There's a story in my veins, with scars on every page

[notathreat]

WHO: Ellie & OPEN
WHAT: Rifting in less-than-gracefully, a rogue explosion or two, & initial trouble accomplished
WHEN: Arrival and during the first week after.
WHERE: The Hinterlands, The Gallows
NOTES: So much swearing holy shit.

[Arrival.]

The worst part about lucid dreaming is when shit gets a little too real. Especially when it's not the usual kind of horrible. So when Ellie goes from another nightmare about things hunting her in an endless horrible sewer to being sucked into the water, hurtling down through the rain-soaked Seattle depths, she tries to tell herself that she can breathe underwater. She opens her mouth and tries, and the foul water fills her throat-

And she launches out, along with a gush of Seattle sewer water, hits a hillside and goes tumbling.

... and it's steep enough that she keeps going.

Ellie coughs, chokes, tries to scream, and unleashes a garbled stream of hacking, choking profanity.

Maybe you're the unlucky person on the trail she happens to literally bowl into (and possibly take out).

Or maybe you're the one who finds her screaming back into the face of a despair demon, soaked in foul-smelling sewer water, having just hurled a piece of rock shaped suspiciously like a revolver into its face.

She absolutely just called the demon a motherfucker.



[Gallows; Quarantine Times]

A bath, a few square meals and a bit of explanation later, Ellie seems far less... feral. She's dressed in local clothing, a tunic, pants and boots, and has stopped acting like a cat, roaming the stairways in the towers and popping up unexpectedly in places people didn't see her enter.

She shows up near the top of one of the towers, tucked into a window, looking down at the courtyard below.

"... so I heard there were actual griffons roosting up here. Is it true?"


[ooc; HMU if you want a custom starter!]

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[dinadhal]

Aenor backs up, pulling a long-bladed dagger as the demon comes her way. They're not her favourite thing to fight...though frankly, what is? The juggling of bow and dagger, awareness of everything around her, stabbing out at the creature's withered hands--this is something that must be done, but not something she takes any joy from.

"The Rift--" calling again toward the girl, gesturing at the source of the green light without looking at it, "--close it!"

The last thing they need is another demon clawing its way out of the Fade. Keeping track of the poor girl--and Then'Harel, for that matter--is difficult enough with one to fight.

cw: anchor-based body horror

[notathreat]

Ellie takes aim at the creature going after the woman, but it's moving too fast for her to get a clear shot. She only barely catches the words, snaps her head to one side to look at what looks like a crystalline, glowing tear in the world. It twists and undulates, and as she watches, she can see things moving on the other side.

"How am I supposed to-"

The Rift gives a pulse, something that Ellie feels in the palm of her left hand. A horrible opening sensation, like something tearing, like a wound re-splitting, stitches popping before they're healed. It's sickening and painful, and the utter shock of it staggers her.

She stares down at the mark. At the glowing spot on her palm, looking for all the world like a match to the Rift in front of them.

Wrapping her hand around her bow, she fights through the feeling, pulls back and lets another arrow fly, taking the demon in the side of the neck. It staggers, giving her unlikely partner another opening.

"How do I do that?"

[dinadhal]

Aenor sees enough from the corners of her eyes to know that the girl's found her shard. Poor thing--it looks painful enough from the outside. But she doesn't have much time to help out. This demon doesn't exactly play fair: sliding from view and appearing again with a blast of cold that makes her fingers ache, flitting out of her reach, forcing her to switch between her blade and her bow, over and over.

"The Rift!" she shouts again. "Close it!"

How exactly that happens is a question for someone with a shard of their own. So far as Aenor's seen, the shard knows enough on its own.

[notathreat]

It goes against Ellie's nature and better judgment to leave someone clearly on her side to fight without backup, but she drags her attention frantically back to the Rift.

The sooner she can figure out to close the fucking thing -- that spit her out, along with some monsters -- the sooner she can help.

Ellie's still a stranger to magic, but thanks to the god-shards splintered off inside of her, she knows enough to recognize that it's probably that, and the matching glowy green lights make it clear the two are connected. A lot of times, powers respond to will, so it seems like a natural stab in the semidarkness to put up her hand, palm-up, reaching towards the Rift.

Ellie wills the thing to close up, imagining drawing the sides together, like she'd will something to happen in a dream. It doesn't always work but it's worth a shot.

Pain lances all through her arm, and an arc of what looks like electricity sears the air between her and the rift. It's uncomfortable, difficult to maintain the connection, but she wills it closed. She can feel the fucking thing fighting her (which is terrifying implications-wise) but she leans into it, sweat beading on her forehead.

The edges draw together, then snap closed, severing the connection so suddenly that Ellie nearly loses her footing. The light's gone and her hand stings.

After a breath, she reaches for a large heavy stone the size of her hand and flings it at the hooded skull of the monster. It hits with a horrific crunching noise.

[dinadhal]

The girl has good aim--Aenor will happily grant her that. The demon's knocked back by the stone, and it doesn't get up, fading away into nothing. Back to the Fade, perhaps, or simply into the air, dispersed like dust motes blown off an old bottle.

Once it's gone, she takes a moment to get her bow strapped on her back once more, making no secret of the fact that she's looking over her new companion as she does. Human, smaller and younger than Caric, with freckles enough to suggest a life spent in the sunlight. The clothes don't suggest any land Aenor's heard of, but coming through a rift, who would expect otherwise?

"A good thing, I think, that I chose to ride today," she says cheerfully. The words are accented, the shape of her sentences from another language entirely. "Your name, what is it?"

Then'harel has managed the entire encounter with some grace (and only a little hissing). Once Aenor's gotten a look at him, she wipes her dagger off on a corner of his saddle blanket and sheathes it again.

[notathreat]

Ellie advances on it the second the thing goes down, unwilling to trust that it won't get up again, only to have goosebumps shiver over her skin when it dissolves, as if it never existed.

She takes a shaky breath, getting air back in her lungs as she sizes up the woman in front of her. She's slightly older than Ellie would have thought at first glance, her height and the way she moves had her assuming that she was closer to Ellie's age.

Ellie shakes off the lingering ache in her hand, glancing down at the green glow that's still there in her palm, though it's calmed down considerably now that the rift is gone. It makes her stomach roll; it's not the first time she's had something fucked up happen to her body, but there's comfort in the fact that the woman seems to recognize what's going on.

"Sh'yeah, no kidding," Ellie answers, her own accent closer to the dwarves of Orzammar than anything remotely local.

"I'm Ellie," she answers, letting herself breathe. She looks from the woman's weird mount, to the spot on the ground where the monster went to dust without a trace, to the now-whole air where the Rift spat her out, and back to the green glow of the tear in her palm.

... there are a lot of fucking questions.

"Thanks. For the save."

[dinadhal]

"Aenor," she offers in return. It's something she always appreciates, when there's no reason to offer her clan name (or lack thereof) in an introduction. With a Rifter, it's particularly easy--such a girl has no reason to expect one, nor any sense of what Din'adhal might mean. "Your thanks, they are unnecessary."

Then'Harel makes a noise beside her, and Aenor laughs, patting his withers. "And me, he says, you must introduce me. This is Then'Harel. When you are ready, we will ride."

But for the moment, the girl ought to have a moment to catch her breath. The poor thing still looks a bit stunned to Aenor's eye, and this patch of countryside isn't likely to bring them much trouble in the meantime. Compared to the deserts of her home, most of Thedas has felt positively harmless to her.

[notathreat]

Aenor's friendly, just saved her ass, and rides what looks like half a freaking dragon. Ellie is definitely still catching he breath, but there comes a point where the weird shit just piles up until it all blends together, doesn't it.

"Hey-" she gives an awkward pause, caught between her natural attraction to horses, and the fact that Then'Harel looks like he could tear her arm off and hawk it back without an issue. "-buddy."

Ellie pauses again, still catching her breath. She swears under her breath, wipes her damp hair back from her face, and centers herself. Next step. What now?

"Where are we headed?"

If Aenor's going to give her a lift, she's not going to sit here and interrogate her about it.

[dinadhal]

Then'Harel snorts a little, lowering his head toward Ellie. Aenor says something to him in Ander, laughing, and rubs her knuckles into his neck affectionately. "Theni, he wants you to pet him. A demanding creature."

Ellie can or cannot give into the dracolisk's demands. Either way, Aenor will swing herself up back into the saddle.

"A camp. Kirkwall, eventually--but Kirkwall, it is across the sea." First, they'll need to finish up their work in Ferelden, and then sail back to the Marches. "You have ridden before? Or will you need instruction?"

[notathreat]

The little horselike gesture the creature makes, the little dip and snort, has her smiling despite herself. It's been so long since she's been around any of them, and he's endearing in his lizardy way. So Ellie reaches out with both palms flat, letting him give her a sniff, then rubs along his nose-bridge, gently knuckling his cheeks, under his jaw, where she'd scratch a horse.

"Hey, he knows what he wants," she quips, and despite being a little breathless, she is smiling. He's not so bad.

She nods, patting Then'Harel's neck, then following Aenor to the side of the saddle, giving it a glance-over, identifying familiar parts. The unfamiliar.

"Just horses. But I figure I'm gonna learn quick." She places her foot in the stirrup and swings up behind Aenor, sliding it back out again and gripping with her thighs. It's definitely a different weight distribution.

She has questions about Kirkwall. About across the sea. But right now, she's not sure she's ready for the answers.

"Never actually seen one of him before. What is he?"

[dinadhal]

"Dracolisk." She reaches back for Ellie's hands, in hopes of putting her arms around her waist. They'll travel faster if she's holding on properly. "Desert Lightning. Dracolisks, they are not so large, less thirsty, less hungry. Better creatures than a horse, I think, when your work is mine."

What that work is, she doesn't say, but the difference between dracolisk and horse is likely evident as soon as Ellie's on Theni's back. He's a narrow creature, not overly tall, and when Aenor nudges him into a trot, he's all lean muscle and quick response.

[notathreat]

Better for covering long distances quickly and with fewer supplies. Definitely more agile, and suited to desert climates...?

Ellie readily follows Aenor's direction, maintaining her seat and holding on like she's used to it. Theni's alarmingly quick at first, but Ellie lets her body relax and adjust to the movement of the mount under her. He's actually a smoother ride than she's used to, though she's not looking forward to regaining her saddle seat. She'll see more than a few blisters by the end of this.

"Messenger?" she asks, since Aenor brought it up. "Or... something to do with those Rift things?"

Since she seemed to know so instantly what the glowing part of her hand was, that Ellie could close it. How to fight what came out of it.