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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It is fortunate that Anders recalls he cannot touch her because, at the moment, that consideration is so far from Galadriel's mind she would have foregone warning him entirely. She releases the bandages clutched to her stomach and Solas does her the courtesy of drawing her dress away from the wound.

It is a direct injury. A very well honed dagger straight in to her abdomen and drawn straight back out again. It bleeds sluggishly and in time with her pulse as it is permitted to do so. Galadriel only spares it a short glance before she looks up, away, to Solas.

She wants to ask questions, of both him and Thranduil, but they are not alone and she is not so far gone as to think she can bring up anything around anyone at all.

"Apart from this, I am uninjured," she tells Anders, though her hand shakes a bit where it grasps the makeshift bandages she had pressed against the wound.

Solas gets a nod, and then the two male elves are basically invisible to him. They're there, he can hear Thranduil make a noise, but it's Galadriel who has his attention as he kneels beside her.

"Are you," he half-asks grimly. Blood loss can cause a lot, but not that shade of green in her skin, nor what he's seeing in her eyes. Infection could, but he can neither see nor smell that setting in; the wound is too new.

"There's poison in your system." It's the one line that connects the dots. "Do any of you know where the weapon is that caused the wound? I can use a generic salve to counter the poison if it's missing, but seeing it could let me give her something meant for it, something that would definitely be effective instead of possibly."

In the meantime, he's pulling out a clean cloth from one of his belt pouches, as well as a flask. Clear, sharp-smelling alcohol is poured onto the cloth and then dabbed into the wound with care. He doesn't want to cause more damage, and he also doesn't want to singe his own hands.

All of Solas' attention is focussed on Galadriel and the healer touching her - and he wishes, desperately, that his own magic could help her more. If it was the Anchor or something to do with a Rift then he might be better able, but he is not, and it frustrates him. He feels utterly powerless, and that is something that Solas does not allow himself to consider often. It happens, true, thanks to the nature of his losses and the state of the Inquisition, but...

He turns his head as Anders speaks, his fingers brushing over Galadriel's knuckles in a rare public showing of his tenderness - as if carrying her himself had not been enough to show what feeling he had towards her. What is the point of hiding it when his worry is colouring his face?

"Vhenan," he whispers again before his eyes turn quickly to Thranduil. It would be easy to mistake who he was calling what, but he hardly cares. He nods to his friend. It's up to him to decide if the dagger will be shared, as Solas knows how it is to keep secrets.

Everyone had their specialities, and they had yet to receive the blessing of an elf with healing abilities passing through the rifts, so Anders it was. And Anders is not stupid; she was stabbed, there is a knife. No sense in hiding what they have.

Galadriel's wellness is far more important than that.

Thranduil squats down beside Anders, and pulls the knife from within his robe, offering it wordlessly to the mage. It was buried in her underwater, then carried in soaked robes. Whatever he can glean from it is whatever is left to clean.

A poisoned knife speaks too much to forethought for his comfort.

Solas' touch says far more than the word. That the word can be something of a petname or term of endearment Anders knows, but Merrill's used it everywhere. Any speculation is cut short with the offer of the weapon, though.

"Thank you," he says with some relief. That makes his job easier, or should. He takes it with care. Maybe he'd be able to have safe physical contact with Thranduil, but on the off chance Anders would much rather take precautions.

Nothing obvious presents itself as he looks it over. There's no residue, which is... well. Considering the blood on it and the soaked nature of all three elves, maybe he should have expected that. But that doesn't stop him from quickly rifling through his belt pouch and grabbing a couple specific dried leaves, dropping them into a vial with an electric blue liquid in it. They fizz as he drips the liquid on the knife. The fizzing doesn't change. There's nothing left. Between the blood and the water, whatever was on the knife is gone. Even the burn marks on the handle don't tell him anything; it's a painfully common dagger, much like what he's seen on many Inquisition members.

Exhaling, mind still racing, he holds the blade back out to Thranduil. Something is hurting her beyond the wound. Beyond the blood loss. He looks again at the color of her skin, the shape of her pupils, and catches the scent of something familiar. It's like what Estmond was using to keep his patients sedated. It can't exactly be that, she can't be having that bad a reaction to that, but at least it gives him a heading. The next blend of herbs he makes is more along the lines of a stimulant, and he holds it out to Solas.

"Give this to her, at her pace." At least he can close the wound, too.

He did not have much hope for the knife, at least, but he thinks that Thranduil has more of an understanding of the trail to follow than he does. He is here to make sure that Galadriel is well taken care of, that she is safe, that she can heal and is given the space to do so. His concern is, foremost, making sure that she survives this with no lasting effects. After that he can concern himself with who and what had trapped her, making sure they are given the vengeance that they are due.

Taking the herbs, Solas reaches down and begins to look at the wound, his expression gentle and intimate, letting himself take the role of active participant since Anders himself is not able to do it.

"I will." It's an easy promise to make - as though he will leave her side any time soon.

"I will take it gradually," she agrees and, with the impatience in her tone, seeks to remind Anders that she remains in this life yet. She is still addled, and disoriented, but she is not dead. All directions and questions need not be posed to the others, she is not so weak from bloodloss and poison that she cannot speak.

That it is a near thing does not escape her.

His magic has helped the wound in her gut, it has halted the bleeding entirely. It hurts still, but that, she imagines, has more to do with the poison or the days spent with it lingering inside her. Her hands and Solas's shirt are soaked in blood and water.

"If it does very little?"

The both of them get a wry smile to briefly flicker over his face.

"You're weak, Galadriel. They need to know how to assist you. It is no little thing to be able to care for someone you care about." He knows full well that it's difficult to let other people help, but she and Solas both need it here. Possibly Thranduil as well.

But now for her question, and the reason the smile was so short-lived. "It may only do a little. The lack of anything on the knife is... frustrating." To put it mildly. "But the herbs will help, you're no longer bleeding, and I'll keep a close eye on your recovery and continue to tend to you. You'll make it. It may be a long climb back to normalcy, however."

Some people would want the truth sugar-coated. He'd been fairly certain she wouldn't want that even without the tone she'd taken.

"It was the wine," she says, without prompt and keeps her eyes on Anders and Anders alone. It is an admission to a scene they are unaware of. Their assumptions had been well enough, but she will not pass because of her own carelessness.

"Find the bottle, tend to me when we are freed of this place. We have no time for long climbs and normalcy now."

Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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