faderift | [Open] I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places

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[Open] I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places

WHO: Katniss Everdeen and You
WHAT: Katniss is dealing with nightmares from leaving so many people in Emprise du Lion. So what does she do? Chase exhaustion and dreamless sleep, of course. Want to help?
WHEN: The first week of Wintermarch
WHERE: All of over Skyhold!
NOTES: WARNING for nightmare fueled material, violence, etc. Possible violence against those who shake her awake.

The Nightmare

She's standing in the middle of the copse of small homes, where she had spent all of her formative years. She is calling out, but no one is answering, and so she goes running through the houses. Banging open the doors, calling out Prim's name, calling out to her father. She runs down the hill, towards her home when she sees them.

Lying in the dirt, broken like dolls. Her father's chest is just a giant hole, where the darkspawn's sword cleaved through. Prim is missing an arm, and her face is burn clean off from where an errant fireball tore it clean. Her throat is slit, from ear to ear, where someone had been using her as a body shield.

Katniss runs towards them, and that is when she sees more and more bodies. First, it is all of her neighbors, with bloody wounds from swords and arrows, frozen limbs and burnt bodies. Now it is her friends at Skyhold - Bruce looking half green and half human, a Templar's sword through his chest. Ariande with her shard ripped out of her hand, darkspawn sword through neck. Pel with demon clawmarks running across her stomach, Zevran with a crow feathertipped arrow right through one glorious eye. Cullen, staring up at an empty sky with slices all over his face and arms, where blood was drained, Clint with dozens of Venatori arrows in his chest, ... Gavin, Korrin, Sam, Salvatore, Salem, Ellana, Ara -- body after body after body. Then the Emprise du Lion captives, frozen to death, their faces locked in a visage of pain and suffering.

Bodies. She is surrounded by bodies, and she is the only one who has survived - why, Creators, why Maker, why Andraste?

"You failed, Katniss." She turns around, and there is her father, staring at her with hate-filled eyes. "You failed all of us. How could you let your sister die? You promised - you promised as I died that you would keep her safe."

"Father I - I tried - I went for help..." Katniss whispered, stepping back away from him as he advanced on her. Beside him, Prim reached out for Katniss, the place where her mouth had been stretching in an ugly maw.

"You ran away. You ran away and left us all to die." Her father accused her, his blight-sickened eyes boring into hers.

"I didn't run away! I would never run away!" Katniss yelled, stopping in her tracks, but then she heard the shuffling steps from behind her, and she turned, to see all of the dead moving towards her, accusation across their pale and bloated faces. They were coming for her, surrounding her, crushing her as she screamed that she didn't run away - she didn't

Waking Up

" - let you die!" She screamed as she jerked upright ...

And depending on where she was? Well, she would either slink off before someone gave her a strange look, or flush with embarrassment at whoever she happened to wake up next to. Which could be anywhere - she was catching 'Kat-naps' (hah hah) everywhere when her energy reserves started to run low. In the tavern, over some bread and soup. Out in the gardens, in Gavin's tree. On the ramparts, in the library, even in her own little hut.

Running Herself Ragged

The only way to stop dreams from coming, outside of taking some potion that meant she couldn't wake herself up easily, was to make herself run to exhaustion. Which she was more than willing to do. Since getting back from Skyhold, there was plenty to be done. She hunted for the refugees for hours, bringing back as much game as she could. She practiced her climbing, vaulting her way up the side of Skyhold's walls with a singular focus. She was out on the archery lists - working on every single shot she had, running and shooting at the same time. She ran through fighting hand to hand with the soldiers - they were teaching her how to fight people off with a single arrow in hand, and she taught them out to get around a slightly lesser rogue.

Keep pushing. Keep moving. If she kept going, maybe, just maybe, she could get more than four hours of sleep at a time. Maybe she could just outrun the nightmares, for a little while.

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From what she had heard about the weird kid with the hat? He wouldn't hurt Ariande either.

However, Katniss was Katniss, and she liked Airy as well. So she flashed her friend a lazy, tired smile. "Are you hungry?"

Given her obnoxious habit of giving at least half of her rations away every chance she got, Ariadne was pretty much always hungry. She nodded slightly, her braid wobbling. "A little."

A lot.

But there was always someone less lucky. Someone hungrier.

Katniss gave her a longer, harder look, before she snorted softly, "Don't lie, Airy. You're starving. Who got your rations this morning?"

Of course Katniss knew when people looked hungry. That was the nature of the poor beast, after all.

"I eat just fine," she replied. "I wouldn't want you to skin the cat and serve it up for supper." Not that she actually thought Katniss would do anything like that. But it was an easy deflection.

As if to prove her strength, she gripped the branch in both hands and swung her body down, dangling. Her arms didn't shake.

She craned her neck back, looking at Katniss upside-down. "I was hoping you could teach me a little more about the edible plants and fruits in Thedas."

"Ugh, Airy. I would never kill and serve Buttercup." Katniss made a face, "Can you imagine the taste of the meat? Pure evil. Nasty."

Which was a deflection itself, and just meant that Airy was going to get fed. Katniss considered what the woman said, before nodding and swinging out of the tree, to land on the ground in a roll.

"I'd be happy to. Let's grab something to eat from the kitchens, and we'll head outside."

Edited 2016-01-07 04:11 (UTC)

Ariadne just let go.

Like a cat, she had a talent for landing on her feet in a tidy crouch.

She'd gotten a little more careless with her abilities around Katniss. Testing the waters a bit. She still wasn't sure she was ready to tell the whole truth about what she was but...it would be nice. As good as Ariadne was at lying, that didn't mean she liked it.

...not all the time.

"All right," she said, springing up to her feet and hurrying over to Katniss.

One of these days, Katniss was going to ask what Ariande was -- because it wasn't human. No human moved like that, dropped like that. She was under the tutelage of some of the finest rogues in all of Thedas and she had never seen anything like that before.

She pursed her lips,, before she started off. This afternoon, not the moment. But soon. "So what have I missed today?"

"Not much, I don't think," Ariadne replied, trotting along after her. "But no one really tells me much of anything."

All the better to hear with, of course. But, in truth, Ariadne hadn't been hearing anything of interest. Or, at least, nothing that she understood. She could only hope that if something really, really important happened, she'd be able to pick it up in someone's heartbeat.

Hesitantly, she added, "I missed you, while you were away."

"Well that needs to change - in fact, you're going to need to be informed if you're coming with us to Emprise du Lyon." Katniss slowed her steps, so she could hook her arm through Ariande's. At that statement, her mouth curved up into a quiet smile.

"I missed you too. I needed someone aggressively cheerful and there was no one about to fit the bill."

Edited 2016-01-07 15:37 (UTC)

Well, now, that was interesting.

Ariadne cocked her head to the side, looking even more birdlike than usual. "Emprise du Lyon," she repeated, the term feeling quite alien on her tongue. Which wasn't a sentiment an Alastrian often felt, being as well-versed as they were in the languages of her home realm. "What's that?"

The idea of going somewhere did have quite a lot of appeal. She was tired of feeling cooped up.

Honestly, Airy was not human. Katniss wasn't entirely sure what she was -- but human was not it. "That's a village, further west from here. Red Templars, red lyrium, a suffering populace ... and Rifts."

She arched an eyebrow at her friend. "So as you can tell? You're going to be more than welcome."

A suffering populace and the chance to take a look at the Rifts up close made complete sense to Ariadne. But as was her wont, she immediately zoned in on what she didn't understand.

"Red?"

Her favorite color, to be sure. As evidenced by her only tunic. But she wasn't clear on how it applied to Templars. And as for lyrium...she knew next to nothing.

Katniss paused in the middle of the Great Hall, raising an eyebrow at Ariande, "...Don't you know about the Red Templars? Or the red lyrium?"

What precisely had they been telling the Rifters here?

Ariadne shook her head, gray eyes widening at the sudden stop. "No," she admitted. "Although I've heard of Templars. They're the ones who are supposed to protect the Mages."

Although she wasn't sure about their methods. It all made Ariadne a little bit uncomfortable.

A lot uncomfortable, really.

Katniss frowned for a long moment, her lips pressing together. "They are. How they do that is currently a fairly ... intense debate. Red Templars are those who have broken with everyone, and joined Corpheyus. They take red lyrium -- which according to Varric drives you mad, and then turns you into a statue so that will end well for them."

"I can't imagine a reason why anyone would ever want to turn into a statue," Ariadne said, quite seriously. She wrinkled up her nose a little at the prospect. When she thought about it--really thought about it--it seemed like an entirely uncomfortable and unpleasant sort of process.

She glanced sideways at Katniss. "There must be some sort of benefit. For them to willingly run that kind of risk. What does the red lyrium do to them?"

"Well, they get unbelievable amounts of power from it. They can levitate, grow in strength and size. But they become inhuman, the more they ingest. It's a balance between power, and eventually dying. Some of them think it's worth the risk." Katniss shook her head slightly.

"I think they're all mad."

It was a sadly familiar story. Power could be more intoxicating than anything else. Ariadne didn't share the sentiment, didn't understand it, but she'd seen enough to know that most humanoids were susceptible. Especially Humans.

There was nothing quite like having a reputation for being a powerless and helpless race.

She nodded gravely. "I see."

"Yes, I bet you do." Katniss's own expression is grim. "So that is why, when we reach Emprise du Lion, we're going to depose those ... " Right, in the Great Hall, where all the nobles were, "... people as quickly as possible. Then we'll try cleaning up the red lyrium, if we can."

Violence was always a last resort, in Ariadne's mind. But given what Katniss was telling her about the Red Templars, it seemed they were already at a last resort. The power-hungry and the mad weren't ones to compromise or negotiate. They no longer possessed the capacity.

Which made Ariadne very sad.

"What's going to happen to them, after they're deposed?" she asked. "Is there any way to cure them of the red lyrium?"

"I'm not sure. I know Christine is looking into the red lyrium corruption -- and I know the Templars would like it if we could save their brothers and sisters. Not all of them could be doing this with full knowledge of what would happen... "

She couldn't believe all those templars were that corrupt - or that stupid.

Ariadne had never met Christine, but she'd heard the name when she loitered around the medics. It was encouraging to hear. Even if the chance was only small, at least there was still a chance. And Ariadne would always fight for that.

"Good," she said, nodding once.

"... You really want to be able to save everyone, don't you?"

Katniss hooked her arm through Airy's again, giving her a warm look. "I'm glad. I - well. I lost a lot of that, during the Mage and Templar war. I'm glad there are still people around who feel that way."

She smiled shyly and shrugged. "The way I see it," she said, "everyone has someone who loves them and would miss them if they were gone. There's so little love left in the universe as it is, we would be wrong to take any more of it."

And that was completely, one hundred percent Ariadne. No act. No pretending. Just love.

So much love.

Katniss looked at her friend, before giving her arm a little squeeze, "I could not agree more. We should save everything we can, especially love."

She paused, then looked at Ariande, her grey eyes bright. "Can I tell you something, on our walk? Not that I wouldn't be surprised you had heard about it already."

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