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

[acreage]

His eyebrows tick up a few degrees. His expression cools by about as many. He does not yet stir to pick up the cup.

"How about we agree that our ideas of need look different?"

[archademode]

"Indeed." Gabranth assents, lifting his own cup to his mouth and pulling away from the hearth now that his work is done.

"You have none."

[acreage]

Well, that was a nice half-second in between Gabranth's agreement and his decision to keep talking. Still, he does actually reach out for the tea, take a sip. It's warm and fragrant, surprisingly bracing.

"Yeah," he says, like an ingrate, "I was really dying before you showed up."

And he'd know the difference, wouldn't he, even if there's no real way for Gabranth to guess that nuance to his answer. As if there's been worse can be a bulwark, remembered pain mitigating the present.

[archademode]

"I came to you for aid over less, and set aside my pride in faith. I'll not ask you to do the same, but do not ask me to ignore the recklessness with which you press yourself by remaining here, Captain."

From one terminal map marker to another, that is where he has positioned himself: precisely where the enemy will next come, hungering, for war and blood. Perhaps too with the beating of draconic wings.

Either the man is careless, or he is deliberate.

One seems far more likely than the other.

[acreage]

He does, at least, have the decency to not immediately try to refute any of that. Nor to resort again to flippancy. Instead, he drinks his tea for a time, silently, stretches the bad leg out to relieve some discomfort.

"I told you once that war isn't what I do," he says, at last. "It's not. But these people need all the help they can get, and every pair of hands makes them that much more prepared. If we're lucky, that means fewer people will die. And that is what I do."

Saving lives is too self-aggrandizing, and not true enough of the time. But he'll always try.

[archademode]

“Your leg was shaking when I found you. It looks no better now.”

There is a severity that comes in dim light. A deepening of natural shadow that makes Gabranth’s hawkish gaze all the more piercing in its potency beneath dark lashes.

He blinks only once before he adds, evenly:

“How much salvation do you offer them? How many lives will you cost if it fails you in a moment of dire demand, with no room for error?”

[acreage]

"I do," he says slowly, "actually know my own limits."

Which could sound as blasé as any of his earlier answers; but there's no question, now, that he's taking this conversation seriously. When he looks to Gabranth, it's with a soft solemnity. A touch of apology.

He knows his limits well enough to approach them, like light drawn to a black hole. There's a careful kind of dance to watching, but staying clear, of the event horizon. And as long as he does, he can handle the rest.

Because he can't, you see, rest.

[archademode]

“I hold a great deal of respect for you, Captain. I’ve no desire to accuse you unjustly. Yet you cannot expect me to turn a blind eye if I feel your current course of action imperils others as much as yourself.”

His approach is level this time, made all the more steady by Holden's convincing show of certainty: Gabranth is a creature of habit, and often times— given the nature of his former work— what he seeks is the dignity of objective surety in those he tests. In those he presses to the limits of their tolerance, their beliefs, their aspirations.

One more sip, and he sets his cup aside.

“Tell me your current approach. What you hope to accomplish when the city is struck with tension.”

[acreage]

It's not an unreasonable question; it's asked calmly. He doesn't answer, but it isn't because he finds any fault there. It isn't even because he doesn't have an answer. There are things he could say about distribution of supplies, ferrying the old and young to safety while there's still a sliver of time, keeping the peace.

But there's a tangle of his thoughts: saying to Amos, so long ago now, we have to do good where we can and when we can, and Riftwatch might be our best bet to do that, but also knowing, for all that he'd only been echoing Naomi's words, she might be saying something not too different from Gabranth right now.

(If he were home; if she were here. Neither is.)

And there's a tangle of his memories: because a burning city is an infested station, is darkspawn corruption, is protomolecule. Is, after all, death and more death. Entire star systems burned to atoms, visions he's never managed to fully describe to anyone. He still wakes, sometimes, forgetting he's a universe away from the ring station.

In other words: yeah, he's had better days.

"I'm tired," he admits, slow, "of watching people die."

No, he didn't have to come to Starkhaven. But there wouldn't be less of this out among the Marches, among the refugees of Hasmal and Tantervale and Tevinter. War touches everything, seeps through every crack, washes away anything in its path like a flood.

[archademode]

“Then you should not be here.”

If he is tired of it. If he can bear no more.

“You combat what you do not desire with its very apex.”

The foreboding echoes of war may be inescapable, but here especially, with conflict looming on the horizon like color sweeping before dawn, it is undeniable in its potency. There is no turning away from it. No forgetting it. No pretending better, even here, seated in shuttered walls drinking tea and conversing.

“But I can claim myself no different. For here I sit with you, knowing full well one day I shall watch you breathe your last.”

As he will also do for Jone. Perhaps even for Benedict, should the shard prove no insurmountable issue.

“Yet that does not mean letting a losing battle cut pieces from you.”

[acreage]

Unexpectedly, he laughs, humorless.

"Tilting at windmills. It's always the same."

Unwinnable battles; trying to save everyone. There are things built into James Holden at his most basic level. Tear everything else away, and they'll still remain. He's tried so hard, at multiple times of his life, to not be this person. But at the end of the day, there's no one else he can be.

So go be you.

He shakes his head. "Closing my eyes to this fight doesn't change anything." He could be safe in Kirkwall right now, and he'd feel worse for it. He knows. It's easier to ask, a beat later, "Is there a reason you're expecting to watch me die, or is that more of a general thing?"

[archademode]

“I am old, Captain Holden. Older than this continent. Older than the enemy you face, and the god that spurs them onward in hateful folly.” If James Holden is the shape of the cloth from which he's cut, Gabranth can claim to be no better at heart. A man clinging to the comfort of armor that lost its purpose thousands upon thousands of years ago. He pretends, willingly still, that there's some shred of dignity to be deigned from it.

He wears his brother's face, and imagines it rights the loss that still aches and burns in equal measure.

“Time has forgotten its hold on me, thus I do not age. Thus I do not die.”

[acreage]

He met Loki over the crystals, not too long ago, who'd said something similar. It's still hard to wrap his mind around, and it is now, as Gabranth establishes the utter futility of asking how old, exactly? Too many years for anyone. He can't even begin to imagine how exhausted Gabranth must be.

"How do you do it?"

He doesn't mean: stay alive. He means: keep going.

[archademode]

“There is a reason I have removed myself from much. Disallowed myself from more.”

The point of his prior urging, in fact, had been cut from similar rationality. And seeing the unmoored look lingering behind Holden’s eyes, only one question works its way into the forefront of his mind:

“What is your purpose here?”

[acreage]

That doesn't seem entirely like an answer, honest as he's sure Gabranth is being, but it wasn't a fair question. And maybe, when he thinks on it later, the answer will make more sense to him.

In the meantime, he has his own answer to give. And it would be so easy to say something like, you're overestimating how much thought goes into my choices. He normally would. But as he pauses to finish the last of his cooled tea, sets aside the cup, he finds that he can't pretend anything is normal.

"I outlived a lot of people in Tantervale. And a lot before that." What does it say, exactly, when you can lose count? "I owe it to them to not let that happen to anyone else. Whatever it is that I can do."

[archademode]

It is....something. Not unlike Gabranth’s own decision to see this war to its end, regardless of the inevitable cost.

They share more in similarities than they do in differences.

“You realize that such a purpose permits no opportunity for a life of your own within the confines of this world.”

There is no condescension held within it, that statement, slow and steady, and spoken in the advisory way he only ever offers behind closed doors, between peers. The way he’d spoken to Larsa, once, before the world tore them rightly apart.

[acreage]

Many, many months ago, and five years into a future that never happened, Jim Holden sat by a campfire and said, I don't expect to be happy here. I never have. It isn't exactly true of the real world. He has people he cares about in Riftwatch, and who he knows care about him. He's had wistful glimpses of what a life in Thedas might look like.

But there's a bedrock certainty to the way he can calmly meet his friend's eyes, and say, "That isn't a problem."

There are things that matter so much more than his own life. He's known that since he was a child.

[archademode]

It is an answer Gabranth accepts wordlessly, inhaling smoothly as his posture shifts back by degrees, straight and rigid as an old tower statue despite the fact that he’s resting across sunken, rotted flooring. If this were an old fairy tale or myth, Jim might feel as though he’s somehow conquered some sort of sphinxian test of resolve. An antiquated trial involving knights and swords and broken tables.

But instead, it is only the two of them, seated in a dilapidated house, the shadow of war looming close enough to burn.

“I have spent an eternity denying my own humanity, Captain Holden. My purpose is the only path forward, and within its confines rests sanity where all else has fallen to dust.”

Perhaps it is hypocritical, then, to speak of it when his own oath has crumbled at its moorings. It might also be why he presses on.

“Yet I have taken a moment of reprieve from it, however brief, to witness your lives. And to make myself a part of them. So if you have need of me— as an extension of your own arm in this task laid out before you— I trust you will not hesitate to ask.”

I trust you.

[acreage]

There's this tree on the farm property, deep in the woods. He was probably about four or five when he discovered it. It had grown old and gnarled, thick and knobby next to its more slender green-leafed fellows. He'd used to run his small hands over the bark, marveling at its roughness; he'd found sticky sap, and even a pair of initials, TM+WL.

His father Joseph reckoned the tree had to be centuries old. When Holden was six, he was convinced it was inhabited by fairies. When he was seven, goblins. By the time he was ten, he knew it was probably owls. But he hadn't ruled out that it might've been bespelled by a wizard.

In this moment, Gabranth seems as old and dignified as that old tree. It's easy to imagine him still roaming this planet after they're all gone. The thought is a sad one. But in a weird way, it makes his presence feel more familiar, comforting.

"I will," he says, "I will. I promise."