faderift | (no subject)

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{ ariadne }

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WHO: Those who didn't go to the Fallow Mire
WHAT: Some people were smart enough to not go to the Fallow Mire.
WHEN: Firstfall
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: None as of yet. Any threads that need to have content warning please tag them properly.

While the exit of the volunteers to the Fallow Mire had left Skyhold a bit more quieter, there were still things left to do in the mountain stronghold. Just because you didn't volunteer to go fight undead doesn't mean you get to shirk on your duties! In fact, you should probably pick up the pace. Less people around meant it might be easier to stand out and get in trouble, and you don't want that, do you?

But always, the Inquisition is there for you. There to help, there to overcome any challenges that might be presented. Make new friends, chat to old ones.

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She'd been called many things in her life. 'Noise' was a new one. And, honestly, Ariadne decided it was one of the least offensive. Noise was just a part of the landscape. And that was what she'd been trained to be. To get by. To survive.

But if she was only the background, what was the object?

"Then who are they?"

"You don't know."

An opportunity for education. River brightened, then dropped down into the dirt, reaching for a rock and promptly beginning to draw out little figures and circles across the ground, where Ariadne could see.

It might be easier this way. Never mind how dirty her dress or knees or hands got. A line was drawn decisively down the center before she pointed it out.

"They're kept apart...on the other side of the Veil. We live on one side, they live on the other. In the Fade. We only visit in dreaming, only touch it when magic draws it through."

Ariadne squatted down beside her, watching the drawing intently, trying not to think of how much it reminded her of some of the strategy sessions of the doomed soldiers, marching in their final stands against the Red Dragon. She'd survived. That's what she was built to do. But she would never forget the faces of her friends, trampled in the dirt, their blood washing away final plans the way the waves washed footprints off the beach.

"The Fade," Ariadne repeated. The term was at least somewhat familiar. "That's what they say we fell through. While we were dreaming in our own worlds."

"Everything shifts there, changes. Abstract. But it's a place. You can find your way if you know how. They live there." She dropped the rock, fingers tracing faint squiggles into the dirt, some smooth and some jagged.

"Hope. Fear. Compassion. Envy. Rage. Pride. They're drawn to us. They press up against the windows and try to see to see. They miss tasting and touching. But we have to keep the doors shut."

Her eyes fix on Ariadne, dark enough to seem almost black. "They don't make good guests."

"I think I understand," she said.

At least, she was starting to, anyway.

Ariadne had lived in Valeria long enough to know about things like incorporeal creatures and cosmic prisons. Or whatever else the Fade might be. It still didn't make sense to her, how she'd ended up passing through. But she was glad she'd passed, instead of getting stuck.

It didn't sound particularly nice.

"But everything shifts there?" she repeated, glancing down at the skin of her own hands, pinkish though it should have been green. "Can it be changed back?"

"Back?"

At that, River seemed confused. "Back," she murmured again, her brow furrowing. "It...was different, once. Torn apart and they fell down deep, lost. Forgotten. They remember everything."

That much Ariadne didn't understand. And for the first time, she found herself wondering about the girl's strange speech patterns. They weren't strange until they didn't make sense.

She'd been living among Humans too long...

"I don't understand," she said, trying to push aside that horrible prejudice.

River's brow furrowed in concentration, trying to keep the words from scattering. "They remember how things were, before. Now things are separate."

She points to the line again, the Veil she'd mentioned before.

"Things on this side are rigid. They have rules. You didn't fit before so they made you. The Fade is. It's what it needs to be, what things want to be and need to be. Pulls us back when we're dreaming."

She listed, trying to make sense of it. Magic had always confused her a little. Most likely because she wasn't born using it. The Elves of Valeria used it as naturally as she used her nose to catch scents. And they found her equally baffling.

Everything balanced out a way.

But that didn't help her in the moment.

And a little spike of fear crept through her as the girl told her she didn't fit before. Was her secret completely transparent? Or was it a casual use of the word 'you?'

"My world had rules too. But different rules."

"They won't help you here."

Blunt, but the truth. The Rifters had to learn to adapt, to fit the pieces together, if they hoped to return from where they'd come from. Some place they belonged.

She could almost be envious. Almost. The echoes from her were sad, regrets, haunted things. Despair would hunger for her if it could catch her scent. Had to be careful.

Eyes still steady on her, she pointed at the side of the dirt with the squiggles, as if prompting her to start picking up on the information being given.

The blunt directness reminded Ariadne of the soldiers again, preparing for their final defeat. She respected that bluntness. Even if she didn't like it very much.

"We're like round pegs," she said, looking down at the drawing. "Being forced through square holes. And changing shape to fit." The generic 'we' would suffice for now.

River took a deep breath, nodding. She appeared to be grasping some part of it at last.

That could suffice, for a time.

"The Fade might remember your shape. They might. They'll be watching to see what you do, the ones that don't try to follow."

Ariadne's gray eyes lifted, levelly meeting the girl's. There was a lot to parse out in that, but the concept that she was being watched was by far the most...

What?

It was alarming, she supposed. Maybe upsetting. But it didn't surprise her, exactly. She knew about gods and monsters. And it only made sense that there had been some kind of design to this place.

Hopefully, a design that could send her home.

"What would you do?" she asked. "If you were the one in my position?"

Poor woman. Tossed into a world she knew nothing about and expected to fight for it, to save it, or otherwise be blamed for what was to follow. The Veil was shredding all around them, chaos close enough to see in waking hours. Who could say what could be done? Even the mad little girl had no answers.

She only knew what she would attempt. She could give her that much, her round face so very solemn now.

"Find a way home, before it's too late."

It wasn't the first time Ariadne had yearned for home. But it was the first time she'd met someone she felt could truly understand. Which was funny. The girl was home.

At least, closer than Ariadne was.

"I don't know how," she admitted. "I don't understand things like magic. I've never had any of my own."

"Having it doesn't mean you understand. Set the barn on fire when you're angry, and you don't know why it is. Causation is just the start. So we learn. No one has all the pieces, it's too vast, but it's there."

Lifting an eyebrow, River pointed towards the drawing in the dirt again. "Simplistic, but basic concepts are easy to explain. Magic is when the Fade," she pointed again, "comes here. Makes things malleable, fluid. Changes them. Otherwise it stays stiff, solid like stone."

She nodded slightly. It was all a little frustrating. But it was hardly the girl's fault. Really, Ariadne didn't see the point to assigning blame.

Not right now, anyway.

"Is there a way to control how or when or where the Fade comes here?"

"They teach us. Not knowing how to control it leads to terrible things."

Though there was a note in her voice that sounded a little hollow at the words. They'd wanted to teach her, they said. They'd wanted her to grow, to flourish. A lie. They only ever wanted to control power beyond their reach. Here, Tevinter, or anywhere else.

"They want us to be our best. To protect the common man, and protect ourselves."

Ariadne didn't like that expression. 'They wanted us to be our best.' It implied that someone else had an opinion about what was best.

It left the sour taste of endless arguments with her mother in her mouth.

I'll decide what's best for me! she'd shouted, with a temperamental, childish stomp of her foot. Who better to decide for me than me?

She'd been right. And wrong. But mostly right.

She heard the hollowness in the girl's tone. And either heard or wanted to hear something kindred about it. And it was then that something very simple occurred to her. "What's your name?" she asked.

Wanting what was best for your children didn't always turn out the way you hoped. Her parents could have agreed, with two cautionary tales for children. Did they miss them? she wondered at times. Or were they too busy trying to salvage the family name to want them back?

"...River," she finally spoke again, eyes darting towards the ground. "My name's River."

"River."

The name felt eerily appropriate. There was something watery and flowy about the girl. And the potential for something else, something beneath a silvery surface.

Ariadne curtsied to her. "Pleased to meet you, River," she said gently. "My name is Ariadne, but you can call me 'Airy,' if you like. Everyone else does." She paused. "And I'm sorry for so many questions."

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