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

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.

[faithlikeaseed]

It is--from everything she says, everything she does--even worse than Myr thought and his heart sinks in his breast. Bad enough the odds are so far against them; that, at least, he could work himself into a place of hope about. But to see the one who knows truly what had caused this and where it led look as crushed as she does sends a shiver through his resolve.

And then she begins to explain and he drops his eyes, shoulders rounding as the full weight of her words settles on him.

"But it is not something to be used. For any ends."

"Then we've failed the test set for us." The words are quiet and miserable and quite without explanation as he clears his throat, rallies his courage, and looks up at her again.

"Can it change someone so--completely, even if they'd not will it? Turn the gentlest soul into a murderer?" These aren't the questions he should be asking; he should be thinking of the battle ahead, ask her if there's any easier way to slay them, to stop them. Or to contain the relic. But it has been a long day, and he is tired and heartsore and needs a different sort of hope than that of victory to keep going.

[laurenande]

"What?" She asks and is stirred from her despair. Myr has adopted her posture--the weight that has settled over her heart has settled on his own and, while the made sense to her as it occurred, now she questions it. He does not know what they face, he has not seen the capabilities of the Shadow. He is...ah. He is taking his cues from her and...yes, she is distraught.

"No, it cannot, not alone," Galadriel tells him, assures him of a truth she isn't even certain of herself. If nothing else, these women have not held it long enough to be corrupted.

"It is mine," she admits, though it clearly strains her to do so. "It is...it is a ring of power...and you've nothing like it in Thedas, not that I have heard tale of."

She sits upright again, drops her hand and tries to regain her posture, her composure, but it is a challenge. She is weary and still poisoned, her weakness will not fade quickly and she lacks the power to will it away. The words she has to speak fight her, they go against every fiber of her being, of her resolve, and to simply explain them to anyone at all is a battle.

"By its nature it is dangerous, but so are all items of great power. It is among the greatest gifts that can be bestowed, but it is a burden as well. To use it, even with the desire to do great good, is to take immeasurable risk. These women did not know that, they could not know that.

"It did not change them...but it did ensnare them."

Here she pauses and takes a breath, steels herself for the twin admission that lies within this explanation.

"To use a ring of power is to become bound to it," she says and her voice quiets and gains an phantom edge that it did not have before, "...you desire it, crave it, and in its absence...It is a torment, a gnawing hunger. They were unprepared for it...for the lack of it...and it made them what they are."

She is guessing now and she shakes her head.

"I do not know enough of your veil, of the fade, or the spirits of men to do more than guess, Myrobalan. The ring..." she hesitates and then corrects herself: "My ring does not change the bearer. What motivates these creatures now, I can only guess, but I would assume they are drawn to it. To the ring. As they were in life."

[faithlikeaseed]

It is a great deal to take in all at once--though at least Myr uncurls from his despondency in the act of absorbing it, cataloguing, putting each piece of information into its place in the abbey's puzzle. (Each with an image, a touchstone in the Circle tower of his memory, grown all the more vivid now it can hold the very sight of the things he memorizes: A statue of a wraith, frozen twisted with its sword upraised, looms above fanned-out tokens encoding Galadriel's words on the ring.)

It's a lot to take in all at once, but it is--in some ways--what he'd hoped to hear. They hadn't known what they'd done in all innocence and good will; but they hadn't been coerced into it beyond their wills and natures. Terrible as the ring is, it's not blood magic, hadn't committed that awful violation of those poor brave souls. Myr lets out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding to hear that. "Like lyrium, then," he says nearly to himself. "Where hunger for it might drive a templar mad--"

And what has it done to you, dear lady? That particular question he doesn't put to voice, instead trailing off as he studies Galadriel with new concern. (For her, not of her, never of; his is not a suspicious heart.) "And like lyrium there's not anything else that will soothe them now, is there?"

How could there be any substitute for power? Even--especially--the power to help, to heal. He would not, he knows, be able to give up something like that and it humbles him to think it.

[laurenande]

Galadriel does not comment upon the comparison he draws, on its accuracy or otherwise. There is a sharpness to her gaze as he postulates, as he comes close to understanding, and grants her a concerned look. There is so much more she would have to explain for him to understand...and she does not even begin to.

"No," she says, quite simply. There is little regret and even less pity in that word and she realizes it once she has spoken. She draws a slow breath, then and shakes her head.

"No, there is nothing that can salve this wound," she clarified and tries to be gentle, but it is a trick. "It is a kindness to die, once they are so consumed by it; we must do them another kindness and dispatch them if we can."

[faithlikeaseed]

The answer clearly sits ill with Myr from the look of rank dismay that flashes across his face. He knows it for what it is--soft-hearted sentiment in the face of brutal fact--and bridles his tongue rather than exclaim in horror at the thought. (Lyrium, in retrospect, is too dear a comparison to make, knowing what it will do to the templars he knows over time. Knowing it is a kindness to die, for them in the end.)

It's only once he's certain he's mastered his own emotions he speaks again: "Then we're in for an awful fight, aren't we?"

There are--a million other questions his mind seethes with, a million other things he wants to ask her to try and pull apart the horror of the ring--her ring--and why and how it was made, and what would have happened if they'd simply left well enough alone. But she is tired, and he is tired, and he is also very aware of how little time they might have against an opponent that can appear anywhere and strip flesh from bone by her touch.

There are a handful more pertinent questions he could ask--what must we do, why do they hate spirits so thoroughly, how can they be killed--but that's hedging for time when he's already got inklings of the answers. "I've told the Revered Mother to get her folk out of here. Is there a way to bait Alvar out?" A pause, a beat, as he realizes what Alvar'd been trying to do all along, why they're out here at all--

"Will she come for you next?"

[laurenande]

Galadriel allows his first question to fall away, to be as rhetorical as she expects it actually is. She does not comment on the flash of dismay or the softness in his tone, they are rightfully there and, in truth, they raise her estimation of him considerably. No, she is silent as he thinks.

There are many things to ask and to say and she will not lead these questions. She cannot take charge of this conversation or it shall be averted, as she has always done.

"No."

This answer, at least, is given with certainty and calm--it is good news, insofar as any of this can be.

"She is aware that I can use the ring and that I have the will to surpass her," she explains and takes a deep breath. "She knew it before we set foot here, before I tried to kill her and she nearly killed me.

"My ring...has a will of its own," she says and the gravity with which she says it dismisses the possibility of that being a turn of phrase. "She could control it, in life, but she learned too late. It wishes to return to me. It will fight her it if is tasked with my slaughter.

"It will not fight her if she seeks out the others, Rifters or Inquisition. She means to use you or to kill you. If she can use the ring like this...I do not know what will happen.

"You are the bait, I fear. She will be drawn to all of you before long...and when she comes you must cleave it from her, else slay her before she does you."

hangs lampshade

[faithlikeaseed]

...Oh.

Oh.

Galadriel’s calm admission leaves Myr staring at her in silent shock, entirely bereft of words. At this point—after this many upendings of the tidy, comfortable story he’d built for himself about those around him—his own alarm feels almost comical to him. Whatever could top all this in the succession of horrors? Maybe next Luca would turn out to have been a blood mage all along, or Brigitte would charge through the door and try to stab him, or Solas would reveal he somehow had the blood of thousands on his hands, all incidentally.

It’s a mercy all these awful revelations have come together as thickly as they have; he’s growing inured enough to recover faster every time. To start to reason again, rather than act on raw emotion—even if he’s using that reasoning to shore up his own tottering worldview just until he’s somewhere safe enough to collapse with it. “So you—knew what she intended and struck first?” That’s licit, at least, if one’s enemy was implacable as the ring apparently made them. “Or—“

He catches himself, reins the thought back and huffs out a breath. “Maker’s blood and blessed bones, what a mess.” It’s gone to shit, he’d said to Teren before even knowing the half of it. What was the stage beyond that? “All right. I—“ A brief pause, a breath, “—no, first, thank you, lady. I can’t confess I like hearing any of this but—thank you.”

She has not spoken of anything like this before—and he suspects, without knowing, there are good reasons why she’d hold it back until things were truly dire, frustrating as it may be to be kept in the dark once again on something this important. “I’d—there’s more I’d speak to you of this, if I come out of this alive,” despair creeps through in the words if not the tone and yet, that’s a knight-enchanter’s lot, “but I should leave you to your rest.”

And had he the leisure to, seek his own, but—that seems impossible right now. Adrenaline will have to do. “And—tell the others, so they know what’s coming.”

Alvar. He’ll let the betrayal of it sting later, when he has time.