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

[youwonscience]

"Um, a of all, you just said we were friends. Besides, when involuntarily time traveling, I think it makes sense to stick with the one person who has time traveled before," she points out.

She rolls her neck, then adds quieter, "Besides. If you hadn't noticed, we're regrouping. It's not like everyone else is demanding my expertise at the moment."

[not_the_question]

That earns a small little smug smile. "A human who listens. I suppose there's a first time for everything..."

Which, if he's honest is why he likes her. But more importantly, is the bit about time travelling. "Doesn't seem to matter how much I've travelled. They just want to go back and make sure this doesn't happen. But the problem is, we're apart of events now. Going back on our time line..."

Well, he won't be so dramatic as to say it will make them disappear, but it's pretty bad.

"Sometimes I wonder why I was sent here. No one believes me anyway. I'm too new to have been able to earn anyone's trust. So, now I have to fight to earn their trust and fight against whatever they decide needs to be fought, but..."

He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter."

[youwonscience]

"What about parallel timelines?" Cosima asks. "Is it a given we're stuck in one particular time stream? I'm not a physicist, but it seems like there's a lot of variables at play when traveling by rift."

She's not entirely sure the Delphine who was briefly in Thedas was her Delphine, for one. Maybe. Who knew?

"They sent me because I'm good at research," she adds, "see how well that went."

[not_the_question]

The last bit earns a wry chuckle. "We make quite the pair, then."

He focuses on that first because it gives him time to think of how to answer the other question.

"Parallel timelines are not as common as people want them to be. We haven't seen enough evidence to prove one way or another, so for now it's best to assume this is the same timeline. We're less likely to make tidal waves if we go with that assumption."

[youwonscience]

"Not judging, just a question - is it always best to preserve even shitty timelines? Because based on observation so far, I'm not super concerned about making this one worse."

[not_the_question]

He shakes his head at her. Suddenly very serious as he takes in the tableau before them.

"I don't mean worse as in our lifestyles might have to change drastically. I mean worse as in we all vanish from existence. Which, I suppose would mean our lifestyles will have to change drastically."

And that's without mentioning destroying the Universe.

[youwonscience]

"Oh. Well, that'd do it." Cosima drums her fingers against her knee. "I don't know. It's just ... a lot of things don't work here like they do at home. Things I'd assumed were constants. Makes it hard to figure out what you can push."

[not_the_question]

"I'm a time-traveller. I've learned to tread softly. Right here, right now, the ten of us are all time-travellers. It's okay to make ripples, but not tidal waves. Tidal waves tend to lead to people dying."

He offers a small smile when she mentions hard to figure out what to push.

"I've also travelled the expanse of my universe. I've learned that I can fight people and monsters. But not physics or biology."

Hi, not dead after all

[youwonscience]

"Okay, but what do doctors do if not fight biology?" she points out with a crooked smile of her own. "I mean, it's a matter of 'not yet' instead of 'not ever,' true, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter."

Everything died, sure, but not everything had to die of the first thing that tried to kill them.

Yay! being not-dead is a good thing.

[not_the_question]

His smile grows at her analysis.

"I stand corrected. I can fight biology. Even physics. I just don't usually win."

Which isn't to say he won't try. He goes quiet for a long time. He turns his head half-way towards her.

"I don't know why the Inquisition sent me. They couldn't have known about the time slip. And if they did then they're holding valuable information from everyone. Which could lead to more death and destruction."

Which is his not so subtle way of admitting that he has no idea why he's here.

[youwonscience]

"Don't know. My only two field missions, I've volunteered for. If I had to guess ... you're new. They probably wanted to see what you could do."

Either that or he was the Inquisition's equivalent of a redshirt, to be thrown in front of people the organization was more invested in should demons attack. But he's paranoid enough without her help, Cosima feels.

"I think they're still trying to figure out how to handle rifters more generally, to be honest."

[not_the_question]

"If they wanted to know that, they could have just asked."

Not that he would have told them everything. But he would have told them enough.

"It's not like I kept myself or my abilities secret since I've been here."

Because he'd grown careless. He was used to just spouting everything off without a care in the world. Dangerous in these parts...

[youwonscience]

"Ok, sure, but like ... a lot of people don't necessarily have the context for that. Or they don't trust rifters 100%. Or," she adds, "I mean, like me - I know what I do at home, but you can't just like, set up shop as a geneticist in Thedas."

She shrugs.

"Or they had some other reason. I'm just hypothesizing."

[not_the_question]

He nods slowly once.

"I... I'm still adjusting, I think.... Don't mind me."

He offers a small smirk. It's one thing to travel the whole of time and space in his own universe. It's a bit off-footing when it happens in another.

[youwonscience]

"Hey, I'm still adjusting too. I'm just a few months ahead."

And then, cheekily: "I'm sure you'll catch up."

[not_the_question]

He took off his sunglasses, letting them hang between his fingers as his arms were draped around his knees. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes and then the rest of his head followed.

"I'm used to being ahead. So, it's a little strange for me."

[youwonscience]

"Yeah, I somehow picked that up." The sarcasm isn't unkind, exactly. It's not as if his personality is totally foreign to her, after all. "One problem at a time, I think, for now. We're out of jail, so at least there's that."

[not_the_question]

He shrugged and finally pocketed his sunglasses. "I wish we had been there longer. There are always two places where you can find out about a place: talk to 'the help' or land yourself in prison."

And now they don't have either. And he didn't know enough. He hated not knowing.

[youwonscience]

"Maybe if it were just one or two of us," Cosima says, mildly skeptical. "But I think we were giving them more than we were getting, frankly. There were just too many of us, and we were sniping at each other too much for anyone to do much listening. Besides, done now." Second-guessing wouldn't help them. "There are other places to get information."

[not_the_question]

He turns his head to look at her properly. "I'm listening."

Which he had in Kirkwall as well, not that anyone would have believed him. But he's open to ideas, since he's fresh out.

[youwonscience]

She spreads her hands. "It sounds like the Inquisition isn't totally gone. Probably. Of everyone, they're most likely to a) believe us and b) have the inclination to fill us in or at least give us a base of operations to work from. So if we can't get back to where we came from, we can at least get back to people inclined to help us instead of trying to work from nothing at all."

[not_the_question]

He nodded slowly once.

"The Inquisition." It was muttered.

"Is flawed. It was flawed in the time we left and it's flawed now. Though, given it's name, I'm not sure I'm surprised."

And the sniping at each other that Cosima mentioned is a perfect example of it. Thought the Doctor wasn't sniping so much as egging people on as appropriate. But then, that's what he does.

But now that they're out here... He shakes his head.

"The big problem with war is that each side believes they have the moral high ground. That they're in the right. And even if we go back... there will be no changing that."

And he hates that more than everything. Because everyone wants to fix this and make it 'right' but no one is stopping to think about what 'right' looks like.

[youwonscience]

"Okay, yeah, that's true and it sucks. But you know what sucks more? Getting killed by literal monsters or killed by someone who thinks we're literal monsters. I'd like to avoid both of those things long enough to get the information you were talking about getting."

She laces her fingers together, idle but tight, tension in her knuckles that's not in her voice.

"You can take off on your own if you like. But personally, I also need to find my way to someone with some spirit healing ability sooner than later, or I won't be much good to anyone. So there's that."

Cosima doesn't know if any of the healers she's known are even alive ... but the Inquisiton is the likeliest place to look.

[not_the_question]

He smirks.

"You only say that because you don't have enough experience with monsters. Or you don't want to die. Probably both. But your language points to the problem I mentioned. Everyone calling everyone else monsters doesn't help anyone here."

And he never said he was going to strike out on his own.

"I can't leave Jamie. Jamie thinks the inquisition is doing right and no matter how much I agree or not with that, I have duty of care towards all my friends."

And in some way more towards Jamie, just because same universe and all.

"Why do you need them? What's really wrong with you?"

Because she's never said. And he'll not remind her just yet that he's the Doctor.

[youwonscience]

She raises her eyebrows at him. "Dude, when I say monsters, I don't mean 'people I disagree with,' I mean 'actual literal monsters that tried to kill me the first five minutes I was in Thedas.' Like, I don't believe in demons at home any more than I believe in magic, but I don't really have a vocabulary word for 'malevolent force trying to kill me that can't be communicated or reasoned with.' You want to call them something else, do it. But like ... fuck the Venatori, but they aren't monsters, they're zealots. They scare me too, but I wasn't being glib."

As for the question, though "...really long story. But the short version is a chronic genetic disorder."