faderift | you still can't look me in the eye

WHO: Leliana & various!
WHAT: catch all for July/Solace
WHEN: from roughly the 8th on throughout the month.
WHERE: Skyhold, various.
NOTES: set ups all in prose, but will happily match brackets if you prefer them! Open starters and a bit of a timeline on Leliana's health in the post (more to be added as we plod through the month), closed starters in the comments. If you'd like to do something that isn't in the open feel free to get in touch with me via pm or pp @karmacharging!
WARNINGS: Likely reference to illness, attempted murder, actual murder, and the range of terrible things that come with being the Nightingale. Will update as necessary, and endeavour to label subject lines.

OOC Recovery Deets.
After the team returned from the Brecilian Forest on the 27th, Leliana was given a series of potions with the ingredients that the team has acquired. Her recovery was not immediate, given the brutal effects of the poison, but the groundwork was laid. By the 1st of Solace she was able to speak again, although her voice sounded terrible, and some of the scarring had receded. By the 4th she was able to stand, although No One Approved. Since the 6th she has been walking, but only a very little. She normally has to sit in the presence of others, but from the 14th onward her strength has noticeably improved, although she's still thinner than she was before. Report on the Plot here.

OPEN.
8th - 11th - The Rookery.
It is safest to linger about her tower, still. Better that she be seen beyond it and that her recovery be confirmed, and yet if she were to falter or fall or appear weak that would only do harm. Her mind has recovered far more quickly than her body, and some motions still feel strange and foreign. Writing takes longer than it used to, but she is nothing if not determined. A hideous sort of stubbornness has been one thing that has never changed, not since she was a little girl.

She is writing or reading letters and orders and reports near constantly. Beleth and several scouts did much in the way of dealing with smaller matters, while Charter saw to other more pressing matters. Despite their efforts, however, there were a good many things that only the Nightingale could see to.

Pausing in her writing, Leliana flexes her hand, shaking it out a little, before looking towards the staircase. "Enter."

14th - the day after the Snow Battle Royale.
Though she did not stray down to the valley for the fight itself - such a move seemed a singularly poor decision. The Nightingale was not a social butterfly, and though it would have been an opportunity to assert her good health it would have been... inappropriate, she suspects, to attend.

That is not to say she didn't watch from the Rookery, and receive regular reports from her scouts on the progress and any Events of Note, whether they were interpersonal reactions or displays of skill, or just particularly amusing instances of people being decimated with snow.

Now she walks through the valley, observing the remains of the fortresses, still largely intact with the cold that always lingers this high in the Frostbacks, snow and ice crunching underfoot as she moves carefully, curiously, through the field. The cold bites into her lungs, and she swallows a cough that threatens to rattle her back, resting her gloved hand against the polished ice.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Leliana inhales, and exhales a slow breath.

"A fair stance, though it seems as thought it could become more harmful over time. You remain unknown, they continue to be wary, each side suffers for the unfamiliarity. Your aid to the refugees has surely not gone unnoticed, and other Rifters offer their assistance with the medical tents, on missions, just as you yourself have."

A pause, as she weighs her words. "The help Rifters have given us with closing Rifts mean much to the people of the Inquisition, even if beyond our ranks the knowledge is taking longer to be understood." Her smile is very slight. "I hope that you do not deem such isolation a necessity for overlong."

She ducked her head, smiling just a little bit. That the smile didn't quite reach her eyes was her little secret.

"I wish I could do more," she said. And that much, at least, was entirely honest on her part. "I have skills of value that aren't being used. And any time someone goes unhelped, I think it's a crime."

"I am ever in need of more scouts. At the network becomes more complex, those with skill are necessary to keep the existing and the new elements to it safe."

Though it is, perhaps, not what Ariadne had in mind. She suspected that the young woman was more concerned with people than with institutions, for all that she was involved in a war back home. "We are of a like mind in that, at least."

"I would be happy to scout for you," Ariadne replied, keeping her head down. "Cole told me that you're a good person, and I believe him." It had been the only question she'd really asked about Leliana. The only one that mattered, really. All else was just detail.

She was right, though. Ariadne was always more concerned with people than with institutions.

But most institutions, it turned out, were made up of people.

"My causes are good ones. Freedom should not be a luxury, but I..." Her mouth purses a moment, before she shakes her head. "Cole may give me, personally, more credit than I deserve."

Her sickness had given her more time to think, and more to consider. The weights that hung from her had never been easy, but now they feel more unnatural than they had. And Leliana is not so cold as to be immune to their setting and the delighted laughter of children sliding and slipping on ice.

"Is this an inappropriate time to discuss the limitations of what work you are willing to do? We could arrange to meet at a later hour."

"Whenever you feel best," Ariadne replied, watching the subtle shifts in her breathing, listening to her pulse. "But there's really not much to discuss. Given the company that I keep, I doubt it would surprise you much to know that I won't kill. Nor harm anyone, except in self defense."

Which wasn't to say she wasn't capable of it. Alastrians were natural-born predators. And even if the Rift had robbed her of her natural skintone and hair, she still had her talons, her vocal chords, and her agility.

"I may be an idealist," she said. "But I'm an idealist whose home was burned to the ground. I know that wars are messy. That things aren't always clean-cut."

Limiting, comes Leliana's knee-jerk thought, though not necessarily unkindly. There are allowances to be made with certain scouts. Ultimately, Leliana prefers it so, and prefers it that Ariadne is glad to be frank about her code. Specialised tools for specialised jobs.

"I will not forget, and I appreciate your candour." And, a pause, before she carries on. "I am sorry about your home, Ariadne."

Some people might have accepted such sympathy as a simple platitude to be acknowledged and forgotten. But Ariadne, who offered such sympathy with an open heart, took it as something deeper.

She looked genuinely touched.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I appreciate that."

A pause.

"And I'm sorry about yours."

For all that Leliana appears cold, she is not. Not truly, or at least, not completely. She has become less ready with her sentiment than she had been twelve odd years ago, and yet it is that compassion and that feeling which has driven her to become as she is, which made the Nightingale so essential. She had a purpose.

At least, at one point she had a very clear purpose. She is still refining her understanding in the wake of so many events these past months. Bowing her head very slightly, Leliana allows her mouth to tug into a very slight smile. "We will do what we can, and save as many as we can in the process."

"That's all anyone can do," Ariadne replied. And she offered Leliana another one of her bouncy, little curtsies.

It was funny. At times, Thedas seemed more foreign than any land Ariadne had ever seen.

But in moments like this...

...it was almost home.

She nods in turn, and turns to look towards the Keep. It will take her some time to make the return walk, and she is not eager to over exert herself when her recovery remains so tenuous.

"Let us not stop there simply because the world - worlds, I suppose - attempts to undermine our further efforts."

A little sigh, and Leliana straightens her back, ignoring the pain rolling down her muscles, the tiredness. "I fear I have some matters to attend to back in the Keep. It looks as though some ravens have arrived." Not a lie, that, although she imagines a runner would bring anything truly urgent to her.

"I can have someone bring some food down for you and the children, if you so wish."

Ariadne had brought a few treats nicked from the kitchen. But she had the sense that Leliana wanted to be of use. And that allowing her to go back to the Keep was an honorable way of letting her leave to rest. The scents coming off of her indicated that she was far from fully recovered.

So she nodded, offering Leliana a deeper curtsy than before.

"That would be most kind."

"Not at all." She would be glad to see it done. She suspected Avery might be slightly less glad for the extra work, but the Tal Vashoth Trio seemed particularly enthusiastic about anything that involved a chance to show off a little bit; within hardly any time at all Ariadne would find herself staring down a platter of all sorts of sweets. Leliana would make sure of it.

Leliana does not quite bow, but there is the implication of it, and a very, very slight smile.

"Until next time, Ariadne. Do not hesitate to reach out to my scouts if you've need of aid."

"You are very kind, my lady," Ariadne replied.

Something told her that Leliana didn't hear that often. Which made it all the more important to say it now.

you still can't look me in the eye

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