faderift | O2 ♚ I'M A LONG TIME TRAVELER HERE

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O2 ♚ I'M A LONG TIME TRAVELER HERE

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Several Rifters and native drop-ins congregate at the Tavern as advertised via messenger crystal.
WHEN: Late January (forward-dated for recentmost app approvals!)
WHERE: The Tavern, private room
NOTES: OOC plotting here! Feel free to treat this like a general mingle log, but I will be making empty starters below for specific topics for group threads/conversation. An infodump/glossary link may also be pending from Araceli/Church.

It's past dinner time. This provides a reasonable excuse to drink only out of the ale pitchers set up for the expected guest, although there's a little bread and salt pork set up on the one bench along the wall. Dozens of chairs and a few less tables are loosely organized into groups. There's no dais or marked center for the room, the bar room version of the principles of the Arthurian round table, all being equal in the private room. Which, granted, is only as private as the public announcement and common courtesy might enforce. In other words, that can't be a real expectation.

However, the other Tavern workers are watching the door and main floor discreetly, multi-tasking with running the usual evening business. It's not so different from any other night, not even for the involuntary immigrants gathering on the second level. Drink, talk, and get to know.

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[Using the tell-tale glimmer of the shard as a guide, Lenneth makes her way to Marcel's table and sits, nodding her head briefly in greeting. In rather stark contrast, she sits with the upright posture of a life-long soldier, and her clothes remain the same as the day she fell through the Rift--she cleans them faithfully. Sans armor in Skyhold, for the most part. Of course, she had the 'luck' of coming from a comparable time period.]

I assume you mean bartending, rather than being pulled violently through the planes. [She replied. Her tone is cool enough that It's very difficult to tell when the Valkyrie is joking. but for those used to listening for such things, there's a note of wryness to it.]

I do mean bartending, [Marcel says, turning to look at the woman. It's not a stretch to say that he's never seen anybody like her before. He's met girls with purple hair and petite frames. He's met women who are in the military, and he's also met people who talk to him with a very particular dry humor; his adoptive family, for example, tended toward biting sarcasm whenever outright nastiness was not possible.

It's a little rare to find these things in combination, though.]

But they can probably use a chef, more people to deal with moving supplies, maybe carpentry and stuff like that too. [Marcel pushes his tankard aside and offers her a hand.] Marcel Gerard. Nice to meet you.

[Obviously not familiar with this iteration of the offered gesture, Lenneth reaches past his hand to grasp his forearm instead. Her grip is strong and steady, and she nods seriously as he introduces himself.] Lenneth Valkyrie.

[Then she frowns slightly, confused.] The tasks you mention... are not all who have come through the rifts skilled in combat? [Well, that would ruin a theory. She had thought that perhaps something in this world--perhaps Andraste, or the Maker?--had, as a last resort, begun to pull needed warriors from other worlds. If those of civilian occupations had been pulled from their worlds as well, then the rifts were much more dangerous than she'd previously thought.]

[Marcel's eyes drop to her pale hand clasped around his forearm. Despite that he's never performed this particular gesture before, he adapts easily, closing his fingers around her forearm in return. He gives her a squeeze, comradely, before releasing her arm. No doubt, he comes away with the distinct impression. that. she. probably-- lifts.

Or the Valkyrie equivalent thereof. The Mikaelsons told him stories. His eyebrows pop, very faintly, but he doesn't ask quite yet.

Partly because she kind of derails him with a rather good question.] Huh. [Marcel settles forward slightly.] I hadn't thought to check, but we ought to. So far, I know we have a soldier from outer-sp-- beyond the skies, [something about her suggests to him she wouldn't know what 'outer-space' means, necessarily.] I know Ariadne and Araceli have some moves. And I've been through war too. You might be onto something. [A beat.] I mean, Tavern work is still an option.

For some, at least.

[She'll actually crack a small wry smile at the suggestion, briefly imagining a life outside combat. Fetching water? Scrubbing floors? Serving ale? Something twitched at the back of her mind, the faintest of memories, but was quickly forgotten. She had too little frame of reference to keep up the imaginary world.]

As far as military prowess, I have been thinking on it. Surely there are useful skills we have each brought with us from our worlds that do not exist in Thedas -- or in a different enough form -- that could be taught to the members of the Inquisition? Even if whatever enemy we face knows of our existence, they certainly cannot account for what we might know of battle, or tactics, or some method of healing. Perhaps techniques of forging metals, building walls, traps, any somesuch that we would find perfectly ordinary that is foreign here?

[Marcel sits forward slightly, studying the valkyrie with interest. It hadn't occurred to him that their knowledge of walls and traps might be beyond what the Inquisition already knows of. But then again, last he spoke to a local about the disparity of technologies, they asked for a drawing of a combustion engine. This sounds considerable more accessible and thus helpful.]

You're probably right, [he says.] I've heard they've been hesitant to let us get hands-on where it really matters. Makes sense to a degree; they don't know what we have to offer, and the demon rep gets in the way. [Marcel scratches at the mark on his hand, absent-mindedly.] But the only way to demonstrate is to demonstrate. With as many origin worlds as we have, there are gonna be some things we can teach. Or learn.

[A beat.] I heard stories of valkyries at home, [he says.] I heard you all were more in the business of battle than building walls. I mean. In that Valhalla doesn't need much in terms of remodeling.

[Just hearing the name of her home--from someone besides herself--is enough to change her entire demeanor. It's almost as if the sun comes out across her face, and the ice of her eyes melts to the expansive blue of a cloudless summer sky, a real smile spreading across her lips to light them. With the evaporation of her cool, haughty air, she looks years younger. A slip of a woman, the sword at her side more of a mismatch than a part of her.]

You know of us? [She asks, more breath than sound.] And of Valhalla? Yggdrasil? Freya and the All-Father? [Oh--he'd asked a question. Her back straightened, shoulders set with pride.] You are right, of course. However, sometimes the business of battle is walls. Not in Valhalla, they would not dare... but when one is outside of them, and the enemy is within.

[A beat.] If your world is of the tree, and you are human, then... have you come from Midgard?

[It takes Marcel a moment to think and to remember. Although Klaus and the other Mikaelsons were well-acquainted with the legends of their forefathers, they had been rather active, even actively obsessed, with forging legends of their own. Marcel's education had been comprehensive, but Viking lore was really only one part of many.]

Yes, [he says at last.] Midgard. Unfortunately, in my time, belief in-- Asgard has waned somewhat. If your people are out there, they largely leave mine alone. The majority of those who speak my language call our world 'Earth' now. [He grins at her, though. He can't help it. She looks very different indeed when she's smiling, and even though he seriously doubts she knows very much about vampires and the witchcraft of New Orleans, it's like a secondhand high. All of them are lost and unmoored. To help someone feel a touch better grounded is itself exceptional.]

I was raised by a man descended from a line of great warriors who sought to join Odin someday. And Freya was a name important to some of our witches. [Albeit less so in contemporary United States.] They'd be stunned to know we were having this conversation, I can tell you that.

["If your people are out there," he says, and "in my time." He comes from a future Midgard, then? It would still be some time, then, before Ragnarok. Or... had the Twilight of the Gods already come and gone? The world submerged and formed anew long before his birth? Had they been successful? Who remained?

He mentioned the All-Father and Freya as names still known and passed down, and that at least made her smile. And he had appeared after she had, had come from a Midgard where Lenneth had already long-ago disappeared.

Thinking of times and changes, the past and future made her mind ache, so she stopped, smiled instead.]

When you return then, tell the man who raised you that you fought alongside a Valkyrie to help determine the fate of a world. [Her tone turned wry.] It is as close to fighting for the All-Father at Ragnarok as one may get while still living.

[A future Midgard by far. Incidentally Marcel himself is also thinking about how vastly divergent their times must be, at least insofar as that-- they probably don't have laptops in Asgard, even if gods and such are functionally immortal. He's probably lucky that he comes from a world where magic itself isn't a totally foreign concept, or his brain would be collapsing in on itself like a badly made souffle at the moment.

As it is, he thinks Klaus would stare at him for a moment, be incredulous. Maybe laugh, until he realized Marcel was wholly serious.

And then probably plot to try and get some witches to bring Lenneth over to New Orleans that, he then might rally her and her shield-sisters over to smite their enemies. The Mikaelson clan is nothing if not good at rolling with the punches, then trying to use those punches to destroy other people. He grins.] I like how you say that, [he says.] 'When I return.' [Not if.] You pretty committed to fight alongside the Thedosians, then? I mean, building walls and fortifications are good too, but we both know what you are.

[She nods firmly, her body language becoming more neutral, shoulders set as if she wears armor again already. The sword again looks like a part of her.] It is so. After all, if I cannot discharge the duty of collecting souls, I might at least train those who join us here. [Her face says: "If they let a Rifter train soldiers."] Perhaps I will inquire with Commander Rutherford. If not that, then at least I may fight as a soldier myself--there is still honor in that, and we fight for a worthy cause.

Even if it is not our world in the throes of war... well. It is ours for as long as we are here. We are as much threatened by this Corypheus as those native to this place. [And he was right. This was what she did. Cleanse fell magic, protect the Cycle of Souls, battle gloriously, claim victory for the glory of the gods. If in Thedas it were for the glory of Andraste, at the very least the Maker's Bride seemed worthy of it.]

And you? What will you choose? [There was no judgement in her tone, merely curiosity--she had little expectation set for mortals. Perhaps that was why they kept surprising her.]

[Mortals. Someday, he's going to surprise her with an update about his unliving status. It might go well.

It might not.]

It's been a long time since I was a soldier. Might be comforting, to do something familiar, [he says, nodding his head.] And it seems like it could be killing a couple birds with one stone. There's a Vahshoth woman here who pointed out, demons don't spend a lot of time killing other demons. Even the most superstitious Thedosian would take a hint, over enough time. [He glances around the room briefly.] I think a few of us have a fear of conscription. Exploitation.

But I got myself out of bullshit like that before, and I'm willing to run the risk of doing it again if I have to. [He grins at her, deep and mellifluous voice drifting into the briefest pause.] You end up here with any weapons, or are you gonna need the locals to furnish you with some of that?

[She'll tap the hilt of her sword with one hand to illustrate its presence.] My armor came with me as well. It needs some light repair, but... [Repairing Aesir armor with the materials available to Skyhold at the moment? Her expression showed clearly how likely she thought that to be. Was it vain to prefer arrow damage to a patch-job?]

I am also... not as sturdy as I was. I appear to injure as a mortal would. [The blood running down her arm as they'd fought the Red Templar had been... startling to say the least.] Perhaps another set of armor entirely would be a good idea.

[She glossed over the fears he mentioned, not sure what do to with them at the moment. Lenneth hadn't even considered the possibility that "not fighting" was something people did. Especially given her working theory that the Rifters were brought through for that express purpose. Armaments were a safer thought.]

I take it others did not come so equipped?

I came here with nothing but the threads on my back and these, [Marcel says, spreading his hands for a brief moment. He has nice hands, mind you—pretty big, long fingers, suitable for the piano lessons his ‘father' had stipulated he take once upon a time. She might notice the ring winking from his finger, silver strands corded around a gem of bright lapis lazuli, before he flops his hands down on the table again.] I'm lucky that the witches of my ancestry granted me with the gifts of healing and resilience, myself.

[Someday, the lie is going to cost him, but not today! And technically, these were indeed the gifts that Esther had meant to pass on. The predatory characteristics and nasty blood habit had been an unfortunate accident, really.]

I have been told that dwarves of this place run incredible workshops, [he notes.] Might be they could figure out what to do with your armor. I mean, it might be worth trying. I'm told they have a knack for invention, too, and that might be interesting for you as well. [He folds his arms, a smile passing briefly over his face.] Wait a minute. Are you telling me you don't have a legendary sword on you?

[She'll smile, a touch wryly.] Did you hope for Dainsleif, that may not be sheathed again without killing? Mistilteinn or Laevateinn, which may kill even gods? [Her eyes flash with a genuine teasing mirth.] Or perhaps Gungnir itself, the All-Father's spear of Yggdrasil's sacred ash, which always finds its fatal mark?

[The valkyrie laughs, a sound like silver bells, and shakes her head--it's almost demure.] Nothing so exciting. If I carried such relics, the All-Father would find us here and reach through the sky to retrieve them before we were even halfway to finding our way home. [And she would feel a great deal more distraught about having been pulled from her tasks in Midgard.]

Just this. [The blue of her eyes twinkle again, as she pulls her sword from its sheath and balances it on her hands, offering it towards Marcel so he can examine it. Despite her modest attitude, it's still of Valhalla's make. Exquisite balance, simple design but excellent craftsmanship; well used, but well maintained.] But if you are from Midgard's future, it is an age-old relic, and a valkyrie's sword to boot. Legendary enough, no?

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O2 ♚ I'M A LONG TIME TRAVELER HERE

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