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

[degenere]

"But you are happy to see me."

This, instead of anything else. Val gives her a grin and grabs hold of the fur again, hoisting it back into the place that he put it on her shoulders instead of the place where she adjusted it to.

"Anne-Laure is not being received so well. She is not allowed into the stables just yet, they are saying that they will make her up a place--as if dracolisks never graced the thresholds of Skyhold's stables! I am sure they have lived here before. Come, there is a fire here, we have been waiting very patiently--"

He turns away from Wysteria and goes striding off the path, around a crop of rocks dusted at the tops with snow--and here there is an outbuilding, built onto the side of another building--two walls, the rear shared with the main building. The roof is crude pine shingles half grown with moss and dead grass. There is a fire.

"Perban's methodology was poor and wanting. And yet I find most of his detractors poor and wanting in their assessment of his work. They strike upon all the easy points and critiques--where is the heart? The knife of the scholar that might cut more expertly must be a knife that is honed, sharpened upon the whetstone of a subtler critique. One does not simply read the work of the critics that have come before and build one's points fully upon their foundation. Imagine a home constructed in such a way! No--the home must have its foundation, and then walls are scaled upon it, windows and doors and floors and roofs--one does not build foundation upon foundation upon foundation, and call it done! I have been in the swamps. Anne-Laure is a project--a result of selective breeding--she is larger than any other that has come before her and has an excellent ability to climb, though robust strength was more what I was after--but I may pursue this now instead. It is funny," he says, this time to the fire, "but I cannot remember what has become of my friends. I was trying to recall it before I became annoyed that Anne-Laure had been so long denied a stall."

[heirring]

With a scoff, she follows after him. For what else is to be done? Who will put up any contest to him in this, if not her? And where else would she go?

(There is an obvious answer; she ought to return to Ellis and Tony, the latter of which being the reason the fur was fetched in the first place. But for just the briefest instant, she is distracted enough to forget the anxious urgency involved in the errand and it has been so many weeks since Wysteria thought of anything else that she is out of practice at realigning her attentions once they've been diverted—)

"Of course I am pleased to see you. Why should I not be? We are friends, are we not? You have said so yourself on more than one occasion, or do you deny that in the same way you refuse—it has not escaped my notice—to address certain questions that I know you have heard?"

In the shadow of the shelter, she shifts her arms out from under the fur and presents her palms to the heat of the fire.

"As for your companions, I expect they will be along presently from wherever they have wandered, for it seems that is very much the fashion these days. It that really what you wished to discuss? A physician's dissection of Perban. I cannot bear that the thought of such poor scholarship has taken up any measure of your attention whatsoever in all this time! It is depressing to think of it. I would ask that the next time you hold me to something that it be over something more worthwhile than Perban."

[degenere]

"There were so many questions." Val uses his teeth to tug off his gloves--the right, then the left. They are of a very fine make, but worn, as is his habit in the things of the everyday. His teeth, too, are still very fine. The gloves he shoves in his belt and joins her in holding his hands toward the flames.

"I will try to remember the others and answer them. Of course that was only the beginning of what I wished to say on Perban. I had thought that I might write a paper critiquing the critique of his work--or a book, perhaps--one that would close with my own critique that would demonstrate the point that I had just made. You are an arguer, so I had thought to let you posit the poor point and then I could deconstruct it. As a debate would be run, yes? But artificially. Not nearly as amusing as a truer argument, though excellent practice. And much better than writing notes. And it did not occupy my attention." He lavishes an extra Orlesianness to the words, coloring in the ridiculousness. "Indeed I had forgotten it entire until I saw you upon the road and it all returned to me. What would you prefer to be held to?"

[heirring]

She opens her mouth to mame a small noise of objection in reply to arguer, but finds no immediate space in which to leverage the rest of her protest and so clamps her teeth tight around it. And then the process is repeated again at poor point, only to swallow it for artificially. By the point he is flourishing all his syllables, she—

Has failed to decide on the exact degree of her irritation.

"How should I know! To testing the alchemical work outlined in Leona's The Keys of Modern Synthesis, the back half of which I firmly belief is rubbish. Or for discussing the adaption of the springtail pin found in dwarven clocks. Or—forgotten it entire my eye. Anne-Laure, I'm afraid you will be doomed to spending the evening out here in the weather as there is very little your maker can't talk his way out of."

[degenere]

Anne-Laure, having moved to begin nibbling at the dead grass adjacent to the shelter, raises her head and looks over at Wysteria again. She gives another qruk. Val frowns.

"Don't agree with her!" He waves Anne-Laure off, an impatient gesture. "And no rocks! They do not agree with your stomach. You know this, Anne-Laure. I am not talking my way out of anything," this of course to Wysteria, nearly in the same breath, "but I would prefer to talk of springtailed pins if I am given the option. I have said that I will answer your questions. And I will answer them, in due course, but I am not--"

This, that, something. His gesture is uncertain this time.

"Do you know how singularly annoying you are? And how singularly annoying it is to not be able to think where Freddie and Jeannot have gone to? I cannot remember if they are living or dead. And so I see you upon the path and you are living, though I thought you dead--and you are so annoying! And yet I am pleased to see you! It is paradoxical, mademoiselle. When I had not thought of you in years--or I think that I had not thought of you in years. I have been living alone and so then I think, has it been too much? The sharpness of my mind is important to me. And I have been working and researching and--Anne-Laure, pas touché!--and so I prefer that we speak of Leona. The scar is from a hawk. I have trained them as part of my work with Anne-Laure and the others--the similarity is striking. What is your specific objection to Leona? It cannot be the prose or the style. These are very good."

[heirring]

"Oh."

It's a very definitive sound. Oh, like finding some important line in a book, or recognizing the key element in an elaborate mechanism, or perhaps like opening a very old box and finding a thing both familiar and unexpected in it.

Wysteria looks at him, her palms still turned toward the fire. The anchor piece lurks there in her palm. It's largely unchanged from its state five years prior.

"You're worried for their well-being."

[degenere]

This time, Val's impatient gesture is for Wysteria. Anne-Laure is eating a stick--apparently not a problem for her stomach, or at least not an observed problem at the moment.

"Of course I am. Is it not natural, to be concerned for one's life-long companions, when they can be neither remembered nor found among the ranks of those gathered here? And yet I see people I have not seen in, what would it be--years, I think--people I care nothing at all for. A sea of unimportant faces! And then yours. And not theirs. You see why this would be--"

His frown is a serious thing. More serious than the first to which he had treated Wysteria at their reunion. Bad-tempered, he scratches at the hawk scar--then, with decisiveness, thrusts his hands back toward the fire.

"Leona," he says, abruptly. "Your objection. I wait to hear it."

[heirring]

Her attention on him narrows so sharply that for a moment her eyes become dark, serious slits in her pale face. Wysterua breathes in, a sharp preparatory noise, and then—

"It is neither the prose or the style, which are both perfectly acceptable. Good even, which I believe to be precisely the problem for Leona writes so clearly that one is all but compelled to believe the thing on the paper is true. But I tell you, I have studied a selection of the work and I refuse to believe some of the results might be reproduced in anything but the most specific circumstances referenced in the text. No, it is not the style that I find fault with but the scholarship itself. Had Leona named the book The Keys to Extremely Specific Situations, I might have more sympathy but that is strictly not what the text purports to be, and as a guide to basic alchemical practice it is nearly useless and certainly not the foundational text it is so often referred as elsewhere. It is clearly yet another manifestation of whatever has drawn us all here in the first place. You're quite sharp and what little I know of your companions seems to suggest they are nothing if not ordinarily compelled by mystery. And so we must accept these points as evidence that circumstances are—"

She has run out of air, perhaps. Or is struggling to name the situation exactly.

"But of course I can be saying nothing that you yourself have not considered already."

[degenere]

Val lets the block of words fill the silence and the space that he has left for them, and the spaces that he has not acknowledged with any directness. It is grounding, to be lectured. It is pastoral, to watch Anne-Laure raise her head and look over in their direction, her jaws working at the stick, which she by now has half swallowed. It is something entirely different, than--

"You might add that to your accomplishments," he says in response. What has he considered already? This: "Once you have completed your other writing on the work and the research that you have done. A series of published experiments, excellently written--if your prose has improved--though now that you have won your freedom you have time enough for anything. Provided that this is not some calamitous end, a theory which I highly doubt. It does not have anything of an 'end' about it. Yes, there are reunions--"

Another wave of his hand between the two of them.

"--Splendidly unexpectedly so, salted with unfortunately unexpectedly. Yes, there is a great tumult about the very weather, and a strange conglomeration of all manner of people, most of then unwelcome. And, yes, one may feel compelled to make some grand statement or gesture, in the heat of the moment. Some pledge, perhaps, of some interest, sealed with some sign of one's intention. These might lead one to think that this is an 'end'. But I doubt it very highly. There is, as your fervency has reminded me, much work to be done. Nothing can end while there is work to be done!"

[heirring]

She listens, her face turned very slightly in his direction and the line of her attention fixed—elsewhere. Some distant point past the fire's embers, made more specific to her mind by the prickle of the bear fur against her cheek. Quietly, while he is saying grand gestures, she sets and unsets her jaw as her thoughts wander.

Eventually, a pause occurs.

She starts then, aware all at once that it was stretched past the point of comfort and that indeed this is the point in which she is meant to respond.

"Yes of course," Wysteria is quick to say. "We are entirely in agreement, de Foncé. Concerning all of it. One shouldn't give any individual part of these things too much credit, I think. It would be a mistake, given that the pressing matter to hand is clearly the manner in which and where they all overlap. I have every confidence that there will be time to indulge in all manner of scholarship."

And then.

"—I'm sorry," is said all at once. "I should go."

[degenere]

"What!"

Val makes a show of looking at their surroundings. This little partial building is off from the main tract of the path, which is, in truth, little more than frozen mud. It remains populated by people moving about, but they are well removed from the chaos.

"Where is that you are going? We just began talking. Surely you intend to finish the conversation."

[heirring]

The bear's fur is very heavy about her. She begins to shift it, self consciously gathering it higher about her.

"I've a friend who's unwell who will be wondering what's delayed me. I should have this"—the fur, clearly—"To him."

[degenere]

"What friend? What are you talking of? Have you suddenly discovered friends? I am pleased for you, mademoiselle--but this is the first I am hearing of such an intention, you gave no indication prior--and, with its timing, it seems entirely too deliberate to be coincidental, and I will tell you, I am not impressed. I suspect you are simply trying to extract yourself from this conversation. Perhaps you are not prepared to--"

Val does their small company the favor of cutting himself off, clicks his tongue against his teeth with a tone of near disgust. "Can you carry that? It seems quite poised to overwhelm you. Anne-Laure! Ici, mon bijou!"

The dracolisk raises her head again. She has found a larger stick which she holds in her beaky mouth, clamped in place like an overlarge bit. Motivated either by her obedience or her curiosity, she begins to cross the small distance that separates them.

[heirring]

"Extract myself," she echoes, puffing up in the way of a cat being stroked in the wrong direction. Even the coarse hairs of the fur seem to bristle sympathetically about Wysteria's ears.

"I am extremely capable, thank you. And prepared. And have always had friends. You may play at thinking otherwise, but I recall quite clearly certain disparaging remarks made in the past regarding my associations of choice, sir. Just because you have never-- Oh, this is nonsense! You know perfectly well the impulse to see to a friend's security. And our conversation, such as it is, has waited this long. And did you not say also that you had all but forgotten even desiring to have it until you saw my face? In light of all that, surely you can find a few hours more of patience. Here, Anne-Laure. You may carry this for me."

At the behest of a magnificent eyeroll, she wrestles the fur from her shoulders--

"Furthermore, Valentine de Foncé," is the precursor to sharp intake of breath, presumably to recharge her capacity for lecturing even as she hastens toward the dracolisk. "You should be pleased. To have inspired a soul to recall such a steadfast sense of loyalty to her companions."

[degenere]

Val makes a gesture; Anne-Laure lowers her head as she approaches, looking expectantly out of the tops of her beady black eyes. She is still holding the stick in her mouth. Her long and scaly neck is thickly muscled, making for an excellent coat rack--or bear fur rack, as it were.

Her silent helpfulness is in contrast to Val's disdain. "Valnetine," he corrects, thickly Orlesian. "This is Mister Ellis again? I had forgotten the very name. Mademoiselle! You cannot mean to abandon my company for his in this moment. This is what I mean, by people I did not wish to see. I have never once seen him and I do not wish to see him and I would much prefer that you stay and maintain a steadfast sense of," hm, no. That would be too far. Val makes a face at himself.

"I did not want our conversation to wait this long! And now that it has only begun, it is to be smothered in its cradle. And for what? I do not want this. I am not pleased. I am the opposite of pleased. I would inspire your soul elsewhere. Why do you persist with this, even now, at this apparent end? I should have Anne-Laure carry this fur in the other direction."

[heirring]

With a great heave and an oomph of effort, the fur is hoisted across Anne-Laure's impressive scaly neck.

"Mister Ellis! Oh, I can hardly believe you! You cannot really still be so fixated on whatever petty thing you decided to be so offended over from all that time ago. It is outrageously small of you, de Foncé. Not to mention entirely beside the point."

She has fussed over the lay of the fur throughout to be certain it is balanced over the dracolisk's sturdy form, but turns to him now. Annoyance flashes cold in her face.

"I should tell you nothing, but will solely out of respect for Anne-Laure's efforts. It is not Mister Ellis. And it is insulting that you believe I have only one friend in the entire world. And even if it were Mister Ellis, I would still choose to see to an unwell friend even if it meant sacrificing any mention of Leona ever again. Don't pretend you would do otherwise, particularly now when we have already agreed that this is not an end regardless of how apparent it might seem. I am merely asking that you stand behind your own convictions, Valentine."

Her impression of thickly Orlesian is improving by leaps and bounds.

[degenere]

"Well," Valentine says, right on her heels (both conversationally and physically), "perhaps I am unwell! Yes? But you did not think of this. You did not ask. Instead you will leave, taking my dear Anne-Laure as you rush off to the side of some unnamed friend--so they cannot be too great a friend, or else you would bother to speak their name--and furthermore, how should I know if you had, or have, one single friend or one dozen friends, or more besides! We have not much talked of friends except I of course talked of my friends, but this is because they are," are, were, is, their status unclear. Val makes a noise through his teeth and concludes, fiery: "You! You are annoying! An annoyance! This is my conviction."

Anne-Laure rolls her eyes back to consider her burden. She decides she is unperturbed. She chews contentedly at the stick, and little flecks of bark soften and fall off. This cannot be good for her digestion. Val is too distracted to make much note.

"I hope you are very happy with your friend, and with Anne-Laure. You deserve one another. She is the best of my dracolisks. Goodbye, mademoiselle, I hope no one ever speaks to you of Leona and I hope that a blight takes the next crop of cotton that will make the paper that you intend to write your book upon, so that you cannot write it--and that the inkwells all break and the wood of your desk is infested with termites, yes, termites, and that the next person who kisses you does not enjoy it, and that you-- Goodbye!"

He throws his mud-daubed cloak over his shoulder with a flourish befitting a cape, and turns to stride back to the fire.

[heirring]

"Ha!" She cries, right at his back. It is equal parts outrage and triumph, both explosive. "I knew it! Well I hope that you will be very comfortable here on your own. That the fire is perfectly warm and the wind remains slanted in this direction, so that the only thing you can possibly blame your dissatisfaction on is the fact that you have missed me so very dreadfully."

With a decisive hand, Wysteria clamps onto one end of the saliva spongy stick in the dracolisk's mouth and makes to steer her around by it.

"Come Anne-Laure. The sooner we're away, the sooner this annoyance may see that you're returned."

[degenere]

"Oh?"

Triumphant, Val spins on his heel and turns to point at Wysteria in her retreat. Never mind that she is not looking as she is leading the Anne-Laure away. The dracolisk rolls her dark eyes back to consider Val, plaintive. Evidently she sees whatever she needs to see in him, for she gives a huff of hot dracolisk breath on Wysteria's hand and continues moving forward.

Val, meanwhile, moves no further but calls after the pair of them: "If you will be seeing her returned then you will be returning. "So then it will not matter if you are missed, or if you are not missed! A good try, mademoiselle! Do you hear me? I compliment you!"

[heirring]

"Do you suppose, Anne-Laure," for she could hardly be addressing anyone else, regardless of her elevated volume. "That there is anyone else in the entirety of Haven known to be traveling in the company of such a distinctive dracolisk such as yourself? I suppose it would be entirely possible to transfer you into the care of any third party and trust you would eventually be returned, yes? And your friend is so easily described! A reasonably tall, somewhat scraggly Orlesian, so committed to his own opinion that to find him you need only follow the steam which rises naturally from all the air he is expelling—"

And along they go, her talking at length as she guides the great reptile along by its chew stick. It is only once they have some luxury of distance that Wysteria consults Anne-Laure in confidence:

"He is terrible. And I dislike nearly every thing about him. But the scar is at least a little charming if you care for such things. Which I trust you do not given that you're a lizard."

[degenere]

"Scraggly," was Val's last word in Trade, so choked with insult it was hardly recognizable. The rest of what he had to say came in swift Orlesian, and--even if Wysteria's imprisonment had come with an education in that tongue--largely lost as he turned away to stride back to the fire.

This time, there might be a surrender.

"Grrrk," Anne-Laure remarks to Wysteria as they take their leave. The solemnity innate in the noble dracolisk makes her tone difficult to read, and whether or not she agrees with the assessment of Val is impossible to say. But she does keep agreeable pace with Wysteria, with minimal pulling on the stick.