faderift | closed; a polite conversation

Entry tags:

closed; a polite conversation

WHO: Cassandra and Galadriel
WHAT: Cassandra questions Galadriel about the rift.
WHEN: In order to keep from disrupting existing plot...probably after both of them return from the Emprise? timey-wimey idk.
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: lol

She had returned from the Emprise to find...a mess. The reports of a rift opening in Skyhold had been alarming, to say the least, and though cleanup efforts were already well underway, the underlying issue still lay unresolved.

Happily, those she had talked to so far had been cooperative and forthcoming, and she had been given no reason to believe that the rift had been opened deliberately, or that anyone had any intention of a repeat of the incident. Safeguards would have to be put in place, naturally, but things were not as bad as they could have been.

Still, she would not be doing her duty if she did not gather all the information that she could. She had learned the names of those who had been involved in closing the rift, and had already learned as much as she could from most of them. This last one...yes. Cassandra had seen the Elf wandering the battlements of Skyhold, or holding court in the gardens, but they had not yet spoken in person.

That was about to change. She turned as the door opened, nodding her thanks to the soldiers escorting Galadriel into the room.

"Please, sit down." She nodded to a chair. There was no reason to be anything but cordial, not yet.

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Galadriel had not been taken from a task of great import--unless, of course, one considered embroidery to be something dire and necessary--and she had seen no reason to object when escorted through the Keep. When they arrived at the spartan room, however, she was momentarily baffled. The purpose of her being brought here was not, at least to Galadriel, immediately apparent.

The stern woman seated across the table invited her to sit and, at once, she realized what this was.

She had not met Cassandra, nor had she heard much of her by proxy, but Galadriel knew the look of a warrior when she saw them. Given her bearing and the cut of her armor, she could only assume the woman was a Templar--if nothing else, she was a human and, of late, she was feeling far less enamored of the race of men. Whatever she desired to ask, alone in a room accessed by armed escort, Galadriel did not intend to grant her easily.

"As you like," Galadriel answered after a marked pause and moved to sit in the simple chair she'd been offered. "Though I do wonder why I am called here--perhaps you will enlighten me?"

It was a strange thing to see an elf so tall, with neither the markings of the Dalish nor the affect of a city elf. Cassandra studied her openly as she entered the room, narrowing her eyes at the lengthy pause before Galadriel moved to sit.

But she did sit, eventually, and Cassandra lost no time in getting to the point. As strange and potentially interesting as this elf was, she had an investigation to complete. "The rift," she explained without preamble. "You were involved in closing it." She moved forward, resting her hands on the table and meeting the elf's eyes. "I want to hear everything that happened. Everything you saw or can remember." Again. The same story for the fifth time, and yet she had to be thorough.

"Why?" Galadriel asked, honestly baffled by the request.

Her questions, if that was what she had intended her words to be, were answered as soon as she issued them. She already knew that Galadriel was involved, that the rift had been closed, and anyone in the fortress would be hard pressed not to know of the demons who had issued forth before the deed was done. Why she desired an account that confirmed as much, Galadriel couldn't fathom.

"It appears the only information you do not already know pertains to demons and their presence below the rift," Galadriel added in a tone that was polite but slightly slow, as though she were waiting for a punchline or Cassandra to specify what she desired.

"There were demons," she added. "Several, if memory serves."

Why? Her eyes narrowed further. A rift had opened in Skyhold, an elf had nearly died, and she wanted to know why Cassandra was investigating further?

In the end, it did not matter; Galadriel answered all the same, though Cassandra frowned in disapproval at her answer and the slow cadence of her voice. Was she mocking her?

"As one would expect, beneath an open rift," she replied, going for dry and coming off more sharply than she had intended. She huffed in impatience. "Others have said that the shards in their hands...reacted to the rift opening," she prompted. "Did you experience anything similar?"

Galadriel arched a brow at Cassandra. The motion was gradual but unsubtle and, after a moment of silent consideration, she replied.

"Are you asking if I experienced something similar to a reaction?" Galadriel asked. She was quite skilled with words and renown for her ability to say as much or as little as she desired within them, but even she had not uttered a query quite so...vague in all her life. That she had been called away from any activity for this was irritating.

At once, after she asked her question, Galadriel closed her eyes. She drew a deep breath and promptly let out a short, frustrated sigh. Once she had driven the words from her mind, she tried to gather the heart of the question. She was, once again, being asked to confirm information that this woman already possessed. From multiple sources, it seemed.

Why did she persist in asking these questions? Did this woman suspect duplicity? Guilt? And what if Galadriel's accounts did not align with the others? What then would her course be? There was little point to this.

"If others have spoken of such reactions, why should you expect I did not suffer the same? I was present and near enough to engage in closing the rift; asking after what you already know is folly."

Cassandra, conversely, was anything but skilled with words, and she knew it. She bristled at the elf's ironic question, and when Galadriel closed her eyes Cassandra pushed back from the table with a short ugh and started to pace.

She was going to be difficult. Fine.

"Expecting it and confirming it are two different things. I do not work on assumptions," she sneered, pausing to glare down at Galadriel. "It is not your concern what I already know, or do not." She crossed her arms over her chest. Clearly she would have to be more direct. "Tell me what you felt when the rift opened."

Thusfar this meeting had been strange and frustrating but now, due in no small part to her own comments, it had become openly hostile. Galadriel's expression went flat as Cassandra's voice lifted. She settled her hands in her lap as she regarded the looming warrior, but otherwise did nothing. Cassandra's glower was impressive but, unfortunately, not something that struck fear into the elf's heart.

"Inconvenienced," Galadriel replied simply.

Cassandra stared for a long moment, unable, at first, to actually process what she had heard.

Then it hit, and she all but growled in frustration, lunging at the elf.

"You will cooperate, or you will rot," she hissed, close to Galadriel's ear. "How did the shard react when the rift opened?"

It was no simple thing, angering Galadriel, but the hubris of this warrior was staggering. She was diminished in Thedas, her power had waned and her skills were weakened, but she was not so far fallen that she would silently tolerate being threatened, not even by her hosts.

"And if I do not answer? You will lock me away? If that does not loosen my tongue, what then, child?" Galadriel asked, her tone edged and sharpened, more openly combative than she had been in these lands.

"You are so certain, so assured, that you dare demand my accounts," she continued, a fixed glare locked on Cassandra's face. "If I knew nothing? What would you do? Beg my pardon or dismiss me out of hand?"

She quirked a brow and a slight smile pulled at her lips. The expression was cold and unwelcoming.

"If I knew the whole of it? If the mysteries of opening, of closing rifts did not elude me as they do you?" Her hands shifted from her lap to rest on the tabletop. Her fingers casually intertwined and the green mark across her palm exposed to the Seeker. The mark glimmered and, as if to punctuate her point, guttered and sparked as she finished her question.

"What would you do then?"

Child? Cassandra balked. She had been faced with many challenges in recent memory, but it had been long since anyone referred to her as a child. Varric had been obstinate and obnoxious when she questioned him about Hawke, but this...

In truth, she had not even expected to learn much from the elf. A confirmation of reports that she had already heard, perhaps a new insight or two, and hopefully, reassurance that there was nothing to fear - that Galadriel was as intent as everyone else on assuring that the same thing did not happen again.

Instead, she was being deliberately unforthcoming, refusing to share even what she believed Cassandra already knew, and worse, taunting her. She sneered, ready to remind the elf in no uncertain terms that she ate and slept under the Inquisition's banner, that she remained free and housed in Skyhold at their mercy, when the implication behind Galadriel's words struck her, and she stopped, peering at her closely. If, she had said, but Cassandra did not like the look in her eyes, nor the way the shard sparked and glowed.

"I am not interested in hypotheticals," she said, her voice steel, but there was a wariness in her tone. "What do you know of opening rifts?"

"More than I would care to share with you."

The reply was, perhaps, ill-conceived but Galadriel had already tolerated more than enough disrespect from this woman. It hardly mattered that her station, her renown in Thedas was entirely separate from Arda; her offense was not measured by any logical scale.

"We close them at great risk to ourselves," Galadriel reminded her, her tone cold and unforgiving. "Do you not think that one of us, especially a 'mage' as skilled as I, would not have learned the art of rifts?"

It was a bluff and a threat so thinly veiled that she ought to have been appalled that she had made it, but it was cast out, thrown between them, nonetheless.

"You ask what I felt? I know the feeling of the veil as it parts, I know which end to pull to close it or cleave it wider--you could not fathom what I felt and I will not waste my time explaining it for you." Her tone was cutting and, as she spoke she drew herself from her chair, leaning forward into the warrior's space until the human was forced to look up at her. "But I do not answer to you, child, and should I open or close a rift it is none of your concern. I will do as I please and tell you only what I deign to."

It was not the answer she wanted to hear, and as the elf spoke, Cassandra's apprehension and suspicion only grew. She tensed as Galadriel stood, and though she had noted her height when she had entered the room, she was still surprised to find herself having to look up to meet her eyes.

Galadriel's defiance and scorn were grating, but her direct insubordination was unacceptable. "You do answer to me," she snapped back, nearly vibrating with anger. "Do you know who I am? I am Cassandra Pentaghast, the founder and the leader of this Inquisition, and anyone opening rifts directly concerns all of us." She was nearly standing on her toes now, attempting to draw herself up to meet Galadriel's height, and the soldiers who had escorted the elf into the room were now on their guard, ready to act. Cassandra pointed a finger, poking at Galadriel's chest for emphasis. "You will swear to me now that you will not attempt to open any rifts, nor assist others to do so, or I will lock you away, and you will do no magic at all."

Whatever patience she had left in her, whatever calm yet remained, all of it vanished as Cassandra prodded her chest and craned toward her, like a flower straining desperately toward the sun. The fact that she had reached out and touched her was beyond the pale, a familiarity that Galadriel had not permitted and would not tolerate being taken.

Not by her.

"Do I know who you are?" Galadriel repeated, her tone dipping into a range of uncanny ominous threat. Her power surged below her fingers but, despite being so incised, she would not lower herself to injuring her hosts.

"Nay, and I shall not learn of you--" Her eyes narrowed and she leaned closer to the warrior. If the room darkened as she spoke, if the walls pressed in, it was surely simple coincidence. "Neither shall I swear you any oaths nor behave at your behest, for I do not bend nor bow to passing things."

The room seemed to close in on her, and Cassandra blinked, trying to focus past her rage. It was no use. This was no longer mere insubordination - it was defiance, rebellion, and she could not let it stand. Not when the elf was all but threatening to open rifts, to put everyone in the entire Inquisition at risk.

"Then it is done," she said, her voice cold. She turned to the soldiers, careful not to let Galadriel entirely out of her sight. "Search her, find her staff, and bring anything of interest to the war room. As for her - " She turned back to Galadriel, glaring with hard eyes. "Any of the cells in the dungeons will do."

Galadriel drew herself up, stood at her full height, and stared down at Cassandra as one might a bug. The guards moved alongside her and, at the Seeker's command, ran their hands along her form. Her indignance was couched in terrible, timeless rage hidden only by the careful, icy mask that she'd donned as she spoke with the Seeker. From her they claimed the Light of Eärendil, but little else. Her staff, left waiting in the rotunda, would be easily claimed.

"I shall not forget this trespass, child," Galadriel uttered, her tone as dark and oppressive as the shadows that stretched the length of the room.

When the guards bade her follow, she went with them. She did not owe the Inquisition much, but she would not injure those who did their duty, not for such a slight transgression. She was quickly escorted from Cassandra's presence but hers was a countenance that Galadriel would remember for ages to come.

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closed; a polite conversation

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I am no conjurer of cheap tricks!

ANGRY FLOWER

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