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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[The Emprise has Galadriel in a mood both dark and unforgiving, despite how she labors to feed the living who remain. Discovering her tentmate in the throes of something resembling passion had done little for her mood, as had the following "disagreement" and subsequent burning of said tent. She had grudgingly resolved herself to waking for the duration of the trip. It had not improved her mood nor helped her focus but, upon approaching Martel's tent, the pull of his magic grasps the whole of her attention.

She has approached this man twice, now, once in rain-soaked combat and now, in a frostbitten dreary camp, and in neither case has she seemed as gentle or graceful as she was wont. Now, at least, she is clad in leather armor and not gowns, her staff across her back rather than in hand.

She stops before him and regards his standard issue armor with a tilt of her head.]

A curious enchantment for armor; are your under-layers not sufficient to keep you warm?

( like jamie - he remembers her. a rifter. someone who'd been there, closing the rift in skyhold. she'd carried herself well; he resents this intrusion less than he might, though he still pauses a moment before he looks up from what he works. he allows himself to finish first - never leave something undone if you can help it.

a philosophy that applies to all manner of things. )

The weather is extreme, my lady, ( he says, not unfriendly. ) I've never been greatly fond of snow.

[His answer is clear and immediate, if nothing else, and she agrees with a quiet incline of her head.]

That is one of many things we have in common.

[It was blunt of her, the statement lacked elegance, but this place had worn her down and the red lyrium song still resounded in her head. She considered him, seated as he was, and took a seat at the threshold of his tent. He had not invited her, but she had no intention of looming as she conversed.]

Your skills--the power you wield does not behave as the "magic" here does. [It isn't a question, but it is an invitation to share what he would. She didn't expect it would be much, but she wasn't in a mood to mince too many words.] Has the transition vexed you?

( he fails to look askance at her for doing it, which will have to suffice. he observes her for a moment, considering the invitation for what it is and what he wishes to give for it.

'many' things, is it. he's less convinced, but galadriel is a lady of fairly obvious quality, and some manner of elf besides. he doesn't, particularly, exert himself in courtesy or deference (the latter has never come naturally do him) but where he might've been more brusque or dismissive with someone else, he reins in his sharper edges. )

It's an ongoing project.

( his tone is droll. yes, it vexes him.

after a moment; )

The less I'm forcing something alien on this place, the less it fights me.

So I have noticed. [It is as kind an agreement as she can muster and is laced with her own subtler sort of resignation.] Discovering what is and is not strange to Thedas is a trial of its own, I've found...but it is a trial that might be simplified if undertaken by two.

[The only skills she used during that fight were paltry echoes of local magic. She'd cast barriers that fizzled and exerted some mild, tenuous control over the rift, but little else. He had no idea what she was capable of, nor she him, and that made this proposition risky...but this place grated on her and she grew ever-more frustrated by the weariness that mounted within her bones. Anything that would speed her learning about Thedas and the way power was bent here would be invaluable.]

You drew your will into a shield quite elegantly. Do you find it easier than attempting to mimic their barrier spells?

( that he doesn't reject her overture out of hand is promising; she makes a valid point, for all his reluctance. it could be very useful...more than that, and the part that meets with a twinge of interest in spite of himself, it's an opportunity he wouldn't ordinarily pass by. to learn, to adapt, to learn more of a magic foreign to him. hers, which by the way she speaks, must have some similarities with his own.

curiosity alone will make it hard to decline. he's always been that way. but the knowledge of exactly how much trouble that curiosity has created, over the years, keeps his wariness sharp. he can't afford a repeat. )

I don't attempt to mimic their spells at all, ( with an elegant shrug, setting his armor aside to give her conversation the better part of his attention. ) The spells of my own that produce similar effects to what they can create are less of an uphill battle than those that can't be replicated by their mages - sorcery is a very precise discipline. Crafting or altering a spell is a great deal of work. If I can produce the result, I see no reason to waste my time trying to do it in a way that this world finds more aesthetically pleasing.

[At that, she is surprised and her brows raise accordingly. Of course, if his skills were similar to her own, her surprise would have been unwarranted. Men were never quite so tangled with their spirits as the elves, after all.]

Curious. [At first that is all she says, but she does eventually append it.] I have found the Veil a dreadful hindrance, learning how they draw through it has reduced the impact of what I cast, even if I cannot duplicate their methods nor their results with precision.

I will admit I have only attempted my favored skills twice in Thedas. It is possible that I chose my methods poorly.

I suppose the Veil is likely to blame for my difficulties, ( a bit reflectively, considering her. ) I've found only a few things that simply can't be done; for the most part, it's a matter of accounting for how much more effort I'm obliged to expend to achieve my end.

I don't rely on sorcery so much that it's an issue urgently needing surmounting.

( not a criticism of anyone who would - martel is hardly in a position to criticise someone for using magic - but a frank assessment of his own situation. he can afford to do this because the magic he uses is not something he requires to serve as he does, as he intends to. )

Oh?

[It was interesting that he could take the measure of a spell, of how draining it might be, ere he cast it. It was something she had not learned to do, not in Thedas, but his insistence on the term "sorcery" was not entirely encouraging.]

Are sorcerers wont to fight their battles with blades in your homeland, or do you simply prefer to do so here?

To give you the very short answer, ( but there is a very long one, lurking beneath his droll tone, ) yes, they are. And they prefer to be called 'knights' first and foremost.

( they, not we. martel is a puzzle of several kinds. )

But the magic you see me practise isn't native to that homeland, and fighting with it isn't something that's been necessary for a long time. ( and if that changed recently, it was his doing, and he has no interest in discussing anything he did in the last ten to fifteen years. better that way. he switches naturally between the two terms; 'magic' as a general concept, 'sorcery' as a description of his practise. ) I could. But I'd be better off - as you see.

( tilting the armor he'd been enchanting. he could throw a fireball - but it would be a waste. why not, instead, prepare to better arm himself? augment the skills he has, fulfill what needs he might, be ready for battle with an edge that can't always be readily explained. )

Many knights learn as much as is required to take their vows, and never touch it again.

( he wasn't one of those. that much should be obvious; you don't have to be deeply familiar with the secrets of styricum to recognise the natural way of someone who is very, very experienced with what he does, who no longer has to think about much of it. )

A sensible decision, in a way.

[She regarded his breastplate and, on a whim, holds out her hand to see if he might pass it over to her.]

I am accustomed to power that is more...deeply woven into the world than it is here. There are few who would think to draw up barriers or throw flame in Arda, and fewer still who would do so and expect to triumph over the enchantments I weave.

The very idea of magic [She says the word with no small amount of distaste; it is still far too broad a term for her sensibilities.] as they cast it here? It is strange to me--wasteful and imprecise. I had hoped yours would be more...akin to my own, but I begin to suspect that it is a vain hope and little more.

( the look he gives her is appraising. he does nothing for a long moment as he studies her; doesn't outright refuse to pass it over, doesn't do so, either. besides that he searches for something, his expression is difficult to read in the way that had so often frustrated those who once loved him - a way that had frightened those he taught to fear him.

he is just another stranger, here. there is no weight of reputation or intimacy to shape it. he is simply a quiet, difficult man who studies a woman that wants something from him. he gives her the breastplate. )

Everything that was taught to me,

( eventually, )

tells me that what I have given you to hold in your hands is impossible, and cannot exist.

[Galadriel looks away from him as he speaks and, like a woman examining some strange curio, gradually turns the piece of armor over in her hands. There is something fundamentally gentle about her touch--it isn't that she is delicate, no, the armor just seems to weigh very little in her hands.]

A limited education, to be certain, but there are precious few that are not.

[His enchantment is skilled, woven in an unfamiliar way but with reasonable subtlety. Heat is not her enchantment of choice and, as such, she doesn't seek to alter what he had wrought.]

Is it the spell it carries, the land from which it hails, or the hands it rests in that cause you conflict? For even an Age ago I would not have deemed my own skills possible, not by any measure. And yet, here I sit, wondering how dreadfully concealment might clash with warmth.

In a manner of speaking, none of those things.

( how do you like it, elves of arda, asking straight questions and getting answered in bloody riddles. annoying, isn't it.

ahem.

martel exhales, regarding not the woman - he should learn her name - but the armor she holds. the way that she holds it. she is growing reluctant, disappointed in him (and isn't he always disappointing someone) and if he let it be, she'll withdraw on her own, unsatisfied. he says, )

I didn't draw on their Fade; the will that shaped that spell was, as you observed in Skyhold, my own. The spell that gave it shape, however, is a prayer to a goddess who cannot hear me in exile.

( in exile, here. abandoned by his gods (and he's had a few) to the whims of this world.

he doesn't say will not hear me. he doesn't have to, so he never will. aphrael cannot hear him from thedas - that she wouldn't listen means nothing. if he tells himself so often enough, perhaps it will become true. )

It is a divine will that can be exerted on the world; my hands to supplicate her blessing and be given what, self-evidently, I must already hold.

( his faint smile is wry; it's been like a second magical puberty. at least his voice isn't breaking all over again. )

There was always someone at my elbow, you see. Guiding. The first spell I tried in Skyhold was a catastrophe twofold in a way that I'd find dreadfully embarrassing were I half my own age - the effort it took was so much more than I was prepared for, but I'd never wielded my own will in that way before, either. I overshot the mark, exhausted myself in part through pouring more power than I needed into a spell that someone else had always checked.

( what could he have changed, if he'd only known before--

he remembers azash's bootheel on his throat with every spell he casts and his gut churns with it. )

Edited 2016-02-10 10:23 (UTC)

[She listens, still and silent as he explains, and whatever amount of her attention had wandered at his previous answers is abruptly focused on him again. She had been terribly curious--such abilities were rarely found in elves and even less likely in men--and his answer had given her everything she required.

Her smile is out of place, in that any expression of joy would clash with these blighted lands, but it is sincere. In fact, there is something charmed and bemused in it; it is a far cry from the frustration and anger that drove her from her tent.]

Often I have chided others, warned them that even the Wisest cannot see all ends, and here I find myself wanting for my own advice.

[She offers him the breastplate back.]

To beckon divine power is a feat few in my homelands would undertake lightly, but it seems your skills and mine are far closer than I would have dared to hope.

To use your own fëa to...cast is a harrowing experience. I imagine it is far worse for you than I, but I cannot say for certain. It is not an art practiced in Thedas, thankfully, but binding will and power to objects can make such things less...impactful.

( he sets it down, and shrugs, elegant if one-shouldered-- )

I don't find it harrowing, my lady. It's been a matter of relearning my own limits; broader than they once were in some ways, tighter in others. ( one because of his lack of a leash; one because of his foreign nature in this strange world. but one complicates the other, and the thread of frustration that lingers has more to do with the lingering uncertainty of how much is what. how much of the change is thedas, and how much is that he is achieving things he'd never imagined possible?

what would this feel like, if he were where he came from? easier, he suspects. but maybe more dangerous, for all that. )

It is...

( he considers his words. )

It's natural - a grace to it. I've found it seems to be the effect and not the method that defines how much of a fight Thedas will put up to me, but the difficulty of it is - an exaggerated version of what we were already trained to adapt to. To work this way always drew on my own strength to a degree; the more complex the spell, the more I'd feel it. That's still true here, but the definition of what is 'complex' is not, ( a wry smile, ) quite universally agreed upon.

Sorcery has always carried the risk of overextending yourself. Thoughtless exertion has killed the foolish before.

( and the desperate. )

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