We come from the land of the ice and snow

[faderifting]

WHO: Open to all
WHAT: Thedas' strange new guests are delivered to Skyhold
WHEN: 25 Harvestmere (October)
WHERE: Skyhold main gate & courtyard
NOTES: This is Part I of a two-part intro event, Part II will be posted tomorrow.

A long uphill tromp through the snowy mountains ends at Skyhold, the distant fortress finally before them in all its tumble-down glory. There is time to admire the drop into the river gorge far below as they cross the only bridge into the castle; it is briefly backed up with traffic, several carts bearing supplies and visitors stalled as the portcullis is raised. Those coming to help catalog and unload the shipment and greet the guests, or otherwise present near the front courtyard, will find themselves witness to a far more interesting arrival.

Guards at the gate carry the word quickly, and more gather, though they make no move to imprison the strange people who fell out of a rift. They just line the perimeter and keep a close watch. Perhaps this adds a level of tension to this first encounter, but it also reassures the many who are unsettled by the uncertain turn of events and keeps in check those who might attack first and ask questions later. Others will no doubt soften the Inquisition's first impression, offering food, information, and other assistance.

Medical attention is available in the tented-encircled corner of the courtyard where the wounded from Haven are still treated. The quartermaster's assistant is called upon to provide spare odds and ends of clothing to those in need, and to issue blankets for all, though they are left to fend for themselves to find places to sleep.

Any mage willing to help is called in to do so and a cluster forms in one side of the courtyard to examine the rifters. They are objects of curiosity in general, but the marks on their hands are of particular interest, resembling smaller slivers of the Herald's famous mark. Despite their best efforts, no mage will be able to provide any real insight after this initial assessment. What the rifters and their marks are is a question they cannot answer today.

But one question is answered: in the midst of all the commotion, another Inquisition agent arrives from Haven, rushing in red-faced to announce that the Herald's body has finally been found.


OOC

It will be decided (partly for OOC reasons, admittedly) that the rifters will not be imprisoned at this point, but they will be watched carefully, and the guards are on alert for any strange behavior by people with glowing hands or strange attire. And of course, their freedom can be revoked at any time if they're deemed a danger. Though there are some OOC considerations at play here, you're welcome to ICly lobby for more or less freedom for the rifters, and things may change based on IC action/consensus.

Also: Part II, aka the log for the funeral/wake/etc. event, will go up tomorrow!

Comments

[laurenande]

Thought was beyond her. For several seconds her strength was devoted to breathing and little else. To say she lowered herself to the floor would be kind and, ultimately, a lie. Her hand on the railing slowed her but the limb had no power behind it; had he not grabbed for her shoulder and carried part of her weight, she would have folded entirely. That she didn't end up sprawled on the stone was a kindness, it had been a near thing.

With so much of her power spent, there was something dimmer about her. She did not radiate light and her grace had failed her, but she could not hear that accursed song any longer. A few moments passed and she shifted, or tried to. Her fingers obeyed her and gripped the rail beside her, but they moved numbly and there was a fluttering tremor in them. It would pass.

She lacked the strength to draw herself up. She could not be so forceful again, not in this place, not until she had learned why her power burned away so quickly.

Why was it so hard to recover?

Her desperate questions received no answers and, once they had drawn themselves across her mind, she was able to focus on the world around her. She could not recall if her eyes had been open or not, but she regained her sight in a hazy wash, as though she'd walked through a bank of fog. When she found herself upright, it was deeply confusing. Her expression shifted freely and wrote her confusion boldly across her face.

Her eyes tracked to the side--the human was still beside her? He was holding her shoulder, either to brace her or himself, and looked both shaken and exhausted. Her searching had harmed him or, at least, had weakened and wearied him. Without the power to sense the darkness that poisoned him, she felt a sharp pang of heartfelt regret.

That too would pass.

"You are not..." Galadriel said, in a slow listing voice, her volume barely a murmur, "...what are you?"

[bunko]

"I'm," he begins, and then, "er," because for once, maybe the first time in his life, he can't think of the way to end that. Hundreds of names, hundreds of aliases, hundreds upon hundreds of titles. It would be poetic, to say that she is what stumps him. If this was a story, maybe he would find inspiration in her, a step toward honesty, an impulse to tell it true now that he felt close to something like dying, like mortality might carry some weight, or maybe because she seems so weak, when she was so powerful just seconds before, but--

But that's not true. Not really. Truthfully, Scipio is mostly stumped because he just doesn't know how to answer any longer. Life is a game, he told a barmaid just the other day, and he still believes it. Someone's changed the rules on him, that's all. And the deep pierce of the way she had looked at him--with a cold that crackled in the air and shot somewhere under his skin--and the tingle of the song at the back of his head--well, okay. So maybe it did have something to do with matters more serious than he ever wants to consider.

"Scipio," he tells her. He's still holding her shoulder. The grip is not tight, but all the same, he ought to let her go. "I'm Scipio. A, er. Grey Warden." The title still feels stupid to claim, and not entirely his. He winces, somehow manages a sheepish smile. "Sorry."

What are you? He doesn't look the part, certainly. For starters, Wardens are never so good looking (not true; he'll claim it anyways). But she'll know what Warden means, now that he's said it. Everyone does, even Scipio, who had only met Wardens in tales before one turned up at the tavern all those months ago. But the way she had asked is colored differently. What did she expect him to say?

Now he's just being superstitious, and foolish. She's got him a little spooked. Scipio shakes his head, as if to clear it of cobwebs, and dares a glance at the elf's face. Still pale. She looks awful, even under all that beauty. "If you sit down, will it help? I don't know what-- happened, to you, or--" Stumbling. Not his style. "A drink might do it. Does for me, usually, it's just finding one that's strong enough."

[laurenande]

The way she looked at him as he explained, as each word stumbled out, halting and uneasy, was far less piercing than her gaze had been. Strangely, for how little she could read him now, what she had read gave her the ability to see him. It was a perplexing thought, and a disquieting one given how his blood sang; it was a shame she could not understand all of what he did. Perhaps, if he lingered, her faculties would return and she could parse him out--

"Why do you stay?"

The thought was complete. It was the most pressing question, at least now that she had a word for what he was. She didn't know what a Grey Warden was, but she knew he was not--was not what? Evil? Despoiled? The former was too complex for her to know, the latter she had felt at a distance.

She continued to watch him, too exhausted to turn away but too interested to want to. He asked after her health, caught her fall, and offered her comfort. He had been filled with dread and awe at the sight of her; she would have killed him had she not found the glittering memory that distracted her. Butterflies? He had a love of beauty and lamented cruelty. He was a fool, perhaps, but kind.

He was not a servant of the Enemy, even if poison sang in his blood.

"Yes, a seat," Galadriel answered with some effort and, on her next try, was able to force her arm to cooperate. Her legs were weak but they bore her weight as she drew herself up. The idea of sitting on the ground had not occurred to her, narrowly as she had avoided collapsing on it, but the nearest chair was halfway around the room. She considered it, automatically, as one would look up to gauge the weather even during heavy rain. The sensation that nagged against the back of her mind was painful, like a raw wound, and she tried to ignore it. As her thoughts began to recover, some of her grace returned, as well as some coherency.

If he was not a servant of the enemy, his answer both made sense and lacked it entirely.

"What is a Grey Warden?"

[bunko]

I'm staying because you look as if you've drawn a little too near to the Maker, if you know what I mean seems too flippant. It feels good to think flippantly again, as his brains defrost from the lingering chill of that gaze of hers. The instinct to run off is also thawing out, stretching its lean muscles and eyeing the door.

In a moment, Scipio quiets himself. As soon as she's seated, he'll be gone. And if he wants to know why she looked at him the way she looked at him--he'll need time to work up to that. Time, and some distance, lest she turn that on him again.

He shifts his grip to be one more of support--not so familiar as an arm around her shoulders, but an arm she can hold to and a hand to keep her balanced. The chair seems quite far to him, too, but not so far that she won't make it. She looks even less gray, and it's only been a moment since he first thought that.

Her first question, he decides not to answer. Too complicated. Her second-- well, he laughs. Not cruelly, just amused. Only she doesn't take it back, or join him in laughing, and he thinks, no, it probably was not a joke, then.

"Grey Wardens," he says, trying to accent the words less. Perhaps she knows Wardens as something else? "I thought everyone knew. We didn't see them much, but even we had tales--" How remotely did she live? "Surely you must know. Or you've seen their sign before? I don't have it on me. The--" What's the word-- "Griffin?"

[laurenande]

Even the very wise could not see all ends; it was a simple truth and one Galadriel knew well. She could see more than most, and had seen much in her long life. To say that she was not easily deceived was an understatement of a truly staggering depths.

Yet, as this man offered his arm and laughed at her question, however disbelieving his laughter was, Galadriel was deeply uncertain. If this was a deception, some clever trap by an ancient foe, it was so skilled that she could not perceive it. She could not find the seam that marked a facade, could not find the edge of the illusion, but if it was not a lie....

The word he used for their sign was unfamiliar and Galadriel's blank stare surely told him so. She moved in silence as she struggled with thought; her steps were slow and uneven, his arm went neither unused nor unappreciated.

If he was not a servant of the enemy, if this was not a deception? Her heart revolted at the idea. Anger danced across her face, as consuming and cold as a winter storm, and her grip, however weak, clutched tighter against his arm. If he was not of the enemy, then someone had done something truly foul and truly foolish to this world.

His incredulity at her ignorance was easy to ignore, especially as fury seized her heart and stole thought. Whatever symbol he described, whatever banner he followed, it mattered not.

"Your blood is poison." It would not have occurred to her to keep such information secret, there were few elves that could not feel darkness. The race of men had known of this ability for more than an age, it was not something that could be leveraged. "I can hear it singing in your veins."

Her voice was cold, but she hadn't the power to harm him. If he were truly corrupted, if his will was not his own, or if his deception was so perfect it escaped her, she would know now. There would be no better time to strike out at her than this.

"But your heart...you think of..." She hesitated, combed her memory for a sign of falsehood. She found none and her tone was laced with disbelief. For the first time in a truly long time, she was lost. "...of butterflies?"

[bunko]

She doesn't know of Wardens, and she doesn't know of griffins, so what does she know?

Well.

Any urge to laugh gets choked by the actual answer to his unspoken question. Your blood is poison. Brilliant. Yes. Not what he wants to hear, and by the way, that grip on his arm is not one to keep her upright so much as it is one that implies she might wrench wrench the limb off if she only had the strength. Poison. Not a compliment. When he looks at her face, some of that terrible anger is written there still, only an echo of the way she'd looked at him before.

Only only reduces it, where the real feeling is not one easily reduced, not when the echo is nearly as bad as the true thing. Weak fury should be comical, easier to deal with, like a kitten growling. She can barely walk, and he's as clever and quick as always, but it isn't comical, and he doesn't feel clever, maybe because he remembers the full force of that fury. There have been only a handful of times in Scipio's life where he has felt so laid bare and low, so few that he doesn't like even the memory of that feeling.

Poisoned blood. Butterflies. The ancient distant singing, in his head, and a long cold road, colder than the one that delivered him here, colder than any he's known before. Rituals and songs and voices, and a future mapped out too exactly for him to escape, no matter what Rafael has said to him, or what he has said to Rafael. There's an end. Bleak, horrible. The world has always been rich, and now it's narrowing. He's only a few steps short of delivering her to that chair, but now it's Scipio's turn to go pale, washed-out and thin-lipped. Butterflies. Poisoned blood. Singing. How does she know?

But if there's one thing Scipio has, it's masterful recovery. He still might look pale, but his smile brightens his face a little, and he hasn't stopped leading her to the chair, because the second he sits her down he's out of here, not a moment too soon--

"Ha," he says. It's a word that he says, not an actual laugh. After he swallows, he manages the actual laughs. Ha ha ha. All is well. "I don't know what you mean, I wasn't thinking of anything. Oh, butterflies? Yes. Wardens, we-- tend to butterflies. And the ones that are here, they need extra care--it's the cold, you know. Very cold for butterflies. And I'm so glad you woke me, because-- I must go, now. And tend."

There. The chair. He tries to snake free, wriggle his arm away and skip a step backwards all at once. "Sit down, and rest. You'll feel better once you rest. All the dust in here makes me light-headed too." No poison. No blood. No making him feel all raw and inside-out, and definitely no more reminders of old gods bouncing around in his periphery thoughts. His excuses might be thin, but he looks as if he believes them. How unnerving was it, that she knew what he was thinking (butterflies)? So unnerving. You would never know by his face, except of course she might know, since she seems to know everything.

[laurenande]

His laughter was wooden, his expression was a shaky facade smoothed over deep unease, and he tried, with such sudden desperation, to appease her statements, to explain it all away...he was lying? To her of all people? His deception was clumsy, panicked, and Galadriel listened as he spun it, as it chased his actions and the tension in his frame. He helped her sit and tried to dance back, to move away and flit beyond her reach.

She didn't release his arm.

She couldn't, not yet, and even his twisting attempts at escape couldn't pry her grip off of him. She might never catch him again, if he put mind to evading her, and she needed to know.

Her expression was grave as she looked at him again, it was as heavy with the weight of long ages, with the threat of that song and all the darkness that had come over the world. It was weary for all the shadow that had been driven out, for the light that had gone with it when it left. Her eyes were hard, tempered as only one who waited for that darkness, who watched for it could be.

He was not an agent of the enemy; he did not carry his burden willingly.

"Did you seek it?" Galadriel asked, slowly, and her fury fixed on some distant thing. Whatever had tainted him, that was what deserved her ire, her rage, and she would bring it upon them like the fury of an ocean storm. "Or was it thrust upon you?"

Her fingers were numb; she didn't have enough strength to hold him for long. If he didn't answer quickly, he would be able to draw away and vanish, regardless of how she needed his answer. Once he slipped her hold, she had no doubt that catching him again would be a harrowing task, but she had to know.

Of all the questions this land posed, of all the answers she'd been given, this one was the most important. She had to know.

[bunko]

Even in his head, Scipio's internal noooooo tapers off weakly. She might be seated, but she's still gripping at his arm, and every wriggly little move with which he decides to secure his freedom prove to be worth nothing at all. She's got him held fast. What's more, she's got him pinned, held by that gaze of hers.

He should ask her how she does it. What a useful party trick. Only all those clever little thoughts curdle under that pin. She doesn't look as if she wants to kill him, or wrench his arm off. Instead, she looks tired. Angry, and tired, and looking past him, down some deep way of darkness--one he can't see, but one he can feel. A yawning maw of some tunnel going out of the back of his head, echoing song drifting up toward him.

How does she hear it? How does she know? His arm tingles where her hand is pressed. Maybe the limb has fallen asleep. Maybe his arm will fall off. Maybe he will be able to break free and run.

He looks back at her and fees very raw.

"It happened."

How else to say it? It sounds so stupid, clumsy in a way he never is. Under her grip and her gaze and her anger, Scipio is feeling very small and very childish--but that's fitting, considering his earlier excuses were like a child's. Tending to butterflies indeed.

"We were conscripted. I think it was-- a joke." Not a funny one. He wants very badly to run away, but he would settle for being able to look away. Neither seems very possible. She's so beautiful, under all of that fury. It's really sort of unfair. "Not really a joke. I didn't want it. I didn't want to-- die, either, I'm--"

Stupid. Stop talking. Scipio sets his teeth together, hard. The clench of his jaw doesn't do much to release the tension that's crawled up from her grip, but at least it gives him something else to think about. "We're here to help. I swear it."

We is very inclusive for a man who believes in limited camaraderie. It's hard to think otherwise. He doesn't like thinking this way.

[laurenande]

It should have been a remarkable, that a single word had the power to break her, after all her long years. It was so small a thing, uttered in a small voice, as though he were a child awaiting a scolding. She had to shut her eyes against it, but it did very little in the end.

Conscripted.

The answer was more than she'd expected and so much worse than she'd hoped. All at once her heart broke for this man, for this world; the air was driven out of her in a silent prayer. Her grip on him came apart as she did, her strength fading as a wash of unnamed grief passed over her. Her fingers fell away from his wrist and her arm draped, numb and forgotten, across her lap.

"No, it is not a joke," Galadriel confirmed and sounded as old as she was, as though each year had worn on her as a mortal's might. She had been exhausted but, before this, she had rarely felt so tired.

He swore that he was here to help.

It was a blind oath, given with fervor, to someone who would hold it beyond the span of his life.

He seemed so young, but all men did.

She looked back up at him.

He was a creature she could not trust, not ever, and a man she could not aid. She was too weak to drive out the poison in his blood; if they had been in Lórien, if she had been at the height of her power, perhaps she could have freed him from the old song. The Lord of the Dark was too powerful for any man or elf to contend with, but his taint was not so different from his minions'. She had not tried to heal it, but she had not had call to. Even Sauron rarely took lives by halves. It hadn't taken him yet, hadn't twisted him to something foul, but--no. She was weary.

She was so weary and this place was unrelenting.

"I am sorry," she said, after a very long silence, her expression a mixture of sincere pity and grief. "I cannot help you, I have not the strength."

She would have killed him where he stood. Now, knowing what she did, she realized she should have. His future would be far less painless than a death by her hand. Unfortunately, for all the darkness threatened him, she had seen too much of the man who carried it. She would not kill him, not without threat; he savored life far too much to consider an early death a kindness.

"If you ask it of me, I would kill whatever creature conscripted you."

It was not an offer made lightly, but it was sincere. She still had very little grasp over what he was, what a Grey Warden was meant to be, but to poison any living being against their will? She would gladly end whatever had done the deed.

[bunko]

She looses him at last; he skips backwards a step, and then another, practically tripping over his feet. Clumsiness doesn't suit him, but the feeling of coming gradually unstuck doesn't give him much grace. Like waking up with his legs fallen asleep, and still trying to get up and walk.

And all the while he's still looking, still can't tear himself away. It's got to be some enchantment. Sorry? Well, she should be sorry, she nearly had his arm off, she made him feel wretched, made him think of whispered songs that he would just as soon as be done with, songs he will never be done with.

But that blustery irritation is toothless and nothing he can sustain, not with her looking so wan. Not when she's apologizing. It truly must be some magic, how quickly he wants to rush to assure her--no, nothing to apologize for, don't even think it--like words can bolster her and bring color back to her cheeks again. Like he doesn't still want to tear off down the corridor without looking back.

When he does manage to go, Scipio knows that he will not forget her: not her vibrancy of before, or her terrible anger, or her knife-sharp stare, or even the way she looks now, sagged in the chair like a poor woman thrice her age. In all of these faces she is not a person to be forgotten, though he might rather try.

Her offer isn't a vain one. She could probably kill anyone, once she's on her feet again, could at least make them feel awful and pinned-down and like they wanted to die, and, depending on the man, that might actually be worse. (First-hand experience lets him diagnose that latter part.) But even so:

"He was only a man, mia dama. Only a warden himself, no creature or demon. And he is probably dead." Or on his way. The thought is too sobering. Scipio takes another step backwards, fading toward the door. "What happened, happened. It only changes my story, it doesn't end it. Not yet. So I need no vengeance. And even if I did, I would not ask that, not of you."

It must be some magic, he thinks, for a third time, some magic that keeps him thinking so kindly of her when he was just shrinking in fear not moments before. But he knows that it isn't magic. She is captivating, and he is still a little afraid, and still he can't quite leave. The door is very close now. Another step back puts him nearer. What glow she has looks just a little brighter--Maker, he would keep looking on it, and on her, even if the grip of her hand on his arm is a memory not quite forgotten.

"If I leave you," he says, cautiously, "you will be well? You won't--" Faint, or fade, or go out like a snuffed candle. He shouldn't care. He does.

[laurenande]

It was all she could do, to look upon him, practically agape, as he retreated from her side. He was fearful, as he should have been, but that boundless, foolish kindness overwhelmed his terror. She had no words for this, for what he told her, what he was, or why he behaved as he did. There were no words. Galadriel gave him the only response she could.

She laughed.

The sound was not as bitter and weary as it should have been, there was a thread of genuine amusement that ran through her, but it was not a merry thing. It was a pale echo of her earlier joy.

"I have lived for years unnumbered, ere the first sunrise lit the world," she said dryly, for she had no energy for politesse or pity any longer. "I am weak, but this shall not claim my life."

She couldn't trust him. That fact crawled beneath her skin as surely as the poison ran beneath his. He was no clever servant of darkness, that she knew, but he was touched by it and, just as she could not be free of the One Ring, he could not be free of that song. It was curious, but she was inclined to believe him. She wanted to believe that he was just a man, that his heart had not been an impossible facade, and that he desired no violence as recompense for his fate. If it were true, though, it meant he deserved more pity than suspicion and she could never grant him that.

She was wary of him and it saddened her.

When had she become so terrible and fearful?

She was gentler, both in expression and tone, when she spoke again.

"Go," she said and closed her eyes. The sunlight streaming in from the window was watery, but she could feel it where it fell across her. "I will recover in time."