Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

[laurenande]

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: Mild Gore

The Abbey on the White Cliff

Around noon on the fourth day, Brigette and the other sisters gather up the people of the Abbey. Everyone who can walk, who can stand, is urged to join them in the auditorium--the doors at the end of the main hall are thrown open and the people welcomed in. Today Reverend Mother Alvar will be enacting her final miracle and, in the grand tradition of this Abbey, the people are invited to behold and take joy in the sight of it. They are encouraged to be there for the end of the previous Reverend Mother's life, just as they are encouraged to welcome the new Reverend Mother, Luca, as she assumes her new position.

The auditorium is a wide, stepped chamber that drops downward into an open forum and stage. The roof is high and domed and was once constructed of the same grey stone as everything else on the island. It was caved in at some point, destroyed by a falling tree, but it has been patched over with wood and canvas. The extensive scaffolding speaks volumes of how much effort has gone into restoring this room, but all of it stands still and empty in preparation for the ceremony.

Above the center of the stage, in the very middle of the room, visible from all angles, there is a great green tear in the veil--a massive rift cleaves the room in two. It churns sluggishly, ebbing and twisting, muted under the weight of whatever pall hangs across this Abbey. Around the rift there is a golden arch--the wood is carved into flames and swords and papered over in hammered gold leaf. Behind the rift there is a triptych depicting scenes from the Chant and each is lovingly painted and framed in gold.

The room is filled with chaos, but not of the sort one would expect in the shadow of a rift. The people who meander in, the pilgrims who take up the seats near to the stage at the base of the steps, all of them are smiling, all of them are happy, some are weeping tears of joy or remorse, but all of them are entirely unsurprised by the rift's presence. They take no issue lingering near it. Praise is heaped upon the carpenters for their diligence in finishing the arch, songs are sung softly as everyone gathers, and eventually the room is prompted to recite from the Chant as Alvar comes to the center of the stage. She is frail and those who spoke with her earlier will see how she has aged--twenty years in a day, it seems--and she leans heavily on Luca until she moves apart to stand on her own.

Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.
In my arms lies Eternity.

When she speaks the Chant, for a moment, her voice sounds youthful again--no older than Luca's--but it is fleeting and before the end she is breathless and thin once more.

OOC:

Hey everyone, this is part 2! I will be posting an initial thread for this scene that will be a free for all, but feel free to start a thread beneath the Ceremony Header if you want. Below I will be reposting the updated areas and people links, same as the previous post.

New Top-levels are welcomed, as always, but if you have questions please hit me up.

This section will contain the rest of this plot, unless we skyrocket to too many tags for me to keep them straight.

Comments

Reverend Mother Luca

[laurenande]

Reverend Mother Luca is not hard to find, not now, but she is more drawn and worried than she has been in previous days. She is pale and restless, her long braid is frayed and unkempt. She regards the wraiths with suspicion and worry and lingers in the offices and Alvar's darkened apartments.

She already seems older than she is and she fidgets with the band on her finger as she paces the halls and the tight spaces of her favored rooms.

[rowancrowned]

He knocks. He is not so ill-mannered to avoid that courtesy, and he has always found it best to make offerings open-handedly first. The weevils have yet to wind their way into all the grain just yet, and he has a bowl in his hands, oats left to soak, mixed with what few blackberries had not rotted entirely. They have dyed the porridge purple-black, and he holds the bowl unselfconsciously in all he is before her door.

"Revered Mother," he says, "May I beg some of your time?"

[laurenande]

Luca starts at the knock on the door, a reaction that is audible in the crash and clatter that resounds through her apartments. She has knocked a plate and cup to the floor and she scrambles a moment. She doesn't speak, not for some time, until she comes to the door to open it--she spares him only a bare crack of space and peers out through it.

"Some of--my time?" she repeats, her train of thought jumping as she does. She looks him over, then to the food he carries, and something in her expression twists with sadness.

"I suppose I have no reason to deny it, come in--"

The door is parted another bare inch and then released as she steps hurriedly from it.

[rowancrowned]

"Forgive me," he says, as he steps inside, his paltry offering in hand as he reaches behind him to close the door. "It is only a little thing."

The people of the Abbey had offered them such little things without asking for much. They have given freely, of their larder and their hands, and it is not so difficult to see why, given how their leader behaved.

"As the Provost, I thank the Revered Mother of the Abbey for what was done for Myrobalan." Earnestly. And given that he cannot thank the woman herself (not in any way she would understand) he will thank Luca. He owes her that much. "Done in the Maker's name, but with mortal effort."

[laurenande]

The expression she levels at him is vaguely confused and just this side of alarmed. She pulls that back after a moment, at the mention of Myr, and that gives her some comfort. Unfortunately, her anxiety is running rampant and even when she is as calm as she can make herself, she is fidgety.

"We need no thanks," Luca assures him. "It is...what any of us would have done."

[rowancrowned]

"Any of you on this island," Thranduil corrects. "There would be others who would seek miracles of destruction, rather than rebirth. Power whispers in one's ear, few can ignore it."

He offers her the bowl, then draws it back, caught by something in her manner. "Is everything well, Revered Mother? If there is anything I might assist with, I would gladly offer you my help."

[laurenande]

She regards his withdrawal of the food curiously but, after a short pause, it makes sense. She turns her attention to him, to his offer, and his calm demeanor, and wonders if she can truly ask aid of him. Her arms cross over her chest and, in her distraction, her fingers twist against the fabric just so.

"I--I fear you are right," she says after a pause. She has not spoken to this man before, she has done little more than pass him in the halls, but he is Provost and that is no small thing, surely? He has not approached her as some of the others, does not offer her suspicion even after what he has seen.

Perhaps they can help, perhaps they can turn this back.

"There is some ill spell over this place now--the gifts have not, I cannot do what I should...and my steps are haunted." She steps closer to him, open hope in her expression, but still she is terrified. Her head is bruised, despite the healing, and her nerves are clearly shot through. "Your people slew one of them, the Reverend Mothers, can you do so again?"

[faithlikeaseed]

He appears on Luca's doorstep disheveled: Wet hair plastered to his head, fingers still scraped and bleeding. (He at least had the sense to change into dry robes and isn't dripping everywhere.) It somehow does not occur to him to knock; it's easier to simply stand staring at the door, hollow-eyed, no longer processing what's before him.

(They were still under there. Perhaps they were still alive. Some of his Circlemates had lived for days and they'd been as powerless to find them, to dig them out.)

If--when--she should appear, either entering the room or leaving it, he seems to recall himself. "Your Reverence?"

It's barely a question, more an exhausted exhalation. "I have questions. If you have a moment."

[laurenande]

Luca appears after some short time, her expression harried and pale, she is cradling her right arm, bandaged heavily, against her side. She starts when she sees Myr and immediately a look of guilt darts over her face. It takes her another moment to recall that she is the Reverend Mother and that he is talking to her now.

"Yes, of course," she answers, hurried and quiet, her voice just a touch hoarse.

These are Alvar's rooms, or they were, and they have not changed much since his last visit. He had not seen them, then, the reserved luxury of them. The rugs are faded and well worn, the desk in the corner is finely made, the chairs are old and hardwood, the bed is larger than most and plush. The wide hearth in the corner, however, is not lit though it is filled with wood and sawdust.

"What may I answer for you?" she asks and sits at the desk, she seems dwarfed by it. She curls over her hand, unconsciously, and gives him a tired look.

They are both so worn in so little time. It is almost impressive.

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr's glance skims over the contents of the room but he does not register much of it except the cold hearth. Not that one needed eyes to notice that, frigid as the place is in contrast to the summery warmth it held when first he arrived.

He notes her arm as well; that stirs somewhat more emotion. "What happened?"

Even as he asks he approaches the desk, reprising their position of days ago as he leans hipshot against it. For better or worse she's the person in the abbey he feels least inhibited around at the moment, even if her new station and his pre-existing loyalties should augur otherwise.

[laurenande]

Luca looks at him, her eyes already weary, her expression sad but calm, and she draws a deep, shaky breath. She looks down at her arm and there is a moment of silence where her mouth is just slightly open. She cannot find words and so, with some effort she lifts her arm and sets it on the desk. She sets about unwrapping it, but it is a slow process.

"You cannot have comet o ask me that, unless you mean the wraiths, or the ceremony on whole?"

[faithlikeaseed]

"That," slowly, each word laden with remorse, "is something I should have asked you before the ceremony."

If he'd known. If he could have told the Inquisition about it.

If he could have made himself say no despite every longing of his heart. (It still would have gone ahead. The Inquisition still would have acted as they did. But maybe someone now dying in the infirmary wouldn't be.)

He watches her unwrap her arm, fingers twitching as if he'd reach to help her though he doesn't know how, or how to offer. "I'd like to burn the bodies," he says with all the suddenness of a man too weary for filters. "The Revered Mothers and--anyone else. And I'd like--to look about the library, with your permission."

[laurenande]

Luca stills and something in her expression crumbles as he makes his request. A tear, far and hot trails down her cheek and she looks back up at him.

"We can't," she says ruefully and reaches up to scrub her face. "We can't light the fires to do it, not while the other Mothers linger here."

She looks back down at her hand and continues unwrapping it. As she does the thin bandage has more yellow and then red, an alarming amount of it. It does not bleed now, but the skin as it is revealed is whitish and burned in the pattern of fingers, her hand is mangled and she stops before she undoes the bindings on her fingers. One of them is oddly shaped now, that much is clear without the mitten of bandage on it.

"I can't stop them, or banish them to the veil; I can't even heal the sick. I'm sorry. You may look at anything you like, anywhere you like, but I am...I am useless to aid you. To aid anybody."

Re: Reverend Mother Luca

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

Jang gives a knock to Luca's office door and pushes her way in. She heads over to a chair and sits down heavily, wincing from her injuries. Without saying anything else she pulls a bottle out from her bag and places it on the table. Two tin mugs follow after and a healthy measure is poured in each, and Jang slides one across the desk.

Jang takes her mug and drinks, wincing again. "Smooth like ten miles of bad road." She looks out the window at the storm and sighs.

"Luca, is there anything you'd like to talk about? Or anything you need?"

[laurenande]

Luca is at the very edge of her nerves, she jumps when Jang enters, stares in horror when she sits, and freezes by the window as she slides a drink across the desk for her. It is so very out of place that she cannot help but fixate on it. It is a long moment before she can approach it, can bring herself to move, and when she does she looks liable to faint. She is pale, so very pale, and she drinks whatever Jang has brought her readily and without reservation.

She doesn't even sputter as she swallows it--she has not braced for it, she simply drank it quickly enough that she felt it hardly at all.

"I need a guardian, or a miracle I expect," she says and sighs.

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

"Mmm...Well, I may be able to assist with one of those things. I don't know much bout miracles, but guardian? I may be able to help with that. But I gotta know what's going on. Can't protect you if I don't know what I'm guarding against. So..."

Jang finishes off the drink and pours the two of them another full glass.

"What the hell is going on."

[laurenande]

"Alvar is going to kill me and take back her gift," Luca says, as she draws back the cup and the refill within it. She looks so shaken that it cannot possibly be anything but what she believes.

"She told me to return it, before she passed...and she has not come for it yet...but I cannot give it back, I can't let her take it away. I--she will try to kill me...she will kill me if I refuse but I have to, don't I?"

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

"What gift? That's what's been causing these miracles, right?" Jang sits back and takes a drink, thinking.

"I've got a bunch of questions, but I think we don't have time to go into detail. She wants it back, which, if I'm reading this right, has never happened before. That by itself is reason enough to not give it to her. Where is it now?" A deck of cards has appeared in her hand and she starts playing with it, shuffling and squaring the deck in one hand.

[laurenande]

"It's safe," Luca answers on reflex and moves, cup in hand, to stand by the window. She is no more than a step or so away. She looks out it with the same air as a person looking for a pack of wolves.

"It is what gives us the miracles, what lets us save people--but it doesn't work, now. I can't...I can't make it work." She takes a drink, this time less desperately, and chokes a bit. "What if she is meant to have it--I mean, no--if I give it to her she will not use it for healing. She will take it and...and I don't know."

She looks back at Jang, at the cards, and is confused.

"Why are you playing a game?"

[esquive]

There's no knock on the door. Rather Mother Luca paces from one haunt to the other and in the darkened office with its guttering candle flame, Marcoulf is simply waiting for her. He's a slim man, all narrow and sallow and of no great height, but here in this room he's very still and the knife at his belt would be easy enough to get to hand.

"You and I should speak," he says the moment she crosses the threshold.

[laurenande]

It seems, of late, that her every moment is filled with some degree of dread and all of it is warranted. When she crosses into the office, a covered lantern in hand, she is moving with some haste--then she sees Marcoulf and stops. He is unremarkable, at least on sight, but he is waiting for her and she does not expect it.

"I--" She begins and halts, her previous task forgotten. She stares at him a moment more and moves toware the desk. "Yes, of course. What--"

What do you wish to speak of?

It sounds rather lacking and she trails off well before the whole sentiment is expressed.

"I will tell you whatever you wish to know."

[esquive]

He doesn't move as she does - rather Narcoulf lingers there at the side of the room where he might clearly see both her and the door. But he tips his head to her, watching as an attentive dog might.

"When I came to you and Alvar. Who was it that you let strike me?"

[laurenande]

At this she is confused. She stares at him for a moment, her confusion open on her face, but it is an easy answer:

"I...don't know who it was." She admits. "It was one of the Reverend Mothers. Could you not feel it? The cold?"

[esquive]

She gets a blank look in return and no more. No fires, wind off the sea in a bitter stone abbey. Of course he feels it. And it's more than that, he knows it, but doesn't care to examine that particular element. What he feels or doesn't has nothing to do with any of this.

"A demon wearing one of their faces, you mean." It's barely a question, but he waits expectantly as if he means it like one.

[laurenande]

Luca looks down then, a frown on her face, and moves toward the desk. She recalls, then, why she is here.

"As you like," she grants, wearily. Luca does not agree with him but, in the end, is it so much better to imagine they aren't demons? Perhaps not. "I am sorry I could not stop it. I never wanted to see any of you harmed."