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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, yes!

[ Pause. ]

Er- what time is it?

[ So no, she hasn't eaten, at least not recently enough. ]

( martel regards her for a long moment with an expression that could be described as 'resigned', if a very pressed observer had to choose any one particular word. he takes her elbow and turns her back toward the camp - )

Time for something hot and filling, ( he says, wryly. ) An army moves on its stomach, little sister, even this one.

And people repairing bridges, I suppose.

[ Merrill at least doesn't fight the taking of her elbow, walking alongside him. ]

Though depending on the time, there might not be anything hot.

I have not exhausted myself on the bridge repairs, ( he says, not unkindly, ushering her along. ) It will be hot.

( it might have gone cold, yes, but even in thedas, the effort required to heat a bowl is not going to fell him. )

Come, I haven't your name. I am Martel.

Do you cook?

[ It shouldn't surprise her, really, but it seems like so many in the Inquisition are focused on fighting or repairs or scouting that they're too busy to cook. Even herself, though she does try to help in whatever way she can, for whoever she can. ]

Oh- I'm Merrill. Really, one day I'll remember to introduce myself first.

I do, Merrill, ( almost lightly - there is a lightness to him, a good humour that she will not yet know to mark. but if she watches him among humans, later, she will see its absence. ) But not today.

( he could explain that. she might draw her own conclusions. )

[ It's difficult, at times, to draw her own conclusions. The humans in Kirkwall had been confusing. All the others from across Thedas, the humans and dwarves and qunari and even other elves, each had their own culture that Merrill simply did not understand. She understood better, now, but she still had only pieces. For Rifters, she often had even less.

And so she tilts her head, curious, and simply says: ] No?

I am going to do magic to it.

( he says it very placidly, as if that isn't an absurd phrase to use.

that's another weird human thing. he feels the ache of absence, that no one will laugh or roll their eyes or scold him for mocking kalten when the man is not about to defend himself. he knows that kalten, these days, would as soon put a knife in his eye as look at him.

sooner.

but he was a knight for longer than he was ever anything else, and in absentia, he can acknowledge that he carries more than just his dead with him from their ranks. there is no one to deny him, no one whose eyes he would struggle to meet -

he might be ashamed later, but that's later. for now, he thinks he's charming. )

Going to- to heat it up? Or is there some sort of food magic, in your world?

[ Food magic. If such a thing exists, Merrill would very much like to learn it.

If she can feel the heaviness, the dark turn his thoughts have taken, it's not necessarily consciously. Still, she leans a bit into him as they walk, more tired now that repairs aren't distracting her from how much energy she's expended. ]

Creators, this is a large bridge even when it's broken.

( if he notices - no, of course he notices; knows a moment of surprise - he doesn't protest it. )

I daresay you're thinking of baking. ( no one can tell anybody who's ever eaten aslade's apple pie that that's not witchcraft. his tone is gentle, even if his mind is somewhere less so.

a few moments later-- )

The Creators are your Dalish gods, is that right? It's difficult to learn about your people when the library is, ah, rather singularly dominated.

( by human perspectives. he has a feeling the dalish don't dance naked under the moon any more frequently than the styrics do, which is to say, only if they're in the mood. it's a frank inquiry - most of his are - but there's no disrespect in it, only true interest. )

I don't think they use actual magic when baking, though. Although that would explain a few things.

[ And contrary to rumors, it does not take blood magic to get the cook to share cookies. It takes Merrill batting her eyelashes, mostly. ]

Yes, that's right. [ And she is surprised by the question, clearly, but not offended; it makes her smile, turning her head enough to get a better look at him. ] Most people don't bother to learn about the Dalish, and most Dalish don't bother trying to teach anyone. But I'd be happy to tell you whatever you'd like to know, if you're interested.

( merrill batting her lashes can probably achieve any number of things. martel wouldn't doubt it.

--when she looks at him, he doesn't quite smile back, but the sterner lines of him soften, a little. )

There's much about your people that's familiar to me, ( with an easy shrug, one-shouldered, favouring the one he always does. one of these days he will give in and let one of the healers have a proper look at it, but not today. ) The parallels are fascinating.

( and perhaps he can do something for the dalish he couldn't for the styrics. )

Are there similar people, in your world?

[ Her interest is absolutely piqued now, eyes widening a bit. There is so much she could learn, so much that could lead to new ideas, to new ways of thinking about the People and their history. ]

Would you tell me about them? We could trade.

I would be glad to, little sister, but I caution you, ( although not in any real earnestness - he doesn't turn solemn, there is no edge underlying some darker warning, merely the hope that she will not get her hopes up. ) The Styric people share stories with your people, but it is an unfortunate flaw of humanity that we don't require a people be of another species to persecute them.

( the people to whom he refers are human, in other words. )

Elves, such as yourself - where I came from, they exist only in the overactive imaginations of whoever it is churning out all of these appalling paperbacks in Thalesia.

( of which he's read a lot. he wasn't getting a lot of action the past few years, he didn't have anything better to do in his tent at night. )

Oh- I don't mind if they aren't elves.

[ There's a slight smile. ]

Even if I'd never met a human myself a decade ago. There are bad people of all races, and more importantly, good people.

Though I'm admittedly very interested in recovering the history of mine. That's part of why I want to know -- maybe I'll get some inspiration.

Perhaps.

( sephrenia would like that, he thinks. to inspire. )

My tutor in the secrets - sorcery, magic, whatever word strikes your fancy - was a Styric woman, the Lady Sephrenia. Our little mother. ( the clear, deep affection for her in the way he speaks her name - and everything else about her - probably accounts for at least some of the way that he's approached this subject thus far. it is a strong argument for his apparently respectful interest being genuine, if nothing else. )

She taught me all that I am proud to know.

Do your people not teach magic, otherwise?

[ And yet- persecuted, but required. Enchantments, healers, combatants -- the mage of Thedas has helped it grow and remained ignored. Servants and laborers, the city elves have carried the weight of that growth on their shoulders and are still mistreated. And the Dalish are ghosts, hunted and hunters, but even they were sought out in the face of the Blight. ]

Or is it something else?

My people, such as they are,

( perhaps not his in any way he wishes to claim, )

have no magic of their own. And our magic, generally, is not the intrinsic gift of a mage like yourself, ( with an easy, familiar touch to her shoulder, a little push that's almost teasing. he isn't such bad company, always. ) It's more like - music.

In theory, anyone can learn. In practise...not everyone can sing.

( a shrug. )

Nearly a thousand years ago, Elenes faced an enemy they were unprepared for. They sought Styric aid - allied with four of the Thousand gods who came to act as patrons for the knighthoods of each of four Elene nations. The Cyrinics, the Alciones, the Genidians and the Pandions. And those gods have woven themselves into our hearts and minds, over the course of centuries...the knighthoods are just barely not pagan, for all they take vows for the Elene god.

Music. It sounds lovely.

[ At least in theory. There seems to be a lot of 'in theory' here. ]

So- the Elenes don't like the Styrics because of religion? That does sound familiar, yes.

[ Though a thousand gods sounds like an awful lot to keep track of. ]

Elenes don't like Styrics because Elenes don't like Styrics.

( a fairly harsh assessment of his own people, but he says it not unkindly, by way of correction. )

Their ingratitude to the Styric faith is one part of a very large argument that I doubt my people will soon be compelled to have. Much as your Dalish, your elves - there is no Styric nation. There is but one city, far from us, where few Elenes will ever see it. And better that way, I am sure, for all involved.

We argue religion with every people who have one different, but it is - different.

They are not kept as slaves, or treated close to them?

[ They have a city, at least. The cities of the elves lie only in ruins now, save for those taken by their raiders. ]

And those that learn to sing their magic, they're not hunted?

There are places where the practise of magic is more dangerous than others, for its practitioners. A few where it is outright illegal, and officially punishable by execution. Elenia and her sister-nations are not among those places,

( there is a weight to the pause, )

information that has apparently not spread to all of her more rural areas. And you don't need to practise magic, if you are a pretty Styric girl near an Elene village. They still might call you witch, and burn you til you die.

( if you're lucky.

he doesn't say that. he thinks it, but to merrill's sweet countenance, he cannot say it. )

Slavery is illegal, for all the good it does to stop it happening. Styrics keep to their rude settlements, for the most part, and Elenes give them a thousand reasons to keep hiding daily.

[ A large world, then, like Thedas. Large and filled with many peoples, with fear and prejudice.

As for being pretty and in the wrong place- well, Martel doesn't need to say it. Merrill knows. She may not like it, may have once in Kirkwall told Isabela that it was terrible to say even as the truth, but she knows.

The arm entwined with hers shifts, one slender hand finding his. ]

Yes. Very familiar. [ It's said with a soft sigh, with the dip of her head down toward either the earth or Martel's shoulder. ] Though here... I have hope that with the Inquisition, at least, we can change the hearts and minds of some.

( it merits a moment's pause, but only a moment; martel curls his hand around her smaller one, warm, and presses it briefly by way of some small comfort. yes--

he is sure she knows. )

I hope that as well, little sister, very much.

Do you want to return to your world?

[ She has to ask, with the way he speaks of it, with how he has hopes for this world as well. ]

I'm sorry, I know that's personal, just-

[ Curiosity. It tends to get the best of her. ]

open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

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