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

[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.