player plot: thorns of the rose (2)

[fightingale]

WHO: Alistair, Shale, Zevran, Dorian, Bethany, Bruce, Christine, Eirlys, Sina (closed.)
WHAT: Gathering rare herbs, slam poetry night with a tree, and other things.
WHEN: Departing 24th and returning 27th Justinian
WHERE: Brecilian Forest, mostly
NOTES: This is one of the missions for the Thorns of the Rose player plot. Potential themes of death and attempted murder, also an intense forest, violence, other things to be added as necessary. If something heavy comes up in a thread that isn't mentioned here, please add relevant warnings to the subject line.

Comments

[ancarrow]

"It could just be that it's favoured by minstrels for its effect." Perhaps it amplified the voice if prepared in a certain way, as well as the healing properties they needed it for. Eirlys hopes not, as it will make it even more difficult to find if it looks similar to the other leaves surrounding them. "It's probably wise to take at least one sample of everything, just in case."

[aceso]

"Perhaps something to sooth the throat?" Christine guesses. It seems why a minstrel would take it, at any rate. She gestures for Eirlys to go ahead. "A good idea. It will be easier to compare notes back at Skyhold. There may be books with diagrams of these leaves."

[byblow]

Alistair nods at Bethany--rhyming, no singing, thank the Maker, the rhyming was bad enough--and at Eirlys, who is obviously the brains of this operation. He pulls the plant he's examining up by the roots, just in case, and brings it to her for inspection.

"Dragonthorn," he says, belatedly echoing Christine, as if he's never heard the word before. As if he hasn't lived in Orlais for ten years. He knows what dragonthorn is. But after a moment of consideration, his verdict is, "Sounds made up."

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany moved further up the way, kneeling to look at some other bracken on the side of the road. Eirlys had the right idea, so she carefully snipped off what she could find with her blade.

She paused for a moment to glance over at Alistair, before she let out a choked noise. Sure, you might have thought it was a laugh but clearly it was simply Bethany pressing her bandages again. One hand went to her chest, and she cleared her throat.

"...So, what does it look like? Will it help? We might find some here as well."

[fightingale]

"Thou dost seem lost, small living things,"
a voice booms, wood creaking and bark rasping as the source of it lumbers closer, sending small shudders through the ground.

"But--" The Elder Tree looms, then, through some branches it has to push apart, very gentle and mindful of its less lively kin, "Learning is a gift wand'ring brings."

It is a tree. A very large, somewhat demonic looking tree, but with very nice foliage. Only slightly skeletal and creepy.

[eolasemah]

Sina appears like a tiny, green-glowing, dirt-smudged specter, emerging suddenly from a thick bramble patch in the midst of the chattering humans with fistfuls of potentially useful herbs clasped in her filthy gardening gloves. She is staring at the tree, her face alight like a human child's on Feastday, her already large eyes impossibly wide as it speaks to them.
"Andaran atish'an, ha'adahl," she pipes in sweetly, and would sound a lot more mature and Keeper-ly if this clearly weren't the single most exciting moment of her comparatively short life.

[aceso]

Christine has no words for this moment. Not in the common tongue, not in Orlesian; nothing. Is it possible she's hallucinating? Do one of these plants put out a pollen that causes her to see things?

If that's so, and she's also hallucinating Sina speaking to it, she's going to be so embarrassed.

But she's not taking any chances either. She quickly casts a barrier over as many of the group as she can, before looking at the others for help. She has no idea what to do right now.

[amygdalae]

...a talking tree.

A talking tree.

Even for Bruce that was pretty high on his scale of strange things, and that was saying something.

He supposes he should say something, but his own confusion matches Christine's own in this scenario. He glances towards her and feels the barrier that she casts, taking her cue and doing the same for the rest that she can't reach. After talking trees, its much better to be safe that to be sorry.

[ombranera]

"...Non questa merda di nuovo." Zevran murmurs, head tipping back to peer up at that same blasted tree. He'd told Jonas that they should have killed it, but no. Now it lives to rhyme another day, a decade after the fact.

"Stand down. It is friendly." A beat. "Relatively speaking."

Annoying, but friendly. Exhausting, but friendly. Frustrating- but friendly.

I hate myself a little bit

[fightingale]

In truth the Elder Tree is quite delighted
To see such a mix of small ones to be counted.
He suspects that not since the land was Blighted
And quests to save the land were mounted--

"Wait," he starts, "can it be?
Thou hast met before this Elder Tree?"

He peers, then, and hands held wide
(more branches hanging by his side),

"Some of thee art well remembered, here.
Thou helped clear my oaken heart of fear
For an acorn lost, soul in seed form,
A grief that left me most forlorn.

Welcome then, elves and humans and those of stone,
Thou need not search all alone."

And to Sina he turns,
(The favourite, now, not to be spurned,)

"Youngling, thine love for this forest is strong,
It lives within thee, as a song.
For that these ancient trees are grateful.
-- Perhaps our meeting here is fateful?"
Before our ways part I shall gift thee a song."

I love you a lot

[byblow]

Friendly, yes, the friendliest demon tree in the world, Alistair mouths to himself in silent sarcastic answer to Zevran—silent because he would like it to stay friendly and—sing.

"It sings now," he says, shaking one of his hands as if he can shake the spirits protecting him off like slime. It doesn't do anything. "That's great."

It may actually be great.

[dwarfing]

Shale has been mostly quiet this whole time, sullen and angry about this whole thing. Now they give the most exasperated sigh in histories of sighs. Maybe even an eyeroll, honestly.

Really?

"It better sing quickly. We have come for herbs."

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany stared up at the tree - The Singing, Rhyming Tree -- her mouth slightly agape. Sometimes, even in the life of someone who had seen as much as she had -- there was still wonder in this world. Still beauty before imagining.

She put one hand to her chest, and then curtsied low. "We would be honored, Elder Tree, to hear your song -- but my companion is correct. We seek herbs, to save another who once came to your forest. The red-haired bard, do you recall her?"

Always be polite to the demon trees unless you found out they were going to kill you.

[amygdalae]

And now it apparently rhymes and sings, too.

Bruce, at least, does drop the barriers he had put up, although the wariness is still very much there. He glances between Zevran and Alistair with an additional look in the direction of the golem before turning back to the tree.

"She's been poisoned," he adds on after Hawke. "And if we don't return soon, her life may be beyond saving."

[aceso]

Christine will most certainly not stand down, Zevran, and don't presume to ever tell her what to do either. Her barrier stays right where it is, protecting those who could possibly be torn apart by one swing of its branches, should it turn irritable. And she really can't believe it's singing to them either. This demon tree is not to be trusted, not even if it chooses to help.

For now, however, she will just stand guard, showing no sign she's about to attack, but not about to bow and simper to a tree either.

[ombranera]

"You know I thought I'd had some bad mushrooms with dinner when we ran into him last or was, perhaps, drunk. Actually I think I was a little drunk. Being sober does not make this better." Leliana is dying and he has to talk to this singing, rhyming tree.

Why is this his life? Why of all the strangeness must this be the one that returns? Why not the naked Lady of the Forest? At least there would be a lovely chest to stare at while sorting out where the herbs they needed could be found. "Something that reacts poorly to magic. Attempts to heal her only cause harm."

To Christine: "Seriously. It will not hurt us as long as we remain nice and civil. Aggression will likely end with the rest of the local sylvans attempting to kill us and I do not have so much Antivan Fire on me to burn them all."

[aceso]

"And what," Christine responds coolly, "Makes you think I am showing aggression? I am not attacking it. I am not moving. I am quietly standing here while choosing to protect others." The "you fool" is implied by her tone. "Perhaps you should get back to why we came here, instead of accusing me of things I am not doing."

Seriously, Zevran, do not test her. She may stay nice and calm here so as not to confuse the demon tree, but she will give you such a talking to later if you keep it up. She is in no mood.

[byblow]

Alistair doesn't have it in him to tell people to stop bickering when there's business to attend to—if nothing else, he'd recognize the hypocrisy—but this is Leliana, so he does glance between them, more baffled than judgmental, before sidling close enough to Zevran that no one else will be caught in-range when he quietly dispels just their barriers. It's a compromise, or anti-Orlesian solidarity, or something.

"Minstrel leaf," he says, "and, uh."

A hand wave. Someone better at this can remember the other two.

[dwarfing]

"Don't waste time with arguing, or I will step on it," Shale growls at Christine and Zevran. Who cared who did what as long as they got what they came for?

Tree had nothing on stone, after all. The golem would crush this entire forest of they had to. All while wearing the red leather sandals Leliana gave them.

"Rotten meat plant and a star flower," they then add after Alistair.

[ancarrow]

"Stella atrae, in Tevene," Eirlys adds, though she's not sure that the tree would know the names the plants had been given anywhere but here in the forest. Then again, she didn't expect to be talking to a tree today, of all things. "And the one with the rancid scent is blue with white stamen."

[eolasemah]

Sina all but vibrates with excitement, tears in her eyes when the tree addresses her. She nearly forgets why they're actually here, and is about to answer Alistair when Shale and Eirlys chime in. Her face falls and she looks from person to person, surprised and somewhat dismayed by how unimpressed several of them appear. Shale, in particular, gets a horrified stare.
"We're honored by your wisdom," she says in a near whisper, as though she hopes the others won't make fun of her for it.

[aceso]

Christine's eyes widen in shock when she feels the protection she placed around them disappear, and not from natural decay. She just... doesn't understand why this is happening? She's done nothing. She laid a barrier over others to protect them from harm, and then Zevran started talking down to her as if she was a wild animal about to attack a tree! And Alistair... he had dispelled her magic like she was nothing. Did he not realize what that meant to a mage who had never wanted to inflict pain on others, and only wanted to protect them? He's just taken away her ability to do so.

And the golem... why did it think she was arguing? She had literal stood there and said nothing until Zevran wrongly accused her out of no where of being aggressive. For placing a barrier on people. She's half-convinced the sylvan has made everyone go mad, but after looking between them all, her eyes finally settle on Alistair once more, showing just a hint of fear before she takes a few steps back, then turns away completely. She doesn't run away, but she walks with her head held high, hands shaking as she moves to the back of the group and then continues on, back to where they've already been. If she isn't allowed to protect others, then she's no good here, and she'll go elsewhere until they're done. Obviously they think she's a raving lunatic who wants to attack a tree, and defending herself will just be seen as arguing more. As much as she wants to make herself clear, Leliana doesn't have much time, and so Christine will remove herself from the situation.

[amygdalae]

Bruce watches as Christine walks off, only giving a look at Alistair because really--really, Alistair, what was he even thinking.

There's enough of them hovering around the tree and quacking at it right now; between all of them he's sure they have it covered. Which means he is free to leave them to it and go and check on Christine instead. However friendly this tree might be, the rest of the forest is still another matter.

"Let's try to move on as soon as we can," he says for anybody who's listening to him, then only hesitates for a moment more before going after Christine to check up on her.

[fightingale]

The Elder Tree does watch, perplexed,
When comrades inflict upon their own distress.

Such things the Tree has seen before -
Violence, blood upon the forest floor,

Round Thedas wide, for it had wandered,
And oft on Small Ones it had pondered.

The long branches of its fingers shake,
And the breeze a quiet rustling makes,

A sigh of remembering, summoning thought.
Did it recall a bard? It ought...

"Ah," it starts, nodding to those gathered hence,
and then its poem does commence.

"The bard, yes, so often singing,
When with shrieks of horror these woods were ringing.
'Poisoned,' said he?" A look to where the mages were,
Though the Tree spares comment, avoids a stir,
"A most unhappy malady."

Humming and musing, the Elder Tree considers,
eyes its audience for any jitters.
The two elf maids, he thinks, more likely
To take the offered knowledge and hold it tightly.

"Stella atrae and rotten meat,
These are the cause of thine mood's defeat?
They can be found, of that I'm certain.
Beyond the old were's curtain,
A barrier that kept them safe,
And beyond it, a ruined elvhen place."

And after that, a laugh and wheeze,
The sound which might cause some disease,
"As for Minstrel Leaf, you see,
The only source for that is me."

[ombranera]

Well...that certainly was a thing. Zevran peers back at both Bruce and Christine (more at the surrounding area, the last thing they need is to upset a Sylvan right now) and finding the forest relatively clear (probably. They blend in they are living trees among trees, it is difficult to pick them out on a good day) turns his attention back to the rest of the group- and scoots away from Shale a bit. Yes there is fondness but Shale does have their thinned patience. He would not test it.

"...we have to go back in the den?" Oh. Oh joy. Oh rapture. Oh this is everything he had hoped for and more.

No, no it isn't.

"There is no fog to turn us about anymore, is there? Because that was not fun a decade ago and I would rather not repeat the experience." Truly. And- oh. Needing a leaf from the Oak itself. He'll leave asking for it to Sina- which he attempts to prompt with a significant look in her direction.