[CLOSED] YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN

[katabasis]

WHO: Gwenaëlle, Loxley, Abby and Derrica
WHAT: Closing a rift
WHEN: Sometime in Harvestmere
WHERE: Rivain
NOTES: OOC info is available here. Add warnings in your subject lines if applicable.

Cutting across Rialto Bay proves to be less dramatic than feared by the crew of the Amberdine, the fleet little trade ship who had agreed to convey the four Riftwatchers to Rialto in exchange for added firepower. Despite tales of cutthroat pirate activity in the Bay, the Amberdine and her cargo of wool, furs and wood makes the crossing unmolested.

Bound for the bustling harbor of Dairsmuid, the ship makes a brief stop south of there to see Gwenaëlle, Loxley, Abby and Derrica ferried ashore. The agreement is that they will see the rift in Sanavo dealt with, and then travel north to rejoin the Amberdine in Dairsmuid a week hence. All together, with a new cargo of tea and sugar, they will make the allegedly risky sprint south again.

But in the meantime: Sanavo, a quiet village tucked in along the coast. It's immediately clear that the pearl harvest must be the only thing that sustains its existence. There are no fields for planting or grazing lands, and little visible evidence of trade that isn't somehow accessory to either pearling or fishing. Clearly, the pearl business must ordinarily be good enough to sustain the few hundred people in residence.

What quickly becomes just as obvious is that, despite the warm welcome by the village council—a trio of women of disparate ages—, the generous accommodations, and the fact that Riftwatch is here to help them, the locals are clearly wary of their guests. Children of the village have been subtly discouraged from interacting with the visitors, a number of doors have been judiciously closed, and in general there is a sense that everyone is keeping a careful eye on the four strangers.

But it's probably nothing to worry about. Maybe once the rift is closed and they have a better sense of who they're dealing with, the chilly edge will defrost…

Comments

beach party.

[tender]

Sanavo is lovely.

Lovely, but remote. A small village made smaller by how much of it seems to be kept hidden and separate from them. Children who scamper away from them. Doors that remain closed, shades drawn. Figures that slip behind corners, out of sight. Measured questions from the few people who do allow themselves to be caught up in conversation. (Is the mage they traveled with Rivaini? Is the qunari Tal-Vashoth, or Vashoth? Are eye patches a fashion in the south—)

Olu, wiry young man with close cropped hair and an easy smile has clearly been tasked as emissary. He is the one who shows them to the cluster of huts set aside for them. He is the one who accompanies them to meals, guides them to a stretch of shoreline deemed perfect for swimming or lounging in the sun, offers a bottle of rum, or any other thing they might need.

So not quite the run of the place, but there is a certain freedom of movement. Tomorrow, Olu tells them, We will go see the rift.

Rest up.

derrica / ota.

[tender]

How bittersweet it is to be here so close on the heels of having lost the language. Of course they can all speak in trade, but not having the option—

It sticks in her mind. Hearing all this language, and being unable to respond in kind. Knowing that in due time they'll be traveling north to Dairsmuid. They'll arrive there only to leave again, but Derrica has been wavering between anxious anticipation and dread, both fluttering in her chest endlessly. There is no fully putting any part of it from her mind.

And how could she? Standing in Rivain for the first time since she fled, hearing Rivaini spoken, the warmth of her people and her country folding around her, it would be impossible to think of anything else.

The sweetness of the return and the sting of all the complicated, mournful aspects of it makes the distance maintained between them and the village all the more obvious. The closed doors are troubling her, even here on a beautiful stretch of beach with the late afternoon sun casting everything in bronze and gold.

Olu has been sunning himself, napping while stretched across the sand. He shouldn't be the only person here, but he is. Derrica has waded out into the sea up to her thighs, unconcerned with her trousers and tunic. She has turned only enough to keep everyone in sight, mark Loxley and Abby and Gwenaëlle wherever they have gotten to.

Later that evening, when they have been delivered trays of food and left to themselves in the close-clustered trio of huts, Derrica doesn't make a habit of smoking, but she has acquired a few loosely rolled cigarettes. Perhaps from Olu, perhaps from the crew of the ship that shuttled them here. She has two balanced on her knee while she lights the third with a sputtery flicker of flame conjured between two fingers so she might take a few noncommittal puffs.

A glass of sweet-smelling wine is untouched beside her. Beyond all of them, the village is quiet too. People pass between huts, but it is all very brief and soft. It doesn't match her recollection of life here, and she isn't certain what to make of it, or what else to do other than worry at it when she likely should be preparing for bed.

evening

[armd]

With Kirkwall's general reception of Riftwatch becoming steadily frostier as the nightmares drag on and on, Sanavo's distant hospitality may as well be a declaration of love.

Abby isn't blind to the odd behaviour, the doors kept tightly closed. The sounds of children playing abruptly halt when Olu takes them through the village to where they are staying. She notices, but doesn't challenge it, and later finds Derrica in careful repose.

"Mind if I sit?"

She's already doing it, easing herself down. Not right beside Derrica, but still near to her. She cradles her chin in her palm, legs loosely crossed. She doesn't have to ask why the people here are holding them at arm's length (she's already jumped to familiar conclusions), but she does want to ask Derrica, "Are you okay?"

[tender]

Rarely is Derrica on the receiving end of that question.

It makes her think of Holden. All the passing months have done nothing to blunt the ache of missing him. He asked her these things. Imagining him here inspires a dull ache deep in her chest; she had thought of showing him her home, and he had gone before any opportunity had come.

But dwelling on Holden only delays her from the question. The beat of quiet has only gone on for a few moments, not enough to be odd but enough that the silence has taken on a particular quality. Weighted.

Wordlessly, Derrica plucks one of the cigarettes from her knee, offers it out to Abby while she collects her thoughts.

"Yes," is true. A twitch of a smile, when "No," follows after.

No is true too.

"What do you think of them?" she asks. Not necessarily a subject change.

[armd]

Abby doesn't race to fill the silence. Asking people whether they're okay these days is kind of a loaded question, and she would have a similar reaction if somebody asked her the same. So she waits out the answer, enjoying the cool breeze coming up off the sea toward them. Smells good out here. Smells like good memories of hers.

She takes the cigarette, holding it in her fingers. It's complicated, huh. Fair enough.

"Of the people?" She looks, as if she might spot a few watching them from the dark cover of their residences, but it's very quiet out here. Huts are lit from within, but curtains are shut. "I'm guessing they don't exact trust us." Because of the shards, probably, and the magic. Same old same old. "Kinda wish they'd just talk to us though."

They're not so bad. Right? And it sucks to see all the parents ushering their kids away at the mere sight of them, cuz Abby would be keen to go say hi.

"How about you?"

[tender]

"I thought they'd be more eager to talk to us. We aren't templars, they shouldn't feel as if there's something to fear."

And it doesn't feel as if they fear rifters, or the shards Gwenaëlle and Loxley bear. Or it shouldn't be. Derrica can't discern where this wariness is coming from, and why it persists.

"But it still feels like home. Even if I cannot speak to them as I would like to."

Trade isn't how she wishes to address anyone here. But she has nothing else. Rivaini was lifted from her in that little room before a clattering mosaic. It will take time to gather all the pieces of the language back to herself.

[armd]

It's something that Abby can't relate to: she's used to those around her having had unease baked into them from birth, she won't begrudge them any wariness. But these are Derrica's lands, her people. Abby thinks about what it must feel like to have to come back after being away for so long only to find everything different; she thinks of the old radio receiver in the basement of 2425 Constance, Santa Barbara proper.

"How long has it been since you were here?" is her way of searching for something to connect with Derrica over, even though she is currently the furthest from the Fireflies than she possibly could be.

Not missing them, per say. She wouldn't know what to miss.

late afternoon.

[charmoffensive]

She is joined, eventually. Whole minutes committed to allowing her some time to herself, made more generous if you're to include the previous few hours of light contact, casual conversation, stretches of silence.

But then, a presence. The general murmur of the ocean's friction against the beach is broken up by the sound of closer, watery splashes. Approaching from the shore is Loxley, wading closer. He has already been in the water, has already enjoyed the sun on the beach, and so his hair is still shiny and damp, still curly, and there's a speckling of sand giving silver skin new texture up his back and around a shoulder.

"Hello," he says, once near, a hand drifting out to touch the small of Derrica's back. They've been around each other all day, but this hello has that tone of a reintroduction, now they've a moment apart from the rest.

[tender]

Yes, this is different.

In this moment, afforded privacy and quiet, the veneer of easy, casual conversation that has carried them through all the mission thus far can drop.

She'd heard him coming. Turns towards him at that light touch to her back. For a moment, Derrica just looks at him. Loxley, glistening with salt and sand, tall and lean and so, so welcome. She feels the fluttering presence of warm emotion in her chest, newly named. Still terrifying.

"Hello," she echoes, soft on the heels of that appraisal. "How are you?"

[charmoffensive]

She turns and so his touch to her back finds a resting place on her waist, and so too does his other hand. He'd thought about continuing to feel uncertain about their mutual boundaries over the past little while, motivated by a desire to afford her some space after all they'd been through and all that had been said, matched against the concern that perhaps space is not wanted and could be ripe for misinterpretation, all of which muddying his own perception of what he, personally, would like,

and then decided that that was an awful lot of overthinking. Today, he thinks it would be nice to hold her in the surf, under the waning sun, and pursues it.

"Good," he says. "Wondering how much the handling of one little rift can be pushed back. Certainly another twenty-four hours won't kill anyone."

He has on, also, a patch of grey-black leather, flecked with water, a hint of decoration in the silver beading along the strap, the way it winds around a horn. He has very nearly gotten to a point of not fussing with it while out and about. It is not, anyway, the thing he is missing that concerns him.

"What about you?"

[tender]

All would be easier if Derrica had a clear idea of what she wanted. But Loxley's touch is still a comfort, and she still wants him. If it is wiser to hold herself apart, then—

Well, it would mean she has made a decision of how they might move forward. If she creates distance, it would mean choosing separation. Eroding the intimacy and closeness they've created. It would be unbearable under any circumstances, but even more so now when she's had her first language lifted away from her and the return to Dairsmuid looms in the immediate future.

Still, she doesn't take that last step to lean in against his chest. Instead, her fingers come to rest just above the bend of his elbow as Derrica tips her head up to look at him. Her eyes trace the eyepatch. Observe again the damp curl of hair framing his face.

"I don't know," she offers, after a moment's study. She amends, with a slight smile, "Homesick."

Missing so many things all at once, knowing she would never fit seamlessly into life here the way she once had.

"I keep thinking I should have tried to come back before now."

[charmoffensive]

The shine of his mood dulls, by design, matching her for tempo and tone. He doesn't ease her nearer to him, feeling the measured bracket of her arms against his that is both welcoming and moderating, but he can sketch little circles against the damp cloth of her tunic with his thumbs, up over her waist.

"Perhaps out of the company of some bizarre foreigners," he suggests, a little wry. "I doubt we're making the best impression, by existing."

A little Orlesian, two rifters, one of them a qunari. He doesn't sound too apologetic about it—he has travelled in his share of mixed company.

"Did you enjoy beaches like this one, back when?"

loxley, ota.

[charmoffensive]

Tomorrow, when today is for relaxing.

For leisure, for enjoying one's self, for not worrying about all that exists beyond this idyllic strip of sand and ocean. It is a world apart from the miserable Storm Coast and Loxley's immediate instinct is to soak it all up as much as physically possible.

For long stretches of time while the sun is at its zenith, he can be found sunning himself, either on his back or his front, atop a woven mat apparently made for this sort of thing. His clothing save for the shorts he wears beneath his trousers, currently still worn to preserve some modesty, are all folded up beside him, leather-wrapped sword pinning them down. Working on an even darker shade of grey, he certainly won't turn down any company, whether for a chat or a shared nap in the sun.

Later, there is swimming, either wading out accompanied by or to join someone else, or simply on his own. Initially self-conscious as to his eye, he'd spent a few moments prior first placing one of his glass eyes into his empty socket and then wrapping over it with a close fitting patch with an extra fold of fabric to keep everything in place. This has thus far worked well enough that he indulges in diving down, his remaining eye squinting quick glimpses of the ocean floor.

To be seen, later, emerging from the surf with what little he's wearing clinging to his body in a frankly obscene manner, but he's all smiles as he hefts a weathered, broken piece of bright orange coral to whoever he sees on the beach. Look, treasure.

s(t)unning

[armd]

Abby isn't the best company to try to relax beside. Her own method of sit-staring out across the ocean is tenser than it has any right to be, what with sun beating down on the tops of her head. She's nursing a guilty squirm for daring to enjoy the whisper of ocean breeze, and the dull crashing of waves up onto the shore.

A tilt of her head. "Shouldn't we be doing something?"

Loxley is flat on his back near to her. Abby decides she doesn't care if he's gone to sleep and won't be answering, because she already feels stupid for asking.

But seriously. Preparing, asking around. Something. Anything.

[charmoffensive]

It's possible that Loxley has dozed off, perfectly still, breaths easing out of him slow and deep. But when Abby speaks her question, there's no delay when he raises an eyebrow, remaining eye squinting open. From here, he can see the curve of her shoulder, a more tense and ready kind of posture than his own more vulnerable recline.

"Probably," he says.

A slight shift, easing a back muscle, resettling. "But isn't this nice instead?"

[armd]

Abby doesn't answer, but she does shift restlessly. It is really nice, is the thing. Everybody else from back home is steadily going crazy from all the nightmares. The reprieve has been incredible (she's had a successful nap already, can you imagine), and a tiny bit of her wishes she could throw it all away. Forget Riftwatch, and the war. Come live up here, head buried in hot sand.

"Yeah," she says eventually, "But-"

And doesn't know how to finish the sentence. She pivots. "If we come back tanned, everybody is going to be so fucked off."

[charmoffensive]

"I went to Antiva for Riftwatch once,"

conversationally, eye sliding closed.

"Propaganda dissemination. I think we all managed to get rid of our flyers in a single day, and then spent the evening drinking fine wine and dancing. Not to imply we didn't take our tasks seriously—and tomorrow, we'll very seriously close a rift."

Not addressing whether everyone will be angry at them for coming back beautiful and sunkissed, he asks instead, "I'd bet a sovereign that you didn't get very many beach vacations, where you're from."

rift party.

[tender]

The rift is a nasty gash of a thing, stretched open across the fishing ground. It shudders and crackles, belching demons into the sea and wisps to drift across the choppy waves. There is no avoiding it. Waves lap at the calves of a pride demon as it stomps up and down the shoreline. A pair of despair demons dart back and forth in a deranged game of tag, weaving around wraiths and shades that have sprung up. It has the same sense as an overgrown garden; demons and shades piling up and piling up in the time it had taken for Sanavo to call for help and for them to arrive.

They are fortunate, maybe, that it is located near enough to the shoreline that they aren't obliged to manage boats or swimming in combination with attempting to close the rift.

Olu doesn't linger, leaves them to their task with sincerely bestowed wishes of good luck. This is just as well. They know the way back, and Olu has shown no sign of being a fighter.

"Where should we start?" Derrica asks, grip on her stave shifting as she eyes the pride demon.

That, perhaps, is the starting point. If she has to choose one thing to attend to.

[charmoffensive]

Loxley stands casual amongst them, hand resting loosely on the hilt of his rapier as he regards this little festival of demonic activity, washed up in the surf. His expression has a hint of concern for the amount of foes the four of them must contend with, but his focus is that of assessment. More worried for efficiency than ability. (For the occasion, he's donned an eyepatch embroidered with two crossed blades.)

"I'd be better suited for keeping the big one occupied," he pitches. "Or I can pick off the excess. Between the three of us, we can alternate in closing the rift and covering the other. They don't like it very much, when it's tampered with. Once its weakened, Gwenaëlle can finish the closure on her own while the rest of us stop her from being eaten."

It would be nice if potions of flying existed in this universe. Alas.

He sort of leans backwards to get Abby in his sights, asking, "Where do you like to stand, in a fight?" She's nearly as tall as he is and undoubtedly stockier, but he wouldn't like to presume.

[armd]

"Closer," Abby answers, gaze unwavering from the grim procession, "I'm better up close than I am behind." She has since mastered what it feels like to fire concentrated burst of green magic from the palm of her hand, but doesn't want to have to rely on it. She's told herself it is for emergencies only, because it tends to tire her out.

She doesn't turn her head toward Loxley, but gestures. "D'you want me on your blind side?"

It could be rude to imply he can't keep the scope of the battle under control, but Abby finds it best to acknowledge these things, account for and work with them. Knows even better how quickly one's control of a fight can trickle out of hand, salt water through the spaces between fingers. She isn't trying to say he can't handle it, but that she can fill gaps.

To Derrica, now. "Could we split them up?" Draw that pride demon further from the others, and get rid of it first?

slips in a little tag

[tender]

There is no answering for Loxley, but on his far side, Derrica dips a small nod to Abby. Yes, Abby should position herself in the space that Loxley's periphery can no longer encompass.

But rather than say this aloud, Derrica turns her head to observe the churn of demons in the surf, the hulking mass of that pride demon in contrast to its fellows.

"We'll have to, I think," she answers. "It can break any of your links with the rift with a blow. It should be out of the way, as much as we're able to arrange it."

Which might mean Derrica, kiting that massive thing away while the three of them do heir work. She doesn't say this yet, but it occurs to her, and she puts a hand to her mouth, considering.

local party.

[tender]

:)

FOR GWEN

[armd]

All this hot sand and clear blue sea, the sun in the sky overhead making it impossible to wear anything long-sleeved or layered; one might have to go swimming, eventually.

Derrica is in the water, wading. Loxley right where Abby left him, sunning himself like a lizard, and Abby has kicked off her boots. She has taken off her socks, and the hems of her trousers are wet from the surf as she stands in the wet sand, letting her heels sink down into it. When she pulls them up again the tide fills the space left behind, and smooths it out again. Fun to watch.

She's zoning out right there, concentrating hard on purposefully trying to get her foot stuck so that the water washes up over her ankle and seals her in. When she bends moments later to fish something smooth and misty-green from the shoreline she nearly loses her balance and topples over. Has to windmill wildly just to stay up.

Hopefully nobody saw that.

Her hard won prize: sea glass.

[elegiaque]

Oh, no: someone definitely saw that.

One might have to go swimming, after all, and Gwenaëlle rarely takes all that much persuasion to indulge in that pastime, in particular; summer afternoons had once been spent learning the trick of it in the lake on the Vauquelin estate, until she was confident enough to dive into the water from the highest part of the overhanging trees that she could clamber up, overseen by this or that attendant. Floating on her back under a clear Orlesian sky, when no one had yet looked up into it and seen anything but more sky.

(—and the occasional dragon, or something fired out of a trebuchet, or. This is her nostalgic view of the simpler past, fuck off. Mind your business.)

She's a strong swimmer is the point. Confident in her abilities, albeit presented with new challenges to them; like Loxley, she's tucked her golden eye in its case and replaced it with a close-fitting patch, braided half of her hair in a tight crown and looped the straps of the patch within the braids to keep all in place, the remaining curls spilling over the back of the twists around her head. Unlike Abby, the patch is the only thing she's still wearing, shading her eye with one hand and emerging from the water around her hips and thighs, a laugh in— “Was that worth it?”

Some of her scars are always visible, partially. The eye, for instance, and before that, the beginnings of the rage demon claws that start above where her corsetry sits. Presently, they are rather more confrontingly extensive: those claw-marks drag all around her torso and down the back of the same thigh that a wyvern took a chunk out of, the inner angles healing gnarled.

Occasionally it's incredible she's still alive for reasons other than half the shit coming out of her mouth.

[armd]

"Totally," Abby replies, thumbing her find. It's kinda nice that sea glass is a constant between Thedas and Earth, but... doesn't that mean people are chucking glass in the ocean everywhere? Hrm. Her brow furrows and she glances up.

Gwenaëlle is completely naked.

Abby's gaze rests solidly on her chest for a solid three second beat before she blinks and looks away, letting the sea glass bit drop from her hand, where it splashes back into the water. It shouldn't even be a surprise to her, it's not like she brought anything with her specifically for swimming in. Abby is used to swimming for convenience and not pleasure, she frequently jumps into water with all of her clothes on. And her pack. You try running around Seattle in wet cargo pants.

The scars aren't much of a surprise either. To somebody else they could have been a shock but Abby has her own roadmap to worry about and besides- she hasn't exactly forgotten helping her with her stitches that one time, by the light of an oil lamp.

"Is it cold?" She says it like she's considering coming in.