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.

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Disbelief aimed at Wysteria quickly transitions into judgment for Dickerson. The next declaration's not at all subtle; he's likely to wake their downstairs neighbors, at this rate.

"Oh, that's just—" He stops, reassesses. Considers what he knows about Dickerson, which isn't much, and what he knows about Wysteria, which is: probably not an exhibitionist. The judgment drops in favor of something vaguely in the zip code of embarrassment.

"You're talking about actual work."

"Yes, obviously," she exclaims, with an exasperated eyeroll and presumably thought but unspoken apologies to their downstairs neighbors. "What else could we possibly be referring to, Mr. Fitz?"

But it is evidently a hypothetical question, as Wysteria wastes no further time and instead whips open the blankets. She is more or less exactly as she was when she'd retired from their company, save that the ribbons at the high collar of her dress have been slightly loosened.

"We can use one of these to catch any blood, and I will make my mortified apologies to our hosts." As ladies sometimes must. With a brisk tug, she looses one of the blankets down from the line. "Mr. Dickerson, would you please explain to Mr. Fitz what will be required of him?"

Richard’s judgment is as baffled as it is bone-deep -- in one look across their half of the attic, he’s pierced through to Leopold Fitz’s soul, and has constructive criticism for what he sees. It’s a severe degree of scrutiny for a tax auditor in pseudo-pajamas. Approximately 5% of it is defensive in the key of as if.

Then Wysteria speaks.

His intensity leaves him in washes with each slide change of realization. He looks from Fitz, to Poppell, and back to sizing up Fitz again, brow hooded and chops bristled with (gentler) disapproval. He opens his mouth. He closes it.

He looks back aside to Wysteria.

“There is some distinction between explaining and asking.” Low and quiet, as if passing a hint around the side of the dinner table. Maybe she doesn’t realize.

His voice is plenty loud for Fitz to hear in such close quarters.

You might think realizing he'd had the wrong impression would clear things up. It doesn't. His assumption that they've got some weird side project going that he's expected to sleep through is soundly waylaid by the words required of him. Richard's sideways comment stalls enough for him to process, a little. The knee-jerk, gormless what takes that time to evolve into the slightly more focused, and significantly more suspicious:

"Asking me what."

It'd sound more accusatory if it weren't for the sudden, acute concern that he's somehow misread or forgotten their assignments.

"Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Fitz. I explained this all to you the other day over—"

With the blanket in her hands and quite literally in the middle of stepping around Richard, she pauses and takes a moment to assess the pair of them in the context of the attic which mostly amounts to squinting at Fitz for a split second before she clears her throat and makes to spread the blanket out on the dusty floor.

"Perhaps it slipped my mind. Regardless, I suspect Mr. Dickerson's talents will add a fascinating dimension to our research concerning the nature of the Fade and how magic, or energy, or whatever you and Mr. Stark would best like to call it"—(Fadeiation is still not a thing. She doesn't care how many times Tony says otherwise)—"is conducted through it. Mr. Dickerson and I have agreed that we will demonstrate our skills for one another's study, and some of his require...

"Well, I could hardly say. But a third party, evidently. I'm sure he will be most happy to explain the specifics to you. Now come along and help me spread out this blanket."

Dick continues to track Miss Poppell with Wysteria please energy gripped distinct into the fuzzy lines around his mouth as she crosses over him, and onward, until she’s busied herself with spreading a blanket. He is left (briefly) alone with his foreboding while she “explains” to Mr. Fitz.

“I’m a healer,” he supplements her explanation, through or around her blanket-smoothing efforts.

It is possible a few of the answers in his completed survey might have been misleading, but there’s a particular kind of candor to his lack of apology now. Bold of them to assume anyone would answer honestly.

Still seated, he twists a dagger from his belt -- an unremarkable dark steel blade whetted bright at the edges.

“Miss Poppell volunteered you for a demonstration.” Now there is a hint of apology in the blue of his eyes, just as matter-of-fact as its earlier absence.

Wysteria's explanation explains very little. It's the reference to magic and the word healer that does it, comprehension sliding into place with a click. You can't study healing factor without something to heal.

His expression shifts, neatly shuttered and bordering on blasé; his gaze catches on the dagger, distracted. Contrition aside, the gesture of drawing a dagger from one's belt in a dimly lit attic is inevitably and ominously cliché. And that's the distraction — not fear or common sense, but the dull recollection of labs and restraints and scalpels and tacky, cruel clichés.

He could tell them both to piss off. The thought does occur, if only for posterity. Then it's muffled by a mix of curiosity and guilt, and Fitz takes a steady breath, exhaling in a way that's all tired resignation instead of hesitant concern.

"How much blood are you expecting, exactly."

There's a big difference between small cuts and stab wounds. He's got some self-respect.

Explanations and justifications are more or less the same thing.

"I rather doubt he means to gut you, Mr. Fitz."

—Though it is, technically speaking, a question entirely for Mr. Dickerson and so with the blanket more or less arranged, and a swift sidelong look shot in Fitz' direction, Wysteria crosses back through the blanket divider to fetch her notebook. There was some agreement made regarding the taking of notes, but she at least will require something for her own demonstration and so there can be no complaints.

“Not tonight, anyway,” Richard further supplies, on the subject of gutting. Friendly, without any guilt of his own, beyond his initial acknowledgement that this is not a very nice thing for them to do.

He turns the dagger in his fingers to offer out the grip, while Wysteria is occupied.

“You can carve into me if you prefer.”

A normal allowance for this kind of science, surely. Very kind. He says nothing on the matter of ‘how much blood.’

Very normal. Fitz has finally deigned to abandon his camping spot against his pack, pushing to his feet to step the whole handful of strides over to stand on the blanket. He's started to irritably tug at his jacket sleeves — whatever they're doing, they're not getting blood on the leather — but he stops short to shoot the offered dagger a quick look, confusion and offense flashing over his features.

"What? No." He yanks the jacket free, blindly tossing it back towards his pack as he continues. "Carve. I'm not a bloody sociopath."

The unlike you two goes unsaid, but that doesn't make it any less loud.

Wysteria ducks back through with a great flurry of blankets and skirts, paging through her notebook until she identifies the next blank page. She pauses momentarily at the sight of Fitz without his jacket standing on the blanket--

"Everything seems in order then. How wonderful." She turns turns to Richard and from behind her ear (...where else could it come from?), plucks her pen. "If you would, Mr. Dickerson."

Dick Dickerson stands after Fitz does, the better to be insulted on his sock feet and in his makeshift pajamas. He frowns, faintly. His loose hold on the dagger and the low underlight lend his lean figure a hint of The Hills Have Eyes menace.

Wysteria bustles back through the sheet, and he glances to her, breaking the spell.

His lamp is just there; he leans to turn the dial, swelling light through the attic as the flame rises in the bell. He sheathes the dagger to push his sleeves up, and the black ribbon of what might otherwise have passed for a tattoo spirals into a slithering retreat, winding up away from his forearm for his shoulder.

Preparations complete, he joins Fitz at the blanket, and offers his left hand out for him to take, while the right retrieves the dagger from his hip.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “My people are well-versed in the practice of bloodletting humans.”

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MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

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