faderift | at any second now I think it all might fall apart

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at any second now I think it all might fall apart

WHO: Leonard Church and open
WHAT: Loud-mouthed Rifter is loud. He also has a body with which he's kind of trying not to get dissociated from. So that's a thing. Rifters gonna rift, basically.
WHEN: In the days after the scouting trips have left
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: N/A

Kitchens

Church has...slowly been picking things up in his stay here in High Fantasy Land. Adelaide's stern warning not to go around telling people he was a ghost (or, apparently, some manner of spirit-and-or-demon) has so far been heeded, since it seems there's already an air of distrust, and, well, he'd really rather not get a sword through the gut. But it still might come out.

Because the other thing he's been picking up in High Fantasy Land is getting used to a real boy's body. Sure, a lot of it comes naturally. Walking. General movements. Blinking. Breathing. Automatic functions. But there's also the stuff he's become more consciously aware of. That he still knows how to do, technically, but his hole-filled memory means remembering eating a chicken leg is one thing, whereas the realization that he has, in fact, never actually eaten before slides unsettlingly into place.

Maybe the food here isn't that good and isn't that much, given how many people the Inquisition has to feed, and maybe some people are miffed that someone who technically isn't part of the Inquisition gets to have a share (cuz, y'know, where else are Rifters gonna go until the ~phenomenon~ gets better researched), but here Church is, at some point or another, savoring. The first meals he's ever technically had. And he's decided that eating rocks. It's no wonder Grif does nothing but fucking eat.

Stables

A stable (heh) sleep schedule is still so far elusive. Again, he remembers sleep. He's also pretty sure he could sleep (or...power down or get put into sleep mode??) before, but it's kind of like interdimensional jet lag. And trying to let his body work out how much sleep is too much or not enough. It basically being winter now isn't helping, when the sun comes up late and goes down early. Hell, he's used to planets where the sun basically never sets!

It isn't like Church has an particular fondness for animals, that he knows of, but he hasn't visited the stables yet, so why the fuck not. And despite all the open air, it's actually pretty cozy and warm in here. When he sits on a bit of hay, look, he doesn't mean to nod off, but his body decides, yep, this is a good place for a nap.

A horse may or may not be chewing on his hair.

Armory

It's probably a bad idea to argue with someone who not only has a lot of weapons and armor around, but makes them. For a living.

So obviously that's what he's gonna fucking do. Because there has got to be something better. The argument started as mere conversation but has slowly and steadily reached a volume where a small gaggle of onlookers has stopped to watch how long until Church is hefted up and physically thrown out.

"Do you see what this means?!" he goes on, pointing to his sharded hand. "It means I'm from somewhere else, a place where I know a little bit more about otherworldly weapons than you probably do! So when I say," he continues, emphatically motioning the whole while, "hey, that's cool what you've got there, but do you have anything else, like any of these rad future weapons, you're supposed to say, gee, that sounds cool, why don't you tell me about them! Not threaten to bean me over the head with a helmet! I'm just trying to help!"

Needless to say, the armorer is Not Impressed with the 'rad' and 'cool' 'future' weapons Church is attempting to list. Something something plasma sword (that is, somehow, also a key?), something something assault rifle, something something basic fucking gunpowder how far behind the times are you people?!, and the like.

And don't even get him started on leather as armor. Puh-lease.

Or catch him elsewhere!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ellana doesn't tend to linger long in the kitchens, mostly because cooks can be cranky, but she can't help but come in to see if there are any more of those tiny cakes one of the cooks has been making. She has a sweet tooth and tiny cakes are a luxury they never had in the clan. On entering, she heads straight to the counter in the hopes of spying some of those cakes, but alas, none have been made today. So instead she searches for something else, and that's when she notices she's not alone.

"Oh, hello," she says, offering him a cautious smile. She's polite to all humans on first meeting them, as she waits to see how they'll treat her in return. As she waits for an answer, she takes a roll out of a basket and breaks it open.

His mouth is already stuffed with--shit, what is this, like, the closest thing to a hamburger they can make en masse?--whatever food, and he doesn't much pay the elf mind.

(Like, elves, for real. With crazy-ass tats on their faces, which, he has to admit, is pretty hardcore.)

He looks around for a moment before swallowing with a cough. "Oh, uh, me? Sup. Am I, uh...in the way or hogging the food or something...?"

Sup? Okay, that's a new one.

"Oh, no, not at all. I was just greeting you." She pops a piece of bread into her mouth, eyes all amusement at how he's eating.

"Did you just arrive?" It would explain the way he's eating, if so. Long journeys left one hungry more often than not, unless the person excelled at hunting game.

"Oh, uhhhh, kind of? Like a couple weeks back? Two weeks or so." He rubs his sharded hand against what passes for pants around here (ugh can these people just invent jeans already) nervously before lifting it up to show what he feels passes for Rifter status. Also to give a little wave! That too. "Pretty new, yeah."

"Oh, I see." Ellana nods and leans back against the counter. "I can't imagine how hard it must be for you, being here. I hope others have been helping you settle in?" She offers to help with that when she meets rifters, but she's a little late with this one.

"More or less," he says with a shrug. Yeah, people have been putting up with him around here, which is...an impressive show of patience. Some have much less of it than others. "Apparently nobody's really sure what to do with people like me, so there's kind of a stigma, but you're not accusing me of being a demon in disguise or anything, so, step in the right direction."

"If you had been in the last group of people, you definitely would have heard that from some here," she says, shaking her head. "I do know that you can officially join the Inquisition, if you wanted, but it's not necessary."

She takes apart her roll a little more, adding, "I'm Ellana," before putting more bread into her mouth.

"Yeah, sure, great," he says with no small amount of sarcasm, "I'll keep that in mind. So long as they let me have a roof over my head and food?" He plucks up a roll from the same basket as her, showing it for emphasis before shoving it in his mouth and, impolitely, talking around said mouthful of food. "Then might as well stick around, am I right? But I'm not signing up for things I don't understand."

At least he actually seems to have a choice in the matter as far as that goes. Usually he doesn't even get that much. Sometimes it feels like a trap. Sure, he could go anywhere he wanted, but...why would he?

He swallows before introducing himself, waving the remnants of the roll as a form of greeting rather than, say, offering his hand like a normal person. "Church. You can call me Church." Not Leonard. That's a nerd name.

"They will. As I hear it, you're very important." She isn't sure how much he's been briefed on what's going on in Thedas, but surely they've mentioned by now that the rifters can close rifts with the mark on their hand? Because that would be part of the explanation as to just why there's a glowing green mark on their hand.

"Hello, Church. The cooks must be pleased to know you like their food so much."

"Not the first time I've been told that," he says with no measure of humility. And usually that reason is 'you're the only one that can do ___', so, this doesn't come as much of a surprise. Still, he wants to make sure this elf lady knows he's a very important person!

"And this food is bangin'. I mean, I don't have a whole lot to compare it to, if I'm being honest, but, hell, tastes good to me!"

Ellana looks a cross between confused and amused at his language, but she takes it "bangin'" means delicious. And she's always interested to learn about other worlds and people.

"Food must be all the same where you're from, then. What is your world called?"

"Dude, you haven't had to live on army rations." And, technically, neither has he. "Shit sucks. But my world is...complicated. Y'know, I...I don't think I ever knew the name of the planet I was stationed on. Huh. All that time there, you'd think..." He shakes his head. "I'm kind of from a bunch of different places, and anyway, we've got so many worlds under our belt I can't even bother knowing them all."

She may not have lived on army rations, but she's lived on insects during the thin times when there just wasn't much game around to hunt. She doesn't bring it up, however, because she's far more interested in learning about him than in speaking of herself and her sad little life before joining the Inquisition.

"So many worlds? And you can travel between them? That's incredible! Are they all very different? Which was your favorite? I don't mean the name, since you say you don't know them all, but what was it like there?"

Wow, she's...perky. It's actually pretty refreshing. And hey, this is probably going to make him sound like a big damn hero, even if he hasn't actually been on that many worlds before. Church leans back, folding his hands behind his head. "Weeeellllll, there are a lotta variable involved, but yeah, lot of planets out there we go to in ships, and they're pretty different. Some totally inhospitable, some just like Earth." Wait. Hm. This probably isn't Earth, now that he thinks about it. "Which is like, the home planet, where humans evolved before populating other planets.

"Anyway, my favorite place?" He could make something up, because he's damn sure there's a perfect planet out there, with nothing but white sandy beaches and crystal waters. He knows it. But hey, gotta stick with the classics. Even if it's kind of schmoopy. Not like any of the others are here to make fun of him about it. "I was stationed in this one base in a valley, a gulch. High reddish-brown cliffs with some cave systems, dirt paths, grassy though, a little hilly. The sun never set, at least not while I was there. It really didn't look alien there, aside from the perpetual sun, but that place was pretty close to home."

He snaps his fingers and makes a motion around them. "Oh, but this one place was just, like, perpetual blizzard. Everything covered in snow and ice and almost nothing but white, mountains and glaciers and cliffs everywhere. I hated that place." Didn't help that literally everyone there also got murdered, and it also doesn't help that he's not entirely sure how accurate that memory is, or if he made it up. "So, not big on snow, so I guess I'll just have to suck it up."

If he wants a captive audience, he has it in Ellana. She listens carefully, and there probably isn't a force in Thedas that could draw her attention away from him right now. For a long time, she was starved for new stories, and now she's spoiled for choice.

"I have heard of Earth," she interjects with a nod, before going back to listening. A place where the sun never set? But how did crops grow? How did you block out the light when you wanted to sleep? Not everyone came from a home with walls and windows with shutters. She would have had to just cover her head with her blanket. But if the sun was always up, didn't that make the place incredibly hot? There's so much more she wants to know, but she doesn't ask just yet.

"That's unfortunate," she says with a bit of a smirk. "The scenery here must not be to your liking. And I'm afraid to see anything else, you would have to agree to go on a mission for the Inquisition, since I doubt they'll let you explore on your own." Not while they're still studying the rifters.

"At least Skyhold is built over hot springs, so it's not so cold here."

Unfortunately for her, he has the answers to few-to-none of those questions. The whole planet wasn't the gulch, obviously, but...damn if sometimes it didn't feel like the whole world.

"Holy shit, is it? No wonder it's kind of cozy compared to literally everywhere else around here. I'm sure it's fine. Literally. Literally everything was covered in snow and ice. Like, aside from the base, there...really wasn't anything. Rocks? I guess there were some rocks."

He shakes his head. "And there are people here. And I don't just mean squadmates, cuz, I had those, but...you guys have a community here. It's a town all to itself. Hell, the last place I was stationed, I was by myself! So it's...not all bad. Just...weird for me."

"It's definitely something special," Ellana agrees. Of course there are tensions here and clashes between groups, but things could be a whole lot worse. It's still early days for them, but so far they have food, shelter, and the supplies they need to go out into the world and help.

"Hopefully it's not so weird that you aren't getting to know people? It sounds like you could use the company after what you were doing back home."

"Company," he echoes, taking another thoughtful chew of bread. Yeah, sure, he'd been at that shithole of a base by himself in the wake of Tex getting blown the hell up, but then he had to deal with Wash, and Caboose, and, hell, the rest of the Reds and Blues. Somehow they always fucking found each other.

So, time spent with people he hates, or time spent bored out of his mind with nothing but his internal monologue to keep him company?

"Yeah, I run into people. Dunno that you could say I'm making friends with anyone." Gee, Church, maybe your personality has something to do with that?

"Friendship can take time," she answers. "And you've landed in the middle of a tense situation with people who can be very passionate about their views. I wouldn't call it a lost cause just yet." But then again, Ellana tends to be an optimist.

By now she's close to finishing her roll, and she gets the sense Church will finish the rest of the basket on his own. Maybe he burns off all his food as a soldier. Except that's not what he is here.

"What kind of soldier were you?" she asks, thinking of the three classes of combat they have here.

"A damn good one," he says on automatic, even though he realizes this was not at all the case. He was just an okay soldier-y type that happened to be a half-decent leader among a bunch of assholes and idiots and. Ugh. He does not want to miss those assholes and idiots. Caboose would have a field day here.

"I mean, I didn't really rise in the ranks, but the situation was pretty tricky. I was a private but still took command of my team. Kind of a sniper, kind of a leader, kind of just one of the guys. Wore a couple hats."

"Now that sounds interesting. I know what it's like to wear a couple hats myself, but nothing so important as being a soldier." For her, it was just trying to find a place she could fit in the clan by doing a bunch of little tasks, without ever excelling at any of them. A jack of all trades, but master of none of them.

"Did you use a bow?" she asks, making an assumption based on his sniper comment.

"A bow--no, god no, uh. Look, where I'm from, things are like a lot more advanced than bow and arrow. We've got really, really good armor and guns that like...uhhhh they're like really really advanced bows, kind of? Like. Shooting metal pellets at really fast speeds, faster than a bow. Stuff like that."

There's a moment where he wonders if he's fucking something up in space/time by trying to explain Future Stuff^{^TM} to backwards people, but, eh, it never made a god damn difference before.

"So...if you're not a soldier, but you're here, what do you do? Seems like it's mostly soldier-y folks. And some doctors and merchants and shit."

While it's definitely unlike anything she's ever heard before, Ellana can't help but be fascinated by what he's telling her, and she's not even an archer. Warfare sounds like it's really come along in his world and the worlds he's been stationed on.

"Oh, I'm still trying to figure that all out. I came here to help the Inquisition however I could. I've fought in combat a bit so far, so I guess in a way, I'm a soldier. But I also did reconnaissance to see where some missing scouts went. Really stealthy stuff, which was new for me. Here at Skyhold, I'm on the Mage Council, to make sure the mages here are being looked after."

"I'm sorry, are you saying that the people that sling around magic like fireballs and lightning need to be looked after? Cuz...if you can do that, and be a stand-in doctor, sounds like they should pretty well be able to stand for themselves."

It's moments like these where Ellana has to remind herself that outsiders have no idea what being a mage in Thedas is like, and she has to laugh because he's right; it sounds like they should all be on top of the world, like the magisters of Tevinter think themselves to be.

"There are ways of controlling magic, or negating it," she replies. "We certainly aren't all powerful, and what's more, we're susceptible to demons because of our magic. It's a long, complicated history, but to sum up: some think we're a danger to others, and with cause. And some of those people can dispel our magic and leave us powerless against their weapons."

kitchens

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