[OPEN] Heaven bend to take my hand

[bookish_lioness]

WHO: Hermione Granger and YOU
WHAT: Hermione's seen some shit and is trying to get over it.
WHEN: Mid-Kingsway through the end of the month.
WHERE: In and around Skyhold.
NOTES: Takes place after this plot, so some threads will likely have mentions of child death and/or signs of depression. Please let me know if you'd like me to avoid any triggery topics.

Library

Though the curly-haired rifter has become a staple in the library over the past six months, Hermione has been relatively scarce there lately. She has no real heart for research anymore, not after the things she'd uncovered in those journals in that cave in Fromage, and there's so much more to Thedas than what can be found in books. She'd learned that the hard way, and now instead of reading and taking notes, she finds her thoughts wandering as they rarely do. For once, she can use a distraction from her failed attempts at studying.


Stables

Avoiding people isn't always as easy as she'd like it to be. But if she can preoccupy herself with animals, Hermione can withstand a bit of small talk. There's usually a kitten or two playing around the stables, and if not, at least helping to feed some of the horses will make her feel productive as well as distracted. And if that doesn't work, there's a certain dracolisk that she'd been slowly learning to get friendly with, assuming it won't sense her dour mood and become agitated.


Battlements

The battlements are actually quite pretty. She'd never really come up here before - if she wasn't in the library then that usually means she wanted to be social, and so the courtyards were where she'd spent more of her time - but now that she's looking for a change of scenery... well, there are worse places to get some quiet with a beautiful view. She's not always alone, since there are always people passing back and forth, but most people don't seem all that keen on hassling the young woman perched in between two turrets, staring out into the mountains. Indeed, unless someone happens to recognize her or just manages to catch her as she wipes at a stray tear, most probably wouldn't even know she's there.


Healing Tents

Returning from Emprise had been difficult, for more reasons than one. Beyond the obvious, Hermione still had a few physical injuries that she'd intended to ask the healers in her group to help with on their way back, but had clearly never gotten around to it due to the extenuating circumstances. Of course, she can't indefinitely deal with waking up with a sharp pain in her back and some of the bruises had begun to look particularly gruesome, so there's nothing wrong with making the occasional visit to the healing tents. If she takes care of one thing at a time and sees a different healer each time, it minimizes the chance of any awkward questions being asked, which is all the better; she's not ready to talk about that dreadful day and is in no rush to change that.


Wildcard!

She probably won't be quite so cheery until later on in the month, but Hermione still needs to eat, drink, bathe, and presumably sleep. She may be a little awkward around those that had gone to Emprise du Lion with her, but she isn't about to actively ignore anyone or send them off. Her nerves might be a bit frayed, but there's still such a thing as etiquette, after all.

Comments

[spaceswan]

"Religious allegory? Oh, you mean like burning bushes and frog plagues, or blue-skinned destroyers, or what have you? No. The Traveler is real. I should really carry around sketches or--oh good grief, I'm an idiot," Mac mutters to himself, sighing softly and patting around on his person before tugging a thick leather-bound book from a satchel at his side. Dropping it onto the table with a heavy thump he pats the tome, drumming a fingertip on the gold embossed designs decorating the cover.

"My personal grimoire. Haven't written anything of consequence in it since I got here. Too busy sucking up new things to bother with the old. Just a few scribbled notes, but..." he sniffs, parting the pages and flipping through until he found his old sketches of the Traveler, different diagrams and notes on measurements. The sketches aren't dramatically artistic, but they're crisp and utilitarian, and stress accuracy, according to the surrounding notes. Quite literally a giant lifeform hovering over a city (also sketched) and casting it's shadow against a backdrop of mountains.

"That's The Last City," Mac explains, tapping the sketch and indicating the space below the large orb. "And that's the Traveler. It died there. Or went silent and inert, at any rate. Hard to tell what alive and dead really means anymore," the Guardian mused with a small shrug. The formerly dead, like himself, didn't really have a qualified opinion.

"I don't know why I look like this, miss. Just speculating, really. Based on what other people and the books tell me, people in the Fade are dreaming, and not necessarily physically there. So maybe when you come out of the Fade on the other side, is has to fabricate a body for you, and it's just using the blueprints it's familiar with. Frankly I'm just glad I didn't come out looking more like a demon. At least this way people think I'm reasonably local," he smirks, leaning to tap a finger against one horn.

"It's definitely been tedious learning how to function with these, though. Get them caught in everything and sleeping with them? Not exactly easy. They look neat, so there's that." He pauses, arching a brow at Hermione before leaning his head down a little more and reaching up to pat the horns with both hands.

"Check 'em out. On there pretty good," he chuckles, glancing up with a crooked grin. "I'm to take it that you find my appearance a positive thing? Ooh, flattery. Be still, my beating heart," the warlock drawls with a fluttery sigh before laying his head on the table, pushing his grimoire towards her as he does. He's merely teasing for the sake of it, but his offer for perusal is genuine, including the invitation to test his horns.

"Dunno what exactly happened to wizards and witches, though. Assuming we come from the same universe and not just extremely close parallels, they have to have gone somewhere, right? And they wouldn't just let life end, I assume? So maybe they went off and when they came back the Awoken were the result. They're pretty canny with their records, though, so I don't know much, myself. I would have asked, but I never had the time. Wish I did."

[bookish_lioness]

She's a bit surprised when he retrieves a book of his own from his bag, though Hermione honestly couldn't have expected that hers were the only books from a different world. She doesn't have anything she considers valuable, but she keeps them locked away in a small box hidden with magic, along with whatever coin she manages to earn around Skyhold. There's no promise that her anti-detection charms and such are even working, but at least no one has walked off with them yet. She doesn't know that she'd be able to cope with it if she couldn't cross-reference what she's learned in Skyhold's library with the magic she knows in her own world.

A month ago, Hermione would have been beyond excited to see a grimoire containing notes from an entirely different world, and might have lost all interest in actually conversing with Mac in favor of absorbing every word within those pages that she could manage. Instead, she's too wary of even her own magic to get too excited, and so she gives the tome a weary look before leaning in to look at the sketches Mac points out.

"Do the dead in your world usually exhibit brain activity and a viable pulse?" Hermione asks, not sure whether or not she's joking. She has no idea what people are like in other worlds; there may be one where they've transcended beyond physical bodies entirely, which might be what he's talking about.

Beyond that, though, his appearance is the most troubling aspect of this entire ordeal, since she's never met anyone who claims to have had their entire physical body changed. Hobbits aren't native to Thedas, but the one she knows doesn't look as though he'd been changed to resemble a dwarf, near as she could tell. So just how otherworldly had Mac looked that the Fade had decided-... and how can the Fade decide anything? It's not an actual living thing with sentience, is it?

She's coming out of this with more questions than she'd had going in, and Hermione's beginning to get tired of it. If nothing else, though, Mac's claim that she'd been flirting with him or some such thing bears the same kind of weight now that it always might have had, and she starts noticeably as she gapes at him.

"No, I-... that's not what I-.... I only meant that you don't look-...." Realizing that there's simply no way she's getting out of this with her dignity intact, she huffs softly and remarks, "I've seen excessive use of the Dark Arts effect someone's appearance negatively, to the point where they're hardly recognizable as human. There's no correlation between using more positive forms of magic and attractiveness, so all I meant was that you don't look inhuman. I mean-... you don't look human, but you don't look far removed from human, if that makes sense." This isn't working, and so she weakly remarks, "You still have a nose, if nothing else."

While she hadn't wanted to glance through the book, it seems like a ready distraction, and so she tugs it a little closer to her and gingerly turns the page, frowning a little and ignoring his horns for the time being. "You never had direct access to those records?"

[spaceswan]

"But it's an attractive nose," he preens, wrinkling the mentioned part briefly before letting it drop. He's had his fun for the moment and she seems genuinely more interested in the schematics and mysteries, so he'll indulge her.

"About the dead, no. They're usually dead-dead. Funeral, what have you. Memorial. Whatever the people left behind choose. Only Guardians are the dead risen for a new purpose. They might have been Earth human, Exo, Awoken or possibly something else when they died, but once they're brought back, they're Guardians. Nothing else. That's why I never had access the the records kept by the Awoken. While I was Awoken up to and at the time of my death, when I was brought back I born anew as a Guardian. The Awoken only allow other Awoken into their secrets. I and others like me are barred from that society. I don't know why," he muses, reaching out and thumbing through the grimoire to mark a spot for her to look at.

"I'm not sure why we're not considered part of our previous people anymore, since they certainly still make use of us, but that's how it is. On that page there I've got a few sketches of the Awoken outposts in the asteroid belt, a few ships and some other things. There's a sketch of the Queen and Prince, too," he trails off, pursing his lips briefly before glancing away and leaning back in his seat, obviously swallowing some thought or word regarding the royals.

He's silent for a moment, lightly tapping a finger on the table before adding offhand, "The only records I have are my own and the bits and pieces from the archives on Venus. To be fair, when I was there I wasn't looking for information on the Awoken; I was looking for information on the Vex, which were the enemy of the moment."

[bookish_lioness]

It's obvious that he's teasing her, but that doesn't make it any easier for Hermione to get past that without flushing. Luckily, he seems to drop it easily enough, and so she's more than willing to chat about anything but his nose or any other part of his body, intriguing as his entire sort-of-human-but-also-sort-of-Qunari situation might be.

After hearing what he has to say about Guardians, Hermione frowns just slightly. "So you... died?" she asks uncertainly. "And when you came back, you had no memories of your former life? You must have been privy to the secrets of the Awoken during your lifetime, so...."

But that's only one of many questions she has, and as she looks down at the sketch he points out to her, she asks, "Who brought you back? And how? And why? Why you, I mean? Is there some method as to whom gets picked to be a Guardian?"

[spaceswan]

"No memory of my death, no memory of my life before, no record of me so far as anyone can find. That's no uncommon, though - many Guardians died well before the record-keeping was quite as solid as it is now. And even then, some of the Guardians come from absolutely ancient remains, I'm told. Centuries upon centuries," Mac shrugs, leaning back a bit and knitting gloved fingers together, resting them against the slope of his belly.

"I was brought back by my Ghost. To clarify, they're just called Ghosts, but they're fully autonomous artificial lifeforms. They were created by the Traveler when it died. Or...went into torpor, more like," he mumbles, running his tongue along his teeth before making a soft clucking sound.

"Ghosts carry a some of the Traveler's Light - or magic, if you prefer - and spend their time seeking whatever snuffed spark they're meant to reignite. They don't know why they're driven to seek us out specifically - or they aren't telling - and no one knows what makes us special. Maybe it's nothing? Maybe it's a lottery, maybe it's a gut feeling that even little robots can have. Can't really say. I do know that Ghosts never stop looking for their Guardians, and when they find them, they don't go to another. They live and die together after that. There's only been one instance to the contrary, and theirs are extremely extraordinary circumstances, and not good to base anything off of. Oh...well...two instances, but I guess if you give in to the Darkness, you cut yourself off from your Ghost anyways. Which kind of implies they're our surrogate souls."

[bookish_lioness]

His world - or universe or reality or whatever it might be - sounds so remarkably bizarre to Hermione, and Mac can probably see the inquisitive hunger in her eyes as she tries to take in his every word and process it and try to make it make orderly sense in her mind. It isn't working out so well, honestly. To her credit, though, it's quite a lot to take in.

"So... you have a little robot companion known as a Ghost?" she asks, trying not to sound too bewildered. "And it's sort of like a ghost of your own... soul? So is it a physical being, or more of a metaphysical one?"

Magic is magic, but the metaphysical implies something else entirely, something with which Hermione is not at all familiar and would have no idea how to even begin to rationalize within her current worldview.

[spaceswan]

"Mhm. Ghosts can have their own names, but mine strictly refuses to go by anything I call him, so we'll just stick with O High Snob of the Humorless Plenty," Mac drawls, sticking his tongue out at the thought of his companion. He rolls his eyes dramatically and even adds flopping against the table and sliding back into his seat with a groan for emphasis. Clearly he was regularly kept in check by the robotic companion.

"I think they're kind of both physical and metaphysical. Like...they keep the little robot form to have a face for the masses, but they use transmat a lot. That's transmatter warp. I think by your time it already pops up a lot in science fiction novelizations and shows. Basically they kind of poof themselves and other things in and out of existence on a whim, almost. They don't make it disappear, really...they just put it - or themselves - somewhere else. Break up into atomic particles or something, right?" he tries to explain, sitting up again and gesturing a ball shape with his hands breaking apart, then snapping back together.

"But when they're gone from the physical view, you can still hear them. They still talk to you or through electronics and such. We liken them to fictional ghosts for a lot of reasons, y'see? I suppose they could still possibly interact on a purely molecular level, thereby making them physical all the time, but there isn't any literature on that, so far as I know, and I read a lot," the Guardian reassures her, shaking his head slowly.

"I don't know if it's all spirits and faith or if there's a strictly scientific explanation. You'd think they'd know after so many centuries. What I can tell you is that Warlocks in particular, like myself, deal in some pretty abstract concepts and don't really hold much stock in absolutes. There are a lot of cults and religious groups still. If science explained everything, there wouldn't still be room for faith in my time, hm?"

[bookish_lioness]

The idea of ghosts isn't new to her. Each House in Hogwarts has its own ghosts, and she'd even attended Nearly Headless Nick's 500th deathday party. Ghosts are very much real, and so long as she doesn't think too hard about the particulars and the ghost in question means her no harm, Hermione has no trouble accepting that.

But a robot with a piece of someone's soul in it? That sounds remarkably like a horcrux, setting her a little ill at ease even when Mac explains that that's not what they are at all. Anything that has to do with altering the essence of a human soul never tends to work out well, regardless of the intent or planned result.

"We call that Apparition, where I'm from," she explains. "Most witches and wizards can do it with little trouble, though technically we need to have a license for it and can begin taking classes for it at age seventeen. It's a standard enough form of individual travel, though we can also bring one person along with us if we have some sort of physical contact with them - hand-holding, usually."

She does have to pause, though, frowning a little as she admits, "The travel is usually instantaneous, though, or near enough to it. A loud crack can usually be heard when someone Apparates, but you can't hear their voice; they've ceased to exist in that one place, you see, and are immediately being transported to another place."

While she can accept ghosts, faith is another matter entirely, and she tries not to show any skepticism on her face as she concludes, "Some might consider religion a sort of science, albeit one that people haven't gotten around to satisfactorily explaining quite yet. There's proof in life after death, at least in my world, so if someone rational and without the fanaticism of a religious zealot would put in a bit of research, I reckon we'd have an answer to that query before too long, even if the answer is simply, 'The universe is vast and not entirely quantifiable or explainable by the standards of sentient life.'"