faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

WHO: All characters signed up to participate in the Battle of Ghislain
WHAT: The Inquisition faces off against the armies of Corypheus
WHEN: Covers most of the day on 11.28 (forward-dated)
WHERE: The Fields of Ghislain, Orlais
NOTES: This is Post #1, covering the battle itself and the retreat. It contains top-levels for each of the teams and an open prompt for the retreat. The OOC post with more information/explanation is HERE. If you're not sure which team your character is on, there's a LIST. POST #2 covers the aftermath of the battle.

Scouts accurately report the enemy's movements: after a slight slow-down believed to indicate that word reached the of the Allies' sudden appearance in their path, they have elected to remain on-course, and arrive almost precisely when and where they were expected. By sunset the night before they are making camp just over the rise to the northeast, easily visible from the hill, and as night falls their fires can be seen winking along the horizon, a close-packed glow.

The mood in the camp is tense, openly jittery rather than the tightly-wound nerves of the past month, but with a sense almost of relief that after so much preparation and so many weeks of anticipation, the day has finally arrived. Some corners of the camp, particularly the greener recruits and the Antivan veterans, are raucous around their campfires, singing and drinking, playful brawls breaking out, but commanders are strict about the wine rations, and even those who choose to take the edge of this way make an early night of it. A scattered handful of men attempt to quietly slip away during the night, mostly Orlesian conscripts, but a few Inquisition agents as well. Some succeed, but others are caught and imprisoned--the Inquisition's few held to be returned to Skyhold where it can be determined if they are traitors or merely cowards, the Orlesians only as long as it takes to find a tree and an audience to watch them hang and spread the cautionary tale.

It is expected that the enemy, hoping to make up for its surprise at finding the Allies prepared for their arrival, will attempt to catch them off-guard by attacking before dawn instead of waiting, as is traditional, for first light. They are all roused from their beds to form up in the dim grey as quietly as possible, moving into formation in the wet grass, a heavy morning fog lingering on the field ahead. It's cool and raw, the air still. But the ground moves: the shudder and rumble of hooves striking earth, felt before it is heard. The Orlesians raise their pikes, the front line braces, and it begins.

TEAMS 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • RETREAT
Team members can break off into smaller groups within their top-level prompts—it doesn’t need to be one 13-character thread—and the retreat is an open free-for-all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He smiles, though it is more like a grimace. It is not Solas' fault that every step jars what aches; a cart would do it the same, will do it, assuming they make it to one. Solas has untapped potentials, and if something comes too close, if they are caught, he knows that his body will at least burn cleanly, kept from the hands of either Corypheus or the Darkspawn, both terrible fates.

If he dies here, it will be forever. There will be no Mandos to catch his fea. Should he be panicked about that?

He turns his head into Solas' chest, and listens to his heartbeat, steady and calming and carrying them both on. When he is handed to the carts, he will let himself go, but not until then, though not for lack of trust in Solas.

"You are unharmed?" Stubborn. He will not go into the darkness without knowing that. Not when he will not have this chance again for a very long time. Not when he has missed it keenly for the few weeks he has been deprived of it.

There is more, perhaps, that Solas could do to ease his pain; he has healing enough for the Anchor, knowledge enough to soothe some aches, but he is not inclined. It is not just pettiness that wars inside him: the understanding that if they are attacked he will be the one to defend Thranduil is something he cannot ignore. He must keep himself prepared and ready, as this is still a battlefield and there is no time for idleness. It is not the first war he has fought and he knows well enough it will not be the last.

At the very least he has decided that Thranduil will not die here. That is the choice he has made, despite the frustrating path it opens before him. He could - but he cannot.

He can feel the moment that the other man leans into him, trusting him to carry him from the field to the cart, to safety. It is such a frustrating thing - to know that he is trusted, even now, to think that Thranduil imagines him so kind-hearted as to not leave him to fall where he stands. It is so painful to be so trusted when his own had been ripped from him, and in his exhaustion Solas feels a little as though he might break. He longs for forgiveness but cannot give it - not until he has had time to mourn his secrecy, until he feels comfort wrap around him like a warm fire.

Months. Perhaps years. It is not as though they are lacking for time, the pair of them, ancient to the bone and weary in mind. They are akin to a coin, two sides in mirror image of one another, and he wishes he could deny how glad that thought had made him once. He wishes he could deny the depth of his affection even as he trudges, shoeless, through the dirt and mud and gore to head to the healers. Guilt and shame even as he helps save a life.

"I am fine." Not entirely true - one of his hands is nearly shattered from force magic, his back is bleeding, bruises and scarring and exhaustion weighing him down, but he has no reason to admit it. "I told you to stop talking. It will do you no good to waste your energy, Provost." Distance, even now, with his heart beating a solid, comforting rhythm against Thranduil's ear, arm steady around him.

"You would make an awful nursemaid," Thranduil says. His lungs are not the wounded part of him, and he grasps, recklessly, at this chance to talk with Solas, whom he has been without for so short a time, though it does not feel so.

And talking distracts him from the pain. If he is talking, what is a gasp halfway through a word? Thranduil has his scars, and they ache, a constant reminder of the poison under his skin, but they have become normal, and even Thedas, when it lessened everything else about him, lessened their ache.

"And it is mine to spend," he cuts back, teeth grit. Talking also distracts him from his list. His loves will find him, surely, as Solas did, and once the Inquisition is gathered, one of the other Heads will take over and take a count. "Perhaps I will faint again and you will be spared."

"It is a good thing that it has not been my calling, then." Solas could almost laugh, and it feels so intimately like what he had given up in his dismissal of Thranduil that his heart is heavy with the pain and hurt. It would be so easy to be jovial, to make light of the situation, to suggest a dinner once they are back in Kirkwall, to demand cakes and intimacy and parchment to draw and paint, to spend hours in idle discussion and familiar comfort.

The problem is, of course, that he must deny himself. He must surround himself with those he can trust and those he can control and Thranduil is neither. He is not trustworthy (though a quiet part of Solas can admit that he had not been as dishonest as he could have been, and there is room for forgiveness) and he cannot be quashed under the thumb of Fen'Harel.

He must tell himself that Thranduil has no use, that their friendship has run its course, no matter how sad a thought it might come to be.

Lips pursed, Solas breathes.

"Perhaps." What more should he say? He cannot offer any words of comfort or promise. Solas does not rank highly on Thranduil's list of people to care for, that is what he tells himself, denying the obvious with strict control of his emotions. His hands dig a little tighter, his gaze set forward as he breathes out sharply. "It will be your burden to bear if you do."

"Please, do not let me go," he says.

It is as much of an acknowledgement of the fact that Solas saved him that Solas is likely to be given, at least for now. The ember of it will burn in Thranduil's heart for a very long time, alongside the other things he keeps hidden there, the softnesses he risks, his calculus less ruthless than Solas', for that he draws his strength from those he would shelter.

He cannot give up being the Elvenking entirely. It is written into his bones.

Solas tightening his grip draws a hiss of pain, and his words are between clenched teeth. "What does it matter? You could find me still. You will always be able to find me. Consciousness is not a barrier."

"Do not be a fool."

It is a reasonable concern. Solas would likely let him go if it seemed inevitable that he would die, to call for someone to carry his body home. It's a cruel thing to recognise about himself, but there's no denying it. Thranduil might not be as callous, but Thranduil is not as upset with him as he is with the other man and there is no ignoring it. Solas can pretend otherwise, can act as though nothing has changed in their relationship, but there is a sharpness there now, a pain that cannot be ignored.

Solas is calculated, dangerous, callous and cold when necessary. He would end this world for the sake of a better one, even if he wishes there was another way. He is still searching for an alternative, still searching for a means of protecting the innocent while bringing down the Veil, but he cannot deny what might be inevitable. He would destroy this Thedas in the hopes of a better one, for the people to be happier, to be better.

Breathing out, he pauses for a moment, to catch his breath, to collect himself, before he continues. His words feel heavy on his tongue.

"I will not be finding you. I have no reason to waste my energy."

Thranduil feels him stop, and stews in the feeling of his own uselessness. At least he'd had the dignity of unconsciousness in Dagorlad. Solas is as tired as he, if not wounded. Maybe he is only speaking nonsense. Maybe the pain has driven him beyond himself, as the illness of the rifters had.

"I am not asking for your company," he corrects, soft. "Only repeating back what you said. 'I could find you anywhere,'" he repeats back, and makes an omission, "'no matter how far you go.'"

In a faint, in the flesh: somniari for one, the shard for the other. He does not think Solas found him this time any way but luck, and Solas has made the choice twice now to keep him alive. Once, when it would have been a struggle to dispose of him, and once, now, when he might have killed him by inaction alone. If this is not forgiveness, nothing is. The rest, the companionship, that will come later.

He is exhausted, in mind and body, but he has strength enough for this. As painful as it is to admit, Solas has a weak heart when it comes to Thranduil; no matter how easy it might be to give him death, to grant him the chance to return to the Fade and wherever it is that the Rifters might retire to, in the end. His fingers grip Thranduil tighter, do not let him go, and he curses his own actions, his own words.

There is no doubt that he would and could find Thranduil. In the depths of the Fade, across Thedas, across any plane of this world, he would discover where the other man was. There would be no hiding it, nothing that could separate the two of them. He knows it as intimately as he knows the man's shard, as well as he knows his own heart, and he breathes out a sharp noise as he keeps walking, trying to ignore it.

"You are speaking nonsense," he says finally, voice low. "There is no need to repeat words that are in the past." He turns his head to stare forward, sour and dark, refusing to admit to what is obvious between them, that affection has bloomed inside of him and made anger impossible to cling to, despite all that he wants, despite the aches in him.

He snorts a laugh, and winces at the consequences from his leg. It is undignified, but Thranduil has spent his reserve of that and will likely wrack up a debt of it in days to come. Of all the things Gwenaelle ought to have been spared in their marriage, it would have been caring for an ailing husband, the usually price for the depth of the gap between ages. But he will heal quickly, and repay it tenfound. His pride is in no danger in her hands, and as much as she might pluck at it from time to time, she plays him well.

He will see her soon.

(He refuses the idea of anything else.)

"You can lie better than that," he says, instead.

Solas ignores him for a long moment. He allows himself the silence to comfort himself, to keep parts of himself together. He must find Galadriel, check for her, ensure her safety. He must make sure no Anchors are causing pain. He must gather more wounded, surely, among the few capable of doing it still. He thinks it all to distract him from the warmth of companionship, of the intimacy he is denying himself. It would blanket him in pain otherwise and he cannot abide that.

Not when he is already so lonely, so broken in his suffering and loneliness.

“Can I?” Said idly. As if it means nothing. “I had not noticed.”

"Better than that," Thranduil pronounces. "Like an artist."

Which Solas is. The Orlesians have the tromp de l'oeil, Solas has his stories, his misdirects, the eagerness of others to jump to a conclusion. Thranduil is the one with honey on his tongue, who slips past outright omission into falsehood. What shape did Thranduil's Craft take? What does he wear upon his face? But both of them allow others to do the work for them, when possible.

"Let someone else take up the burden," he says, after a moment. He can see others around them. Wagons, being loaded. The chaos is being lashed to a purpose. He's no longer in danger of being forgotten. He won't ask that Solas see him to the very end.

"An artistic liar. I see."

He should find it complimentary, that he can paint pictures with his words as well as he can with an artistic brush, but he doesn't quite allow the words to warm him. There's no time for it, not when they are nearing the carts, when he can pass Thranduil, the Provost, to someone who will better care for him. This is not his place any longer, he thinks, and he refuses to allow himself to consider what it means to be at the other man's side, to embrace the affection that comes hand in hand with it.

"They will, soon." He glances around the people, frowning. Who can he trust with Thranduil? Most people here, he thinks, would be glad to carry the weight of a leader such as this man, would shoulder the honour with pride. Solas is reminded of how little he knows of others here and resolves to learn, swiftly.

"I am in a great deal of pain," Thranduil pronounces. "If you want a silver tongue, come back to me once they've dosed me with enough elfroot to kill a hart."

Which will be days from now. Others need it more. His complaints are as salt in the ocean.

"I have no right to ask anything of you," he says. "I will ask anyway. Before you hand me over, will you put me to sleep?"

So he can get past these next few hours. So he doesn't have to look for his son, his wife, his lover. This is not Dagorlad, but it is a battlefield, and he does not need care, or to give orders. He will be settled in a wagon and left alone, and if they need him awake in the next few hours it will be to slit his throat or cut out his shard, because it will mean Corypheus has come to catch them.

"I have no intention, but I thank you for the kindness of the offer."

There is nothing in Solas that demands that he spend more time in private with Thranduil; the risk is too high. One secret has slipped already and the risk of losing another is something that he cannot gamble. Solas' empathy on why he spoke and shared does not mean that the other man is entitled to forgiveness, not when it comes to this. Trust is a hard-won concept in the eyes of the Dread Wolf and he is not inclined to give it back when it has been lost.

Many have discovered that the hard way. He thinks of a slow arrow and breathes.

"You do not have that right." Solas says nothing more on the matter. When they reach the carts he will encourage sleep, will send Thranduil to whatever parts of the Fade it is that the Rifters spend their time, the place that he can reach and few others can muster. He could find the other man there and bask in his company, but he shall not. That right has been lost to him as well.

"Only kindness for you," he says, and turns his cheek against Solas' chest, away from what lies before them. His next exhale deflates him. While he's managed chatter for the sake of distraction from his running thoughts, he can no more keep it up than Solas can carry him all the way back to Kirkwall. Solas' steady, plodding steps are the only way he has to mark the distance, as the sky is only blue and grey.

He does not want to listen to the sounds yet coming from the field.

It reminds him starkly of the soft words spoken between them before and as Thranduil leans on him - still too tall, Solas thinks, with an odd sense of bitterness, a longing for what is long gone - he wonders if the breach between them might ever be repaired. He glances to the sky as they walk, feeling a bang, knowing the Anchor shard is there in Thranduil's body and there is nothing Solas can do to take it.

He is envious, just a slight amount, of those that carry them. That have the power that should be his.

"Foolish," he mutters quietly, and leads him to the carts, footsteps more sure, more careful as he goes.

He doesn’t laugh this time, and would smile if Solas could see it. His body is too firmly in the tense grip of pain to ripple out with amusement or be mistaken for having the lazy loll of surety.

But Thranduil has wound himself too throughly into Solas’ life with kindnesses and treats paving the way, and if a ghost of that smile or that laugh weasels in to echo in Solas’ mind, he will have done his job well.

“Wolves and deer alike run in packs,” he says, muffled. “Hardly foolish. Sentimental, perhaps.”

The silence is almost comfortable, companionable, the kind they might have shared before - before everything. Solas manages himself as well as he can, buries his feelings deep within himself as he has so often done, tries to swallow it all back, but it is a difficult thing indeed. There is nothing that he can do to force himself to ignore the pang of his heart, not when his friend - former - is so close and so harmed.

At least until he speaks, and something bitter rises, making his tongue taste of copper, of blood, of death.

"He Who Hunts Alone," Solas says softly. "The People are dead, Thranduil. There is no pack."

"Who called you that, Solas? Or did you pick it for yourself, in a fit of youthful pique." He feels warm, now, sleepy. It would be a bad sign if he were not safely in the care of someone he trusted. Too sloppy to kill him now, too messy, two chances turned down and Thranduil bloodloss lucky.

"We could be your pack," Thranduil murmurs, the tips of his fingers light, his body his and yet not, the odd mixture of hroa and fea and holding them together, which he has not thought of in a long time. "If you would allow us."

Or they could do away with the animal metaphors entirely, and speak of families, of kin and home and hope.

"Why would I chose it? I was never alone." Lord of Tricksters, The Great Wolf, Roamer of the Beyond, the old wolf, and Bringer of Nightmares. All words for rebel that they could not bring themselves to understand; all words for a man who had freed their people and been punished for it. His heart rebels against his mind even now, weighed down with all the choices he must make and the paths that twine out in front of him.

The touch is too light. There is something thick, heavy, in his throat. He feels too much, too keenly, and it burns from the inside out. He cannot abide this, and yet he longs so desperately for it. He has been alone for such a long time.

"Pack requires trust," he mutters, "and there is no trust to be found here. I will allow nothing for there is nothing to be given - there is no option, now. You have made your choice and so I shall make mine."

Here is what Thranduil has build for himself in the absence of His halls: the shelter of a lover, the security of his son returned to him, the roots and branches of friends. Everything that grounds his fight is love and duty and history in this strange, terrifying land, in this shape he finds himself in, in the Fade-crafted vessel that calls itself Thranduil and makes promises in his name.

He does not like to think about it, but he can, now. For as long as this haze lasts, for as long as Solas tolerates his presence.

"Make a different one," he says. "You have the freedom to."

Solas isn't a spirit, bound to one course of action, unable to change from it or risk abomination.

And- inaction is also action.

Solas does not have the same things; he has no lover, he has no children, he has no kin. The elves that live in Thedas now as nothing akin to the people, nothing like what he had before his long sleep. He wishes that the People were still present, that he could see them in the way he had dreamt for their futures, but he cannot. It had been surely ripped from him, his own spirit destroyed in a process that he made.

All he wants is to undo what he had done, but the human price... It is why he cannot believe in the reality of this Thedas. He cannot let himself.

"No." Solas sighs softly. He is being worn down, his determination broken in the weight of his own exhaustion. He cannot trust Thranduil and the other man must be aware: he cannot deny it. "I cannot make any other choice than the one I have made. You know that as well as anyone."

This is the path he has chosen.

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MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

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