now the world is only white noise

[tagartist]

WHO: Chloe Price and yoooooooou
WHAT: Chloe's suffering from some exaggerated anger & stubbornness, looks a bit blue, and doesn't particularly cared for being forgotten. Alternative title: Graffiti The Shit Out Of Things
WHEN: During Phase II - IV
WHERE: The Gallows because lol where else
NOTES: idk like... swearing and stuff is pretty norm for her, some mentions of previous abandonment issues/parental death.


[ A ] i'll set fire to this whole place (phase ii)

Chloe wasn't unfamiliar with people suddenly gaining abilities, exactly; between the freaky shit that happened with Rachel that could or could not have been some kind of weirdly elemental driven bullshit, and then Max literally getting the ability to rewind time out of nowhere, it was becoming kind of a Thing in her life. What she wasn't used to, though, was being the one to have them.

Specifically, she wasn't used to being the one to accidentally set shit on fire without meaning to, and it was freaking her out more than just a little. She wanted it to go away because what if she accidentally burned down Kirkwall? It's not like she hadn't seen fires start and get out of control before. It was gonna be her fault and she was gonna get in way more trouble than she ever had before and shit, shit, shit --

In her panic, she'd accidentally set some of the papers she'd been trying to sketch on aflame, making her groan and quickly try and put out. "When's this gonna stop?"

[ B ] i don't even care about my house (phase iii)

She was more than relieved when it finally went away. More than ready to no longer have to put up with smelling like smoke and hoping that she didn't actually burn someone just because she got too flustered. It felt like maybe she'd get a break, a respite from what felt like non-stop symptoms since the moment she'd gotten here, except that her skin never stopped being blue and she was getting pretty sick of it at that point. She'd started cracking jokes about trying to match her hair just to make herself feel a little better.

It didn't seem like anything weird was happening, but the longer her skin remained that awful color, the more angry she got about it. The hotter her temper flared, the more agitated she became at the idea of not finding a cure. The crystals saying that it could lead to death certainly weren't helping anything and she found herself wanting to reply asking if announcing that kind of severity was a normal thing for the healthcare providers in Thedas, despite the reality of mass panic and --

Whatever.

What did she care?

She continued to try and preoccupy herself with drawing. She could be found in various places around the Gallows, trying to get some semblance of freedom despite the quarantine by not staying in her room, charcoal in hand, paper in front of her, and looking... well, probably anything but approachable, given the tension that radiated off of her and the scowl on her face. Anyone who wanted to approach probably did so at their own peril.

[ C ] don't know how i'll ever break this curse (phase iii)

The agitation was not helped by people forgetting about Rifters. She didn't have a lot of people she was close to here, exactly, but there were at least one or two people who should have recognized her face and regardless, people had been fairly consistent about at least acknowledging the existence of Rifters, good or bad.

Being ignored was something that made her stomach churn. Memories of Max abandoning her, fear of her mother forgetting about her like she seemed to have forgotten about her dead husband, an entire school pretending she was mute so they didn't have to talk to her.

So Chloe was doing the only thing she knew how when it came to coping with her anger; destructive behavior. Not drinking, this time - no, it was more destruction of other stuff, primarily in the form of graffiti where she could manage to actually partake in it. It hadn't taken much to mix together a bit of black paint, using her fingers as a brush. A general 'fuck this place' sort of attitude having overcome her as she filled blank walls with sometimes not the most friendly of images or words. Probably easy enough to wash off since she hadn't exactly found a decent binder in this place, but someone really ought to stop her before she did too much and got herself in trouble.

Or maybe they could catch her and get in her trouble regardless. It would be her luck.

Comments

[tagartist]

Talking definitely hadn't been high on her list of activities when she'd first started drawing. But even in her most agitated of moods, Chloe could never stay silent in the presence of other people for long. Maybe after two years of not talking to anyone , she had grown sick of the whole silence thing.

She had been adding in a rather large drawing of the pride demon she'd first seen on arrival when she finally broke the quiet; "So is this kind of shit the norm around here? Crazy magical illnesses and whatever?"

[nadasharillen]

The scratch of charcoal on stone stops for a moment, and then starts up again. Studiously. "Kind of," Nari says. Her voice is careful, like she's handling something she knows might break. "I was with my Clan until the Breach opened--don't know what it was like out here before that any more than you would--but since the Breach and the Rifts, there's been plenty of strange shit happening."

Feels nice to swear about it.

"You've got both of the ones I know about," she says, acknowledgement of how much that rots in her voice. Nari leans her shoulder against the wall and crosses her arms, watches as the Pride demon appears, massive and brutal in broad strokes of black. "Welcome to Thedas, right?"

[tagartist]

Since the Breach. She frowns slightly, continuing to focus on painting the demon for a moment as she let's that sink in. "No wonder everyone hates us Rifters so much." If a bunch of strange people started showing up and crazy things went down and then a weird ass flu started to spread around, forcing a quarantine on her town, she would've hated them too. She pauses in her art to flex the hand with the shard in it, a frown on her face.

"No offense to this world, but you guys are getting such a bad tourism review from me on Yelp when I get home." Not that anyone knows what Yelp is, but that's not the point, is it? She sighs, finishing up the last few lines on the demon. "Decent views, but the welcoming committee tries to eat you."

[nadasharillen]

Nari snorts a laugh. "I don't blame you for not being immediately endeared." She thinks about adding at least you're human, but she doesn't expect Chloe to worry about politics while she's fading in and out of memory and reality. That seems more immediate.

"It's not as if the Breach is your fault. You probably don't want to be here any more than the common folk in Kirkwall want you here." No-one had wanted the Rifts, the shards. Sina hadn't asked to die.

Sina.

And then there it was again, crushing and black and uninvited, spreading in her chest like a tipped pot of ink, erasing everything beneath it. Nari stifled a noise of distress and shoved at it, shoved past it, grabbed on to anything else.

"Those big ones are the worst," Nari says of the demon, a bit strained but holding. "The laughter. It's like nothing I've ever heard before."

[tagartist]

Chloe frowns in thought. As much as she complained, a part of her couldn't help but wonder whether or not she maybe did want to be here more than she let on. She couldn't say she had much to go back to. Was Thedas at least better than probably being dead? "... Mm."

Finishing the final shading of the demon as she listens to that summation of the creature, unaware of Nari's own internal struggle, she gives a grunt of agreement. "It's a hell of a lot scarier to see something like this face to face than it is to imagine it in a game. Never thought something like that was real somewhere."

[nadasharillen]

"Nothing ever prepares you for seeing something like that in the flesh," agrees Nari, watching Chloe put the finishing touches on the monstrosity that had been her welcoming committee. "Not even if you've thought about it or played at it or drawn it a thousand times. You can get ready, sure, but you can't be ready."

[tagartist]

She went to put the brush back into the paint, wiping what had gotten on her hands onto her jeans instead, leaving black streaks along the legs as she did so. "It's pretty fucked." She figures that that's fairly obvious, though. "I think I'll avoid coming face to face more than once."

nooo

[nadasharillen]

She's about to say something about hoping Chloe has a choice in that when she suddenly forgets what she'd been talking about--and who she'd been talking to. Nari frowns slightly, not used to the odd prickling feeling of being so close to knowing something, and then pauses to take stock of where she was and what she'd been doing. Maybe she'd remember.

She'd found the art, strong and evocative as it crawled across the walls, admired its freedom, been drawn to, well, draw, alongside it. And then...? The elf's brow furrows as she tries to conjure up what came after, and then finally shrugs, going back to the place where she'd stopped her additions and continues on.

[tagartist]

She's seen that look enough times now - the way it had happened to Fern had left too much of an impression to not have it memorized. There's a grumbled, "Oh come on," under her breath. Watching someone forget who she is in the middle of a conversation, like she's not even there and just... going forward like it was nothing. Like she was nothing and it's enough to make that frustration she's been feeling all day come bubbling back up to the surface as quick as ever.

There's a swift, angry kick at that pot of homemade paint, sending it splattering on the wall instead of continuing to carry on with her art. "I'm right here."