faderift | [ OPEN ] I'm Floating in a Most Peculiar Way

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[ OPEN ] I'm Floating in a Most Peculiar Way

WHO: Jim Kirk & Anyone
WHAT: Catch-all for the month
WHEN: June/Justinian (after the Justice Ritual #4)
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Possible language, probably kittens, wounds, probably demon-talk, shenanigans, maybe some other heavy subjects, possibly some amorous action, everything goes here

[ Class Is In Session - Math + Self-Defense ]
Hearing of a school going up, Kirk naturally offered himself up as a teacher - not least because it gave him something to do here other than be a pretty helper to Sam's forge and a jack-of-all trades laborer.

He taught all levels of math, and any new students who came to the class would be asked to complete an exam that had problems ranging from simple addition and subtraction all the way up to the higher maths such as Calculus to gauge their skill. From that, he did his best to improve upon their skills and further their understanding. A little hard with a range of people, but he did his best, and he was more than willing to answer questions both related to math and to other subjects as well.

When he was not teaching maths, he taught Self-Defense with hand-to-hand combat - or at least he started to once he was physically well enough given that the Ritual had done a number on him. He took to the training area for this class though, and new students were told to fight him as their practical exam. It's not meant to be a hard fight, more like just a quick assessment of their current skill. He welcomed everyone from children to adults, but as a fair notice - expect to walk away with some bruises.

[ Stables ]
If the Western Approach and going after Servis had taught him anything, it was that he really needed to learn to ride something. Being able to hike and run was all well and good, but travel would be much, much easier if he could ride astride something with a longer stride and a touch faster than himself. Motorcycles were a long way off in this world.

So Kirk was being taught to ride, mostly by Sam and on a horse used with permission, though if someone else offered correction to his form as he practiced he would accept it. At this point, everyone was more the expert than himself. At least, so far, he'd avoided falling - for which his ribs were grateful.

Sometimes, though, he could be found around there just enjoying some time with the animals, petting and murmuring to them (and maybe sneaking a carrot to a tiny pony named Bill).

[ The Tavern ]
Most nights Kirk can be found here - work is done, and where else is there to hang out at night in Skyhold (that doesn't make you look incredibly suspicious)? But he liked the crowds and the warmth and the music and the laughter. He could usually be found with a pint of beer in front of him, slowly acclimating to the stuff, and sometimes he would hang out at a table with a chess set in front of him, waiting for a challenger. Other times he had a deck of cards, willing to play Wicked Grace or teach the good folk of Thedas some poker.

And maybe, just maybe, if he'd had enough to drink and laughed enough - he could be convinced to sing a song from a far away land or tell a tale of the same.

[ The Gardens - Specifically at Night/Very Early Morning ]
Even having found a steady place to sleep and steady companion, Kirk's nights were not always quiet and dreamless. He tried his best not to bother Sam on those nights, when sleep would not come, or more accurately he did not wish to close his eyes and see what his mind might twist together when he was not paying attention.

So on those particular nights he would slip out of bed and head to the gardens, sometimes late and sometimes in the early gray before dawn. He walked the paths, breathing in the scent of flowers and the earth. Sometimes he would find a space to sit and fold his legs and rest the back of his hands atop his knees, attempt to meditate in the ways Spock had initially taught him - though more often than not he simply created a numbing tingle in his legs and frustration.

Company, no matter the hour, was always welcome.

[ Around Skyhold - Usually Morning + The Hot Springs ]
Part of Kirk's daily routine was to run and run a lot. He could easily be seen jogging around the perimeter of Skyhold, sometimes with a shirt and sometimes without. Afterwards he usually went to the hot springs to rinse himself off, and in the early days after the Fourth Ritual to clean his wounds as well.

[ The Library ]
Kirk could be found here on and off, mostly coming to return books he had taken for comfortable reading back in the loft with Sam, but now and then he could be seen sitting at a table, taking notes on papers or in a journal he had secured. He was taking more or less everything he read in historical accounts with a grain of salt, but it was still important, he thought, to read such accounts even as he asked others about them.

[ Wild card me! ]
Because there's probably tons of stuff I didn't cover.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Katniss didn't sleep much, anymore.

Her experiences in the Fade, what she had seen in the Western Approach, had twisted all her dreams into nightmare. She took the potions that her friends had given her to help her sleep deep enough, but that did not lessen the nightmares that slipped in. So early in the morning, around two am, she would walk all of Skyhold, working on her 'parkour' that Araceli had taught her.

Tonight, she came off the roof and landed in the garden, rolling to her feet, slightly out of breath, her gaze flickering around in the near darkness to make sure she hadn't awoken any of the young mages that sometimes liked to sleep out in the open.

Oh. Surprise. There's suddenly a woman crouching in front of him - a woman he actually knows. His gaze flickers briefly to where she had dropped down from and he has to feel impressed. Not an easy jump to take and take correctly.

"Good morning, Katniss," Kirk said to her, knowing they were alone in the garden from his previous circuits. "Getting some exercise, or are we expecting more visitors?"

Katniss jerks her chin towards the greeting, but her hand leaves her blade the moment she recognizes the figure in the dim light. She nods her head, just so

"Morning, Jim." She arched an eyebrow, "Trust me, if we were getting more visitors - you'd hear it a lot sooner than from me. Just ... trying to exhaust myself."

He nodded understandingly. "I've been there," he said aloud, hooking his thumbs into the loops of his belt in lieu of pockets. "I usually try and do some circuits around Skyhold, but the light's not so good around the path I usually take, so I figured here I had less chance of breaking my ankle." Like he needed more injuries since he was still healing from the ritual with Anders. Even now, beneath his tunic, his ribs were bandaged, and the skin on his right arm and shoulder too.

"I need to get used to seeing in the dark." Maker only knew what kind of missions she'd be volunteering herself for next - and she was heading down to the damned Deep Roads soon. She moved closer to him, leaning against a tree as she gave him a keen look.

"You look like you lost three rounds with a bear." She stated critically.

He winced, having hoped he looked a bit better than all that, but to be fair he had taken quite the beating. Healing so quickly wasn't really plausible, even with his enhanced blood, though he wished at time's like these Khan's blood had more effect on him.

"More like three rounds of demons," he grunted. "I came out better than others."

Not sleeping slowed the healing process, usually. Katniss knew it all too well, and she made a face at his comment. "You were in the Fade too, then? I am still healing the burn scars."

She doesn't know what is happening with Anders - and when she does she's going to be a little more alarmed.

"No, not the Fade. I got out of that more or less okay," he shook his head. "No, I got this helping Anders with one of the rituals to... exorcise him, I guess. Demons came out and they kicked our asses, but we won in the end."

Now, she looked startled. "How do you know Anders?"

And why, would be her second question. She frowns then, folding her arms more tightly over her chest, her expression flickering through different emotions before she pulled it back to apathy.

"He convinced Sam to take on two kittens, and I had a chat with him about it," he said simply. It was true, actually, and he was still peeved about those cats even though, all right, he was totally in love with one of them and mostly in love with the other.

"He explained to me what he was trying to do, and I offered to help."

Katniss kept frowning, looking off into the darkness. She trusted Sam well enough - it was Sam but ... "Just be careful around Anders, all right? It seems all he does is drag his friends into one bad situation after another. Especially if he has you tangling with demons."

He cocked his head at her. "The demons weren't his fault. The ritual went wrong. Accidents happen, after all, and we knew going in that something bad could happen with this. He explained to me that this sort of thing has never been done before, so I understood what I was doing."

Admittedly demons had not been a part of it, but he hardly blamed Anders or anyone else for it. Accidents happened, and placing blame was a waste of energy.

"Besides, if we're talking about dragging people into trouble, I don't have a lot of room to talk."

"Should he have been doing a ritual like that in the first place? I thought he wasn't allowed to do that kind of magic in Skyhold." She paused, then snorted, "Well, you got me there."

"He wasn't doing it alone. There were others there. He wants to be free of this spirit that is with me, and says the spirit wants to go too. I don't think that's a matter of being allowed or not - a person has the right to pursue his own freedom. But we were far off enough not to trouble anyone here, yes." Clearly, since they hadn't caused a panic right off.

She frowned once more, but now it was with confusion, "He's trying to cure himself from being an abomination? Is that ...even possible?"

Now it was his turn to frown at her. "Abomination? That seems a bit strong, doesn't it?"

She was now going to stare at him for a moment, before she asked. "Jim, do you know what an abomination is?"

Because, well, he was a Rifter. He might not be up on the parlance of the creature, as opposed to the insult.

"No, but I suppose you're going to enlighten me," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

He didn't like the word, just like he didn't like the name "Inquisition". It had negative connotations where he came from, and to often it was connected to church propaganda. He wasn't seeing much evidence to change his mind on that so far.

Well, she didn't have the Chantry's endless similes or scripture memorized - so she put it the only way she knew how. Bluntly.

"An abomination is a demon trying to come through into our world using a human body as the gateway."

"Okay," he said simply, realizing that demons weren't good - he had just helped kill over a dozen of them and they hadn't been particularly pleasant in the Fade.

"And that's what? Supposed to make me dislike him? Fear him? Hate him?"

She shook her head, "You will make your own opinions of him. I'm not telling you to like him or hate him - just be wary in trusting him. None of us know whether or not it is the demon inside of him that made him start the mage rebellion, to light the match, or his own heart."

"Hmm, I already have my opinions on that," he said simply. "But I thank you for your concern." It at least meant she cared, though he disliked the place it was coming from.

She nodded her head once, faintly uncomfortable, before she folded her arms over her chest and started to walk away. "I'll see you later."

"Right..." he said slowly, watching her. "Oh, before you go - do you have any news on Servis?"

She stopped, looking over her shoulder, before her lips pressed together. "No, I haven't heard anything from the Nightingale yet. She'll let us know when he's done ...stewing."

Gardens

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