[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!

Comments

[paladingus]

It has not occurred to Simon, anchorless and unfocused as his mind has been these past several days, to wonder why every room he walks into has felt so uncomfortably warm. He has vaguely assumed, without actually examining the theory, that everyone's just been putting more fuel on the braziers.

All he knows is that he's starving, and the food in here smells better than anything he's tasted in ages, and it's nice to see a friendly face, even if he doesn't understand why Colin's fussing. "Do I?" he says. "I don't think I do. And there's nothing else wrong at all; I've been getting all sorts of things done that I don't usually. I'm great. I don't know what it is--maybe it's just getting up earlier that's done it?"

He's speaking just a little faster than before, his tone audibly more upbeat than the slightly deadpan humor of their first encounter, but he certainly isn't coughing or listless. His eyes are a little too bright.

[keenly]

"You're not sleeping as long?" Colin immediately chooses a particular vial and returns to him with it. "Take this and lie down for a bit. It ought to put you right out and bring that fever down. Make sure to sleep for as long as you can, and let me know how you feel, all right?"

[paladingus]

"No, but--it's not a bad thing, honest, it's only because I haven't been tired. Not a bit. I'm still not." His voice might lend him some credibility here, cheerful and totally lacking in weariness as it is, but the unkempt stubble and the deepening shadows under his eyes tell another story.

"I'll keep it on hand for when I do need a bit of help getting to sleep," he promises. There are always nights like that, and not so few and far between now as they once were. He knows it'll come in handy. "How much do I owe you for it?"

[keenly]

"With the Inquisition discount and the friends and family discount, seven silver."

[paladingus]

"Oh, that's not bad at all." It's only as he's fishing through his coin purse for exact change that the rest of it filters through, and he looks up with a little smile.

"'Friends and family,' eh? Is that the secret buttering-up discount for everyone?" He'd like to hope not.

[keenly]

"A regular discount does just fine for that," Colin says with a smile. "Friends-and-family get extra off the potions if they're sick. This one I've made specially for fever--elfroot for pain, willowbark to balance the humors, brandy to help you sleep, and embrium for nausea. Tastes vile, but it works."