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

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.