allthisshitisweird | Test Drive Meme!

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'Tis The Season...

...To Still Be In The Hinterlands

Maybe the Inquisition sent you, maybe you came seeking the Inquisition. Maybe you fell out of a rift into this world last week and are still just trying to find your feet. However it happened, early fall finds you in the Hinterlands. Tucked between Ferelden's massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains, the Hinterlands are a hilly region covered in patchy forests and small farms trying to eke out a living between the boulders. Though somewhat remote, the area is rich with game and minerals and home to Redcliffe, a bustling town on a busy trade route.

Lately the Hinterlands have also been full of mages and templars and rifts, all threatening to turn once-peaceful countryside into a dangerous warzone. The Inquisition has set up several camps and sent personnel to try to restore order to the region, unwilling to let it slip into chaos. There's a lot to be done, some of it straightforward killing bad things, some of it weird and nebulous morale-building.

NOW WITH ADDED SNOW.

1. I CAN'T BEAR THE COLD

You have turned the wrong corner in the snow, forded the wrong stream in the snow, crested the wrong hill in the snow, entered the wrong cave in the snow. Maybe you are far from camp, in the snow. Maybe you are in camp, which is also snowy. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased through the snow by bears. Did you throw a snowball at the bears? Are they huge and snow-dusted? Babies burrowing through the snow drifts and coming for your ankles? Fade-touched in addition to snow-touched? Controlled by cold mages who are hiding in the snow? Popping up out of the snow like a game of whack-a-mole? What are they chasing you away from in all of this snow? What are they chasing you into, other than more snow? What warm things do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them in the snow? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you in the snow? P.S. It's snowy.

2. GIVE ALL THE TOYS TO THE LITTLE RICH BOYS

Winter came. The villagers are freezing. Recruit Whittle totally saw this coming. Now he might have sent you haring (get it) across the countryside in search of supplies that apostates or bandits may have hidden in caves and crannies. He might have handed you some sticks and told you to build a fire. He might have eyed your nice coat with a contemptful gleam that suggested you'd better find some blankets if you didn't want to have your own clothing requisitioned. Nobody's freezing to death on his watch--except maybe you, if you're really bad at finding hidden caches. In the snow.

3. DON'T SHOOT ME SANTA

The sky is beginning to darken and white snow continues to fall, but you and the supply wagon you're protecting should make it to the little Hinterlands village before sunset. The wagon is laden with food, blankets, and other sundry supplies, and so it's important to stay sharp and alert as you make the trecherous journey. And for good reason: an arrow is fired from the tree line and topples an Inquisition soldier from his horse. Beset by bandits, will you manage to fight them back? Or do they overwhelm your troupe and you are forced to flee? Or, perhaps, you could attempt a negotiation, knowing they could be as hungry as the people you protect.

4. DOES THEDAS HAVE FIGGY PUDDING?

It is not only snowing, it's blizzarding, and the tavern in Redcliffe is the closest and warmest place to duck into to wait it out. Unfortunately, half of the Hinterlands had the same idea. The Gull & Lantern is so packed with thawing visitors that it's hard to walk from one side to the other, the owner has given up on telling these Fereldens they can't bring their dogs inside, and that lady in the corner is almost definitely someone you've tried to kill before, or vice versa. But there's a fire going, and the bartender seems to think that giving everyone half-price drinks might prevent a brawl instead of causing one, and there aren't any demons indoors, so it could be a lot worse.

5. WILDCARD

Hunt game in the snow, kill demons in the snow, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits through the snow, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow, get lost circling the same hill ten times trying to find a way up to the weird glowing skull on a stick you can see is up there in the snow, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon in the snow, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot in the snow was, set up camp and chat around the fire because it's snowy and cold, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your ~~Frostback Mountain~~ oyster, topped with snow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She was thirty seconds from blasting the door open and dragging the lot of them out by the ear when it swung open. No muss. No fuss. No danger near as she could tell- just two scouts at the far end of the room and a face she had been missing as keenly as every other Mage felled when the Spire shattered.

The scouts behind her made noises about getting out of the cold but for a moment- a long, golden moment, she was struck dumb.

Dead. He'd been dead. Missing with the rest of the murdered mages. Lost in every which way and as irritating as he could be, as vexing, as insufferable- he'd been a part of her life for almost as long as she could remember. He'd been present and alive, loud and nudging her to push with her questions, her research, to explain things to him- he was a large part of why she was a teacher. If she could explain something to his satisfaction? She could explain it to anyone. And he had gone missing when everything else was unraveling.

But he was-

The scout behind her nudged her shoulder and Adelaide blinked back hot tears she wasn't aware of in the first place- forcing a scowl as best she could with damp eyes. "Too bad. One free issue comes with each search and rescue in abysmal weather, you idiot."

And there she was - little sister, nagging tag-a-long, sensible voice of reason, and honestly the closest friend he had growing up. The one who could bring him back to center with just a look, and to see tears on her face would break the heart in his chest.

Well, if he didn't know it was pierced in place with a shard and a lyrium generator.

His smile is soft, dark eyes bright with unshed tears himself and yeah he looks like hell and she looks cold and angry, but here they are again. Backs against the wall and here she is, cold ass end of the world.

"Hey, I'm not the idiot. You're the ones standing outside where there's snow and bears." He stated, before he stepped aside to let the other scouts in, so they could check on ... well. Other scouts.

He pulled Adelaide in, locked the door, and then proceeded to hug the crap out of her.

"So. Thought you were dead. Really glad you're not because I was going to angry-rant at your grave every year for leaving me."

Right- inside. They should step inside- the scouts all but shove past and for once she has no harsh words for them- they are all saved for Tony. Just-

Once she's gotten her fill of making certain he was alright. Compassion searched and fretted in the back of her mind but this? This was all hers to hold, whatever was wrong or hurt could wait until she'd squeezed him tight.

At least that had been the intention. Even through all the layers between them she could feel something off in the space between. Something that sung like lyrium, that flared like the shards from the rifts. "I thought you were dead, you great idiot. People were going missing, mages turning up dead in their rooms and you vanished-"

She jerks back from the hug, staring at his chest. "What's happened to you? Tonton- what have you done?"

Well, she was not getting out of getting hugged in turn. And even while she's pulling away to examine him - and doesn't that get an affectionate eyeroll - he's still holding on. Maybe ... tighther than Adelaide might remember.

There's a flash there, in his gaze, something dark and haunted, before he gave her a tired, dry look, "Not vanished. Kidnapped. Although I'm real happy that the Knights Divine and the rest of them kept my disappearance a complete lack of information. Must have really helped with the search efforts ... Oh Wait there were none."

However, now, more important things. He takes her by the shoulders, "Addy - I know the Spire was bad, I heard the stories once I busted out of Tevinter -- but who made it? I know Rhodey and Coulson couldn't have gone bad -- are they alive or did their 'brothers' cut them down?"

He had to check on his hodge-podge family, thank you and good day. Addy was here, tired and grumpy and that meant she was at least functioning on normal Addy levels.

"J'en ai ral le cul- No. Not a word- not that they were telling us anything after the second body was found." Lips pressed thin and still trying, and failing to examine him she gives up reluctantly to let him hold on for a moment longer. It had been awhile, they had likely thought one another dead, and she was exhausted. Reason enough not to lock up under his hands- Tony has never meant her any harm.

Vexed her quite a bit, yes. But harm? never.

"They lived. They- Rhodey covered my escape." By remaining silent. After Unger had attempted to kill her and died for it she hadn't been certain if he would- if Rhodey as well had turned on every mage in the Spire. It was not much aside from directing his fellows to the wrong hall to buy her time enough to leave but- it was more than enough. "Other than that? I do not know, I have not heard anything since I fled to Andoral's Reach."

Tony bowed his head a little, his jaw tight. For fuck's sake, they had his goddamned phylactery. They could have told Adelaide, all of them, something. Anything. No, he was just another body swept under the rug -- and he had spent most of his adult life helping these assholes.

Well, not all assholes. Not Rhodey, not Coulson. Good men in a bad fucking situation.

He was worried about them now - same kind of worry he had for Addy. Were they safe? Were they caught up in this red templar bullshit? He knew Addy wouldn't have answers -- but she was going to want some of her own.

So he hooked his chin, in the old way, when he wanted to sneak off and have a drink with him up on the roof after a long grueling day of teaching and being a genius, respectfully.

"Come on, I'm set up in the backroom."

And he is - the tools of his trade are spread in a small area, along with a suit of armor that looks like it's been made for a mage in mind - a heavily armed one.

He sighed as he picked up his tools, sat down, gestured for her to sit with him as he pulled out a leather sack filled with wine, "You'll need that. I'll answer your questions but only after you've had a belt."

She followed, just as she always did, with a roll of her eyes and a gesture to the scouts to take a moment to rest. They had an hour or so before the storm became worse. They could take some time to recover before heading back out into the chill.

The privacy was appreciated, the space was small and it was but a thin wall and a narrow door between them and the rest of their frigid band- but it was a little less like a shack in a blizzard and a little more like home. The Spire. Tony and his smile, his wine, his tricks. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed this particular headache until now.

Adelaide took a seat and sagged like a marionette with it's strings cut, took the wine. "We did get word of one thing- the last bit of news before all mages were out of the Spire. The room where they stored the Phylacteries? Destroyed."

Otherwise Rhodey or Coulson would've tried to find him. She's certain of it. Just as certain as she was that whatever this armor was about, whatever Tony had done? Would leave her partly baffled and thoroughly distressed. The wine was desperately needed. She took a deep swig before asking. "Something in your chest. Compassion can feel it- something that should not be there. What have you done?"

He picked up a hammer, and started to gently tap out the leg he was working with as she took her swallow of wine. She wasn't going to like any of this - she never liked when he got himself into trouble and this had to be ... well.

It had literally been the worst, and yet, the best experience of his life. It opened his eyes, it made him realize how wrong he had been - about how he was living his life, how he should be living his life. It allowed him to meet Bruce, for Maker's sake ...

His dark eyes shot up at that statement - the Phylacteries? Destroyed? He sighed in frustration, rubbing one hand over his eye. "... Yeah, that actually makes sense for the last six months. Mages rebel, stupidly, and they destroy the only way to find one another if they're in trouble. Great plan there, revolutionaries. Thank you, so very much."

Maker, he had to find Rhodey, Coulson. Let them know he was alive, make sure they were alive. Now that he had Addy he could start getting back to himself - but not ... all his old self. No, that guy died in a Tevinter dungeon.

He looked up at her, weariness flashing through his dark eyes, before he sighed, "It wasn't what I did ... it was what I had done to me. For this." He opened his shirt, and there it was. The work of twenty years - a lyrium generator.

That was embedded into his chest, a shard right through the middle of it, and the lyrium swirled around it like a green rock in a blue ocean.

"They were being hunted and killed- while it was not the wisest course it also is not something I can fault them for." She had been hunted along with the rest. Only hiding and now with the Inquisition did she have any measure of safety for herself and her students. And now for Tony as well, for there was no way that she would allow him to simply wander off again after finding him. They both had lost too many peers for her to be comfortable with that.

Lyrium sung and Compassion wailed, Adelaide's eyes flaring blue as she looked not only to the generator that sat but how it was pierced- embedded in Tony's chest- through both and into bone to the ache that came with the light of the rifts. "Fuck."

What in Andraste's name-

Hands uncharacteristically trembling, she reached out to touch the edge of the generator. A thing of theory and years of debate, of tossing ideas at the wall to see what stuck, of warping and weaving will against something so terribly lethal- and it worked. It worked, it hummed, it sang- and it was rooted to him much as the Red Lyrium had been rooted to that corpse's bones.

Were it just the generator perhaps it could have been extracted. It would be uncomfortable and a laborious process, but it could be done. But the shards- she had no way of knowing what they were, how to work around them. How to do more than sooth the ache. She was stunned for a moment, for two before she rallied, fear and dismay swept back behind cold, narrow eye'd focus. Her other hand slipped up, fingers glowing blue as she probed the skin around the generator. "How much pain are you in? Can you breathe easily? How have you been sleeping? Has there been any sign of infection-"

"Should have just grabbed the lot of them." Tony sighed, before he scratched his forehead again, "But you're not wrong. They needed a way out, they took it. Considering how I escaped, I'm pretty sure breaking some glass vials is pretty damned low on the 'what the hell is wrong with you' o'meter."

He looked down at his chest, his mustached mouth twisting into a wry smile. "You know, you're the first person who has managed to get past the first question. Most people just stare and go 'Does it hurt?' and gape for awhile."

He knew she was asking as a spirit healer now, so he stated simply, "The pain is manageable - used to be really bad around open rifts ... now it's lessening. Not sure that's because the Herald closed the big rift in the sky, but when I go to meet the Maker I think I'll buy her a bottle of wine anyways. I can breath just fine, my dreams have been hella weird, and no infection. In fact ..."

He sighed, then winced, because she was going to smack him, "... Pretty damned sure the lyrium itself is keeping the wound clear. Because, ah, I am pretty sure it's alive."

"The shards resonate with the tears in the fade- rifts and veilfire will make it worse. I've seen one other with a shard in their chest but it didn't have a theoretical experiment lodged in along with it." He made it. He wasn't supposed to do more than toy with the idea, but he made it because he was an idiot that was going to get himself killed and leave her alone in the rest of this madness. The shard wasn't killing him because of the lyrium-

The lyrium wasn't killing him because of the shard.

Near as she or Compassion could tell there was nothing to mend- but there was pain and that? She did not ask about sweeping away. She'd long since earned the right to mend his wounds and ease his hurts without asking. He would never remember to ask and it was better to see it done than to fuss over his stubborn refusal for treatment. Compassion's power poured over her skin and into his chest, smoothing away the ache.

"That should assist with the pain for a few hours." It was not much, but it was better than nothing. "...You are going to have to repeat that, because I swear I just heard you say that lyrium is alive."

"Oh good, so you do know something about it." He should have figured Addy of all people would ahve figured it out. Then he sighed, "... Yeah, okay, honestly, none of this was supposed to be embedded in me. I had been escaping in that -- " and he jerked his thumb back to the armor. "And the generator? Was attached to that, not to me."

His expression was grim, "I had just passed over the border to Orlais from Tevinter when the rift opened, and then there was just this sharp ... stabbing pain in my chest - ah!" He winced slightly when she started to heal him, but after that was a sigh of relief. The undertone of pain was gone - for now. "... thanks."

He sighed, as he tapped the generator, "Lyrium. It's alive, as far as I can tell ... because it's knitting my flesh closed around the generator."

"That explains how it can be tainted- and why it sings." Tony had long since had Adelaide's peculiar way of speaking of spirits and Magic and the fade explained to him- honestly he had a large part in helping her learn how to articulate it. "Attempting to extract the shard, currently, is impossible. The Lyrium is not only knitting your flesh closed constantly but beginning to fuse with the bone it rests on. Attempting to remove the generator and the shard would likely kill you."

Let it never be said Tony couldn't find creative ways to hurt himself. To think that she'd missed him and the trouble he brought.

"We do not know what the long term effects of having that shard are- let alone in conjunction with this thing you've decided to make." That it is meant to work with- no, to power if his ramblings were remembered properly- the suit wasn't in question. If he wore it, it worked.

"Yeah ... it explains a lot of things. It also gives me a whole new host of questions that I am going to love digging into for the next hopefully fifty years." He sighed as he looked down at the generator again. "Glad to know that I'm likely to die by the thing I built to save my life. I couldn't get past that kind of delicious irony."

He covered the generator back up, before he nodded soberly at her words.

"I decided to make it so I could get us the Maker out of that Maker be cursed place." He snapped, before he sighed as he rubbed his forehead briefly. "Sorry - I didn't just - I never asked for this, Addy ... I just had to survive. I had to make it out to - well, to make up for all the things I've done."

"Unless we can find a way around it." She would. It might take her years- but she had already been researching the shards, and with what Tony already knew of the generator they could find a solution.

They must. There wasn't any other option available to them.

They've yelled at each other before. Shouted. Thrown things, even, books and bottles and whatever they had on hand- him snapping, raising his voice should not be so strange a thing. But with all that had happened- before where she might have snapped back, pushed back, she flinched. Put distance between them, set her shoulders straight and tense- less bracing for an argument and more bracing for a fight. It's there and gone, but there was still a slight waver to her voice that would not have been there in the past. "None of us did."

Not the war. Not the rift. Not any of this. "...there is nothing to make up for."

"Well, to do that we would have to regenerate the flesh as fast as it was being torn apart. Which you could do, with the lyrium generator, but we would have to work on how precisely you could draw on it the exact amount without killing me...."

He stopped, looking at her with open surprise at that flinch, that pulling back from her. As if he was ... he closed his eyes, and rubbed his face. "Yeah? Then what about all those templars I armed, that I made armor for? How about never checking to see if the Chantry or the Order was giving my weapons and my armors out to responsible human beings and not ... not sadistic assholes who would kill my friends - my family."

He looked at her then, his expression stone cold sober, a frightening look for anyone but especially on him, "I had zero accountability - and those bastards turned around and invoked whole scale slaughter of the mages. I can't ... I survived for a reason, Addy. It's got to be for more than just being lucky. I was meant to do something, in this struggle. I was meant to protect the people I let down. To find those who have the honor to serve as protectors, and not as bullies .... that's on me. It's always been on me."

She motioned to herself, brow quirked. "Spirit Healer."

The Generator would supply additional power and to work so intricate a mend so quickly would take settling closer to Compassion than she had ever been before- risking taking the spirit on in their entirety- it was a risk she would be willing to take.

A reminder that it was only Tony. That it was her friend, her brother- that helped her settle. A little. The battle of the Spire warped them all in some way. "You believed that we were doing the right thing. That...we were following the rules, more or less, and were doing well. That it would be enough."

The human element, as ever, threw everything for a loop. The human element in here certainly was throwing Adelaide- she'd never seen him so deadly serious. "...Is it not enough that you've survived?"

"Oh yeah ... that's right. You're a genius too." One corner of his mouth tilted up.

Which was the whole reason he had created the generator - allow armor to power itself without lyrium, to save Templars from becoming addicted, to give mages access to something that would not require blood magic. Yet the level of skill it would take to ride that lightening.

"I thought all that ... and I was wrong. Faith is not enough, Addy. I put the work into metal and magic for the Chantry. Now I have to put that in for our people. The mages who survive, the templars who still stand for that damned name. We have to rebuild, we have to unite ... really unite. Not only that ... you know how many innocent lives I've cost the world? Not just mages, but just ... innocent every day people, who were caught up in this war?"

He shook his head, "No. I've got to make amends -- and that starts with the Inquisition."

"...There are worse ways, I suppose, for you to spend your life." That she was there should come as no surprise. It was sanctuary. It was hope. It was the one organization that was doing something about this madness and for that they had her loyalty and her skills. Tony's interest was somewhat surprising, considering how for control and support of the templars he had been but-

A broken faith did things to a person's perspective.

"Can you promise me that you will be careful?" She reached out, tentative compared to her earlier tight embrace, hand touching his wrist lightly. "I have only just found you again. Having to chase you all over Thedas is not precisely how I would like to spend my days, Tonton."

"...Hey, you've seen me in some of those worse ways." He said, that old Stark smirk flashing through his dark eyes. He becomes serious again, before he wrapped his hands around hers. He was always going to be about control -- especially seeing how magic out of control gave you people like the Venatori.

But he didn't want to hand over innocents to people who saw them as tools, as threats, and not as people.

"...I ... promise I won't blow myself or any large amount of property up?" He quirked up a faint smirk. "Careful is not exactly a word I use for anything outside of forging, you know." Another hand squeeze, "But hey, you got other things to do than chase me around. Just know I'm here for your back too."

"That is about all I can ask for." Anything more was stretching with Tony. He did what he did and the rest of the world either kept up or was left behind. Adelaide had managed through sheer stubborn force of will to keep up by clinging, occasionally sprinting off to one side in her own tangential line of research shared shortly afterward.

One thing was certain: Skyhold would never be dull again.

"We've rules of conduct for mages, now. There is a council that minds them, guides them. Speaks for them." A beat. "I am a part of it."

For all that she hated politics and the like, she was. "...your having my back is worth quite a bit, I should think."

"Well good because anything else would make a liar out of me."

And now ... both eyebrows Up. Way Up. "I am ... trying to decide what is more improbable -- that at the end of the world the mages finally started getting along, or that you have a part in it."

Huh. "But ... you need my support there, you got it. I'll even sit in on the club meetings."

"I was nominated." And couldn't very well walk away from it, not easily. "It needs to be done and someone mindful must be involved and...I'll need your help." She sighs. "Thank you."

"Always the catch. What have I told you? Leave the room before they snag you." He gave her a crooked smile, before he lifted an eyebrow, "...Let me guess. I'm the one who is poking and charming people into doing the right thing?

"Tony, of the two of us- who is actually charming?" Not her, that was for certain. "Sensible I can do but- charming is not my skill. It is yours."

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