( open ) like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins

[eviscerates]

WHO: Ruby Lucas & open.
WHAT: Following the events of the missing shard bearer plot (here) Ruby insists on being taken to the dungeons and held there until she is fully detoxed from lyrium.
WHEN: From a gently timey-wimey point in mid-September to early October, at least. She may be in the dungeons longer, depends a bit.
WHERE: THE DUNGEONS, Skyhold.
NOTES: Rumours page & OOC report details, although the latter is more likely pertinent to people who were on the mission/were told about the mission directly/the advisors than general gossip. Alsi new cr is welcome! Ruby's info sheet is here.
WARNINGS: Horror themes! Reference to the events of the shard bearer plot, which include the Wolf attacking and eating people, forced lyrium ingestion, hallucinations, death, violence, torture.

She’s never forgotten that she’s a monster, that the people of Storybrooke had been ready to take up arms against her. Ruby Lucas wasn’t the sweet girl who remembered your coffee order and fixed you whiskey neat from the top shelf on a bad day. She was a vicious, wild thing. The Big Bad Wolf.

After the mission she told them to kill her or shackle her, and when she arrived back to Skyhold she refused to go to the medical tents. It wasn’t worth the risk - keep her locked up, keep her cloak bound across her throat so she couldn’t pull it away during a delirium. She had to stay in at least a month, she had to try and keep people safe.

The first two weeks she’s still recovering from her injuries and the lyrium is still distorting her memories and thoughts and what she sees, leaves her with a constant thirst and the unhealthy pallor in her skin is obvious. Treating the injuries will be ongoing, but the first week she sleeps almost constantly, and the second she is struggling with memories. If people visit during this time there is ever chance of her mind taking flashes from other people’s memories though she can’t make sense of much of anything.

After that she can be found in different states.

She might sit on the floor with her hands through the bars, putting together the most basic, non-volatile components and mechanisms for traps, setting then all in a box to be taken to the Requisition officer.

She might be standing with rotten fruit sliding down the side of her face and splattered across her clothes, perfectly still. Either the guard just hauled the offending fruit thrower who posed as a visitor out, or they might have been distracted by another job so the produce producers are there to be chased off. Unless your character would throw fruit? But then they might be hauled away.
(Note: probably only two of this one unless we work something particular out, just because I don’t want to undermine the efficiency of the Inquisition’s guards at protecting prisoners, even willing ones.)

Ruby may have stripped down some and be treating her wounds and attempting to change dressings and apply poultices, because healers shouldn’t have to go into her cell, as far as she’s concerned. Vicious puncture wounds dot her skin, perfect circular marks that are mostly uniform, but vary in size here and there. There is a jagged gash over her ribs and a burn across the other side, which make her hiss as she tries to pull the rank dressing away.

Or maybe she’s just sitting or lying down on her side, defeated and curled inward.

Wildcards welcome, pick your own location-limited adventure and give me an idea of timeframe/if you are okay with Ruby picking up memories or not if it’s set during the first couple of weeks.

Comments

[eviscerates]

Ruby's mouth tugs just a little, a smile that doesn't quite make it.

"A lot of what happened might be because of a war," she agrees, though there's a kind of seriousness in it that doesn't always make it into her voice, "but even in most wars you're not going to be expected someone on your side to turn on you. And definitely not to be some— monster."

No. She shakes her head. "Pretty sure that's outside most people's idea of 'exactly' what they would have expected."

[thecookery]

"Alright, not exactly then," she admits, grudgingly. "But I knew there was risk, and not just a little."

Have you ever tried to shuffle one-handed? It's not easy, and she ends up dropping a couple cards and grumbling as she stretches for them. When she finally gets them back on the top of the deck, she just sets it on her lap and taps it thoughtfully with a finger. "I don't know what to think of it all. Of you... What should I?"

[eviscerates]

Ruby makes a quiet sound, picking up a stray card that skittered behind the bars, looking at it for a drawn out moment. Her senses, her acuity of mind, feel dulled still by the overload of the lyrium flooding every sense, as if her body has tried to allow her some means to recover.

"What I am is dangerous," she starts rather slowly, like she's teasing it out for herself as much as for Avery. "I don't think there's anything wrong with remembering that. I think forgetting that's probably stupid. A lot of people have come down here and they talk to me like what I did doesn't matter somehow, because it was the lyrium and the Venatori that made it happen, and not a decision I would have made. It was still my teeth and my body. And just because I didn't choose to do it didn't keep any of you from being hurt. I locked myself in here to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Doesn't change what's already happened, and it doesn't make any of you heal any faster. Honestly, I don't know what you should think of me."

The card is held between two fingers in offering, extended through the bars. "I'm sorry."

[thecookery]

She stares at Ruby's hand in silence, trying to wrap her head around it all, but she still feels unsettled on the what the answer is.

Eventually Avery reaches out and puts her hand on the card but doesn't quite take it just yet, saying, "You say that like you're the only dangerous person here. Like we've never had murderers or abominations inside these walls, who've killed ten times as many as you have. Like we don't have an hundred people upstairs who could blast a dozen men to bits with a flick of their wrist if some drug or their own damn fear or rage took over for a second. You don't see them in the next cell over, do you?"

She plucks the card back then.

"But I don't ever forget it," she explains, twisting a little to the side and lifting the hem of her shirt enough to show Ruby a portion of the large burn scar covering the left side of her torso. "I can't."

[eviscerates]

Her mouth flickers in a slight smile.

"Sometimes, I think that maybe if I can try to see the best in people who've done terrible things then I'm not a hypocrite, somehow. Or like it might make me better. Of course," she acknowledges, brow furrowed, "I think it's also possible that if you forgive yourself for all the terrible things you've done, then you might slip. If you forgive yourself then maybe you think that what you did was okay, instead of just stopping torturing yourself."

A little shake of her head. "I'm sorry about what happened to you. Not, um— not just the burn. And not just the mission, either. Remembering is important. Remembering and forgiving and not being naive but not dismissing people just because of who they are.... it's a long list of things and they don't all fit together."

[thecookery]

"That's the thing, isn't it? Some people don't deserve forgiveness," she comments lightly, then tilts her head to the side. "They don't want it, really. Because they don't think they've done anything wrong. Not deep down. And they'd do it again if they had another chance." She's thinking of one person in particular, and everybody knows it. Avery still doesn't understand why he's a free man right now.

"I never got to ask the last person who nearly killed me if he'd ever regret it. If he'd wish he'd done something else, and he'd want my forgiveness for not." She leans back against the wall and looks up, taking a long breath. "I think about it a lot. I think about him a lot."

[eviscerates]

"Sometimes whether or not we forgive someone..."

Ruby trails off, for a moment, resting her forearms across her knees, and sighs. "Sometimes we need to figure out whether it's about us or them. I have some people who I am still trying to totally forgive, even though logically I get that they've changed, or whatever. That they're trying, I guess."

She chews the inside of her cheek. "I think the person who needs forgiveness can't expect people to forgive them. We don't get to expect it or feel owed forgiveness. We can want it, but it's not something we have an inherent right to. I mean, obviously it depends on what happened. If I spilled orange juice on someone, I'd kind of hope they'd get over that pretty easily. With the big hurts, I mean— sometimes the person who was hurt needs to forgive someone for their own sake, because they're someone they love, and because forgiving is part of the healing."

An apologetic shake of her head. "Sorry, I'm not saying you have to forgive anybody, I'm just kind of trying to figure it out and doing that out loud is easier while my heads all kind of scrambled up, still. Would, um— would you like to talk about it? Or do you need to talk about him? I'm not exactly going anywhere," Ruby adds with a bit of a wry smile.

[thecookery]

"There's not much to say, really. I'd never seen him before. Didn't even get his name. His friends were itching for a fight, convinced everyone was enemies. Left him to watch us while they dealt with some templars. I tried to play distraction--kind of a bad habit of mine, I guess--and when he caught on the others were getting away, he panicked. We fought. I lived. He didn't."

She's silent for a long moment, before continuing quietly, "He wasn't a soldier. He was just a boy. Barely more than half my age and twice as scared. It's not him I can't forgive. It's the people who refuse to let these wars end, who started them in the first place."

There's a name on the tip of her tongue, but she won't say it. Not right now.

Instead, she just says, "You're not them though. Not nearly. Don't try to tell me you are."

[eviscerates]

She nods her understanding, and though she doesn't say I'm sorry, it's all but written in her gaze.

"I'm not," Ruby agrees, though she sounds very tired. "I've seen them before, though. There was this Queen in the world I come from, who did so much harm. Realms at war, entire villages slaughtered, and she was prepared to do whatever it took for the sake of her revenge. She swore to destroy the happiness of all who opposed her."

Regina had changed. Now she helped stop battles, although she remained as antagonistic as was humanly possible - she wasn't a villain, but probably a saint was a little much to hope for. Or, you know, a well-adjusted friendly person.

For a moment she's quiet, chewing her lip pensively before looking back to Avery. "I was trying really hard not to think of magic here as being the same as magic back home, and that wizards and witches wouldn't take things from people, that magic might not have the same price here." Ruby shakes her head, and her gaze lowers. "It seems so stupid, now."

[thecookery]

It takes a while for Avery to respond. Her own feelings on this are complicated at best, and she's never had much reason to figure out how to say it aloud before.

"I don't know how magic's different where you come from," she finally manages, slow and soft, "but it's dangerous, even in the best hands, isn't it? Because it's power. And not the kind that can ever be controlled completely or taken away by anything short of death, or death of everything that makes them who they are."

She sighs. "There's a reason this whole world used to be ruled by mages, you know. Maybe still would be if they didn't get so hungry for even more power they nearly destroyed the whole bloody thing and ended up hurting themselves more than anyone else could've."