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allthisshitisweird2016-02-02 01:07 am
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2016-02-02 01:07 am
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME!
What if there is no tomorrow?
Only more 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, the first days of the new year find 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.
STILL WITH ADDED SNOW AND NOW ALSO ADDED KINDNESS TO ANIMALS (MOSTLY).
1. IF I GET SCARED, YOU'RE ALWAYS AROUND
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 still snowy.
2. THEY SAY WE'RE YOUNG AND WE DON'T KNOW
The Inquisition has, possibly, been a little too good at dealing with the Hinterlands' bear problem, and a group of concerned citizens--including young burgeoning naturalists, farmers concerned about the effect an unchecked population of rams may have on their crops come spring, and at least one woman who claims to be directly descended from bears--has taken issue. Maybe they're blocking your character's attempt to enter a bear-infested area. Maybe they've doused your character in bear blood. Maybe the bears they have been working so hard to save have cornered them in the wilderness and they're changing their tunes.
3. WITH YOU I CAN'T GO WRONG
The Inquisition's (cough Leliana's) habit of communicating by raven works out fine, usually, but this particular raven has gone a little rogue. It's not the raven's fault! She's young, she's trying. But she has very important information tied to her leg, and instead of delivering it, she's joined a flock of identical wild ravens to hunt for food in the snow. Recover her, somehow, without hurting her and making any spymistresses angry.
4. BEFORE IT'S EARNED, OUR MONEY'S ALL BEEN SPENT
The tavern at Redcliffe remains as busy as ever, filled with locals, travelers, and Inquisition members. But this month in addition to the usual free-flowing ale and rowdy conversation there is also a contest going on. Bakers have come from across the Hinterlands bearing their very best in an effort to win a coveted ribbon and the title of Best Cake. They pack the tavern and spill out into the surrounding courtyard when the weather allows, cakes sold off tables, out of packs, small chunks given away to whoever is passing and not paying enough attention to refuse. The votes are carefully guarded by several serious looking fellows in the back corner of the tavern. In addition to traffic issues, the cake madness has also caused an infestation of large local rodents, who have appeared out of their holes to devour the many crumbs. Legend has it that if they can be humanely eradicated from the tavern before the final vote is cast, spring will come early. No one in living memory has succeeded, but you are strongly encouraged to try anyway.
5. AIN'T NO HILL OR MOUNTAIN WE CAN'T CLIMB
Hunt game so you can rescue it before other hunters get there, kill demons or maybe just try to hug it out?, dig under the snow for herbs or plant some of your own to replace what others have taken, track bandits through the snow and see if they need a hand, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing and convince them to do the right thing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow and admit it was your own fault, 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 so that you can give it a decent burial, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow and be careful not to knock them down, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow but leave a nice apology note, run from a dragon in the snow and promise not to trespass on its territory again, definitely don't kill any fennec foxes, set up camp and chat around the fire about your feelings because it's snowy and cold, give yourself a pat on the back (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your playground.
( 1 )
In the end Regina curves a gloved hand and the trunk fades in purple smoke. She'd be content to walk away after that, if it were not for how familiar that bolt of red happens to be.
"If you start up about being touched for the very first time, I'm letting the tree have you." Regina warns wryly, and no of course she does not offer Ruby a hand up. "Get up and make yourself useful, surely you can find Snow White and her shephard prince." No doubt they're here... somewhere. Regina is a little disoriented herself, but she supposes the cancelation of her curse might have something to do with that. If the wolf girl is here, the rest of them ought to be somewhere. Everyone but the person she wants to be with the most.
laughs, cries
"Didn't know how lost I was until I found you," Red replies. Very flat, and very much spoken rather than sung, as she gingerly rolls onto her side so she can push herself up a little more easily. The assumption that Snow and David were here somewhere wasn't that weird in and of itself, they did tend to be at the centre of these sorts of things, but something just feels a little... off, a little weird. Look for Snow and David, but not Emma? Not Henry? Unless she already know where they are, which means maybe they're here too...
Red is still thinking and not speaking, and shakes herself a little when she reminds herself to look at Regina. "I wasn't expecting to see you here," she admits. "But thanks for the help."
Just because most of their conversations take place over coffee and weren't actually conversations wasn't a reason to be uncivil. Regina seemed really different, this past while, but then every thing has seemed a little different. Being forgotten by her friends was different, too. Maybe that was just what happened when people found their real family - they didn't need to the substitutes any more. She's bitter and hurt and she knows it, which is even worse.
"I'll need to find a scent or a trail before I can find them," though she imagines it's pointless to even say, and is already rolling her shoulders and setting off walking. The bruising and the general everything can wait. Maybe.
no subject
In the end, Regina and Ruby are at the same loss. She can't cast a tracking spell without something that belongs to Snow White, and the only thing she has on her is black leather and an overabundance of feathers. Nothing that can help track her toward the Charmings. "So you're useless," the queen states kindly, stalking off toward a snowy path with her cloak catching the wind behind her. She knows full well that Red was intending to walk the same way, it's just her nature to beat her to the punch.
"They've around here somewhere," she mutters to herself, poison-tipped fingers curved tightly into her palms, maybe tight enough to bleed if she weren't wearing gloves — and somehow that doesn't hurt as much as her heart does. "What were you doing underneath that tree?" Clearly Red hadn't put herself there, so there had to be some sort of reason she'd been pinned under it. If they had someone Regina needed to keep an eye out for, she wanted to know about it.
no subject
"What are you talking about?" Doubt leeches into her tone, and maybe caution, because even if Regina has changed she's still not someone Ruby's tripping over herself to sing praises over.
And just-- God damn it, Regina. Red makes a face, following with long strides and easily catching up. "I'm a wolf, not a wizard. Magic up a solution - don't you have a spell?" That's your usual style, right?
As for the tree, Red glances to the Queen and considers a moment before attempting a response. It sparks something in her memory, and she looks at her left hand, wrapped up in a red leather glove, and wonders if the mark she remembers seeing on it before the whole tree thing happened is still there. She opts to not peel off the glove and inspect it just yet, just balls her hand into a fist.
"I don't really remember," Red starts, indicated her head. "Kinda had an argument with a branch, but, uh. I do remember seeing this circle. They had robes and staffs." A little frown. "It seemed a little bit cult-like, actually."