( closed ) No longer I can justify the bloodshed in his name

[fightingale]

WHO: Leliana & various closed threads (for now - open stuff later)
WHAT: Wicked Grace night goes horribly wrong and Leliana is kind of dying
WHEN: forward dated to the night of the 22nd, post-assassination attempt
WHERE: Leliana's creepy Rookery chamber place
NOTES:
1. Pretentious images in the main post and starters in the comments because I'm a bit ridiculous.

2. Content warning for attempted murder/violence/poison/all that implies.

3. Party style threading is welcome and encouraged, it might make it a bit easier to discuss side matters after the initial discovery.

4. This will probably open up for including other threads and stuff that can be forward dated, but initially just closed.

5. There will be some terrible poetry in here and I'm not even sorry; it is only one in a series that will be left around Skyhold and will be posted later. Belle, Jansen & Libby are beautiful humans for enduring my rambles.

Comments

discovering the body; closed to josie, dorian, zevran & leliana.

[fightingale]

aka. We Just Wanted To Play Wicked Grace
aka. Sorry, Josie
aka. It Was Probably The Nugs

Feel free to post individual starters as a sub-comment to this for that initial scene!

Threading altogether for the initial discovering by Josie and the arrival of the others will work best and Leliana will be able to respond some...what... but for side conversations with each other or one on one interactions with Leliana or whatever else you'd like to do then feel free to have your own starter, yes yes.

The last people seen to descend from the Rookery departed some time ago. Two attendents, moving with a calm sort of slowness down the steps, one of them holding a bundle of papers - a delivery, probably. One hour ago, perhaps two, it is hard to know sometimes when one is mired in work, as so many in the library below the Rookery tend to be.

It is the twenty-second day of Justinian, and Leliana has burns that are making her skin that pull and make her skin feel too tight when she moves or does something a bit brash like stretch or hold her posture upright. The burns are all hidden below chainmail and leathers, and like the rest of her scars and marks that means they don't count. They are invisible, and she is slightly removed from human when she seems to be made of armour rather than flesh.

The scene itself seems very calm. A room, table with a single stack of cards on it (Wicked Grace, a specialised edition with nug theme that probably cost more money than is reasonable), candles burning around the room and on the table, a leaf of parchment on the table that seems rather unremarkable at first glance, and otherwise the room is sparse, practical. One door leads back to the Rookery stairwell, another to Leliana's bedroom, equally sparse. At a first glance, the hosting chamber is unremarkable, until a closer look reveals a chair askew, the carpet pushed off centre, the table and chairs not arranged as meticulously as seems to fit the careful organisation of everything else. And then, then a look beyond the chair and towards her chambers reveals the Left Hand of the Divine on the floor, silver cup on the floor with the remains of something in it that will smell stronger with each passing minute - what had once been scentless has now been left to react too long, acrid and earthy and strangely sweet all together, that makes the air taste of rotting leaves.

Leliana faces the ceiling, eyes flickering just barely, though her body is strangely twisted. Thick grey-black coils of scar tissue wind up her neck and mar her throat, some reaching up past the collar of her self-imposed uniform and starting to wrap under the soft flesh leading to her chin and jaw, and her hand reaches towards the cup grasping it and holding it upright despite the state of the rest of her.

Upon closer inspection, the parchment on the table has a poem written in a careful hand;

A viper,
Cold, slithering,
Hand awash with red.

The Bloodied Hand
Crimson, sanguine
And overreaching

Red of the sacred
Washed away by the tide
The whipping waters of her corruption

Honourable cliffs endangered by her
Only to be saved by a delicate bloom

Grasped for power and fell upon
A vine of asphyxiation
In her Cursed Descent

Cast upon the thorns of the Faithful
The brambles of the True
Shredded upon Virtue.

The Corruption of her grasp will be pried loose
The Roses will Bloom
Kissed by the Radiance of His Will.


More copies of this can be discovered in the library on the way up. In fact, they can be discovered scattered throughout Skyhold, hundreds of copies of the thing, as well as two other poems.

[theproperglove]

Josephine notices that something is wrong the moment she steps foot into the room. Leliana is many things (fierce, frustrating, passionate) but she is certainly not careless.

She tries to tell herself it is nothing to worry about, that what they have motion is wearing them all down and it would be short-sighted to believe that Leliana, for all her strength, could be immune from their stress.

Nevertheless, her fear eats away at her and settles upon her chest in the shape of trepidation.

Josephine sets down the wine and nibbles she'd brought with her on the nearest available flat service, and scans her surroundings for any sign of Leliana's whereabouts.

The door to her chambers is open.

"Leliana?" Josephine calls out, just in case Leliana is in the middle of something, does not wish to be interrupted. Yet even as she's calling, she's walking, towards the room --

-- and that's when she sees the body on the floor.

It takes a moment for her mind to process what she's seeing: the body; Leliana's body; Leliana.

Once it does, however, it's as though everything happens at once. Without thinking, she's knelt down by her friend's side, almost touching but refraining at the last moment, in case whatever has afflicted Leliana can affect her as well. Her mouth is moving without her knowing and it is only once she has said it once, twice, thrice, that she realises she is shrieking Leliana's name.

It's only then that she notices the blinking. The blinking! How had she missed that before? She could weep, almost does, but not before whispering, "Oh, thank the Maker you're alive."

[liberalum]

Dorian has brought wine for the occasion, which isn't exactly an act of generousity, considering its one of many he's outright stolen from the Inquisition's cellar. He also completely expects Josie to complain charmingly at him about it, and he expects to be able to deflect even more charmingly. Ruffling Ruffles' ruffles is, all the time, good sport.

But his mind turns from that, very quickly, when the shrieking starts.

He arrives swiftly, heralded by a heavy-footed dash up the stairs, into the chamber, then towards the other open door. He's wielding Orlesian wine and not his staff, but that doesn't stop a crackle of electricity from dancing across the backs of both his knuckles in preparation to electrocute whatever's making Josephine wail so.

"Josephine?"

Magic crackles, dies. In a rush, Dorian puts the bottle down, a noisy thump of glass to wood.

[ombranera]

Spend a little time with people his own age, get away from the baby, play cards, drink. Things he has needed desperately for some time and only just now managed to wrangle- he'd been looking forward to the evening quite a bit. Dressed for the occasion, took time to sand off the rough edges left by sleeplessness and child rearing to be more of his old self again. It felt right to be thus and he had a spring in his step that'd been absent as he made his way to the room-

Where Dorian is sprinting in, magic in hand-

Where Josephine shrieks Leliana's name-

Zevran follows swift and silent, slipping daggers from his sleeves between one moment and the next, tucked into the shadows until it is plain there is no present danger-

"Touch nothing." Breathing, blinking- life remains but for how long? He smells no blood, sees no true signs of struggle, no wires, no traps, no needle like bolts she might have pulled from her skin to spare herself a poison.

[fightingale]

A moment after Zevran arrives, a woman enters. Her uniform marks her as one of Leliana's scouts - an elf, with blonde hair that might be very long if it were not tied back, and green eyes that are startling in how they interrogate with a look, moreso than anything to do with their colour. Bonheur, Leliana calls her. Whether or not that is her name is immaterial.

"He's right." Very quiet, as she holds her distance - do not disturb the room, do not disturb any evidence. Zevran is a known and trusted ally, despite somewhat recent events. The same can be said of the other two. Her hands did not need to find their way to her knives, it seems, and her grip eases.

"Ombra Nera," she starts, "I will notify the Advisors and Knight-Captain Hill, and leave this room in your hands." Although her gaze lingers on the Ambassador, and her gaze flickers to Dorian. "Perhaps she needs assistance."

Leliana, for her part, remains still. Her eyes are unfocused, and her hand squeezes around the cup in hand, willing them to look to it, willing herself to be able to speak, to help.

healing time phase one; closed to adelaide, anders & leliana.

[fightingale]

CONTENT WARNING: reference to past torture also just gross poisoning effects.

She is moved, and though she is aware of that she could not tell you where to - the journey feels much longer than a trip from her chambers to some room off the library, vacating her own space so that it might be investigated.

When Leliana is laid out on the table (she assumes that is what it must be, hard under her back and cold, although presently everything feels cold) it feels as though her body is behind held under water. Pressure on her chest to keep the whole of her weighed down, and each effort to breathe and see is sabotaged.

Her eyes are open but what she is afforded is a broken mess of light versus shadow rather than colour and the clean lines they allow her mind to organise. It has been a long time since she has felt so out of control of her own body and of what was happening to it, and the sheer memory of Harwen Raleigh's dungeon makes the urge to breath all the more urgent.

There is a messy film forming over her eyes, grey and sticky, and slowly spreading cords of grey-black tissue that started on her throat have slowly reached up to wrap past the left side of her jaw.

She will lunge and she will grab the throat of whoever is above her and she will demand this stops—

Her hand spasms by her side, and she does not move, though a dry rasp drags from her throat.

[justice_is_blond]

He's without Justice, without a spirit at all, but that doesn't mean his own strength and training are useless. If anything, it makes him want to be useful all the more so when the messenger comes for help, Anders is quick to go up. By the sound of things they'll need what they can get, and Leliana is quickly coming to gain his respect.

The sight is worse than he'd been prepared for, though. Her breathing is a mess, a touch of her arm tells him she's cold, and the continuing growth of visible symptoms tell him this is nothing he's ever heard of before.

"Get blankets, now," he tells the person who brought him up, hand resting for the briefest moment on her spasming one. "You're not alone, Leliana." She likely can't see well at the moment, so hearing that might help. Anders casts, trying to get a sense of what's going on in her throat and any idea of what's going to help, finding burning that doesn't seem to respond to the usual spell. Poisons. How he hates them.

[fleurdesel]

Hobbling over from her table takes time, staff used less as a focus and more as a walking stick as Adelaide limps to the secluded room as best she can manage. "How is she breathing?"

First thing is first- pulse, breath, blood. Steady, thready, absent- they've handled similar cases before but never something quite like this.

[justice_is_blond]

The blankets are brought over and he covers Leliana, using that to keep his focus until Adelaide makes it in. There's guilt in the look given to her that's not going away anytime soon, but again he seizes on a task and a focus. It helps with the fog.

"Not well, and something's wrong with her throat. A sort of burn that didn't initially respond. I'm going to try elfroot and embrium." And that's easy, because he doesn't have to worry about the dramatic drop in his strength making this task difficult. His bag gets set on the nearest flat surface and he starts pulling out the emergency vials, adding them together quickly before bringing the drink right back. A hand goes under Leliana's head as he holds the potion to her lips.

"Drink this, please. I know it will hurt to swallow and I'm sorry." They should at least ease symptoms, if not do more - elfroot's the obvious first choice for poisons and the state of her throat makes it clear she'd swallowed something.

[fightingale]

At least she can hear. That's something, and there is a certain amount of comfort in the ones she hears. Anders-- unexpected. Adelaide perhaps less so, but given that not so long ago she was wondering if she should have let one die and had the other in an interrogation room, one could suppose their relationships have improved quite dramatically.

Her initial instinct to having something held to her lips is to attempt to jerk away, but it's weak, even as her fingers curl toward her palms. The effort to resist is shortlived, at best, and she swallows.

The cough that rakes through her is a rattling thing, dry and heaving, the sound seeming bigger than the motion that accompanies it, and when she breathes it is a painful struggle.

Part of her is aware that they are neither of them in a fit state. It's a fact she knows, but she is not in a really strong position to protest.

NPC adventures;

[fightingale]

Leliana's scouts are sometimes creepy and I apologise. These will be custom closed threads, possibly scattered a bit timeframe wise.

Cassandra

[fightingale]

Bonheur seeks out the Seeker, first. It is not a matter of preference or much reason beyond knowing she can make it to the Seeker fractionally faster than the Commander. Perhaps the Commander would have more of a calming effect on the Ambassador, but then it could be said the Nightingale has more of a friendship, a history, with the Seeker. These are not matters she thinks the Nightingale would wish to see prioritised over speed.

It is late, and Bonheur makes no apologies for the hour as she approaches Cassandra in her scouts uniform - the hood conceals the point of her ears, but not the scar running down her right brow, nor the pale blonde of her hair.

"Seeker. Urgent news." Her everything would seem to suggest confidential, as well.

[stabsbooks]

She doesn't know the elf, but the uniform of one of Leliana's scouts is instantly recognizable. Cassandra looks up from her desk, immediately abandoning her work at the grave look on the scout's face.

"What is it?" she asks, pushing her chair back and getting to her feet. "Is something wrong?"

Something is obviously wrong - she just hopes it is not something irreversible.

[fightingale]

The room is such that she can speak freely - as freely as a scout is ever able, but the point stands.

"Yes," she replies, quite simply and without a trace of flippancy.

"An attempt has been made on the Nightingale's life. She was discovered by the Ambassador, Dorian Pavus and Zevran Arainai. She is alive."

But, the but hardly needs to be spoken.

[stabsbooks]

The mere fact that the reassurance is necessary, and that nothing more comforting is offered - alive and well would have been preferable - would have been enough to make Cassandra move, if she had not already been doing so. She rounds the desk, already gesturing to the door. "Take me to them. Now."

No further questions, no insistence on explanations. Demanding answers would just waste time, and she would prefer to see things for herself.

PRE-ANTIDOTE; closed to Morrigan.

[fightingale]

Three days of honey, of royal elfroot infusions, possibly of wine, more likely of water.

Leliana is not acutely aware of many things, presently, but some part of her has grasped onto the certainty that she is dying. Her body, at least, is giving way; scars that have the shine of burns and a disconcerting grey-black of faded and freshly spilled ink rope across her throat. Some of them reach up past the curve of her jaw on her left side, one snaking so it almost reaches her ear, stretching as best it can. On the right side they almost dip as low as her clavicle, and it is a strange thing to see the Left Hand so visible as she is now. Washed out, pale and dressed in a nightgown rather than her leathers and chainmail, but distinctly more human than ever she seems as the Nightingale.

"Human" is, perhaps, a synonym for "weakness," in this case. She has grown thinner these past few days, and she can feel the weakness in her limbs. She has no idea how long it has been, only that she feels drained. She tries to sit up and cannot, and the effort to shape a word only rewards her ears with a grating rasp that seems rough enough that it is take pieces off the very air.

[arcaneadvisor]

Three days since Morrigan was informed (that Zevran knows she is unsurprised, she can worry about what comes later) and in that time she has regressed to the girl she was ten years ago; she has snapped and snarled, curled her lip at anyone coming close, anyone reaching out has been treated with suspicion and hostility.

Three days of her hand curled tight about Leliana's because there is nothing else she can do, and her uselessness is a bitter thing to swallow.

To think that she had longed to see Leliana out of her armour, to see her in bed even but never like this. Morrigan's shoulders hunch inward, her spine curves as if she longs to break free of her skin into something that will find whoever did this but she cannot leave Leliana, even if there are so many who will see. She doesn't care. She only knows Leliana's hand in hers when she isn't with Kieran who knows something is amiss when his mother's smiles are more brittle than swept glass, when her laughter rings hollow. Her work she has brought is only to keep some sort of illusion.

"Lie still," she tells her, tries to put a command in, but her hand is so gentle when she urges her to lie still. Leliana is more fragile than Kieran ever was the few times he took ill as a small boy. "You must rest, recover your strength."

(She will not entertain the possibility of there not being a recovery, the one that dared to whisper such a thing left her presence weeping with a face paler than bones bleached beneath the sun.)

[fightingale]

Her eyebrow quirks a little at the commend, and the corner of her mouth flickers with a smile that doesn't quite make it into being. Telling me what to do, are you?

Morrigan does not look well rested, which she can understand, given the circumstances. Leliana jaw works, clenching with the frustrating knowledge she has nothing helpful to say simply because she cannot speak, and it is-- she has almost always had her words, in some capacity. She has lost her voice before, in dungeons and in chantry rules, but at least she had words. Being literally voiceless makes her lips tighten and thin, unhappy, before she brushes her thumb over Morrigan's hand.

Her head is still fuzzy, her body feels weak, but Leliana has always operated with a certain kind of defiance. It is what makes her squeeze her hand around Morrigan's and pull it closer so it's resting on her chest, her smile a sort of ha, I moved.

[arcaneadvisor]

It's a cruel thing, to strip the voice from the Nightingale - after all,that's why the bird she's name for is known so far and wide, and when the culprit is found she hopes that someone will tighten their hands around their neck in turn that they might know how it feels. She has softened, but she is not soft. A subtle difference. Their intent was death most certainly but this is no less terrible. Her hand cups Leliana's jaw, thumb brushing over her lips with a touch that's infinitely gentle.

At least Leliana still has that spark that's her, they haven't extinguished that. Not yet, her mind tells her because it's a traitorous thing she cannot silence that's used to imagining every eventuality for Kieran, ready for someone and something new to hone in the long late hours. "Maddening even now," she murmurs, fond, wishing for exasperated but it's worry that slips out. "I should take advantage of this to ensure that all your ravens answer only to me, or something of the sort while I have the chance. I am sure there are those who believe I have been waiting eagerly for such an opportunity to land in my lap."

(She is sure there are those who will look to her as the hand that set this in motion same as those who speak of her, Celene, and blood magic in the same breath.)

"Perhaps you might require something to divert your attention, hmm? My turn to tell the tales while you are at my mercy." There is no one here to see the smile only for Leliana, how she squeezes her hand back, how she strokes her hair from her face. They will intrude once again and Morrigan will be forced to allow them to do so but for now, the world is only them as it was in the eluvian and in her study.

[fightingale]

She is very aware that her grip feels fuzzy and weak, as if her hands were numb from behind held at an awkward angle and denied blood flow. Pins and needles don't prickle at her, but it feels like they should be, as if they are an impending possibility, an itch not quite present but bothersome all the same, a lingering discomfort she cannot put a name to.

Comfort is not an easy thing to give when you lack words and when your body barely seems to cooperate. What she can do, though, is tilt her head a little, just enough that she can catch Morrigan's hand with a press of her lips - only after smiling crookedly at the comment about her ravens, mind.

A slow breath, the draw of it audible with the uncomfortable rasp in her lungs, and she braces herself before forces out the first word she's been able to in days; "Here."

It is very quiet and very painful, but Leliana tries to nod to the side of her bed. Probably someone will disapprove, they will say she should not be disturbed, but she still feels cold, constantly and unrelentingly cold, and Morrigan's hand at her jaw is a comfort beyond simple warmth. Selfish, probably, that she desires comfort - weak by some measure, but in this particular moment she finds it very part to prioritise being the Nightingale. Morrigan can tell her stories - she'd enjoy it, in fact, but she'd rather the stories were told here.

DEDUCTIONS; closed to Athos, Sherlock, Obi-Wan & maybe Maria & Zevran?

[fightingale]

Bonheur stands in the doorway, blocking it from any who would enter, never mind that the Rookery is hardly a thoroughfare, and it was through the Rookery that Leliana's chambers had to be accessed.

She is not an overly tall woman, and especially not for an elf. Her hair is blonde, swept back beneath the hood of her scout's uniform. The room itself is not well lit, an attempt at preserving the scene as it had been, with no unnecessary footsteps taken. With that said, of course, it is not as though it is pristine.

"The Lady Ambassador was here," she informs them. "Followed by Dorian Pavus and Zevran Arainai. Others came to remove Leliana to the care of physicians. Those disturbances aside, we have had scouts on duty to ensure the room remained as it is until your arrival." At the cost of the candles burning out, but there you are. She holds a lit candle out for someone to take, white wax glowing a little under the flame. In her other hand she holds a collection of papers, though she does not yet present them.

The room itself have an unpleasant, clinging smell of rotting leaves, an uncomfortable mix of sweetness and decay.


( OOC: tagging order is flexible, but please don't boomerang too much and leave anyone in the dust! arriving later is totally okay. Bonheur is here to answer questions and can offer assistance!)

[seesobserves]

Sherlock sweeps the candle from Bonheur's hand, holding it aloft as he steps forward into the room. Stopping just inside, he sniffs once, taking in the scent, then moves the candle about, examining the room from this angle before moving further.

"And she was lying here?" he asks, then, turning on one foot as he moves to the other side of the table, a hand outstretched to indicate the appropriate patch of floor. This would have been marginally simpler if Leliana had still been on the floor... even if they would have been dealing with a corpse in that case.

[ombranera]

"Yes." Zevran answers from the door, leaving the more in depth investigation to those better suited. There are details he could note that relate more to the hows and whys- finding them? Will not be something he can do as well as men with both of their eyes.

[obi_wanmanshow]

Obi-Wan was neither so hurried nor so particular as Mister Holmes; he was asked to be here on no specific qualification, only the general weight of reputation, and his own history. Better not to rush in, but nor did he dawdle, only paused by the door to take in the room at large.

He touches Zevran's shoulder in passing, a gentle solidarity, delivered with firm eyes and a sober countenance as if to say, hang in there.

It was a deceptively large room, despite the narrowness of the floorspace. Wide gap in the middle, easy egress though it made for a difficult entry-point. Desk, candles, a multitude of small boxes and books and the little shrine to Leliana's chosen religious figure. Two of the ravens come winging down to greet him, landing on the banister before hopping up his politely offered arm and onto a shoulder, while the other opted to perch there and have his head scratched. Obi-Wan watches Sherlock peruse the ground where Leliana had lain, a notion slowly coalescing behind his eyes, if only he could grasp it.

"Curious," He murmurs, frowning thoughtfully, "There's something missing here."

But what?

[seesobserves]

There is little to note about the patch of floor in itself, but positioning himself there gives Sherlock the opportunity to look at it from that perspective. What was the context under which she fell?

The cards on the table catch his attention first. A neat little stack — too neat, too deliberate. He stands, setting the candle on the table and picking up the cards by the edges. The nug motif prompts only a brief raise of an eyebrow.

He thumbs through the cards, fanning them out as Obi-Wan greets the ravens, and when the comment comes about something missing:

"Yes, there is," he agrees. He glances toward the shrine, gears turning in his head, already looking for other details.