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Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

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.

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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."

"Yet here we are." Clipped short. If he were the sort to have a temper, this might be his version of it: standing quietly in a darkened room with his hand hooked loosely over the pommel of the sword at his side. He watches her, dark eyes all wolfish sharp.

"What do you mean to do about it going forward?"

Luca pulls the drawers open as he asks his questions, searching the desk. She does not bother to close them and only pauses when she must pull a key from the ring at her hip. Every other drawer she pulls something free--rolled parchment, a small box, a leather satchel that jingles with coin.

She speaks as she works, answering as she tosses the first item to the surface of the old desk. She does not stand where the blood stains the floorboards.

"We are leaving. The Abbey must be closed, we cannot remain, not another night."

It is cowardice that moves her, true, but the scar on her right hand is a new one and the magic that healed that wound is not miraculous. She has trouble holding the keys.

That, finally, is a relief: a sensible view of events and what must come out of them. The rest - her willingness to be party to any of this, her hesitation over naming the demons for they so clearly are - may not square, but a commitment to leading the vulnerable people here away from the danger at least makes sense. It's what a Revered Mother of a chantry ought to do. The normalcy of that tempers the sharpest edge of him even as it inspires some matched impatience.

If that's the conclusion she's come to, why are they standing here still?

"What arrangements have been made? Have you sent word to the village? Where do you mean to go?"

"None, we've never planned for this and the Abbey doesn't have...there's nothing but walking to be done," she says as she loots the desk for everything worth taking with them. Her strain is palpable as she reveals their vulnerability to him aloud.

"We have no way to send them word, but we must leave before someone can go and return to us, we must leave now."

She puts the papers, the box, the money into the pocket beneath her vestment and moves to the wall. She stares at the books a long moment and indecision makes her draw up short.

"There is a boat at the base of the cliffs, and a path that leads to it, but it will not be easy moving the ill. Everyone must be roused...but I am not sure we can do that. She may react badly."

She.

"Nonsense," he says, short and sharp. "You've no need to have someone go and come back, Mother. Send a runner to the village to tell them to be ready - that there are sick and dying who will need shelter when they arrive."

Why is the one to tell her this? Why hasn't it occured to her on her own? Nevermind that she's hardly more than a girl; if someone in this room should be speaking sense, it shouldn't be him.

"Every minute's delayed increases the danger here. Moving them must be tried, whatever the the demon's response."

She looks at him when he corrects her--the thought had not occurred to her, she had never sent one-sided correspondence of any kind. Before she had come here, she had been a fisherman and sent nothing by runner at all. Her worry takes some shape on her face but she nods.

"I do not know who to send--I shall find someone," she replies and glances back at the books. They are all of them valuable and none of them worth taking, all at once. She turns back to him, instead but as she makes to speak, to give some other instruction to this man who stands, ready with his hand on his knife, there is a rush of cold.

The candle on the table goes out and all of the blood drains from Luca's face as they are thrown into darkness. The rain batters the windows and the rooftop and the sound shifts as it begins to freeze, as it becomes hail.

"Quickly, come we must get everyone, we must go," she urges in the darkness but, as she moves to the doorway to open it, there is a grinding metal sound down the hallway.

The small hairs at the back of his neck rise on end; the hand at his sword, easy a moment ago, closes. Here a smooth motion to draw the blade and step to the door might save some precious moment - cut whatever moves in the corridor off before it makes its way too far. Give the Mother precious moment to escape behind him to warn the others maybe.

But he hesitates, a moment of dread and fear clamping down on him as certainly as his own grip on the sword hilt. And while when he does finally draw the sword, it comes easily from its scabbard, he's halting over the door: tests the latch and does little more than crack it to peer into the dark beyond rather than rushing from the room.

The darkness of the hall is no comfort, it hides the shapes of shadows too well to be truly certain of what waits beyond. The sounds that come to him from the darkness are more telling, more terrible. There is a drag of metal and the sliding steps of feet. Not one creature but two approach, their footfalls in unison as they lurch down the hall with movements more pointed and measured than Marcoulf has ever experienced.

In the auditorium they were disjointed and uncoordinated, moved like peasants on a battlefield, untrained and unaware of what they ought to fear. Now they move like soldiers, shadow specters in lock step with a purpose.

Luca dives in behind him and loops her arm through his. She levers all her weight against him and attempts to haul him from the door, despite her concerns about his sword or the danger he may pose.

"Quickly, this way," she urges in a shouted whisper and tries to lead him to the window. It is easily large enough to climb through and the fall is not terrible. Should they leave that route they will be exposed, but only for the short distance to the dormitories.

He starts at her touch, the hiss of her whisper, all his nerves snapping sharp for the weight she throws into levering him from the door. But he's smart enough or lucky enough to keep his hand steady at the door instead of slamming it closed even as he twists free her. He does close it though, a stumbling click of the latch - all too happy to leave it. To leave the regimented stalking of the wraiths to their darkness and follow her tugging and hauling toward the window.

--And thinks, halfway there, that the door should be blocked. Almost reaches for a chair or one of the bookcases, hesitates there in the center of the dark room for a split second-- and then crosses the rest of the way to the hiss of rain at the window, sheathing the sword with a hiss of metal.

"Go on, Mother. I'll follow you down. Mind your footing."

Luca does not need to be instructed twice, not as the marching of the wraiths grows closer, and she opens the window and climbs through it with as much speed as she can muster.

The ground outside it lower than in, when she lands it it with a soft thump. Ultimately the window is above her head and she steps away to make room for Marcoulf. The air outside is biting and the ground underfoot is wet but crunches, now, with the addition of the falling hail and the cold that has started to freeze the surface of the mud. Luca's little lantern, the one tied to her hip, glitters weakly in the darkness as she waits for him, already eager to dart to the cloister or the dormitories and away from this threat.

Inside the building, the wraiths come upon the door, their feet scraping the ground heavily, their swords dragging against the hallway walls. They shall breech the room shortly and, once they are inside, it would be best to be elsewhere.

He doesn't linger. The moment Luca's feet touch the ground, he's climbing through the window and dropping after her - clink of metal, the awkward thump of his sword battering against his thigh. Marcoulf's hand closes on Luca's arm.

"This way. Let's go." Away from that damned window. He leads her rapidly from the wall's shadow, cutting hard and sharp for the dormitory. He doesn't release her arm.

Luca doesn't struggle against him as they flee, her steps are right after his, quick and eager to be away. The distance to the dormitories is not wide but, before they even make it to the kitchen door, they can hear the destruction of the office behind them. The shattering of glass echoes out into the treeline.

Luca gives a small yelp and slaps her hand over her mouth as the sound rings out. They dive into the darkened kitchen and, once again, they are alone. The sound of rain drowns out the sounds outside and the door closes heavily behind them, drawn by the chill of the outdoors.

Marcoulf's hand stays steady (or clinging) there at her arm through it - through the battery of the rain and the dark and the glass shattering pang and the desperate little move it takes to duck inside the dark of the kitchen.

It's a beat of quiet. A strangled second of hesitation where he listens to the dark and the rain. "Lead on," he says after a long moment. "I'll mind you."

Luca nods and moves without thinking, tugging against his grip on her arm. She offers him a short look and then looks to the ceiling.

"We should wake your friends, the rest of them," she says. "They are best equipped to help us and they must leave as quickly as we do."

She hesitates as she glances back at the darkened stairwell beyond the kitchens. It is not frigid here, for the moment they are safe, but she also has no idea why those wraiths were looking for her. Why they destroyed the office is a mystery.

"You should go first," she says and looks back. "I...would not expect them to be glad at the sight of me in the darkness."

Nevermind the reason he'd come to her in the first place. This makes sense: following direction. She doesn't need to tell him a second time. With a nod, Marcoulf takes the lead: one hand at his dagger should he need it, the other with its fingers still pinched in the heavy sleeve of her robes - leading like a child might up the darkened stair.

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Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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