Darkest Timeline AU Flashback Meme

[faderifting]

DARKEST TIMELINE AU FLASHBACK MEME
Did you work out something for your character's darkest timeline AU that you love so much it would be an absolute crime not to be able to write it out for real? WHAT LUCK! This meme is here for all your flashback-from-the-future needs. It's also the place to display sad single-character vignettes, letters that were never sent to dead friends, and anything else your dastardly little heart desires. Go forth and suffer.

The contents of this meme do not count for AC. For AC, you must participate in the real logs for the event, which will take place in Cloudreach 9:48, or else continue your normal non-event RP in the present (Guardian 9:43). However, you can count log threads in this meme toward your rewards points for the month.

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(closed) late 9:45 — anders

[ichaer]

It was a gruesome battle. Forces made up of both red Templars and Warden ambushed by one very well-informed group of guerrilla fighters. She would know just how well-informed they were considering she was the one that had been spreading information months now. Of course, no one knew that. No one would likely think to link the name Falka to the traitorous ashen-haired Warden who had switched sides in the dying days of Orlais' freedom.

Now she was seated in some dank underground space, captured by those same fighters and likely on the edge of being executed at simply the wrong motion of her fingers. The rusty chains bite into her wrist, forcing her one arm to be held high over her head and leaving the stump of what was left of her other arm to hang against her side.

There is movement and her eyes, now edging more red than their originally green, cut to the door. The man standing there is a familiar face but they both look different. But that is war and Ciri blows out a long sigh through her nose, leaning back as the lyrium inside makes an sing-song familiar tune in the back of her head. Thankfully, it only lasts a moment and she focuses back to Anders with a half smile.

"Nice place."

[justice_is_blond]

The grim look on his face fades as he looks Ciri over with a sigh.

"We do try to keep it warm and welcoming. What do you think? Could it use a few more sharp-edged rocks? I can see to that." Anders kneels and reaches up to undo the chains. They can't stay off. People need to stay ignorant of her role if it's to continue. But he can give her a break while he's here and there aren't passers by.

"The information came in just in time. Thank you." She'd saved one of their larger supply caches, though he doesn't know if she knows that. What the location had been used for was kept quiet as much as possible.

[ichaer]

"Throw a couple of chopped up bodies around and it'll be just like home."

Home meaning wherever she calls home now with the other members of Corypheus' forces. Always moving, always somewhere new as more and more land is snatched up. As her chains are undone, she sighs happily and rubs the raw skin tiredly against her hip. Everything hurts but the burn of lyrium seems to help which she, honestly, hates to admit.

"Glad to hear it," she murmurs. "Your lot destroyed a large cache of red lyrium out there too. It'll throw the ones at camp into a fit, make more mistakes that way."

[justice_is_blond]

"Good. We could use a break like that." Some days he doesn't have faith that they can win, only the belief that they can slow this devastation and buy a few more years. But when days like this happen it's a little easier to see a chance for the future.

Anders brings a salve out of one of his belt pouches and offers it over, pointing at her wrist with his chin. "I wouldn't use this too heavily, you'll want the marks, likely, but this can ease some of the pain." It's the least he can do. And it really is the least, too. She has to have her cover. All the same...

"If there's anything you'd like me to heal that you feel is safe to have taken care of..." Anders trails off and holds up a hand so it can complete the sentence. He's ready and willing. "Is it true that they're sending a shipment of slaves through Griffon Pass next week? Because if so, we could get those bodies in place for decoration before your next visit here."

[ichaer]

"You're telling me." Some days she wonders that too. It is hard to play the other side and witness everything from what, to some, is considered the winning side of this war. It was equally hard to sit in camp and listen to the horror stories, to take part in her own horror stories out there on the field and in cities.

She eyes the salve for a moment before waving it off with a slow movement of her hand. As much as it would be welcomed right now to easy the pain, it wouldn't be good of her to show back up at camp without something to show for her absence in the field.

"I'll be fine. Your lot didn't mess me up too badly." She says, leaning back against the rocky wall behind her with a hum. "Besides... it would just be awkward for me to fumble around with this thing."

And by thing she, of course, means the stump of what remains of her left arm. It isn't something she enjoys drawing attention toward but it is done with more humor these days. She listens quietly to his words, humming and tapping her foot.

"It is a shipment of something but not slaves. The rumor of slaves was to get yours and others out of the woodwork, lead you into a trap. The only thing waiting in those wagons are Reds and Vint mages."

[justice_is_blond]

"Shit." That might mean another source has been compromised, then. He's glad he asked, but it means they're going to have to do a whole lot of work sorting through what agents got them information about the pass. It had to have been at least two.

"This was a success, at least. I need to remember that. And we're not walking into that trap. ...We could perhaps set it off. Rig the whole pass to blow before they get there, stay at a distance..." Anders frowns in thought, pulling a scrap of parchment out of a pouch and making a couple of notes before that and the salve get tucked away. There's no real break from strategizing, not when so many lives are constantly on the line.

"Thank you." That's important too. She's put herself at risk to get information out, and groups live or die on the information they have. "I don't like losing people, and losing them to bad intel is even worse." It will happen. This is war. But they can be careful and not lose as many as they might otherwise.

"I don't suppose you've seen anyone else lately from the Skyhold days?"