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

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.

[nonvenomous]

So thin is the barrier between wee hours that they are seldom crossed at just the right moment to find Richard Dickerson in meditative repose, seated cross-legged on a cot with his hands on his knees. The black fur piled on his shoulders is scruffy with dry blood, even after a rough scrubbing with snow, and smells sour atop stinging undertones of sweat, whiskey and bile. Bandages are rucked under a tunic in need of patching. His coat is hanging up to dry -- somewhere.

But he’s in one piece, all extremities accounted for, in spite of blood patched into the canvas of his cot, both eyes slitted open pale one after the other.

Ellis might have seen the state he was in when he was hauled in, or might not have. He certainly can’t remember, an icky trickle of dread eddying into relief at the sound of Ellis’ voice and the sight of his face. This is a cruel dream.

“In a manner of speaking.”

[heorte]

You've looked better is impolite.

But this is perhaps the least self-possessed he's ever seen Richard. Ellis has a split second to feel some minor shock over it, casting back in his mind to all the points of their acquaintance and coming up short of this particular scene.

But Richard is alive. Wounded, maybe, but not in danger of dying within a day or two. There's some particular comfort in it.

"What does Sister Sara say?" Ellis asks, hands dipping into his pockets, eyes on Richard's face. Five years in the dark turned Ellis grayer, ground exhaustion deeper into his bones, but he is still sturdy and straight-backed and seemingly unbothered by the cold that's chapped his cheeks.

There are other, more complicated questions he could ask Richard now. But he is tired. Tony is dying. Richard had been dragged into camp looking as if he'd been gnawed on by something. Ellis was gone for five years and is still trying to gather exactly what has occurred in his absence when all he cares to say is, My friend is going to die.

Start small. Ascertain Richard's condition first. There is time for the rest.

*ICY TRICKLE

[nonvenomous]

“Nothing very kind.”

For all they lack for mirrors in this fine establishment, he can sense the miasma he’s cloaked in: greasy, itching stubble at his throat, the ease with which the morning chill finds its way into his hands. The shadows around his eyes are dark enough to sap any remnant color out of them, friendly blue given way to quicksilver, wet and sharp in the lamplight.

“I can see to the rest of the healing myself.”

Provided this doesn’t shake out into a summary execution.

He is watching very closely, for a friend, and not quite head on, past that initial grasp onto Ellis’ arrival. Cast out curs slinking in alleys have the same look. He’s tired too.

“You’re looking distinguished.”

laughs

[heorte]

"I'd heard I've gone terribly gray."

A repeated assessment, borrowed words that don't come off quite as well in Ellis' mouth because Wysteria's name catches in his throat, invokes too many things all at once that Ellis isn't prepared to wrangle.

There is a beat of quiet then. Ellis makes a study of Richard's face, tallies eyes, stubble, exhaustion, bandages, before he dredges up some further commentary. (He is thinking of a campfire, Richard's kind if impatient instruction on how conversation is meant to flow.)

"Is there something I can do for you?" because asking are you alright? feels foolish. He can discern that answer to that all on his own.

[nonvenomous]

Worn ragged as he is, Silas pauses to look again, the delay of his scoff ignited by a spark of mirth for how savage an assessment that really is. Terribly grey.

It ebbs out of him in the quiet, and leaves him entirely at the question. He shakes his head.

“It’s by the grace of your friends that I’ve made it this far.”

Rarely, Ellis turns up in search of companionship. Have you considered I enjoy your company? Dick had doubted it then, and he doubts it now, scrying some underlying purpose in bones here on business, or the careful mapping of courtesy. It is good to see him, but feels needlessly indulgent to say so, any derision for the impulse coiled comfortably over.

“Why are you here?”

[heorte]

A slight twist of Ellis' mouth, not quite a smile. There is a slight pause while he looks away from Richard, takes in the room itself in all it's sparse glory. What survived and what didn't survive Haven's destruction stirs some detached curiosity. It's not unlike coming upon a town eaten up by the Blight and finding some stray houses standing, untouched.

Maybe not the most optimistic of comparisons.

"Can I sit?" is the only offered rejoinder. Maybe a little bit stalling, but there is some need to anchor himself beyond standing loosely in the middle of this space.

[nonvenomous]

A little reluctant to give up the warmth of his heels folded under him, Dick rearranges himself in delayed answer nonetheless: one foot set to the floor, followed by the other. He shifts over, yielding room on the battered cot, and leans to drag his boots out from beneath it.

It’s too cold for spiders, but he checks for them anyway -- one boot tapped out after the other before he sets to pulling them on.

Sure. Have a seat.

[heorte]

The cot seems sturdy enough, but Ellis is still careful about how he settles himself in the space allocated to him.

Presumably he should say something after having been seated, but he watches Richard pull on his boots instead while he attempts to order his thoughts. Ellis knows through experience Richard isn't given to filling a silence. He's been gone for years, but Ellis doesn't expect to find that much changed in his absence.

"Tony is dying," he says, as Richard finishes with his laces. The words feel abrupt after the quiet, and it doesn't bring any particular sense of relief. Ellis has not said this aloud, though the truth has been clear to him since Tony had collapsed and taken to his bear skin.

Maybe if Richard had arrived to Haven in better condition, Ellis might have followed this with some specific entreaty. But it's a lot to ask of a friend after having been absent for five years. This already feels like an imposition, dragging the wreck of himself into Richard's presence.

[nonvenomous]

So Tony is alive too.

There’s a strange tilt to his ear at the news, his composure nudged out of step for the wrong reasons. Critical mission failure.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he hears himself say, in much the same way he says anything, mild in his support.

He flexes his hands in the cold, and folds them together, rubbing circulation up past the anchor shard fractured into his wrist, into buzzing joints. If Sawbones is correct, it won’t really matter. Serrah Stark will wake up no worse for wear, apart from whatever psychological trauma accompanies uncommonly realistic dream suffering.

“Before this goes any further, you should know that I passed information on their movements to the Resistance with the hope that they would be slain.” In the interest of full disclosure. He looks over again for the first time since Ellis has sat, matter-of-fact. And wary. His reflexes are as roughshod as the rest of him.

“Is it something a Healer could attend to?"

https://media.tenor.com/images/42a1cf5be0fbb3db851c99e5cd5787ab/tenor.gif

[heorte]

The admission almost doesn't process at first. Then it does, and Ellis feels it like a blow to the temple. The same burst of white followed by gray, breath driven out of his lungs while he tries to shake off the impact.

It is at least straightforward. Richard distills the betrayal into a single, simple sentence. Yes, it lands like a bludgeon, but at least it is not drawn out beyond that.

Ellis draws in a very deep breath, posture straightening as his hands flex over his knees. Heat gathers at the nape of his neck, anger muddling through the haze of misery he'd carried from Tony's bedside and the lingering relief of finding Richard more or less in one piece.

"Why?"

https://i.imgur.com/EpAso.gif

[nonvenomous]

No answer for the question of healing magic is not unexpected.

Silas watches the color rise in his neck and successfully stifles a shiver.

“Because their creations were poisoning this world and hurting its people. And because they are valuable enough to be aggressively pursued by the Venatori even if the Resistance didn’t lack the resources necessary to mount a rescue.”

It’s all very logical, really. Grey morning light through the door feels like affirmation before he looks away from it to a trunk of supplies nearby, his bag on its side. There’s more of a case to be made, parallels to draw.

He waits for Ellis to decide on his own.

[heorte]

There is logic in it. Ellis understands the calculation. He knows, objectively, what decision he would make were it anyone other than Wysteria and Tony. What is the difference between this and the people whose necks he'd opened in the desert? What is the different between this and the tainted survivors he'd put to sword and flame over the course of nearly fifteen years?

It's worse, in some ways, to consider the decision at a distance and know it to be the right one.

His hands lift. It is a careful, deliberate motion to begin working the cold from the stiff, bent fingers of his left hand as he breathes past the waves of anger, the rising thud of his heartbeat. (He is thinking of blood on sand, the wet choking sound of dying Wardens. His own sins.) Richard did not do this alone, Ellis knows. Someone above him made a decision, and Richard gave them what they needed to make it possible. But he still cannot bring himself to look at him.

"Do you regret it?"

[nonvenomous]

“To have done anything else would have been selfish on the order of evil,” says Silas, who was grown very accustomed to doing this kind of math quickly, and living with the outcome, “but yes. I would have preferred not to.”

He can sense the pounding without feeling it outright, radiating heat.

Ellis doesn’t look at him. There is a network of scars etched up from the leading crack of his shard for him to study instead, up to the point they vanish under the edge of his sleeve, and he glances over to check.

[heorte]

The raw-scraped mess of his hands has scabbed over, healed past the point of paining him. Slowly chafing the chill from his fingers keeps the tremors working through his hands obscured. He waits, patient, for the scorch of anger to settle and become something other than painfully urgent.

Not so long ago, he had pulled the bear skin more securely up over Tony's chest. He'd pulled the quilt higher around Wysteria's shoulders. Maybe he ought not have left their company.

"They deserved better than that."

Which is not a contradiction of Richard's calculation. The equation stands. Ellis comes out with the same answer if he input any other two names. He loves them. It muddles the outcome.

"Do they forgive you?"

Wait.

"Should they forgive you?"

[nonvenomous]

Not looking great. Dick finds his pack again. In it are the ingredients needed to resummon his familiar, and he finds himself wishing he’d done it first thing, as he’d felt the impulse to.

“I’m poorly equipped to gauge.”

He kicks up a brow, and shifts back from the bag to his own hands in unconscious mirror. When has his life ever been fair? Humans are the ones obsessed with the cosmic value of what anyone deserves. Humans and elves and dwarves and megalomaniacal darkspawn. The bones in his hands are finer, fewer of them broken, dry blood black under the nails. He’s missing a pair of joints off the ends on the shard hand, calluses firm where a pen would rest on the other.

“I won’t ask them to.”

[heorte]

Intentional or not, the conversation is a mirror. All Ellis' sins lurk in the corners of this room, dragged forth by what Richard tells him, the answers he gives. Ellis feels them grinding like shattered bone in his chest.

The clean burn of anger mixes with exhaustion. There is nowhere to direct it, just as there is nowhere to vent his grief and his guilt. It sits in his chest, crushing breath from his lungs. He watches Richard silently for a long time, digging one thumb into the pads of his palm until the ache of it becomes unbearable.

"He's going to die," Ellis says finally, voice gone so flat it can be nothing other than the by-product of carefully smothering the anger and anguish from his tone. Something catches at the end of that sentence, an almost accusation, a cruelty that Ellis doesn't give voice to.

"Is Wysteria in danger?

[nonvenomous]

What’s there to watch is borderline tea leaf inscrutable in the lamplight: recognition rather than regret sits bleak in the scruffy furrows around his frown, goosebumps prickled up the backs of his wrists.

Softer consideration has pulled slowly in from the surface, carving resentment in close to the bones of his face. It’s a brief and unspecific breed of unhappiness, and it too withdraws into mollusky depths in a pinch at his brow and a sticky roll at his adam’s apple. Natural neutrality remains.

Silas lets it set a moment to be sure.

“Not anymore.”

He is firm enough in his assurance to look over when he says it.

[heorte]

The assurance is a little bit of a joke. Wysteria is only in danger from the usual things, and not from the organization she claims allegiance to. Ellis holds Richard's gaze for a moment before his eyes fall back to his hands.

"I can't pretend I wouldn't have made the same decision. I have made the same decision, in the past."

This is a kindness, even if Richard cannot name Ellis' sins. Ellis can dredge up this admission because of who Richard is to him, all the kindness he's shown Ellis in the course of their acquaintance. Richard deserves this truth: Ellis' anger is not so righteous. It is a selfish, bitter thing.

"But I don't know if I can forgive you for it. Or if it's even my place to be angry."

And he can't walk himself back to Tony's bedside and ask him and Wysteria whether or not they plan on holding a grudge. It doesn't matter just now.

[nonvenomous]

Ludicrous or no, it’s assurance with words carefully chosen to avoid implying a persistent threat anywhere else within the organization, as ’Not from me,’ might have. They all have more pressing problems, now. He doubts anyone with a stake is going out of their way to slash ankles as they travel deeper into the mountains.

The demons, darkspawn and dragons they’re bound to encounter operate on their own terms.

But that’s out there.

In here, Silas nods along in mild support of I don’t know ifs, little in the way of direction offered one way or another. There’s give to it, passive acceptance of whatever feeling lives in Ellis’ warm mammal brain. If he’d intended to mount a more rigorous defense for himself, he probably would’ve led with it.

As admissions go, the one given didn’t run up on any surprise. Either he’s made some very specific deductions through their time together, or he’s assumed all Wardens capable of following through on a particular type of math problem.

[heorte]

"I don't think you can save him," Ellis says into the silence. There is some cracking tremor over the tail-end of the sentence, a place where Ellis' composure threatens to break. "He needed to go to Orzammar, and we're here now. He needs more than a healer."

They're too far. Tony is too sick. There's nothing to do but wait, and then build a pyre.

He reminds himself of his body, rooted here in this moment. The dull ache in his hands, the rise and fall of his chest as he draws breath, the edge of the cot pressed against the back of his knees. Ellis looks back at Richard without any expectation of a contradiction. None of them are capable of performing miracles.

[nonvenomous]

If this is a dream, what could possibly be the point of it? With few notable exceptions, everyone he’s engaged with is circling the drain of some unique personal hell. And here he is among them, likewise circling, and suffering.

Touching Ellis feels ill-advised. There is an unsure parting of his hands, only for them to fit themselves together again upon second thought.

“Wysteria has theorized Rifters are formed from the dreams of our real selves, projected, perhaps, through some overlap in the Fade between planes.” Now hardly seems the time to explain that this is secondhand information, patched over from James Holden’s third party retelling. “It would mean he is likely to suffer here for a time as he passes, only for the real Tony Stark to wake up unharmed in his own bed on the other side of the Fade. Lost to you, but not to himself.”

[heorte]

The words are different, based in science rather than faith, but the tune of it feels familiar. Ellis watches the shift of Richard's hands for a moment, motion mirrored briefly in the clasp and press of his own palms, before the prickling anxiety propels him to his feet. The space is small, so the restless energy manifests in abbreviated pacing, a small circuit of movement as one hand lifts to scrub at his face.

Even if he doesn't necessarily disagree with the theory, it is hard for it to do anything more than knife up against old wounds.

"I don't know if that will bring either of them any comfort."

Under different circumstances, it might have lit the pair of them up to turn over a theory. Ellis doesn't remember this particular one coming up, but he was locked away beneath the ground for a very long time. Life had gone on without him.

"Whether or not it's true, he'll still be gone," Ellis says, head tipped up towards the ceiling. The sky is visible through broken patches of stone. The old, raw refrain goes unspoken: I'll still be here.

[nonvenomous]

“I suppose it depends on how well they’ve rationalized the likelihood of their having an even more fleeting existence than usual here.”

Gods know Richard Dickerson did the math quickly upon his arrival.

This is probably not actually very reassuring to consider. He rises to his feet also -- more slowly, hitched stiff with pain. He’s a wearier counterweight to restless movement, his own energy levels somewhere between tree stump and coat thrown over a chair.

“He will,” he agrees, “but the rest of the world will still be fighting.”

And dying.

“Sister Sara and I can coordinate the arrangements, when the time comes. Or otherwise assist, if you prefer to take the lead.”

[heorte]

There is such bitterness on Ellis' face, some visceral, bracing agony working through him unchecked. It takes time to steady himself to the point where he's confident he can speak without his voice breaking. (Deep, sharp breathes, focusing past the tinny ring in his ears.) A pair of death sentences, Tony had said once, and Ellis had thought of it in such abstract terms. He had been old then, for a Warden. He is older still now.

He is so tired of being the one who survives.

"You should sit back down," Ellis says, a little absently, looking down from the hole-speckled ceiling to Richard, then away. He cannot get his voice around a proper response to what Richard has offered. He doesn't know how to ask Tony what he wants, and he certainly isn't going to make that attempt in front of Wysteria.

"I've built pyres," comes with a lifting of hands, Ellis' body half-turning towards the shuttered window. "But I've never been able to do it when it mattered, when I should have. I can't—I should be the one to take care of him now."

It's about Tony, but it's also about everyone else, all the ghosts crowding at the edges of his vision now. Whenever it matters, Ellis has come up short and other people suffer for it. Wysteria and Tony fall in among a long line of people Ellis has failed. Being there at the end doesn't lift away what he'd been absent for, what he might have prevented had he not been trapped so far below the ground.