faderift | OPEN: Kirkwail

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Ghosts
WHEN: Wintermarch 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post. More content warnings than you can shake a stick at, probably, including allusions to slavery and violence in the body of the log post. Please use appropriate warnings in the subject lines for your own threads.

The storm sweeps in like an assassin: unexpected, in the dark, and throwing sharp pricks of sleet at exposed eyes and noses with expert aim and enough force to almost draw blood if the angle is right. Half an hour after the clouds crest the cliffs is all it takes for the city to retract indoors and huddle around fireplaces, settling in for a long night that will, unforeseen, turn into a long two days.

The Gallows, too, is pelted with ice; the walls of the cliffs and the fortress protect much of it from the worst of the wind, but when it can find a path over or through the walls, it slams through windows or doors to scatter papers and snuff out fires.

In the dark, in the rain, hurrying between towers or already accustomed to jumping firelight casting strange shadows and the wind howling like a wounded animal, people might be forgiven if they don't notice at first. But there's a hanging in the courtyard, a dozen translucent wisps of bodies dangling from the idea of nooses, and there's a girl's voice in the basement of the templar tower screaming for her mother, and there's a ghostly man in the library holding the blade of a knife to his palm and whispering this is it, this is it—or maybe there isn't, actually, when you lift your head to pay closer attention.

But as the night wears on they multiply, and they brighten, and even if you haven't noticed them, they begin to notice you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Before all of this--before the Mage-Templar War, before the Breach, before Corypheus--there'd been precious little reason for a Circle mage and a Dalish one to ever cross paths. Encountering a Keeper or her apprentices was the stuff of idle daydreams for most of Myr's life, colored by turns by childhood wistfulness and Chantry propaganda (but more the former than the latter). How might it be, what would they talk about, would they even like him or be interested in what he'd learned in the Circles--

Coming to the Inquisition and meeting his cousins and counterparts in the flesh had been more than he'd ever imagined, and sometimes less, in the way a dream's fulfillment always held unexpected joys and disappointments. Even then he'd somehow ended up befriending all of them (even if Sorrel had taken the longest), and he's been rewarded so many times over by that friendship it seems entirely natural to entrust it once again to a newcomer. (It doesn't hurt in the least it's someone offering kindness when he needs it most sorely.)

"It was hard," Myr affirms, "but you know--he'd taught me all along a day like that might come, and he told me he was proud of me for going. And we wrote each other, and I thought I'd have a chance to see him again..." Again, the scene plays out, but it's loosing its force and definition for want of interest. Spirits are ever thus--

Which speaks to the particular persistence of the one following this new mage. Myr pulls his gaze from the ghostly hunter, the better to not give it substance, and gives Finel a smile without much happiness in it. Yet, it's a smile still. "I can't imagine it was any easier--leaving all you know to head off with strangers, all for an accident of birth--and you're barely of an age to understand. Was he--" From the new or the old, he can't quite articulate, giving a twitch of his head to indicate the spirit hanging behind Finel.

"It seems like he cared for you very much," he murmurs softly as the scene begins to fade more. It's a relief, to have such a terrible sight fizzle away, the artificial sounds and smells waning. No doubt there are many of their kin who had similar stories, each as terrifying and heartbreaking as the next.

Finel can see the strain in that smile, and tries to return one a little more reassuring, but he, too, has been stretched thin that evening.

Talen drifts a little closer, solidifying some as it appears to reach for him, and then seems to detour, drifting off and back again.

"...I often wondered if my parents had been so disappointed when I came into my magic. Whenever I think about it, I can't recall why they did not come with me. Perhaps...they didn't want me."

His expression saddens visibly for a moment, rare that he offers anything about those days with anyone. But after a moment it strengthens.

"My new clan became my real family. He..." Finel glances back at the form that's become his new haunting companion, his heart swelling a little in his chest as he touches the pendant around his neck.

"...I loved him," he says softly. "...he...he's gone now."

"Perhaps they hadn't a choice," Myr offers, as softly. "I confess I know only a little about the clans--only enough to know it can be parlous hard living, and every pair of hands might count for survival. Perhaps they couldn't leave with you--and not that they loved you any less."

Though he'd not look again at the spirit haunting the other elf, Myr can't help another glance at the apparition now that he knows the significance of it. (Unthinking rubs his thumb over the ring on his left hand; he knows where Simon is, knows he's as fine as anyone might be in all of this mess--but I loved him, he's gone now hits home.) "I'm sorry," and then, "Would it help to speak more of him?"

The scene by the tree has finally vanished, elf victim and shem tormentor dissipated back into the Fade. The spirits have not given up entirely yet; as soon as Myr's asked his question there's a sharp gristly crack of a neck breaking and an awful gurgle in a man's voice--and Myr flinches, eyes shut a hard moment against what the sound evokes.

(That one wasn't even real. It hadn't happened. Praise the Maker, it hadn't happened, but if...)

The kind words bring a sad smile to his lips. It's the likely reason, in fact - if his birth clan had been so small in number. But even though he had been old enough to remember leaving, to remember the pain and grief of realizing he'd never see them again, Finel can't remember their true reasoning. Perhaps, someday, he could try finding them again, if they were still alive, and then he could ask.

He's about to answer when a gut wrenching, sickening shattering of bone reaches them both, one last parting shot to the elf in front of him. His heart aches for his own losses, but to see Myr so affected in front of him, he can't help but reach out, to gently take his hands and lead them both away. His touch is light, and it would be easy for Myr to pull away if it were unwelcome.

Finel brings them to a bench in the garden, some ways away from the scene that had played out and dissipated. His own Despair trails behind, more and more now like a sentinel rather than a haunting.

"His name was Talen," he begins gently, settling carefully onto the bench. "And he was the most skilled hunter of our clan."

There's no resistance in Myr; he's still--still, two years out of the Circle--not used to the idea he might touch others any time he wishes, but it doesn't make him less hungry for contact. Being dragged out of the memory of what might have been in Minrathous bothers him not at all, and he follows Finel silently to the bench. Joins the other elf, after a moment, nearly knee to knee with him for the seat's a little short.

"How did you get to know him?" Despite it all, despite the miserable weather and the spirits and his own grief far too close to the surface, there's a certain gleam in Myr's eye; Finel, you've found a romantic.

It's a comfort to him as well to continue to hold onto Myr's hands, curling his own around them gently, but still loose enough that the other elf could pull back at any time. Finel can't quite help brushing his thumbs over the back of his palms, though, along with a gentle squeeze and a soft smile.

"When I began my new life with my new clan, he was one of the first to befriend me. He was older by several years, but still, he helped me when I knew no one, even though I was adopted, and a mage besides.

I admired him...and when we grew older...I fell in love with him."

OPEN: Kirkwail

crawls out of the hiatus pit

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