faderift | You can't concern yourself with bigger things

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You can't concern yourself with bigger things

WHO: New rifters & their helpful rescuers
WHAT: People fall out of a rift and get attacked by stuff, it's pretty old hat by now (sorry Jefferson).
WHEN: Solace 7
WHERE: High in the Frostbacks, within a day of Skyhold.
NOTES: This log is open to any characters who would have volunteered to go welcome the rifters, whose arrival sites can now be predicted, thank you Solas. Rifters are also welcome to begin RPing at Skyhold as soon as they are ready.

You were asleep--deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment-- and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

In this world, something has definitely died. But not you; not yet. When the afterimage left by a flare of too-bright, greenish light fades, you will find yourself in a pile of bones, stripped by teeth and weather, bleached almost as white as the snow that covers most of the rocky, mountainous terrain around you. Beneath its threadbare blanket, it's easy to pick out heaps of earth and stone and debris arranged in a rough ring-shape on the ground around you and the rift that just spat you out. Almost like...a nest? Whatever might once have lived here, it must have been very large, because the bones scattered about are the size of large livestock, at the least. Some of the bare rocks show what look like marks from very large claws, and where snow doesn't cover, the stone looks suspiciously scorched. There are no recent tracks, but maybe that's a good thing.

Less good: the cluster of demons that is emerging from the rift to take over the job of killing you. Some are tall, spindly stick-things with too many eyes, some hunched and hooded with no eyes at all, others mere wisps of greenish light. None look friendly or familiar. Also unfamiliar is the narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here that now glows out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Hopefully you can set it aside enough to pick up a bone club and get to work in self-defense, because there is no immediate sign of road or path or settlement anywhere to be seen.

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He had—very nearly—decided not to come. Solas had kindly named the place, the scouts had mapped it, and the volunteers had been informed that the Rift would open close (too close) to where a dragon had once made her lair. But a vested personal interest in seeing who would arrive bade him go, a responsibility, a hope—

They arrive in the thick of it, as always, because the where and the when of Solas’ predictions are nearly perfect, but horses throw shoes, scouts get lost.

Her hair draws him. It’s such a familiar color that the association is automatic, even when he sees the shape of her ears. The irrational part of his hope dies as he makes his way to her, dodging ice and fire and glad for the flexibility of his mail, the simplicity of his current armor, and his lack of adornment. The mistake the Wraith makes is being far too interested in the (unarmed, unarmored) Mannish child before it. Thranduil is fast, too fast (he has no reputation here, is simply himself) and cuts through it before it can touch her.

The smoke of it dissipates; he offers her his hand, body tilted towards the rest of the little fights going on in the clearing. As he thought, a small rift.

“Come.” He steals a glance back at her, gestures with a nod of his head. His hand waits outstretched for her to take, to help herself up.

Dany, too, is distracted by the hair. In a dream, it would be entirely possible to encounter a nameless Targaryen, to see one of her long-dead family appear. It wouldn't be the first time, either. Her heart speeds up as he approaches and she stares wide-eyed into the face, mind flickering to static.

"Rhaegar?" she breathes, but then she sees the eyes, the ears, and her spirits sink. No, this... whoever it is, with so many features similar to hers, it isn't her kin. Dany bites her lip in disappointment, but the urgency of the battle is quick on its heels. The demons shriek, one is destroyed by the man, and she nods obediently, taking his hand and rising with his aid.

"I have no weapons," she tells the dream-figure. "I... don't know where I am."

Of course she doesn't. She's never been to snowy mountains in her waking life.

She does not- cannot- hide the disappointment in her face when the realization sweeps over her that he is not her 'Rhaegar'. "No, child," he says, not unkindly, gripping her wrist as he pulls her up. They have bare moments before they'll need to move again, and he cuts down to the simple questions.

"Can you fight?" If she can't, giving her anything will only lead to a greater chance of her hurting friend when thinking foe. He half turns his back to her, keeps his eyes on the field, a hand outstretched to hold her back, a preventive shield. "We will have pleasantries later. I beg your trust until we are safe, and then I will answer all your questions. Yes?"

"No," she responds, promptly. He has a regal air and, despite his not being a Targaryen, his being, in truth, a complete stranger, she's quick to respond and to follow his lead. He seems to know what he's doing, in any case, and she has so little certainty in this world so far that she feels entirely without her footing. It's nice to have a little direction, even if she may end up regretting it later.

One thing at a time.

"Be careful," is all she advises, trusting he'll keep to his word and answer her many questions. He can clearly fight somehow or he would not seem so confident, she thinks, and keeps behind him with watchful eyes on the demon and the rift both.

The plan is simple enough. Get her from the dragon's nest to the path where the rest of the Inquisition waits, form a defensible line, and cut down the demons so they're free to close the Rift.

(There are hundreds of tiny steps between the big mileposts, of course.)

It goes like this: he keeps her behind him, shielded with his body as he moves forward, two, three meters. The despair demon is one he would have prefered to fight at a longer range, but he is best kept to short range. He doesn't have time to give a signal to Daenerys beyond a quick gesture before he drops back, pulling her with him.

The demon is distracted by fire from the archers, and a path clears to the line the scouts are holding. She's small, quick, and doesn't seem to be the type who would freeze in fear. He releases her arm, and nods to it.

"Could you manage that?" It's an all-out sprint of at least thirty seconds, but it'll keep her from the worst of it while he helps 'clean up', as it were.

She follows as best and as quickly as she can, brows ducked in concentration over eyes that watch between him and the demons. Dany's attentions are torn entirely between the silver-haired stranger and the monstrous creature, both of which are strange and foreign and still somehow captivating. Her heart quickens when arrows pepper the demon's form and the man speaks to her, indicating the path that's been opened.

"Yes," Dany says, because, somehow, she doesn't want to disappoint him. She isn't a runner by any means, but the Targaryen bolts when directed, not looking back in the escape. She only slows once she's far enough out of range and is attracting the curious looks of more and more strangers who have arrived onto the scene.

She does not disappoint him.

If anything, he's proud when he returns with the rest of the soldiers and assorted do-gooders once the field is clear. He tends to his sword first, wipes it in the snow and then dries it. That's for practicalities' sake, but as soon as he's done he goes to find her. Her hair is as much of a unique beacon as his own, and he makes himself known by draping his fur-lined cloak about her shoulders before stepping out before her.

He's clearly whole and hale, and a prettier picture once the blood's off, giving her a once-over to check for injuries. Thranduil's voice is kind, and his manner courtly when he addresses her.

"I believe I promised you answers, my lady?"

"Thank you," comes the gratitude for the cloak. The shabby attire fit for the Dothraki Sea was not at all suitable for mountains and snow. She's never been in weather like this, either, and shivers at the thought of its icy bite, drawing the fur closer around herself.

"You owe me nothing," Dany speaks up after his question, looking into his face, but unable to fully ignore the sheen of his similar hair. "Why have you tended to me?"

Protecting her from dangerous creatures and offering his clothing to warm her, for instance.

"Who are you?" she asks, which is the more pressing question on her tongue.

"I mistook you for kin." He feels no shame for it- he would have come for her had she been a dwarf- but he thinks she deserves a little honestly. And she is a child, and he is is far from a monster. But she seeks to know what drove that first mad dash, and so he is honest while he guides her to the safety of the inner circle, where scouts mill about and there's a promise of a fire, further down. She is a child, and that drives him to let his hand hover by the small of her back.

"Thranduil." It's obviously not of the Common Tongue, the one they're speaking otherwise, but the green glow in his palm could tell him that. "And who are you, my lady?"

He guides her down and to a fire, to a seat before it. She looks a bit- shocked- and humans are so fragile.

"For--" Her gaze wanders again to his ears, assuming that what he means is... well, that. She'd been thinking similarly, after all, though she'd assumed him to be a Targaryen and not an elf. The similar, disappointing revelations that they'd both shared have her nodding silently, sitting when he indicates it.

"Daenerys of House Targaryen," she speaks quietly, looking to Thranduil. "I... also mistook you for someone else."

For her brother, the one she'd never met, but that would be impossible. She knows, after what happened to Viserys, that she's the last. The only Targaryen. There isn't a chance of happening across another, not even in another world.

He smiles, just for a moment somewhere else. "Forgive me, my lady, but for a moment I thought you my sister, when she was much younger."

And the look on her face one and the same with the one she had born when Doriath had fallen, and they had fled the city, watching it burn behind them.

But the expression lasts for only a moment before it is swept back, and Thranduil seems as steely as ever, if affectionately disposed to her for reasons now made clear.

"Your kin," he says, standing to find her something hot to drink- hopefully they can soon come down off the mountain to where it is warm- "- did they arrive with you? If you do not see them, a party can be sent to find-- him." Someone close to Thranduil's height and looks shouldn't be hard to place.

Of course. His sister. After her own admission, his has a stronger impact. Dany shrinks a little, sad for a family she never knew, homesick for the hot sands that had become her proving grounds.

"He isn't - can't - be here," Dany admits quietly, averting her gaze to stare into the fire, even as Thranduil rises. "Rhaegar was killed before I was born."

Vicerys would have chided her for mistaking this man for being their long-dead brother. Vicerys is dead, too, though, and no Targaryens will join her in this new world.

"I am the only one left," she speaks softly, compelled to offer the truth to the man who had done some of the same for her.

How does one respond to that? Even with kindness and decorum, there is no way to handle that admission. 'My family is dead. I am alone'. She does not need to say the last piece, he knows it, that resignation, the avoidance of his eyes, the softness of her voice.

"Your clothes," he starts. More horsehair than thread, and more leather than cloth. The leather is worn most at her thighs. "You ride, my lady?"

They will hold this camp for so long. Not everyone thought to bring a cloak. With the summer heat, who would have considered? They will need to move soon, and she will be subjected to being a special kind of Other as a Rifter.

Well. At least she is not elven as well.

"Lady Targaryen." He has manners, and he suspects them likely to comfort. "Are you in any way injured?"

The question somehow surprises her and she looks up again at him, silver brows raised curiously. Dany hesitates, then replies:

"I do." Clearly he does; he'd demonstrated as such when he first arrived. "Not much, though, before my marriage. My husband is of the Dothraki - horse lords. I learned much from them and have since learned to ride."

She wouldn't be a very good khaleesi if she couldn't. Dany also doesn't mention that her husband had been killed and most of his khalasar and horses abandoned her once Drogo had died.

"No, thank you." He is exceptionally gentle and the effect on her is calming. "I arrived unharmed and the... demons did not touch me."

Though they tried. She shivers faintly, remembering too easily their many eyes, their deadly claws.

"Good." It pleases him, though the opposite would not be true if she were injured. "I believe we have horse enough to bring you back to Skyhold."

And if she doesn't get her own, he's glad to share- she's a slip of a woman, enough weight that whatever they put him on cannot possibly protest. All that's left is to move her from the fire back down the mountain and back to the fortress, and he can consider the job finished.

"Are you warm enough, my lady?" Shock is something to consider, but he suspects it won't hit until they're back at Skyhold, and she's been fed and slept. It's best that way.

Keep her talking about herself, he thinks, as he guides her through camp. "'Horse lords'? Then what, may I ask, are your people?"

Shock certainly hasn't hit her; though Dany feels sudden pangs of anxiety and fear, the true realization of what's happened hasn't quite made a home in her mind, yet.

"I am, thank you." He's incredibly dutiful in his attentiveness and she smiles again in appreciation of his efforts.

"Human," she amends quickly. "The phrase is often used as a slur. They are called as such because of their way of life, centered around their bond with horses, because many other so-called civilized kingdoms misjudge them."

Though she has certainly taken in Dothraki culture, Dany will always be somewhat of an outside. Even so, her passion for her own khalasar, at least, is clear in her emphatic tone.

He is a gentleman. There's a code of manners called into play in every interaction, if one knows the right words, obligations of someone of his line- of elves in general. Despite all else that may be said about him, he has a soft spot for children of all races, and women too.

"I know you are a Man, my lady." Careful intonation, to show that he says Man, not man, and done with a humored little smile- he is only teasing.

They come to where the horses are tied- well, nearly all, for one, though he is leashed to nothing and wears only the most perfunctory of saddles, stands untethered, though content to remain with the group. The bay gelding's ears prick forward when Thranduil whistles, and he meanders over to the two of them.

"And how, my lady, would you define uncivilized?"

He kneels, offers his hands laced together as a place for her to rest a booted foot so that he might give her a boost up onto the gelding, who is tall enough to suit someone like Thranduil.

There's an interesting inflection. She assumes he isn't saying that she's male and has to take his meaning to be the difference between himself and her - that he is an elf and she is human. Or, Man, as he put it.

Dany smiles despite herself at the horses, pining briefly for her silver and for the world she'd left behind.

"Cruelty," she says simply. "Violence to the innocent, mercy to the wicked."

Slavery, sexual abuse, slaughtering children. Her list goes on in her mind and her expression steels to a cynicism beyond her years. She does accept his help, inclining her head gratefully as he boosts her up onto the gelding.

"And you, my lord?" Dany asks. "What do you think?"

He waits until he seats himself, an easy swing and a soft landing on the gelding's back. Thranduil reaches around her for the reigns, and with a soft word, the gelding makes for the pass. An early start means they might walk slowly; go at a relaxed pace. He'll take advantage of that.

"An ignorance of their history." The inability to learn from past mistakes, or to grow from them. Men too often engage in a willful sort of forgetting. "Do your husband's people fit your definition?"

He doubts it, but it's an easy opening for her to fill with examples of peoples who do.

He's very sharp-minded, she thinks, admitting an almost hesitant smile.

"Sometimes," she admits. "My husband was the leader of... a part of the Dothraki, called a khalasar. When I decried some of their ways of life, he took my advice and made changes. He honors my wishes, respected others in ways that can go against the nature of the Dothraki." Her thin smile fades, then. "It put him in danger, since those changes were... unpopular."

It killed him, in the end.

"Many of them act the way they do because they always have, not out of cruelty." Even as she says it, though, she frowns, not quite believing. "... It is no excuse. I will change the ways of my own khalasar. I will not allow such things."

Happiness looks good on her—he resolves to coax it out more often. But it’s impossible to miss the past-tense of it all—‘my husband was’ ‘he took’ and so on. That she describes the ‘khalasar’ as hers now, well—she is small, but she is fierce. Could be fierce, if she were not half-frozen and wholly dazed.

“You loved your husband.” He states it anyway. “And he loved you. That is good. I have heard that discontentment is oft found in marriages ‘tween mortals. I am pleased you went without.”

The gelding is antsy, perhaps smells the rift in the air—he wants to go home, to his stall and to his oats, and Thranduil is inclined to agree. “Can you bear a smooth trot, my lady?”

She wonders briefly what marriages are like within his world, his people, but doesn't ask. Not now.

"It was an arranged marriage, I... was terrified of him, of it all, at first." She hesitates, not wanting to recall too much, to look back and forget where she is now. "... But, yes. I grew to love him, to appreciate his world. He was more gentle and caring than I could have imagined."

He loved her and she loved him and then he was killed. This is her reality now.

"I can," she confirms, eager to be at their destination, considering the events of the day. "Thank you."

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You can't concern yourself with bigger things

remember when i said i'd tag you on the tdm

smooches

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