[OPEN] i've never seen such high hopes

[paladingus]

WHO: Simon Ashlock and OPEN
WHAT: NO IT'S COOL I'LL JUST WALK IT OFF. FOREVER
WHEN: Over the course of the next week and a half
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Illness, etc.

Early Stage

"Why don't we talk more?"

A question like that could be redolent of sarcasm, could drip with irony--but Simon looks nothing but absolutely earnest as he asks it.

"We're all Inquisition, aren't we? Isn't that what counts?"

Intermediate Stage

Never again, he'd told himself, after escaping the drudgery of the Ansburg laundry rooms. It had only taken a full-scale uprising to free him from that miserable duty, and he's never yet seen a reason to go back to it of his own accord.

But what else is he supposed to do right now? There are only so many model ships a man can hole up in his room and build, and that task is now verging on impossible when every surface in his room is strewn with bits and bobs and nuts and bolts and gears--these last from a half-baked idea on how to improve the wooden frames, pursued a third of the way to its logical conclusion and then forgotten. The room is no longer big enough to pace around, and too many of the pieces he'd need are now crushed beneath his feet.

Hauling and boiling and stirring keeps him well enough occupied for a while, but when they set him to folding, it's too much to ask focus of him. Half-realizing, mind seething like the great vats of bleached water, he carries the basket right out of the room, folding one-handed as he goes.

Is that your shirt? Why does he have your shirt?

Later Stage

How long Simon's been out in the frozen training yard is probably difficult to discern. Five hours, perhaps, or six, oblivious to anyone who might have occasion to notice or worry. It feels like feeding a hunger, like shoveling food into a bottomless maw; it's not enough, can never be enough, but he can push harder and harder and harder and it feels almost like it will make a dent if he just tries that little bit more.

Does frantic pacing and jogging count as a warmup, if one has been doing it for two straight and sleepless days? It wouldn't seem to, if the degree to which he's favoring his right leg is any indication, but even that hasn't slowed him and isn't going to.

He hasn't registered the color of his skin as cause for concern. That's what happens when you're out in the cold, isn't it? Not that it feels cold; he never really feels cold, he thinks, but not now, especially not now, when even stripping down to his shirtsleeves in the frosty air hadn't helped, when the sweat drenching his shirt has iced over and he still feels like he's boiling out of his skin. He has only the most distant idea that his perception of the temperature could be anything other than accurate. Recognizing the cognitive dissonance is beyond him.

Wildcard

Just come up to him at any point during this whole roller-coaster ride, I'm down for anything!