[X] Just leave the grounded plane.
Fuck it. It's down and out. And you needed to get Riya a medic. You extended away from the finished battle, following the airship's floodlights as it touched down and released a platoon of men out into the base. There was a degree of detachment, watching from the air. It was silent from this height, and you could barely tell what was going on, but the line of gunfire seemed to shift towards the base as the battle quickly unfolded. You reunited with Edgar in the air, who you signed to that Riya was alright but needed medical attention. After a while you stopped watching the battle and just focused on circling the base while keeping Riya conscious, even if she was almost constantly weakly begging you to let her go into shock. You wouldn't take any risks though. Eventually, a purple flare shot into the sky with a shriek, signaling victory on the side of your allies. Taking a sigh of relief, you quickly circled down to the runway and skidded to a stop on the wooden wheels, which was a much harder landing than the vulcanized rubber coverings of your old plane's wheels.
Once you came to a stop you grabbed Riya's body and hoisted her out of the cockpit, your body still swimming in adrenaline. Your arms were shaking, holding her, but she needed a doctor so you didn't care if you pushed your muscles to failure for her. You called out for a medic, and soon she was taken away with the other wounded. There were at least ten. And a lot more motionless purple uniformed boys lying facedown on the airstrip in the direction of the concrete headquarters.
"You ok?" Edgar asked loud enough for your muffled hearing to still pick up on. You jumped, and turned around back towards him.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I think, I might have bruised something on my back from the impact into Riya's cockpit and I'm not really sure if she's gonna be ok and I'm afraid the last thing I will have said to her is just insulting her and calling her a coward and I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do in this-" You started rambling, just feeling numb all over but knowing there was a flood of emotions behind the protective dam your brain created to make sure you got through today without dying. Edgar hugged you, firmly, and you hugged back. You really, really needed it. You looked back towards Riya getting taken away on a stretcher, back towards the airship, along with about thirty people in dirty clothes. Most of them were women and children, and almost none of them were even wearing military uniforms. You assumed this base was most likely like Festung Frosthöhe, just somewhere people lived before the Goths showed up.
"She's going to be ok. You magicked her better, right?" Edgar asked.
"I did what I could. I made the injuries non lethal." You responded, starting to breathe steady again, now realizing you were panting like a dog beforehand.
"Then she'll be ok, won't she?" He asked again. You just nodded and smiled. You really just needed someone to tell you that. You couldn't really handle this right now. You just wanted to go to sleep. Eventually you let go of Edgar, thanked him, and stumbled back to Riya's plane to take it home.
The flight home was just as simple, and you tried your hardest to keep yourself mentally checked out for the duration. You just followed the airship. You didn't even really think about the route you were taking. You didn't think about what had to have gone down when the Goths overtook that base, or what if must have felt like bleeding out in your cockpit, fully aware that you might have been about to die, or what would have happened if you didn't decide to enchant your broom on this day in particular, or if you simply weren't you and your soul began this life as someone else. What if you'd been born into a military base? Or grown up in a patriarchal commune devoid of magic? Would you have still left home? Probably. Honestly even if you'd grown up loved, you'd still have left home. You had a restless spirit. That's at least what you told yourself.
You bought a hotel room with some folded up military propaganda fliers, washed yourself in the shower, which was the first time you even took one, but you didn't even care about this novel experience. You would deal with all of this, tomorrow. Tomorrow. You collapsed into bed with soaking hair, ears, and tail, curled up with the blankets reversed over you like an animal nest, and shoved the lamp off the table, and let it shatter on the floor. You could pay for another. You were thoroughly in the "not caring about shit" state. You reveled in the darkness and silence, finally sleeping in a bed for the first time in about a month.
Mission complete! Good on y'all. I genuinely thought I was about to kill off Riya. Honestly it's kind of hilarious to me that nearly every near death experience that's happened has been from random offhanded hard moves I've taken thinking "there's no way they can fuck this up." and then y'all almost die. TWO NAT 20s! That's a 1/400 chance! Anyway, let's just move onto the landing and then stress relief phase.
First off, you trust Riya again. When you take the Help action to help a friend, you trust them again if you hadn't already. So that's 1 additional stress. On top of that, you used magic violently, and a comrade didn't crash, but they might as well have, so I'm marking an additional stress.
You have taken 3 stress from this mission, on top of another from wing walking which I believe I've already marked down.
[ ] Write in our plan for stress relief. I know SV loves sapphics but if y'all are serious about boofing Edgar's donk I will write whatever is voted for.