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illithidnapped) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2021-07-30 10:44 am
illithidnapped) wrote in faderift2021-07-30 10:44 am
Entry tags:
[ OPEN | PLAYER PLOT ] This is how it feels to take a fall
WHO: Tiffany, Barrow, Astarion and...you??
WHAT: an assignment gone terribly wrong
WHEN: week 5, segueing into week 6 of the plot, just after dragon tracking concluded with a terrible, literal bang
WHERE: the most silent portion of the Silent Plains, nearer to Hasmal, and not far from Tevinter's very nicely constructed base
NOTES: cw for injury, darkness, being stranded, absolute idiocy | OOC POST: here
WHAT: an assignment gone terribly wrong
WHEN: week 5, segueing into week 6 of the plot, just after dragon tracking concluded with a terrible, literal bang
WHERE: the most silent portion of the Silent Plains, nearer to Hasmal, and not far from Tevinter's very nicely constructed base
NOTES: cw for injury, darkness, being stranded, absolute idiocy | OOC POST: here
Previously: having successfully scouted Primus Taxarchis’ base in the Silent Plains, Tiffany, Barrow and Astarion make an unsuccessful escape under the fully alerted watch of the base’s active forces— provoking a near lethal counter attack that sees them crash landing not far away, and forcing the stranded trio to desperately petition for help.
That’s where you come in.
The ravine runs like a crooked gash throughout desert sands, deep and layered, sloping inward at an angle too steep to safely (or reliably) climb. Easy to spot from above, not as easy to get into without breaking an ankle or an arm, and impossible to freely clamber out of once inside: the stone is brittle and flaking to the touch, lean too much on it, and you’ll drop right to the earth along with it.
The caverns connected to it are far more accessible— the only downside is they’re labyrinthine in their knotted nature: it’s easy to reach an end too narrow to be traversed, or so broad that it loops back on where you’ve already been, descending downward in steeper layers, becoming a near honeycombed network at points.
Of course, you also might not be alone in the dark. This territory isn’t as unclaimed as appearances might otherwise suggest, factoring in proximity to the base the three had been previously scouting. Luckily no overwhelming force has been sent to give chase and comb the desert in pursuit, but that’s not to say there aren’t still eyes to be found in the depths of lightless pathways. Armor-clad agents working for the exact same reasons you are, their noses to the trail.
Well. Not the exact same reasons.
The temperature is freezing cold at night, and in the fuller depths of the caverns where light doesn’t reach, that’s a near consistent constant. Firelight might draw attention, for better or worse. Magic, too, and— despite earning the label of Silent— there is wildlife occasionally to be found. Proof of life’s perseverance even in the harshes of places, fleeting and skittish.
Or dangerous.
Whatever approach is taken, one thing is clear throughout: none of this is going to be easy.
[ooc notes:
-The trio rest at the very bottom of those lightless depths where they’d initially fallen, in varying states of wellness and action.
-they’re lacking in supplies, warmth, healing, mounts, protection, a way out— you name it they need it.
-time is a given: none of this will go quickly, so feel free to handwave or assume anything you need to to make your dream threads come true.
-this timeline wise takes place at the end of week five segueing into week 6, when Riftwatch forces are free to head home if they care to, but given that this is technically hostile territory between Primus Taxarchis’ base and Hasmal, it’s probably going to be a deliberate choice if your characters decide to come here.
-pls just don’t do anything to officially alert the nearby base in full, that would be Bad— and super difficult to do from a hole in the ground but mostly just Bad. Otherwise chase your bliss and make your wildest spelunking/survival/heroic fantasies a reality.
-ooc post is here, for all your delving needs and details.]
no subject
“And in regards to the Circles, I know they’re meant to be a way to keep magic in...check, shall we say.”
Fenris had once told Astarion to lean into the idea that mages belong in Circles. Gifted ammunition for a creature looking fiercely to incite chaos amongst his own allies. The temptation will always be there, of course, but this time— soothed by her touch and driven by curiosity— he stays that instinct. Keeps his tone level. Passive.
“Those that use it more than its existence, but I’m sure to some perspectives it’s probably very much one and the same.”
no subject
Her fingers sweep across her palm, slight frown marking her brow. In check, he says. It's a delicate translation, and she wonders who had explained Circles to him, what they had said in place of such a diplomatic description.
"They're meant to be places of instruction," Derrica agrees. "And they can be a home to mages, among their own people. Southern Circles were often harsh and..."
A trailing pause, thinking of Matthias, of Marcus. Even of Kostos.
"I was very lucky to have been born in Rivain, and to have been raised in Dairsmuid. I would have been happy to remained there all of my life, and taught young mages the way I had been taught. It was my home," Derrica tells him, whatever that might mean to Astarion. Surely the weight of it is clear in the bittersweet dip of her voice, before she tells him, "The Chantry and its templars destroyed it all."
Does Astarion know of templars? Surely someone must have warned him of them. A Rifter should be as wary of them as a mage, as far as Derrica is concerned.
no subject
There’s much he’s researched. More he’s skimmed over or spoken about in inquiry— but even with that being the case, a foreign world is a difficult thing to know completely, even for the people within it.
His browline knits, fingers curling slightly in her grip. The cold numbing it all feels momentarily distant.
“Whatever for?”
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U7CZcd-UYmU/maxresdefault.jpg
"For treating mages with kindness, and dignity. Letting us see families and come and go from the tower as we pleased," is only part of it. She is thinking of Leander's voice, saying: I learned how to swim. She shakes her head. "And, maybe worst of all, Rivain taught us that our magic as a part of ourselves, something to be proud of, instead of something we should be terrified of and hate ourselves for having."
For traditions that the Chantry would rather remain forgotten.
Derrica's fingers smooth over a cool stretch of skin, last shard of ice melting into a trickle.
"I was going to ask if you understood what that was like, someone hating you enough to want you dead for no reason other than things they've made up and told themselves are true of you. But I hope you don't. And I'm very sorry, if you do."
no subject
He can feel those words curling across his own tongue, thorny and resentful of everything. Everything.
Even himself.
But this pit is cold. And he is cold. And he is so bloody tired.
So Astarion swallows down instinct, letting it digest alongside the story he’d just been told, skin warming beneath her touch— the faint trickling of condensation across the contours of his hand doing nothing but drawing his attention to the fact that he doesn't want her to let go just yet.
“Why did you come here? You know who I’m traveling with.”
It makes more sense now, why she'd come to help him, and her evasiveness in regards to tending to the others; it makes less sense now, why she'd come at all.
no subject
Derrica gives it due consideration, running her thumbs along his knuckles once, then again. The chill doesn't leave Astarion's skin despite her best efforts, but some of the deathly cold eases under the contact.
"Because what I can do is a gift. Healing comes easily to me in a way it doesn't to all mages, and it's—"
Easier to speak of such things to Holden, then to Astarion.
"It's like a calling. And I won't flinch from it because of templars and seekers."
Even if it was galling to spend her magic on them, Derrica still would. That she's saved from doing so by Adrasteia is only a technicality. Derrica would have come here no matter who else had volunteered themselves.
no subject
And then he shifts just there, knuckles catching just so against her touch when his tone becomes conversational once more.
“I’m not going to judge, of course. I needed the help, and I want out of here badly enough that if your sole condition were to leave them behind, well...I might actually consider it.”
No offense to his two beautiful companions. Survival is survival, after all.
“But no,” Astarion exhales smoothly, lifting his hand from her grasp at last as he pulls back into the territory of their prior conversation. The thread she'd stitched; the one he'd left hanging, “my scars weren’t the fearful gift of someone resenting my existence. Quite the opposite, in fact— my former master reveled in it.”
She's from Thedas. Though the specifics might differ, he somehow imagines there's no need for deep elaboration when he uses the term master. His back feels exposed against stale cavern air, as he feels exposed in her presence. In the fragility of trust stitched carefully between them now.
“I imagine he’s livid now, knowing I’m beyond his reach. I can take solace in that.”
no subject
As he speaks, relaying something so deeply personal to her, Derrica's hands had fallen to fussing with the hem of the leather draped over his lap. It's a surprise that Astarion has elaborated. Derrica had certainly not expected him to return to the topic, had not told him in the spirit of exchange.
And having received such a truth, she is quiet for a long moment to consider it. There are questions that come to her so immediately, but how to pose any of them with care—
"Will you be safe from him when you return?" is what she settles on, biting back the sharper query, something to be said with bared teeth. There is only so much use her own anger on his behalf can be. He'll return to a place she'll never be able to touch.
no subject
“There’s no such thing as safety if he’s within reach.”
She won’t understand without an explanation, he realizes; How inherently different a vampire lord is at its blackened core compared to a mundane, mortal master.
“He— compels,” Astarion manages only a moment later, the words halting and sharp, almost spat out from the force of working them free. “It isn’t something to be fought or resisted. Anyone that serves him— anyone bound to him— he can control like living puppets, dancing to his every wicked whim.”
His fingertips drag across pale skin, all too near to those narrowly bound wounds. Even in the cold and the dark, even weathered and wearied, he has enough bite left in him to add:
“I won’t ever go back.”
no subject
Astarion had taken his hands away. Derrica has tracked the movement of them, the way they move over his wounds, gesture as he speaks. She has not seen his back, not the way she was able to examine these wounds, things that will be allowed to heal cleanly and perhaps leave little or no mark. But his back was filled with the kind of injuries that had been gouged deep, intentional and cruel, and Derrica is so filled with outrage on his behalf that it chokes her.
Her hands come to his, fingers lacing together and squeezing so tightly. Silently binding. Yes, stay here. Stay here out of the reach of such things forever.
no subject
But he is a starved thing at heart.
Beyond the limits of overtired reasoning, warding made paper-thin by mercy, he doesn’t recoil from her touch. Warmth settling like a balm across aching fingertips.
“I’m tired,” he confesses almost mutedly, his posture sinking against that point of contact between them, briefly tamed for her attention.
“....stay a little longer. Please.”
no subject
Astarion is difficult. (That's a kind word for it.) But that has never repelled Derrica, and it certainly can't now, having seen all the wounds in him. Her hands tighten around his before she draws one from him.
"Come here," is coaxing, as she shifts from her perch to lean against the dusty wall. "Lean on me."
What he should do is sleep. Surely if anything worse happens, they'll hear the echoing evidence of it coming through the caverns to them. He can lean against her, and he can rest, and then they can pick themselves up and do what needs to be done.
no subject
Come morning— or what passes for it here— he won't remember much of this beyond a blurry haze of sensation and half-formed thought— but the end point will linger. The faint scent of perfumed oil intermingled with frost. The feeling of rest without frigid, painful isolation gnawing at his bones in the dark.
He shifts gingerly, spare hand leveraged against the earth as he shifts to set his cheek to her shoulder, eyes drifting shut without ceremony or commentary.
A lesson in foolish ventures, and worthwhile outcomes.