faderift | open | holiday spirits

Entry tags:

open | holiday spirits

WHO: Whoever, plus some spirits.
WHAT: Everyone spends an evening regretting the past. So basically a normal night.
WHEN: Wintermarch 5-6
WHERE: A castle in the mountains north of Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post including less vague/pretentious haunting mechanic descriptions. Fantasy violence and swearing and so on are assumed, but please use content warnings in your subject lines for things like explicit gore or sex, slavery content, body horror, etc., if you go any of those routes.

THE CASTLE

Their convenient shelter from the unexpected blizzard that whips up around them in the mountain pass isn't too convenient. Anyone with a reasonable detailed map will find it marked there; reaching its clifftop location requires a slight detour. When they approach, it has no warm ethereal glow or suspiciously welcoming lit torches. The windows stay dark. The portcullis is raised just high enough to be ducked under, but the heavy doors of the keep don't swing open to welcome them.

The only immediate sign that something is amiss is the thorough, all-encompassing emptiness of the place, and it might take some investigation before that begins to feel strange. The fortress' abandonment seems recent and abrupt: ample firewood has been cut and stacked for the winter, nothing has been done to protect the furniture or strip the beds, the kitchen is fully stocked and even has some perishables that do not seem close to perishing, the stables are equipped to comfortably keep any animals along for the journey, and a chess board before the hearth in the (humble) grand hall seems to have been left mid-game. But there are no messages, no bodies, no footsteps dimpling the crunchy layer of old snow accumulated in the bailey beneath the fresh snowfall.

As they search, the castle's visitors may begin to find signs that the castle hasn't been entirely abandoned. It begins with whispers emanating from the dark ends of corridors, voices they recognize and others they don't, or faces both familiar and unfamiliar flashing in still water or window panes when firelight hits right, or forms moving on the edge of vision but vanishing before they can be looked at directly.

By the time this becomes worrisome enough to drive anyone back out of the castle, the portcullis has fallen shut and won't budge. Neither will any other doors to the outside. The windows won't break; doors won't give way even to makeshift battering rams. The only walls that can be climbed or reached by stairs face out over a deep ravine. It might be a survivable climb, if the wind and weather allowed, but it would not be a survivable fall.

THE SPIRITS

--so back inside, then.

The keep is built like the Gallows' towers, square and tall, and it won't take long for Riftwatch to notice that whatever is wrong is more wrong the higher they climb. The whispers and glimpses on the lowest floor become voices and lingering shadowy figures on the second. Someone might turn and find their hand briefly held by an unfamiliar man's, warm and real for the moment it takes him to say, "Come with me." Or behind them, a woman's shocked and seething voice says, "What are you doing?" Or maybe it's a hand they do know and a voice saying something they've heard before.

As people venture to the higher floors--whether intrepidly seeking the source or involuntarily herded onward by spirits--these moments will begin to last and linger and repeat. And those who don't dare venture higher won't be exempt, confronted by stronger spirits that emerge like ants from a kicked hive as the upper floors are disturbed.

As they approach the uppermost floor, reality will begin to slip away from them. They may find themselves lost in a maze of rooms, even though that shouldn't be possible in so few square feet, and ultimately enveloped in comforting worlds where they didn't do that thing they regret and that, like dreams, feel real until they suddenly don't--until something is too unbelievable, until someone interrupts, or until a demon is holding them under the water of the warm bath they were tempted into, shoving them off a balcony, or whispering into their ears and minds, let me in and you can keep it.

The hauntings will continue until ~~morale improves~~ the eldest, most powerful demon has been dealt with.

THE END

When it ends, it ends abruptly. Weaker spirits vanish; stronger ones retreat into the dark. The lesser demons on the upper floors linger, and some may put up a last-ditch physical fight, but without their superior, they've lost most of their mental pull and emotional sway. The castle has changed, too. Its abandonment no longer looks so recent. The food and firewood is gone, along with any sense of warmth or satiety anyone used them to acquire earlier. There is dust where none was before, mildew and rot, and a few scattered, unfortunate skeletons.

The sun is not quite up, the sky a faintly luminescent grey. But the weather is survivable, though it will be slower travel than it would have been without the fresh snow. The doors will open, and the portcullis will raise. Everyone can set off on their cold, hours-long journey back to the city. Talking about their feelings or avoiding eye contact the entire time: the choice is theirs.

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"For a haunting? It's practically blissful." He presses back, flexing the thinnest of smiles before rolling back across the grass, head resting in Emet-Selch's lap. It doesn't feel like stone, funnily enough. There's give, despite its coldness, and each individual blade of grass bites into the edges of his skin beneath gauzy silk.

His exhale is slow. His eyes lid.

"You talk a lot about the ones you lost to, you know." Wording amended one beat later when he adds:

"The ones that killed you, I suppose."

"It always has been."

Blissful, peaceful, in a way no other place has ever been. He doesn't push Astarion away, just... resting a hand on his head instead; this too is a little familiar, in a way. Maybe slightly grounding. It's difficult to recall most of this isn't real, but Astarion certainly is.

"But considering I came here immediately after the fact," he says, with a faint huff, "I suppose it only makes sense that I would make mention of them."

A brief pause, and: "They were a mutual friend of ours, once. Spent their days dragging Hythlodaeus and myself into no end of trouble."

"You? Getting into trouble?"

The criticism is mild. Toothless as a mouthing animal, slung up in the easy lines of his own lopsided smile as he glances up beneath the press of gloved fingertips, folding one leg across the other.

"Perish the thought."

"I put an end to the trouble, naturally-- they had a tendency to call for our assistance while out on their travels, and as I did not yet occupy the seat of Emet-Selch..."

It was easier, then, to depart the city and venture out to wherever they'd found problems this time, to lend Hythlodaeus' support and his own considerable magical aid.

"Well. I had time enough to answer, when it was necessary."

"Oh, so you were a spoilsport even before you got the title—"

But he stops there, realization smacking right into his own subconscious thoughts. His posture stiffens even as he lies there, trying to get a glimpse of Emet-Selch's face, as though trying to find something masked within that steadfast expression.

"...wait. Seat?"

Title, Astarion himself had said, assumptive as anything but the most natural leap in the world to his mind when responding to what he'd been told. A position occupied, after all, isn't really a name.

"...the Third Seat, Emet-Selch. Keeper of the Underworld. I am the last to hold the title, but certainly far from the first."

There's nothing masked in his face, exactly; this isn't something he hides so much as he just... doesn't talk about it. Doubtless he's mentioned it to people here before, but never delved into too much detail.

"Upon joining the Convocation, our duty becomes our identity-- we are known by the title we hold, rather than the name we are born with, and it becomes rare for one's given name to be used at all. Save for a few to whom the privilege is allowed in private, I suppose, but for all intents and purposes... we are our Seat."

“You were.”

Astarion corrects, the words decidedly not harsh. Like the fantasy around them that flickers intermittently, that part of Emet-Selch’s life is closed and done— unless the Fade itself somehow unravels.

Some things, you can’t get back.

"That legacy is still mine-- the ideals are still mine. Though I no longer live to see it fulfilled, I do remain Emet-Selch."

It's not the kind of thing he can just let go of-- retirement and death may go hand in hand, but there will never be anyone to take his place. There's no successor to pass the title to, and so for all intents and purposes, it remains his. One last link to what was.

He doesn't care for the vast majority of people here to have his name, anyway. It wouldn't feel quite right. Astarion, though...

After a few moments he says, quieter: "I do not carry out the duties of my Seat, but I am no longer a ruler, either. If you would address me in any other way, then I would have it be as my truest name, so long as you agree it will remain between us."

And for that, Astarion pauses. Not hung up on the notion of Emet-Selch opting to remain Emet-Selch even with nothing at all left clutched within his grasp, but for what chases after it: it's not a denial, it's not even a deflection—

It's an offer.

And it means that for a moment Astarion doesn't quite know whether he should sit up or stay exactly where he is, half-sprawled in the Ascian's lap, heel folded across his knee, fingers twisted together beneath the rise of his own chest.

In the end, he decides sitting up would only make the whole thing seem too formal. Too...forced.

It's companionship that Emet-Selch is lacking now, and it's likely companionship he's looking for by figuratively tipping his hand.

After everything else that's happened in the last half year, maybe he's finally earned it.

"...all right." Astarion says, caution living in his expression, light and wary and entirely peripheral— as if stepping along the edge of splintered ice.

"Agreed."

It's something he's considered already, honestly, if he admits it to himself. From others, it doesn't matter at all. If they wish to refer to him by a royal identity he no longer bears, then such is their wont. From Astarion... when he had brought it up before, casually, he'd had the wandering thought that maybe he would prefer not to hear it from him. Not to be viewed as what he isn't, and will not be again-- what had been a temporary necessity.

There's a hint of cautiousness to him as well; there's no taking things like this back, after all. But he does ultimately opt to go through with it, after several moments of contemplative silence.

"Hades," he says, finally. "Before I became Emet-Selch, I was simply Hades."

"...Hades?"

It...catches Astarion by surprise, that confession. And this time he does sit upright, pulling away from both Emet-Selch and the warmth of his offered lap, pale curls tumbling into his own face.

"Like the underworld itself?" He asks, all but pointing out the recurring mention of it in prior conversation.

It is, admittedly, fitting.

"What do you mean, like the Underworld-- it had no other name, in my time."

His brow furrows at Astarion's surprise, but he very quickly puts together what he means by that.

"...ah. A strange coincidence indeed, that the Underworld's keeper would share a name with the very place itself in your world, but the two certainly were not connected in mine."

"Maybe not a coincidence at all." He corrects mildly.

The universe is a big place, being the argument. All the unique little connecting pieces that've drawn them together here, of all places and times. There's so much about the Fade that Astarion fails to understand, but he knows Realms, and how often times even the biggest celestial fish can be shadowed by a leviathan still.

"Just kidding." Astarion adds in the next beat, smiling almost serenely as he reaches out to tuck a wayward strand of Emet-Selch's hair back into place.

"But it's good to know all the same...Hades."

"Mm. Mayhap not."

These worlds should not be linked, that he's aware of-- but they are all here, are they not? Maybe there truly is a common link, and if so, that may not be so far out of the question.

His head tilts into that touch ever so slightly, a minute little motion. Easy to miss if one isn't paying attention. How many years has it been since anyone else used that name? He'd offered it to the one who killed him, before their battle, but besides that single exception... millenia, certainly. It nearly sounds foreign, coming from another's mouth, spoken in another's voice.

He does not dislike it.

"...as I said, I will expect you to keep this to yourself. No others know."

"Yes yes my darling," Astarion sighs, letting his fingers fall away with one final brush of his knuckles along the contours of the-once-Emet-Selch's brow, tumbling back into the comfort of resting his head against the Ascian's lap.

It lets him see Hades as much as it lets him watch the stars overhead— even if they are all false.

They're still beautiful.

"I'll only scream it out in the privacy of your own bedchambers." Coy, of course. Eyes glinting in dim light before he adds, "Or mine. Not picky."

He isn't watching the stars, at the moment. He's watching Astarion as he settles back into using his lap as a pillow, one hand resting on top of his head.

"This is hardly the place," he reminds him, though there's little bite to it. It's not a proposition he minds the sound of, but: "...and we should not linger overlong. Naught else has happened thus far, but I doubt this will last."

He makes no move to get up, even so. Whatever else may be around-- well, it will certainly come to them. Leaving is sure to be the difficult part, as opposed to simply lingering here.

His laugh is slow. A throaty sort of thing that sees his stare sliding over to meet Hades' own— those pale eyes glinting in low light. Pretty as ever.

And then it ebbs, his expression. Just a little. Like the subtle differences before tide pulls away from the shore.

"What that spirit said. The one that pretended to be your..."

His what, friend? Beloved? Associate? Something more than that, even?

"It's not a bad thing you know, consorting with people like us."

He decides not to fill in that blank, not overtly. Not when everything they had was lost, and any future that could have been was cut short; his fingers brush idly through Astarion's hair as they often tend to do, like this, as he contemplates.

"...no," he says eventually. "I suppose it has not been. Though I have ever found some company to be far more welcome than others."

Astarion does not purr.

That said, there is a contented sort of way that he breathes under the slow slide of the Ascian's fingertips that might, to some, be a sort of throaty exhale. A contented sort of throaty exhale. Quiet. Slow.

Never to be discussed.

"Mhm. Mine, obviously." There's no hesitation there, no moment of unsurety or nagging need.

"But what about the others? Or...anyone else in this world, for that matter."

"There are some," he says, after a few moments of quiet consideration, "who I also suppose to be tolerable enough."

Which is as good as a compliment, coming from him, regarding people he doesn't consider himself close to. It might be a compliment to closer companions as well, honestly.

"But not a great number of them, regardless."

And to that Astarion doesn't say anything for a long while. Quiet in the stillness aside from one single, pensive hum of affirmation. A sign he'd heard. That he'd understood.

Not just what Hades confessed, but all its implications, too.

And then he smiles.

Reaches high with forced (practiced) ease to snare the Ascian's fingers within his own, planting a single kiss across their knuckles— thumb still pressed along the underside of them when he rolls himself onto his knees. His heels.

"Come on, then." He urges, all but tugging on that grip, now. "You were right: we shouldn't linger; the more we press our luck, the more likely something here's liable to take advantage of it."

"You could certainly have listened when I said so the first time," he grouches, though without true heat to it-- a cover for any other reaction that kiss to his hand might have sparked, shoved underneath the veneer of annoyance. He follows, when Astarion tugs at him, allows him to keep their hands linked if he chooses once he's pulled himself up to his feet.

...he doesn't move immediately, though, just. Taking a moment for one more look around, despite the way this sight has remained fixed in his memory for eons already.

Then he turns his attention to continuing onward.

"Now. Back the way we came, do you think, or ought we press onward."

"And deprive you of a few minutes longer in paradise?" He teases, though well beneath the surface of that wryly delivered humor lies the simplest of truths. "Perish the thought."

Some opportunities won't come again, most likely.

"I'm all for adventure, but...I think I've had more than enough for one day, thank you." And while it might not be strictly possible, better to try to draw away from the heart of the storm, rather than towards it when what this place seems to feed on is hope.

And tragedy.

He keeps his hold on Hades' hand, fingers tangled just across his own as his own footsteps carry him backwards by a few meager steps. The start of their departure.

"Time to let the past rest for just a bit longer."

It's a tease, sure, but... coming from him, here, he thinks it isn't one all the way through. He knows very well how easy it is to speak the truth in ways that are simple to overlook, to disguise; it's rare for him to outright lie, after all.

"...as it should. As it rested ere we arrived here."

He exhales, slow, as he lets Astarion's grip on his hand tug him along to start with, his own footsteps matching pace within a step or two. There's no reason to let go, yet, when they're the only ones right here who are living, no one to see. Some indulgences don't come as often.

Another one follows, albeit brief: he draws level with Astarion, free hand coming up to rest at his chin. To tilt it up as Hades leans down, presses a kiss to his lips before straightening once more.

Moving right on, then, as he takes another step forward.

"I doubt we will be allowed to rest just yet," he says, as if he's done nothing at all.

Hades catches up easily; the benefit of height ever catering to those uniquely long strides. Astarion hardly minds, of course, twisting his posture to remain facing as—

As a hand settles just beneath his chin, flush with living warmth and remarkably light. Prelude to the press of their lips against one another, catching just as quickly as it begins, and ebbing just the same.

Deliberate.

And maybe the answer to everything that spirit had asked before.

His own exhale is swift in the wake of that kiss. Low through his nose. A passing little huff before he trails on, trotting along in the Ascian's shadow.

"Lucky thing, too." Astarion breathes out, fitting his hands to his hips as the haze around them begins to fade.

"I'm not even a little tired."

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open | holiday spirits

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