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

[fightingale]

"It is strange how things dear to us change as our circumstances do." It is simplistic, she suspects, compared to how Galadriel speaks. Something in her breathes of Ages, not of scant decades. Leliana wonders if, perhaps, that is nothing more than her own inclination to fancy and the craft of tales, if she might be imposing her imagination on a woman who, while ethereal, is but flesh and bone as much as Leliana herself. "Perhaps better put... they change as we do. The eyes that look upon them once might not see them again, no matter how often we behold them."

If she were inclined to being absurd, this would be a prime opportunity to lighten the mood by speaking of nugs. She is not, so Maker be praised, Galadriel is spared.

"To hear you speak of it," the filter of light through the treetops and the way dust twirls and pirouettes, "I would think there are precious few sights to be beheld that could ever be so precious. As if it were a feeling to be captured, in that light." The fleeting memories of her mother's embrace and the scent of Andraste's Grace, of the Maker's blessing, of... of peace and contentment that she has not known since Lothering.

"Aman and Lórien both sound beautiful."

[laurenande]

"They were," Galadriel replied and caught her error as she made it. It stole her words from her, for that brief moment, and in her silence she considered the woman alongside her, then the dark forest beyond the firelight. How their conversation had come to this, she could not say; thoughts of the creator, of watchful deities and distant lands, all of them tumbled together to the tune of the crackling flames. Lothlórien was little more than a feeling now, if a precious one. It was no different from Aman save that, Valar willing, she might see Aman again should she perish.

It was a grim thought and her smile passed with it.

"Forgive me, I dislike change and thinking overmuch about Aman all but demands I ponder the differences between what is and what was." And what would come to pass. Galadriel stared off at the woods for a few seconds longer and then let out a short sigh. Her attention returned to Leliana, fixed as it had ever been, and she leaned toward the warmth of the fire.

"But I admit, I do delight in your regard for my home. I have not been in Thedas long, but I find I miss Lórien terribly. If I can only linger in it in passing thought, then I shall when I can."

Leliana had asked her a question. It was some time ago, by her measure, and the topic seemed senseless now. It was easier than speaking of lost homelands, though, and Galadriel resigned herself to it.

"You wished to know how I found this Inquisition? I fear I have no insights that will aid you. I have known no army that behaves as this one. Your fortress is a clever thing, and easily held, unless Thedas has a great many creatures that can take to the sky."

[fightingale]

And there it is, a bitter truth that she is sorry to see exposed. It should not surprise her - perhaps it should not even grieve her, and yet she finds that familiar feeling in her gut, a sinking feeling that yet rises, as though a void was opening up within her that would consume her as effectively as the Breach might have swallowed the world. It is familiar and, she suspects, ceaseless. Some days and some moments the reminder of it opened it up afresh, echoes of all the horrors she has seen and inflicted reaching out with vicious fingers that would pry her apart from within, sinking in and pulling - indefatigable.

To open wounds afresh in another was not something she even took pleasure in, and especially so when it was done without any kind of deliberateness.

"I understand," Leliana finally replies, a little more quietly. "Dwelling on change can be a painful thing, for want of another word. Even so... I think sometimes that change is what we must think on. What is and what was may not suffice. I would not wish for what was to be the way that it will be in the future. Not for mages, nor elves - not for any person here. What was did not work. What will be... that carries some breath of hope."

There is a tightness in her chest, stretched as a bowstring, pulled far with her own anticipation and desperation that has spanned years. "No forgiveness is necessary, I assure you."

But that she could offer some... respite, perhaps, even if it was only little and only through her own childish wonder, then that she can be glad of. Her wonder is rarely lingered in, either, though that hardly needs to be mentioned. This conversation was never intended to be about Leliana.

A slight smile, just a little wry. "I do not know that any army has behaved quite as this one. We are a little unorthodox, in some regards, but I greatly appreciate your candour. We will gather strength as we go."