#b ; winterfromtevinter

[oneiricspun]

[ @winterfromtevinter // continued ]

Rook can feel it. The soft and silent pull of winter. Neve was here. Had been, or still was. She isn't too certain, but is determined going to find out one way or another. A trail of carnage and frozen corpses has been left in the halls. Blood congealed and iced over. It's like a trail of the worst bread crumbs ever imagined.

That's my girl.

She keeps her steps as quiet as possible, though it's evident now that there is no longer any Venatori presence. Especially not now. She'd dropped in on two live ones. Previously live ones. They'd REEKED of the foulest, cheapest wine she'd had this displeasure of smelling. She thinks to herself, "A chantry wouldn't be caught dead..." A bold thought, coming from one who occasionally indulges in sickly sweet meads.

The trail of dead cultists leads her further on, and down a set of rickety stairs. The source of their putrid libations. A wine cellar? She certainly has questions for the detective, and not all of them are serious. Is there a cheese board somewhere?

The warden reaches the end of the long cellar. To her right, she can see another hall, leading to a room of what looks to be closets of some kind. Perhaps they're using them as holding cells? They're obviously holding cells—as she inches closer, she can see one door with a chair shoved under the shimmering doorknob, alongside a broom and a brick.

"Neve?" She calls out, unsure and hesitant. If there is anyone else in there, she might be tempted to just leave. There is a mage, no doubt, however. The rippling in the Veil is too abstract to suggest otherwise.

A mumble on the other side. A woman's voice. The detective.

"Neve, are you in there? How—actually don't answer that yet." She's got her eyes trained on the doorknob, observing how visibly thrummed with a caustic ward. "How much room do you have in there? This might involve a little boom crash bang."

[oneiricspun]

"I admittedly don't know much Tevene. In the Elvhen language, we're i've'an'virelan—or Fade Walker, as a literal translation. It's not exactly common, but the Veil is thin in many areas of the Forest, making the frequency more so than say, the middle of Ferelden. All of our Keepers can walk the Fade, but not all i've'an'virelan are Keepers."

Rook had been her own Keeper's First—an heir to a past so ancient, most tales had to be memorized and passed down around roaring fires in the dead of night. Much has been forgotten or rendered taboo by the Dalish. But the Tirashi? They remember.

"Dreaming in this context is somewhat limited to where you fall asleep. Let's say you are in the ruins of a fort. In the Fade, you may see it in the past: rebuilt and whole again. Or, you may see it far into the future, overgrown with ivy and teeming with wildlife. However: the scene, as well as what dwells within, can shift and change. Sometimes you can sit and watch an event fold out as an invisible bystander. Other times: you can speak to and interact with spirits!"

She pauses for a moment, mulling over the question of where they would even go. The Lighthouse is relatively safe, and Andy has yet to have a bad experience. She has watched ancient elves mull about, completing tasks so ordinary, it felt like the average city. She has seen Solas alone here in the ruins, gazing off with a sad longing painted across his features. A large collection of rebels in the courtyard, shouting and ready to lay down their lives, if only to be FREE. Dancing sprites, confused yet glad to simply be.

"What about your study? You have many little curious friends there, and they definitely don't appear to want harm. Maybe you could see their true form? Maybe they'd even talk, but no promises."

"This is the closest I've ever come to it," she waves a hand to encompass the room and all that beyond it. The Lighthouse, the Fade beyond, the twisting Crossroads. "Though it probably doesn't count. Davrin and Lace and the rest are all here and they certainly aren't mages," Neve pauses to consider further. "Sometimes dreams have felt more...real than others. We mages are beacons, and sometimes it's as if I've caught the attention of something. I can hide, in those dreams. If I'm quick and clever enough. I haven't had one since I was a child," she remembers shaking her father awake in sweat-laden terror. He hadn't understood, not really. His dreams were merely the everyman's Fade wanderings. "Then I learned to fortify my mental defenses. To sweet, regular dreams I returned."

A common enough story. However, what Rook speaks of is another beast entirely. "We call people with your gift somniari in Tevinter. It's incredibly rare; I've only read about the phenomena myself. It's so scarce a talent that my life would have had a very different trajectory if I'd ever developed the skill," there have been entire generations without any documented Dreamers. Any somniari in the Imperium would have immediately gained the attention of Magisters across the nation. They would be all too eager to capture one under their thumb.

A thought occurs. "Is it common amongst your people? To be able to walk freely in dreams as you do?" The elves Rook come from are remote, purposefully isolationist. Perhaps the skill has flourished in those far reaches.

Rook's enthusiasm is dazzling. Neve also can't deny her own curiosity. Of course she would like to try. When will an opportunity like this ever show itself again? Even her natural wariness, the running catalogue of what could go wrong screaming in the back of her mind, isn't enough to dull the excitement she feels. Sue her, whatever Rook has is contagious.

"Where would we go? Do you have places you often visit?"

[oneiricspun]

card of stars OR card of dust

card of dust. sender finds the receiver asleep over a book and wakes them.

She looks up, and only recognizes Neve by the color of her cravat, the thick, wet of sleep blurring her vision. Andrea had felt the touch of fingertips on her shoulder in her sleep, but assumed it was a spirit growing too bold. It was the deep reverb of the detective's voice that had finally roused her from the Dream.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I...guess I dozed off."

The elf rubs her eyes HARD as she straightens herself at the desk, sight clearing, allowing her to stare up at Neve with a look of worry. No, perhaps a skittish kind of confusion. She doesn't know how long it'd been. It felt like weeks, though it'd likely not been more than an hour. A great explanation as to why she's as groggy as she is, though it's far more complicated.

"I thought I saw...felt your wisp..." she trails off, shaking her head. It hurts, just slightly, like she'd had something dropped on her. She glances back to the book she'd spread before her: The History of the Nakiri. One she'd blatantly stolen from the Cauldron's archives.

"The Fade is thicker where the Veil is thin," she sighs, trying to pinpoint where she'd left off reading. "It's so easy to get pulled in."

[oneiricspun]

"No, not them. You." That was hardly an kind of sensible, normal explanation. She cants her head to one side, arms reach out in a stretch not unlike that of a waking cat's. "People who are awake manifest differently in the Fade."

She gives up trying to find her place: it's futile, and she'd likely skim back to the beginning of the chapter later. The book is one she'd found in the ruins of Arlathan. It's old, but remarkably preserved, and written entirely in Ancient Elvhen. Most she can understand. However, some is incomprehensible, flailing gibberish that she'll need to mull over with Bellara at some point. But, from what she's gathered, it appears to be a collection of stories.

"Have you ever Dreamt?" She asks, finally collecting her senses. "Not like, had a dream. Most of us do that. But have you ever walked the Fade in your dreams? Explored? Known that what your seeing is real, or was real, but at the same time it's not?"

At this rate, she's unintentionally skirting around the subject. She can't pinpoint why. Maybe the reason she can't shape what she's trying to say lies behind Abevas' reasons for wanting to send her to another clan to replace their Keeper.

"I can do that. Dream. Will myself and fall into a pocket of the Fade as I sleep, so lucidly that it becomes real. It can be very fun; but, here it's like it happens so regularly and unintentionally. So, it does kind of pull, I'd say. At least here it does."

Here: in the Lighthouse. It is, for all intents and purposes, in the Fade itself. But maybe also not. It's somewhere in between some Fade and all Fade. Sometimes, as she sleeps, the Lighthouse is what it once was in all its glory: beautiful and gleaming white stone towers, architecture no living being could fathom. Other times, it is what could be. Overgrown and lying in heaps of rubble and ruin.

"Actually!" A bolt of realization strikes her mind, and gears begin turning in ways she didn't know they could. "Would you want to? Come with me into the Fade? Not physically, of course! Depending, you can shape the Fade into what you want it to be in your dreams."

╰ ⋄⋆⋅✧ ⸻ ⧽ @oneiricspun cont. from here

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Rook's contorted herself into a position that Neve is intimately familiar with. She can also commiserate with the persistent crick in the neck and aches soon to follow. Waking Rook is in an attempt to save her from that, if Neve can.

"Which one? I have a small following of them," her mouth quirks in humor. The wisps had been a nuisance at first, an oddity, but she's grown rather fond of their presence. They make for good light too, little need for candles.

Her eyes alight on the open pages that must have kept Rook burning the midnight oil. Hard to make out much from here. She rounds the desk, clearing a little space to perch on as she studies it. "You seem especially sensitive to the Fade," Neve remarks. "In a way that I never have, even as another Mage. I wonder how different our experiences are in that regard. I can sense changes in the Veil's strength ⸻ it's useful to be able to pinpoint its recent manipulation or attempted blood magic. But you...does it pull at you? Tire you?" A list of questions already lined up; she gamely limits herself to only a few at a time.

[oneiricspun]

"I wish you could see this," Andy laughs, further examining the ridiculousness the guards had gone through to put the detective in containment. Aside from that, the enchantment placed IS a strong one: they likely only blocked the door in a drunken panic. Alas, they hadn't expected Unhinged Chaos with bright yet stupid ideas to become involved in the situation. "Chair and brick aside, this is going to be near surgical."

She contemplates the ways she can free Neve, while causing no injury (or as little as possible, she's not yet sure it's avoidable given the size of the closet). Not having much experience in the field of caustic warding enchantments, she can really only make educated guesses. Touching it would of course be dumb and probably fatal. This she knows. Simply throwing her dagger or slinging magic around would cause the BOOM to go everywhere rather than left or right or out.

Again, leading to unnecessary gory injury, loss of body parts, impalement, charring, concussion...

"I—I think I can make the blast go out? If you push against it. Otherwise it'll take me another hour or so to mug and kidnap someone who can dispel this without turning you into soup."

She doubts Neve Soup would be good with the aformentioned Antivan cheese.

Positioning herself to one side of the door, she measures the cellar as best as she can. Maybe ten feet on each side, a secondary closet on the same wall, a good thirty feet from one side of the room to the other—they should have plenty of room, though some wine barrels would meet a gruesome fate.

If this works.

"If I move my hand just so, and you push toward the door with a ward, we should be able to angle everything OUT rather than in or everywhere," the Warden begins, as tries to determine just how far she'll have to cast to make this work the way she wants it to. It'll have to be precise and slight. She backs herself up as far as she can against the wall behind her and crouches, keeping a clear line of sight.

"You're gonna have to trust me. We'll go on three, okay? One. Two—three!"

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What timing. Neve doesn’t believe in fate, but she does believe that whatever is out there has a sense of humor. For once, Neve doesn’t seem to find herself the punchline of the joke. There had to be at least some light at the end of this ridiculous tunnel. She’s tired and aching and absolutely reeks of cheese. The less said about that part of the ordeal, the better. She needs five baths at a minimum once she limps her way back to the Lighthouse. The unlimited supply of instantly hot water is truly a marvel. Such facilities exist in Minrathous, but only for those far above her in station.

“Here Andy, I’m here,” she calls back. Rook’s voice is lowered, but not strained. Likely that she’s the only one out there. Neve has never been quite so relieved to learn of the Warden’s presence before.

There’s something to be said there, about Rook being her light in the darkness. If it weren’t for the dulling of her magic she’d have been able to feel the other mage. All wild snap and nettle sting, prickling under the eyelids like sunlight. But Neve is far too weary for poetry or the faint bloom of affection in her chest. No, just a bath and some sleep will do nicely.

She squints at the walls around her contemplatively. “Not much space in here, I’ll admit,” even as she says it she backs up as far against the wall as she can go, the cool stone cutting uncomfortably into her back. “Have you ever had the displeasure of experiencing Antivan cheese — no, we can discuss the particulars later. For now, if we can make any booming go as outward as possible, it would be much appreciated. I don’t fancy losing another limb,” she attempts to interject as much levity into the morbid sentence as possible. She doesn’t think she quite manages to cut all the weariness out of her voice.