★ OPEN

[magike]

WHO: rowena macleod + guests
WHAT: arrival, quarantine, things around the gallows as she gets situated
WHEN: throughout may
WHERE: just outside of orlais, mostly the gallows
NOTES: cw: injury description, possible talk of death

Comments

★ ARRIVAL

[magike]

( she'd been falling. that was her dream: the knife plunging into her stomach, intending on killing her, the souls bound for hell absorbed into her, and rowena walking her last steps to the rupture. it was always on that pause where she often woke but the night she'd felt herself falling over the edge again--

and this time hitting solid ground, landing on the outskirts of a forest. it was unexpected, it was bright and certainly not hell. and though she was bleeding, she could feel the injury as she tried pushing herself back up, a pained sound hissed through gritted teeth as she forced herself to sit, she wasn't dead.

nor alone.

rowena could sense the presence as a hands pressed to her stomach, instinctively understanding the danger, and her other flew out at the demon as the spell quickly came to her )

Abite.

( though it does throw the demon slightly back her condition is too weak for her spell to do much, and there's a groaned bollocks from where she's sat, trying to find her next idea quickly before she died. again )

[dissolving]

The demon slams back, and so does Cedric, one into the other; knight over teakettle. White fire blazes as he reaches from the ground to grip its bony tail and —

The Fade twists. Cracks. The demon leaps from sight.

"Fuck." He rises. The rift still teems with weaker spirits, wisps half-formed against the air, unable to congeal. Deceptively calm. "Miss,"

Blood. Recognition grows into a scramble, visor flipped above a face that can't yet be thirty. Hell of a time to drop his blade, but Cedric needs both hands to rip his sash free; to wad red cloth over knuckles and wound.

(Was it always so dark? The air draws taut, impossible now to see the others —)

"Pressure," In the thick voice of another world's Dracula. She's already done it, the echo's just a signal: I'm a friend. We got a common goal.

Don't matter how brave you are, the mind's got a sense for these things. Fear's a warning to pay attention, listen up, and whatever sound Rowena most dreads rises now; low beyond the gloom.

[magike]

Rowena winces as he presses hand and cloth to her, the height of her pain clear in her voice. She takes him in now, the unfamiliar face and voice, and doesn't push him away. This is real, and somehow she's alive.

"What--" was that? was her intended sentence, cut off both by pain and fear. Demon she assumes, if not monster, though a form very different to one she knows.

But it's the fear that chills her, making her tense under his touch as a voice prickles at her mind, sounding as if it's taunting just over her shoulder. Lucifer.

"We can't stay here." Even if she's in little position to do much she's determined and that'll push her through the pain and her unsteadiness (for now). But she can't face Lucifer again... or whatever that thing was.

★ THE INFIRMARY

[magike]

( when rowena was first brought to the infirmary it was obvious what was wrong by the state of her dress, the two blood stains at her shoulder and stomach, and though her hands had been pressed to her, it had done little to staunch the blood flow. her magic would have, but she'd had little opportunity, and her state had weakened her.

in the days since she'd been seen by healers, magical and not alike. though she'd accepted their help, it had been more begrudgingly, not because she didn't wish to be healed but because the idea of showing any weakness was her nightmare. her injuries were healing, but the amount of blood she'd lost had weakened her (almost to the point of dying again), and any movement still gravely pained her. even if stubbornly she kept insisting that she was fine.

so, when she's checked on that day, there's a long-suffering sigh at the approach, raised eyebrows at them )

Well?

[altusimperius]

[It's not a healer who approaches her bedside this time, but a dapperly-dressed young man with a writing board and a smile that exudes pleasant professionalism.]

Rowena Macleod? [he confirms,] I'm Benedict Artemaeus, personnel officer. I wanted to welcome you to Riftwatch, and see to any of your outstanding needs.

May I sit? [he gestures toward a nearby chair.]

[magike]

( there's a slightly dismissive sound that rowena makes, though it's also been very easy to note that she's not been in the most pleasant of moods since arriving in thedas. she'd at least learned the name of this world, and a few other details, but going from comfortably dead to somehow alive and almost dead again had a habit of putting her in a bad mood, particularly when it seemed to be reliving her death.

the recovery didn't help. her stomach was sore, she was very stuck in her bed as she recovered for a time longer, and whilst her stitches had been very neatly applied, it had been a terrible experience. so her outstanding needs certainly felt high, in her opinion.

but she does at least vaguely gesture with her hand in permission for him to sit )

How long of a list would you like?

[altusimperius]

[It's a sound and a vibe he's not unused to encountering, and Benedict smiles through it as he takes a seat; he crosses one lanky leg over his knee and poises quill to page with a wry look.]

Try to keep it within the realm of material possibility, if you would.

[magike]

Material possibility?

( she scoffs slightly at that, amusing to her considering her resurrection.

but there's a quiet pause, thinking on the thing that she'd most like. which is a question rowena rarely gets asked even if she's very good at demanding what she wants )

Well, a decent drink wouldn't hurt. ( the thing no one needs during medical recovery but she'd certainly feel better ) And being released. A more comfortable bed would help someone recover easier.

[altusimperius]

[Benedict's smile broadens, becoming a touch more genuine.]

A decent drink can be seen to, [he assures her,] what's your preference? As for the bed, I'm... certain the healing staff would be open to suggestions, if we can find the resources.

handwaving back to a new first meeting

[portalling]

( It had been quick work: their new arrival had been fading in and out of consciousness by the time they dragged her in from the field and the fight. An inconvenient carriage-ride and ferry-ride, and heavy bloodloss along the way. Not all of the rifters’ entries were this traumatic (literally, physically), but at least it kept the infirmary on their toes.

Rowena’s first memories of this room would be a flurry of blood and water and rinsing the wound — a woman’s neat stitches, a man’s calm and steady voice in the background talking over her hands, instructing third loop, two over, loop again — someone trying to foist a potion on the recalcitrant patient — until she eventually slipped back into full unconsciousness, both due to pain and exhaustion from all her spell-casting that day.

When the redhead eventually wakes up, the doctor — and despite the medieval stone environment there is something universally applicable in his brisk manner, the way he moves around this infirmary, that says yes, he is her doctor — hears her rustling and automatically returns, taking up position by her bedside. )

Still alive? ( he asks, dryly.

His bedside manner isn’t the best. )

[magike]

( she feels the pain the moment she tries to move, a sharp hiss from her and she stops trying to sit up, staying laid against the pillows even if the position isn't that comfortable.

but then a doctor's by her side, humour that's too on point for the situation. she shouldn't be alive, she'd been dead in hell, existing just as a soul. what had happened had felt like a dream except it now persisted and rowena could tell the difference: she was alive again, resurrected somehow. and far from hell.

dying had meant that she'd never needed to go through this recovery: she'd died, become a soul and her body had broken down to release the souls she'd contained there. now? her resurrection sachets were far more efficient than this. this wasn't healing, this was pain )

Who are you?

( almost dying for the second time doesn't give a woman chance to ask many questions. she remembers some vague basics she'd been told before her consciousness had gotten blurry but that had been before she'd met him )

[portalling]

Doctor Stephen Strange, Head Healer of Riftwatch.

( The man rattles off the introduction unthinking, the words rolling off his tongue; it’s become an automatic thing by now, jotting in the other title where he used to say MD, PhD. Standing by this stranger’s bedside, sizing her up, it still feels like he should probably be carrying a clipboard and wearing a stethoscope. )

You came in in fairly bad shape, right from the get-go. We stitched up the stab wound to your stomach and we’ve been plying you with healing potions. You’re through the woods now, but you’ll still need to stay still and rest up for a while, I’m afraid. How are you feeling?

[magike]

As if I'd been stabbed.

( even though rowena knows that she hadn't been, not since she'd died, anyway. though the fact that he's talking about stitches and potions intrigues her. and concerns her )

By a healing potion you mean magic?

( and if yes why not just heal her, why stitch her. unless he didn't know healing magic. many witches didn't )

[portalling]

Yes, ( and for a moment there’s a flicker of faint consternation across Strange’s face, the wince of remembering he might have skipped a few steps. For whatever accident of the cosmos, it’s been a while since they had a rifter who wasn’t already familiar with the paranormal. He wonders if he’s going to have to backtrack.

He’s never done the introductory schpiel for someone, and he’s been hoping to continue avoiding it; he knew they’d thankfully already explained some things to her on the way in, but he hadn’t bothered to learn how much. It hadn’t been relevant for the immediate medical care. )

I’m not sure how much they filled you in on the way. Do I need to do a quick rundown? Yes, magic’s real, demons are real, best get used to it quick.

( This is why he doesn’t do the introductions. )

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is not exactly unfamiliar with rough arrivals. her own, nearly a decade ago sent to skyhold, had been an agonising trip in — she thinks it had been a palanquin by the last push up the mountain, the pathways ill-suited for the carriage that had begun the journey. she’d been in and out of medicated sleep, half-drowned in potions for the pain, and barely remembers it,

she doesn’t expect rowena to remember her. it had been her hands under stephen’s supervision — one day isaac’s going to crack and say something but it hasn’t happened yet — and her hands measuring out dosages for the pain, for sleep. she isn’t in the infirmary the first time rowena wakes properly, nor the third; on that first day she’d met them at the gates, hurrying alongside, but a day or two later her usual shift volunteering at the infirmary coincides with rowena’s waking.

she’s slight, her tightly-corseted dark red dress hitched out of her way above her knees with skirt hikes, curling hair pulled tightly back from her face and pinned similarly; she’s rubbing her hands with something that smells suspiciously like hand sanitiser as she approaches, pushing a wheeled trolley into place at the side of rowena’s sickbed with her hip. )

I’m going to change your dressings, ( she says, brisk, ) don’t get too excited.

( it’s not how most people hope to have a strange beautiful woman reach over to unfasten their bodice. )

[magike]

( rowena looks cautiously over the woman as she approaches, suspicious, and every bit as resistant to aid as she had been when she'd arrived. though now that she's fully conscious she's more vocal about it and her hands hover in front of her, as if to fend off the woman first )

Some might introduce themselves before becoming personal.

( a nurse, she judges by the task, or another doctor. someone who works here but still a stranger to her, and there's a firmness in her expression. and a slap to her hand, if gwenaëlle tries to reach for her bodice still. name before touching her )

[elegiaque]

( the slightest tilt of her head, a rise of her eyebrow—

gwenaëlle’s not known for her bedside manner. she’s also not known for her subtlety, so the fact she’s doing the math on the absolute most efficient way through this encounter is clear, and that that efficiency is markedly more compelling to her than the concept of courtesy. that’s optional, and brand new rifters, well.

she’s not completely without sympathy, but she’s certainly sparing with it. the fact that rowena is being attended to at all is plenty to be getting on with. )

Captain Baudin. Are you one of the some who’d cooperate rather than risk an infection?

( she doesn’t seem that invested in a yes or no; if rowena decides to be stubborn, writing latest rifter uncooperative takes less time on her list of things to do than the dressings would. )

[magike]

Decent healing negates that.

( but she draws her hands back, lowering them back to her sides. the gesture is the only inkling of permission that rowena gives, expecting that human medicine is the only care that she'll get or she'd have been healed already. if she didnt feel so weak she'd have attempted it herself )

When am I being released?

( she asks that even though she can't comfortably sit herself up, though she'll admit nothing. or try and pull herself out even in shedloads of pain )

[elegiaque]

If I had to guess, ( entirely optionally, and not delivered as if this is something to which she’s specifically privy — nothing she expects to be privy, ) I’d imagine shortly before or slightly after your Gallows quarantine is completed.

( on the bright side: maybe she’ll spend her entire quarantine in the infirmary, and it won’t be so much out of confinement, into only slightly larger confinement. beyond, of course, the way in which all of them bearing anchor-shards are confined to one another,

a dull green glow in her hand matches the one rowena now bears, easily visible as she briskly attends to the work of changing the dressings, examining the way the sutures are healing. not ready to be removed, yet, though they will need to be— this isn’t the sort of medicine that stephen once oversaw, and the resources not so advanced even with the shot in the arm that rifter intelligentsia have provided.

and every resource matters. she lets the remark on decent healing pass, instead of making explicit that she’s simply not of great enough priority to warrant that. it’s not personal. )

★ THE LIBRARY

[magike]

( when rowena's finally released from the infirmary, she's given orders of bed rest. it's an instruction only partially followed; she's not especially good at sitting around, and given the strangeness of her situation, she'd like to know more, particularly about their location.

so she finds directions to the library, and is suitably impressed by the size of the stacks there. though, rather than ask for help, she takes a slow path down one of the rows, looking carefully at each title as she passes. her steps are careful and slow as she walks, steady to not aggravate her healing injury, and it doesn't take her too long before she has to pause, resting a hand on the shelf to rest. just for a moment.

on another day, she's returned for some of the books that she'd scouted on an earlier visit, sometimes taking something of history to read, sometimes finding a magical tome that catches her attention. though, for as much as rowena understands of the books, there's as much that she doesn't, enough that quickly frustrates her (verbally so in the noise she makes). some of it is in the script, some of it is in details she hasn't yet wrapped her head around. and some is in her weaker magic )

★ THE HERB GARDEN

[magike]

( as she's told about the different places within the gallows, it catches her attention, her knowledge of various herbs and plants is strong to complement her magical skill.

it's in her second week after her release from the infirmary that rowena makes her way there, moving a little easier than previously as she walks into and around the garden. there are teas and potions that she'd like to make, something to bolster her healing, though as rowena begins to look at some of the plants closest to the entrance, she notices that she doesn't know what they are, unfamiliar to her knowledge. she'd known this would be likely, different universes have differences to them, and native plantlife is one obvious way.

it makes her curious, though, crouching to visually study one of the herbs closer before looking up at someone passing nearby )

Could you tell me what this is called?

★ lamentation strand

[magike]

( continued-- )

Bring a coat. It's so quickly given, an acceptance of her statement with little question that she finds it strange. Normally, Rowena wouldn't, but she'd been given a strong enough warning about the (outdated, in her opinion) views of magic here that she expected more questioning or challenge. She remembered it well.

She won't challenge the acceptance, even if she's not certain about a coat (does she have one? She'll find one). Though she will add-- "Bring a mirror. A small one is all I need."

She might have been modifying her spell to feel more for those she was tracking but multiple options would never hurt.

[anthracite]

When they regroup,

It clinks in his hand — open, shut, open — a little pocket round of polished tin, set beside the picture of a woman burning. Most of her face has been scratched out. He doesn't pay it mind.

"It's a journey to Skyhold," Through the Crossroads and its own mirrors. "If you care to try it here."

Clink. Open, shut, and Strand passes the compact over. His expression is thin. That must be habitual, because he doesn't give the impression of particular scrutiny, expectation. She'll do it, or she won't.

(Mages. Can't really check their work, can you? You buy their goodwill, and you hope for trust, and you take what you get.)

[magike]

Rowena takes the mirror from him, opening the compact back up. She doesn't know the landscape here or what she'll see, but she'll try it anyway, even if her magic still doesn't feel as strong. Recovery and resurrection, she's figuring it out.

He'll see her looking into the mirror, though whilst it changes for her, the reflective surface clouding over, he won't see anything different. And despite her focus, using the picture as a guide as to who she's trying to track, the mirror doesn't clear. They're too far away for her.

"How are we getting to Skyhold?"

It's new travel for her.

feel free to drop this if you'd preferi know it's been a million years, i'm just clearing full inbox

[anthracite]

It’s new to him, too. He doesn’t see the point in volunteering that —

"Eluvian." He doesn't reach for the compact, and its miniature of Blessed Andraste. Easy come, easy go; at least when you came by it dishonestly. "A larger sort of mirror, enchanted. They've one in the storeroom."

Past barred cells, over cobble and board, and finally before a high arch of glass. He steps through first, arm extended half behind him in the parody of a parted curtain, else a chivalrous door –

But that's not how it works, and when he vanishes beyond, she'll need herself to follow.

Inside coalesces the landscape of another place. The Crossroads is between, brightly-coloured and strange; sprawling into an amalgam of odd architecture, black stone. The twisted roots of dreams. Within it, Rowena shines a little brighter and clearer. An artist might put names to it, but he isn't an artist.

Strand starts down the path (a path, any path) and behind him bobs a wisp of light, hovering about Rowena like an excited dog. It burbles.