faderift | buried deep within there's a human

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buried deep within there's a human

WHO: Chloe Price and YOOOOOOOOOOOU
WHAT: Catch all for May
WHEN: ... May
WHERE: Anywhere and everywhere
NOTES: I feel like Chloe's a generic warning unto herself, but expect swears and innuendo and I'll warn in subject lines for anything that could be worse.

i. my mind's lost in bleak visions (the docks; cw for alcohol use)

When things went crazy at home, Chloe had always gone to the lighthouse. Here, the docks seemed like the closest thing. A place she could sit that was above the water enough to not worry about getting wet, but close enough to stare out over the waves and feel a little more grounded. She didn't know why water was so calming, but it was about all she had to grasp to and she wasn't in the mood to analyze it too deeply because of that.

Normal people might have gone to their friends to confide in the frustrations she had over everything; the growing resentment she felt for being othered as a Rifter, the anger at the propositions being made, the overwhelming exhaustion that came from being distrusted simply because she existed no matter what world she was in. Chloe, however, was taking comfort from a bottle because talking to people was just... hard. Old habits never disappeared no matter how much she tried to change her outlook on life.

So she was sitting near the edge of an empty dock, feet dangling off the edge, bottle in hand, staring out and waiting to see if anyone yelled at her to leave. She was content to stay there long as she was allowed, though - at least until it got too close to curfew and she'd have to trudge back to her room, but that was more than a ways off.

ii. limbs lost to dead weight stake (gallows)

When she wasn't drowning her sorrows down by the docks, Chloe was looking for distractions. She didn't have enough money for shopping distractions to say the least and she was avoiding any research work like the plague while she tried to sort out her emotions, which meant that she was instead looking for them in the only thing she had left; art and mechanics.

When focused on her art, Chloe could be found sitting just about anywhere, paper and charcoal in hands, or homemade paint beside her with a brush instead, making sure to try and capture sketches of the views around her, or pushing out sketches for art that could be used in protest, or if someone were to come by at just the right moment, they might catch her making portraits of a certain elf who had managed to capture her heart and went by the name of Fern.

And when focused on mechanics, she was sitting with a stored broken cart that she had procured months prior, scrap metal beside her, trying to see if she could make a simple engine from the spare parts. Nothing fancy, certainly not enough to make a car, but maybe enough to make pushing heavy loads a bit easier for one person who didn't have a lot of muscle. It was slow going, a good deal of failure and a lot of forehead wrinkling, but it at least kept her mind and her hands busy on something that didn't make her particularly enraged.

iii. take me out of this place i'm in (wild card)

[ if you wanna plot something, shoot me a message over at

keshet or just put up a starter of your choice if you like that organic rp life. ]

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Nari is often by the sea. Often even, for the same reason. There was something important about being able to look out over something so much greater than oneself. Something constant and seemingly neverending.

Today she's on her way back from her own quiet consideration of the water when she spots the bright-- albeit less so than when they met-- blue of Chloe's hair fluttering in the wind off the waves. Considering recent events, she diverts her path down to the wood of the pier and sits nearby to dangle her feet as well.

"Fuck." Nari says succinctly, by way of both greeting and acknowledgement of the circumstances that had most likely brought the young rifter out here.

She hadn't objected to the company when she had seen it was Nari out of the corner of her eye. She might not have been a fellow Rifter, but she had made a good impression on Chloe in their first meeting, and the ones since. She keeps her gaze ahead of her, perfectly okay sitting in silence if it was best for them both.

There's a small smirk at the curse, though, quickly hidden behind a sip from the bottle, before she offers it out to her. "Sounds about right."

Intending to demur, as Chloe certainly has more use for the contents than she does, Nari is surprised when she does in fact reach for the offered bottle, takes a nip, and returns it. The warm burn is a nice compliment to the still chilly breeze.

"Seems about par for the course for the Chantry's first official interest in Rifters," she says, not making much of a secret of her feelings on that particular institution. She reaches into her bag and pulls a pouch out, emptying it on the boards between them: a pile of small stones and pebbles she'd collected to use as markers. The elf picks one up, tosses it once, and then whips it out over the water. A small sploosh marks its new resting place.

Throwing things is nice.

Glad to see her take what was probably a needed sip, Chloe took the bottle back only to tilt back another gulp. She'd probably had enough several drinks ago, but that wasn't particularly the point. She'd always had a policy of drinking more let you feel less and she was aiming to feel a hell of a lot less.

Her eyes flickered to the rocks, lingering on them as she listened to the splash from farther off when one hit the water. Another reminder of home, of days spent with Max and her dad, something that simultaneously made her pine to be back in Arcadia Bay and remind her that all that shit was gone. She scrunched her mouth, grabbing a flatter rock, and placing the bottle to the side so she could properly hold it in her right hand. With a flick of her wrist, she watched it skip across the waves a couple of times, before landing with a similar plunk in the water.

"Color me unimpressed," she said finally, letting out a small sigh after. "Not being able to even get angry about it without having that used against us too is the worst part. Punishing people for having feelings is a shit move."

Humming her agreement, Nari picks up another stone and repeats her movement: toss, catch, throw.

"Shit move indeed," she says with weary irritation, "Do nothing, they run roughshod over you. Attempt diplomacy, you have no position of power to bargain from. Get angry, and 'prove' you're the savage threats they claim you are and you deserve your subjugation. Actually rebel?" Nari shakes her head. Toss, catch, throw. "They purge you for the 'good of all'." A snort. "Humans." She pauses. "Well. These humans," she amends, "although it sounded like your world had some similar problems."

"Yeah, no correction needed. Humans suck." She would even have lumped herself in that category at times. Picking up another stone, she holds it in her hand for a moment, enjoying the weight in her palm. Something about it is grounding. "They do this shit to each other even when there aren't non-humans around to pick at. Over and over. In every world, if there's something different about you, it has to be punished somehow." She tossed the stone at the ocean, rougher than the last, letting it hit the water with a louder plunk.

"Why are people so scared of Rifters?" It was a genuine question, one she'd wondered from the start and never thought to ask.

Watching the arc of Chloe's stone in the air, the small waves from its landing, Nari sighs through her nose.

"Because we're scared of the rifts themselves, I imagine. Of the other things that come out of them. Demons are native to this world; people know what they are. Are scared of them." She picks up a smaller stone, leaving the larger ones for Chloe, and whips it out into the sea. It disappears without a noise. "Should be scared of them."

"Rifters are the only other beings that come out, which to a lot of minds automatically groups you with demons. Nevermind that the demons start to attack you too, so it's fairly clear you're not allies. People who aren't part of the Inquisition don't get to see that much. You're new, and different, and part of something that's shaking up the way the world was." Nari shakes her head slowly, looking out over the water. "People don't like that. The world changing. I think in the grip of that fear, they forget that your world is just as broken up as theirs. More."

She grimaces slightly. "It might have been a bit different if you'd come out into a world that wasn't already scared of magic."

She listens to all of that quietly, trying to keep an open mind about it all, put herself in the shoes of all the natives who would think of them as demons. She guesses, maybe, if they weren't there to see it, it seems justified that they be wary. But it doesn't make sense that those who've seen both would know. Or those who know demons aren't usually reasoned with but Rifters are... Or --

She rubs her face, going to take another long sip from the bottle instead of responding right away. It might have been different, but she doubted it. "People always find a reason to hate what they don't understand," she said without much feeling in it either way. "I don't think it'd be different at all."

She can't really argue with that. "It's not right or fair, but it... is," Nari replies in much the same tone, leaning back on her hands. "For what it's worth, I'm glad the rifts brought something besides death and sorrow. Rey and Kylo brought memories of flight, Adalia, Thranduil, Galadriel the stories of a better world for elves, Cosima the skills to save us from plague. You brought art like I'd never seen. Many brought love to people who perhaps would never have found it otherwise; and got it in return."

Nari tilts her head to the side to look at Chloe, speaks with a sort of quiet confidence. "It's bad now, I warrant. But I think the world is better for you, and plenty more than I think the same. We'll fight too; you'll not be alone in it."

Love. The very word makes her heart feel a little tighter, her throat choke up for a moment. If she had never come to Thedas through the Rift, she never would have met Fern; she knew she felt strongly for her. Love felt like such an intense word, but like didn't feel adequate either. She stares at the ocean without responding, feeling like the tension in her body was ready to spill over, and the last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of another person.

So she picked up another stone and chucked it hard as she could, because that seemed like the most reasonable reaction somehow. It was good to know she wasn't alone, but scary all at once. It meant that there was something to lose.

"I guess we'll see how it all turns out sooner or later."

It was the one thing that could always be counted on: time moving forward. Chloe's words seem like a good summation of the subject-- of just about all subjects, really, so Nari just makes a noise of agreement and watches the clouds move with the wind across the wide-open sky.

They can throw the stones until they're gone. There will always be more.

She's quiet for a long moment, letting the distaste they both have in current states of affairs linger between them as she grabs another rock and goes to throw it into the water. She doesn't quite know what else there is to say on it. They're on the same page and for that, Chloe has a great deal of relief. It's good to know that there are people who aren't Rifters she can still rely on to have her back, after all.

"I've been trying to build a steam engine," she said finally. "It's a... a thing from my world that can make stuff move without people having to push it. Carts for example, but we ended up building all sorts of stuff that used it back home before it got outdated." She isn't sure why she's saying it at first, but she uses the time to toss another rock. "Someone said it seemed pointless when you could just use magic, but I keep thinking that maybe if people who don't have magic could have stuff that made their lives easier too, they'd be a little less bitter about magic in general." And, in turn, less suspicious of Rifters, maybe - or at the very least less angry at mages, which would have been just as fine with her.

"It's not working yet, though. Mostly the container I'm using just shakes or explodes instead of actually moving things like it's supposed to."

This is a concept both unexpected and exciting, and Nari's eyes light up with curiosity at the explanation of its use.

"I bet the person who said it seemed pointless when you could just use magic can use magic," she replies dryly, her lips twitching with humor. Contrary to Chloe's hope, the elf is bordering on certain that advancements brought about by rifters might be seen as near the same as magic (and just as frightening) unless the folk using them could be made to understand their workings. Even so, that it had occurred to the young woman to try to share things that made life in her own world easier was touching. There were enough of the kind of people in the world who would, in her shoes, keep any edge they could muster close to their chest.

"How is it meant to work?"

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buried deep within there's a human

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