WHO: Adalia, Alistair, Freddie, Herian, Loghain, Medicine Seller, Melys, Nathaniel, Notas, Teren. WHAT: Rescuing a king, maybe. WHEN: Early Wintermarch WHERE: An island off Seheron, the Fade NOTES: Violence, disturbing imagery.
A: forests and mazes. Far enough away from Herian, the forest that she stands in is made up not of trees, but marble pillars. Some are straight and upright, others twisted and gnarled as the oldest parts of the forest. Draw closer to her, though, and it becomes wholly forest.
Her staff and sword and armour are gone; more accurate to say they never were, here, not in this memory warped into a dream. She is instead standing with just a ragged shirt of coarse cloth. Her legs are bound up in leather leggings, nails driven in through the leather, and her hands are bound. Around her neck hangs a rope, she can remember the coarseness of it on her skin more than she can feel it, and two severed elven ears hang from it.
In one moment she's bloody, grass and dirt marking her skin, shirt soaked with sweat and mud, and in the next the scene is pristine. The Fade is so unreliable, in how it shifts and shudders. The forest is oppressive and mazelike, and in the distance there are shouts distorted by dreaming. Sometimes close, sometimes far.
She has dreamed this dream many times, countless repetitions and countless little changes; she inhales slowly, pushing herself up to her feet. It doesn't hurt, this time. More an itch, the memory of past aches, though she looks down at her feet and cautiously wiggles her toes. This is a symbol of what was done, not the event itself.
"It's not happening again," she tells herself, very calmly. "This is an echo. They aren't here."
She knows it, but speaking it aloud makes it more real, for a given value of real when it's the Fade. Even being a mage, knowing what this all is, she cannot shape it all, and the ropes around her wrists don't fall away, and the clothes do not simply replace themselves with something to her preference. Herian leans against a tree, and starts to pull at the rope with her teeth. Sure, she has magic, but also she doesn't want to accidentally set herself on fire in the Fade. That doesn't seem fun.
B: the White Spire. It is strange, in dreams, how things warp. The forest has changed to marble pillars, labyrinthine, until eventually it changed to polished hallways.
She knows what she is walking through; she knows it is not real. The smell of smoke and blood (and piss and panic) do not hang in the air as they did, that day. She is in an enchanter's robes, or maybe she is back in those leather leggings and ragged shirt - it seems to shudder between them, at times, the way things can change inexplicably in dreams. What it lacks in smell, the scene has in haunting echoes, splintered doorways.
Herian exhales, as a woman comes into view. She's in her seventies, perhaps, a human women with an air that could be condescending or distinguished or grandmotherly, depending on how well one responds to old ladies. In this moment, the older enchanter smiles, folding her hands against her lap.
"Ah, bonjour, Enchanter. You are looking a little grim, today. What is making you so glum?"
It is not Modestine, she knows, and the sight of her is painful, even if Herian had found her insufferable when they were in the Spire together. She deserved better than this.
C: for Concerning Honour There is garden, or a meadow, too well kept to look entirely natural. The wonders of the Fade, it seems. Ivy spills across the floor, but it is in all strange colours - autumnal seeming at first, but then some leaves seem gold and others purple. Piles of rocks rise from the ground, but some also are arranged in gravity defying spirals, and some are stacked sideways and equally improbably.
"Honour is the meeting place of justice, truth, and compassion. What is morally right and what is legally right are not one and the same. Mortal law alone cannot be trusted to be right."
As it notices someone approaching, the spirit continues to move around Herian. The spirit shimmers a little, and leans closer to Herian, inspecting.
"You know this, just as you know that necessity and the greater good and what is right are not always the same, or clearly divided."
She prods at a rocks — it drifts from place and back again, bumps against its neighbour. The shiver spirals up in delicate chain, one against another against another,
Honour is watching Herian, but slowly turns as she does to face Melys. It is a strange thing, interacting with people in the Fade. Equally strange is talking to a Spirit in the Fade, and this particular combination of personalities is one that, on an ideal day, Herian would avoid for the sake of all parties.
"I'd not given it much notice," Herian admits. Not this time.
Honour does not speak, for now, and so Herian continues. "The Fade operates differently from the waking world. Even walking and falling are not consistent - better to be cautious, I think."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
herian | cw for (past) murder/torture
Far enough away from Herian, the forest that she stands in is made up not of trees, but marble pillars. Some are straight and upright, others twisted and gnarled as the oldest parts of the forest. Draw closer to her, though, and it becomes wholly forest.
Her staff and sword and armour are gone; more accurate to say they never were, here, not in this memory warped into a dream. She is instead standing with just a ragged shirt of coarse cloth. Her legs are bound up in leather leggings, nails driven in through the leather, and her hands are bound. Around her neck hangs a rope, she can remember the coarseness of it on her skin more than she can feel it, and two severed elven ears hang from it.
In one moment she's bloody, grass and dirt marking her skin, shirt soaked with sweat and mud, and in the next the scene is pristine. The Fade is so unreliable, in how it shifts and shudders. The forest is oppressive and mazelike, and in the distance there are shouts distorted by dreaming. Sometimes close, sometimes far.
She has dreamed this dream many times, countless repetitions and countless little changes; she inhales slowly, pushing herself up to her feet. It doesn't hurt, this time. More an itch, the memory of past aches, though she looks down at her feet and cautiously wiggles her toes. This is a symbol of what was done, not the event itself.
"It's not happening again," she tells herself, very calmly. "This is an echo. They aren't here."
She knows it, but speaking it aloud makes it more real, for a given value of real when it's the Fade. Even being a mage, knowing what this all is, she cannot shape it all, and the ropes around her wrists don't fall away, and the clothes do not simply replace themselves with something to her preference. Herian leans against a tree, and starts to pull at the rope with her teeth. Sure, she has magic, but also she doesn't want to accidentally set herself on fire in the Fade. That doesn't seem fun.
B: the White Spire.
It is strange, in dreams, how things warp. The forest has changed to marble pillars, labyrinthine, until eventually it changed to polished hallways.
She knows what she is walking through; she knows it is not real. The smell of smoke and blood (and piss and panic) do not hang in the air as they did, that day. She is in an enchanter's robes, or maybe she is back in those leather leggings and ragged shirt - it seems to shudder between them, at times, the way things can change inexplicably in dreams. What it lacks in smell, the scene has in haunting echoes, splintered doorways.
Herian exhales, as a woman comes into view. She's in her seventies, perhaps, a human women with an air that could be condescending or distinguished or grandmotherly, depending on how well one responds to old ladies. In this moment, the older enchanter smiles, folding her hands against her lap.
"Ah, bonjour, Enchanter. You are looking a little grim, today. What is making you so glum?"
It is not Modestine, she knows, and the sight of her is painful, even if Herian had found her insufferable when they were in the Spire together. She deserved better than this.
C: for Concerning Honour
There is garden, or a meadow, too well kept to look entirely natural. The wonders of the Fade, it seems. Ivy spills across the floor, but it is in all strange colours - autumnal seeming at first, but then some leaves seem gold and others purple. Piles of rocks rise from the ground, but some also are arranged in gravity defying spirals, and some are stacked sideways and equally improbably.
"Honour is the meeting place of justice, truth, and compassion. What is morally right and what is legally right are not one and the same. Mortal law alone cannot be trusted to be right."
As it notices someone approaching, the spirit continues to move around Herian. The spirit shimmers a little, and leans closer to Herian, inspecting.
"You know this, just as you know that necessity and the greater good and what is right are not always the same, or clearly divided."
D: or wildcard me.
c. sorry in advance
She prods at a rocks — it drifts from place and back again, bumps against its neighbour. The shiver spirals up in delicate chain, one against another against another,
"You two seen this?"
She sounds delighted.
no this is delightful
"I'd not given it much notice," Herian admits. Not this time.
Honour does not speak, for now, and so Herian continues. "The Fade operates differently from the waking world. Even walking and falling are not consistent - better to be cautious, I think."