CLOSED: Drakonis Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & Solas
WHAT: Arrivals and returns
WHEN: Drakonis 20
WHERE: The Dales
NOTES: This log is slightly backdated and closed to new rifters and Solas. However, it is safe to assume that everyone (a) survives and (b) is led by Solas to Skyhold by Drakonis 25, so you're free to make new logs and begin playing at Skyhold when you're ready to do so.

You were asleep--deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment-- and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

But there's no waking here, just a flare of green-white light and a jarring impact onto cold dirt and long grass. When your breath returns and the light's after-image fades from your eyes you will find yourself beneath a canopy of trees, illuminated deep green by moonlight in the distance and brighter green by the crystalline tear in reality hanging suspended above you.

You are also not as you were: in the palm of your left hand there glows a narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Like the fact that you're being attacked. Surrounding you and the rift through which you arrived is a circle of six ghostly, humanoid figures, shifting colors in the dark like iridescent gems and throwing fire, ice, and bursts of physical force at whomever catches their attention.

Luckily, you are not on your own. Around you others are rising from the ground, equally confused, with the same green lights flaring from their hands. And not far is a lone figure, coming to help.

Comments

[parkourprince]

Legolas understood completely. It was but a moment they could allow themselves out here, and the moment came and went, he was satisfied. Had to be, after all, and Thranduil seemed comforted as much as was possible.

"In a world free of the Enemy," comforted Thranduil might be, but Legolas still wished to urge him to see the bright spots, to know what good future awaits them. "Where we will be able to restore our home to what it was, once upon a time, and it will be worth to carry the name of Eryn Lasgalen. The cries and laughter of elflings will be heard again, and no great spider or orc will dare step a foot near our trees."

Legolas did not entertain the notion that they would be unable to leave this new world. He could not, would not, there was no other option but to find a way back home.

[rowancrowned]

There was another matter to consider, one he had put so far from his mind that the return of it to the front of his mind took a moment.

“And after our trees are green and healthy again, we might finally sail.” All his obligations in Middle-earth would be fulfilled, and no one could say that he had shirked his duties or performed unadmirably. He closed his eyes, and squeezed Legolas’ shoulder. “I will see your mother again.”

Finally, finally—after so many years of waiting, of being without her. He gazed down at Legolas with fondness in his eyes. “My son, who defeated the Enemy. It will be all thanks to you.”

[parkourprince]

It warmed Legolas from within, to hear Thranduil speak like that. Though rare it was that he mentioned mother, whom Legolas himself had known but briefly. Few were his memories of her, all from his early childhood, but they were still vivid, still crystal clear in his memory when he recalled them.

But then his eyes widened in surprise, and he had to bite back a sheepish chuckle.

"I played but a small part, it was the two brave hobbits that deserve the honour to hold that title," he shook his head, smiling fondly still, "We will sail, we will all be reunited again."

[rowancrowned]

"You will bear it anyway, at the insistence of your proud father." Legolas' almost-deaths would sit on his heart for months yet, but he would hide his concerns for the sake of his son. He brushed his fingers down the side of Legolas' face, tucking an errand lock behind the point of his ear. His son. His wife's son.

"Come, Legolas. It seems that we are to leave this place soon." The other elf- Solas- seemed to be gathering everyone with the intent to move for a holdfast of some sort. Possibly his own. "Is Bill in good health?"

Not to carry goods, of course. Bill was wholly unsuited for such a task.

[parkourprince]

There was no arguing Thranduil there and then, Legolas could tell at a glance. He smiled, shaking his head, and did not insist anymore. Instead there were other, more pressing matters, that demanded his focus.

Solas indeed seemed to be gathering everyone, and so they ought to get ready to set out as well. His arrows were all already in the quiver, every single one he spent during the battle, and none of them damaged, thankfully. That was as much as he had with him, anyway, so it wasn’t like he had a whole lot to pack.

“”He is nervous, disconcerted, as we all ought to be,” given where they were — in a world wholly foreign and dangerous — and how they found themselves here. “But he will follow my lead, I think, he knows me still though I have difficulty hearing him.”

What used to be clear, if simple, now became nothing more but garbled nonsense. It saddened Legolas.