faderift | CLOSED | oh the mountaintop, oh the visions stopped

The cave’s been lived in.

There's a firepit dug out with the signs of recent use, and walls scraped in strange sweeps of charcoal like smoke, like wings. Tracks scatter here and there: Perhaps a dog with big paws.

A long stretch of branch has been stripped of bark, strapped to a makeshift frame. Closer to the fire, the rocks are swept clear, spread with stolen blankets.

That's where Alan waits for him, spitting a rabbit over the flames.

He looks. Well. He kind of looks like shit. More of it than usual, anyway. The circles beneath his eyes are dark, fingernails still crusted with dried bunny blood, and there's a leaf or two tangled in his hair.

If he’s considered the impression this might give — say, 'insane forest hobo' — he offers no sign, just glances up with a (faintly relieved) nod.

"No one will bother us here."

The words are calm, but intent. He needs this right now.

After finishing the last round of training for the day, Kain checks his tent to be sure everything is in order, grabbing the concoction that he'd been saving for this moment. The aquae lucidius has been prepared, of course, with just the right amount of wyvern venom mixed in with the liquor. It's one of the things that has to be done carefully, just a drop and it's all set. After grabbing that, he takes off to get to the agreed upon meeting place.

It doesn't take long to find his way to the cave. It's just far enough away that they shouldn't run into any trouble. This sort of thing is always best done without the risk of interruptions, after all.

"Good, then we should have no difficulty." He comes in to join him by the fire, taking a glance and noting his state as he does that. "Apparently we had good timing with this... Had a rough time lately?"

Alan shrugs — a stiff edgy movement that best boils down to yes — and shifts to make room.

"I’m sorry about the classes. I should have said something." He was a little busy not speaking to anyone, about anything, but he knows the inconvenience. "I... lost track of time."

An afterthought:

"How have you been keeping?" Alan looks over sidelong, seems to be avoiding Kain's eyes. "It'll be done soon. If you're hungry."

Kain sighs, glad to be relaxing finally. He's been... busy, in his way. There's always more than enough to keep busy with. As he settles in, he glances over at Alan. At least he's not one prone to flying off the handle when plans go awry. "That's fine... I would appreciate knowing, next time, but I was able to manage well enough."

He's curious about what's been going on, why he seems in such disarray, but one thing at a time. "I've been well enough. There's been a lot going on, and now that I've begun training one of the griffons more closely... I've barely stayed in place, myself. Though it seems you've had a rougher time of it, lately."

"Which one? The screaming one?"

He means Buttons, but really, they all scream. It's (as Merrill would say) delightful. Alan considers a moment, deciding whether to try for an explanation. Whether it's worth it. He prods the rabbit, before answering,

"It was all too close." Too overwhelming. Too many people asking too much of him. Kain smells the same as any warden, but it's different. Like Anders, there's some shred of safety to Alan's conception of him, the idea that they're in this at least a little together. "I had to get away for a bit."

His eyes slip shut. Somewhat dreamily:

"It's nearly spring in the low valleys. Everything's waking up. It's — simpler."

"Probably not the one you're thinking of." Yes, they do all scream, but they all have such distinct, remarkable personalities. So he can somewhat narrow it down, from being around them all so much. "Potato. She enjoys flying a great deal, fortunately, and is very agile. Though she can be a little... too affectionate. She forgets her size at times." Lap griffons are just never a good idea, sadly.

Listening thoughtfully, Kain wonders about things, but he knows well to only pry as much as people want to be pried. "I don't blame you, in many ways. Being around all these people constantly can be a burden. I prefer camping in the mountains, myself. I hope that you got what you needed, from your time away?"

The mountains are anything but simple at the moment. He loves this place, but that love owns jagged edges.

"I think so," If he still wants to hurt Alistair, he at least knows that he won't. "You'd never flown before."

Half a statement, half a question. He eyes Kain. Probably, it's something that should be obvious, not the sort of thing one has to assume. But he's so used to the sky, it's difficult at times, to remember what it means to the landbound.

Kain gets a wistful expression as he considers that statement. For how long had he dreamed of the sky, the wind in his face, and nothing but air beneath him, with the ground so distant below...?

"I hadn't, I'm afraid. It's all I've ever wanted... I fantasized about riding upon griffons, even dragons, even flying myself... but they were only childish fantasies. I'd become resigned to it never happening." He even smiles faintly, this is one of the few things that seems to make him genuinely happy. "And then it happened. The first time we took off into the sky was the most incredible moment of my life..."

He’s not entirely sure what a Seeker is.

A girl had spoken of them, on the crystals, months back. Something to do with — an Annulment, so Circles, so Templars — but if he knows what most of those things are individually, the context remains abstract.

He’s not entirely sure what a Seeker is, but he’s not entirely sure it matters, either. Cade’s supposed to be here, and Cade’s who he’s looking for.

"Hello?" The little room smells different than the templars at their drills, owns less of that burnt quality that collects. It’s empty at the moment, and he flops into a chair to wait.

Specifically: The chair behind the desk. Alan picks up a sheaf of papers, inspects them with a careful eye. He’s definitely holding them upside-down.

It’s difficult to notice if you aren’t listening for it.

The Chant’s translations vary even within the same language, and most never commit the whole bloody mess of it to memory. Slips are inevitable, misquotations as common as they are difficult to ferret out. The problems only multiply whenever it’s parsed into some local dialect.

Alan’s version differs from the typical Ferelden pattern: full of archaisms, and omitting certain verses of note. This is the first time he’s added some, and it’s continued on at some length now. Where Apotheosis typically ends, begins instead an apocryphal account of Havard's southern homecoming.

The rhymes are strained, the diction uninspired. The delivery's flat. There are even several mildly disturbing lines involving rituals, but the patient he’s sitting with doesn’t seem to mind any of this — he slipped into slumber some time ago and has been snoring quietly since.

Alan finally finishes, sucks in a long breath before pressing a hand to the man’s cheek. He doesn’t stir.

"I used to get in trouble for that."

Falling asleep during the Chant. His mouth twitches faintly as he glances up, sketches a shadow of amusement. Hello, Jehan.

He needs a moment.

That, the thing this fellow got in trouble for—for a moment Jeannot is sure he means adding to the Chant. Egregiously. It isn't the sort of thing Jehan has ever done or ever would, but it is something his friends would do: and then Andraste said 'I am from Jader, which is part of Orlais and always will be, because no one this wonderful could be Fereldan,' or else something profane that Jehan would prefer not to think about if he doesn't have to.

But he hadn't been enjoying it enough for it to be a joke. Probably. Jeannot looks at the sleeping patient, grasps the other possible meaning, and gives a delayed smile. "Me, too," he says.

When he's old and gray and can get away with it, he'll accompany that sort of admission with a wink. But not today! He leans heavier on his crutch, there in the opening to the tent, and Does Not Leave Well Enough Alone.

"Where did you learn the Chant?"

Alan rises, reaching up to a bundle of dried herbs hung from a corner pole.

A Chantry brother. Little better than the rest, but it’s less strange, less foreign, than the women who hold forth from the gardens. It puts him at ease as much as the smile.

"Our holy Father," A long time since he’s said those words, or these, "After my magic came in."

There’s a slight tension in hands, an intent casualness to the way that he tugs the stalks down. Alan’s determined to be open about this, so far as he might. He’s spoken to Anders, he’s decided. Kindness, yes. But honesty too.

The past will follow anyway. Better to keep ahead of it.

As though he hasn't said anything at all out of the ordinary: "Where did you?"

There’s more art in Skyhold than you’d expect.

Alan’s been cataloguing it — which is to say, he’s been skulking around the castle as usual. He’s careful not to disrupt the existing work: Whether the crude cariactures in disused tunnels, or the pairs of initials carved into the bellies of benches and tables, or the little scraps of ink whirled across the margins of books. They all say the same thing, when you get down to it. They say, I was here. I lived. This was me.

The frescoes are different.

More colours went into these than he quite realized there was colour for, more care and skill than he knew you were allowed to spend. There’s an — intent, about them, like a reference to something just out of reach. If he knew to call it technique, he might. But the better word is mastery.

They’re what he’s coming to find today, when he spies Thranduil.

"Thranduil," He says it as though he isn’t quite sure of it. Introductions hadn’t really been the order of the day.

Alan cranes his neck up to peer. "It’s odd, isn’t it? They’re not just paintings."

They’ve been mixed with something else, he means. Though he supposes he means more than that, too.

Edited 2017-03-17 02:58 (UTC)

Solas left—an impression, which is to say that Thranduil has near worn a rut in retracting it, brooding over conversations when his steps find him in the atrium, turning over the loss of a friend? with a single-minded intensity. For all that he is the Elvenking, aloof, alone, it was only ever an illusion. Only until recently could he look out over a hall and not see a nest of his people and take comfort in it.

He is studying an unfinished corner of wall, hand hovering, the other tucked at the small of his back, fisted loosely, as if he can conjure Solas’ hand holding a brush when Alan speaks. He lets it drop, turns—both hands, now, held loosely at his back, a braid swept over his shoulder and grazing against the neck of the tunic, and he nods, transitioning easily out of his reverie into a conversation.

“Alan,” he says, because he remembers the man who can also be a crow, if he wishes, can scout and fly and minded his back during the little adventure with the Seeker. Back to what Solas left behind, brow furrowing briefly, and— “He wished to tell a story.”

Or so Thranduil thinks. He’ll have to find him and ask him.

"All art does."

Alan perches against the little table, shuffles charcoal and pages from his hands. There's a bit of dried grass still tangled in his own hair, clothes rumpled in slight disarray — every inch of him the opposite of Thranduil's neat grace.

"But wanting it told isn't the same as wanting it understood." The faintest shadow of a smile. "All those statues in Orlais,"

The sculptors had chosen different faces than he'd known; chose models of the people close to them, of the strong jaws and sharp eyes the public was meant to admire. The impression of an impression of a Disciple, and never the men themselves.

"The tapestries too — the Chantry windows. They were all blunter about it. What they wanted said, how they wanted it heard."

His head tips to the side in question.

"Do you think we're meant to hear this?"

It never occurs to him to ask whether only one of them might be.

Thranduil says, "Rewriting history," with the disdain of someone who has witnessed it and now finds the muddling mortals do to it distasteful, the same as a leaving a handprint on glass. He has never had a fair hand on keeping his opinions to himself when it does not matter- and Alan does not seem the tattling type. He sighs, and turns to face Alan, to look over his shoulder to the desk where Solas was.

He will return. He must return. He is the only one to know anything about shards, and Thranduil will not suffer to let a Man poke and prod at him.

"I doubt the Chantry intended such things to be enjoyed." Witnessed? Yes. The conspicuous absence of elves, the poorly hidden secret of Shartan. "But here I am, and there you are, witnessing. If the artist wishes to stop us, to make us see what they intended..."

He makes an elegant little gesture that on other men, might be called a shrug.

"They are not here."

"Maybe it matters that we are. They didn't make these for the outside walls." Too delicate a medium, perhaps. But that matters also. These aren't carvings or banners. "No one sees them who isn't a part of the Inquisition."

One way or another. Whether they'd care to be or not. Alan's eyes slip casually down to Thranduil's hands, and back again.

"Why tell a story to someone who already knows it?"

Even if he can't intimate much of what's there, he recognizes the sword, the eye. The temple.

He has his own ideas, guesses as to why another might do so. But there's no point in asking, if all you're looking to do is hear yourself answer. Thranduil is — different. It's not only the size, or the shine, or even the shard. Not really. He holds himself apart.

After Orlais, Alan has little love for the nobility, but there's a certain confidence he's noticed of them, one familiar now. As though carrying oneself with enough intention might press that will onto others. He's spent his life learning shapes, and perhaps it's not so very different: Pretending oneself into power of a room.

It's interesting.

"Testament," Thranduil replies. Solas' things have been mostly cleared away, what was left behind put into storage, he supposes. Space is at a premium, Thranduil himself sharing a room with another and a pony. "Why are the actions of the Inquisition reported upon in mediums that will last far longer than you will? In eighty years, these-" the paintings, the library above them. "-are all that will remain of your actions, and how quickly they will be corrupted."

He moves a certain way. He speaks a certain way, an accent lilting his words, certain vowels rounder, the occasional 'c' shaped like a hard 'k' before he catches himself. Alan, with his clever eyes, catches it more than most.

(The... arrogance, too. The confidence.)

But Alan is more than bearable, for a man. [i]Beorning[/i], though he chooses other forms. So he is kind, genuinely interested when he stops his agitated review and sits on a bench, smoothing his robe under him. "What story would you have told to your descendants?"

"I suppose that,"

It's a good theory, Alan's just never considered that those moments (small preservations, the emotions of an object or scene) might outlast his perception of them. He's keenly aware that he'll die, some day, has long made his peace with it —

— But he's twenty-three, and if he's at peace, that peace mostly only makes it easier to ignore. He considers in silence.

"That they aren't alone." Finally: "This won't be the last time someone has to do something like this."

History cycles. Souls, too, but Alan has never assumed his will be so strong as that. There will always be struggle, until the Maker returns to His children. It won't mean less for the repetition.

"What would you?"

Pleased, Thranduil nods. Knowing a path has been walked before, having examples of proper conduct is, if not soothing, at least some measure of comforting.

"Of mistakes made," and if Thranduil will ever divulge the extent of his faults, it will be to his family; he has laid many of them at Thingol's feet. "Lest they risk them too."

He loves his son fiercely, the thought of Legolas in pain was crippling until he learned to separate himself from it. Despite the differences in species, he wagers it is the same for most humans. Everyone wants an easier life for their young.

"I would hope that there is only one Corypheus." Verging into amused, now. "Though there will be others like him. Nor that we need discover even more colors of lyrium."

"Perhaps you could paint with those."

It's a joke, however deadpan. His head tips owlish. Thingol had alluded to faults enough of his own, the weight of years too alien to readily bear, the context too Other to understand. As much as he wants to help, Alan knows his own limitations, and these tall, shining things test them.

(It has not occurred to him that the rifted elves might hail from so many different worlds as their human counterparts. He isn't immune to some habits of men.)

"Mistakes," He finally ventures. "Do you think they ever really stop? That we can?"

An honest question, and there's a bare sketch of something else beneath it. Not distress, not — not.

"Grind them up, use them as pigment?" he asks, and Eru, someone has done it. This is Thedas. No one has an ounce of sense but the dead. This boy, though, he asks questions, and Thranduil considers his softness, his own ability to be honest, Thedas' history.

"The Blight," he admits. "Your people know it is coming, and yet-- nothing. Your Wardens are..." he trails off, does not offer more, because what can he say. "The Men of Arda are not nearly as advanced as most of Thedas. There were the Numenoreans, but they overstepped, and it was their end. Yet for all your trebuchets, Craft in the hands of so many of your people, you have come forward with no solution to the Darkspawn, who ought to be so easy to ally against."

And in the years between the Blights, what? How quickly they forget, with no elves between the generations, even their Dwarves so short-lived and weak.

"That does not mean the cycle cannot be broken. One good Man might bring about a great deal of change. There is something... motivating about the finality of death. The fire that it lights."

CLOSED | oh the mountaintop, oh the visions stopped

KAIN | cw: aforementioned fantasy drug use

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CADE

JEHAN

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THRANDUIL

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