therookery | { CLOSED }

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Christine Delacroix
RECIPIENT: Any of her CR still left in the Dark AU. She wouldn't send this to the whole Inquisition, so it's sort of locked?
WHAT: Just asking what's shakin'.
WHEN: Cloudreach 13th 9:48
WHERE: random hidden spot in the Frostbacks
NOTES: Christine's mental state has deteriorated so she'll be erratic, angry, and possibly not easy to talk to.

[ Every waking moment hurts and yet Christine lingers on. For the last two years, she's been slowing the spread of her red lyrium corruption with healing magic, but most days she can't remember to do it now. Her head is full of a song and the longer she focuses on it, the deeper she sinks into it. But some days she awakes in pain and her head is clear enough to focus for a little while. Today she grips her crystal tight in her claw-shaped hand, red spikes of lyrium jutting out through her skin from where they're fused with her bones. ]

It is me.

[ Her voice should be easy to recognize. It now sounds like two voices at once, too close together to be an echo, and with a humming sound woven through as well. ]

What news?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cullen is here, but I cannot say who takes care of whom. He is as bad as I am.

[ Some days they seem like friends and others like enemies; the red lyrium has changed who they once were, and it's a struggle to regain pieces of the past. ]

The rifters... [ Her voice trails off and she thinks of those lost, especially her Church. Or was that a hallucination? Nonono, that was real. Araceli gave her the news. She remembers now. ] The Venatori have plenty of hands, in any case.

The commander still lives? I had thought-- I am a long way from so many people, I hear whatever I hear and try my best to make sense of it. Is he as you are? Your voice is not as I remember it.

[Maybe Christine doesn't remember when Araceli would have asked the question more delicately but now she prefers cold hard fact.]

Everything is a question of supply and demand, the latter outstrips the former with most these days when it comes to near enough everything that isn't blood and bone, anger and grief. I do not know what they are doing with any of it. If it's the same as what they did before. If such resources can be spared for a thing such as that in these times though there are surely those who would justify a way. None have ever made it so far as these islands or the ships, so… [Her sigh is heavy, exhausted. When did she last sleep? Two days ago? Three?] I don't know if that's good or bad.

He is. I would not be around any who could still catch this from me.

[ Because she still believes it can pass through the air, from her breath to another's. That has to be why so many hear the sweet song it sings, yes? ]

There is a great demand for supplies everywhere, but it does not matter to me. My thirst is unquenchable not matter what I drink, or how often.

[ Just one of the many pains she's suffering right now. The red lyrium is truly evil.

She pauses, taking in all Araceli says. She can't really remember much about the woman. Even the feautures of her face have begun to fade away, but she thinks she remembers curly hair. Pretty, curly hair. Christine touches her own hair. What's left feels as dry as straw, and chunks have fallen out as the crystals crawled into her head and up through her scalp. ]

It is probably a good thing, to be as untouched by all this as you can be.

The risk must be much greater now. I will remind those I know to limit contact with Red Templars and to continue burning their bodies whenever they might be encountered. Precautions have been taken for-- for what is to come?

[Even if it's inevitable, that doesn't mean she has to want to think about it. Not Christine who had hair as gold as a new coin, who was patient and gentle and kind in her recovery.]

How far gone are you Christine?

[It sounds so much worse than she imagined but she missed the beginning of it.]

Even if I still had my name and my hand, they wouldn't recognise me now. The world changed so quickly and when I looked up so had I, and it was not the world I had fallen into and built a life in. Now I am not the woman so many made a friend of and Korrin fell in love with. I don't think she even knows me half the time and unless something calls her away, she is here. There is not a soul untouched now.

[ There's an odd sound that's close to a sob, but then she laughs. ]

Oh, I have lost half my mind already. The other half will go soon. The red crystals grow out of me now. I am twisted and hideous.

[ Christine's always had a vain side, and now she can't help but lament her lost beauty. It's just another grievance to add to the list. ]

I am glad I left before they could all see what I have become. Church would have borne it all, but I would not let him.

[ She couldn't risk infecting him; couldn't risk losing her mind and lashing out. And this healer -- who spent long nights watching over patients -- couldn't stand the thought of Church having to take care of her as she slowly turned into a monster. ]

I did not want him to watch me die.

[ She heaves a pained sigh. ]

But is there still love there between you? Does she take you as you are now?

Do you think we are close enough to what we said, you and I? You are high in the mountains and I am out at sea? I am sorry I didn't sail to the edges of the map but-- but I have seen many things. You are very brave. You always were. You aren't them. The things that put people in cages in the snow or attacked so many of us time and time again. No one--

[No. She is not going to cry. What is more salt to the sea, she might have said once but she can't now. She just can't. What if she starts and never stops, if she just drowns herself on dry land from it?]

No one could ever have asked more of you. What you did Christine-- [What you became, they both hear her not saying that, don't they?] I will remember. I poured a whole bottle of the good stuff out for Church. I named my ship for The Outsider. I named my ship for Sina. If I am still here then, there will be something for you so you are still in this fight with us.

She says she loves all of me. And she came after me even after everything I'd done. With all the things I say and do when she has to call me another woman's name, someone she knows I was with where I co- came from. I cannot imagine why she would still be here if she didn't love me.

[ Christine makes a soft, whimpering sound, because she can no longer bottle up her emotions like she once did. The lyrium is in her brain and it's changed so much, including her emotions. They swing rapidly between anger, paranoia, sadness, and more. Now she's upset, thinking about the past and what she and Araceli talked about once. Yes, she is up in the mountains, close to the Hold she fell in love with, but she's not a part of it and she isn't sure if her soul will fly up to the Lady of the Skies when she dies. Oh, Cullen will drag her body outside if she asks, but what if her soul isn't worthy? What if the Lady rejects her because Christine sent Faith away years ago to protect her from Christine's mood shifts? Or what if the Lady does accept her, but Christine finds out Church isn't in the same place too? Or her father? Is there a way to make sure she joins them again? That is what she wants more than anything. ]

She is a rare and wonderful woman. Always constant. [ She sniffs back her tears. ] And you are as well, to remember the fallen. To remember my Church. [ Another whimper and she lets her head fall forward, tired of trying to hold it up. Her neck aches now. Everything aches, or burns, or is a sharp, stabbing pain. ] Thank you. I think I am ready to go. I want to be with him again. It will not be long now.

{ CLOSED }

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject