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

[gatheringstorm]

[Korrin smiles as Araceli stretches against her, in full agreement with her sentiment even as she'll never have the bond with the sea that her rifter love does. But she doesn't need to possess that to understand it's part of Araceli's life and soul; it's obvious every time she speaks of her homeland, whether a story or stray comment.]

I can't argue with that, kadan. If I can, I'll take you to that particular beach someday. I have no doubt it's as gorgeous as it was then. Those within reach will have to do; even though it's not as warm in the south, winter is waning. You'll get to feel that sun again, I promise. [She sighs softly, now missing it as well. It's only been a handful of months since she was up north, but in the cold landscape, it feels like forever.] If only more thought as you do, Thedas wouldn't be such a harsh place. I wonder if it was ever any better, in ancient times, or if there were was always this kind of crap to put up with. Who knows.

[Her thoughts turning to family again, Korrin shrugs gently so as not to dislodge Araceli.] Tama said she never wanted that role, that it was decided for her like everything else. I could never get her to talk much about her life back then, but she did say that it wasn't any one incident that made her walk. It was a bunch of little things, until one day she was on an outing with her kids and decided there was no reason for them to return. Just how they slipped away and were never caught, I have no idea, but she's crazy resourceful. If anyone could have done it, it'd be her. [There's a grin of admiration on her lips, for the woman as tough as nails.]

My parents had nothing on me, but she could get me to behave sometimes. And she was the one to stress as much of a code as I'd ever put up with; namely, not to pick fights I had no chance of winning, and to look out for more than just myself. She said Tal-Vashoth had enough of a terrible reputation because outside the Qun, they didn't know how to function and a lot just gave into wild banditry. So, it was up to us to counter that with a better example.

[foxsays]

You people and your talk of distant shores, Zevran promised me Antiva too, perhaps I should just ask if some of us can sail to look for rifts beyond these dismal places, no? [All lands are allegedly beautiful so perhaps it's only circumstance that has her not delighting in going to new places but Korrin isn't from any of the places she's been, so there's no risk of offending her.]

I will hold you to it. [The air of finality is only teasing, no one can know the future beyond knowing that the sun will rise and the moon will wax and wane, that the tides will lap the shores. Such is the way of things.] I want you to see me by the sea, where I should be, it isn't that I'm less - I can only be me - but at the same time I think I'm more when I'm close to it, it's difficult to explain, forgive me.

It makes me sad that this world is so harsh. There is so much beauty in it; I have heard wonderful stories, met wonderful people, I have seen things that only existed in a story or not even at all yet there is so much blood, so much violence. You are all people. You have blood and hearts and bone. Bodies were not given to us for violence. [With a little squirming she can slide her hands down Korrin's sides, over her ribs pausing to feel her heart beating, then down to her hips, thumbs rubbing circles as she continues.] The sea runs in all our veins because we came from it, so we are all one blood where I come from. The sea gives us life so that we can be fruitful, that we can be like it: wild one moment, calm the next. Bodies were made for coming together, for love and passion. The sea embraces all so how can we do any less?

[Youth makes things so much more simple; she's young, younger than most of the folk she spends her time with here instead of being around friends but she's always had love, has had hands to catch her when she falls.]

Perhaps one day I'll have the chance to meet her, she must know so many things. Not just about before but...but making a new life. Taking those steps. Those are the people with voices that should be heard, not the ones still saying 'this is how it was and always should be'. The world we wake in is not the same world when we go to sleep, it always changes, we remember, we love, we respect and we adapt. My people lost the empire below the waves but then we built ships, we found other lands, we built on what was left but our songs are full of joy instead of mourning. [Something about being here just with Korrin makes it easier to find the words that have found a place to grow in the quiet spaces when she sits on the roof of Skyhold, when she writes letters home or her notes for her fellow rifters. Thedas is mired in the past, bogged down.

The last part has her smiling, a sentiment she can understand all to well these days.]

On that I agree, I was taught much the same when I learned to shoot and to duel though I am very fast and light so I was also taught to cheat or to run as fast as I could. Here I worry about rifters like myself, there are so many who must hear stories about how we have come to this world and a reputation is a dangerous beast to maintain when we are so many and so different. I would never wish to be the one to blacken any of our names.

[gatheringstorm]

[Araceli's touch is always very welcome, and Korrin sighs contentedly as those light, nimble fingers make their way down to her hips. Her own drift from combing through the rifter woman's hair with utmost gentleness to trail down her back in soothing motions. There's no demand in them for anything other than the closeness they already share.]

I know you wouldn't, you're always thinking beyond yourself. That's one of the reasons I fell for you, that and your zest for life. It's an irresistible combination. [She brushes her lips against Araceli's forehead.] I don't know what's going to come of all this, but I can promise I won't stand idly by if anyone tries to chip away at their -your- freedom. Advocating mage freedom only to slam the door on everyone else is a hypocrisy I won't put up with. The Inquisition has to be better than that.

[She frowns in thought about that, unsure exactly what to do, but she won't let that tension return if she can help it.] I've already told Tama about you, and she's made it clear I'd better introduce you two at some point. Making a new life is something she'd understand all too well, and she probably has ideas on that which have never occurred to me. And no, she doesn't care that you came beyond the Fade. 'Is she part of keeping the south from going to shit? Then that's good enough for me.' The woman's seen demons enough -literal and otherwise- in her time; she knows not to waste her time creating enemies where there are none. If only other people were that practical.

[There's a slight, huff of melancholy amusement at that, as her mind drifts back to other things said.] You know, that's an excellent point, about rifts beyond our normal reach. They aren't just going to go away, and they have to be causing a lot of chaos with demons pouring out of them whenever. If the Inquisition can look into that, perhaps send small teams to take care of them, then it'd give me a chance to show you more of Thedas. I can't guarantee it'd be any saner than what you've seen already, but if it helps you be more when you're close to those waves, it'd be well worth it."

[foxsays]

We live our lives as we see fit but when times are bad, every Castilean must be able to work together, to crew a ship or to run the docks. This is how we alone stopped a war; each and every ship we had sailed after those who sought to crush us as they had other nations, the rest stayed behind the walls and gates we raised until the war had ended. By all accounts it was difficult but a crisis pulls us close and tight. [Because again, their blood is the sea, they share it, they live by eat, they welcome a guest to the home with bread and salt on the threshold, that she cannot do the same here - that she has no threshold to welcome a person - is still a strange thing to adjust to. She has her rooms in a building by the docks, and then there’s her room in the palace bigger than the whole apartment, a building several times the size of Skyhold.] I suppose we have to wait and see, watch and listen to the right sorts of people. Better depends on where a person stands and what they have come from, what they reach for. Better and good are never easy things.

[They should be, but the world doesn’t work on ‘shoulds’.]

Tell her I will make dinner, this is how I impress the parents I get to meet though those have been few and far between, thieves are least welcome in the bed of a wife or a daughter, even when they have been invited, Leandra’s mother no longer stays in the palace since her abdication. [The rest of the guards all have families at home, and if they visit it will be for state dinners, not like when a merchant would sometimes come up to Araceli’s flat or allow her to take charge of their kitchens for an evening.] See, too much of Skyhold is just constant handwringing with the odd break to piss itself. Nothing is done, just spread too think in too many directions, things can only spread so far before they snap. [If what happened to Sina doesn’t cause that then it might not take much.

Castileos is a place of action, the guards are always on rotation, always busy and moving neatly. Debate has a place but that is all it seems to be, endless debates and councils and ideas and tentative treks out to crumbling dying places to fight then retreating with so little to show for it. At least she has a plan for training when she gets back so she can be more of use to someone with the right skills.] Probably with guards. The Templars would shit their own arseholes out if rifters and mages went away without as many of them to watch.

[gatheringstorm]

[The thought of guards has her huffing, not about to put up with that nonsense any time soon.] Fuck the Templars. I've been a free mage all my life, and I'm not going to see that end now. Nor will I see your own freedom endangered when all you've done is help. We're agents of the Inquisition, not criminals, and those assholes have no authority over us. Especially not the one who thinks he can silence me. Maybe it's time to speak to Leliana when we return, see what she has to say about all this. The higher-ups can't be so blind as to not see the fractures growing in the ranks.

[Korrin doesn't know Sister Nightingale particularly well, but her pro-freedom stance is well-known and that's all it takes to get her respect. Clinging to that thought, she tries to regain her calm for Araceli's sake. Right now, it's more important to be that port in a storm, not part of the storm itself.]

Given Tama's love of seafood and spices, I know whatever you make will be a huge success. She's spot most of her free life in Rivain, so their cuisine is freedom to her. She'd always complain when we were outside it or Antiva, saying that no one else could make it right. But I think she'll agree that you're an exception.

[Or is it really an exception when Araceli's homeland sounds so much like Antiva and Rivain anyway?]

...and you're right, 'better' is never easy. But I won't stop fighting for it, for us and anyone like us. We're a lot more fractured than your homeland, but we still have a common enemy out there to deal with. Somewhere, probably fucking about in the Deep Roads and throwing a tantrum because we took his land of red lyrium and titsicles from him.