faderift | 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's cold.

Not that Skyhold hadn't been cold, or Caradhras, before that. But the memory of the Mountain is already fading somewhat, and Skyhold - inside its walls, at least - had been a warm green paradise compared to this.

The tent canvas doesn't seem much shelter against the snow and wind, but it's something, and as soon as he's directed to his own tent he hurries inside, blowing on his fingers. There'd been some talk of a tentmate, but he hadn't paid much mind past a vague disappointment that the name mentioned hadn't been one of his friends.

He looks up at the voice, startled at being spoken to, to find a hard-looking woman peering down at him. He holds out his own hand, on instinct, but his hand brushes air and he looks down in confusion to find that she'd offered her left hand instead of her right, because -

Because -

Sam stares, inadvertently rude, at the stump where her arm should have been, and then jumps, shaking himself off and quickly offering his left instead. He drags his eyes back to her face, fighting against the urge to look back at the stump. "B-begging your pardon, Miss, I didn't mean to -"

"Don't you fret, I've always been left-handed. Faux pas's on me."

Ambidextrous, really, but that don’t feel like a point worth making.

Still, she’s hoping not to get too sick of this shit before its through. Triza’s contraption ain’t exactly life-like, but it’s enough to fool someone not looking careful. She's too used to running with Norren's crew, is the problem; Carta already caught eyefuls of gorier tricks.

On the other hand (hardy har), it could be good leverage. I showed you mine…

“Name’s Melys. Miss Auldwine, if you've really gotta.” She blinks: he isn’t wearing shoes. Why isn’t he — you know what, on second thought? Ain’t her problem. Frostbite’s a fine teacher. “How long you been with the Inquisition?“

Her eyes flicker towards his feet again — alright, so maybe gore don't make her immune. There are other, pressing questions all of the sudden. Does he have to shave those? Is it some kind of condition? What in fuck.

He doesn't rightly understand all the words that she's saying, but he catches enough, shaking her hand hastily.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Auldwine," he stammers, because yes, yes he really gotta. The question isn't one he expects, but it is one he's considered, enough that he furrows his brow in thought and answers right away. "Well I don't rightly know for certain, as the moons here don't seem to quite change the same way as the one back home, nor even the same as each other. Did you know you've got two moons here? Queerest thing I ever saw," he adds, shaking his head. "But back to the point: near as I can reckon, and presuming the bigger moon at least runs at the same rate as the moon in the Shire, I'd guess I've been here about two months or so." He's so caught up in his explanation, he even forgets about her arm for a moment, and frowns slightly when he catches her glancing towards his feet. "Is something the matter?"

Melys likes to think of herself as a pretty adaptable person. If something new and strange comes running at your face, you figure out how to handle it. You do that, or you don't last long. And staying flexible, that's all in the preparation.

She was not prepared for this.

"Nah, just figured y'had to be cold." She rubs at a temple. Non-surfacers, she's handled, folks who ain't never seen the sky, and it's been loud and it's been weird but it ain't been this. "I don't got spare socks or nothing, but reckon someone might."

A pause, please, as she fumbles to catch up.

"Y'all only got one moon?"

That's got to be one fuck of an astronomical arrangement to only sight on one at a time, and she can't pretend to guess on the science behind it. Maybe it's just a weird view from where they're at. But — she can't name a settlement on any map that's called Shire. Maybe if you broke far enough South or West, but Sam doesn't strike her though as the type to live in a wasteland.

There are holes in what she's been told, that's more and more apparent. At least he doesn't exactly come off suspicious, just chatty.

Sam stares at her like she'd grown a second head.

"Well of course I'm cold," he says, more baffled than anything. "Have you been outside lately? Why if anyone claimed he wasn't cold, I'd think he wasn't right in the head, and what's more I'd say so!" He furrows his brow. "But what have socks got to do with it? Or the Moon, for that matter? The Moon don't make it any warmer, though I wish it might; we'd all be better off." He shakes his head. "Yes, we've only got one Moon, right enough, as is only proper. Don't see much use for more than that." The only thing the second moon had done for him so far was to give him a heavy sinking feeling in his heart, the first time he'd seen it and realized once and for all that it was all true: that he really was farther from home than he'd ever thought to be, and that maybe there was no getting back.

That and making it unnaturally light at night, and difficult to sleep.

It's becoming more and more clear that one of them's not right in the head, and Melys can't rightly say which.

"Socks, y'know. For your feet." She gestures down, trying to not to picture those shaggy little ponies you get up in the hills. "Reckon the moons don't got much to do with that, no."

She turns aside, easing herself back down to sit. This conversation is rapidly moving out of standing territory.

"Look — Sam — where did y'say you were from?" Start simple. He talks Ferelden enough to have walked out of the Brecillian Forest right behind her, but clearly that's not the case. "It sounds like you been at all this longer than me."

Oh, they're sitting now. Sam moves to join her, sitting amicably down across from her. Melys may be losing control of the conversation, but Sam finds her easier to talk to than most anyone he's met here - even if she is strangely insistent about socks.

He looks down at his feet with a vague frown as he settles onto his bedroll, then glances at hers, clad warmly in sturdy shoes and, presumably, socks. "Oh!" He smiles, shaking his head as he gestures to his feet. "I reckon I'll do well enough without. They've kept warm so far, even in the cold and the wet. But as for where I'm from, I didn't say, but I'll say now: the Shire." He stops, unexpectedly, and looks up at her attentively, as if that should explain everything. Not that it had explained anything to anyone else here so far, but hey, he can hope.

open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

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