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

[acreage]

[ he's never seen anything like this before — he's never seen her do anything like this before — but the intent becomes clear very quickly. there's no questioning the lyrium-brightness in her eyes, or the precision of her penstrokes. ]

And they're going to keep me warm?

[ but he does, really, try to keep still. the warmth at the fireside means he doesn't feel the cold as deeply as he had even moments ago, and the feel of the pen on his skin is unfamiliar but not unpleasant. ]

[ipseite]

( her magic hadn't been what had most interested the venatori about her; it had never been the most useful talent she brought to riftwatch. aside from her habitual use of glyphs to heat her teapot, there is little magic that petra could ever be described as in the habit of—but this seems to come naturally enough to her, only a small furrow between her brows as she concentrates on the strokes.

the glow of her eyes is the only real indication that this is anything other than an unusual moment to get very into performance art. )

It will not last, ( she cautions, ) and while it does, you cannot rely on it wholly.

[acreage]

[ which he takes to be a more matter-of-fact way of saying: so don't be an idiot about the next coat. ]

It's still better than nothing. [ and, partially because he might have a sense of the rarity of this kind of favor, ] Thank you.

[ipseite]

( so help her god, james holden, you will keep your thrice-damned coat on your stupid, selfless body. )

You're welcome.

( it is precise work. she puts her gloves into his hands to hold them for her while she does it, which has the not-unintentional side-effect of keeping his hands warm; they feel as if they are, in all likelihood, under the effects of a similar enchantment. )

Skyhold, then, soon.

[acreage]

[ he holds her gloves with some gratitude; and, certainly, understands better how she doesn't seem to feel the cold much — her own coat aside. ]

Skyhold, [ he says, and sighs. ] Though what we're going to find there, I have no damn clue. [ then, ] Besides a way to get back, hopefully.

[ to the real world, at least, bizarre as it is in some ways to consider all this a dream. the gaps in his memory are utterly strange; and yet, the warmth of petrana's gloves in his hands, and the sound of her voice, all seem as real as anything. ]

[ipseite]

Back, ( she repeats, ruminative in the tone of her voice. ) Yes.

( but to what, exactly? there are blurry gaps in her memory; things that feel clear until she tries to grasp them, and finds them slip through her fingers. other moments that stand out, and she is left wondering...where does the dream begin, what was true before it?

an altogether unsettling prospect considering their very natures as outsiders to thedas. )

[acreage]

[ isn't that the question?

what does back mean? and even if they can get back, what's waiting for them? how long has it been since they went to sleep and had these nightmares? are they going to wake and find anything better than what they're living right now?

he looks back at her over his shoulder, eyebrows pulling together, and watches her work for a moment. he seems to think better of whatever initial impulse would've had him say; and instead, says softly, ]

If there's a way we can stop the war from being lost, we owe it to these people to try.

[ he means: as the kind of people they are, ready to place duty before their well-being. it's something more real than platitudes, than even their respective feelings. there are things that need to be done, and they may be able to do them; therefore, they must.

he means: as rifters. he remembers richard pointing out how thedas would've suffered less, all these years, if rifters didn't exist. if they hadn't been allowed to fall into enemy hands. maybe much of this has been a dream; but within it, he and petrana have both had to do things for the venatori that cemented corypheus's power, that spilled so much blood.

he means: no matter what it costs them. thedas is their home now, and the choices they make will reverberate through it beyond their lifetimes. it's a lesson he'd denied in his early days in the gallows, and now feels written on his bones. she's already known this, surely. but now he feels the certainty as strongly as the fact of the sun shining, or the moons rising. ]

[ipseite]

( when she says, ) And for ourselves, ( not precisely gently, but deliberately and meaningfully and slightly weighted by the fact that the eyes that meet his gaze are still glowing—

it is not a correction, or disagreement. it is...an expansion. even before,

it hadn't taken long for this to feel like her war. she knows there were those then who disagreed with her, on both sides of the rifter and native divide; that even now, after everything, perhaps there still are. rifters are not (have never been) the only anchor-shard bearers, and petrana has never envisioned a world without rifters alone as being so very different even as she's wondered if a world with the herald living and at full strength might well have been. she has never viewed herself as more of an outsider than any refugee; it is not even the second or third time in her life that she's been obliged to reinvent herself into a new life, a new context.

this is their world, now. she doesn't see herself as obliged to it in any special way, that her means of arrival should change that—she sees it in the same way she felt obliged to act in sulleciel. she owes it to herself as much as to anyone else.

that she has always felt this way—that she would always have felt this way—is not unrelated to the fact that petrana doesn't feel much kinship with rifters, typically. )

[acreage]

[ it's not that he disagrees.

it was not so very long ago, sitting at a different fire under very different circumstances, that he'd said that he thinks every rifter deserves the chance to be happy here. he'd meant it, of course; there was no point to dissembling, and james holden is widely known in his home system for being an honest man. he'd do anything for any of them, the ones he's grown closer to in these last years as much as the ones he hasn't had the chance to know, as much as the natives of this world. they're all in the same boat, and to argue otherwise is only going to give corypheus more ground.

but when he takes on a fight, he takes himself out of the equation. he doesn't even know he does it. thoughts like what he owes himself, where he might be at the end of everything, don't enter his mind. his life, his bone, his blood, are all currency to spend towards protecting others. the lyrium-blue glow at his shoulder is reminder enough that he survived when 100,001 souls didn't, that the time he has is nothing but luck, and needs to be spent wisely.

where he is doesn't change that.

but her reminder is not an unfamiliar one. so his expression is tinged rueful, and he cants his head slightly in acceptance.

what he says, instead, is, ]

Well, we've got our work cut out for us.