( 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

fruit throwing :|

[chainlightning]

She had been coming to visit her friend when some jeering reached her ears, and Merrill hadn't hesitated. Instead of walking, she sprints; the sounds are all too familiar, all too dangerous for women and people who are Other. Rounding the corner, she sees Ruby with splattered fruit down her front and a man with a sneer -- and she leaps forward.

"Shemlen bastard, you leave her alone!"

Cue Merrill landing on his back, legs locking around for support, and flailing her little fists as hard as she can at his face. Gus the Venatori hadn't expected it, and Merrill may have to just keep including rushing at people while yelling in her combat repertoire.

[eviscerates]

"Merrill, don't—"

Voice dry and raw and cracking as she moves to the bars, regrets the lunge when her healing back and ribs and everything pull and send spikes of hot pain through her, sending her knuckles white around the bars and sweat rolling down her back.

"Merrill, it's fine." Less audible, that, as she leans against the bars to help hold herself up.

A guard, Thomas, comes running in, and he quickly grabs the wrist of the offending miscreant (not Merrill, the dirty shemlen) and twists it behind his back. "I can see to it from here, Mademoiselle."

[chainlightning]

"It is not fine-"

She gets another punch in, nails scraping across the offender's face, before the guard grabs him and (politely) demands she gets down. There's a scowl, but she does so, not bothering at all to be gentle.

"She was tortured," she snarls at the fruit-thrower, both hands gripping her staff now so that she doesn't throw another punch. "If you ever have the balls to go on a mission where that's an option and you end up tortured or forced to do something you want to do, I'm going to throw a pumpkin at your head and see how you like it!"

She probably won't, nor will she be able to find a pumpkin, but it's the threat that counts. There's a stomp of her foot and then she turns back to Ruby, expression immediately softening. But she won't say anything until Fruitfuckface is gone.

[eviscerates]

The guard is not especially gentle with the offender, either, one hand holding the man's arm cranked at an uncomfortable angle behind his back, and the other gripping the scruff of his neck. "Well put, Mademoiselle," he agrees, in a very understated voice and a very Orlesian accent, and proceeds to guide the man out of the cell, accidentally bumping him into the door frame as he goes. "Ah, pardon," they hear him say, as Fruitfuckface swears loudly.

It's all kind of surreal.

Ruby, for her part, is trying to wipe the next evolutionary stage of a tomato off her neck.

"You know," she starts, making her voice sound steady even when she feels the very opposite, "there's much better uses for pumpkin. Like pie."

[chainlightning]

Yes, good guard. Best guard. Thank you, guard.

"It'll be a rotten one," Merrill says, turning back to Ruby. She steps up to the bars now, trying to reach through them in order to help clean the tomato off. "That way it isn't stopping any pies from being made."

Plus, rotten pumpkin for rotten tomato. Rotten fruit for a rotten person. Merrill thinks it works, in the case of Fruitfuckface. Never, ever for Ruby, who will get Sad Puppy Eyes if she doesn't let Merrill help.

[eviscerates]

"I don't know," she replies, with as much dryness as she can muster (it's not very much), "I made some pretty terrible mistakes when I tried to practice baking on my own. One time I used salt instead of sugar. Invented really popular dog food trying to make cookies. Using a rotten pumpkin seems like a possibility."

Normally her voice would be richer, varied, a playful lilt and a ridiculous smile. Now it's just flat and exhausted, and her hands twist around the bars, though her grip is loose. She does lean back very slightly when Merrill reaches through the bars, though it's slow and not far enough to fully be out of Merrill's reach, simply because that much movement tends to make her head spin.

"Careful," is all she says. Careful of the Wolf in the cage.

[chainlightning]

"Dog food is a good thing to invent, though! It's useful!" Barkley would love to try it, at least. And- maybe the Wolf liked it? She's not going to ask that, though; there's the chance of bringing up the fact that the Wolf ate people fairly recently, and while no one was actually eaten that anyone really cares about, that didn't stop the Wolf from trying. But Merrill also knows that wasn't Ruby's fault, and so she doesn't stop at all when Ruby leans back.

Instead, there's a snort, one of her hands firmly planting over one of Ruby's.

"I stabbed a Venatori mage and then held my knife to his genitals. I made a flesh golem explode with plants. I trust you not to hurt me while you're in your right mind, but if you don't trust yourself, trust that I can defend myself." Her voice softens, fingers lightly stroking over Ruby's. "You're my friend and I love you, okay? There's nothing you can do to stop that."

[eviscerates]

She hesitates for a moment longer, before moving closer to the bars. It's not like they make it any easier, but she lets herself lean against the bars and reach towards Merrill with one hand, to cautiously loop an arm around her, if she can. The opposite hand remains braced against the bars, as if she might need to suddenly push herself away. For now she just wants her friend. She has a lot of people she talks to, but not a lot of close friends; Merrill, Cosima, Jamie. There'd be the closest, she thinks, aside from Adelaide. She cares about Hermione and Daenerys a great deal, but they were kids, or supposed to have a chance to be that, at least. It seemed like there was a lot they should try to protect them from, even if it was a naive hope.

"I love you, too." They weren't words that she said often, platonically or otherwise. They were frightening, fragile things, the sort that she didn't hear often, either. She is reminded for a brief moment of the sound of a celebration in another room, the scent of people and coffee and the kitchens, and of Snow telling her she wanted her to be happy. It makes this hug all the more important and all the more sad, in the same moment.

Still: "Remind me never to make you mad, though."