MOD PLOT ↠ The Soldiers of the Demon Charged

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Striking closer to home.
WHEN: Justinian through Solace
WHERE: The Western/Central Free Marches
NOTES: OOC post. Please use appropriate content warnings in your comment subject lines.

WEEK ONE: THE COLLAPSE OF HASMAL

Recently in Hasmal, growing outrage from native Hasmalis over the swelling number of Tevinter refugees within and outside the city has led to a series of smaller violent incidents that went largely unanswered by local authorities, leading to additional targeting of more established Tevinter communities within the city and the makeshift fortification and arming of the camps outside. In the last week or so, after a period of simmering tensions, the situation in Hasmal has boiled over into violent riots. Reports out of the city conflict about what finally caused the rapid escalation, how bad things got, and whose fault they were. But they agree that it very quickly became a dangerous situation that the city authorities utterly failed to bring under control. Fires burned in some quarters of the city and deadly clashes between factions forced uninvolved citizens to barricade themselves in their homes. Some city leaders urged calm and peace while others encouraged supporters to seize the moment and fight for the upper hand. The Grand Vizier was nowhere to be seen. Somehow, amidst the chaos, the gates were opened and in marched the Tevinter army.

The violence, and then even more Tevinter's arrival—supposedly to help restore peace to the city, though it's unclear whether that has actually happened—has caused many to flee the city, particularly the refugee community who had fled from Tevinter once already. With nothing but the Tevinter desert of the Silent Plains to the north, most either jumped ship down the Minanter or came south across the river into Tantervale territory and Wildervale, with some now arriving in Kirkwall with their tales of chaos in the western-most March.

Also, Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult are missing, having gone to meet a contact coming across the Minanter from Tevinter some days ago. They ought to be returning, but neither has been in contact since. In their absence, Ambassador Rutyer and Provost Stark will be running Riftwatch, and can direct Scouting and Forces as they see fit and delegate authority for those operations as necessary.

UNKNOWNS

This is a fast-moving situation, with events clearly already running well ahead of news. With limited resources at hand, intelligence networks in the previously quiet Free Marches have been somewhat neglected by the Inquisition and Riftwatch both. Much remains unclear, subject of wild rumor and conflicting reports from the few sources in the area:

There are stories that the Grand Vizier Rekam Antoninus, ruler of Hasmal, is either complicit in the Tevinter takeover or in league with refugees to try to bring down the city's nobility. There are rumors he has fled the city, or even that he's dead by a half-dozen different hands.

There are similarly conflicting reports about other Hasmal city leaders, with some said to have been encouraging the various factions involved in the riots, trying without success to calm the situation, or using the situation to advance their own interests in one way or another. It's likely that at least a few were cooperating to some extent with Tevinter, though exact numbers and identities can't be known right now.

The size of the Tevinter force in Hasmal isn't yet clear, as the numbers reported by those who fled the city at their arrival range from "most of the Tevinter army" to "five times the size of the entire Tevinter army."

All reports at this point are coming from people who have fled Hasmal, so there's essentially no reliable information about what the situation is like inside the city since Tevinter moved in.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

As soon as word begins trickling in, Riftwatch will begin sending parties north to investigate the situation. Anyone with a relevant skill or two might be assigned to venture out to:

• AERIAL SURVEILLANCE: Use griffons for aerial surveillance of the region between Kirkwall and Hasmal, to watch for any further movement of the Tevinter army. Using sending crystals, they'll also be able to send back reports of the routes any large groups of refugees seem to be taking. And they'll be charged with assessing the roads and terrain between Kirkwall and Hasmal, identifying the routes an army could take to reach further South and what chokepoints—bridges, narrow passages, castles and fortresses with defenses that might hold—could be exploited to slow them down. (The distance from Kirkwall to Hasmal is too great for the griffons to be flying back and forth every day; aerial teams will be gone for several days at a time, and in the meantime staying on the property of a druffalo farmer in Wildervale or in wilderness camps of their own making.)


• ASSIST TRAVELLERS: Intercept people fleeing Hasmal—to assist them, when necessary, but also to get as much information from them as possible to try to separate rumors from first-hand accounts or find consistencies between stories that might point toward truths. Many of these people will be refugees twice over, already having fled from Tevinter in the wake of Corypheus' takeover, so some may have relevant information about Tevinter as well. And there is always the possibility that some loyal to Tevinter and the Venatori are disguised among the refugees, so they'll need to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.


• ASSIST TOWNSFOLK: Meet with the Countess of Wildervale and local leaders of smaller towns and villages. Those south of Wildervale may need to be alerted about the waves of travelers they're about to see, while those north of Wildervale will have been reached by refugees before Riftwatch and may be overwhelmed by the sudden swell of visitors and potential long-term residents. Some of those fleeing Hasmal may be settling into these villages for the long haul due to exhaustion or a lack of resources, while many others are terrified of Tevinter at their heels and want to go further south to put at least one major city between them and Hasmal. It's a valid fear, so in addition to discussing the refugee situation and how many more people the villages can viably feed and house, Riftwatch teams will need to help assess their defenses and escape routes if the invasion pushes further south, ideally without causing a panic.

Meanwhile, in Kirkwall, those who aren't suited to fieldwork or who are between trips out of the city will:

• ATTEND MEETINGS: The Viscount, Kirkwall's nobility, and City Guard representatives in Viscount's Keep will be meeting for long hours to discuss whether or not Kirkwall will be able to accept refugees (and to what extent) and the city's defenses and fortifications. Riftwatch won't have any formal say in these decisions, but its representatives may be able to provide information as it becomes available and maybe sneak some opinions in there as well.


• READY LOOKOUT TOWERS: Assist the city with transporting supplies to and chasing bandits out of rarely-used guard towers in the Vinmarks.


• ORGANIZE RIFTWATCH'S EFFORTS: Amass, organize, and disseminate the information being relayed back from the teams in the field—for example, making sure the Riftwatch teams advising refugees on which villages and cities will be able to take them in aren't directing them all to the same place and causing it to become overwhelmed.

There are also a few specific missions that will be assigned to those with suitable skills at the end of the week. Based on the available information, teams will be sent to Hasmal and to Tantervale to accomplish the following:

• HASMAL AERIAL SURVEILLANCE: The Hasmal team will travel by griffon to conduct fly-over surveillance of the city and the territory to the north and west, to try to gather information about the Tevinter forces. From griffonback, the team may occasionally spot Tevinter scouting parties or small clusters of soldiers that can be picked off or harassed, whether from the air or by landing to confront them.


• HASMAL GROUND SURVEILLANCE: The griffon team will also be carrying passengers, a small team who they will have to stealthily drop into Hasmal so that they can spend two days gathering information about the situation in the city itself before they're picked up by the griffons once again.


• TANTERVALE OUTREACH: The Tantervale team will try to meet with Tantervale's leadership to coordinate defense and relief efforts. They'll travel by horseback (griffons would only remind folks how weird Riftwatch is) and work through diplomatic channels and court backchannels to try to gain an audience with the Lady Chancellor and/or her ministers and persuade them of the benefits of working together.

These missions will be interrupted by the red lyrium dragon, which will first arrive over Hasmal just as the griffon riders are collecting their spy passengers for departure. The dragon will chase the griffons off before continuing on to Tantervale, where the team in the city will be forced to flee its attack and escape from the city.



WEEKS TWO & THREE: THE RUIN OF TANTERVALE

After the news of Tevinter's takeover of Hasmal, its closest neighbor, Tantervale, is calling a muster of whatever fighting-age men are left in its territory. Most of Tantervale's soldiers have previously joined the Exalted March, leaving the city-state only lightly defended. Whoever remains is ordered to arm themselves and meet outside the city within the week to protect against the threat of Tevinter incursion, or possibly even to threaten to join any supposed 'peacekeeping' force in Hasmal. The exact plan is unknown, but the citizens of Tantervale—known across Thedas for their religious zeal—appear eager to answer the call to defend their home and any fellow devotees of the Chantry from the dangerous northern heretics.

But in the end, how many they manage to attract to this makeshift defensive force hardly matters. The gathered host is powerless to stop the sudden, devastating attack of the corrupted high dragon. The huge, red-lyrium-infected beast—known to be under the command of Corypheus for some years now, but rarely seen since it perched triumphant atop the Archon's palace in Minrathous 3 years ago—emerges above Hasmal before flying the short distance east to Tantervale and laying waste to that city.

Simultaneously, confused reports are reaching Riftwatch from both Orlais and Ferelden, indicating an array of calamities: scattered across both countries, several small villages and their fields were recently set aflame, an important bridge over the Drakon River destroyed in Ferelden, a noble family and their entire staff found hanging evenly spaced from rafters in their estate not far from Halamshiral.

UNKNOWNS

Riftwatch agents present at Hasmal and Tantervale during the early stages of the dragon attack witness its beginning, but as they have to run for their lives, little is immediately known about its outcome. Given the destruction they did see, it's believed that Tantervale was a massacre, resulting in many, many deaths and much of the city destroyed by fire and corruption. A wave of people have now joined the stragglers from Hasmal fleeing south, but how many of them actually managed to escape the city of Tantervale itself as opposed to its surrounding countryside is unknown, and among those who survived, many begin to show signs of darkspawn corruption on the road.

Per the reports coming from the South, the leaders in both Ferelden and Orlais initially respond as if being invaded before realizing that the incidents were not the beginning of a larger military push. It will take some time for it to become clear that all of these events happened on the same day as the assault on Tantervale, mostly by individual actors.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

Most of the work Riftwatch was doing in Week 1 will continue in Weeks 2 and 3, while pivoting or expanding to include dealing with the situation in Tantervale as well:

• ASSIST TRAVELERS & TOWNSFOLK: The attack on Tantervale will essentially double the number of new refugees fleeing south, testing the work Riftwatch did in Week 1 and greatly increasing the strain on communities in Wildervale. Some they may be able to persuade to make do and accommodate more fellow Marchers, while others will reach the end of either their supplies or their patience or both, and Riftwatch agents will need to help calm tensions and find alternatives.


• SHORE UP DEFENSES: Efforts to shore up defenses in the region will ratchet up, and Riftwatch agents will be called on to do things like help train emergency village militias, build makeshift defenses, and provide advice on what to do in case of dragon attack.

For those in Kirkwall:

• ASSIST ARRIVING REFUGEES: Pressure on Kirkwall itself will increase as the first refugees arrive at the city and an even greater number look likely to do so in the near future. Kirkwall has a fairly fraught recent history with refugees from a crisis—the influx of Blight refugees from Ferelden caused a nativist backlash that went on for years. In this case, the locals will be somewhat more friendly because the refugees are their fellow Marchers, as well as slightly more frightened because this crisis isn't happening across a sea. But there will still be a fairly tepidly charitable response to the needs of incoming people, and those escaping Hasmal who are clearly of Tevinter origin will have an especially difficult time. Riftwatch's help will be needed in connecting the new arrivals with those who are willing to help them and aiding in the construction of some temporary structures and camps for those without other means of housing themselves.


• PREPARE FOR THE WORST: Riftwatch will be called upon by the Viscount's office to work with the City Guard to review Kirkwall's defenses, work on emergency upgrades, help man observation posts further afield to provide early warning of any imminent attack. For the time being, a regular rotation of Riftwatch members will be sent to keep watch at some of the further towers, since their sending crystals will allow them to pass along more information more quickly than the warning fires. There will also be a lot of discussion about how to handle a dragon attack--with the expectation that Riftwatch will take a lead role in defending against any such attack.

Elsewhere, Riftwatch will send teams to:

• STARKHAVEN: Believed to be the most likely next target for assault other than Kirkwall. Riftwatch will send a team to meet with current leadership to offer to provide mage support against a potential dragon attack, coordination of defensive efforts, and to learn how Starkhaven plans to handle Tantervale refugees.


• OSTWICK, MARKHAM, HERCINIA, ANSBURG, & WYCOME: Too far to have been directly affected yet. Riftwatch will send representatives to court to try to meet with leaders to discuss coordinating efforts across the region for mutual defense against Tevinter, encouraging them to raise soldiers, shore up defenses, and take in refugees.


• FERELDEN & ORLAIS: By the end of Week 3 it will be clear that what happened in Orlais and Ferelden is likely a diversionary tactic, meant to compel them to keep their attention at home rather than throwing too much of their weight behind assisting the Free Marches, but a few people will be sent to investigate the sites of some attacks for any evidence of how they were coordinated and to be sure further attacks aren't impending.

(OOC Note: For attacks in Ferelden and Orlais and for small villages around Hasmal and Tantervale, you're welcome to invent the names of these places and invent details of what exactly happened without checking in with us. If your character is from one of these areas, you're also welcome to say their hometowns or places they're familiar with were affected, as long as: (1) it isn't a place big enough to be on the canon map of Thedas and (2) if someone else's character is coincidentally from the same place, you check with them first.)



WEEKS FOUR & FIVE: THE MARCH ON STARKHAVEN

The situation in the Free Marches continues to deteriorate rapidly. With Tantervale now more rubble than city, nothing substantial stands between the Tevinter force in Hasmal and either Kirkwall, home of Riftwatch, or Starkhaven, the cultural and financial heart of the Marches. An advance on one or both of those cities is believed to be the next logical step, but nobody knows for sure which it's going to be or whether it's going to come in the form of an attack by dragon or just ("just") an army.

Reports from the Riftwatch teams in and over Hasmal at the end of Week 1 spotted signs of that army readying to move, and further griffon reconnaissance during Weeks 2 and 3 confirmed that with Tantervale out of the way the army is now moving quickly. Their path is clearly pointed east toward Starkhaven. Like Tantervale, Starkhaven is lightly-defended, much of its forces—along with its ruler, Prince Sebastian Vael—in Orlais with the Exalted March.

Help from elsewhere is unlikely to arrive in time. Those Marches who might have been best positioned to support Starkhaven in its time of need find themselves with problems of their own, as coastal communities in Ostwick and Hercinia suffer a rash of brutal and unusually well-organized pirate attacks. The port towns of Torbay and Ogwell near Ostwick and Noli near Hercinia take the brunt of it, sacked and burned by marauders. There are several attacks on shipping reported as well, with prizes taken from normally safe waters where the Waking Sea meets the Amaranthine. Both city-states have increased naval patrols and are now on alert, but they're looking outwards, not inland.

UNKNOWNS

How quickly reinforcements will arrive. Agents and Inquisition contacts in Orlais report that the Exalted March is now aware, and that there are urgent debates among the commanders about how to react. Prince Sebastian Vael is thought to be planning to return imminently, but precisely how long that will take—and how many men he will bring with him—remains unknown.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

• SLOWING THE ADVANCE: Riftwatch will do its best to slow the enemy advance and buy Starkhaven time to prepare. Without the numbers to engage the host directly, teams will instead be tasked with making the journey as difficult as possible by creating obstacles along the way: think rockslides, blown bridges, washed out roads, felled trees clogging the river, sabotaged boats and wagons, and so forth. Traps or small guerrilla-style attacks may be laid at some of these points, but with strict orders not to risk it unless conditions allow Riftwatch the advantage to attack swiftly and then escape again. The goal is to harass and pick off low-hanging fruit, not get caught up in an unwinnable battle.


• PREPARING STARKHAVEN: Preventing an attack on Starkhaven seems impossible, but Riftwatch can at least help the city prepare for it. At this point a siege is the best option, but it will mean being (or at least looking) strong enough to withstand an initial assault. Top priorities are:
  
  • Reinforcing city defenses. These efforts were already underway by Week 2, but will become far more urgent, and leaders will be much more eager to hear from Riftwatch anything they know about the enemy forces.
  
  
  • Stocking the city. This includes bringing in supplies to prepare for the siege they now hope comes, whether by wagon or boat or griffon, and Riftwatch may even be asked to help negotiate with merchants and farmers to get deals done and goods delivered faster if possible.
  
  
  • Bolstering numbers. They need all the fighting manpower they can get, so Riftwatch will be helping recruit by explaining the situation, the context of the war, and encouraging anyone able to fight to help, and then transporting them from the countryside to the city walls as fast as possible. Bringing in fighting men means more mouths to feed, so Riftwatch will also be asked to help ferry vulnerable people out of the city to safety in other Marches. At first this effort will focus on the young and old with political importance, but it will be expanded (if Riftwatch pushes and also if they work fast enough to make it feasible) to include young and old of all classes.
  
  
  • Helping keep the peace and avoid a panic. Between the news of the on-coming army, the rash of high-profile assassinations (see below) and the horrific fate of Tantervale, the people of Starkhaven are understandably on edge. The mood in the city is one of barely suppressed terror, and city officials are anxious to avoid any incidents that might light a spark and distract from necessary preparations. Riftwatch will be asked to assist the guard in patrolling public areas where people tend to gather and help defuse situations, from breaking up brawls and preventing theft and hoarding of supplies to chasing off an obnoxious crier who won't stop stirring up fears with his vivid tales of how he received his scar at the hands of the vicious, unstoppable Tevinters.


• PROTECTING THE COUNTRYSIDE: The enemy journey through the Marches isn't as orderly as it was in Orlais. Parties of enemy soldiers and mages are veering south (occasionally north, into the strip of Marches before the Antivan border, but mostly south) across the river to attack travelers, sack villages, burn farms, and generally cause chaos. This will also involve periodic dragon attacks in the regions between Hasmal, Wildervale, and Starkhaven. These attacks are sudden and brief, hitting random locations, causing death and damage, and leaving as quickly as they arrived. Riftwatch agents traveling through the region for any purpose will need to be on guard, and teams will also be tasked to help patrol the countryside and major roads to protect against enemy attacks. Some teams may be stationed in towns and villages for days at a time, ready to respond to any reports of enemy attacks nearby and coordinate via crystal.

And in the midst of this work, there will be some additional specific missions:

• STARKHAVEN ASSASSIN: An assassin is stalking the streets of Starkhaven. Four prominent citizens have been murdered in the past two weeks, including two high-ranking guard captains, a celebrated knight who won the Grand Tourney not long ago, and Lord Kennech, a frontrunner to replace Lord Greer as regent. The murders have been brazen and bloody, not identical but each marked with the sigil of a prominent family drawn in blood, the first (over Lord Kennech) being the symbol of House Harimann, now most famous for having arranged the murders of Prince Sebastian Vael's family in a coup attempt in 9:31. The other houses referenced similarly have prominent betrayals and power-grabs in their history. No one is quite sure what any of it means, but it has certainly set the city even further on edge and has suspicions between members of the ruling class nearing a high. As a neutral party, Riftwatch will be asked to help provide security for potential targets.


• DRAGON TRACKING: Corypheus' dragon has rarely been sighted very far from him, and its presence in the Free Marches raises the possibility that he's somewhere nearby. A few different small teams on griffon- and horseback will attempt to track it to where it's resting between its excursions to terrorize the countryside, with the hope that Corypheus is there and this may present an opportunity to confront him directly with fewer fortifications.


• FIREBOMBING THE ARMY: As the army nears Starkhaven, another griffon-based team will make one last push to slow them down. The evening before they inevitably reach the city, the team will fly over their camp with mages, Antivan Fire grenades and breakable flasks of oil, and anything else they can come up with to rain literal fire on the Tevinter camps.

WEEK SIX: FALLING ACTION

The Tevinter force finally arrives at Starkhaven. After all the work to delay the enemy and speed preparations, the city is ready to hold fast against them at least until Prince Sebastian can return from Orlais with the army and (they hope) the Exalted March in tow. The Tevinter force, clearly still hoping to take the city before those reinforcements arrive, sets up camp as if for a siege but then launches a pre-dawn attack in hope of breaching the gates. This is repelled, but periodic assault (mostly magical) on the city walls continues—thus far with little effect.

Now that the enemy has arrived at Starkhaven, there isn't much more Riftwatch can do to help directly. The force is still too large for them to take on, and while they can get away with some limited griffon stealth missions in and out of the city, the large-scale operations of previous weeks are no longer possible. Prince Sebastian and the fastest part of his forces will arrive by the end of the week, and he will then take the lead in determining how to defend Starkhaven. He'll be happy to talk to Riftwatch about what they've seen and done in the interim and will be grateful for their efforts on behalf of his city. But there's a lot for him to figure out at present, and coordinating the type of smaller-scale work Riftwatch is best suited for isn't top of his agenda at the moment. Essentially, he'll be in touch.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

All agents in and around Starkhaven are pulled back just ahead of the Tevinter force's arrival, along with any last group of vulnerable citizens they're able to get out. Riftwatch will continue to put more focus than it previously had on the Free Marches, with increased patrols and surveillance, and will keep an eye on the refugee situation as things develop. The enemy presence in the Marches will continue to cause trouble, with occasional parties of soldiers and mages marauding, posing new hazards closer to home than before that will periodically require Riftwatch's attention. And the situation in Starkhaven will continue to develop and may require more assistance in the future. But otherwise, it's more or less back to business as usual for now, just with a new set of issues added to the pile.

Comments

[heorte]

A brief flick of a smile. Unspoken: Forgive me. But no contradiction. Maybe he is a fool. There are certainly those who would agree with the assessment, working alongside them now.

Tension still comes to meet Astarion's hands. Partly because of that touch, and partly because it is hard to have someone at his back who is still such an unknown is some many respects. Ellis waits out the urge to twist away, preoccupying himself with the aftermath of impact. Armor mutes a blow, but doesn't erase it entirely. He can feel where a spectacular bruise will come up on his forearm as he flexes it this way and that.

"We are set apart, because of what we've sworn our lives to," Ellis answers. "We can't forget that."

How they'll live. How they'll die. How little time they have to pass from one state to the other.

And here is the point where Ellis should dredge up a question. It's slow in coming; he isn't curious in this way, doesn't like what feels to him to be prying.

"Would you tell me a story from your home?" isn't Tell me a story but it's in the vicinity. Allowing some breathing room, for things Astarion might not want to speak of.

[illithidnapped]

“I’m not a traveling bard, darling.” Or a particularly pedantic mage, for that matter— Gale.

“And I’m afraid my life’s been a rather....restrictive one, up until now. No bedtime stories to share that wouldn’t give you nightmares.”

He finishes working Ellis over just as mildly as he’d come slithering in: slender fingertips dragging just faintly as they pull away, one breath inhaled— let go— in stepping back to leave a narrow little band of space between them.

“Well. You weren’t lying to cover your own tracks. Nothing terrible that I can see— which I suppose means it’s my turn.”

Turn literally, as he puts his own back to Ellis in low light, raising an arm to show off one wide-angled cut running long across his forearm. Shallow, but visible through leather. The other mark across his shoulder blade, just above it by an inch or so, ruddy red showing in what must have been an attempt at a stab wound that never truly took hold. If inspected, it sits surrounded by scar tissue that runs much, much thicker— and much deeper

If it hurts, Astarion doesn’t seem to notice.

“What’s your favorite scent?”

[heorte]

What comes to mind first: lavender. Lavender and clean, sharp soap and the sting of chemicals.

An easier answer: fresh-tilled earth.

But both answers are crowded aside by the slices Astarion puts on display. Ellis frowns, the first prickle of temper sparking up.

"You should have said something," follows on the heels of Ellis' hand settling on the blood-slick leather. "You're bleeding."

In comparison to Ellis, toting bruises that won't obstruct anything, won't be much more than mild discomfort when he turns the wrong way. He turns from Astarion, crouching to pull his pack upright, root within it for his medical kit.

[illithidnapped]

"It's mostly stopped," he counters, sighing as though this is yet another trial to add to the taxing list of current endeavors. "There's no need to fuss over it."

He's the more fragile of the two. The less experienced, besides, considering he knows nothing of warfare compared to hunts had between crooked alleyways festering in darkness. Granted, he is learning, and quickly at that. But growing pains will ever persevere when opportunity rises, and thankfully Astarion's known worse.

Still, like a diligent ward, he seats himself on the earth by the fire, reaching up with his injured arm to scratch at a lone, pointy ear in wait.

"Trust me, darling. It's shallow. Didn't hit anything."

[heorte]

"This isn't fuss," Ellis says briskly, drawing out the soft-wrapped leather bundle.

No need to point out that his own dismissals hadn't gotten any traction earlier in the evening.

"Would you take this off, or would you rather I make do with it on?" comes with a little rap of his fingers at Astarion's shoulder, indicating the damaged leather. It'll need to be stitched, hopefully by someone skilled enough to disguise the damage.

Another question. Ellis isn't thinking of their bargain at this point, undoing the leather straps to unroll the bundle across the grass.

[illithidnapped]

It's a longer beat than it ought to be, all things considered. For a little while, Astarion's head only shifts slightly— tilting more towards the fire by the most narrow margin possible. The forest is silent, trees whispering through their own leaves only when the wind opts to blow in sparse, spaced-out gusts, disturbing patterns of moonlight laid out over the forest floor. What Astarion weighs, he weighs in private.

The man's a Warden. He'll die soon enough.

"If you must."

Another tepid sigh punctuates that conclusion, his hands already rising to unbuckle the length of fasteners securing that dark leather jerkin, shrugging it off a moment later with no true amount of ceremony beyond the most basic fluid grace.

Beneath it lies a map of interconnected scars arranged in purposeful, lettered patterns that run like roots clear through to muscle of Astarion’s back, no doubt. Unmistakable even where the fire's light fades off into darkness, seeming to emboss the etchwork itself.

https://i.ibb.co/JxtKq8t/image.png

[heorte]

Acknowledgement comes in a hitch of breath; what had been hinted at in the tear of the leather is laid bare. Even in flickering firelight, alternately shadowed and illuminated, the damage is still severe enough to disrupt some of Ellis' focus.

But it's over in a heartbeat. No gawping, no overblown shock. It passes. Ellis' hands are steady when he reaches up to touch Astarion's elbow.

"Sit," he instructs. "And turn your back and arm towards the fire. It'll make this easier."

[illithidnapped]

He does as instructed without any amount of usual fuss, chin settled atop the palm of his uninjured arm while the other rests outstretched across his thigh, angled down and away— easily maneuvered if need be.

For once, he finds he has nothing to say. The world is silent, and Astarion with it, knowing the less that's shared between them, the quicker this will go.

And really, isn't that what Ellis wants as well?

[heorte]

What Ellis wants will remain a mystery.

The silence settles as he works, punctuated by the creak of opened bottle and clink of glass. Ellis has come to a crouch, heel to haunch, and his hands are very gentle in the application of the salve. It stings, but only briefly.

"Ask me another question," he invites, quieter as he checks over the wound once more before reaching for the bandages.

It's fair, isn't it?

For Astarion's ease, Ellis is certain the stretch of scars is something private. Something he might not have wanted seen, not by Ellis or anyone else. It's fair to offer something in return, a vulnerability in kind.

[illithidnapped]

His stare is fixed dead ahead. His pose relaxed, muscles just as much, but he gnaws bitterly at the inside of his lip as he bores the absence of thought into the earth stretched out before him. Into the tree line, the beautiful, picturesque leaves. He hates so much of it. And he loves so much of it. And the two are so near to one another.

For a while longer, he says nothing. Just pinches those sharp teeth, tightening his jaw. Thinking. Not thinking. His tone is lower when he speaks again. It almost sounds like someone else.

"...what haunts you."

[heorte]

There is an obvious answer. He's spoken it aloud once, in Wysteria's warm little kitchen, her hands over his. ("I've never told anyone that before now.") It's harder to summon those specifics here, in a clearing with a man he knows little to nothing about other than that he has suffered.

A pad of bandages is pressed over the slash, long strips held in place over the padding with two fingers as Ellis begins the process of winding them around Astarion's chest.

"I'm a Warden. We're all haunted, mostly all by the same thing," Ellis tells him, voice coming close at Astarion's shoulder. "Darkspawn. The Blight we've survived and the ones that could come in the future. Our own errors of judgement."

Easier said for the accessibility of the thing. If Astarion weren't a Rifter, he'd know for himself all the failings of the Wardens and what dogged their steps.

[illithidnapped]

Yet even as a Rifter, Ellis might be surprised to find Astarion has delved deeply into the darker truths of this world. In books and tomes, records and brittle parchment— even in the words of those who serve Riftwatch itself. He notes it all, and keeps even more tucked close to his chest, as much protection as any dagger ever could be.

“You aren’t your predecessors. You’re not even your own order.”

Those aforementioned sins aren't Ellis' just because he took up some bloody mantle; Astarion isn’t Cazador, no matter how many he’d killed for the man by proxy. Guilt is a nasty fungus of a thing, and it grows wherever it’s let in.

But that’s more than enough offered leniency than Astarion can stomach. He decides— more than anything else— to hiss suddenly through his teeth in irritation. An animal snapping its jaws at too much handling, rather than pain.

“Must you wind so tightly? If I wanted to be tended to by a damned nursemaid I would’ve insisted on going back for treatment rather than entrusting it to you.”

[heorte]

At his back, Ellis' hands pause in their work.

But the complaint passes without comment, apart from a slight loosening of the binding before Ellis begins tying off the strips, securing the gauze in place.

"Not my predecessors. My peers."

All those throats opened in the desert, blood splattering across the sand; Ellis had done that. He had helped bring that mistake into being, and people were still suffering the price of it.

It had felt right, then.

"Let me see your arm."

[illithidnapped]

He holds out his arm, his stare fixed at an odd angle, so that Astarion could easily be assumed to be staring directly at Ellis— while at the same time not staring at him at all. Maybe it is both. Maybe he's just not paying attention. Hard to say.

"Please. Brooding is a right reserved for vampires, like myself."

You're stepping on his batty toes, Ellis.

"Look, whatever they did— were you with them at the time? Is that it? Do you feel guilty because you supported what they were up to?"

[heorte]

Vampire is a new word, one which Ellis has no frame of reference for. It draws his eyes up, brow furrowing, but the obvious question laid aside for the moment. (Or until Ellis needs to deflect.)

Instead, there is a short stretch of quiet as Ellis resettles in front of Astarion, legs crossed, kit spread over his lap before he begins his work.

"I supported it," Ellis says first, fingers closed over Astarion's wrist as he turns the wound towards the light of the fire. This is the slice that deserves more attention, needs to be cleansed before it's bound up. The clink of bottles fills the air between them before he says, "I was one of the ones who carried it out."

No, he was not the only person, opening up throats in the desert. But it changes nothing. Just like it changed nothing that he would have bared his own throat, had the rituals continued. The outcome was what it was, and all his intentions wouldn't soften the reality of that.

His hands are steady, swiping damp, astringent-soaked cloth across the wound. His voice remains even, as he continues, "And it was all for nothing. Worse than nothing, because it hurt us, then fractured us."

[illithidnapped]

It burns, that potent tonic— but no more than water itself used to, back before his own strange, tumultuous arrival in Thedas. He doesn't even flinch or hiss, not like he'd done when he thought himself stared at.

Sensation doesn't ache half so much as attention. And he's known worse in all things.

"You know, when I asked, I thought I’d have to pry the truth from your mouth like teeth." His voice is level, as slow and steady and incidental as every stroking pass of the rag clutched in Ellis' grasp.

"Remorse does run like blood."

[heorte]

"Aye," is easy agreement to offer in return. Poetic, but true.

As he applies the first wad of gauze, Ellis continues, "It's due to you. I know it cost something to show me your back."

And so here in trade is some piece of Ellis, a mistake, something costly that he carries in his chest like shrapnel. Astarion will receive it better than anything else Ellis might have said about his pack, question or comfort equally useless.

[illithidnapped]

The look he fixes Ellis with then is lowering— so tense it might as well be barbed in the most subtle of ways— and his tone, slipping out in thorny rhythms as gauze is fitted to him, isn't any less guarded.

Thin as the edge of a razor.

"I don’t want your pity, if that’s what this is." Like a cornered cat he hangs on those words for a beat, attempting to study Ellis' expression in turn. But he doesn't smell softness. No real amount of denigrating sympathy clinging to his companion's shoulders like a weighted cloak.

The threat of a storm passes, and he calms, easing back into his own frame.

"But I digress," Astarion starts, tipping his temple down against the fingertips of his opposite hand as a wearied brace. "Absolution is a foolish thing to chase, so for your sake, I hope you have more sense in you than that."

[heorte]

"No," Ellis answers him, unwavering in the face of Astarion's scrutiny. "I don't expect absolution for anything I've done."

Who would bestow it? The dead?

His gaze drops, falling to the open medical kit across his lap. Repacking it all is the work of a few moments, rewinding the bandages, corking the salve, returning them to their place before winding up the soft leather again.

"What is a vampire?" is a divergence from pity and absolution, possibly a less fraught topic to carry them forward.

[illithidnapped]

Possibly.

"I’m sure a few Rifters would be more than happy to fill you in if you want to hear all the nasty little details. Fearsome superstitions." Astarion's tongue meets his teeth for a moment, digging against the edge of a canine beneath pursed lips as he watches Ellis pack away medical supplies with diligent care.

There's a difference, after all, between teasing and jest, and confessions to natives in a terribly fearful world. A difference in jotting it down, too, hence his hesitation to be forthright with the sharp-nosed creature that is Wysteria de Foncé so long ago.

Yet they're dealing in darker deeds now, aren't they? He's glimpsed the rot hiding beneath Ellis' skin, and for that he supposes, reaching back to begin shrugging on leather once more, if there's someone that's not going to declare him some unholy beast, it'll be the Warden settled just across from him.

"...But in the interest of saving time, a vampire is a creature that feeds on blood to survive. And, yes, just in case you decide to go poking around asking questions: the most powerful of which can shapeshift into a wolf or a bat or mist on a whim; seduce with but a glance, and kill fair innocents the moment they bare their throat in lurid desire, or turn you into their mindless, will-lacking thralls."

Astarion is not one of those. Maybe that's obvious by now.

"Fact of the matter is I haven’t, in all my years, stolen blood from anything that wasn’t an animal. And I haven’t at all felt the need to since collapsing head-first into this world of yours." He glances up from the dented brass buckle his pale fingertips are still fiddling with, a far cry from the golden clasps of his usual doublet, a drearier shift in clothing all part of the necessities of war.

"I promise that your neck is safe from me— but it would’ve been anyway."

[heorte]

But it would’ve been anyway.

This is easy to believe. Astarion unspools the sort of truths that should inspire fear. But it is no worse than what Ellis has already survived, what he has made a life pursuing. Ellis watches him and considers what Astarion is describing and his impression is not muddled with any kind of fear: Astarion is not a monster.

Or if he is, he's not a monster Ellis need fear.

"Thank you for explaining it to me," Ellis says instead, without hesitation. "Does anyone else know?"

A useless question, really. Ellis isn't given to discussing anyone else's business. He can't see a moment when he'd bring up Astarion's business.

[illithidnapped]

“Fenris. The girl, Ellie. Holden. And Wysteria.” A few more here and there, maybe, depending on who’s been listening and how intently— and what they might know sparingly of vampirism.

He doesn’t pay it much heed overall, except:

“Enough in fact that I only ask you refrain from mentioning my...relationship with blood, shall we say, to those who are native to this world. Like yourself.” Therein lies the difference. The danger, so to speak. Joking about sharp teeth and albinism is all fun and games until someone local gets a frightful itch under their skin in overhearing a snippet or two of unsettling information. Something that hits a little closer to home.

He folds his hands together in his lap, settles back easily beside the fire now that he’s done with all matters of dress.

“Blood here seems to carry a great deal more uneasiness overall in its presence.”

[heorte]

"It does," Ellis agrees, straightening from where he has stowed his kit into his pack. He turns his gaze from Astarion in the light of the fire to his armor, drawing the pieces closer to him for careful inspection.

It is something to do with his hands. It is a stop-gap against a particular set of memories, of what Wardens had used blood magic for and how it had doomed them. (Of his own part in that, throats opening under his blade, Wardens choking, blood spattering across hot sand.) There are new-made, minor dents in the metal, but nothing that would not be easily remedied, nor anything that would stop him from wearing the armor for the foreseeable future.

"Your secret is safe with me," Ellis says, tipping the vambrace towards the light for inspection. "I don't care to expose you to that sort of risk."

The gamble that those blindly faithful to the Chantry would hear Astarion's explanations. There is a difference in the way he seeks blood, compared to a Theodosian (or Tevene) mage. But Ellis knows the faithful do not always care to hear distinction.

[illithidnapped]

"Not now, no. And not so long as we’re allies, I’m sure." Spoken with a touch of level coyness, more subdued than all his usual fare. Even so, the fact that he doesn't immediately leap to simple acceptance over acceptance might be telling enough in its own right.

Astarion, however, always thinks himself a touch more clever than he truly is.

"I’ve developed quite a fondness for this world and...one or two of its inhabitants. And I’ve no intention of risking that comfort by emphasizing my own unnatural presence." For a few beats longer he watches Ellis' fingers work before rolling back to rest lazily across the earth instead, hands tucking just behind his head, committed fully to the gesture when he folds one leg across the other. Relaxed, now. Perhaps enough for the both of them. "As long as it can be helped, anyway."

One slow pause before he exhales, near whining through sharp teeth:

"Gods, but I'm starving, though— aren't you?"

[heorte]

One or two settles alongside the list of names Astarion had rattled off earlier, those who knew the truth of him. It doesn't matter to Ellis, who Astarion thinks of fondly. It is a calculation that comes and goes, filed away as Ellis sets the vambrace onto the ground alongside the rest of his gear.

"I can make a stew," he offers, with some measure of humor in it. "But I worry it will not be to your tastes, considering what I've known of them."

Not blood.

On Ellis' mind now: A stolen roll. A fine meal, eaten off elegant plates. A cup of rich, dark wine.

Nothing Ellis can replicate.