faderift | open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

WHO: Inquisition Forces
WHAT: Inquisition forces cross the mountains into Orlais to deal with Emprise du Lion
WHEN: Wintermarch 25 onward
WHERE: EMPRISE DU LION
NOTES: This is a mingle-style log for the Inquisition camps, local tavern, and general/open Inquisition work, etc.

This time they hike down to the west, but the trip through the mountains is no easier. The snow is heaped up about the road where wagons have pushed it aside, stomped into slippery pack beneath the feet and hooves that have gone before. Of the main track it is ankle deep at best and in places it drifts, waist-deep on a tall man and enough to bury a dwarf who hasn't come prepared with snowshoes. Everywhere the wind howls, biting cold, and the sky hangs low, a pale flat grey that makes it difficult to judge distances. Those who know winter weather call it a snow sky, and near-daily squalls prove them right.

They set up camp in Sahrnia, across the broad expanse of frozen river that has trapped the villagers here upstream. Tents pop up in rows and in the shells of tumbled-down buildings, fires blazing and thawing the ground to mud. When the supply wagons roll in they re-open the local tavern, brightly lit with flaking paint on the walls that might once have been colorful and patterned tiles on the floor that seems to swim like an optical illusion after too many glasses of the cheap red wine that fills the cellars.

Even deadlier reds hold the hills: Red Templar sightings have been frequent and it is said they are operating in several locations in the region in significant force. Some of these men and women have become hulking, crystalline beasts. Many others are in the earlier stages of corruption: red-veined and -eyed, aggressive and superhumanly strong, but still visibly human and coherent if spoken to. Red lyrium is even easier to find, jutting out of the ground or cliffsides, filling caves-- the Tower of Bone, a fortress that has stood for centuries, now threatens to split from the inside out. The area's wildlife was none too friendly before, but now the wolves and bears have begun to be corrupted by the lyrium and many will attack on sight, without provocation. (The snofleurs that bumble harmlessly around the river seem unaffected.)

Everywhere there are ruins: broken bridges, crumbling colosseums, and the great hulking mass of Suledin's Keep tucked between the distant hills. Scouts reported that Red Templars hold it as well.

RIFTER ARRIVAL - SAHRNIA - THE HILLS - TOWER CAMP - A HANDY MAP

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It takes Zafire a little longer than it should have to reach the village, not least because she wants to be very certain she's looked everywhere for a clue as to her surroundings. Unfortunately, the presence of some monstrous entities previously unknown to her is a deterrent for sticking around, as is the horrendous cold. She has to stay on the move to keep from freezing, and to distract herself from the gnawing pain in both her hand (the unnatural glowing shard) and the pit of her stomach (pure non-magical anxiety).

She has retrieved her shawl, which she wears around her hair and face, but doesn't do a lot to keep her unobtrusive, since nearly everything she's wearing is white, silk, and threaded with gold. Her boots are blessedly holding up throughout the trek to civilization, but the hem of her dress is sodden with snow, half-melted. The sight of the village is simultaneously a relief and an object of fear. She has no idea how the people who live there will respond to her presence, but she also doesn't know what else to do, so she makes her way into the territory of strangers, footsteps increasingly unsteady the further she gets into what may or may not actually be some approximation of safety.

Her scarf slips, slides from her hair, threatens to come loose and fall entirely, but Zafire is too distracted with trying to remain upright. She is not going to pass out. She is not the fragile house-bound creature of pillows and palaces that she was only a year or two ago. She is not going to pass out —

But her knees buckle anyway, and she reaches for a nearby frost-covered tree to balance her palm against, looking both pale and tight-lipped in her self-directed agitation.

Edited 2016-01-26 23:04 (UTC)

A man is there, a moment later, one hand at her waist and the other at her wrist, turning the hand with the shard in his own - the shard that matches his, in fact, the dull ache of it that he's grown accustomed to. (You can grow accustomed to a lot of things, given time. Martel knows.) His handling of her is brusque; not rough or careless, but lacking a certain gentility that his bearing, had she seen him coming, would have suggested he is perfectly aware gently-bred women ought to be handled with.

"You've come through a rift," he says, flatly, straightening her and keeping his hand at her waist to see she stays that way when he releases her hand. "Where is it?"

The likelihood she closed it seems - well, look at her. He is thinking ahead, to work to be done.

Zafire blinks hard, startling slightly (in a muted kind of way) at the unexpected assistance. She pulls her hand back to herself, gazing first at the stranger who has kept from sinking down onto her knees in the snowy path, then at the cursed shard embedded into her hand. She struggles back toward presence of mind, which feels a lot like swimming against a river's current in the dark.

A rift, it's called, and there are even more of their number. Knowing it can be closed would come as something of a surprise. She thinks for a moment, lifts her chin, jerks her head back toward the way by which she came to the village. When she speaks, it's even, not breathless, deliberately pacing her words. "Past the road. Perhaps half a league, and northeast. There is a tall tree, newly fallen, fifteen, twenty paces away."

Now Zafire fixes her attention a second time on Martel's face, intent.

"Am I trapped here?"

There is no inflection in her voice.

There's no sense in pussyfooting around it or lying to her - and Martel is not inclined to handle her or the matter with kid gloves. He isn't any gentler when he says, "Yes," more of his attention on the directions that she gives him than how she might react to the notion of being trapped in this strange place for the rest of her natural life.

(He isn't quite so concerned as the rest, and he has a tendency to be callous about it. It rarely matters, given how little time he spends with those who came through the way he did.)

"For a lack of a better alternative, I strongly suggest you join us at the Inquisition camp." His tone is very slightly grudging, as if he'd personally not prefer that at all.

For the span of about three seconds, Zafire briefly imagines setting him (and all of her nearby surroundings) on fire.

It isn't actually personal, and the bluntness Martel uses has nothing to do with it. The news could have been broken to her in the gentlest, most tactful manner imaginable, and she would still lapse into the kind of frustrated rage that is so familiar it almost reassures her, which is also why she's able to compartmentalize the feeling after those three seconds. At some point she will certainly vent, because the desire to do so does not ever disappear, but she's hardly in any condition to try it now, anyway, even if she didn't get over the urge so quickly.

Besides, her pragmatism overrides everything. Even bad temper must be calculated.

Zafire breathes out, thinks about how much she would like to not be upright at this very moment, contemplates whether they know how alarming the term 'Inquisition' sounds, and then nods, maybe in answer to his suggestion, maybe just in acceptance that this is actually happening, again, twice as strangely as the first time. (She got away before, didn't she? But it had better not last another two decades.) It doesn't take very long at all, the completion of this train of thought, but inside her head, it seems like an hour has gone by.

"Well," she says, "I'm not going to keep company with the wolves, now, am I. Which way to your camp, please?"

He doesn't seriously consider pointing her at it and then striding off in the direction she's given him; for a moment, he just wishes that he did even consider it an option. His aversion to the other rifters doesn't extend to a willingness to portray himself as quite that callous and cruel - for all that it'd hardly be the worst of his sins.

They don't need to know that.

"We aren't far," he says, resigned to taking her back with him.

A moment later and he scrutinises her, frankly critical. "Will you manage it?"

Carrying her is going to be quicker, and he has no desire to draw this out longer than he must - but carrying her without her leave is hardly going to endear him to anyone.

While her knee-jerk impulse is to say yes regardless of its truth, she takes a moment to actually think about her answer. It will be worse if she is wildly incorrect and does collapse somewhere between here and her destination, but — while definitely wearier than she ought to be even after taking on the devils of the rift — Zafire concludes she'd better keep moving. Stillness in these temperatures is worse than mobile exhaustion.

"Yes, I'll be fine, thank you." Well, maybe not, but she'll make it to the camp, at the very least, where she can see what her options are. If any exist. "But I need to know who has done this, who has brought me here."

This man doesn't seem like the type to engage in lengthy discussion and she isn't sure how much she'll be able to get out of him. Still, Zafire understands it necessary, in her position, to balance the requisite show of deference involved in what she is (a captive, an outsider) with demonstrating she is not and will not be passive, wherever she is.

Anything less is asking for trouble.

The sound he makes isn't quite a laugh - there's no real mirth in it - but it might as well be, for as close as it is to anything else. Apparently not quite willing to take her at her word, he adjusts his grip rather than letting go; that he doesn't lift her wholesale is enough of a compromise. Better to steady her if she sways more easily than to have to dig her out of a snow-drift because she stumbled too far out of his reach.

"It wasn't done purposefully," he says, which is presumably the origin of what wasn't really humour. "You saw the rift for yourself. I arrived the same way. You'll find the matter of how you came to be here is the very least of these people's problems, and I'm afraid to say the least of yours, now you're here."

It irritates him to discuss. More that he's discussing it with her than the concept of discussing it at all; he has worked tirelessly since arrival to settle himself into this world, weave himself into the Inquisition, build himself a new place. He dislikes being dragged out to reminders that he does not belong, that he might never be permitted to. Solidarity with those who came the way he did is not something he wishes to encourage anyone to seek in him.

It is familiar behavior, as this is the second time Zafire has been physically kept in place — not manhandled, it's not that brusque, and certainly Guy was much more personable about it than this gentleman, who is not exactly ill-mannered so much as vaguely acerbic. In fact, what Martel tells her is also familiar in a very old way, and if she is go be here, she'd better learn quickly what is expected of new arrivals.

"I have no doubt," she says, wry and exhausted, "and in that case, we'd better walk and talk."

At least this time she won't be stripped of her name, probably. She did take an awful lot of care in choosing this current one for herself, so that's a very thin silver lining. As she keeps up the steadiest walking pace she can manage, Zafire lifts her chin in some approximation of a nod, frowning with thought.

"You said it was an Inquisition camp." She is assuming it has little to do with the series of Inquisitions fought by the Catholics, but maybe there are certain traits it has in common. "An inquiry to what end?"

"An inquiry into the murder of Divine Justinia as relates to the ripping of a dirty great hole in the fabric of reality that subsequently spawned the rifts. A little thing in the vein of saving the world."

It's a succinct summary. Acerbic as he is, he doesn't waste time or breath on agreeing with her suggestion so much as he simply marries thought to action and begins briskly escorting her along - more considerate of her pace than first (...and second, and third) impressions suggest he might be, but not conciliatory or particularly gentle. It seems like practicality rather than empathy, and -

It is. But not all pragmatists are quite that forward-thinking, so there's that.

"Considered, I understand, to be borderline heretical by the authority of the Chantry, but as Divine Justinia was, in fact, their highest authority, and she is now dead, that is rather challenging to enforce."

There is a lot here that she will have to gather context for — asking questions is, of course, a necessity, she would be foolish not to try, but certain things are experiential, such as the exact tenor of a new land's political climate. Theirs is obviously in great disarray, no doubt furthered by the sudden arrival of (how many?) strangers of unknown ability, history, and agenda. The power inherent to a title like 'Divine' is clear enough.

"A woman was the highest authority of their faith?"

Zafire's genuine astonishment is maybe more telling than she would like, though it is far from appalled. The idea is nearly as alien as the rifts, and would have been more so only a few years ago, before she discovered the other witches. With a slight shake of her head, discomfited by her own surprise, she presses on. Saving the world does indeed take greater precedence; even if it isn't exactly her world, she is presently in it, after all.

"I'm guessing some sections of this Chantry are more of an impediment than a boon to the Inquisition's mission."

She knows from politicized religious powers. Some will exhibit sense and grace, and others —

Well, others will be a mixed bag. Zafire can't really blame them. They must be frightened. She will be, too, most likely, once this newest shock's worn off again.

"You've a ready grasp of politics, my lady," he says, bone dry, "despite your gentler sex. Which you'll find means far less here than I take it you're accustomed to."

Though by the way Martel speaks, for all his apparent acceptance, it's no less strange to him. ('Patriarch' is an ecclesiastic title in Eosia. Ehlana is an exceptional woman, but she is an exception.)

Zafire almost can't believe it herself, but the sound she makes is some approximation of a laugh. Maybe more of a huff, a ghost of a laugh. She's thinking of Turhan, and of Kosem, strangled by her own hair. She wonders whether Turhan got the message, metaphorically speaking. Now she may never know, so she'll have to trust in her own ability to convey what she means.

"Well," she says, so agreeable it's deprecating not herself, but her 'homeland', "that may have changed, but evidently, some things never do. How comforting."

There is still visible tension and anxiety left in her shoulders, in the tilt of her chin when she lifts her head to look around at the (to her mind, which is in no condition to appreciate the landscape) bleakly wintry village, leading into the camp. Still. She knows how to do this, doesn't she? Slave or refugee, she will get the measure of this place. Zafire looks back at Martel, who is clearly not of this world or hers, but also much more settled, here.

"What will happen to the rift I came from?"

"A group of us will return to it," with a gesture of the hand with the rift shard to make it clear what he means by us, "and with any luck, it'll be closed without any of us dying."

There is no guarantee of that, but they're getting better at it, he thinks. And if he has to die for anything--

"The shard comes from the rift," after a moment, "but not everyone who bears one came through it."

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haseki - 2016-02-25 06:22 (UTC) - Expand

"Hey, are you alright?"

The voice comes from behind her, one that holds a touch of a brogue - and an unmistakable note of concern that has nothing whatsoever to do with the accent, just happens to be mixed in at the same time. It belongs to a young man who, while mostly dressed for the weather, seems to have chosen to wear a sort of plaid skirt over his warmer and more sensible garb. He also seems to be hovering, not quite to the point where he'd be able to hold her up, but close enough that if it looks like she's about to fall he can step in and hopefully keep her from doing so.

Before he does anything else, however, he reaches for a cloak that's around his neck and undoes the clasp, snagging it with a hand that glitters with a green glow much like the one in hers. There's a faint furrowing of his brow as he offers it out towards her, but whether it's from the shard in his own hand or that concern that's still lingering in his voice, it's hard to say.

"Here, you must be freezing. Take this."

Zafire's attention catches pretty swiftly on the shard, and almost distracts her to the point she scarcely notices the cloak. When she does see it, she hesitates before accepting (she doesn't want to convey fragility any further than she already has, but also, she's cold).

"Thank you, sir," she says, imbuing it with what grace she can muster, "and in answer to your question, no. I am not all right! I have been stolen fom my home, and something or someone has — has tampered with my body."

The presence of the shard is getting to her, as with everything else; the sense of violation is worse than the pain. Probably she should find a place to sit down. Instead, she slowly turns more fully to face Jamie, his cloak loose around her shoulders.

"Where am I, if you please?"

There's fragile - and then there's freezing, and even though he's only just arrived with some of the other Inquistion troops, it's hard to miss how cold it is around here, even with extra layers. With that dress she's wearing, it's a wonder she's not frozen half to death by now. When she finally does accept the cloak, something in him relaxes a little, a bit of relief over not having to worry about that on top of everything else. That is the complicated part, and there's a flicker of something that's maybe not quite a grimace at the question but is still fairly close, all things considered.

"Right now? You're in a place called Emprise du Lion, which is part of a bigger place that's called Thedas."

There's a bit more to it than that, even just when it comes to the exact location of the place, but if his guess is right about that shard in her hand they'll likely not make any more sense to her than they did to him when he'd first tumbled through the rift. Of course, it would probably help if he figured out if his guess is right, and he tilts his head slightly, giving her a somewhat thoughtful look.

"Don't suppose by 'stolen' you mean that you've wound up falling through a great sort of rift recently, have you? Maybe one not too far from here?"

The short series of names and words she doesn't know leave her temporarily flummoxed (Emprise du Lion sounds French, maybe, but it isn't), and agitated at her own confusion; Zafire wants to be able to focus, but her concentration is shot, and her ability to process information slowed. She grasps onto the word 'rift', which is unusual but not an inaccurate description of what she saw out further in the snows, and nods, briefly. Her expression creases with some further dismay.

"Yes. Yes, that sounds right."

She flexes her hands at her sides, partly to circulate blood-flow, partly out of restless energy.

"You make it sound common. Falling through this rift." She says the word like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

"Don't know about common, but you've if just fallen through one it's starting to get more common than I'd imagine some people around here were expecting. It's happened more than once since I've gotten here, and I was with the first lot who wound up in this place, although it was in a place called Haven at the time.."

That small motion of her hands catches his eye, though, and it occurs to him that even with a cloak, it's still quite cold around here. If she's got questions, it might be better to do that in a place that's maybe a bit warmer - assuming she's willing to trust him enough to go along with him, anyway. And that's something he won't find out unless he asks, so he motions with his head back towards the way he'd come.

"Look, there's a camp not too far from here, with a fire, and likely someone here'll be someone who can see about getting you some warmer clothes, too. I can explain more while we go, if you like. I'm Jamie, by the way. Think you'll be alright to walk for a bit?"

'Haven' is a nice name, but Zafire's first impressions of this land have led her to believe that the prettier the word for it, the more unfortunate the place probably is. She glances in the direction Jamie indicates, lower lip catching in her teeth. Can she walk? Is there really any other choice? She'll have to be fine, because the alternative is unacceptable.

Zafire refocuses on Jamie. "If there is a fire, that is incentive enough." Her smile is a little wan and, frankly, barely visible, but it does exist. "Let's leave this place, please."

She pauses. 'Jamie' sounds like a Western name.

"My name is Zafire." Said Zafi-reh, the ending e drawn out. Supposedly it meant victory. Wishful thinking.

While she considers, Jamie ends up watching her face, checking for signs that she might not be up to walking, even if it's only for a very short distance. That moment when she catches her lip in her teeth isn't a good sign, and his brow furrows ever so slightly at it. If she can't manage it, he'll have to decide what to do. He could try to carry her, but he's not the tallest of men and it might be awkward. Or he could try and contact someone over the crystals, maybe, and see if he could get some help.

But as it turns out, it seems she might be up to it after all, and even though he mentally makes a note to stick close just in case, the return smile he gives her is warm - and maybe just a touch encouraging as well. That can't hurt, after all.

"All right then, Zafire."

There's something somewhat exotic about her name, although he can't quite place where it might be from. He does try to copy her pronunciation as best as he can, however, in an effort to attempt to get that right the first time around even as he starts back along the direction he'd come from.

"Let's go. Look, though, if you need any help, just let me know, alright? It's not far, but if your arrival's anything like mine was, or for the others that've turned up, I'm imagining you had a wee bit of a fight on your hands."

She appreciates the kindness, in that way where she is not quite trusting of it by rote, rather than personal reservation — he seems a well-mannered young man, even if the unusual accent is rather a surprise. Zafire determinedly makes her way through the snow as they head back to the camp, one foot in front of the other.

"Yes, that's one way of putting it." She was pretty out of sorts for a variety of reasons, and initially refused to leave the site of the rift for fear she'd leave someone behind, but thoughts of the beasts that fell from its mouth eventually were enough to send her on her way.

That and the weather.

"There were spirits...revenants, I suppose. Some had a similar color to the chasm in the sky, but one was more like a corpse."

While he can't say as he's surprised, given his own experiences here, he still doesn't look entirely happy to have that part of things confirmed. He doesn't much like the idea of a lassie having to face the demons, no matter if they're normally a fighter or they're someone like Zafire, who he's thinking may be some sort of lady, given the fine materials that make up her outfit.

"Aye, I was afraid of that. They call them demons here. They're not exactly like the stories of demons back on Earth - er, where I come from - but there's some similarities. They come from this place called the Fade."

There's a fallen tree partially blocking the path ahead, too large for him to move, but there's just enough of a gap left that if he pushes the smaller, more flexible branches up and out of the way she should be able to get through without too much trouble. Without any hesitation, he moves to do just that, pushing them up as far as he can for her.

"Or that's what I've been told, anyway. But they seem to turn up wherever there's a rift, and they'll attack whatever's around. Including us."

Frankly, Zafire is wishing she wore something more practical today, and without jewelry (she might not know as much about the outside world as she'd like, but she does know ostentatious gemstone earrings are a beacon for thieves), but there was no way of foreseeing this.

"A spiritual realm would be the homeland of such a creature. A foul one, I'm certain." She isn't as experienced as many other witches, and certainly not with spiritualism and demonology, but she knows that much about them. "Why is it called the Fade, do you know?"

She is not surprised, exactly, when he pushes the errant branches from her path, because she is used to certain well-bred manners, but she is grateful. The idea of having to exert herself any more than strictly necessary is a daunting one. Zafire's 'thank you' is a quiet one, amid her careful attempt to move through the branches without tearing her dress.

That's not vanity. The heavy silk and Jamie's cloak are pretty much all she's got to keep her warm right now. Any more exposed skin in this environment seems like an invitation for frostbite.

"Aye, well, can't say as I rightly know why. Maybe one of the mages around here knows why it wound up with that name specifically. All I know is that it's supposed to be a place people go when they dream, except it's a real place too and demons can come out if through these rifts that keep popping up."

And it's entirely possible there was more to it then that, but that'd been about the point in the explanation where he'd started to feel his eyes glazing over and decided to go with one of his usual ways of dealing with things - pretending like he actually knows what someone's talking about but in reality he has no clue. It doesn't make for a good explanation for Zafire, though, and he gives her a slightly apologetic shrug for not being able to go into more detail.

He can continue to make sure the branches aren't an issue, though, and while she's moving through them he puts in a little extra effort to get them to stay back, not letting go until he's sure that she's clear.

"There's books that might help, too, back in Skyhold. That's where the Inquisition has its base of operations usually. This is just a...well, suppose you could call it an expedition, to take care of some problems in the area."

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