( closed ) PLAYER PLOT: STILL WATERS

[dashing]

WHO: Alistair, Herian, Myr, Nell, Prompto, Saoirse, Wren.
WHAT: ( Plot post ) Shady rumours concerning the Tranquil lead to a remote Circle in the Northern Anderfels. Its relative isolation from the rest of Thedas has prevented news from reaching the Inquisition sooner. Our crack team investigates.
WHEN: forward dated, around 21st-ish Cloudreach
WHERE: Salzklippe, the Anderfels.
NOTES: Content Warning for violence, murder, and other grim Dragon Age things. The grief demon threads in particular include themes of death, suicide, and gore. Please add additional warnings to subject lines where necessary.

— Making the approach (group thread) — Into the catacombs (individual starters) — Discovering the lake (group thread) — Into the tower (individual starters) — Bossfight (multiple group-ish) — Later Stuff (individual starters) FOR GROUP THREADS: in order to keep threads moving, I will be aiming to do a GM tag once every 24 hours. Don't worry about a strict tagging order, but please don't tag more than three times every 24 hours, just to make sure no one gets left behind.

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[dashing]

"I could," she says, very softly. "Bring back your eyes, your sight. You could behold those you hold dearest in your heart. You could better look to the people in your life; read their hearts when their bodies betray them and their tongues do not."

Her hands are gentle as she picks a flower. Its petals are bright and vibrant, the petals pink and darkening to a rich purple. A stripe of that same dark purple edges the outermost part of the petal.

A soft exhale. "But I think for now we can just enjoy the view. You have had much heartache, these past years. A reprieve is not undeserved."

[faithlikeaseed]

"How?"

It's not a sin simply to ask, he tells himself. It isn't a sin to know how it might be done, to ponder if it's something mortal mages alone might accomplish. Much had been discovered in cautious discussion with spirits. Much had been added to their knowledge of the world--

(But discourse with demons was a short route to Tranquility or worse.)

His gaze is drawn to the flower, as she'd intended; he's fascinated despite himself by the color and clarity of it, drawn to stare. (The chance to wonder if it's a type he'd come across in the waking world, all-unknowing now, without his sight. She could bring that back.) The offer of respite surprises him therefore and his glance up is sharp, sudden. "And I thank you for that view, but somehow I don't think I've got the time for it."

There's a forced sort of humor in the words, a mask for how deeply he wants what she offers. All of it.

[dashing]

"Time?"

There's a quiet laugh, and— she is changed. It was hard to immediately choose the form to take, but knowing Myr's heart and being able to draw on the visual memories from the others, that helped immensely. She could suppose it would not matter, but where would the artistry be in something so clumsy as a guess?

It is Kit that Myr is looking to, not Lupeo. He has a cigarette in hand, as yet unlit. His laughter is warm. "Shit, salroka. You want to tell me about running out of time?"

The tilt of his head says it all - come on, buddy.

[faithlikeaseed]

Of course, it's the voice he recognizes first--smoke-rough and hearth-warm, gentle despite the rebuke implicit in that look. Myr's breath catches in his throat, the feeling of a miracle (the dead restored) choking him despite his own best knowledge. That isn't Kit. It can't be, though everything about him seems right, seems exactly as Myr had ever sensed or imagined. Knowing the sort of men his cousin favored, knowing the clinging scent of those cigarettes, the solidity of his friend's presence as a guide to places unseen--this fits, that last piece in his portrait of Kit he'd never thought to gain.

It is him. It must be.

(Is that how it will always be--seeing them in the Fade as part of that final goodbye?)

It can't be. It isn't.

"Don't," low, controlled; a mage without control is a danger, "use him this way. Don't wear him--you haven't the right."

Not to masquerade as Kit. Not to remind Myr he'd not been there for a proper farewell, that they'd parted on see you later because there'd be time, there would always be time.

He takes a step in despite himself, thinking it's to intimidate, to drive the demon off--looking like he's worn through, and seeking comfort from his friend.

[dashing]

"Don't use him?" Kit, the monster, rubs the back of his neck a little awkwardly, cigarette held between his lips as his other hand fishes for a light. He pats down, and sighs. Damn. Well, this isn't quite what he was going for. 

For a moment, the look he gives Myr is quizzical, as though he's about to ask something and thinks better of it, and seeing how run down Myr is. He keeps turning the cigarette over between his fingers; it’s less about the smoking of it, and more about disentangling the situation with his hands. If only that were possible.

(Lupeo thinks, absently, how interesting the dwarf’s mind might have been to pick through. Ah, well.)

“Looks like life’s taken a real bite outta you.” His sigh is heavy, and he cigarette is moved to tuck the cigarette behind one ear. The distraction is set aside, so he can focus just on his friend, just on the man before him. Myr is exhausted, beaten down; lucky for him, a friend is here to help. After a long silence, Kit settles both hands on Myr's shoulders. 

"Gotta start taking better care of yourself, salroka." The fingers grip a little tighter. "I need you to look after Vandelin, really look after him. Whatever it takes, alright?"

[faithlikeaseed]

It isn't him. Is it? The incredulity in Kit's voice catches Myr short. A demon might pretend, but--

Dwarves didn't dream--the Maker created them, of that Myr's sure, but He didn't create them to walk the Fade when they slept. Who knew if they found their way here in that last sleep of all? He could worry the problem in a circle, pick and pry at it as an excuse not to focus on what's before him--but that's so much energy, so much work when it's easier to trust what's before him. To play along.

Kit or not, the dwarf can still see right through Myr, and there's some relief in not having to lay his sorrows bare himself. His shoulders round beneath Kit's hands; he makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "I always do," he replies. (Except for those three years he didn't.) "You know I do--and you know how he bristles at it."

And yet Myr keeps trying, because Van's family, because that's what he owes his own flesh and blood. His lips twitch to an ironic smile and he lays a hand over one of Kit's. "Don't know he'd spring for whatever, at that. He was always looked after back at Hasmal; it smothered him."

[dashing]

"Sometimes he doesn't know what's good for him." A light squeeze to those collapsed shoulders. "Neither do you, salroka."

Why do you think I'm here? is the energy that sort of rolls off Kit, off the demon puppeteering his form. He's here to help, to support, and he just stays steady with his hands on Myr's shoulders for a time. The view and the rippling fields still surround them, and yet at the same time, the world seems to be only them.

"I know you wanna be there to watch everyone's back all the time, but sometimes you can't." (Those three years for Vandelin. Those nights when Kit was in Darktown.)

[faithlikeaseed]

"Does that make him wrong about it?" It could be cross, contrary, but come out bone-weary instead. (A defiance salvaged from the wreckage of years spent thinking Vandelin was wrong, so wrong Myr might've killed to prevent him from having his way. See how well that worked out.) "Or me--you're dead, Kit." The word's near a sob, but only near--

"You're dead, and who was watching your back?" Not him. He's not equipped to watch anyone's back any longer; a liability, sure as Philomela had said. A researcher who couldn't read, a knight-enchanter who couldn't be there for the friend who'd needed him. All because his nerve and reason failed him the moment he most needed them.

The gulf of self-pity yawns wide, devouring. That shadow of who he'd been flickers, winks out.

"What do I do?"

[dashing]

"No one," he agrees, and his hands slide from Myr's shoulders, one cupping the back of Myr's neck as he tries to navigate what to say and just tries to anchor his friend in place, instead.

(He seemed the sort, Lupeo thought, the sort to want to steady, even as he himself was shaken.)

"But just because it happened to me doesn't mean you have to lose someone else for the same reason." Kit's exhale could almost be amused. "Just say yes. Just say you want to be able to help."

[faithlikeaseed]

How much do the dead change, when they cross the Veil? How much did the pain of transition, of hopes thwarted or love of the world denied--how much did that weigh on them, distort them, make them into other people? Some of this is aching familiar: the steady comfort of Kit's presence balm to wounds left untended for months, the implicit invitation to lay those burdens down a moment, given over to broader shoulders than his own.

Some of it-- "No one," Kit says, and it jars off Myr's own grief-saturated memory of that night. No one, but the Medicine Seller was there before Kit's corpse was even cold, and Maker knew there were rumors. Whatever Myr's own ingrown guilt might say (in the voice of a friend, of near-family), Kit hadn't been alone for want of him. It just hadn't been enough.

But would Kit hold that against him? Demand something of him he couldn't give any longer? How much do the dead change?

("And I'm old enough to know that some shit is just broken, and salroka--you don't get to fix everything you do wrong."

"So what's the point in piling more wrongs on top of it? Fine--some things can't be fixed; Maker knows I'm not getting my eyes back--but isn't that a reason to hold to what you've got?")

It's not him.

"When haven't I," Myr replies, the shadow of a sad smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "You know I'd help to distraction, Kit. I'd meddle in anything to fix it if I could. But we don't get to fix everything we do wrong."

It doesn't make it hurt any less to reach back, take "Kit's" hand from his neck and--gently, fondly, as if it were his friend still--push it back against the dwarf's chest. It doesn't hurt any less, yet something heavy in his heart falls away and shivers to dust with the gesture.