lostcarnival | ⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

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⇨ 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.

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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?

He shakes his head. She didn't know what was lost. How painful it was to look at what the People had become and know that he had been the catalyst to it all. That was his burden to bear and no matter what else he saw, nothing would change that. He had to undo what he could, see what could be rebuilt in the ashes and death he'd create. The cost would be great, but he had to try.

And facing her, in the end, would tear him apart.

"No, you proved that you are different. I have met no others that have rivaled you." In her eagerness to learn or acceptance of the harsh truths that their history held.

As if the ruins, the remains of the library, weren't enough to convey the scope of what they'd lost. Selfish of him, Lavellan thinks, to assume that only he has known loss; all of Thedas has suffered in some way, more recent than the moment the Veil went up. But their strength was not dwelling in the past but in accepting, in moving forward, surviving.

She huffs, shaking her head at him. "I am not an exception to the rest of the Dalish, Solas. Perhaps you simply need to learn how to approach them better." Or in any way that wasn't so immediately off-putting, as she's sure his encounters have been.

All had known loss, but very few had seen the fall of an Empire, the chaos and panic and horror that overcame an entire civilization. All he had been able to was sleep and dream, forced to exhaustion from what he had done.

"The time for that has long since passed," he replies dismissively. "I will not alter course now." Not when he's signed a contract that will give him precisely what he needs to move forward.

"And to think you claim the Dalish are the short-sighted ones, clinging to the past." How hypocritical of him, Lavellan thinks. If they were different people, if this was a different moment and they were somewhere else, she might have reached out for him. Instead she attempts to walk in front of him, to cut him off so that he will have to look at her.

"You have a year and a day to learn," Lavellan points out, keeping her chin high and proud while staring him down. "Whatever else you're planning, you must account for that."

And that may be enough. She has to believe it will be.

He stops walking and meets her gaze, his own head held as high. They were both proud people and stubborn. Strangely enough, those were features he found attractive and frustrating to deal with despite knowing they existed strongly in himself.

"I have a year and a day until I return to Thedas and continue my plans," he says. For he knows what he will have then and what he will be able to do with it. Before he lacked the power to open his focus himself, but now? Now, he'd be able to do it himself. All he needed was it back in his possession, restored to its former power. "I did not sign the contract lightly."

What she thought she might accomplish here with him were lofty dreams.

Like calls to like, one might argue. Lavellan doesn't blink, still staring up at him with hard eyes -- determined, as she always is, to make him see reason. A losing battle, maybe, but Lavellan has nothing more to lose. What is a year and a day of trying to sway him? She may not have another chance at this.

"Nor did I. Your presence here is a surprise, but I won't let you think I will simply let you wander around without trying to change your mind." An unexpected gift, to be sure, and one Lavellan isn't going to waste. If only she knew what he agreed to, although she would not be surprised if it was something to aid him. As her's was. "And if that does not work--" Well. He knows what she swore to do.

So he would need to make himself harder to find, make his presence even less known than he was planning. As much as he cared for the woman before him, loved even, there was no chance of him seeing his mind changed. He was set on this path. It would be a waste of time for the both of them.

"We will be at odds when we return." There is no doubt in his voice at that. Their contracts would finish and they would return to Thedas, ever in conflict once more. "Your time here would be better spent in preparation of that."

"I do not think there is enough time in the world to prepare me for that." She responds, casually and with a wave of her hand. "But I know what I must do, Solas, if I fail to turn you from this path. Do not doubt my resolve." Perhaps not the best thing one could ever tell the man she loves -- that she will kill him should he force her hand. But it is the truth -- Thedas has more value, more weight, than her feelings for Solas.

She's sacrificed everything else for it, what would be one more thing?

"I would not insult you to underestimate you so," he scoffs. He knew what she was capable of, he had seen it in his travels with the Inquisition. What had drawn him to her would be what could cause his downfall. Underestimating her would be a mistake, it was why he had refused to share more of his plan. The more she knew, the easier it would be for her to succeed.

His head is held high as he meets her gaze. "If you are finished, I would prefer to continue my walk alone."

For a moment she doesn't move, doesn't blink. Simply stares him down before she nods, and steps aside; it won't be the last she sees of him, Lavellan is certain of it. "For now," she says, and gestures him on before sticking her hand back into her coat so that she doesn't reach for him. The temptation is there, it will always be there.

"I shall see you around, Solas." For he won't escape here, not here.

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⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

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

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