faderift | open | the drunk horn's so violent, all spinning out sound

open | the drunk horn's so violent, all spinning out sound

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: SATINALIA
WHEN: Firstfall 1
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Party hard, use content warnings, move explicit content to inboxes.

Named for Satina, the smaller of Thedas' two moons, Satinalia is a celebration of freedom, marked by wild celebration, pranks, the donning of costumes and masks -- not the fine, delicate masks of Orlais, but animals and caricatures and playful horrors -- and the exchange of gifts both sincere and satirical. There's also the crowning of a Fool to rule for the day, or two Fools, in this case: Iskandar and Valentine are given crowns and the right to issue orders. Non-military orders. Unless they manage to start some kind of battle between their imaginary kingdoms.

Elsewhere in Thedas, the festivities may last a week. At Skyhold, no one can pause the war for that long. But all those who can be spared are released by late afternoon, given the night and the next morning -- handle those hangovers before reporting back to work please -- to enjoy the celebration in the fortress or the even less restrained revelries in the valley.

This day was originally a celebration of Zazikel, the Old God of Chaos, but let's not dwell on that.

SKYHOLD

Tables in the Great Hall are piled high with several whole roasted tuskets, meats thinly sliced in the Orlesian style, a tower of cheeses and candied fruits, and great bowls of Antivan pasta with brightly colored sauces. Casks of ale and wine are tapped, emptied, and replaced to keep a near constant stream of alcohol flowing, only improving the efforts of a trio of bards in the corner playing music that's spirited but still easy to speak over. An area near them has been cleared for entertainers: a small troupe of exceptionally limber acrobats tossing and climbing each other in increasingly impressive shapes, and then a team of dancers, romantic and expressive, performing a piece made famous in the theaters of Val Royeaux.

Even once the entertainers finish and leave space for the guests to dance, the party remains more on the sedate side. The celebration indoors is meant to impress and entertain visiting dignitaries and nobles: others are welcome to assist with the schmoozing, but anyone too rowdy or otherwise controversial will be asked politely to relocate, and no one who looks even slightly mischievous or inebriated is permitted into the gardens or library or other easily-damaged areas of the fortress.

The courtyard is noisier. The sparring rings and archery targets are claimed for contests of strength and skill made intentionally ridiculous: soldiers fighting in costume with raw fish as weapons or their hands tied behind their backs, training dummies dressed in discarded finery, an archer capable of standing on her hands and shooting with her feet who's happy to give demonstrations. As the light fades the play-fighting does as well, replaced by music and dancing, with the way lit by braziers and candles and glowlights from Orlais strung in the trees and along the walls.

After midnight, the celebrations within the walls taper off. Some people need to sleep. But those who don't may make the journey down the path and into the valley.

THE VALLEY

In the valley, there's no one to say shush. The party starts early and runs late enough to be early all over again. The food is less fine -- stew and bread, cider and ale, some barrels of young wine and rough liquor gifted by the quartermaster from a mistaken shipment. For anything nicer than that you'll have to bring your own or charm someone who has, but plenty have brought out their carefully hoarded stocks tonight. Flasks of rum from Rivain or treacle-sweet wine from Antiva, tiny boxes of candies and chocolates, small pouches of smokeable herbs: there isn't much of anything but there's a little of everything, all available for the price of a well-played trick or well-placed kiss.

Tonight instead of the usual spattering of camp- and cook-fires, the camp is lit by torches and roaring bonfires, the entire valley caught in the shifting, flickering firelight. Shadows flare and twist, flames limn masked faces in gold and orange and red, and the constant crackle and spark provides its own accompaniment to the music. Fiddles and drums pound and wail, spinning dancers faster and faster, whether big circles of linked hands tugging each other round and round the fire, or a crush of couples, each clasping and spinning and catching and pressing close again. Some duck into shadows, clutched together out of sight until the wind changes and shadows shift, revealing some and concealing others.

There are games down here, too: knives and axes and arrows aimed at hay bale targets, circles marked out with rope for grappling or boxing rings, a bizarre struggled over a greased pumpkin, even pairs growling across tables as they arm-wrestle. The prizes are mostly just the cheers of a wildly enthusiastic crowd and maybe a half bottle of stolen brandy, but there are plenty of challengers all the same and plenty willing to bet on the outcome. The Inquisition is a truly motley assortment, and scattered around are plenty showing off their skills, from juggling to firebreathing to telling fortunes. Instruments from a half-dozen countries can be heard, and small groups clustered around dry patches of ground or upturned crates roll dice and deal cards two dozen different ways.

Unlike up at the keep, this party takes a little while to ramp up, as more and more people finish their shifts and make their way down to join, and it only gets louder as the hour grows late. There haven't been many chances to let loose since all this began, and Maker knows they've all been under plenty of stress. Loud laughter and singing and music continue well into the wee hours, and the crowd only finally thins out several hours past midnight, with a hardy (or foolhardy) core still just stumbling home at dawn.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"See, I don't remember that part? Because I made myself forget. But it, um, it sounds...really horrible."

Also, is it going to make sense if he tries to remove the whole 'I am not a human I am an AI' thing? It's been working so far...

"I mean, I don't wanna...get you down when we should be partying, and I don't want you to treat me any differently."

It's amazing how he manages to sound vague no matter what issue they're discussing. If it relates to him in some way, it ends up sounding like only a hint of the whole story. Slowly pulling back, she rests her hands on his shoulders, searching his eyes for a clue as to what he means.

"Do you believe I would, if I knew what happened to you?"

"...Maybe we should go sit." He won't make it a choice, because fuck it, if he's going to try and spit out Wash's story to her, he wants to be sitting.

A couple of upturned crates are fine seats, in fact, and he rubs his hand on his trousers nervously, because actually none of this is stuff he ever wants to think about, ever? But here they are.

"Okay." Just gotta psych himself up for it. "Okay. So I was tortured." Get that part up front and out of the way first. It sounds really weird to use the first person, instead of saying Alpha, or it. "I was...th-there was this scientist guy, doing research for a project to try and end the war. And I was...involved. And, um, so this guy's a whole fuckload smarter than me, and he found out that someone, like me for instance, can...I dunno how I wanna say this. Shed personalities? With the right circumstances, something...something useful can come out of my head. So he tried to force those kinds of circumstances. There was a lot of psychological torture that went on, and I would...take a part of my own personality, kind of, and just get rid of it, and he was able to harvest that into something he thought would be useful. I got rid of a chunk that was labeled logic, so I wouldn't be able to understand what was going on. I balled up rage, because I was so angry it was threatening to tear me apart. More and more, until finally I took all of the horrible, terrible memories of what was going on and tossed them out, too. And then he sent me away and tried to hide me so nobody could find out what he did, and I had to try and sort of piece myself back together. That's what I was told happened to me."

So much of the world isn't kind and Christine likes to believe that after what she's seen and heard that she's desensitized to it in some fashion. A healer needs to have some level of detachment so they aren't bawling over a bleeding patient from knowing what happened to them. But at the same time, her reasons for being a healer are based on compassion and caring and that means her emotions are often bottled up to explode later. The color drains from her face as Church starts to explain things to her and her hand shoots out to grip his own. It's done to comfort him as much as it is to ground herself so she doesn't start crying.

Being tortured would be bad enough, but as he goes on to explain that pieces of himself are missing because it was the only way he could cope, Christine's stomach starts to turn. And someone harvested pieces of Church? She doesn't really comprehend that part. There is a woeful lack of knowledge on psychology here. Maybe his world has its own form of magic that can do that.

Once he's finished, she swallows the lump in her throat and nods. She had asked, and he had answered as best as he could.

"You do not want those parts back because with it would come the memories of what it felt like?" she asks, thinking she understands that much at least. But she can't help but wonder who Church was before this happened; before he split apart. And what was done with the pieces of his personality that are now gone from him? "What could that man possible do with parts of your mind?" She shakes her head in disbelief. "Is this what your world is like? People do this to one another?" It makes her want to shiver. Instead she realizes she has a death grip on his hand and she loosens her hold. Certain things start to make sense to her now. Not only the lack of information about his past, but his behavior. Subtle is not something Church can achieve. He's loud, with no brain to mouth filter that she can see, and is often awkward in his speech or actions. Now she feels guilty for being annoyed by something he surely can't help.

"Church," she starts, but finds she doesn't have the words to express how terrible this is. All she can do is exhale and rest her cheek against his shoulder.

He was pretty good before at putting the initial shock aside--by denying it, of course. And then everything with Wash, and the Meta, and the Director, and Epsilon, and the EMP... Sure, he's had time to process it now, but obviously he's been trying hard not to do that. Who wants to remember something like that, much less understand it? He was fine how he was before knowing, or before Tex died, or before he got fucking teamkilled.

So to talk about it now, with another person, about himself and not about some mythical Alpha that isn't him, is kiiiind of...terrible. He feels Christine's hand, feels her squeezing and feels her eyes on him, but he feels very small, very conflicted, and he doesn't see the ground he stares at, but Epsilon's flashes in his head, Wash's stupid helmeted face, all the AI surrounding the Meta like a halo of everything he could have been.

That moment when, briefly, he was with Tex again.

"Sorry," he says, suddenly, when she lays her cheek on him. "Sorry, I was--uh, this is hard. Harder than I thought it'd be. Okay, um, generally speaking, no, we don't do that to each other. It is, in fact, super illegal to do anything remotely like he did? Like there are laws on how to treat--" AI "--people like me and that sure as hell isn't something you do. But he was desperate and determined I guess. And what he was doing with them was, um, pairing them up with some of the badass super soldiers he was training. Kind of like an extra piece of a mind to help run complex shit. Made them faster, stronger. They were like little people all on their own."

"Don't be," she murmurs, head still resting against him. "I asked, and you answered." She takes to joining him staring at the ground as if staring at something solid and unchanging will help make sense of this all. It won't, but she does it anyway.

"But they were all a part of you." Pieces of him given to other people. Soldiers. For war. It always comes down to a war, doesn't it? Everything horrible happens because of war. Mages being cut down by Templars, a father never getting to see his daughter again; all of it.

Her voice is hardly above a whisper when she says, "You used to be someone else, but he took that from you."

"I..." There we go, that's something so far deep in his fears that he...doesn't even know what to do with that. "I don't even know what I must've been like. Was I different? Was I better? I must've been better. I'm like a whole person. I don't really...feel like I'm missing anything, but I-I must not be. Whole." All the pieces around him before the EMP closes in. Everything he never knew he was lacking.

This is a hornet's nest she never meant to kick but now she has and she has to do something to help him through it. He's been carrying it all on his own, hasn't he? Despite it making sense that things are missing from his personality, she doesn't want him to feel like he's less of a person than he is.

"Different," she says firmly, lifting her head in order to meet his eyes. "Not better. You are not the same, but you can decide who you want to be. You can form memories now, yes? And feel anger, sadness, happiness? If you have all that within you, then you are whole."

"I'm...trying really hard," he admits, only briefly looking her in the eye before his gaze is away again, down. "To be my own person here. I can be whatever the hell I wanna be, but I'm still me. I don't have anyone else who knew me to tell me what I was like, but I haven't...y'know. Really changed. And that's okay! But there's this...knowing, what I am, that I've got these holes in my head where I just filled in all the gaps with what made sense to me, and the few people who knew just let me do it. And everything I was told it, it makes sense of things that didn't make sense in my life, but it, I mean, it just sounds like so much bullshit, right? And--"

A horrible thought strikes him. "I'm gonna die. They're all gonna die. Everything about me except for my stupid awful fucked up memories is gonna get wiped out in the blink of an eye."

In the space of an instant, everything seems to change. She hadn't known that her questions would reveal all this about him. How could she? And everything she thought she knew about him is suddenly cast in a different light. He is someone who has been filling in the gaps of his life with what made sense. A man who isn't sure if he's whole or not. A man who is still trying to figure out who he is. She'll sit here in quiet support, listening to him work it all out, ready to encourage him to do so, but then--

"What?" She sits back, giving him a startled look. "Church, what are you talking about?" He sounds so upset, but she's sure he's skipped some part of the story here.

"I came here right when we were about to die. Falling through the rift, I was thinking, I dunno, maybe this is what death death is like, when I actually die for real and for truly this time instead of my other stupid deaths. And the rest of them are there. The rest of me, the other pieces, even Tex, but Epsilon is the memory, and memory is the key, and my friends are trying to make sure he makes it out so people can know what the Director did and put an end to all this stupid assitry, but the rest of us are gonna die. Boom, that's it, no more fragments! Just the Reds, the Blues, and tin can Epsilon, and that's all that's gonna survive of me!"

His other stupid deaths? Christine's face is completely puzzled, but she lets him go on. That turns out to not help matters at all.

"Tex? Epsilon? I-- I do not understand you." The pieces of him were going to die? Is that possible? Christine is still working on the assumption that this is some kind of unknown magic because there is no other way for her to quantify it in her head. But who are the people he's named?

"The--the--me, the fragments of me, they have names. And Epsilon's the one with my memories. And Tex is--Tex was Beta, but the Director tried to make her her own person and called her Texas, made her one of his soldiers." He scrubs roughly at his face with both hands, fingers through his hair to brush it back. "It's really, really complicated even for me, much less anyone here with a...really non-knowledge of technology."

Christine is trying really hard to understand, but the very concept is hard to get through her head. The pieces of his personality have names, were given to soldiers, and they were about to die?

"But," she hesitates, not sure she should even try to sort through this whole mess. "If they are only part of your personality, how are they alive? How can they even die?"

"They're not--it's not really--it's not alive like a body like you. They're, um, they're kind of like spirits? Like. Delta, he's a spirit of logic, or Theta's a spirit of trust? But not really spirits; we don't have spirits in my world. They're kind of artificial but also kind of from me but I'm also kind of artificial? And you can't really kill something like that in a traditional way, but we're all made of electronic stuff in the end, and there's a device going off that shuts down all electronic things, because that's how the pieces of me were stored, so they'll get erased, and so will I, except for Epsilon, because my team's trying to save Epsilon, and I would've gone, except I needed to stay and help out, and I knew...I mean, I knew what was going to happen, but also I didn't want to believe it? Because who wants to believe, hey, everything about your life is made up and the points don't matter, and now I'm gonna help kill you to try and save everyone else! Hahaha! What the fuck!"

Despite all his ramblings, Christine catches on to the word "artificial" and her heart nearly stops. She stares at him in shock not knowing whether to believe him or write him off as completely mad. She was willing to believe up until a point, and they've definitely passed that point now. What is he saying; that he's not real? That he was created by man? That's what artificial means, doesn't it? If it's not natural, it's constructed, built, made. But... he's flesh and bone, isn't he? He has a beating heart and his skin is warm under her hands. He bled when he was impaled by that shard of red lyrium and she had healed him like he had a normal body.

Then maybe he's gone mad? Maybe he really was tortured but it's done something to him to make him think he isn't real. Whatever is happening here, Christine doesn't know how to handle it. She has no frame of reference on how to provide comfort to a man who says he removed bits of his personality who then became their own entities, and they're like spirits but not really. She's confused, upset, and a little frightened of him at this moment. Legs shaking, she manages to stand up from the crate and take a step back from him.

"I-- I have no idea what to do here. You are saying you were made -- that you are artificial? And you say like a spirit but not? What are you, Church?"

It takes a few long moments of looking up at her, that she's suddenly moved and looking at him like that, where the pain and confusion on his face melts into fear. No, no, shit, no, he hadn't meant to explain it like that, hadn't meant for it to come out like that. It's not Cassandra putting a sword to his neck, but it's worse than that. He can't lose her, too.

Church rises to his feet and tries to close the distance, hands out to try and grab hers. "Whatever you're thinking, it's not like that. Look at me, you've felt me, okay, I'm solid, and real, and a person. I'm-I'm a person, okay? Please--"

She nearly steps back out of his reach, but he looks so afraid of being rejected that she stays put and lets him take her hands. She swallows down anything she might say without thinking and takes a few breathes before meeting his eyes.

"You do believe that, yes? Because you are saying so many other things and I am not sure what is going on up in that head of yours." And it's scaring her. "Church... I do not know what to think. All you have told me -- you truly believe it is what happened to you? Why did you say you were artificial like the other parts of you?"

He has so little filter between his brain and his mouth that he has to make himself stop and take a breath, to think about how he wants to say this. Because he's confusing. And he's saying things he knows he shouldn't say to people from here. Looks down at their hands.

"I was told that I was artificial. I was something created by a madman who split me apart. And what was left of me was hidden away. When I died, I didn't...really die. My body, that died, but I still lived on, and I thought I was a ghost. My friends put me in a robot body, a, uhhhh...kind of like a golem? This body--I didn't have this body before coming here. But I have it now. And I'm alive. And I'm a person."

Just when she thinks it can't get any worse, it does. After everything they've shared, everything they've been through together, he tells her these things about himself that she can barely comprehend. She would be more likely to believe him if he'd said he's a hornless, short Qunari. But no, instead he's telling her he was created. He died and became some kind of golem? He didn't even have this body before coming through the rift?

She pulls her hands out of his and stumbles back a step. Whether he's crazy or this is all true, it's something she doesn't know how to handle.

"I-- I cannot--" she begins, shaking her head as she tries to form a response to all this. Her nose is burning with unshed tears because it's too much; too overwhelming. How does she begin to come to terms with this? How has he?

"I do not know what to do with all this. I-- I have no idea." She releases a desperate breath, wishing she could take it all back. Wishing she could have her blissful ignorance back where he was just a man kissing the back of her hand and joking with her about carving pumpkins with a sword. Now? Now she doesn't even know what he is, much less who he is.

He hasn't, that's the real kicker. It all feels so new and fresh again even as he's been stewing on it for, god, almost a year now.

"Chris--" His hands are still outstretched where she left them. Don't leave, don't leave now. "This doesn't change anything. This doesn't change a god damn thing!"

"How can you say that? It changes everything!" Christine shakes her head in disbelief. The worst part of all this is that she asked for this. She wanted to know about him and he'd answered honestly. He's lain himself bare in front of her and she doesn't want to be some kind of monster who rejects him, but at the same time, how can she pretend that everything is the same as it's always been?

Her voice becomes very quiet when she next speaks. "I do not know who you are. Are you a ghost? Where did this body come from? Is this all in your head and you are completely mad?" Tears rise at the corners of her eyes. "Please. I need time apart from you."

His hands remain outstretched, but honestly, he's probably forgotten they're even there. "Apart...?" After everything? He met her mom for christ's sake, and this is too much? He's ruining something good for himself, and he didn't even mean to do it this time.

When in pain, react with anger. He hurts, deeply, and she thinks she's the one who can't handle it? His hands turn to fists. "You think this is easy for me?! To have my life turned inside fucking out, to question every memory I thought I ever had? To learn I'm neither who nor what I thought I was? I'm not telling you all this because I think it's a fun little god damn story! If word gets out, do you know what people are gonna do to me? Fucking pitchforks and torches are gonna be the least of my worries, but I trust you, okay? I don't know who I am, either, but I have to just deal with it however I can!"

Maybe she should have seen this part coming, but with everything else swirling in her mind she didn't, and her mouth drops open in shock.

"No, of course not!" After that, she sputters for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts into something coherent, but she can't. Her tears fall and she throws up her hands, feeling helpless.

"I am sorry, Church! I am so, so sorry. But I-- I feel this..." Words fail her again and she makes a pathetic little whimper through her tears before pressing a hand to her forehead, feeling a headache form from crying.

"How..." she starts slowly. "How do we move forward? I do not know what you need. I do not even know how I feel. You are scaring me, because the dead do not return here and what you are saying is -- should be -- impossible."

Oh god crying woman how do react???

"I'm still alive here! Here I'm alive, and I'm trying really, really hard to stay alive, because living is pretty awesome! I get--I get to eat things, and sleep on bedrolls or haybales, and kiss you, and those are all really nice things I like being able to do? I'm not a ghost here. I'm not some...artificial intelligence here. I'm not really all that scary, am I?"

open | the drunk horn's so violent, all spinning out sound

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