open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

[faderifting]

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

Comments

[laurenande]

The laugh Galadriel let out was, perhaps, too unkind. This woman's assessment was not wrong, not by any means, but to call this precise was beyond Galadriel's tolerance. The jagged hole before her was, by her own standards, distasteful bordering on barbaric. This was a clumsy show of force, that the consequences were bearable did not mean that they did not exist, and she found her own failure to nullify them grating. She shook her head as she looked back at the water.

"You are truly too kind," she said flatly and set the bow and line onto the ice beside her. "Come, fish with me. I will string another and perhaps we may be fortunate."

Her invitation was brief, but not a terrible slight. The cold and the distant, indistinct roar of discord grated on her nerves; it was difficult to remember that this woman had done nothing to earn her ire and, of all things, ire was very nearly what she expressed. Galadriel drew a deep breath and released it; it curled in the cold and vanished before she spoke.

"I have a talent with water, among other things. Breaking through ice is no more difficult than throwing flame--" She supposed. They were equivalent for her, at least. "The depth simply demands greater focus and endurance."

[foxsays]

The customs of Thedas still being uncommon in many respects, she hesitated, wondering what had prompted it, or if the Emprise itself was the cause. The itch under her skin wasn't likely to go away until she was back in Skyhold at the very least.

"I have something that might work for bait," she offered, giving herself a shake as her left hand went into her pocket to pull out a small handful of dried meat that her fox wouldn't miss, back at camp and being spoiled by whatever scout had him warming them.

"I confess, magic is still something I have yet to wrap my head around, mark or no mark. As much as I love the water, well the sea, there is nothing I can do like that, not at all." Some of it had to be the same as seeing where she wanted to land when jumping rooftops, or where she wanted a weapon to strike but drawing from inside like that or from somewhere else and simply making it happen still had her in awe, and that was in battle, she'd barely seen anyone perform magic outside of a fight so far.

[laurenande]

Bait?

The idea hadn't occurred to her and so the offer was something of a surprise. She regarded the dried meat that the woman offered and, after a moment of thought, turned the length of the rod to offer it to her.

"I am not sure we will need it," Galadriel told her, the bite in her voice dulled by the pleasantness of surprise and this woman's well-meaning, if unnecessary generosity.

"If the fish yet live, it is in utter darkness," she explained. "Often the sight of something glittering in the black is more than enough to catch their interest. If they do not live, bait will not aid us."

It was a grim thought and, unfortunately, the frigid water would have hid the stench of rotting meat quite well. There was no way to tell save for waiting.

"In any case, I wouldn't waste what you have on what might be."

[foxsays]

Months had gone by since she'd done something that felt so like home, still able to remember the first time she'd been shown how to hold a rod, how to cast, sifting through a box of different lures, pulling faces at the live wriggling bait. She missed it, missed all of it.

"I wonder if any of them make light of their own, though very few of those fish are edible anyway but the people here? I've seen people that hungry before, they would eat bread that was half sawdust if they could." Fortunately it wouldn't come to that with Inquisition supplies and people off scouting game but it wasn't too much of a stretch when she'd seen such things before.

"This is only for Lux, and he's being spoiled by every scout in the camp," she explained, though he wouldn't have followed her down this far on the ice, not unless she'd carried him. "Forgive me, I have forgotten my manners: Araceli Bonaventura, at your service."

[laurenande]

"I am called Galadriel, and it is far too cold to begrudge one another over manners. You have my forgiveness, please extend me the same."

She handed off the rod to the woman, Araceli, and as she took it, Galadriel went about breaking down a second arrow and stringing up another simple rod. The process was gradual and she was in no rush; there was some peace to be found on the ice, grim though it might be, and fishing required a great deal of patience.

"I have never seen such fish, but I am rarely confronted with situations akin to this," Galadriel admitted as she worked. Araceli had been polite and curious, now she offered bait and conversation. Galadriel found herself regretting the curt nature of her earlier answer, but explaining where she learned to fish through ice would not benefit the fragile mood.

"Who is Lux?" she asked, after a beat. There was a note of hope in her voice, but it was mixed with worry. "Your son?"

[foxsays]

“Jaime spoke of you.” Jamie’s was a name too like one at home for her to say it the way he did but it was still recognisable. “That you are a rifter, like us and others?” It seemed more polite to make a question of it because home was always so full of gossip, her parentage only making her more used to hearing and being drawn into it constantly, but Thedas itself could be a prickly beast and she would rather tread cautiously with another world again.

At least here their voices were unlikely to scare off fish, so she tapped her rod gently to make the line dance. Maybe she’d go looking for bits and pieces to make lures with so her hands would be busy when the tent was too cold to sleep in or when camp was quiet with nothing she could help with without being a hindrance.

“Fishing on the docks or off a ship is what I’m used to, the ice is too far from me. A dear friend comes from a place as cold as this, she told me of all sorts of strange fish there. Ones with clear heads, others with blood that never freezes. Little ones that are so fatty they melt if you bring them up to the surface.” What she would give to have Brunilda here with her, her quiet companionship, teaching her how to move over snow and ice the way Araceli had taught her to swim and walk on the deck of a ship.

“I did raise him from when he was but a baby small enough to fit in one hand. But not the way you might think - Lux is a fox, not a child, probably the only child I’ll ever have though.” One could never say never after all but it almost made her laugh, to think about some little terror giving everyone grey hairs. Babies were better when you got to palm them off on the person responsible for them.