entranceway | ➶ four (action & video)

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➶ four (action & video)

[ The archdemon uttered a low, deep growl, collapsed and nearly dead, but not quite. Covered in gore and exhausted, the Warden had acted before thinking, dashing forward, all the while knowing an arrow would never be enough to take the life of a dragon, and instead grabbing a fallen warrior's blade from the ground as she went. The monster began to rise, snarling, its long, reptilian neck swaying as it watched her approach, but she never slowed, fearing her courage or energy might abandon her. It stretched out and roared, teeth bared, but she ducked beneath and traced the sword's edge along its exposed neck. Blood spilled overhead and behind her as the archdemon wailed, thrashing and then falling with an enormous crash nearby, finally defeated-- but, though the dragon had almost been ended, the soul would seek out another, and she drew ragged breaths in that final moment, shaking with adrenaline and fear.

Sacrifice. The word rang out in her mind in a dozen voices and she tried to picture the faces of all the people she'd fought with, all the people who hadn't made it to see this moment, before raising the borrowed weapon and driving it home in the skull of the leader of the darkspawn horde. A blinding light exploded before her eyes, the definitive sign that they'd succeeded, and she could just make out the sound in the distance of people calling out to her as that whiteness overtook her vision, blinding her, and then--

Blue. Robyn Cousland realizes her eyes are open again, staring up above at a clear, vast sky. She remains motionless for a long time, mind blissfully blank, but... dogged by a budding confusion. The Warden stretches her fingers and toes, wrinkles her nose at a very strange and unpleasant odor, shifts where she lies and winces as her joints crack. She's inexplicably lying in a garden, surrounded by flowers, likely crushing more than one of them. It's far from clear how she got here, or... where here even is, and eventually she's encouraged by curiosity to draw herself up to a seated position so that she can look around. The grounds with their lush hills and bubbling fountain aren't exactly familiar, but when her gaze falls on a looming mansion, her heart speeds up rapidly as if it had just woken up all at once. ]

Wonderland. [ She stares at it with her mouth now slightly agape. Wonderland, the strange place she'd been spirited to for... months, back before the Landsmeet, where she'd met... a handful of people from Thedas and even more from places more bizarre-sounding than Wonderland itself. She'd made friends and... likely enemies, she guesses, though their names and faces are still a little hazy. She'd met people who hadn't known her at all despite her memories saying otherwise. When she recalls those instances, particularly with Alistair and Morrigan, she recalls very sharply from where she'd just come and gets to her feet, albeit shakily. The off-putting scent had been the blood that covered her almost from head to toe mingled with the flowers she'd landed in, a smell nauseating in its combination. As such, she moves away from the gardens and to the fountain, sitting, weary, on its edge and washing off her face and hands. There is a room that, at one point, belonged to her inside the walls, and eventually she'll make her way there and bathe. There may be a mabari, too, who wasn't her hound from childhood, Calen, but Oren, named for her nephew.

It's all incredibly overwhelmingly, and on top of those new, old memories, she's still reeling from defeating the archdemon and-- dying. Robyn waits for the grief, which she remembers, now, so clearly from when Leliana had first warned her of her fate... but, it doesn't come. There's only a tired sort of resignation, the knowledge that the job had been done, and that this -- Wonderland -- is the only way to go forward with her life now.

The now rightfully-titled Hero of Ferelden lingers by the fountaion for a while, watching her reflecting idly, before moving inside to clean the tide of battle from her skin and armor. ]

[ It's many hours after she arrives in the gardens that Robyn remembers the network, that she thinks to pick up her device and to send out a message. She's freshly washed and no longer dressed for a fight, but when she does show her face, there's something distinctly different about it. Where she had just a week earlier seemed a little more the overeager girl, today she seems a great deal more Grey Warden than anything. ]

Greetings. [ Robyn speaks, tone crisp and polite, but almost distant, as if she's mentally somewhere else all throughout. ] I'm sorry if I... worried anyone. I've been told that I've only been gone a week, but as I suspect many of you know from experience, it was a little longer than that where I was.

[ She pauses, then scoffs faintly, shaking her head. ]

Well... to be honest, I couldn't say how much time passed. Maybe it wasn't so long after all. It felt like... ages.

[ Considering all that happened in Denerim with Howe, Loghain, the Landsmeet, and... the battle to follow. ]

I've come back unharmed. [ In case anyone had seen her earlier and was concerned about the amount of blood she'd been wearing. ] And... I hope the week has been kind.

[ Considering just before she'd left they had been tempted down into the Deep Roads, it's only fair that Wonderland let the lot of them off the hook every once in a while.

Robyn seems as if she's about too end the call, but she hesitates as something seems to come to mind. ]

Has... anyone seen my dog? I can only imagine what he may have been up to in the meantime...

( ooc ; feel free to encounter her during the action portion at any point in her return! )

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Welcome back. [There's a wry tone to his voice.] If you want anything, you can always come by the diner.

[Souji and Robyn aren't what anyone would call close, but offering food is a thing you do when someone seems a bit not awesome.]

Who's blood was it?

( Because for the claims of unharmed there certainly is a sense of death hanging around Robyn. It's concerning! And new )

[She... has no idea how to breech this topic. Welp. Time to wing it.]

How're you holding up? Sounds like home wasn't too peaceful.

...You did miss a hell of a party, but nothing catastrophic.

[ Brennan shows up on the video almost immediately, looking torn between relief and worry. ]

Robyn! Are you alright? Your mabari's currently with Dorian and I, he's been making friends while you were... missing.

[ oh. oh, leliana really hopes she hasn't come from where she thinks robyn might have come from. but there isn't much time between the landsmeet and the end of things, is there? and not much happened that would make her--well. ]

Oren's been well looked after. [ leliana pauses. hesitates, really. ] How are you doing?

_{[Their resident Hero of Ferelden is... back? Anders isn't about to say it to her face, but truth be told, he'd been unaware she was missing for that long. They really need to put bells on the Wardens here.]}

You returned to Ferelden for a time, then?

_{[All this back and forth between dimensions and timelines hurts the head.]}

I suppose a "welcome back" is in order!

[This Robyn looks much different from the one that was here a short time ago -- it's still so very bizarre.

She bites her lip, thinking of what exactly she ought to say.]

-- well, you did miss a ball of a sort. It was quite dazzling.

[Alistair is quick to appear when he sees her message, relief clear on his face.]

Robyn! You're back! I was getting worried.

[Her room had still been there and so had Oren so he'd been fairly sure she'd come back sooner or later. But there was always that niggling fear when someone disappeared that this time it would be for good. And even if it were a temporary absence that didn't mean everything was fine. He didn't think she'd died again somehow but Wonderland could be so unpredictable. And if she'd been sent back to Ferelden, it would be during the Blight where they both knew she could die. Seeing her back and in one piece doesn't allay all those fears but it's a start.]

What happened?

Kinder than some, but I get the feelin' your time away might not have been.

[He's seen that look in too many different kinds of people to mention, but they always have the same thing in common. Something they've seen or something they've done has marked them in a way that they still need to process, and might never be fully rid of.]

Not seen your dog around, but I'd bet someone's been takin' care of him. Not heard of any theft epidemics t' say otherwise.

Edited 2016-05-23 13:29 (UTC)

[He'd noticed her absence - of course he had. They had become better friends than he might have hoped given the circumstances of their meeting on his arrival here and it had quickly become apparent that she was no longer present in Wonderland.

For however short a time it had been, he had missed her, but that fades into the background as he notes that expression on her face. He's seen it before, but it always looks so out of place.]

Robyn-- [He starts, stalls, finding himself gripped with a foreign-feeling sense of uncertainty.] Are you alright?

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