( 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.

Comments

[faithlikeaseed]

Ah. Just his luck--

Though it's better than having stopped Voss. "Grit under my blindfold," he explains, voice kept low. "The scars are thin." Tend to scratch, tend to bleed if he's not careful, though he'll spare anyone else all that gory detail even by way of excusing his own apparent malingering.

He leans his staff against his shoulder, turning half away from Wren's voice and hastening to undo the cloth. Soonest begun, soonest done, and they can both pretend it didn't have to happen and get on with what they're here for.

[limier]

She's abruptly grateful that he can't see her blanch.

"I've water," And practice at smothering vocal discomfort. If she sounds — anything — it's more distant than before. "Flush it, or dab?"

A question, she's no want to grind it in worse for an incautious hand. The rattle of a canteen unstoppered, and this is fine. It's not as though this is the subject of recurring hallucinatory nightmares, or anything. Probably Shivana is super fine with it too.

[faithlikeaseed]

Completely fine. Absolutely fine. It's not his voice is any quieter, it's just the wind's kicked back up outside: "Better to flush it out."

They just won't explain to anyone why or how he'd gotten that wet in the middle of a sandstorm. This is fine. This will all be fine. He shakes out the blindfold, folds it up and tucks it away in a pocket to be easy to hand the instant they're done, chin tucked toward chest the while. (His bangs are long enough at least to shield the casual glance from too much horror. Just a glimpse of pink-scarred absence, concavity where something's expected.)

"I can manage, if you'd--" The fact he doesn't quite hold his hand in her direction puts the lie to that manage; it'd be a waste of water and time to let him do it on his own, and he knows that much, but pride insists he try.

[limier]

A hand in his instead, for whatever comfort cracked leather might offer.

"It is well." They can't chance to waste the water. "When you are ready."

When he is, she tries to be thorough, to still her own grip (sweat pools inside her gloves, at the back of her neck). It's more unnerving for the absence of gore; ugly scars, but the hollowness behind them healed enough to be almost natural. A more delicate shade of darkness than her mind typically supplies —

"Your blindfold," Don't think about it. "There must be some means to secure it. To seal the edge, perhaps. You know more of wax than I."

The boy likes puzzles. Put him onto that instead, some thought to chase after, however slowly. Just don't think about it.

[faithlikeaseed]

Knowing it's for the best takes some edge off the thwarted pride, the frustration at being seen incapable of so simple a thing. (Pride and frustration he thought he'd left behind him in Hasmal, but here they were waiting among the Inquisition for him to find again--here they are in another desert, among the grains of sand.) He's still, unflinching, as she works--putting his mind elsewhere as is the habit of the long parade rest. Don't think about it--

The suggestion jars him out of his thoughts, onto another track. "There may be something, ser," voice even now, as one speaks to a commanding officer. She knows him that well; give him an idea and he'll follow it, whether or not he'd want to on his own. "Something temporary--the skin needs to breathe--but there may be-- Wax, or an enchantment." Or better tailoring, another layer...

There's not so much grit or socket for the task to take long, not so much water wasted. When she's finished, he draws away, head turned politely aside as he fumbles out a dry cloth to wipe his face with. Then to replace the blindfold, cinch it back tight in place (hide the worst of the wounds, but never quite the marks of excoriating fingernails on cheekbones).

"Thank you. I'm ready to move on." He's gotten so good at not thinking of these things, burying them deep--if no one asks or pries them up.