Kingsway Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters, rescuers, and anyone else
WHAT: New arrivals are collected and transported to Kirkwall
WHEN: Mid-Kingsway
WHERE: The Brecilian Forest, near south of Denerim
NOTES: This log contains prompts for the ARRIVAL and RECOVERY of new rifters, as well as the subsequent QUARANTINE period. All prompts are open to anyone.

Comments

[wroughtamiss]

Not all think that way.

[There is a great deal tucked inside that statement. Learnt from Chantry Mothers how to say it mildly when he might still punch a wall over the head over it. Still, his mouth puckers after eating chips when you've gone and split your lip.]


There's little in our history that isn't tied to the Chant of Light, to Our Lady the prophet Andraste and to the Maker. Fortunately for all, myself included, we're not in Orlais where a faux pas like that would have you a laughing stock. Here there are other reasons to find yourself in the dungeon though I heard that the Kirkwall guard ran the gamut from corrupt to useless.

[Sometimes you have to see what a person does with charity given.]

Me? You'll be thinking of Brother Jehan, freckles enough from here to Denerim but we serve the same purpose as Brothers of the Faith. I've been at it longer.

[It's not the worst lie. They're both Brothers he's just a firmer hand all things considered.]

[heirring]

Ah. I understand entirely.

[A priest then, though every priest she has ever known has also fancied himself well and truly educated, a student of learning as much as a son of the faith. He must, she thinks, be from the country then. A simple farmer turned faithful, perhaps. He certainly bears very little resemblance to the narrow little men of the parish and the fat old Fathers of Somerset's grandest churches.]
Then I appreciate your patience with me. You've been very kind indeed to take a few moments to answer my questions when I'm certain you have all kinds of better things to do, particularly if Kirkwall is as bad off as you say. --Which I'm not shocked by, honestly. I think I've been told six times to be mindful of dark alleys and side streets and everyone seems very concerned about a potential for being murdered or worse over there.

[She gestures across the harbor to the city proper.]

Are you from here, sir? Kirkwall, I mean. [Before he can answer, some stricken look falls over her face. Wysteria changes tack between one breath and the next:] Oh, I've been terribly rude, haven't I? Saying all those things about the city if you are. I don't mean anything by it, I assure you. I'm sure it has all kinds of lovely depths that you just can't see from this very specific vantage. The sea here is very beautiful, isn't it?

[Well no, it's horrible and dark and chopping constantly at the shipping and the docks and the cliff bases. But maybe in the right season--]

[wroughtamiss]

If you are to be here [swallowing is-- well there are things you swallow, sometimes that's your own bile too] then it's better for all, most of all the people of Thedas who've been through much these past ten years or more that you know all that you can know. You're strange to them. What comes across the Veil are spirits or demons, and demons are better suited to walking and talking as men or women, there'd be a great deal that'd alarm them. Kirkwall was what it was. Then when the Blight hit Ferelden over a decade ago there was the influx of refugees, with that comes the overcrowding, and most of them had to sell all the could to leave there or to find lodging, and that left them in Lowtown or Darktown, neither known for their sterling reputations. Not all of them had connections to nobility as did the fabled Champion of Kirkwall. There was the Qunari who landed then murdered the Viscount which is what such a heathen folk will do. And some few years after that a mage had the idea to destroy the Chantry here, killing many people, and in the violence that followed there was much to do be done. So you see a Kirkwall that's had to find its feet time and time again. Any place would be hardpressed from one of those alone.

[So to weather all of that? Perhaps this place has done well. Perhaps. But the Veil is thin here, there are too many mages, too many of these rifters, all of them pressing, pressing, pressing upon it that it troubles him.

Yet there's nothing to be done, this is the outpost.

A laugh barks out of him and he shakes his head, genuinely looking amused.] I hail from Markham, we've a university there, it's not the backwater that our sister Ansburg is. Both are invested in agriculture but where Ansburg is trade, Markham is about the research of it. And we've the tourney once a year, rabble that it is.

[And of the sea:] You'll want to watch for some nights and tides, I hear there's a rota of who throws out the dead and when the sea gives them back. Or that was the rumour when I arrived.

sure was some broken html up there huh

[heirring]

[How perfectly dreadful - all of it, really. Dead bodies and a terrible wine dark sea with the horrible black cliffs and its grim city above it, its denizens tortured for untold numbers of years by all manner of hardship. It is impressive that Kirkwall is there at all; he's right about that much. But it's doesn't make it look or sound any more warming or pleasant, now does it? It's all very well and good to know the history of a place, but my how exhausting it must be to find any relief in any corner of the place whatsoever.

Ah well. At least it isn't the only place in the whole world, even if she's currently trapped in the middle of it.]

Well, [she manages, swallowing her mortification] I'm happy not to have offended you too terribly then. Markham sounds lovely - I'm a great enthusiast of a good university, actually.

[The rest-- demons and dead bodies and spirits and what the world thinks she is or isn't-- well, the rest she can fuss with when it comes her direction.]

[wroughtamiss]

The Orlesians - of which there are many, they flock together as chattering birds do - will talk about the glory of their own. A bright glittering thing but what matters more is what comes out of it, not the gilding. Markham has a university we might rely on a long time; we might feed our people, cultivate a great many young minds out of it.

[What do they get out of Orlais all too often? Peacocks. Generations of families swanning off or sent off on the coin of their family. Kirkwall doesn't paint some of the graduates in so fine a light, Celene's involvement - that the royalty gets involved - is little short of disgrace and embarrassment.

(Shartan, elves, that mess.)

Blood in his mouth when he bites the inside of his cheek to keep his face from souring on it.]

The Gallows was once a place of education and sanctuary for mages, perhaps it might become that again for those of you who have little choice to be here when there is such a great deal to learn. My door is always open for questions of faith or those I'd do my best to answer, I'm one of our oldest here.

[With the air of a man who feels he's been surrounded by twelve year olds ready to break out into spots at a moment's notice.]

[heirring]

[Ah, now there's something familiar. On any other day, that particular knowing tone might set her teeth just slightly on edge. There's nothing quite like being told by a gentleman how knowledgeable he is. But today, on the edge of the Gallows' ferry slip looking over a strange harbor to a stranger land, she can't help but be strangely warmed by it's familiarity. He looks very little like any of the Somerset scholars or old magicians who had insisted on their reputation and education, but suppose then the possibility that all men are simply predisposed to find themselves irritated by silly young people no matter where they come from or what their trade may be.

Still: today she's good humored for it.]

There certainly seem to be a considerable number of willing minds. And I'm sure we all could benefit for your expertise. Messere. Though I expect anyone teaching really must need considerable patience. The questions I've asked about nonsense things like dates and calendars alone--! [She laughs. At herself, mostly.] Is there a... chantry you attend here in the Gallows, or are all the chapels on the shore proper? I should think I'd like to see a service. --A mass?

[wroughtamiss]

[Unlike the young ladies (and one perhaps closer to his own) who greeted him, Wysteria has manners. The manners of a young lady brought up well that isn't exclusive in his experience to any one place or class: a farmer's daughter can have more manners than a princess sent off to tutors for grace and tact. Better to have a young woman that might truly have the desire in her to learn rather than have him force her to take a seat and stand guard at the door, big stick in one hand, Chant in the other.

There are only so many times you can do that before it gets old.)

Willing faces. How far it goes I can't say yet, they've been away a long time and our Divine is dead, may she find rest at the Maker's side now. Our calendar begins in truth with the founding of the Chantry, all else before is Ancient accordingly though we've had Ages to never think much of it. In the Gallows we've three chapels. The largest is in the Central tower, the former Mage and Templar towers have their own smaller chapel, and we've a prayer garden on the same side as the Templar tower too. [Where Deacon does weird meditaton, yoga and Thedosian capoeira because you need to unsettle the kids trying to tend to their elfroot. They need to know that Andraste is watching. She's always watching your habits. She knows about that stash. And that one too Jimothy.] We've to recite the Chant at least once a week as one of the Faithful, you'll have ample opportunity to witness prayer though I'm sorry you won't see it how it should be. With a Revered Mother. In a Chantry proper. Attended by all the people. Kirkwall's was grandiose but it had many who came to it, we're lesser for its loss.

[heirring]

[There's a garden there now, she's heard. She thinks she's like to see it herself - to mark the footprint of the place. There's a kind of pleasure in that sort of thing, isn't there? Looking at the shape of the space a thing took up and then left behind. Even if the process was terrible or tragic.

She's about to say as much - or something like it - when a shout from the ferry slip catches her attention. A boat is coming in. It's the second one she's seen coming since standing here and--]

Oh! [She thrusts the spyglass under her arm.] Oh, the next lecture is meant to be starting. [She whirls, takes a half step and then whirls right back to him.] Thank you so much for your time, Father. I promise I'll come along to hear the Chant. I'm terribly curious. Forgive me, I should be going-- [With another whirl of skirts, she's off - gets three whole steps and then swings abruptly back to rejoin him.]

Poppell, by the way. Wysteria Poppell. That's my name.