allthisshitisweird | TEST DRIVE MEME!

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TEST DRIVE MEME!

TEST DRIVE MEME

Maybe you’ve been around for a while, or maybe you’re new to the Inquisition. Maybe you’re new to Thedas, having recently fallen from a tear in reality and been collected by uniformed rescuers. Whoever you are, you’ve been sent to Kirkwall, to an outpost where many of the Inquisition’s members and allies work on some of the biggest mysteries and problems the organization must solve if it’d like to keep the world from ending, where “ending” means “falling under the power of an ancient powerful corrupted being who wants everyone to bow to him as a god.”

And just to be clear, it would like that. It would like that a lot.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS TDM FEATURES SNOW.

I. THE GALLOWS: The Gallows is an island fortress in Kirkwall’s harbor. It’s been home to, in order: Tevinter slaves, a Circle of Magi, a lot of creepy red lyrium, and now the Inquisition, which has occupied the fortress with the provisional Viscount’s blessing. There are walls that still need rebuilding and corners that still need dusting, but for the most part the Inquisition has gotten down to business. There’s space in the stone-floored courtyards to train or spar, currently covered in snow and ice; or, if your skills don’t lie in the realm of hitting things, there’s a large library and several offices supporting the Inquisition’s areas of research and diplomatic efforts, currently very cold. If you don’t know what to do with yourself, then by all means, ask; someone will definitely be able to put you to work. In the snow!

II. KIRKWALL: A quick row across the near-freezing harbor will take you to Kirkwall proper. The city is built into the cliffs, from exclusive and wealthy snow-dusted Hightown at the top to impoverished Darktown in the abandoned mining tunnels below, where discarded waste is presently frozen into slushy brown ice. In the middle is Lowtown, home to taverns, merchants, and plenty of trouble to keep anyone looking for it happy. And a lot of snow. You’re welcome to spend your free time and your money here—but try not to annoy the locals too much, please, in case the Inquisition's welcome runs out. It’d be a shame to have to pack up and leave in all this snow.

III. QUESTING: Barely had time to make yourself at home, did you, before you were sent away from Kirkwall again—but this time on a mission. There’s a rift outside of Denerim, in the snow, pouring demons into the snowy fields, and the Inquisition has been asked to lend a hand. Maybe literally. If you have an anchor embedded in your palm, you’re needed to close the damn thing. If not, maybe you’re here to fight demons or guard against bandits on the snow-covered road, or to gather samples out of the snow and take notes on the rift’s location once its closed, or to speak to prominent locals (in the snow) afterwards to make sure that they fully appreciate the Inquisition’s efforts. Regardless, it’s a long trip, so we hope you like campfire cooking and sharing a tent. And snow.

IV. SENDING CRYSTAL: Joining the Inquisition gets you access to the very latest in barely-understood magical communication devices—namely, a crystal, small enough to wear around your neck, that will allow you to communicate verbally with anyone else who has one. Or everyone else who has one. Say hello.

There is no snow on the crystal, unfortunately.

V. WILDCARD: The whole of Thedas is yours to explore, from coast to uncharted wilderness filled with bears, and did we mention that there is snow? Anyway: choose your own adventure!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, Padawan knows that noise and she stops licking him, letting out a little wuff and sitting down, looking at him with an expression that clearly says she thinks he's rude for making a face when she was being nice.

"You don't have much experience with animals, do you?" Rey comments, tilting her head down a little.

"Not since I was a kid, no." When one was one of the most feared people in the galaxy - animals and people kept a good distance. He looks from Rey to Padawan, petting the dog's ears some more. It wasn't his fault, he thought. Not entirely.

"I'm pretty sure my mother wouldn't have wanted any pets around - maybe a dog if she wasn't too busy to care for one. One of those ones with pointy ears that can sit in your lap."

"I could see her with a mabari," Rey replies, looking down at Padawan with a fond smile. The dogs were strong, tenacious creatures, which seemed to be an earmark of their breed. They'll fight until they can't anymore.

"She's tough, like they are."

"I couldn't picture her here. Dog aside - I don't see her being able to sit still here." Both of his parents would have a problem with it, honestly. It had been part of his problem with them - neither knew when to take a step back and just see him. He had given up on any notion of that a long time ago, until it was too late to repair things.

"I'm not surprised you've done so well." He clears his throat, rising to his feet again when it became uncomfortable kneeling on the ground for Padawan. "Any theories you want to share? We don't belong here."

And he might be in a hurry to leave, honestly. The longer he's this close to her the harder it is to keep up his usual presence. She made him softer, weak. It made him uncomfortable.

Rey can't see Leia here either, really. She wouldn't want to. The galaxy needed the general, needed her strength. She wouldn't have said she could see Ben here either, and yet here he was. Sticking out horribly, but he was here.

She can only shrug at his question, shaking her head.

"I've been here over a year. Rifters have left, but we don't know if they go home, not really. I would think they do since Obi-Wan was from so far in the past, but..." she frowns, shaking her head. "There are people studying the rifts and the Veil, but I've only been involved with them when they've asked for information."

"Then we just stay?" He feels frustrated all over again, bits of his usual mood leaking out into his presence. "There has to be someone to get better answers than that from."

And if he had to force it out of someone and risk this Inquisition's ire - well he doesn't really give a damn. Tense, he crosses his arms again, clearly not pleased. Rey may be complacent with this place but he isn't. He had things he was doing back home and he'd been quite busy with those things.

"You can ask the people who have been studying the rifts," Rey replies, looking a little annoyed at his dismissal of her experience. Though maybe she was complacent. She had had Obi-Wan for a long time, and having him here with her had profoundly helped. He had been able to teach her, and as tumultuous as the state of Thedas was, it was a more peaceful place to learn than her own galaxy had been.

"They might even let you work with them, if you have better ideas on how to get us back to our homes than they do."

"I don't. I have no ideas. That's the problem. I don't deal in space anomalies anymore than you do. I pilot things. That's it." And kill people but that goes unsaid. "We can't even do that here."

He didn't mean to sound angry at her. This wasn't her fault anymore than it was his. It just frustrated him how she wasn't as angry about it as he was. She had the time to accept her situation and he had none of it.

"I know that Ben, I've been here longer than you have." She doesn't yell at him, but her voice gains a bit of an edge, her frustration slipping through. "I didn't even remember what happened between us until a few days ago. I woke up and suddenly it was like I had extra time in my memory that wasn't there before."

She's still sort of processing that, and she's angry about it. She'd been happy before, thinking that the galaxy was probably fine without her, and while she had never at any point suffered any illusions that Kylo Ren had died on the Starkiller Base, she also hadn't known what had happened to him. She certainly hadn't cared about him. Now all of a sudden she had these conflicting feelings that she didn't have before.

He makes an effort to calm down, to relieve the tension inside him from this worry and fear that they were actually stuck here forever. He has to remind himself this isn't Rey's doing and he can't force answers out of people, as much as his instincts dictate that he very much can. It wouldn't get him anywhere. He needed to be more strategic about it.

"You forgot...?" His eyes meet hers, surprised and, deep down, a little hurt. They might be at odds but he still felt for her - something he tried hard to repress even as he'd told his uncle with such confidence that he would kill Rey. He didn't know that he could.

"Maybe it was better not to remember."

Self depreciation was his default. He kept his thoughts to himself, only showing them through action - often times anger being the one that showed itself the most. He wasn't angry that she had forgotten the Force Bond, only a bit sad due to how much they had shared with one another. He'd understood her and she him, even if he was a difficult man to understand most of the time.

"I didn't forget, it was like... it hadn't happened to me, yet." It's hard to describe, and she's still trying to work it out for herself. She regrets telling him as soon as she sees his face, and she almost moves towards him, but holds herself back.

Her feelings are just a little too conflicted right now for her to give in to.

"It's better for you that I remembered. If I hadn't I'd be dragging you to the Gallows prison, right now." Part of her wonders if she shouldn't do that anyway.

"Right. LIke you meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi. Time flows here differently, like a wormhole." A strange one at that. At least she made him feel a bit better. He didn't want her to throw him in jail. He didn't see his actions as wrong, for a start. If the Resistance wanted to fight with him, if any number of planets wanted to fight with him, he would conquer them just as his grandfather had. He would be greater than his legacy, far reaching until not a single person could hear his name without fear inside their hearts.

"I'd love to see you try." He smiles a bit, finding the idea of it humorous. It was true, however, that she had bested him. He wasn't currently suffering a bow shot wound at the moment and that made plenty of difference.

Rey raises her eyebrows at that, trying to decide if he means that as a challenge or not. straightening her back a little she tilts her head to the side, her hands going back to her lightsabers. They'd drifted away in the course of their conversation, but now she rests them there deliberately.

"I have a year and a half of training I didn't have before, two lightsabers, and a warhound. You think I couldn't?" She knows he's got more training than she does, but when it came to power with the Force, she's confident she's his equal.

"A year and a half? Amazing. So much experience, how could I ever hope to match against it?" Now he was just being mean, holding up both hands on either side to show that he had no use for his lightsaber in its current state and that he was attempting not to be a threat to her. Though he was showing he wasn't a threat, he knew he could still very much challenge her in other areas.

"Though, I suppose us fighting does no good. We'd tear this place apart trying. I doubt the locals would appreciate that." Not that he cared. He didn't want to fight with her but recent events had proven they would be at odds in a lot of ways, even as they were on even ground in others.

He's trying to get under her skin, but oddly enough it isn't quite working. She actually smiles slightly at him, a corner of her mouth lifting.

"I beat you with no training. Imagine what I could do with that year and a half." She knows he was injured, and that's the only reason she won. But if he's going to be an asshole, she can dish it right back to him.

She has no intention of fighting him, of course, and her posture doesn't change, relaxed, but alert. She's aware that needling him isn't the best of ideas, but she can't bring herself to be afraid of him.

"There's miles of open land outside the city, if you really want to fight."

His lips press in a hard line, Rey having clearly struck a very raw nerve. You're no Vader. You're just a child in a mask. Snoke's voice still mocked him even after his death. It mocked him in the form of Hux's condescending voice and the men who struggled over which leader to follow.

"You were lucky." He spat back, his temper very much rising again. Why had he even tried to be civil with her? Why had he even bothered? Again and again he dug himself into these holes with her. Neither of them could trust the other, no matter how much they had connected through the Force.

"If you were to fight me now, you'd be lucky again if I didn't kill you." That thirst to prove himself stronger burned red hot in him, showing itself in his clenched fists and tight jaw. He didn't want to fight her and yet the challenge was always there.

Edited 2018-01-18 06:44 (UTC)

The smile faded from Rey's face as he got angry, though she doesn't tense.

"You won't kill me," she replies, her voice firm. That is one thing she absolutely believes, now. He wouldn't have saved her from Snoke, and then asked her to join him, if he were going to kill her. He can threaten it, but she doesn't believe him. She can sense the conflict in him, even now.

"I'm all you have here. So we can either get along, or not. I'll leave that up to you."

He honestly contemplated it in that moment - choking the life out of her, showing her his strength, but he knew that wouldn't do him any good. He needed her. She was right. It was more than just this place. Even though she made him angry, she still made happiness rise up in him too. He couldn't explain it or understand it. One moment he was seeing that gaping hole inside of himself, feeling its pull, and the next - a memory. Crystal clear and solid, he could feel her hand touching his. It made his chest ache.

"Fine." He takes a breath, the bite still in that single word. He wanted to hurt her, to show her that her needling him would only end in her pain and not his. It was a reflexive thought after years of vying for Snoke's approval. Rey isn't Snoke, he reminds himself.

"How much do you remember? Do you remember Snoke's ship?" He wanted to know that she remembered her refusal or not. If she didn't, he'd be fine giving her a second chance. If she did, then he knew this would be harder for him. He didn't want to have to keep being reminded of the feelings of rejection he struggled with.

Rey presses her lips together as she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to decide how to answer that. She knows what he's really asking, and the answer was one she didn't entirely want to give.

"I remember. We fought, because you wanted something from me I couldn't give you." She can still remember his eyes when she'd seen him through the Force, before she'd closed the doors of the Millennium Falcon. She regrets putting that look on his face, but not her actions. She had been able to save at least some of the fleet because of what she did. If that means that he is lost to her now... She'll live with that.

Edited (tenses...) 2018-01-18 15:43 (UTC)

"So you remember what I asked you. In essence it's the same as what you want - that we work together." Not entirely the same but in the same vein. He wants them to be together, even if it's not the same here. He can't be what she wants him to be and he can't continue his grandfather's legacy - not here, at any rate.

"If you want me to 'get along' with you, then you have to promise me this: never betray me again." Because in his mind that's what it was when she'd told him she couldn't go with him: a betrayal. He'd already dealt with that nonsense enough. He wanted an ally. He wanted her to join him. This would be as close as it got.

Rey bristles at that accusation, about to throw back that he was the one who betrayed her, but then, of course, that's not true. He did what he'd been programmed to do by Snoke, really. She had betrayed him, and she'd let him down, and she hated that. She presses her lips together as she wars with her thoughts, before giving a jerky nod of her head.

"But you don't betray me, either." Because expecting her to allow people to die, when he knew enough about her to know that she couldn't be that person, had felt as much like a betrayal to her as her not joining him had to him.

He nods, satisfied with her answer. He wouldn't betray her - other people were a different matter, but that issue could wait for now. He was done fighting her. He didn't want to deal with this back and forth between them anymore.

"That's fine with me." He says at last. He did know enough about her to know that she wouldn't turn no matter how hard he wished it, but that didn't stop him from feeling the way he did. What made all of this difficult is the conflict she brought in him. She had some points that were right, that he agreed with, but there were other things he couldn't change about himself. It was like a bad habit.

"Okay." Rey squares her shoulders, unsure what to say next. She doesn't know if she can trust him here, not yet anyway. He has all that darkness in him still, but maybe being away from the First Order, from that power that had tempted him... Maybe this place is what he needs. Relaxing her arms a little she glances down at Padawan, who has been sitting calmly by this whole exchange, before looking back at Ben.

"Have you found a room to stay in, yet?"

"No, I haven't." A room to stay in hadn't been very high on his list of concerns between arriving and seeing Rey again. The reality of the situation creeps up on him again, making him nervous. He would have to prove himself to this Inquisition if he was to get any help with the shard in his hand. He'd probably have to find a means to provide himself with shelter and food as well. These were strange concepts when, for most of his life, he's had things provided for him. He didn't grow up like Rey.

"Why?" He was suspicious that she might ruin his chances of gaining any trust with anyone, worrying in the back of his mind that she had some ulterior motive to sabotage him like any other rational person might do if they had to deal with him. Rey always seemed patient but he wondered when that would run out.

Rey raises her eyebrows at the tone in his voice, tilting her head slightly.

"I can get you a key? I do a lot of the maintenance work around the Gallows, so if you want a room I can find you one." One of the nice things about the Inquisition in the Gallows was there was plenty of space. Skyhold had been starting to feel a little crowded. She knew the place had a dark history, but she hadn't seen any of that. To her, it's a roof over her head, and at large a community that she finds she fits into for the most part.

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