lostcarnival | ⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

Entry tags:

⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

Who: Everyone!
When: Winter Breaks: Day 6 - Day 25
Where: THE MOON
What: The carnival journeys to one of its moons to celebrate the Lunar Solstice. More information here.
Warnings: Winter fun.

MOON WALKING↴

The journey to the moon only takes a blink of an eye, but it leaves the carnival far away beneath you. The second moon can be seen on the peripheral, massive compared to its usual view. At least when the holidays start out, there will be no notable wildlife on the moon, though this is something you can talk to the Ringmaster about if you think it needs a change. It sounds like this is the first time she's used it in quite a while - it probably needs some dusting off!

Claim your cabins, and proceed to... well, do whatever you want! There is no rush and little obligation, besides to enjoy yourself. For real, this time. She promises there will be no vampires. Or, at least, none that don't already work for the carnival.

► CABINS: Living arrangements are character choice for this event, and there are a variety of cabins of various sizes, mostly built to house 2-6 people, though you can fit more in if you squish. They are all made of wood and of a rustic design - no fancy modern furniture, here! Each building is housed with a fireplace and the needed amenities. You can pick up materials to cook with the private kitchens if you like. Theoretically, you could spend the whole holiday sequestered away, watching the snow fall. Some of them also have outdoor hot tubs available!

► ACTIVITIES: Activities are mostly going to be character driven, though there will be some large group games like bingo and maybe a poker tournament happening at some point in one of the festival halls. Otherwise, there is a lot to offer: skiing, snowboarding, hiking, ice sculpting, snowball fights - it goes on! If you'd like to run a winter activity, just let the mods know, and we will get the word out there for you.

► FEASTING: Every day isn't a full-out feast because that would get a bit unhealthy, but there will be a number of specific feast events over the holidays where everyone is encouraged to let out their inner hedonist and stuff themselves. There will be one big feast per week, with smaller but also delicious meals offered in between. The feast dates will be B12, B18, and B24. There's also plenty of alcohol available for anyone who wants it.

► SHOPPING: As mentioned in the planning post, there is a massive market being run by the World Walker Caravan! The Ringmaster has given everyone 1250 credits to spend on items, but there is a caveat - must spend at least 500 of those credits on gifts for other people. And it better be a good one, if you only buy one! (She will ask that you do not buy her presents, however. She appreciates the sentiment, but it seems sort of silly buying her things with her own money! If you'd like to gift her, please have it be something more personal or handmade, but you are not obligated to get her anything at all.)

► TREATMENTS: The beginning of the holidays will also be about the time that the emergency Medical Team will have finalized their treatments for the Prince's poisoning. Watch out for further information on that - and make sure to get treated if you are suffering from petrification or poison induced illness! The holidays will be a lot more fun that way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If only her gods weren't false, she could have someone to blame. If only she could yell at him and beat her fists against his chest while she tells him she wishes Fen'harel would take him. But every aspect of her faith rings hollow, and the stories of the Dread Wolf simply ironic when faced with the subject of them. As it is, they only have themselves to blame.

Lavellan huffs a laugh at that, shaking her head as she keeps her strides even with Solas's. "I think the only thing she found amusing about the image was the idea of how undignified you must have looked. Although I am curious -- did you ever piss it? The fact you had to stop and think about it is troubling, you understand." She can't help but be amused by it all, and it must have happened during the youth he is so careful to distance himself from. As if he needed to -- that was no doubt thousands of years ago.

He waves off her amusement. "A year and a day is not enough time to tell the sordid stories of my youth." Which isn't a real answer. There was much he had done when he was younger, of all kinds of foolish and arrogant. They were stories he would consider sharing over a drink to pass the time here, depending on the company. Normally she would be that company, but--

"We have to face each other when we return," he says and watches her out of the corner of his eyes. Was it truly wise for them to behave so friendly? Exchange stories as if nothing else mattered?

"Enough to make a fair start," she counters, but it's his second statement that causes her to sober, amusement flooding from her face. He's right, of course. They will have to face each other one day. Sooner, with their contracts, rather than later. Lavellan falls silent, focusing on her steps in the snow even as her face betrays the way her heart twists -- emotions flickering across it as soon as they register.

Eventually she speaks again -- from the heart, as she always has done. "You act as if that can be made more difficult than it already is, Solas. Believe me when I tell you it cannot, for what more is there for you to do?" He is already going to destroy the world, and she will have to stop him or die trying. Whatever fleeting moments of casual encounters they have here won't change that.

"The way matters were between us cannot return to how they were before when--" When they were in the Inquisition together. When he had let himself slip and fallen for her. Fighting her would be tearing into his heart, but it was necessary. The only end he saw for this was the death of one of them and with their contracts...

He doesn't bother finishing his sentence. Instead, he focuses on the sound of the snow as he walks softly and keeps his head held high. For all the sins that he held, he would not let himself be stopped so easily.

It would be easy to say when we were in love and attempt to throw their affection into the past. But she remembers his lips on her's as he took her arm, the way he told her than he wished their love could endure this, that he would never forget her. It's one wound after another to her heart, but Lavellan doesn't bend at each one -- she stands straight, walking side by side, as proud as he.

"I should hope that you have no more plans to lie to me," she says, waving her hand and purposefully missing the point. But she can't avoid it forever, and it's several seconds later that Lavellan speaks again. "Rest assured, Solas, I hadn't thought they would." That would be impossible. They were different people now than they were then, and yet the more she spends around him the more she remembers the depths of her feelings, how much she'd loved him. Still did.

This was to be her curse, then. To attempt to kill him, or be killed by him; Lavellan's no fool -- she knows how this will end.

He wished there love could be more. That he could simply come to terms with what he had done. The damage the Veil had done was great already and he couldn't allow it to remain. Young and hot-headed, the only option he had seen at the time was to lock the Evanuris away and keep their power at bay. That the People needed to be free, a chance to live far from under the brutality of the Evanuris.

It had all crumbled. He hadn't been there to aid in rebuilding, to stop the chaos and panic that quickly spread after the Veil was put up. He slept through it all, too weak to do more than that with his power expended. When he sees her, that sorrow returns to him full force. She would be added to the death toll by his hand before he could be succeeded or she would overcome him to do the same.

"There is no reason to lie now." He would simply refuse to answer what he chose to instead. It was simpler that way than dancing around the truth. "What are you hoping for? Are you seeking to change my mind?"

"I will try and change your mind with every breath I have, until I've no more to spend." He should expect that from her, and she turns to him -- eyes wide and defiant. They know where this will end, how this will end. Someone will have blood on their hands, and Lavellan can only hope it is her's. Solas already has the death of one culture staining his; she'd have him keep from doing it again. Not just for him, but for Thedas.

As for what she's hoping for, Lavellan shrugs. Perhaps the truth would be more convincing than tiptoeing around the matter at hand. "I've missed you, Solas." She says, shoving her hand into a pocket as she walks -- looking away from him and back at the world around them. "It seems you don't have a monopoly on self-sabotage after all." The pain in her chest is worth it just to see him again, just to hear his voice, to talk.

Unsustainable, yes, but for now -- it's been two years, two years and a conversation which took her world from her. And she hates how much she craves even the most basic of conversations with him while knowing she shouldn't.

"I know you will." It was a determination he saw in her from the beginning when they first met. That same ferocity with which she met all her challenges as Inquisitor. It was what had drawn him to her and it would be his downfall if he let it. It was all he could do to keep his gaze from her and he lets out a soft sigh.

"As have I," he admits. If the lies were over between them then he should say that much. That he wished their love could endure, could be enough for him to be satisfied and stray from his path, that had been true too. But... He walked a path of death willingly and wished far more that he had not brought her into it. "It is fitting that we meet in the snow once more."

Though this place was far different than the snowy trails by the Conclave. Everything was different here removed from Thedas. That was what they both had to be wary of.

If he missed her, why did he leave? Lavellan knows the answers as well as anyone, knows that whatever he says will not ease the ache of her heart, the way he took everything out from under her the third time he left. Solas has always loved his causes, that has never been something she's doubted; it's just a shame this final one is one she cannot let him have. Cannot let him succeed. Letting Thedas burn to ease his guilt and bring back magic -- she would want both those things, but not at this cost. As if Solas can stand to pay it once more.

But they both know this, and speaking of it more will only walk them around in circles. "Fitting indeed. It never snowed much up by the Waking Sea and Wycombe; just a thin layer of it when it did that melted by midday." And she doubts, if Arlathan was ever near the forest, that it would have been something Solas saw often in his younger years. Then again, Skyhold was his at some point.

A smaller smile, and a shake of her head -- tinged with sadness. "Haven's snow always had the ability to make things look new overnight, before we all kicked up the mud and the dirt underneath." A luxury not afforded to them here, she knew. There would be no fresh start for them.

He traveled enough to become familiar with it. Ice had always been an element he had an affinity for, the one he developed a proficiency with first along with healing. The latter benefitted greatly from his friendship and knowledge of spirits.

"It was deceptive that way," he remarks. "No matter how new it appeared, it always held the same beneath." Much like he had with her. Nothing would change who he truly was. That he was not Solas, but Fen'harel. What would the legends say of him this time, if he failed? Not that it would matter at that point, he had heard more than enough of what the legends had to say about him.

He watches her curiously for a moment before asking, "If you had your wish, where would you return to in Thedas?"

Lavellan decides to do away with the metaphors, frowning. "You were Solas first," she reminds him with a pointed, piercing look. "None of what you did changes that. Fen'harel is still Solas." Does he think she wishes to separate the two? Never. The man who locked away her gods, who betrayed them, who doomed the People -- he is still the same man who kissed her with tongue during their first kiss. They are not irreconcilable; she thinks she'd be doing him a poor favor if she tried to pretend they were two separate men.

"Can you not answer that yourself?" Wherever he would be. Her expression turns sad, the corners of her mouth twisting up, but painfully so. He runs from her in her dreams, and this time she will hunt him down if she must. But she shrugs, knowing that's not an answer he wants to hear. After all, there's still one place in Thedas that she can go. "If that is out of the question, Skyhold."

He shakes his head. That was a question he could answer though he could hardly believe that was truly a choice she would make. Who would want to be beside him with the path he walked? She could not sway him easily if that was what she hoped. Staying by him would ruin her further and he would not have her dragged down with him. This was his burden to bear, as Fen'harel and Solas.

"You would return there after all that has happened? You may find that more difficult to achieve now." Now that many were reminded of Skyhold's existence. She was less likely to find it uninhabited with the Inquisition disbanded despite the fortress' being located out of the way. "What of your clan?"

Her clan. That had been all that she wanted to do, as he knew -- return to them. Go back to being First, to eventually lead them as Keeper. Lavellan had strove to keep her grip upon what it meant to be Dalish throughout her time as Inquisitor, had brightly used her Dalishness to distress and disarm those who wanted her to do what they wished.

Lavellan doesn't look at him as she answers. "I have not seen my clan since I left for the Conclave. That is unlikely to change." For she knows the truth now -- she can never go back. "Skyhold is mine," she says, sure of that at least. "It was a gift; I should hardly wish to waste it."

And she will use it to stage her resistance against him now that he has left her no choice.

He nods. That was her choice if she wanted to stay apart from her clan. Returning to them with what she knew now, the truth of their so-called Creators and legends was an unexpected burden for her. It was something he had almost told her when spoke the truth of her vallaslin, of what it had meant in his time.

"I would never take it from you." He wouldn't, at least. That he could promise. Others... That would be another battle she may have to face, if Ferelden and Orlais saw the resistance she was building as a threat to them. He would be facing much the same, but held no allegiance to any of them.

Curiosity has him ask his next question though he does not expect a real answer, "What will you do if they seek you out?"

"You'd meet resistance if you tried," she says, imagining the fortress as if she was still standing on her balcony -- overlooking the garden and the courtyard. "I won't let it go easily." And while his magic outclassed her's now, Lavellan knows she could still take on most of his forces. At least she wouldn't have to.

Not yet, at any rate.

If he didn't expect a real answer, he'll be surprised to get one. "I don't know." Her hand comes up to trace the lines of vallaslin on her face, sorrow etched into the gesture. "Tell them I can't return, although I think Keeper Deshanna knows that already." An amused snort comes from her -- the sort of dry, resigned snort that comes from those seeing to use humor as their only way to cope. "It's a lot to write in a letter. Can't return to clan, hunting down the Dread Wolf. I think I'll do you the favor of leaving out ways to improve the myths."

He waves off the notion. He won't need to come to her, to her fortified defenses in Skyhold that he knew all too well. With his plans, she would be the one searching for him. No doubt she knows that too. She could have the fortress and he would continue with his own resistance that grew in numbers every day.

"I doubt they would believe you if you told them," he says. Whether about the Dread Wolf or ways to improve their myths. He long since learned that the Dalish preferred their ways to the truth. "I would have thought you would want to visit them, if only to deliver the message in person."

"If I started it like that, I'm certain of it." And no one would take her seriously if she told them of Fen'harel in the first place, of how she knew him as just another man. That he was just another man; forced into legend by circumstance rather than choice. And that she'd loved him, and he loved her, and then he'd dedicated himself to his cause and sacrificed everything for it. Pointless. Useless.

In fairness to him, she should have visited them to deliver it in person. It would have been the proper way to go about it. But-- "Facing them again, after everything, would be--" Difficult. She is only Dalish in name, in the tattoos still on her face.

No, he can't blame her. Facing her clan would be similar to the countless times he had spoken with Dalish in the Fade trying to convince them of the truth. It was what had helped spur on the legends of Fen'harel's lies, of what encouraged his poor opinion of the Dalish to start with before he met them physically and it grew worse.

But she was here, Dalish as ever, and he studies the lines of her vallaslin for a quiet moment.

"Do you regret your decision?" he asks before quickly elaborate with a gesture to her face, "To keep them?"

Once she would have stood as proud opposition to his decree that the Dalish were beyond helping. Had she not listened? Had she not learned, and yet still been Dalish? But it hadn't mattered in the end, because they had been wrong. And not just about the source of the vallaslin, but about everything. About Arlathan, about the Evanuris, about the Dread Wolf. Returning to her clan is out of the question now, because she cannot be First. Cannot keep a culture and a history that is wrong.

And she is nothing apart from that. Nothing at all.

His question startles her out of her thoughts. She cannot look at herself in the mirror anymore, not without be reminded of how wrong she was, how wrong they were, how everything is a lie, and how there is nothing now supporting her. Not Inquisitor, not First, not even Dalish anymore; her reflection mocks her. "Not when I remember how you offered. What sort of gift was it supposed to be, Solas? 'I love you, let me tell you how your people were wrong'." And it would have been shameful to show up at Skyhold barefaced and heartbroken. She's glad she'd been saved from that embarrassment, at least.

The fact that she might now regret it, however, goes unsaid.

Edited 2017-12-18 18:07 (UTC)

What thoughts had he pried her away from? There was much about her that he admired and wondered about. That she carried herself tall and proud despite all that had befallen her by chance was admirable. He regretted how he had ended their relationship. It should never have come to be, he had known better and despite it had continued anyway. That it came to a point where he could bear the lie no longer was when he had told her that much.

If that was how she saw it, it was no wonder she had refused. Remained firm in her beliefs of the Dalish. Had that changed with all else she had seen?

"It was all I could offer. It stands, even now," he says softly. The magic to remove the vallaslin was simple enough, if she chose to.

"You could have told me the truth," and she cannot help the bitter way it comes out, the snap of her words in the cold air. It isn't fair to hold him to what she wished to have been, for everything has been said and done and they are simply left with this. Pain and hurt and a love she cannot rid herself of; she has surely done something wrong to be punished so.

Or so she'd think, if her gods weren't false. But there are no gods, not for the People and not for the shemlen either. Their Maker is no doubt as false as her gods. The offer takes her by surprise, and she's silent for a moment, considering it.

The wound is too fresh, she decides. "Maybe in time, Solas." When she can accept it not through bitterness, not through resentment of the lie she's lived. But as something she's certain she wants. "I suppose it would only be continuing a grand tradition, if the murals in your sanctuary are anything to go by."

"If I had been a braver man." No, cowardice had won out that day and she has ever right to feel bitter about how it had happened. There is nothing he can do to change that part of his past now. Nothing can be unsaid and he had meant his words that night even if they were not all he had wanted to say.

There's a slight nod at the mention of the murals. "Removing the markings represented freedom. A choice that they could make when it had been robbed of them before," he supplies. The markings on their faces had not been made by choice, like the Dalish did.

"As you said, they mean something different to you now." Even if he thought it wrong.

The snort that escapes her is short, and still bitter. "I would have had you trust me," and this time the words are not said with as much anger as they had been during their final confrontation. "Allowed me to make my own decision, instead of taking it from me." And how could he have even done so, when he values the right to choose? Except for when he knows best, Lavellan supposes.

But this is an old wound. She has more that are fresher, like the tattoos on her face.

"The reminders of how wrong the Dalish were," she responds, unable to clear the bitterness from her voice. Or the fact that she, for a moment, does not include herself in with Dalish. "No wonder you hated it -- you must have considered it a personal insult, the way they're proudly worn now." Egotistical of him, this proud, broken man. It would be all too easy to vent herself at him, to attempt to beat her fists against his chest. But Lavellan considers herself an adult, and therefore must act like it.

"It would have been a risk to everything I wanted to do then." Something she must know. If he had told her when the temptation had struck him, when his heart had been swayed--

Well. There was a small chance they would not be having this conversation, for one reason or another. He had robbed her of the right to choose by withholding information from her, but he had no other choice if he wanted to continue on his path. After all his mistakes, this was the one matter he would not fail on.

He shakes his head. "I learned long ago the Dalish were disinterested in learning the truth. They were too comfortable wrapped in what little they held."

A risk. She knows now what he meant by their relationship being selfish now -- it was an indulgence he never meant to partake in, one that could have gone nowhere. And yet he'd encouraged it, fell into it just as she had. That, too, makes anger well up inside of her; but it's aimless. If she had listened, if she had accepted all of his warnings, they wouldn't be here either. "Perhaps you should have taken it as a sign." That there was something of value in Thedas, that he need not continue-- "If telling the truth could risk it all, does that make the cause you fought for worth it?"

She knows what his answer will be.

Lavellan sighs, and shakes her head. "I thought I proved to you years ago that not all Dalish are the same." Or was her eagerness to learn, her dedication to the truth, and her acceptance of what he says just pointless and inconsequential to him?

⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

pretend these icons have vallaslin b/c i'm lazy

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)