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Entry tags:
- ! open,
- { adelaide leblanc },
- { alistair },
- { bethany hawke },
- { bruce banner },
- { cade harimann },
- { cassandra pentaghast },
- { christine delacroix },
- { cole },
- { eirlys ancarrow },
- { ellana ashara },
- { galadriel },
- { hermione granger },
- { isabela },
- { james norrington },
- { jim kirk },
- { kallian endris },
- { kas },
- { katniss everdeen },
- { maxwell trevean },
- { obi-wan kenobi },
- { ruby "red" lucas },
- { sabine },
- { samouel gareth },
- { the outsider },
- { velanna }
OPEN: The Nightmare's Domain
WHO: Everybody present for the effort to draw out the Nightmare.
WHAT: Oh no.
WHEN: 28-30 Bloomingtide
WHERE: THE FADE as it exists, approximately, in an incomprehensible nongeographical way, alongside the Western Approach.
NOTES: You can only participate in this plot if you signed up in advance. (Not really, this is a joke.) For driveby GM taunting or to have the debris of personal nightmares appear in the Fade sign up here. Check here for notes on crystal functionality, which will not be normal. (GIF source.)
WHAT: Oh no.
WHEN: 28-30 Bloomingtide
WHERE: THE FADE as it exists, approximately, in an incomprehensible nongeographical way, alongside the Western Approach.
NOTES: You can only participate in this plot if you signed up in advance. (Not really, this is a joke.) For driveby GM taunting or to have the debris of personal nightmares appear in the Fade sign up here. Check here for notes on crystal functionality, which will not be normal. (GIF source.)
The plan is simple enough, on paper.
Lord Livius Erimond, locked in Skyhold's dungeon since his capture, finally cracks when he learns that the Grey Wardens have moved on and no one is coming to negotiate for his release. There's no mind-control driving the sacrifices, he says, only fear. Corypheus has an arrangement with a demon to amplify it and extend the reach of the song that's driving the Wardens to desperation. Handle it, and maybe they'll see that they're being manipulated.
In practice, it's a little fuzzier. Some guesswork. Some optimism. Approximating the demon's location takes time and effort from the Fade-fluent. There's a rift nearby, but it's small, nondescript. Making it bigger, drawing attention and drawing the demon out onto solid ground where it can be fought, calls for every anchor shard on hand, mages and Templars to assist, archers and swordsmen at the ready. The Herald did it before, at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It's feasible. Just wiggle your fingers, and--
--and the sky opens up wide, then wider, too wide, green light flooding out like water finally cresting over a bank, and the ground beneath your feet turns from sand to stone. In some places it becomes vertical. In others it stops existing at all. The rift sprawls and spiders out with almost sentient aim, encompassing everyone it can reach. It takes two seconds, maybe three.
Then it closes.
I. THE NIGHTMARE
The good news is: the Inquisition pinpointed the Nightmare's location correctly. The bad news is: the Inquisition pinpointed the Nightmare's location correctly.
So if you find a second to to wonder where you are, there are two possible answers. The first is the raw Fade, where few have trod since the ancient magisters entered the Golden City and began the Blight. The City is Black now and it hangs in the distance, always on the horizon, always visible, but never within reach. The light is sickly green and seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, creating shadows from any and all directions. What direction is up and what direction is sideways is open for debate anyway. The ground--if it can be called that when it is only sometimes below you--is dark and rough, all crags and cliffs and spires. It's wet, too, with puddles and stagnant streams wound through the rock.
The second possible answer to the question of where, and the one that might warrant even more attention than the first, is right on top of a damn demon.
The Nightmare is massive, as large as a small fort. It has a dozen legs and at least twice as many eyes; a warm, civilly sinister voice that knows your deepest and darkest fears; and a seemingly endless supply of minions. Terror demons spring out of the ground around you with creaking screams. Fearlings take the shape of your simpler phobias: here a spider, there a snake, or roaring flames, a lyrium-encrusted Templar. Fighting through the flood of demons and bringing down the Nightmare will take every sword, every staff, and several hours. Pick a leg.
And when it's over--when the Nightmare is dead and only straggling Fearlings and occasional Terrors present an immediate threat--try to figure out what's next.
II. SEARCHING
Attempts to tear a new hole in the Veil from the inside will produce no results. But those sensitive to the Fade may be able to feel something--not quite like a draft guiding you out of a cave, but there's no closer analogy in the common tongue. A faint whiff of reality, somewhere in the distance, straight away from the distant Black City. There's no sunrise or sunset, and an hour can feel like a day or feel like a minute, but time is passing, and the walk is long by any measure.
While it's in your best interest to stay with the rest of the Inquisition's forces, this region of the Fade is a twisty, treacherous thing that seems to actively conspire to separate and mislead its visitors. More Fearlings slither out of crevices to menace anyone who lingers alone or tries to sleep. There's a marshy expanse that does its best to trap feet, and a field of memorial stones with the names of visitors etched into their surfaces, each with a cause of death marked below. Everywhere you step the ground is littered with evidence of terrible dreams, worked into the landscape like they were there first and it has grown up around them. There are skeletons in the stone, rock formations that twist into the shape of gallows, lost toys underfoot, an entire home tucked down a winding path, achingly empty.
III. ESCAPE
The Nightmare is dead, but its absence creates new reasons to fear. It begins slowly, things crumbling: the edge of a stair giving way unexpectedly, a towering hunk of rock a ways off collapsing upward into the open air and reforming there. The path rearranges as it's walked and takes wanderers in different directions, leaving them to fight their ways back to the main group. It was the concentration of fear and willpower embodied in the Nightmare that held this domain of the Fade intact, and without it, there's a power vacuum to fill. The spirits drawn here are drawn by lingering fear, and warped by it.
The forms they take may not be those you're familiar with from outside the Fade--less deformed, more malleable, more insidious, the things you most or least want to see. Those who long for safety may find a gentle Desire demon willing to offer it. Those whose fears stem from insecurities may hear the whispers of lurking Envy, mimicking their voices from its hiding place, cautiously testing for a foothold. If fear only pisses you off, be prepared to face your Rage. And if you refuse to be afraid--if you have this under control, if you know you'll be all right--a smiling embodiment of Pride may appear to praise your prowess and ask you to put those skills to other uses.
Whatever form your demons take, they are distractions from the larger issue: this part of the Fade is collapsing, unstable, and not meant for creatures like you to survive in. As important as it is to face your fears, it may in the end be more important to run from them. Regroup, keep moving, take head counts. There's a rift ahead, small enough to slip through one at a time, out into the desert, with its bright sun and relatively solid ground--and however long it feels like you've been walking, days or weeks, Adamant Fortress is visible across the sand.
Lord Livius Erimond, locked in Skyhold's dungeon since his capture, finally cracks when he learns that the Grey Wardens have moved on and no one is coming to negotiate for his release. There's no mind-control driving the sacrifices, he says, only fear. Corypheus has an arrangement with a demon to amplify it and extend the reach of the song that's driving the Wardens to desperation. Handle it, and maybe they'll see that they're being manipulated.
In practice, it's a little fuzzier. Some guesswork. Some optimism. Approximating the demon's location takes time and effort from the Fade-fluent. There's a rift nearby, but it's small, nondescript. Making it bigger, drawing attention and drawing the demon out onto solid ground where it can be fought, calls for every anchor shard on hand, mages and Templars to assist, archers and swordsmen at the ready. The Herald did it before, at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It's feasible. Just wiggle your fingers, and--
--and the sky opens up wide, then wider, too wide, green light flooding out like water finally cresting over a bank, and the ground beneath your feet turns from sand to stone. In some places it becomes vertical. In others it stops existing at all. The rift sprawls and spiders out with almost sentient aim, encompassing everyone it can reach. It takes two seconds, maybe three.
Then it closes.
I. THE NIGHTMARE
The good news is: the Inquisition pinpointed the Nightmare's location correctly. The bad news is: the Inquisition pinpointed the Nightmare's location correctly.
So if you find a second to to wonder where you are, there are two possible answers. The first is the raw Fade, where few have trod since the ancient magisters entered the Golden City and began the Blight. The City is Black now and it hangs in the distance, always on the horizon, always visible, but never within reach. The light is sickly green and seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, creating shadows from any and all directions. What direction is up and what direction is sideways is open for debate anyway. The ground--if it can be called that when it is only sometimes below you--is dark and rough, all crags and cliffs and spires. It's wet, too, with puddles and stagnant streams wound through the rock.
The second possible answer to the question of where, and the one that might warrant even more attention than the first, is right on top of a damn demon.
The Nightmare is massive, as large as a small fort. It has a dozen legs and at least twice as many eyes; a warm, civilly sinister voice that knows your deepest and darkest fears; and a seemingly endless supply of minions. Terror demons spring out of the ground around you with creaking screams. Fearlings take the shape of your simpler phobias: here a spider, there a snake, or roaring flames, a lyrium-encrusted Templar. Fighting through the flood of demons and bringing down the Nightmare will take every sword, every staff, and several hours. Pick a leg.
And when it's over--when the Nightmare is dead and only straggling Fearlings and occasional Terrors present an immediate threat--try to figure out what's next.
II. SEARCHING
Attempts to tear a new hole in the Veil from the inside will produce no results. But those sensitive to the Fade may be able to feel something--not quite like a draft guiding you out of a cave, but there's no closer analogy in the common tongue. A faint whiff of reality, somewhere in the distance, straight away from the distant Black City. There's no sunrise or sunset, and an hour can feel like a day or feel like a minute, but time is passing, and the walk is long by any measure.
While it's in your best interest to stay with the rest of the Inquisition's forces, this region of the Fade is a twisty, treacherous thing that seems to actively conspire to separate and mislead its visitors. More Fearlings slither out of crevices to menace anyone who lingers alone or tries to sleep. There's a marshy expanse that does its best to trap feet, and a field of memorial stones with the names of visitors etched into their surfaces, each with a cause of death marked below. Everywhere you step the ground is littered with evidence of terrible dreams, worked into the landscape like they were there first and it has grown up around them. There are skeletons in the stone, rock formations that twist into the shape of gallows, lost toys underfoot, an entire home tucked down a winding path, achingly empty.
III. ESCAPE
The Nightmare is dead, but its absence creates new reasons to fear. It begins slowly, things crumbling: the edge of a stair giving way unexpectedly, a towering hunk of rock a ways off collapsing upward into the open air and reforming there. The path rearranges as it's walked and takes wanderers in different directions, leaving them to fight their ways back to the main group. It was the concentration of fear and willpower embodied in the Nightmare that held this domain of the Fade intact, and without it, there's a power vacuum to fill. The spirits drawn here are drawn by lingering fear, and warped by it.
The forms they take may not be those you're familiar with from outside the Fade--less deformed, more malleable, more insidious, the things you most or least want to see. Those who long for safety may find a gentle Desire demon willing to offer it. Those whose fears stem from insecurities may hear the whispers of lurking Envy, mimicking their voices from its hiding place, cautiously testing for a foothold. If fear only pisses you off, be prepared to face your Rage. And if you refuse to be afraid--if you have this under control, if you know you'll be all right--a smiling embodiment of Pride may appear to praise your prowess and ask you to put those skills to other uses.
Whatever form your demons take, they are distractions from the larger issue: this part of the Fade is collapsing, unstable, and not meant for creatures like you to survive in. As important as it is to face your fears, it may in the end be more important to run from them. Regroup, keep moving, take head counts. There's a rift ahead, small enough to slip through one at a time, out into the desert, with its bright sun and relatively solid ground--and however long it feels like you've been walking, days or weeks, Adamant Fortress is visible across the sand.
no subject
"Sometimes I think it'd be better if—"
A look at Adelaide, then, the realisation that she's saying these things out loud to another person, and she blinks. "It doesn't matter," Ruby finishes, grasping for her usual brightness.
no subject
With all of this, with the demons, with the visceral satisfaction that no, she would be the one to survive, not them- a part of Adelaide has come to understand it a little. That part terrifies her in no small degree. She cannot imagine having to accept such a thing so easily, and yet her hand does not move. "...Better if...?"
Prompting, gently. "It matters."
no subject
David sees the good in you, Belle had told her. That she believed in redemption and rehabilitation, that Ruby was worth protecting, but Belle had forgotten her as easily as everyone else had. Some monsters were too dangerous to keep as friends.
The hand on her shoulder feels like a focal point, something grounding.
"Silver," she says, abruptly. "If you ever need to stop the Wolf it has to be silver."
no subject
The voice is low, melodious, but faintly pleasant.
Adelaide would like to think she is above such basic mistakes as possession. She is, after all, no apprentice. But neither was Uldred. Neither were any of the truly masterful destroyers of your world. No. When Adelaide is possessed, she will be a true professional at it.
no subject
Adelaide's hand goes tight on Ruby's shoulder, her jaw working against everything she might say. Silver for the wolf? Then.
"Decapitation." She offers without missing a beat. "It is the best way to be certain. Fire would work quite well as I am accustomed to ice but- if it must be done? Decapitation."
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"Decapitation can go screw itself," she replies, flippant and forceful. "You're not a monster."
That is the difference between them. It's an important one, her eyes glowing gold as she looks away from Adelaide and around them, trying to place the source of the voice, the demon.
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Her current research notwithstanding.
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The emphasis on her name is strange, too, and it feels like an echo in her head rather than something he's saying, like there's an urgency to it, like the memory of someone pleading being dragged up.
"I didn't know."
Not Peter looks at Adelaide, eyebrow quirked in the universal language of can you believe she'd try that? Adelaide. You knew you were a mage, right? That there was something not right?
The Despair Demon shrugs, and Ruby feels fixed in place. She can't look away from him, can't bear the risk of looking at Adelaide, and it's not until she feels her breath catch that she realises something is wrong, and looks down to see a long spike of ice pull through her, a translucent blue-white hook that makes her stagger forward, and leaves the red leather of her gloves shiny and wrong looking. when she presses her hand to her gut. Oh.
no subject
May or may not be it. And she has not the time to waste a spell on an illusion.
"I was a child." And had no choice. "I did not know anything to explain what I was."
What she is.
Compassion cries out at her shoulder and oh- there is a flicker of pain, there is a shard of cold and it is no illusion, it is a demon and it is Despair. "Ruby-"
Adelaide slips forward to catch her about the waist, hand snapping out and power flowing. Not with ice, but with the glowing blue warp of Spirit coiling in a Crushing Prison.
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"You can't," Ruby says, very quietly and very calmly. It was meant to end with hold me up, but it gets losts somewhere between her mind and her mouth, and in all likelihood she expects Adelaide to drop her, or that she might drag her down too, which she thinks would be bad.
The demon struggles against the hold, and Ruby reaches to grab an arrow from the quiver at her back, even as she struggles to keep a steady grip on her bow, to hold it up and aim.
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A spell meant to stall rather than shatter but she has ever been creative in alternative applications of magics. Ice will do nothing here but this-
Eye for an eye, crushing the breath from a demon that does not truly need to breathe.
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She should say something, probably. Instead her right hand grips around Adelaide's ribs, ineffective with how her hand tingles and stops complying with how she tells it to move, fingers made of rope.
"Stubborn." On an exhale, as her legs give way and the spike of ice shudders and jars in her gut, drawing out a low, gutteral groan of pain. "I'm going to be really mad," she adds, weak as a whisper.
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And Ruby will live to be angry with her.
"I know it hurts-" They both can't not know, the chill lancing through like knives, scraping raw with every movement. "But you need to breathe deeply for this."
Her fingers curl around the ice shard as she bends her will, her magic through it. Forcing it to melt, little by little. "I have you. This is going to be painful and it is going to take longer than you'd like and I know you are tired- but I am going to fix this."
cw for suicide ideation that I probably should have mentioned earlier aha
Breathe deeply feels more like Adelaide is asking her to attempt an Olympic hundred metre dash in heels; she suspects it shows on her face.
Okay, she means to say, but all she actually gives is a slow nod and her fingers twisting into the cloth of Adelaide's robes, and an entirely different set of words. "You don't have to do this."
Her search for other wolves lead her to Thedas, instead of home. Her search for Emma has lead her to more dead ends than she thought were possible in a matter of weeks. More steadily, with a smile that comes from practice with smiling when you don't feel like you can, "You don't have to, Adelaide."
whoops!
But in the Fade perhaps Ruby can as well, the warm, easy swell of Compassion's voice promising relief from the pain. That is what they can mend, that is what they are meant to mend. The deeper, blacker aching hole, the loss, the loneliness snaps through them both like a crossbow's bolt.
"I do." She snaps. Harsh where Ruby is attempting to be kind, furious with her resignation. "This is my purpose. What good is my magic if I let you die? What is the point of me if I let you bleed out?"
i'm good at things
Her eyes shut for a second, mouth still caught in a smile. She's used to dealing with anger. A lot of people have been angry with her. Usually for pretty good reasons, too.
"What's mine if you don't?" But she sighs, regrets the action as it makes her abdomen tense and jar at the remaining glass. "And I'm sure there's plenty of people who'd benefit from you saving it. Peter was right. I should've died and not him."
That's not what the demon said, but, you know.
great many things
It does not matter if she hates her afterward.
Eyes burning bright, glowing with Compassion's power, she snarls. "You do not make amends for past wrongs by giving up and dying, Ruby. That is laziness. That is cowardice. You make amends, you atone by living. Maybe you should have died- but you didn't. You lived, you are here now, and you will continue to live because here you have a chance to be more than whatever monster you might wish to make of yourself back home!"
no subject
All magic comes with a price, though, and she wonders what the cost of this will be even if she knows Adelaide hasn't stolen her name or asked for her memories or her first born child.
"I didn't choose this." Very quiet, very cold, the kind of cold that comes when you are trying to keep your voice from shaking and it drops low with the effort. She isn't sure if its the pain or some kind of anger welling up in her. Maybe it's not what Adelaide meant, but in this very second she doesn't really care. "I didn't make myself this."
It feels very pointless when she says it, and yet there it is.
no subject
She may not have become something that violent, that monstrous-
Yet.
If there is no hope for Ruby to be anything else- what hope is there for her? Perhaps it is selfish, this intense denial, this mending. She finds she does not care. Compassion flares behind her and her fingers twist in the wound, a second spell sending a soothing chill throughout the injury. Taking that pain, swallowing it lie sour wine. "But this is what we are."
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She's half a moment from saying something when Adelaide's fingers pry into the injury and she winces, head tilting back as she bares her teeth and she clenches her hands into fists that close around Adelaide's robes rather than her shoulder or her arm because Wolves have a devastating kind of strength. Ruby's forcing herself to breathe, and when Compassion steps in with something soothing she finds the exhale comes easier - minutely, but hey. She'll take it.
All magic comes with a cost, and she has to wonder just how big the costs are for Adelaide. Any mage, really, but for Adelaide when she reaches into people and pulls them back together. Without too much hesitation, Ruby loosens her grip at Adelaide's shoulder, anchoring her thumb against Adelaide's jaw, rest her hand so that her fingers splay against her cheek.
"Your magic is like nothing I've ever seen before." Which is true. Equally true, and couple with a breath of laughter, "you will not become a monster. Probably because you're too stubborn." (That last part is an afterthought, but there you are.) "What you are saves people. You care about people--" her breath catches with pain, but she's going to keep going. "That's the root of this, right? You care. That's important."
And it's not a double standard 1. because she says so 2. because the root of Ruby's strength likes to eat people.
no subject
Later logic will dictate that it was despair that crawled inside and struck a wound deeper than she could heal and it is that she railed against. But that is later. Now there is blood and a pain she leeches away with a thought, eyes flicking from Ruby's face back to the wound.
A little like stitching and a lot like shaping clay her will twists her magic and her magic pulses through the wound. There will be no scar. Nothing to mark this moment save their memories of the exchange. A thrum of pride cuts through Compassion at that- this is their purpose. This is what they do, what they've trained and researched and worked for, and they are very, very good at what they do. Ruby's hands clench and the worn muslin of Adelaide's robes tear, a minor detail that will bother her later. Stitches pop at the seams, the light fabric stresses and gives and there might be some bizarre symbolism in that giving way while Ruby's flesh knits itself together. Adelaide will think on that later. For now there is the work, her hands light, her focus narrowed. Slowly she withdraws her fingers from Ruby's flesh. As cold as the ice had been her skin was warm albeit sticky with blood as she rests her palm on the torn skin to focus on its mending.
The brush of Ruby's hand is startling in its intimacy- one that startles her to stillness, doelike. Eyes wide and jaw tense under that hand she waits. For a blow. For a point to be made. For her to say something. As close as they are Ruby likely could feel the faint trembling that wracks Adelaide's body. Exhausted and afraid and far out of her depth, but she forces her way forward none the less. Her voice loses some of it's irritated chill as she mutters. "You are asking me to not. And I can't."
Ruby's guessed the secret under the work, under her clipped dismissal of pleasantries with her patients, under her vexed insistence that people be more careful in the field. She has lost so many through inaction and sworn never again. LeBlancs keep their word. "I can't, Ruby."
no subject
She can buy replacement robes. She can't ask Adelaide to forget.
The proximity and the pain have her hyperaware, senses sharpened on the whetstone of searing and soothing in alternation. Adelaide doesn't feel unsteady, exactly. That doesn't seem the right word for it. She feels like a bowstring pulled tight by exhausted arms; able to loose an arrow and hit a mark, fly true, but fighting all the harder to do it. (Part of her is aware of the wet fabric of her shirt, torn open, parts of it sticking to her skin from smeared blood, other parts tranlucent and clinging from the melted ice. They must look like a sight, she realises, without much concern.)
She is silent, and she doesn't move her hand from Adelaide's jaw as she watches her intently, studying and searching, green eyes focused even as the pupils are blown with pain and her breath feels a little unsteady.
"I won't ask again." That's a promise, at least. She can't make promises about her own fate right now, but she can make a promise about that. And she can press her opposite hand over Adelaide's as her magic keeps piecing her back together. "You can do this. You can get through this." Certain, the kind of certainty and steadiness and hope that Ruby reserves for other people.
The Fade. The magic. Everything, really. She can get through everything.
no subject
It is because they are not of this world that she tries so hard for them. They are not meant to die here.
Ruby is not meant to die here.
The wound closes under Adelaide's hand without much fanfare, the glow slowly fades from her eyes leaving only the usual weary, winter's blue. The skin below bruised a dark purple, her hair matted to her forehead and nape from sweat and a little of her own blood long since dried, the usual precisely pinned mass a loose snarl and tangle of braids hastily knotted in place to hold until she had time to actually fix it. None of them expected this. But the only way out is through. For a moment she closes her eyes to shut out that piercing scrutiny, far too intense for her to bear. She softens, she sags, bowing forward in an exhausted curve now that the danger was past. Forehead almost resting against Ruby's she sighs. "So will you. I need a new research assistant."
As she said. She would find a purpose for Ruby if she liked it or not. It isn't, probably, the wisest course, or the kindest, or the most just. But it is the one thing she can think of to say that might stick with Ruby long enough to see her out of this place in one piece. "If you've no caring for your life, fine. But you cannot throw it away until I am done with you."
Her eyes open, infinitely weary, but certain all the same. Determined. "And I am not yet done."
no subject
"A... research assistant."
As if she's tasting the words for the first time, testing them and trying to work out how they're meant to sound rolling off her tongue. Research assistant. For a moment she remembers her brief tenure as Sherriff's deputy slash lackey slash coffee girl, but she doesn't tense up. She misses Storybrooke and everyone from home, and sometimes she misses just being Ruby without the memories of Red.
"Hang on." First thing first, Ruby shifts her leg so that she can hook it around and behind Adelaide's a means to keep her close before some inevitable shift away can occur.
Ruby's own shirt is already a mess. With barely any effort she tears a clean piece away, no blood and grime, resting it on her thigh as she unstoppers a waterskin and splashes it over it. Hand still bloodied, but moving with care, she bunches it up and holds it up, slowly. She's sitting on her own grave, leaning against a woman that cared enough to pull her flesh back together despite knowing what she is, and she has literally nothing to offer except easing a little discomfort. The water isn't especially cold, but its cool enough as Ruby starts to wipe some of the dried blood and sweat and dirt from Adelaide's brow and temple.
Actually answering any of that is hard - words stick in her throat, clawed and vicious as the rest of her and impossible to dislodge. Words like thank you and I won't let you down and you probably could use a better assistant, actually. "So does that mean I have to call you boss now, or--?"
Another of those smiles, the ones that appear no matter how unhappy she is and are impressively convincing for the few seconds before they fade away, coupled with a slight quirk of her brow. Smiles cover all manner of sins, really.
no subject
"Yes. A research assistant." Adelaide begins to pull away to find her feet and stand so they could move on before something else tried to kill them. Or just to tip backward and rest for awhile. But there is movement and the curl of a limb tangling in her robes and set around hers in another moment of startling intimacy that has her too shocked at the casual means in which it's offered to even complain. If anything she wastes the moment staring down at Ruby's leg like it would explain what it was doing there and as such, misses the gist of what Ruby is doing until there's fabric dabbing at her skin.
She's taken back to the conversation on cold compresses and bites back a laugh despite herself. She must remain composed, she's lost enough of it here. Then Ruby asks that and the damn breaks- Adelaide closes the distance to rest her forehead against Ruby's shoulder and laughs. It's helpless and bright, ragged and on the edge of hysteria, but it is laughter. When she recalls herself enough to answer she manages, with the wryest twist of her lips. "Boss will suffice."
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