Respite

[lysoke]

Respite

The lake is dark and calm with a small breeze by the time they arrive at its shores. The stars above reflect perfectly in the still waters before them, and a small copse of trees lines one side, starting on their side of the river and jumping along the other side.

Chris takes a moment to re-prepare the spell he hadn't been able to cast in five years and gestures vaguely to the area around them as a suggestion for what the others can do. Gathering in the forest, sitting on a nearby over-turned log, it didn't matter to him. What he needed was an hour without interruption.

He settles down on the ground and presses his hands together as he closes his eyes to focus on the image in his mind. Within minutes, the white, shimmering outline of a large building forms in thin air. The gentle glow of its light barely spreads from the growing structure.

As promised, it takes the full hour before the slowly filling-in form is complete and finishes with a jaunty, echoing click.

Chris takes a breath, now sitting in front of the stoop that looks annoyingly like the one he'd passed earlier in the night, and gets back onto stiff legs as the glow fades away, leaving smooth, but otherwise unremarkable, white stone behind.

"Here we are. Home for the next however long we need. I'll start working on food and water next." Once they're inside, anyway, which is why he takes back his things from where he'd left them and leads them into the temple, marked only with the carving of ravens on the black wood of the double doors.

Inside is something just shy of opulence. The same polished white stone makes the walls, though black and gold veins course through the marble. The floor is the inverse, a black stone with white, shimmering speckles like a night sky if looked at for long enough. A single window faced East high up on the wall. The temple was alight with sconces at regular intervals along the walls, illuminating an open area that held all the offerings of comfort Chris could think of.

A large hot-springs-like bath, complete with a miniature waterfall, took up the left side of the room and ran into a smaller, similar bath at dog-height. Next to it, covered by a retractable screen, was a shower. Along the back wall, a raven's head emblazoned the white wall in black and watched out over a set of tables, chairs, and a couple of sofas. The majority of the center was clear for walking, but the right edge and right side of the room held a deeply inset pit of pillows, cushions, and blankets in various soft (black and purple) fabrics.

Finally, in the middle of the right-hand wall, there were two closed doors that, when inspected, revealed one room with a large, soft chair and rug, while the other room was made of nothing but stone with jars, pitchers, and plates on shelves along two walls and a cork wall perfect for catching daggers on the other side.

"I hope it works for everyone. I didn't...I didn't make separate bedrooms this time. I didn't figure we would need them tonight."

♥

Comments

Deception 29

[wolfehawke]

He knew his opinion would be an unpopular one. Honestly he’d expected everyone to react more or less like Jon had with a solid refusal, so Amelia’s half agreement comes as some surprise, even if he can tell it’s just for his benefit and it wouldn’t achieve what he’s talking about anyway. Chris agreeing in theory is what surprises him most. He’d figured if Jon refused, so would Chris. Honestly Chris would have probably only agreed if he was the only holdout, but even through his frustration and the bramble Wolfe can see building in his throat, he says he’ll talk. But later.

Which is right of him, Wolfe has to concede. Right of them to refuse in their ways. He’s rushing. Like always, he’s trying to rush to the end where they’ve worked things out - like he knows they will eventually - and he’s ashamed for it. For pushing when he’s said so many times he wouldn’t. So Wolfe decides he won’t, no matter how much it makes his innards squirm to back down.

“Alright,” he finally replies, not meekly. Not cheerfully either but he does keep the negativity from his tone entirely. “That’s fair enough. Everyone should be willing when we do talk this over, not just me. Though Jon, as much as I care for you, I would not hesitate to knock you out if you break out in eyeballs. I’m sure I’m not the only one.”

It’s not a threat, and Wolfe doesn’t think anyone will take it as such. It’s as much for Jon’s protection as it is for everyone else’s.

“Regardless. I didn’t say before, but thank you both for telling us. As frustrating as it is that it happened at all, and that you kept it from us even for a short time, I’m glad you were able to work it out between yourselves.” He smiles a little, though it’s at no one in particular. “I should take the girls for a walk before bed too, so we should go on, I guess.”

At the word ‘walk’, Cookie scrambles for the door. Patience looks that way, then up at Chris and the assembled group. Deciding where she’ll do the most good, she heads over to join her sister, though not before giving Chris’ hand a lick. Chuckling mostly with his shoulders, Wolfe shakes his head. “Flames, I should know better than to say that word aloud.”

[rogueinladysclothing]

Amelia knows something's not quite as well as Wolfe says it is from his tone, but she chooses not to pursue it. She needs space after this was all built up and fell apart so quickly, not to mention time to push this all down so she can be ready for their work tomorrow. The only way she'll get there is to stop now and figure out how to breathe again.

"I need to resharpen some of my knives, and I could use time in the springs if no one minds my presence there." Her eyes shift to Jon again, seeing as he's the one who doesn't care for others being naked in his presence, then back back to Wolfe. "You should try the new pants while you take the girls out. If they need any further adjustments, you'll know quickly and I can take care of that before we go to sleep."

She rises to her feet and grabs her bag to signal her readiness to move forward, hesitating at the last moment to look between both Chris and Wolfe. "It was important that you know what happened. We only needed a chance to speak to one another first." Either of them could have gone to the others the second it happened, but with all that frustration, guilt, and anger so fresh, it likely would've been a much more unpleasant conversation. "We'll both do what we can to avoid a repeat of this."

Will it be enough? Is any of what she does enough when everything feels so precarious? Dreams, she can only hope so.

[compellingstatement]

Jon feels some of the tension in his shoulders relax when Chris puts a solid punctuation on the end of the conversation and Wolfe lets it happen. He's not in a mindset to fight much more about this. He's less thrilled about the cleric's praise for holding his tongue. He knows it's meant well, but it feels a bit condescending.

When everyone else rises, Jon follows suit and heads toward the room with the wardrobe. "I'm getting dressed for bed, then I'll be in the study. Do as you like."

He doesn't wait for acknowledgement or to bid farewell to Wolfe, just disappears inside and closes the door. Poppet is sleeping on one of the pillows within the room and trills sleepily at him when he approaches. Jon resists the urge to pull her into a tight hug and just strokes her for a few moments before he fetches some pajamas out of the wardrobe. It's a long moment before he pulls out some of the nice underwear again, and then puts it back. He doesn't need that. He doesn't deserve that right now.

Dressing is a brief affair before Jon retires to the study, carrying Poppet on her pillow with him. The Archivist will spend the next while until bed reading and practicing his writing. He does want to talk to Chris about the idea of asking Mystra for more than just being woven into the Weave, but it can wait. There's much that can wait.

[chrisisofaith]

As everyone disperses to their own corners of thought and varying levels of irritation, Chris's own irritation spikes at himself. He'd meant to talk to them about finding victims for this very purpose: to try and ease the pull of the Eye along with trying to keep Jon's well filled as much as they can while it leaks...but it will have to wait. After the shadowfell, then.

For his part, he double-checks his breastplate and sets it out for himself along with his cloak and boots and Death's Door. Usually, he prayed in the mornings, but as the window for the dying of the day neared its closing, he took advantage of the chance to prepare one less thing in the morning.

The gentle weight of Little Thunder on his shoulder accompanies his prayers as he reaches for the spells he'll need to make quick work of whatever swarm they need to subdue. Whatever mess his guardians had made inadvertently. If he were condemned to the shadows of his own life, he could at least clean up after the parts he remembered being responsible for.

It's a ritual that calms and refocuses him. One that makes feeding the raven with him and heading to bed a little earlier than he might normally, an easy choice. His feet still stung from earlier, after all, and he didn't make a habit of wasting magic on something sleep could fix.

While he's not unkind to his family whenever they might make their way to join him, he keeps a peace that brokers no discussion. He'd had quite enough of any kind of talking.

cw: noncon and imprisonment mention

[wolfehawke]

Unlike the others, Wolfe wouldn't have minded company. Even surly company is better than his own most of the time, especially right now with all of this feuding reminding him so much of Kirkwall, of friends who were only his from a certain point of view but always of some version of him. Each of them, like each of his companions now, with their own limits, hard lines, and varying ways of expressing them. He wonders, as he changes into the pants that Amelia mended for him, what Varric would have written of them. If he would have called this boring and stirred up more drama for his book or if he would have toned it down, said it was too outlandish for readers to believe.

It doesn't matter now. Ever if he did get the chance to see Varric again, his friend wouldn't know him. By sight maybe, by voice, but not by experience. Not all of it. The only one who had that depth of knowledge was...

Dead. Years long dead. Died alone in those damned halls, used for sex and energy, waiting for rescue - Wolfe's rescue - that never came.

Its quiet outside, the natural quiet of no cars or trains or electric lights. It's beyond dark too, and Wolfe has to resist the urge to summon a wisp to light his way. He can't even do that right now lest his magic slip away faster than it already is. Maybe its how it should be, shuffling his way in the dark quiet night and prodding the ground before him with his staff like a blind man. He's cold even with the scavenged clothes and feeling a familiar pressure in his chest. Stress, he acknowledges, but also something else. Something too close to how he felt in the back rooms, or in the Pit.

Or in the Fade.

It's not hopeless, stop being dramatic. Its been less than two days, Wolfe all but growls at himself in his head, but the feeling won't abate. And for the first time since arriving it occurs to him that the lonely feeling maybe isn't because of the distance he's been trying to bridge with his new family, but from the chasm that exists between him and his old one.

He thought he'd processed it, not being exactly who he thought he was, but it still hits him like a physical blow, causing him to stop and take a deeper breath around the pressure that won't go away. He'd talked to Chris that morning about Carver, how Carver was no longer his brother, how it must be so much worse for Chris to know Rhyt and his Guardians are right there but still so far away. But what's hard is not just the lack of people but instead the lack of definition. Who is he if not there for who he loves?The glue that holds all his disparate people together? But they're fracturing anyway. They fractured anyway. Carver and the man I was modeled from are the last of the Hawkes, the group I'd gathered in Kirkwall is fractured to the four winds. I failed my Anders, and Morrigan, and Alaric, and so everyone who never- Who didn't-

Those expectations were his and they were also not, both things true at once that go around and around until the squeeze around his heart makes it difficult to breathe and he stumbles, bringing his hand to his chest, massaging over his heart and trying to focus on what he's been told so many times, mostly by the people so important to him, miserable in that temple around the curve of lake's edge.

I'm not responsible for everyone.
This isn't my fault.
Nothing is currently falling apart.
Not now.

Not yet.

Patience startles him, coming up out of the darkness to shove her head under his arms. He hadn't even realized he was on his knees, but it doesn't matter in favor of soft warm fur and a cold nose.

...

It's quite late when Wolfe finally returns, trying to be as quiet as he can as he gets around for bed. He still feels off. Empty in a way he doesn't like, but it's a softer pressure than it had been.

He should get some sleep. They have work to do in the morning.

[rogueinladysclothing]

It's quiet in the temple as she and Chris do their own work, separate and as far from one another as they can manage. The tension in the air is thick and uncomfortable, and Amelia pushes it aside to keep the peace. She needs her space, they all need their time to settle, and they'll eventually need to come back together anyway to sleep. This isn't a good way for things to be, it simply is.

Her work is long since done when Wolfe returns, knives sharpened and rocks collected into a pouch for tomorrow's venture into the Shadowfell. She's bathed, she's brushed out her hair, and she's checked over her leathers and clothes to be certain they're in decent condition. Everything is ready, except for her. As much as the rogue craved the quiet and the time to herself, forcing her mind to quiet doesn't help her sleep. There are few things that do, and the one with golden curls won't look at her. And so she's at the door when her mage and their dogs return, still dressed in the sweater and loose pants she's been wearing all day, hands outstretched to greet him.

There's little to be said once he and the girls are inside. They're all tired and need their rest, and her focus remains on that. She stays close to Wolfe as he gets ready for bed, offering any help he needs and simply being a steady presence at his side. When they're fully ready to climb down into bed, she pauses them long enough to lift herself and press her forehead to his to bolster them both for a brief moment. She presses a kiss to each of his cheeks and then his lips as she withdraws, squeezing his hands gently before stepping down into the pillow pit and encouraging him to follow.

It's time for rest and to put all the strife the day has brought behind them. It's time to rebuild their strength so they can take on the undead in the Shadowfell with clear heads and strong arms. It may not be easy, but they'll find their way through.

Amelia settles, briefly touching Chris' shoulder as a sign of her presence, then makes space for Wolfe to settle between them. The cleric may not reach for either of them, but she wants to leave the option for Chris to change his mind throughout the night and move closer to Wolfe. Even if he doesn't, she'll be against the mage's side all night, pressed all the closer when Patience inevitably joins them for her own rest.

[compellingstatement]

Jon hears everyone come and go in the temple. Or 'hears' them after their fashion. Even the prickle of alertness from Patience scratches at the back of his mind, like nails on a chalkboard, making it difficult to focus. He tries his best to close his mind off, to press harder against the door that lets everything seep in, drips and drops of fears and thoughts. Self-doubt. So much self-doubt.

When he does finally creep out of the study, it's after everyone else has laid down. Poppet is cuddled in his arms, and he sets her on one of the pillows to burrow in before lying down next to Chris. He's not sure if the cleric is awake, but he mutters a soft, "I love you," in Common as he traces the dimly lit line of his boyfriend's jaw, and then settles and closes his eyes.

In spite of everything today, that remains his guiding light. He loves this man. He loves Wolfe. He loves......... that they have Amelia, given their love for her. And they'll have the Shadowfell tomorrow to keep their minds and bodies occupied. Something to do seems like a good idea for all of them at this point.