed, a few chairs. There's a bathroom off to one side.

"Take the bed and rest. I will make food and stand watch until we switch."