faderift | [closed] the turn of the screw

Entry tags:

[closed] the turn of the screw

WHO: Teren, Alistair, Anders, Benevenuta, Bethany, Kaisa
WHAT: Senior Warden von Skraedder brings a small gaggle of ~~fools~~ Wardens (and a Mortalitasi for some reason) along to investigate a sighting of the Architect in southern Nevarra. Mischief is afoot!
WHEN: Timey wimey, Haring-ish
WHERE: around and about Perendale
NOTES: there is no Architect but at least the cake is real

[OOC notes first: every round or so, feel free to do a coin-flip "idea" roll, then either send me a screencap of your diceroller or do it on Discord so I can see. If you get heads, proceed to roll a 1d5 and I will PM you a bit of insight for your character to have gleaned based on the circumstances.
For all anyone currently knows (with the exception of Teren and Benevenuta), the Architect is their prime directive and there is no reason to suspect otherwise.

I will be adding new legs to the journey once we've reached a reasonable transition, so the threads and available information will be limited to what's currently visible.

Also, if you could try to keep fewer than two days between each tag, that would be amazing!]

The journey is a long one, and it's in the dead of winter, which means it isn't a lot of fun. They at least have horses, on loan from the Inquisition save for those who have their own, and Teren leads the expedition on the rangy and agreeable black gelding she tends to borrow.

She's her usual self, curt and withdrawn and pensive, though she takes care of hers and is vigilant about ensuring everyone stays together, especially in the brutal snows that blow relentlessly over Orlais' northern plains.
She had approached each Warden initially, explaining that she had received news from Weisshaupt and wanted to take a small delegation to address its concerns: the Architect has been sighted in the north, not far from the border between Nevarra and Tevinter. Teren's old stomping grounds.

Summoned for her familiarity with the region, Teren has grudgingly accepted the call, but knows it would be suicide to make it a solo recon mission. Anders and Bethany are brought for their healing and warding talents, Alistair and Kaisa for their fighting prowess, and the non-Warden Benevenuta.. for... some reason, that isn't entirely clear to anyone else.

Their mission is to find the Architect, and if unable to apprehend him, to gather as much information on the situation as possible before returning to Skyhold.

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A small, shabby fishing village not far from du Farron's manor, it's a wonder anyone has managed to come out of Pike uninhibited by at least one disease. The streets are muck, most people are missing most teeth, the smell of fish and offal and despair permeates the air, and there's hardly a scrap of color in the whole place. This town has been razed and rebuilt so many times in the constant skirmishes between Tevinter, Nevarra, and Orlais that it's barely worth looking after, let alone taking pride in.

Teren keeps her head low as she leads the solemn march into town, and even so, she's unable to completely escape notice. The women in particular seem especially dismayed by her presence, and whispers of "unmensch" and "verwachsen" follow the party with suspicious glances sent to the other Wardens and Benevenuta. The fishermen seem less concerned, though there's at least one bark of recognition laughter followed by unpleasantly-colored spittle smacking against Teren's face that heralds her return.

Her shoulders are hunched miserably as they reach a nondescript shamble of a structure, and she knocks. The door is opened by a very small elf, white-haired and dark-skinned, easily in her seventies and bearing a striking resemblance to the much-taller woman in front of her. Though she has clearly been ravaged by time, poverty, and no doubt disease, and her eyes are fogged over by cataracts, she reaches up to clasp her daughter's face between her hands (Teren has to bend down significantly), turning it from side to side in an inspection much like that which Teren has given the others in recent memory.

"Wo bist du gewesen?" she demands, and pulls her in, squinting at the small entourage. "Einkommen," she demands of them, shaking her head and clicking her tongue as she beckons them forward and immediately goes to where something is boiling on the fireplace.

Alistair is—let's say he's on his own two feet, and Kaisa didn't actually have to carry him all the way here on her back, though of course she'd be up for the task, what a woman, etc. He's on his feet but pale from blood loss and pain, dragging one leg and leaning heavily on whoever last drew the short straw, who also gets to catch him or haul him back up whenever the nerves that haven't finished connecting correctly happen to be nerves he needs for balance. He's very disgruntled by all of this and has made sure everyone knows it.

He shuts up abruptly the first time someone looks askance at Teren and murmurs a word he doesn't have to understand. He gets that it's nothing good. His face goes surly but he stays silent, for once, a miracle. He doesn't speak at all until they're watching Teren be fussed over by a tiny old elf; he's less surly about that, more tired and bewildered and half expecting this stranger, too, to put a knife in someone's back.

When that doesn't immediately happen, he musters up, "Hello," for the old woman and a strained, quizzical smile for Teren.

Bethany is struggling along at back, her satchel slung over her back, and a splash of Miskha's blood still on her dress. Her brown eyes flash over to the women muttered in what she thinks is some sort of insult, narrow slightly, but she is too tired to stop and ask what they are saying.

Then they are at this hut, and there is a small and elderly elven woman who looks just like Teren and suddenly ... a lot more things became clear. She stared, between Teren, and the - her mother.

She gave the woman a warmer smile, if not tired, as she moved further inside, "Hello ... I'm Bethany. Thank you, for allowing us into your home."

Edited 2017-02-13 23:38 (UTC)

Kaisa would have accepted having to haul Alistair around the entire way, though she is kind of glad she doesn't have to. She is particularly glad as they enter the village, and the air of animosity swallows them. She doesn't need to understand the meaning, to know what they mean, and Kaisa draws herself up to her full height, yellow eyes harsh and full of warnings to anyone who dares to make the words more than talk.

She doesn't like it, but she refrains from doing anything about the words, other than puffing up and looking her most intimidating (which would be more significant if she were in her armor and not a booblicious dress). However, spitting is crossing a line, and Queen Anora herself couldn't have stopped Kaisa, already on edge and itching for a fight, from letting that fisherman know exactly how she felt. With her fists. Dress or no dress, Kaisa can still beat a man senseless.

Though not having a dress on might prove an interesting distraction? A test for another time.

Which is how Kaisa shows up on the small elf's doorstep with a bloody nose and blackened eye, but feeling a little bit better. She, too, watches with wide eyes, but there's a click, recognition in the way Teren has to bend down, recognition in the hostility of the villagers. Slowly, she leans over to Alistair (maybe she was tasked with having to help him walk in an effort to keep her from throwing down with more villagers), and whispers in a wry voice.

"How many half-bloods does it take to change the lamp oil?" The smile she shoots Alistair has very little of her customary good humor in it. "Two, so they can make a whole person."

Edited 2017-02-14 08:06 (UTC)

He can't help but wonder, as they walk through the village, if everyone feels Teren betrayed them. If what she'd done that angered Zerique and Mishka had also been against the village. It doesn't mean he says anything when Kaisa picks a fight, but it does mean that he's a little considering of the crowd. Until one spits. Then it's icy glares everywhere until they're at the hut and welcomed in.

"Thank you," he says to what has been said, assuming it's kind. It sounded as much. "Forgive my haste, but Teren and another of our party need to be lying down. Or at the very least sitting. Can we get them situated quickly before anything else?"

In the ongoing series of things Benevenuta and Teren will probably still not explain, later - she isn't familiar with Teren's mother, but neither is anything she sees now new information. Having wrapped a cloak around the worst of the blood-staining, she's sufficiently presentable (at least until she takes it off--) to feel as close to at ease as possible in greeting the elderly elf warmly, low voiced as she identifies herself as one of the Ladies Thevenet and presses her hands a moment.

The long, sobering walk has done much to let her gather back her composure, her tattered dignity; there will be no more such outbursts as were witnessed in the burning chantry. If she's angry, still, then she has put it away where it belongs, which is not spilled about on this much put upon woman's rude floor. She is serene, instead, in a way that is -

in itself slightly alarming, paired as it is with the ugly bruising on her face and the blood on her dress and the lingering scent of smoke from burned out wood and flesh. Not a falsehood, just a different facet.

A quiet, muttered conversation transpires between the two, in a Nevarran that Benny probably hasn't encountered too often in her life: its regional dialect sets it apart from what would be spoken in the cities, to the point of almost being a different language.
But the younger Thevenet is understood well enough, and Fraulein Skraedder actually smiles at her, giving her a little pat on the cheek in an expression of welcome. It's by the grace of the Thevenets that she still lives here, and, on closer inspection, her shack is somewhat better supplied than one might expect.

She and Teren unroll a blanket in front of the fire, and she pats it while looking at Alistair to indicate he should lie down. Helpfully, Teren also gets a small pillow to support under his knees.
At some point, she realizes no introductions have been made, and she goes around the room, pointing from person to person, at which point they'll understand their own names and likely little else.

"This is my mother," Teren explains to them, not that it wasn't obvious-- and, interestingly, being back in this setting seems to have brought out her accent, which tinges her Common heavily. "Radegund Skraedder. She knows little of the Wardens other than that we exist. I'd prefer to keep it that way."
There's no harshness to her words; if anything, she seems tired. When Kaisa shows up several minutes later, the sigh Teren gives is exasperated, but she does little beyond drag her in by the arm and shut the door behind her before introducing her to Radegund in Nevarran.

Damn kids.

Alistair—humbled, at this point, by the fact it hasn't been something Anders can just wiggle his fingers at or someone else can slap a poultice on—doesn't grumble about the blanket and only grimaces a little, a reaction more about loathing his own uselessness than resenting the help, when Teren adds a pillow.

Somewhere in all of this he also grins at Kaisa's joke, a little uncertainly; glances at Benevenuta but doesn't stare for long because she is creeping him out; and, from down on the floor, makes a high-eyebrowed face at Bethany that best translates into wow what a day.

"I think," he says to Teren, in a voice that is struggling to find the energy to be sassy, "we'll all be assuming that no one knows anything about anything, where you're concerned, until we're told otherwise."

But her mother is adorable, in an old person way. Alistair tries not to stare too much or to look too obviously like he's pondering whether she'd take applications for grandchild—which is easy, since he mainly looks like he's going to fall asleep any moment now.

Edited (don't walk and phone tag, kids) 2017-02-15 18:43 (UTC)

Bethany dips her head down again, giving another smile to Teren's mother. She goes to sit on the floor, somewhere near the fire, pulling her cloak a little closer around her shoulders. She doesn't speak a word of Nevarran, so whatever is said between Teren, Beneveta and Radegund, is a complete mystery.

Which really, defined this entire day. Alistair caught her gaze and her mouth twisted in rueful appreciation, before she nodded, then tipped her head. He should lie back down, rest.

She looked over at Anders, then at Kaisa, before she met Teren's gaze head on. "Yes. Everything we know right now - is probably not that much anyways."

Her tone is faintly ... accusatory. Angry. Then again, she has been holding this in for awhile.

"--if you would only excuse me a moment--"

Benevenuta is just going to step outside and be sick. This is fine. One of the problems with a concussion is that you can't see it and it's quite difficult to self-diagnose when feeling for bruises and broken ribs.

(She doesn't have any broken ribs.)

He opens his mouth to suggest Teren lie down too before they start talking, and is interrupted by the sound of Benevenuta being sick. It might be nothing, but right now he needs to treat everything as if it could be something.

"Teren, by the time I'm back inside you'll have a second blanket on the floor and be on it. Then you can start talking. Otherwise, I will be glyphing you to the ground so I can attend to you when I'm ready." Anders' tone leaves no room for argument. He's not going to accept anyone causing themselves more pain and injury.

Stepping outside, he comes up to Benevenuta. "May I see what's going on?" It's better to ask, especially when it's a woman throwing up. If she grants permission, he'll promptly be casting to see what's going on beyond the burns that he still hasn't had a chance to heal.

Kaisa mumbles some vague defense of herself, he spat at you, but allows herself to be dragged inside, waves to the woman that she's being introduced to with the sheepish smile of a child caught stealing cookies. Or fighting with the neighbors.

She's had worse injuries drunkenly missing steps in the tavern, so she doesn't bother Anders, who is going to have his hands full with everyone else that has actual injuries. Instead, down next to Alistair she goes, as if he needs someone to keep a watch on him, lest he try to move, or need defending. Grievous injury or no, she is tired, and she props her head up on a fist as she turns to watch Teren, waiting for instructions, or an explanation, or something.

No instructions or explanations come, and Teren is still most definitely being avoidant, but she's also weary and hurt and... well. Sad. She helps Alistair onto the blanket, then kneels beside him, petting his hair and watching him with a certain air of melancholy. She did this. However indirectly it might have been, Alistair is badly injured because of her.

She's lifting her head to be incredulous when Anders gets bossy, but Radegund quickly seems to pick up on what's happening and, if she doesn't echo him, says something very similar. She brings another blanket over, and Teren helps her unroll it, moving stiffly, as though she's just now realized she's hurt.
Radegund then gestures toward the door and asks a question, to which Teren shakes her head and answers in the negative. No, Benny's not pregnant, or at least Teren hopes she isn't. That would just be the cherry on top of this whole garbage heap. Satisfied, the senior Skraedder goes to stoke the fire, then hobbles over to a cupboard in the corner to take out some bread. Manners are everything, and guests have to be fed.

"I'm a bloody fool," Teren says without looking at Bethany, going back to smoothing Alistair's hair off his face. She's sitting on the blanket, since she'll have to lie on her stomach for Anders to do his thing, and she's not about to do that when he's not even here. "What else is there to know."

Trying to keep up with everyone from the floor isn't easy, and it's doubly difficult when he's so tired that Teren's hair-petting makes his eyelids droop against his will, but Alistair tries. Benevenuta is gone. Anders is shortly gone as well. Kaisa is on the floor--he tries to lift his feet so he can cheekily put them in her lap, but that, you know. Reminds him that moving is agony. He masks the pained exhale in a semi-laugh and lifts his chin to look up at Teren.

"Your favorite color."

(Ignore him, talk over him, it's fine. He'll probably be sleeping within a minute anyway.)

Bethany, on the other hand, kept her gaze on Teren. She didn't bat an eyelash at Alstair's words, but instead folded her hands over her knees, her brown eyes sweeping over the older woman's profile. When she spoke, it was with a quiet frankness that only appeared when Bethany was really, and truly angry.

"Well yes, you are something of a moron."

She leaned forward, lifting her chin a little, "You could have gotten Benevenuta killed, or Alistair. You could have died, Teren. All because you did not trust any of us with one simple truth -- what this trip was actually about." Her lips pressed together, "We look up to you, Teren. You are one of our leaders. You have been here for all of us, in one way or another. What made you think that we wouldn't have helped you, regardless?"

Outside, Benevenuta feels increasingly as if being killed would have been preferable to the pounding in her head and the emptying of her stomach; she gestures vaguely, agreeably at Anders to permit examination. For the most part, it's as she dutifully originally reported, bruises from the rough handling in her abduction - except the head injury sustained when, having slammed her knife into their corpse friend's face prior to his subsequent and not unrelated death, she had her head slammed unceremoniously into a wooden beam.

That she got as far as she did before the unsteadiness caught up to her is a testament to bloody-mindedness, no doubt, but at least she suffered no burns. A touch of smoke inhalation, but it'd be a surprise if anyone managed to escape that, as long as they lingered.

Edited 2017-02-18 05:58 (UTC)

He exhales once he's found the issue, part annoyance at the asshole who injured her and made more work for him, part annoyance at the universe in general for yet another injury on whatever this errand had been.

"Right. You likely noticed you were struck in the head? It was a little more serious than the usual. Let's go back inside," he offers his arm, "you'll sit down and I'll start on you while monitoring the other two." Head first, then the pain Alistair's in. And maybe they can hear what Teren has to say while that's going on.

It's apparent when she leans more heavily on him than she intended to do just how bloody-minded she must be to have maintained a semblance of steadiness from the burned out chantry to here - but 'quiet, methodical and accomplished' is Benevenuta all over, so why would this be any different?

She knows enough of what Teren might say that her anger, while not blunted, is not for her, truly -

though Teren may not enjoy the alternative any better when she's steady enough to give her thoughts.

"When I have ever given you reason to look up to me," Teren snaps at Bethany, but quickly reins herself back in with a scowl, withdrawing her hand from Alistair's head and folding it with the other in her lap. She's not looking at anyone, including her mother, though Radegund does glance over her shoulder at the sound of terse voices. She scowls at the guests, as if to say 'behave', before going back to what she's doing.

"I'd intended to leave you at the manor," she mutters, "you'd faff about looking for the Architect, find nothing, and return home. I see now I should have accounted for Raelle, though why she thought it appropriate to get the lot of you involved, I couldn't begin to tell you." Her words are bitter, and quiet, and she tears at a small shred of her ruined gown as she speaks.

"Why would I have told you. I needed a reason to leave Skyhold, and by the time the cat was out of the bag," she looks pointedly, but not angrily, at Benevenuta, "you'd all been dragged into it already." She purses her lips and shakes her head, briefly squeezing her eyes closed, silently disgusted.
"...I'd never have brought you into it at all, had I known," she says, a little more quietly, and rests her bony hand on Alistair's head again. She looks desolate in this moment, still processing the total betrayal to which she's just been subjected. Lies all around.

"It was a stupid plan," she mutters, "concocted by a stupid person who should have bloody known better."

Alistair briefly forces his eyes open when Teren's hand withdraws, but only briefly. He is very tired. But not in an alarming get-Anders-immediately way, probably, just your usual walked-crosscountry-after-having-one's-spine-severed, not-currently-dying-but-tuckered-out-from-avoiding-death sort of way. He can hear everyone talking, but the effort required to move his face and participate seems excessive--until Teren says she's stupid.

Maybe that isn't as serious a statement to her as it would be to him. Touchy, you know. But either way, he opens his eyes again and lifts one shoulder, like he's thinking about sitting up but can't make it any further than that. (He could if he needed to. Again: effort seems excessive.)

"If you'd told us," he says, slurring a little as he warms up, "I'd've been expecting it even less. Maybe even tried to shake the stabby one's stupid murdery hand before she got murdery." Zerique's. If he was ever told her name, in all of this mess, he's forgotten it anyway. "And if you hadn't brought us you'd be dead. Now you're not, and we're not, either. So--"

So. He lifts his forearm at the elbow to make a wavy moving on gesture that manages to be imperious despite the fact that he's laid out on the floor and covered in dried blood. Then he ruins it thunking back down flat onto the floor and adding, "Ow."

Edited (i mean he'd take an andes mint if anyone has one) 2017-02-21 02:45 (UTC)

Kaisa isn't as mad as some--most--of the others. Maybe she should be. Maybe she will be, once she's had time to sort through everything and come to a conclusion. But Kaisa is also used to secrets, to not being told the full plan. It's just sort of something that happens with the Wardens, and it's one that she's never questioned. Maybe it's just because she accepted a long time ago she wasn't a very smart woman and there are probably perfectly good reasons that she just doesn't understand.

And maybe it has to do with the strange, old comfort of a ramshackle house with an elf trying to parents a bunch of humans twice her size, and maybe it's just because she is very tired from carrying large men around and then walking long distances.

But she really is quite tired. She's already lowered herself onto the floor, and when Alistair keeps moving around and hurting himself, she just rolls over, and throws an arm and leg carelessly over his limbs, like how Puppy occasionally piled on her when she kept trashing around at night.

"Shhhh." Is the only noise she makes, though if anyone listens as time goes on, they might hear what suspiciously sounds like quiet snoring.

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[closed] the turn of the screw

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