WHO: Gilia St. Low & YOU! WHAT: One Girls Quest To Be Absolutely Unnoticable: The Beginning. WHEN: From [gestures] to [gestures further along] WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall NOTES: None forseen, save for social anxiety and occasional eldritch horror.
Gilia cannot say no to almost anything, it seems. Regardless of who she was or what she is capable of. Or especially, more often, what she isn't capable of. If she is asked, she simply does. In that way, there is an ease to how she is folded back into the many working hands and feet of the Inquisition, that without the arrogance or bearing to indicate otherwise, she simply becomes no more noticeable than any other servant. Able to do the most important parts where any higher-up would notice, either way. She minds her betters with a please, thank-you and the appropriate downturn of her eyes when saying yes, my lord, of course, my lady.
The only things that set her apart from it, particularly, is her glowing green mark, subsequently covered up with gloves, and more tellingly, there are several tasks that she is quite miserable at. Not that she minds, no one bothers you, when you're scrubbing the floor, and the lack of complaint usually means her at times poorly, half done work is made up for by at least good humour and a willingness to make up for it.
The rest - when she doesn't know what sleeping lotus or crystal grace is - she can make up for with careful observation and a well-intentioned bit of snooping. Those were her preferred tasks, being set out to fetch things gave her a chance to wander without much conversation to poke at places and things. She had to save up the words. She liked Wysteria, but she did like to talk a dreadful amount, and it could be so exhausting.
So, what then was the problem. It was just one more order, written on the list. One more thing, that was no better or worse than any of the others, so why not her?
Why not her, indeed? As her fingers curl on the edges of the paper that had the instructions about the pile of swords, to be taken to the smithy. They were bundled and wrapped in a bind of leather and rope for carrying. She could never have said no - she had never said no to anyone and seemed a bit late to start saying it now. Nor did she want to disappoint the people who had been good enough to take her on. Why not, Gilia? They are just a piece of metal. She had seen Vane's crew, baring their chests and weapons to the midday sun. The men and women that had rescued her. Her eyes screw shut, open, flicking again at the instructions like they'd say something else this time. There had to be a way around this. There had to be -
( The sway inside of her bones grew louder, not from outside, but in, rushing to beat against the cliffs of her body, trying to get out. )
"Can you pick those up please!" Is the blurted out squeak, as close as she gets to raising her voice to almost anyone. At the first someone that crosses in front of the path between her and the weapons.
The Father-Sea wasn't talking to her. His dreams had not come in so long. In the first few days, it was a relief to not have not him speak in her mind, calling and beating and bleeding inside of her head. He was the Father-Sea, she reasoned, He loved all his half-him children. She could take it with the understanding he was giving her peace in a new land.
But now? Now she worried. It was difficult to know his will. Had she upset him? There was always that. She had never heard of it happening, and nor had the bond broken. It was still possible for her to shadow-step and end back up in his embrace. Perhaps... Perhaps it was that she was so far lost. Perhaps it was hard to reach her. Perhaps she had to reach for him back.
The Medicine Seller's words echoed in her mind. That they did not like spirits here, called them all foul things. She could not blame them, and if only she could see how he cared for her family, perhaps they might feel differently. More than that, she knew the Father-Sea would help if she asked Him. He was not unmovable, nor pitiless, for had he himself not saved St. Loe? But to do that, she must reach him again, and the usual means, the Medicine Seller said, could be troublesome for her. So dancing would not do.
No, she takes the route far more excusable. There are reeds plenty that people made baskets out of, and with the steadily building collection of coins she doesn't know what else to do with, she purchases herself some, some dry dies, also, and enough flowers by the stem to make a handful. At the end of the dock, she sets herself, feet dangling over the edge out of the way, she begins to weave the reeds and flower together. Twining and braiding in equal measure to weave around and around and around, to make a wreath. When the first one is done, she rubs in the dry pigments, against the sun-bleached dry reeds, and begins to colour them.
Who said eldritch abominations of the deep didn't like flower crowns?
Gilia is not much fond of being on board with the crew. They field blades and crudeness in equal measure. Things that either made her who want to clap her hands over her ears, or runoff to weep at Wysteria what she'd had to hear and see. But she'd given her word to help, and what was St. Loe except for their word? She would not tarnish her families offer. She had said she would help, and that was that.
Happily, she is there for one job that covers both needs fairly well. Namely, jumping off the side of the ship to help with the inspection of the hull. It's understood now not to worry about the odd bean poll of a girl, it saved them having to risk anything terrible under there, and she didn't have to fluster her way through conversation too much. Granted, the chance of her once she's shed her over clothes, shoes, and veils, to jump back into the water is notable. She is cheery, after a good long while, under the water. Emerging as a pair of eyes, a smile, and hair that without anything to hold it together, and the water did not very much to restrain it, springs out wild in every direction.
But the task is done for the day, and she comes back to dockside and calls for a flicker of attention. "Pardon me, there is cloth there in that barrel, for me. Could you bring it over to the edge, please?"
Why on earth Wysteria insisted on doing this, was quite beyond Gilia. But then most of what Wysteria did was beyond Gilia. Being very loud, direct, and not at all what Gilia would like to do. Which of this particular morning in High-Garden consisted of reading her book, in peace, in this very nice seat under a tree.
Wysteria was talking a lot, as usual, very quickly. Gilia nodded along, it'd be rude to ignore her after all. That comfortable glaze over that she had perfected when dealing with her younger sisters that looks like paying attention, and her mind was quite far away as she sipped a cool drink. This place was so much warmer overall than the Isle. Maybe it was all this stone freely laid, reflecting the light back at them. They did like it a lot -
Did Wysteria pause? She slides her eyes back. "Oh, yes, of course." Her hands smooth over her knee after she puts the drink down. Feeling the material under her fingers. She wouldn't have bought a new dress if Wysteria hadn't insisted on them getting something for outings like this. But at least it was a sturdy sort of blue with white ribbons, nice and straightforward. Her advisors would approve of it.
Pause she has. In fact, Wysteria is still pausing, her attention diverted from Gilia beside her toward the too familiar shape of a particular gentleman (ha) happening near a hedgerow at the edge of the strictly regimented Hightown garden. For a moment, she goes rigid on the bench beside Gilia. Her eyes narrow. Tension ratchets down the length of her spine--
She turns abruptly and grips Gilia on the shoulder, laughing loudly as if in response to something her companion has definitely just finished saying. It's a sound to carry, tinkling cheerfully across the green - a bright burst of noise in the cold grey of Kirkwall's endless stone squares.
"Oh Gilia, don't be ridiculous. You're such a darling."
The Hunter is no more resistant than the girl. What she was asked to do, she did. It was easiest that way, kept at bay the sense that she was little more than a scrap in the wind. So she stoops, snagging up the cord and lifting it onto her shoulder. She turns then to observe the girl, had assumed it was little more than fatigue.
The murmur around her form she mistakes as a shadow for a moment... but then the definition of too many eyes makes itself known to her. Grant us--
Anna all but throws the collection of blades at the girl, stepping back. Her whip flicks loose, deft and quick. It looks like lumenkin, hiding beneath the flesh of a girl. Anna is nauseated by it, by the tendrils and lights. Her head throbs with the sounds of the sea-- the runes bound in to her from the last time she had access to the workshop resonate with a deep hum of acknowledgement. The great deep sea and the hunter.
"I knew--" she chokes out, flipping the whip as restlessly as a horse stamping a hoof. "I knew you things could follow me here."
Byerly is not - contrary, perhaps, to his rather unsavory reputation - always trying to find some trouble to get into. Every once in a while, he is genuinely just out for a walk - with a pipe in hand, yes, but doing nothing more sinful than that.
So he strolls, and takes a puff - sees that the rather raucous laughter he heard earlier belongs to Miss Poppell, apparently enjoying some witticism on the part of her curly-haired young friend. Well, good for her. He graces her with a nod as he passes, but doesn't slow his already-leisurely pace.
Is rather drowned out by the laughter that goes on. Blinking Gilia awake out of her meandering daze that keeps roaming along. Across the fellow with his pipe that reminds her of someone but no one at all. Suppose he has just one of those faces?
But since, apparently, she was meant to be saying something, she tries to think of something she thinks would make Wysteria content. Always active, always moving. She did like that about her, if in little doses. So, a little louder, she carries on. "- Would you like to take a tour? The sky is very clear today, far better than other days, I am sure the walking would be pleasant - "
Gilia jumps a clear foot when the swords clatter to the ground between them. The sound loud and jarring, but not so strange around so many soldiers, training, marching, working living. Her hands up to shield herself from coming near them by sheer instinct.
"Please - " confused, she darts up, to Anna. Misunderstanding what she had done to cause such offense. To cause the weapon that slithers to life, snake-like and just as terrifying. The weapons of wars that she had never seen until coming to this place. But, oh how it shows, that flickering below her skin. Defensive, now, rather than simply shimmering like ripples, it spreads through her. " - please don't hurt me. I am sorry, I am sorry for speaking so - "
The tears are just as immediate, the fear thick in the air as in her body. Her hands drawing up, curling her body away.
"Silence!" it booms out of her, louder and more defiant than she ever is when not blood-drenched and reeling with joy. "Don't weep before me like a child!"
She can hear the Orphan's screaming. She can taste the rotting sea-flesh in her mouth. She snaps the whip again, it makes Gilia's dress flutter at the hems but it doesn't hit the girl. She can hear the Orphan's screaming, wailing over its dead mother and all the tortures it endured. She remembers Ebrietas turning slowly in the dark beneath the cathedral, caged there so that the Church could experiment on her weeping children. All her many eyes catching broken dapples of light as she made wishes on her Altar of Despair.
Anna pities them, and the pity feels like poison in her body. She can't pity them. She can't pity all those who have been maimed and transmogrified in the name of mankind's ambitions. She'll lose her grip. She'll lose her grip and she'll start screaming, all over again.
"You're a nightmare," she hisses, her voice low and teeth clenched. Now she's crept up on the frightened girl, fisted one of her gloved hands in those unruly curls and jerked on her head. She looks into the set of eyes that are not Gilia's. "Will you fiends ever let me sleep? Or must I gut you here to save myself?"
No one - not even Godfinn at his worst - had touched her thus, had ever raised a hand to her. Even when her siblings needed a hiding, she never bore much of it. Too mild-mannered a child, they'd said. Which is not to know she did not know pain, for that was often required in one task or another in life. But never, never, had it been violence done towards her.
And she crumbles with it, being yanked by her hair, she is pulled down, her eyes screwed up tightly as the wet leaked down her cheeks, the shriek of pain is a miserable, pitiful, cowering sound. With it, as she trips, trying to pull herself free, but what is she to the strength of a warrior? "I am sorry. Forgive me, please, I meant no harm, I have sought none - I have obeyed every - "
The old creeds, the old laws, the binding of the pit, she had never strayed. She had never strayed. "Please, please." Her voice wails, high pitched, sobbing.
And unseen to all but Anna, the black eyes watch back, deep and pitying and so very full they seem bright. An ocean in there, and with it, Gilia's state is her own undoing, the fear, the need to protect herself is her own undoing. Every line of her strange rippled soul deepens, twists, like flowers growing too far, the coral blooms, her skin beyond just sallow. Cool, so cool to the touch.
The boat's come across from the mainland, Anders returning from his Clinic in his more worn robes, blues and blacks that are a little stained, a little faded. Blood and various other fluids take their toll no matter how much laundry he does, and there's a reason he chooses these to wear down there.
He leans on his staff as he looks at the small wreath she's working on, some hair loose from his long ponytail and a few streaks of dirt at temples where he's brushed hair back. A cat, a large, ginger, fluffy tomcat, twines through his feet and watches curiously.
"You've a lot of supplies; how many are you making?" There's something about her that he can't quite set definition to yet, a feeling that's almost familiar. That she's a Rifter isn't in doubt, but what it is about her that he's sensing he doesn't know and Anders is always curious, much like his cats.
She holds it up to him, glad for his inspection. Letting him see it as she turns it this way and that. Then lifting it up to set it atop her head. How well it places there, a top so much hair. Like it had perhaps, just grown out of her head itself.
"Until I run out I suspect. But I hoped to make one for each of my Fathers, my Mother. And all my brothers and sisters." She thinks it through, eyeing her pile, wondering about it.
At least until the cat catches her eye, and with it, she lifts her fingers to it, to see if it would come close to her.
It fits her perfectly, which speaks of a lot of practice. Then again, twining together sticks to make something pretty speaks of practice in itself.
"Are they here?" he asks, and promptly feels stupid about the asking. She's a Rifter. The answer to that is almost definitely a sad 'no.' Anders grimaces. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked. Most have no family here. I certainly have none."
The cat feels no guilt or stupidity, on the other hand. He inches forward to sniff her hand and promptly starts licking the offered fingers.
"His name's Lord Pawdric. He'll lick nearly anything held out, up to and including books." But at least now Anders' voice is fond rather than apologetic. After a beat, he stops leaning on his staff and takes a seat next to her. Looming is annoying to the loomed-over. He knows, because he's often the shorter one getting loomed at.
"That is alright, that is why I am making them. So I could send these to them through the sea. But it is a good thing they are not, there is so many of them, they would take up a whole wing for them."
She shakes her head, breezily. Easy with it, far be it for her to put her misery on another - that went against almost everything she had been raised too.
"He is quite welcome too, whenever he wishes." After all, even if she doesn't think it's notable, that way that her family all is, that extra salt often made them especially appealing for animals to want to lick their skin. Indulgent to the cat completely, she lowers her head, leaning down for him to lick her cheeks if he wanted, nose curling up at the sensation.
"It is nice to meet you, Lord Pawdric." She offers in response to the approval. But with the company she shuffles to give him space on the end of the jetty. "Would you like to make one, sir?"
In any other instance, Wysteria thinks, such a mild sweep of Mr Rutyer's attention would qualify as a boon. Thank the Spirits, she might say to herself - she's successfully avoided falling prey to some long, circuitous conversation in which she stuffs her foot down her throat a minimum of four times and comes out the other side feeling as if she's spent the last twenty minutes being spun around while blindfolded and how now been told to find the door and not fall over on the way to it.
In this instance, on this perfectly lovely afternoon, she inexplicably bristles. It's a little stitch of impossible to decipher annoyance, soothed only by Gilia's suggestion. The combination drives her promptly to her feet. She benevolently offers the younger girl her arm. "Yes, I should think so. That sounds perfectly fine."
And then they're off at a considerable clip, Wysteria all but dragging Gilia along at a trot along some side path through the not yet blooming rose bushes so that at the next intersection of green walkways, having more or less stalked Byerly's path from a respectable distance, they might happen to conveniently waylay the man entirely by happenstance.
"Oh, is that you Mister Rutyer?" She tips back the broad brim of her hat. "I saw only your shoes earlier and thought I recognized them, but was certain I was mistaken."
Wysteria again? Byerly frowns very slightly, but, well - if the girl is talking to him (with the most puzzling urgency), he's not going to ignore her.
"My dear Miss Poppell," he greets, the slightest twitch of an eyebrow hinting at can I help you? But he doesn't give Wysteria a chance to respond to that silent inquiry: instead, soon as he makes it, he turns towards the young woman accompanying her.
"Who is this charming friend of yours?" he asks, lowering his eyelashes and directing his best smoulder at the girl. Which, given the very famous beauty of his eyes, is quite a good one indeed. Delicately, he grasps the girl's free hand, and he bows over it - and kisses the back of the wrist - And notices, of course, the little green mote embedded into it.
Still, Rifter or not, By trusts that the girl will be able to recognize that his gestures are insincere. A rake, he fancies, is like a scorpion; you might come from a different world entirely, but something primordial in you will still be able to recognize the signs of danger and know not to touch.
Pawdric is never one to turn down an invitation, and he eagerly moves forward to headbutt her cheek before licking that too. Anders keeps an eye on the cat, but he's not worried.
"He'd wish a lot. He's used to getting a lot of attention and has come to expect it." As a cat should, really. But the human forgot a certain 'should' and only had introduced his cat. "I'm Anders, by the way. Sorry. Definitely not sir. Only my cats have titles. And yes, now that you ask. I'd like to make one."
He's short on people to give them to, but he has a head and likes pretty things. As he eyes the reeds, what he's feeling finally comes to him. He's feeling a spirit, but the way he'd felt them when he was possessed. For a moment his heart stops in fear, and then it resumes. He's not possessed. He'd know, and Mercy is lingering nearby rather than pushed away or inside him. He's fine. But the woman with him...
"Oh. I am Gilia, Gilia St. Loe." Her words are smooth, that tone that curves the letters. Sinlew, "First-Daughter, Second-Child." Now. Thinks, but does not say - but she knew, now at least, that such words would mean nothing to him. More out of habit than anything else that she moves through the introduction.
Rather, extracting herself from the cat, she reaches for another of the reeds, Sliding it between her fingers, and looking up at his head, briefly. A question, when she lifts her hands so that she could measure his head. "May I?" Waiting, of course, for him to say yes.
But his question - that makes her hands, watching him so slightly confused. "... I... do not think I quite rightly what they are."
But oh, Gilia, has never met a rake for more than a minute to tell them apart from the other crowd of ambassadors. For what use was she to them for them to go chasing? Nevermind, that she has done a remarkable job of being no more than an extended shadow of Wysteria's when she wasn't working arranging books or some other such task.
But he did not look like the soldiers of the Inquisition, nor the vagabonds of Vane's crew. To that, she was relieved, though never left her role which had so long served in the face of strangers. She lets him take her hand, shivering the little for warm contact on cool skin. Her head bowing, eyes down, framed under her whimple and veil and the stray locks of curls that would not stay pinned no matter what she did. The dip of a curtsey in greeting that was so perfectly and strictly respectful. "Gilia. St. Loe. First-Daughter, Second-Child." The familiar patterns of introduction that offers no more than that. This was Wysteria's acquaintance, not hers, she didn't need to prattle on.
"Gilia," he echoes, nodding. "You may." Her introduction says a great deal, a place within a family and a family name that sounds like it holds weight if they're using saint names. Letting her see the size of his head gives him a few moments to actually think. She doesn't have to be a mage to have a spirit lingering near her. That's the situation he's most used to feeling that in, but Rifters are part of the Fade themselves. Maybe something especially curious had attached itself to her. Or maybe she's pure spirit herself, he's sensing her instead of another, but that's not what he thinks he feels. This is like... like when he realized Bruce was a functioning abomination.
"I'm a mage," Anders finally says. He doesn't have enough information to go off of, and one of the last things he wants to do is set off a panic about a Rifter. He holds out a hand to the side and pulls up creation magic, letting it glow green-blue around his hand, warm and bright. "A healer, specifically. I asked because I got a sense of something from you, something I'd felt off another mage before."
That should be safe enough, gentle enough. He doesn't want her to feel threatened - his cat is right here.
She leans across - and she is for her dedicated task of not seeming very big, quite tall, and it brings her even to him. Gently wrapping the reed around the crown of his head, pulling it a little tighter. The eye of someone who knows how to measure very well for her task, as she pinches a mark into the dry material to mark it for herself. Then brings it back down to her lap, and starts taking more reeds, to begin weaving them into a wreath.
Though his hands, she eyes curiously. Blinking in surprise as the light illuminates his fingers, - she hadn't seen it, herself. The thing everyone called here magic. That seemed to cause so much of a problem. That - she took, not as something you are born, but simply, a choice you made, and one that only made things better.
But to that - "Oh, no, I cannot do anything like that. Is that what the spirits here give you? Is that why people are so - " and at least she has the sense to look around, and lower her head, cautious of what the Medicine Seller had said to her, about not speaking too freely of such matters. " - so fearful of them?"
He lets the magic go, shaking his head. There'd been a Templar recruit, a few of them, possessed and holding human shape for a short time, but that had taken work and blood magic and hiding away. He doesn't think it's something that could be done to a Rifter in Kirkwall. There's few enough of them they'd be noticed missing.
"No. Magic doesn't come from the spirits. ...Rather, most magic doesn't." His voice isn't loud, it won't carry, but it's not altogether quiet. Everyone around would know what it means when a person is in robes and carrying a staff, after all, and they're close enough to the Inquisition forces he feels not too alone.
"Mages are born with a connection to the Fade, where the spirits live. I've a boost, additional strength in healing, thanks to a spirit I work with. Mercy. But a majority of mages don't partner with spirits. There's a risk of going too far. Of letting one in. When that happens it's a disaster for all involved. But spirits on their own aren't beings to be fearful of."
Has she been treated with fear? He doesn't think people outside those in Kirkwall and in command of the Inquisition know about Rifters being somewhat akin to spirits, but when even a few dozen know a secret there will be leaks.
"Have you been threatened, Gilia?" That's the priority, if someone is threatening Rifters. Then he can try to carefully figure out more of what he's feeling.
He is saying things - things that make sense and don't, that are so against almost everything she has learned. Everything she knew about the world. Everything she held as sacred. Everything she was. Her hands slow in their work, for once something crossing her gaze that is not that pleasant and perfected mildness. Eyes going a little bit wide.
"Why on earth would a spirit ever do such a thing?" As for fearful - "No, no one has ever treated me unkindly. They have been good and respectful. I want for nothing." But there is one fatal flaw to that statement, even if someone was, she was not the sort of young woman to ever admit a problem.
At least she's not being threatened, but the wideness of her eyes says she's not comfortable.
"Some spirits want more. Most don't." Maybe that will allay some of her fears. "You're not a mage, and I've heard no cases of Rifters being possessed, so it's not likely to happen to you."
There's a short beat as he considers where to go from here. "You've... a sense of a spirit to you, so you may be even more protected." Or already possessed.
To-ing and fro-ing is what Yngvi knows, typically, and since he's come back it's not been too different, not really. Just ignoring everyone with their knickers in a twist over the Divine not that anyone tends to ask dwarves anything but you tell yourself you get used to it. He's got his own things to fill up the hours which are mostly trundling around Kirkwall, Lowtown, Darktown, trapmaking and various sundries.
Filling the hours.
Leaping out of his skin when he's so lost in his own head, face buried in his papers at a voice he wasn't expecting that he nearly trips, flails, sidesteps-- ah, that'd be Rump Roast.
Rump Roast heading for the--
"Mind yourself, get away from it." To the nug as if the nug is going to listen although it's not the cat because the cat would listen and ignore him out of spite. "There's more of 'em-- can you just--"
He'll help but there are nugs, there's one dwarf stuffing his papers inside his coat to assist but maybe don't roll your ankle tripping over them he is not a stout fellow.
That at least finally makes sense to her. She presses her lips together. Eyes bright as she slides over to him, then back out to the ocean, grey and troubled, that hugs the Gallows. In many ways, that alone reminds her of her home. For the sea there was often the same grey frothed with white.
To that, there is a simple response. "Oh - perhaps you feel my Father-Sea?"
She will not touch the sword, but she does need to be told twice - she'd never let those little pink wriggly things hurt themselves on the dreadful pieces of steel. Quick as she can, she picks up Rump Roast with both hands, bundling the little sneaky creature up into her apron, holding him into her chest.
The little thing is squeaking at its sudden abduction, but she holds as fast as she would her wayward siblings, and the second there are more of them, she's trailing about after them, trying to herd them close so she can grab them all before they went for a trip somewhere dangerous.
Once this used to be his actual 'job'. (Is it a job if you don't get paid? If they just say it's your job because they say so? Questions for the small hours and whoever he can get hold of on the crystal.) Rump Roast calms down since this is generally the ideal, to be held, to be a part-time lap creature of leisure even in less than ideal circumstances as Yngvi grabs the sword before Jambonette can get to it.
There's a look between dwarf and nug but the rest are coming to see what their comrade is doing all the way up there.
It's likely a giddy height compared to the dwarf for a nug.
"Who's got you ferrying their cheap tat?" He gives the blade a twirl as if he's some great judge, puckering up his mouth into what he thinks is a rich man's moue of distaste but in all honesty looks more like bad gas. "Thought they'd be a bit leery letting people who've come from out the sky go to-and-fro with weapons when we're all panicked about old biddies who might come thundering down on us."
Anna's dark eyes are feverish with despair, her face drawn and clammy. She shouldn't have ever gotten this close to the thing. Should have had her face covered and her hat pulled low to keep the influence of such things from invading her sense of herself. Should have run it through with her cane when she first saw it. They were fragile, ephemeral things trying to walk in a fetid world where they did not truly belong-- bound in forms that did not contain them. Too late now, the weapon is useless at this intimate range. It slips out of her grip. A terrible sin for a Hunter to commit.
She can't hear anything Gillia is saying. Every utterance sounds like the crash of the ocean. Incomprehensible and endless, assaulting her thoughts with its thick, grating fog of sound. She puts her other gloved hand over Gillia's mouth to make it stop. The other hand goes around her neck. Both squeeze.
"I hate you," Anna whispers in hazy, thick confession; insensate to the girl. All she can see are coral blossoms, frothing currents, and a thousand starry eyes. "Everything that you are. Every wish and promise and curse."
She squeezes tighter, her leather gloves creaking. She smells like sweat and her hair is limp on her forehead.
In the madness straining off her body, it begins to manifest, her body neither corporeal nor a solid matter. The rushing water that begins to fill her voice unleashes itself when she screams against Anna's palm, a sea in full storm, crashing loud against her palm, the inside of her body. Inside her, there is the safety as the shadows around her, deepen and deepen. The sea will protect her as it has always protected her family.
Then it is no imagining, water drips off her fingers, sliding in a drip - drip,drip - drip,drip,drip of a stream picking up it's current. Faster and faster, and even when Anna chokes the air out of her lungs ( she has never been without breath before, not even at the depths of the ocean floor ),
( Was this how Godfin felt? When the black came up around him? )
but even when the sound of her voice is finally smothered out of her, the ocean only grows louder as she... doesn't even try to push and shove to save herself. Her head getting dizzy, air fading away from her lungs.
He didn't need the scales to tell him something had gone bad - it was the sort of thing you felt in your bones, at the back of your teeth and in the hairs on your neck standing on end - but they'd tipped anyway, the little bell chiming to politely announce that something was happening.
He could move very quickly when he wanted to, his calm, patient and rather lax demeanor belying the physical fortitude he kept so well under wraps as god forbid someone think him capable of actually doing work.
He saw the conflict, he felt the rise of the tides familiar as the Ayakashi of the Dragon's Triangle and he flung the ofuda without hesitation. The little rectangles of paper encircled both Anna and Gillia.
Barriers that could both protect and, hopefully, contain. At least until he could get to the bottom of this. For a moment, he focused on the rectangular charms but no markings appeared on them. Neither were Mononoke which meant...
She collapsed with Anna to hold her up. Crumbling like a sack of dropped grain, crumbling inwards, sobbing completely outside of herself, like all this weight could not know how to hold itself together or up.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She wails it as she curls to sit half on one side, shoving her face into her hands, rocking herself in cold comfort to the ebb and flow of the tides. Her hair rapidly escaping its wimple and veil, trickling water over her clothes, her body. "Forgive me, please, please - " the only words that were in defence, pitching louder and louder as the ocean grew and grew inside of her, water pooling in her shadow like her only respite. "I did not break the accords! I did not touch them! Please, please, tell Nikolai - I never, I never - !"
It's a babble of fear, and as much sense as that has ever been to anyone. Save for that truth, surely Anna was sent here to punish her for being in a war camp, for even being sent to touch blades. It was a test and she had failed, please, please. "I do not want to go into the black, please." For surely that was what Anna's hard gloved fingers were, that same deep, deep black that smothered the light and the sea.
Distracted and confused by the merchant's interruption, she is stopped in her mission. She turns to look but more quickly than not the girl is wet and weeping on her, squalling more than ever. The frenzy at least is broken for the moment and Anna shoves Gillia off of her. Stepping backwards and looking at the pathetic thing with misery. Reminds her of the Research Hall, the blind weeping things filled with the sounds of the ocean. Every memory makes her dread tick upwards again, makes her feel nauseous and alone. She very nearly rears back to start kicking, just to make it stop make it stop make it stop--
She starts to reach for the flamesprayer at her hip instead, but doesn't make it that far.
As Gillia sank to the ground sobbing, the Medicine Seller positioned himself between the two of them - not enough that he was outright shielding Gillia, but he was watching Anna like a hawk and he could move at a split second's notice if he needed.
"What," he asked Anna in his slow, halting monotone, "has happened?"
He didn't ask Gillia - he figured it was best to let the crying run its course - at least he didn't feel like the world was going to drown at any moment. He could hear the hubbub around them - others were starting to take notice of the commotion. He'd need to end this quickly - Anna looked ill - ill and murderous and something there felt wrong and he had some idea of what Gillia was.
...Thedas could become a very dangerous place for any of them.
Her hand twitches away from the cannister under her coat as his question penetrates her haze. What has happened? Why were all his questions such endless holes.
"Nothing," she murmurs, realizing how dry her mouth is. Like she's been drinking salt water and only driving herself mad. "I laid eyes upon a thing I did not wish to see, and it stared back at me unblinking, endless."
She flicks her head, sweat and ocean flinging from her hair and face. "There is a rune writ on me, it hums with that thing. Down-reaching currents. Mine is simulacra of a voice. Hers--" an accusatory finger pointed, trembling, "--hers is not."
This is the kind of talk too many dismiss in Anna, when she sounds her maddest but is giving her most dire of warnings.
It didn't sound like madness to the Medicine Seller. It sounded like someone trying to describe something there weren't adequate words for. He'd seen it a lot, just like he had seen people broken down in sobbing messes and he likewise took it in stride.
"She is not something that needs to be slain," he said, calm and quiet but also assured. The ofuda vanished save for all but one as passersby slowed to rubberneck at what looked like some delicious drama.
He gestured to the rectangle of paper - blank as ever.
"Were she a threat, this would be covered in red writing. She is not a foe for you."
When the other ones come to see what has happened to their comrade - she is dutiful to their expectations of wanting to see what their friend is up to. Dutiful to their whims, she bends at the waist, lowering her arms so that the rest could jump in to join, then picks up her squirming armful of the little creatures, making sure not one is left behind.
Then she stands, to watch her present saviour.
"I do not think they much saw me as anything other than someone who might do it without other comments." She admits that much freely, adjusting as she speaks for the little creatures squirming to try and see from their new vantage point. "And I am glad to help when everyone seems so busy."
"All her secrets are a threat," the Hunter replies, but she's not looking at Gillia. She's looking off, away, out into the bleakness that is her awareness of the world. She wishes weren't here. She wishes that sea had drowned her here in the street and let her float free. No, instead she's still standing here ringing like a tuning fork.
"Desire for them drives men mad. This is no place for us"
Any of them. The girl, the merchant, herself.
She realizes then that she doesn't have her whip, and swoops for it, collapses it, hug it close to her body the way a child would hug a toy. She wishes she'd run Gillia through with it while she was still half-hypnotized by the swaying of the coral.
Only then does she look at the crying thing again. There's no apology or pity in her look, only frowning unhappiness and weariness. She opens her mouth to say something but only winces and turns back to the medicine seller.
I've no secrets she would protest, were she any other, because to her mind - save what the Seller has told her to keep to herself, she has done her best to keep to herself everything that mattered.
But as she is what she is, four eyes and all, all glitter wet and coral as soft as petals that dances to be seen and not seen, nothing comes of it. Only that she curls away from Anna's gaze, turning her body in. Wishing somehow, that her mother was here, that her fathers would do as when she was a child, and hold her until all the confusion went away.
They are not here, and she has no comfort to call on. Instead, Gilia curls her feet under her, watching the sea trickle against the deck. Drying as soon as it dripped away from her. The thick smell of salt air curling about her skin like a blanket.
Some wicked part of him wanted to say that it was humanity's own failings that drove them mad. That it was, so often, the regrets of humanity that twisted these things into the treacherous monstrosities - but he held his tongue. There was a sort of sense he could make of Anna's ramblings, that she had touched the raw, open wound of harsh truths, walked the places mortals didn't belong and that was a line of inquiry for another day. Private, away from the prying ears of those who cleaved to an absent god and sealed their prejudices with his name. The less of that trouble darkening his metaphorical doorstep, the better.
"I will take responsibility for this," he said, shifting to keep Gillia out of direct view of others. He hopes his words have some kind of assurance - he doubts it but he hopes nonetheless. He'd rather not see how this conflict would end (terribly, for everyone most likely).
"Quick lesson on Thedas, generally speaking," he says with the sword offered out pommel first since this has been a thing ever since he's had hands to hold anything with which in the Carta tends to be 'can you stand without tipping over' and 'can you hold that without dropping it you useless lump'. "Mostly no one is anything, to anyone. There's a whole stupid terrible hierarchy to it. Someone'll always want you to do what they think they're too good to do because they've never had to think about it before. Because they've maybe never had to think before."
The nugs, who've perhaps heard this speech before as a captive audience in the room with the dwarf, happily inspect and investigate this newest person. There are hand-feet. They do what hand-feet do: wiggle and pat the way that most people are apparently horrified by as if hands are the domain of people only.
(Forgetting that a great many people would be better off without them. Nobles. Chevaliers. Grey Wardens. He's not keeping a list or anything.)
"Don't know what anyone'd be busy with right now, arguing over some dusty old woman sitting on a dusty old throne as if any of them are any different to each other to most of us but s'pose they need new things to fight over. Or pretend to."
She hasn't had anyone look at her so much, since she arrived, save for the brief passing of their gaze on a glowing green hand. The same hands that stay over her face as she sobs, wanting now, only to crawl away from the scrutiny. The attention without the wall of advisors to tell her what to do, what to say, leaves her bereft of what it is she's supposed to behave like. This wasn't in any of their lessons. For no one would ever dare touch her in such a way.
Still, when it is that the Medicine Seller comes back to her, she lifts her head just barely to look up at him, the same confusion on her lips. "Please, I did not do it. I swear it."
He's being so perfectly lovely - to tell her all these things, to help her understand - is her opinion wholly made. She does her best to listen, which is to say, what she thinks of most people at the best of times, just like the Nugs. It all seemed so complicated, different, and not what she understands, far above her head and it was no longer her business to be amidst it. So she would rather avoid it all. To pay attention to more pressing matters, like holding the nugs so they did not hurt themselves.
That, they might have odd little hand feet, but she was sure they found them very useful and she had no reason to think anything other than that, as they patted. Because once they managed to get one bit of hair loose, another bit follows. Springy, easy to get tiny claws stuck in it. But as her siblings liked to do, as much fun to pull at, to watch it bounce back into shape.
"Yes, it - " she adjusts her arms when one of the nugs seems to be keen to get under the wimple where it's wrapped under her chin. " - it does seem very important to everyone. So I would like to just help, so they might sort out the business best for themselves, as otherwise it is not my place."
The nugs press closer - new person, new smells, lofty heights after trotting along on Yngvi's errands thus far that have taken them so far as Lowtown, dipping their collective toes into Darktown too - as Yngvi gives her a look. Probably a bad judge but a pretty girl from the look of it, kind if she's offering that.
"Behave yourselves, she's not here to put up with your antics. She's not Thranduil." Who is, probably, the person with hair likely to get tangled since his lady has hers out of the way usually and wouldn't let a nug get at it. (He can't imagine it.)
"D'you got one?" Which yeah, there's no way to disguise that as being anything other than a rude question but rifters come, rifters go, some ascending to lofty heights but most don't, not really and he's curious. "A place, I mean," he clarifies as he fishes the papers out his pockets again. "I'm meant to be doing Other Powers or the bastard child no one wants since we've not had a leader in forever and scouting, research, check up on how the shady bits do, give my dwarven expertise but you know--"
And he stops, swallows carefully as he takes a breath and hopes the smile is genuine. He feels it but sometimes it's difficult to know how to do this.
"You're here. So. This is your place. Same as it's anyone's place and honestly make sure you say something 'fore someone else," mages, "puts words in your mouth."
His tone wasn't sharp or angry, but there was an uncharacteristic firmness to it. Though he was usually polite to the point of passivity, there was a sense of urgency when he spoke.
"We should speak elsewhere. Can you get a hold of your abilities?"
She nods, shoulders stiff in her misery, but she nods. Then she shuts her eyes, opens her mouth and speaks as clear as she can. "Please, Father, I am safe now." The sound rushes once more of water, and then, as it came, it abates like a blanket falling over one's ears. Muffling it back to a dim far off noise, no longer beating against the senses as immediately, surely trapped back behind her skin and bones.
With it gone, or at least quiet, she begins to shakily pull herself up from the floor. Her clothes soaked to the bone, but it hardly seems to bother her.
She shakes her head, no, she had no such job, no place beyond what she had been put to use for. Or as much as she can, when one of the nugs finds the warm spot next to her neck, and she didn't want to disturb it. It was fine, that shoulder is it's now.
"I've no such place, sir. I've little to offer, you see. I've never been in a - a - " she looks around so terrible suspicious, eyes darting like she was worried, so worried, that someone might hear her like her mother and brother would loom out from a corner.
So she leans in, down to him as she bends from the waist. "A war camp." The fear is plain in those words, in that little conspiratorial whisper. "I've little skills, that which they might need. I kept my family, and my families wishes, as best I could, and attended to our household at my brother's side. I do not know what skill I might possess otherwise to be much use to anyone. So I do not mind with these tasks, it seems someone must sweep the floors and mend the boots that soldiers need to march over and with."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
(open.) but my skin is soft and my hands tired of holding
(open.) but the sea, it listens
(open.) pirate crews adjacent.
(closed.) wysteria & byerly
no subject
She turns abruptly and grips Gilia on the shoulder, laughing loudly as if in response to something her companion has definitely just finished saying. It's a sound to carry, tinkling cheerfully across the green - a bright burst of noise in the cold grey of Kirkwall's endless stone squares.
"Oh Gilia, don't be ridiculous. You're such a darling."
no subject
The murmur around her form she mistakes as a shadow for a moment... but then the definition of too many eyes makes itself known to her. Grant us--
Anna all but throws the collection of blades at the girl, stepping back. Her whip flicks loose, deft and quick. It looks like lumenkin, hiding beneath the flesh of a girl. Anna is nauseated by it, by the tendrils and lights. Her head throbs with the sounds of the sea-- the runes bound in to her from the last time she had access to the workshop resonate with a deep hum of acknowledgement. The great deep sea and the hunter.
"I knew--" she chokes out, flipping the whip as restlessly as a horse stamping a hoof. "I knew you things could follow me here."
no subject
So he strolls, and takes a puff - sees that the rather raucous laughter he heard earlier belongs to Miss Poppell, apparently enjoying some witticism on the part of her curly-haired young friend. Well, good for her. He graces her with a nod as he passes, but doesn't slow his already-leisurely pace.
no subject
Is rather drowned out by the laughter that goes on. Blinking Gilia awake out of her meandering daze that keeps roaming along. Across the fellow with his pipe that reminds her of someone but no one at all. Suppose he has just one of those faces?
But since, apparently, she was meant to be saying something, she tries to think of something she thinks would make Wysteria content. Always active, always moving. She did like that about her, if in little doses. So, a little louder, she carries on. "- Would you like to take a tour? The sky is very clear today, far better than other days, I am sure the walking would be pleasant - "
no subject
"Please - " confused, she darts up, to Anna. Misunderstanding what she had done to cause such offense. To cause the weapon that slithers to life, snake-like and just as terrifying. The weapons of wars that she had never seen until coming to this place. But, oh how it shows, that flickering below her skin. Defensive, now, rather than simply shimmering like ripples, it spreads through her. " - please don't hurt me. I am sorry, I am sorry for speaking so - "
The tears are just as immediate, the fear thick in the air as in her body. Her hands drawing up, curling her body away.
no subject
She can hear the Orphan's screaming. She can taste the rotting sea-flesh in her mouth. She snaps the whip again, it makes Gilia's dress flutter at the hems but it doesn't hit the girl. She can hear the Orphan's screaming, wailing over its dead mother and all the tortures it endured. She remembers Ebrietas turning slowly in the dark beneath the cathedral, caged there so that the Church could experiment on her weeping children. All her many eyes catching broken dapples of light as she made wishes on her Altar of Despair.
Anna pities them, and the pity feels like poison in her body. She can't pity them. She can't pity all those who have been maimed and transmogrified in the name of mankind's ambitions. She'll lose her grip. She'll lose her grip and she'll start screaming, all over again.
"You're a nightmare," she hisses, her voice low and teeth clenched. Now she's crept up on the frightened girl, fisted one of her gloved hands in those unruly curls and jerked on her head. She looks into the set of eyes that are not Gilia's. "Will you fiends ever let me sleep? Or must I gut you here to save myself?"
no subject
And she crumbles with it, being yanked by her hair, she is pulled down, her eyes screwed up tightly as the wet leaked down her cheeks, the shriek of pain is a miserable, pitiful, cowering sound. With it, as she trips, trying to pull herself free, but what is she to the strength of a warrior? "I am sorry. Forgive me, please, I meant no harm, I have sought none - I have obeyed every - "
The old creeds, the old laws, the binding of the pit, she had never strayed. She had never strayed. "Please, please." Her voice wails, high pitched, sobbing.
And unseen to all but Anna, the black eyes watch back, deep and pitying and so very full they seem bright. An ocean in there, and with it, Gilia's state is her own undoing, the fear, the need to protect herself is her own undoing. Every line of her strange rippled soul deepens, twists, like flowers growing too far, the coral blooms, her skin beyond just sallow. Cool, so cool to the touch.
no subject
The boat's come across from the mainland, Anders returning from his Clinic in his more worn robes, blues and blacks that are a little stained, a little faded. Blood and various other fluids take their toll no matter how much laundry he does, and there's a reason he chooses these to wear down there.
He leans on his staff as he looks at the small wreath she's working on, some hair loose from his long ponytail and a few streaks of dirt at temples where he's brushed hair back. A cat, a large, ginger, fluffy tomcat, twines through his feet and watches curiously.
"You've a lot of supplies; how many are you making?" There's something about her that he can't quite set definition to yet, a feeling that's almost familiar. That she's a Rifter isn't in doubt, but what it is about her that he's sensing he doesn't know and Anders is always curious, much like his cats.
no subject
"Until I run out I suspect. But I hoped to make one for each of my Fathers, my Mother. And all my brothers and sisters." She thinks it through, eyeing her pile, wondering about it.
At least until the cat catches her eye, and with it, she lifts her fingers to it, to see if it would come close to her.
no subject
"Are they here?" he asks, and promptly feels stupid about the asking. She's a Rifter. The answer to that is almost definitely a sad 'no.' Anders grimaces. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked. Most have no family here. I certainly have none."
The cat feels no guilt or stupidity, on the other hand. He inches forward to sniff her hand and promptly starts licking the offered fingers.
"His name's Lord Pawdric. He'll lick nearly anything held out, up to and including books." But at least now Anders' voice is fond rather than apologetic. After a beat, he stops leaning on his staff and takes a seat next to her. Looming is annoying to the loomed-over. He knows, because he's often the shorter one getting loomed at.
no subject
She shakes her head, breezily. Easy with it, far be it for her to put her misery on another - that went against almost everything she had been raised too.
"He is quite welcome too, whenever he wishes." After all, even if she doesn't think it's notable, that way that her family all is, that extra salt often made them especially appealing for animals to want to lick their skin. Indulgent to the cat completely, she lowers her head, leaning down for him to lick her cheeks if he wanted, nose curling up at the sensation.
"It is nice to meet you, Lord Pawdric." She offers in response to the approval. But with the company she shuffles to give him space on the end of the jetty. "Would you like to make one, sir?"
no subject
In this instance, on this perfectly lovely afternoon, she inexplicably bristles. It's a little stitch of impossible to decipher annoyance, soothed only by Gilia's suggestion. The combination drives her promptly to her feet. She benevolently offers the younger girl her arm. "Yes, I should think so. That sounds perfectly fine."
And then they're off at a considerable clip, Wysteria all but dragging Gilia along at a trot along some side path through the not yet blooming rose bushes so that at the next intersection of green walkways, having more or less stalked Byerly's path from a respectable distance, they might happen to conveniently waylay the man entirely by happenstance.
"Oh, is that you Mister Rutyer?" She tips back the broad brim of her hat. "I saw only your shoes earlier and thought I recognized them, but was certain I was mistaken."
no subject
"My dear Miss Poppell," he greets, the slightest twitch of an eyebrow hinting at can I help you? But he doesn't give Wysteria a chance to respond to that silent inquiry: instead, soon as he makes it, he turns towards the young woman accompanying her.
"Who is this charming friend of yours?" he asks, lowering his eyelashes and directing his best smoulder at the girl. Which, given the very famous beauty of his eyes, is quite a good one indeed. Delicately, he grasps the girl's free hand, and he bows over it - and kisses the back of the wrist - And notices, of course, the little green mote embedded into it.
Still, Rifter or not, By trusts that the girl will be able to recognize that his gestures are insincere. A rake, he fancies, is like a scorpion; you might come from a different world entirely, but something primordial in you will still be able to recognize the signs of danger and know not to touch.
no subject
"He'd wish a lot. He's used to getting a lot of attention and has come to expect it." As a cat should, really. But the human forgot a certain 'should' and only had introduced his cat. "I'm Anders, by the way. Sorry. Definitely not sir. Only my cats have titles. And yes, now that you ask. I'd like to make one."
He's short on people to give them to, but he has a head and likes pretty things. As he eyes the reeds, what he's feeling finally comes to him. He's feeling a spirit, but the way he'd felt them when he was possessed. For a moment his heart stops in fear, and then it resumes. He's not possessed. He'd know, and Mercy is lingering nearby rather than pushed away or inside him. He's fine. But the woman with him...
"Do you... Are you a mage?"
no subject
Rather, extracting herself from the cat, she reaches for another of the reeds, Sliding it between her fingers, and looking up at his head, briefly. A question, when she lifts her hands so that she could measure his head. "May I?" Waiting, of course, for him to say yes.
But his question - that makes her hands, watching him so slightly confused. "... I... do not think I quite rightly what they are."
no subject
But he did not look like the soldiers of the Inquisition, nor the vagabonds of Vane's crew. To that, she was relieved, though never left her role which had so long served in the face of strangers. She lets him take her hand, shivering the little for warm contact on cool skin. Her head bowing, eyes down, framed under her whimple and veil and the stray locks of curls that would not stay pinned no matter what she did. The dip of a curtsey in greeting that was so perfectly and strictly respectful. "Gilia. St. Loe. First-Daughter, Second-Child." The familiar patterns of introduction that offers no more than that. This was Wysteria's acquaintance, not hers, she didn't need to prattle on.
no subject
"I'm a mage," Anders finally says. He doesn't have enough information to go off of, and one of the last things he wants to do is set off a panic about a Rifter. He holds out a hand to the side and pulls up creation magic, letting it glow green-blue around his hand, warm and bright. "A healer, specifically. I asked because I got a sense of something from you, something I'd felt off another mage before."
That should be safe enough, gentle enough. He doesn't want her to feel threatened - his cat is right here.
no subject
Though his hands, she eyes curiously. Blinking in surprise as the light illuminates his fingers, - she hadn't seen it, herself. The thing everyone called here magic. That seemed to cause so much of a problem. That - she took, not as something you are born, but simply, a choice you made, and one that only made things better.
But to that - "Oh, no, I cannot do anything like that. Is that what the spirits here give you? Is that why people are so - " and at least she has the sense to look around, and lower her head, cautious of what the Medicine Seller had said to her, about not speaking too freely of such matters. " - so fearful of them?"
no subject
"No. Magic doesn't come from the spirits. ...Rather, most magic doesn't." His voice isn't loud, it won't carry, but it's not altogether quiet. Everyone around would know what it means when a person is in robes and carrying a staff, after all, and they're close enough to the Inquisition forces he feels not too alone.
"Mages are born with a connection to the Fade, where the spirits live. I've a boost, additional strength in healing, thanks to a spirit I work with. Mercy. But a majority of mages don't partner with spirits. There's a risk of going too far. Of letting one in. When that happens it's a disaster for all involved. But spirits on their own aren't beings to be fearful of."
Has she been treated with fear? He doesn't think people outside those in Kirkwall and in command of the Inquisition know about Rifters being somewhat akin to spirits, but when even a few dozen know a secret there will be leaks.
"Have you been threatened, Gilia?" That's the priority, if someone is threatening Rifters. Then he can try to carefully figure out more of what he's feeling.
no subject
"Why on earth would a spirit ever do such a thing?" As for fearful - "No, no one has ever treated me unkindly. They have been good and respectful. I want for nothing." But there is one fatal flaw to that statement, even if someone was, she was not the sort of young woman to ever admit a problem.
no subject
"Some spirits want more. Most don't." Maybe that will allay some of her fears. "You're not a mage, and I've heard no cases of Rifters being possessed, so it's not likely to happen to you."
There's a short beat as he considers where to go from here. "You've... a sense of a spirit to you, so you may be even more protected." Or already possessed.
no subject
Filling the hours.
Leaping out of his skin when he's so lost in his own head, face buried in his papers at a voice he wasn't expecting that he nearly trips, flails, sidesteps-- ah, that'd be Rump Roast.
Rump Roast heading for the--
"Mind yourself, get away from it." To the nug as if the nug is going to listen although it's not the cat because the cat would listen and ignore him out of spite. "There's more of 'em-- can you just--"
He'll help but there are nugs, there's one dwarf stuffing his papers inside his coat to assist but maybe don't roll your ankle tripping over them he is not a stout fellow.
no subject
To that, there is a simple response. "Oh - perhaps you feel my Father-Sea?"
no subject
She will not touch the sword, but she does need to be told twice - she'd never let those little pink wriggly things hurt themselves on the dreadful pieces of steel. Quick as she can, she picks up Rump Roast with both hands, bundling the little sneaky creature up into her apron, holding him into her chest.
The little thing is squeaking at its sudden abduction, but she holds as fast as she would her wayward siblings, and the second there are more of them, she's trailing about after them, trying to herd them close so she can grab them all before they went for a trip somewhere dangerous.
no subject
There's a look between dwarf and nug but the rest are coming to see what their comrade is doing all the way up there.
It's likely a giddy height compared to the dwarf for a nug.
"Who's got you ferrying their cheap tat?" He gives the blade a twirl as if he's some great judge, puckering up his mouth into what he thinks is a rich man's moue of distaste but in all honesty looks more like bad gas. "Thought they'd be a bit leery letting people who've come from out the sky go to-and-fro with weapons when we're all panicked about old biddies who might come thundering down on us."
no subject
She can't hear anything Gillia is saying. Every utterance sounds like the crash of the ocean. Incomprehensible and endless, assaulting her thoughts with its thick, grating fog of sound. She puts her other gloved hand over Gillia's mouth to make it stop. The other hand goes around her neck. Both squeeze.
"I hate you," Anna whispers in hazy, thick confession; insensate to the girl. All she can see are coral blossoms, frothing currents, and a thousand starry eyes. "Everything that you are. Every wish and promise and curse."
She squeezes tighter, her leather gloves creaking. She smells like sweat and her hair is limp on her forehead.
"You can't stay."
no subject
Then it is no imagining, water drips off her fingers, sliding in a drip - drip,drip - drip,drip,drip of a stream picking up it's current. Faster and faster, and even when Anna chokes the air out of her lungs ( she has never been without breath before, not even at the depths of the ocean floor ),
( Was this how Godfin felt? When the black came up around him? )
but even when the sound of her voice is finally smothered out of her, the ocean only grows louder as she... doesn't even try to push and shove to save herself. Her head getting dizzy, air fading away from her lungs.
no subject
He could move very quickly when he wanted to, his calm, patient and rather lax demeanor belying the physical fortitude he kept so well under wraps as god forbid someone think him capable of actually doing work.
He saw the conflict, he felt the rise of the tides familiar as the Ayakashi of the Dragon's Triangle and he flung the ofuda without hesitation. The little rectangles of paper encircled both Anna and Gillia.
Barriers that could both protect and, hopefully, contain. At least until he could get to the bottom of this. For a moment, he focused on the rectangular charms but no markings appeared on them. Neither were Mononoke which meant...
"Lady Gillia - please get a hold of yourself."
no subject
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She wails it as she curls to sit half on one side, shoving her face into her hands, rocking herself in cold comfort to the ebb and flow of the tides. Her hair rapidly escaping its wimple and veil, trickling water over her clothes, her body. "Forgive me, please, please - " the only words that were in defence, pitching louder and louder as the ocean grew and grew inside of her, water pooling in her shadow like her only respite. "I did not break the accords! I did not touch them! Please, please, tell Nikolai - I never, I never - !"
It's a babble of fear, and as much sense as that has ever been to anyone. Save for that truth, surely Anna was sent here to punish her for being in a war camp, for even being sent to touch blades. It was a test and she had failed, please, please. "I do not want to go into the black, please." For surely that was what Anna's hard gloved fingers were, that same deep, deep black that smothered the light and the sea.
no subject
She starts to reach for the flamesprayer at her hip instead, but doesn't make it that far.
no subject
"What," he asked Anna in his slow, halting monotone, "has happened?"
He didn't ask Gillia - he figured it was best to let the crying run its course - at least he didn't feel like the world was going to drown at any moment. He could hear the hubbub around them - others were starting to take notice of the commotion. He'd need to end this quickly - Anna looked ill - ill and murderous and something there felt wrong and he had some idea of what Gillia was.
...Thedas could become a very dangerous place for any of them.
no subject
"Nothing," she murmurs, realizing how dry her mouth is. Like she's been drinking salt water and only driving herself mad. "I laid eyes upon a thing I did not wish to see, and it stared back at me unblinking, endless."
She flicks her head, sweat and ocean flinging from her hair and face. "There is a rune writ on me, it hums with that thing. Down-reaching currents. Mine is simulacra of a voice. Hers--" an accusatory finger pointed, trembling, "--hers is not."
This is the kind of talk too many dismiss in Anna, when she sounds her maddest but is giving her most dire of warnings.
no subject
"She is not something that needs to be slain," he said, calm and quiet but also assured. The ofuda vanished save for all but one as passersby slowed to rubberneck at what looked like some delicious drama.
He gestured to the rectangle of paper - blank as ever.
"Were she a threat, this would be covered in red writing. She is not a foe for you."
no subject
Then she stands, to watch her present saviour.
"I do not think they much saw me as anything other than someone who might do it without other comments." She admits that much freely, adjusting as she speaks for the little creatures squirming to try and see from their new vantage point. "And I am glad to help when everyone seems so busy."
no subject
"Desire for them drives men mad. This is no place for us"
Any of them. The girl, the merchant, herself.
She realizes then that she doesn't have her whip, and swoops for it, collapses it, hug it close to her body the way a child would hug a toy. She wishes she'd run Gillia through with it while she was still half-hypnotized by the swaying of the coral.
Only then does she look at the crying thing again. There's no apology or pity in her look, only frowning unhappiness and weariness. She opens her mouth to say something but only winces and turns back to the medicine seller.
"I'll... leave her to you..."
no subject
But as she is what she is, four eyes and all, all glitter wet and coral as soft as petals that dances to be seen and not seen, nothing comes of it. Only that she curls away from Anna's gaze, turning her body in. Wishing somehow, that her mother was here, that her fathers would do as when she was a child, and hold her until all the confusion went away.
They are not here, and she has no comfort to call on. Instead, Gilia curls her feet under her, watching the sea trickle against the deck. Drying as soon as it dripped away from her. The thick smell of salt air curling about her skin like a blanket.
no subject
"I will take responsibility for this," he said, shifting to keep Gillia out of direct view of others. He hopes his words have some kind of assurance - he doubts it but he hopes nonetheless. He'd rather not see how this conflict would end (terribly, for everyone most likely).
no subject
The nugs, who've perhaps heard this speech before as a captive audience in the room with the dwarf, happily inspect and investigate this newest person. There are hand-feet. They do what hand-feet do: wiggle and pat the way that most people are apparently horrified by as if hands are the domain of people only.
(Forgetting that a great many people would be better off without them. Nobles. Chevaliers. Grey Wardens. He's not keeping a list or anything.)
"Don't know what anyone'd be busy with right now, arguing over some dusty old woman sitting on a dusty old throne as if any of them are any different to each other to most of us but s'pose they need new things to fight over. Or pretend to."
no subject
Still, when it is that the Medicine Seller comes back to her, she lifts her head just barely to look up at him, the same confusion on her lips. "Please, I did not do it. I swear it."
no subject
That, they might have odd little hand feet, but she was sure they found them very useful and she had no reason to think anything other than that, as they patted. Because once they managed to get one bit of hair loose, another bit follows. Springy, easy to get tiny claws stuck in it. But as her siblings liked to do, as much fun to pull at, to watch it bounce back into shape.
"Yes, it - " she adjusts her arms when one of the nugs seems to be keen to get under the wimple where it's wrapped under her chin. " - it does seem very important to everyone. So I would like to just help, so they might sort out the business best for themselves, as otherwise it is not my place."
no subject
"Behave yourselves, she's not here to put up with your antics. She's not Thranduil." Who is, probably, the person with hair likely to get tangled since his lady has hers out of the way usually and wouldn't let a nug get at it. (He can't imagine it.)
"D'you got one?" Which yeah, there's no way to disguise that as being anything other than a rude question but rifters come, rifters go, some ascending to lofty heights but most don't, not really and he's curious. "A place, I mean," he clarifies as he fishes the papers out his pockets again. "I'm meant to be doing Other Powers or the bastard child no one wants since we've not had a leader in forever and scouting, research, check up on how the shady bits do, give my dwarven expertise but you know--"
And he stops, swallows carefully as he takes a breath and hopes the smile is genuine. He feels it but sometimes it's difficult to know how to do this.
"You're here. So. This is your place. Same as it's anyone's place and honestly make sure you say something 'fore someone else," mages, "puts words in your mouth."
no subject
"We should speak elsewhere. Can you get a hold of your abilities?"
no subject
With it gone, or at least quiet, she begins to shakily pull herself up from the floor. Her clothes soaked to the bone, but it hardly seems to bother her.
no subject
"I've no such place, sir. I've little to offer, you see. I've never been in a - a - " she looks around so terrible suspicious, eyes darting like she was worried, so worried, that someone might hear her like her mother and brother would loom out from a corner.
So she leans in, down to him as she bends from the waist. "A war camp." The fear is plain in those words, in that little conspiratorial whisper. "I've little skills, that which they might need. I kept my family, and my families wishes, as best I could, and attended to our household at my brother's side. I do not know what skill I might possess otherwise to be much use to anyone. So I do not mind with these tasks, it seems someone must sweep the floors and mend the boots that soldiers need to march over and with."