( 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]

There is the slightest tug at the corner of her mouth, something that could almost have been a smile. "I was thinking maybe the Golden Girls, for mine. Just a montage of every time Dorothy bites her fist, or something."

Ruby huffs out a breath of laughter. "Well, if you saw an old lady with a crossbow, that'd be my Granny. Not sure if her or the jingles would be scarier, honestly."

[youwonscience]

Cosima smiles - not hugely, but more distinctly than Ruby did. "I may fuzzily recall a crossbow, though..." She shrugs. "I don't know about you, but everything was really too fragmented to put much together. I guess I'll have to give up on the dream of someone singing weebles wobble but they don't fall down under their breath."

[eviscerates]

"Maybe I'll work on teaching them and just not tell you. Like a surprise."

A really subtle surprise, evidently. Shifting a little uncomfortably - a sword through the gut makes pretty much everything uncomfortable for a while, when silver is involved and even spirit magic can't make it heal swiftly - Ruby cants her head to the side. Maybe she needs to try harder, here. She's not the only one that had a terrible time in those dungeons. It's not easy, and it's not— genuine, exactly, even if the sentiment behind it is, but she can put up a convincing enough front:

"You know, I'm not saying it's the best setting atmospherically, but being able to keep your tiles separated from someone by bars could make this a really good Scrabble set up. Or maybe... Thedasopoly. No one will be stealing money from a bank behind bars."

[youwonscience]

While Cosima suspects she's being humored to some extent, she smiles all the same. Ruby making an effort for Cosima's sake is still Ruby making an effort, after all, and Cosima can't help but think something relatively normal won't hurt anything as far as her state of mind.

"I'm going to reverse-engineer Ticket to Ride one of these days, but first I'll have to explain trains to everyone," she says with a little grin. "Let's start with Scrabble and see how it goes. If you're a secret Scrabble wizard, we can switch games to preserve my dignity."

[eviscerates]

"Oh, man. 'Metal carriages that are powered by fire' might make it sound a little more nightmarish than it needs to be." She makes a face, mouth tugging to the side and slightly down in an uh oh kind of way. "Maybe Hungry Hippos would work. Hungry Snofleur, or something."

And there's a little tilt of her head. "I'm just a waitress. I feel like odds are someone who actually went to college might have one up on me, when it comes to Scrabble. You could say a word was scientific, and I'd be pretty hard pressed to argue it. It'd be a hell of a way to use up excess consonants."

[youwonscience]

"Okay, cross my heart, no making up words and claiming science. Also, I'll point out that vocabulary is not the only necessary Scrabble-winning skill. I knew an English major in undergrad who got a perfect SAT verbal but sucked at it because she wasn't good at jumbling the letters."

So you never know.

"Now if we were playing Operation, obviously I'd have an unfair advantage," she adds, deadpan.

[eviscerates]

Okay, that gets a not entirely stifled breath of laughter from her.

"Maybe it'll be some sort of board game triathlon. Scrabble, Operation and... Twister? Might need a little more time to be able to give that last one my all, mind you."

Still, the idea of incorporating board games into Skyhold life was kind of great. "Do you think we could convince people that Twister is some sort of team building thing, too? A giant Twister contest would be a sight to see."

[youwonscience]

"As many people as you got participating in that snow fight, Twister should be no problem." Cosima almost grins. "As these things go, that'd be an easy one to explain. And there's no shortage of people willing to get competitive."

[eviscerates]

"Competitiveness and innuendo do seem to be the two great constants across words," Ruby replies, a little wryly. Pretending to be fine is helpful. She can delude even herself, for a little while.

"The real question is whether we make a giant board for it, or try to make a lot of regular sized boards. I can't even remember how many dots there are, actually."

[youwonscience]

"Wait, let's see. So... four colors," she says, thinking it through. "And it's definitely not a square, so I'd say... five or six of each? Usually big enough an average person can't quite reach along a whole row, though you probably never had that problem." Cheerfully.

"Giant board would be fun as long as we had enough people. The whole point is involuntary invasion of personal space, after all."