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Entry tags:
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WHO: danica, ellis, and wysteria
WHAT: corpse bride voice: new arrival
WHEN: whenever ellis and wysteria have time honestly
WHERE: near the mountains
WHAT: corpse bride voice: new arrival
WHEN: whenever ellis and wysteria have time honestly
WHERE: near the mountains
Danica dreams herself in her wedding day.
She wears the beautiful burgundy gown Eleanor made her, the ring Zane gave her on her index finger. The court is gathered before her, every eye trained on her. Each face is known to her, yet she she cannot place a name to any. Rei is no longer on the dais with her. Only Zane remains, holding a hand out to her, his scarlet eyes glimmering. Do you trust him? Danica raises her own to lay in his. Another hand grabs her, jerking her violently away from him.
The woman wears Mara's face, but this is not her sister. The dream makes her identity known, though nothing else does. Alasdair. Alasdair, the first avian queen. Alasdair, the first victim of this conflict. Her golden eyes, a mirror of Danica's own, are wide on her eternally fifteen-year-old face.
"What have you done?"
When Danica opens her mouth to answer, she is swallowed by emerald lights. Her stomach turns and she realizes she is falling. Instinct has her turn, her wings unfurling in a cascade of gold-and-brown feathers from her back. It means she does not hit ground so much as land heavily, the sudden stop jarring her ankles and sending her to her knees. Her dagger lands in the earth. The hand that reaches for it aches, a glowing green slash stretching from her knuckles to her wrist. The runes on the dagger catch the faint light. Runes for protection and luck. Funny. She isn't laughing.
Rising, she looks about her in a mounting panic. Her bare feet stumble over loose stones and hard-packed earth, not cool, polished marble. Her Demi-form allows her access to a hawk's eyesight, but though she can see further, the details clear as crystal, nothing she beholds is familiar. A scream rings behind her, like another dead on the battlefield. She turns in time to see a spindly creature like a monstrous mantis slashing for her with fingers like knives.
Danica has enough time to remember the brutal tearing of her abdomen before she slipped into dreaming. Maybe this dream played out in reverse; maybe she dreamt first the effect, and now her mind has seen fit to supply the cause.
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This alarmed cry - perhaps startling for any number of reasons to the creature which has emerged through the Rift, and at least one to the man armed with the prodigious mace (for Wysteria Poppell rarely sounds alarmed while they are conducting field work) - originates from a young woman standing at the outermost point of a stony outcropping which nearly overlooks the pulsing tear in the Veil and the miniature battlefield with subsequently surrounds it. She has a bow slung thoughtlessly and ineffectually over one arm, for rather than assisting much in quelling of demons she is doing her best to observe the field, to take readings using a strange whirring device worn about her neck on a heavy strap, and to hastily scratch down a record of the dial's numbers on the scrap of paper she has unceremoniously lashed to the uppermost face of the thaumoscope.
This is indeed much more difficult with just the two of them; she will have to confess as much to Mr. Stark later while begging forgiveness for the secret borrowing of his equipment.
But that's a problem for later. In this moment, there is a great winged thing which has come staggering out among the cacophony of all the usual suspects and oddities under these circumstances are to be treated with the utmost caution.
"Shall I shoot it, Mr. Ellis?"
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"Not yet," he shouts back. Danica may someday thank Fitz; it's only the memory of that unceremonious entrance that redirects Ellis' mace from the unsteady winged figure stumbling towards him. Maybe he pays for it, maybe not. Either way, he focuses on the spindly, shambling terror demon. After spending months dealing with rifts and what they spew out, he knows that it's ideal to go for the knees before anything else. The rift is belching wraiths, which is all the more reason to dispense with the terror demon first.
The mace lands with a satisfying crack, sending the demon howling and thrashing backwards. He presses his advantage, ducking past the winged figure to bring his mace down again as the terror demon shrieks and lashes out with a clawed hand.
If he'd been able to make out features in the midst of the glare of the rift, he might have done a more thorough job of putting his body between Danica and the various threats. But in all the chaos, Danica's been slotted into a "future issue" box, to be dealt with when she either becomes a direct problem or distinguishes herself as something in need of specific protection.
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Before she can demand answers, the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. More ghosts? spirits? form out of nothing. A scream closes her throat, stopping her making any noise. Her wings shudder, wanting the safety of the sky. Her heart lives at her ears, at her wrists. Danica's people called the serpiente demons; these are true demons.
One rises near the man and her attacker. Switching the dagger from her dominant hand, she picks up a loose stone and throws it. Her aim is true; yet it sails harmlessly through its head. All she earns is its blank-faced attention. Returning the dagger to her dominant hand, she takes up a fighting stance like Rei taught her.
If this is how she dies, she will die fighting.
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Her pen is still moving, rapidly copying down the measurements produced by the surge of the Rift as it disgorges its progeny of wraiths. It's only when the readings fall again - a clear sign that the Rift has finished with it's wave -, and then continues to fall - a clear sign that something very unpleasant may soon appear -, that she finally tucks the pen behind her ear and slings the thaumoscope away to her hip.
Yes, all right. That's quite enough for one day.
The CRACK! of energy which connects between the Rift and Wysteria's upraised left hand and the anchor pulsing hot white and sickly green in her hand is a physical thing. It raises the small hairs on the body. It sends the wraiths and the demons on the ground into a frenzy, their violence intensifying as the slash in the Veil struggles against being sealed shut.
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The terror demon is still writhing on the ground. Ellis kicks it, hard enough to elicit a shriek before reaching to catch hold of the newcomer. Wings or no, they need her help.
"Put your hand up," he shouts over the roar of the tear overhead and the screeching of the demons around them. "Your palm, lift it up to the sky!"
It's not gentle, even if Ellis wishes it could be. The terror demon's arm slashes out, and a burst of energy speeds overhead to burst against the tree trunk beside Wysteria. They don't have much time for explanations.
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"What is this?" she demands, terror sharpening her tone.
Danica's golden eyes are huge on her face. But she has enough sense to raise her hand like she saw the woman do: the one aching from the green slash across it. The same green as the slash above them.
Her very bones seem to ring.
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Then, with a bang of relieved pressure, the burst seam in the world slams shut. Demons and wraiths are sucked into non-existence with a sound like a thousand sewing shears snapping closed.
On the rocky outcropping above them, Wysteria shakes her hand around in the effort to relieve the pulsing pain from it.
"Does it speak?" From this angle, her observation of their bizarre new companion is largely limited to the prodigious wingspan.
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"I'm sorry," he says to Danica, letting go of her fully to take a step back and to the side. Arguably Danica had a smoother entry into Thedas than Fitz, but there's no way for Ellis to explain that to her in the moment.
"Wysteria, come down here, please!"
If only because Wysteria wasn't the one swinging around a mace a few short minutes ago.
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Danica speaks in a clear voice, one meant to carry to an army assembled on a field. Eyes narrowed, she moves on bare feet over loose stones and hard earth until she has both figures in her line of sight. She keeps a good distance from the man, but it is the woman Danica watches closely. A good archer can take a bird from the sky.
Danica keeps the knife in hand, but she holds it at her side in defensive rather than aggressive posture. Her wings are close to her back, tension thrumming through them. Despite her fear, she faces the humans both with head held high, back unbowed. Except for the slight furrowing of her brow, her features are smooth as marble, her riotous emotions kept tightly locked away.
Her tone is detached when she addresses them next, her go-to when she is too disgusted or angry or frightened to maintain rationality any other way.
“I thank you for your timely intervention. Now I must return to my people. My location, if you please, and an answer as to what that was in the sky.”
Her hand aches, and she glances at the green slash otherwise marring her skin. Danica shudders.
“And this in my hand.”
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"A Rift. Is the thing that was in the sky which we both closed thanks to the timely intervention of Mr. Ellis and the use of our anchors. Well done, Mr. Ellis. Very quick thinking." Wysteria raises her left hand. It too is marred with a similar green slash, the crackle and thud of magic evening now as the tear in the Veil has been sealed.
Her other hand is moving automatically and without much secrecy - jotting down observations of the Rifter before her.
"You have arrived in the Free Marches. In Kirkwall, specifically. We're not so far from the city itself, which is where myself and Mr. Ellis and from. --Well, as of late. He's Ferelden and I'm much like you which is to say not from Thedas at all. I'm afraid that the passages we both traveled through to arrive here only flows in one direction."
She doesn't sound too personally broken up about it, but she does pause in her notation to give Danica a sympathetic look before asking, "Would you mind terribly if I asked what you are?"
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He'd have phrased the last question differently, maybe, or not asked at all, but it's out now, and he can't say he isn't wondering.
"Let me carry that," is his quiet aside to Wysteria, reaching for some of the bulk Wysteria has toted down into the field. The positioning of his body is subtle but deliberate, putting him close at hand and quick to intercede between any incoming knives and Wysteria's person.
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“What do you mean ‘flows only in one direction’?”
Her voice comes out sharper than intended. But the questions piling quickly do not allow for a more diplomatic touch. She is wearing the beautiful burgundy gown she was married in; a gown she has not worn since that day. She holds the knife the metalsmith gifted her, but she had not picked it up that day. No, it was Namir-da. She and Zane spent the day among his people, then at night…at the synkal…
Her hand presses to her waist, but there is no injury. Did she dream it?
“Where precisely are we? Asia? Africa? We’re not near the Mediterranean.” The air is wrong. “Further north, perhaps?”
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But here, her pen pauses. She glances to Ellis to confirm that her ignorance is echoed in him, and then blinks back to—
"Perhaps it would be best to begin with introductions."
She tucks the pen behind her ear, or perhaps in the uptwisted braid of her hair. Either way, it disappears from sight. The notes are folded over and jammed into her belt.
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Danica recognizes none of them, lists places Ellis has never heard of. And neither of them are going to be able to help her back to where she clearly needs to be.
"I'm Ellis, of the Grey Wardens," he offers, at Wysteria's prompting. "And lately of Riftwatch."
Neither of those organizations seem to spark recognition. Ellis hadn't expected them to.
"This is Wysteria Poppell," Ellis continues, one hand lightly touching Wysteria's elbow as he speaks. "She came here in the same manner you have."
Potentially more equipped than Ellis to answer questions? Unclear.
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Their bewildered expressions say as much even after Danica named continents, not trusting they would share nations or empires. According to legend, her kind had human roots, but the two diverged so long ago… No shapeshifter had kept much contact, or any, with humans. The Mistari fled Asia to avoid the burgeoning human population. The falcons rarely left their island. And the serpents…they and the avians had been too busy slaughtering one another with terrifying efficiency.
Danica takes to pacing, a decidedly un-avian outburst. The low back of her silk gown begins where her wings end—a necessary sartorial choice in a population capable of growing wings. Golden feathers bloom along the waist of the gown in rich golden thread, the long skirt flowing about her legs like water. A beautiful gown fit for a queen, but not one made for tripping barefoot over a mountain’s base. Her skin breaks out in goosebumps, and she does not know if cooler temperatures or her unease is to blame.
Danica lifts her eyes to the sky. The places they mention are no more known to her than hers are to them. She would judge them lying if not for the rift she saw…that she fell through.
Her hand hurts. Her skin itches for want of feathers.
“I will see this place for myself.”
No sooner does she finish speaking that the transformation begins. What should be horrifying is streamlined, almost beautiful. Within seconds, where a woman had stood a golden-brown hawk is beating her wings and climbing, climbing into the sky.
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It is a strange and wonderful thing, and to Wysteria's eye it is like looking at an image twice: something roughly woman shaped becoming otherwise in a twist of feathers and the piston of wings, but also there is such a flashing sense of purpose unwinding about it in great instinctive shapes - not a visible thing, but something she can sense in the air like the pressure before a storm.
Sometimes when witnessing new and strange magic, she has the impulse to reach out. As if she might touch it with her bare hand—
And the hawk is gone, lifting rapidly to become a brown smudge against the blue sky. Wysteria, her head craned back and her hand shielding her eyes from the sun, squints after it.
"That was rude," she declares after a moment of silence passes between them on the ground. "She didn't even give us her name."
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He is as much at a loss as Wysteria, but relinquishes his grip of her elbow when it becomes clear nothing else is about to befall them.
"Aye," is his contribution, unsure of what further commentary can be provided. The woman is gone now, and neither of them can chase her. She will come back to them or she won't. Ellis turns from where she'd stood, and nods at the stakes he'd driven into the ground upon their arrival.
"Help me with these," he instructs. "We should think about getting back."
Normally Tony pulls the stakes while Ellis holds the unwieldy items, but today Ellis is going to have to enlist Wysteria to hold them as he yanks each out of the soft earth.
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The mountains stretch away east and west. Beyond them she spots sweeping plains. When she turns west, she finds a thick forest and, to the south, a black-walled city sitting on the coast. When she beats her wings in its direction, the ache in her wing proves less.
There is nothing familiar. Not the mountains or forest or coast. Not the black city or the plains beyond. She cries out, but no known call answers her. Usually she can outrace her fear in the air. Instead, she feels its skeletal fingers wrapping around her throat. She turns back.
Her fine hawk’s eyesight helps her find the two humans she had met. Strangers, yes, but ones who had not attempted to harm her. She has no desire to try her luck in an unknown place, much less shift back while surrounded by their kind.
She calls out as she approaches, a hawk’s hunting cry, circling the two once before descending. Upon landing, she returns to human form.
The differences make themselves known immediately.
Her bones weigh heavily within her muscles and tissues. When she inhales, she does not seem to get as much oxygen as she did. Her heart rate, typically beating at twice the rate of a true human, is halved.
The knife drops from her hand. She opens her mouth, but no word escapes her. I’m very tired of fainting, she manages to think before the world around her sinks into black.
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They are pulling up the last of the stakes (which is to say, Ellis is wrenching up the last of the stakes and Wysteria is following along in his wake to collect the muddy things under one arm) when the hawk returns. She is just thinking that the abrupt conversion back into young lady is somehow less remarkable than the reverse when the young lady in question pitches toward the ground.
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He'd been thinking on what should be said when they return. A report would have to be filed, wouldn't it? Even if they woman remained a bird and they never saw her again?
But he's saved from considering it any further than that, because the woman reappears. And faints.
Ellis hands the last stake to Wysteria, fully expecting the entire assortment to be dropped on the ground at any moment.
"Get her dagger, Wysteria. She'll want it back."
Her dress is going to be ruined, Ellis thinks. (Is that Wysteria's influence?) But he eases her carefully onto her back anyway before leaning down to check and see if she's still breathing.
breaks turn order for the bit
She fetches the knife.
how dare you
Eyes closed, Danica focuses on her breathing. Her entire being feels heavy like weights were attached to her wrists, her ankles, her neck and her chest. Her body does not feel like hers.
“Have I been poisoned again?”
The question is phrased a touch too wryly to register as humor. Truth be told, she would be glad of this were all a strange fever dream.
Too unwell to feel embarrassed for her weakness, Danica moves her hand, seeking something to help herself up. She finds an arm. The toughness of the fabric bites into the pads of her fingers. Making another effort, she manages to raise her shoulders off the ground.
a crime
"Steady on," is the first, clumsy thing that comes to mind. "I don't think you've been poisoned."
But Ellis isn't a Rifter, so how much can he really know about the effects of an arrival? He looks again to Wysteria as he tries to help Danica sit up, hands careful on her shoulder, supporting her back.
"Wysteria, did you feel faint when you arrived?"
The look Ellis gives her is an obvious plea for some help. Will it pan out, who can say?
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With a great sigh over being so inconvenienced - perhaps this wouldn't have happened if the young lady had simply listened to reason instead of winging up into the air -, Wysteria sets down the bundle of stakes, brushes the mud from the smart little waxed top layer she is wearing over her dress, and moves to join them.
She places the back of her hand on Danica's brow.
"I feel no heat. The dream you were having before you arrived - were you poisoned in it?"
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“I dreamt my wedding day.”
No, she remembers now, that’s wrong. When she wore this dress, she pledged herself to Zane at the serpiente palace, not the Keep. The avian court had not been in attendance. They had not even known what she was doing—which was the only reason she had got away with it. And her sister had not been present. Mara had been murdered years before. Like Zane nearly was. Like Danica…
“I was shot.” Her hands go to the site at her waist. Beneath the silk, her skin is unbroken. But Danica can still call to mind the searing flame that tore through her. “That wasn’t a dream, I’m sure, but I am missing the injury to prove it.
“I thought this a dream too,” she continues quietly, speaking more to herself than the humans. “My dreams have always followed this path. One lucid dream after another, each dissolving in violence. This isn’t a dream.”
She looks up, something beseeching breaking through her composure. Her fear makes her look younger than her nineteen years.
“Please, I must return home. My husband is a good man, but my people will only follow their Tuuli Thea. If they believe I was harmed…it will be bloodshed.”
She lacks the words to impress upon her listeners the extent of the violence she means. The fields drenched in rotting blood. The lines and lines and lines of bodies. The dark plumes of smoke from the burning bodies, thick enough sometimes to blot out the sun.
The court had grown more accustomed to Zane, but Danica has no illusions that they would follow him. Just as the serpiente tolerate their Naga being a hawk, but only because their Diente is a true cobra. Andreios would surely know Zane was not responsible, but the Royal Flight are soldiers, not administrators. And what would her mother do when she learns of Danica’s disappearance? Months had passed, but Nacola Shardae had no love for her daughter’s chosen spouse, only a begrudging tolerance of his presence. If she believed serpents targeted her only surviving child…
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He looks up at Wysteria again, at a loss. One of them is going to have to explain to Danica that this is real and that she can't go back. Are either of them really equipped to do it gently enough that it won't make her distress worse? It had been easier somehow, when Fitz dropped into the middle of their expedition all those months ago. He'd been upset but not like this, and Tony had been familiar if not exactly comforting. The circumstances here are far less than ideal.
Clearly Ellis thinks he's the best bet, because he looks away from Wysteria and back to Danica.
"I'm sorry," he begins, faltering before finding his footing, voice steadying. "We don't know the way to send people back through yet."
The "yet" is extraordinarily optimistic, but he can't bring himself to imply that she's trapped here forever.
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"Let this be a consolation to you," she says, not without kindness. "There is strong evidence to suggest that your husband, the place you left and everyone in it, will continue on as if you had never left. Perhaps even as if you are there still. If you like, I will introduce you to Madame de Cedoux who is a Rifter like us and most familiar with the idea. She will put your mind entirely at ease with respect to your home, I'm most certain. In the mean time, let us be thankful that you appear not to have brought your wound with you for it is a long walk back to the Gallows and we should take care not to be here when darkness falls."
With a glance toward Ellis, she adds, "Not that I have any doubts in your ability to safeguard us from scoundrels, Mr. Ellis."