All Dogs Go To Heaven / 09.09.20 / Baine & Frankie
Sept 10, 2020 12:59:50 GMT
Pieni, BB, and 2 more like this
Post by Ser Baine Cinderwood 🔥🌼 on Sept 10, 2020 12:59:50 GMT
“Can you hear me?”
In the stillness of the perpetual dawn of Elysium, Baine closes his eyes. The ground beneath him is soft. The warm wind rustles the roses around him gently.
“Can you hear me?”
Using his magic in Lathander’s own realm is as easy as breathing. Baine had done his best to copy what he’d seen Varis do to summon Tuevel but the two friends draw on their magic in very different ways. The half-orc closes his eyes and lets the warmth of the rising sun guide him, lets his love for Frankie and Lathander both take him where he needs to go.
“Can you hear me? C’mon mate. Can you hear me? Can you hear me, can you hear me, ca-”
“Hello! Oh. Wow. Yeah, this is. This is something, alright.”
Rholor is a big aloof nerd but he knows his stuff. Baine hugs him so hard his spine realigns and in return, the High Diviner informs him that Aurelia is more than capable of sending him to Elysium, the actual realm of The Big Lad In The Sky. Baine takes a moment to marvel once more at the fact that this is his life, somehow, and gathers up a good crew.
Varis and Tuevel, BB and Blue, Pi and Hummingbee. Sheryl and Astra and Ghesh and his weapons. It’s not an emergency, it’s not something threatening to lay waste to their homes. It’s just a man wanting to keep his dog around more than he already does, and they all came to help.
Aurelia hums and traces runes and seems almost excited at the prospect of opening a portal to someplace new and interesting. It sparks bright and purple and suddenly they’re all there - in Elysium.
Under a rising sun painting the sky pink and orange, roses grow across endless fields. BB looks like she might faint. In the distance, Pi spots a pair of pegasi. They set off.
In a valley they find a truly astounding amount of celestial dogs and horses, wrangled and looked after by an angel named Evelyn. She stands tall and imposing with golden curls and an arm made entirely of radiant light and she spends a solid minute saying hello to Frankie before greeting the rest of them. She clearly has her priorities sorted.
Making Frankie celestial and summoning him as a steed isn’t a problem at all - Baine isn’t the first paladin to have this bright idea - but she needs a special flower to use as part of the ritual; the Dawn’s Rose. (BB, wicker basket full of roses already, takes a deep, steadying breath.)
Keeping Evelyn from these special flowers and the valley in which they grow are apparently a pair of Sphinxes. Deal with the big cats, get the flower, make Frankie big. Easy peasy.
There’s riddles, of course, but there’s also wrestling. Baine feels an immediate kinship with the AmBroSphinxes and offers a tousle in place of one of their riddles. He loses, but only barely. Sheryl shouts encouragement from the sidelines and it’s the most fun he’s had in months.
Together, they solve the riddles as well. They even solve a riddle for the Sphinxes themselves so they can go back to the valley they’re supposed to hang out in. Pi stumps them with an absolute whopper of a riddle that leaves them in a defeated mood but they slink away and BB expertly plucks the flowers needed.
Back at her rustic stone cottage, Evelyn prepares a potion. She asks Baine if he’s sure about what he’s asking Frankie to do. It’s a shock as always, the realisation of what his life is and how it contrasts with other people; violence and blood and death. But the only way Frankie can make that choice for himself is if he’s just a touch smarter than he is now. Evelyn nods and feeds the potion to Frankie, drawing a glowing, golden line from his forehead to his nose.
Smiling, she turns back to Baine.
“There! All done.”
There’s a door in his mind and before he even opens it, Baine knows who’s on the other side.
He opens the door and his eyes at the same time, coming face to face and mind to mind with his best friend, the goodest boy there ever was. He looks the same, apart from the golden line down his face and the fact that he’s the size of a draft horse.
There’s some more wrestling. Some hugging. Some explaining that if Frankie wanted to, he could come with Baine on his adventures. Frankie makes an informed choice and as always, chooses to be where Baine is. He’s the bravest of them all, Baine always said.
Evelyn drags out a chest with items from her adventuring days and hands them out as thanks for their help in dealing with the sphinxes. In the distance, Frankie chases a long-suffering Tuevel around the valley before two steeds bump heads and seemingly discuss the important task they now share.
They say their goodbyes and, with a standing invitation to return whenever they like, they go home.
The giant bear of a dog stands still in the middle of the compound training yard. The war hounds have spilled out of the kennels and are milling around his feet, falling over themselves to show Frankie just how much he’s in charge, but he pays them no mind.
“They all died, didn’t they?”
Baine sniffs a little. Nods.
“Yeah, in Avernus.”
“I knew they were gone and I knew you were sad but- I didn’t really understand it, I guess.”
Frankie’s grief at the losses they suffered in the Rift War - and the war with the Giants before that - is fresh and inescapable, but there’s immediate solace and comfort to be found in the bond the two now share. After a long moment Frankie shakes his head as if to shake water from his fur. He turns his large brown eyes towards the barracks and Baine feels a strain of amusement in the back of his mind.
“I won’t fit in there anymore, will I? Even if I get in through the door, your bed is way too small. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m like, massive now. Stronger than you probably.”
Baine shoulder checks the large dog in his side, moving him a scant inch across the packed earth. From the sidelines, Bo and Ollie seem very conflicted about who they would root for in a fight.
“Not a fucking chance, mate,” the half-orc laughs. “And if you were, I’ve still got thumbs, so. You know.”
Frankie raises a massive paw and bats Baine aside to squeeze himself through the door to the sleeping quarters. A moment later there’s the sound of wood scraping across stone as Frankie starts pushing bunk beds around to make space.
“Don’t have thumbs, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, like I needs thumbs, I’m bigger than a fucking bear.”
“Watch your fucking language.”
“Bite me.”
There’s a moment’s silence.
“Want some help with that?”
“...Yeah.”
Fin.
The door analogy stolen from andycd who made this amazing session happen. ❤️🐶
In the stillness of the perpetual dawn of Elysium, Baine closes his eyes. The ground beneath him is soft. The warm wind rustles the roses around him gently.
“Can you hear me?”
Using his magic in Lathander’s own realm is as easy as breathing. Baine had done his best to copy what he’d seen Varis do to summon Tuevel but the two friends draw on their magic in very different ways. The half-orc closes his eyes and lets the warmth of the rising sun guide him, lets his love for Frankie and Lathander both take him where he needs to go.
“Can you hear me? C’mon mate. Can you hear me? Can you hear me, can you hear me, ca-”
“Hello! Oh. Wow. Yeah, this is. This is something, alright.”
Rholor is a big aloof nerd but he knows his stuff. Baine hugs him so hard his spine realigns and in return, the High Diviner informs him that Aurelia is more than capable of sending him to Elysium, the actual realm of The Big Lad In The Sky. Baine takes a moment to marvel once more at the fact that this is his life, somehow, and gathers up a good crew.
Varis and Tuevel, BB and Blue, Pi and Hummingbee. Sheryl and Astra and Ghesh and his weapons. It’s not an emergency, it’s not something threatening to lay waste to their homes. It’s just a man wanting to keep his dog around more than he already does, and they all came to help.
Aurelia hums and traces runes and seems almost excited at the prospect of opening a portal to someplace new and interesting. It sparks bright and purple and suddenly they’re all there - in Elysium.
Under a rising sun painting the sky pink and orange, roses grow across endless fields. BB looks like she might faint. In the distance, Pi spots a pair of pegasi. They set off.
In a valley they find a truly astounding amount of celestial dogs and horses, wrangled and looked after by an angel named Evelyn. She stands tall and imposing with golden curls and an arm made entirely of radiant light and she spends a solid minute saying hello to Frankie before greeting the rest of them. She clearly has her priorities sorted.
Making Frankie celestial and summoning him as a steed isn’t a problem at all - Baine isn’t the first paladin to have this bright idea - but she needs a special flower to use as part of the ritual; the Dawn’s Rose. (BB, wicker basket full of roses already, takes a deep, steadying breath.)
Keeping Evelyn from these special flowers and the valley in which they grow are apparently a pair of Sphinxes. Deal with the big cats, get the flower, make Frankie big. Easy peasy.
There’s riddles, of course, but there’s also wrestling. Baine feels an immediate kinship with the AmBroSphinxes and offers a tousle in place of one of their riddles. He loses, but only barely. Sheryl shouts encouragement from the sidelines and it’s the most fun he’s had in months.
Together, they solve the riddles as well. They even solve a riddle for the Sphinxes themselves so they can go back to the valley they’re supposed to hang out in. Pi stumps them with an absolute whopper of a riddle that leaves them in a defeated mood but they slink away and BB expertly plucks the flowers needed.
Back at her rustic stone cottage, Evelyn prepares a potion. She asks Baine if he’s sure about what he’s asking Frankie to do. It’s a shock as always, the realisation of what his life is and how it contrasts with other people; violence and blood and death. But the only way Frankie can make that choice for himself is if he’s just a touch smarter than he is now. Evelyn nods and feeds the potion to Frankie, drawing a glowing, golden line from his forehead to his nose.
Smiling, she turns back to Baine.
“There! All done.”
There’s a door in his mind and before he even opens it, Baine knows who’s on the other side.
He opens the door and his eyes at the same time, coming face to face and mind to mind with his best friend, the goodest boy there ever was. He looks the same, apart from the golden line down his face and the fact that he’s the size of a draft horse.
There’s some more wrestling. Some hugging. Some explaining that if Frankie wanted to, he could come with Baine on his adventures. Frankie makes an informed choice and as always, chooses to be where Baine is. He’s the bravest of them all, Baine always said.
Evelyn drags out a chest with items from her adventuring days and hands them out as thanks for their help in dealing with the sphinxes. In the distance, Frankie chases a long-suffering Tuevel around the valley before two steeds bump heads and seemingly discuss the important task they now share.
They say their goodbyes and, with a standing invitation to return whenever they like, they go home.
The giant bear of a dog stands still in the middle of the compound training yard. The war hounds have spilled out of the kennels and are milling around his feet, falling over themselves to show Frankie just how much he’s in charge, but he pays them no mind.
“They all died, didn’t they?”
Baine sniffs a little. Nods.
“Yeah, in Avernus.”
“I knew they were gone and I knew you were sad but- I didn’t really understand it, I guess.”
Frankie’s grief at the losses they suffered in the Rift War - and the war with the Giants before that - is fresh and inescapable, but there’s immediate solace and comfort to be found in the bond the two now share. After a long moment Frankie shakes his head as if to shake water from his fur. He turns his large brown eyes towards the barracks and Baine feels a strain of amusement in the back of his mind.
“I won’t fit in there anymore, will I? Even if I get in through the door, your bed is way too small. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m like, massive now. Stronger than you probably.”
Baine shoulder checks the large dog in his side, moving him a scant inch across the packed earth. From the sidelines, Bo and Ollie seem very conflicted about who they would root for in a fight.
“Not a fucking chance, mate,” the half-orc laughs. “And if you were, I’ve still got thumbs, so. You know.”
Frankie raises a massive paw and bats Baine aside to squeeze himself through the door to the sleeping quarters. A moment later there’s the sound of wood scraping across stone as Frankie starts pushing bunk beds around to make space.
“Don’t have thumbs, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, like I needs thumbs, I’m bigger than a fucking bear.”
“Watch your fucking language.”
“Bite me.”
There’s a moment’s silence.
“Want some help with that?”
“...Yeah.”
Fin.
The door analogy stolen from andycd who made this amazing session happen. ❤️🐶