Blood from Stone [AU]

[Carver Amell]

Carver nods, thinking furiously. "Merrill's in the kitchen cooking up a storm, if you can handle her chatting," he offers. "We'll need to upgrade the wards here, we can start laying plans for that. I always like a good spar, to keep me sharp. Your choice."

[Varric]

Varric considers that for a moment, then frowns. "Merrill. Who friend? New guy."

[Carver Amell]

"Kevin. I guess she found him -- he's dream-taken. He ran up to Helene and grabbed at them, and the handlers started saying things about how it's good that he's got handlers, because those people," and here he sneers with the best of them, imitating the man's tone, "are so much better off in an institution. Really targeted shit, like, his family tried to help him but they just made things worse. Next time Helene managed to communicate, they were saying they were going to Draslina for treatment. Merrill scared them off, kept Kevin -- we think he's an innocent, from Jalzaid, imported here for this little stage play."

[Varric]

"I see," Varric says very softly. "Get names? Descriptions? Asking for friend." Clumsy but... an attempt a joke at least.

[Carver Amell]

Carver chuckles. "I'm sure He--"

He takes a deep breath, smoothing past the gaffe. "Merrill probably has all that. Or it'll be in Helene's journal. Or heck, Kevin might know. I think.. I think we also need to spend some time looking into dream-taken programs. It sounds like Jalzaid might not be any better than Glaley."

[Varric]

Varric nods curtly. "Doctor and I, started. Here. Once established, will start gathering. If can." Going to focus more on it now, given... as... tribute. Honor.

[Carver Amell]

"Good," he says softly. "I don't want anyone else to say they have to travel all the way across the water for some treatment and leave their family in the lurch."

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. "So you thinking we'll go help Merrill?"

[Varric]

Varric nod slowly. "Want talk, Kevin. Your impression?"

[Carver Amell]

"He's mad, obviously, but.. he seems a good sort, now that he's more stable." Carver shrugs. "Hard to tell."

[Varric]

"Not mad. Mad angry. Kevin, Helen... we, mental illness. Condition. Not mad." He takes a breath. "Not dream-touched, taken." Not content with 'illness' either, entirely but...

[Carver Amell]

He flinches. "Yeah. Sorry. I just... spending time in Summerhill you get a feel for the difference between patients like Mother, like Helene, and patients who... who need more constant care, I suppose."

[Varric]

Inclining his head, Varric steps back around the work bench. "Coming with?"

[Carver Amell]

"Yeah. Let's go cook some eggs or.. whatever she needs."

[Carver Amell]

The hours tick by, morning giving way to midmorning. At five and a half hours in, Varric and Carver relocate to the study -- the panic room is likely to open where it was summoned, after all. Beth joins them, letting Don and Miki rest; they might need a healer, after all, and it feels right, somehow, to be the three of them again. The twins and their Dad, waiting to see what happened, what might be left of their older sister. 

Waiting to clean up another dead body.

Carver goes back and forth on when to tell his twin. He doesn't want her to worry; but as the healer, she needs to know. Finally, at five hours forty-five minutes, he pulls her aside, explains in a quiet voice that the ritual is likely to be fatal, that they're hoping for a miracle but for her to be prepared for... well, anything, really. Rituals are dangerous. 

Her worry, Varric's worry, only add to his own. But for them, he keeps his face stern, his voice even. And the fear he expected doesn't emerge, doesn't force its way out of the blank numbness inside him. When Varric and Beth are nearby, they feel it too -- a quiet determination, like a man with frostbite forcing his way out of the arctic by sheer stubbornness. No room for fear in that frozen wasteland. Only for action, only for going forward.

[Helene Dakesh]

The panic room opens.

Helene tumbles out, stumbling over nemself in nir haste to get out of the door. "She's not breathing," ne says, and nir voice is rusty with disuse but clear, intelligible, in Common. It should be -- ne practiced for over an hour, forming the words in nir head, writing them out in the air, shaping them with nir lips, praying to Alydra to allow nir tongue to work properly, just this once. Behind nem, the ritual marks are still glowing on the floor -- the ritual is still active, still doing something in there, despite it having been hours and hours since it should have ended. There's no way to cross that line without disrupting it, without potentially causing damage to the room and the occupants. Helene should never have opened the panic room in this condition, but... but...

Why is Helene alive? Why is Marian inside the ritual circle, in Helene's place? Gods above, what has happened?

In the panic room, inside the glowing lines, there are three circles: one for the caster, and two for the components. Inside those lines is a swirl of mist, a vague cloud, gold mottled with steel and deep bruise-purple. It's not concentrated in t he center of the ritual space; it's hovering over the caster's space, in and above and around the vague outline of a figure lying prone in the circle. Getting closer, one can see through the mist well enough to verify that Helene is right -- the figure is unmoving, no rise and fall of the chest.

The body is slim, an elven build, with long hair all the color leeched out by the gold and grey and bruise-purple between the living participants and whatever is happening in that ritual circle.