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

[arlathvhen]

"A high horse."

The first thing that falls out of her mouth is as kind as the question, as kind as the bitterness twisting inside of her. He might not have much, but he certainly had plenty of judgment to give, didn't he? But...that's not fair, and she knows it. A small sigh follows, her silent acknowledgment that her words were probably harsher than Alan deserved.

"...You have ideals. Principles. An entirely unfounded optimism that those things will be worth anything at the end of the day." A short pause, with Beleth tugging at the loose threads on her clothes, shifting around. Then: "...And an uncanny ability to make people who should know better believe in them, anyway."

[alankazam]

A glance up at her reply, an uncharacteristically sharp look.

But that’s not fair either, not when he’s asked. Not when he knows what she’s lost of late. His head tips back down in faint apology. She’s speaking kindnesses that she doesn’t need to offer, and he doesn’t know whether to trust it. Hates himself for having to wonder. Should it even matter, when she’s made the effort?

When she’s trying, though she must be in pain?

"We’re going to lose this war."

He’s known it for a long time, but it’s the first he’s said it aloud. Really admitted it. With enough years, others will come after them, with their righteousness for an example. With love for their fellow man, with hearts of flame. What is eternal cannot die —

But they can. And they are. So steadily, they slip away; a patrol lost here, a village burned there. Alan’s long made his peace with dying. He hasn’t made it living, not with watching the slow creep of attrition. Every day reminds him why he left.

"I swear that I wouldn’t have brought you here if," If what? The words stumble out tangled, won’t straighten on his tongue.

An entirely unfounded optimism. Is that what he’s killed her for?

She was out of options by the time they last spoke. Would she still have been, if he hadn’t intervened? If he’d just let that patrol take him, would she be safer now? It's a foolish line of thought; picking up a bird didn't place her in Venatori jaws. Perhaps it's only the rock dust that seizes his chest, makes it so difficult to breathe.

"I swear it."

He finishes, lamely. She and Cade did the brave thing, in the end — the right one. And it may be worth it at the end of the day, but fuck, it should have been worth more now.

[arlathvhen]

"I know."

There's a tiredness in her voice, resigned to the fact that she had known for years, and the effect on her that only recently became so dire. As he speaks, stumbles over whatever he's trying to say, Beleth moves closer to him. Not close, not within touching distance, but closer, and then she sinks onto the ground, leaning against a tree. She feels older than she has any right to.

"It's okay. I don't mind, anymore." The laugh she gives is almost a bark, sharp and humorless. "It's funny, isn't it? I spent so long trying to stay alive, and now that the end is looming, I don't even care. I haven't got anything left to care about." Cade is gone, her three years of research secreted off to Thranduil. All of her old friends despise her. Whether she lives or dies now won't effect anyone, anything.

Of course, a decent part of that is his fault. If they'd never left, Cade would still be there. She'd still be doing research. Though...what would be the cost. On Cade. On her.

"...He got to choose, in the end." She says, voice quieter. "I guess now I get to, too."

[alankazam]

She says it, and it would be so much easier not to hear. To let the words slip by, unacknowledged, forgotten. He could leap up. In an instant, he could be gone.

He's not bound to this cause in the same way as the others. There are still corners of the world that he might hide long and simply within, places to forget he was ever anything but the shadow of wings.

"You're worth caring about." But it's one thing to say it, and another to convey its truth. She matters to him. It's not the same as mattering to herself. "That choice, it is."

It's not the kind of thing you get to regret, to fix, to take back.

He could be gone. Years ago, he'd told Korrin that he needed to try, to try a little harder. Maybe years are enough — except that Beleth's telling him she has a choice to make. Except that,

"He didn't make the choice to give up. He didn't give up on you, Beleth."

[arlathvhen]

"He made the choice to die, and when."

A moment, torn between guilt and relief. "I hate that he's gone, but. I'm glad that it was his choice, in the end. I'm glad that it happened under his own agency." Agency was something that he'd had very little of, even before everything got ugly. His absence was gutting, but at least he'd gotten that little sliver of free will, in the end.

"...Am I really worth it?" The question is genuine, and she stares at him intently as she asks. "No one else seems to think so. I don't blame them. I'm no use to anyone, any more." And use is directly correlated to how much someone will care about you. She'd always been sure to be useful, before. Now, things were different.

A soft laugh. "Are you trying to make me start caring about being alive, after leading me here? I'm going to die here, Alan." Her tone is painfully blunt. "One way or another, everyone here will die. Isn't it better if it doesn't bother you?"

[alankazam]

"No." Dully, distracted. He begins scraping at the dirt again, the better not to look at her. "That's what they want of us."

Not to care — to burn out as hollow, paper things. If you live for no other reason, He'd read once, a long time ago. Live for spite.

It's a bad way to live. But can you live for its opposite number? For all the small, good things they'll crush of this world in service to power? Can that only be enough?

It would be easier not to care. It would be easier to go. But here is what the truth of it is: Alan isn't ready to be a survivor again. He's done it once, twice; isn't ready to walk away from this wreckage a third time, isn't ready to be the one to tell the tale.

No one's alone in the Maker, but god knows they can be lonely.

"It matters that he had that choice," His fingers find what they're looking for at last, drag the little snaggle of bone up in closed fist. Its small ridges dig sharp against his palm. "That he died for himself."

"So why does it matter that you're living for anyone else? Why does it matter that you're useful to anyone?"

Fingers uncurl, he offers it out to her: A small tip of curling brown horn, connected onto itself. The last halla he'd seen in years.

[arlathvhen]

There are many things Beleth could say to that--that if you aren't useful, what is the point of being alive? That you have to be useful, if you want people to care--and once they stop caring, why bother being alive in the first place?

But he's trying to comfort her. That, and the halla horn.

She stares at it wide-eyed, as if he was giving her an ancient relic. And in a way, it is--a relic of a life that passed into darkness years ago. She had nearly forgotten.

Slowly, she scoots close enough to reach and grasp the bit of antler in her hand. After a few moments of staring, she squeezes it in her hand, and presses her lips into a thin line. They're going to die. She's not that upset with that. But living isn't so bad, either. It's with that in mind that she leans her head on Alan's shoulder, staring at the precious gift in her hand.

"I guess we'll see, won't we."