[Location: Holo Taxon]

[thornandmoss]

Briar buried each of his hands in a jar of the temple's medicine supply, green energy flowing from his fingers into the dried plants. The medicines were due for a renewal, and this would double their strength. They would be needed.

The Yanxing emperor had decided his empire was not vast enough, and his troops were coming. A temple might be a terrible thing to target, but it was a strategically sound one. Living Circle temples were centers for mages and healers, and they would be as vital to the defense of Gyongxe as civilian militia. Briar's first priority was always Rosethorn and Evvy, but doing everything he could to help temple mages and healers survive the onslaught came in a close second. Time was limited, and he set aside his current jars to move on to the next pair.

Bells rang, a warning rather than a call to service. Briar's head snapped up. Extending his magic through the network of plants in and around the temple, Briar withdrew as several of them died. The temple was burning. Where were Rosethorn and Evvy?

Briar ran toward the fires rather than away, keeping an eye out for Rosethorn's familiar green magic as he went. She would always be where she could do the most good, unless she were looking out for someone. He stopped very briefly to pull a jar of burn salve and three cloth-wrapped balls of thorn seeds from the kit slung over his back, then broke into a sprint. He had to find them.

Comments

[thornandmoss]

"No, I'm sorry you're here. This is--" not home, though it was of his own world at least. The strange city was preferable to being back in Gyongxe. 'My nightmare' was more revealing a description than Briar was willing to share, however resoundingly accurate it might be. Eventually he settled for, "somewhere I've been before," just to keep the pause from stretching out indefinitely.

Briar stiffened for a moment in Martha's embrace, the shock of finding another familiar face here delaying his reaction. Then he hugged her back, almost tight enough to hurt, desperation seeping into the gesture against Briar's will. The city and his own world were mixing together. Bad enough he was back in Gyongxe, but for other people to be here too? People who never should have been.

The mage shook his head, pressing his hands to the sides of his face and trying to focus on finding Rosethorn. If something happened to her because he was too inept to concentrate? That was a failing he couldn't even think about. "I don't know how much is real, and I can't leave them," he said quietly, the same stubbornness in his voice that had convinced Gwen earlier. He was running out of time now, though. "It's my mother and my student." Briar managed to keep his voice from breaking on the word 'mother,' but use of the word without 'foster' in front of it was rare enough that if Martha knew him just a little better, it would be every bit as obvious. Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy had helped each other escape once. They'd gotten out of this. He couldn't leave without them now.

[allthatlife]

He didn't need to tell Martha that this burning city was his nightmare. Even if she hadn't come directly from the ashen remains of London and her own dark memories of the Master's reign, his expression would have told her everything that she needed to know.

"Ok," said Martha, staying relatively calm despite the circumstances. If the positions had been reversed, and her family had been missing, nothing would have stopped her from searching for them. "If they're here, we'll find them. Together. I'm not letting you do this on your own."

[thornandmoss]

Briar frowned, forehead creasing between his eyebrows. He didn't want to ask Martha to follow him into trouble. At the same time, he'd be lying if he pretended it wasn't a comfort. Having someone he knew by his side provided reassurance in a measure to more than equal the additional worry it caused.

In the end, there wasn't anything Briar could say other than a very sincere, "Thank you."

He frowned and looked in the direction Martha had come from. "This way, I think, until it gets too dangerous," he decided.

[allthatlife]

He didn't need to ask her. She'd followed the Doctor into trouble on more than one occasion and she wouldn't hesitate to do the same for Briar. It wasn't difficult to see that he needed her at the moment and that he would continue to need her regardless of what they did or didn't find.

"That's what friends are for," she said simply, offering him her hand and turning in the direction that he'd indicated. "Let's go."

[thornandmoss]

Briar managed a grateful smile even in Gyongxe, for the word friend and for Martha's willingness to stay. He nodded decisively, teeth gritted and chin jutting out in stubborn determination. The hand in his caught him off-guard, but Briar gave it a light squeeze.

When he started moving, he didn't run, but he didn't exactly amble along at a leisurely pace either. As they traveled along the corridor, the smell of smoke grew stronger. Briar tried hard not to feel like a tree about to be caught in the worst sort of forest fire.

Shouts began to echo down the hall, and Briar flinched slightly. Not enough that most would notice, but the hands linked between them gave the involuntary movement a channel.

[allthatlife]

It was a reasonable pace - even now, she couldn't help but note that the Doctor would have been running - and Martha kept up without difficulty. When Briar flinched, she squeezed his hand in a gesture of comfortable that would have been just as imperceptible to anyone else.

"They're not real," she said, firmly. "The aliens made them. They made all of this."

[thornandmoss]

Briar barely heard Martha, however firm her voice. It should be something to latch onto, but right then Briar was too busy sorting out memories from current situation. Flashbacks every so often really weren't helping him. He sent his magic snaking farther out in front of them, weaving through corridors like spreading roots. "Ouch," he murmured as it picked up just a few too many plants withering and dying. "I can't feel her. Just plants, and they're all suffocating, burning up." As what she said finally reached him, Briar looked at Martha and added, "The plants are real. There's no proof the people aren't."

Briar sped up. Where was Rosethorn? She should be keeping Evvy safe, so if he could find one of them, he'd have them both. He rounded one corner. Magic still extended in front of him, Briar felt the death of every plant, but none of what he was looking for. The air grew hotter, and he coughed as the first wave of smoke entered his lungs. It wasn't right that he was dragging Martha further into this. Rosethorn. He couldn't leave.

Briar stopped for a moment, crouching down below the worst of the smoke and gesturing for Martha to do the same. He began pulling medicines out of his pack. He handed one jar of burn salve to Martha, tucking the other into the pouch at his waist instead of the larger kit. Glad the kit was perfectly stocked, he pulled out two small waterskins. He dumped a packet of tea into each. "If you inhale too much smoke, drink some. You'll cough a lot but it'll get the stuff out of your lungs." They couldn't go too much further, and Briar should be able to feel Rosethorn by now. He was just shy of panic. When he started moving again, it wasn't upright. He crouched, down where the smoke wasn't as bad. He would shift to crawling in a minute, and then they would hit a dead end, too many flames. Briar's mind screamed at him not to think about that.

[allthatlife]

Martha wanted to tell him that plants and people were very different things, but, even if Briar had been listening to her, it wouldn't have made a difference. She didn't understand his magic and she certainly didn't understand the sort of bond that he had with plants. All she could do was stay close and hope to keep him out of trouble.

She dropped down immediately, accepting the tea with gratitude.

"If she's here, we're going to find her," she promised, forced to release his hand in order to crawl but remaining as close as she could.

[thornandmoss]

Once they started moving, he gave in and asked Martha for help. "I can't... tell me when you see flames, not just smoke, alright?" Briar was already seeing them, and he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't anymore. Even in a jumbled mixup of memory and reality, though, Briar still had faith that he'd know Rosethorn the second he felt her.

"Yes," Briar breathed, coughing after he'd gotten out the word. Martha's promise replaced the desperate chorus of Find them, find them, find them in Briar's head with a slightly calmer mantra of Going to find them.

He withdrew his magic. There were no plants to run it through anymore. Briar would have to find them the old-fashioned way.

[allthatlife]

She nodded, stifling a cough and tearing off a strip of her shirt to use as a makeshift face mask. It wasn't much, but it would at least keep her from breathing in some of the particles of dust. She handed a second strip to Briar a moment later.

"Here," she said, "Put this over your mouth and nose."

They still had a long way to go.

[thornandmoss]

"Thanks," he repeated, sounding a lot more grateful than he would for just a strip of cloth.

He crawled forward, the floor growing hotter beneath his hands and the smoke searing his eyes. "Rosethorn!" he manages to get out, but he knows that at this point she's elsewhere or she's gone. Nothing looks any different, he's been seeing flames all along, but something in the air tells Briar that this time they might be real. They spread so quickly last time. Nothing has changed, just another night in his nightmares. This time, though, without Rosethorn, and with Martha dragged along.

He waits for confirmation from Martha that the orange light flickering through the smoke in the hall isn't imaginary and tries not to have a breakdown here in the smoke-filled corridor. Rosethorn has to be elsewhere in the temple, then. She'll be headed for the exit he sent Gwen and the other mage toward. He'll meet her there.