bullet with butterfly wings

[tagartist]

WHO: Chloe Price and YOOOOOOOU.
WHAT: Catch all! One hyperactive, definitely ill teenage brat with way too much time on her hands is trying to do research and explore shit. Please stop her before someone gets hurt.
WHEN: From ~17/18 and onwards (I'll update prompts for Phase II when it comes about)
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: I got nothing, I'll update if somethin' crops up

[ A ] One Through Three

Despite all her anger at arriving here, Chloe's starting to kind of sort of feel a little bit more at ease with the place. Maybe it's the sleep she got from the sleep aid that cut through the restlessness she was feeling from the withdrawal of cigarettes and drugs. She doesn't feel as shaky as she did before - the headaches still there, the restlessness definitely, but she doesn't feel bad, so it only makes sense she's on the mend.

Maybe she's a little more hyper than usual, but maybe she's just finally figuring out how to be happy drug free. Maybe she's been doing the opposite of what she thought was all this time - not numbing pain, but numbing joy, and now she can feel it again and there's something nice about it, something great, something addicting, because she hasn't remembered what it's like to feel happy and excited in ages.

It gets her ready to help out, to find some tasks, to research some shit, to figure this place out from the ground up. She can be found in various areas, trying to get to know the ways of Kirkwall, sticking out like a sore thumb most likely, and definitely getting horribly lost every which way, but hey! If you need some help carrying bags, or if you need someone to fix a wheel on your cart that's come loose, or if there's something you can teach her, she's more than happy to rush over, smile on her face, give you a hand because helping each other is what people are supposed to do, right?

And if she's not helping out with those, she's found herself in a library, or anywhere with books, anywhere she can sit down and start to read the history of this place - all of it she can get her hands on - about the science and the magic and every bit of knowledge she can find. It's the first time in years she's wanted to know things, wanted to learn, and it almost makes her feel like her old self, which is something that should have struck her as odd, but doesn't.

[ B ] Four Through Six

At some point, the energy starts to feel out of hand though. Way out of hand. Maybe this is withdrawal after all, she doesn't know. She's jittery and she can't sleep without help in the slightest and the fucking energy she was feeling is obnoxious now, but she just can't stop moving. She tries to tie herself down to the library, to focus on those studies, but the words blur and her mind can't focus, so she's up and running before she can even get through a single page. She's getting frustrated that the technology here isn't what she's used to because she'd fucking kill to play some video games or fucking sit down and marathon her favorite movies, but instead she's got to figure out how to make her own entertainment or bust. She wants to fix a car, she wants to feel oil on her hands, and she's got nothing for herself.

So she does the next best thing she can think of; she's drinking (probably stolen) booze in an attempt to knock herself out if she just gets enough, but it's doing nothing and now she's just hyper AND drunk and maybe stumbling about trying to find something to do, but not having too much luck on the latter. The stumbling's going real well, though. Better than expected, even, and she actually ends up steadying herself with the arm of a passing person, stranger or not, because it's the only way to keep herself upright for a second.

This might have been a bad idea.

[ C ] Seven Through Ten

"So if I begged you, would you kill me, because I'm pretty sure I'm already dying."

That's the best thing to say to whoever's listening, right? Totally normal. She's got a fever and she can tell, she's pretty sure her hands won't stop shaking anymore and the sleep aids are so much less effective than they were before; she always wakes up feeling ten times worse and she's just stopped using them because of it.

She was supposed to be dead anyway. Just bring it full circle. She doesn't want to deal with this anymore. She's still convinced it's just withdrawal, but fuck, was it supposed to last this long? Or was this the Zoloft and not the cigarettes? When did that stop? She doesn't know, and she can't exactly Google it.

So she's been settling on keeping up the drinking (because it was such a smart plan) and now it's at least gotten her to be sluggish enough to sort of curl up somewhere not entirely comfy and clearly way too public if she's talking to other people, but that doesn't matter to her anymore. "I don't want to feel this way anymore."

Comments

C!

[wheretheferngrows]

This is not what Fern expected to discover upon entering the store room just beside the herb garden--and she is so startled by the appearance of someone curled up under a box of reeds that she jumps, letting out a startled squeak in the process, before she realizes, oh, no, there's no danger at all. She's just looking at a... shem. With blue hair.

"I'm--terribly sorry you're feeling so ill," she bursts out instead, worry written all over her face. The elf girl steps into the store room and quickly closes the door behind her so as to prevent the rest of the winter chill from following them inside. She makes short work of lighting a few candles and a lamp--using magic, because she's not ashamed of it, no matter what Finch thinks--then turns to look at Chloe again.

She looks awful young to be a rifter. (But then again, Fern is awful young to be head gardener.)

She comes to crouch down in front of her worriedly. "Hi," she tries again, along with what she hopes is a friendly smile. "Will you tell me what's wrong? I know a healer, we can go see him together, if you like. I'm Fern."

[tagartist]

Lights, ugh; the groan is evident because she was kind of liking the dark, it made that headache a little less intense, but she also knows that most functioning beings tend to need at least some of it to see. She's glad for the first time since arriving here that candles are the main source of illumination because she probably would've smashed an actual electric light in that moment if it were glaring in her face.

Instead, she's sort of squinting against it, letting her eyes adjust for a moment, end looking up at the girl who's kneeling in front of her, eventually blinking and getting her face to come a bit more in focus. Oh.

"Hi, Fern, I'm cute." Wait. "You're cute. I'm Chloe." Yes, that's the one. Fuck this fever, man. Or is it the alcohol? Whatever. She rubs a hand over her face, going back to resting her head against her knees because it feels the best. "Is everything a good answer, because it feels like everything."

[wheretheferngrows]

She's cute? That's a funny name--oh. Oh.

Immediately, Fern blushes a brilliant scarlet from her cheeks all the way up to the tips of her ears, and she involuntarily ducks her head to hide a smile. Maker--Creators--whomever was in charge up there, what was she even thinking, smiling at a time like this--

"Um," she says ever so smartly, along with a nervous laugh and smile, and threads a bit of hair behind her ear. "Well, he's a very good healer," she insists, "so I'm sure he can do something to help you, surely." She offers out her hand to Chloe, tipping her head a bit to try to meet her eyes. "Shall I help you up?"

[tagartist]

Hey, she's blushing, and laughing, and that's... "Even cuter." Her filter is shit and she'll probably apologize for it when she's better. Maybe. Sort of. Unlikely, but she can pretend to make herself feel better. Mostly, though, she's staring at the hand, like she's not really sure what she's supposed to do with it. She's been going and going like an Energizer Bunny, she could've picked herself up, right?

Yes, that's why she's still just sitting there.

"Oh - fuck - right." She goes to take her hand, glad that whatever is up with her body is at least giving her the energy to get up at all, in spite of the nights without sleep. She stumbles just slightly, placing her other hand against the wall she was just leaning against so she can keep herself upright for a moment. "It's a - ... A fever, I think? It feels like a fever. I dunno, it's been a while."

[wheretheferngrows]

"Even cuter," Chloe says, and Fern ducks her head yet again with a giggle. "Maker's breath," she sighs, but even that flirtation isn't enough to distract her from her task. This blue-haired flirt won't do herself any favours by remaining here on the floor of the herb store room.

"Here," she says again, and helps Chloe up--and immediately reaches out a hand to gently touch her shoulder when she wobbles, frowning with worry at her face. What a peculiar-looking shemlen--which should be reason enough for Fern to shut down that flirtatious nonsense right away, but surely just it's just a bit of harmless fun. (Or it might be, if Finch weren't here. She tables that guilty thought for later.)

"Lean on my shoulder," she invites, and slight as she appears, she's got a strong back. "I think lots of you rifter sorts have been taking ill lately. We're not sure what the trouble is yet, but Anders will make you feel better, I'm sure."

He'd better be able to, or he'll make a liar out of her.

[tagartist]

Lean on her -- "You're so tiny." She says as she does her best to do as instructed, the tone of her voice more of a whine than an actual legitimate complaint. "Not that there's anything wrong with being tiny. My last girlfriend was tiny." A beat. "Not that you're gonna be my girlfriend. Or that I was asking you to be. That would be pretty presumptuous on a first meeting. Uh." Well that was not... coming out at all the way she wanted it to. She cringes at her own words. "I just meant that tiny isn't a bad thing."

Ugh, get it together, Price.

"What's an Anders?" That was a perfect segue and the attention span is definitely related to the alcohol on her breath and not the fever talking this time. Where were they going again? "Oh. The healer. Right. Everything I take seems to make it feel like a hundred times worse, so I'm not gonna hold my breath. Partially because I think if I did I'd pass out."

A

[circleprodigy]

Inessa is a regular visitor to the main library, at least when time permits. After a morning of tending to her main project, the slight elven woman enters and heads toward her usual table. Good, it's unoccupied. She can claim another if need be, but the light there tends to be just what she needs.

"Garahel, wait here."

Her large, muscular canine companion sits on his hind legs while she goes to pick out a few books, though he's soon distracted by the scent of a new person in the area. Heading over, he pauses wherever Chloe's settled in and wags his tail at her, a hopeful look in those large eyes. Friends?

[tagartist]

If her day hadn't already felt fantastic, this would've been enough to seal the deal. Chloe had been concentrating almost fully on the book she had laid out in the table in front of her (for the moment) and she was flipping through somewhat carelessly when she heard the padded foot steps near her. Stopping by her.

She glanced over, seeing the dog wagging it's tail, looking up, and her eyes visibly lit up. Fuck the book, it's a pupper.

"Hey, buddy." She turned in her chair so she could reach out and let him sniff her hand, before going to try and scratch behind his ears. Best day ever.

[circleprodigy]

Yay, attention! Closing in, Garahel sniffs at the hand and evidently it passes the test, since he licks it and leans in for some quality behind-the-ear scratching with a pleased grunt. He already loves this new person.

Returning to her table, Inessa places down her stack and glances around. "Garahel? Oh--he's not being a pest, is he?" She smiles a little apologetically at the blue-haired girl; even though she doesn't seem to mind, it's still not something Inessa wants to encourage. There's always the risk of him encountering someone who isn't a dog-person, after all.

[tagartist]

She's already slid out of her chair and is kneeling on the floor for the best possible petting position. There's a grin and a quick head shake at Inessa's words, continuing to give some nice scratches. "Garahel, huh? What a nice name for a pretty boy like you." She's in love, alright.

She finally looks up though to the owner. "It's like the total opposite, honestly. I love dogs way more than I like most people, so don't even sweat it."

[circleprodigy]

"It's the name of an elven hero of the Grey Wardens. I thought it fitting, considering." Garahel nuzzles his new friend, all wiggly and full of canine love to share. Inessa relaxes and smiles as his ability to win people over happens yet again. "Perhaps he should be permanently installed in the rifter welcoming committee, then?"

As Garahel wags his tail at this idea, she chuckles. "My schedule don't always allow for it, but he tries his best to make everyone feel welcome here."

b

[aestivation]

Casimir is many things, among these sturdy. He catches her on his arm and waits, obliging (disinterested) for her balance to right.

They're not far from the workshop now, and the bag tucked under his arm clanks lightly metallic with each step.

"You should sit," He observes, as though from a great distance. "You're going to fall."

[tagartist]

Sturdy is good. Sturdy is exactly what she was looking for. It's a good thing she bumped into the right dude, apparently. She tried out standing a little straighter, rather than taking the sage advice offered.

"Pfffft." Very eloquent, it definitely showed off how not drunk she was. "Falling's half the fun. If I fall hard enough, I might even fall asleep." She gives a slight attempt at finger guns, because look at that joke, it's flawless.

[aestivation]

He blinks, impassive, chin tipped faintly aside —

— Ah. Wordplay.

"This late in the year," It's delivered with a strange, stilted mimicry: the lilting patterns of her own drunken speech ground flat. "You would winter."

Is that funny? Is it the sort of thing that ought to be? He can't remember, isn't inclined to spare it much thought (puns at least, have more pattern to them than most jokes). The gentle tug of an arm towards the door inside, the sharp tang of ozone and something else, something chemical.

"You're having trouble sleeping?"

[tagartist]

There's a pause, one that gives him enough time to ask the question, while she's still mouthing 'You would winter' to herself for a moment. There's just a little too much alteration to her usual state of mind for her to catch it fast, but once it finally clicks, it's apparently funny enough for her to give a loud, "Hah!" Followed by a series of slightly muffled giggles after.

Oh, wait, he was asking - right. She follows the tug fairly easily, barely stumbling this time to her credit, but still snickering. "Winter. I get it. Good one, buddy."

That's not answering the question. "Uh - a little. It's been a few - days? I think it's been days. Times feeling a liiiiiittle muddled."

c;

[earthbones]

There are a lot of arrows. Or attempts. Brónach's fletching has gone to shit, hands shaking worse than someone missing their skooma fix but the words are new and—

"You'd need to pay me."

That was always the deal. The Dark Brotherhood, the family, the Night Mother, the Dread Father – no matter what there was at the end of the day about the tenets, about serving Sithis it always meant gold or some trinket in her pocket at the end of the day as well as whatever she looted from a corpse or wherever they were.

Part of her feels cracked open, hollowed out, a fire burning under her skin that has her wanting to check that her shape is still her own because this feels wrong. Drag me to the nearest shrine to let me pray away the sickness, let me purge it from my body wrong but her prayers go unanswered, skin sweat-slick under her armour. "If I had a hawk feather, you could eat that too."

Ah, the sage wisdom of the elf that's now abandoned her pile of arrows once again for some sort of leather stitching. Armour. Or it was. Prior to this. There's no creature with the right configuration of limbs for this thing.

[tagartist]

There's a groan at the thought of payment; it's not like she has a whole lot of spare valuables on her or any kind of gold to offer up. She's used to everything coming down to money, though, so the look on her face is almost one of more amusement than it was of disappointment. At least something in this place was consistent.

"Damn."

But that's not the most interesting of things she's said. Eat a hawk feather gets a confusing look on her face, her forehead creasing as she tries to figure that out. It's nothing that makes sense to her, just like the majority of things in this place, but she's almost starting to get used to that. Weird shit has been happening to her for two weeks straight between home and here, she's almost thinking it's the way her life is just gonna be now.

"The fuck does that mean? Eat a hawk feather. Who eats feathers?"

[earthbones]

Payment can be trade but given that her wits feel as if they're leaking out her ears presently, that concept escapes. She'd been halfway through trying to barter for salt only to leave, ready to go shape a bow that's no good to anyone now for the time she's left it in acid to let the bone flex. Later Brónach will be angry, will gnash her teeth at the lack of all she needs. Now?

"People who can get them if you can't drag yourself to the shrine or afford the potion. Cures everything."

A lie that sits sour in her mouth because no, just disease not the other things you need curing but it'd be good to be rid of this. As if her shape is being lost to some secret fire.

"If it made you not miserable-- you'd want one. If I held it out you'd try to stop this. Maybe I should go find some, go up on the battlements with my bow and shoot."

[tagartist]

She rubbed at her eyes at the explanation, a soft snort of either amusement or disbelief escaping. Her vision felt blurry and her head was pounding like it was trying to split open on the spot. She didn't know how eating a feather would actually cure anything, but she didn't think that shrines would do much either. She was too much a skeptic, even in a world filled with magic.

That being said, she also knew a good idea when she heard one, and she couldn't say she was wrong about her wanting one if she even thought it had a chance to work.

"You're probably on to something with that. I never thought I'd say I'd eat a feather, but right now, I'd try anything if it meant this would end."

[earthbones]

There had been a moment once when her target had bitten her and something had sat under her skin, burning, burning, burning until she'd dragged herself to a temple, trembling before the shrine (Akatosh? No, it was Arkay, maybe. It's slipping sideways out of her mind) but her gods are--

Her hand slips, the arrowhead no longer uninterrupted white bone where it cuts cleanly along the line of her thumb to startle her back into uneasy uncomfortable wakefulness.

"Sometimes a thing doesn't end," if her mind was a little more her own then she might think this through more carefully but it isn't, it's taken up with flitting from one thing to the next, survival isn't what matters now. "It becomes the next thing then the next. It has to-- transform itself. Reshape. The world ends so that the new one is born; the egg cracks down the center and from it out come wings, unfurling, and it becomes new again. Maybe it has to happen. This sky has a tear, a tear is a crack is a tear."

A - shows up late with a mabari

[provenforce]

When Rey is working on something Inquisition-required, or she's "on hours" as a maintenance worker, the door to her room is often propped open. Sometimes even if she isn't working on something important her door is open, because Padawan likes to go out for visits. There aren't many occupied rooms on Rey's floor of the Templar tower, so when someone walks by, it's often searching for her. Chloe may have noticed throughout the Gallows a strange little symbol drawn in chalk at intersections with arrows pointing one way or another next to it. There are other random chalk symbols throughout the Gallows, but this particular one will eventually lead to Rey's room, where the same symbol is painted on her (currently open) door.

Rey has the components of a crossbow she's been tinkering with laid out on one of the desks in her room and is fitting them together with the practiced hand of someone who has done this before. The rest of her room looks a little like a war zone, various bits of junk and boxes of scraps as well as several projects she's been tinkering with for months. Padawan's head perks up from where she lays in her bed by the fire, and she lets out a quiet alerting wuff that there's someone new here.

"Toilet clogged or has something come off it's hinges?" Rey asks, not looking up from what she's doing.

so much better than starbucks

[tagartist]

Chloe had noticed the symbols; she'd brushed it off at first, given the other markings around, but when she started to notice them more repetitively, she couldn't say it didn't pique her interest. Which was why she'd done a pretty good job of following them, only getting distracted once or twice along the way, and eventually found herself approaching the open door of Rey's room. Perhaps a little more cautiously than necessary, but being new and not particularly knowing anyone made it hard to feel comfortable simply barging in just anywhere.

The sound of the mabari, though, was one that made her perk a bit, her head peaking inside to both look for the pup as well as see who was occupying the room in general. She bit on her cheek to keep her energy in check, so as not to simply rush over and start petting someone else's pet, but it was so hard. It was easier when she looked around, noting the scraps, the tinkering - it looked a lot like her garage back home before David had taken over it and gotten rid of all her projects. The familiarity made a smile twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Focus on the question. That's what's important, right? Except she has neither of those problems and it's hard to say why she's there at all. "Uh - no. I was just... The symbol on your door, it's all over town, so I guess I got - you know - curious. Is that a crossbow?" Obvious question with an obvious answer, but better to ask than to assume, she figures.

it'd be dunkin with me if anything, sbux is gross

[provenforce]

Most people showed up at her door because they were looking for someone to fix something. Rey actually stops what she's doing when the girl answers her and looks up, surprised to see someone who looked around her age and was obviously a rifter. There hadn't been too many rifters that were on the younger end of things.

"I do maintenance work all over the Gallows, the symbols I usually use to find my way around. Not too many people notice them." When she pointed them out to people that was one thing, but she'd started using the symbols mostly for her own benefit. Using the Resistance sigil was just one thing she was doing to keep herself connected to what she'd left behind.

"This is a crossbow, yeah. I've got a few different ones I'm working on. Sort of an after-work project." And considering she'd finished so many of her big work projects, she was 'taking a break' with the crossbow. It's her hope to get something that fires similar to a blaster, maybe with an automatic reload, but she's a way off from that in her modifications, thus far.

"Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you before."

as a new englander, i approve of this message.

[tagartist]

"I guess I'm a stickler for details." More like her mind hadn't really gotten out of investigative mode since she arrived, but that was beside the point. It had only been amplified by her inability to sleep, the energy that coursed through her making every small thing stick out like a sore thumb. "Smart way to learn the area, though."

She definitely goes to take a few steps closer, leaning in to look at the crossbow, head tilted in interest. She's trying to not look as curious as she feels, because it's probably rude to touch other people's things here, but dammit, she's a sucker for modifying even the most basic of things. It might not be the same kind of gears she's used to, a lot more basic, but - it's something more familiar than anything else around here. "Hella cool."

Straightening up finally, Chloe offers a quick nod. "Just arrived through the last great tear in the sky. Not my ideal mode of transportation, I tell ya."

[provenforce]

Rey isn't familiar with the terminology, but Chloe's sentiment is clear enough and she smiles, nodding in approval at the other girl's assessment of her crossbow. She lets out a small laugh and nods her head at the description of the rift.

"No, I still remember falling through the rift." Maybe not falling through it exactly, but the dreams had been vivid, before she'd woken up here, in Thedas. "I've been here... a year and a half, just about."

She sounds as though she doesn't entirely believe how long it's been, herself. Part of her misses so much about that world, but just like she had on Jakku, she'd adapted to being here, to survive.