His return will find her arranged beside Kaisa's makeshift shrine, arms folded neatly behind her back. She’s foregone armor, but the stiffness of her bearing marks her clearly as the faint smell of ozone.
"Warden," She’s taken certain pains for this exchange: Smoothed her expression into calmness, brought an extra pair of gloves, has made painstaking copies of the letters for her personal records.
"Ser Coupe." A faint inclination of the head. Wren unpeels a hand, gestures to the line of tents. "Thank you for agreeing to meet. It will be best if we speak undisturbed."
The purpose of meeting in such an isolated location. Well. Most of it.
Kain had hurried along, not wanting to let this wait for very long. He's curious, but also a bit worried. Perhaps something has happened to Cecil and Rosalie. Perhaps that hideous blood mage they'd all faced hadn't perished as he'd thought. Perhaps... well, who knows. It had seemed urgent and serious enough that he's treating it as such.
"Good to meet you, Ser." Kain similarly nods respectfully as he approaches. "And my thanks for contacting me with this news. Is it word from a friend of mine? Is there trouble? Even if it's difficult to hear, I would hear the fully truth of it. Leave nothing back."
A belated realization. There’s really only so much that trouble might be. It’s enough to throw her from her rehearsed niceties (Thank you for your time, Warden. Your courtesy is appreciated, Warden. Bloody fucking cold out here isn't it, Warden,) —
"Forgive me, I was not aware you had companions of the service." A small explanation, given gently: "I was posted to the White Spire."
First the Annulment, then Lucius, it’s left her few contacts to have word of. Two years gone now, and so many are dead, or red, or scattered piecemeal across the bitter countryside.
Maker willing, the boy has spoken to his people more recently than all that. A pang of guilt, however faint, for his worry. Or perhaps that's only due the knowledge of words yet to come. Leave nothing back,
Very well.
"But this is a more personal matter. Shall we, within?"
"My best friend is a Templar... so my first thought was of him, or perhaps someone else we both know." After all, if word was to come about any of their other comrades, even the non-Templars, it's likely it would come from him. But it also would be strange for him not to just contact Kain more directly. "But I'm glad that it's nothing concerning any of my old companions."
He raises an eyebrow, trying to figure out how this could be something more personal even though it has nothing to do with people he knows. At least nothing terrible has happened to anyone, though this doesn't ease his concern. Or confusion. What if it has to do with his past? A new sort of unease grips him when he thinks about it all... what he'd done... the guilt he still carries...
But he won't dare bring up anything about any of that unless she does first. "Right this way." Kain gestures just ahead, leading the way toward his tent and then inside.
Wren casts a glance about the tent (brief, appraising), as she shakes out the second set of gloves from a pocket, offers them over.
"Precaution, only. The exposure should be negligible." But a lot of things that should be aren't, and it'd be a damn shame to cart back this warning just to start the process over on a papercut. "I must warn you that I cannot fully explain how this came to be."
She owns little explanation for the magic — though substantially more than she's willing to share. Wren's under no illusions: her fellow travelers' tongues will wag. Information will leak; disseminate first through the Inquisition, and eventually out to its enemies. It doesn't mean that she'll speed the spread.
It pays to play the dim templar at times, even as the role grates.
Wren fishes a leather scroll-case, cautiously works out a battered set of letters. She's done what she might to preserve them, and they're legible enough. Still, the stationary's been through the wringer.
"They consist of unsent missives to a Warden Inessa Serra. You should read them."
He keeps things overall very neat and clean in his tent, not really one for a whole lot of decoration. He's very much a minimalist. Of course, the one exception to that are his collection of dragon figurines, a couple of his nice masks he's put out on display, a small banner of his family's dragon crest, and a couple other things here and there.
Raising an eyebrow as he takes the letters, he's filled with intrigue... and confusion. "Why not give them to Inessa herself, if they're meant for her?" No, it surely makes a lot less sense now. Unless there's some ghastly secret to them, something better off coming from him. As he takes the letters in hand and begins to read them over, the confusion doesn't abate. It only worsens.
The first of the letters is unnervingly identical to one he'd already written. The second is startlingly just like one he's been in the midst of starting. From there... well... from there, the rest indeed sound like his usual tone and definitely put to words things he's been thinking. There's only one problem...
"Is this some jest?" Kain hasn't yet reached the horrifying end, having stopped at one dated Guardian 9:44, which... makes no sense. He looks up at her, sure that she doesn't seem the pranking type, and all the more baffled by that. "These are all dated from the future. Look, this one here is from Inessa's birthday in 9:44. Wintermarch. Of next year."
The trouble of owning nothing without purpose: It always strikes you as odd, all these people who do. Kain's belongings are few, but they speak to interests and sentimentality that extend beyond this little camp. The trappings of a life outside his oaths.
How strange that must be.
"I am not in the habit of levity,"
That's a lie; she jokes plenty. But Wren jokes to put others at ease, to put herself at ease, and there is nothing easy about this. Better to lean into the impression that her rank and age favour. Better to look like a hardass.
Never too difficult. The boy's manner speaks to some military training — she's used to wearing her authority around such.
"Finish it." A curt gesture, not a request. She's not about to attempt this until she knows she can have it out in one go. "To the end."
Well, he can tell that she's not joking now, anyway, that she's being entirely serious. If someone had put her up to this, he's sure that the joke would have revealed itself by this point. It's also... a really strange thing to joke about, anyway. It wouldn't make sense. So he finally dismisses that idea.
He returns to the letters as directed. The sense of foreboding grows when he notices the blood stains on the next paper, which looked to have been hastily torn, and just as hastily written on. Something is amiss. He's not sure why, but he can tell already there's something wrong in how the other- in how he had written this. Has written... is going to write?
He carries on. The next one is worse, and he has to really look closely to make out anything in the scribbled out portions. "...growth... something about growth... 'something growth is softening'?" He mutters under his breath. "Sickening?" Brow furrowed, he continues, and the next letter makes it all too clear that a terrible fate is in store. The very last letter, with the barely decipherable 'Save me' is chilling.
Now when he looks up, Kain's expression has turned especially somber. "Tell me. What does this mean? What did I... What's happened to me?" Will happen. Whichever. "How did you even get ahold of this?"
"Red lyrium," Blunt. She’d never had confirmation of Inessa, but these aren’t the first such records she’s read. The deterioration is obvious; talk of growths moreso. "The consequences of prolonged contact."
She turns aside, paces a step. It’s not much space between them, but it’s something — some small room for him to take in the news on his own terms. When she speaks, the words are steady. There’s no particular kindness to them, though they wear an intent calm.
"Kain," Not Warden, not Ventfort. However temporarily. "This need not come to pass. Use distance, when possible. Employ caution,"
Too many treat the substance as though it were a difficulty only of templars. As though it didn’t feast upon all it touched,
(This hurts you, Reed tells her, the words mealy crimson. As though he isn’t dying. As though she didn't know —)
Against herself, a slight stutter of breath. Just a beat too long, she repeats:
"Employ caution, when it is not."
"There are those who would not see harm befall you. They have passed this warning along. Take it for what it is, and do not dwell. Take it for a second chance."
It does make sense, and it makes that one hard-to-read section fall right into place. He had his suspicions in the back of his mind, but he just didn't want to believe it. Knowing the fact of it all makes the rest of those letters especially chilling as he goes back over them. Especially the last couple, where the shakiness of the writing hints at the mental deterioration he went through.
He looks at her as she says his name, speechless for a moment. He's just been handed a death sentence, if all of this is to be believed. If these dates are to be believed, he has over a year left, and no more. He shudders. Somehow it's worse knowing that this death will befall him. Sure, he lives with death as a constant possibility, but... at least he'd be in his right mind if it ever happens.
"I thought I had longer... not as long as most people, given my status as a Warden, but... still, even then I'd have several more years left." He doesn't mind the short lifespan, since it means he'll die in his prime, he'll die strong, but a year? "Is it truly possible to change something that's already happened? That you... That I assume you experienced?" He looks at her curiously. "Who passed this warning to you?"
"We have already changed it." Provided you take the damn advice. Her hands fold once more, a glance over her shoulder. She holds his gaze. "A second chance, Kain."
She's been living on borrowed time some two years now, knows those still left to her are beginning to run thin. To die with her right mind is a luxury she will not afford.
But Kain is young. Young, and foolish, and a Warden. Meant to have more time — or at least a different end. One that owns some purpose.
(Would she have changed her path, had she known it then? Felt it, and not just seen the facts? No,)
"Who else would keep the letters?"
Get him thinking about something else, however close the topic. Get him thinking and not just fearing, that's the key.
"Could that be true?" Kain hopes that by having this conversation, there's a chance at changing all of this. He can't stop looking at those last chilling words, the words of someone who knows he's lost, but begging and pleading for release from that suffering. It's not something he'd want to burden anyone with.
It all sinks in very suddenly. He knew all along, of course, after all the letters are addressed to one person alone. But somehow he'd hoped he could have spared her all of this. Somehow, he'd thought maybe some future version of himself had... given her the letters. Foolish. No. The things she's saying... the way this has all gone so far...
"Inessa. She... kept them. Even after I..." No, he can't say it. Death in itself isn't the problem, it's the type of death. "Even then. ...Ness, no... I can't let this happen, I can't do this to her..."
"Then do not. Use this." Wren's chin tips up, almost in challenge. "Such opportunities are rare, and they are not cheaply-given. It cost her to return this to you."
Existing alone had cost Inessa plenty.
"I do not deliver it lightly. I should not have at all, did I not believe the cause worthwhile."
"It cost her?" Kain feels his pulse quicken as she says those words, as he realizes that he may not be the only one to suffer in this future world. He can't even bear to imagine it... himself dead, and her left to deal with... whatever other dreadful things might be in store. "This makes for grim hearing, but... you did the right thing. I would rather know."
He lowers his head a moment, running the possibilities through his mind. What if it's too late and... what if he never gets to say these things in these letters. "Please." He looks back up. "What else do you know of what happened- will happen? Anything you can tell me? Does the world... do we fall to Corypheus?"
"Venatori control everything south of the Imperium. Blight takes what famine and tyranny do not. The Inquisition dies in the Deep Roads."
A matter of fact recollection, because that’s what they are: Facts. She’s already written the reports, recounted it often enough to inure. After a month in that place, there’s no shock left to the telling,
(Not to these pieces, broad and impersonal and strained of that which can wound her own tongue.)
"We have recovered intelligence. It is actionable — I cannot say whether it shall be enough. But to give in to despair is to lose this war before it has begun."
"Then... we have more to worry about than just personal concerns, if all of this is true." Although he's going to agonize over this for a long while to come. He can't help but obsess over the worst. But if what she's saying is true... the Inquisition is about to go down a very dark path. One which it may not come back from.
He sighs heavily. He fears they're all doomed. All bound to fall, one by one. "Right... we must take action, that's all we can do. You're sure that it gives us some chance to win? To change what you saw?"
How can something be changed that's already happened and been witnessed, experienced even? Or will be happening. The whole matter of traveling through time is hard to wrap his head around.
"An army is made of persons. It is as much your duty to care for yourself as for those around you."
Do as I say, not as I do writ large. Even so:
"I am certain of little in this world, save the work of my own hands. We must all raise our hands together in this." A short shake of the head. "If you fear you've run afoul of the lyrium, I bid you speak with me, I have —"
"— Handled such matters, before; I may provide counsel. Consider it repayment for the warning."
He does often forget the whole 'caring for one's self' part, usually too preoccupied with defending others.
Kain nods grimly when she mentions that, knowing that it's entirely important for him to have someone there who can... deal with him if he ever does end up infected.
"I hope it truly doesn't come to that, but I promise you. I'll seek you out should I become tainted by it. I don't want to risk anyone else's life. I won't harm Inessa. I... I didn't cause her harm, did I? In what you saw?"
"Physically? I've few details to offer. But your absence? Without doubt."
At times she is given to think little stings so deeply as that — but that's a foolish notion. A child's. The world is full of other, greater hurts.
Get stabbed a few times, and you know absence is a real pussy answer.
"Nothing is permanent. Do what you can, use what is available to you. And hold to those you might." A gesture to the tentflap. "If there is nothing else, Warden?"
Though he has no doubt it wouldn't go well, if he were... really gone. He's never been too afraid or bothered by the fact of his own death, as a Warden it's something to face earlier than most have to. But still... he hates to think of what could come from him dying. Especially in such an awful way.
"I'll do everything in my power to prevent this future from happening. Anything at all. I can't... I can't..." He looks down at the letters, at that last one with the scrawl that only hints at the way his mind had broken. Will break. Could break. Trying to think of a future that had happened, and yet hasn't... is confusing. "Just that... I appreciate you telling me this, Ser. It makes for grim hearing, but I would rather know."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
in_death_sacrifice) wrote2016-09-11 02:36 am
me too! c:
His return will find her arranged beside Kaisa's makeshift shrine, arms folded neatly behind her back. She’s foregone armor, but the stiffness of her bearing marks her clearly as the faint smell of ozone.
"Warden," She’s taken certain pains for this exchange: Smoothed her expression into calmness, brought an extra pair of gloves, has made painstaking copies of the letters for her personal records.
"Ser Coupe." A faint inclination of the head. Wren unpeels a hand, gestures to the line of tents. "Thank you for agreeing to meet. It will be best if we speak undisturbed."
The purpose of meeting in such an isolated location. Well. Most of it.
Alright, so she kind of wanted to snoop, too.
yay!!
"Good to meet you, Ser." Kain similarly nods respectfully as he approaches. "And my thanks for contacting me with this news. Is it word from a friend of mine? Is there trouble? Even if it's difficult to hear, I would hear the fully truth of it. Leave nothing back."
no subject
A belated realization. There’s really only so much that trouble might be. It’s enough to throw her from her rehearsed niceties (Thank you for your time, Warden. Your courtesy is appreciated, Warden. Bloody fucking cold out here isn't it, Warden,) —
"Forgive me, I was not aware you had companions of the service." A small explanation, given gently: "I was posted to the White Spire."
First the Annulment, then Lucius, it’s left her few contacts to have word of. Two years gone now, and so many are dead, or red, or scattered piecemeal across the bitter countryside.
Maker willing, the boy has spoken to his people more recently than all that. A pang of guilt, however faint, for his worry. Or perhaps that's only due the knowledge of words yet to come. Leave nothing back,
Very well.
"But this is a more personal matter. Shall we, within?"
where’s your tent bro
no subject
He raises an eyebrow, trying to figure out how this could be something more personal even though it has nothing to do with people he knows. At least nothing terrible has happened to anyone, though this doesn't ease his concern. Or confusion. What if it has to do with his past? A new sort of unease grips him when he thinks about it all... what he'd done... the guilt he still carries...
But he won't dare bring up anything about any of that unless she does first. "Right this way." Kain gestures just ahead, leading the way toward his tent and then inside.
no subject
"Precaution, only. The exposure should be negligible." But a lot of things that should be aren't, and it'd be a damn shame to cart back this warning just to start the process over on a papercut. "I must warn you that I cannot fully explain how this came to be."
She owns little explanation for the magic — though substantially more than she's willing to share. Wren's under no illusions: her fellow travelers' tongues will wag. Information will leak; disseminate first through the Inquisition, and eventually out to its enemies. It doesn't mean that she'll speed the spread.
It pays to play the dim templar at times, even as the role grates.
Wren fishes a leather scroll-case, cautiously works out a battered set of letters. She's done what she might to preserve them, and they're legible enough. Still, the stationary's been through the wringer.
"They consist of unsent missives to a Warden Inessa Serra. You should read them."
She'll wait in patient silence as he does.
no subject
Raising an eyebrow as he takes the letters, he's filled with intrigue... and confusion. "Why not give them to Inessa herself, if they're meant for her?" No, it surely makes a lot less sense now. Unless there's some ghastly secret to them, something better off coming from him. As he takes the letters in hand and begins to read them over, the confusion doesn't abate. It only worsens.
The first of the letters is unnervingly identical to one he'd already written. The second is startlingly just like one he's been in the midst of starting. From there... well... from there, the rest indeed sound like his usual tone and definitely put to words things he's been thinking. There's only one problem...
"Is this some jest?" Kain hasn't yet reached the horrifying end, having stopped at one dated Guardian 9:44, which... makes no sense. He looks up at her, sure that she doesn't seem the pranking type, and all the more baffled by that. "These are all dated from the future. Look, this one here is from Inessa's birthday in 9:44. Wintermarch. Of next year."
no subject
How strange that must be.
"I am not in the habit of levity,"
That's a lie; she jokes plenty. But Wren jokes to put others at ease, to put herself at ease, and there is nothing easy about this. Better to lean into the impression that her rank and age favour. Better to look like a hardass.
Never too difficult. The boy's manner speaks to some military training — she's used to wearing her authority around such.
"Finish it." A curt gesture, not a request. She's not about to attempt this until she knows she can have it out in one go. "To the end."
no subject
He returns to the letters as directed. The sense of foreboding grows when he notices the blood stains on the next paper, which looked to have been hastily torn, and just as hastily written on. Something is amiss. He's not sure why, but he can tell already there's something wrong in how the other- in how he had written this. Has written... is going to write?
He carries on. The next one is worse, and he has to really look closely to make out anything in the scribbled out portions. "...growth... something about growth... 'something growth is softening'?" He mutters under his breath. "Sickening?" Brow furrowed, he continues, and the next letter makes it all too clear that a terrible fate is in store. The very last letter, with the barely decipherable 'Save me' is chilling.
Now when he looks up, Kain's expression has turned especially somber. "Tell me. What does this mean? What did I... What's happened to me?" Will happen. Whichever. "How did you even get ahold of this?"
no subject
She turns aside, paces a step. It’s not much space between them, but it’s something — some small room for him to take in the news on his own terms. When she speaks, the words are steady. There’s no particular kindness to them, though they wear an intent calm.
"Kain," Not Warden, not Ventfort. However temporarily. "This need not come to pass. Use distance, when possible. Employ caution,"
Too many treat the substance as though it were a difficulty only of templars. As though it didn’t feast upon all it touched,
(This hurts you, Reed tells her, the words mealy crimson. As though he isn’t dying. As though she didn't know —)
Against herself, a slight stutter of breath. Just a beat too long, she repeats:
"Employ caution, when it is not."
"There are those who would not see harm befall you. They have passed this warning along. Take it for what it is, and do not dwell. Take it for a second chance."
no subject
He looks at her as she says his name, speechless for a moment. He's just been handed a death sentence, if all of this is to be believed. If these dates are to be believed, he has over a year left, and no more. He shudders. Somehow it's worse knowing that this death will befall him. Sure, he lives with death as a constant possibility, but... at least he'd be in his right mind if it ever happens.
"I thought I had longer... not as long as most people, given my status as a Warden, but... still, even then I'd have several more years left." He doesn't mind the short lifespan, since it means he'll die in his prime, he'll die strong, but a year? "Is it truly possible to change something that's already happened? That you... That I assume you experienced?" He looks at her curiously. "Who passed this warning to you?"
no subject
She's been living on borrowed time some two years now, knows those still left to her are beginning to run thin. To die with her right mind is a luxury she will not afford.
But Kain is young. Young, and foolish, and a Warden. Meant to have more time — or at least a different end. One that owns some purpose.
(Would she have changed her path, had she known it then? Felt it, and not just seen the facts? No,)
"Who else would keep the letters?"
Get him thinking about something else, however close the topic. Get him thinking and not just fearing, that's the key.
no subject
It all sinks in very suddenly. He knew all along, of course, after all the letters are addressed to one person alone. But somehow he'd hoped he could have spared her all of this. Somehow, he'd thought maybe some future version of himself had... given her the letters. Foolish. No. The things she's saying... the way this has all gone so far...
"Inessa. She... kept them. Even after I..." No, he can't say it. Death in itself isn't the problem, it's the type of death. "Even then. ...Ness, no... I can't let this happen, I can't do this to her..."
no subject
Existing alone had cost Inessa plenty.
"I do not deliver it lightly. I should not have at all, did I not believe the cause worthwhile."
no subject
He lowers his head a moment, running the possibilities through his mind. What if it's too late and... what if he never gets to say these things in these letters. "Please." He looks back up. "What else do you know of what happened- will happen? Anything you can tell me? Does the world... do we fall to Corypheus?"
no subject
A matter of fact recollection, because that’s what they are: Facts. She’s already written the reports, recounted it often enough to inure. After a month in that place, there’s no shock left to the telling,
(Not to these pieces, broad and impersonal and strained of that which can wound her own tongue.)
"We have recovered intelligence. It is actionable — I cannot say whether it shall be enough. But to give in to despair is to lose this war before it has begun."
It already has.
no subject
He sighs heavily. He fears they're all doomed. All bound to fall, one by one. "Right... we must take action, that's all we can do. You're sure that it gives us some chance to win? To change what you saw?"
How can something be changed that's already happened and been witnessed, experienced even? Or will be happening. The whole matter of traveling through time is hard to wrap his head around.
no subject
Do as I say, not as I do writ large. Even so:
"I am certain of little in this world, save the work of my own hands. We must all raise our hands together in this." A short shake of the head. "If you fear you've run afoul of the lyrium, I bid you speak with me, I have —"
"— Handled such matters, before; I may provide counsel. Consider it repayment for the warning."
no subject
Kain nods grimly when she mentions that, knowing that it's entirely important for him to have someone there who can... deal with him if he ever does end up infected.
"I hope it truly doesn't come to that, but I promise you. I'll seek you out should I become tainted by it. I don't want to risk anyone else's life. I won't harm Inessa. I... I didn't cause her harm, did I? In what you saw?"
no subject
At times she is given to think little stings so deeply as that — but that's a foolish notion. A child's. The world is full of other, greater hurts.
Get stabbed a few times, and you know absence is a real pussy answer.
"Nothing is permanent. Do what you can, use what is available to you. And hold to those you might." A gesture to the tentflap. "If there is nothing else, Warden?"
no subject
Though he has no doubt it wouldn't go well, if he were... really gone. He's never been too afraid or bothered by the fact of his own death, as a Warden it's something to face earlier than most have to. But still... he hates to think of what could come from him dying. Especially in such an awful way.
"I'll do everything in my power to prevent this future from happening. Anything at all. I can't... I can't..." He looks down at the letters, at that last one with the scrawl that only hints at the way his mind had broken. Will break. Could break. Trying to think of a future that had happened, and yet hasn't... is confusing. "Just that... I appreciate you telling me this, Ser. It makes for grim hearing, but I would rather know."