we're all so upset about the disappearing ground

[thunderproof]

WHO: Adalia (thunderproof), Gwenaëlle (elegiaque), others
WHAT: Adalia is Not Having A Great Time with this illness stuff. She has a panic attack, prays to some gods.
WHEN: Throughout illness phases two and three.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: CW for anxiety/panic attacks. Subject to adding more threads throughout the plot/month.

i. for gwenaëlle — you say i choose sadness, that it never once has chosen me

Really, she's taken this illness about as well as could be expected up to now. She's kept a positive attitude, she's helped where and when she could, she got quite a bit done — even when her magic started becoming unmanageable, all she did was send Charis to Myr and isolate herself to keep from hurting anyone. If that had been the worst of it, she probably could have made it through this whole thing without panicking.

It's not, though, and she can't.

Losing her magic is — it's like losing her self. It's worse than selling off her soul. Not having a soul hasn't had any negative effects, at least, she just doesn't have one.By rights, losing her magic should be the same. It's not as though lightning and thunder magic have a lot of practical applications outside of combat, right, she doesn't use it every day like some of the natives do. But even if she doesn't use it, she still has it. She can feel that wellspring of power within her, and knows that if she reaches for it, lightning will leap into her palm and thunder will clap wherever she wills it. Now that wellspring is gone, and Adalia can't — she can't. She managed to go a few days after the realization without outright panicking. The period of unmanageable magic only lasted three days, so maybe unusable magic will last just as long.

Adalia's spent the whole of the fourth day in the Gallows courtyard, trying to call anything — sparks, a pop of sound, anything to her fingertips, but as the day goes on, it becomes apparent that there won't be anything. Her magic is gone, entirely, and nothing Adalia tries is going to work. The sun is beginning to go down and Adalia is stood in the middle of the courtyard, staring at her hands, cold dread spreading from the pit of her stomach throughout her whole body. The cold reaches her lungs and Adalia's breath begins to come in shallow gasps, it reaches her heart and it races — she can't see, she can't think, this isn't happening, she can't be losing this, too —

Her world is shattering into pieces, the delicate balance of positivity and denial tipping into despair, and all Adalia can do is stare at her hands unseeing, frozen in place.

ii. open — my mouth will just turn to dust if i don't tell you quick

Adalia's not much one for prayer. She never has been, not even back on Toril where she knew the gods were listening — less out of a lack of care for them than a lack of belief that she needed them. She's prayed twice in her life, though, to two different gods, and each time she got a response.

This is just another plane. That's what she's believed this whole time, no matter what any native says, and so — so Bahamut should still be listening, right? She hasn't heard from Alacruun since she was spat out of the rift, but that doesn't mean he's not listening. She just has to reach for them, and they'll hear her. They are not like Thedas' Maker. Bahamut would never turn his back on his followers. Alacruun wouldn't turn his back on her.

It was difficult to decide on an appropriate place to pray to both of them. In the end, she opted to go for one of the smaller chapels — if any Andrastian were to walk in, she'd probably be driven out for blasphemy, but she doesn't care. There's power in places, and the natives call upon their Maker and his bride here. Adalia needs as much help as she can get for her words to reach through the Divine Gate.

Maybe she's walked in on while praying to Bahamut — "I apologize, Platinum Dragon, but I don't know any formal prayers. I've never been a religious person, but I pray to you now with an earnest heart, and I hope that's enough. I chose wrong when I reached for Alacruun before you, I know that, but I — I know, too, that you haven't abandoned me. You're just and good, and I am doing my best to be the same. Please — Bahamut, Justicemaker, help me. Point me in the right direction, show me what I've missed. If not for my sake, then for all the others here who've fallen ill. We need guidance, and I know illness is not your purview, but I believe you can help us. Please help us."

Or perhaps when praying to Alacruun, after hours of prayer to Bahamut with no answer — "You've been quiet but I know you, Alacruun, you're not gone. You wouldn't give me up that easily. But what good am I to you if I have no magic? Help me, give me some of that knowledge you've collected. Lead me down the right path. I can't be your high priestess if I'm dead, or without magic. Come on, you fuck, answer me!"

Comments

i.

[elegiaque]

'Quarantined in the Gallows' is not how Gwenaëlle might have envisioned seeing out her winter, but here they are and there's nothing else for it; she's grit her teeth with the rest of them and got on with it, something that comes more naturally to her than most might expect. She comes and goes from the main tower and its offices, occasionally trailed by hound and nug (...atop hound, more often than not, it's getting weird, but if Hardie doesn't mind and Leviathan doesn't want to walk, who is she to say nugs can't ride dogs), goes about her own private work quietly, keeps track of what matters to her.

On an ordinary day, Adalia would not really feature on that list; today, when she catches sight of her gasping at nothing, it's an uncharacteristic gut-wrench of empathy that shifts her steps before she's decided, planned, acknowledged. Like in many things: she knows how to handle this, so she does it. It's not often that she makes a decision something will be done, but when she does, by the Maker, it gets done.

“Adalia,” she says, briskly, her fur wrap sliding down her shoulder slightly when she reaches out to press their hands together, Adalia's flat and tightly-held between her own. “Adalia.”

See how bad it is. Go from there.

[thunderproof]

There's a roaring in Adalia's ears, but she can hear someone saying her name. It feels like it takes a monumental effort just to raise her head, but she looks up to Gwenaëlle, and for a moment she doesn't know what to do. There's nothing to do, everything that made her anything is gone, she's of no use to anyone, with no connection to anything, not even to the air. She has nothing, she is nothing —

"I'm sorry," Adalia says, gasps, not even entirely sure why she's apologizing. Gwenaëlle doesn't like her, she shouldn't have to pay attention to her like this. "I'm sorry, I can't — I was trying —"

No matter how she tries, she can't finish the sentence. She can't catch her breath or order her thoughts enough to do it, and her hands begin to shake in Gwenëlle's. All that she can think of is the solitary life unfolding in front of her, isolated, mundane, without touching or being touched by anyone else. No family, no roots, no connections to anything — she'll live and die and no one will notice, there will be no one to say she was ever here at all —

Adalia's knees buckle, beginning to give way beneath her.

[elegiaque]

Ah, she thinks, gripping Adalia's elbows and turning what could have been a catastrophic tumble on the ice into a shared, controlled descent—her control, not Adalia's, but at least someone has a hand on the reins—

that bad.

Even through the heavy weight of her skirts, she can feel the cold leeching beneath her knees; optimistically, she imagines it might well have a clearing effect on whatever roaring is happening in the elf girl's ears, in her head. The distraction of discomfort, an unreliable thing at the best of times and never a useful habit to get into, but not to be overlooked when it comes to a swift way to clarity.

She manages to contain a number of dry remarks that would not be at all useful, instead taking Adalia's hand and pressing it beneath her own over her heart, mirroring the gesture. If she has the presence of mind to make some sort of inane attempt at wit about them groping one another in full view of any idiot who walks along, that'd be promising, but somehow Gwenaëlle suspects she doesn't need to brace for that. She takes a deep, slow breath; holds it, exhales.

“I don't care,” she says, not unkindly for all that she is brisk where another might have been gentle. “Shut up. Don't pay any mind to anything except how I'm breathing, and breathe with me.”

[thunderproof]

Distantly, Adalia is aware of falling to her knees. It should have been a more painful tumble, but Gwenaëlle kept her from hitting the ice too sharply — she should say something, right? She should thank her, or apologize or acknowledge in some fucking way that her knees are still intact entirely because of Gwenaëlle's interference. She can't figure out how, though, clarity and breath not coinciding enough that she can find the words.

Cold seeps through her cloak and her dress to chill her knees, and a shiver runs up Adalias spine. The cold does have a clarifying effect, but not so much of one that she's able to speak again. Just enough that when Gwenaëlle takes Adalia's hand and presses it over her breast, Adalia can comprehend the instruction.

Does she know how to breathe? Adalia isn't sure. She must have known once, she couldn't have made it this far if she didn't, but now the mechanism of inhaling and exhaling seems as complicated and impossible as trying to get her magic back. For the first moment, her breath doesn't come any easier, hiccuping and gasping through her as her mind races and her limbs shake. Gwenaëlle's heart beats steadily beneath her palm, though, her chest rising and falling rhythmically with the pattern of her breathing, and the longer Adalia kneels in front of her the easier it becomes to tune everything out. She keeps her gaze focused on their hands, times the seconds between each inhale and exhale, and tries not to think of anything but their tandem breathing.

[elegiaque]

In this, Gwenaëlle is patient as a rock; steady, steadfast, waiting for breath to even and then waiting longer. Her knees ache and she's starting to feel the ice melting beneath her body-heat, slowly but surely soaking into velvet, and she ignores it: when Adalia has the presence of mind to feel uncomfortable, they'll get up again. Moving before that seems pointless to her mind, an interruption of something she has only herself to judge by in calling useful.

The stillness always helps. Eventually, stillness itself jostles past every other thing in her head to become a problem, and that in a way marks out a solution—

It'd be hard to explain, but she knows how it feels.

[thunderproof]

For long moments, all Adalia can do is sit and match her breathing to Gwenaëlle's. That itself will be a problem later — how useless she is, how rude, to force someone to sit in the snow and take care of her when she should be able to take care of herself — but for as long as it lasts it's an anchor that keeps Adalia from completely falling apart. She sits, and she breathes, and slowly her heart stops racing, and her stomach unknots itself, and her lungs fill. She's not okay — her hands still shake and she feels about two seconds from crying — but she's better, and for the moment that will have to do.

Her knees are cold. That's the first thing Adalia notices — they're cold and they're stiff, like she's been on them for way too long. She sniffles and blinks as she looks around them, her vision refocusing and consciousness of where they are setting back in. Her gaze settles back on Gwenaëlle in front of her, and it's — strange. Gratitude wars with shame, and Adalia doesn't know how to express either without bursting into tears or otherwise making this all even worse.

"What happened?" she asks instead of dealing with either of those things, and sniffles again. At the very least she can hold in the tears until she's alone.