REINHARDT, AT YOUR SERVICE! (catch_phrase) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-01-25 20:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | *kate, *tiny, ellana lavellan, reinhardt wilhelm |
Log: Fear Plot, Reinhardt and Ellana, Part I
Had anyone asked, Reinhardt Wilhelm would claim to fear nothing. What, after all, was there for a man like him to fear? He stood more than seven feet tall, weighed five hundred pounds, and wielded a rocket hammer. He had lost friends, lost family, lost his husband, lost an eye, even watched the organization that he had dedicated half his life to crumble. What was left to fear? In the end, there was only this. Even with the best medical technology of his world, ligaments tore and joints failed. Disks wore out and backs along with them. Eventually, the finest machines failed, and so did the best of men. Much as he might pretend to be, Reinhardt was no exception. Meticulous attention to diet and exercise and a generous helping of luck could hold it off, but age would eventually come for him, and then his fight would be over. That was what he feared more than anything: that one day he would be as useless as Overwatch had called him when they had pushed him off of active duty. He feared the day he would be called to leave the fight for justice and honor to others, when he would be forced to stay home, helpless, as others did the work of saving the world and protecting the innocent. Thus, as the coma and the fear took him, that was where Reinhardt found himself: alone, sitting in front of the television, watching the horrors on the news and unable to do anything about them. Everything hurt, much more than it did in the real world--he felt all his usual aches, the ones in his back and his shoulders and his knees, multiplied exponentially. Just getting out of the chair was a trial of massive physical and mental effort. Why bother, then? He would get up, and what would he do then? Have another beer and take up one of the old adventure stories off the shelf? He could do nothing for the people who needed help in the world. What, then, was the purpose of rising from his chair where he could watch it all fall apart just as Overwatch had? Reinhardt would never know exactly how long he sat in the chair in front of the television. Time meant little when he had nothing to do with it. Did he ever sleep? He couldn’t be sure. Everything was a long, horrible blur, until the moment that he looked at the computer on the opposite wall. It felt like centuries since he’d even thought about it. There it was, though. A way to talk to people. A way to make friends. A way to organize. No, he couldn’t lift his hammer anymore. He couldn’t get himself into the Crusader armor. But his fingers worked, and so did his mind. He could get to social networks and lend his voice in support of causes. He could write to lawmakers, and call them as well. He could email Brigitte and she would help him make a sign and push his wheelchair in a protest march. His fight was not over simply because he was physically weak. He hadn’t fallen in battle as he’d always thought he would, but he could still fight until his last breath. When Reinhardt stood, the dark, lonely living room was gone. His aches and pains were all back to their normal level, perfectly manageable. He stood tall and strong, as able to fight as ever. He still wasn’t back in his home in Atlantis, however; he was someplace entirely different.
Ellana had been confused when she’d first woken up - but she’d never actually managed to find Reinhardt in his own Fear. She hadn’t needed to, though, some fears, some things you just… you had to figure out for yourself and his certainly fell into that category. No one could tell you you had other options, that you could just raise your voice, that you could just fight without the weapons. It was something you had to pull from deep within you, know it on your own. She’d been concerned, when she’d been somewhere else - when she just hadn’t woken up - that this might be some weird dream or whatever and when she’d blacked out a second time… only to wake up on the floor in Skyhold… yeah, it was definitely a dream. Or a nightmare. Or somewhere in between, either way - well, shit. On one hand, Ellana was happy to see Skyhold - she’d never felt at home in the same way as she did there, she’d always been restless in the Free Marches and it was part of why she’d always taken little missions that required her to travel more than the rest of her clan. But pushing herself off of the floor she realized exactly where in Skyhold she was. The sight of the Eluvian before her, the short hallway, the roar of the fire - wait, no, there was no fire. It was just… exceedingly dark. Skyhold hadn’t been dark since they’d gotten there, since they’d fixed things up. To say the Inquisitor was concerned was an understatement. To say being gripped by fear, which was normally an emotion she completely shut off, wouldn’t have had the weight behind it required of the situation. Everything was dark. But that wasn’t the worst realization, no, that was the one that came when she stumbled as she tried to get up - something a little more difficult to do with one of your fucking hands missing. Gone. Removed, no - removed was correct. It wasn’t missing, it wasn’t coming back, and that could only mean… The panic started to settle into her chest and she tried again to get off of the floor. There was a prickling in the back of her mind as she closed the few steps between herself and the Eluvian - reaching out to run her remaining hand along its frame as she breathed out a hazily visible breath in the cold of the old fortress. Everything was dark here, like it had just been entirely snuffed out and there was a part of Ellana - of course - that knew exactly what this fear was. A part of Ellana knew that there was only one fear of her’s that outweighed everything else. Something she’d struggled with before Atlantis; but something she struggled with even more after finding out what happened later. A later she was apparently living through, you know, given the whole missing arm thing. Taking in a breath she turned away from the Eluvian and walked towards the room Josephine normally occupied only… she didn’t find Josephine there in the darkness, she found Reinhardt.
“What is this place?” he asked. He was looking around the room even as he did so, like he was trying to figure it out for himself. A futile effort, of course - this castle was far removed from the fairytale confectionary castles near his old home in Stuttgart in space, time, and character. He’d seen fortresses like this, though; it wasn’t too different from Eichenwalde, though it was most certainly not Eichenwalde. His good eye settled more firmly on the woman he’d asked his question of, though, and he realized that he knew who she was. One of the trainers, if his mind wasn’t still playing tricks on him. “Ellana?”
Walking up to Reinhardt she held back a sigh as she crossed her arms (very awkwardly, given that she was less than used to, you know, the whole lack of a hand thing) as she looked around. “Skyhold.” She answered, stopping a foot or so away from him. “Its my… home.” She answered - keeping it fairly simple, rather than going into a complicated drabble about the Inquisition or anything else. “Welcome to Thedas.” She huffed out as she fidgeted her left arm uncomfortably against the other where they were crossed. She could still feel that linger prickle of fear in the back of her mind, none of this looked right - none of it seemed right. Plus, she’d sort of felt that tingle of it before; which she suspected must have been where Reinhardt was from. His world certainly had looked different than her’s, different than this. But that sense of fear had been there, even if much more lowkey than what she was feeling now. “Might want to stick to Inquisitor if anyone around here sees us.” If there was anyone around here - from the chill in the building if there was, they were keeping low profile. And right now? Right now Ellana figured that was a pretty hefty if; given she knew what Solas’ goals were and given that she knew that she’d been headed off with the others to Tevinter. If anyone was here, even if it was just her - the reasoning nor the answer were bound to be positives. Especially if she actually bothered to be honest to herself about the whole suspected fear aspect of all of this, however, that was highly unlikely to happen. The Inquisitor, after all, wasn’t exactly the best with the whole introspective thing or words or applying words to feelings. Okay, maybe just not so great with in-depth emotions in general.
Reinhardt knew that in his own trap, he had been forced to face his greatest fear. He could only assume that was what Ellana was being called to do, as well. What that fear was, though, wasn’t immediately obvious. The dark castle didn’t appear to be the trouble in and of itself, though it was a bit cold and forbidding, and just a little wrong. He’d never been here before, but he could tell that something was a bit off about it. “What do you expect we will find here, Inquisitor?” These were the sorts of shadows that ghouls jumped out of and ghosts lurked in. This was also the sort of place dragons swooped down on. None of those seemed like they would be the worst fear of a woman whom he was fairly certain he’d heard of slaying demons, however, even if she was down a hand.
The question hit Ellana like a ton of bricks, not that she would have let that show even for a moment. When she so chose, the Inquisitor could be steely, hard to read, neutral - it just so happened she didn’t bother very often. But right now every single one of her guards was up. Every single one of her instincts was to put on the face of a woman who had run off to spy on the Conclave; not the one that she’d become in leading the Inquisition. Letting out a slow breath the red haired elf looked around, “Spirits.” She said somewhat wistfully. It was part joke, part hope that she was wrong, and maybe just a little bit unwilling admission of reality. “We have to figure out if we’re actually in Skyhold or if we’re in the Fade, first.” She followed up. Ellana knew full and well that if she dug down deep down she wasn’t really sure if they’d be in the Fade or not. Plenty enough of what had happened there, how it was linked to Solas’ actions in the past, its link to her anchor. Well, she couldn’t rule it out at least. It didn’t feel like the Fade, but getting outside and seeing the sky would be the nice sort of confirmation she could go for at the moment.
“And how do we do that?” Reinhardt had only very limited knowledge of Thedas, snippets picked up in conversation here and there. While he had his flaws, believing that he knew everything and could just go charging in to do whatever he liked had not been one of them for a very long time. Lessons learned the hardest ways tended to stick. He wanted to help, but he was very willing to trust Ellana’s superior knowledge of her own world and how things worked.
“Do what we should anyway.” She answered, knowing that the whole taking a little walk outside thing was a good idea next regardless of whether being in the Fade was an option. “Head outside, take a look around.” Ellana wasn’t really thinking they’d find anything. She could feel the emptiness of the fortress. She could feel the change in the air without soldiers bunked in the barracks, the merchants out in the courtyard, without her uh… friends and council and just without people. Without anyone. She knew what it felt like when they’d just gotten there - stale, empty, in need of so much. The changes, the fixes, they were all here but they were missing any of the warmth that had come with the way they’d remastered the place. Ellana took a step backwards, some mild trepidation on her features before she nodded towards the door that would lead them out to the main hall. “No sense in sticking around here anyway, so may as well head out.” She said, turning and walking towards the large wooden doors.
“My own prison of fear was much different,” Reinhardt remarked as he followed. He shifted naturally into the habits of the part of a team bringing up the rear: scanning the peripheral, frequently looking back for any signs of trouble closing in. Two people wasn’t anyone’s ideal team size for taking on a huge castle for anything but a recon mission, but he’d been on undermanned teams before. They would fill in the gaps and do their best. The question remained, though, of what they might be facing. Reinhardt continued. “To escape, it seemed that I needed to face my fear and overcome it. I expect we will have to do something similar here.”
Ellana made her way through the main hall - still intact, just like she remembered it. The throne was behind them, the Inquisition’s standard hung from the walls (dusty, but intact), the tables that lined the space were bare but there. None of those facts helped to quell the growing feeling of dread inside of her. This wasn’t the Fade, but she still wanted to see the sky. This wasn’t the Fade, everything, everyone was just… gone. The Inquisitor didn’t like any of the feelings she was getting right now but at least the walk to the door was short and she opened the main doors to look out across the courtyard - everything was just as intact as she remembered it. Still standing, like it had done for centuries. The lack of activity, the void that was the emptiness of having no one around though - caused Ellana to clear her throat awkwardly. “We’re not in the Fade. So, at least we shouldn’t have to deal with any demons.” Theoretically at least. As far as she knew, there was no Blight to deal with in the time she was missing that everyone else had lived up to Solas’ removal of her arm and the decision to run off to Tevinter to undermine him. And without rifts cropping up everywhere, she was pretty confident in the one thing at least. Turning around to Reinhardt she shrugged - arms still crossed, “I honestly don’t know why we’d be in an empty as a damn void version of Skyhold.”
Reinhardt shrugged in return. “Your guess will certainly be much better than any I could make,” he said. He knew his own fears and how to face them, but Ellana’s were another matter entirely. With no more than a passing acquaintance with her, he hadn’t even a notion what might creep through the darkness in her mind. Ellana didn’t seem to have any more of a suggestion, though - or at least, she was acting as if she didn’t. He didn’t know her well enough to know if she was truly clueless or simply refusing to acknowledge it. Regardless, the next step seemed the same: try to figure it out. “You said this was your home - now it seems empty. Why might that be?”
As much as Ellana didn’t like it, she wouldn’t have disagreed with Reinhardt’s assessment. Logically the next step was figuring out why things were empty, why things were the way they were - which Ellana did have an answer for. She just didn’t have an answer towards you know, how it was a fear and how to work it out. At least the why things were empty was something she could guess at. “Uh, not a lot of options. Either this is right after I ran off to Tevinter with whoever decided to come along or Solas got what he wanted.” The later was half mumbled out; Solas getting what he wanted meant she failed despite any of her best efforts. The later, the later was a lot more terrifying to her and made her skin crawl and her stomach churn in a way that she wouldn’t and couldn’t acknowledge. “I should have a weapon.” It was just about the only thing Ellana could manage to shove out after her last statement and it was definitely forced out, quickly, and almost immediately after she’d said the word wanted - it wouldn’t have been hard to tell that this was anything but a very sore, unhappy subject as she spoke so quickly and immediately moved to walk back inside of the main hall. Looking back over her shoulder she added, “Just in case.”
“It never hurts!” Reinhardt agreed cheerfully. He tended toward good cheer even in the worst of circumstances. Despite popular opinion on the matter, however, Reinhardt’s general cheerfulness was not an indication that he was stupid. He’d heard what Ellana said about Solas, muttered though it was, and had a feeling that was what she’d need to deal with. So, because they needed to get out of here, Reinhardt abandoned tact (not that it was really his strong point anyway) and asked the question as he followed Ellana into the hall. “What did Solas want?”
Walking back through the main hall, Ellana managed a chuckle, “That’s sure as shit right.” She paused, acutely aware of the pain the next statement would bring alongside the rather obvious missing of a limb, “I feel naked without a sword anyway.” Though she knew, in the back of her mind, she wasn’t going up to rummage through her stuff and grab the sword of the Inquisition nor her usual two hander or Certainty, her more favoured weapon (the other was better for showing off, really). It wasn’t like she could really wield a greatsword right now, not down a hand. But being the moderately, secretly sentimental woman that she was she was hoping another very specific sword may have still been stashed away. With any luck, at least, if she was off in Tevinter and things hadn’t actually all entirely fallen apart yet it probably wouldn’t be here - but at least she’d be able to find something, she hoped. Making her way through a side door and up some stairs towards her quarters, Ellana stopped suddenly - looking back at Reinhardt, “I’m the worst person to ask.” She half-laughed out, “I only know bits and pieces he told me or Hawke and Varric did, back in Atlantis.” A mostly-true statement, capped off by a purposefully nonchalant turn back towards her quarters. Lifting her now-crippled hand up, back still to Reinhardt, she made an awkwardly little waving motion, “Haven’t lived through the grand declarations myself, yet.” The Inquisitor admitted as she opened the door to her quarters, bounding up the stairs and looking around at the… almost entirely untouched room… Turning back she motioned with her still-intact hand towards the balcony, “The views great if you want to get a look while I rummage.” She offered - heading off to her desk first, to see if she might get lucky.
“Ah, it is beautiful indeed!” Trapped in a mind-prison though they were, the view from the Inquisitor’s quarters was indeed stunning. Snow-capped mountain peaks, traces of forest below, and nothing but clear sky for miles. “It reminds me of the Bavarian Alps at home! I used to go skiing there when I was young!” There were no signs of anything coming to attack across those mountains. The room held no obvious signs of trouble, either. Reinhardt wasn’t sure if that should comfort or concern him. Was it possible that Ellana’s prison was not based on fear at all, but something else entirely?
Not behind her desk, ’Well, shit.’ She thought to herself as she looked over to the ledge above her bed - of course it’d be up with her extra armour and weapons. Up a damn ladder. And she only had one damn hand. The fact that her room was entirely intact was eerie in its own way - but it didn’t shock Ellana by any means, for reasons she wouldn’t allow to pass through her mind. “I miss it sometimes, back in Atlantis.” She responded idly. “Its a hell of a view to replace, even with pretty beaches.” The statement was laden with sarcasm as she walked up to the ladder - a stern look on her face as she made a disgruntled little noise. It wasn’t without a little bit of struggle and fumbling (mostly because she just wasn’t used to being one handed, not because she wasn’t strong enough to get herself up a small ladder with just the one that remained), but she got up to the top and picked up some lighter armour she had up there, dropping it over the bannister down to land on her bed with a much quieter thunk than if she’d not bothered and just dropped it on the floor. “Thankfully, my things are here.” She noted loud enough for Reinhardt to hear, picking Evanura up and turning the practically ancient blade over in her hand - a little smile on her face before she let it too fall down to clank against the armour now strewn on her bed. Now, down was a little more difficult and it only took the Inquisitor a moment of frustration with the fact that she wasn’t exactly sure how to manage it one handed to say fuck it and just jump down, her boots thudding against the floor as she wandered over to the bed. “I want to check the Archives.” She stated as she grumbled her way through getting her greaves and field plate on. Another task that was difficult now, but not impossible. “They might at least let us know what fucking year it is.”
“That could be useful to know.” Reinhardt glanced up at the storage area. “Do you have a war hammer up there, by any chance? Or a battleaxe, I have been practicing some with one of those. I can go get it while you finish with your armor.” Not that he objected to punching his way through whatever they ran into, but he was generally more effective with a weapon. He would have liked to have his rocket-armor and rocket-hammer here, he’d made do with a simple sledgehammer before. He didn’t offer to help with the armor. Reinhardt’s friends and comrades included several who were down a limb or two, along with himself and Ana having each lost an eye. The rule was the same among all of them: give help when it’s asked for, and otherwise let people manage as they saw fit.
Looking up from her task as she fiddled with actually fastening her chest plate she huffed amusedly, “No axes or hammers, unfortunately.” Her tone was light and joking, “Not exactly my style, but...” She said, looking back down at the last fastener that she was having a more difficult time with, largely because of its placement and the bulkiness of her armour not exactly helping the whole situation. “The Undercroft is hardly a few steps out of the way to getting down to the Archives and Dagna and Harr- sorry… uh our forge, forgey people…” She trailed off for a moment, realizing that they definitely weren’t here any more and that she should probably keep details… simple… no sense in blathering on about names and places and all that shit when… whatever. “Anyway, we were outfitting an army. There’s going to be fucking something down there for you to use.” She said, mostly holding back a sigh of relief as she managed to finish the armour fastening and sheathed Evanura safely at her side. Nodding back towards her door she walked past Reinhardt once more and headed back off to the main hall. The frustration of her armour and the ladder had been a nice little distraction from the tightening of her chest as the dread set in more and more about just how empty things were. Just how… quiet the wind seemed. Even all the way up here she felt like she’d never encountered this level of still. It was unsettling.
“Let us have a look, then, if you do not mind the detour. I don’t know what your fears are, but if they turn out to be angry bears, I would like to be prepared!” He kept his tone light, as well; merriment was always a good antidote to fear, at least for him. And while nothing here was his fear, the silent old castle reminded him all too much of Eichenwalde and his old commander. He wouldn’t be too surprised to see that old ghost here, and a bit of chatter took his mind off it. “I have considered, though--” The thought of what might keep them trapped here was still turning around in Reinhardt’s mind. “While it was my fear that kept me prisoner, it is possible what holds us in this place is something else altogether. As we have all seen, the magic around Atlantis is very strange!”
Ellana chuckled at Reinhardt’s enthusiasm - she appreciated it right now. Being back in Skyhold with all the new information in her mind and, of course, the current emotions surrounding it was a hell of a thing. A hell of a thing that was damn appreciative of the fact that he was going along with the light banter; it helped, whether she’d admit that outloud or not. “It’d be fucking spiders if it was anything.” She joked back as they reached the main hall once more - taking a little detour to the left to bring him down into the Undercroft. Another room with a fantastic view, as it happened. Making quick work down the steps into the main area of the forge and Dagna’s workshop - she motioned around, “There’s going to be better things near the balcony here.” She said - motioning out towards where the end of the space. “Dagna does all her alterations and enchanting down there.” Slowly making her own way through there, it once again just seemed too quiet, none of Dagna’s chattering or Harritt’s snark. Making her way over to the stone bannister behind Dagna’s workspace she leaned against it - she stared out at the waterfall, its cold mist hitting her face. “She’s Dwarven, so you damn well know anything she puts together will hold up to a beating.” Ellana chuckled again, even if it was short lived.
It didn’t take long to find something that would suit. There were a number of weapons left in the Undercroft, and while Reinhardt might not know the first thing about magic, he did know good engineering when he saw it. “This will do nicely!” He hefted up an old classic, the Dwarven Rock-Crusher. It was nothing fancy, but it would crush skulls as well as it would rocks. That was all he really needed - if he needed anything at all. So far, Skyhold was bringing them no trouble. With the maul propped up on his shoulder, he nodded to the door. “Lead on to the Archives!”
Now that they were both a little more outfitted for proper trouble, Ellana let herself pull back from being sort of lost in thought at the water and nodded, marching right past Reinhardt as she lead him back through the main hall once more, through rooms she was too familiar with and down into the lower levels - past the kitchens and the paintings she took him into a smaller area of the castle, the most secluded as it were. The wine cellar to her left and to her right; a much smaller library the the one up in the atrium. One that was normally empty, one that she knew would bother her on that level much less. “Unchanged.” She muttered, the feeling of magic still lingered heavily in the room and Ellana had no intentions on stepping towards the grimoire. Admittedly, she hadn’t thought much would come of coming down here - beyond that if certainly things had come to pass, she would have expected this room to have been used as it held most of the magical literature in Skyhold and it was secluded. “Lets just search the rest.” She said, slipping past Reinhardt (not without grabbing a bottle of wine from the cellar across and shoving it in her pouch, purely for posterity of course) and heading off to search the rest of Skyhold. With no luck in the atrium or the kitchens or… anywhere else for that matter, Ellana finally made her way round to the armory, looking inside the window she didn’t need to step in to know it too, was barren. Clearing her throat she nodded towards some stairs that would lead them up to the battlements so they could talk. “Beyond my attachment to Skyhold, I have no idea why anything would bring me here.” She admitted as she reached the top of the stairs.
That, Reinhardt suspected, was a lie. It sounded like the sort of lie Reyes would come up with to avoid admitting that he was afraid of anything. If she was like Gabriel Reyes in other ways, odds were that pressing her on the matter right away would be a pointless exercise. On the other hand, he also wanted to get out of this place, and he expected Ellana did as well. “There is nothing in this place that you fear?” he asked. “It was only by facing mine that I was brought out of wherever I was held. If there are others out there who need our help, facing yours may be the only way we can move on to the next.”
Fear was a pretty hard sell for Ellana, she had some obvious and rather harmless ones she admitted to. But getting any any real roots of true fears? That, well, definitely not the Inquisitor’s strong point and that whatever the hell decided to bring her back to Skyhold of all places had apparently decided that she needed somewhere comforting and familiar to deal with whatever fucked up thing it wanted her to deal with. There were a few clues here or there. The fact that her quarters were perfectly intact, that her things were there. The fact that the frescos were finished, rather than the last left as just a daring outline. The emptiness, but lack of destruction. It was like walking through the Fade, not walking through Skyhold. Everything reminded her of what Haven had been like the one time Solas had taken her. Barren, but itself. But this wasn’t the Fade, it couldn’t have been. Things were too tangible, things were too… living to be the Fade. Not that she’d put it past some asshole demond to decide she needed to be dragged through that hellscape again. But she remembered what the fear felt like once she’d gotten back her memories, when they’d fought the Nightmare demon. This wasn’t that. But that was sort of where Ellana’s thought process hit a largely impenetrable wall. She wasn’t really willing to accept that Skyhold was empty, the everywhere was going to feel… empty. She wasn’t willing to accept it because not only would that mean she failed, but that she’d given up on trying. Neither were things she was willing to accept. “Skyhold was… is... home to me. I don’t have a damn clue why I’d fear anything here - unless it became overrun with fucking spiders while I was gone.” The joke probably didn’t help the obvious deflection, but she wouldn’t have been her without it.
“Where do you think all the people who lived here are?” Ellana said this was her home, but this didn’t feel like a home to Reinhardt. There were all the signs that it had been one at some point in the past, but none of the life that would indicate it was one now. And if there was one thing that Reinhardt knew about fear, it was that the worst ones were seldom so simple as spiders. Ellana’s theory as to where the people who ought to be in the castle had gone might be a clue to what her real fear might be.
“Last I was here it was still a bustling stronghold.” Ellana began, knowing that wouldn’t satiate any sort of question and as much as she wanted to avoid the whole talking part; she was smart enough to know that she couldn’t avoid it entirely and the truth was that… she actually, legitimately, didn’t know. Skyhold could have been empty just as much because she had stopped Solas, found her way to win some part of it - well, just as much as it would be empty if she’d failed. She was smart enough, though not so emotionally competent enough, to know that if this was a fear - the later was unlikely. “Hopefully...” She said, turning around so she could lean back against the battlement’s wall, “Its because they’re off in Tevinter with me. Which isn’t exactly a hop, skip, and a jump away. So it… well, it wouldn’t be worth consistent upkeep if we moved our base along with the mission.” It was the truth, even if it avoided some deeper thoughts and feelings. Ellana did hope this just meant they’d been pulled into a time period after what had transpired between her and Solas and that what was left of the Inquisition had gone off to Tevinter and that was the plain and simple of it. It was the truth, it just sort of didn’t bother to scratch at the unlikely fact that if that was the case? Why the fuck did she feel so dreadful about it?
“But that would be nothing to be afraid of,” Reinhardt said, echoing some of Ellana’s own thoughts. “So, though I do not like thinking this way - what if we are not thinking hopefully? What is the worst-case scenario of why this place is empty?” He knew it would be a painful question to consider. Normally he would never push someone on such a thing. The fact was, however, that they would be trapped here until they faced the worst possibilities.
Ellana laughed again, an actual laugh - not some sort of chuckle or half assed cover up, “Well, shit.” She couldn’t help but laugh, frankly, because if she didn’t laugh she might let too much show and she might actually take all of this seriously. And that? That was something the Inquisitor wasn’t willing to risk. She wasn’t going to take this too seriously, she outright couldn’t. Because for her, taking this seriously? It meant that this was a legitimate future possibility and that would mean that there was a future in which she gave up. Ellana was outright unwilling to accept that in any shape or form. “Means I fucked up somewhere along the way.” It scratched at the surface of the truth, but definitely didn’t dig into it. Just thinking she’d fucked up and they’d never gotten back to Skyhold or they were still in Tevinter or she’d decided it was too painful to come back here - all much better options than the ones that any artistry might have lead her to believe were more likely.
“That sounds more like something to fear.” It was a common one for leaders, Reinhardt knew. He had felt it himself, every time he was in charge of a team. The fear of letting people down, the fear of people dying because of your mistakes...commanders who didn’t have at least some of that fear tended to be terrible commanders. “When I was with Overwatch, that was when our consequences for failure were highest,” he said. “If we failed, it would be the end of the world as we knew it. The end of humanity. We all feared that failure, but I cannot imagine that any of us feared it more than Jack did. As Strike Commander, everything fell upon his shoulders. The fate of the world is a lot to carry. That is what you do here, yes? As the Inquisitor?”
Huffing, Ellana shrugged, “Probably.” She answered, though there was no denying that the casual tone was masking the fact that she knew he was right and she just didn’t really think it worth going into any more. It was definitely something to fear, no one with half their sense would argue that. And while Ellana may have been damn good at avoiding, she wasn’t the sort to outright lie, and she definitely wasn’t an idiot. “The Inquisition was the biggest accident of my life, best one too.” She answered, “Being Inquisitor felt like what I was actually made to do, not that I’d admit that to a damn soul so I know if anyone repeats that it came from you.” Ellana smirked at him, it wasn’t deflecting (not yet at least), but you know - still trying to keep the mood… stable? “I was around for the whole saving the world part, I’ve lived through what made us successful. We won. That was that.” Wetting her lips, she paused - the Dalish woman was good with secrets when she wanted to be, but secrets wouldn’t help right now and there was no sense in not at least explaining other things she’d eluded to. “Most of the other Thedosians, Solas included, are from about a year and a half after I am. So the rest of it? What happened to the Inquisition, psuedo-disbanding, Solas having plans, running off to Tevinter?” None of which she was pretty sure made total sense to Reinhardt, but enough sense that he could follow. “I only know bits and bobs second fucking hand.” The truth again, the truth minus reasonable speculation again - to be more accurate. “So short answer, yes, fate of the world was a fuckton to carry and all that - but I did it, because I had to.” She’d had to do it for Thedas just as much as she had herself.
“That would strike that from the list of possible fears, then.” Reinhardt considered what she said further - clearly one battle had been fought and won, but that didn’t mean that others didn’t remain. She talked of Solas having plans and running off to Tevinter, and he didn’t know what those might mean. It sounded like they were in the future, though, and the uncertain future was often more of a source of fear than the settled past. “What have the others from your world said to you of that future?” he asked. “Of the plans Solas has, or of why you go to Tevinter. Is there something to fear in that?”
The problem with asking Ellana about the future was that she was so hellbent on changing it that she hardly considered losing an actual option. Of course, she’d been in a pretty shit mood lately because she knew she was looking at the possibility of a lose-lose-lose situation over all, but that didn’t mean that a single ounce of her being had actually even considered that a realistic ending. No, she’d win something. She’d stop something. What Solas had done couldn’t be fixed, but what he was considering could be dissuaded. At the very least she could undermine it to the point where he couldn’t actually succeed and go from there. And that was the whole plan - if, when, whatever - she ended back up in Thedas, once she’d lived through the inevitable of the next year and a half. After she inevitably lost the arm. After she inevitably shuts down the Inquisition… The plan was to do whatever was in her power, whatever was in her capabilities to get the best case scenario possible. For Ellana, personally, there was no best case. She’d either lose Solas because he’d hate her. Or she’d get Solas and her friends would hate her. Or she’d lose both. Whatever the end game, she lost her arm and she lost a lot of what made her her. How could she be afraid of guaranteed loss? It wasn’t like she was going to come out a winner no matter what scenario played out. So she just didn’t see how it was even possible she was actually afraid of the results. The results were the fucking results, they were shit for her no matter what - but she wasn’t doing anything for herself. She was doing it to save a little piece of Solas that might be left. Save the lives of her friends. Save the lives of Thedas. None of it had anything to do with her. “Just that the plans are shitty.” She huffed again. “Listen, the end is shit for me either way.” Ellana spoke as if it was a joke and on many levels, it probably was. How the fuck else was she supposed to cope with the fact that she lost anyway? “Admittedly, I haven’t asked a lot of questions.”
“Hm.” Reinhardt looked thoughtful as he leaned forward to brace his hands on the wall, looking out at the mountains ahead of them. He was no master strategist or psychologist, and he was running out of ideas for what the fear they might need to face would be. He hated the idea of simply giving up; giving up was not at all in his nature. But this was Ellana’s world and Ellana’s fear, and there was only so much he was even capable of doing. “I can understand fearing that,” he said, “but I do not know how you might conquer that fear. I would say ask the questions...but there is no one here to ask.”
“If you can’t tell, I’m a little better at hitting things than talking.” The Dalish woman joked to her, she figured, fairly unfortunate accomplice. She did kinda feel bad for Reinhardt right now, because she knew herself well enough that getting stuck in her fears was… you know, not the best place to be. Certainly not the happiest place to be. Ellana was sort of… comparable to a pretty wildly raging trash fire on a good day - on a day where she was stuck having to admit that her greatest fear was a triple header loss? Yeah, good fucking luck. And she knew that, that wasn’t even deep down. Ellana just knew that there was no way in hell she could face the reality of her worst fears. Because facing that reality meant being okay with giving up, with taking the burden off of her shoulders, with admitting defeat, with… some how reconciling with the worst of possibilities. Rolling her neck, she let out a soft sigh, “Well, shit. Options might be just have a drink or go for a pretty chilly walk.” Wetting her lips, she folded her arms over her chest, “A drink might get me thinking, a walk might tell us just how empty things are.” Admittedly, the fear was making a drink sound damn good right now. But there would never be a part of Ellana that didn’t just want to rush off and investigate, so right now? She was kinda leaning towards that chilly walk. “If we can get down to the Dales to the west or down to Redcliff in the east - we’d at least know if its just Skyhold or if its…” She cleared her throat less than subtly, “Everything.” Neither walk was necessarily brief - but lucky or unlucky for them, Reinhardt had been pretty quick to figure out his own fear.
“Why not both?” Reinhardt grinned, because at this point, what was there to do but buck up and do their best? “We gather supplies, including some beer, and then we walk!” He’d always liked traveling, and he’d walked large chunks of Europe with Brigitte. He’d seen a woolly druffalo hide hung up on a wall (not that he had any idea what animal it came from) that he thought he could fashion into something like a cloak. They might as well proceed and see what there was to find out there, and have a drink while they were at it.
Ellana smirked, pushing herself off of the battlement wall as she nodded, “Treats for the road first, then.” She said - leading Reinhardt off to the tavern and a few other places in Skyhold for enough supplies to make it at least to Redcliffe. Whatever waited in Redcliffe could decide if they bothered to continue on elsewhere - of course, the effort would be futile either way as the only fear Ellana had to conquer was something entirely internal, but there was even less of a chance of her doing that if she didn’t see for herself - first hand - if it was only Skyhold that was so empty.
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