[CLOSED] PLAYER PLOT: The Ashes Underneath His Nails

[amygdalae]

WHO: Jim Kirk, Hermione Granger, Adelaide Leblanc, Herian Amsel, Anders, Inessa Serra, Raylan Gibbs, Ciri
WHAT: The Inquisition sends a group of agents to uncover the truth behind a string of mysterious disappearances.
WHEN: Kingsway 1st - 8th
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: Plotting post is here - feel free to post in there still for queries and concerns and further stuff where needed. Warnings for blood, violence, talks about death, experimentation horror, abomination-related stuff etc and eventual on-screen child death. ALSO no tag order - just respond when you feel like you should and I'll try to hit it back if it feels appropriate!!

QUICK JUMP LINKS TRAVELLING TO FROMAGE & FROMAGE GENERAL THREAD ROUTE INVESTIGATION SEEKRIT CAVE ENTRANCE INTO THE SEEKRIT CAVE CAVE INVESTIGATION - LEFT TEAM CAVE INVESTIGATION - RIGHT TEAM KID ABOMINATION THREAD BACK TO SKYHOLD

(—he remembers the chill of the frost and snow biting at bare skin, its usual pure white now tinged a horrid pink from the blood on his hands. He's far away from them now, the danger and the pain and everything else, but the blood will forever be on his hands no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His father had been right all along. He truly was a monster of the greatest kind.)

QUEST: THE ASHES UNDERNEATH HIS NAILS (PART I) The message had come swiftly, the letter itself hastily written with a shaky hand. The request itself was simple; a plea for help from a village at the outskirts of Emprise du Lion, whose people have been mysteriously disappearing over the last few weeks. Considering the ongoing civil unrest that's still transpiring in Orlais the Inquisition made its decision to send out a team of agents to look into this message and see exactly what was going on. The eight agents tasked with the mission were given enough time to prepare for the trip ahead. They would all meet up first at the Inquisition camp set within the Emprise and from there travel for about a day until they reached where their destination was - Fromage, a quaint little village that rested at the outskirts of the area. From that point on, it was up to the agents of the Inquisition to solve this ongoing mystery. The mission: to discover the truth behind these disappearances - and to stop it, if possible.

Comments

[fleurdesel]

"...There are things I tell him he ought not discuss. I tell him this, he does not listen, why am I surprised?" A weary exasperation coils in her voice- a muscle twitches in her jaw but- He is his own man and might speak as he likes. So long as he is prepared and not surprised by the consequences. That Herian should find such a thing objectionable, offensive, enraging? Comes as no surprise. "I do not know of what it was like in Kirkwall- but I have come to understand the lengths desperation might drive someone. How hope can be as sweet a poison as any."

Reasons a Hope spirit has never partnered with her- she is forever wary of the sentiment.

"Not all spirits are discerning. Not all care so long as they are allowed to fulfill their purpose. For some it would suit them well, for others? Justice was....a unique situation from what I understand. Likely tainted before they ever..." She shakes her head. "Morals do not come from spirits. They come from men."

[dashing]

"I cannot reconcile the idea of a woman who my father always said was gentle and loving even in all the brutality of the alienage with someone who would help such a man. That she might have had a hand in what he did—"

Her voice is quiet and steady, but she pauses then, and shakes her head. No good will come of this, of agonising over what truths the apostate might speak, what acts Liliwen Amsel may or may not have participated in, over what might have become of her in the time between.

Herian's head tilts slightly, an acknowledgment, though a faint curl of amusement lingers at the corner of her mouth. A moment skips past before she ventures, "Precious little good comes from men, in my experience."

It does not come quite so easily at the jokes and the droll comments that she seemed to throw out so easily in the Spire, but she's— she's trying. A little, as if a joke might make Adelaide feel better. It feels very childish.

[fleurdesel]

"From what Varric wrote and what I have learned of him? No one knew. Not even Hawke until the deed was done. Trying to assist those that wished an escape, protect those that wanted to hide? That I can understand. But he attempted to be noble in telling no one- and only served to convince himself that it was his only option. Cooler heads may have dissuaded him if not Justice." Where one might have been given pause, the other would have taken over. Dangers of possession. Things she would never wish for any she knew, would never want to endure.

Things that if they are careful? They will never experience.

A moment and she seems, a bit, like the girl in the tower. The hellion of the Spire- and Adelaide finds herself warmed with a twinge of fondness. "I would argue that they have their uses-"

Now her hand strays to the favor on her wrist. A reminder of someone warm and kind and good waiting for her at home. "But I have found my leisure elsewhere."

[dashing]

The gesture does not go unnoticed, and Herian's brow quirks a little at contact made with the braided leather, looking to it for a moment. "I had never known red to be your colour," she observes, nodding to it. "A favour from one dear to your heart, I take it?"

She could have said one with whom you take your pleasure, but that was a step or two beyond, that was too much the dreaded Starkhaven girl that made so many Orlesians sigh. It is good, she thinks, that Adelaide has someone whose favour she would wear gladly, if she is correct in her estimation. Mages are too much isolated, and Adelaide has always held herself to a standard to which Herian aspired.

More often than not she failed, and she had never in the Spire denied herself company, but only once had she loved, and that had been—

"If they prove unworthy of you, I will make them regret it."

[fleurdesel]

"I have become fond of it as of late." Difficult to not when the woman in question's very name is Ruby, when red becomes warmth and comfort and home rather than blood and anger. For a moment she allows herself this reminder, that she has someone to come back to that has missed her, that would speak with her if she called and think noting of her strangeness-

Someone that understands the strangeness and awkwardness and admires her all the same. "Yes- it seemed fitting."

Leather is not something she wears often, but it is Ruby's and that? Makes it worth wearing. Herian's promise drives her out of pleased reverie, fondness easing into vague amusement. "It is far more likely that I shall prove unworthy of her. I have long held that romantic entanglement is unwise for mages and am...out of practice with such tenderness."

[dashing]

Out of practice with such tenderness. It seemed to Herian that there world entire was disconnected from tenderness, that affection and gentleness were like to be be met with volatility, that love could be beaten from from the all. She observes the favour a moment longer, and her gaze flickers back to her teacher.

Her is another matter Herian of Old would have teased her for, claimed devastation that it was no she Adelaide so cared for. Herian of Now left well enough alone, no matter her surprise.

"Hold out your heart to her, that she might see it clearly, know that you trust it unto her. We must be guarded in so much, but in love? In... adoration? A demon cannot hope to claim you, if that which they seek to corrupt is guarded to another for safeholding. If she knows you, can understand the steps you walk, then she will not condemn you the learning curve."