SUNBLIND | Open.

[alankazam]

WHO: Alan Fane, Wren Coupe, Melys + YOU
WHAT: Catchall for my dudes this month.
WHEN: Throughout Justinian.
WHERE: Kirkwall.
NOTES: Probably language.

[  hit me up on plurk or discord (oeste #8807) if you'd like a specific starter/need anything ❤  ]

Comments

[aforethought]

She throws him a withering look. It rankles, to be little more than a filter for his all-fucking-important research, and the knowledge of how easily she might jam a rod in the works —

— It's tempting. It's stupid tempting. The worst kind of stupid, because she can see right clear how it'd screw her over too. And no matter how she adds up the math, she knows that isn't worth it. There'll be other chances. She has to tell herself there will. An injured sense of pride, an injured sense of safety, they demand satisfaction.

"You’re the one wanted to know what a native," She spits it like invective. "Would be doing with one of these."

[sans_harmony]

Their assignment has the curious power of pissing them both off for the exact same reason. As far as he's concerned, his all-important research is being made a mockery of, cast rudely aside in favor of the apparently-more-pressing task of making sure she can check things off her stupid list. He can think of far more imminently useful data to be collecting than rift locations, but then, his primary criterion for 'useful' right now is 'whatever doesn't require me to be playing second fiddle to the woman who almost made me a eunuch.'

It's galling, and he hadn't been shy about articulating his theatrical surprise that she can read at all, but that had been an hour ago, and he's behaved himself since. He does want to know how she came by her shard. He'll be temporarily civil in the service of his curiosity.

"I did indeed," he says. "Do they brand anyone who comes within a certain distance, then? How far away were you?"

[aforethought]

He's being civil. Ish. It's almost worse —

"Shit. I dunno. Five or six yards. Wasn't doing a whole lot of counting. Bit preoccupied with the demons."

Her fingers curl; affects a look of evident displeasure. She doesn't like the implication that she's somehow gone and done this to herself. She doesn't like it, because he hasn't said a damn thing about it. Because it's entirely her own projection. Because she knows it for certain truth.

Should've done the smart thing and run. Should've done a lot different. But here they are.

"You get time to get your measuring stick out?"

[sans_harmony]

"I don't have to estimate how close I was to it. I'm the one who came through it."

It could be a deliberate jab, an I have an excuse and you don't, or it could simply be a defensive little shell, because he should have had his wits more about him, demons or no. A self-respecting researcher should have been able to document the exact moment and circumstances under which the shard appeared on his hand. And a self-respecting Shaper should have been able to face down the monsters without hesitation or fear. Diwaniya had managed neither.

"It was definitely the rift itself that did it, then? Not one of the demons?"

[aforethought]

"Yeah, and just hopped your way through, did you? Saw a green hole in the sky, figured you'd go have a look-see?"

She isn't precisely clear on the details of how the Rifters have ended up here.

"Don't reckon demons can do nothing but kill or possess you. 'S what the Chantry says, at any rate."

[sans_harmony]

"What? No, that's--absurd. Why would I have done that?" For all his performative outrage, he would certainly have investigated a rift if one had happened to appear on Harmony Isle in all its weird green demony glory, but he's sure he would have been much more careful about it. Diwaniya's always been a stickler for safety precautions.

"There weren't any visible rifts on my end. I woke up here. That's all I know. Of course, now that I'm here, I intend to do some proper investigative work instead of just taking what the 'Chantry' says at face value, whatever it is." The fact that he knows it's an 'it' rather than a 'he' or a 'she' suggests that his ignorance on the subject is somewhat performative, too. Diwa's one of those guys.

[aforethought]

"So y'don't even remember it," That she manages to make this sound like one of Diwaniya's many personal failing is possibly a unique talent. "Sounds real proper investigative to me."

It absolutely does not.

"Shit, you even go to a service yet?"

Not like she makes a point to or anything, but she's pretty confident she's at least a little lower on the Maker's shit list than this guy.

[sans_harmony]

"How much investigating can you do in your sleep? I don't work miracles." Nothing ever gets under his skin like an implied indictment of his scientific prowess, and she's riling him up but good.

The notion of miracle-working, however, is a metaphor owed in part to the convention of magical translation at work here, because religion is a distant and rather nebulous concept to Diwaniya. The Shapers have little use for it as a rule, though the common folk have their stories about how the world came to be, and where it got all the animals that weren't Shaper-created, and so on and so forth. All regional, none of it influential, and Diwa's rarely given it more than a passing thought. Certainly nobody back home tries to celebrate it outright.

"'Yet?' You make it sound inevitable. I have no idea why you think I would be interested in your stories about gods."

[aforethought]

A snort. Miracles.

"Maybe you'd be closer to one if you heard what they got going already. Seems they been around a lot longer than you. Seems they didn't have to knock themselves fucking cold to do it."

So what if Diwa probably didn't get blackout drunk to stumble through a rift. It's a better story if he did. A much better one to tell everyone, at least.