OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (OPEN LOG 1)

[faderifting]

WHO: Living Residents of the Horrible Future
WHAT: Ah ha ha ha stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
WHEN: ALTERNATE FUTURE, 1-15 Cloudreach 9:48
WHERE: Anywhere, but especially Orzammar
NOTES: This is the first open log for False Gods, Great Demons. Anything that happened prior to Cloudreach 9:48 should go on the flashback meme. Most members of the TTT and their friends in Kirkwall will be arriving in Orzammar on approximately Cloudreach 7. In the meantime, feel free to make your own adventures. If you want to blow up an bridge, assassinate an NPC of your own invention, steal supplies, or anything else--it's all yours, go for it!

SOUTHERN THEDAS is a wasteland. The Blight crawling across the Orleian countryside and into Ferelden leaves nothing alive in its wake, scarring the land like an insatiable fire until no birds sing and the only things that grows is the Red Lyrium that speckles cliff sides and crawls up dying trees until they look like rows of jagged bloody teeth. And where it's still green, where people can still survive, the atmosphere is nearly as stifling. Every city and settlement is watched over by a Venatori or trustworthy collaborator. Those who don't keep their heads down and their dissent a whisper may vanish without warning. They may take their whole families with them. There are flashes of hope--an assassinated lordling here, a village rousing itself to brief and doomed rebellion there--but for every man the Imperium loses, they seem to find two to take his place.

NORTHERN THEDAS is at war. The worst of it doesn't reach west into Tevinter or the Anderfels; the line between the Qunari and the Imperium is drawn straight through Antiva, with Nevarra and Rivain on either side quiet and calm as only lands under martial law can be. The Free Marches vary between complacency and rebellion, but the rebellious ones risk ruin--there are murmurs it won't be long before a whole city is made an example. A steady stream of desperate refugees is fleeing north to the Qun, but plenty are picked off and punished as traitors before they can cross into Qunari-controlled territory. Your best best for a clean escape are the pirates who still hold Llomerynn free from both sides of the conflict.

ORZAMMAR is the only kingdom in Thedas that looks much the same--and Kal-Sharok, but they're not accepting outsiders. The heavy doors at Orzammar's entrance are sealed and guarded, as much against the steady flow of refugees asking for help as against the Venatori. The refugees are turned away. There's no way to know who can be trusted, and even if there were, there's not food enough for people who can't fight. Orzammar Thaig is still the dwarves' home--though with stealing shrinking numbers and poor prospects, King Bhelen has been amenable to allowing casteless surfacers some leeway--but the once-abandoned Ortan Thaig is the Inquisition's. Quietly. The only things stopping a full assault on Orzammar is the Venatori's need for dwarf-mined lyrium and the plausible deniability that the Inquisition's remaining rebel bands are using the Deep Roads with Bhelen's consent.

An hour's walk through caves and deepstalker swarms, Ortan is a city in its own right. A crammed city, one where cots and bunk beds crammed into shared housing are the norm no matter how important someone is and you occasionally have to protect your dinner from a restless, swooping griffon, but one where you can still find a pint of ale or a game of cards if you've time to waste on them. It's just that not many people do. There's the watch to keep; the tunnels that creep further into the deep teem with darkspawn who are held back at barricades, while the hidden, narrow tunnels that lead to the surface are watched at all hours so anyone coming or going can be identified. There are weapons to forge and sharpen. Plans to make. Bands to lead. Maybe you weren't a leader five years ago, but these days, there aren't that many people with more than five years' experience still alive to give orders. Fewer every week.

And so we burned. We raised nations, we waged wars,
We dreamed up false gods, great demons
Who could cross the Veil into the waking world,
Turned our devotion upon them, and forgot you.
Threnodies 1:8

Comments

thranduil || ortan thaig + aboveground.

[rowancrowned]

((separated by post style and location! i. is in the thaig and ii. is close to orzammar but aboveground. ))

i. In his own opinion, he had stretched his luck and excuses to the breaking point with his refusal to enter the Deep Roads and the Dwarven realms. He would have continued to give his excuses—they are so close now—but everything has changed.

The Outsider has returned, and Thranduil urgently needs to speak with him—and with Beleth—but it will be a waiting game until they can make it to the Thaig and Thranduil is patient, but it has been worn thin by the past few years.

The rock above his head is not truly pressing down on him. The room is not actually closing in on him, there is still enough air to breathe, and just because he does not see any green or color in this chamber beyond drab grey and brown does not mean that it is a tomb. He cannot see a way out, and for that reason he perches on the bench like a coiled spring. He cannot imagine being able to sleep down here, but running in and out of the hidden entrances will only draw more attention to them. So, he is stuck, and the only thing he is able to do is wait it out.

He leans back, against the odd little house that is carved directly from the rest of the rock that forms this little thaig. It’s certainly busy down here—noisy, everything echoing, and he hasn’t been denied the joy of people watching, and occasionally giving a polite nod to those he recognizes.


ii. [ the air feels different. he cannot hear the trees in Thedas, but only a fool would be unable to notice the differences by sight alone. the remaining halla held by his people—and they are his people, he will do what is needed to keep them safe, he will make the sacrifices needed to keep them safe, he and galadriel and his lord, returned to him—are skittish, and were it not for the size of the herd, he would be concerned about them overgrazing what land they do have.

as it is, they are safe, far away, and it is thranduil who is skulking about in the forest, cloaked in glamour and a warm cape as well, waiting for his contact to arrive. ]

ii;

[inagutterson]

[If you want a job doing proper, you end up doing it your bloody self cursing an arsehole what dares to call himself Big Jim who had the sheer gall to write and complain about eating green leafy things that should've been fed to the white hoofed things.

This is a war, Jimothy, Yngvi had written in Orzammar in the midst of other more important work. You make sacrifices. Like we all didn't do worse in Kirkwall all the time. And then he'd had to go get blind drunk because Kirkwall isn't a name he even wants to hear unless he knows one way or the other about Liadan.

(And no one knows. No one knows because what's one elf-blooded ex-Coterie mercenary to anybody but him and his, why should anyone care when they're slipping through his fingers, when he's mourned two and maybe should be mourning three--)

So topside. Been a bit. He works better underground because he knew the Undercity long before he knew even Lowtown, knows all this and so he's come with nugs in his pocket, intel stuffed about his person but more in his head, a small shabby figure.]

Psst. [No oi. That's all long gone unless it's pulling rank because guess what you still need to be able to do that down below.] Forgot how rank these things smell, they're going to give you away mate, mark my words.

[rowancrowned]

[ thranduil isn't exactly a shining example of 'how not to be seen' when he's not glamoured to the skies and back-- making an impression is important, and the whole 'very tall elf who is very angry' has worked in his favor enough that he doesn't bother switching it up very much. if he needs to hide the armor, he'll hide himself. meaning that he has no excuse not to be delighted by smelly, potentially location-betraying nugs, what is personal space, yngvi, going to reach right into those pockets and pull out rump roast, the favorite, and hold him in two absurdly long elven arms. ]

Are you marinating the poor creatures? It would not hurt either of you to bathe. [ thranduil you are literally the only one who looks like they stepped out of a l'oreal commercial in the middle of this apocalypse, stop.

but rump roast gets a hand stroking him like someone's a bond villain and rump is the persian as thranduil settles down elegantly on a rock, smoothing his robe out before he does so, looking for all the world more comfortable here than he'd be inside on a fancy chair. now, he's slightly more on yngvi's height. ]

How is Gwenaëlle? [ yngvi might castrate him if he didn't ask. ]

[inagutterson]

[Rump Roast is a traitor for the way he squeaks happily, readily escaping Yngvi for the clutches of someone who won't eat him. Only Yngvi is less likely to do so but well, grass is always greener on the other side and what is grass when you can be lit by the festive lava pits?]

I was meaning your halla. [He lived with twenty nugs before the world went to shit, he's so used to the smell of them he didn't enough notice long before they all had to live on top of them.] There was a reason we'd barbeque them whenever--

[Everyone cuts themselves off these days don't they? Always some stories that just seem to end abruptly or taper off into nothingness. Yngvi has an abundance of them as a consequence of a life lived in the pockets of others, now isn't the time to go stirring up the dead.] We're living by the Darkspawn because Orzammar was full of useless wankers until we all showed up and got on with doing useful things so I find that having a healthy musk helps when I'm required down near those disreputable parts. Some of the Wardens are looking a bit peaky these days.

M'lady is well. [Always and forever he'll use her title, that's just etched into whatever sort of soul a thing such as him has.] Fending off suitors with her pretty knives and sharper words of course, you'd expect no less. [Yngvi doing more than that slacker Big Jim, hopefully he didn't die.]

[elegiaque]

It isn't often that Thranduil ventures underground; Gwenaëlle does not expect, is not expecting to see him there. It's entirely possible she may be less impressed when she finds out what it is that brought him, or at least part of it, but when she catches that flash of silver hair under the strange light (the adjustment is hard; she veils her eyes, sometimes, above-ground) she doesn't hesitate in making a beeline, crashing into him -

If it were her he was waiting for, she'd have been expecting him; she knows that, knows that something must be afoot, and will want to know what it is, but first, first. This, which is how considerately he's provided her with a lap to land in, a moment of awkward jostling as she endeavours not to do him an injury with sheathed knives, Hardie trotting behind her more sedately as he registers familiarity and lack of threat in her collision.

[rowancrowned]

He could not argue if Gwenaëlle brought up that he has never come here for her-- he can admit when he is in the wrong, and this is one of them. This place puts a fear into him, and so when he holds her, wraps his arms around her and holds her close, eyes falling shut as he breathes in the smell of her hair and focuses on having her here. He loathes being apart, but he must—

There are things greater than him. This must remain an asset, and not another thing for him to lose his head over.

Slowly, he leans back, lets her come into view, catches one of her hands in his own and brings it to his lips. “Good afternoon, my lady.” He is not sure, exactly, what time it is, if the stars are out or veiled still, but he’ll wager a guess. Hardie gets his attention next as Thranduil shifts to reach out a hand, allow himself to be inspected, and then pat the hound. As his hand passes over Hardie’s head, he leans in again, lips brushing over the curve of her neck; a slow exhale. “I missed you very much.”

[elegiaque]

The unforgiving words murmured into his hair when he leans close - "Whose fault is that, exactly?" if he misses her - are decidedly at odds with the way she laces her fingers through the hand that takes hers, claims his space as her own and breathes out like it's something she's been holding. In the past few years they've been apart more than they haven't been, and it is a little bit harder every time. A little bit harder every time someone falls and she's selfishly glad it wasn't her, it wasn't him; every time she isn't sure it won't be, the next.

The long silences, the distance. The both of them deciding where to stand, and not budging.

And it can't be set aside forever, so, when she straightens and nudges Hardie closer to the bench to keep out of passing foot traffic:

"What are you doing here, Thranduil?" because as much as she might like it to be to see you, my lady, it won't be. The resignation to that is as evident as it is apparent she really does want to know what's going on.

ortan thaig

[samahl]

Cyril has forgotten what it felt like to see the elves from Thranduil's realm. Every time he was near one of them before he would feel that weird longing fill his stomach and made him homesick for a place he had never really experienced. He wouldn't have thought those feelings would linger after all this time and yet just the sight of Thranduil is enough to make him blindsided by them. The emotion knocks the air from him for a moment. Despite everything, Thranduil manages to be so beautiful and regal seeming and makes Cyril feel an ache he can't fully describe. His presence is a reminder that the world still has green and warmth and beauty in it.

Cyril had had his reasons for not going into the woods and joining the elves in their treehouse, but now that Thranduil was here he felt himself doubting every single one of them.

"Thranduil?" he asks, as if he cannot believe his eyes.

[rowancrowned]

"Cyril," Thranduil says, and it's warm and welcoming. He crosses the distance between them, setting to the side the nausea that the Thaig sets to rising in the back of his throat and-- embraces him. Holds him for a brief heartbeat or two. His is precious. All of the elves are precious. They have made it so far, and if Cyril falls, there will be no reunion in Mandos' halls, ever.

He is reminded constantly of just how fragile life is. He holds all the tighter to it.

When he pulls back and looks at Cyril's face, cupping it between gloved palms-- one cannot be too careful these days-- his thumb brushes over the scar along Cyril's eye, but he says nothing, dropping his hands and gesturing to the bench.

"Do you have the time to sit with me, my friend?"

[samahl]

Despite himself, Cyril feels his body relaxing into the hug. He returns it and almost clings to Thranduil for a moment. He wants to believe himself mature and twisted but with Thranduil embracing him he feels almost like a child again - innocent and wanting to be protected. The feeling fades when they pull apart and he manages to hide most of those emotions from his face.

He does, however, frown a bit when Thranduil's fingers touch his scar. He feels like such perfection shouldn't be near that sign of betrayal.

"Of course," he says. "It's amazing to see you. I hadn't thought you'd like to be underground."

I

[obi_wanmanshow]

If Thranduil would look to someone to break the grey-brown and soil colors of the Thaig, Obi-Wan cannot oblige; his attire is as drab and loose-fitting as always, and the only color about him is the blue of his eyes, turned to grey by the dim underground light. He is much diminished, and comes to Thranduil only late in his visit, slowly, by means of a clever mechanical chair devised by (as he will inform anyone who seems willing to hear) his student, Rey.

Most have given up the pretense: even Obi-Wan will not claim she isn't his daughter in all but blood. Certainly, she has taken his name.

"Good evening, my friend," Obi-Wan says, after a moment of silence. There is grey in his hair, just the wing-tip beginnings at his temples, but no less real for their youth. And yet, he smiles, "I see you finally ran out of excuses to avoid visiting me."

As if that were the only reason, he knows. But he has missed Thranduil, dearly.

[rowancrowned]

Obi-Wan has his hope, he ought to hold tight to it—and Thranduil respects him for it. It pains Thranduil to see him aged. He has lost many, will lose more, but even the elves here will not be reembodied; he has so little time with them, and he has unlearned or at least fumbled the important lesson—that all mortals will die, and how painful it is to try and hold on.

He slides to the end of the bench so that Obi-Wan might wheel himself to the other end, and they can sit closer. It is a very clever chair.

“I have indeed. Shall we round it to two years?” He, graciously, will not count the two where he didn’t speak with anyone.

[obi_wanmanshow]

"Why not? We seem to have rounded every other corner," That could be cruel, might once have been a more pointed jab, but it's delivered with a tired, gentle sort of smile as Obi-Wan pushes himself into place, "I would have come to you, but-- Well. Sending a letter is more and more risky, these days."

And the crystals are watched; old instincts make him discount them. A tapped transmission might as well be dead. You listen to it for what information there was, if you like, but you never speak, that was how he was trained.

"It's alright. I know this-- the Thaigs, and the Deep Roads, they're hardly a place for your people," The elves, this time, and here is their old game. The people, your people, our people, and mine. His smile quirks sideways at the memory, "I have something important to share with you. But first, tell me, what's happening, how you've been doing? I get reports, I hear it from Rey, when she'll go, but it isn't the same as knowing."

ii

[chainlightning]

[ The rustle of feathers that comes is not from above, but from the side, accompanied by the crack of sticks underfoot. Ghostface was the smallest of his siblings but he is still a griffon, still an impressive sight to behold, all white under the dark of the trees. Merrill is with him, of course; not astride but walking next to him, staff on her back. The years have changed her; there are more scars, including some on her face with her vallaslin, and some that cannot be seen. One of Ghostface's feathers is braided into her hair, though some of that same hair has been shaved off on the side. More feathers are fixed to her staff, somehow still pristine white despite the battles they have seen, attached with leather and blood red beads.

She's not hiding. Ghostface will scent out any attackers, and the blades on her belt combined with her staff point toward Merrill being more than able to handle herself even without her feathered friend. Still, she's here for someone who has embraced stealth more than she has, and so it's Sindarin that Merrill uses -- she's learned more of it, in the past five years, so much so that the first papers Thranduil had given her are almost impossible to read now. ]

Are you here?

[rowancrowned]

[ the griffons are beautiful creatures, but he drops the glamour and approaches merrill first; smiles at her as he fades into existence. thranduil clasps her hands in his, kisses her cheeks, and then steps back. ]

Good evening, my lady. [ he'll observe politeness- this is not the end of everything, even if it feels like it. the griffon gets a nod, too. they're the sort of creature that thranduil frequently reminds himself that he ought to be grateful is on their side, even if he won't risk touching one. ]

What did you see? [ perhaps he's spared a thought for flight, for flying, but merrill-- merrill is suited to it. born for it. ]

[chainlightning]

[ The kisses to her cheeks still make her smile, all these years later. They are kin, in name if not blood; her hands squeeze his in return until he steps back. Ghostface rustles his feathers, but does nothing more; he has been acknowledged, and he's also pretty much just happy to be out of the underground. ]

Good evening. [ One hand goes to the neck of the griffon beside her, stroking over the feathers. They've seen a great deal, the pair of them; they are eyes where the Inquisition is blind. ] Mostly I've seen ruin. Refugees turned bandits, turning on each other. Darkspawn scouts. Venatori spies. Red lyrium where once there were flowers.

[ But then she smiles. ]

There's still life, though. Refugees sharing food. People fighting back. Ghostface is happy to be out in the sky.

i

[toujoursdroit]

Romain is walking somewhere with a purpose, a roll of parchment under one arm. It has been years since he regularly wore a mask, but his expression might as well be one, set as it is. He looks much the same as the last time Thranduil saw him, at least physically, though he has, if anything, grown grimmer.

He has not, however, grown less observant, and he slows his steps at the unexpected sight of someone familiar. He turns, slightly, so that his path brings him to Thranduil's side.

"Well met," he says. In another lifetime, perhaps it would be a pleasure to see him; now, it is mainly a pleasure not to be dead, and both of them know it.

[rowancrowned]

At first, you could tell the Orlesians from the rest with how pale the skin would be around their eyes, the top half of their faces obscured from the sunlight so long that they were oddly pale. Well, the lines had faded, and then those on the Inquisition’s side still had gone down underground, and they all had that paleness to them. They’d come into the sun blinking like newborn calves, and it was just another thing to hate about Orzammar. A hidden fear was that it would all go up in flames.

(At least, he supposed, there was no dragon in this particular pit.)

He stands, for Romain, dips in a polite bow, takes the few steps over to him rather than ask Romain to come to him. Gwenaëlle’s grandfather has earned it, or maybe Thranduil’s gentler on his expectations, or maybe he needs a face he knows to distract him from … everything.

“Might we walk together?” To wherever Romain is delivering that paper, two old men earning the privilege of complaints. And he wishes to ask after the children, and Romain himself.

[toujoursdroit]

"Of course. It has been too long." It was strange, the motions of civility that persisted. Still, Thranduil had inarguably saved his life and the lives of his family; that earned him much more than a few minutes of conversation.

"Do you have a particular subject on your mind? I know you seldom visit underground."

ii

[serannas]

[ After escaping Kirkwall, Ellana returns to Ferelden on a boat, sitting up on the crow's nest as a tiny sparrow. She isn't taking any chances of being recognized as an escaped prisoner and being dragged back. There are a lot of thoughts in her head about the time travelers she saw in prison, but she felt it best to separate from them. She needs a break. One month incarcerated was enough for her, and as she approaches the dwarven kingdom she makes the snap decision to not go back down just yet. She needs the open air.

Right now, she's in another of her shapeshift forms -- a fennec -- which allows her to scout out the area for the enemy while being overlooked. As she approaches the elves' retreat, she slows, sniffing the air. The glamour hides Thranduil from her sight, but her animal senses tell her someone is here. ]

[rowancrowned]

[ unless he is much mistaken, neither the red templars nor the venatori have managed to turn the wildlife into their personal spies. animals exposed to red lyrium become ugly, misshapen things, and this little fox is (adorable) unharmed, if, perhaps, lost.

he sheds the glamour with the ease that some men shed cloaks, and looks at the tiny fox with an ageless sort of curiosity that has him kneeling down and offering his fingers for inspection.

for all that the creature is not a pincushion of red crystals, it doesn't feel right. ]

[serannas]

[ Ellana comes over to press her nose to Thranduil's fingers in a show of trust, before she turns and scurries a good distance away to shift back. No need to do it all up in his face. In a cloud of purple and black smoke that quickly dissipates, Ellana steps forward, looking practically the same as the last Thranduil saw her with her blind eye and deep facial scar. There is a slight change, however. The pinkie finger on her left hand is missing. Damn Venatori. ]

I would have visited earlier, but imprisonment tends to change plans unexpectedly.

i

[arlathvhen]

Approaching Thranduil was easily one of the most nerve-wracking things that Beleth has done in what has become a long series of them. It's worse than even her initial approach for an alliance with the prisoners, and she hadn't been entirely sure that she would make it out of that alive. Death, she could handle. The ideal of Thranduil's disapproving gaze...she would sooner face the darkspawn. She doesn't even have the comfort of Cade at her side, as she almost always does. She's alone against someone more intimidating than a magister.

But she has something for him--and it has to be for him. So she approaches the bench warily, like it might attack her.

She looks...diminished, faded. A flower kept below the earth and faltering for it. In Kirkwall, she had stood out in her vitality for a so-called prisoner. But it's been a stressful period of time, and she only feels more stressed as she approaches Thranduil. She had thought him gone--dead or simply missing, and Beleth had accepted it, because that's what fathers do. And now here he is, and here she is, but she's different, she's a harellan, she's a traitor, and while she has yet to actually speak to Thranduil, she's no doubt that he'll be like everyone else.

There's a satchel resting on her hip, and she rests a hand on it, occasionally patting it with a nervous glance. But as she finally reaches the bench, that nervous glance turns to the elf king. She bobs her head to him, eyes on the floor.

"Thranduil. I'm glad to see you." She murmurs, to the floor, which is apparently also called Thranduil, what a stunning coincidence.

[rowancrowned]

"They let you go free," he drawls, turning to look at her, brows rising. She turned coat, again, and if he has lost some of his confidence in her ability to choose a side in this war and stay with it as more than a passing fancy. He has seen what it has done to her mother. He holds her responsible for every death her research caused. He has weighed the good in her life against the ill and found her wanting.

It is good, then, that her skin looks sallow and it appears that the weight of being in Kirkwall pulled at her, wore her down. She was offered an escape. Her betrayal will sit between them for the rest of his days.

But-- ah, isn't that something. If the Outsider is able to do as he promises, he'll never know what Beleth did here. It will be a very generous act of forgiveness not to ask his friend to take the news back, to warn him that Beleth Ashara betrays before she risks breaking herself.

She's been silent too long, though, and without blinking the entire while, he sets his conditions.

"Speak your part and go." That this coldness may well drive her back to the Venatori, well-- they won't have much use for her now.

[arlathvhen]

She has the grace to flinch at the harshness of his tone, head ducking down. But then there's a long pause, and when she looks up, there's a sullen, petulant look in her eyes. Like he had any right to be pissy. He was the one who betrayed her first.

She should have guessed, really. History seems to love to repeat itself, and she's a damn moron who never learns.

"They always do, don't they?" The words are whispered, but plenty loud enough for Thranduil to hear. Of course they did, it's not like her work caused any direct deaths. Translating dusty old tombs and politely sending three letters a week to Magister Whatshisface to remind him that he had to record red lyrium requests at least a week before he plans on using them does not spell much danger.

And the pamphlets about binding demons. She drew the pictures herself.

But on the topic of translating old tombs. She doesn't take her eyes off of him, as she pulls the satchel from off of her, and pushes it at him. Inside are hundreds of pages, enough for at least one book. Each page has words written neatly in Elvhen, with a Common tongue translation on the other half.

"Three years of research. I don't know what books the Dalish actually still have anymore, so I included all the references and cross references. I almost marked what parts the Venatori know, and what parts I didn't tell them." Her face softens, just slightly. "...You don't have to tell them it's from me. Just--I don't know. Make something up. Tell them you found it in the Deep Roads."