Huh. What. That was really weird! 

:Marius?: 

Marius is confused and exhausted and hates his life right now. 

:A group of four young adults suddenly appeared right outside the White Winds barrier! At - just about the same moment that the attack over there happened. .....What's going on?: 

:......I don't know. Yet: 

Pause. 

:- Word on the relay was that - that -: 

:That what: 

:That - Vanyel was alive: 

:......:

From the team's perspective: there appear to be two adults, one of them being the man in white who walked them over here, and one of them standing just outside the tent that Orion just looked into and then stepped away from, and they're both frozen on the spot and staring at each other. 

Rebecca in her fleeing from the camp got carried away and climbed a tree.

Probably they are doing telepathy. Does Rebecca need help? He will go see if she needs help.

Marius is half-watching - all right, sure, whatever, that seems fine and probably not his problem - 

:Dara. WHAT: 

What is she even supposed to say. 

....Wait. Something HAPPENED just then. 

Stef scrambles up and runs for the tent-flap. 

At which point he's going to nearly knock Raleigh over. 

"What -?" 

Unexpected things are happening and also Orion just sprinted that way! Shannon is going to run after him on instinct! 

Dara would really prefer that no more things happened today! 

But. 

:Treven, we've got a situation here:

And she sprints out of the tent to follow the man - no, he couldn't've been more than eighteen, the teenager - who stuck his head in and ran away and is now running toward a tree with another kid halfway up it -

Fine. Whatever. Treven is obviously having the worst day of his entire life and Dara isn't going to push him any harder, especially given that this obviously isn't going to work at all. 

She....will follow Stef who - seems to be sprinting toward a tree, following the blond kid, and there's another kid halfway up said tree -?

....Stef is really not sure what he was hoping to accomplish here. 

He reaches the tree in question, and collapses in the snow, and stares vaguely up at the terrified girl and the boy following her, and doesn't feel anything much, despite the tears pointlessly trickling down his face for no reason at all. 

"Orion? Did you get it?"

"I don't know! I'm not sure there was an it! - you, you're the one who was yelling, what was after you?" he asks the redhead.

Stef, who isn’t a Thoughtsenser, just stares blankly at Orion for half a second. 

"Stef!"

Stef hears her voice - sort of - as though from a very, very long way away - 

- but nothing matters anymore. Nothing will ever matter again. 

Stef is going to run a TEST. 

(If he were bothering to ask himself the question at all, he wouldn't be able to give an answer for what test he was running. But he's not asking, because it doesn't matter, and nothing matters, because Vanyel is DEAD and so the world might well no longer exist - 

- and so it seems deeply funny, somehow, that there are apparently some sudden random teenagers here and one of them is in a tree and another of them is carrying a sword-whip-thing, which is honestly incredibly cool, and looking up into said tree - 

It was just a week till Sovven, and the nights were turning chill
And the battle turned to stalemate, double-bluff, and feint and drill
When a shadow drifted northward, just a shadow, nothing more.
No one noticed that the shadows grew all darker than before.

If Stef is worth anything as a Bard, they should all be pretty drawn in, by now - 

No one noticed that the shadows seemed to creep into the heart,
But from then the fight for freedom seemed a fool's quest from the start.
All the hopes that they had cherished seemed unreasoned and naive
Nothing worth the strength to pray for, or to strive for, or believe.

And the shadows stole the sunlight from the brightest autumn day,
As they sang a song of bleakness that touched every heart that heard
As they whispered words of hopelessness, all courage fled away,
And they wove a smothering blanket over all, that lived and stirred.