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

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. ]

catch the fallin' man

[okayimin]

Sawbones is still settling the matter of where the hell she is and who these people are, tromping through snow to burn off the steam of her irritation. And then one of the strangers that she's been paying only half a mind to falls.

And doesn't get up.

And it's surprising how fast someone as small as Sawbones can move through snow when she wants to. She's more than strong enough to wrestle the human onto his back, "Oi, you conscious?"

She might go ahead and start yelling for assistance anyways.

[propulsion]

Sara digs in and rolls him over, and Tony flops obligingly. He does not appear to be conscious, expression serene as if sleeping, but face shock-pale and bloodless, deep shadows under his eyes, the evidence of prolonged unideal nutrition in the gaunt cut of his face.

And maybe before she can start yelling, she'll see where the woolen shawl has flopped aside, where his shirt snags tight across his chest, enough for a lyium-like glow to emanate from the centre in a neat circle, pulsing in a queasy throb of light.

Above his collar, grey-tinged veins progress from beneath his shirt.

[okayimin]

Well. That seems especially bad. She grabs her belt knife and neatly cuts away his shirt, to get a better look at whatever the fuck is happening in that little circle of light.

"Stone," she breathes out on a sigh, "Where's an arcanist when you need one." But she can't leave the poor bastard there, so. She reaches up and slaps the human, hard enough to shock him in case he's in a swoon. "You got ten seconds to wake the fuck up before I start calling for help, duster. You're too big for me to drag without making things worse."

[propulsion]

Cutting away the shirt reveals an object sitting on his chest, except a few seconds of study brings out the reality that it is in fact an object set improbably within his chest. A rounded metal compartment holds a machine of silver, runic inscription, lyrium enchantment, and some kind of power core beneath a crystal lens, pulsing an electric blue.

And around it, his skin looks ashy. That spread of veining spreads from the hole in his chest as the epicentre.

And then she slaps him.

"Ahh!" Tony quacks.

Hands come up in blind defense of himself, eyes snapping open after the initial flinch, focus orienting, tracking, locating Sawbones' round face.

"Is it over," he asks, inexplicably.

[okayimin]

Actually getting a look at the thing in his chest doesn't really sway her prognosis one way or the other. It looks bad and they're going to need an archanist at least. Or maybe a tranquil...

And then he's awake, which makes things a little easier. "Not yet," she says, because it isn't, "Can you stand?"

dragon

[acreage]

"God," Holden says, "I hope not."

After Wysteria, after Petrana, this is less of a shock. A part of him had known to expect Tony after finding Wysteria with her own bear fur. But his heart still seems to thud unevenly — and it's not reassured by the state Tony's in. Still, he has a small smile to offer. Impossible reunions are one thing about this dream — or whatever the fuck — that don't get old.

[propulsion]

"I don't mean alive dinosaurs. Dummy."

The quip comes fast, as if the moments between hearing Holden, recognising his voice, registering that he is here, and then responding to the thing he says are infinitesimally small. But Tony pivots a little from the waist to look at him, a hard and fixed look as if to actually ensure that he got all that right.

"Hey," he says, at a remove, brain doing one thing, mouth doing another.

[acreage]

"My mistake."

His eyebrows go up, briefly, as he says it, as if to punctuate the point. How silly of him to think otherwise, etc. But mostly his smile grows as Tony looks to him, all slow-blooming warmth, in a way Tony's likely never seen before.

He thinks: you've looked better. But what he does is reach out for a hug. C'mere.

[propulsion]

Tony gives into the hug as a series of gradual steps. A lean in, a step closer, his hands drifting up to land and hold on Jim's back, his chin then resting on his shoulder (kind of, there's some tippy-toes action necessary here), and finally, a tight squeeze circled around the other man.

Had he thought about it? Where Jim was gonna land? Of course he had. And probably even talked about it with Wysteria, a person he has run out of things to say to. He just—

It's fuzzy, you know? But that piercing feeling in his heart-place is very vital and present.

"Guess I oughta return the postcard."

[heirring]

She isn't next to him. That would be ridiculous. In fact, barring the bear skin and the fussing over where they ought to be allowed to make camp and demanding someone provide dry socks and acquiring the shocking gift of coffee, and checking every so often to while he slept to be certain that he was still breathing under that heavy fur, she has done almost nothing to see to Tony's comfort. They are quite sick of one another, you see. She has heard all his jokes. He has heard all her gossip. They have squabbled over every possible thing there is to squabble over. There is, frankly speaking, no power on this earth which might induce her to sleep within arm's length of the man.

So Wysteria is sleeping across the fire. Which is very reasonable of her. She is curled into a tight circle under her own collection of blankets. In the dark, she is recognizable only by the pale crown of her head visible between the edge of her covers and the crook of her arm and by—

"Where are you going?"

It's a very crisp question, spoken shockingly near to full volume in response to Tony shuffling in the dark after his boots. She has one eye open as is peering at him from over the curl of her wrist.

[heorte]

With Wysteria having staked her claim on preferred sleeping space, Ellis is the one stretched out within arm's length of Tony. He's been reliably present since Tony had been situated in this makeshift campsite, on hand to stoke the fire and fetch books and attempt to diffuse squabbles.

(Ellis had not been present when Tony had fallen, nor when he'd been toted back to camp. That absence weighs on him.)

The process of putting on boots and maybe even shuffling away might have gone unnoticed, but the sharply posed question jolts Ellis awake. One hand shoots out to grab a fistful of discarded fur blanket, mark the absence of Tony in said blanket, before pushing up onto one elbow to squint blearily at Tony.

[propulsion]

Damnit.

Getting made doesn't stop him, though. He doesn't look up from where he is squinting into the darkness at his boots, and reaching for the second one. His breathing has this uncomfortable quality, like it has serrated edges, sawing through his lungs. He glances to where Ellis's hand flops on his blankets, to his face, then across the fire at Wysteria.

Back to his boot, working it on with an air of grim determination. "Gotta take a leak," he says. "Want anything while I'm out? They got Reese's in the vending machine."

[heirring]

Her scoff is real as she both manages to wind tighter into her blankets and sit slightly upright. Lit by the fire, the loose wiry strands of Wysteria's form a pale halo about her face where it pokes out at comical angles from under the make-do blanket hood.

"How thoughtful. Should you happen to fall again, you may do so in the dead of night where no one will think to fetch you. In that case, you may bring me back whatever finger you lose to frostbite first."

haven. closed to joselyn.

[propulsion]

It's just a lot, is the thing.

People Tony didn't think he'd see again. People he would prefer not to. People he's seen waaay too much of, to be honest, and could probably use the break from him too.

So he leaves. He leaves through the rubble he assumes were once the gates of Haven, and he walks down a path that is all churned earth and muddy snow. He follows it right down to a big frozen lake where he stops at the edge, and thinks that maybe if there was not a big frozen lake, he'd keep walking, keep walking until he disappears and doesn't have to figure out what he's gonna do when everyone makes good on this whole mountaineering adventure that's going around.

Of course, he could walk around the big frozen lake. Bluff called.

And so when Joselyn emerges from wherever she emerges, she sees him kind of chuckling to himself, breath hitting the air as steam. He is dressed in a big coat and a scarf that is actually a shawl made of woolen and patterned in adorable daisies. His hair has significantly more grey in it it than she remembers from, like, a month ago, in Kirkwall. He is significantly skinnier than she remembers from, like, a month ago, in Kirkwall.

And he doesn't see her yet, so if she just wants to sidle away—

[obdurata]

Unlike most of the other pilgrims toward Skyhold, Joselyn had set out this way almost as soon as she'd awoken into the dreaming; that her journey, then, took almost precisely the same amount of time as the rest of them has been one of the strongest indicators that this isn't, can't be real. She has journeyed to and from Skyhold more than enough times to know better than that, and the day she wakes to find that the little girl she and Amos had been shepherding has slipped between dreams—

A spirit, she thinks. It isn't pain, exactly, just a sense of both strangeness and acceptance. It isn't not pain, either, but a part of her thinks—philosophically—that she is receiving a window into the kind of lucid dreams that mages know all the whispered conversations in the dark with her sister couldn't have truly shared with her.

(That, there; that's the ache. She sets it aside.)

This isn't real. But she's real, and she suspects most of those on the road to Skyhold are, which means that the Tony Stark she sees—older and thinner and worn—is probably real, and all she knows about his fate in this dream is what she can now see for herself so she joins him instead of sidling away, and loops her hand in his elbow (she is, improbably, wearing the same fur coat he first met her in), and says:

“Stark, you look like shit,” with real affection.

[propulsion]

He is expecting Wysteria because his brain tells him that Wysteria has been his only friend for years, with periodic cameos from strapping hero men that probably would not sound as dainty coming up on him, or slipping their elegant hands into his arm.

And also Poppell would have to be in a weird mood anyway.

This all to say: Tony doesn't react immediately to approach and then to gesture. And then Joselyn speaks—and his memories provide an array of familiar associations, such as camping in the woods, or getting steadily husky as they drunk funnily named liquor, or quietly in bed either whispered over pillows, or laughing over a late dinner—and he jerks sideways a step.

Grasping her hand, though, so she is tugged along an inch as he turns enough to look at her, a look of slapped shock on his face.

"What," he says, and then he puts his hands on Joselyn's face and kisses her.

[obdurata]

—what, what.

Where does Tony get off saying what to her and then putting his mouth on her mouth, because Joselyn was in absolutely no way prepared for that. It's not unpleasant, although she imagines kissing him would probably be more fun if he didn't look sort of like last night's leftover death, it's just—not what she had imagined, when she'd walked over. The relief to see a familiar face, even one so altered, was one thing.

“What?” —is more or less his reaction in reverse, putting one hand on his forehead in what seems to be equal parts keeping him from doing it again before she's oriented herself and checking him for fever. Does he have a fever.

[propulsion]

"What!"

He is definitely feverish, but there is a sharp clarity in the way he looks at her that implies he's not experiencing a fever dream. Or not only experiencing a fever dream. His hands are now resting on her arms, letting the hand to his forehead continue to oppress him while his grip on her tightens.

All real. Fur and the warmth of her. That crinkle in her brow when she's giving him a look like he's nuts, which is familiar too.

"You've alive," he says, "and here. That's great. We—maybe the kiss was a lot. I'm out of practice. Do you wanna maybe hug?"

haven. closed to erik.

[propulsion]

There are a few fires scattered around the campsite, inasmuch as the shattered remains of a village constitute a campsite. Some take refuge in the ruins of the Chantry building, otherwise construct lean-tos against ex-buildings, some raise free standing canvas tents. There is an air of impermanence to this settlement. Soon, they will move on.

But not yet. Erik has volunteered to or been volunteered to tend to this campfire and keep an eye on this section of perimeter. There've been reports of crazed wild animals and enemy movement, but this convergence at Haven seems to have afforded everyone the ability to take a breath, and brace for the next leg of this inexplicable journey.

In his periphery, in the encroaching darkness, steps a figure. The drape of heavy furs makes identity hard to determine, although a keen eye may recognise Tony's profile as he rubs his hands together for warmth, stamps his feet a little for the same.

[clawings]

Earlier this... month(?), in the swamps of the Kokari Wilds, Erik would not have called his eyesight keen if someone's life had depended on it. But during what has turned to be the strangest mass exodus towards Haven and then Skyhold he's gotten stronger, felt better, more solid in reality.

Which is strange, considering he's not sure this is reality at all.

For one thing, that man looks suspiciously like the profile of Tony Stark, which leads to some staring on his part before the mabari standing off to the side gives a soft, high whine. Then Erik is on his feet, crossing the snow, wearing a heavy coat of his own and gloves, but not nearly as bundled as Tony appears to be.

"Stark?" Erik asks, like he knows this man. Like they've talked before.

[propulsion]

"Present."

Up close, Stark has seen better days. Which you'd expect when mostly you might know him from TV spots, billboards, glossy 3D holographics on limited edition Solo cups, that kind of thing, and this guy's been roughing it renfaire roughing it for who knows how long. Years, judging by the grey streaked through his hair, peppered through his beard which is not shaven to the logo-like specifications he prefers.

He also looks pale and beat and underfed and a little like he shouldn't be walking around, but he is, and he turns enough to look at Erik on a delay. A querying search tracks over Erik's features, and then Tony pokes a finger out from his furs, pointing.

"The bean spiller. Right? Steven."

[clawings]

"Stevens," Erik corrects, but there's no anger or dismay in it. He's worried, though, looking at this man who seems for all counts like he could possibly collapse if left outside too long.

It's worrisome, but then again, Tony Stark has been... what? A Venatori slave, more or less, if Erik is to understand how it's all gone down. Except that's not a concern, now, apparently.

Athessa would know more. Erik sighs and puts his hands in his pockets; the mabari at his side sits down and nudges his knee. To that point: "You warm enough under all'dat? Should you even be fuckin' out here right now?"

[propulsion]

"Stevens," Tony echoes on the back of correction, hand retracting back into his furs.

The name 'Erik' also rises at the back of his brain, despite it having occurred in a fragment of conversation that took place five years ago, and not with this man. In that time, empires have risen and fallen. Weird to see some new guy after all this time.

Tony says, "Pro'lly not. Cool dog by the way," and then heads towards the nearest campfire. His march is so prompt and swift that Erik would be forgiven for thinking he's not invited or being dismissed, except Tony pipes back up as if expecting to be followed. "Been a while, huh? How's, uh. What'd I miss?"