[IC/OOC] Contact

[minrathousian]

 

dream visits | letters and notes | in-person visits

To contact Atticus IC: Leave a response to this entry, specifying the means of contact (e.g., letters, in person visit). To contact me OOC: Discord:  middlemarching#9936 Plurk:  ragweed NB:  I work 9-5pm EST Mon-Fri, have additional volunteer obligations, and write fiction in my free time.

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[minrathousian]

He leads her down an elaborate staircase towards the dance floor, where other ladies and gentlemen in elegant gowns and suits glide together as they dance to a stately Orlesian minuet. Atticus steps into the dance and draws her after him; he's a good dancer, moving well to the music.

He turns her in a circle, eyes on her face; as he moves his hand to retake hers, he says quietly, "You're searching for something."

[doneisdone]

She too is a surprisingly good dancer, not even just in her dreams; Teren clearly blends well, practiced in her deception of the wealthy elite.
She smiles attentively to Atticus, her eyebrows arching with interest at his statement. "We all are," she deflects, "or no one would come to these ludicrous things."

[minrathousian]

He gives her a smile like glass in return. "Yes, I suppose that is true."

She's good--not just at dancing, but at deflecting, even in her unconscious mind; an instinct borne out of paranoia, or preparation? He surmises the paranoia could be his own; theirs was a chance acquaintance at some boring gala in Hunter Fell decades ago, but Atticus had only been in attendance at all due to a distant, Nevarran cousin of his wife. What would bring this spectre from his past into the Inquisition?

It has been some weeks since his and Benedict's capture. Is that enough time for word to reach the Artemaeus family?

Holding her eyes as he turns her in the dance, he thinks, Fear--what frightens you now? Why are you here? and ushers into the dreamscape whatever it is that might represent for her--both in this memory, and in the present.

[doneisdone]

Control is the name of the game in such situations, and when Teren meets the man's eyes but finds him staring right through her, it rattles her. Abruptly the room's occupants have all turned to stare silently at them, and Teren slows, looking around at attentive crowd with rising dread.
When she diverts her gaze back to Atticus, he's in shadow; the hall has shrunk and lost most of its light. Hard stone walls, the smell of piss and mildew, and strong hands grab her arms from behind, holding her there.
She knows it's Alistair because the rest of the Wardens are here too, replacing the crowd, staring, sneering. Behind the stranger, flanking him on either side, are Ayse and Benevenuta Thevenet, the latter with a knowing smirk.

Whatever she's been trying to hide, everyone's aware of it now, and they're hungry for payback. Teren's awful dress has begun to feel more restrictive, and she knows there's no running or fighting in it. She looks imploringly back to the stranger, momentarily too choked by fear to answer or even understand what he's asking for.

[minrathousian]

Her fears flow around him like a river current around a stone. Atticus folds his arms over his chest and considers what he sees--the faces rounding on Teren with vicious condemnation in hard, unforgiving eyes, the sneers, the covetous hunger to get even.

He's impassive in the face of her pleading stare, but frowns nonetheless. ...No. No, she doesn't know anything.

Lengths of black ribbon seem to curl around the spectral bodies of her friends and enemies, pulling them away into the shadows, like some eldritch horror has decided it's time to tidy up the carnage littering its hellscape. He approaches her through the unnatural gloaming and reaches out to rest his hand in the air beside her temple.

"Sleep," he instructs her brusquely.

The dream dissolves; the nightmare fades.

He wakes up to the distant call of gulls in the early morning light.

[doneisdone]

She's made vaguely aware of Benedict Artemaeus, but the thought just confuses her: 'we fooled his family' is the only impression she's able to give on that note, confounded and desperate by the scenario.
She's on the verge of a meltdown when the man touches her temple, and the actual Teren suddenly sits up with a horrified gasp. It's still dark; it can't have been longer than an hour that she was asleep, but that's the last of it she's getting tonight.