faderift | I never loved nobody truly

WHO: Ruby Lucas & Adelaide LeBlanc.
WHAT: idk some garbage
WHEN: A couple of days after this, mid??? August.
WHERE: random countryside between Halamshiral and Skyhold
NOTES: yes

This is officially a pretty shitty day.
Which she knows, she's known it for a couple of days, because those were also pretty shitty days. Ruby walks with her cloak hanging from her shoulders, grass brushing around her legs. It seems to vary between being up her to her shins or her knees, and the grass of her path is greener and marked with white flowers that reach up and sway in the breeze as the wind makes the plains ripple like the surge of the sea.

She's not feeling her best, it can definitely be said, and she doesn't have a particular plan. Go to Skyhold, maybe, and then redirect herself to the Emprise, and hopefully just— Sort stuff out. Fix it. Take some time and maybe find a rock to crawl under for a while. Or maybe she won't be a self-pitying loser, and be a decent friend, and just get on with life. It'll keep stinging, but it'll be okay.

What Ruby does allow herself is the luxury of stopping and leaning against a tree when she finally gets to the top of the hill she's standing on, and slowly exhales. "Come on, Ruby. Get it together."

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"Um?" Adelaide manages a soft laugh, lighter, sweeter than the usual wry crackle Ruby prompts. Then again Ruby has been better able to pull forth smiles and laughs and ideas that she had long thought put to rest. This is- it is something she has not tried for the better part of two decades and yet? She is here, tangled among flowers and long grass like an adolescent, tipping her face into Ruby's hand to feel the warmth and enjoy the rightness of it.

One good, selfish thing. One kind thing. One gentle thing not tainted overtly by work or politics or expectation. She is allowed this, is she not?

Laying down fully alongside Ruby is easy enough, though she does frown a little at the rock tossed aside, at least until they're settled and close and cozy. "I am not certain how one goes about these things when you are not expected to hide it every hour of the day but- I am certain of this. I am certain of you."

She hopes that this will go well, which is more than she's ever had before.

"Hey, don't tease the werewolf. We're very sensitive."

Very sensitive, and very ridiculous. Her eyebrow raises just a little bit and she's... relaxing a little more. This is a thing. It's a thing that's happening, and her heart is beating hard and fast in her chest. It's wonderful and faintly discombobulating and she just pressing her hand over Adelaide's heart, fingertips resting on her collarbone, idly, gaze dropping a little. It's a happy kind of, uh. Gentle embarrassment.

"Well, if it makes it easier for you to adapt we can pretend it's an illicit love affair. You can lock me in a cupboard if someone comes into your tent and we're having a moment."

It's a cautious sort of joke. Maybe not entirely a joke, as she traces the line of Adelaide's collarbone. "Certain is good. I'm okay with certain." A brief pause and, very softly, "I'm certain, too."

"I tease out of affection." And she's allowed this. It's- just the same as their ridiculous conversations in the Undercroft or over the crystals. The same back and forth that has become cozy and comfortable and easy. Light. Without weight they do not wish to give for all that their talks inevitably veer toward the serious or maudlin- for now? All is warmth and color and the blooming flowers around them.

Her brother would adore the image.

Tentative, in so much that she's adjusting to having leave to do so, Adelaide combs her fingers through Ruby's hair. longer that Robert's ever was, wild and curled and lovely. Easy to lose her fingers among the curls. "I know my reputation and standing as a public official of sorts may make this difficult but- aside from a few accusations of bias in favor of rifters, which is the least politically inconvenient thing possible on my plate? It would not hurt my reputation to have this known. Nor do I have any particular desire to hide this- unless you wish it hidden."

She defers to Ruby's comfort.

The longer they lay there, the denser the flowers and the greener the grass becomes. The flowers, in this place and this season, are a bright pink, six petals and stamen that are an intense pink-red, or they are a red stars, or white-yellow spidery seeming things with too many petals to count at a quick glance. They rise around the two woman sprawled in the grass, fan out and away from them like the splay of tributaries on a map. It's kind of—

It's horribly appropriate for a fairy tale character, probably, though Ruby doesn't disrupt the moment to make a comment. No, she is content to just stay here and try to absorb. These things don't happen to her. She's the werewolf, the monster, she's the one that people run from (and rightly so, she thinks.) Adelaide probably has a concussion or impaired judgment or this could be an elaborate prank, none of which are in keeping with Adelaide or her manner at all. Truth be told, Ruby's not entirely sure how to process. Her eyes slip shut, and she just inhales, flowers and Adelaide and a horse that her ears tell her is pretty content just eating grass, nosing around for the sweeter stuff lower to the ground. Simply sensing and feeling, aware of Adelaide's hands in her hair, that's good with Ruby for a moment.

... Though conceivably she should also reply, sometime. "I don't want it hidden," she says, after a moment of consideration. "I'd only want to if being open about it was going to make your politics and stuff harder. And, by the way, Thedas is apparently a lot more progressive than the World Without Magic, if being involved with another woman wouldn't be inconvenient."

Way to go, modern world. Medieval problematic fantasy land is more socially liberal, in some regards. Wow.

Never mind that. She leans slightly closer, voice quieter even if they're the only ones here, and glances to Adelaide with slight bemusement. "This doesn't seem real."

A vision for some manner of romance, Gregoire might say were he to witness it. Adelaide thinks nothing of the flowers or vines, the vibrance of the grass or the weather. The whole of her focus is bent to the warmth of Ruby tangled against her and the fact that for a moment? This is hers. And she knows far, far too well how Ruby sees herself and that which she is given. What consideration she is and isn't owed. The high standard to which she must hold herself is doubly vital in the face of Ruby being forgotten, being left behind, being lost.

"Your being a rifter may be more cause for a stir than your being a woman. It is not so strange a thing in Orlais- or in Thedas. Not spoken of all that often but not strange in the slightest." She props herself on her elbow, peering down into Ruby's face. The sincere awe there is...it twists something in Adelaide. Hardens a certainty that she must do whatever she can to be deserving of this affection, of this regard. "Then you shall not be hidden. I am by nature a private woman but- I am not ashamed of you. I never have been."

Even at Ruby's most ridiculous. It'd been endearing and invigorating- not shameful.

"To be perfectly honest? Nor can I. This- It is not for me, I thought. Someone to share a bed with on occasion to relieve stress, yes but something more? I don't have time for it, feeling deeply is dangerous, desire demons will be plaguing my sleep for the next few weeks but- I do not care." It's almost a revelation to herself, this truth. "I truly don't. Because...I have you."

She swallows the reflexive self-deprecating comment— Oh, come on. Just give me time. As though shame were an inevitability, the kind of thought Storybrooke ground into her bones. "Private I get. I'm not saying I'm going to make posters or do an announcement or something, just... not secret is good."
Does she sound stupidly, disarmingly pleased? Probably, yeah.

Yeah. Ruby would be hard pressed to deny that Adelaide does, indeed, have her. It makes her smile brighten, if such a thing is really possible, leaning forward to slip her arms around Adelaide and draw her into a hug, even as close as they are, letting her face tuck against Adelaide's neck for a couple of of moments. She only eases back enough to talk without it being lost and muffled, gently bumping Adelaide's jaw with her nose.

"I would say that I'll try to eliminate any chance of desire," Ruby starts, something wry in her tone, "but I feel like that could be counterproductive, maybe." Silly joke? Silly joke. More seriously, "is there anything I can do to help with that part?" Because she might not know what it is to be a mage and live with the risk of demons and all the rest of it, but she does remember the dreams she used to have, that feeling of being drawn into tar and drowning so inevitably. "I've got your back."

I never loved nobody truly—

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