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

"The place was a total wreck already. Abandoned and boarded up and all, but looking at it...you'd think it'd been years, not months."

She smiles into the cup as she takes another drink of the wine, a proud little thing.

"Jenny Lou smashed that fucking chandelier in the dining room," she reminisces. "And Matty set fire to the table. And I got to smash the cellar, but more'n that...I drank some of the wine," That's when she looks at Colin, half-suppressing her grin by chewing on her lip. "I thought I would retch or panic or end up back there, in my head, but it was just wine. And the house was just an empty set of rooms, no power over me at all."

“That’s...” Colin grins broadly. “That sounds brilliant. You got the last laugh.”

She laughs, and it feels good. Happy, maybe, or if nothing else just relieved.

"I did. I also saw what was left of Devigny. Not, like, his body, of course, but..." The stain on the floor, on the bedspread, the hole in the mattress where Deimos' sword ran him through. Athessa tips her head and sets her cup down to take up more meat and cheese. "It actually feels like it's over, now, Colin."

Beaming, he pulls her into a massive hug.

"He doesn't get to be in my head anymore," she says into his shoulder, before she shifts to rest her chin there rather than be smushed into him. It's too hot out in the midday sun to get smushed.

And with him hugging her, and her winding her arms around him, the next just comes tumbling out:

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. About that and—'bout everything else," Everything else she still hasn't told him. "I didn't want to make myself a burden to you, or only ever talk about everything that's wrong and never about the good."

Colin pulls back from the hug to cup her face in his hands.

"You're never to worry about that," he says sincerely. "You could never be a burden. You're family. Want proof?"

He tugs at the neck of his shirt and pulls it aside to show her the fresh tattoo there. It's different from the one they talked about--seven small stars rather than one large one, but all are unfilled.

"There's seven there, one for each of my family. One of them is yours. Been wanting to show you."

She isn't going to cry. She tells herself that, though she does gasp when he shows her, and she feels a familiar tightness in her chest, something like how she feels when she looks at Derrica, but without the desperate sense of longing that comes with it. Like she has a small sun in place of her heart and it's trying to shine through her.

There's a dozen things she could say, but none of them feel quite right, and she instead decides to touch her fingers to the skin beside the fresh ink, avoiding the lines themselves.

"I...I know I should say something but I don't have any words that feel big enough."

"I've got six black ones on my back. Still your design, really." He leans in to plant a kiss on her forehead. "So don't ever worry about being a burden. You lift me up, you don't drag me down."

She closes her eyes for the forehead kiss and smiles, nodding. She'll still worry, but he'll remind her even without words.

"I've just felt like such a mess lately," she says, looking down at her hands. She holds one of them up to forestall any assurances that she isn't a mess, or that it's okay to be one, or anything he might say. "I think I've spent so long ignoring the things I should've been feeling for so long that they've gotten to be too much, too...confusing. Because they're all tangled up with one another, and I...I gotta untangle them so I can give them their dues."

He nods and says nothing. It's time to listen.

"And of course I trust you with those feelings, but I don't...I think as much as I love you and your support, I really have been relying too much on everyone else when the only person who can really do anything about them is me. Whoever that is.

"I feel like I've been trying so hard to be the person I used to be, before I lost what I've lost and found everything else that I didn't notice myself outgrowing her."

She takes a breath, gathering up one of Colin's hands between her own.

"When we're done with helping here, me n' Bastien are gonna try to find my clan's aravel. Their last camp. So I can give them their rites. And because you're family, you're welcome to come too, but I won't be hurt if you can't, or if that's asking too much of you."

His eyes widen, his hands clutching hers. He's speechless for a moment.

"It would be an honor. Of course I'm coming."

"Thank you," she says, nearly a whisper. She is still determined not to cry, but some tears still manage to well up, unspilled. "It'll probably take a week, maybe longer. But it shouldn't be too far outside of Kirkwall, if you're needed back at the Gallows for something. You could be back within a day."

The rites would take far longer if there were any bodies to actually lay to rest. She'll likely have to decide what she wants to do in place of that. What rituals to conduct, what sacrifices to make in their honor and to appease the gods.

"I think that's where I'll be able to start to sort through my feelings. Go back to the start, ya know? And I won't...I won't have to be embarrassed to feel what I feel, and I can...Maybe my heart can finally start to heal."

Colin's eyes are getting damp as well. "When I first got back to Denerim, I found the place where the house I grew up in burned down. I guess, um. The ashes of my family, they went to a public grave. When they rebuilt that district, they didn't quite put buildings in the same places..."

What was he saying?

"I found the grave before I left. It wasn't marked, but at least I felt like I could say goodbye. It's important, to be able to say goodbye."

Athessa watches his face while he speaks, and nods. She understands.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is."

As scary as it is to be facing down these things that are so vast and confusing, having a plan and knowing that she has a chosen family to stand behind her makes it less daunting. She can't make anyone else do what she has to do, but if she stumbles, she'll have hands to reach for to get her back on her feet.

He pulls her into another hug.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

When this hug has run its course, Athessa scoots a smidge closer so she can rest her head on his shoulder and interlace her fingers with his, using her free hand to nibble at what's left on her plate or ferry her wine to her lips at various intervals. Eventually they'll have to get back to work, but for now, they have time.

"Is there anything you need to talk about?"

He thinks for a second.

"I...successfully got Ben to help me wash your bedding?"

She laughs.

"How much did he actually help?"

"He whined the entire time and had to be shown everything to do," Colin says with a grin. "But the point is, he stayed for it and worked the whole time. Even if I got more done."

"I guess that's something. Progress, maybe?"

Athessa looks down at their hands and brushes her fingers over his knuckles idly. "How are things going with him? Both of you, I mean."

"Well, we're not all that good at it yet, I don't think, but there's time."

...Colin.

"I didn't mean the sex."

He looks faintly embarrassed at getting called out, but just gives a one-shoulder shrug.

"We're just friends having fun. I still have feelings, but I know he doesn't feel that way toward me. I think as long as I have realistic expectations, it'll be all right."

She lifts her head off his shoulder to look at him, trying to read any underlying pain behind those words.

"And you're really okay with that?"

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