↠ 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

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.

[writteninblood]

Sorrel startles like a rabbit, half-trips as he turns, back pressed against the ancient wall as if to guard against some great predator. Ah. But it isn't an enemy, or at least nothing like the Venatori, or even the mysterious, stoic Temple-guards.

"...Ah," He stares for a moment, while his brain scurries to put itself back into order. Just a boy. A shem? "I'm. What?"

What? No wait, what had he said?

"It's not... people, I'm wondering about. People die every day. Whole languages don't. Right?"

[reshapes]

The boy in question - narrow shouldered, dark eyed, and long-limbed enough to generally fit the description of lanky even despite his unremarkable height - blows out his cheeks. He does not roll his eyes, but everything else about him under and including the jaunty angle of his arm against the ancient column implies that it's an awfully close thing.

"Well it's not as if languages go speaking and writing themselves, now do they? Not the ones I know anyway."

[writteninblood]

"Individuals, not societies, don't act like you don't know what I meant," Sorrel replies, discerning clearly the intention of an eyeroll, even where the expression itself does not exist. He's got a sister he knows, "If I wanted this much trouble with semantics, I could just go take a nap and find a demon who'd be happy to try and argue me out of my mind."

That's an insult, Bartimaeus, if you like.

"Can you read it, then?"

II Time is a Construct

[laurenande]

Galadriel finds Sorrel as he reaches for the shape of Siuona and feels a pang in her heart as she watches the girl, sweet and delicate, as she vanishes into the summer breeze. Her face vanishes like mist and Galadriel watches it curl away and leave Sorrel, smiling and devastated, tears still rolling down his face, in her wake.

He sits on the ground before the doors, stunned and alone, and Galadriel moves alongside him.

She does not sit, not until she is invited, but rather stands alongside him, looking at the space where Siuona was.

"She seemed happy to see you."

It was not Sina, but it was a fair facsimile.

[writteninblood]

"She... shouldn't. Have been," He says, haltingly, struggling against his own lungs and the urge to sob, "It was her choice. In the end. But. But I still."

He looks up at her, helpless, wet-faced.

"When she died. The last thing we spoke about, before, was about... after. She made me promise, not to just pretend anymore. To love who I loved and not... not try to be, and live, only for other people. So I..." his voice broke, and Sorrel cuts himself away from the words. His arms are wrapped around his middle. Eventually, he drags in a wet, ragged breath, and holds out a hand to Galadriel, "...Help me up?"

[laurenande]

She bends and takes his hand, pulling him up with strength that is just this side of incongruous to her frame. The pain in his voice, the broken thoughts, and way they shattered on the edge of her death made fresh anew, she knows those well. Once he is standing she does not release his hand and, instead, draws him into an embrace.

This is a liberty, one she has taken without asking, but she cannot bring herself to regret it.

[writteninblood]

Sorrel does not cling to Galadriel. That would imply a series of intentions, decisions made, to turn to her, to grasp at her clothing, to bury his face. He becomes aware, instead, that his eyes are squeezed closed, and all these things are happening. He does not cling, he simply has clung, the whole process coming only in past-tense terms, like the fuzzy memory of a last-night blackout, and with an equal helping of embarrassed regret. None of it seems to be slowing down the crying.

And, even so, he doesn't let go; Sorrel's mother loved him, but the love between them was like the love between the sunlight and the trees. He had ever yearned towards his mother's approval, while she remained high above and distant, almost wholly unaware of his heart's desire. And Galadriel... Well, all gardens, once planted, must eventually bear fruit. In her dampened robes and Sorrel's desperate embrace does Galadriel hold the harvest of Deheune Ashara's long cultivation, and the grief it wrought, in her son.

"I...I-I'm sorry. I didn't... Haven't done that since I was da'len," He mumbles eventually, trying without success to press the tears away with the heel of one hand. Sorrel really doesn't know how to cope with this sort of kindness, which makes it worse, "I must seem like such a mess, to you."

[laurenande]

It has been a very long time since someone clung to her this way, since they wept quite as bitterly as Sorrel weeps now, and she does nothing to dissuade him. He grasps blindly, pulling his face against her as he sobs into her jerkin. She only regrets that she isn't wearing something softer, something that might be kinder to his tear-stained face.

He cries against her and, as he does, seems to come back to himself. Unfortunately becoming aware of sobbing does not make it easier to stop.

His apologies are a little broken, said in a jumble against fabric as he scrubs at his eyes with his hand. The motion is unkind and cannot be helping the redness around his eyes. She settles a hand against the back of his head and pulls him against her once more.

"You seem sad, my friend," she says softly. "And none would blame you for your grief, or for your tears. You do not need to stifle them for my sake.

"I knew her only briefly and I still find sorrow in the absence of her."

[writteninblood]

"That spirit... It wasn't Sina. It wasn't even what Sina was like, because..." Because it had never met her. At best, the spirit had only met his memory of Sina, perpetually determined, cracked but unbroken, and with a light and power shining through those cracks like sunlight on water. Sudden, unexpected, blinding.

"...She was everything one of The People should be. The best of us," He says, softly, "She's only been gone for a year."

Equanimity. Justice. An even hand. What absolution could the mirror of a memory of a person bring? Sorrel can't stop the tears, but in hiccoughs and fits, he's able to suppress the sobs. A steady leak, fast or slow, was preferable to the heaving gush of emotion. Almost anything was better than that.

"And what am I doing?"