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

Galadriel - Post Flooded Basement

[laurenande]

Galadriel is pale and drawn when she and Solas return to their shared room. Her wounds are healed but still she is unwell and she takes to bed immediately. Solas lingers at her side for long spans, leaving only briefly and for small tasks. She does not sleep, despite resting, but why she remains awake is hardly a question worth asking.

The wraiths dont travel here, but they pass below and around these rooms with some frequency. The temperatures are warmer here but they vary wildly as the creatures meander below.

POUNCES

[chainlightning]

Merrill doesn't fling herself at Galadriel, but it's a near thing. She had been so worried, and then hearing that she had been in the flooded basement, seeing her now... it brings back too many memories, and Merrill lets her staff clatter to the floor in favor of gripping one of Galadriel's hands in both of her own as she kneels next to her.

(If Solas is there, Merrill doesn't notice or care, for the moment; she'll care only if she has to fight him off in order to be with the closest thing she's had to a mother in years.)

"I tried searching for you- oh, mamae, is there anything I can do for you? Anything I can get?"

Galadriel first, questions about what happened later.

[laurenande]

Merrill drops down at her side and takes her hand and Galadriel, despite her weakness, does not hesitate to pull the younger elf into an embrace. When she had found out how long she had been missing, in this place, she had feared for Merrill, for the others who did not know what lurked here. To see her hale and whole is enough to nearly bring Galadriel to tears.

"I am fine," she assures Merrill quietly and she does not sound fine, but she is not wounded any longer. She holds the young woman for a long moment before a tremor begins in her arms and she is forced to let her go and rest against the bed again.

"You are not hurt--I am so glad."

[chainlightning]

She squeezes her and, when Galadriel can no longer sit up, helps ease her back into the bed. It's bold of her to do so, but Merrill reaches up to tuck some of Galadriel's hair behind her ears, brushing it out of her face.

"A few scrapes, but nothing else," she says, not wanting Galadriel to worry if she sees one of the scrapes. "The earth itself protects me, when I ask it to. No need to worry."

There's all the need to worry and they both know it, but Merrill wants Galadriel to heal, not to fret about her.

[laurenande]

"There is need," Galadriel says and takes her hand as she withdraws it from her face. Her expression is just this side of desperate but falls back into worry without much delay.

"I--" she starts and pauses, unsure of how to say this. "These creatures are without control. This will escalate, they will come for us--I cannot protect you from them."

[chainlightning]

"Spirits of greed," Merrill whispers, in case those same spirits are nearby. "Or very much like them, I'd think."

She squeezes Galadriel's hand, to try and reassure the both of them. She thinks it comes off a bit more desperate instead.

"There's- ruins, in the forest, just beyond the garden. We saw something there, something that claimed to be a former Revered Mother - Odetta. She said they wanted something they could not have, something precious from the rift; she wanted it even in death, you could tell. She was hungry for it." Merrill shivers from the memory more than the cold. "She told us it was dangerous and that we should leave. I'm not sure if she meant the ruins or the entire island, but... I couldn't leave without you."

[laurenande]

"Greed?" She repeats but listens as Merrill explains, as she shares her findings. Galadriel's expression is, at first confused and then it blanks to something like horror. She draws Merrill's hand to her, holds it against her chest, and is silent a moment.

"I am thankful for you, Merrill, more than you can know--" she says and there is apology in her face. "I can't leave...I must take the item they covet. They cannot keep it, it will consume them.

"We must find it and it must leave in our possession."

[chainlightning]

"I know," she murmurs. "I've never seen anything quite like this, but we need to break the cycle. That much is clear to me."

The deaths, the cold, the way spirits linger and yearn for something that they cannot have, the way they hunger for it... it's not anything they can allow to continue. As much as Merrill wishes to leave with everyone in tow, for her injured friends to be healed and rest back in Kirkwall, she knows they can't. Not yet.

Merrill leans into her, though she's careful not to rest her weight on Galadriel's body. It's a bit of an awkward angle, but she wants the touch, the reassurance that Galadriel is there.

"Is- did they do something to you? Marcoulf said he found you in the basement."

[laurenande]

"They meant to kill me," Galadriel says without artifice, heedless of the awkward angle she has put Merrill at. She rises up with some effort, sits at her bed, and leans closer to speak to the younger elf.

"I--" She cannot lie to Merrill, even if it is for her safety. "I tried to take it, once I found who held it. I had thought to end this quickly, but I failed and the situation is more dire than I imagined.

"I do not recall Marcoulf, but it would not let me die. If I was placed there, kept safe, it was not by the doing of these people."

[hello_there]

Obi-Wan has been this tired. He has been so weary and wounded that weeks were spent in bacta tanks, that life seeped grey and unwilling out of every interaction. He has seen so much, and this weariness is troublingly familiar, the kind of tiredness that bids you sleep, and sleep, and wake up somehow more tired than before, and sore besides.

But just because he has been this tired, it doesn't follow that he's interested in a repeat performance. More's the pity; he has no choice.

"Galadriel," He replies, leaning into the doorjamb, both arms folded into his sleeves in what is, for once, a deliberate concealment, "It's good to see you awake. We all feared the worst."

Not that the worst is yet out of the question, come to think of it.

[laurenande]

"It was certainly the goal," Galadriel answers from her place in bed. She does not open her eyes, not immediately, but she does turn to regard him once she does. She looks quite terrible and her expression is grim.

"Has no one else been attacked yet?"

[hello_there]

"Technically speaking, we attacked them," he replies, with the worn-down exasperation of someone who has had to say that phrase before, "Thranduil."

That name is, apparently, explanation enough. Some names are. He sighs heavily to express his opinion on the matter and pushes himself one-handed off the door-jamb, coming to pull a chair out and sit nearer by her side.

"There were casualties. Have you been told what happened? I wish I could say that we have the luxury of time to rest and recover..."

[laurenande]

"No, I was not told," Galadriel informs him as he draws near and sits. She looks a bit alarmed at Thranduil's name being used, the meaning is just vague enough to imply that he had been hurt--but she has seen him quite recently. So he attacked. She expects it was warranted but does not say as much.

"There is no luxury here, and there shall be less shortly--tell me the tale and we can move forward."

[hello_there]

"The abbey invited us all to attend a... ceremony, you might call it..."

Obi-Wan related shortly the events of the day in short, professional terms, as factual and free from emotion as he could make them, which was considerable. He spoke of the rift, the wraiths, the apparent suicidal disaffection of the crowd, how the fight had begun, and the fate of the Reverend Mothers, as he knew it. He mentioned the roof, Myr's eyes, the sickness that had taken the abbey afterward, and everything else of real significance— except himself.

"We know they can be killed," He said, at last, "But what matters more is what's creating all this. It has to stop."

[laurenande]

"You have killed one?" Galadriel asks, somewhat aghast. "It did not reform, it did not arise again to the call of the--Revered Mother?"

Her expression is horrified but hopeful, it is an odd combination and one that sits uneasily on her face. The account of the fight, of the miracles, and of the remaining plights of the Abbey do not seem to surprise her in the slightest an, perhaps, that is more telling than it ought to be.

"How?"

[hello_there]

Obi-Wan looks up at her, surprised, and hesitates yet further, when he sees her face. His frown deepens; ah, so she knew something about all this, or at least more than she ought...

...unless.

"You know what's happening here."

It isn't an answer to her question, except insofar as that it's a confirmation of the assumption that lies within it; that the wraith is dead enough, and that Obi-Wan had killed it. The curtain of weariness pulls back a little, and Obi-Wan looks out from under that veil with great disapproval, as if Galadriel were no older, nor wiser, than a child.

[laurenande]

It wasn't a question and Galadriel looks back at him, unmoved by the reprimand in his stance and expression. She draws herself up in bed and sits--it requires some great effort on her part, but she does so anyway. Once she is seated, she looks him dead in the eye.

"I do."

She doesn't explain, not unprompted, and instead asks:

"Have you checked to make certain it is dead? That is has not returned? They are not easily slain."

hello what up! open 2 solas

[faithlikeaseed]

He'd asked Luca for the library, and whether he could burn the bodies, and got-- Considerably more for his troubles, information that ought to be acted on right away. He isn't sure where everyone might be (has a hunch on at least one of them but--he's not seeking Anders out for this first) and he is exhausted and still faintly damp, so it is natural his steps turn toward the dormitories.

He climbs the stairs without really seeing any of it, finds his way to the quarters he'd been assigned without lifting his head from his internal ruminations, steps inside--

Finally looks up as something that wasn't here when he was in it last to change his sodden robes impinges on his senses. "Lady Galadriel?" he breathes, troubled and glad at once to know she's back among them. Alvar hadn't succeeded.

nammuch sup wit you

[laurenande]

Galadriel is resting in bed, her arms above the covers but the rest of her tucked in beneath a thick blanket. She looks pale and drawn, waterlogged, but more angry than ill. She turns a tired stare at Myr and there is a moment before her look turns happy and then rueful at once.

"So it was true, the accounting of your eyes," she says. "I hope I look as you imagined."

oh you know

[faithlikeaseed]

“It is,” he replies; and somehow it gladdens his heart a measure to see someone else glad of it. “And—forgive me, lady, you look as if you’ve been dragged through the Void, lovely as you are.”

Though considering all that had happened, it’s better than the alternatives. He steps all the way into the room, closing the door and feeling around for chair to position near her bed. “It is good to see you though, no mistake. I— just now learned of the attempt on your life.”

[laurenande]

"Near enough to it, I think," she says, amusement creeping into her flat tone, and though she looks very much like she would prefer to lie back, to look away from him and sleep, she does not. When he moves and feels for the chair, pulls it to the bedside and sits, her expression turns grateful and she relaxes her neck so that she can rest her head back on the pillow beneath it.

"And it was a decent attempt, no mistake, but I shall not perish," she says. "At least not from it alone."

[faithlikeaseed]

Her look of utter weariness tugs at his heart; politeness would say he get up, leave the room, and give her leave to rest. But the situation is dire and--he suspects--if it were not she'd have been asleep already, from the look of her.

So.

His expression goes troubled at her comment; he sighs and leans forward to lace his hands together before him, elbows on his knees. "Though with your attacker still on the loose," and far more dangerous than she'd been before, "that surely won't be the last.

"I came to find the others; I know--what's caused all this, and where it's gotten to now." He suspects--but doesn't know, doesn't know how all the pieces fit together--that she's also got more certain knowledge of the situation than any of them have; why else would Alvar target her, suspect her of trying to take the relic away and strip the healing from those who received it.

You didn't fear someone who had no idea what you were doing.

[laurenande]

"Yes, once I heard of your eyes, I expected you would know," Galadriel replies and sighs. There is a moment of something akin to shame that dances across her face and she shifts, pushing herself up and, by some effort sitting so that they may speak.

"Tell me, before this conversation becomes fraught," she continues, already tired from the effort of shifting. "Where is it now? Who bares it?"

[faithlikeaseed]

When she says it that way, he realizes what had lurked beneath his concerns all along: He had known, if not consciously; he had told her he would aid her however he could in finding what she sought. And so—here he is, winding a spiral into one palm with the thumb of his other palm, restless and aching in his grief but anxious to see this completed. As is she.

“Alvar—the previous Revered Mother, who—who died to give me my sight back,” he cannot hide how much it hurts to know someone who did that was also capable of murder, of assaulting her own subordinate, “stripped it from its erstwhile bearer. She—her spirit has it now.”

[laurenande]

Galadriel draws a long breath and lets her eyes close as she gains the confirmation she feared. The ring is held by the dead, by the one with the will to use it. Something in her seems to wilt at that and she leans forward, propping her head into her hand as she thinks.

"There is a word for them, those things that they become," Galadriel tells him and she sounds weary as she speaks. "In every language I know, save yours. The most fitting is their own word: Nazgûl. They are wraiths...though they are not usually so...literally dead."

Myr is kind and his hesitance, his stutter is more telling than it ought to be. Galadriel cares not for these people, but she more than any understand their plight. Myr has been helped, he has been given a gift Galadriel would not have offered him, one that is so generous it defies reason.

She will not speak ill of them, it is not her place.

"What they have...they have used it with kindness and generosity...but it is not something to be used. For any ends."

She waits then because, of course, he must have questions and in the quiet of this room she will answer them.