↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT | OPEN LOG

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone (except those who remain behind to keep an eye on the Gallows)
WHAT: Just some ruins, nothing special
WHEN: Solace 17-20
WHERE: The Arbor Wilds, Southern Orlais
NOTES: OOC post! Second log post for NPC threads! Image source!

For most, the journey through the Crossroads is miserable: the world is grey and lifeless, the light twists disorientingly like the world is being viewed through a water droplet, an incessant sound is always just beyond the edge of hearing, and walking anywhere feels like walking uphill.

For elves, it's a world in bloom with a stained-glass sky. La di da.

But everyone does eventually arrive, together, at the site of a large eluvian. There are signs of recent activity; a long-dead guard previously discovered by the Riftwatch team that traveled there before has been moved, and a spear left leant against the side of the eluvian where a new elf may have more recently temporarily taken his place. There's no guard there now.

When the team passes through the eluvian and into the verdant temple grounds beyond it, the reason quickly becomes apparent. They're met not with a volley of arrows from an army of guards, but the warily trained weapons of the small handful that remain after days of repelling an invasion from beyond the temple walls. It's a fight they're losing—one they thought already lost, given their casualties and the fires now burning outside the walls—and their exhausted, bruised leader only needs a little prodding, and only seems a little suspicious, before he orders his people to stand down and accepts an offer of help.


I. REPELLING CORYPHEUS' FORCES

The Temple's Sentinels have been reduced to a handful of wary elves, most of whom don't speak Trade very well, but they manage to give enough direction to get those who will be fighting outside of the quiet Inner Sanctum to the outer gardens. The Temple's outer defenses—powerful enough magic to kill an aspiring god, if it's run into blindly—have finally fallen, but what remains of the Red Templars and Venatori mounting the assault have been slowed by the overgrown labyrinth of gardens, then the arguments and preparations needed to blast a magical hole in the floor to expose the crypts below.

They're taken off guard by the sudden, non-Sentinel reinforcements. But they're still a powerful mix of Tevinter-trained mages and amplified Templars, and—if anyone cares—the longer the fight drags on, the more damage is done to the Temple's gardens. It's not a good time to dally or pull punches. Not even when a familiar face is found among the enemy.

II. THE PETITIONER'S PATH

When the last of the Red Templars and Venatori have been killed or chased into the jungle, the Sentinels—perfectly happy to have most of these interlopers locked outside a little longer—will be quick to disappear, save one, who will direct their attempts to get through the doors again with bored, skeptical broken Trade. The most direct route back inside requires walking the Petitioner's Path, a mazelike path through the gardens, weaving around corners and through tunnels of ivy, in places obscured entirely by the overgrowth.

There's no trick to the floor tiles, here. Only a trick of the mind. Clarity, supplication, a request for justice, and then at points along the path spirits will begin to appear. Some will wear the faces of those who have wronged you—offering excuses, begging for mercy, or refusing to be sorry, and in all cases wanting to know what you think they deserve. Others will wear the faces of those who you've wronged—wanting to know your excuse, asking if you think you deserve forgiveness.

Mercy isn't required, to pass Mythal's test. Only an even hand. The same justice for one as for the other. Succeed, and the spirits will lead you to pass freely through the doors.

III. THE CRYPTS

—or fail, or refuse to participate in a heathen ritual, or see the folly in risking that sort of exposure in less than total privacy, and your option for rejoining the rest of Riftwatch is a labyrinth of a different kind. Corypheus' allies were interrupted before they blew the floor wide open, but there is an opening large enough to pass through single-file into the ancient crypts below. The path through is dark, wet, and winding; now and then one of the dead rattles and threatens to rise; and the Sentinel babysitter, apparently disgusted by the fact that anyone might refuse or fail the test and still enter the Temple, refuses to serve as a guide or provide a map.

But it could probably be worse. Somehow. There could be less historical value in the moldering ruins, for example, or fewer pieces of gold and scraps of ancient jewelry lying around for the taking.

IV. THE TEMPLE OF MYTHAL

Back within the quiet of the Inner Sanctum, Riftwatch's envoy is permitted to rest—with varying degrees of individual acceptance, depending on whether or not they successfully walked the Path to enter, and all of them watched as closely as the small handful of remaining Sentinels can manage. Their leader, Abelas, doesn't shy away from the dire facts. Not enough of them remain to protect the Temple and the Well of Sorrows. Corypheus will likely be back. Convincing him not to destroy it, and finding a viable alternative, will be a task.

In the meantime, those who have better things to do in Kirkwall can return at any time, and anyone ill-suited for a fight but well-suited to assisting in the discussion with Abelas or the efforts to clean up the damage and tend to the fallen—either out of genuine interest in preserving the Temple or in an effort to butter up its guardians a little—can safely cross through the eluvian to help.

For those who are willing to sleep on the ground in a jungle Temple for a night or two instead, while the matter of the Well is resolved, it may be possible to slip away unnoticed to explore the Temple in the dark, at least until caught and escorted back to Riftwatch's makeshift camp, or for someone who's been appropriate respectful to convince one of the Temple guardians to show them some of the murals and statues. But venturing outside of the inner temple walls will require either traversing the crypts or walking the Path to get back inside. Every single time.

Comments

yngvi ota

[filthydipper]

I. REPELLING CORYPHEUS' FORCES
Thing is, right, thing is that hopefully no one is going to make Yngvi sit down and do any sort of property damage bollocks because Yngvi is an artificer and his first instinct in situations where stealth isn't called for (and it's not, here, he's not going to roll into and impale himself on a horny Templar thanks, he's read those books it ends badly for everyone) is to just hurl something.

That something being elemental mines.

At least they're pretty? Sort of? If you go for that sort of thing? And really, if you can't appreciate fire and ice and things being shocked then who are you, honestly.

III. THE CRYPTS
"And I mean bugger that for a lark!"

Is it out the hearing of one a candidate for the collective entry to 'top five weirdest elves' and 'top five weirdest people' (it's stiff competition now than it was previous, thanks rifters)? Maybe? Maybe not? Well Yngvi doesn't care because that sounded dodgy and he likes to think that he, grown beneath Kirkwall in the capable hands of the Carta knows dodgy. Knows it same as you know when and where you don't buy meat in times of scarcity when suddenly it shows up.

Yngvi didn't come out here to do weird elf shit anyway. (He did come to see what all the fuss is about but chances are you're not tall enough or sister-adjacent enough for that). And thanks to being a dwarf though because they are in short - get it - supply he's making out well down here in the crypts.

"I mean, what's so special about woo petitioner woo," he continues and hopefully that carries over his hands busy with something that clinks. It's a dark corner but dwarves got them eyes don't they? "Try getting to see the Viscount when Kirkwall still had one, now that was something."

wildcard
Maybe Yngvi has slipped off to explore. "Explore". To enrich himself in the culture or whatever words have tripped out of his mouth if he hasn't slunk off with the grace of a teenager waiting for parental company to leave so he can safely raid the kitchen. To go line his pockets more because that's the only sort of enriching your boy is in for thanks.

Or there are birds. There are loud terrible birds and Yngvi can be quiet and still when he has to be. Perched as awkwardly as you'd imagine a dwarf would be perched in search of a bird that he has no idea how to catch or what he'd do with when caught but he just wants it.

Or is he-- surely-- no...no he is. He's guddling about in the dirt. Is he using his cup to catch lizards?

(Or it's none of those things and he's conveniently somewhere, doing something and it can be rolled with.)

wildcard

[rowancrowned]

The sentinels are motioning them inside, if begrudgingly, and Thranduil occupies himself with doing a quick headcount of Riftwatch, very pleased when the number is what it is supposed to be, and less pleased when one of the heads is far lower to the ground than it ought to be.

He wants, very badly, to be among the first in, to see, to soak in that feeling of familiarity. It is in such short supply in Thedas, and here, he has an (aged, decayed) taste of it.

But he will not leave Yngvi behind. He will not leave anyone behind, and so he falls back, and crouches beside Yngvi, and- ah.

"Wherever will you put it, if you catch it?"

wildcard;

[limier]

Habits die a still death. She's wanted to spy the exits, the camp; she's lingered there longer than thought (paralysis is a habit of its own). There are only so many ways back in to the temple, and strolling along that road again requires,

Some preparation. Preparation's in her hand now, a bottle stowed half a world away, kept for precisely this sort of moment. Preparation. Fortification. It tastes like dirt, but that's Ferelden swill for you. The dirt's the point.

She's quiet against the wall; the world is not. The birds scream. The jungle rustles. Somewhere ahead, the path is singing. She's quiet — swallowing the heat of it — it takes her a while to catch the scrape of his cup over earth. Another day might hail him with a name, a smile. A hundred such days.

Long gone. A heel kicks hard against crumbled stone. Gravel rustles free. Due warning: He's not alone.

thranduil - ota

[rowancrowned]

( jump in at any point or wildcard! )

The sentinel is at least given the space of a few heartbeats before Thranduil makes for the path. There is an air about him, something settled around his shoulders, down the curve of his spine, even with the armor pulling his posture into shape. He does not gawp or gaze overlong at any feature in particular, nor is his step hesitant over the broken stones. Each step is purposeful, even processional; measured and twin to the one previous, which allows him to appear to float, rather than walk.

Both spirits- for his eagerness to begin makes it easy to watch him as he goes- take the forms of elves, or something near to them, and ones with the same excess of height, the same careless length of hair, the same unmistakable fluidity to their movements. His confidence slides off him as theirs steadies.

He flinches away from the first when it appears, taller than him, black of hair and dressed in red--

"Fëanor Finwëion," Thranduil says, to the overgrown garden and to himself, and then the conversation dissolves into rapid-fire Sindarin, Thranduil still throughout; a stag perpetually trapped in the moment of the hunt's horn blowing. But the great elven figure dissipates, finally, and he dips his head.

It remains downcast even unto the second figure, who is more light than figure, the suggestion of a face here, of ghostly flowers blooming where her feet do not meet the ground, a train that mimics starlight even as the sun cuts through it. Their conversation is longer, and anyone who has heard Thranduil speak will hear his accent shift, the ths slipping, the vowels long and lyrical, as he pleads and the spirit coaxes. His fingers twitch as if to reach out for her more than once, but the action is stilled at the wrist, and when it is done and he moves through the doors and into the waiting area, it is with no pride and less triumph.

[dirth]

Solas should find this more frightening, he thinks; he should be aware of what the cost might be and afraid to accept it. It is not the first time he has encountered ruins - both now, as they are, and how they had been in the past when Arlathan had been at its height. He sees it now and wishes, desperately, that things were different, but he does not quite have the strength to put any of his longing and sadness into words, to voice, to say what he feels and what he means.

It is not so easy, especially with so many eyes upon him.

He waits until Thranduil is done, until the figures are barely whispering in the world, and then he approaches. He must do his own, he knows that, but he ignores the knot in his stomach and the twitching of his fingers as he lays a hand on his friend's arm.

"Are you well?"

[limier]

"Took your time."

As though she hadn't, a thundering ball of nerves and forward momentum — both shed now, arrayed stone-faced in the sanctum with the rest of them. There are many things they haven't spoken of; she does not imagine they will now. Who was she? Cannot pronounce her own guesses. They all sound the same way, in the end: Important.

alistair

[byblow]

a. the petitioner's path
(open but one thread please! or if you care but just want to say your character saw it without interrupting that's cool too)

He'd expected Loghain. Which is what he says: "I expected Loghain."

The spirit in front of him, in the leafy nook where Alistair found himself in while trying the ritual—feeling self-conscious and distantly ridiculous, half expecting one of the Sentinels to come fetch him and tell him it was all a joke to make a bunch of shems walk around in weird figures in their garden for a while, but on the other hand he's done weirder shit so—anyway. The spirit is a fair amount smaller than Loghain. More female. More elven. Maybe familiar, too, to people who spent time at Skyhold, or to mages who kept up with their own leaders, which is what makes him look back over his shoulder to make sure no one is paying attention before he says anything else.

"I understand why you—why she did it. It's fine. No punishment." He makes a facetiously magnanimous gesture, like a king dismissing his court.

The spirit wearing Fiona's washed-out face gives him a sad smile.

"I knew," it says, insisting on the first-person charade, with her Orlesian accent. "I knew how it was turning out, with the Arl and the Chantry. I could have at least written to you."

Alistair sighs. Not touched. Mostly impatient to have this over with. Arguing with Loghain would have been more fun.

"Well, sure, she could have done that," he says. Do these spirits understand sarcasm? He's about to find out. "Clearly she deserves to die."

b. temple sleepover

The sky is very clear, the stars very bright, the weather not too warm, this far south, or too cold, this time of year. They're anticipating another attempt from Corypheus' people, sooner or later, but not right away. Sleeping on the ground surrounded by lush vegetation and the distant sounds of frogs and bugs and owls could be sort of peaceful.

Except, "Do you think they're going to murder us?" he whispers to whomever has the misfortune of having a bedroll near his. "They don't have any reason to murder us, right? Other than murdering everyone else who tries to come here."

c. wildcard

b

[bouchonne]

"Why Loghain?"

By doesn't ask this question out on the Petitioner's Path. He holds it till later, when they're all tucked away on bedrolls and when leaving would be a great big pain in the arse and so he's likely to be able to have a captive audience for a little while, at least. His voice is idle, a little wry - perfectly nonthreatening.

"Why did you expect him?"

a

[doneisdone]

"That was your first mistake," comes the muttered reply-- expecting Loghain leads to disappointment more often than not, as Teren has found. But she leaves her commentary at that, side-eyeing the ghostly Fiona while Alistair talks to her.

If only it were easier to punch a ghost.

b;

[filthydipper]

"We smell."

Blankets rustling, Yngvi worms his way over on his belly, given up on his book since it's getting too late for him to pay attention to it properly with all these bodies about; a romance novel is to be enjoyed alone where no one can hear you giggling over the bodice-ripping.

"We've got," let him squint yeah there's something on that face, "hair on our chins. No one told them fashion moved on without them and they're embarrassed and don't know how to ask for style tips so they'll just have to peel the clothes off our still warm bodies in the night..."

Alistair. Alistair look at him. Look at him in the night staring. No that's not a lizard behind his ear that's just the heat and the temple getting to you why would he have a lizard.

kostos averesch

[exequy]

a. the crypts

Kostos made it far enough in the elven ritual to catch a glimpse of the form the first spirit intended to take, and then he was out, shaking his head at anyone who noticed him leaving like he didn't have time for this bullshit, even though the crypts will take longer to navigate. He can, at least, navigate them without putting anyone's capital crimes on public display.

He's only made it halfway through—maybe, hard to tell, maybe he's actually lost—when he stops, ankle-deep in murky water, to frown at something glinting on the wall. The wisp he's using for light, among other things, brightens helpfully and hovers over the barely-there markings.

Kostos never actually learned how to summon veilfire. Someone else was always there to do it. He knows the theory, though, and he's giving it an unsuccessful try when the sound of someone else moving in the water behind him makes him abruptly stop. Not that there's anything wrong with veilfire. There's just something very wrong with being observed failing at things, depending on who's potentially doing the observing.

b. wildcard

a. crypts

[sulahnan]

"Oh, good, it's you," Oddly enough, a comment free of sarcasm. She actually sounds relieved that he is who he is, and that she happened upon him. She slogs through the water, her expression a mirror of Kostos' usual set jaw and slightly furrowed brow.

"I've just about had it with this place. Whatcha got there?"

athessa sulahnan

[sulahnan]

A. THE CRYPTS

Or you could be a Dalish-born, Kirkwall-raised elf who refuses to be faced with the face of an old wound that never healed, and who is thus triple-shunned by your own kind.

Oh, wait.

At first it seems like Athessa could have an in with the Sentinels, if only because she speaks some far-removed version of their language. Before being presented with the test she’s able to communicate enough to be treated like a stupid child, but then she chickens out of the test and the neutral condescention becomes outright disdain.

“Not much of a scenic route,” she mutters, stepping over a toppled and moss-clad column. She walks ahead of whoever is carrying the torch. No sense going light-blind when your usefulness as a scout is heightened by dark vision. “That skeleton looks just like the last skeleton we passed.”

B. WILDCARD

[wythersake]

"More rot."

Isaac corrects, in words subdued enough to pass for mild. He's made his own exit from the test at speed, but that hardly matters now —

"One a scale of one to cursed...?"

He trails off, eyeing an array of tombs ahead.

solas | ota

[dirth]

THE PETITIONER'S PATH

The path is agony for Solas.

He knows each of the faces as they come to stand before him, recognises them all. No one else could, of course - centuries dead, mourned and lost, the faces of the People who had come to pass because of the Veil, losing their immortality and fading into history. Some are marked with the vallaslin that the Dalish tried to reclaim, others bare-faced as he is; all of them gazing into his soul and asking him why. Why?

What is the Veil? What has -- done? After he held back the sky -- The cities, the pathways -- Our empire is ruins --

Each one is touched by Solas' hand. He does not speak loud enough to be heard, not unless you come to his shoulder, but he asks forgiveness from each one. He bows his head and accepts their anger, does not seem to attempt to defend himself. He knows what wrongs he has committed and he accepts it - he accepts it because what else can he do? He knows his guilt, he knows the failures that hang heavy on his shoulder.

The last spirit is something more than all the others, brighter and beautiful. Her face is marred by something, too bright a light to be seen, but Solas knows her all the same. He steps up to her and takes her hand, tries to, and bows his head. He asks forgiveness in a voice loud enough to be heard, broken with exhaustion and sadness, and when she bows her head and disappears he continues forward, the doorway opening and allowing him to pass.

He does not walk through immediately. He sits, and closes his eyes, and breathes.

THE TEMPLE OF MYTHAL

Yearning to greet each of the Sentinels is a painful thing because Solas knows them all, recognises them in spirit if not in name and face. He knows what power the Well holds and he can feel it burn in the back of his head, his eyes longing to release tears and his heart refusing to let them bleed; he cannot give away so much. Not here and not now, not when all the emotions spiral inside of him and make him feel too much all at once.

He uses the night to explore the temple, unafraid of the scolding of the Sentinels. They will know him as one of the People in the end, he thinks, and he reaches to touch fingers against the murals of the Evanuris, breathing in deep as he gazes at each one in turn.

They had been his fellows, once. Not friends, perhaps, but as close as he could imagine himself having at the time.

Eventually, he stops in front of a mural of Mythal, wolf statues surrounding her completely, and he sits, staff at his side, eyes closed, silent and prepared for the evening to pass. He waits to speak with Abelas, with the other Sentinels, to share his language with people who truly know it, and expects that he will eventually be disturbed.

It will come. He is sure.

Petitioner's Path

[laurenande]

She finds him at the end of the path, and, for a moment, is uncertain if he is one of the apparitions, come to detail her failures or her betrayals. The doors beside him lead inward, to the inner Sanctum of this grand place, and he is seated on the steps, overcome.

No, he is not one of the spirits, but he is a ghost in this place, just as she is.

Her steps are slower, the faces of the dead have not taken so sharp a toll on her psyche as his, but she arrives behind him. It is a moment's pause before she steps alongside him and simply stands, waiting in silence while his feelings wash over him. She would hide them from view, wrap them in peace and privacy, but she can hear no nearby footsteps. They have this moment alone, without the use of power or magic to make it so.

After a while, she speaks, breaks the silence softly so that he does not have to conjure words to do so.

"This place reminds me of a city I once called home," she says and it is wistful and inconsequential. "Though the birds are much more colorful."

flint | ota

[katabasis]

I. repelling corypheus' forces (ota, single thread)
Somewhere in the fray: a small contigent of well ordered Red Templar foot soldiers have figured out how to use their broad shields and one of their monstrously corrupted companions to their greatest advantage. They move in a constantly oscillating line - first driving forward with their shield line, then breaking to allow the partially crystalized creature through to lay waste with great, more than half mad strokes of a sword fused to hand by burst flesh and hardened lyrium, then closing again about them to start all over again.

It's a simple trick, being used far too effectively.

"You," -- this barked from Flint, materializing out of the chaos with a sword in one hand and an axe in the other. There's a free flowing cut on his neck, the result of some absurdly lucky sidestep that had successfully kept his head on his shoulders. "With me. We're going to break that."

II. the petitioner's path (ota, single thread)
There is an old story in Tevinter. It goes like this: a long time ago, there was a beloved young student of Thalasian whose name we no longer remember. He was sent by the Archon with a handful of trusted men to scout a secret path through the Arlathan forest with strict instructions to avoid all eyes. "And should you become separated, trust that you'll meet again," said the Archon.

For two days, the scouting party travels through the forest. That night, the party is awoken by a distant voice calling out. It happens every night after, though the voice never seems to get any closer. On the sixth night in the Arlathan, a storm comes and the parry is scattered in the dark. The student finds himself alone. Terrified of being found alone, he takes to calling out for his companions. He calls out every night after, and no reply ever comes. There is no other voice in the dark.

When the scouting party returns, they report to the Archon the successful discovery of their path and the loss of his student. "Every night, we heard him calling for us, but he always seemed to be moving opposite to us."

The moral for soldiers and young children is to do as you're told and be faithful, because even the most precious name can be forgotten.

It's an absurd story, but Flint finds himself thinking of it now as he winds through the overgrown labyrinth with its dappled shadows and curving natural passages of ivy and tangled tree boughs. It's a primordial kind of relief to be wandering in similar circles and to find himself irritated instead of dreading what might lay around each corner.

Which is a pleasant thought until, with startling abruptness, the corridor cracks open into a broad uneven courtyard from which a half dozen paths extend as spokes on a wheel. At its center, some great transluscent shape comes uncoiled.

The snake raises its slab-like head. In the center of its heavy, incorporeal body twist strange fleeting forms: swords and snapped arrows and mangled humanoid shapes, the bizarre detritus of a million swallowed things.

I

[doneisdone]

He doesn't have to tell her twice.

"Fuckin hate these things," Teren mutters, launching forward with Flint, both hands gripping a blade, one of which punches in and out of the nearest Red Templar chest as easily as a hot knife through butter. "Don't get it in your mouth."

Bartolomeo "Barty" Bjurnsen | OTA

[gentlecountry]

i. Forces
It's a point of pride, for Barty, that he's always been a neat and deft hand, at killing. You have to be a good killer, to be a good farmer, after all; not merely able to spill blood and life, nor to stand the sight and smell, the warmth of it. You have to be a good killer. Good at it. Good at deciding when it should happen. And what good meant, here as in most cases, was quick.

"Now, I don't suppose we can haves a civilized conversations about this, then?" The thing, once a templar, roared like a bear or the way a bear would be if it could really know what rage was, instead of only feeling it, and charged "...Well, that's a shame."

He fought like an old man walks; carefully, each movement economic, purposeful, and aforethought. It was a very dwarven way to fight, with nothing of flourishes, as square and practical as clean-cut stone, and about as forgiving. In sharp contrast to the unassuming arc of each arm as he threw were the axes themselves; a shining flash of polished steel and leather handle, flitting through the air like a kingfisher. It necessitated that he follow the path of his destruction of course; one could carry only so many throwing weapons, when they were the size of an axe, however small and tidy an axe they might be.

But that was alright: no sense in keeping them waiting, after all. And he'd a Warden's stamina and an officer's experience; Barty could keep this up, practically all day.


ii. Path
Barty was a big believer in respecting people's beliefs and trying to be kind where one could, or at least polite, and if it weren't possible to be any of those things, he could settle for simply not taking up more of their time than was strictly necessary. But there was one place and type of person for whom none of that applied: family.

Which is why it was, in the end, truly unfortunate that one of the Spirits had decided to take the form of one Larimar Bjurnsen, the brother of a Warden by the same name.

"...Why you see fit to comes round and plow up old sod like—"

"Oh sod, is it! Sod. I'll sod you, you hopped up duster!"

"That's Warden-Constable Duster to you, y'piss poor excuse of a tart!"

"Tart! At least I can bake one!"

"Hope it was worth betrayin' your own blood for half a nug farm and another thing at least I dids more for myself than go lay down for Daryl Dales, as if thats were somes kinds of catch!"

"How dare you talks about my Darry that way! I oughts to have kicked you outs sooner if I knowed you were such a nug-humping, dust-sucking, sandy-arsed..."

"You insultin' my baking now? MY BAKING, WOMAN?!"

"TOO RIGHT, YOU HEARDS ME, BARTOLOMEO BJURNSEN. YOUR TARTS TASTE LIKE CHEESE!"

"THEY'RE MEANTS TO, THEY ARE CHEESE TARTS."

It goes on like that for a while. Whatever the Spirit had intended, or thought it had gotten itself into, it's now trapped in a generations-deep dwarven feud, steeped in inheritance law and personal grudges. Barty does not, for a significant time, seem at all likely to finish the petition with any success, beyond that of venting what seems to be some fairly deep-rooted issues with the shade of what is, with increasing clarity, his sister.

But eventually, something changes, or perhaps some turn of the argument reaches an invisible seed of judgement. Maybe someone wins; stranger things have happened in the throes of sibling rivalry. In any case, the spirit, satisfied, or at least browbeaten into a semblance of satisfaction, ceases to bar his way, and Barty stomps past it to find a bench, and sit down sharply.

He's not done being mad yet. But give him a minute, and it'll all be fine.

II

[doneisdone]

Standing there with him and double his height is one very tired-looking Teren von Skraedder, who prefers to stay out of the dramatics, rubbing her temple.
It's once the arguing seems to have died down somewhat that she cuts in slowly, with a hopeful "to the crypts then?"

[reshapes]

I. repelling corypheus' forces (closed to the haunted skull in a jar)

Sometimes in life, things make a reasonable amount of sense. The sun rises in more or less the same direction every day, children pick their noses, and battles between humans¹ are by and large fought with a series of differently shaped pointy sticks with the occasional flash or bang of something fancy.

And then sometimes there is a spectacularly graceful tawny eagle whirling around over the battlefield with an indestructible jar containing a possessed, talking skull - the latter of which is even now protesting vehemently about being this high up as Bartimaeus maneuvers into position overhead.

Interrupting the stream of shockingly foul language, the eagle says-- "Ah ha. Now there's a fellow who looks like he could use a knock to the head. The big scraggly looking one with the fused on chest plate. Ready?"

1. Or whatever. You'reall more or less of equal intelligence and subsequently not really worth the distinction.

II. the petitioner's path (one thread pls)

To tell the truth, he hadn't really been listening. Blah blah blah, crypts, blah blah blah, tests of courage or fortitude or something along those lines. All he'd known was that he hadn't much cared to go stumbling around through a dark underground passageway when he could instead stroll around in a nice sunlit garden and potentially have a chat with a collection of no doubt deeply sensible spirits.

Which is how Bartimaeus is found in the maze: attempting conversation with a spirit in the guise of a strange looking boy. The boy has a stooping quality to his large rounded shoulders and beneath the tangle of his long lank hair, his transluscent skin is dramatically banded scorched or painted with two different colors. One boy shaped spirit tracks the other, the longer limbed and less ghostly of the two circling the foggier one with a critical look on its face.

"I mean really," Bartimaeus is saying to the spirit. "You're going to have to explain the logic here. Out of all the options, this is the guise you choose?"

[skulltasm]

The skull's teeth, behind a facade of smoke and foul green ichor and other-light, chatter like castanets in some bizarre imitation of physical speech. He of course doesn't even need to move his mouth to talk, nor does he do it consistently, but perhaps fear can make even spirits--ghosts?--do strange and unusual things. Well. Stranger and unusualer things.

I AGREE, ACTUALLY, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD REALLY CATCH HIM BY SURPRISE? IF A HAUNTED SKULL THREW AN EAGLE AT HIM. A DOUBLE WHAMMY.

A feeble attempt, granted, but far be it from Skull to take indignation laying down.

In a manner of speaking.

[bouchonne]

a. The Path
It's amusing, in a way. Byerly had expected his father. That seems to be the way of these things, doesn't it? They're snares laid down by some higher intelligence, and this higher intelligence is always amused to see the mortal creatures suffer. It finds all the deepest wounds to prod, the gaping bleeding gashes to dig its fingers into. But today, of all days, it's not his father he sees - it's a figure that's both less pathetic and, in its way, more.

"We were boys together," says the spirit that has taken on the face of...well, clearly a Rutyer. The man might as well be Byerly's brother, so close do they resemble one another in the eyes and the jaw and the nose.

Byerly, drolly, can't help but correct him - "Well, I was a boy. You were a bit closer to manhood at the time." Which is foolish; By knows that there are people who'll overhear, and he oughtn't be giving anything away. But he can't resist.

"And I hurt you in spite of it," Byerly's cousin says. "I broke your hands. I held you underwater until you - "

"Honestly, this is a piss-poor trial," By says, tilting his head upwards, calling to the sky. "It's not even close to being realistic. This one would sooner cut off his own cock than admit to any wrongdoing. Can't you be a touch more plausible?"

b. Wildcard
Give me anything and everything

A

[triamour]

"It is like the theatre, yes?"

Jenin folds one delicate hand beneath her chin, perched upon a broken plinth. Her eyes are wide against the dark; no picture of innocence studies quite so closely. The man at her shoulder is more blur than image: Finer details sloughed aside for the impression of a mask, a mournful face beneath.

He could be anyone. He's several.

"There is the story, and then there is convention. She sweeps up, abrupt, offers a hand. As though they were out for a stroll, ghostly chaperones in tow. Hushed: "We cannot fault this the actors."

The spirit intones,

"I was so boring –"

She winks.

leander, ota + closed, banter-style spam welcome;

[sarcophage]

I. gardens, for marcoulf;

A wet, fibrous tearing, thick and hollow, separation of muscle, cartilage popping free: the last sounds processed by a red-robed mage before his brain desperately cuts consciousness. Even were a healer on hand—a team of healers, a specialist surgeon—there's no surviving it. Too ragged. Too much to repair. Too much blood already pumped out and pooling.

Leander presses the meat of his thumb against his forehead while he exhales a steadying breath. His hair's curling dark with sweat, his forehead gleaming pale. The look he throws back, though alert, is not a hunted one and this isn't a tremor of fear in his hands, it's fatigue. That was one too many too quickly—and had he not strayed so far, he might've had a chance against the Venatori without risking one of his pet projects.

Foolish.

Best not stay any longer than he needs to. The mage he leaves behind, his arms have been separated from his body like wings plucked from a fly. They lay on either side of the nearly-dead, still half in their sleeves.


II. the path, open, single thread please;

The very observant may have noticed that Leander doesn't startle—but when the temple test finally swings its eye to face him, his reaction is close.

The spirit neither excuses itself nor begs for mercy, neither blames nor demands indemnity. He draws it away, but not too far from the thoroughfare, to an arbor kept standing by the tangle of ancient greenery, the structure braced—at least a third replaced—by uncommonly thick vines.

On a stone bench he sits with his body at a forward tilt, intent, head lifted to receive the immaterial touch of a spectral hand. Silhouette of a penitent receiving a blessing. The mouth moves; he listens silently.

It's him. The spirit has taken his shape.

Leander is looking at himself.


IV. the temple, open;

It's not a matter of deciding to rest—it's necessity. A physical requirement, which Leander seeks to achieve as soon as he's able, separated from the ancient stones by only a slim bedroll and a borrowed cloak bunched up beneath his head. He may even be first to bed down for the evening; he doesn't wait for the sun to suggest it.

Doesn't wait for it to suggest he wake, either. The bedroll is slim; his hips are, too, and their joints press uncomfortably through it. After the first few hours—nearly made it to five, a real achievement in general company—it's impossible to stay down for long. He tries.

Anyone might find him there, lingering in drowsy torpor—still accepting of company—or else taking a slow walk through the torchlight to give his body a little less to complain about.


X. wildcard;

[esquive]

A soft clink of metal. A rustle of the dense foliage. Farther, but not by much, there are sounds of steel on steel and shouting the aborted shriek of someone dying. And here, there is blood gurgling out into the dirt and trampled grass and half buried paving stones, and there is a pale wiry man with a sword in his right hand and a dagger in the left coming through the tangle of bushes now.

He stops abruptly there at the edge of the space, just clear of the dismemberment's gore. Two blinks: a blank look for the not-corpse, then one for the familiar face not-quite-standing-over-it.

Crack, crack, crack, say three heavy blows of something like a hammer against a skull or a chest plate nearby.

"Alright?"

Adasse - OTA

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

Fighting Corphyeus's Forces

Adasse has had a score to settle for some time now.

Bad enough these bastards helped open a Rift in the sky and let all manner of horrible things out. Bad enough they were using people for experiments and worse.

Oh no, these bastards tried to take Sorrel away from him.

Adasse was going to kill every last one he could get his hands on.

Which wasn't that hard, considering that these bastards were all throwing magic and Red Lyrium and not bothering to look up while he jumped down on them from the trees and stabbed them through the skull with his daggers. Really couldn't do weird mystical stuff with daggers in your face. Proven fact.

The Petitioners Path

Adasse's spirits, of course, can't be something pleasant like, some bloke who bumped him on the street, or some noble lady where he nicked her purse.

Oh no, he had to face off with the human that nearly raped him and ... well. And Sorrel. Along with some ghostly Dalish clan. He's there for nearly an hour, finally telling the spirit of the dead human that dying made them even.

To the spirit of Sorrel, however, he breaks down and cries, his voice soft, "I'm sorry, love, I'm so sorry ... I never meant to ... to take you from your people. You should go to them, if you really want to. I won't stop you, I won't. I won't keep you from your family."

Only after that, can he pass, but he is exhausted and rests his head against one of the murals, his sobs quiet and heavy in his chest. After a moment, he pushes himself up, wipes his face clear, and heads in without looking back.

The Temple

Adasse spends most of the night walking the temple ruins. Quietly and reverently touching the murals of his people. Dark eyes sliding up the golden frescos, resting there on these ancient faces.

"So this is it. This is as close as we get to the real deal." He murmured in the darkness, soft and respectful. "I'm touching the past, right now. Creators, we were screwed out of this whole lot."

Temple

[writteninblood]

we were screwed out of this whole lot

Adasse has the right idea, in more ways than one; Sorrel's been spending his time admiring the temple's works as well. And though he's not following Adasse, they both ended up at the same place, a great shining mosaic built into the wall, and the lowest tiles engraved with something Sorrel's been trying to puzzle out for ten minutes, even before Adasse came to gaze up on the fragmentary visage of an elven goddess.

"Sounds like someone's getting Dalish about it," He grins, delighted by the sentiment and full of his own joy at all the... the everything around them, the holiness and history, the energy of the place, "It almost makes me wish I could bring the whole clan here and show them, or at least the Keepers. Oh, Sina would have loved all this... It's so beautiful, isn't it, 'Dasse? I could spend a week just looking."

Loki OTA

[hwaaaitsme]

I Fighting Dirty

Loki is not a grand fan of elves--truly he doesnt' dislike them, nor does he like any given one of them, he is largely neutral on the subject of the lot of them because he is both wealthy and given to thinking of them as property--but these elves have managed to impress him. They've held off considerable forces and , in the thick of it, are doing a fair job of fighting back. Unfortunately they're all very properly trained warriors from somewhere or another and they don't fight quite as dirty as the Venatori.

Loki, unlike the elves, fights considerably dirtier than the Venatori and has no qualms about interrupting a man locked in combat and shoving a knife up beneath his helmet and into his skull. He also has no trouble slinging blood from that injury into another man's eyes and setting him on fire while he scrubs at them. If the elves look in in distaste, well, it's no matter to him.


II I can see the strings

Loki is exceedingly familiar with two things--enchantments and illusions. This particular enchantment is very fancy, quite top-notch, and far beyond what he thought creatures like elves were capable of. Unfortunately the illusions it spawns are, despite being very convincing, not anything near mistakable for real.

He walks the path, as one does, since it is largely just a nice garden path with fancy decorative plates on the floor. He does not engage with the illusions, apart from giving them one word dismissals or walking through one or another of them. This is not, apparently, how one is supposed to engage with this particular spectacle, however, as the elves on the other side seem rather cross with him once he's through.

It's hardly his problem if they don't like his answers to their silly rhetorical questions, is it?


III I'm not graverobbing, you're graverobbing.

The mealy mouthed son's of whores wouldn't just let him in. Loki could have flipped a war table about it. He had, apparently, failed his little foray through the path and had angered their imaginary god. Well, fine, so be it.

A trip through the crypts is actually more to his liking anyway. If one was going to come to a hidden, enchantment filled ancient temple, it was always best to loot the crypts before heading home.

Loki meanders through the winding crypts with an odd sort of fascination, stopping occasionally to look at one body or another, at the markings on the walls or the architecture, and to tap on the occasional stone. He finds little of note, even less that he would willingly disclose to anyone from the Inquisition.

III

[coquettish_trees]

It hardly matters that Alexandrie had managed enough uncomfortable humility to engage with the Path, to be even-handed. She waits, and when Loki manages no such thing she does what she will always do: turn from offered mercy to go where he goes.

And so the crypts, where she watches him tap, and start, and stop, and peer with fond amusement, making inquiry after they pass a set of carvings that she's entirely sure is some language.

"Can you read it?"

Sorrel | OTA

[writteninblood]

ii. Petitioner's Path
The first face the spirit puts on is predictable. And Sorrel's mother is as calm and biting as ever. A glacier made of flame, she'd once been called, and the accusatory mirror of her is no less unpleasant than the real thing. What hurts are the faces behind her, the gathered bulk of the clan, who say nothing, only watch; their silent stares weight his mothers words with the power of the clan. When she speaks, she speaks for them; or, at least, so she would always have him think.

'Oh, Da'len, what have you come to?'

Sorrel will never find it easy to speak to her, even a facsimile of her, but he's able to grit out, the truth, in time, "I don't owe you anything, just for being born. Loving my mother and my clan doesn't mean I have to hate myself too. I don't hate you. But I can't live... as if it were someone else's life, instead of mine."

And eventually the spirit hears him, in the way his real mother likely never will, and steps aside to let him pass. The next one is harder.

"Sina," he whispers and she looks up at him in that determined, half-frightened way she had, as if she were somehow intimidated by him, and at the same time quite certain she could handle whatever he had to offer. It was her eyes, and the hesitation in her smile; without quite meaning to, he folded up and sat down, right there on the stone-tile floor of the temple.

Sorrel couldn't have stopped the tears if he tried, and anyone at all could see that he was begging her, for forgiveness, for her approval, for... anything. And the spirit shook her head and smiled for him, so that he laughed through his tears. It took longer than most for him to nod, and reach out to touch her cheek— and only in that moment, just short of touch, that the spirit in the shape of Siuona Dahlasanor vanished, its task satisfied.

He sat there a moment, stunned, then went and sat down in the next chamber, his back to the wall, knees curled up so that he could put his head down on them like a child, and wept. He had passed the test.


iv. The Temple
The temple is a marvel. Most ancient temples are tragic things, broken corpses long-ago picked to bones and overgrown, graveyards of holiness, where prayers are ghosts, and the halls are populated only by regret. Here, the air lives with magic, and the presence of the temple-guardians is everywhere, even when they themselves are not.

It's so real. Not a story, or a history, but alive. Old, old, old, like a bent and withered tree, but nevertheless it puts out leaves each spring, and fruit in the autumn.

He wanders among the pillars, marveling at frescoes and mosaics, ancient scenes of point-eared pilgrims coming to seek Mythal's favor. It's the engravings that really catch his attention, and he stands for the longest time trying to puzzle out the words.

"Shiva... N.." He mutters under his breath, fascinated, paying no attention at all to the world around him, "...I'll never figure these out on my own. How could we have lost so much?"

iv.

[reshapes]

"Oh, it's easy enough to erase all sorts of people if you put your mind to it." This from the narrow, dark-haired boy living in the shadow of one of the pillars behind Sorrel.

He's standing there - or rather, leaning there with one elbow up on the delicately carved pillar -, either in the process of his own study or just enjoying a little peace and quiet here on the fringe of everything else that even now must be happening in other parts of the Temple. The fight might be over and whatever's going on with the big crystalline pool resolved, but where there are people trudging around old mysterious places there are bound to be dramatics. And honestly? He isn't in the mood.

So maybe he's just sulking here then.

Galadriel OTA

[laurenande]

Petitioner's Path

The ivy sways gently in the summer breeze, hotter and more oppressive than any weather she had experienced in Thedas. Even Galadriel is not immune to the warmth here, though the shade beneath the ivy cools the sweat that pools at the pit of her neck, and chills the rings of mail she has donned to travel here. She can feel something in this place, an enchantment of great age woven into the vines here. It permeates the veil in a way that she truly wishes she could, and she lingers for some time as she simply examines the feeling of it.

It is the chirping of birds--the strange calls and songs of these tropical creatures--that draws her from her distraction and sets her feet moving. The overgrowth and moss on the tiles below her feet is cool, familiar, and it is far too easy to forget that this place is not of her and she is not of it--they are both of them of an age, however, and there is some comfort to be found in that. They are two points adrift in the eddies of time.

She walks the path more slowly than she ought, wandering with the patience born of immortality. It takes a very long time for a specter to appear before her. Long enough that several of their party have walked the path and passed her. Long enough that she wonders who will pass her next.

[OOC: since it has been a hot minute since I last posted, have some open LOTR peeps. Feel free to jump into any of the following conversation tags or on the top level if you want to run through the lot or none of them. I am sorry they are wicked long, they got away from me. This is also why there are four and not two shh. There are also a wildcard and a Temple option for anyone who isn't feelin these.]

Petitioner's Path OTA - Gandalf

[laurenande]

Gandalf

If she had known the purpose of this place, she would not have guessed to see his face first, not of all the faces that could have been conjured before her. He is smiling when he sees her, a broad and welcoming expression, and she feels her heart contract as she realizes just how dearly she had missed him. He is not Olorin, Thedas cannot hope to truly copy the sensation that his kind inspires in person, but he is a very close facsimile.

He sits on a low wall, crumbled and overgrown with moss. It is little more than a piece of masonry--some empty sill that has lost the wrought brass and gilded iron that the rest of the temple windows sport. His pose it ungainly but comfortable, as he was always wont, and he gestures for her to come closer. That done, he shifts his staff to his shoulder and begins to rifle through the bag at his hip.

She moves to stand by him, she cannot quite bear to sit with him, as he withdraws his pipe and his pipeweed and begins to pack them. The smell is wrong, it smells like elfroot and sage, but the motions are perfect. It would be so easy to forget it is not him...and she is sorely tempted to. There is quite a bit of appeal in living in a world with her dearest friend, if only for a few moments.

It doesn't take long for him to pack the pipe and then a swipe of his fingers over the bowl of it has it lit. That is more power than he was often wont to use, especially on such frivolous things, and the sudden spark of magical flame catches her off guard. She starts and he levels a look at her. It is a reproachful expression, and more than a little cross, and it maintains as he sucks in a deep breath and puffs out his cheeks. He exhales in a long plume and turns the pipe around to prod her with it.

"Wisest of us all, indeed," he scolds, "had a Balrog living on her doorstep for a few decades and didn't notice."

nathaniel/john mandrake | ota

[cyclic]

I. FORCES

John has been in several fights, but as a general rule: he isn't the one fighting. It's only a reluctant acknowledgement of reality and an even more reluctant promise that keeps him from summoning Bartimaeus, right here and now, and ordering him to take out the Templar stalking through the bushes nearby.

But he's capable of fighting, or of casting, which is the same thing. There are only a handful of spells that seem to work reliably, and even then they have a habit of being weak — the Stricture he'd cast a few minutes ago, for example, had been about as effective as tying the Templar's non-existent shoelaces. Inconvenient, and now just a few strange, white threads trailing from his boots.

John can hear his footsteps from where he's ducked behind a heavily cracked and vined low wall. Promise be damned, he debates grabbing the chalk that's always in his pocket and scrawling a pentacle while he's got cover. Instead he braces his shoulders against the wall and lifts his hands, streaked with sweat and dirt, and mouths a few words for focus — there's a spark of green between his palms and an answering green crackle from the shard in his hand, straining at the connection between Bartimaeus and the Fade.

II. PETITIONER'S PATH (single thread for each option, please!)

A) "Shut up," is probably the least dignified thing John Mandrake has said since falling out of a rift, made all the more fussy for his standard, posh tone.

Anyone who might've known him before would find him nearly unrecognizable: functional and entirely unremarkable clothes, his dark hair out of place and in his eyes, skin and outfit equally scuffed and occasionally streaked with a splash of blood. Even trying to keep to ranged fighting and his very limited spells, the fighting had turned south, fast; he'd made it through without incident, but he'd ended up ducking behind (or into) more bushes than he'd like to admit.

His Thedas makeover is the only reason the specter following him doesn't look eerily like him. A young man in a sharp suit with pristine slicked-back hair, demeanor alternating between angry and pleading without ever losing a scrap of arrogance in the process. Even so, it'd be easy to mistake them as siblings.

"Those old fools were driving us into inferiority, an entire parliament of cowards! They didn't deserve that power, not like I did. Like we do. I was trying to save England! You're a smart boy — with your talent and ambition, you must understand."

John, a teenager in spite of everything, puts his hands over his ears.

B) Later, when he's holding his hands over his ears and sitting with his knees up and his back to a wall, the effect's (possibly) less funny. John has his eyes closed, so he can't see the heavyset, gray-haired woman sitting patiently on the ground nearby, her legs tucked neatly under her dress. But he can still hear her, and it doesn't even have the decency to sound muffled. Apparently spirits aren't concerned with such paltry, physical buffers.

She sounds patient and fond. She even sounds mostly like herself, but John can tell it's a biased interpretation — alternating between too soft and too blunt, not quite managing her easy balance.

"Oh, Nathaniel. You're being too hard on yourself, dear. It's silly to think one foolish child could have caused all of that. Besides, it was very quick. I hardly felt a thing."

six | ota

[swordproof]

I. REPELLING FORCES

This is where Six is in her element and it's obvious as she moves to cut through Red Templars and Venatori; her greatsword is in her hands and she moves, shifting and pressing - at times the sword glows, burning bright with fire and lightning, slamming through the arms and bodies and limbs of the enemies of Riftwatch. There's no pause in her assault, no hesitation because she knows what she has to do, knows what her place is.

When she can be a soldier she can be a soldier; fighting for a cause she believes in gives her great strength, makes her feel bigger and prouder than she already is.

Anyone who seems like they might be injured, or wounded, has her come to their side and she reaches out, pressing her fingers against the side of their head. Healing comes naturally to her as a Paladin of Sarenrae and she touches, gentle and careful, and gives her strength to them.

Then she is back in the fight, hair sticking to her face, blade in hand, a human battering ram as she rushes the Venatori.

II. PETITIONER'S PATH

She does not know what to make of the path, of the puzzle, but she knows that she wishes to try. Six thinks of Adalia, so proud of her elven heritage, and thinks of herself, so distant from it, and knows she has to make an attempt. She has to place herself in the position of an elf and see what it means - to see if she can press forward and do this. For her sister, for her step-mother, for the parts of herself, parts she had denied for so long.

As soon as she steps into the maze she regrets her decision.

The first spirit that comes to her looks startlingly similar to Six herself, just without the bulk of muscle and the shape of her eyes and jaw. Her hair is tied in the same braid that Six's is, but tidier, more detailed and delicate - as if Six herself had grown up attempting to mirror it and had never quite been able to do it. When Six sees the spirit she stops, eyes widen and hands shaking, fingers slipping from the hilt of her blade, and she swallows. There's something like horror on her face, mixed with a budding panic, and she can barely speak - she can barely hear the words over the sound of her thoughts rushing in her mind. Darling, please, I am sorry, it wasn't your fault -

She turns and another figure appears, familiar to anyone who saw Six in the midst of her haunting in Kirkwall not so very long ago. A strong, tall man, dark-haired and intense, moving to stand beside the softer, slighter woman. He is wearing armour almost identical to the one that Six is wearing herself, but the look he gives her is far, far fonder. There's a tenderness to him as he speaks to her, but it doesn't seem as though she's listening to him at all, almost unable to look into his eyes, at the shape of him, tired of seeing the echo of her affection long since dead. Sia itov, Cecilia -

No words come to her and she turns, preparing to leave and walk out of the path, trying to keep her head held high and her face set, tight and intense. What stops her is one figure hovering by the exit, staring at her with a drawn-out, dangerous intensity; he looks familiar, like an echo of Isaac but not quite the same. Six looks afraid for the first time she has wandered through the maze, as if the years have been cut from the shape of her shoulders and she is a teenager again, gangly and small and unable to defend herself.

What will you do? What could you ever do? You have never made a choice, never stood up, what could you possibly do -

Running forward, she almost walks through the spirit as she steps out of the maze, steps out and cannot look anyone in the eye, cannot even glance at people she might know as she storms away, failure crawling up her spine like a chilling insect.

III. AFTER

She does not attempt to go through the Crypts, at least not for a while. Instead, Six sits, putting her sword to one side, placing herself in a corner, away from everyone else. Her hair is a mess around her, face scraped with bruises and dirt and something worse, she's sure, tear tracks clearing away through the dirt on her skin.

She can barely look at anyone, bowing her head, the amulet of Sarenrae in her hand as she prays, voice low and intense. Sometimes she swaps languages - Common, the trade tongue here, Draconic, sounding like a dragon hissing to herself, elven; not the same as the elven of this world but similar enough.

She doesn't lift her head. She's too tired, too broken, and she just sits, breathing in and out and praying.

Fingon

[utulien_aure]

the petitioner's path i.

a. "Brave of you to come here," the spirit says, a tall elf-man with a seaman's shoulders and a belly full of blood. "Or foolish- you are a Noldo after all. Either way, you had to have known what was coming."

"I had some idea," Fingon agrees, and hopes he doesn't stiffen too much. "I had wondered if you would show up."

"Me specifically?" The ghost grins- and he's not wrong. They had only met once, and Fingon had never known the man's name. And in Thedas, he'd hardly be likely to get the chance."Can you tell the difference, little prince? Between me and all the others?"

Fingon swallows. "Six. There were eight of you." Six he'd killed, in a rush of fear and panic. This one had been the first.

"Well, good job, the spirit mocks, tossing his head with disdain. "We had wondered if you'd remembered even that. You didn't seem to, putting up all those fortresses and leading all those sorties without a care in the world."

"I couldn't have forgotten-"

"Then why did you hope everything would be forgiven and forgotten, if you just tried hard enough? Did you think all that orc-blood would wash out ours?"

The sneer on his victim's face would be a match for one of Uncle Feanor's. "Did you truly need the Doomsman to tell you that a kingdom built on murder was never going to stand?"

the petitioner's path ii.

"My child," this new ghost murmurs, and though his law-sister's face is bloated with water her eyes are all-too recognizable, luminous with grief and fear- "I wanted to save her, my Itarille, that's all I ever wanted-"

"She did, Elenwe," and though he knows this is a pale shadow of his brother's wife Fingon's heart feels like breaking all the same."She grew up well, and bravely. I've met her grandson. She's all you could have hoped for."

"You don't know that!" she accuses. "You don't know any more than I do! We followed you and your father out of the Blessed Realm, and I never saw her grow up! We could have stayed a family, at home, but all you wanted were your dreams."

"And no thought of what the rest of us wanted," agrees a deep voice behind him. He doesn't need to look to know who it belongs to- it's only fair that in this place, at least, Turgon can follow his bride.

"We could have stayed home, brother, and left the struggles of the Powers to the ones better suited to them. We could have- you just had to stop looking over that horizon, and think of people who aren't him for a change. Why couldn't you?"