faderift | A FOOL'S ERRAND

It's a mercy.

Or maybe it's only expediency. But with five bodies and a Chantry, all tainted — to say nothing of the town they've left behind them — there's still work to be done.

Rites are said, before they're burned. Hidden in the camp they find a cache: Some of it older, some new. The signs of banditry. The valuables will be returned to the Inquisition, though perhaps no one will mind if you claim a piece for your own.

The reception in town is a mixture of relief and unease. The bartender has already fled, as have the cooper and his family. A girl and her cat watch from the doorway of their empty house, and look satisfied.

Before the group goes, she'll press a bit of broken glass onto each of them: The shattered remains of the talisman outside her door.

[[ chances for solo threads here if you want them, as always, if you need an NPC feel free to make details up or give me a ping! ]]

Edited 2017-05-25 23:23 (UTC)

Cleaning her knife is a practical concern.

It's just, she's been cleaning it in the same blank-faced pattern for nearly half an hour — since walking out from her talk with Bergier, since leaving a new hole at the base of his skull. She lingers at the edge of camp, facing the trees, and occasionally doubles over to cough into a sleeve. And she cleans her knife.

Practical.

Edited 2017-05-25 23:28 (UTC)

Inessa knows that thousand-yard stare, that need for repetitive, mindless action. That was herself exactly, after that mental fog had lifted, after she had left that horrible cavern with the child abomination in it. Though she doesn't enjoy the thought of moving much with a shoulder that throbs even after healing spells and poultices were applied, the elven woman braves it anyway to come sit by Wren. Garahel, thankfully nothing more than tired from the exertion of the brutal fight, plops down by Wren's other and leans against her gently.

She thinks of asking after the shoulder, and thinks better of it. The girl went down hard; it’s not the sort of injury one stands from again with ease. Not without aid. The remedies will have taken, or she wouldn't be here at all.

(That she is here, despite the pain of it... a kindness, one she's not well-equipped to receive.)

Garahel leans, and despite herself she winces at the slight weight. Wren's fairly certain the ribs aren’t fractured, but she's not so young as she was, and avoiding Anders has become something of an art form over the past few hours.

Silence is a blessing, she lets it mull until, at last — quietly:

"It was selfish to ask this of you."

Inessa’s was among the few names that Reed hadn’t questioned. But Reed didn't know the whole of the risks.

Perhaps it’s time that someone does.

At that, Inessa shakes her head very slightly. She would do more, but aggravating her shoulder is the last thing she wants to do right now.

"I don't care. It needed to be done, and this wasn't something you should have to do alone. When I told you that tale earlier, I didn't do so to excuse avoiding such things. I want to fight them, wherever they are. Whatever the cost."

Red lyrium must be eradicated, and those corrupted by it destroyed. There's simply no other way, if Thedas is to be spared.

Wren's mouth snaps open to speak, and there’s the brief flicker of — something else. Uncontrolled. Dangerous, for it.

Her jaw grinds closed again, eyes shut tight. It’s with a peculiar deliberation that she sheathes the blade, sets it aside. If this isn’t a conversation that she can have calmly, then she’ll not have it armed. One needn’t threaten to be threatening, and that's not a context she ever wished to show the girl. It has no place here.

"The cost is not uniform." Her hand lifts open, falls. "I have kept certain matters from you. I did not wish..."

She’d been honest with Reed, with Ventfort. What does it say that she hasn’t been with Serra? As if the girl were somehow more fragile, as though she required some greater protection?

Wren knows what it says. She knows why she's done it. Old dogs,

"The expedition to Haven. When we were taken to the Gallows," She's still uncertain how much is public knowledge, how much it’s responsible to allow. "We were not the first Inquisition prisoners there. You’d beaten us by perhaps a year."

An eyebrow arches at Wren's news, before Inessa furrows her brow. She would certainly not wish to be seen as fragile, not as others get to know her and realize that her size and slight figure aren't any indication of her power or stamina. But mention of the future brings about a certain dread, for all that she does her best not to let it show. It's only a possible outcome, she tells herself, not an inevitability.

Her lips form a thin line and she nods, resigned to hearing something awful but not angered that Wren is only sharing it now. "...I can imagine time was not kind, not in that setting."

Perhaps Wren's always had it a little backwards. It's power, and not the lack which drives the urge: to protect, to shelter. Vauquelin, Logen, they'd each dwarf the elf by a foot or more, could wreak devastation as easily. It matters not. They all summon the same instinct.

This new world, these new tricks. She's trying. But at the end of the day, one doesn't guard an equal. The habits of thirty years are slow to reshape.

(And fat fucking good they'd done anyone here,)

"The farming you spoke of before. Some of the purpose, it must have been the same." Past a certain point, any intelligence would have been irrelevant, unreliable. "They'd little need. Half the continent was swallowed."

"You told me, told us, to stop looking for a cure. That it..." She rakes the hair from her eyes, restless. Agitated. "I lied to you. Even then, I was lying. I,"

The Seekers' lacking resistance, Darton's fate — not her secrets to spill. Not when she's done such things to obtain them.

"You've a future." Is all she manages, at last. "And there is no future in this."

Talking of such 'farming' has Inessa nodding, not at all surprised. The rest prompts a soft whine from Garahel, who doesn't like the sound of any of that, as his mistress stares down at her hands, brow furrowed.

"...timing can be so strange. Not long before we had left, I'd decided to join the red lyrium project, working with Christine to learn how we can counter Red Templars. I have not been so ambitious as to consider a cure." The agitation has her looking up again, expression softening. Her voice remains quiet, calm. "You've told me now, that's what matters." And as she speaks, Inessa realizes it's not surprising at all. If the future had been going so badly for everyone, how could she expect any different for herself? There's a morbid desire to ask for specifics, but she holds herself back.

"I don't envy you having such memories, though I would like to think that knowing what we do now allows us to alter course. Despite what we have seen here, much of the continent remains untouched so far. That it might happen doesn't mean it will. Until the landscape gives you deja vu, we can hold onto that."

A laugh at that — bitter — she startles herself with it, and into another round of coughing. Every bloody morning is deja vu; every new face is. You don't envy my memories, but would you envy their absence?

It's unfair to put that on the girl. It's unfair, and she's forgetting herself here and now as surely as she will later. No. It's time to rein this in, to attend to the moment. Wren straightens once more, begins the careful business of putting her face back together.

Focus on the matter at hand. Don't drive off what allies you've left. Take your own advice for once,

"By returning alone, we've shifted the path. That it might not lead to the same ends?" She shakes her head. "I know that we will act. I do not know that we will act with caution. Time makes all men reckless."

"I should not have asked you here without the facts at hand." A beat, "I am — still grateful, that you agreed."

Serra's competent, certainly, but that wasn't why she'd wanted her for this. The ease with which she collects herself, with which she manages the moods of others,

Familiar, and welcome for it. As though she might almost look up again to find the Spire full of life. Deja vu.

That bitter laugh makes Inessa's heart ache on behalf of her Templar companion, but she isn't sure that physical contact would be welcome...and an attempt to give that much would surely make her body protest. So she nods, accepting that she will leave the physical comfort to Garahel, who nuzzles her.

"I would appreciate knowing, should there be a next time. But whatever those facts may be, it would not stop me from joining. You will not face such things alone."

She takes a deep breath, then stares off. "You're not wrong. It could be easy to abandon caution with what we know, and over-correct in the process. We don't know that we'll have yet another chance to make this right, so this one has to count."

Honestly, he's tempted to let her keep avoiding him. She's a Templar, has no little charisma, and it's clear she looks down on him rather than fearing him. Her injury doesn't bother him and actually could be a little comfort... except for the poking from Mercy. He's supposed to be doing better and giving Templars chances. Reaching out. Showing them, well, mercy. And so after one particularly hard bout of coughing, Anders comes over.

"Right. You're hurt. Tell me to leave you alone and I will. Otherwise, I should likely see to that." Maybe her pride will let him walk away.

She straightens (grimaces), conscious of the way she’s allowed herself to slump — and her arm comes away dark with blood. Wren regards it a silent moment, throat working to swallow whatever venom she so clearly wishes to spit back.

Or maybe that’s just. You know. The blood.

"Your chest," She finally settles upon a response. The words are dull, wheezing; breath quick. "Cleansed?"

He’d been at tending it long enough, contamination's all that she can guess. Even with their stores of lyrium, he’s got to be exhausted; they all will be. She’d rather they needn't camp here tonight, but there may not be a way around it. Not with work still to be done.

(Torch the place. Scour the grounds. Isn’t it lucky after all, that they’d brought an expert in Chantry-burning?)

He nods.

"There was red lyrium in it, due to the weapons, no doubt, but it's gone now. The more recent the introduction, the easier it is to eliminate it." In other words, the longer she takes to let him see to her, the harder it will be to set matters right. Her pride, surprise surprise, is her enemy here much the same as Templar pride is the enemy to progress.

"Do you want to test how long it takes for you to transform into a Samson or a Meredith? There's no healer who has my experience with fighting red lyrium. But you can take your chances."

He's made the offer. His obligation to her is done, if even he truly had one, especially considering the work he's done already. Her lyrium has been needed.

"I did not lecture you,"

She murmurs distantly, at last stows the knife aside. Pride be damned, this operation was a fucking mess; she doesn't look forward to hearing his opinions on it.

But the ache in her chest keeps seizing, a little too literal to be ignored with the rest — and she can hardly shirk Anders forever, not when she's the one who brought him.

With some effort, Wren concedes and eases down, fails to disguise the nausea that ripples across her face.

"What do you require?"

At least she's already fumbled off her mail.

"Says the one who told me to be dispassionate. And who then asked my help while telling me she does not condone me."

His voice is ice. They're really not going to get into an argument, he figures. They're both too tired for that. But he's not letting Templar barbs slip past. She wants him dead but she'll use him, the same way the Chantry truly wants the mages gone but uses and abuses them. While she talks with him, unlike others, he sees little difference between her and most of the hypocrites who judged him but thought their own hands clean of murder.

"What I need is what you've done. You sat and essentially have given consent." Consent enough.

Anders gets down to his knees, face a mask to hide the strain that getting down takes at this point. Getting up will be even worse, and he already does not look forward to that. For now, he casts. And finds damage that could be life threatening if he left it, but that's little surprise considering her state.

After contemplating lecturing and discarding the idea, Anders closes his eyes and works on healing her lung and dispersing the build up of fluids. Along with the warm itching that healing normally brings, she likely will find it easier to breathe. There's still pain, though. He's not working on the bone just yet.

Let us not pretend you condone me, either,

Breath comes easier. That doesn’t mean she’s itching to spend it on another pointless, circuitous little bout. If she’s itching at anything, it’s too damn deep to do aught about. Wren only knows one way to scratch a lung.

"Thank you," Ragged. She waits for a pause in the working, cautious not to disrupt, tries to find a way to say it. To say what? It doesn’t need to be said. These aren’t the ears to listen; not a tongue with anything worth speaking.

"Passion," Another breath, shuddering. "Would that I could give you mine."

Her head lolls. She doesn’t want it to — can’t help it. There's something wet in her voice now, and it isn't just the blood.

"I promised you could take something back."

He nods in response to the thanks as he lowers his hands, raising an eyebrow at the passion comment.

"I can hardly take your passion," he says, wary. It's a shielding attempt at a joke because he doesn't know what is coming next. "I've already got someone else's and that's all I need."

Nate, he means, but he's not being crude about it this time. "You're not fully healed, by the by. The bone is still damaged, but not in a way that's going to snap. I'm saving the bone work until after I've had a chance to rest. Don't charge into somewhere swinging your sword and you'll be fine for now."

Her and Inessa both will have to wait until he's rested a little. There's so much work yet to do.

"I wish you would." Softly. "It has never done me a bit of good."

But she nods loose, acknowledgment of her own: I’ll be careful, I understand. We’ve all a long night ahead. The silence muddles behind her teeth, presses, until —

"How do you imagine this shall end?"

The Inquisition, the Rebellion, this whole bloody state of affairs. She drags a hand up to shield her eyes,

(It’s the sunset, only the sunset, that makes them sting.)

It's an odd comment, followed by an odd question. Or odd coming from a Templar, at least. He considers her for several moments. The chances of her wanting to hear what he has to say are slim to none, quite frankly, but what does he have to lose from honesty rather than deflection?

"I imagine several different endings," he says after that study, sinking down to sit near her (not next to her exactly, she probably wouldn't like that and he can't say he needs Templar company, of course) to open his canteen and take a long drink of water.

"That the infighting between countries continues and our efforts don't matter; Corypheus destroys us one group at a time until the world is darkspawn and thralls. That we defeat Corypheus, but we're so weakened that the qunari ride in and crush us, and then it's the Imperium versus the qunari and no one wins there. That somehow we defeat Corypheus and the qunari and Tevene are so busy fighting each other we can rebuild, but the Chantry builds up first and once more mages are enslaved, Dalish are hunted, and the Rifters are likely slaughtered or enslaved. Or, maybe, out of all the outcomes that will set us back and destroy and devalue everything that's been done in Skyhold and now here, there's a future where more prosper than are destroyed. Where Corypheus is defeated, the qunari and Imperium weaken each other so much that the enslaved can be set free, that schools run by mages and Templars jointly spread so there's lasting freedom and less fear, that the Chantry decides to keep its hands to itself and worry about helping rather than abusing and dominating and power, and there's a time of peace and healing."

He exhales. "The last is the least likely. Frankly, I think we'll defeat Corypheus and wind up enslaved by the qunari or Tevinter. But I'm not going to stop simply because defeat is probable."

A FOOL'S ERRAND | Closed.

aftermath; rites, return

wren again

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