do you want the bad news or the bad news.

[ipseite]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Petrana de Cedoux, Marcus Rowntree
RECIPIENT: All y'all
NOTES: News from the rest of the South; including deaths. If your character knows somebody in Skyhold who might send something back to them, Petrana and Marcus can absolutely carry a within reason amount of letters or keepsakes.

If I may take a moment of your time, Riftwatch.

This is Madame de Cedoux. In my capacity as chief cryptographer and a member of our diplomacy division, I have been dispatched to Skyhold to exchange intelligence with the Inquisition, and it is my purpose now to share what I may from my discussion with Spymaster Leliana. Captain Rowntree has accompanied me, and has continued to the front to gather further information upon which he will elaborate, likewise by crystal.

Grave news, I'm afraid, has abounded across Thedas. Kirkwall — and, indeed, Minrathous — was not alone in either the strike or the severity of what was recently experienced. Skyhold itself has not been penetrated, though dracolisks were sighted and their riders believed to have been seeking the stronghold—these same riders may have been responsible for a dracolisk attack upon Orzammar's main known entrance. It appears to have been in the vein of a — impulse decision, perhaps driven by their inability to access their chosen target. The entrance is expected to take some weeks to dig out anew, and trade is expected to be impacted.

I regret to report that Griffon Wing Keep suffered grievous losses to their number under an attack led by an unidentified, speaking darkspawn. Many of the Wardens were compelled to take arms against one another, and we mourn the losses among others of Wardens Nathaniel and Anders Howe, and the Wardens Alistair and Oghren, as well as, once of our Research division, one Casimir Lyov.

( it has been a long time since she had been at ease with the howes— but that there will be no further opportunities, not ever, is a bitter thing to sit with as they had left things. )

Val Royeaux and Val Chevin are both among the cities struck. The Divine has ( regrettably, though her voice has returned to the level and matter of fact recounting, ) survived the attack on her Grand Cathedral, but both the Chantry there and the harbour in Val Chevin have taken great damage, and heavy loss. Melys, representing our Scouting division further afield,

( it is much harder to keep her voice steady now, that old letter ringing in her ears, miss you darkly, darling, but she does, )

was among the fatalities.

Captain Rowntree, if you would.

The Imperium launched an attack against the encampment of the Exalted March. There were many casualties. I'm told there was a targetted strike that took the lives of Cassandra Pentaghast and Cullen Rutherford, of the Inquisition.

[ A pause, before diverting. ]

Word, too, of an attack in Ostwick. As with the assault on the front, and that in Kirkwall, the enemy rode in dracolisks and sought to cause damage with magical explosives. The harbour and its fortress and stockhouses were destroyed. There is some report of skirmishing in east Nevarra, Van Markham territory, but no word of heavy losses.

There are those of our number who had departed to the front—those that also fell. Joselyn Smythe and Tsenka Abendroth, [ and if there was more to say, which there wasn't, the rough twist at this last syllable, a hard, dry edge in his voice, means he stops there. ]

( softly, she says: ) Thank you, Captain.

I will remain in Skyhold through the evening meal, and from here, the captain and I will return to Kirkwall. If there are brief messages you would have me carry to those you know within Skyhold, I will do what I am able before we depart.

Comments

[wythersake]

[ It’s,

A lot. Griffonwing (that miserable blight) eating itself. Val Royeaux, Val Chevin - the March and a dozen he might name with it. Ostwick means trade. Orzammar means lyrium. And none of it means a very great deal at all, save that: ]

Mme. Smythe had a sister, a Miriam. If Skyhold has word of her whereabouts, I should be -

I would be grateful.

[ipseite]

( a brief pause, and: )

I am sorry to welcome you back so poorly, Enchanter. I will see what I can be told; I understand that Enchanter Smythe was more often in the field.

( the odds are in the air, if her location can be shared with riftwatch. she'll try, though. )

[luaithre]

I'm going to stay another day, and help here.

[ He leaves this public, implicitly inviting any who wishes to send their messages or well wishes to the front while he's here, but it's more specifically to Petrana that he continues; ]

Should I meet you in Skyhold or Kirkwall?

[pathlit]

Madame Wysteria de Fonce is meant to be in Orzammar. Have you heard word of her status?

[ipseite]

—Skyhold, ( she decides, ) I have been offered the night if I've need of it, and the extra time may be of use.

( then, privately, )

I'm so sorry, Marcus. For your sister.

[ipseite]

I have not in the specific, but I have been informed that due to the nature of the attack, casualties were far more limited— merchants outside of the entrance, guardsmen within. I have every confidence that we would have been informed, had she been for some reason among them.

Though any loss is to be grieved, the damage done was most of all nuisance, and not so severe as elsewhere.

private ∞

[luaithre]

[ There's a small delay. It isn't characteristic that he would ignore her but certainly that he might take his time before speaking, and so, eventually, when something to say is summoned; ]

She was burned already.

[ipseite]

( although she has her suspicions as to his meaning, )

—burned?

[luaithre]

[ An affirmative sound. ]

Her body.

[ There hadn't been one the last time, either. ]

[ipseite]

( so swiftly done. but: of course it was. what else? )

It is an unfair thing.

( all of it. that she's dead. that once again, he has so little to grasp of that loss. )

[wythersake]

Of course, [ - She’d be in the field. No wonder that Joselyn stretched for it in turn. Twins, and one sanctified for absence. ] I am told she is a force.

[ Am. Was. Language grows imprecise: Joselyn has been dead some days, but she breathed only an hour last; might again, had he never left, and so never heard. He need only forget and she might live forever.

A bad lie. The truth is that he’d already forgotten. Old friends, new threats; his letters had slowed, then stopped. He'd left, and Stark had left, and Miriam before either, and so -

Pretty little idiots take their sticks to the front. ]

I am sorry for you to bear it. [ The news. Petrana is longer of the Inquisition than most. ] If yourself or the Captain have need,

[ He’ll be elsewhere, folded on himself between library stacks; feeling half a child. ]

You need but ask.

[luaithre]

[ There is much he might say, wants to say, wants to let out in a rush, but he has never much liked trying to have a serious conversation over crystal. Or a frivolous one. But particularly one like this, where the clever enchantments embedded into stone feel too delicate to bear the weight of it.

And yet, he dreads the moment that the crystal dims for the evening. So it isn't a deflection, that he says, ]

I'm sorry for Melys,

[ but accommodating the medium. ]

[ipseite]

( somewhere in a cold castle, petrana breathes out. )

I had very much hoped to introduce the two of you one day, under better circumstance.

[ipseite]

I suspect need shall be great across the Gallows.

( these losses. what they represent. the gallows itself, half rubble. she does not sigh— )

I am grateful to have you returned to us, Enchanter, even in such times.

( especially. both because he is useful,

and because generally, it feels as if they should at all times have a good idea of where he is. )

[luaithre]

[ A thought comes, a few connections necessary to form but at rapidfire pace, that it was good he had managed to introduce Tsenka to some of his blood family—less that she know them, more that they know her.

The thought closes his throat (and how joyous that day in Cumberland, her true family embracing her, finding her alive) and the shuddered breath over the line is distinct for what it is. He is somewhere alone, no castles out here, a dark field and his back to where rebel mages mill around fires.

Fine. Maybe it is deflection. He asks, ]

Tell me more of her, if you like,

[ voice thicker. ]

[wythersake]

[ It will be days before he looks back to this, and thinks: I should fucking run. Perhaps that's a record - for all the funerals, both false and true. He ever hurtles to self-preservation. Her first death, the one he'd seen, sold; how quick he was to flee. Isaac should imagine it now.

Instead, ]

Thank you.

[ It sounds very small. It sounds true. Some words you can't but grab, no matter how they cut. If he closes his eyes now he is in Montsimmard, seven and strange, and newly alone. ]

We await your safe return.

private; delayed a bit to let her field the first round of questions

[overharrowed]

I'm sorry you've had to carry such heavy news. And about Melys, especially.

[They were never close, but he's still sorry to hear of her death for his own sake. He can easily imagine the blow to Petrana.]

[portalling]

( Once again, an awkward position to be in: to receive such news and yet be at such an impersonal remove from it. There are so many names he’s never encountered besides mentions in reports, items from another chapter of the book, predating his tenure with the organisation. It’s not until close to the end of the message that Strange finally hears ones that he personally recognises, and they draw him up short. Tsenka, who had been training him for a time; who had shown him rift magic and casually re-shaped his dreams like clay. Joselyn, who had been Tony’s—

For the very first time, he finds himself grateful that Tony Stark isn’t here to experience this.

His only acknowledgment is brief; he doesn’t have much right to say anything else. )

Thank you both for the update.

private ∞

[ipseite]

When I had imagined the after, I had always imagined her.

[ipseite]

She was the first constant that I knew, in Thedas. Beyond words dear to me. We had an ease that was—

something I had not had. Perhaps ever. She was brusque and coarse and I remember once some errand of hers was paid in discard jewels, and how we shut ourselves away with them and. Foolishness, you know. Draping absurd gems about ourselves and swanning around the room.

( it is well, remembering the laughter. )

She came the night I remembered my death. I suppose I had it in my mind that she would always, of course, return.

[ipseite]

Of course, docteur.

I doubt it will be the last word on recent events.

[overharrowed]

Yes, I suppose I did too.

[If wars worked with any sort of sense, she'd have been someone he'd have bet on to make it through.]

I'm forever imagining her hauling me bodily onto that griffon. When they say people are "a force."

[Half a thought, but presumably she knows what he means.]

[ipseite]

( hummed agreement, and that is all. )

for posterity, i'm not tagging myself:

[elegiaque]

( what the fuck was casimir even— )

I'll write Sabine.

[ipseite]

That same griffon.

( what a thing, that melys and marcus should both bond with the one.

then: )

It will be difficult for Marcus. A second death for his sister, and once again, no body he may view.