OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (PART I)

[faderifting]

WHO: Time Travelers & Future Kirkwall Residents
WHAT: Time travel, captures, escapes, explosions.
WHEN: ALTERNATE FUTURE, Early Cloudreach 9:48
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES:.This is the first plot log for False Gods, Great Demons, specifically for the time travel team and adjacent plot efforts. An open post for general Darkest Timeline adventures will be posted separately! A plotting post specifically for the escape from Kirkwall can be found here.

It's been over a year since the village of Haven was burned, ransacked, and buried beneath snow and ice--a year for the snow to melt and leave behind blackened, rotting wood for a new year's snow to fall over. The stone walls and Chantry stand, but the rest of the village is a jagged scar, and the path up the mountain to the Temple of Sacred Ashes still shows signs of the battle against the Breach: toppled carts, abandoned crates, a broken bridge.

Given the debris, obstacles, and lingering demon-infested tears in the Veil, it takes the better part of a day for even a well-armed team of trained fighters to make the trek from Haven to the Temple. Despite that, there's been a steady stream of pilgrims to Andraste's final resting place--and now the site of the Herald's death. More still wait on the road and outside the entrance to the Temple ruins, guarded now by Inquisition soldiers until the recent deaths within the walls have been investigated.

Save the wind and quiet crunch of bones being gnawed on, the Temple itself is silent. The molten-ash corpses that were once outside the walls, contorted from their final moments of agony, have been removed and given rites--but the icy dust beneath the band's boots is still partly bone and burned flesh, and patches of red lyrium still resist efforts at removal.

The bone-crunching comes from down the main staircase and around a corner. Five corpses are slumped around a campfire, dressed for warmer weather, preserved by the cold somewhat but withered and too decayed to have died within the week, let alone overnight while no one else was looking--and with one arm currently being chewed on by a bear while two others amble nearby.

Stopping them from eating the evidence is a good idea, probably. And perhaps as the effort to chase them away from the carrion gets underway, in the midst of the chaos and roaring, someone will notice one of the bandits splayed out across the icy stone floor. She's as withered as the rest of them, save one outstretched arm that's still fleshy-plump and pink where it falls outside some invisible line.

But if anyone does notice, it's too late. There's a flare of light that shifts quickly from rift-green to a blinding white, a white-noise roar and a gust of windy force that propels everyone forward to--

Exactly where they were, except a few yards to the left, and in the last two seconds the few stubborn scraps of red lyrium on the Temple walls have crawled and expanded to form whole walls of crystal. For a moment it's silent again, save the wind. The one of the bears--the only one carried along with the group--lets out a bewildered, irritable roar. Beyond the walls there's a shout, then another, then too many for it to be only the handful of Inquisition soldiers posted outside the Temple.

Seconds later, they're surrounded.

Comments

[not_the_question]

Because of her demeanour and approach, he gives her a chance. He listens politely while she explains him... to himself. Oh the irony. If she knew how many worlds he has saved that are not his own, well, she might not talk to him like this. Still that is fine. Until she says he was 'picking fights'.

Then he starts to chuckle. It is more amused than sarcastic, but the edge is still there. Then he stops and gives her a weighted glance.

"I'm not a stranger to strange worlds. And as long as my feet walk this earth, I have as much stake in this place as you do. So, you might try giving me some credit."

He pauses for a moment, debating how much to tell her. "I've fought in a bigger war than you can possibly imagine. I have seen and done things worse than the spat we had today. That's why I don't need armour or weapons. Just words. And maybe my spoon or yo-yo."

He pauses again. "I can't get my sonic working in this place, or we would have been out of the prison faster."

[limier]

"I don’t care." Quietly. She watches him. "Every person here has fought and survived terrible odds. Each has a story, has experience, that you similarly cannot imagine."

Including the bear. She bites back a comment about ego, can hold her tongue a moment yet.

"Calling them simple, discounting their views — this is what does you no credit. It does your arguments none. If you would rely upon words, you must listen in turn."

Her head tips to the side. He seems a man used to power (whatever a sonic is), and there's a hint of familiarity in the way he grasps for it now, only to find it missing. Never a kind adjustment.

"We can dwell upon what might have been, or we can look ahead to what must still be done. But if any of us would have respect, we must earn it. Through our deeds alone, here and now."

[not_the_question]

Now the chuckle is sarcastic. Because this is the problem with people. Most people are just as hypocritical as she is. "You honestly think that. You know nothing about me. You're being judgemental while telling me to not be judgemental. You do see how easy it makes it for me to discount what you say?"

He sighs. "People here are simple. I am used to traversing the whole of time and space. You think pride demons are bad? I call fighting such creatures 'Tuesday afternoon'. The difference between you and me: I don't care if people follow me or not. I don't care if they listen to me or not. I just know that no one listens to me until there's a lot of screaming and running and bleeding. Then magically, everyone tends to turn to me. Asking me what to do. And that is why you're simple. I like to skip the parts where too many people die. I prefer saving as many people as I can."

He looks around them. "We've passed through a time slip. Five years in the future. And in this time? Plenty of people have died already."

He doesn't care about power, not the way she's thinking. He only cares about saving those he can. "You are too focused on the trees and you're not considering the forest. Have you thought for a moment about why we might have been transported here? Why this time? Why did the body look decrepit in one part of the cave and quite fresh in the other? Have you given any consideration to what one moment means for us can mean lifetimes for others? Because I do." He taps the side of his head. "Constantly. I see such things the way you see that the sky is blue. The problem is: we've now become part of events. Already people are talking about going back and change events that we are a part of without thinking about the ripples that creates. Ripples turn into tidal waves until everyone dies. So you'll have to forgive me if I am thinking about how to keep everyone on this planet alive."

He shakes his head. He doesn't expect her to understand. He slowly stands and looks like he's about to walk away when he turns around to look at her. "Beyond that. You're right. Respect must be earned. But that goes both ways."

He shoves his hands in his pockets.

[limier]

"I’m not asking you to refrain from judgment. I’m asking you to keep it to your fucking self like an adult."

She snaps, sharp and loud, immediately lifts a hand as though in apology. Her teeth grit as she strains to swallow the anger from her tone.

"Forgive me. That was ill-done." She’s trying not to lose her temper, but truthfully that army’s already marched. All she’s doing now is delaying the inevitable skirmish.

"Theory is not my arena. Keeping the theoreticians alive is." Except when it's the exact opposite, but that's not the point she wants to make at present. "And however qualified you are, you are not the only one who will be weighing in on this."

"If you truly believe yourself right — if you truly wish to save as many people as you can, it will behoove you to consult your fellow experts. To act persuasively for your side."

Her hand finally drags away from her forehead, into a curt little gesture.

"This is why I make my small suggestion. Because if you don’t make yours in a more palatable manner, no one is going to listen."

[not_the_question]

He tilts his head as he considers her. He didn't jump in reaction to her snap. In fact, the only reaction is that he raises an eyebrow.

"And, am I to use your esteemed example as one to follow?"

Because she is more proving his point than her own. He waves it off, it was rhetorical anyway.

"You know what's interesting in all of this? You. Definitely a soldier. Ordering everyone else around. Expecting everyone around you to change to fit in your neat and orderly sense of boxes. All the while not giving one thought to the idea that you're the one who might need a change."

After all, beyond Cosima and Hermione, he had just told her more about himself than anyone else here. And she gave no reply or reaction to what had shared at all. It tells him everything he needs to know.

[limier]

Wren is, before all things, a creature of impulse.

She hides it as much as she might: behind method, and analysis, and stony force of will — in boxes, as it were.

But it’s a learned response. You don’t sign away your life to lyrium without following a few bad whims, and for the past few days she’s been following them straight towards the cliff. Looking only two steps ahead because if she squints any harder, she knows exactly what colour she’ll find.

In a clearer moment, she might give pause to examine what she's seen of him so far — arrogance, sure — but honesty, too. Perhaps even to a fault. In a clearer moment, she might try to understand what he’s told her, his point of view.

This isn’t a clear moment.

"You’re to do better. Because someone has to." Her voice lowers, but it’s not by her own doing. The day’s business has already worn it out. "Because the ones that don’t change easily, we’re the ones that you need to convince."

There’s a twinge in her jaw, like a totally reasonable mature adult who doesn't handle everything by repressing it and then breaking stuff later.

"I will not trouble you further."

[not_the_question]

Something about her words do hit home. He hangs his head for a moment. His voice is as soft as hers. But it is weighted down. The weight will become clear in a moment.

"Because it always falls to me to be better. That is the expectation everyone holds me to. Four and a half billion years wasn't enough... the Universe demands more."

Those words though, were spoken to himself. She might only be privileged to have heard them. They were his admittance to his own weaknesses. He looks up at her then. Hands still in his pockets. His voice is stronger. These words actually are directed at her.

"I don't need to convince anyone of anything. Never have. You lot are perfectly capable of making your own decisions for good or for bad. I just do the best I can with them to make sure as few people possible die."

With that he turns and walks away. He suddenly misses his wife terribly, but he'll not let anyone see that grief, that pain. Not here and not now. Trust is earned and no one here has earned that. Not even Jamie.

[limier]