faderift | open. you believe what you want to believe.

[ Grab me OOC if you'd like a bespoke starter! ]

Aside from the dream they all shared, she settles in fairly easily. There are endless questions to ask others, of course--"How is it I go to--" or "What is this, our dinner tonight?" and so on--and she's not sure she plans to remain in the Gallows. But Riftwatch itself is surprisingly enjoyable.

(And the food is much better than what she'd have been eating on the high desert alone.)

The first time it snows, Aenor's agog, standing in the courtyard wrapped up in a heavy cloak and staring up at the grey sky as though she's never seen it before. The snowflakes carpet her dark hair and the fur collar at her neck. Do you do anything else with snow besides look at it? All she can think to do is stare, trying to figure out where in the thick cloud cover it actually comes from.

Of course, then it gets far more wintry, a blizzard with winds that blow too hard to stand around in. At that point, she sits near any fire with space, a hot drink held in both her hands, possibly seasoned with its fair share of liquor. Coming to sit by her opens one up to being badgered with questions, if warmly and politely. And the first one might be the easiest: "Ah--who are you?"

After that point, she admires it as a sort of loyal opposition--a mood brought on by her first real experience with ice. Out she's going toward the ferry, and then a footfall lands, slips, and sends her flying with a shout of surprise.

[ Or toss me a wildcard! Aenor is in Scouting, and she's a very short Dalish elf from the Anderfels, often seen in the company of a lanky human who towers over her. Brackets are fine if you prefer them. ]

When Laura wakes from the dream, she doesn't want to get up--not with her cat asleep on her chest and the air outside her bed cold and her head still churning with images that seem too fantastical to be real. Black gates to a city that should not be. A life that hasn't happened. And magic, more magic than she's ever wanted.

She takes an assignment from the board and does it, staying in Kirkwall but finding as much reason to be out of the Gallows as possible. And then she does more. Patrols. Standing watch outside a Hightown party. Helping a Chantry sister fold blankets. Whatever she can find to occupy herself, keeping her hands busy and her mind focused on small objectives.

It fills the better part of four days, while the nights are given over to thinking about things she hadn't planned to wonder about. What it might take to marry a man in Kirkwall; what to do on the occasion that such a man might use magic to make servants out of others' bodies; whether this means the Fitcher in her dreams was right. Answers don't come, only more questions, until her next mission is clear. (Well, save one mission in between, finding out from Commander Flint what requirements there are for marriage. But that's easily accomplished by comparison.)

On the fifth morning, she goes to the room Matthias sleeps in and pokes her head in, trying to determine if he's still asleep without rousing anyone else who might be asleep in the other bunks. The only way she'll know what she thinks is to talk to him.

[ The enemy is funding and directing a group of bandits harassing travelers through the northern Marches. Switch the list of targets the bandit leader is to receive with a revised list prepared by Riftwatch. ]

The storm lingers. Crouched in a cave bluff, they might reach out and touch it: Wind gusts in powdery spirals, gutters the little fire at its mouth. At least no one'll be looking for them in this weather.

"Shoulda gone with Jimmy," He waggles the stick, "More familiar."

"Oh--!"

Before she can hit the ground too hard, she's caught from behind by two large hands on her shoulders, which easily help her upright again.

"Sorry, ma'am." Should she turn to see her savior, she will also have to look rather upwards, at the wall of person that is Barrow, who smiles easily down at her. "That could've got ugly, eh?"

Even properly clothed, the severity of the winter chill is something she's not entierly used to herself and there is a point where ignoring it becomes less determination and more foolishness. Diana seats herself near the small elven woman without much fanfare, a little surprised when she's addressed first.

"Diana," she says with a ready smile. She huddles a little closer to the fire and holds her hands out to warm them. The rift shard flashes, which perhaps goes farther in explaining who she is, but she adds, "I'm a Rifter. Recently arrived and I can't say I'm enjoying the weather very much."

Aenor laughs, taking the stick from his hands so she can poke at the branches on their sad little fire. "Ah, you see--familiarity, this is the problem. Jimmy would be an insult."

He's been busy as well, Matthias, though perhaps not as busy as Laura. He wouldn't know. It's not precisely been an avoiding, but the fact that they've not run into each other in days has been all right, because Matthias isn't certain of how running into each other will be.

Much of the dream has become hazy. There are parts that endure. And every time that Matthias has reached for his magic in the last few days, he has thought first of how easy it had been in the dream, how much power he had just buzzing under his skin. And then second he had thought of the Vint with his throat torn open.

On the fifth morning after the dream, Matthias is awake. Sleeping in is either an indulgence or a mistake, and not easy to manage in shared quarters no matter how heavy of a sleeper you are. Matthias is still wearing the shirt and quilted trousers he'd slept in. He is seated cross-legged on his bed, bent with furious concentration over his other shirt. There is a rather large tear in its sleeve and he is working to mend it. This is not a skill at which he excels, as someone nearly too impatient to be able successfully thread a needle.

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye snags his attention and he looks up and sees Laura. And now that she's here, he realizes that he's missed her. Seeing her peering around the door frame puts a drop of dread in him, but there's relief, too, and he shoves the needle clumsily through the shirt to keep his place, and sets it aside.

"Hi." Not an auspicious start. But he has to say something. "All right?"

It wasn’t practical to hold the dinner in the grand dining room. With winter still in full force, a smaller room with a large fire made more sense, and one of the smaller rooms in the wing where they slept suited well enough. Thranduil had adapted quickly to living somewhere that wasn’t the Gallows; was pleased Gwenaëlle was around family; was delighted to have a chef again.

He sat by the fire, rose to his feet when she entered, escorted by one of the duke's footmen. The book he had been reading was left behind in the armchair, second fiddle to Aenor and her company.

"I regret not sending a carriage, or one of the staff, but I trust you had no trouble?" He did not wait for her hand, as he would have, but neither did he presume upon a Dalish greeting. His hands stayed by his sides, where she could see them. "My wife will join us in a while."

It only occurs to Laura now, looking at Matthias looking at her, that he nearly always smiles at her when he sees her. Seeing him discombobulated--guarded?--has an aberrant quality to it, like a portrait with the wrong nose painted onto its subject's face.

"Yes." She pauses, reconsidering. "Maybe."

Matthias asks all right? where other people ask how are you?, but he means the question more sincerely. And Laura uncertain she's all right. She's spent the better part of a week avoiding him; even as she slips into his room and shuts the door behind her, she's not sure she wants to be here. Standing with her arms behind her, the fingertips of one hand pressing hard into her wrist, she feels formal even by her own standards.

"Are you?"

"You sure it's insulting?" The stick gives up easy. He rocks back, leaned over a knee. "Could be you scare him."

What a terrifying figure she cuts. Not what he means.

This idea is somehow even more laughable--but she doesn't, in this case, laugh, only considers while she peers through the wisps of smoke to the wintry world outside. Amusement hasn't fled her expression by any means, though, nor her voice. "Am I such a scary thing?"

"It's the fangs, I reckon," The crook of a hand: That's claws, Vance. "Nah, I don't know. Don't think you command nothing unless you like making choices. Gotta be strange to lose one."

Aenor turns her head enough that she can bare her teeth at him, grinning around the face she's making. The stick, she sets gently beside his nearest foot. "Such a choice, Jim or not. Frightening, I think."

More seriously, though--if not much more: "Next, you will call him Jim? We'll compare our notes."

"That's his name, isn't it?"

The picture of innocence.

"Yeah," he says, "maybe."

All at once, he shoves the shirt onto the floor, and scoots back so that the end of the bed is free and clear. He makes a quick gesture toward it.

"You can sit, if you like. Or on any of the other beds as well. No one's about, it's just us. Erm, I--" He swallows, drops his eyes to the folds of the blanket. "I was thinking that we ought to talk, so I'm glad you came round. I'm-- I'm glad to see you. You are here on purpose, aren't you? You meant to come and see me? This isn't some mistake. Sorry, I sound like an idiot, it's just," and now he frowns at the blanket, "I did want to see you. I just didn't go and find you. That was stupid. Sorry."

She comes closer, shoulders a little hunched--they both feel stupid, if Matthias is to be believed, and he always is. A flash of regret comes over her as she realizes she might have brought Biter with her. Their cat has no idea it should feel awkward about anything; she would sit on Matthias' lap and get fur all over the shirt he's mending, and Laura thinks it would make him more comfortable. And she, in turn, might feel more comfortable, too.

"I meant to come and see you," she agrees, climbing onto the foot of his bed. Where the prosaic come-and-go of the dream has receded, curling up beneath piles of furs with him hasn't. Sitting with her legs crossed, facing him with a gulf of rumpled fabric between them, brings it to mind now.

And it reminds her of that other girl, the one she was (or could be someday, five years from now). Who used contractions, smiled easily, hugged people, and found words for feelings. Laura tries to remember how simple it had seemed in the dream, looks for that projected confidence. At the very least, she tries to explain herself, rather than sitting silent and making Matthias talk them both toward the thing they're both thinking about.

"I was unsure we wanted to talk to each other. But I--" a little breath, rubbing the knuckles of one hand--"missed you."

(Explanation, she can do, if haltingly. Confidence is more complicated. But the words are spoken, and that's what matters.)

He lets out a little breath that he hadn't known he was holding. "I missed you too."

It's easy to confess, because it's very true. Matthias has grown used to Laura being around, and while the novelty of having a girlfriend hasn't worn off--someone you can spend time with, someone who always wants to be around you--it's become a novelty he's accustomed with, like a really good pair of boots or the warmest blanket, or the sending crystals. Being without has felt wrong.

He turns his hands over and looks at them instead of at her. "I'm not sorry for the magic." On his thumb, under his knuckles, there's the callouses from holding his staff. Only mages have those. Matthias rubs at them. He takes another breath. "I don't want to wait to say all of this. I'm not sorry for the magic but I am sorry for-- for what I did. The blood magic. I never have before, it came really easily, I'd never felt anything like that before, so I didn't think-- I knew I could, so I did. I remember that I felt like I had to save you. I had to stop him. So I-- did. But I know it scares people," he interrupts himself to clarify, "I know people don't like it. And I never have before. I think it did help," or it would have helped, but Laura finished the Vint, her lyrium claws tearing open his throat like shears into paper, "but I'm not a blood mage."

So they each stare at their hands as Matthias explains. The words blood magic always sit oddly with her--the fact of having a name for it at all, maybe, a way of talking about it. There's a cruelty to the sound of it that doesn't match Matthias' easy smile or sense of care.

Which makes it easy to nod when he says I'm not a blood mage. He isn't. He wouldn't be. It was a dream, and--as she'd had to inform Byerly--dreams are not real.

But.

"It did not help. Blood magic never helps." She flicks a glance up at him, head still tilted down, green eyes sharp and sad.

Matthias hesitates. He wants to agree with her--or, more, he wants this to be easy. He hasn't disagreed with Laura before. It feels as wrong as not speaking with her had felt. Worse, maybe.

But as much as he wants to agree, he doesn't want to lie. Magic is good. Magic has only ever helped him. Someone who hasn't got any magic, they wouldn't know that. Someone that was only ever hurt by magic, they wouldn't know that either.

"It could." There's caution in his voice. "I wouldn't do it, it's not for me, but-- People, mages, have to do things, sometimes. To defend someone or stop something from happening. Desperation, not something that they do normally--I wouldn't trust anyone that just, you know, did blood magic, but--someone that needed to."

She shakes her head, locks of dark hair falling in front of her face. There's no reason to push it back again--it's a curtain against the things Matthias is saying right now, all the things she's never thought about in relation to him. Of course he would hate bad magic as much as she: he's only ever performed spells that Laura approves of, as far as she knows. He mostly only starts fires, and only in places where they need fire.

It's obvious that she's treading on dangerous ground, as clear as stepping onto ice and hearing it creak. But she knows she has to say something. What, she isn't sure of. Her words are slow, deliberate attempts to feel things out as she goes. "Your magic does things that help. It makes you faster at making fires. And it is...I like what it looks like."

Matthias throwing fire around for fun, someplace it won't catch on anything--it's fascinating to watch. Sometimes it's beautiful.

"But anyone could do it," she continues. She swallows. "I can light a fire, too. I cannot tell someone's hands to betray them."

"So we aren't wrong." Breezily self-satisfied, reaching into a pocket of her cloak for a flask and a lump of wrapped paper that turns out to hold a sandwich. Brown bread, some kind of paste of fish and mustard, shreds of cabbage to give it a green touch. She'd never had anything like it before Kirkwall. "Half, it is for you, if you will call him Jim for me."

Matthias curls his fingers into a loose fist, more for comfort than anything else. His sleeves are too short to grab hold of. This is the next best thing. In his chest, his heart is beating very hard. The compliment to his magic makes him feel like he's stood on top of a mountain. The rest of it makes him feel like he took a wrong step and he's started to fall.

"But it doesn't have to be that. You can use your own blood. That's the better way to do it. Or if you had someone who was willing to give it over--just for the power. Not to control. I know that's what happened, in the dream," which is important to say, it was only a dream, "but that was only because I was, or I mean, I wasn't, thinking. It just happened."

He looks back down at his hands again. He's as rapid-fire as ever, especially when compared to her slow and deliberate speech. That makes the space between worse still.

"If you could. If you were a mage. And you were-- I dunno, you were about to die. Or if I was about to die. And you could save me--you really wouldn't use it?"

Whether it's the finest room in the house used for meals or not, it's more than grand enough for Aenor, most used to drafty fortresses and worn tents and old memories of aravels. A home in which everything is kept neat, where the decor is filigreed and scrolled and otherwise given every possible bit of prettiness, is impressive.

(It feels wasteful, too--she can only imagine Caric's commentary, and he wouldn't be wrong--but after the poor weather she walked through to get here, she'll take the warmth of a roaring fire and a well-insulated room. The peasant rebellions of her son's dreams can come tomorrow, after she's supped.)

"Ah, no." Her cape has already been spirited off to some closet or other, leaving her in the layered linens and wool she'd made use of in the Anderfels. There's no such thing as dressed up in her life, though she's at least chosen the least obviously mended clothing she owns. Similarly, she's happy enough to meet without any particular greeting--it's familiar, to come straight to the point. "The ice and I, we have an understanding now. I step carefully, and it lets me pass. No carriage needed."

open. you believe what you want to believe.

laura kint.

aenor dinadhal.

open. winter is very wet, isn't it?

closed. matthias.

no subject

The Big Slip

no subject

no subject

no subject

(1) predinner elf

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject