[open]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria & YOU
WHAT: Anchor-related adventures and/or drama in fantasy September.
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Some anchor and rift-related peril; open stuff is in the comments, but may use this as a catch-all. If an open prompt doesn't suit you, feel free to wildcard me or hit me up and I can write something bespoke. Prose or brackets is a-okay.

Comments

KIRKWALL. (open)

[heirring]

If there are rumors of a certain young lady having dramatically collapsed during last month's tourney, they have assuredly been greatly exaggerated. It must have been due to the heat, or to the excitement of the day, or from having had one too many cups of wine to drink. For here is the young lady herself, hiking to every corner of Kirkwall in an effort to find a great assortment of equipment which the Gallows (or its Seneschal) has either refused to provide on the basis of a lack of necessity or has only grudgingly offered to compensate her for once acquired.

In the Hightown Markets, Wysteria may be discovered studiously rifling through a great selection of poultices, creams, and various herbal remedies. She is smartly dressed and not at all out of place there in bright blues and yellows, well protected from the sun with a broad brimmed hat and thin camel colored nughide gloves. From the way she consults a sheaf of paper in her possession against each vial or pot, it is both clear that she is shopping for something most particular and that her list, such as it is, is rather extensive.

In Lowtown, the shrill sound of her voice somehow manages to carry above the ting-ting-CLANG! of an outdoor smithy, the hawking shouts of merchants, and the bleating of various animals penned here in the craft-trade streets of the lower city where they await the dark fate of either the butcher's knife or the tannery yard. Here, her bright clothes are rather less in sync with the surroundings; however, for all that Wysteria might visually stand out like an especially sore thumb in Lowtown, she gives no indication of being conscious of that fact herself. Or she is too bust lecturing the beleaguered tradesman before her—

"That is an outrageous price for an ordinary thing, sir! And I refuse to be so blatantly extorted! Half that would be closer to fair, and even that begins to stretch credibility."

Indeed if there is any sign that all is not precisely well, it is most easily viewed on the Kirkwall docks while waiting for the ferry to finish its slow creep across the harbor. It's late in the day and the humidity is heavy and wearing. Wysteria stands with a paper wrapped parcel clutched against herself, holding it with both hands so firmly that it's as if the package is illogically somehow responsible for her staying upright. She has her chin balanced on the top of the parcel too, her focus entirely reserved from the quay as it lies just past the toes of her boots. It is a poor idea to close one's eyes while in Kirkwall, but this is something adjacent to that.

Under the broad brim of her hat, she is a little pale.

[bouchonne]

A thing Byerly Rutyer cannot abide: the sight of a young woman looking frail and unwell.

Another thing Byerly Rutyer cannot abide: Wysteria Poppell.

He stands, torn, at war with himself, for perhaps a good minute. Because - not talking to her is such an appealing notion. Leaving her be. Letting her plunge into the water and - It takes the girl swaying slightly to the side for him to act; he steps up beside her and offers, stiffly -

"It would please me to carry your parcels, if it would please you to be unburdened."

[heirring]

The upward jerk of her chin as she is firmly pulled back to the present tense from out of her wandering awareness makes her teeth clack together in her skull. When Wysteria stiffens where she stands, it as much to remind herself of where exactly her feet are beneath her as it is in response to—

"Oh. Good afternoon Ambassador."

Or is it evening? No, it is still light out enough that the word would seem poorly applied. Despite the faintly waxy quality of her pallor, Wysteria is quickly donning that habitually turned up nose look which she has so often adopted rewarded him with in the past.

"No, it is hardly so heavy as all that. Though I thank you for the consideration."

Kirkwall Docks

[helpinghidinghaunting]

It's very suddenly that Wysteria may feel a presence beside her - a soft one, a quiet one, belonging to an incredibly ratty and thin young man in torn leathers. His pale face is shaded deep beneath the brim of an overlarge hat, sleepless eyes cast downward. Cole can hear that she is unwell, feel the reeling, the rending, the roiling of the Rift...and he had just happened to be heading back from a day in the markets when he noticed her.

When she wasn't looking, he had dropped his invisibility, choosing instead to approach her plainly...but he doesn't stare. Mustn't stare.

Clutched in one hand is a waterskin, glistening around the cork as if it has been freshly filled. He's holding it out to her, awkwardly, his voice tiny when he finally finds it.

"...You need this." Not accusatory, no hint of derision - simple, like a child might sound.

[heirring]

She jumps.

It's a very reasonable thing for a young lady waiting alone in the young and tumble atmosphere of the dockyard to do when all her attention has drifted elsewhere and she is suddenly addressed by a stranger who she didn't clock approaching. The first thing she does is automatically thrust a hand into the expansive pocket of her skirt to be certain that everything which ought to be there still is. She is only halfway through mentally cataloging the contents—her purse, which is strung also to her belt; the Riftwatch issue light; a small pamphlet; a little notebook; a series of spare hair pins turned to forgotten hair pins thanks to the longevity of their stay at the pocket's bottom, and so on—by the time she recalculates enough to mark the waterskin she is being offered.

And then there is the boy himself, drab and sleepless looking and—

(Strange, she might think if she weren't currently chasing off a little hint of illness. Like rifts are strange, like Thedas magic glows on her mind's eye, like sensation which follows the thing which lurks quietly in the Hightown house. But she is a little ill, and so it's remarkably simple to dismiss the remarkable.)

"Oh, no. I'm quite all right. But thank you; it's very kind of you to offer."

it's docks all the way down

[illithidnapped]

It isn’t the humidity that’s doing her in. At least— not if she’d been telling the truth the last time they’d spoken, and if that’s the case, then it undoubtedly begs the question of what in the Hells is she doing here now.

His eyes roll in passing, he takes one step— two— and then slinks back over to her side with all the directness of an animal reluctantly sniffing out a less than appetizing meal.

“Chin up, darling. Unless you want to get robbed.”

[heirring]

She stands a little straighter just by instinct. It's only in the moment directly following, the one in which she marks the familiarity of the voice and determines instantly its owner, that she frowns and stubbornly returns her chin to the top of the parcel she is carrying against herself. She goes so far now as to close her eyes as well. If another member of Riftwatch is present, it seems very unlikely that anyone would date to pick her pockets.

"Your concern is most touching, Mister Astarion. But I assure you that I know perfectly well how to conduct myself on the Kirkwall docks. I have been doing so these many years, thank you."

Some people know a thing or two about Thedas, you know.

Lowtown

[thereneverwas]

Alarmed at first by that familiar screech, Barrow pauses mid-step to turn back the other way, elbowing through the crowd of shoppers and irritated onlookers until he can properly catch sight of Wysteria.

It occurs to him only after he's pushed his way through that she doesn't seem to be especially imperiled, rather the opposite; with the way the merchant is cowering in her wake, perhaps this is best left alone.

Unfortunately, Barrow has already made himself known. He glances at Wysteria, then gives a furtive little point in the direction of the merchant-- everything all right? the gesture says, as much as he'd like to turn around and leave.

[heirring]

"—And here is my partner himself! And if you didn't believe my expertise on the subject, then you will certainly take him at this word isn't that right, Warden?"

Leaving will evidently be out of the question. Without breaking stride in her monologue, Wysteria beckons him closer.

"You will please tell this man that we have thoroughly done our research on the subject, and that we refuse to have an expedition into the Deep Roads as important as this one put at risk by someone who seems to believe that I have no idea what proper sets of climbing gear ought to cost. For I have explained to him the market rate and what I am willing to pay today and how he shall have the remaining sum with interest upon our return. It is an entirely reasonable offer, particularly when we are being accompanied by a Warden and all but assured of a safe return. Isn't that right, Warden?"

You're a Warden now Barrow, says her piercing look.

FIELD WORK.

[heirring]

THE RIFT. (open, one thread only; threadjacking welcome + encouraged)

[heirring]

The rift hangs in the quarry basin of an old copper mine. Partially abandoned first thanks to the sweep of Venatori through the northern Free Marches, the rift's appearance had successfully chased away what was left of the workforce—much to the chagrin of the quarry's master of operations. And so here they are at the request of one of Riftwatch's economically advantaged would-be allies, conducting a survey in the shadow of the Imperium's hold on the Minanter river.

"I shouldn't worry," Wysteria had remarked at some point during their ride out. "It seems to me that if Tevinter thought to take possession of the quarry, they might have done it before this moment. I doubt we are likely to see hide nor hair of them."

It is fine logic so long as one presupposes that the Venatori's interest must be in the copper and not in the rift itself. Apparently, say the hail of arrows which rocket murderously downward now from the upper steps of the quarry and toward Riftwatch's forces, there are reasons aplenty to be worried after all. To say nothing of the terror demons currently pouring out of the open rift.

The shielding burst of energy which cracks free of Wsyteria's extended anchor hand is entirely instinctive. That it is well-timed enough to save herself and her nearest companion from being turned into pincushions is luck more than skill, the force of of it so abrupt and uncontrolled that it—

—Snaps whistling arrows in half, flinging bolts and broadheads in separate off course directions.

—Flashes with a nauseating acid green light.

—And is punctuated after with a cry of pain. Wysteria doubles over, tightly clutching her left arm.

Above, Tevinter marksmen let fly another round of fire.

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia is well-positioned at the moment to encapsulate herself, Wysteria, and whoever else is within a yard or so of the two of them into a protective shielding bubble, the ground beneath their feet lighting up with the runic activation of a spell well-cast.

The next thing she does is cast once more, this time a fireball that launches itself towards the only marksman she can clearly see from her position. It hits him square in the face, the person beneath the armor screaming out in pain.

"Are you all right?" This is to Wysteria; Adrasteia is pulling off her gloves with her teeth in preparation for laying on hands to heal the other woman if needed. If that would even work, in this particular scenario. She's not sure it will, actually.

There's still the matter of the open Rift to contend with, and the demons advancing on their location.

CAMPING. (open, feel free to handwave presence for rift-based action if you'd rather skip to this)

[heirring]

In the aftermath of the assault on the quarry and given the successful closure of the rift, the party has fled an hour south in an effort to put some distance between themselves and the site of the skirmish before making camp in a dense copse of trees high over a riverbed. The cook fire is little more than embers and ashes. Tent canvas has been shielded with boughs of end of summer tree limbs and even the horses have been picketed at a distance so that any would-be assault on the animals might serve as a preparatory warning rather than a too-late signal to arms.

If Wysteria's tendency toward unrestrained chatter might typically be an imposition under such purposefully covert circumstances, there is little chance of her incessant conversation betraying them now. Burning with fever, she has been tucked up inside one of the tents where she alternates between shockingly lucid and startlingly muddled.

slides this across the table before i dip out

[heorte]

And Ellis is on hand.

On hand between the spans of time where he is well and truly required elsewhere, though he has capitulated to those duties with quiet reluctance. The pinch of worry has not left his face. If anything, that it is reduced to a pinch is some improvement over the entirety of their flight from said skirmish.

There is a singed book open across his thigh, but he's diverted from the reading to look at Wysteria and her flushed face, her obvious misery.

"Keep the cloth across your forehead," is spoken very quietly, instruction that precedes Ellis reaching over to her to readjust said cloth for her.

[acreage]

"I brought you some water."

He says by way of announcing himself, as he lets himself in. He's careful to pull the canvas closed completely, offer Wysteria what protection from the elements they can afford her out here.

It's not enough.

But nothing is going to be until they can get her back to the Gallows. He doesn't dwell on the fact that he doesn't know what they'll be able to do for her there; he can't help thinking that the person he'd normally ask that question would be Wysteria. Instead, he focuses on what he can do — which is drawing closer, right now, sitting near her cot and looking for her response. There's a flask in his hand, and he uses the other to open it so that he can bring it to her mouth if she so desires.

WILDIN.

[nonvenomous]

Some weeks ago, Mr. Dickerson cordially requested Wysteria’s covert assistance in assessing which of the newly born nuggets stabled in a straw-lined crate in a straw-littered, dark, and musty storeroom beneath the mage tower might possess extraordinary abilities.

If any.

That the message arrived a cautious four to five days after the incident at the tournament is surely a coincidence.

There are eight of them squirming in the lamplight, Adrasteia II’s piggy eyes gleaming with pride for what she and Marius Squarebush have wrought. Their weird little bodies are wrinkled and naked in a translucent spectrum of white, pink, and brown, tiny hands grasping for teets as they bow and flex for purchase in a pile. They’re just a few days old, their eyes darkened lumps on the sides of their soft, suckling skulls, not yet open.

Beside Wysteria, lamp in hand, Richard is too taken in by the sight to suppress a rankle at his nose, a thin show of his teeth.

[heirring]

For all that Wysteria had been among the triumphant heroes responsible for rescuing little Adrasteia II and Enchanter Squarebush from a thoroughly grotesque fate, and thus by rights ought to in this moment while looking upon their squirming progeny feel some swell of pride, she is remarkably blasé in her assessment of the litter. After a beat of observational quiet, silent save for some minor snuffling and soft baby sucking sounds and the rasp of straw, she remarks simply: "And so there they are."

She moves then to unbutton the cuffs of her cream colored sleeves, rolling them up and well free of the risk of— whatever it is a collection of baby nugs might threaten them with.

"Have you been at all successful in encouraging either of the grown two to breathe fire in captivity? I seem to recall it was a something of a...stress response, I suppose, when first they were collected. It would be a shame to frighten the little ones when they're still so young."

infirmary. i have a permit.

[propulsion]

There's a stupid party and Tony goes and then leaves and comes here, because it's stupid, and he has stuff to do. Here, to the Gallows, and here, to the infirmary. It's early in the evening and he's proven correct in his guess that Wysteria would not yet be asleep, and Ellis would still be here, and both things are oddly assuring to find. Predictable, constant.

Evidence of 'party' is still on him. He ditched the crushed red velvet jacket but his shirt and waistcoat is nice and he cleaned up in general, now at the sharply groomed wedge of the cycle between vanity and being too distracted to shave every day. The sleeves are rolled, collar loosened, the latter thing allowing the barest peep of arc reactor light, and he is slouching in the chair he's pulled over to her bedside.

"Boring," is his report. "Not a single ghost, no rifts, no assassinations. And someone told me Orlesians know how to throw a party."

Fake news, apparently. He, however, presents a small box, gilt and filigreed, the shape and size for a deck of cards. "But turns out they let you just take stuff," Tony adds. Which is not true, in terms of keyword let, but here he is, and here it is.

[heorte]

Yes, Ellis is here. He has been reliably present, but for short absences to conduct other business, attend to duties required of members of Forces, and return after to take up his place again.

His gambeson is hung over the back of the chair. The sleeves of his tunic are rolled back, laces loosened at his throat. A book is set over his knee, placed having been held beneath one palm when Tony walked in, now closed in deference to Tony's presence in the second chair.

Ellis' welcome is understated, silent. A nod across the bed, as Tony settles himself, produces a deck of cards. After all, it's not Ellis who will want news of the party, and he defers to Wysteria's clear interest as he leans back in his chair.

infirmary

[venenifer]

There's been no reason to speak until now, because for the most part, the black-clad Chantry brother preparing Wysteria's herbal treatments and the like has mostly done so while she was sleeping or otherwise too feverish to be lucid.

It's only now that he approaches with the usual damp cloth and herb packet that he sees her eyes opening, and he leans over to check if her gaze tracks to him at all.

[heirring]

The fever comes and goes in waves. It has persisted at this height, much to the apparent chagrin of the Orlesian physician who has studiously been assisting with Wysteria's care since her return to the Gallows, for a day or two resulting in a patient who is more or less very skilled with sleeping like the rattling death or rambling in disconnected, half formed attempts at conversation with her visitors-slash-self-appointed-caretakers.

For better or worse, Madame de Foncé is not an unpopular patient.

Here though, for the first time in a great many hours, Wysteria closes her eyes in defense of the invasion of her space and makes a small noise of protest. Her left forearm and hand, poulticed and wrapped tight, comes up just a little as if to object to shadow which falls across her, but the limb must be weak for it flops down again after only the barest movement.

infirmary, husband privilege

[degenere]

It is not promptly that Val appears at the infirmary, but immediately, and with Chapdelaine's note still in hand. He does have the grace to tuck he parchment in to the folio of articles that he is carrying with him--a collection of pieces ranging from a critique of a farcical operetta performed in Val Royeaux to great and dubious acclaim, to a treatise on the latest developments in farming tools and machinery and the obvious dwarven influences, to an investigative dive into the work being done in archaeological sites on the border between Antiva and Rivain.

In fact it is the last of these that Val is reading, aloud, when Wysteria comes to either consciousness or wakefulness.

"However, one cannot exclude he existence of sheep and goat herding in this area. In that case, the term 'aceramic' may be convenient to describe these groups. We propose, first, that the term 'Epi-Exalted' and 'Aceramic slash Early Neo Exalted' are to be used in a cultural slash economic, and not a chronological, sense. Second, we argue that they describe the two subsistence systems that were in use during the same period of time."

True: a gentleman of adventure may be familiar with the often brutish treatment of those who suffer the greater consequences of adventure. True: a person of means may have cause to have, in the past, found themselves at the bedside of ailing relatives, if only to hear the reading of their final wishes. True: a scholar of zoology is also a scholar of death and disease and illnesses and terrible fate, for the Maker may love His creations, but the Maker also created the passage of time, and death, and these things fall in order. True: anyone who cares anything for a Rifter must know them to be temporal.

"Finally, we are convinced that they can only be applied after the excavation of a site and after a thorough study of lithic, ceramic, faunal, and botanical remains--"

True: Val does not like infirmaries. He does not like bedsides. He does not like sitting still. He is conducting this reading seated sideways in the chair that he occupies, as if he were at home, with his legs slung over one arm and his back resting against the other. There is ink on his fingers and smudged on his forehead and over his nose, and dog hair on his vest, and his eyes might look tired if he were not reading this article so voraciously.

And loudly. He is very loud. And not paying any mind at all to Wysteria, except that he is reading at her.

[heirring]

Anyone at all in the entire world will agree that there is a distinct unpleasantness to being woken by someone speaking loudly. Even the deepest sleeper may find themselves in a dream, attempting very sincerely to make sense of why their grandfather has just turned to them and changed the subject to the anthropological categorization of certain Early Age settlements, only for the conversation to make progressively less sense the more one tries to untangle in from the trappings of that pleasant little cottage on the sea where the man had lived for such a long time. Beyond the window, somewhere beneath the hill crest papered with rasping beachgrass, there lies the sea. And the sound of it pushing and pulling rises and falls alongside the voice that is not her grandfather's. And the watery light streaming through the window is very like that of the Gallows in mid-day, and there is a collection of vials and jars and cups and a stack of books and the pen which ordinarily lives somewhere inexplicable behind her ear and so on the little table alongside her bed. And there, in the chair adjacent to it, is Valentine de Foncé.

Her first soft croak of awareness is likely too incidental to be heard over the volume of his delivery, which is a fine happenstance as she is still muddled and disorganized when when she utters it. But the time a real opportunity to interject arises, she has had a few minutes of listening to him bang on and so is ready to say something in all the proper order in the pause necessitated by him turning to the next page.

(The paper rustling like surf over sand—)

"What is the title of this?"

Lying there in the infirmary bed, Madame Wysteria de Foncé née Poppell looks very much like unglamorous reality lurking behind a romantic portrait of a sickly waif. She is very pale, and her summer of frivolously going without a hat's worth of freckles are very dark, and the circles under her eyes are today looking particularly bruised. Perhaps the phrase 'much improved' in her note had been something of an exaggeration. Or worse indeed, it's true. Or maybe no one who is ill and woken by someone clanging on about botanical remains is allowed to appear particularly well turned out.

From this position, she blearily adds, "There's ink on your face."

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

[heorte]

They fall into something of a routine, despite all Ellis' hopes.

Wysteria remains in the infirmary. Ellis comes and goes, pulled away by the rhythms of Riftwatch duties and returned when his shifts have lapsed. In the course of these comings and goings, the things Wysteria might speak wistfully of wanting on hand begin accompanying him, fetched from the Hightown house in spite of the confused fury of it's ghostly occupant.

The sun's set by the time Ellis has wound his way back to the infirmary. Divesting himself first of tray bearing a bowl of warm soup, set across her lap on the bed, then of his satchel, before he settles back into the chair slanted alongside Wysteria's bed. He has to lean forward to nudge a hardbound book onto the edge of the tray, before leaning back in the chair and working carefully at the topmost fastening of his gambeson.

"I've the new one," he tells her. "The new installment. As far as I can tell, we're to find out what's become of Síofra and that mysterious lad from Bann Teigue's clan."

[heirring]

To say that Wysteria seems much improved wouldn't be fully the truth. Yes, the fever and infection has certainly reduced. One assumes that would be the hoped for effect for severing any infectious limb. But the nominal good humor (so long as one counts spirited complaining and gossiping as such), which had persisted almost all the way up to the very hour in which the arm had been amputated, has evaporated in the days following the cut. The pain of the healing wound is different from the pain of the anchor as it had chewed through the length of her arm. The pulse of it wakes her in the night, and so she is tired and aches, and most of all she dreads winter and all the long sleeved things she will have to wear and which will require sorting how to pin up the one side. And how she will do her hair and tie the ribbons on her favorite boots. Or how she is meant to teach anyone to use the great long gun that she worked so hard on and which she told Tony she would do.

(It should be a relief to simply be present; that cutting the anchor away didn't simply unravel her tenuous hold on Thedas. But she had been so concerned with its possibility that she'd given very little consideration to what might happen otherwise. It had been a very stupid oversight.)

But she is certainly sitting upright in bed, which is more than one might have said a week ago. And someone has done her the courtesy of braiding her hair, and her face is newly scrubbed and she only looks tired rather than very exhausted. She also seems quite relieved to put aside the papers in her lap when Ellis appears.

"Oh, how good. It seems as if they've been on the run from the evil blackhaller for ages now."