TDM #7

[calderaevents]

ARRIVAL

It happens in an instant. A heavy weight in your gut, a trembling of your limbs, the world spins and you barely have time to register that you're falling before you lose consciousness. And when you awaken, it's not where you were last. Dark, unadorned oak walls surround you in a tiny room, the only furniture the bed you are currently resting upon, and the bedside table with a folded piece of parchment resting atop it that simply reads:

"The Tavernkeeper is awaiting your arrival downstairs."

As you exit you find others like yourself emerging from the surrounding rooms. You are indeed in a tavern, but there is no hustle and bustle one might think to hear in such a place. The only person down on the main floor is a humanoid figure wiping down the bar, who smiles when they see you. They're familiar, but not, and you can't quite place their face. For some reason, however, their presence is comforting and warm.

"Welcome, Visitor. I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

And you most certainly do.

Due to popular demand, the starter tavern and the drinks provided are available to in game characters via a portal accessible only to those with a faction gem.

DRINK MENU

BLOSSOM BLUSH A radiant pink wine that releases floating cherry blossoms with each laugh.

FIREFLY MEAD Pale gold and gently glowing, it makes you shine softly in the dark

MORNING MINT Icy mint liqueur that makes everything you touch cold for a brief period of time.

BARDS ENCOURE Sweet spiced wine that compels you to sing everything for an hour.

MIMIC MULE Ginger drink that changes flavor every time you guess it wrong.

BUTTERFLY EFFECT Lavender liqueur that summons a trail of glowing butterflies as you walk.

CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY

As the effects of your drink wear off, the Tavernkeeper speaks once more:

"It is time, my friends, for you to find your new homes."

You are compelled to walk through the only door leading out of the tavern, finding yourself not outside, but in a deep black, seemingly endless room with five portals arranged in a circle. As the last of you leave and the door closes behind you, gone when you look back again and replaced with nothing but that black void, three of the portals illuminate:

The first portal is surrounded by an almost blinding light, prismatic rainbows shining brightly in the dewy air outside of the tavern. A soft breeze may gently caress you, pulling you toward it. The portal seems to lead to a city in the clouds, airships and winged beings of all sorts soaring through the skies. Of the little bits of visible land, much of it boasts giant waterfalls that look like clouds melting into the land below. The portal calls to those who crave independence and freedom; and especially to anyone that wishes to find the strong bond of a family not forged in blood.

The second portal is encircled by a fairy ring of spotted white capped mushrooms, the faint scent of damp stone and rich earth wafting from within the faint green glow. Peering inside, one can see a sprawling harbor city of gray hewn stone, a melting pot of humanoid beings going about their day, and beyond, rolling green farmland and cottages clustered in small villages. This portal is destined for those who crave stability and solid ground beneath their feet. A simple life, an adventurous one, and everything in between can be found within.

The last portal is adorned with shells and seaweed, the glow of blue around it catching on droplets cascading down the circular opening. Beyond it you see a city housed inside a massive bubble deep under the ocean, spiraling towers encrusted with coral, and a variety of different creatures mingling about the streets. Outside of that bubble, merfolk swim, a massive squid engulfs the view from the portal as it smoothly glides through the water, and schools of fish disperse as it passes. A sanctuary in the sea that calls to those with a hunger for knowledge and a desire to aid those in need. Or perhaps it is the mystery that beckons you - the lure of the unknown in the depths that bids you explore it.

---

Upon following the pull of the breeze through the first portal, you are thrust into the beauty of a lively city that goes by the name of Heaven's Bow. Much of this main city feels exactly as you would expect on a city below, but there are clouds surrounding every direction you look. The walls of buildings are made with light-colored limestone, and buildings are generally built up to heights made even more grandiose by their position in the sky.

The Skyfall Docks are the first thing you notice, boasting hundreds of airships sailing in and out across the clouds with shouts that accompany a typical port city. Just outside is a fantastic market with goods not only from the other regions of Caldera, but from what some shopkeepers claim are other worlds--items sold or left behind by Visitors. Almost anything can be found in the markets if one is willing to look hard enough. Transport to other locations throughout the sky and even to the land or sea can be found here.

If the docks are too lively for you, you may instead find yourself roaming the underbelly of Heaven's Bow and finding brothels and gambling parlors filled with the promise of pleasure and fortune. The guild house for the Sylphs can be found here as well, giving out quests and training to prospective adventurers and guards alike--though none of them seem concerned with the illicit activities that surround them. Perhaps the freedom the Sylphs boast of extends to what others may deem an undesirable activity.

But most curious of all, you find a shimmering opal gemstone in your hand. When placed anywhere on the body, it will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.

---

If it was the second portal that called to you, you will find yourself in the busy city of Grey Ward, with its cobblestone streets and sturdy grey stone buildings. You are in the heart of the city, the Glass Market, so named for the colorful stained glass windows of the surrounding buildings. The scent of cooking food and the sound of barkers fills the air; watchful guards keep an eye out for pickpockets and thieves, and citizens go about their day. From here, one can investigate the rest of the city: the Sundown Docks, where both sea and sky faring skips transport people and goods. The Soot Spire, home of inventors and engineers. The Hearthstill, the main residential area. The Downs, a smaller residential area for those with less means.

Outside the city walls, one can explore acres of farmlands to the east and west, or follow Terra's Pass to the less settled areas, but take care. Past the Skyward Range, out in the smaller burrows and villages, the influence of the city guard diminishes quickly, and you'll have to keep your wits about you. Bandits along the road are always a risk, and the wildlife are less controlled by regimented hunting.

In your hand is a gemstone, a brilliantly green emerald that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.

---

If the last portal beckoned you through it, you find yourself within that bubble covered city beneath the sea, the city of Salt Spire. Your ears pop with the change in pressure, and the smell of the salty sea fills your nostrils. All around you buildings made of dark stone encrusted with coral and seagrass tower high above your head, the backdrop outside the dome a deep blue, seemingly endless sea filled with fish and merfolk and all other manner of creature swimming through the water. You stand in the heart of it all, surrounded by people with gils on their necks and scales upon their vibrantly colored skin, all of whom seem intrigued by your arrival. You have many options of where to visit in the city under the sea, but where oh where will you go first?

The Salt Spire Library is right before you, an impossibly large building housing thousands upon thousands of books of all genres. Fiction, non-fiction, romance and mystery and all between. You may even find books from your world and others! Oddly enough though, no Calderan history books are to be found, and if you ask for them, the librarians and locals all choose to ignore your questions.

If scholarly pursuits aren't to your interest currently, perhaps a trip to Bluetide Market would be more your style? The marketplace is host to every manner of shop one might ever need: artisans of all varieties, apothecaries and healers in the Shimmer Quarter, the most in fashion undersea clothing shops, food stalls, and all between can be found in Bluetide. There are also the Tideshore and Fogbottom docks on either end of the city. The former allows transport to the surface via large, magical bubbles for those that cannot hold their breath or make the swim themselves yet. The latter allows people to venture further into the sea. Those without their underwater abilities are offered rebreathers for travel that last for four hours before needing to be replaced.

In your hand is a gemstone, a shining sapphire that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.

WHISPERS TO THE TIDE

The message spreads quietly, without fanfare: a shoreline gathering, open to all. No formal invitation, no declarations from the leaders, just a time and place passed from mouth to mouth, realm to realm. At a quiet stretch of coast where the cliffs slope into tide-washed stone, someone has set out low tables bearing shell shaped lanterns. They glow softly: blue for the sea, orange for fire, green for forest, white for sky. No one claims credit for organizing it, but it's clear this is meant for those who fought. For those who died. For those who came back different.

But no one stops you if your grief is older, quieter, or comes from another place entirely. Some are new to Caldera, and for them, the name whispered might belong to someone from home.

You're told you can take a lantern, whisper a name into it—someone you lost, someone you failed, someone who isn't who they were before—Then set it in the water. The ocean carries the lanterns gently out with the tide, until the horizon flickers like a constellation fallen to the sea.

There's no stage. No speeches. Just space. Space to remember. To grieve. To speak or stay silent. To stand beside someone who understands, or to leave the lantern untouched.

BEGIN AGAIN

As the last lanterns drift out across the water, their glow swallowed by the sea, a hush falls over the shore. Cordelia, Aella, and Terra step forward. Triton stands just behind them, silent, watching. Vesper, for now, is nowhere to be seen. Waiting, recovering, enjoying time to himself.

Cordelia speaks first. Her voice is steady, her gaze lingers on the crowd. "That you stand here now is a blessing not all can claim. Caldera's own gave their lives for this moment. And you—the ones we pulled from other worlds—stood with them, gave your own lives just as readily. We do not look away from that. And we do not call this victory. Not yet."

Terra's voice follows, low and grounded. "The land remembers their names. Yours, too. This future was shaped by every hand that reached for it, whether it knew Caldera or not." She pauses. "And though not all is settled... we have the chance to begin."

Aella steps forward, her voice gentler but firm. "We know the cost. And we know we weren't always honest with you. You deserved more—answers, choices, time. But still, you gave us hope. You gave us a chance."

Then Triton speaks. There's hesitation in his voice, but he sounds sincere nonetheless. "I caused much pain. More than I can undo. I fell long before you arrived. But the world you walked into still carried my shadow. You were asked to survive what I helped create. I brought darkness where there should have been light. And for that, I am sorry."

He lets the silence stretch before continuing. "None of us can erase what was lost. But you deserve to be met with honesty. With fairness. With kindness. Not as strangers—never again as tools—but as people who mattered, and still do. Tonight is not an ending. It's the first step. One we hope leads somewhere better."

He looks out across the gathering. "So tonight, if you can—rest. Sit beside someone you fought with. Laugh, if it comes. Let the world be yours. Even if it's only for a night."

A BREATH OF SPRING

With a wave of his radiant hand, Triton breathes new life into the shores of Caldera. The once-quiet beach stirs as soft, cool waves ripple gently beneath a crisp spring sky, reflecting the golden shimmer of his light. Far below, Salt Spire's bubble glows faintly beneath the water, like a jewel set in the depths. Along the sandy shores, fires flicker to life, and colorful banners unfurl in the gentle breeze.

The air fills with the fresh scent of salt mingled with blooming wildflowers, as Triton's touch awakens the herbs and blossoms that carpet the nearby meadows. You notice stalls nestled between weathered wood and smooth stones, where roasting fish and sweet honey cakes invite you to pause and savor the moment. Near the water's edge, you see others carving tokens from volcanic glass and pieces of smoothed wood—symbols of strength and hope. You are welcome to join them, shaping your own keepsake to carry with you. Nearby, hands weave colorful reeds into bracelets and anklets, imbuing their craft with the calm energy of the sea. Perhaps you will try your hand at weaving, or chase shimmering fish darting through tide pools, or search for rare shells hidden beneath seaweed.

Further inland, beneath Triton's watchful gaze, storytellers beckon listeners near, spinning vivid tales of courage and redemption that stir the heart. You can gather with them in the warm sand and grass, share your own stories, or simply listen and let the warmth of their voices settle around you. Not far off, groups play a lively game where players toss a smooth, polished wooden ball back and forth, aiming to catch it without dropping while weaving between makeshift goals marked by sticks in the sand. The game is simple but fun, testing your reflexes and teamwork, and laughter rises with each playful challenge. Feel free to join in or cheer on the players. Along quieter paths, herbalists offer to teach you how to identify and gather spring blooms for healing poultices or charms, inviting you to take a piece of renewal with you.

As the afternoon deepens, Triton's golden light mingles with music—a haunting blend of sea shanties and lively dances—drawing visitors into circles beneath blossoming trees. Barefoot on the soft grass, you may find yourself swept up in a dance, moving with the rhythm of wind and tide.

Though Triton's radiant presence fills the beach with warmth and light, your gaze may catch subtle glances toward the rising moon—its silver face unusually bright, stirring a quiet unease deep beneath the surface. Yet tonight, under his revitalizing glow, the beach breathes easy, wrapped in a promise of healing, connection, and peace—if only for a little while.

QUESTBOARD (NEW QUESTS ADDED)

Settled in? Good. It's time to make your way to the Questboard located in every city in numerous, easy to access locations. That is, if you want to make any kind of impact on the world or just get some Bones for anything you might wish to purchase. Visitors are given a very small stipend in which to survive every month, but all it does is keep you fed and housed. These quests will assure you greater wealth, and they're the main reason you're here: each finished quest helps the Calderans fix their shattering world.

Quests can be accepted at the questboard via magically signed parchment upon the board. Just sign your name to accept and the paper will be whisked away... somewhere. You're not actually sure. Probably nothing to concern yourself with.

Once quests are completed, earned Bones will be dropped off at the character's residence by Bonita, the mysterious artisan who has supposedly handcrafted every Bone circulating in Caldera. Please do not speak to her, she startles easily.

OOC NOTES

Welcome to Caldera's seventh TDM! All characters awaken in a strange tavern with nothing save the clothes on their backs, all of their powers stripped, and a piece of parchment directing them downstairs to the Tavernkeeper. There is a thread of all questions answered by the Tavernkeeper here, and if you have more, feel free to ask there for what would be offered ICly.

◾For OOC questions, please direct themhere.

◾The Bestiary page has been renamed to Flora and Fauna, and has been updated with new beasts and information on local Calderan plants and herbs here.

Have fun, Visitors!

main navigation

Comments

[loosed]

Felassan's approach is slower, measured; whatever he may be feeling about Solas's return is muted beneath watchfulness. While Solas is kissing Beleth wherever he can reach, while Beleth is sobbing and scolding, Felassan is taking inventory of his injuries with what onlookers might classify as analytic distance. But the stick in his hand — his staff, returned to him, presently shrunk and indistinguishable from a sturdy twig save for the green stone embedded at one end — does not weave through his fingers in loose and careless spins, but jerks through them in twitchy fits and starts.

He's come back. Felassan had every confidence he would. But he has come back looking like this, dressed like that —

When Beleth mentions the ritual, he stops fidgeting altogether, grasping the staff in his fist for a moment before tucking it into his jacket. (A new one. Beleth's doing.) But his disapproval remains as silent as his evaluation of Solas, his presence quiet and removed, content to let them carry on while he tries to understand what has happened. Why. How.

He might have stood there indefinitely, if Solas hadn't reached out. That Felassan is caught briefly off guard when he does is only because there had been so little time, before Solas disappeared, for this new rhythm to come as naturally as the one he'd lived by for so many thousand years before. It's been easier with Beleth; when Felassan accepts the invitation to come closer, it's instinct to put his hand on her shaking back, palm placed too low on her spine for friendship alone.

Solas, he touches on the neck with two careful, gentle fingers, just beside where claws have left long lines of tacky blood. He doesn't want to interrupt; just because Felassan would not scold Solas for all of this, personally, doesn't mean Beleth is wrong about any of it. But he does want the current results of his evaluation confirmed or denied before he puzzles any further, so he murmurs, "Dragon?"

[goethbeforethefall]

"Lusacan," Solas replies, nodding, knowing Felassan will recognize the name, and the old foe to which it belongs. But most of his attention is rightly taken up by the fury in his arms, and her righteous outrage.

"Vhenan," He says, soothingly, but he is hardly finished, and so he can do nothing but make room for her fear and pain and worry to all come pouring out onto him, white-hot, and as much a blessing as any summer rain after a drought. She can be as angry as she likes, but all he wants is to look at her, to admire the flashing of her eyes, the way her voice fills with teeth and fire, "Ir abelas, my heart. I am here now."

For once in all his long, damned life he's not sorry, for any of what he's done: the fight with Loki, the confrontation with Elgar'nan, even that last strange exchange with Rook— he will never see her again, never need to burden himself with their world or wellbeing again. That freedom is so profound that all other chains seem as nothing to compare, and he would never have guessed it to be so, before it had all changed.

Time now, then, to give over and accept it: she had been right. She was, somehow, always right. Wisdom therefore would be to accept it, after so long.

"It was never my intention to hurt either of you," He murmurs, still smiling faintly, lovelorn and happier than he ought. He knows it's not the reaction she wants, nor Felassan, but he can't help himself. They are both as beautiful as a warm hearth on a cold night, as a cool drink after an endless march; they are life and love and survival to him, and he is home when he sees them here, together, "I will not leave you again."

[arlathvhen]

The weight of Felassan's disapproval may have weighed heavier if Beleth could see his face, if she could focus on something besides all the emotions that felt too big to be contained in such a small, mortal body. A discussion they will have another day, when there is time and emotional space for it. In the meantime, the feel of his hand and the weight of his presence serves to ground her, as it always seems to, and the shuddering abates.

She still has half a mind to keep at it, maybe just default to just calling him names, and maybe pick through the curses she knows that don't involve him. But as she tilts her tear and kohl streaked face up to him, his utterly content, besotted expression is like a balm against the wound of her heart. It is not easy to unleash righteous fury on a man when his only response is a smile that would shame a pine forest in sheer sappiness.

Her fury has not fully withdrawn, then, but has slackened into something that feels easier to fit inside her, and thus does not require being unleashed upon Solas in a wave of misery.

"I'll hold you to that. I shall not be so forgiving a second time." She will be. She'll forgive him over and over, as long as he returns to her each time.

[loosed]

Lusacan. Elgar'nan. Felassan exhales a quiet sigh of gratitude that Solas is even in this good a condition — but of course he is. Beleth had known he would survive the end. It was only a matter of everyone listening to her. Felassan keeps his hand on her back as the trembling fades.

Solas's promise makes him smile, though it's a small one, not fully reaching his eyes. Overwhelm, partly, at both his reappearance and his affection. And partly doubt. Felassan trusts with all of his heart that they will try to keep him with them. It's more difficult to trust with all of his head that they'll succeed. That's for tomorrow, though, or twenty years from now. Right now Beleth's comment catches him in the right place to make him laugh, a single ha that spreads his smile across the rest of his face after all.

His fingers are still on Solas's neck. Beneath them, some relief spreads, more instinct than skill. Skin knits infinitesimally together. Pain would soothe, though he suspects it would feel like the difference of a few absent rain drops in a downpour. But while magic is magic, Felassan isn't a healer. Healing is, in fact, the exact opposite of what he was embodied to do. He'd do it slowly and poorly. It would scar more than it needs to. Solas need to do it, or someone better, so Felassan's hand withdraws, hovers uncertainly, and goes to his cheek instead. The one less scathed.

He sums up all of his medical opinions with, "You look like shit, harellan."

[goethbeforethefall]

"Would you not, truly?" He asks her, tender and wistful; he could go back, of course, to the bitter, broken man that he had been. But only if she abandoned him, which she would never do, "You are a poor liar, emma lath."

Felassan's magic washes against him, sharp prickles as his own retribution, but they are welcome too; a grounding unpleasantness. He had been trying to ignore it, and of course there was no sense in that at all.

"And you look very handsome in your new coat, ma'nehn," He replies, dry and droll. They are old hands at this, but the tenderness of Felassan's hand is still beautiful, and new. Solas tilts his cheek into it with gratitude, abruptly weary, "Despite all my mistakes, I would be grateful if only she has not taken the eye, in his final struggle. I have missed you."

And having them here, at last, it is so, so good, to be home.

[arlathvhen]

"I am a fantastic liar, when I wish to be." Her tone is still irritable, both from him causing her such worry, and for calling out her bluff. Because it is a lie, of course. But, even grouchy, she will concede to reassurance: "But I would. You've seen it yourself. I will forgive you, over and over again."

It is probably not something she would admit to many -- or any, really, but the two of them. And Felassan the only person in Thedas or Caldera who could possibly understand, who would not hear this and worry for her, or start up some kind of intervention. The same people who would start up an intervention for Felassan, she supposed. They could share an intervention, even. Hold hands during it.

"I thought he could use some extra clothes. I put the dresser next to ours." She didn't expect Solas to have any complaints about it, any more than Felassan had. He hadn't needed either the dresser or the clothes, but there are many things that neither need, and Beleth would see fit to give to them.

"We ought to take you to one of the healers." She reaches up to touch the mess of bruises and blood on his face -- the face she had expected to see, when she first came to Caldera. It feels almost odd, to see it now. "I'm sure Finnick will be around his inn. He'll be glad to know that you're safe and sound here."

[loosed]

Holding Beleth's hand while staring down an intervention attempt would be a pleasant evening, really. He could trot out his ancient and inscrutable creature of legend voice. Beleth should probably start practicing hers, too. It'd be fun. But in the absence of anyone foolish and meddlesome enough to attempt that, he can hold her hip here instead, endeavoring to be silently supportive of her right to complain even while he's also utterly unalarmed by her promise to forgive and forgive.

And he does look handsome, answers his raised chin and eyebrows, but his smile curls a little further than smug acceptable alone would have taken it, into pleased and successfully flirted with.

"I would have argued, but she's very good at this," Felassan says. He means picking out clothes. And preventing him from wanting to argue with her even if she weren't. And —

More important things. Like Solas's eye. Like being missed. Like the orb and the dagger unattended at the house, and the prospect of forcing Solas into a hot bath. But especially like Solas's eye, first. The Inn is a good idea, or the healers in the Salt Spire. In the meantime — speaking of holding hands — Felassan readjusts which hand is on which beloved elf to slide his hand over Beleth's, on the more wrecked side of Solas's face. His fingers lace with hers to keep her hand there, so it might as well be her magic, too, creating a chill like an icy compress against the swelling while they decide.

[goethbeforethefall]

Solas opens his mouth to speak, but the breath goes out of him in a sigh of relief. Joined, the coolness spreads over his sore face, and he bows before the inevitable: it is laughable, really, but they want to... to take care of him. He should be the strong one, of course, he should offer penance for his perceived abandonment, should do... something.

But instead, all Solas can do is offer a nod of agreement that turns into a bow, that itself turns into simply putting down his head against the nearest shoulder— Beleth's or Felassan's, he cannot tell, only that they are both here, and so near, and he is so, so tired.

"I am so tired," He says, stupidly, and cannot really even summon up the energy to despise himself for it, "But even had I the strength, I would not argue. I am glad."

Where would he have been, if not here? The Fade, surely, and all its energies ready to replenish his flagging strength. But perhaps even there he would sleep, finally, rest and while away long hours... Solas sighs, and only slowly, with great reluctance, lifts his head again.

"I owe Finnick Odair an explanation, I think, for the destruction of his lover. Let us go there, and speak with him, as you wish."

[arlathvhen]

Hand on Solas' face, Felassan's hand on hers, the feeling of Felassan's magic passing through her and into Solas -- it's almost as intimate as some of the other things the three of them have done as one, nearly enough to make Beleth start to get skittish about doing this in public. But not quite enough.

Then Solas speaks, his head bowed upon the two of them, and Beleth feels any embers of fury fade in the wake of Solas' admittance. And it is then that she decides that if she will not be an icon of righteous anger, than she will simply be bossy. Her shoulders square, as she looks from Felassan to Solas, her decision forming and solidifying in her mind.

"We're taking you home, first. Healing can be taxing, and your body is already overtaxed beyond what anyone would find acceptable. And I don't think you're in any state to have Finn interrogating you about Loki. And once we get you home, get the blood cleaned off, get the swelling down, the healers will have a better idea of what they're working with."

They are all a good list of reasons, well thought out, plenty of explanations for why her decision is the wisest. They do not list out one of the major reasons: That she wants Solas to have some time to decompress, that she wants some time with him and Felassan, alone -- not necessarily for anything physical, but to allow the three of them to simply be together, at home. Just for a little bit.

[loosed]

Another note for the not arguing because Beleth is very good at this file: Felassan nods at her pronouncement, satisfied with her reasons, and turns his head to not so much kiss Solas's temple as press his nose and mouth there for the length of one deep breath. Can he smell home on him? He imagines he can, at least, and he holds it in his lungs when he straightens up and takes gentle hold of Solas's arm to guide him and guard him from being knocked against on one side, leaving the other to Beleth. He'd offer to carry him if he weren't so damn tall.

The portal in the tavern takes them back to the busy streets of Grey Ward, where the sight of Solas's bloody face turns a few heads. They look at him and then several look beyond, as if expecting to see some new calamity roaring in on the heels of the last one after all, unaware the calamity happened somewhere very far away.

Felassan would like to know what happened, with Elgar'nan. With all of it. The details he's missing. If it happened as Beleth said it would. If being here first made any difference. If it could make a difference next time. But Solas is tired, and desires aside, Felassan has grown quite comfortable being out of the loop. Out of the loop is practically his natural habitat at this point. He can wait.

"Your things showed up, by the way," he says instead — dry, but gentler about it than he would be if Solas had turned up in finer form.

[goethbeforethefall]

It is the tenderness that breaks him, shutters his face and gives him a need for pause, to breath and regain control of himself. The pain is... nothing. Irrelevant, as it always is, an annoyance of the body that the mind must bear, or otherwise overcome.

Felassan supports him from one side, and Beleth from the other; theirs is an unstately parade, and he has cause to regret it when he sees the way people look to him. The fear in their eyes...

...No, no, he was meant to stop all this, was he not? It was not his responsibility to... to something. Felassan is interrupting his thoughts.

"My..." Things. his things? What thin— "The Orb. The Dagger."

He takes more of his own weight, then, vigor renewed by sudden panic. He had forgotten. In all of the chaos and battle, he had forgotten!

"Are they— is it... Safe? Did anything happen?"

[arlathvhen]

The attention from the passersby puts Beleth's teeth on edge, though she bares it as best she can. The only thing that calms her nerves is the knowledge that most of them are merely fearing that another horrible calamity has occurred. Once they know that they're not in danger, and Solas an isolated and unlucky incident (in as so far as they're concerned), their eyes slide past them. It does not entirely comfort, but it helps.

She contemplates asking him how the others looked. If Dorian was there, this time, and if Solas had managed to assure him that she's well, that he might pass it on to the others.

She wonders if any of them would even care.

Solas' own distress pulls her out of her spiraling thoughts, enough that she can't even bother to look annoyed at Felassan for inspiring the distress in the first place. Instead, she shifts, trying to keep him up against her, while trying to face him, hands grasping the hand that's around her.

"Peace, vhenan. Our home still stands, as does your tools. We had to ask Barcus to help us contain them. I pray that you aren't upset, but we weren't sure what to do, and they couldn't just stay on our dining room table. He has promised his utmost discretion, of course, and I can trust any Visitor in Caldera, it is him. But for now, they are safely stowed where they can't cause trouble, and you can examine them at your leisure, once you are well and whole."

And she had kept her trap shut about what he was planning in the first place, through the entire lengthy discussion. She will have to share that with him later, though.

[loosed]

Perhaps someone out to look annoyed with Felassan, because he doesn't look remotely annoyed with himself. Maybe a part of him is still an agent after all, or a general obliged to deliver reports on important developments to a commander no matter how fretfully he's already staring into the distance at the time, or just a friend whose willingness to promptly deliver bad news has historically included even bad news that would get him killed.

"Beleth needed to make tea," he adds to Beleth's comprehensive reassurances, to illustrate why they could not just be left alone. Her need to keep her hands busy when worried, her reflexive hospitality, her clever herbal answers to any number of problems — among the many little details that Felassan has grown fond of. "And I needed her to make me tea."

It's as close to an admission that he was worried as anyone is likely to extract from him in a crowded street, in daylight, when he has an objective. Even one so simple as get Solas home.

[goethbeforethefall]

He thinks he might object; in a moment, he will object, surely. The best and most sure security for those artifacts is secrecy, that must be true. To have exposed them to even so few... the rumors would...

Beleth needed to make tea

Against his will, a smile touches his lips, and Solas sways another few steps forward, silent between them. The way is long, and mastering the urge to hysteria, here at the end of his considerable rope, is the work of several minutes. By then, he's given it up— Beleth is right, of course, as she had always been before. That they had trusted friends to help them in this crisis was good. Had to be good.

He hoped they would not have cause to grieve that choice. But it was not his to decide; very little was, anymore.

"Ir abelas," He says, not sure how far they are from the house, and wishing this interminable march were over. Solas knows he is becoming a burden, every step more clumsy as the agony finally begins to supercede his failing consciousness, and the Fade beckons ever more enticingly, "I am fine. I can—"

The ground seems to leap up at him of its own accord, like an eager dog: Solas tries to lunge back away from it, pure startled reflex, but he is already falling, vision strangely grey. He staggers, dragging against Felassan as his legs rebel against all the good intentions of his mind. Solas shakes his head, trying to clear the confusion, but it only worsens the effect.

And then, with all the helpless grace of a maimed deer, he simply folds up, and is pulled limp into confused and pain-lanced dreaming.

[arlathvhen]

The laugh at Felassan's assertions of her needing to make tea, of Felassan needing tea, was drier than most of the others he's drawn from her. It was funny, yes, but it was also true. She recalled standing there, in her kitchen, the object that had utterly transformed her life and her body sitting on her table, and all she'd wanted to do was start making tea.

She doesn't relay this, of course. Not with Solas already apologizing, and sounding weary enough for all three of them. His weight is growing heavier on her shoulders, and just as she's starting to worry that she might not be able to bear it, Solas slumps like a puppet with his strings cut, and Beleth has to struggle to not fall right with him.

It is only through the aid of Felassan on his other side that Beleth can steady herself, strengthening her stance and helping to shoulder her poor, exhausted Vhenan's dead weight. Mentally, she kicks herself, once and then a few times more, for her part in this plan. She should have begged Finn come to the tavern, and let Solas rest. She should have taken him somewhere closer to rest. She should have --

But that will accomplish nothing. Expression grim but determined, it is with Felassan's help that the two of them get Solas to the nearest bench (or any large and flat enough surface to become a temporary bench). "We can't carry him home." Is the obvious statement to make, but she makes it anyway. "I can see if there's anyone with a cart willing to give us a ride. Can you... see if he's okay?"

Through the Fade. Like they'd tried to do before. But this time, Solas is right there, and he must be in the Fade of Caldera. It's with that thought that she leaves, off to use as much charm, bribery, and any other means to secure the ability to aid her ailing beloved.

[loosed]

Felassan is considering the mechanics of how they could carry him home, actually, when Beleth has the better idea. He nods. It feels strange for Beleth to go and him to stay, but Felassan doesn't protest.

He kneels beside the bench, and his first instinct for seeing if Solas is okay (for a given definition) is not to try to reach him in the Fade. It's to feel his pulse, to press an ear to his chest to listen for wetness or rattling in his breathing, to check his limbs for the kind of swelling that might impede circulation, to take a second inventory the bruises on his head to see if any might be to blame. It's only after all of that that he tries closing his eyes.

It is not easy. Every noise in the street threatens to pull him back into his body, and every third or fourth noise succeeds, so that he is less sinking into the Fade and more porpoising across its surface, dipping in for fractured glimpses. He opens his eyes again entirely when he feels a strange breeze on his face, but it's only a hunched little woman from a nearby market stall who's come over to try fanning Solas's face with her apron, as if he might have swooned in the late Spring heat.

She has to know that isn't the heat, given the state of him. Her smile at Felassan when he looks at her is thin and a little helpless — but she is trying to help. That makes it easier for Felassan to shut his eyes again and dive deeper.

[goethbeforethefall]

Solas' breathing, slow as it is, does indeed crackle— his ribs are more than bruised, and even in unconsciousness his expression is pinched. More pinched than it was awake, at least, where self-control better let him hide the strain, until it at last overwhelmed him. He doesn't wake either, not for Felassan's manipulations, nor the noise of street and passerby, but his mind is as obvious a presence in the Fade as ever, particularly so near.

The dream is a red, pain-mazed nightmare. Solas is slumped on the stairs of a strange, impossible tower, under a perpetual solar eclipse. His head is bowed in weariness, dressed no differently than in the physical world, except that the blood is more. Nearby, the corpse of Elgar'nan, of Lusacan's enormous golden bulk, and of the enormous lupine bulk of Fen'harel, Solas' own wolf-form, with one of its brilliant eyes gouged out, weeping blood and fluid across the flagstones. Everywhere, the Blight curdles the air with its coppery, sour smell, thorny vines moving silently under the red-dark sky, as if dancing to an unheard song.

A dream of pain, of failure, and death. A dream of dying alone.

Solas, raises his head as Felassan approaches, looking nearly as tired as he feels, and offers a helpless little laugh at the sight of him. How strange, and how impossible to see him here, of all places! How oddly fitting.

"I am too... drained, to control the Fade," he admits, without preamble. For a moment, Vallaslin crawl across Solas' face, vivid green filigree— and then are gone again. He grimaces, and drops his face back down, pressed into one palm, and the knuckles of his left fist, "Ir abelas, Falon. I had hoped not to worry you."

[loosed]

Incongruously clean and whole in the center of this nightmare, Felassan answers distantly, "I've always preferred it when you do."

When the alternative was lying, evading, doing things alone and feeling that he had to, at least, rather than just not doing the worrying thing at all. If it were a good idea, he'd have told me —

There may not be much time before Beleth's welcome return with a clattering cart or some well-intentioned stranger's less welcome questioning hand on his shoulder pulls him away. So Felassan won't waste it. Not even for the opportunity to go kick the dream of Elgar'nan's crumpled body in the face. But he looks, as he crosses the flagstones, padding barefoot through blood and blight without tracking any of it out of place. A strange blend of hope and horror: the last of the Evanuris dead, and the world looking as wrecked as it would have been if they'd been left unfettered in the first place. Solas alive but fading, servitude still flickering over the face of this manifested understanding of himself here at this imagined end.

Felassan passes close enough to the enormous wolf to reach for the top of his lifeless head, and in the next breath he's on the stairs and it's the elf's head beneath his hand, instead, less lifeless but no less bloody.

Whether it's within his control or not, this is Solas's dream, rooted in his strength, and Felassan can only do so much to push back against it. Little things: plant life sprouts from the gaps between the stones on the stairs around them, branching and flowering, taken straight from the garden Beleth has cultivated in the courtyard. They look wrong, in the red haze, but they don't blacken and die. The fountain is not there, but the sound of it is, the sense of cool water close by, and a faint breeze that feels much like being fanned by an old woman's apron doesn't touch anything but them.

Felassan doesn't know if any of this can take strong enough root in Solas's thoughts to last after he leaves. But he's trying.

"We're taking you home," he says, fingers careful as they trace from the back of his bowed head to the back of his neck. "I can't stay, but you will only be here for a little while longer."

He looks back at the bodies. This can't be what happened — he refuses to entertain the possibility, even as it's pressing against the locked door with a hundred what ifs in hand — but the details are too steady to be rendered from nothing real at all. At least Beleth isn't lying dead with the others. Perhaps this is the dream where she lost faith. Felassan hopes so, if only because it makes it that much more impossible that this is how things might have really ended.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

It wouldn't have made a difference, except perhaps to the number of dead littering the ground of this dream, but he still is anyway.

[goethbeforethefall]

"I am sorry for denying you the chance to be," He replies, weak-voiced and low, accepting the fault like a blow, if a gentle one, "You would have enjoyed it, seeing him die. After so long."

Or, perhaps, Felassan would not have. Perhaps he would have been with Solas, trapped in the prison of regret that he had built to house the Evanuris. Or perhaps he would have been in Orlais, in the South, with Beleth, protecting her back, or seeking to look after his precious Briala.

There were so many more worthy places for him to put his loyalty, after all. Why he remained at Solas' side, after all that had happened, occasionally mystified even Solas.

"Home," He says, at first confused by the idea. He had no birthplace, no homeland, no childhood places, of course. Skyhold swims briefly into his mind, and the garden Felassan is trying to will into being takes on a breath of Royal Elfroot, a stunted tree; was that masonry always in the shape of Andraste?

But then he remembers another garden, the coolness of the fountain, the walls low and humble, tree-pierced stone and plaster.

"Home," Solas repeats, a little stronger, and with terrible hunger, "Yes. I want to be there."

The grass is indeed lush, now, a strange patch of Beleth's herb-garden coming up to strangle the Blight in an impossible reversal. Solas puts his right hand down into the cool green of it and sighs at the tenderness of Felassan's hand against his scalp and neck. It is good, so good, to simply slump over for a moment, and give in to the idle, animal pressures: pain, and weariness, and the simple, soothing pleasure of touch.

"I will be well enough here, emma nehn. I trust you. I will tell you everything, when there is time."

[arlathvhen]

While she trusts Felassan to check in on Solas in the realm his consciousness must be within, Beleth sets out to try to solve their practical problem. With judicious application of big sad eyes, a tale of her lover having been assaulted by a mysterious villain, and some bones to smooth out everything else, she locates a farmer and son who were heading to the village their house rests near, a cart of hay for their livestock in tow. From there, she acquires their agreement to go out of their way to drop the three off at their house, with recommendations for a family member who they claim could heal the ugly off a toad, besides.

Her two beloved are where she'd left them -- she'd worried a little, but Caldera is a safe enough place (when it isn't being assaulted by earthquakes and volcanoes and everything else), and Felassan was capable of looking out for anything. Still. She's a little relieved to see them there, resting together. It will be even better when Solas is hale, and his rest is peaceful. In the meantime, as soon as the farmer and his son clasp eyes upon Solas, they take no convincing to haul him up (she would prefer more gentleness, but if it's good enough for their sheep and goats, it'll do for him, she supposes) and deposit him in the back of the cart.

Which leaves one left. She politely demurs when they offer a similar treatment for Felassan, and instead moves to his front, and begins pressing gentle kisses to his forehead, then his cheek, and finally, one to his lips. And maybe another one, just to make sure that he's awake.

"Ma'atisha, it is done. Let's take our wayward wolf home."

The words felt delicious on her tongue, a treat she'd been waiting far too long for.

[loosed]

Felassan is not truly asleep. He hears her, the cart wheels and the grunts and movements of the farmer and his son, as if from somewhere far away. He feels the moment Solas is pulled away from beneath his hand. And he feels her mouth on his forehead. Under nearly any other circumstances that would be enough to draw his full awareness back into his body right away.

Under these circumstances, he resists. Not for long: he doesn't want to leave Solas here alone, but he also doesn't want him to be here at all, and permitting the first is a necessary step toward fixing the second. So he's efficient in unclasping the familiar cloak the Fade has woven for him — his home, in a sense, bed and blanket and protection against prying eyes in the many years since he belonged any place in particular — and furling it around Solas's shoulders. He drops to one knee to straighten it, and to lift Solas's head with a palm against his jaw to brush a feather-light kiss to his bruised and bloody brow.

"It won't be long," he reiterates, and when he lets go of the Fade he opens his eyes to Beleth kissing his mouth.

Situation aside, that's definitely one of the best returns to physical reality he's had in quite a while. The corners of his eyes pinch with a smile, instantly, even though something troubled lingers in his expression as he rises from his knees to join her and Solas's unconscious form in the cart. He settles with his hand on the crest of Solas's head, fingertips stroking where his skin is clear of bruising.

To Beleth he says quietly, "It was a lonely dream," but when the farmer's boy looks back in curiosity, all his instincts for bright and friendly obfuscation kick in, however unnecessary it might be here. He spends the rest of the ride leaning ahead so he can talk to them, embellishing Beleth's tale of assault with utter nonsense and learning more than he'd ever intended to know about Calderan sheep, building the conversation like a wall around whatever vulnerability these strangers might see — his, or Beleth's, or Solas's — if they turned back to look.

For much the same reasons, he insists when they arrive that they'll be able to get Solas into the house themselves. And they can, with Felassan holding him beneath the arms and Beleth seeing to his legs and to navigation around the doors and furniture.

He doesn't wait until they've lain him down to ask, "You were with him at the end, weren't you?"

[arlathvhen]

Beleth is, as usual, incredibly grateful to Felassan, this time for the distraction he provides while they're being taken home. She chimes in occasionally, when she sees fit, but is otherwise content to rest Solas' head, Felassan's hand with it, on her lap, fishing a handkerchief out of her pocket, and trying to wash off some of the blood, sweat, and grime he'd brought to Caldera from Thedas.

A lonely dream is what Felassan had said. It sounds horrible -- she wishes she hadn't had to pull Felassan out of it. But they'll be home soon, and hopefully, Solas will never have to have a lonely anything once all was settled. Then they arrive at home, extract Solas from the farmer's cart, and a promise for this local healer from the farmer. It is not too onerous a task to carry Solas into the bedroom, and it is a delight to see him where he belongs, tucked safe and sound in their bed.

"Yes," Her voice is low as she watches Solas, then turns, heading towards the kitchen. He'll be hungry, and thirsty, and need something gentle and soothing for both. "I was there. I was taken to Caldera when I stepped through the rift into the Fade -- though Solas was somehow taken before that. But it seems that he has caught up, now, for he looks how last I remember him, when we were in Thedas. When I swore to follow him through whatever dire situations unfolded. I wonder..."

Did he remember their time together, when he saw her there? When she begged him to turn his plan aside? When they kissed, for what was to her the first time in many years. "...I wonder what he remembered. But I suppose we can ask, when next he rises."

[loosed]

Felassan follows her across the bedroom with no intention of following her out of it, as if he is holding both of them with string, stretching both strands to stay as near to both of them as he can manage before the reality of being unable and unwilling to leave Solas alone like this, helpless if something tilts wrong in the delicate systems of breath and blood and brain, forces him to let go of one.

She wonders what he remembered, and for a moment Felassan feels the sort of terror that's been missing whenever he considers the oblivion that could be waiting for him if their visions are bullshit and their efforts are pointless. All his dreams of a better plan had failed to even consider the possibility that anyone might not remember all of this, but how else to iron out the wrinkles their disparate timelines could form?

It's only a flicker on his face and a sharp inhale, no louder than a sniff, before he reins it in. It's fine. If he can't go with them, in the end, it may even be better: a bit of melancholy hanging over what remains of their time in Caldera in exchange for an eternity of his memory troubling Solas less, perhaps, and Beleth not at all. He can make himself fine with that. If need be. They can't know until Solas wakes, and it won't be anywhere close to the most important thing to worry about until he's back on his feet.

"Yes," he says, very fine, as he stops in the doorway and lets her go on across the garden without him, to — he doesn't know. Something useful, he assumes, so he tries to keep up by busying himself gathering towels and water until she returns.

[goethbeforethefall]

Solas, for his part, does very little, and none of it with fanfare: he breathes, and continues to bleed sluggishly under the rapidly-drying scabs, and dreams. Felassan's magic sinks into him with all the anticlimax of a bucketful of water going into the ocean, with as much visible effect.

Eventually, at the door there is a quavering halloo?

The healer called in by the farmer's decry is an old man, with a face as dark and wizened as a peachstone, and a trim, neatly-kept beard, dressed all in blue. He has brilliant yellow leaves growing from his hair, which is precisely the same color as his skin, and brings with him a tall and narrow youth of similar appearance, save that his leaves are green and his robes are grey.

'This is my apprentice,' he tells them, indicating the carefully-borne case of supplies the boy carries in both arms, 'Please, take me to the patient.'

And so it goes; in short order, the man is crouched over Solas' side of the bed, muttering and layering healing magics over his prone form. Almost immediately his breathing deepens, and eases in tenor. Still casting, the old man offers his assistant a significant glance, and the boy nods crisply, then bends close and places his hands on his mentor's shoulders, themselves glowing in some form of transfer-of-strength.

'If you would, please,' The youth says, after a moment, 'My master and I would be much fortified by a dose of honey, have you any to spare?'

...Though as soon as someone goes to fetch that, the boy bends to murmur something close to the ancient's ear. Low and sharp-tongued, it's difficult to catch, but... Were one to be clever, or peculiarly sharp-eared, they might hear him say, Grandfather, the Visitors are favored, and this will be slow. Would it not be more correct to simply permit him die and be healed by the Lady? This cannot be right, to cause him to suffer for so long...

At a somewhat less circumspect volume, the elder answers, 'We are here to do the work we are given, apprentice. Not to ease pains unasked-for.'

'Master, it would such a simple thing.'

'As you say. But the Visitors are favored, was that not correct?'

'...Yes, but Master—'

'It is a gamble, then. Hush. Go now: I will finish here alone.'

'Yes, Grandfather.'

[arlathvhen]

Felassan had assured her that he would be the one to fetch the next thing, when it needed fetching, and Beleth had little choice but to allow it, when he meanders off in search of the requested honey. It does not occur to her to find it suspicious -- idly she wonders if honey given back to a plant that isn't attached to a person would restore it, as well. It's as she contemplates this that she hears the whispers, an ear twitching as she first tries not to eavesdrop.

This lasts all of a few words, until she realizes what the apprentice is insinuating, and her eyes slowly rise from Solas' prone form, to stare at the younger man with a wide eyed look of pure anger, that would be terrifying if the youth saw it.

By the time he's moving to slip past her, Beleth has reigned in her face to not scream about violence and murder on sight, and instead looks far, far too composed -- a look that others would know is only hiding the feelings from before. She reaches out to gently touch the apprentice's elbow, causing him to stop and look up at her, confused.

"I will give you advice, as my thanks for your aid. You are blessed, in that I am the one that overheard, and not another," Like Felassan, who will likely be returning soon, which means Beleth will have to keep this quick, "who might not be so kind. You should be careful about suggesting that you let Visitors die in front of other Visitors. Someone else might take issue, and what will you do, then?" She leans in, purple eyes lighting up in the dimness of the bedroom, the look in her eyes unmistakable as anything but the threat it is.

"After all, we are favored. And you. Are. Not." There is much that she leaves unsaid, but surely he will understand it, as his eyes widen and he scurries out of the room, looking substantially more frightened than his first attempt at leaving. He just brushes past Felassan, with Beleth watching his retreat, looking what one could consider composed, if you looked past the tension that radiated from her.