faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Assisting with the aftermath of occupation
WHEN: August through Kingsway
WHERE: Field of Ghislain
NOTES: OOC post. Please use appropriate content warnings in your comment subject lines as needed.

The Fields of Ghislain are, as the name suggests, broad open plains, more flat than not, more grass than trees. There are famous orchards around Arlesans at the southern end, but they fade into grassland and farm land, wide fields of wheat and corn separating quiet farming villages and the occasional bustling market town, the even more occasional country estate.

High summer here has always meant long hot days, dusty roads, and preparations for the harvest. Now it also means recovery from the sudden end to the area's year-and-a-half of occupation by the forces of Corypheus. On first glance, the area appears to have escaped relatively unscathed. There are a few burnt villages here and there, a few new rifts, and the scarred valley where the Battle of Ghislain took place, but there are also crops growing strong in the fields and markets open for business, people going about their lives.

On closer inspection, there's more work to be done. The immediate threats are obvious: an unusual number of rifts and the general thinning of the Veil they signal, small bands of enemies—including bands of darkspawn with red lyrium growths—still marauding through the region, isolated patches of red lyrium to be destroyed and Blight to be contained.

Most places have at least one building that's been destroyed by fire or force, some practically essential—a grain store, an infirmary, a watch tower—some invaluable in other ways—a chantry, a mayor's office, a monument to heroic ancestors. Some places showed more resistance than others, and there whole neighborhoods or even entire villages have been gutted by fire and the ruins shoved over like block towers. Some survivors fled and now return to pick through the debris, while others remained, living in shanties in the ashes waiting for a chance to rebuild. Despite the crops ripening in the fields there are signs of malnutrition in many places as well, stories of crops confiscated to feed the invading troops and only meager rations returned, worse off even than those affected by shortages elsewhere in Orlais.

And it's not just the material that the enemy has taken or destroyed. Every decent-sized village has its missing, people who were arrested and taken away in wagons or simply vanished one day out of the blue. Where there was resistance there were executions to discourage it, and while the inhabitants have already taken down and buried the displayed bodies, there are a few places where there is no one left to do so, or where magic placed remains out of reach but always in sight.

There are opportunities too: the enemy lived and worked here for 18 months. They did their best to cover their tracks when they left, but it was a hasty and unexpected withdrawal, and there is a wealth of information to collect and work through. There are houses they occupied that haven't been entirely cleaned out, papers only half-burned in an abandoned office, a storeroom in an outpost basement they forgot to empty. And there are the people who have been forced to live and work alongside them all this time to be spoken with, the names they've learned and the conversations they've overheard, the training exercises held on their village greens, all to be teased out and taken down.

One abandoned operation commands particular attention: the site that Riftwatch—then the Inquisition—observed on the eve of the Battle might be a shrine to the Old God Dumat. At the time this was a newly-discovered ruin and little could be discerned for certain, but during their occupation the Venatori have undertaken massive excavations. They've uncovered not just a shrine but a significant temple complex, much of it underground. Exploration of the lowest levels will be handled by a particular team, but there is more to see and do besides. The warren of ruins and the remains of the camp outside them must be searched for clues as to the Venatori's purpose here, and a preliminary study made of the site's contents. There are also the slaves who did the back-breaking labor of digging out the complex and now need assistance. Many are locals, who simply need a ride back to their homes. Others the Venatori brought with them from Tevinter, and they will need to be interviewed and local communities persuaded to take them in.

It is an unimaginable amount of work, but Riftwatch isn't doing it alone. The Inquisition still has a large number of noncombatants, many of whom have been sent to help with outreach and rebuilding in particular. The Exalted March, too, has plenty of volunteers that aren't exactly fit for the front lines. There is enough ground to cover for everyone, but there will be times when Riftwatch agents will be working with—or at least alongside—those from the Inquisition and the Exalted March, and orders are clear that they are to maintain good working relations and not start any trouble.

In between all of this there will be long rides by horse or cart from this village to that one over dirt tracks with cicadas buzzing in the sun, sweltering afternoons broken up by sudden, drenching thunderstorms, warm evenings playing pétanque on the green with the locals over a pint of cider. There will be as many wary as grateful, but hopefully by the end of the summer Riftwatch can tip that balance a little bit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is a small village a days ride away there and back that warrants at least some cursory attention from their company. All that's required of them is to go and assess, ask the right questions, and determine how much support the villagers require and whether or not they know anything noteworthy about Tevinter forces. Madi and John are given two horses, and sent on their way.

It is a long ride, but that suits him. He has been out of Madi's company for so long that the marvel of her presence has yet to fade.

"How are you finding all this?" he asks her. They are alone on this stretch of road, and there are miles to go before their destination. And truth be told, John feels no urgency. The easy pace they've set will get them there in due time, and he wants to hear her opinions, wants to know what Madi thinks of Riftwatch.

He has been among them for so long, it is hard to step back and see the organization without noting the moving parts, the minor clashes of personality and endless arguing that make it up.

The hint of a smile plays on her features as she considers the question, keeping John in her periphery as they ride. Though they've been apart for so long, and though she would love to sit and memorize his features as they are now, there's something comforting about his presence, him simply being beside her.

This is what she'll memorize, so she can imagine he's there whenever he is not.

"It is not so different from home," she says mildly, purposefully addressing the Orlesian countryside rather than Riftwatch. "Fewer trees, but just as affected by war."

Every time John looks at her, he feels the way his expression softens into fondness. It is impossible to stymie. It is there now, when he turns in the saddle to watch her face, a smile creasing his face as she evades his meaning.

"Possibly better equipped to piece itself together," John comments, though there is perhaps an advantage to being anything other than a tiny island in the midst of a vicious fight underneath an ever-widening rift. He continues, "You know what I was asking."

Whether this little company is capable of anything useful. Whether or not she's taken the measure of them and found it worthwhile.

"I know," she concedes, letting her own fondness linger. He would not be asking her this in the hopes that she would lie to him, or simply say what he wants to hear. It is a question deserving of her full assessment, regardless of how it will be received.

"It is not what I expected," The truth, if merely the surface of it. "When the Inquisition decided to divide itself, what kept you and he from following it?"

Of all the things John has considered doing differently, staying with the Inquisition is not one of them. He twists the reins in his fingers, leans slightly back in the saddle as he tries to think at how best to word this for her.

"It is harder to influence the course of the Inquisition."

Which shouldn't imply it's been easy to influence Riftwatch's direction. John's lips twitch in weary amusement considering the endless argument of this small company.

"The Inquisition binds itself more closely to the Chantry, and takes a more moderate approach in all that it does as a consequence. We were in agreement that we were better placed in a smaller company with more freedom as to the battles it was involved in. It was an easy choice."

So easy that it hadn't even been discussed. Like so many things between them, it had simply been wordlessly agreed upon, and then it had come to pass.

"It doesn't strike you as familiar also?" with some further deprecating humor. "A small collection of individuals bent towards a greater purpose, arguing all the way?"

Edited (SPELLING) 2020-09-01 01:25 (UTC)

Moderate sticks out in her mind as she listens, hearing the implications contained within the concept of choosing freedom over institution.

"Sounds like a band of no-good pirates," she says, looking over at him with a wry expression. "But I cannot help but wonder about that greater purpose. The Lord Ambassador made it sound as if the only concern was the rifts, not the war itself."

As if she'd believe the Lord Ambassador on his word alone. But the way Silver defends Riftwatch will say volumes about its potential.

"Rutyer's a man of narrow concerns."

Which ostensibly means rifts, but really means: Ferelden.

"I can't pretend there aren't challenges. But the beauty of it is that the purpose can be changed by it's members rather than dictated by the Chantry's whims. If we'd stayed with the Inquisition, you'd have had to come find us serving their purposes on the Exalted March."

If they'd stayed. John admittedly doesn't know that they would have lingered to put themselves to use there.

"If I'd had to come find you at all."

They wouldn't stay where they couldn't wield some sort of power over themselves. So it stands to reason that those who choose Riftwatch, even without comparing it to the Inquisition, must value that freedom, too.

"You don't think what happened on Nascere was inevitable, to some degree?"

Maybe not the exact nature of what had happened, but if there had always been those ruins, and that had always been the goal—

Or maybe John just wants the reassurance that she would have come for them eventually, that it would not always been the empty void into which he cast two letters and heard nothing back but drunken laments in taverns always to the tune of: and that island is absolutely fucked, no use in considering it.

A slight frown pinches her brow as she looks at him. "It was."

Would he not have returned, if the dichotomy of the Inquisiton and Riftwatch had not been such an easy choice to make? Madi considers this, her gaze poring over his features with careful scrutiny. Surely he had not meant to leave and stay gone.

"You would not have returned empty handed," is the sum of her assessment, as well as an echo of what he'd written nearly a year past. Somehow, she'd expected his promise to outlast his endurance. If he and Flint had not stayed with Riftwatch, and did not join the Inquisition, they would have found an army elsewhere, even if she'd have them return without one.

Facing ahead again, she keeps that last to herself. It's been two years since his first letter, since he wrote of Ghislain. I miss you had been the first portion of the parchment that burned.

"I missed you."

They would not have, and yet, it seems they have so little to offer her. A band of endlessly squabbling contrarians who refuse to unite behind any other cause than saying "fuck you" to the nearest figure of authority, is this what he has to offer?

Briefly, John's expression is very tired. But surely only a passing trick of the light, a cloud momentarily shifting the way the light falls on his face.

He turns in the saddle, as much as can be allowed. The horses are of good stock, well-tempered, but John resists the urge to nudge his mount closer to hers for fear of spooking them both.

"When I thought you'd been harmed..."

Harmed is a glancing term, standing in for many things.

"It was unbearable to think I'd spent two years away from you."

It mitigates nothing. But he knows she has to understand that particular agony. He flashes a rueful smile at her as he continues.

"It's very selfish, but I'm glad you came South to deliver the bad news yourself."

She does understand. She understands the agony of waiting a year between letters, the agony of then having to burn them to leave no trace. The agony of empty hands reaching for pen and parchment and denying herself reply for the safety of their people, their purpose. The agony of standing on a cliff, watching the horizon, watching ships pass, asking the air "where are you" and getting no reply.

They've been separated too often for too many reasons to not know intrinsically, viscerally, the torture of being apart.

Madi looks at him again, and in her own moment of selfishness wishes they had stayed behind at the Gallows. She holds out her hand for his, the invisible cord that links them tightening in the space between.

They should have taken one horse, John thinks. But at her reach, he gives his horse a little nudge, pulls on the reins, closes the distance just enough so that John can take her hand and lace their fingers together.

It is not enough. That small contact staves off the urge to draw her off the horse entirely, but it doesn't quite settle the restless ache in his chest. He'd spent months and months trying not to consider it and now that Madi is within arm's reach, the way that longing recedes burns in the back of his head.

For a moment there's simply nothing to say. He missed her. She's here, alive, unscathed, and they will do their duty here then sail north again. His thumb runs along her knuckles before he speaks again.

"There's something else I should discuss with you."

There's many things, really. The whole litany of events that have occurred in the course of their service to Riftwatch, the two times he was kidnapped and nearly killed.

Or perhaps the connections he's made in Llomerryn, or Emlyn and the other barkeeps across Lowtown, the rotating slew of patrons who have come to know and expect John's presence?

Or Nevarra.

Or Flint.

Or the magic.

John's hold on her hand shifts slightly, but doesn't loosen.

If they had taken one horse, she could have her arms around him by now. Her head resting against his back, listening to the vibrations of his voice through his body. She has been lulled to sleep by that sound before, allowed it to wrap her up in comfort and whisk her away from their respective troubles and responsibility.

But they are at arm's length, even linked like this, and the comfort she had been taking in knowing he was in her periphery does not seem sufficient.

"Do you wish to discuss it here?" On horseback? So far from one another? It's been a long enough ride that to stop now could be to spare the horses, allow them to rest, to allow Madi and John a moment to eat what they'd packed.

Is there an easier place to discuss it?

But he takes her meaning. Horseback is less than ideal, even if John thinks maybe she's entitled to have some means of pulling back from him if she wishes it. That's just as easily done otherwise, and he scans ahead of them, squeezes her hand once before letting go to point ahead of them.

"There," he tells her, indicating a small copse of trees at the curve in the road. "We can take a moment."

Even if they weren't making decent time on their ride, John would still seize at this opportunity. There seems to be too much to tell her, and more still with every passing day. He has to make a start sometime or another.

The curve in the road marks the beginning of a gentle downward slope that is mirrored just beyond those trees and accentuated by a stone fence serving as the delineation between one field and the next. The horses are all too happy for the reprieve, grazing in the middle of the copse as Madi looks out over the rolling seas of green.

Have the people endemic to this place never seen the ocean? Who are they? Are these gentle waves the only waters they've had to weather?

"What is it you wanted to discuss?" She asks John, angling her head to watch him.

Ever since her arrival, since opening the door to the Forces office to find her stood alongside Flint, John has found himself gazing at her as if struck by her presence. Even after dismounting his horse, when he turns to see her against the stretch of fields it catches him nearly off guard.

With one final pat to his horse, he closes the space between them and takes her hand in the same breath as he kisses her.

The weight of all that she doesn't yet know bears down on him, is set aside for a brief moment as he tries to think of what to speak of first, of the words to make himself understood to her.

"I love you," he tells her, simply, without any poetry. How long has it been since he said it last? "You understand that has remained unchanged, regardless of all that's happened?"

When Madi says "I love you, too," it is colored with the creeping suspicion that whatever John is about to say next will directly challenge his assertion that his feelings haven't changed.

Perhaps she should just kiss him again, to delay it. One is never quite enough, anyway. She threads her fingers through his so neither one of them can simply slip free; they will both have to let go to separate from the other. And she waits.

None of what he'd tell her now is something he could have put into a letter. He knows this, and Madi certainly understands it. But this would be easier had he been able to tell her before, rather than try to untangle the morass of experience and long-carried secrets he'd accumulated since they parted.

He squeezes her hand lightly as he draws back, thumb drawing along her knuckles as he watches her face. There's no shying from this discussion now, though John's decision of topic narrows to what's closest at hand, what feels easier to explain.

"There were points over the course of the past two years where it would have been...simpler if I had left. You never knew me when that was something I would have done. I haven't always been inclined to dedicate myself to anything, let alone a war."

A slight smile. Is there any solace in the idea that she might have liked the man he'd once been less?

"But I couldn't bring myself to do it, when it would mean breaking with you forever," John tells her, before drawing a breath and adding, "And when it would mean abandoning him."

There is a similar weight to the way John identifies the pair of them, draws a parallel to the ways he would have let both of them down. His thumb draws slowly down the back of her hand.

She doesn't need to ask of whom he refers. She hasn't needed to ask for years. He and Him may as well be Flint's given names as much as James ever was. And so she doesn't ask.

Madi's eyes flit between his, never content to focus on one alone. If the eyes be the windows to the soul, one cannot peer through the pane of just one and see all. Who was John Silver before Flint? Before Madi?

Does that matter? He is who he is now, and she loves him as he is now, and her hand is in his now, with his thumb coasting over her skin now. She nods for him to continue. What he's said is merely the foreword.

It would be so much easier if that was all that need be said. He'd like to leave the conversation there and mount their horses again.

But the unfortunate thing about caring so deeply is that it demands certain acts. The depth of his affection for Madi and Flint both necessitate some measure of honesty, whatever the outcome, not matter how ill-equipped John feels to explain.

"I've committed myself to you, and to him in equal measures. In all things, all parts of this war, and what I hope lays beyond it."

Though John scarcely knows what that looks like anymore, or if his hopes had ever been feasible. They'd been blurred at best, a soft-focus dream. Maybe when it comes clearer it will look different.

"After all we've been through together, I find myself as close to him as I have been to you," John says, eyes steady on her face.

Flint and Silver had always been a package deal. There's no knowing one without the other; even when Madi had spoken only to John, he spoke of Flint often enough and with such weight that it seemed they were more than simply partners, or friends, or tools for one another to wield and with which to shape the world.

"I don't understand," she says, but she means: explain it to me. There is an obvious connection to be made, but one she is hesitant to make with any element of ambiguity in play. This is what he meant when he said nothing would change how he felt about her?

"Madi," is all he says at first, softly entreating.

It is a rare thing for John to be caught without words. But his usual fare seems out of place within the bounds of this conversation; there is no smoothly delivered explanation that breezes past the enormity of what he is trying to navigate.

"I think you do," he finishes, because two years of distance doesn't change that she does know him in the ways that matter. Maybe the minutiae of what he's slogged through in Riftwatch will never fully come into focus between them, but from the beginning she'd seen into him. He thinks she can see the shape of this too, even without John trying to unspool some explanation of what he feels for them both.

She stares at him for a moment before taking a step back. Her hand slips from his, slowly, but not in hesitation or recoil. She needs to think. She turns a distant glance towards the field beyond and doesn't see it or the fence or the trees or the horizon. It's a look he's seen on her often, gaze cast inward, introspective. The concentration of one untying a complex knot mentally before tackling it with her hands.

Does this change anything? She trusts him. Does she trust this? There was a time when he shared fears with her, and she shared doubts when his fears began to ebb. But are they past those things?

Madi trusts Flint. She trusts John. She trusts herself. Is this complicated? Or is it simple, and her emotions are what are getting in the way?

Does she have anything to say?

After what is both not long enough and forever, she takes a breath.

"What does this change?"

Edited (HANDS) 2020-09-22 18:08 (UTC)

She turns away. He does not try to keep hold of her. John closes his hand over empty air, opens it again. He has seen her work her way through her thoughts before. But he can't be sure of the outcome this time. Madi has never been so predictable, though in this moment John is particularly out of his depth.

But to her question—

"For me? Nothing."

He has over two years to grow accustomed to the sensation of being so connected to two people, to realize where his loyalties have settled. It had come into such clear focus after Nevarra, realizing his love for them prohibited him from disappearing. But he cannot tell if it would be such a simple thing for Madi.

The urge to reach for her kicks, and his hand closes at his side. Not yet. Closing the distance between them will be her decision.

"I have been committed to you both for so long now that I can't see any other way to move forward."

MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

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