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

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

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.

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Initially, Korrin isn't anywhere near the dungeons after the return from Skyhold. She's singularly focused on Araceli's recovery, nevermind that her love is as terrible a patient as she ever was in the past. During those times when Araceli is stir-crazy and slips away, she simply sets about to getting more medicine from the healing tents and keeping them available. During those moments, if Adelaide is available she'll try to get updates on Ruby's situation. She hasn't forgotten about her, even as there's not much she can do during lyrium withdrawal, anyway. And yes, that one particular wrist is covered up. Ruby doesn't need to see the resulting scar.

At the end of the second week, Korrin has enough spare time and energy to head down below, at least for a brief visit. She descends carefully, bringing with her a carafe of water and some baked goods from the kitchen. They're fresh, so possibly better than what Ruby might have already. Her satchel is also bulging with potions, just in case they're needed. None of them contain lyrium, of course.

"...Ruby?"

Some fucked up shit went down. A lot of shardbearers got caught up in shit that Church has been putting small fragments of information together from this person, that snippet of gossip, from people involved in what became a rescue op. A lot of those people he's familiar with. Some of them are god damn friends. Ruby he hasn't talked to too much, but he likes her. They're from a similar enough world to get shit, and she's cool, and people like her or Cosima are a breath of fresh air.

So he's not at all happy, during the first week, when he's more or less not permitted to go down into the dungeon (the fucking dungeons!) lest he rouse her, wake her, put himself in potential danger. He's told she's in a delicate state, a fragile state, that visitors are not encouraged until she's begun to heal.

It's worry, concern, and absolute blood red anger that fuels him. Obi-Wan might be the official voice of the Rifters to the Inquisition leaders, but Church tries to make himself available to them all, tries in his own way to be a face of the Rifters (the past rift opening notwithstanding, was kind of a little bit busy in Orlais and with recovery). So the second she seems to, in a fashion, be getting better, he is going to be there at her cell.

A god damn cell like a criminal. She looks like death that didn't even bother to get warmed over. He wishes he could be surprised, but that seems to be a running theme with the tortured shardbearers. He sits himself as quietly as he can, cross-legged, in front of her cell. He'd been warned not to get too close, not to get within arm's reach. He has resolutely ignored that.

"Hey, Ziggy Stardust, it's me. You awake?" Awake, yeah, probably. Aware seems to be another thing entirely.

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.

Word spreads quickly, especially when you're a secretary. It doesn't take long for Cade to come visit, and though it takes all his courage to descend back into the place where he's already spent far too much time on the other side of the bars, he feels compelled to be there. He hasn't even spoken to Ruby since that night on the precipice, but if ever there was a time to be by her side, it's now.

He's a good companion for the long hours, at least when he's not working. He sits by her cell and reads or does paperwork, waiting for her to wake up. He's there at least once a day, to the point where it almost becomes his second home. Of course, he slinks off wordlessly when other visitors come to call, and he's easily bullied by those who wish her harm, but he always returns. And there he sits, just keeping her company. Because he knows how it feels.

"What do you think you are doing?" She's come down at least once a day, Remi in hand or upon her shoulder, a basket of food or drink or some manner of treat, a book to read to her-

Something to make this time easier. To make the pain less, to make the imprisonment? Less dreary. Her own wounds are mended even if they continue to ache- but that which remains on Ruby? She tends to when she can. It's slow going for reasons she doesn't quite understand but- leaving Ruby to tend to them on her own? Unthinkable. She had thought she'd made that plain if the crackle of irritation in her voice is anything to go by. "Let me in."

The guard, of course, is reasonably reluctant. Adelaide's glare isn't as motivating as she might hope.

The guard is a tall man with dark skin and sharp eyes, whose gaze flits between Ruby and Adelaide. When he speaks, his voice marks him as Orlesian, and not an Orlesian from a fine estate. "She's treating it herself," he starts, though he does look at Ruby with a look of badly, that makes Ruby look away. Her hands are bloody and her back and her sides ache, and maybe she just thought it would be cathartic, or something.

"You don't have to do this, Del. I can do it." Quiet and flat in ways that Ruby didn't sound until after the battle.

Thomas, the guard, is already reaching for his keys, albeit slowly. "If something happens," he starts, looking at Adelaide with a hesitation bourn of concern for her safety, rather than disobedience.

When Ruby is finally coherent for long enough stretches, she is still weak. Her injuries, slow to heal and barely hastened by magic, mean that she has to move slow, and though the guard is instructed to bring her water often, she does not ask as much as she should. Dungeons should be a punishment. She should be punished.

Finally her being aware and coherent and Cade's presence align, and she sits up, easing herself up in her cot and looking at him. It takes her a moment to be certain he's real and not imagined, and occurs to her that maybe the other times he really as here, too. Not to taunt her with all her speeches about optimism, but just—

here.

"Hey," she starts, very quietly from her place. "You've been here a while."

Definitely a realisation, that.

"I am a healer, Charlotte." Ah, that disappointed enchanter voice remains, doubling down at the foolish insistence. Once before she'd told Adelaide that 'she didn't have to', they both know how well that turned out. Her glare flattens out at the blood, at the wounds- but what he says? Has her head turning slow, swiveling to offer him the full brunt of her ire.

"Something like, perhaps, someone bringing fruit in to throw at a prisoner while the guards are feeling particularly negligent?." Oh yes, she'd heard. Oh yes, she is less than impressed. Words with Cullen might have been had, off the record. Quiet mutterings that wouldn't effect anything in truth, merely make her feel better for having said them. "Open the door."

"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."

He raises a brow, opens his mouth to protest because doing rounds did not allow for being everywhere at once, merci beaucoup, but decides against it and shuts his mouth, giving her a short bow. Mages, he might mutter, if he didn't value his life. Instead he unlocks the door, watching as Ruby moves away from it, and holds it open for the mage, closing it once she is entered and letting the lock slide home with a loud click.

Ruby waits until he has given them a few steps distance to even attempt a reply.

"You have other patients," she starts, and her chest feels raw, "some of which you have because of me." Her voice catches, and she shakes her head. "You shouldn't heal monsters."

Despite it all, Ziggy Stardust gets a slow curl of a smile at the corner of her mouth, though it fades soon enough. "I'm awake, but I don't feel like Ziggy Stardust." She has to take a moment, fingers curled around the edge of the bed, to pull herself up. It's slow going, rolling up vertebrae by vertebrae, and she can feel sweat rolling down her back with the exertion and the pain by the time she's upright and facing Church.

"Does that," she starts, having to pause and take a breath, "make you a Spider from Mars?"

She doesn't know what's being said. Doesn't expect it to be much better than that she's a killer, though part of her has som uneasy awareness that it's not going to be that simple, that the others will make it twist around and try to paint her as something better because they're her friends. For a brief moment she looks glad to see Church, and she is, before it's overshadowed. "You shouldn't be here, Church."

"Sit." She points, emphatically, to whatever serves as a cot or chair. Something Ruby can sit on and be made comfortable by while Adelaide shrugs out of her cloak and rolls up her sleeves. The basket of food, books, and sleeping kitten is set aside for the moment. She needs to be the physician first, the-

Whatever it is they are to one another second.

"I cured a monster recently I will have you recall, and I do not like him half so much as I do you. "No more of this self loathing bullshit. Something was done to you that put you outside of your mind."

She almost says something sharp, then. Something that'd maybe not hurt but would definitely be uncomfortable. Really? 'Cause he likes you just as much as I do, apparently.

She wouldn't mean it and she'd regret it instantly, but that desire to sling back stupid remarks feels stronger with the lyrium having raked over her mind, confusing Red and Ruby and before and during and after the Curse into a great tangle. Ruby has to exhale slowly, rubbing her hand over her face to try and make her mind settle and her nerves stop prickling. Ruby-Ruby wouldn't help, right now.

"The Wolf is as much part of me as Ruby and Red are. That wasn't outside my mind, Adelaide, that was just the part of it that no one wants to acknowledge is me." I know who you are, Snow and David had both said, but they didn't really see. Maybe they did, and that was when they started to withdraw. Still, she sits obediently, albeit slowly, and Guardsman Thomas withdraws enough to give them space, but stays close enough to glance and keep watch.

"That was not The Wolf. Not as it ought to be. I have seen your wolf, Charlotte. I have seen you in your eyes when you wear that fur, have held fast to you as you ran. Even when you fight in such a way you have your wits about you. No. That was not your wolf." Blue light pools in her hands as she runs them along the cuts, coaxing whatever healing she can manage into the blood and torn skin. Silver wounds do not heal the same, just as the bites and tears of flesh from The Wolf did not mend quite the same.

Something in conflicting magics. Something she does not yet understand- but she can and does take the pains to try to make this faster. Easier.

To take this pain away. "That was a Wolf made delirious by lyrium, a wolf that had been experimented on, tormented-"

Her voice loses it's cool cast, twisting into something thick, something guilty. They should have known the Venatori would've wanted to take them. Should have known. "It was neither of you as you ought to have been."

The magic is a relief, though she has fragmented memories of freezing up, of Red without Ruby looking at Adelaide, and Ruby without Red, in brief moments thanks to the lyrium's influence. She remembers thinking all magic comes with a price and being so afraid all while breathing in the scent of someone who felt so familiar and so comforting. A conflict of two different times, pulling her in separate directions. She exhales, and it is a sigh of relief more than any normal breath, as the heat and pain and everything else wrong in her starts to drain away, even if only temporarily.

She leans forward, unbidden, and rests her forehead against Adelaide's shoulder, one hand anchoring in her robes, though it exposes the line of her neck and punctures in the flesh and muscle where shoulder and neck meet. Inhale; tea and herbs and ink and dust. Exhale.

"I could have killed you. I could have killed any of you." Ruby's hands twist into Adelaide's robes more, as the pain in Adelaide's voice wrenches at her. "None of what happened is your fault."

Difficult moments, those. Something she had no way of treating- what little is known of lyrium sickness? Is either hidden away or a tightly kept secret. Mages, certainly had their moments but those that were not quite so terrible as what she has seen. There were rumors of what happened to Templars that stopped taking lyrium but-

No one paid them much mind. They were rumors. But to see the truth of them in the Rifters, to hear more of what the Templars of the Inquisition endure when they go without...it is difficult to discount them. But like this it is something she can fix. Something she can put her hands on and sooth, even if only for the moment. Not entirely, not in a way that lasts, but right now there is no pain. There is no sign of the men that did this to her- save for those punctures where lyrium had been injected.

"You would never hurt me." Even when thrown, it hadn't hurt her. Gentle fingers smooth her hair out of the way, tipping her face to press her lips to Ruby's temple. "If you hadn't been delirious? You wouldn't have hurt any of them."

Her hands are tentative, cautious things. They ease from their balled up state, the knots they've made in Adelaide's robes, to carefully smooth over her ribs, feather light, as if the faintest pressure might make her shatter, as if this precious, essential person that's she's only just really found could just disappear if she holds on too hard. One hand settles at Adelaide's back, the other lingering at her ribs to feel the come and go of breath.

"Intent only goes so far," she replies, an echo of all the times they spoke of it. Intent was important, essential, but... it only went so far. Actions were action, outcomes were outcomes, responsibility could not be shirked simply because a result was not the intended one.

Ruby tilts her head, and her chest feels raw as she presses a kiss to her jaw. "And— and I might jeopardise the work you do. And how willing people are to listen to you."

She's been hearing different voices ever since the lyrium first sung to her. They've woven in and out of reality, come with different strings of clarity, and for a moment she lies there and isn't certain if that's Korrin she's really hearing, or just some ghost of Korrin in her head. Why would Korrin come to see her, after everything that happened?

But she's been seeing and hearing less, has felt more certain of being her and not stuck in the memories before or during the Curse, and she waits a long moment before considering that, perhaps, Korrin is actually here. She looks up from her place, sitting with her back to the wall, knees drawn up with her forehead resting on them, and blinks at Korrin slowly.

"What are you doing here?"

Her voice sounds dry and rough with disuse, and her gaze is uncertain.

If anyone could see her when it mattered. Could watch how she reaches now so gently, her hands light as birds along her skin, resting so gently against wounds old and new. Could see how the wolf noses at her shoulder or nips so lightly against her sleeve as to catch her attention but never her flesh. Could see the care she puts into every gesture as she is terribly, viscerally aware of her strength and the fragility of the world around her. They wouldn't question her. They wouldn't think less of Ruby in the slightest.

People that matter? People that know her? Are aware. The rest of the world does not seem to understand- or care to learn. It is their loss to never know the whole of her, and Adelaide's most precious joy and privilege to ensure it does not become crushed under the weight of guilt and self loathing.

"You are not at fault." She'll insist upon this for as long as it takes for it to sink in. "Throwing myself into danger to protect rifters? To ensure victory against the Venatori? If anything you have solidified my cause."

There is a single, sharp breath of laughter that is closer to the rasp of a sob than any kind of mirth. "So, uh," and she tries desperately to get a handle on a joke, on something to make this easier and lighter and better, somehow, because she feels like she might drown in it, like all the nightmares that came before Wolfstime, all that sinking into an abyss that was as inevitable and hungry as tar.

"So I'm politically advantageous, is what you're saying?"

Joke, make light, don't let them see that it hurts. A fine enough tactic, except that Adelaide had been too keen and too observant, and Ruby had liked being seen even if it took apart her defences. She leans back just a little, just enough to look at Adelaide, and her eyes feel raw and itchy and her head aches and her lips are dry. Not quite the vision Adelaide was used to, she's sure.

"I'll make sure to get into trouble more often, Captain."

"Miel Loup." Gentle, soothing. The darkness is past, to dwell is to drown. They are both of them too busy, needed too much to drown. There is little else she can do for these injuries, little more that can be done to heal torn skin, but the pain? She can cradle in her palms and let Compassion take. But some pain is beyond them even if it curls in Adelaide's gut to see that ache in Ruby's eyes.

"If it pleases you to think so. You are..." She rests a hand on Ruby's cheek, thumb swiping along the jaw. Neither of them have been sleeping well, neither of them have been as at ease as they could be but this? Is far worse upon Ruby than she can imagine. "...trouble enough on your own, yes? No need to get into extra."

Before it can sting, before it can come off poorly she leans in, brushing their lips together. Softly, sweetly. As though Ruby might vanish like so many dreams if she is not careful. "My favorite kind of trouble. It would spoil me for you to make more."

She chases the kiss, the contact, the moment after the kiss hanging in the air for a moment before she wishes she could snatch it back again. "Captain." A careful tone, warning, as she looks at Adelaide with something pleading. She can't kiss her. She can't kiss her, not with a mouth that tore into their friends and that ripped into their enemies. It wasn't simple death, it was feeding, and she remembers the warm slick of blood on her face and her neck and the way the only thing she could smell for days, it seemed, was blood. "You shouldn't kiss me."

Raw, a scraped out set of words. "I— I shouldn't kiss you, I guess."

That seemed more accurate, somehow. "I'll just be your trouble girl, down here. Easy to keep track of trouble."

"..." It isn't so difficult to guess what's on Ruby's mind, why she is so hesitant. That usual twist of loathing, another stone on the opposing scale of 'me' vs 'monster'. Eyes narrowed Adelaide slips her other hand up to cradle Ruby's jaw and leans in again- this kiss harder, almost angry.

She will kiss whom she wishes to kiss when she wishes to kiss them and there is nothing Ruby can do about it if her reluctance comes from guilt. "This is temporary. When you are well, when this has passed?"

Forehead to forehead, fingers slipping up to curl in Ruby's hair. "We hare having dinner with Korrin and Araceli. One of those double date things you told me about."

She makes a sound against the kiss, a pleased groan into Adelaide's mouth as Ruby's hands slip to press a little firmer against her back, a desire for closeness without demanding it, without dragging her nearer. The isolation makes the contact all the more precious, makes the kisses end with her heart rate hitching up, and she wavers with trying to stay held back before she kisses Adelaide again, a gently drag of teeth over lower lip.

And then the words register, and she tries to steady her breath and her control, to not become uncertain at the thought. But I hurt both of them.

No, instead she nods, even if the nervousness seeps into her voice. "Okay. Double date. I can do that."

Korrin's own voice is nothing but calm, even as her gaze is full of sympathy. She sets down what she brought with, nearby but not forcing anything on Ruby. If she doesn't have or want anything right away, that's fine, but Korrin still wants to make it available for when that might change. "Checking on you, of course. I'm sure Adelaide wouldn't let you starve down here, but I snagged these while they were still fresh. If you've got a favorite in mind, I'll do what I can to keep them coming."

She darts a small smile at Ruby, then moves to sit down since looming over her will probably have the opposite effect she wants to have. "How's the withdrawal going?"

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Page 1 of 9

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

tail-end of the two week period, no rush

Week 2

fruit throwing :|

Almost Immediately Upon Her Return, and Afterwards

Treating her wounds

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