(closed) fields of red

[spellshatter]

WHO: Silas Caron, Anders
WHAT: Red lyrium ruins everything
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: A small village in Orlais
NOTES: Dealing with some farmers

Hardly surprising that they have to stay more than one night, really, for a problem this size, but until the sun sank below the horizon Silas had held out some hope that they might be able to start back toward Kirkwall right away, maybe find an inn somewhere on the road, instead of putting up tents and building a fire a safe distance from one of the ruined fields.

The tents aren't the problem, obviously. The problem is the company. It's easy enough not to talk about the enormous half-exploded, half-armored druffalo in the room while they've been talking about the fields infested with red lyrium and the various difficult personalities involved in handling it, but now there's nothing new to look at except the stew starting to steam over the fire, and the dark beyond it, and the mage.

Silas looks at him, thinks about saying a few things, and then settles on, "Think we could forge something summoning those stubborn asses to another city for a while?"

It's ridiculous, but it's better than most of the other options.

Comments

[justice_is_blond]

He wonders, often, if the Maker pays just enough attention to the world to give him headaches. It's not a serious wondering. The Maker doesn't actually give any care at all. But he has to wonder something as he sits at a campfire with a Templar, alone in the dark, contemplating if he should start drilling on how to grab his knife quickly should someone feel like smiting him and taking him out.

The question makes him start, suddenly looking up. That's great. Drifting off into thoughts when he could be stabbed, truly the top choice of the intelligent.

"Um." It's not even an antagonistic question. It's a joke. This particular Templar hasn't been particularly antagonistic, he's been far better than a vast majority of them by actually being civil, but that doesn't mean Anders had expected anything along the lines of a joke being offered.

"I think you're the second Templar to ever joke with me," he says with a little wonder, speaking his mind a little more than he'd meant to. A moment later he's raising his hand and shaking his head, dismissing that comment.

"I've a spell that can yank someone to me, but that only really grabs one person at a time." There's a short beat before he decides to give Caron a fair shot. "How are you at standing in the dark and making spooky noises? As in, awooo, I'm a red lyrium monster here to eat your children and your toes noises."

[spellshatter]

The second Templar, he says, and Silas makes a note: when the Circles come back, suggest mandatory Templar jokes as a reform. Clearly the lack of them was the problem.

—and there is a problem. Not one that shows on his face, particularly, save that his answering smile mainly only uses one half of his mouth, like the other half knows better. It’s the sort of face a man might make while appreciating humor at a funeral. Nothing insincere about it, just sincerity weighted by some awful knowledge that can’t be shaken off just like that.

In this case the awful knowledge is twofold. There’s who Anders is, what he did, no matter how harmless he looks now. And there’s the fact that among those red lyrium monsters are some of the only real family Silas has ever known.

But he says, “A little out of practice,” subdued in a way that could be from the dark and the long day before it rather than any secret sadness, and nudges a log with his boot to make the fire spark. “Maybe as a last resort. That yanking thing might have more promise.”