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

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

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Keeping people fed is an ever-increasing challenge," she replies, gathering the map up too to tuck under her arm to bring with her. "Without any Inquisition fleet to get information from, even our best estimates at dreadnought numbers involve more guesswork than I'm happy with."

Keeping people in arms and armour, getting them out of a nightmare or to wherever the front may be is even worse; the cabin door is kicked shut behind them with more force than necessary, her map locked away in the desk much the same, the candles lit as she goes to flex her left hand only of course, there's nothing there.

Three years, she ought to be used to that by now. "What I have here is small, and fleeting, clumsier than a child learning to play the Game but I am not about to lose it. I have sacrificed to get this far Korrin." In here the weariness can bleed into her voice as she leans back against her desk, shutting her eyes for a moment even though that burns worse than it did last time or the time before that. "Have you heard anything new from anyone?"

"I know you have, kadan. I know." Seeing and hearing that weariness in Araceli makes Korrin's heart ache, even as she knows it's infected her as well. Anyone who's still alive and fighting is beyond weary, at this point. But it's either that, or give up and be killed, allowing worse fates to befall those more vulnerable. Maybe it's a futile battle, but the Qunari won't advance without her fighting them every step of the way.

Moving to lean against the desk as well, Korrin reaches over to run a hand gently through Araceli's curls, taking as much care with them as she's always done. No one ruins those curls, even herself. "Not recently, no. Barely anyone talks openly over the crystals these days, for good reason. They're still holding the status quo down south, but the status quo sucks there as much as it does here. What victories they can get are small ones, and could be easily overturned. If the north could help them--but that's just not going to happen, and we both know it. Not with the fucking Qunari spreading like a bad rash."

She picks up the bottle, a faint nostalgic smile on her lips. "Antivan brandy. I was shocked to find an intact bottle, after all this time. It was too good to keep to myself." Given that there isn't much left of Antiva anymore, they can't count on easily finding another. It also brings to mind Zevran, who disappeared -and likely died- five years ago. At least he isn't around to see what's become of his homeland.

Bile floods her mouth, sharp and acidic. You don't, she thinks. It's so close to the surface in the way she deliberately straightens her clothes to cover how stiff her spine is now, that there was a time she felt as if she were dying by inches, her hand aflame, loved ones gone then Sina dead. It was an ugly thing that she did, not just the act but pressing others into it and to hold the secret close to them too. A hundred times, a thousand times and all she has ever wanted is to hurl it in someone's face that none of this is hers, that she didn't want any of this war or this hurt or this agony, not once did she ever ask for anything that happened to her here.

Even just once she's wanted to throw those words at someone to see if they'll strike true when they land.

She turns her head away, pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger with a short sharp sigh. "I can see why they chose Orzammar in some ways but where do they go if they're found or it falls apart? Into the Deep Roads? If they think that arrangement is going to last then they're deluding themselves." Why should she bother keeping the disgust out of her voice these days, why should she bother playing the bard and little shark anywhere but outside her cabin? There's no one here to watch her for the things she might have been watched for before is there? "Maybe if there had been better alliances in place…The Qunari have just as much reason to hate Corypheus as the Inquisition do." Yes, she did just say that. But then again this is also the person that cut off her hand, ran away and made sure she was settled before saying she was alive so neither of them should be surprised but she still braces herself for it.

"Even a cheap bottle from before goes for a song now. The Rivaini rum is all gone now, or I haven't heard about any of it in over a year." Fifteen sovereigns she got for one bottle once eight months ago though by now it's likely she could charge fifteen sovereigns for a measure to only minimal complaint. It isn't her job to balance the books but they all do what they can to keep the money rolling in when the money is good, when the money is there.

Korrin lowers the bottle, recoiling at mention of the Qunari and alliances. If Araceli was looking for a reaction, she's getting one. She's learned to let plenty of things slide, but the Qunari are an increasingly sore subject, even more than they were five years ago. Though she doesn't shout, Korrin's tone grows tense and bitter. She's not going to bother to hide how personal this is for her.

"...you can't be serious. The Qunari don't do true alliances; not now, not ever. Even if they could take out Corypheus -and I fucking doubt it, because they wouldn't have wasted any time- they would still take the opportunity to oh-so-helpfully impose the Qun on everyone in the process. Sure, they'd take down a darkspawn magister and his cronies, but you know what they do to people who resist. You know what they'd do to people like me; would you have me bound and stitched up? Mom, Dad, Tama...they tried to escape that shit, and you know it caught up to them in the end, cost them their lives or their sanity." No, they had to be dead. Please, Maker, let them be dead. "They'd crush everyone in their path and brainwash them with qamek so they don't even remember anything else. It's no better to be a blank-minded, drooling slave. Once the Inquisition helped get them what they wanted, they'd turn on everyone and you fucking know it."

Thinking about the horror that her family must have experienced, knowing that their worst fears had returned to haunt them, Korrin looks away with tears in her eyes. She's barely talked about any of them since the invasion, haunted by their loss. Conversations about them are almost always too painful, but i's fair to say that they've been the motivation behind every strike that she's made against the Qunari.

A muscle twitches in Araceli's jaw that might be a smile. These days it's all bearing her teeth, staring down dreadnoughts or whatever other ships come haunting her as she runs around with a queen's name. Did she pick that for more than courage? She was feverish when she chose it, more homesick than she'd ever been in all her life but the same way there are a hundred things in the sea with barbs and spines and bright colours that say 'touch me and beware' then maybe she was making an attempt even in those first days.

"When did I say a true alliance?" She mutters irritably herself, folding her arms then immediately unfolding them because after all this time she can't make that comfortable not even after all this time when she isn't having to face other people. It annoys her. That she hasn't threshed away the softness yet, that parts of her are still stubbornly clinging to a holdfast. "There were ways we might have drawn it up a long time ago, maybe before any of this happened in the first place, when we still had people who could think but this world is always so trapped within itself, it always has to fight the same battle a hundred times, a thousand times. I know how politics is-- was done. Back when there was anyone alive to see to it. They saw an opportunity and they took it, a fat galleon listing ripe for the plunder because there is nothing left. People have always run from the Qun, you wouldn't be here if they didn't, so people will run again if a day comes when there's something worth running to." Araceli's voice doesn't rise exactly but it turns sharper in a way she can't control, the words tumbling out of her mouth faster and faster until there's no taking them back and she knows why. (Still, she gets reports. If there's a thing worse than a Blight, this is undoubtedly it.)

She knows. Korrin might be too hurt, too angry to see it, and nobody would blame her, Araceli least of all, but she damn well knows somewhere deep down what she's doing.

Turning, she looks out the small window to the deck because to close the curtains is such a risk with privacy a luxury she cast away. She can offer Korrin a softer voice this time when she doesn't have to look directly at her since it means she can keep her voice steady, unsure if she would be able to trust it. It's dark enough now that she can see her own face that she hardly recognises anymore and once this might have worried her, upset her but this iis the cost of doing business. "This is who I am. The girl you loved, well, maybe someone found her hand. I hear they were fetching a good price those days."

If Korrin didn't have her magic or fear of the Qun ingrained into her by Tal-Vashoth parents, perhaps she would at least be able to see the cold logic of what Araceli was saying. But she does. She's a living, breathing defiance of the Qun, and everything that goes with it will always produce immediate, powerful revulsion. It's who and what she is, it's always been that way and Araceli knows it. The fact that she's well aware and yet says such words anyway is a punch to the gut. Korrin thinks no more of the brandy she brought or the calm evening she was hoping to share with the woman who gave her a mermaid ring, her own jaw at work as she paces away from the desk.

The bitterness fades somewhat from her voice, though now it gains a tremor as she recalls the fear and grief surrounding Araceli's flight a few years ago. Upon finding her, relief more than anything else won out and she's tried her best not to heap more upon her kadan's shoulders despite her own inner pain. In an increasingly terrible world, all Korrin really desires is for them to hold onto each other as long as they can, be each other's safe havens. Hurt takes over and now the words come sliding out, those feelings no longer able to be held back.

"The girl I loved decided to cut her damn hand off and run away without so much as a word. Do you know what that was like? For the longest time, I was going crazy, wondering if you were dead or recaptured by the Venatori, or worse. What happened to two against the world, huh? I've tried to move past it, I really have, but you don't get to throw that in my face and dismiss how I feel about the Qunari.

'Run from the Qun'; those they don't just slaughter or brainwash in the first place, because there's no curing that. Every fucking day, I'm out there in the faintest hope that maybe, just maybe I can make them choke on their own invasion just a little more. It's a damn miracle anyone resisting is still alive; sooner or later, it'll catch up to us, but as long as there's you, I can deal with that. Don't tell me there's nothing left of that girl."

Edited 2017-02-11 15:57 (UTC)

Seeing as this might end up being something of the long haul, she crosses the few steps that there are in the cabin to sit on the edge of the bed where she can look up at Korrin properly. They had plans for this once. For sailing away together around the coasts of Antiva and Rivain, up in the north but away from lands held by the Qun even as Araceli's eyes had strayed to the edges of the map wondering what lay beyond, where they might go, she and Korrin. When she had been Araceli as well as kadan. When she could call Korrin sirena too. Instead the name of a woman Araceli loves and serves in a world she will never see again sits between them and sometimes it threatens to swallow her whole. Araceli's problem has been becoming the mask enough that there is nothing left to take off at the end of the day, few things she wouldn't do if it meant securing the advantage.

Sitting here, moving away, tactical retreat – if she takes Korrin in her arms and apologises for it then it won't take the words back but it might take her too close to something else. To something more selfish than what she's done this far. At least this she can justify and she'll continue to until she head snaps up as if she's been struck. Her eyes flash at Korrin at the words because it's been years since that night and now she decides she's going to bring it up? She has to curl her hand in the blanket to keep her temper in check or else someone might come knocking at the door.

Right on the tip of her tongue sit a few words that would ignite a powder keg if she spoke them now: people are running to the Qun and have tried to pay her to take them there, but she would not risk her ship for a journey. Something like that? She spares Korrin from knowing to the very best of her ability. No, it's a devastating little truth she's tried so hard to keep to herself for years now that works itself loose instead, claws itself up and out of her mouth. Araceli braces herself for—for once she doesn't know. She can predict what she has to face out there. There are Venatori, Red Templars, Qunari, the constant threat of the truth coming to light as well as the spectre of betrayal having a seat at her table and a place in her bed. "I never told you because if there was one person who could have stopped me without meaning to, it would have been you.

"You would have tried to understand, perhaps, or you would have wanted to be there with me. And I would not have been able to go through with it in the end, none of it. I did what I had to do with what was available to me at the time. The message was to let you know I was alive so you wouldn't spend your time worrying and be distracted in battle, or do something foolish." It seems that somewhere in her there is still enough for tears that she blinks away because this isn't the time, she isn't going to give in to that, not now but her anger is spent as she drops her head to speak softer. She can't trust herself to look at Korrin now. "It was the right decision, it was the only decision; what other thing would have been believed by the people here after all that had been suffered? You were to remember me as I was, the girl that laughed and made you laughed, who scaled the walls and found a bright shining thing always. Who believed. That and the message, they were the last pieces of kindness I could spare or they'd have gutted me before I made it halfway here."

If she had two hands to hold out, she'd offer them, but she only has one so it's all she can do. It's the truth if Korrin wants to believe it or not. If Korrin can even believe her or not. Thinking that hurts more than she thought it would.

There's a part of Korrin that hates herself for the reaction just provoked out of Araceli, and for the sense of satisfaction she gets from that as well. She had vowed privately never to throw Araceli's decision back in her face, no matter how much it hurt her personally. The important thing was that she had found Araceli alive, if not well, and she had clung to that minor miracle to ward off any bitterness...or has tried to do so. But everyone has their breaking point, and after Araceli just mentions it herself, she can't hold back.

And then she goes still, hearing Araceli's reply. A lump forms in her throat and tears sting her eyes, but she won't give into to them, not yet. Her hands form white-knuckled fists to keep them from trembling, though her voice doesn't fare as well. "'Only decision', my ass. Everyone has a story they tell themselves to justify their choices...but it doesn't matter; it still fucking sucks for those affected by it. You're damn right, I would have wanted to be there for you. I would have cut it off myself, if you'd asked it of me. You didn't have to go through that alone! Do you really think that message meant I wasn't still worried? Bullshit, I wasn't going to rest until I saw you with my own eyes again, held you in my arms. You knew that. You had to have known."

Her voice breaks at the end, unable to hold back that pain any longer. She would have done anything for Araceli, happily thrown herself into it regardless of the cost. All she wanted was not to be discarded, however 'noble' the reason. Everyone else important to Korrin is gone, separated by distance or death or mysterious circumstances. Perhaps it was too much to expect that Araceli break that mold, but she desperately needed that to be an exception. Her hands relax as she pauses by Araceli, fingertips nearly brushing hers. As hurt as she is, Korrin doesn't want to imagine a life without her in it.

"...I didn't need to only remember the laughter and kindness and good times. I miss those parts of you, but I love all of you, not just the parts you want me to see. If I didn't, I wouldn't still be here. We could have gone together, though, and I won't pretend any longer that I wish to hell it had been that way instead."

"I don't have to justify it. This is my body, my opinion is the only one that matters when it comes to the decisions I make regarding it." It's verging on petty, this line of argument she chooses at first as she gathers her breath and draws herself up so she can stare right at Korrin. "What good does it do anyone to see any of us hurting and know there is nothing that can be done about it? Those are distractions that cannot be afforded same as the pain ate at me and I know that the pain of cutting it off then the healing were less than whatever was wrong with it before that. Thinking that someone might betray me on a mission to the enemy for a coin, another distraction." Old man what do you think of her sitting here and twisting everything she might have felt into whatever argument she can so that she comes out looking as if she is in the right.

"Perhaps," Araceli exhales the word on a careful breath, "that some of my thinking might have rubbed off on you in a time like this. When our friends were dead and dying even then. I did not want you tainted by the things that happened to me before, how could I want you to have my blood on your hands?"

Her voice cracks because she can't keep doing this. She is so tired. She is so tired of holding herself up and holding herself together in public and in private, so eventually something had to give. When she bows her head, she can feel how hot her face is, the taste of tears thick in the back of her throat as her breath shudders in and out of her for long ugly moments until the storm has passed. "I knew, more or less, what was up here. I didn't want you to have to see that. Your family-- I stayed in your abuela's house, I ate her food, and even if you grew up on the road, that was still a home. I cannot go back to mine. I cannot take you away from this place and into mine. You would have read the reports, heard the rumours but you wouldn't have had to see any of it."

I was trying to protect you, is what she is trying to say because after everything she's said and done so far, after what she's hurled at Korrin in some desperate attempt to hurt her tonight, she doesn't feel she has a right to those words now.

During that inner storm, Korrin closes in to rest a hand against the side of Araceli's face, feather-light for her size. She can't bear to see Araceli like this and not do something for her, even as she feels it might never be enough. The world's gone to hell and it's increasingly harder to soothe away those darker thoughts, even for a little while. But she has to try, doesn't she?

"...yes I would, kadan. Without a doubt. If you were me, could you stay behind and let someone else fight that war for you, while it was your kin that were dying? I don't think so. It's a constant heartache to see all this as it is, I won't lie, but for Mom and Dad and Tama...and Kas...I'm not going anywhere. They deserve to be avenged, and I want to be the one to do it. I owe it to them to keep fighting, so I will...with everything I have."

She can't bring them back, but at least this way, their deaths mean more of their hated enemy will die, too. It's all she can give them.

Closing her eyes, she lets out a soft sigh. "You're right; it's your decision about your own body that matters most. I know that, I do. I would never have stopped you from making that call, Araceli. But can you blame me for wanting to be there for you? I've seen members of my company lose limbs or need to have them removed, and then adapt without them. At the very least, I could have passed on their knowledge. I...know I can't take away the pain, but that doesn't mean it has to be borne alone.

Yeah, it sucks, seeing you like that and not being able to something more. But you know what? I'd still take it. The only thing worthwhile in this crapsack world anymore is moments where I can be with you. If they're moments where you're angry and bitter at the world, so what. Yon can share that pain, kadan; it's a distraction I accept. We can be angry and bitter together. But I also think that we're stronger together, too."

She lifts her hand back up to the dragon's tooth pendant. "Every time I look at this, I'm reminded that this world hasn't completely gone to shit. It still has you in it, and that's what matters most to me."

"If it was asked of me? Then yes. You alone know what I was before any of this, everyone else that knew is dead." Zevran, Nightingale, The Outsider, all of them dead and gone now so only Korrin knows. "If this played out a different way then it wouldn't be so very different. Take it or leave it. I know what would be asked of me."

She's lying but Araceli lies all the time now and this one is a carefully assembled reworking of partial truths and careful guesswork that no one can poke many holes in. Unfair but who said she had to play fair. Korrin's touch means she doesn't have to play fair when she leans into it, unable to help herself, eyes shut, breath shuddering out. Would it be so very terrible if she gave a bad order and let the sea claim her, let her lungs fill, let it be over so she could be with everyone they'd lost? Would that truly be so selfish now? Araceli knows how to spot liars. Everyone is lying to themselves at least a little, at least out here.

Stubborn as ever, she clenches her jaw so Korrin can feel it then tips her head up to look at her. "Some things we learn for ourselves. I pray, sirena, that you are never in that position but I had to do it alone. I had to know that I could. Maybe that isn't something that will ever make sense in whatever time is left."

Soft girl, never known a war until Thedas, soft girl soft notions, bleeding heart everything slipping through your fingers same as the light through your palm--

She wants to lie down. Curl up with the covers over her head so that she might pretend this is her father's ship and that her mother is coming to fetch her as she did when she was little. Instead she carefully lays her hand over Korrin's and continues. "You don't need to do or be something more Korrin," she murmurs softly, ashamed, verging on quietly horrified because Korrin was always enough, has always been enough and more than enough, has been so much good in her life. "Splitting myself all these ways, going by another woman's name when you know what we were to one another. If something happened to you by virtue of you being here and I could have kept you from it by keeping you away, by hiding you under the earth with everyone else I would never forgive myself. You are all I have left. You and a ship named for one friend painted for another."

Korrin might not possess the full truth behind that initial claim, but that doesn't stop her from giving Araceli a skeptical look. Even if she'd guessed wrong there, it doesn't change her own position. She could no more remain behind than she could stop breathe, stop being what she is in all senses.

That shuddering breath makes her heart ache, makes her want more than just that one touch. Araceli looks as bone-tired as Korrin feels, but when do they ever really have the chance to let it all out like this? It's not pretty, but it's needed to happen and a reluctant part of her is realizing that. For all her general forthrightness, she's been uncharacteristically putting this off for years. "I don't know if I'll ever get it, but maybe that's just something I'll have to live with. I needed you to know how I felt; no more, no less."

Her heart is still heavy, from pain and grief and loss, but it's strangely lighter upon realizing that. And it's lightened a little more when Araceli lays her hand upon her own. Staring downward at that, her eyes are suspiciously bright and her tone a bit rough. "And I would never forgive myself if something happened to you here while I was somewhere else, kadan. I know this mess isn't much of a life, but that's one I'd want to live even less. Don't doubt it, kadan. And please...don't push me away. Whatever happens here, I'll take it. Let's both try to stay alive as long as we can, and go from there." The world is making that desire increasingly difficult, true...but they've managed so far.

"Besides, I'm not a huge fan of being stuck in dwarf-land indefinitely. The ale there is terrible." There's a faint flicker of a smile, an attempt to lighten the mood just a touch.

A bard inspires passions in others but rules her own. It was something of a mantra to try to live by sometimes, to do what she could and in a way she'd attempted it tonight but she can't lie to Korrin about something that matters. You can't give pieces of yourself to someone then expect to go snatching them back again or to somehow build walls and shields about them to keep another out.

Taking a steadier breath this time, she moves away just enough to bend over to unlace her boots because save her they're not fighting now, before she gets undressed. Ignoring whatever old lessons she might be remembering right now because she doesn't care, she doesn't want to be that person, she wants to just be Araceli or whatever she might remember of her. She isn't tired but she's weary and they've earned this, kicking them out of the way to scoot back and pull Korrin with her. "The Game might not exist now but there are still bards. I have to live with the choices I have made and knowing that it hurt you, unequal as it is. I am sorry that what I have done has hurt you, I-- I cannot promise not to hurt you again in the future when we never know what that holds."

After all, one of them being wounded or captured or killed has been a hurt that's crushed the other in the past, it's not something they can deny so she isn't going to promise that it can't happen because she's always tried to keep her promses.

"If all hope is ever lost then we have the ship. It's a fast ship Korrin. Maybe we can get word to anyone that's still left. Say to bring the food and drink that they can and we sail, we sail and we sail and we sail. The scouts must press farther than any ever dared in the past as time goes by so..." So they might have no other choice but you never know what the glitter in the dark is, silver or tin, so better to take the chance and hope, no?

Managing a ghost of her own smile, she gives Korrin a nudge with her elbow. "Do not mention that in this bed when I'm naked or you sleep on the deck."

While Araceli sheds those boots, Korrin quickly does the same with her own. She restrains herself from her usually kicking them away so they land with a loud, satisfying thud, instead refraining from a path that might knock something over. (See, she can behave herself. Sometimes.) When Araceli scoots back, she makes a contented noise, arms encircling her promptly. This is what she was hoping for upon returning, some time to just relax and be themselves before the world demanded their attention once more.

That nudge provokes a faint chuckle. "Fair enough. I'll behave for now, kadan. That's a promise I can make, at least. But I won't give or ask for impossible ones, that wouldn't be fair to you or me." It's a hard thing to relent on when she desperately wants to promise that nothing horrible will happen to either of them...but that's not a guarantee that can be made, even in the best of times. It's better to savor what they have, while they have it.

Reminded of their long-ago conversation, Korrin smiles a little. She hadn't thought about their plan for an epic journey across the seas in some time, not since the Qunari invasion. Back then, it had simply been in the spirit of adventure but now...now it might be their only saving grace. "Remember when we cooked that awesome meal in the kitchens and talked about how we would find out what's beyond Thedas? I thought it would make us legends, back then. Now, I wouldn't give a nug's ass about bragging rights, as long as it means a chance at survival. It might not be a bad idea to pass word along and at least get people preparing for the time when we'll have to take that chance."

Should they just make arrangements now and leave as soon as possible? Korrin's stubbornness has won out so far, wanting to keep fighting the Qunari out of spite and loyalty to her family. But that path will only lead in one direction, sooner or later. Perhaps it's time to seriously consider another one, one that can save lives instead of just taking them.

When the cabin is this small and they might be woken suddenly by someone demanding their attention, Araceli does appreciate knowing where everything is so there's the minimum of trip hazards in the small hours. She refused to give up sleeping naked even if that's maybe a strange indulgence, her own things exactly where she knows she can grab for them.

"Life is unfair enough without either of us adding to it," she agrees, rolling over so she can tuck herself closer to Korrin because she has her, she still has her and tonight is proof of that so selfishly she wants as much of her as she can. Resting her head on Korrin's shoulder, a leg slung over her hip, her hand reaching to twine their fingers together makes up for the distance in the day as she feels her heartbeat begin to slow.

There always comes a time to roll the hard six, where you have to hope you have enough blessings in your holster. (Each time she thinks of her father's old wisdom something painful opens up in her, a wound she sees in her dreams that never bleeds but opens up inside her, deep as the Abyssal Rift in the Western Approach when she stood with her toes hooked over the edge of the burning sands and dared to look down, down, down.) "I can see about how to code it in the morning, so they know that a message has come from us at least. Even just a sending crystal message to one person each from us to people there to relay instruction might be enough. Though it's not without risk but we've lost so many. How many more can we afford to lose? I am so tired of trying to resign myself to acceptable losses out here. As if any of it is. One less person now is one less person to resist, remember, rebuild."

Leaning up, she presses her forehead to Korrin's for a moment before she kisses her. It's slow, gentle, careful. She could kiss like that before but she is so afraid of disturbing the world now in a way she never used to be, and when she pulls back, admitting the words she's never said aloud until this moment. "Sirena, I am so tired."

That kiss goes a long way toward soothing her immediate state of being, and Korrin returns it in kind. She'll savor it as long as possible, until Araceli pulls back, and those words make her heart ache for all that it's a relief for Araceli to open up. Expression softening, she lifts a hand and runs those fingers gently through those dark curls, in a soothing motion.

"You've been through so much, kadan. I'd be more surprised if you weren't. All this fighting -and losing- with no end in sight is more than I ever thought we'd have to bear. It's more and more looking like Thedas is truly beyond saving, much as I hate to say it. If we can coordinate this, pull it off...we still don't know what will happen. But fuck it, at least it'll be something we choose. I'm so damned tired of everyone else deciding for us. It's worth the risk, if we can stop losing more people. It has to be."

Perhaps afterward, when they have a moment to reflect, the enormity of what they'll have done will hit her. Leaving Thedas to its fate, however inevitable, will still be a punch to the gut. But it's a burden she's prepared to live with, if it means some kind of future for the people she loves...especially one person in particular. Giving her a gentle squeeze, she brushes her lips against Araceli's forehead.

Sometimes it's a wonder she doesn't have grey hairs yet. She should by now, a whole head of them after all the things in the world that have gone on since falling through a rift. Her mother hadn't gone grey though, her father only the first hints of 'distinguishment' as he'd liked to call it. (Are they grey now? What happened to all the letters under the floorboard of their room in Skyhold? Will anyone ever find them now there's no one in that room and try to piece together her life from them?) At least she has the luxury of them alive and safe somewhere far far away from Corypheus and his followers. Leandra, Arsenio, Rajani, Eir, Brunilda, Argyris, Nerissa; everyone alive and safe.

Leandra might even have a child or two by now, that was always the plan somewhere down the line.

"Not a single soul is left in this world for anyone to reason with. Surrender to the Qun. Surrender to Corypheus though with him...it would be blood for so many of us, our bodies would be worth more to him than anything else." If this is going to keep them going then it's unkind to say the hundred ways in which it might already be impossible simply because that side of her mind won't shut up for that long. Instead she squeezes Korrin's hand, listens to her heartbeat and breathes slow and deep so her heart calms itself again.

When some of their own defected? No. They go with the people that want to take a chance on something, who still have it in them to even want in the first place. "There comes a time when you cannot ask more of people, when it's selfish to do it. The world, the Inquisition? It cannot love us back as much as any of us loved it. The people here are fond of risk, they have always lived with it and a challenge because if it wasn't for coin then it was always to be against the thing that fought to suppress them so I will have them. We have suffered enough. I would like to know what you look like when you are old, when we still have the same arguments about how you never put your boots away when I have nagged you for twenty years and I still cannot come in through a door when there is a window like a normal person."

There are naturally no grey hairs in Korrin's pure white fringe, but it's a fair bet that her hair would show signs of neglect were it allowed to grow again. That's why Korrin chopped it, since hair maintenance is now a luxury beyond what she personally can afford. Should they reach a time when Araceli does have grey in her hair, though, Korrin will naturally think that it makes her even lovelier. Expect something poetic and sappy, it will happen.

Her own breathing calms, echoing Araceli's in what will hopefully be a mutually reinforcing cycle. Well, except for the soft chuckle at the imagery Araceli provides. "It's good that you know what you're in for, because I'm not going to give false hope there. I'll never not be a pain in the ass about boots. As for windows, that's how I know it's really you. The day you use a door instead is the day I know that desire demon is back and trying to fuck with me."

Her voice is softer as she continues. "Tama used to say 'if nothing else, stay alive out of spite'. That's worked for a while, a lot longer than I thought it might, but spite's exhausting. Maybe I'm getting old anyway, but I'm tired of it. I'd rather have something better to keep us going, and that's not going to happen as long as we stay here. We'll always be treading water instead of actually getting anywhere. So if it's selfish to take who we can and scram...I can live with that."

Please enjoy sleeping on the couch or deck of the ship, depending on whatever the living situation will be if you even try that Korrin.

"People always pay good money for boots, they're one of the things that always get requested." Just so you know that she wouldn't but she could. But it's the last part that gets her thinking, propping herself up carefully enough that her elbows won't jab Korrin anywhere because it's a good point. "You dream differently to me, being a mage, but if there were a demon I would have expected to see or hear more of in these times, it would have been them. Terror, fear, despair, those are all things I expect to see when such things are common but would desire demons not stand to gain something by offering things to those desperate to make a deal?"

Not that she's been looking exactly but there's always so much talk about things like that among sailors anyway that have their own superstitions that don't follow along the same lines as others, and there's a strong Rivaini influence here to start with.

Nodding, she can see the wisdom in it for someone like Korrin's grandmother but she wasn't made for that. Korrin can see it already after all. "I was made for solving conflicts, finding a different path, things that can't happen now. I can't stay angry forever without completing forgetting who I am, and I don't think that I want that. It would make it easier but should it be easy? I am thief. All the things in my life came from me being a thief. Being a pirate's daughter. A courtesan's daughter. Let me steal as many people as I can from under the nose of the enemy and maybe we can say we've won something."

Stealing people from under the enemies' noses definitely has some appeal and there's a little more strength to Korrin's smile when she attempts it this time. Smiles are usually feeble and fleeting even for her these days, quick to wilt under the weight of what's done and will do. But the promise of a future that has something else in it causes that to linger just a little longer. "I don't want that either, kadan, for you or me. We deserve better than to fall to burnout, and that's going to happen if we stay, so I'll help my thief any way I can. You know it."

There's a moment of hesitance, not wanting to worry Araceli, but she's kept enough to herself. Besides, she sucks at deception so she might as well be up-front about it. Sighing, she stares up at Araceli. "...you're not wrong about desire demons. This is like a feast for them, especially for young and stupid mages. They've tried to tempt me, but I was trained well to ignore their bullshit. Every time I see one, I remember the crap they tried to pull with impersonating you. They can't give me anything I want, unless it's their corpse. And I can do that myself." Her tone is firm, but she'll keep to herself the times those illusions and promises given tore at her heart, how often she awoke to tears on her pillow.

Maybe having practice at this sort of thing even before Thedas makes it easier. Knowing how to rule your face for the little things that give you away and when it comes to the big things then it's natural enough that you have to remember to stop it. It's what made her a good bard before. What makes her good at inspiring people on the ship to do their jobs and go set sail with her.

Besides, she's worried all the time. Worrying is her damn job now with people under her command the way they never were before. The breath she exhales is careful because she remembers, she remembers all the painful things better than she does anything else at times. "Don't call them stupid," she murmurs softly, "they're frightened. How many of them were taught anything other than fear from what you and everyone else ever told me about how a Circle works? Desire is one of the most powerful things in the world, you know where I grew up Korrin, you know that I know how things like that work." Desire demons are a corruption of something natural and normal, taking it and turning it against a person but Araceli can understand it. She can.

Propping her chin up, she looks at Korrin again but tries to be as gentle as she's able to be these days. "Sirena you don't have to try to keep that part away even if I cannot help you fight it all the time."

There's a slight, conceding nod as Korrin's always mindful of her horns and their potential to harm if she's not careful about how they're placed. Even after all this time, she doesn't slip up even when it would be easy to be more comfortable and less careful about it. "True enough, though I was also thinking of the ones who weren't Circle-trained, but trained nonetheless. Unless completely self-taught -and that tends not to end well- the first thing a mage learns is how to see past demonic deception and refuse them. It's drilled into you to the point of instinct. Knowing that so many will never get what they want, but they abandon the warnings anyway...it's depressing." Anger surfaces more easily for her than despair, but that isn't to say she doesn't hurt from seeing the results of such bargains. Qunari aren't her only target; abominations are more and more common.

Araceli's gentleness may be relative these days, but that she even tries brings a small smile out of Korrin. "You help more than you know, kadan. This--" She touches the dragon's tooth. "--keeps me grounded, reminds me what I have to lose if I ever let any of that shit get the better of me. That's not to say that it doesn't get old, it really does, but you're not going to lose me to them. I won't say no to finding ways to blow off steam when they decide to line up like I'm a fucking buffet, though.

...but that can wait. You're tired, and I can see that even if you didn't tell me. You work so hard, kadan; rest with me now, and put off thinking about what's outside that door. If you have to dwell on doors, think back to our old one, the one with the blue seashell on it."

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

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