Entry tags:

Simple Gifts [Closed]

WHO: Galadriel, Thranduil, Solas, Myrobalan, Merrill, Kitty, Lakshmi, Teren, Marcoulf, Jang, Obi-Wan, and Anders
WHAT: A trip to a perfectly normal Chantry in the middle of nowhere.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: The Island of Alamar, Ferelden.
NOTES: Current warnings, to be updated: Graphic Descriptions of Gore

The Abbey on the White Cliff

Travel to the Abbey on the White Cliff is no easy matter. While it stands not far from Amaranthine, the waters between the mainland and the island shores are a wicked confluence of eddies and razor sharp rock. The rain is ever-present here and the wind moves unpredictably at the best of times. Ships of size cannot travel easily to the island of Alamar and small boats are rarely steady through the choppy water. Fortunately, as the Inquisition approaches, the world takes some pity on them and the waters seem to still and calm. The clouds linger but, at the very least, they don't open above them until they have reached the land.

The island is a grey affair, all rocks and scrub and damp. The village, an austere looking outcropping of buildings, is entirely made from the local stone and, were it not for the red clay roofing, would blend into the landscape seamlessly. Very few people have strayed into the rain to greet the Inquisition and, without the voices to echo off the stone, most sound is drowned in the lapping of waves and the heavy fall of rain. As a result of the weather and the lack of citizens, the town has the general quality of a graveyard.

The merchants who work the docks are affable enough and, after unloading their haul and securing it somewhere a bit drier, offer to take the Inquisition up to the Abbey proper. The rain slows before long and the merchants lead the Inquisition to the main roads and, let them on their way. Fortunately, the Island is not terribly large and, even walking, it will take only a few hours to arrive at the far side of it.

As the party leaves the village and the shore, the island landscape opens before them. Sloping moors give way to periodic outcroppings of rock and, against the horizon and the far end of the island, there rests a dark forest of pines. The Abbey on the White Cliff stands at the far side, at the top of the hill and overlooking the waves. The road they travel is an easy one, well worn, and the buildings come into view long before they reach them--they stand several stories tall, made of the same stone as the village. They are moss-covered and have the look of an old building that has been questionably kept--at least, from a distance.

The closer one gets to the buildings, the more obvious the additions and repairs become. Windows that have no business holding glass have had colorful windows inset to them. The doors are heavy, wooden, and new. The ironwork on the walls is polished and unworn by the rain. There are no torches lit but, once the Inquisition members have reached the doors, they open promptly.

They are greeted by a Chantry Sister with a bright smile and rosy cheeks and, without hesitation, the lot of them are welcomed into the Abbey.

OOC:

Hey guys! So I plan on aggressively GMing this one. Basically I want to run this like D&D, or as near as I can manage.

The location threads below are available for single player/two player exploration, I will be tagging you with information based on where you go or what you do, but if you want to do a bigger thread please just use the team threads at the bottom. That way if you all decide you want to check out the [INSERT LOCATION HERE] and it leads you to [DIFFERENT LOCATION] I can move you along without changing threads.

Because of your proficiencies, different characters will have advantages in different areas/while talking to different people, so groups are best. I will also be PMing your character journal periodically with any information that your character may have picked up on that nobody else would.

The NPCs are available for talking to or questioning by any number of people. Their general locations are in their thread headers so you can travel there as a crew or ask me to send them at you, if you so desire.

Feel free to do new top-levels if you guys really want, I am just here to try and make this fun.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His expression shifts sympathetic even before she explains herself; that pained little noise spoke worlds of grief. “Maker, sister—I’m so sorry; that must be very difficult for all of you, close as you all are.”

Ordinarily, that would be reason enough for him to retract the request. Apologize, move on, do without the glyphs as he so often had before. But his aim was never simply to get permission for the glyphs; a moment’s time with the Revered Mother is exactly what he’d hoped for going in. Therefore, even though a part of him squirms internally to say it—

“If you could, I’d be deeply grateful. And perhaps I can offer her what meager comfort I’ve got.”

"I am sure she would be glad for it," Brigette agrees, her tone soft and appreciative. She reaches for him but pauses well before her hand comes into contact with any part of him.

"The path is complicated, would you like me to lead you there?" It is a tentative question, but not an unkind one.

“If you would,” he replies gratefully, offering his arm. “I’d not wish to waste your time getting lost.”

Brigette takes Myr's arm gently, almost hesitantly, but holds onto his forearm with a sure grip, however soft it is. After a moment of pause she starts walking and takes Myr with her.

"Do--" The sounds of the hall shift around them as Brigette heads to the southern transcept. She pauses at the end of the hall and releases him, just briefly, so that she can fish a key from her belt and unlock it. Myr cannot see how the shadows loom in this coridoor, but the sounds of the trees outside, twisting in the wind, are much louder than anywhere else in the Abbey. There is also a persistent trickling of water, sloshing as though there is a large cistern just out of sight on the other side of a wall.
"I may need your eyes, if you are comfortable enough to lend them--"
"I'm sorry--I," Brigette tries again as she unlocks the door but she stops just shy of actually speaking. She takes his arm again and leads him through and down a narrow set of steps. "Watch your step, please--I haven't met anyone like you before, I apologize if I am...rude.

"Do your glyphs truly help you?"

He follows her where he's led, careful as he can be not to tread on her heels or hems as they walk. (One fortunate thing he won't admit about being as short as he is: It's hard to outrun anyone at his usual walking pace.) He is alert to the sounds around them, the change in acoustic mood as they cross from one part of the abbey to the next; the noise of trees and wind has him frowning faintly to feel so--exposed to the elements, even though everything else he can sense says the walls haven't vanished. Yet the whole thing is so uncanny, like something you'd get from a ghost story told in the apprentice barracks after lights out--and everyone in the abbey seeming so politely, cheerfully oblivious to their surroundings, like the characters of the very same story, doomed to die from the beginning without knowing it--

All his attention shifts from worry and speculation back to Brigette when she speaks--or starts to; he doesn't interject or try to prompt her when she finds herself at a loss for words, instead trading his frown for a warm smile in her direction. Take your time, without having to put it into words.

"Hardly rude," though a little part of his mind wonders whether that's mages or elves she hasn't met before; most likely the former, given the content of the question, "you've every reason to be curious." And curiosity, even fearful curiosity, is a damned sight better than outright terror or suspicion.

"And they do help me find my way around--they make a little chiming noise when I get close to them, giving me landmarks where I can't see anything to navigate by. I'd be glad to show you one if the Revered Mother's amenable to them." Or, truly, even if not, but it's her abbey and her rules and he knows how much he stands to lose for all mages if he fails to be even that respectful.

Myr's answer satisfies her, if her hum is anything to go by, and she pauses at the base of the steps to usher him down the hall. It is only a short distance, but a curved hallway, and it leads to another locked door. She is quiet as she opens it which is, for Brigette, very unusual. It does not creak as it opens but the door does make small sounds as the wood shifts.

"Reverend Mother Alvar?" Brigette hazards softly and pushes the door forward all the way.

The change in the atmosphere between the hall and this room is staggering. The oppressive nature of the Abbey lifts away like a veil being drawn back, the weight of it shifts off of them and there is brilliant radiant warmth that seems to come from all sides. The smell of woodsmoke and a cheerfully crackling hearth fill the room.

"Yes? Come in, Brigette."

The voice that answers her is, for lack of a more apt term, excruciatingly wizened. It is not an unpleasant voice, once it may have had more than a small note of command to it, but now it is delicate in the way that too-thin vellum is--it is thin and strained as it exists, despite no strain creeping into it.

"Reverend Mother, I have had a question and--this man asked me if he could do magic--but I--" Brigette is tongue-tied, which is odd given how bright and happy she was during the Chant, but she sounds as though she has far too much to say rather than far too little and cannot decide between them. "I thought that I should bring him here. Is that alright?"

There is a creak as someone rises from a mattress and the soft sound of bare feet on carpet as they approach Myr. The Reverend Mother smells of candles and warm soup.

"Of course," she replies, her tone knowing, and stops before Myr. "Ask me your question, young man, and tell me--did you come with the Inquisition? You have that look about you."

What a difference a fire makes! Myr'd not even realized how deeply the chill of the place had sunk into his bones until he's inside Avral's room--nor how the intangible, subtle wrongness that clung to the abbey like film had settled over him as well. He draws in a breath of surprise--and warmer air--as Brigette explains their reason for coming, the subtle anxious tension in his shoulders bleeding away. (Why don't they build fires everywhere in the abbey, if that's all it takes to drive off the damp? They've got hearths, surely. Cost of firewood? He tucks the problem away in the back of his mind for later consideration.)

He lifts his chin as the Revered Mother approaches him, expression--without his really realizing it--formed into something a little like wonder. It's not often he's had a chance to speak to someone of her station--not often the Chantry would countenance such an encounter--and though he'd treat anyone with as much respect it's hard not to be a little overawed anyhow.

It doesn't stop his tongue or make him hesitate to answer, though. "I'm with the Inquisition, yes," he replies, thinking it more polite to respond to her question before asking his own. "I've served with them for the past year or so." And the thought is still reason for a little pride to creep into his tone; whatever he's had to do, whatever's happened, he's glad to be a part of the organization.

"And I, ah--Revered Mother, I'd wanted your permission to put up a few small glyphs around the abbey. To help me with navigating it, so I'm not so much underfoot among your people." He garnishes the words with a smile for her. "If you'd like a demonstration of them--or an explanation--I'm more than happy to give it; and likewise I'd understand if you don't wish any magic done on the abbey's grounds."

Little as he agrees with the orthodox Chantry line on the place of mages--and magic--he knows and understands it, where the tripwires of taboo and fear undergird what his sisters and brothers in the Chant believe. It's just always been academic, until a year ago, how to avoid them.

He hopes he's getting better at it.

Her laugh is a quiet, rasping sort of chuckle and it is certainly not an unkind sound. She motions and Brigette moves away from his side, the why of her actions is answered quickly enough by the sound of a chair being placed before him and then a the sounds of a book being removed from somewhere on the far wall. A moment later, Brigette touches his arm and holds the book out for him, all but placing it in his hand.

"You had that look about you--not quite the desperation our normal pilgrims wear. It is nice to see, but understandably unusual." There is a creaking sound as Alvar takes a seat before him. "Please, show me the spell you wish to cast. Despite their prevalence, nowadays, I fear I am unfamiliar with most magical arts."

She doesn't sound anything but calm and perhaps a bit curious. Speaking clearly tires her, but it has only barely begun to creep into her voice.

Old habit makes him follow the sounds as if he could look to see what was being done, head turned toward Brigette curiously as she departs and returns. He accepts the book without quibble, turning it over in his hands to get a sense of its heft and dimensions. "We'd heard a little of that," he confesses, fingers tracing the outlines of the book's spine in search of an embossed title. He's still not much talent at reading with his hands, but always game to try. "Your pilgrims and how well you've done by them."

It made their gift to the Inquisition passing strange, in light of all this--but that's not a question he's ready to ask yet.

Instead, a demonstration of magic. His irrepressible smile is back as he shapes the lines of a small locator glyph on the back of the book. "I don't think you're alone in that, Your Reverence. I'm hoping we mages can do a--less frightening job of introducing those arts to the world at large, now we've the chance." That's...probably a bit of cheek, given what it assumes of the return of Circles, but she's not afraid of magic, at least.

The glyph isn't a difficult one, no more than a handful of strokes, and in short order it flicks to life with a soft firefly glow.

Alvar and Brigette watch in silence as he casts and as the spell is pulled forward, brought to life against the surface of the tome. Once he has finished, a hand reaches for it from ahead of him and the Reverend Mother takes the book in hand. There is a sound, light and soft, as her fingertips scrape across the cover of the book and around the glyph he has written. She hums, a curious sound with a vaguely appreciative lilt, and hands the book off to Brigette at her side.

"It is very pretty, and it does not burn to touch which is a pleasant surprise," Alvar says calmly, as if she is explaining a recipe to someone who has no interest in baking. "I thank you for showing me, you must certainly be worried about how I will react."

She pauses then and draws a deep, almost wheezing breath. She lets it out calmly through her nose and then speaks again.

"You may cast them, if you like, though I cannot guarantee they will stay lit," she agrees but there is something there, a pause in her words. At her side, Brigette shuffles and makes a small, almost imperceptible sound in her throat.

"You are clever and your spell is very keen, but I must ask: you have come all this way, and walked a good part of it, through cold and driving rain...would you not simply wish me to heal your eyes so that you might see again?"

There's a moment's tension as she takes the book from him to examine it, a lingering concern that she'll reject what he's done, repudiating his magic in a fit of unexpected righteous rage. But it doesn't come--and he breathes out the faintest laugh as she puts his exact worry into words. "I admit I was, Your Reverence. And I'm sorry to have been; you and your people have been nothing but kind to me."

But old habits die hard and to be a mage in the south is always to wonder how poorly people might perceive your gifts. He'd been insulated from it, but never immune.

Banished abruptly as it was by Alvar's reassurance, Myr's concern is yet swiftly back at the fore when she takes that wheezing breath. He's not a healer of any talent but he knows something wrong when he hears it, though he's not quite so rude as to interrupt her with fussing. After, perhaps, he'll ask--

If, that is, the thought isn't blown entirely out of his head by her offer.

His expression blanks with the force of his surprise, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline over the blindfold (something that makes the scars beneath--that much more obvious). "I," he starts, stops, fumbling his words. "The healers said--it wasn't--I don't--"

You were thorough, Sestina had said in her dry, passionless way. Even if you had left anything to work on it would take a miracle to restore it. Without that, and she'd shrugged, a sound he hadn't understood at the time. Does, now, in memory; can imagine the expression that went with it--one of resignation laced with annoyance at the unreasonableness of her patients.

He swallows hope, painful and jagged, shoves it ruthlessly down back where it belongs. "There aren't," he chokes out around it, "eyes to heal any longer. I don't know you could."

Alvar takes another deep, audible breath as she sits and there is a creak as she motions to Brigette. It is Brigette, then, who steps up beside him and, at once, she takes his hand between both of hers. She draws it close, enough that his knuckles are pressed against her collarbone as she leans toward him. Her voice is watery and bright even if she is attempting to keep herself in check.

"It is true," she assures him eagerly. "She can, the Reverend Mother can do such miracles--she has done them before."

Without much pause to ask, she lifts her hands and his within them to press his hand against her face. There is nothing of note there, smooth skin and a normal profile, round cheeks and a smile that lifts them higher. Her cheeks are wet, though, with her joy and that is...no small thing.

"When I came here--I could not see," Brigette starts and halts, her mouth open but soundless.

"Her eyes had been burned from her head, her face was scarred and dented with the shape of the brand that did it," Alvar explains for her, calmly and without nonsense. She takes a wheezing breath again and clears her throat with a quiet cough. "It can be done again, if you wish me to."

It would take a miracle.

Myr stands frozen with his hand on Brigette's face, fingers damp with her tears, as between them she and Alvar explain exactly what a miracle might be. Something in him--something small, and stunted, but well-fed for all the disappointments he's seen in the Inquisition--warns him his own soft heart and foolish trust may get him into trouble once again. Believing this, of everything else he's ever believed, may come at so high cost of hurt that he can't, he shouldn't--

--And yet how could he do anything but, with Brigette's face whole beneath his hand and her overwhelming joy plain to the touch. Miracles are real--he's always known it, always believed it with all his heart--even if the showy sort had never been for him. He makes a noise low in his throat, a tearless sob to match soundless weeping of a woman who'd been as blind as he. (To think of the cruelty she'd endured. To think that could be taken away.)

"Maker's love," he breathes, at last. "What would--" He clears his throat of the hope that threatens once more to strangle him, ducks his head--but doesn't pull his hand back from where Brigette's placed it.

"What would it cost?"

The last creature to offer him has sight had been a demon. It eats at him to have to ask--to not take it simply on faith--but ask he must.

Brigette releases his hand after a moment but she does not step away, nor dissuade him from maintaining contact. Alvar answers him, once she has caught her breath, and her words are preceded by a heavy, amused sigh. The chuckle fails in her chest and comes out as a wheeze, but it does not sound pained.

"The cost is mine," she says in the same tone as a grandmother who offers to purchase her grandchildren gifts. "And I give it willingly and with joy in my heart."

She rises then and Brigette has the mind to step back and aid her as she stands.

"The Maker has given us a gift, has given me a gift. It taxes me terribly to use it...but if I do, I can save those who are marred, who are near to death, who have been treated with such cruelty by this world. How can I possibly abstain? Why would I ever wish to?"

The smile in her voice is audible and she reaches out to touch his cheek and run her thumb across the edge of the fabric over his eyes. Her fingers are bone thin and frail, the skin wrinkled and delicate--she must be nearly a century in age.

"To withhold His gift is wrong and I shall not, unto my dying breath, entertain the notion of doing so."

That--

That is both a reassurance and not. Myr's awestruck expression lingers still but it's touched now with a faint dread; he can read between the lines of what she says, of Brigette's quiet, sad comment: Her body is nearing its end.

He also knows the species of self-sacrifice that lets her relate all of this with such equanimity and reverence for what she'd been given--and more than the offer of healing that leaves him awed. Maker of All, let me have that faith and surety one day. His own gifts might require as much of him; let him meet it with such reverent calm.

He nearly flinches away when she touches his cheek, the breath catching in his throat; he knows enough now to know she's seen worse than what lies beneath that blindfold, seen worse and healed worse. That she'd not judge him for it. But-- "Why me?"

His voice is smaller than he'd like. Smaller and more doubting. Why him, when she'd barely met him, when there's so much she doesn't know-- That she should. "I--because--Your Reverence, it wasn't--an accident that left me this way. Or anyone's cruelty. I--"

Every time he's confessed this it's hurt. It hasn't gotten any easier, but if he'd accept what's been held out to him, there's only one way he can do it with a clean conscience (or something close). She needs to know. And if she chooses to grant her last miracle to someone more worthy once she does--

Let that be the Maker's judgment on him.

"I did this to myself. I--I blinded myself. When my Circle fell. I was c--I was caught by magic that warps the mind, I saw things--" To relate it brings back a fragment of that horror; it always will, he suspects, with some detached analytical part of himself. "--I didn't know if they would stop. So I--"

Unable this time to put what he'd done into words, tongue stilled, he lifts both hands to show--fingers hooked so, raked through the fragile flesh of eyelids to the eyes beneath. He was strong from years of training. He was thorough.

It hadn't taken long to do.

Alvar listens as he speaks and watches as he removes the fabric across his eyes. She looks at him for some time and hums--it is a quiet, sad sound, but the hand on his face does not shift back and stays quite gently resting against his cheek.

"You were driven to this," Alvar replies, her voice calm and unaffected by the sight of his eyeless face. Brigette is silent, her breath held, and she says nothing as they converse. "Just because your pain was wrought by your own hands does not mean you are not deserving of healing."

She pulls her hand back then, at last, and there is a shuffle of cloth as she leans against Brigette. Her breathing is heavier now, more dramatic than it had been before, and she has trouble standing to speak with him.

"As for why you, of all people? That answer is the simplest. You are here." She draws a wheezing breath and lets it out, the next is a bit easier. "Whatever the Maker's plan, it brought you with the Inquisition, it brought you before Brigette of all of us, and then unto me. Why you? It could have been anyone else, but you...of all people...were here. How can I refuse you?"

For all Myr has heard that before--it isn't your fault, you didn't deserve this, you weren't in your right mind--the wound he'd left on his own soul is as stubborn and scarred-over as the ones he now bares. He knew what he'd done, what he'd felt, how rational the choice had seemed when he made it. How perfect the solution: The visions had vanished, after all, when he'd passed out from pain and shock, and no horrible sight had troubled him since then--

But to hear it from someone with Alvar's authority and obvious grace from the Maker goes a long way toward healing that years-old hurt. How can I refuse you? she asks, knowing now everything there is to tell and extending her hand still--and that undoes him at the last. He clutches the blindfold to his chest with both hands, shoulders rounded and shaking as he gives in at last to quiet juddering sobs.

"Please," is all he manages between one and the next; if it's the Maker's intent, if he can be healed, then who is he to spurn that gift?

"Of course," Alvar assures him, but she is already out of breath. She wheezes and there is a sound as she moves the heavy robes Brigette wears. Brigette murmurs a quick and respectful ascent and there is a shuffling as she helps the Reverend Mother back to her bed.

"Do not weep," Brigette says to him as she approaches again. Her hands light on his shoulders and, after a moment of pause she draws him into an embrace. "When the Reverend Mother has rested she will heal your eyes.

"You will be restored, I promise," Brigette tells him softly and holds him. When he breaks their embrace she will lead him from these apartments and show him his own, but for now they linger in the warmth of the hearth and the light of Alvar's room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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CW: eye gore; also, he's got the blindfold on still but this may be the only use of this icon ever

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