Yeah, OK. Could we meet up, though? It's really more a face-to-face kind of talk. Also a talk that's probably better with a drink, to be totally honest with you.
[ he promises, because it really is the least he can do. ]
It's nice weather, if you want to sit in the gardens. Or I know a few places in Lowtown.
[ kirkwall suggested as a second option, deliberately; if she isn't going to feel safe talking about this outside of the gallows, she doesn't have to admit it. ]
[It's really not the kind of discussion to have in front of civilians, for all the Gallows can sometimes feel lowkey haunted. (She remembers what it was like, when they first came to clear it out for the Inquisition.)]
[ and in the gardens he'll be, holding a bottle of whiskey with one hand, and two cups with another. he'll wait until she arrives to nod towards some seating, start moving in that direction. ]
[It's more like 15 minutes than 10, but that's more just Cosima than any particular reluctance to show up.]
Hey, thanks for bringing the refreshments.
[As they settle on a bench under a convenient tree, she adds,]
It's strange, you know, I was just thinking how long ago it was. I mean, it's a little weird to measure my subjective timeline, what with the going and the coming back, but even just in Thedas time it's been like five years since then.
You had a point about the kind of conversation this is.
[ and on that note, he'll go ahead and pour some out for the both of them, nodding along as he listens. once done with that, he offers her one of the cups. ]
That was around the time some of the first rifters were arriving, wasn't it?
[She takes the cup, grateful, though doesn't sip it right away.]
In relative terms, yeah. It was soon after I'd arrived, for sure, maybe three or four months? There'd been a few rifters who'd been there a little more than a year, I think. That was part of ... a group of us had gone to close a couple of rifts in Orlais. There were, [she thinks] eight of us, I'm pretty sure. A couple natives, but mostly it was rifters, because part of the point was for the more experienced ones to teach us new kids about rift-closing. It was supposed to be an easy mission.
[more than a year earns a brief eyebrow raise. he's spent time studying the list of rifters, but it's still all too easy to forget about some of the earliest names, before familiar ones start turning up. ]
Yeah. We'd closed one rift, and we were in the middle of trying to close the second when they attacked. One of us got away, they captured the other seven.
[A pause, then she adds:]
Me, Ruby, Lexa, Jamie, Araceli ... Martel. And ... oh, Daenerys. Yeah, that's seven. I don't even know if you've heard any of their names, msot of them had been gone even before I vanished.
[ he shakes his head. and that's a goddamn depressing thought, isn't it? not only vanishing, but being forgotten. five years from now there might be rifters talking about hasmal, tantervale, starkhaven, with no idea who was there.
(and if they're lucky, and things go well, those rifters will still be able to have those conversations from the safety of the gallows just like this.) ]
Is that how Riftwatch found out what happened? The one who escaped.
We were still the Inquisition then, but yeah. Avery. [She softens a bit. She misses Avery, though she supposes it's not impossible they could meet again, one day. Stranger things have happened.]
They'd gotten news we'd gone AWOL and that the second rift was still open, so there was a team on the way to look into it. Between Avery and their own scouting, they managed to track us down. It was this ruined fortress a little east of Perendale, not far from the Orlais-Nevarra border.
[ right, the inquisition. strange too to think of the split as being so recent, all told.
there's the obvious progression of this conversation now, the part they've come upon. he stays quiet, lets her address the question of what happened there without interruption. ]
We were lucky, [she says, after a short pause in which it's clear he's just waiting for her to go on.] They found us before anyone had been killed, which ... on the one hand, we were more useful to them alive, but on the other they weren't especially careful. A few of us tried to escape, and I thought ... anyway. None of us died.
They were injecting the rifters with lyrium. Do you know a lot about what lyrium does?
It's nasty. Unprocessed, it can cause blisters, nausea, and in bad cases, basically dementia. Processed stuff is safe to handle as long as you're careful. Processed and ingested, it's addictive, but it also gives Templars their power. Or at least so I'm told, I'm not an expert.
[She exhales, not quite a sigh.]
They experimented on us rifters with lyrium. Not the red kind, but the regular was bad enough. It hit all of us a little differently. For me, it started with fatigue, bad circulation, intense thirst. Eventually there was a ... strong disorientation effect. It was hard to distinguish memory from present experience, and either one from dreams. But that was only toward they very end. They tried to keep me lucid to get information from my home reality out of me for as long as they could.
[ he shivers, despite the heat. lyrium has always sounded too much like protomolecule to him, and cosima's explanation doesn't lessen that. amoral so-called scientists, willing to inject shit into people just to see what it'll do — even the m.o. is all too familiar. ]
I've heard about the lyrium sickness, [ he says, then, ] when Templars and rifters got sick because of their connection to lyrium. I didn't realize it could be that dangerous to us.
[ the red stuff, naturally. and it's not as if he's ever been interested in handling unprocessed lyrium. but jesus. then, slower, ]
I don't know what they asked the others, if anything. After I let slip I was a biologist, he started interrogating me. Any term he didn't know, any question he could think to ask about what I said. I'd um. [She exhales.] I broke my arm, trying to escape, so there was a ready-made pain point he could trigger without much effort at all, even apart from the lyrium.
[ there's some math being done at the back of his mind, about the venatori's interest in cosima's job, her world. if they wanted to know so much about a twentieth-century earth, what would they think about one in a far future with even more advanced technology? about even the concept of the protomolecule? of eros, the ring gates, the alien bullet in the corpse of ilus?
but that's at the back of his mind. at the forefront is cosima, and the ordeal she went through. no wonder she'd been afraid of them finding her again. jesus fucking christ. he reaches out, slow, and visible enough that she can draw back if she'd prefer; but if she doesn't, there'll be a hand at her forearm, bracing. ]
[She doesn't pull away; in fact, she shifts so she can cover his hand with her free one.]
Thanks. It's, um. I guess I was all in on opposing them quicker than a lot of Rifters who don't get up close and personal, because I knew what was at stake sooner. It's not a method I recommend, at all, but it's sometimes harder to listen to new arrivals talking about how this isn't their fight, and why should they have to pitch in, you know.
I can sympathize with ... look, no one wants to hear "this is your world now" when they first arrive, I get it.
[She thinks, briefly, of Sarah, but decides that's a story for another time.]
But, like, even if we did have a way home sometime, lots of people, this is their world. It's the only home they've got. And if we can help keep the Venatori and Corypheus at bay, we should.
[Looking briefly embarassed, she adds:] That's what I think, anyway.
[ he hadn't wanted to hear that, either. he remembers. but, as he'd told tony not so long ago, it hadn't been long before he wasn't able to stop himself from caring about this place. ]
Not everyone could go back, or would want to. [ if they can. but he thinks of margaery, the revelation of the fate she met back home. and death isn't the only reason; thedas has to be better than some peoples' circumstances. besides which — ] And a lot of people live here.
[ every native theodosian he's ever met, and every one he hasn't. this is their home. ]
You're right. We can't just sit back and let the people here suffer. Not anyway, and not with how much they're doing for us.
So it shall be written, [wry, her best Yul Brynner before realizing The Ten Commandments probably didn't make it that far into the future as a cultural touchstone.]
Hey, if you ever need to vent about the weirdness of being a rifter and trying to do our best to help, I'm a pretty good listener. It's been... it's been hard, you know, starting all over. Most of the people I knew well the last time I was here are gone. But if I can help, I'm glad I came back.
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[A brief pause, but then:]
Yeah, OK. Could we meet up, though? It's really more a face-to-face kind of talk. Also a talk that's probably better with a drink, to be totally honest with you.
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[ he promises, because it really is the least he can do. ]
It's nice weather, if you want to sit in the gardens. Or I know a few places in Lowtown.
[ kirkwall suggested as a second option, deliberately; if she isn't going to feel safe talking about this outside of the gallows, she doesn't have to admit it. ]
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[It's really not the kind of discussion to have in front of civilians, for all the Gallows can sometimes feel lowkey haunted. (She remembers what it was like, when they first came to clear it out for the Inquisition.)]
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[ and in the gardens he'll be, holding a bottle of whiskey with one hand, and two cups with another. he'll wait until she arrives to nod towards some seating, start moving in that direction. ]
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Hey, thanks for bringing the refreshments.
[As they settle on a bench under a convenient tree, she adds,]
It's strange, you know, I was just thinking how long ago it was. I mean, it's a little weird to measure my subjective timeline, what with the going and the coming back, but even just in Thedas time it's been like five years since then.
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[ and on that note, he'll go ahead and pour some out for the both of them, nodding along as he listens. once done with that, he offers her one of the cups. ]
That was around the time some of the first rifters were arriving, wasn't it?
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In relative terms, yeah. It was soon after I'd arrived, for sure, maybe three or four months? There'd been a few rifters who'd been there a little more than a year, I think. That was part of ... a group of us had gone to close a couple of rifts in Orlais. There were, [she thinks] eight of us, I'm pretty sure. A couple natives, but mostly it was rifters, because part of the point was for the more experienced ones to teach us new kids about rift-closing. It was supposed to be an easy mission.
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They ambushed you?
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[A pause, then she adds:]
Me, Ruby, Lexa, Jamie, Araceli ... Martel. And ... oh, Daenerys. Yeah, that's seven. I don't even know if you've heard any of their names, msot of them had been gone even before I vanished.
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(and if they're lucky, and things go well, those rifters will still be able to have those conversations from the safety of the gallows just like this.) ]
Is that how Riftwatch found out what happened? The one who escaped.
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They'd gotten news we'd gone AWOL and that the second rift was still open, so there was a team on the way to look into it. Between Avery and their own scouting, they managed to track us down. It was this ruined fortress a little east of Perendale, not far from the Orlais-Nevarra border.
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there's the obvious progression of this conversation now, the part they've come upon. he stays quiet, lets her address the question of what happened there without interruption. ]
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They were injecting the rifters with lyrium. Do you know a lot about what lyrium does?
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Not a lot.
[ not enough to understand what injecting a rifter with it would entail, clearly. ]
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[She exhales, not quite a sigh.]
They experimented on us rifters with lyrium. Not the red kind, but the regular was bad enough. It hit all of us a little differently. For me, it started with fatigue, bad circulation, intense thirst. Eventually there was a ... strong disorientation effect. It was hard to distinguish memory from present experience, and either one from dreams. But that was only toward they very end. They tried to keep me lucid to get information from my home reality out of me for as long as they could.
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I've heard about the lyrium sickness, [ he says, then, ] when Templars and rifters got sick because of their connection to lyrium. I didn't realize it could be that dangerous to us.
[ the red stuff, naturally. and it's not as if he's ever been interested in handling unprocessed lyrium. but jesus. then, slower, ]
What did they want to know?
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but that's at the back of his mind. at the forefront is cosima, and the ordeal she went through. no wonder she'd been afraid of them finding her again. jesus fucking christ. he reaches out, slow, and visible enough that she can draw back if she'd prefer; but if she doesn't, there'll be a hand at her forearm, bracing. ]
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
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Thanks. It's, um. I guess I was all in on opposing them quicker than a lot of Rifters who don't get up close and personal, because I knew what was at stake sooner. It's not a method I recommend, at all, but it's sometimes harder to listen to new arrivals talking about how this isn't their fight, and why should they have to pitch in, you know.
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I know what you mean. It gets harder to be patient with that attitude the longer I'm here.
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[She thinks, briefly, of Sarah, but decides that's a story for another time.]
But, like, even if we did have a way home sometime, lots of people, this is their world. It's the only home they've got. And if we can help keep the Venatori and Corypheus at bay, we should.
[Looking briefly embarassed, she adds:] That's what I think, anyway.
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Not everyone could go back, or would want to. [ if they can. but he thinks of margaery, the revelation of the fate she met back home. and death isn't the only reason; thedas has to be better than some peoples' circumstances. besides which — ] And a lot of people live here.
[ every native theodosian he's ever met, and every one he hasn't. this is their home. ]
You're right. We can't just sit back and let the people here suffer. Not anyway, and not with how much they're doing for us.
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So it shall be written, [wry, her best Yul Brynner before realizing The Ten Commandments probably didn't make it that far into the future as a cultural touchstone.]
Hey, if you ever need to vent about the weirdness of being a rifter and trying to do our best to help, I'm a pretty good listener. It's been... it's been hard, you know, starting all over. Most of the people I knew well the last time I was here are gone. But if I can help, I'm glad I came back.
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[ it didn't, really, but he smiles anyway, clinks glasses. and then, ]
I will, if you'll do the same. I'm glad you're here, you know. And I'm here for you.