★ 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

[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.