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

[haseki]

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.

[apostasia]

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.

[haseki]

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?"

[apostasia]

"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."

[haseki]

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.

[apostasia]

"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.)

[haseki]

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?"

[apostasia]

"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."

[haseki]

Although much of this is still maddeningly confusing, to Zafire's mind, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future, she can find a linear sense in acquiring a shard from the rift. She came through it, it left its mark on her, a kind of arcane scar. Zafire's feet drag in the snow, briefly, and she readjusts her pace to accommodate for numbed lower extremities. Her balance is not exactly ladylike at the moment, but if it keeps her going, fine.

"So it has some use, at least." The mark's associated ache shows no sign of relenting (quite the opposite, actually), but pain with a little purpose behind it is more easily borne. "How did the others come to acquire theirs, if not through the rift itself? Are they also witches? Or sorcerers, I suppose."