#so i dug this out of the dusty depths of my drafts

[felassan]

The Elves in the Tirashan

This became quite lengthy, so it’s under a cut

Fires still lick at the blackened ruin of the farmstead. The mud in the yard is grey with ash and churned by footprints. Some flee westward. Others, light and slender, circle the ruin. One of your guards pulls an arrowhead from the smoking wood. "Elfshot!" He hisses.

The homesteads along the hissing fringes of the Tirashan were unprepared for the attack. You listen to the refugees' tales of a narrow moon that spread long tree-shadows, of the lithe figures that slipped between them, of arrows that sped from the night, sudden as death.

"The knife-ears drove us from our home!" one peasant cries. "We heard them, laughing from the dark!"

Your soldiers clash with elven archers at the forest’s edge. The elves are cold-eyed, with tattoos of brilliant crimson. They extract a red price from your warriors before fleeing into the deeps. For a time, the border is untroubled.

“I’ve fought the Dalish before,” mutters a scarred sergeant. “I’ve heard them call on their gods in battle. Elgar’nan for vengeance. Fen’Harel when they think all is lost. But these ones called out to no gods I’ve heard of before. They weren’t calling out for aid; they were offering us up. Like pigs on a platter.”

So these are my 2 all-time favorite text excerpts from Dragon Age: The Last Court, from the event Sylvan Raids. been fascinated with the elves that live in the Tirashan ever since. so interesting and mysterious!! so ripe for wild speculation and wondering on multiple fronts. 👏  👏

emerging in the half-light of the moon from the depths of the Tirashan to raze and reave nearby human habitations and kill.. the text is suggestive - these don’t seem akin to those isolationist Dalish clans trying to drive away humans who are encroaching or protect themselves or similar. they distinctly seem to delight in the killing. is it punishment (for the humans)? is it a sport or a game (for the elves)? is it sacrificial, like some of the text seems to suggest- are they sacrificing humans to their deities? I’m kind of reminded of the mythos (I use the word mythos here because ‘facts’ about this subject area grew arms and legs and entered pop culture spreading misinfo) surrounding human sacrifice in some ancient human cultures in our world. is there possession at work here? is there a connection to sylvans (trees possessed by demons or spirits)? are they corrupted somehow (red lyrium, plague, pestilence, Taint, madness).

are these red tattoos a version of vallaslin, or something different? why are they all red - presumably a link to blood. blood magic? red lyrium? or simply this hue to symbolize ties to the blood of the hunt and suchlike.. such tasty scraps these excerpts are. and who were they calling to? The Forgotten Ones - like Anaris, Geldauran, Daern’thal and others? the Forgotten Ones are held to have presided over the worst aspects of existence - like spite and malevolence, which are qualities right on-point for people slaughtering and sacrificing innocents. or maybe the old gods, the Forbidden Ones (remember though the possible connection between the Forbidden Ones and Forgotten Ones hinted at in the Band of Three), demons, entities yet unknown? the top contender is, of course, the Forgotten Ones, though the activities and described countenances of these wild elves remind me most of Andruil, who was really a goddess of sacrifice and who hunted mortals/other sentient beings - particularly the Andruil that was maddened and howling and plague-bearing thanks to the Void. these elves just seem in my head to be evoking the same kind of imagery.

what of the tattoos designs? are they vallaslin equivalents to the Forgotten Ones instead of the Creators?

I’m intrigued by the specific reasoning behind the supposed sacrifice. in their culture is held as a way to gain power? is it simply an act of worship to their deities - an offering or appeasement, or because such sacrifice is a way to espouse and enact qualities like spite and malevolence? are they compelled to do so?

it’s interesting that the guardsman says they don’t seem to him to be Dalish, because we do hear in the lore of some Dalish clans who live by banditry and as guerillas, and who play games with stray humans like Fen’Harel’s Teeth.. I wonder if there’s any connection between them both, or if the implication is that the Tirashan elves are even more overtly hostile-to-humans than these varieties of Dalish.

alternative theory which I think is important to note: these encounters are told through the eyes of humans and recounted by the human recipients of the actions, and so possibly biased and or unreliable, exaggerated, etc.

most importantly - who are these elves? one of the event response options seems to call them Dalish elves:

The Dalish rarely launch an attack like this without cause. Perhaps some of your folk strayed too close to one of their camps

but that sounds to me like a human’s assumptions when considering the event that unfolded. For the sake of clarity, if the humans were encroaching on their land (their forest) and wandered too close to their camps, driving them away is justified and not without cause.

 are they ancient elves? there’s a quote somewhere about it -

There is activity in the Tirashan. Strange elves, like those at the Temple of Mythal.

so are they some of these ancient elves who Solas seems to insist are around somewhere in modern Thedas, "yet lingering?" are they always awake or do they come awake every now and then a la Abelas and crew (except not bound to the will of a Creator as they were, but rather the will of the Forgotten Ones) only to reave and sacrifice before returning to slumber until next time?

All manner of things slumber in the Tirashan forest. It's best to let them be.

there are other scattered references to or hints at remaining lingering enclaves of ancient elves - ex. I sometimes wonder if the ‘distant clan of Dalish’ that send the Inky the red hart mount are an enclave of ancients.

or (and I particularly like this idea) are they modern-day, mortal elves, but have lived in complete isolation apart from the Dalish (or Dalish-we-know), deep in the Tirashan since the fall of the Dales? (I’m reminded of Geldauran,”apart until he strikes in mastery”..) at the Fall of the Dales, groups of elves could have scattered in all directions - elves with different opinions and leanings and diverging beliefs. tbh, I don’t really enjoy at all “ancient elves this, ancient elves that” in theorizing (for me) or like, in general (modern elfism!!). so this notion is way cooler to me. we’re told again and again in the lore that Dalish clans are diverse and all different from each other because they usually live in isolation and the diaspora is disconnected. you’re telling me they all worship the Creators in the exact same way and there’s no variation on such themes? multiply this factor by a much greater ordinance for elves who may have culturally diverged from the Dalish group before “The Dalish Elves” was even really a thing, and the scenarios are even more arresting and puts me in the mind of Tolkien elves, with the varied Kindreds, ‘elf cultural group phylogenetic tree’ and Sunderings etc.

in the Dales before the fall, worship of the Forgotten Ones continued in the shadows, despite the efforts of Creator-worshipping elves to stamp it out. there were priests of the Forgotten Ones as there were priests of the Creators.

The DA tabletop RPG has this to say:

Supposedly, no Dalish can remember these dread beings. All their tales are thought to have been lost in the centuries before the fall of Arlathan, even though a few powerful spirits in the Fade still whisper their names: Geldauran, Daern’thal, and Anaris, the gods of terror, malevolence, spite and disease. Some fear that these dark beings are less forgotten than most believe, and that a terrible few have strayed deeply into darkness in their quest for vengeance against the shemlen. If these fears are true and secretive cults do indeed hide among the elves, then such lost souls have torn out their hearts and forsaken all that it means to be Dalish in return for the keys to a twisted and terrible strength.

are the Tirashan elves Forgotten One cultists? it’s not a big leap. (and my bias talking: modern-day mortal diverged Forgotten One cultists is way more interesting to me than “ancient elven enclave/ancient elves in hiding”. if you twist my arm though BioWare I supppooooose I’d accept ancient elves who follow and/or are bound to the Forgotten Ones though. :P) and the title for that segment of text is The Forgotten Ones, so it would seem to be so. (it’s just interesting to think about all possibilities)

an aside: it’s not really a cult if it’s your specific culture’s religion though is it. also obligatory comment: I wonder what Felassan would make of them had he encountered them in TME rather than regular Dalish.

gaffsfdddhhh, I just want to meet the Tirashan elves so badly. thanks for coming to my barely coherent TEDramble.

[fitzpirations]

yesterday, I had a thorough phone conversation with my wise mentor and fellow record slinger R, and he brought up the man in the above picture, Ewan MacColl, original writer of R's wedding song, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." He told me how MacColl was kicked out of America or something for his Communist views, and he never got the credit (or the money?) that he deserved for that song. I noticed as we spoke, that MacColl also wrote "Dirty Old Town," and today I saw he wrote "The Shoals of Herring," a song which has a shining moment in one of my favorite films, Inside Llewyn Davis.

I'd go as far to say that movie, directed by the Coen Brothers, starring Oscar Isaac, set in the folky New York '60s, with pale skies and wet socks, was formative to my knowledge and appreciation of music now. Anyway, R didn't get all the details correct on MacColl, I don't believe, but his story deeply fascinates me anyway. MacColl was quite outspoken, writing protest songs about the 1984-5 miner's strike, advocating for some of the "positive things that Stalin did," and even dedicating an album to the lifestyle of Romani people, called Travelling People.

He worked in radio, as I did, but he worked in radio when it was cool to tell people, and you could do proper voice acting and field interviews and radio plays and people would listen to that with vigor. He was an appreciator of traditional folk music, and he taught Peggy Seeger the words to "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" over long-distance phone call when she was in the U.S, because, as R recalled and wikipedia seems to affirm, he was "barred" from being in the country for being a Communist.

I'm losing steam here, and am afraid I'm not selling MacColl very well as an artist and a person. I'm only just learning about him. He also fell in love with Seeger, of which I was not previously familiar with either, when she was 21, and he was married and a good 20 years older. Apparently he didn't like many (or any?) cover versions of "...I Saw Your Face," but R told me about Clint Eastwood's Play Misty For Me (1971), and I asked "Misty?" like the Johnny Mathis song? Needless to say, R is always shocking with the breadth and depth? of his memory and countless encyclopedic knowledge. He told me he had to stay away from drugs, even in the glamour and excitement of the music industry and radio world, because he knew he would lose his knack for remembering these sorts of things, of which he used to make a name for himself. I'm not saying I never smoked marijuana or anything, he told me. I did smoke it a few times in the army, you know? But most of the time I did it very little, and sort of pretended it effected me when others were smoking it.

He sort of reminds me of the astronaut-type Jenny Offill's narrator of Dept. of Speculation was ghost-writing for, but maybe not. I can't quite remember the vibe that gentlemen was throwing down, but I have a correspondence with another old man from the business who as of this week has been sending me drafts of his book on the history of the station the three of us worked at. When I met Offill, she was only 2 football fields away or so from that station, and she wrote come to the dark side in the inside of my book, which was a sudden inside thing we had going after speaking for maybe 2 minutes, which just meant you should write, even if it seems it will lead no where. I wonder if MacColl, our comrade, thought his words which were written as a sort of challenge from Seeger to not be political in all of his works, would form into one of the greatest love songs of all time.

It is hard to write, I know. Reading about radio history surprisingly got me excited thinking about the era, in the way a good documentary gets you amped up, you know? There's a building up to something great, the talking heads are grinning and saying like "in those days we did everything so scrappy, but we were just having a blast," and I think of the person I was when I first heard "The Shoals of Herring," in a tiny movie theatre with my snoring father and 7 other patrons. How, for whatever reason, folk music and the idea of the Gaslight Cafe and Greenvich village in the '60s just struck me so forcefully I wouldn't speak of things other than banjos and beat writers and John Steinbeck novels for many years.

There's a power to these words, these stories, and I revisit it in so many different ways and through so many different sounds. The other day, I read about Bob Dylan and a party of people showing up at the Gaslight for a big shindig that was only recorded in a newspaper shoutout after the fact, I re-watched the Mrs. Maisel pilot with my mother where the lead stumbles in drunk past the Allen Ginsberg look-alikes (they all look like Allen Ginsberg) and begins to babble about her failed marriage. I think of the Coen Brothers characters, of the poetry and the comedy and cigarettes that were smoked, and how it feels to revisit those things, in "another day, another time." I think of people like Dave Van Ronk and Ewan MacColl, who most people I know don't know, and how the scene seemed to vanish in New York in a matter of years, but the energy still appears in wisps, in 2014 indie films no one watches until the lead actor gets put into a Star Wars movie, of a concert night the cast and crew and music people held in Town Hall to celebrate the sound, of bands being created because they really dug O Brother Where Art Thou? and I guess that energy is still in people who still read and still get blisters on their fingerpads from playing instruments with strings. It doesn't feel the same as it does the first time I heard it, the person I was when I was first reading East of Eden doesn't exist anymore, but the energy and the ideas of that time for me, of self-indulgent listens to folk albums and reading dusty books that taught me about grit and Hebrew sayings and what films to watch and things to read and music to pay attention to... that still remains. And this week those feelings of being amped up by life and art are brought to us by two old men and the likely botched tale of Ewan MacColl.

[grim-faux]

10 - Run Rabbit

The man from the chair closed the door brusquely on my feet, causing me to scrunch up uncomfortably.  After I came to, I lay for less than fifteen minutes, I know this because I kept checking the camera, which I still clutched to my chest.  Probably not good for it, but it wasn’t soaked by my coat which had barely begun to dry while I lay in the dust.

 I NEEDED a few minutes to reset, for the throbbing in my side to settle in as the dry air took away the icy coil in my joints.  My eyes shut for a few minutes at a time, micro naps.  I swore I had slept for hours but when I checked the clock in the visor only minutes had passed, I wasn’t concerned with nodding off for an extended length of time, in truth I didn’t give a damn.  Maybe I didn’t care anymore if I sank into a deep slumber and never woke up, giving in to whatever demented plans Mount Massive had for my person.  Never waking up was the more pleasant way to end in this place.  The way out.

My mind began to clear as my senses tracked the air around me.  Strange sounds seeped into my skull, the muffled sobs of a man, hissing pipes, distant shrieks of some lost soul.  I felt my body shift and realized I was trying to push myself up, I wasn’t fully conscious of this but I was getting up.  A rough sigh escaped my throat as I moved, cradling the camera against me as I reached out with my other arm to push against the wall.  When I felt I could rise without collapsing, I pulled myself up all the way and took some small steps to get my balance in order.  I barely recalled the camera in my hands as I shuffled it between my palms, the functions still worked as I flicked through them assuring that no moisture had gotten through the seams.  A few new scraps were visible along its side where I had pressed it down onto the grate when I…collapsed.  There was a small gap in my thoughts that felt peculiar, a dark memory with splashes of terrifying images.  I shut my eyes and pressed my hand against my face. 

Everything from the dark depths felt like a loose blur, even the dull throb in my side was difficult to recall unless I made an effort to remember exactly what had happened.  It was painful to turn, I was stiff from lying in the cold dust for that short time, but I pulled my shirt out of the jean band to view the damage.  A small patch of skin was already turning a dark maroon and bluish shade, the colors seemed to be spreading.  Lovely.

A plate on the wall read Male Ward.  This didn’t feel like progress, but I suppose it was in some morbid media.  This wasn’t surviving, more along the lines of delaying the inevitable.  Somewhere, I’m not sure if I was hearing things or what but it did sound like soft sobs, but as I concentrated on the noises, they faded.  Maybe I was imaging things.  I couldn’t deny that my thoughts were not working well, my mind felt numbed while simultaneously elevated with the prospect of moving on, an off kilter clash of emotions.  I’d go as far to say my filter was busted, everything I was experiencing, what I was thinking….

I had to keep grasp that something was now wrong with me and the only way to fix that was to escape, I could recover from this with time.  But right now, time was my enemy.

The air was dry, and felt dusty and thick, I snorted a bit to clear my nose of the grime and turned the corner.  A large pipe ran along the upper wall, another water pipe, similar to the one spilling all over the basement.  The corridor I currently stood in extended some distance, there was a lot of steam in the air wafting off the surface of warmer pipes.  The opposite wall had a passage a few feet down that could lead to another room.  I doubted this, the entrance was arched and no door was visible, nor hinges, just shadow within.

Maybe a restroom?  I hadn’t seen anything close sense the showers, and that was something I needed.

Halfway to the dark opening, a shout crashed throughout the corridor.  A hostile, angry and familiar voice.  Shit.  Hopefully there was room inside, there was no place out here to hide.

This was just as bad as the corridor, a dark passage that went nowhere.  I spun back as my new friend ducked into the space, a bar held high in his hand.  I staggered away throwing my arm up to fend off the attack, my other hand held the camera which kept me from running into a wall.  Somehow, I managed to stumble out of his path through an opening I had missed, I whirled about and ducked the instant before the bar clattered against stone wall where my head had been.

“Get back!  BACK!”

I bumped and pushed away from the wall to retreat in what I decided, was a better direction than the other way.  As I cleared a thick vapor cloud nothing lay ahead but a solid brick wall, and a plaque I briefly glimpsed as I dashed sideways beneath another archway, then a sharp turn that led through a narrow corridor.

“Stay away!”

I grazed the walls with my elbows as I rushed, trying not to stumble on my feet when they scuffed the sides, my eyes fixed on the large crates coming into view.  It looked like I had a path on my left, unless it was blocked.  To hell if it was blocked, I’d tear through it.

The pipe glanced my shoulder, enough to topple my balance.  My shoulder slammed into the brick wall and I shoved myself away without missing a step, just had to keep on my feet and moving.

It was a rather sharp turn, then barely a step or two, I pushed off a wall that suddenly materialized in my face and bolted right.  Long lumber was scattered on the floor, I teetered over to reach a gate blocking the hall.  The other guy wasn’t as graceful, he had a misstep and fell sideways smashing his face on the wall and tumbled head over heel.  As he babbled something about demons in shadows, I tried the door.  Locked.  Of course it was, that was its only purpose.

There was another archway I had bypassed in my haste.  Quietly I moved around a wheelchair and stopped.

A man in a tattered straightjacket sat in the furthest corner, beside the steps I had raced down.  I hadn’t seen him in the rush, but now in the interlude I could make out…it did sound like he was crying.

I looked from him, to the man lying on the floor with the bleeding head, his eyes bobbed drunkenly.  It was probably best if I left it all as it was.  I couldn’t risk the running guy waking up in a worse mood than he already was, especially if he decided I was the cause.  I kinda was, but I didn’t ask him to chase me.  

My only option was down a spiral corridor, receiving that familiar humid draft with old blood.  So much for escaping the sewers.

So much for escape, period.

A plaque met me face to face as I stepped off the steps, labeling the Male Ward with an arrow of guidance.  Since when did reaching the Male Ward become my priority?  I turned and peered through a large tunnel, its draft intermixed with foul sewage and the musty chill of the asylum.  The water was diluted with blood, but it seemed free of the slaughter that had been present in the other channels.  Everything was getting flushed out.  My unease persisted.

I passed by some boxes of equipment and garbage on my way, a place to duck if I suspected I wasn’t alone.  A few steps down the tunnel and a figure darted out.  I paused, but it looked like another man in a straightjacket, only he was dragging his sleeves after him.  He could be dangerous if he got those tatters tightened about my throat, I continued at a slower pace listening as the soggy sleeves grew fainter and fainter.

As I turned the next corner, he sprinted just out of sight into another passage.  I turned back to see where he had come from, but there was only the remains of another collapse.  He might’ve dug through, explaining his loose coat, or he had been hiding there.  It was possible that I startled him.

That was nice for a change.

The path he had rushed into was bare of working lamps, I needed to take a moment to change out batteries.  I felt in my coat pocket, a hard knot forming in my throat.  I was all out!  To be absolutely certain I fixed the camera in its pack and pulled everything out of my pocket, but there were none.  Just my pen, notepad, and that damn granola.  I fixed everything in its place and turned out my pockets, knowing damn well if I found one in my coat, it had been soaked to hell.  I had a better chance at ruining my camera than anything else.

I froze when my hand brushed the case.  My nightvision was low on power, I couldn’t change the fact I had wasted the batteries.  Carefully I brought up the camera and checked through the visor.

The tunnel banked to my right, with no alternate paths, just the straight tunnel and a large pipe escorting me along the ceiling.  It was terrible, I could scarcely make out the obvious surfaces as the light dimmed but I could perceive more than the naked eye.  I just needed to be extra cautious and listen.  Something was in the air, that sweet and pungent reek of soured meat.  Immediately I felt sick to my stomach, maybe with the low visibility I’ll bypass whatever’s there without knowing it.

At some length I stopped, certain I had heard something.  That whooshing…hiss sound.  A sharp movement, then screaming echoed through the corridor.  With a soft whimper I stepped back, unsure where to go or what was happening.  Eventually the noise died away, with a final ear splinting wail and the hall was silent.  I had nearly forgotten I wasn’t alone.  I wondered if I was now?

I had turned the NV off, aware I needed to conserve the cameras power, but mostly afraid I would see something accompanying me in the dark.  I let out a shallow breath and resumed my course, forward, to whatever awaited.

I never found the fellow in the jacket.  The tunnel came to a dead end with only a high water barricade, which I squeezed through with little effort.  After that short break, my side and shoulder felt somewhat better, but still complained when I strained them too much.  My leg had stiffened somewhat from where Chris had raked me, sloshing around in the sewers had given some infection no doubt.

That horrible sour reek hit me in full force, and I physically winced from the odor.  In the same instant hot steam gushed out from burst pipes in the water systems at my backside, I stepped away receiving an overbearing singe along my upper back.  Damn faulty pipes, old building.  It felt normal to complain about something so trivial.

A few pipes connected overhead, one shot straight forward along the tunnels ceiling.  I followed it, venturing into the dark without the NV due to an apparent light source in close proximity.  As with it, the origin of the foul stench.

I wasn’t surprised by my findings.  I might’ve actually been concerned if I found nothing, and my mind would have fabricated horrible images to pacify itself.  The corridor ended with a large grate, and to my left awaited a door with a glass window.  I peered inside and brought up the camera to film the gore.  I imagine this was about the worse I had found, worse than the tunnel of blood and ruptured innards.

“I thought this sewer couldn’t smell any worse.  Hundred of bodies crammed into a room, thousands of flies.  Is this the Priest’s “way out?’”

What had that lone man in the room been trying to write down in his final words?  It was, “…let there be no dreams.  The only hel—”  Was he trying to say, ‘The only help.’ He could want, to some extent.  Or was he stating, ‘The only hell. I want.’  It could go either way, but I didn’t know his past, his history, what he had been through.  I only knew he had been dying when he wrote his message, and had ceased to hear the Walrider.  Because his therapy wore off.

This couldn’t have been the Priest’s way out.  Or, could it?  He was a crazy fanatic believing in something….obviously evil.

With nothing more to note here, I returned to where I entered from.  Some steps patiently awaited my attention, with a plate labeled Male Ward mounted to the side.  It led up to a spiral stairway twisting into a dry, cool room, or hall.  It had no obvious exit, unless I found one.  The gate was blocked by beds, metal trollies, and what looked like gurneys.

A metal cabinet sat beside a chute in the floor, that looked traversable.  It didn’t appear to be too heavy, it was filled with propane tanks.  I fixed the camera in its hoister and braced myself on the gritty floor, and pushed.  After some effort, and a growl for drive, the heavy cabinet shifted and grated across the sandy floor.  I cleared it from the vent enough that I could scoot through without trouble, the sight of splattered blood did not comfort me, neither did the visible legs of the person in the next room.

Another patient, bundled up to his chair.  Looked as though someone tore a sheet apart and tied him up in it, then tied that to the chair.  He sat there, dazed and unaware of my presence.  Why did for some of these people they insisted on covering their faces with any manner of material?  He had what could have been smocks at some point, cut up and wrapped over his head and jammed into his mouth.  As before, I didn’t remover anything.  There was usually a good reason to bind a man’s mouth in an insane asylum, I just didn’t want to think about why.

A pool of blood had gathered under his seat, but it wasn’t his.  Overhead, in the wooden floor boards was a large crimson shape.  As I watched, the light dimmed startling me, but it was only a surge.  I didn’t need to use my nightvision in a tiny room.  I didn’t want to be in a dark room with a man muzzled.

I pulled the door open slowly and checked out, panning over the visible corridor and walls before I slipped out and shut the door behind me.  Another featureless dim corridor, ruble and debris from boarded up doors lay discarded on the floor, the reek of neglect.  A pallet leaned against the wall, and there was another door directly to my left.  For the moment, all was quiet aside from the drip of blood within the sealed room.

While it seemed calm, I had to take care of something.  Nearly eight hours without a bathroom break, and this place had gone to hell anyway.  I still felt the need to justify pissing on a wall.  Damnit.  There was some privacy in the shadows, I didn’t feel like someone was going to stumble upon me and get ideas.

Really, this place could go fuck itself.

I took care of matters.  End of story.  There was a door not far from where I was, and I think I died a little inside when I opened it.

Blood was on the floor, beneath a broken chair, I turned the NV on the wall and found some inspiring words.

“The harder I try to escape, the further I get into this god awful place.  Like fighting a tar pit.  They’ve been torturing people in the basement, and by method.  Written on the wall – “FINGERS FIRST.  THEN BALLS.  THEN TONGUE.”  Somebody’s managing the torture, instructing them.”

I think this is the epiphany of why I need to keep my mouth shut around the variants.  In fact, I could write a whole book about what not do if you’re trapped in an insane asylum.  For starters – First rule, don’t talk to people, they’ll eat your tongue out of your throat.  Number two, don’t mess with them, they hate that and they’ll make it clear by murdering your ass.  Three, don’t be a woman, or any gender, or dead.  They will do terrible things to your corpse.  Or worse, they won’t kill you.  And four, everyone is your enemy, even if they sound sane, by now they’re not.  They’re in the insane asylum for a reason, and chances are you’ll figure out why in the brief moment before you’re dead, or regretting your remaining sanity.

Game over.

I continued down the hall, certain I heard something rubbing against the door that separated me from the trapped man.  Ignoring it, I took in my surroundings, first noting a path on my left that led up darkened steps.  I passed it to explore what else might be available, batteries I hoped.  The hall led through shadows, towards a light spilling from an open room.  As I neared my skin ran cold, the cacophony of struggle and banging came from the room.  Across the way at the halls end was a door, compromised by boards nailed over its frame.  The door had a meshed window, which revealed nothing but another obscure hall.  I peered around the frame carefully, wary of the noise.  At the rooms far wall stood another large cabinet filled with pipes, braced against the door.  It barely budged as someone from the other side hammered away with their body.  The door splintered and cracked under the force but held.

On the floor lay a clothed patient, scars up his exposed arms and over his face, some fresh and seeping gray ooze.  He was curled tightly near the floors center, quivering.  I don’t know if he blocked the door, but that seemed most likely the case.

I abandoned the room and backtracked through the corridor, returning to the doorway I had skipped, before whoever tore through and began hunting around.  Across from it was the broken gate piled high with tables, a gurney, and beyond this the area I initialed entered through.  Good to know I was getting around.

The gate and door that greeted me at the steps end was locked.  I tried to force the handle but the bolt was fitted tight, I wouldn’t get through unless I could pick a lock.  Should’ve had someone teach me.

Reluctantly I returned downstairs to the room with the door, and the invading guest.  I leaned around the frame, but the onslaught had gone cold.  The man still lay on the floor in shock, completely unresponsive to my entrance.  I walked around quietly, checking the room thoroughly before I dared look at the door.  A camera sat near the furthest corner on a table cart, its lens shattered but thank everything it had batteries.  Two, which was better than the dead one currently in use.  I fumbled to switch them quickly, relieved to find the first good on power.

The door had been silent for some time.  No guarantee whoever was on the other side had departed, or that there was any place to go once the door was open.

I put myself between the cabinet and wall, braced myself with one foot then pushed, until the heavy toolshed had been moved enough that the door would swing open.  I peered through the crack before I opened it wide and stepped through.  I took one last look at the trembling figure on the floor before shutting the door.

The hall to my right ran to a dead end with two locked doors, a few boxes and trash lay discarded along the wall.  I attempted to break the glass with a pole I picked up, but it was that shatter proof stuff that you hate when your life is in peril.  I didn’t want to make a fuss over it either and draw attention to myself, boxed in this way.  Seeking an alternate route would be a better use of my energy, and I could always come back.  Though there didn’t seem to be much on the other side of that dingy glass.

The other end of the hall was nearly identical, a dehydrated mop bucket and its stiff mop leaned against the brick.  I wondered where they mopped in this place, the bare cement?  Another boarded up door awaited but across from it the plate of a vent had been torn off, and a soft coil of rich spoil met my senses.  I leaned over to check before venturing further, it wasn’t far to the other side and a good fourth of the room was visible.  There were beds and curtains.

I crouched down and shuffled through, I lowered the camera when the reek of stale urine and soured meat blasted me in the face.  Where the fuck was I?  This was worse than the prison block, as bad or worse than “Feast of Flies.”

As I stood up I could see why.  My eyes watered, the filth and decay was so strong.  The curtains had been drawn around where each bed was situated, I couldn’t see the flies yet but I could hear the hum of their wings beat as they fought over their victims.  A lone gurney sat near the rooms center, a pile of guts had spilled to the floor beneath, and crusty blood stained the filthy mattress.

I thought I heard someone scream in the distance, but if I listened I could hear weary voices emerge from behind the drapes.  Whispers, barely audible over the thousands of flies present.

“Too alive.  Too alive….”

I moved across the room, trying to avoid the horrendous wall of stale rot.  These people were still alive in here, or somewhere between life and death.  A hellish limbo.

“Can’t sleep.  Wernicke’s waiting for me there.”  Again, the belief that Wernicke was dead somehow, yet still performing his experiments.

Were these people amidst experimentation when the shit storm occurred?  Or was the experiment still going on, now, as I stood here?  Was it still happening?  How long ago since Murkoff’s fall?  Obscure dates, faulty facts, I doubt even the scientist had kept up with it all.

I set my hand on the curtain of one patient, debating on drawing it back to view what was left behind.  It was tempting.  But the humane side of me decided no, I couldn’t bear it.  Instead, I recorded what was available, the disrepair of the room, broken tile, filth stained floors, the hundreds of insects everywhere.

At the back of the room, in a corner was someone that had been dead for a good deal of time.  The body spread on a bed with most of the flesh from the legs and abdomen removed, his head missing, what was left of him, an oozing mess of jello and maggots.  I looked down as my shoes crunched large roaches, eagerly chewing up the dripping puss.  If I wasn’t pale at this point, I had to be ghostly by now.

Beside the corpse was a small table, a folder labeled Reports with a few pages spilling out on the surface and onto the floor.  I picked up one curious to what this was about.

PATIENT STATUS REPORT

By Rick Trager

This patient also, unfortunately, didn’t make it.  I tried my best, but I’m just a doctor, not a miracle-worker.  And I’m pretty new to this whole “doctor” thing, so I’m still working out all the kinks.

Anywhoo—somebody’s gotta cut the fat from this PROJECT WALRIDER disaster.  We’ve been bleeding money ever since this thing went tits up on account of that Billy kid.  But I’ve managed to slim back personnel by more than eighty people.  Which means short term savings in salary and long term savings in pension and health care costs.

And I’ve been figuring out a lot about biology.  I was on the fence about it before, but now I can say with absolute certainty that a person can’t live without his kidneys.  You learn something new everyday.

What the fuck was this?  What sort of PHD graduate didn’t know basic human biology?  You could learn that shit from Discovery channel.

I didn’t like the frivolous undertone of this note.  It was all sorts of demented.

I tossed the page back with those on the floor, and gave the room another once over.  A set of boarded doors sat near the morbid memo, and through the windows I could view a man sitting – was tied – to a chair.  I crossed over to a sink beside a bloodied gurney, a table cart was left near it and ghastly red stains had been cast over the cold gray wall.  I avoided a pile of intestines quivering with pestilence below, I just needed to clean some of the grunge from my hands and get a bit of water to wash out the residue.  My hands shook under the frigid water of the tap, I rubbed them till the gray water had cleared and gazed a moment more as I lost myself to the repetitive action of washing hands.

The whimpers of men dying, unable to die, wrapped around my senses as I stood watching the water dry on my skin.  Smalls cuts had appeared where I had fumbled against sharp metal edges in the dark, little things I missed in my distracted state.  It didn’t bother me, I was accustomed to this rough treatment.  What did bother me was how steady my thoughts had become and how I was still staring at my hands as people around me suffered.  I wanted to help them, I wanted to do something and pull them out of this festering wound in hell, this was the whole reason why I came here in the first place.  But I was now unsure in what way to pursue this goal.  There was no help for these people.  There had never been a way to help them in the first place.

After a short argument with my better judgment, I decided to climb up into the open vent above the blood drenched bed.  

“No more dreams.  No more…..”

Thudding along as quietly as I could, I felt my path rather bother with the camera.  I was in no hurry, there was also the batteries I was desperate to conserve in future.  The thin strands of light spread out in my path and I kicked out the vent, wincing when it clattered against the hard floor below.

I dropped down over a mess of innards, they squished underfoot as I pin wheeled my arms out to regain balance and step off them.  I was in the room with the man, in the chair.  That was about it, aside from some solid steel cabinets streaked with blood, papers scattered over the floor, along with guts and pieces of people….

The man in the chair gave a loud gasp once he detected my presence and began thrashing, I stepped away fearful he’d break his restraints.

“Meat!  Want meat!  Want meat!  Meat!  Meat!”  I took another step back, dubious on my next course of action.  Sudden thuds came from the direction of the room I had just occupied.

Two patients now struggled with the fortified door, crashing into it with their bodies in an effort to tear it down.  They would succeed, and I would be killed.

A way out!  To where?

At the rooms side was a large cabinet filled with heavy tools, locked tight.  But it was shoved against a door.  I launched myself at the box and pushed, shoving with all that was worthwhile in me to get it out of the way so I could flee this room before they smashed through.

The doors crunched, splintered and gave.  Just as I moved the container its last inch, I flung the door open and slammed it shut as I stumbled away.

“We’ll flank that piece of shit!”  “Fuck!  Fuck!”

Damn it all, what was this?  What had I gotten myself into?  I tore through the next room, hall, I’m not sure.  Shelves lined the walls, I tried the first door on my left – jammed tight.  Didn’t bother with it, kept going straight and found another door left ajar.

I barreled into it with my arm, cracking the brittle wood it against the wall so it bounced back.  I saw one of the patients nearly at me as I flung the door in his face.  A hospital bed was stationed near center of the room, I hurried behind it and flipped it over on its side.  I coughed at the sharp pain in my chest, but blocked it as I shoved the flat side up to the door.  It thudded and opened an inch but that was the extent, the bed was pinned against it.

“Go ‘round!”

I flipped another bed onto it, and spun about to a medical cabinet that had fallen across the door.  I wriggled my fingers over the side and pulled it out enough that I could fit my chest between the wall and the obstruction, then shoved the two apart so I could pry the door open just enough to squeeze out. 

“There’s another door!  This way.”  I paused for an instant to make sure the camera strap over my hand was secure, if I needed it I betted I wouldn’t have the chance to fumble with it.

“There he is!”

Fuck me!  Fuck this!  Fuck them!  I twisted around, spying them at a door already tearing at it.  Not that way!  I sprint in the opposite direction scanning the walls with my eyes, my heart racing.  I needed no more incentive, this place was fuckin evil!  Nuke it from orbit!  Something!

The light through this corridor was bad, but not terrible that needed to risk the camera.  The metal bars of a trolley glinted in my path, easily sprint over in my good effort to stay ahead of those psychos.  Two doors came into view, the one ahead was way over there, the one at my immediate left looked more inviting.

I swatted the door open and paused, staring at the bloated and gray body torn open on the autopsy table.  It was a fleeting moment, a reminder of my fate if I was caught.  I swung the door shut at my back and began pushing an equipment cabinet against the door, until I caught sight of the open vent on the far wall.

“Death and taxes!  Death and taxes!”

I didn’t worry over the bloody footprints that led towards the vent, I threw myself up into it and made the hasty trip to the other side.

“Doctor!  Doctor Wernicke!”

I slipped out turning to head right, until the door erupted and a variant crashed out into the opposite wall.  I pivoted and stumbled, falling to my hands and knees before I had clawed up to my feet and renewed my pace.  They were screaming for the doctor, for Walrider, and every manner of insane thing that seemed to generate their personal hell.

The hall ahead was blocked, crammed with metal shelves and broken beds.  In the corner of my eye I noted a cracked doorframe, I skid on the dusty black and white tile as I made the sharp right through what appeared to be an old office.  Glass windows made up the walls, they’d hold off kittens I’m sure.  Some of the windows were broken, but I doubt it’d slow down barefeet.

I sprang over a crushed desk, the wood gave out and I tumbled, tucking in my arms until I flipped over onto my feet and charged away.  A broken bookcase was directly in my path and, to where…I wasn’t certain.  I did this odd maneuver where I shoved my hands through, and pulled my body the rest of the way and kind of somersaulted, reaching my feet and resumed my sprint unbroken.  I heard someone not far behind crash into the bookcase and what remained of its contents plop against the floor.

My path came to a dead end.  A large gap between me and presumed safety, only a sheet of plywood bridged a fourth of it.  The sudden commotion at my back caused me to jerk around as one of the scarred patients tumbled down from climbing the bookshelf, and hurried at me with what looked like a machete.  I bolted, racing to the end of that board and leapt over the black gap. 

And fell.

I choked as I hit the edge and skid backwards, a horrible screech came from the camera still in my hand, as my arm ground over the floor.  I dug my fingertips into the concrete and dragged myself up.

“You slippery little whore.”

I kicked my feet against the rough side until I had my arm braced under me enough to haul my knees over, and scrambled away from the edge.  I collapsed, panting.  Not so much the exertion, but the stress and the fear.  I had barely escaped with my life.  That was too close, there was too many of them too outrun and hide from all at once.

I picked myself up and dusted off my coat, it had a bit of mud still stuck to it from the dampness but it was beginning to dry out and crumble away.  Probably didn’t matter.

It looked like there was a gate here at one point, the metal frame remained - and a floor too.  Where had that gone?  Was the metal grate along the wall, the floor?  This mechanism probably made sense to the staff of the asylum, like the purge chambers.  The gap looked deep, but I wasn’t interested in finding out how deep.

My body still quaked, I had temporarily eluded my pursuers but the silence and sudden calm unnerved me.  Where had they gone?  I was paranoid that I’d turn the next corner and run smack into their midst, I couldn’t waste time here.  I put the camera away fearing the risk of breaking it rather than using it, but if there was an area that I did need it, I reasoned I’d have a chance to reach it before I was located.

I crept to the end of the corridor and heard a racket that chilled me.  A door in my path had looked inviting at first, but the abrupt crash and the shriek of commands came through strong.  I took one step back…

Dead end, move.  RUN! 

I sprang forward skimming the corner as I took the hall.  The barrier shattered away soon after.

“You can’t hide!”

I passed under a section of pipes, through a dark hall and into another segregating of rooms or offices.  I skid into the door blocking my path trying the handle, it turned but the door was a stubborn piece of shit.  There was no visible reason why it wouldn’t open!  I whirled about checking my pursues, nearly upon me.  On my left was another door boarded up tight, but there was a space left open at the top. 

The variant swung at my face with his fist, the instant I ducked down and shot towards the door.  I clambered up the boards that would have prevented my access, and slid across the frame to the other side, throwing myself down into a wild dash.  The room was some sort of class, or instructional area, I didn’t get a good look as I breezed through.  The variants were using their weapons to dismantle the door, the screech of strained wood echoed in my skull as I turned the next corner.  It was impossible to put enough distance between them and I.

A sharp right and I raced full down the dark hall, staggering when I stepped on some books and papers missed in my panic.  I vaulted over a stack of large desks and came upon a door left ajar.  I rammed into it with my shoulder and found it to be another dead end.  Some sort of transfer, receiver station.  A store room for perishable goods and an inactive dumbwaiter.  I bolted out back into the dim hall, to the gate at the very end of my path.

It was locked.

“He’s got nowhere else to go!”

I examined the area carefully forcing my mind not to panic.  The gated door and lock, above there was no place I could climb or squeeze through.  This was what I had feared.

My eyes stung as took I step back and gave the gate another look over, I wiped the moisture away but nothing had changed, there was no way around.  This can’t be it, this can’t be the end.  I won’t accept this!

I spun about and dashed back to the open door and slammed it, just as the variants had caught up.  I grabbed the handle and pressed my shoulder into the brittle wood, they were fighting to turn it from the other side and force their way in.  I couldn’t keep this up for long, though they had a difficult time organizing themselves between forcing the door and bashing it down.  I needed to get away from it and search the room, but there was nothing in the immediate area I could use to jam the lock.  I doubt it would hold them off for very long, but I needed that time.  Just a second, a moment, a breath.  I wasn’t ready to let it end here!

I was budged off the door as one of the madmen slammed into it, I quickly replaced myself and gripped the handle.  My eyes frantically searching the shelves for something solid, even a can of cold gravy I could use to snap the handle off.

“Who’s down there?  You’re not one of them, are you?”  I stared at the machine at the other end of the room, suddenly alive and speaking to me.  “Quick!  Get in the dumbwaiter if you want to live!”  I gawked, stupefied as I actually witnessed the little elevator descend into view.

What was this?  A prayer answered?  My mind playing tricks on me?  Was I already dead?

I shook my head to clear the daze and lunged at the lift.  The door behind me took little abuse before it splint apart, and the variants came pouring in.  I shoved the gate up and crawled inside, just before my leg was grabbed the door snapped down and I held it there just to be certain, until I was raised high out of sight.

“God damnit!”  The patient smashed something against the grate, but I was headed up.  Very little they could do unless they attacked the key panel, but even then they couldn’t reach me.  I let out a shaky breath as I tried to wrestle control over my thudding heart, the vibrations pulsed hard on my sore ribs.

This was it, no more sewers, and I had been heading to the top floor to get my bearings straight.  From there I would be able to get around and figure out exactly where I was, or find some way out.  But I didn’t feel the swell of euphoria I had anticipated, something dark clouded the back of my mind and I let it brew there.  The reality of my situation began to sink in, as the walls of the elevator seemed to tighten a little more around my shoulders.

Who exactly was my mysterious liberator?  A normal person, alive after all the hell that consumed this place?  Seemed unlikely, but he sounded sane enough.  Fourth rule though, he’s insane even if he sounds sane.  Trust no one but the dark.  Good motto.  Kept me alive so far.

The lift traveled up a few more feet before it reached the floor and stopped.  I shifted to view the figure that stood beside me as the gate slid open.

“You made the right choice, here, buddy.”

[mstigergun]

OC Kiss Week, “marginalia”

OC Kiss Week, Day Five (a fluffy kiss, sort of? definitely dusty tho!)

(I don’t have any pictures of these two, since they are nerds in the University of Val Royeaux and not, you know, kicking around the Inquisition)

@enviouspride asked that I write something with Iona Trevelyan, who is the middle Trevelyan sibling. He’s mentioned in Leonid’s timeline fic, and in Alla’s, and also Leonid is really mean to Iona when he comes to visit for First Day one year. That is a formative and vicious little interaction, which makes Iona really take stock of his life and make a Big Change. Well, big for him!

So, in my little headcanon, Iona was sent off to be a Chantry archivist, but because of some ordinance about, like, y’know, not drafting the unwilling, young scholars are given the choice at some point to continue with their work for the Chantry or to go elsewhere. Most stay, because they’ve been shipped off by their families -- usually noble families with too many children and not enough coin -- and have no other means of surviving. Iona, because he is very clever and very handy with translations, gets head-hunted by the University of Orlais, who want to poach him for their own young scholars training program (tm) (also because he’s too good and clever to be an archivist; he would be wasted on the Chantry). Given the choice, Iona decides he’d rather work with the University, mostly because one time he kissed a girl in the Chantry and realized that a life of celibacy sounded pretty sad. He likes books, but not that much!

Iona would have joined the University at 18 in 9:33. This little piece is likely set around 9:39, when he’s 24. He and Sian would have met no more than a year earlier when she got her offer to study at the University. Sian is really into ancient codes used for old trade route manifests. And who knows? These two might someday come in contact with the Inquisition, who could need some translations completed of ancient letters or someone to parse out the specifics of some coded letters. No code can stand up to the intellectual fury of Sian Fields, while her tall and awkward fellow makes her tea and suggests alternate grammatical structures when it comes times to make those encoded sentences make sense... 

[~2600 words]

marginalia

He likely wouldn’t notice, except that he’s taking a break from poring over Durotti’s Anderfels manuscript because his eyes have started to burn. With his nose pressed against the paper, he can’t hear anything, like somehow reading makes him deaf. It’s a quirk that served him well when he was studying with the Chantry, where bells and songs and the distant echo of the morning service might break his concentration; it’s an even more useful oddity here in the University, where he’s certain the other young scholars in his cohort spend more time gossiping about one another than actually tending to their research.

One good thing about growing up a Trevelyan, he often muses: he’s gotten very good at ignoring unpleasantries.

But since he’s not currently lost in translating a strange dialect into a more modern incarnation, and because he is instead sipping on his cold tea and staring pointedly at nothing, even when the words dancing on the parchment before him call his name so loudly they’re practical a choir…

Well, they’re not a choir. Neither is the voice that echoes off the dusty domed roof overhead.

“Shit, you fucking bastard. I swear to the Maker and beyond I will dig up your blighted bones and set them alight, you Antivan arsehole!” The heavy sound of manuscripts being dropped furiously on tables, or else on the floor. Footfalls stomping their way up and down the narrow passageway, then, “Foremost fucking scholar on the Storm Age Drylands route, my arse.”

There’s only one young scholar in the whole of the university who swears quite like that, just as there’s only one scholar in all of Thedas who is so invested in ancient Antivan trade routes and their curious codes as to be there in the smallest and darkest hours of the night. And if anyone could use a break before she sets the library alight instead of an ancient historian’s bones, then it’s sure to be Sian Fields.

Iona picks himself up, rolling out the crick in his neck from too many hours with his nose to a manuscript, and heads off through the precarious passageway toward the curses he can still hear.

This library, crammed in a tower in one of the University’s remote eastern spires, isn’t well-frequented, which is why it’s full of dusty towers of papers long since come loose from their bindings. It is entirely unlike the orderly library that houses hundreds of years’ worth of Chantry scholarship, which is bright and sunny, with air as clean and cool as the best sort of autumn afternoon.

There, his fellow scholars breathe easily, waving down attendants for tea or cheeses or a different colour of ink for improved notation.

Here, in the dark, tangled mess of shelves and labyrinthine cataloguing systems, Iona has to be mindful that he doesn’t take too deep a breath, lest he sneeze his way through the stacks and inadvertently cause an avalanche of forgotten Antivan translations of obscure trade histories.

Which would be very, very unwise, Iona decides, as he sidles through a particularly narrow gap between Mollarch’s Treatise (the revised third draft) and Lady Fontaine’s exhaustive lists of everything she ever purchased that was, at least in part, blue. Swear as Sian might, if anything were to happen to this collection –

Well. Iona would need to write Alla, and he very much doubts she would arrive in time to save him from Sian’s wrath.

“Fucking worthless pile of dog shite. Can’t you have thought of one halfway clever thing to put to blighted parchment, or is it all piss?”

This time, it’s almost a plea. Tremulous and unsteady.

Oh dear. Iona picks up the pace, shuffling around corners and shimmying delicately past particularly precarious stacks.

Down one very narrow row, a little light glows.

Ah, that would be her. Iona pokes his head around the corner. “Hello, Sian,” he says.

He sees her, more a shadow than a woman, in the very farthest corner of the collection, hunched over a desk, her head collapsed against her arms. She doesn’t even look up, her shoulders slumping forward as she scrubs her hands hard across her face. “Iona Trevelyan,” she sighs, truly sorrowful. “I hate Antiva.”

“No you don’t,” Iona tries, wriggling his way down the aisle to try and offer some semblance of… comfort. Emotional and academic support. The like. How Sian managed to climb her way over some of these stacks when they pose a challenge even for Iona’s long legs…

He frowns, worry squirming in the depths of his stomach, slippery and familiar. “How long have you been here? You know we’re meant to take breaks at least once a day. The Proctor has been very clear…”

That gets her attention. Sian surges to her feet, whirling to face him. Her face is smudged with the distant remnants of kohl, her hair – usually coiled very neatly at the base of her neck – has come loose and makes a frizzy, red halo around her finely-formed features. And though the top of her head wouldn’t even reach Iona’s shoulder –

Still, the look she levels him with manages to make his shoulders draw to his ears. Like staring down the mouth of a lion, all golden fury.

“The Proctor can go fuck a plate of cheese, for all I care. Awhile, Iona, that’s how long I’ve been here sorting these fucking codes out,” she spits, casting an arm out at the mess around them. “Can’t you tell? Haven’t had a breath of blighted fresh air in days. And if the Proctor thinks I’ll take a break when everyone else is busy swanning their way through their parties and assisted readings and afternoon scholar teas, then he can come here and tell me himself!”

Iona swallows once, his eyes very, very wide. Wide enough that the dust swirling through the air actually makes them sting. “Right,” he says. “Well. Sian. Perhaps you’d best take… a very small break. I’ve tea over in my alcove, and it’s cold but my sister sent it from Ostwick, so it’s decent enough. And… I suspect – it must be Bianchi you’re reading, yes? He will certainly keep. What else has he to do, but be dug up and burnt?”

Sian’s jaw tightens. And though this library, all but forgotten by their peers who pursue flashier topics and whose collections are orderly and clean and well-tended by servants, is dimly-lit, particularly this late at night, Iona can still make out the glassy sheen to her eyes. The tension in her shoulders. The –

She’s going to cry, maybe. And Iona isn’t quite certain he can handle that.

“Sian,” he tries, stepping forward. He reaches and catches her ink-stained hands in his own. Smiles, even though his stomach is fluttering with a million different worries. “It will all be alright. You’re the cleverest person in the whole university. If anyone can make Bianchi fall into line –”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, voice thin. “And that was unkind of me. I’m sorry. You’re not like the rest of them, and I should – As riled as a hound come full moon, my mum likes to say. And you’re right. Tea would be good, and some time away from Bianchi, and –” Sian blinks rapidly, furiously, hands tightening against Iona’s. Her stare, sheened with barely contained tears, darts from shelf to shelf. “It’s only that there’s so much. But – yes. Yes, I’ll be fine. It’ll keep.”

Then, firm and declarative, her hands very warm and soft in Iona’s, Sian straightens her shoulders, the light from her lantern making her hair glint like burnished copper. She draws in a long, steadying breath –

Which catches in her throat. Sian’s hands leap from Iona’s and she sneezes, so violently that Iona jerks backwards.

A thud as his elbow jostles into something. He has enough time to register the fact, before he hears it: the sliding of parchment, the whispering rustle of sheafs of paper coming undone. “Oh!” cries Iona, whirling, his hands flying up to try and catch what’s begun falling, to try and right this wrong, but –

The whole tower, which soars so delicately toward the ceiling, tilts toward him. He watches it, the middle sagging forward, then the top, then the rest.

It falls, a roaring, fluttering waterfall. First the one stack, then another, then the one to his left and the one beside that. A crescendo of hissing papers, quicksand closing in over him –

Iona’s coughing and sputtering and stumbling backward, and Sian has grasped him hard by the back of his tunic and hauled him away from the imminent catastrophe. Before him, the air is rife with thousands of ancient pages, with plumes of dust and flaking mildew. And the moment the pages settle, pooling across the floor, more liquid than parchment, Iona’s heart comes to a dead standstill in his chest.

He can’t feel his fingers. He can’t feel his legs. He can’t feel anything.

Maker help him. Andraste bless and keep him and guide him to something that is not this.

Hundreds of hours worth of cataloguing, only to be undone by –

Beside him, a wheezing breath.

“Are you alright?” Iona cries, whirling once again to face Sian, because if somehow her lungs have tightened, and she can’t breath, well. He’ll have to find a mage, which means finding the Proctor, who will skin Iona alive in front of all of Val Royeaux, but he will do it so long as Sian is alright and safe and –

“Andraste’s blessed tits,” gasps Sian, tears streaking down her cheeks as she laughs and coughs and sputters, her mouth caught in a grin so very bright Iona is almost blinded. “The whole thing, Iona! All of it!”

“Oh.” He feels himself shrinking, there in the midst of the chaos. “Yes. All of it.”

“I know I was cross with Bianchi and his kin, but I didn’t need you to go ahead and destroy the whole lot!”

“Well.” His hands curl against his sides and he tries to slide them beneath the cuffs of his sleeves. “I didn’t – I would never intend to – But Sian,” as again he realizes the scope of the damage he’s done. “Your work! How will you cross-reference if it’s all –”

Sian waves a hand through the hazy air between them. The same pale hand rises, fingers threading through her dust-whitened hair. “Let’s see, shall we? As Bianchi’s contemporary Russo writes in her very poorly composed summary of the four dominant trading families of the Storm Age, published in 7:23 and available in that lump of manuscripts over there… Who’s ever going to come here to check my citations? I can put it right before the Proctor even so much as suspects a thing.”

That will hardly stand. “I’ll put it right,” says Iona, with a firmness that feels very unfamiliar, but one he feels in the marrow of his bones. To demonstrate, he stoops and picks up an armful of pages, clutching them hard against his chest. “Since it’s my fault. And you’re clearly very invested in your research!”

Sian’s stare, which is bright and unflinching and always reminds him that he must be even more diligent in his studies and even bolder in his theories, narrows, staring at the sheaf of papers he’s holding. Then, with a loose shrug as she brushes dust from the front of her dark sweater, “Well, sure, it’s interesting enough when Bianchi’s not being a total prick, but no one reads it, so I’m never in a rush. Which nobles want to read about what a turnip farmer’s daughter thinks is relevant? None of them. Don’t know why I didn’t just stick to writing about whether the Chantry used red or mauve tapestries in the spring of 8:41 like all of our esteemed colleagues…”

Someone else would point out that it’s unfair, to her own research and to the research of their peers, but –

Well. She’s not entirely wrong. Iona’s heard what people say: that the University should never have offered Sian a scholarship. That they certainly shouldn’t have given her free reign of her research. That she doesn’t belong, with her foul mouth and loud laugh and refusal to pretend work that doesn’t matter does.

Sian shrugs again and turns away, fussing with the manuscript sitting on her desk. Her notes to the side are a scrawl, as usual, as wild and unpredictable as her mind. When first they’d started classes together, their teacher had gone up one side of her and down the other about the state of her lecture notes. You are not in Ferelden any longer, the man – the world’s foremost expert on what sorts of ink were popular in Val Chevin in 7:81 – sneered. You do not make notes for dogs.

Their whole class, a handful of the best and the brightest, or else the richest and most well-connected, had been tittering and watching the strange girl, her clothes a little too well-worn, her mouth a little too quick to criticize. But instead of recoiling, Sian had straightened under the stare of their teacher, shoulders squaring up as she tilted that bright glare in his direction. They’re sensible enough to me, she’d said, even though her skin had flushed red and Iona could see her knees jittering beneath her desk, And that’s what fucking matters in the end, doesn’t it?

So Sian’s right. She doesn’t fit here, and that’s why Iona loves her.

His arms tighten around the papers, which rustle gently in his grasp, his throat tight – and not, he knows, from the dust thick in the air. “I read your work.”

Her stare, golden as a hawk’s, again lands on him. “No, you don’t.”

“I do,” he says, breathless. Iona takes a half-step forward, no doubt doing irreparable damages to very rare manuscripts, but – Well. This matters. He continues, feeling bold despite Sian’s skeptical gaze. “Your translations of the shipping manifests from the harbourmaster’s encoded diaries were breathtaking. I’ve never seen anyone work like that before, Sian, and –”

Her forehead creases, eyebrows crawling upward toward the dusty nest of her hair. “You really read my work?”

“Of course I do,” he says, certain now that he’s on the right path. That this is important. “You’re the only original scholar in this whole place, and – And –” Iona pauses and squares up his own shoulders, trying to think of Sian in those early days, or on any day since. Of all the times she’s dealt with how unfair so many of the people here are. She’s brave and beautiful and brilliant, and the very least Iona can do, Iona, whose place is never questioned, whose research isn’t called useless or boring or –

“And you remind me to be better, all of the time,” he finishes, ignoring the way his heart flutters in his chest, the way his words are too quiet and foolishly breathless and utterly beneath her notice. Onwards, he thinks, ever onwards. “So I’ll clean up, and you can keep on with your work. Or maybe – maybe you could take a break, Sian. You do seem quite frustrated, and –”

“You’re a ridiculous man,” Sian breathes, and then she surges forward, and Iona nearly trips backward again.

Except this time her hand has fastened hard on the front of his tunic and she hauls his chest downward and plants a declarative kiss, right there on his mouth.

He drops the papers, and decides – somewhere between the delighted laugh that breaks free of Sian’s throat when his hands find her waist beneath the bulk of her sweater, and the smell of dust and crumbling paper in her hair, and the feel of her mouth and the way her eyes sparkle that singular gold when he kisses the very tips of her ink-stained fingers – he just doesn’t care about the manuscripts any longer. They’ll keep until tomorrow.