MOD PLOT ↠ The Darkest Realms of Dream, Part II

[faderifting]

WHO: Open
WHAT: A dreamy conclusion.
WHEN: Wintermarch 20, 9:47
WHERE: The Fade, Kirkwall
NOTES: Please use content warnings in your comment subject lines as appropriate.

THE JOURNEY

The pull to Skyhold becomes undeniable. Whatever justification is necessary to get people onto the road the dream makes real, whether that's planting an idea in their head or having a message arrive drawing them to the area or having them wake up and find themselves in an onion cart halfway up the mountain. The dream will do its best to smooth over the gaps between conflicting stories and the strangeness of everyone heading that way at once until they're all well underway.

At first, the journey seems normal (in the context of the dreamworld they're in), with the sort of mundane dangers faced by all travelers: wild animals, bad weather, brigands, and in the future where Corypheus has won, enemy patrols. But as they get nearer to the mountains, the trip grows more dangerous. More wild animals—and perhaps now they're infected with red lyrium or Fade-touched. More bad weather, perhaps almost supernaturally so. More enemy forces hunting them, ambushing them, barring the way up into the Frostbacks.

As they get into the mountains the opposition to their journey will become increasingly improbable. Hordes of beasts, entire enemy brigades that have no reason to be where they are, a necromancer coincidentally located atop an ancient cemetery hidden beneath the ice, a rift spontaneously opening to spew demons in their path, darkspawn clawing up out of the ground, a random Qun attack thousands of miles from their front, a dragon appearing out of nowhere. More and more, it will become obvious that things are not what they seem, and that something—some larger force—is trying to prevent them from reaching Skyhold.

HAVEN

No matter where people came from or when they left, they will all arrive on the road into the mountains at roughly the same time. Not precisely, but near enough that they'll begin to encounter others making the same journey. And whether they are attempting to reach Skyhold from the East or the West, they'll find themselves in the ruins of Haven first, converging with the entire group. In the world where the Inquisitor defeated Corypheus, the village is home to a monument to those who were lost when Corypheus' forces first attacked, with evidence of a steady stream of recent pilgrimages—though presently no pilgrims—to pay their respects. In the world where Corypheus dominates, a lifesize dragon has been constructed from bones, some of them human, to stand triumphant over the ruins.

Once they press past this point, taking much the same route once used to lead Haven's refugees to Skyhold, the dreams will begin to unravel. The two dreamworlds may begin to overlap and merge in confusing ways that fuel awareness that the dreams are dreams. People from one dream may step into the woods to forage and encounter people from the other dream there to do the same thing. A person who has experienced both dreams may find that they begin to bleed together, leaving them certain of one history in one moment and of another the next, and increasingly unsure about which of their conflicting sets of memories—if either—is real.* The gaps in memories will also become increasingly apparent, as will the strange coincidence of all of them heading to Skyhold at once for very different reasons.

As people gain awareness that they are in a dream, they may find that they gain more control over the dreamworld. Non-mages may find themselves capable of impossible feats, like willing a storm into being to push enemies back, or speaking to animals to learn the enemy's movements. Mages may find that the normal boundaries on magic have been stretched, and spells that might once have been beyond their power no longer are. Their newfound capabilities do have limits, though: their enemies grow in strength to match them and cannot simply be wished away, and the major threats that more and more clog their path are still too strong to be beaten by any one person alone.

The last leg of the journey up to Skyhold will be the most difficult yet, as difficult as it has ever been. The paths are even steeper and rockier than anyone remembers, in places appearing as if they've been deliberately heaved about and strewn with boulders in an attempt to narrow the way. Surely so much of the road wasn't treacherous goat paths along the edge of precipitous drops before? And if that wasn't enough, while the enemy forces have receded here there comes in their wake a blizzard of tremendous strength, clouds blotting out the sun, the way lit only by the occasional crack of lightning. Snow lashes the rocks and wind screams through the passes, ice slicking every stone, as if nature itself is trying to throw them from the mountain. While it might normally be wisest to hunker down, they will all somehow know that this is not a storm that can be waited out and the only course is to press onward through it to the top.

OOC | * Characters from one dreamworld won't meet the other version of themselves face to face. There's only one consciousness in the dream per person, in one 'body'. They may switch back and forth between dream versions, or lose one version entirely, or begin to muddle their memories and personalities together, or drop them both when they become fully aware of the fact that they're dreaming, but the two versions will never coexist as separate entities at the same moment.

SKYHOLD

They will know when they've reached their destination because just as suddenly as it began, the storm ceases. The tranquility is as abrupt as walking through a door: one moment they are in the howling heart of the blizzard, and in the next step they are beyond it. The air is cold but still, the sky clouded but calm, the path across the great bridge to the main gate clear of snow.

Skyhold would be a striking sight at any time, perched atop its peak against a backdrop of stark white mountaintops, but in these dreams, it's ethereal. The stones have a faint luminescence, like a smooth pond bathed in moonlight, that makes it stand out clearly against the night sky. No windows or braziers are lit, and the valley around it is still. The walls are unguarded and the portcullis open in an invitation they can't bring themselves to refuse.

As they approach, they'll find themselves able to call on memories from both dreamworlds at once—while the gaps in their memories of the years prior to the last month grow. And memories of the true world, one where it's Wintermarch 9:47, may begin to reemerge and solidify, no longer a future that will never arise nor a past that's been left far behind them. By the time they reach the Great Hall, yesterday may feel like as many as three different days, each memory as clear and vivid as the others.

Once inside the walls, the castle grows still more dreamlike. A great tree grows out of the far corner where the War Room ought to be, its massive trunk somehow coexisting with the walls around it, its canopy broad enough to stretch into the Great Hall. The building's form doesn't seem wholly fixed in time—one moment it will appear to be the Skyhold of the Inquisition, in another, one might instead see a glimpse of the ruin it was before the Inquisition arrived, or a bare mountain peak with only a few foundation stones laid, or even an ancient elven temple built around that great tree. There are remnants too of those who have lived and work here in ages past: a flicker of movement in the corner of an eye might be the ghostly shape of an ancient elf or a dwarf lord or a Fereldan mason, or even someone in Inquisition uniform. Attempts to interact with these apparitions will fail, as they continue on about their routines, incorporeal and unaware, vanishing again as soon as they're out of sight.

The only exception is a spirit in the Great Hall, waiting for them.

AFTERMATH

When they wake in the Gallows, it is Wintermarch 21, 9:47, and nothing in the world—outside their own heads—has fundamentally changed from when they went to sleep.

OOC | It will feel like a month has passed at most, similar to how rifters wake up from their canon updates. They will only remember that month-long span of the dream itself, not the years of history that led up to that point. Essentially, they may wake up from the dream and remember "so back when the Inquisition fell I turned assassin and killed a bunch of people," but they'll only be remembering that in the dream this fact was true; they won't remember a years-long period in which they became an assassin, the assassin skills they supposedly learned, or the act of killing those people.

As is the manner of dreams, memories may be fuzzy or disjointed, and some things may stick in the mind more clearly and vividly than others. Anyone who interacts with the Herald spirit (or witnesses others doing so) will find these memories particularly clear and strong.

Comments

THE HERALD

[faderifting]

The only true occupant of the fortress will be found in the Great Hall. On the Inquisitor's throne sits Evelyn Trevelyan as she looked in life: a young woman of average height and build, pretty but unremarkable. Few will have had a chance to see her before her death at Haven in 9:41—in life, she never even made it to this room—but some may recognize her from their dreamed lives with the Inquisition, and more will recognize the Herald of Andraste from her portraits. New is the shimmering glow that marks her out as a spirit.

As they enter the Great Hall she rises from her throne, and smiles. "Welcome," she says, her voice warm and carrying without need to shout, "I am relieved so many of you have made the journey. I am sure you must have many questions. Our time is brief, but I will share with you all I can."

OOC | Each character can ask one question (or make one statement to prompt a response, it doesn't have to literally be a question). Later, characters can remember this as a more linear conversation where they all asked things as a group, but we don't want to try to organize everyone into a linear thread, so please start a new reply to this comment for each character. Other characters are welcome to respond or react in the mini-threads afterwards.

These threads will be brief; we'll do at most two tags in response to each person, with a priority on getting everyone their first tag before circling back to consider providing a second round of tags to respond to anyone's follow-up questions or smart-ass comebacks.

[keenly]

Colin remembers serving this woman for a short time before the Inquisition dispersed. He hesitates shyly, then dips into a bow.

"Inquisitor." Or. "Herald. Milady. Why are we here?"

Sawbones | OTA

[okayimin]

1. The Journey; Herald AU

She'd gone to sleep in an exhausted slump, having spent most of the night awake with the most ridiculous birthing she'd ever witnessed. And then she woke up on an onion cart.

Which makes sense, because she's going to Skyhold. Can't reckon on why they'd have any want for an excomunicated Sister turned midwife and medic, but here she is with a letter in her pocket. It didn't have much on it, only telling her to go to Skyhold. She'd stewed on the matter til her curiosity got the better of her.

And that is why she's in the back of an onion cart, which... is apparently the only passage up through the Frostbacks. Something about that doesn't sit quite right, but she doesn't have much time to think on it. The onion cart shudders to an uneasy stop, sending onions tumbling out of their crates and onto Sawbones.

"Stone and shale," she grumbles, shoving produce off and sitting up properly to get her bearings. She looks to the other passenger in the cart (she doesn't exactly know why there's another passenger, the cart's already stuffed full of onions and there's hardly room) and says, "What's happened now?"

2. Haven
a. Herald AU
Well. The monument is impressive at least. She looks about the ruins, hoping to join up with another group, hoping to find any group. Hoping for a familiar face, though she doesn't know how she'd find one here. The Orlesian village she'd come from number barely in the hundreds and if anyone had planned on a trip to Skyhaven, she'd have known.

"Suppose it's some grand tradition to walk up the Frostbacks," she says, mostly to the monument, "If the Herald did it, so can you or some such nonsense." She sighs and fishes a stone out of her pocket to place and the monument. "Stone rest you."

b. A Realization

She is halfway up the mountain in a crowd (or is it just a few? She can't tell anymore and the blasted path is too dangerous to mind who's around) full of increasingly confusing strangers when everything seems to slip sideways. Except that it doesn't. It's just Sawbones, a small dwarven woman with the Casteless brand on her face, dressed in plain traveling clothes. But the people around her aren't strangers... Or they are.

Or they aren't.

Two things couldn't be true at once unless- "It's this nug fucked shit pile again!" she says. Loudly. Hands on her hips and enormously displeased with the world around her. She looks around to see if she might spot the culprit, "I'm a bloody dwarf, for stone's sake!" Her frown deepens, "And I've already done this before!"

3. Skyhold

Sawbones is not pleased.

Her memories are still a bit jumbly and her whole being feels a bit strange, but more importantly there's them here that are her responsibility. And even if she can't keep straight the whos, whys or hows, she's not about to let a little thing like a dream or the Whatever-She-Is seated at the center of the Hall stop her from doing her job.

"Right then," she says, with a great deal of authority for someone so tiny, "Come here. Let me have a look at you before this blasted place sets something else on us."

2b

[thereneverwas]

"Climbed a mountain?"

Barrow is shining and strong in full Templar regalia-- until he isn't, sometimes wearing the scrappy and mouldering leather armor of a footsoldier from the swamp.

He doesn't look terribly amused by whatever episode Sawbones is enduring, his weary gaze rather communicating that he wishes she wouldn't.

Colin | OTA

[keenly]

I. The Journey

-Future AU-

All he knows is that they couldn't stay where they were. Despite knowing what he knows, he doesn't make the connection between that and this. The gaps in his memory seem just as benign as before. He travels the road from the marshes with everyone else, assuming when he saw everyone packing up to go that the enemy was finally coming for their base. It's not until they're nearly at Haven before it occurs to him to think of whether or not this is unusual. He looks at whoever is closest to him.

"What are we doing, exactly?"

-Herald AU-

Was it a hurricane? Either way, Colin is aboard a sloop, uncomfortably reminded of his days as a purser for a merchantman. Apparently they're headed for Jader, then hiking up to Skyhold, so it probably has something to do with the Inquisitor. He spends as much time up on deck as possible to avoid feeling trapped, but when even that starts not to work, he looks at the person by him and smiles.

"Want to see something? Come with me."

Then he's off to the mainmast, climbing the shrouds, clearly expecting you to follow.

II. Haven

"I knew it," Colin says with an odd elation as they walk the road to Skyhold. "I knew this was the Fade. Did you--"

He turns to the person next to him and suddenly looks very confused.

"Who are you?"

III. Skyhold

One of him remembers this place. He wanders it in wonder, looking for his old room, the inn, the garden. The other two of him are somewhat mystified, but all of them are him, so this is a very peculiar feeling. Those who knew him in the false future can note is face is no longer scarred, his nose no longer crooked, his limp completely gone. With all three of him in one, including the memories locked away from him in the waking world, he feels oddly complete. At peace.

He hopes he remembers this feeling when he wakes.

He winds up in the garden, kneeling and weeding as the scenery shifts around him. There are many different Skyholds, but the garden is always there.

IV. Aftermath

He works as normal the next day--the apothecary in the morning, the infirmary in the afternoon. He looks tired, but pensive. If you are working with him, or browsing nearby, or eating close to him in the mess, he offers a tired smile.

"How are you holding up?"

V. Wildcard

[If you'd prefer me to write a starter, let me know.]

ii

[okayimin]

He'll have to look a ways down. Sawbones is pushing through the snow drifts with dogged determination and she is not in the least bit happy about any of this. She glares up at the human.

"Who am I? Who the nugfucking sand are you!" she snaps, because things haven't quite settled and quite frankly she doesn't really know who she is.
she still can't recall if she's Sister Sara of Riftwatch or Midwife Sara of some small nameless hamlet in the depths of Orlais. "I'm a fucking dwarf in the Fade," she settles on outloud, "That's what I am. And it's nugshit, duster."

james holden

[acreage]

[ prompts below! ]

dreams + aftermath, OPEN

[acreage]

JOURNEY

The mountains are a fucking nightmare. What had been a quiet, snowed over stretch of earth, had become a barrow in the blink of an eye. And then there had been a cackling bastard raising the dead, and they narrowly escape all that —

— and follow a turn in the path, and a large shadow falls across Holden and whoever is with him. It is shaped like a dragon, hissing and roaring, but it has icicles for fangs and bright snow for a body. The eyes are dark, coal-like. It may or may not be a violent snow-dragon.

Holden exhales, looking fucking exhausted, breath crystalizing in the air.

"You have to be goddamn kidding me."

HAVEN

The blizzard is coming down hard, snow accumulating on his shoulders, in his hair, blocking their path. Still, if someone nearby looks cold — and who doesn't? — he'll move to pull off his coat.

"Here, this'll help."

AFTERMATH

How James Holden reacts, waking from a very long dream, remains behind closed doors; some literal, and some metaphorical. Short of anyone banging on his door as he's waking, it'll be a little later in the morning till most people see him.

Possibly, how it happens is:

At some point during the day, doing some task, he says wryly, "I don't know about you, but I couldn't tell you what day it is to save my life."

Or:

[ talk to me for a starter. ]

WILDCARD

[ feel free to hmu with a personalized prompt or request one. for aftermath things, his inbox is also an option if yours would reach out that way, or lmk if you'd like him to reach out! especially for existing/dream cr, he's fairly likely to. ]

Mado | OTA

[lumelume]

I. Out From Haven

One moment he was somewhere else-- in a tower, in a marsh, who can tell?-- and now Amador is on the side of a mountain with a small cluster of people, a dark winged shape bearing down on them from over the distant peaks.
A scream here, a shout there, and the details of the High Dragon come into greater focus. Releasing his grip on the steep climb, Mado takes a twisting leap, nothing in his head except that he can help, he can do something.

There was no plan for what that Something was, but as his human form quickly merges into one of a similarly shaped dragon, its talons extended forward and grasping for the enemy's wings with a reptile shriek, that's answered quickly enough.
They roll about in the sky, snapping and clawing and beating their great wings. The other travelers, at least, now have some time on their side.

II. Skyhold

With the blending of his memories and awareness of their strange predicament, fear has settled into the heart of Mado, who all at once is rather difficult to find.
His greatest secret being his magic, and having been displaying it unabashedly to any and all for what feels like years but isn't truly, he has all but absconded from the party of Riftwatch pilgrims milling about Skyhold.
A careful eye might spot a little brown fieldmouse curled on a beam and shivering in the cold, watching the proceedings.

III. Awakening

In a similar vein, when the next day starts up in the waking world, Mado is nowhere to be found-- but a little rust-and-white dog digging through some refuse in Lowtown might be familiar to some.

II

[keenly]

It is absolutely frigid up here, though at least it's not snowing. Colin has found some coat or other from somewhere, though, and found it fortunate that he's of average height and therefore encounters more clothes he can fit into. It's long and warm and bottle-green and he wishes he could keep it when he wakes up.

In his search for his friends to see that they've made it all right, he stops by the mouse and gives it a glance. How he knows, he's not sure, but he walks over to it and holds out his hand to let him crawl onto it.

wysteria | ota

[heirring]

[[Prose or brackets aokay. Feel free to gently modify/wildcard anything as it suits you.]]

HAVEN

On its own, the interior of the Haven chantry hall--thoroughly shattered in whatever conflict had taken place there and left as a ruin in testament to the might of Corypheus--makes for poor shelter from the blanket of steadily falling snow. But there are tent canvases stretched in defiance of the snow and fires to do battle with the cold, and enough in the way of half surviving fortifications that there are, candidly speaking, far worse places in the world to make camp. Certainly at this point she is learned enough with respect to sleeping in ditches or under trees to be something of an expert on the subject. In fact, were someone to question her on the subject, Wysteria Poppell - rifter and triumphant escaped captive of the Venatori - might suggest that the temporary encampment in Haven possesses something of a dreamlike and elemental perfection. This is exactly what the winter windfall of a struggling rebel force should resemble. This is exactly as battered and bruised and threatened as they all should be.

There are people she must speak to - members of leadership who would like to know where they have been and how they escaped and what considerable uses the Venatori have found for them since their capture - but she is so very tired, and after it's finished Wysteria finds she can recall almost no details of the conversations whatsoever. Instead, they blends together with other necessities such as finding the more hard-worn of her traveling companions warm (enough) accommodation and acquiring something to eat. For a time, the world is fractured and indistinct.

Until it isn't. Until she becomes aware of its finite parts again. Her hands are cold, is the first thing Wysteria thinks. The sky is very pale. The hem of her skirts is black with mud. It's the last one which makes her laugh.

So: there is a young blonde woman wrapped in a heavy traveling cloak who has paused on the footpath. She is heavily laden, a borrowed bear fur clutched in her arms. Her laugh is such a bright, pleasant thing - clear and true like a bell in winter.

AFTERMATH

A clatter of footsteps in the stairwell is the only warning which precedes Wysteria as she twists her way rapidly down the central stairwell of the Gallows' mage tower. She is bound for the Research division's work rooms, three books under one arm and a series of papers clutched in her other hand. 'Harried' might be a fair description; 'positively indecent' might be another, given that she has failed to pin up the great waves of her long hair and is wearing little more than a robe cinched closed over her ruffled sleeping shift. By contract, the heavy field boots in which she is clomping along are comically out of place.

It is, conveniently, the sort of scenario custom made for collisions around blind corners.

WILDCARD
[[throw whatever at me; if you want a bespoke starter, ping me on plurk or disco and I can make it happen.]]

Haven

[okayimin]

The landscape of dreams is a slippery thing. Sawbones is a country doctor and then a Chantry sister and then perhaps nothing at all, because dwarves have no business with the Fade. Regardless of the machinations of the demons and spirits, Sawbones is still a Sawbones.

She has a steaming cup of tea in one hand and a kettle in the other. She has no idea where it came from, only that it's miserably cold and there's miserable people and the least they can have at the moment is a cup of tea. She holds it out to the laughing young woman.

"Take this," she says firmly, "And let's get you by a fire. You look a mess."

Byerly | There shall be some opens, there shall be some closeds

[bouchonne]

Haven, FR Future

[bouchonne]

[ It's been a hard month. Byerly is leaner and more ragged than he's ever seemed before. His beard is long, his one good eye is sunken - Honestly, he probably shouldn't be taking a journey of any sort - he looks like a man desperately in need of rest, if not outright medical attention. But here he is, gray-skinned and exhausted, swaying his way along to Haven along with all the others, compelled by some inexplicable force. ]

tony stark (fr au).

[propulsion]

haven. ota.

[propulsion]

HOW IT STARTED;

In the bustle that is a ragtag group of refugees or villains or heroes or whatever they are all are, collectively, there is Tony Stark. He is not currently making himself useful. He has been given a bear fur pelt which is better for bedding down on or lying underneath but he has instead managed to drape it heavy over his shoulders, gripping onto it with cold fingers to keep it in place. His boots sink into the snow beneath both its weight and his own.

He is looking up at the bone dragon, one eye squinted shut against the white glare of the sky above. Content, it seems, to stand there, until someone comes close enough for him to ask, without looking, "Did Thedas do dinosaurs?"

Eventually, he does get around to making himself useful. Like fetching wood, for example. On the fringes of where everyone's made camp, Tony emerges from the treeline. He is layered up against the cold, coat and fur cloak and thick boots, mismatched mittens, a woolen shawl patterned with faded daisies being used as a scarf. Over one shoulder is a rope pulled taut, so he can drag behind him the bundle of wood he's collected.

He keeps thinking that it'd be easier to just lift the whole thing up than drag it along in the snow, but whenever he tries, it feels like it'd be easier to drag it behind him. And at this stage, the prospect of stopping to pick up feels like an impossibility.

His breathing is measured and controlled. He is pale, sweating. His foot slips on a patch of icier snow, and he falls face first onto the ground. And doesn't get up.

HOW IT'S GOING;

He stays down, after that, but more comfortably. His friends and colleagues and whatever are all bossy enough, more than likely, to secure Tony the most sheltered portion of the ruined Chantry building. Bear fur blankie and nearby fire and deep exhausted unconsciousness. It's good that he is prone to the occasional twitch in his sleep, otherwise the stillness combined with the colour of his skin would be highly unsettling.

Catch him while awake, too. Either while pretending to be asleep, or picking at the food he's been provided, or—sitting up, dragging his still-damp boots onto his feet, long after most people have settled in to sleep.

DISCLAIMER;

[ Feel free to make this action spam if you prefer! If you'd like a bespoke starter, please let me know and I will conjure one. Also, Tony will not be making it past Haven due to sad reasons, so if you do not want to factor that in to your RP life, just miss me.

Also one thread per bolded prompt makes my life easier, and group threads are fun. ]

isaac;

[wythersake]

lexerly; around the beginning of herald/dark au overlaps

[wythersake]

Revin colours, that mage — and the details don't bear examination. He knows her. She knows him.

When you travel in circles, there are only so many people to meet.

"What do you think of this one?" Isaac dusts snow from a marker. It can't be read without slipping again, clean of the mind's eye. "Perfectly forgettable. Men would kill for a name like that."

It's jocular as it's unkind, assumed for purpose. When you travel in circles, it does to entertain.

marcus rowntree.

[luaithre]

fr au, the journey. closed to isaac.

[luaithre]

It is a glassily bright winter's day. The sky is white and blind, and snow collects in treacherous patches on the wild trail they follow, headed for the foothills of the Frostbacks. The air has a sharp quality when breathed in.

They are resting. The horses are hitched and Marcus's big grey steed noses around in search of grass in the unmelting snow, placidly tolerant of his surroundings and always hungry. Marcus himself has uttered something about refilling on water and moved off towards the still flowing river, striking in his fine furred cloak which is now dusted at the hems in ice, and finely stitched gloves of lambskin. Not comparable to Isaac's own injuries, but his own facial scarring runs deeper than it did merely weeks ago.

And contrary to popular opinion, Marcus does not ordinarily make bad travel company, depending on one's preferences. Silences rarely feel awkward in his presence, just silent, which is of benefit when a journey is too long for even a good storyteller to fill. But perhaps, if Isaac is attuned to such things, he will get a more distinct impression that Marcus does not wish to talk, period. Which is a shame. Are they not friends? Have they ever been such? It is getting harder and harder to tell.

At the edge of the river, Marcus crouches down to go about filling his waterskin. The river itself is dark and cold, maybe ten feet broad, with a vein of murky depth running through it.

He sees: glimmers of lights. Strange shapes that clarify into vivid reality under the next series of water ripples.

Isaac sees: Marcus suddenly standing and stepping back as if struck.

erik

[clawings]

[ starters below! ping me on discord or plurk for something handcrafted just for you ]

haven | at the camp's edge

[clawings]

Erik doesn't sleep well, and with the shift in reality has found that he doesn't need much of it; thus he can be found at the edge of the camp, just beyond what sometimes used to be the walls of Haven, sometimes still are, sitting by a small fire and conversing with a mabari about the weird weather.

Feel free to find him there, or patrolling the perimeter, still talking to the selfsame dog.

Closed to Athessa, Aftermath

[muckspout]

Edgard has never had too much reason to explore the ramparts, but now that he's up here he can see the appeal. You can see for miles and it is quiet away from the other people. These past week he's been oscillating between uncomfortable conversations and spending lots of time on his own. He sighs and rounds a corner when Athessa comes into view, staring off and smoking. She doesn't see him. Perhaps, he owes her a conversation too. He rolls his eyes at himself and takes a deep breath.

He speaks hesitantly, "Athessa?" and then an immediate, "Forget it." and turns to go. It was a stupid idea.

[sulahnan]

"Chicken."

Athessa follows the word with a sigh of smoke and turns to look in Edgard's direction. No, she hadn't seen him coming, and the wind is blowing in the wrong direction for her to have smelled him (though she might've claimed it anyway), but she heard his approach and hesitation. At this very moment, as she's quirking a brow at him and holding out the joint between her fingers in a silent offer to share, she's making a wager with herself about whether he'll want to address her behavior in the dream or his.

bastien.

[cozen]

[ closed & open stuff, feel free to hit me up ooc if you want to plan something or just drop wildcards in my lap like presents. ]

open: between haven and skyhold.

[cozen]

ooc | bastien's fr future here, but lost crossovers from the herald au wandering in are welcome! and so is threadjacking/group threads.

a. a fight.

The grove of trees they're currently poking around has promise—a shield from the wind, a source of firewood, a barrier against the avalanches that are bound to happen at some point because literally everything else is happening why wouldn't there be an avalanche—

"Sort of cozy, non?" is what Bastien says out loud, nudging a lightly ice-crusted sapling with his foot.

It springs back into place. Beyond it, some of the trees move. Some of the trees aren't trees. Bastien tilts his head, waiting for a hello or some sign the shadows are friendly.

Instead there's a screeching, inhuman sound, and they fan out into the periphery, quick and nearly silent in the low light. Bastien tries to count. He gives up counting. The one he's last counted, when he gives up, is the one he throws his most easily-reached knife at.

Outside the dream, it'd be long odds, but here, the creature catches it neatly in the throat and falls down in a clatter of twigs and spray of snow.

b. a campfire.

Even with the wind and snow the fire needs little tending, kept alive by the fact that it's needed. And Bastien's fingers, when he peels off his inadequate gloves and holds them near the flames, lose their aching pink swell in only a few minutes. His toes ache, but he can still feel them. It could all be much worse. But it's not good. He's cold, and he's tired, and the occasional flash of lightning and crack of thunder accompanying the heavy snowfall sets his teeth on edge. When someone joins him, he gives them a smile, but his humor is a bit less than jolly:

"If we put out the fires and freeze to death, will we wake up? Or really die?"

silas (dick)

[nonvenomous]

[ brackets or prose, roll w/what you're comfy with ]

traversing the last leg, closed to holden.

[nonvenomous]

The leggy figure that slithers in through the gap first could be anyone: black furs spiked and crusted thick with frost, hat and scarf screwed down tight around dark goggles. Behind them, the wind howls behind pelting snow in the night, the rest of their party lost to obscurity. It's been too long since they've heard even the ghost of a call to regroup through the storm. Time to make their own way.

In here, the air is still, and dark, and quiet.

Glossy ice walls slant over a narrow path, their acute angle rendering this passage far taller than it is wide -- more chasm than cavern. A strobe of lightning sends light pulsing blue through the chamber, thunder along through old cracks.

Something spills oily smooth up from the man’s furs to land on all fours at his feet: a sleek black cat, near impossible for human eyes to follow.

Silas is already stripping a torch from the side of his pack when she trots off into the obscurity ahead: a flash of light from his fingertips sees tar at the club twisting alight with Fade green flame.

the road to Haven, Bene + Edgard + you

[altusimperius]

There's a circle of fire with two men inside, one gripping a staff and the other aiming an arrow at the other, clearly in the middle of an altercation.

"No!" one shouts, his voice moving up a pitch or two, "what you intended doesn't matter! What matters is what you did!"

He punctuates the word 'did' by slamming the butt of his staff onto the ground, which has the dual effect of creating a burst of energy strong enough to knock the other off his feet, and also blowing the fire wall away...

...to reveal that they're not where they thought they were. People are trudging wearily past up the side of a mountain, ankle-deep in snow.
Benedict looks around in bewilderment, completely forgetting about Edgard for the moment.

[pittance]

Vance scrubs the side of his head, blinks like a man half-hungover. Specifically: One who just witnessed a wall of fire suddenly appear and vanish into ether.

He squints down, drags a boot through slush that — alright, it was slushy before. Wasn't yet steaming.

"Honest," Blinks up again, to find a grown man with a bow; another waving his stick around. "What the fuck? Put it down."

@ gwenaëlle

[rowancrowned]

His ruse had gone off perfectly, which meant he was able to experience her for a second time. Despite the new face, everything had gone very well. He had wondered how much time he might have- truly, his suspicion had begun to grow, was the Magrallen acting up again- before the reality of this place grew too great to deny. If it was a distraction, it was a good one, but when the missive came to call them to Skyhold, Thranduil knew it was over.

Thankfully, they did not travel by carriage, but on horseback, Guilfoyle trailing behind on his own mount. Above them, the mountain loomed, and Haven lay only a little further on, and Thranduil wondered when Gwenaëlle’s memory would begin to return to her. If it would. He did want for her to call him by his name.

“Lady,” he said, still all proper deferment. “It will be cold on the mountain.”

He never was able to stop himself from meeting her eyes.

[elegiaque]

He wears a strange face; Gwenaëlle wears a mask, and it does much less to conceal her. He has had years to learn the shifting tides of her moods and how exceedingly frankly she expresses them—the mask is adornment, only, and the further they venture towards the mountain the more apparent it becomes. The more her limited ability to hold herself still and steady unravels, and she is less this bit-lip statue and more the livewire that he knows better.

But it unsettles her; it trips her over herself. Instinct tells her to react, and dream memory tells her that it isn't safe. She doesn't remember being someone with these loose limbs, and it bothers her.

“I have another cloak,” she says, looking back towards Guilfoyle, her saddlebags. “And better gloves.”

She doesn't remember, precisely, how they came to be here. It is beginning to be difficult not to question that.

miriam.

[revise]

[[ooc: Miriam's mostly fr future, but feel free to cross the streams.]]

I. THE JOURNEY - doooo you want to raise some corpses - group thread, pile on in

They'd been crossing at the very fringe of some abandoned village, the snowed in ruins of old stone houses and the shells of unused out-buildings turned quiet shadows in the dusky twilight--a small band of resistance scouts, tasked with marking the way for the main body following after them. And then, all at once, six Venatori agents had come spilling from the treeline, across what must be a snowed over meadow and into the crossing.

The first few have been dispensed with; the sixth, spellwork crackling off his barriers and sensing a change in the wind, is turning to run now. Should he reach the treeline--

"He'll betray our position! Don't let him slip away!"

Miriam Smythe (who has definitely been here the whole time, doing exactly this sort of work for the resistance based out of the Korcari Wilds), strikes the butt end of her hammer topped staff into the banked snow. The sweet shock tang of mana pulses; the world bends; the snow under the fleeing mage's feet snaps into a rigid sheet of ice. He skates, falls, and slides off the edge of the slab, striking feet first against some hard edge previously hidden by the snow.

Its a stone, muted lettering edges into face of the thing.

The Venatori mage drives his hand down through the snow and in moments, the frozen ground is buckling beside him as a corpse begins to pry itself free of its weather-shallowed grave. A moment later, a half dozen other spots on the field begin to rise as well.

II. CLOSE QUARTERS

Regardless of the state of the world outside, one thing at least is true: it's bitter cold, snow and ice sleeting down in great impenetrable sheets. Luckily, they're not out in it.

The cave shelter has been cut straight out of a lump of snow. There's no fire lit inside it, but the quarters are close enough and it's been formed in such a way that the raised ledges for working and sleeping trap a surprising amount of warmth and the colder air is sucked down and away. Beyond the tunnel mouth of the shelter, a wind is whistling.

Miriam, wearing her heavy coat on her lap as a blanket in deference to the surprisingly comfortable temperature of the constructed cave, is shifting through her kit in hopes of unearthing... something.

"You haven't a needle or thread on you by any chance?"

@edgard

[revise]

It's late. It's quiet. The changing over the guard overseeing the tent in which Edgard is posted is a smooth, seamless thing. They all have bigger problems than keeping a close eye on a would-be desserter, don't they?

Miriam stands guard for ten minutes, her muffler pulled high and her cap yanked low. She knows because she counts the seconds, and then forces herself to keep counting for twice the time it seems necessary. And then, when she's reached that arbitrary marker, she undoes the cinched tight canvas ties and ducks into the darkness of the tent beyond.

There's just one form there. Miriam, stooping in the low space, kicks it with her toe.

"Wake up."

matthias || ota

[inkindled]

on the way to Skyhold.
It is only a dream, and in the dream, Matthias can tear apart the world.

Scummy with dirt, sweaty, he moves from one disaster to the next, from foe to foe--tearing, cracking--ice that encases a demon's leg so that he can whack its head from its shoulders with a spar of pure rock--an inferno of flames that besets a great rotting Fade-touched bear, and the smell off of it is cooked rotting meat, and Matthias laughs--their opposition is endless, but his store of magic is endless, too, a well without a bottom.

Here: a small clutch from the Qun, who knows how they got here. Matthias is backed onto a rock, blasting them from above. He's bleeding, a great thick crossbow bolt that's punched straight through his shoulder. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel like anything. For once, nothing hurts. An idea sparks in him, and in the next moment, stone crackles around the wound, spreading out.

Encased in stone armor, he leaps down from the rock and shouts out to whoever is near: "Watch this!" --And his spirit blade is bigger than it should be, massive, glowing like a beacon, and he throws it without any effort at all. The blade shoots straight as an arrow, and with a whistle it passes clean through the Qunari solider, in one end and out the other.

Here, again: a dragonling, black and twisted, something from someone's nightmare. Matthias leaps in front of it, rushes to it, making fists of his hands. He rends the air, and a wave of force leaves him--and under its onslaught, the dragonling splits apart with a screech, torn straight in half. Its blood sprinkles the ground with a hiss, scorching. The meat of it falls heavy.

"Come on," Matthias says, every time, breathless and sooty-faced and grinning, clasping your arm and leaving behind a bloody handprint, "not much farther, eh?"

on the way to Skyhold--a little later.
The path is treacherous and the path is long and Matthias still ahs so much power.

The boulder bouncing down the side of the mountain--a crack in its middle one moment, a crunch, and it rips in half, scattering chunks and smaller boulders and pebbles like rain. Matthias, stood behind it with his hands aloft, laughs wildly. He drops his hands; a hot wind leaves him and tears up the ground, fissures that swallow up the rocks.

The rain has washed his face clean. The wounds he's suffered should have slowed him. He should have healed them. But this is a dream, and why bother? He's ragged and cut in a thousand places, and that crossbow bolt has been snapped off, leaving behind a jagged spar of wood, and he doesn't care at all. Onwards and upwards and onwards.

wildcard
[like whatever man]

closed to Laura

[inkindled]

They were together when they were beset by the Venatori. A mage, soldiers--it's no longer the ridiculous match-up that it once was, (that it never really was, not for people who have had their lives). Laura and Matthias are young, but they aren't children, maybe they were never children--and what's more besides, they're powerful.

Matthias is powerful. He's practically glowing with it. Smeared with mud and blood, his blood, the blood of their enemies--their bodies are all over the ground and still they're coming on, streaming like black ants down the side of the rocky hill--his back is to Laura, and every now and then he whips a glance back at her, but she can take care of herself, and this is a dream, and if it's Matthias' dream, Laura does not die.

His spirit blade is thrumming in his hand. Is this what it feels like, really, or is this just what he thinks it would feel like? Does it matter? When he turns to call something to Laura, he sees a man with a big mace raised overhead, bearing down on her, and her claws are busy, her attention is elsewhere, and Matthias reacts without thinking of it--throws out his free hand, twists his fingers--and the man suddenly snaps to attention like a Jumping Gareth with its pullstring tugged sharply down. The mace falls out of his nerveless fingers, crashes to the ground--his great mailed hand comes up to his throat and grabs hold.

derrica.

[tender]

[ page me if you want a starter. ]

loxley.

[tender]

"That wolf was too big," Derrica is saying breathlessly, stepping around the corpse towards Loxley. Sparks are still crackling and leaping from the beast's fur, and the residual tingle of lightening is humming in her palms.

Everything about that scuffle had been too big, if she thinks about it for more than a moment. What she'd been able to summon, what they'd been fighting, maybe what Loxley had been able to do. She isn't so sure of that last one. She's seen Loxley in the aftermath of fights five years ago, and he'd looked—

Well, he looks different now. But still. Maybe he's learned more things in five years. Derrica hadn't had much chance to ask.

"Are you okay?" is the chosen question of the moment, some things true to form no matter how strange the circumstance.

john silver.

[hornswoggle]

[ page me if you want a starter. ]

loxley.

[charmoffensive]

kirkwall. closed to richard.

[charmoffensive]

There's a triangle of light that at a certain early hour of morning never fails to fall across Loxley's face and prompt him to rouse. One of the hooks in the curtains that's come loose and wants for repair. Normally, he just shifts out of the way or drapes an arm over his eyes, falls back asleep for as late as he cares to. This time, he doesn't do that.

The past few days of cold mountain climbing misery lift off his brain like mist. It is cold in the room with the hearth reduced to crumbled embers, but nothing like the ruins of Skyhold, or whatever the place was. Loxley grasps the edge of his bed and levers himself up, but stops, staring down at the floor and then looking at the back of his hand.

Grey-silver skin, near-black nails. He can already sense that his tail is no longer a part of him.

It's not a very intellectual thing to absorb, of all the implications that want for absorbing, but he did only just wake up.

And he sits, bare feet finding the floor, dragging his blanket up and over bare shoulders before he looks over towards the other bed in the room.

leander

[sarcophage]

skyhold, for barrow + fitcher;

[sarcophage]

The road to the mountain has been long and bloody; what lies at its end, a mystery. Leander has joined and broken from company along the way, fought alongside them, abandoned them to enemies, hid as they passed, passed without revealing he was there at all. More people than he's seen in years. More of the same unwitting flock, blind to the wolves among them.

Tevinter blacks layered over with his grey from the island. He is and is not alone. The gates, the gates, the gates. The storm that follows must be driving them all to the foot of those gates. What else could it mean?

The road to the mountain is hard, the ascent harder still. Leander squeezes through stony gaps and pulls other pilgrims up by their wrists, walks through blowing ice alongside strangers and enemies, faces he knows and has never seen before. He is leaden-limbed and feeling thin when he passes through the gatehouse, the stone bridge stretching long to the fortress proper. Are these them?

No.

Maybe.

The courtyard is long and broad, its walls home to doors and windows, staircases, crenellations, outbuildings, even trees. (A thousand places to hide.) Red-cheeked and bleary-eyed, frosted about the edges and limping in relief, Leander has stopped to answer someone—

"Sorry, what was that?"

ellis.

[heorte]

[ page me if you want a starter. ]

snek.

[heorte]

Dawn breaks, light slicing among the ruins that were once Haven. It is early enough that all is nearly silent. Ellis woke first, had left Tony beneath his bear skin and Wysteria swathed in her blanket. He'll find his way back.

There is a ruined dock, a third of the boards shattered and splintered, the rest untrustworthy. At a glance, the lake appears frozen through, though Ellis isn't inclined to test it on his own. It's almost too cold to stand, out without gloves, without a hat, collar turned up against the eddying wind. But he picks his way to the edge of the dock to settle his weight, legs swinging over the edge, and wait until the day breaks properly, Haven begins stirring behind him, and it's a marginally less absurd hour to wind his way to the medical tent to find Richard Dickerson, who may or may not use that name anymore these days.

Ellis is not unaware that he's imposing. There is a very slim difference between the wee hours of the morning and the wee hours of the evening.

"Are you up?" is the first thing said, standing in for do you care for company, at this hour? or maybe do you care to see me, at all? Some things don't change; Ellis is always inclined to hedge his way into a conversation.

LOCKED TO JOS.

[innerharbor]

The child is gone.

That's good, actually. It, she, whatever, was just a spirit, just some stupid magic thing tricking him. He doesn't feel slighted by it. It's good, actually. Now he doesn't have to worry over finding a safe place for it, to make sure it's well fed and not used instead of cared for.

His shoulders relax, slightly.

In Skyhold, a place he's never been but yearned to go, he finds a sky far more alien than Earth's, or Ilus', or even outside the windows of the Roci. He can't put his finger on it, it's just wrong.

Better though than looking at the shining presence, wrapped in gold.

To Jos-- she, he thinks, is real-- "I draw the line at talking to dead people." But that's him. Does she need something from this undead prophet?