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

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. ]

Haven

[keenly]

Colin wouldn't ordinarily accept, but his teeth are chattering and his knees are stiff enough he's having a hard time moving forward. Given neither of him thought to bring a coat, he nods and reaches out to accept.

"Th-th-thank you." Once it's on, he pulls it tightly around. "It's n-not even r-real snow," he says in some dismay.

[acreage]

Father Joseph wouldn't be too thrilled about him knowingly risking frostbite after 18 years of Montana winters, a part of him notes, but he couldn't not offer.

"Maybe," he says dryly, "you should try telling the blizzard that."

It's not really snowing. He wasn't really in a world where rifters had never arrived; he wasn't really a Venatori prisoner for untold years; no, it all happened. Snow is the most salient of their problems right now, and therefore what he focuses on.

[keenly]

"I'm trying," Colin says through clacking teeth. "And trying to tell myself I'm not really cold."

[acreage]

Jim's ears and face have probably gone red, or are on their way there, from the sting of cold air, and his boots are getting slick from flecks of snow and ice.

"Good luck with that," he says, and means it.

Haven

[okayimin]

"You pull that coat off, I'll saw your blasted fingers off now and not save the frostbite it's time," snaps Sawbones. The snow is deep and soft and nearly up to her chest, which is doing nothing for her already bad temper.

She doesn't remember this human, but he's familiar, in a way she can't place. Trying to puzzle it out makes her head swim and there's more important things happening. Like this human being stupid. She sets her hands on her hips and glares up at him, "We ain't losing anybody on my watch, but we're gonna be down a few limbs if folks start pulling off clothes like that. Who puts a blasted fortress on top of a bloody mountain to begin with!"

[acreage]

A smile tugs at his mouth, which maybe isn't the reaction he should have to a dwarf threatening to cut off his fingers. It's nostalgic, somehow, isn't it? Years and years and years ago, before the Gates, back at Riftwatch, and he hasn't seen her in all this time and he hasn't thought to question it — no, he talked to her days ago, weeks ago, didn't he?

He'd started to unbutton his coat, and he pauses to do the reverse as they walk.

"You're sure a sight for sore eyes."

[okayimin]

She watches to make sure he buttons up his coat properly and then blinks. That wasn't quite the sentiment she'd expected, but-

"You're Amos' Holden," she says, snapping her finger, "You had a deep puncture wound in your back, managed to keep you out of sepsis and shock." The Fade could paint over a lot of things, but there was something to be said for obsessive cataloguing of patients. And then she's frowning again, more puzzled this time, "What are you doing here?"

aftermath

[clawings]

Erik huffs out a laugh at that, but it's through his nose so it's more like a snort. "Fuck man, I was having enough trouble yesterday figuring out the damn calendar and now I feel like I've been living a double life for years." He shakes his head. "Fucking weirdass shit."

[acreage]

The task is fairly straightforward today; some papers that need to be taken to someone in Kirkwall, and the two of them either volunteered or got voluntold into it. The ferry makes its slow progress across the water, cold winds blowing, but Jim still rests his elbows against a railing, looking to Erik as they talk.

"Well," he says, "I haven't been here long, so I don't know how reassuring it is when I tell you this is first time I've seen something like this happen."

[ ooc | feel free to change any details/ask me to edit if this doesn't work for you! ]

[clawings]

Erik is glad to be doing something that requires him to be outside, honestly. If he sat around and overthought the dream anymore he'd start looking like some sort of crazy conspiracy theorist, with a corkboard and post-it notes and little bits of string going every which way.

This is more direct. Something he can do. So he was all for taking on a delivery quest.

"The nurse at the infirmary, the dwarven woman, said it happened last year too but that it was different then." Erik gives a shrug. He's facing Holden and the water, glad for the salt spray in his face. "That was a fuckin' trip, though."

haven, a bit later.

[ipseite]

( petrana is not in need of a coat; she had spent some time in the korcari wilds refashioning marcus's cloak into such a thing for herself, and it makes of her a dark smudge on the wintry landscape. her hands are gloved, and snow has caught in her eyelashes and her hair, and it softens the still distinctly tevene look of the coat—

but not the severe look that she's giving jim, now, and somewhat inexplicably holding an inkwell and pen. )

James Holden, ( in a voice directly out of most people's childhoods, ) who have you given your coat away to.

( that he has done, obviously, is not in question. )

There's a hearth working well enough in here, ( an only partially collapsed building, solid enough to use the fireplace and sleep one or two if necessary, ) come and let me do something about you.

[acreage]

[ oh, it's a voice directly out of his own childhood, too. with eight parents, he spent plenty of his younger years on the receiving end of a stern james holden.

which is probably why he looks sheepish despite himself, opening his mouth as if to answer before closing it as she keeps talking. it's a rhetorical question, clearly. which is why his first answer ends up being, ]

I'm fine,

[ though, okay, he has gone pretty red from cold, and shivers with his arms crossed. you wouldn't think this is just a dream, or whatever the fuck, from this weather. ]

But I won't say no to a fire.

[ and so moves to follow her, assuming she means to offer something like a place to sit, or tea, or a blanket. ]

[ipseite]

( sort of. she does usher him down to sit by a fire, and there is tea there—a sigil glows on the side of the pot, keeping it merrily warm in the frigid air—but when she gestures him to sit, she sets her ink beside the tea and gestures at his shirt, as well. )

Take that off.

( the gesture she makes with the pen is vaguely arcane, and she says, ) You will have a more difficult time removing this than if I were to simply hand you something you might hand away to someone else. You will not ( in that same tone, ) be of any use to anyone if you allow yourself to be taken advantage of.

( but she contents herself with that, as far as the lecture need go, and gestures again for his shirt. off, jimbo. )

this is revenge.

[tender]

There was a baby, a beach, a little house. Rain that gave way to forests and snow.

There were other things too. (A Venatori stronghold. Marcus Rowntree's face blank with rage. Ket's screams. The remnants of Isaac's face framed by a mask.)

They co-mingle in her mind. The two paths, veering in wildly opposite directions, settle there as she stands in the snow and watches the bustle of Haven, anxiously trying to pick out familiar faces. (Wondering what will happen when she sees certain others.) And then—

It might not be Holden. But the immediate, joyful leap of emotion in her chest propels her from her perch towards him at a run. There's a slim window of time where Holden might catch the crunch of boots on the snowy path before Derrica's weight slams into him, having half-launched herself at him. He's too tall. She can't get her arms around him properly. It's a clumsy hug.

But still.

wOW

[acreage]

On instinct, his arms come around Derrica before he even recognizes her. And then there's the light hair, threaded with beads, and the strong arms, and if she is wearing Tevinter-rich fabrics they're at least, thank God, not visible.

Because he remembers sitting in her room and talking about her phylactery, not years ago but yesterday, and he remembers the dungeons of the Venatori, and it's all a fucking mess. But before he does anything else, he holds her close, gives her a squeeze.

And then he has to pull back, so he can ask, "What happened?"

[tender]

It's a good welcome, something it only occurs to her to be worried about now that she's received it. Briefly, she presses her face in against his chest, fists clutched in the fabric of his tunic. He's here and alive and unhurt. And when he looks at her, his expression isn't colored over with suspicion and reproach.

In the midst of all this confusion, it is simply a very good reunion.

"When?" she asks, because so much has happened. "Which part do you want to hear?"

And then she can decide how much of it to tell Holden, what will make him worry too much and what would make him laugh in relief. More of the latter is appropriate, she thinks.

journey.

[luaithre]

As the dragon makes its round, each beat of its snowy wings seems to blast all beneath it with a rush of ice-flecked wind, as cold as a dunking of water. Sun glistens off fangs of ice as it parts its maw, releasing a rush of ice-breath that funnels through the narrow pass, forcing all to scatter for refuge.

It dives, wings flaring and clawed limbs out stretched, and the mountain road suddenly jolts. A dim roar reverberates underfoot, earth groaning as a crack appears in the sheer cliffside ahead of them, and liquid fire erupts forth, a geyser of lava that cuts through the dragon's flank like a warm knife.

The dragon tumbles aside, slamming down onto the road, ice and snow attempting to regenerate over the damage as its wings scrape for balance.

Holden hears the sound of a body sliding over rock, and out the corner of his eye comes what will soon be a familiar sight. Marcus, snow-spattered robes and his staff held up and out of the way, slides on his hip down the iced over rock to land on the path from where he had ben traversing further upwards. It's graceful for as long as gravity is on his side, but inevitably he must land, and his heel catches against a rocky ridge, spilling him onto the road several paces behind and kicking the breath from his lungs.

Somehow still holding onto his staff, as though his training has drilled into him the concept of never releasing it from his grasp. Holden has seen it before, as ornamentation mainly, but now where its blade hits the snow on the ground, steam and smoke immediately rise, and angry runic symbols glow that same volcanic red from the crack in the earth.

Both mage and dragon struggle to their feet.

[acreage]

There is a moment.

There's a moment where, as Jim looks out from behind a largeish rock where he'd taken cover from the icy attack, he feels a burst of relief at the lava. He doesn't have any way of knowing, of course, where it came from, nor who summoned it. But the idea that someone's around who can counter all that magical snow — doesn't lessen the danger, of course, but that person's most definitely an asset, someone who showed up at the right time.

Then he actually sees who it is.

Oh, he's talked big game. He's decided people can't be judged on their dream-actions, at least not without more information about what brought them here. It's not as if he's harbored fantasies about being a Venatori prisoner; it's not fair to assume that dream-traitors have been any different. Now that they're starting to get their memories back, awareness of the dream, things are different.

But there's definitely knee-jerk, visceral sense of dread and anger when he sees Marcus Rowntree. He doesn't like the man any more than the last time they spoke, nor his staff lit up with pulsing magic.

(He can hear Petrana's delicate voice, once not being able to say that Marcus hadn't hurt her; once admitting that he had, inexplicably, let her go.)

But — there's no part of him that's willing to stand by and let someone else take the full brunt of the danger. Even Marcus fucking Rowntree.

Has there always been a sword in his hand? Doesn't matter; there's one now, as he steps out onto the road between the dragon and the mage. He hesitates, and then reaches to help pull Marcus up.

"If you've got anything else up your sleeve," he comments, "now's the time to try it."

The dragon wails angrily, pulling itself back up with a baleful stare, good wing flapping and creating a freezing gust of wind.

(He's willing to assume that Rowntree's going to be more interested in killing the dragon than him, at least until it's no longer a threat. What comes next can be a problem when they get there.)

[luaithre]

Marcus grasps ahold of help without really seeing who it is. Ice-pale eyes lock on Holden's face, comprehension settling in, but no real time to have a thought about it. The rifter says some things, partially muffled by the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. Probably nothing very useful.

On his feet, now, the grasp on Holden's arm locks and tightens as Marcus looks to the dragon. Holden will then feel a pulse, a little like an electric shock but without the bright sharpness, just a full-bodied tingle. The bright winter light of day seems to reflect mirror-like off his skin, and a few motes of brightness flare and circle.

A Barrier spell. He's been around enough mages, by now, to understand its function.

"Keep it busy," Marcus says, and all but pushes the man forwards. As for himself, Marcus returns both hands to staff, and places the blunt end of it against the ground. Those runes written into black metal flare brighter, energy gathering.

edgard.

[acreage]

It takes time to sift through his dream-memories.

Most of them, after all, are of the world where Corypheus won. Most of them, frankly, are fucking awful, and not things he wants to dwell on. But there was the innocuous memory of the world where Corypheus had been defeated, where he'd met a very different Edgard, and he thinks —

well, the next time he sees Edgard, it's worth saying hello. Edgard must be on his way somewhere in the Gallows when their paths cross, and Holden offers,

"I was hoping I'd run into you."

[muckspout]

Edgard has been keeping his head down as he walks lately and concentrates on the stones at his feet as he gives whoever's path he's crossed a wide berth. He is starting to walk on when a friendly voice speaks to him. He looks back to see Holden.

"First person to say that to me all week." He offers him a weak smile.

[acreage]

"Really?"

Granted — he never saw Edgard at all, in the darker dream. He only remembers the cleaner Edgard, eager to help, happier. It cuts a very different picture to the man he sees now.

[muckspout]

"Yes. Some of the dreams...didn't show me at my best. But, you! You told me I was your friend."

He smiles and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you."