thunderproof | 𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒙.

( A package wrapped in soft paper and string. It contains a brand new fur-lined cloak in deep grey fabric and white fur, with matching hat and gloves, and a note; )

Don't wear them casually about the city unless you want to get arrested by a bored guard who decides they look stolen. Excellent for Inquisition excursions. Will serve you well if you ever visit the Emprise.

I keep accounts current.

( She assumes she doesn't need to sign it. )

Edited 2017-12-11 11:26 (UTC)

Adalia. Do you have any interested in being involved with mage matters in this world?

Anders! I might, but — I don't know, seems a bit disingenuous, doesn't it, my being involved. I'm not from here, I haven't been through nearly the things you all have. It'd be like... fitting a hexagonal peg in a round hole. It's vaguely the same shape, but not exactly, you know?

❰ she's not ignorant of the ways in which her "take no shit from the normies" attitude would no fly here, she's just personally disinclined to care. getting involved with mage business on a larger scale... could end poorly. she has a tendency to speak her mind. ❱

You're not from here, no, but there's no telling how long you'll be here. At least one of the Rifters has been here... it's got to be nearly three years now. It's fair to give you the option to join in if you'd like, I feel.

And as long as you're not discounting what many mages have been through, I don't see how that would be an issue.

[Maybe his view of it is a little simple here, but when he's seeking community among a majority of the mages, it has to be a little simplistic.]

It's not that I'd be discounting, it's...

❰ gosh, how to explain an utter disinterest in appeasing the chantry or the normal folk of thedas... ❱

To be perfectly honest I'm not entirely sure why you all haven't razed the Chantry to the ground and forced them to leave you alone. Which oversimplifies things and would cause as many problems as it solves, and what do I know about your politics and religion anyway. That's what I mean.

Have you... There's... There's a hole in Hightown. I don't know if you've seen it. But destroying a Chantry doesn't... solve much. And, um, aside from the physical structure, a vast majority of people seem to take some comfort from Andrastianism.

But we're trying to keep them at arm's length now. There's a lot of things they had in place to keep us from fighting for freedom, and there's a constant risk of them being brought back, but right now we're fighting.

I'm gathering some of us together who are against the return of captivity and Chantry control, for something a little on the casual side, a community. The start of one, I hope. It's not directly addressing any of the issues, but it'll hopefully help with some of them, like what one does with personhood when they've gained it. You could come, if you'd like.

I'm not allowed in Hightown. ❰ she is a rifter mage who appears elven. they wouldn't allow her in hightown even if she actually had a reason to be there. ❱

I didn't say get rid of the religion, I said get rid of the Chantry. But this, Anders, this is what I mean. I'm too invested in the mage stuff and I have no idea what my ideas or impulses would cost you and your people. I'd be willing to tear down the whole system just because of how it treats mages, and I'm not the smartest person there's ever been but I know I'd hurt more than I'd help. It's a good idea, and one I want to be a part of, I just...

❰ she sighs. ❱

I might come. I'll have to... muzzle myself or something if I do, you don't need me talking. I'd just stick my foot in my mouth about things I don't understand.

[He's quiet for a few moments.]

You'll be welcome to come, Adalia, and you don't have to muzzle yourself. If you've questions or are confused about something and don't want to show it to too many people, feel free to ask me there. I can attempt to be a walking reference for you. And...

[There's a short pause.]

I blew up the main Chantry in Kirkwall a couple of years ago. My route is not the one to take. I did save mage lives, but I took lives as well, and saving more than I killed does not mean it balances out. We must find a way to dismantle the system that does not go too far again.

I'm not afraid of looking stupid. I'm afraid of hurting your cause by talking about things I don't know about. I do that a lot.

( for all she was just talking about razing the chantry, the revelation that anders has done just that shocks adalia — she had meant metaphorically rather than literally, hadn't she? she didn't want anyone to get hurt to bring the chantry down, just for it to... stop. she's quiet for a long second in the wake of this knowledge, then nods. )

Yes, we must. I'll let you know if I end up coming, Anders.

It'd been hard to miss the denouement of Adalia's argument with Marisol over the crystals, hard to miss the peculiar tone she'd signed off with, evidence of a verbal blow that had landed. Myr had wrapped his own more mannerly argument with the woman (swallowed the uncomfortable reminders of his own naïveté about the world; as if he needed any more reminding they didn't belong out here) and straightway gone hunting for his friend.

Well--almost straightway, with a stop by the kitchens first, but that was nearly on the way back to the mage tower.

A few minutes more see him standing outside her door; he knocks, gently, but forbears from announcing himself as is his wont. If she's not in there--or doesn't want to see him--it seems easier not to disturb the hall.

At first, there's no response to his knocking. In fact, for quite a few long moments, there isn't even any sound of movement, or any indication at all that he's been heard. It may seem, for those few moments, as though Adalia simply isn't in, or that she's uninterested in company.

And then a bracingly cold breeze blows under the crack between the door and the floor, and Charis snorts angrily from behind it. Mother is upset, thank you, no unannounced visitors today! How can he be sure you're not the one who upset her in the first place, hm?

Well he knows the sound of that snort by now, and he's got a good idea of what it might mean in this context, with cold air lapping out from under the door fit to chill his toes. It makes him smile despite himself; no forgetting she's got a fine ally in her wyrmling son. "It's me, Charis," he calls, softly. "It's Myr. I brought something for Adalia."

And he'd like to speak to her, of course--but it seems a little too intrusive to say so, right now. Better to see if that's what she needs, first.

— oh. Well! That changes everything, doesn't it? Charis coos loudly and rises up on his hind legs to grapple with the doorknob. It takes him a second or two, but his paws are dexterous enough he can open the door, shuffling awkwardly backward to swing it in and let Myr through.

When he steps through, Myr will see Adalia sat on one of the two beds in the room, an array of books around her and a quill and inkpot on the nightstand next to it. She frowns at Charis, but in that way that is just two seconds from smiling.

"Some guard dragon you are," she says, her voice soft and scratchy. "Disguise Self's a thing, you know. That could be anybody."

The Gallows feels even more uncharacteristically oppressive now that everyone seems to be either afflicted by the strange illness or fearful of it, but that doesn't prevent Fern from doing what little she can to support the rifters in her lives that she's grown to care about. (It's a fairly small list: Adalia, of course, and Maedhros, and Cosima, and... and Chloe.)

"Adalia?" she asks, peeking into her room, and startling a little at the sight of the ice castle that Charis has evidently constructed for himself.

"Come in!" comes the distracted reply. Adalia's sat at a desk against the far left wall of the room, books and vellum spread out in front of her, a bag of herbs and other miscellaneous ingredients sat on the floor next to her and bottles scattered all around.

"Are you here for sleeping draughts or something else? I'm working on a batch now, but — oh!"

She starts upon seeing Fern, and Charis pokes his head out of his castle with an inquisitive noise, but the surprise quickly turns into laughter.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was you, Fern. Hi, how are you?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was you, Fern. Hi, how are you?"

At that she smiles and steps a bit further into the room, giving her skinny shoulders a little shrug. "Oh, well enough," she replies, then looks down to the basket she's carrying on the crook of one arm. "I thought I'd bring something by for you, just--to help you sleep, if you needed it."

A pause, as she takes note of all the bottles and vials, and blushes suddenly. Stupid, how silly, of course Adalia doesn't need her help with this--

"It's just, um, a valerian root tea my ma' used to make for me." This added a bit self-consciously, her eyes suddenly downcast.

She's not totally oblivious to the sudden attack of self-consciousness, but Adalia definitely acts as though she is, smiling widely at Fern and beckoning her closer.

"That sounds wonderful, thank you! Come in, do you have a moment to sit down? It feels like it's been a while since we last spoke."

It's... easier to pretend all of this is normal. That Adalia is not currently tinged blue, that this illness is not happening at all. Acting like this is a routine visit and neither of them needs to act any differently to how they usually would just... feels better. Simpler. Less like Adalia is going to tear her own hair out from nerves.

"Yes, I--I have some time," Fern says and tries to mirror that confidence, that enthusiasm, but what with everything going on, it's so difficult. Still, she comes forward, rooting around in the little basket on her arm to fetch out the sachet of tea that she prepared, and sets it on a nearby table for Adalia to have, whenever she likes.

"I'd... ask how you've been doing, but..." she begins, but lets her words taper off. Her eyes settle on her friend's blue skin, then move to her eyes again, clearly worried.

It is something of an acquired skill, to be in the middle of some bullshit and be able to pretend everything's fine. It's a skill Adalia has honed through months spent with people she doesn't trust, and she falls back on it now with ease. Better to pretend to be okay than run the risk she falls apart and can't put herself back together.

"Let's not talk about me," she says smoothly, leaning over to grab a shawl off of her and wrap it around her shoulders. It doesn't entirely hide the blue, as it's begun creeping up her neck and over her cheeks, but it makes it less noticeable, particularly once she fists her hands in the fabric and folds her arms to hide them under her armpits.

"I'm sure you've been up to more interesting things than I have. How's the garden? It's been a bit since I've had the time to go out there, I hope nothing's died without me."

When the dream starts, it looks somewhat familiar - the world opens to Sundermount, closer to the peak than away from it. There's no sense of time or weather, nothing that pinpoints where or when the dream is taking place, just the sudden, overwhelming feeling of presence, as if someone is watching and waiting to see what moves will be made, what might happen. There's the weight of expectation, of judgement, something nipping at the heels and urging forward, and it's almost as though there's a gentle fog rolling around the open space, blinding and flickering.

A wolf howls. The fog Fades; it was green, and in the light of some kind of the entrance to Pride's End opens up, a gaping maw that echoes with promise. From the darkness, a figure emerges, not human or elven or anything like it - a wolf, head tilted and eyes focussed, intense and sure, relaxed in its stance. It doesn't speak, but it feels as though words are said anyway: follow. Then it turns and moves, heading deeper and deeper into the cavern, sliding through and finding its feet in the depths.

Rather than the cave being a cave, rather than it being anything familiar, it opens up into a ruin of some kind. There were once high rising columns that have fallen to ruin, white stone broken into pieces around the overgrown grass. There are the edges of what might have been a room, or something like it, and half-surviving murals decorate the outskirts with shining colours of gemstones and gold, beautiful representations of godlike beings that have been lost to time.

The nature of it is obvious - elven, but not the kind seen in books and studies of the Dales and the Cities, but something older. There's a sense of age, of it being longer than time itself. It's as if the world was reborn after this came to be. They're beautiful, designed in a way that is almost reminiscent of Chantries and murals to the Holy Andraste, but decorated with greens and browns, with the colours of the People, magic prickling around and colouring the very essence of the landscape. It's beautiful, even in ruin, and the wolf prowls with a low hanging head, sad and lonely, the soft, huffing sounds of breathing slowly disappearing.

It howls again, sad and low and mournful, distressed and alone.

Slowly, the wolf moves forward, guiding the dream as much as its a part of it, and wanders around the ruins. There's time to explore, to wander, to take in the sights, to explore and see whatever they might like, as if time is meaningless. The light of the sun - if that's what it is - doesn't seem to fade at all, lighting up the ruins for the wanderer to see all that there is to see, to witness the world that once was, crumbled into nothing and left to rot and age over time. It's a representation, a whisper -- this is what the world was, what it had been, look how far it has fallen.

What can you see? it seems to ask. What can you learn? it wonders. What more is there to understand? What is missing?

A wolf howls, the world goes dark, faded with tinges of green, a mist that seems to cover the eyes.

Then there is wakefulness, the echo of a howl left with flickering pictures of a world that once was.

Adalia is not, shall we say, unused to the sensation of being watched in her dreams. It's been a while, certainly — Alacruun can't reach her in Thedas, it seems, so she's been left alone in her dreams ever since she fell through the rift — but the feeling is not so unfamiliar that it bothers her.

She's more aware in dreams here than she was in her dreams on Toril — something about how sorcerers here interact with the Fade, it's like lucid dreaming but always, and also not as much? It's strange. Despite the strangeness, Adalia doesn't see much trouble with following the urging of the dream, so long as she keeps her wits about her — demons tempt sorcerers through their dreams, here, and while Adalia's rather certain her soul being tangled up in another deal precludes her from making any more, she's not exactly eager to test that theory. As she makes her way up Sundermount, she takes note of every strange thing, the rolling fog, the howling wolf, the Fading —

and then she is at a cave and a wolf actually appears, and Adalia blinks at it in confusion for a moment before shrugging — sure, wolf spirits come to her in her dreams now, why not — and she follows it without question, wandering into the depths of the cavern. Unlike the sorcerers here, she has never learned to be wary of her dreams, and even if she had she would never be so cautious as to completely ignore something so strange — her curiosity is much louder than her common sense, always, and in this moment, that's hardly a bad thing. The ruins open up around her and Adalia gapes, looking around her with wonder and delight and just a little heartbreak — whatever these ruins were, it must have been absolutely beautiful.

She's about to run to a mural, reaching for a pack that is suddenly on her back to pull out a journal and charcoal, when the wolf howls again and it stops her in her tracks. Animals are not Adalia's area of expertise by any stretch, but there is no mistaking the note of loneliness in that call. It arrests her as surely as hearing her own name would, and she turns to the creature with pity in her eyes. Before she can think better of it, she lowers her pack to the ground and steps forward, one step, two — until she's mere feet from the wolf, and she slowly lowers herself to her knees and holds her hand out for it to sniff.

"Hello, boy, was this your home? Are you showing me your home?"

There's no avoiding the way that the dream echoes with the sense of loneliness; it's an intense, painful thing, but wonderful in how mournful it is - it's a beautiful thing that echoes around the ruins, almost as if it alone was a mist. It burns in the back of the eyes, emotion that prickles and slams into the side of the mind, but then it fades; it's as if the creature is gaining control of itself, pushing the pain and sadness to one side, urging things to slip away, trying to get the visitor to focus on the ruins themselves over the shifting feeling of hurt and sadness.

There's some obvious surprise when she turns to face him, walking over, and the wolf hesitates for a moment, moving from one set of paws to another. It's obvious that the wolf is more interested in her interest, and they shift and moves backwards, almost as if they're going to shun the kindness - as if it makes them uncomfortable. It's as if it wants to back away, as if it wants to disappear, but they're the one that guided Adalia here -- so they wait.

Leaning down, it rests its head on the ground, tilting to one side. Clearly, it won't attack, but it makes no movement to get closer either, no movement to embrace the kindness that's being offered.

It just waits. It watches. It's judging.

Edited 2018-03-07 22:20 (UTC)

Well that's... not the most inviting any canine has ever been in Adalia's presence, but it's not the least, either. Slowly, waiting for it to growl or snap at her, Adalia reaches for the wolf, and when it does neither of those things, she scritches under its chin. It seems... reluctant, almost, uncomfortable, and her instincts when faced with that kind of emotion is always to dump physical affection on it until the problem is solved.

"I won't let your home go unremembered, buddy. We'll bring it back to life together, okay?"

Even if it can only be brought back in a metaphorical sense. Adalia isn't an archaeologist, she doesn't specialize in ruins and excavation, but she has enough of an idea of how to start that she can go to someone in the Inquisition in the morning to tell them what she saw and work on piecing the purpose and location of the ruins back together. Solas, maybe, or someone else in the Elven Artifacts project. Wolf buddy won't be left forgotten, and neither will this place.

With a final pat to the wolf's head, Adalia gets back up, picking up her pack and grabbing the journal and charcoals out of it. It's a memory device more than anything — clearly the paper won't be coming back out of the dream with her, but if she spends enough time setting the ruins in her mind, even while asleep, she should be able to remember it in the morning long enough to actually write it down. She looks around herself for a moment, slightly overwhelmed, unsure where to start, before she just shrugs and sits down in the center of the room, journal spread open on her lap and charcoal poised over it as she sketches out the shapes of the ruins.

"I don't suppose you can tell me what any of this is supposed to be, huh?" she asks the wolf without looking back.

Edited 2018-03-09 16:21 (UTC)

The wolf seems to perk up a little at her words; there's no visible sign that it intends to move or follow her, but it does tilt its head, letting her touch and pet for a moment before it settles down. We'll bring it back to life together- However she meant it, it seems to please the beast. There's no wagging tail, no sign of anything in the way it moves or shifts, but there's a sense of approval in the air, the feeling of having done something right. It's a dream, after all, and memories intermingling with emotions make for an experience unlike anything else.

Of course, wolves can't speak and this one makes no effort to do anything more than observing for now. It takes a few moments for it to pick itself up and move closer, but it soon settles down properly, making itself comfortable as it rests its head on its legs, eyes drinking in the surroundings. The mist from before, the pale green echoes of the Fade, falls away and reveals the murals in their glory, the shapes and delicate work that defined the world of the Elvhenan before the Fall. There's much here that might be found half-mentioned in the back of a history book, misremembered and described badly, and the shapes of the Gods are clear as day.

Andruil, with a bow shaped like a harp, looking like the weight of judgement. Sylaise, with soft colours of pale whites and greens. June, the anvil, hands on the metal. Ghilan'nain, with a halla before her.

They're all memories of Gods that had once been, and time never seems to change. It's as if these, too, are a memory, caught in a moment, shared with someone who had stepped into the realm of dreams.

Edited 2018-03-09 17:02 (UTC)

As Adalia sketches — she has no great skill as an artist, but she makes do — she keeps up a quiet, consistent commentary. This mural is sort of intimidating, that one's cute, what is that animal, it looks like a deer but the antlers are strange — inconsequential blather, mostly meant to cement details in her mind for easier recall when she wakes up. Of course the wolf won't respond, but she keeps talking to him anyway, because why not, right? It doesn't hurt her, it doesn't hurt him.

"Thank you, by the way. For showing me these ruins. I don't know why you chose me to bring here, but I'm very grateful."

She shifts, facing the wolf more head-on in order to look at another mural, talking as she sketches.

"I don't know a lot about the elves of this world, but I want to. They were dealt such a shitty hand — I suppose I don't have to tell you that, huh Evakyl?"

Adalia smiles, the Draconic slipping out of her without thinking. It fits, though, with the atmosphere of the dream — he is rather a lonely beast, especially if he's grabbing her, and not one of the native elves.

"I want to help them but I don't know how. It's like the mages — I'd tear down this whole world if I thought it would do any good for them, but I don't know enough. I'm an interloper, no matter how much good I want to do. This is a good start, I think."

𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒙.

delivered to the gallows, by a footman in green vauquelin livery.

Crystal

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after Marisol's ... thing, action;

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during the blue flu

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after sundermount.

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