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

[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?"

[rowancrowned]

He takes a moment to consider. They are weaker than before for the fight, but if they were able to choose the ground, and now, with Galadriel available. He has the vial in his pockets. One, he thinks, would not be a problem, but the number of them that has been allowed to collect will prove a challenge.

It is not as though it is one they can decline.

"If we are careful, and we arrange it to our advantage," he says. "Where is the ring?"

[laurenande]

She starts a bit, her wide eyes grow wider still as she stares up at him. Her gaze darts down quickly and her arms tighten as she considers an answer. There is a moment of hesitance and, to Thranduil, it would be a familiar one. The look of someone affected by a ring is subtle but telling and already it has snared her, already she looks older for the use of it, however mild.

"It is safe," she says, though the assurance sounds thin. She is a very poor liar, Luca, and her hands grip her sleeves tightly as she answers.

"It is not working, not anymore, not as it should," she tells him, instead. "I don't know if it is broken or if it is waiting--she said she would take it back."

[rowancrowned]

"It is waiting," he confirms, which is to say he agrees with her suspicion. He had never been close enough to a ring of power other than through his proximity to Galadriel. "But it is not safe. Not until they are reunited."

He looks past her, to the rest of the room, and deflates somewhat, if only by the barest few degrees. "You might have used it to build yourself a fiefdom. But you used it to heal."

He judges them in a swath, then. Or at least they have proven worthy of it. Not one deceitful one in the line of Revered Mothers to turn her thoughts to war, to cutting a path of glory as Andraste had.

He thinks this one was likely the one to stab Galadriel. But that is Solas' price to claim. Instead, "It will be safe when it is returned to her. Where have you put it?"

[laurenande]

"What?" Luca asks, horrified by his words despite their calming nature. She steps back from him, then, one step and another, her hands coming free from their position to her sides. Ready to fend him off or flee. All the nervous terror in her is magnified tenfold as she takes him in.

"I--I can't give it back," she protests and, in her terror, barely notes as her breath curls before her or as the shadows in the room grow heavier.

"If I give it to her--she will kill you all."

[rowancrowned]

He steps back, immediately, hands at his side. His expression is that of sour disbelief.

"Galadriel? Kill us? Her lover, her cousin, and several of those she has taken into her care as a hen collects chicks? Hardly."

But of course, there are other terrifying women collecting here.

"Who?" The cold is coming. He dislikes it. He now knows what it means.

[laurenande]

"Who is Galadriel?" Luca asks, ashen faced--she still has not cone back near him, does not look likely to do so, but as he prompts her for an answer, she recognizes the coming cold. Her eyes dart across the room, to the windows, to the door, and her right hand comes up to rest before her, clutched to her chest.

"She is coming for it--you must leave!" Her urgency is bordering on panic but her warning is too late. The cold has already begun to coalesce and the shape of a young woman gathers at the windows.

It does not move as the wraiths do, not as any of the wraiths Thranduil have seen move. It is a spirit of Thedas, a misty collection of shapes and forms, bound by a sense of hunger so deep and desperate that it is almost as tangible as the cold itself. The shape shifts and, at an angle, a face appears in the mist of it. It steps from the window toward them, toward Luca, and a shell of solidity forms around it.

She is in her twenties, a young body and a young face framed in long slightly curled hair. Thranduil has seen Alvar in her decline, but this is the face she wore before she put on the ring, before she began her descent. This is the face her body remembers and Luca looks all the more terrified for seeing it. Once she is whole and nearly opaque, her steps become strange, disjointed, and another shape lingers like a shadow in the air around her. A larger, more familiar and more monstrous form.

"Ah, I have found you." Her voice is watery and distant, shrouded by the veil. Her gaze, glassy and clear, drifts to Thranduil. "And one of our guests."

[rowancrowned]

He has not seen Alvar like this before, but he has seen things like her, and especially the thing over her shoulder. He wonders about these things crafted by Celebrimbor's hand, but yet influenced enough by Sauron to leave things such as this in their wake.

"I know you, who made Myrobalan whole," he says. Perhaps he ought to lunge for Luca, to wrest the thing upon her right hand from her. "Why do you linger, when you yet might go to your rest at the Maker's hand?"

He knows, but he asks anyway. Is she herself aware, with what is left of her?

[laurenande]

Alvar looks to him blankly, it is the look of a hollow thing. He speaks and she focuses, becoming just marginally more solid as she regards him. She steps toward them, jagged and jumping, and Luca freezes in her terror.

"Why would I rest? I can do so much," she says and her gaze lists to Luca. "I just need that ring."

There is no pause between her speaking and her action. It happens simultaneously, as the sound ceased there is a vacuum, a short gasping inhale as something on Alvar's face twists and the shade that looms around her takes her place. It stands tall and broad, heavier than the other wraiths, more formed and less twisted, its angles harsher and without the spindling quality that haunts the others.

It's hand shoots out, grabbing Luca's arm and lurching it forward. The touch is sharp, glassy and carving, and it strips off layers of flesh from her forearm as it tugs. She shrieks and yanks backward on instinct, only to cause more damage when she cannot budge the grip on her. The flesh under its grip turns white with frost, burning beneath that blackened hand, and it only causes Luca to struggle more, blind panic overtaking her.