faderift | #morale || OTA

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#morale || OTA

WHO: Jester + 9 lizards + "Alistair" + YOU.
WHAT: omg lizards, you guys, there are lizards. have lizards infested the Gallows? no! this is a mission of morale! come get your new pets, and if lizards don't do it for you--then at least come and help the Inquisition figure out how to help you feel more inspired. you'll get a piece of pastry for your trouble.
WHEN: late Kingsway
WHERE: the Gallows
NOTES: I hope you like lizards, because there are a lot of lizards.

i. Lizards, lizards everywhere!

There's a lizard on your boot.

In the hall, eating a meal--in the library, reading a book--in the garden, working that green thumb--in your quarters, getting dressed for the day--you feel a strange brush of something against the top of your foot, through the leather of your boot, and you look down and there, blinking up at you, is a lizard.

Small, no bigger than the length of an average forefinger, and green, with an off-green stripe down its back and black markings around its black-button lizard eyes. And a black tongue, when it licks its own eyeball, either in greeting or out of nerves. Otherwise the lizard stares, fixedly, up at you.

After a moment, it cocks its head.

A giggle interrupts the scene, and when you look up--there's Jester, watching from a safe distance, making no real attempt to hide herself. If you're in the hall, she's three tables away, holding a croissant over her mouth to hide her smile, like a demure lady might hold a fan. If you're in the library, she's peeking around a bookshelf, with her own sketchbook held to cover half her face, right up to her nose, so that only her eyes are visible. They have a certain mischievous sparkle to them. And if you're in your room, she's actually got the door cracked open, and she's peeking in that space between doorframe and door.

"Ohhhhhh--" Full of barely-contained laughter. "Oh, my gosh, wow, looks like you have got a new pet--"

ii. The Prayer Garden, featuring: "Alistair"... and more lizards.

In the prayer garden, beside the Templar tower, the smell of paint is sharp in the air. Usually it smells like dirt, like warm grass and stones when there's sunshine--or damp and green after a rain--or a little bit of the salt sea-smell that drifts over the walls when the wind picks up. But today it has the smell of paint.

Also, there are lizards. Five lizards, to be exact, green and off-green, one with a yellow stripe down its tail. One of them is wearing a tiny hat, fastened with a tiny, tiny bow.

The paint smell is from a large sign that has been--you guessed it--painted right on the wall of the templar tower. Bright pink, still tacky, if you go up to touch it. Big bold letters, about two feet high:

WELCOME TO THE TRAVELER'S TEMPLE. THE TRAVELER LOVES ME AND ALSO YOU. TAKE A LIZARD!

And on his knees, holding up a tiny hoop of grass for the lizards to jump through--

Well, it's Alistair. Or at least, he looks like Alistair. Like, the Alistair. And he's wearing Alistair's clothes, and he looks more or less like what Alistair would look like, if he was coordinating an amateur lizard circus.

And when Alistair notices that he is no longer alone in the garden, he drops the hoop and points, at the wall. "Hey, look!" He sounds, kind of, like Alistair. A little funny, like maybe he has a cold, and acquired a slight accent. "Look, what someone did! That is crazy, right? But check out these lizards--they are cute--"

On your way out of the garden, you may notice the large dick that has been painted above the door. Because of course.

iii. The Morale Booth: some lizards, mostly lizard-free.

There is a booth set up the main courtyard. Festooned liberally with ribbons, and chains of painted paper links, with flowers tucked everywhere, it is crowned by a large sign.

M O R A L E!

The O has been painted to look like a sun, with a smiley face. Jester is sitting behind the booth, with ribbons looped tastefully around her horns, drawing in her sketchbook and eating pastries from a small bag. A plate of cut-up pastry is beside her. Little colorful toothpicks skew each piece, hors d'oeuvres for the taking. There is also a big piece of paper, with a pencil, titled HELP ME HELP YOU, and decorated with smiley faces all along the borders. Some dicks, too, of course--and one dickbutt, the universal constant.

Curious? When approached, Jester drops her pencil so she can give greeting, with a smile.

"Hello, my name is Jester, and I am a Rifter, and a tiefling, even if I look like a qunari--and also, I am the morale officer of the Inquisition! It is very, very important. And if you tell me how the Inquisition can improve your morale, then you can eat one of these little pastries, and I will draw a picture of you!"

She holds up the plate of pastries in one hand, and her sketchbook in the other, open to a full-page illustration of a giant lizard destroying the Gallows. The act of hoisting these items makes her biceps flex, inadvertently, in her cute blue dress.

Above her, perched on the sign, is another lizard. This one is wearing a tiny pink bow. It stares down at the scene, with judgmental tiny eyes.

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The lizard makes an nrulp noise when Araceli picks it up. It blinks at her words of censure, looking bewildered, and repeats its noise with a touch more urgency (nrulllp as it is swung around to be offered back to Jester--who, now that she realizes she's been caught, drops the croissant back to her plate and puts her hands to her cheeks, in an expression of shock.

"Dixie Normus!"

She jumps to her feet, with enough force that the bench scrapes against the stone floor, and hurries over with her hands outstretched.

"You bad, bad, bad boy--" Mock scolding, mock pompous, but it all cuts off abruptly as Jester gets a glimpse of the near-by fox. Her hands fly up to her cheeks again. Her shock, this time, is entirely genuine. Her gasp is loud.

"Oh, my gosh... who is that?"

What a fantastic name for a lizard, is a thing Araceli could say if she were in a place to say much because the other young woman looks enough like a Qunari that it catches her by surprise. As does lizards making noise. (They'd scurry away too fast over rocks or up trees when a girl climbed, iguanas mostly snort salt out their nostrils, that doesn't count.)

Lux puffs himself up, ears flattening back for a moment in alarm at a sudden stranger as his eyes get impossibly wider but if, this is him, a compliment, better sit up straight.

To think Araceli was only here for a meal in peace.

"Oh, this is Lux, please don't fall for any of his tricks he's shameless." Araceli is smiling too indulgently to actually mean any of that though, free hand scratching his face. "Have you lost Dixie Normus? He's very small and this hall is so large, it'd be easy to get lost on the way to a plate investigation but I don't know, can lizards eat... whatever this is masquerading as?"

"Hello, Lux," Jester says, with obvious relish. "He is so pretty, wow. I really like him. Is he yours? Can I pet him? Or is he shy? Dixie is not really mine--I mean, he is, kind of, I won him at the Grand Tourney--but now I am letting him and all his brothers and sisters go out and look for new owners! It is part of my work. I am a morale officer. And a Rifter--oh, and my name is Jester."

She squints down at Araceli's plate of food, considering it as a possible meal for Dixie. "Does Lux eat the food here? Or does he hunt for it himself? Or does he have special food? Dixie eats basically whatever. He really likes pastry jam. Me too."

Up comes the paw because he is a dignified gentleman, of course there is a paw to shake for you madame. "He's been mine since I was twelve, you're an old man now aren't you?" Maybe? Who knows with mystery foxes your dad finds as a stowaway on an island. "He loves to be petted, it's his favourite thing alongside eating, stealing food, or Korrin wearing him as a stole so he can be petted and fed all at once. I didn't know they had things like this to win at the tourney - I'd never even been to one before, it's very good of you to find a family for-- how many did you win? Oh, it's good to meet you, señora Jester."

Even the confusion won't have her forgetting this but just how many lizards might there be? Was that a common tourney thing? She'd need to ask Korrin later, Korrin would know all things tourney with her parents being seasoned at such things surely.

"Normally I cook something and bring it but I'm up to my eyes with...everything." She sighs, flapping a hand to indicate the sort of paperwork liable to just swallow a desk if a person turns their back on it for too long. (It's not that bad really but sometimes you want to be dramatic about your problems.) "The only things Lux hunts are seagulls three days rotted under the hot sun, I think if he was ever hungry he could do it. Maybe. But the finer things such as pastry jam or paella? Those aren't in the wild. This was meant to be a stew that must've been boiled in someone's boots."

Hang on Jester let her just lift that up, get a good inhale of that boiled into nothingness but still somehow offensive mush on a plate. Delicious.

"He is a beautiful old man." It is easy to be generous with compliments when they are very very true. Jester accepts the proffered paw with great solemnity and gives it a shake. Dignified. Serious. Then her face splits into a grin. "Ahhhh, he is sooooo soft--he will let me pet him? Come here, Lux Lux Lux, let me pet you--"

Without brutality but also without great care, Jester reaches for Lux's ears, to give them a rub. Puppy ears are very soft, so it stands to reason that a fox's ears would be even softer. And: they are. It is so amazing, that Jester almost misses the rest of what Arceli says.

"Oh, yeah, I won ten whole lizards, man, they had all kinds of stuff, but I really really wanted these-- ahh, wait!" She looks up, face alight. "You know Korrin! Korrin is my friend! She is a qunari, right? And she looks kind of like me? I am really a tiefling, of course, but I look like a qunari--"

Also ew, rotting seagulls. That is actually probably worse than boot boiled stew. Hopefully Dixie is listening so he knows how lucky he really is, eating pastry jam all the time.

Sensing that ah yes, here is a lady who will treat me with more respect than the one who knows all of my tricks, Lux unglues himself from Araceli to oh-so-graciously flop his whole weight against Jester's leg. He stretches to show off the maximum amount of soft fur just ripe for a petting, head tipped back to display his chin; Araceli is trying so hard not to roll her eyes, a process that seems to involve almost biting through her lip.

"Shameless, Lux, as if you don't sleep in a bed at night." Only she's too fond for it to sound like scolding so this is why shame is a completely foreign concept to him if foxes even had it to begin with. Instead, Araceli carefully scritches the lizard with a nail and tries not to be alarmed when it provokes more tonge flicking - what is it about little lizard-y tongues, is it that they shoot out fast as a bullet?

Ten whole lizards, but really they have fish and more in bags, perhaps she shouldn't have been-- "Korrin's my girlfriend, I know qunari and vashoth very well. I didn't know anyone had ever come through a rift to look like-- Can I ask what a tiefling is? I'm sorry that still sounds rude to ask now but I've never met one even if you aren't how you should be."

Odd enough to be here, and now Araceli is left in a strangely fortunate position of only missing people, places, things, not the whole of herself made suddenly different outside her hand. She doubts she'd have handled it well, or with keeping any level of cheer about her.

"Really? Korrin didn't tell me she had a girlfriend. Bu-ut, I guess technically, I didn't ask...." Not that it's her fault. Just explains Jester's lack of knowledge. She gives a good rub under the chin of Lux the Shameless, more than happy to oblige the fox's silent demand. Gosh, he is so soft and cute. She could pet him all day.

"Okay, but a tiefling is like--well, I guess once, we were maybe a little, kind of, sort of, fiendish--or that's what the story is, anyways--but if it is true? It was a long, long, long time ago, so basically that doesn't even apply to me. Except I can speak Infernal and usually, I have really pretty blue skin, and a tail, and my horns are just a li-ttle bit cuter--and some other stuff too, like I guess I am not as tall--but those are the big changes. I have a picture in my sketchbook, if you want to see, of what I look like, usually. And a picture of my mom. She is also a tiefling, but she has pretty pretty red skin. She is so beautiful."

Because Araceli probably wants to see, Jester is already going for her pink haversack, to get the sketchbook.

"When it's been as long as it has I think you get used to assuming." Nearly three years is probably long enough for that to happen after all when so many of them live over the top of each other then fill in the gaps. People are together for less time and end up married with babies - that thought, mostly the babies part - is a cold bucket of water, has her shuddering hard enough that poor Dixie Normus is almost jostled right off her hand into the stew. Or dubious food masquerading as a stew.

Blue skin. Tails. Not qunari but almost merfolk so she could shrug that off. Infernal and fiend though have her sliding on the polite bard smile #17 the way one does when the politics get more insular than you were counting on. "Fiendish and Infernal - are they connected? I wouldn't want to assume but as with tiefling, I haven't heard of either of those before today. I couldn't imagine being taller all of a sudden but it must make stairs less annoying and there are so. Many. Stairs.. Too many stairs. You can take them more at a time without tripping onto your face." Hopefully unless sudden height boosts require adjustments that make all the stairs in the Gallows a problem. "I'd love to see your mother...I wish-- I wish I had a picture of mine with me, I still miss her, so seeing your mother? That would make me happy, to see someone else who has a piece of theirs and who loves her."

If someone loves their mother, you can't really go wrong. (They can still be a terrible person but they're a terrible person who loves their mother which is better than being a terrible person who doesn't love their mother unless they have reason to.)

"Yeah, yeah, they're connected, probably. Or they were. My mom taught me Infernal, and I her mom taught her, and her dad taught her, because she was raised by her dad..."

Unfortunately, getting her sketchbook means that Jester has had to stop petting Lux. She shoots him an apologetic look, in case he feels bad about it. The book is slender but its pages are full of drawing after drawing, on quick display as Jester flips through it to find the picture of her mom. A tall man with green skin and a square jaw--a sweaty blue guy playing cards at a table of humans and half-elves--a rat puffed up like a balloon--a dick with wings and a smiley face--two horses wearing nametags and pulling a cart--on and on and on.

"And it was really weird being so tall, you're right! But it was even weirder not having a tail. Like I kept falling over, a little, because my balance was all screwed up. I am better at walking now. Okay, here," and she comes to a stop in the book, and flips it around for Araceli to see. "Here is my momma."

The portrait is well and lovingly done. A beautiful woman, wearing a secretive smile, and a hint of mischief shining in her gold eyes. Her fine figure draped in lavender and gold silks, with cutouts at her shoulders and a plunging neckline. Gold and gemstones wink at her throat and her ears, which come to a point. Her dark hair cascades down her back, and from her head curl two fine and polished horns of black. And her skin is red: red red, like the deepest red of a sunset. THE RUBY OF THE SEA is written in a fine calligraphy along the side, and around the title twines a border of roses and music notes.

Jester sighs, and touches her fingertips to the corner of the page. "Her name is Marion," she says, with a reverence. "And she is so beautiful she is famous. What is your mom's name?"

There's something comforting hearing things passed down the same way even across other worlds that have to be so different she can barely imagine them, a smile on her face. "My father taught me sailing the way his mother taught him and so on, like that."

A little laugh startles out of Araceli at some of the drawings (the dick with wings, the what-she's-assuming-is-a-rat) and-- "Oh what terrible tells that poor man has," a helpless groan because there's always one at the table that ends up that way, isn't there? And it's always unfortunate if you're the one who ends up at one of his elbows with him almost sweating onto your cards or into your drinks though he does have the tendency to make you look regally composed no matter how shit a hand you've been dealt, silver linings and all that.

Whatever she might have said to the height, to the tail, it all dies in her throat. Comes out in a soft 'oh' as if she's been punched right under the ribs, finding it horribly difficult to swallow all of a sudden. This isn't her mother, no, but it's someone's mother that's loved enough to be drawn in such detail. "She's stunning, and she could walk off the page and right into this hall--" Araceli can talk about music, or fencing, she doesn't really know how to compliment art exactly but hopefully this is right with her throat tight as it is. "Is that her title? The Ruby of the Sea?"

Another swallow as Lux headbutts her hip until she rests a hand on his head. "Neria Castell, she's a Bride of the Sea."

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#morale || OTA

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