You're easier to love from afar (open)

[youwonscience]

WHO: Cosima and open
WHAT: Open post/catchall for Wintermarch
WHEN: Throughout the month; if you need to back or forward date due to Orlais plot, feel free
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: No warnings to start except for the potential of sad Cosima in some threads.

Tavern

Cosima's been moping long enough. She says this silently and firmly to herself several times a day, in fact. Enough moping. Get out, do some good, meet some people.

And while she's generally inclined to constructive action, Cosima isn't made of stone. After all, she's seen with her own eyes how possible it is she could be gone any moment without warning. (Home or ... wherever.) Carpe diem.

Which, loosely translated, means "have some wine at the tavern and flirt with ladies, because fuck it, you're in another world and you might as well." (Unless she sees a friend first, of course.)

Barracks (semi-closed; you know who you are)

While Avery is at work, Cosima has the room to herself. This makes it an excellent place to hold a meeting, and there's some unfinished business to attend to. She gathers Church and Jamie and does some digging to see if there's anyone else Ruby had roped into this idea before she left. Cosima is, by no means, a natural entrepreneur. But it felt like something she owed her friend.

"So. Who's ever run an eatery before?"

Points Around Skyhold (choose your own adventure)

As far as Cosima can determine, there's not just one place to declare: "Hi, I'd like to formally join the Inquisition" if you're not a fighter, a healer or a mage. She knows she can be useful, surely, but she doesn't know exactly where and she isn't entirely sure who to ask.

But she's seen a little of this world now - run up against Venatori and seen some of the effects of rifts that are much more destructive than spitting rifters into Thedas. She's determined to help.

So she'll keep trying to find a way in. There's a lot of research that goes on in Skyhold; surely someone can use an off-world research assistant.

Comments

[youwonscience]

Cosima huffs a quiet laugh. "Shit, I don't know. More wine, if we have any?"

It's not anything she expects Avery to solve. The simple fact Avery isn't gone feels like a lot, these days.

[thecookery]

"Probably," she answers (though something about leaving that earlier topic there irks her a little), then starts looking around for where she set the bottle. "If not, it's not like there isn't a bloody tavern a minute's walk that way."

There is a vague handwave off to the right somewhere.

[youwonscience]

"I don't want people tonight," Cosima says, which she probably wouldn't have a few drinks earlier in the evening. Then, suddenly realizing how that sounds: "I mean, stranger people, I'm glad you're here."

[thecookery]

"Um..." If it wasn't clear already just from being around her, this face is a pretty good indicator that Avery is not used to being that person for anybody. It's- It's not a bad feeling, I guess?? But she's really not sure what to do with it, and is very thankful when she spots the wine bottle and has an excuse to turn her attention to something else as she grabs it and splits the little that's left between them.

"Suppose this'll have to do then."

[youwonscience]

"That or a raid on the kitchens that you'll remain totally ignorant and innocent of," Cosima says, pseudo-chipper. "Thanks."

She takes a sip, then says, "I always feel like I'm talking about myself. I just hope you know - I don't ask about personal stuff because it seems like you'd be uncomfortable, not because I don't care. And now..." She'd been about to say now that Ruby's gone, but plows through, "now it's just us, I just wanted to say. That."

It's genuine enough, but Cosima's also found herself in a bit of a conversational cul-de-sac. She takes a slightly longer drink.

[thecookery]

Oh, good. A statement that gives her an excuse to make a lineface. Just what the doctor ordered!

But as Cosima continues, Avery just shrugs a little and shifts in her seat kind of awkwardly. "You can ask me things if you want. It just feels a bit weird, doesn't it? And it's not as if any of my story's going to be exciting or nothing."

[youwonscience]

"You don't have to entertain me," Cosima says, with a wry look. "It's just, you know. We're friends. Friends care how things are going for each other."

Her tone isn't judgmental. She's known Avery a while now, and isn't on a mission to change her. But Cosima also knows too well that he friendships in Thedas have a way of ending without warning for one reason or another, and she doesn't want everything to remain unsaid.

[thecookery]

"I guess..."

SHE DOES NOT HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WITH THIS, COSIMA, JUST SPELL THINGS OUT, PLEASE. MAKE THIS EASY FOR HER.

"Is there something you want to know?"

[youwonscience]

Cosima licks her lips, thinking, and settles on lightening the mood: "Well, traditionally for two women drinking wine together, I should ask if you have a crush on anyone."

[thecookery]

"Really? That's your first question?" Just look how unimpressed she is, Cosima.

[youwonscience]

She laughs, despite herself.

"I didn't come wish a list prepared. Why, do you?"

[thecookery]

A long-suffering sigh. "I mean..." Fine. She is trying here. Cosima had better appreciate this. "Maybe a little, but it's not one even worth talking about, mind you."

Maker swallow her whole just like she is swallowing this wine far too quickly, just before mumbling, "I'm not mad enough to think anything'll ever come from it, seeing as it's sort of... on my boss."

[youwonscience]

"Oh shit," Cosima says, sympathetic. "I mean, I've had worse, but that's still not great. But it could maybe work out? I mean ... I've also had worse."

So. There's that.

Cosima is great at this. She takes another drink.

[thecookery]

Avery scowls, but there's no real bite to it. She's just a little embarrassed. "Don't go crying for me or whatever. I'm not some pining sod, all torn up about it."

That would require getting her hopes up, and she is not quite so silly as to try a fool thing like that.

[youwonscience]

"I'm not crying, I'm just expressing sympathy," she said, unbothered. "I promise, you don't look like you're pining. If anything, the opposite."

...whatever... that is.

[thecookery]

She nods. Good, clearly there is no pining here because that would involve, like, caring and stuff, and who would ever admit to a thing like that? "Better for everyone that I just let it go and not get my hopes up or nothing, yeah?"

[youwonscience]

"Okay, I can't go with you that far," Cosima says. "I mean, it's your call. But I kind of feel like life's pretty short. Some crushes you shouldn't act on, probably, but you never know if you assume it won't happen before you even give it a shot."

She takes a longer drink of wine, then adds, "Then again, I fell for someone who was sent to spy on me, so what the hell do I know?"

[thecookery]

Well, that makes Avery's brows shoot up pretty spectacularly and derails any comment she was about to make about anything they had previously discussed.

"Aye, that sounds... less than grand," she eventually offers, then waits for some sort of explanation??

[youwonscience]

"I see you, deflecting from your ... okay, fair, I can't really bring that up then not explain. Long story, though, fair warning."

[thecookery]

"We can get back to me after."

You know, if Cosima still remembers to, assuming this story is as long as she says it is.

[youwonscience]

"Okay, so. I don't remember if I ... have we talked about clones before?" She doesn't think so, but just in case. (The lyrium poisoning means she can't be positive, for one thing. Lots of he recovery period was fuzzy.)

"They're basically like identical twins, except instead of naturally happening, people use science to develop them."

[thecookery]

She tries. She really does. But wow does Avery fail at following that, and it is very clear on her face.

"Like shape-shifting? To look like someone else?" she asks, trying to relate it to something she's at least vaguely aware of, if not particularly familiar with.

[youwonscience]

"No, not. Hm." Cosima tries to back way, way up. "Okay. So you've got twins, and they're not the same person, but they look physically just like one another or really close. That's because they're basically like two houses made by the same builder off the same blueprint. Only it's just an accident; just a chance of nature that happens every now and again. Does that make any sense?"

This is way easier to explain after Gregor Mendel and his pea plants.

[thecookery]

A slow nod. "More or less."

[youwonscience]

"Okay. So ... to massively simplify, but scientists - doctors, healers - in my world have figured out a way to make a whole bunch of organisms from the same blueprints, so to speak. On purpose. They did animals first - a sheep, famously. And about 30 years ago a group of researchers figured out how to do it with humans."

Tiny, facetious jazz hands.

"Thus me. And at least 12 others, almost certainly more. I don't know for sure."