The secrets in the snow

[foxsays]

WHO: Araceli Bonavenuta, Morrigan, Yngvi; open
WHAT: Catch-all for Wintermarch
WHEN: During Wintermarch
WHERE: In and around Skyhold
NOTES: Yngvi threads might have discussion of previous character death. Starting in third person but action spam welcome! If you want a closed starter, let me know on plurk or discord!

Comments

[foxsays]

"Kings...no. Only the card itself, not that sort of game." Maybe somewhere else might have it but as she draws a card from the deck for her hand, she can't think of having heard of it or anything like it. "What is flip cup?"

All her games have rules to test your ability to bend them or break them without folk noticing. Or they're to read the face of a person. Or hash out a business deal or alliance or some such if you're that way inclined. Or it gives you an excuse to hang around to get information without sticking out. What is playing for fun?

[youwonscience]

It is admittedly hard to con someone at a game where the only prize is "being less drunk than the other idiots."

"Okay, so, where I'm from we have these light, inexpensive cups for beer that don't break when you drop them, right? So you get two teams to stand on opposite sides of a table, and they all have half-full cups in front of them. And it's like a ... drinking relay race?" Cosima draws a card. "The first person chugs the beer, then sets the cup on the edge of the table and flicks the bottom one-handed so that it flips over and lands on the rim. Once the person succeeds, the next person in line can go. The team that flips all the cups first wins." Cosima doesn't feel the need to point out that this gets harder as the evening progresses.

[foxsays]

"I can imagine there is a very slippery, very sticky floor and table by the end of the night. Or a person buried under these cups. Who knows, maybe a rift will bring some through. There is a place called the Western Approach and it's so hot there, a great baking desert far as the eye can see except for the Abyssal Rift from a Blight long ago where someone I know found these spectacles with dark lenses that blocked out much of the sun. They were all manner of shapes and colours."

But most of them were dad shades. They were great. She snagged a pair or two of these legendary items.

"No one knows what falls out of rifts besides people, it's difficult to predict. I bet Church would love to play flip cup if the right supplies appeared."

[youwonscience]

"Oh my god, I'm sure he would. We were talking about trying to recreate some of the foods from our worlds, and a lot of those from my time lasted until his. I'll let you know if we get that project off the ground."

Because you really do need to try a bloomin' onion once in your life.

"And I'll keep an eye out for solo cups. Hey, you think if something comes through a rift, it means someone in another world was dreaming about it?"

She's heard weirder theories.

[foxsays]

"I look forward to trying foods from other worlds after inflicting some of my own when I can get into the kitchen long enough or we have the supplies. Since Fereldan and Orlesian cuisine is...not to my tastes."

Bland. Painfully bland. Or just a complete mess really but Orlesians might be too drunk to tell, she's not sure.

(Please let her stare at the onion for at least five minutes first before telling her that it's a thing that you eat.)

The question makes her pause, looking at the cards in her hand as if they might somehow reveal the answers. "I...I had tried not to think about it. I received something from my home some time ago and I know that there is only one copy of that document so now I'm less sure if it means I dreamt about it or-- or she did"

[youwonscience]

"Oh my god, tell me about it with the food. I mean, it's fine, beggars can't be choosers, but. I was talking with Korrin not long ago, and she said we might be able to get our hands on some peppers eventually."

Cosima has designs on introducing tacos, but one step at a time.

As for the other matter ... she nods. "It's strange. I mean, all of it's strange, but especially the connection with dreaming. My understanding of what dreams are and the fact that I'm even here don't really mesh."

[foxsays]

"I have a stash of my own, I topped it up in Antiva then Rivain but it's been so long since I've been there I have to leave coin with the Burly, Raas or Kalla to make sure they order extra I can come collect. It's cheaper than buying from the merchants, definitely cheaper than trying to buy it if you're in Val Royeaux." Everything in Val Royeaux is overpriced unless you've got a line of credit.

"Dreams have meaning where I come from but not so much as here maybe. So, say a sailor has a dream where there are merfolk crowding the deck of his ship or singing from the rocks, he changes course and then sees he's avoided a storm. Maybe a mother dreams of her child, all the things they might be. But it's what might be."

If she knew what magical realism was then that would be the thing. But she doesn't so this is what she's got.

[youwonscience]

"Interesting." Cosima draws a card. "For us it's like. Hm. It's like a way to talk to yourself without filters, I guess. As far as we know, at least, it's an area that's still in need of a lot of study. But it's things going on that you don't know consciously, turning up in metaphors. Some people think your sleeping self is trying to work out problems or worries that you can't sort out while you're awake. But we don't think it's connected to anything outside. It's private."

Which was only one of the reasons turning up in Thedas had been such a shock.

[foxsays]

Shuffling her hand (decent enough, better if she was going to cheat) she half-wishes she'd needed to talk to some of the old women down at the shores more, but you always like to be master of your own fate leaping around when you're a teenager.

"It could still work for here if something comes through." Araceli pauses for a moment to allow herself to think since magical politics is more her area, not theory so she's slower to speak, less sure of herself. "Someone - and I cannot remember him for the life of me - he said spirits in the Fade sing our memories back to us. When the Breach exists and with so many rifts, maybe that's how things are managing to actually come through."

[youwonscience]

"That makes some sense. I mean, most of my dreams here are still about things I've encountered. People I know, sometimes here, sometimes from home. My dreams are still made out of the same building blocks, or at least I perceive them that way."

Cosima's also focusing on the game, but she honestly doesn't have a strong enough grip of it yet to be sure of her strategy.