faderift | #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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jester screams.

Jester screams bloody murder.

"AAAAA!" she screams, and the door bangs open against the wall as she rushes into the room. "BLOODY MURDER! DICK KOCK, NO--"

Panicked, she grabs for Dick Kock's limp little rag of a headless body, which is dangling from the hand of this awful person.

"Why are you eating Dick! Why would you do this? Dick was the sweetest, the kindest-- Dick, Dick, come back! No--"

Holy crap.

Luana is no stranger to giants, although generally they're not blue, and she falls over, right out of her bed and onto the floor. "Who the hell are you?" she yelps, and then kicks up, but she can't, so she shifts fast, her paws suddenly scrabbling over the stone, the comical look of a maned wolf sprawling over the ground for a long moment.

She yelps, and then shifts back, and stares up at her. "Was that your pet?"

Whoa, what. What. Jester has heard of werecreatures before, and she knows about beast-shapes, and so it's not like she is totally, totally going to freak out when--however briefly--the form of the murderer shivers into a wolf. And then back again.

Jester clutches the corpse of Dick Kock close to her chest. A little smear of lizard blood blooms on her blouse, from the place his head used to be.

"I am Jester," she says, somewhat tremulously, "and that was Dick Kock and no he wasn't my pet, not exactly, kind of, but he was good and only ever ate so many centipedes that he threw up once--and you bit his head off! Because why? And don't turn into a dog and run away, okay! This is serious stuff!"

"Because I was hungry?" she yelps, slightly embarrassed, not because she was caught, but because most girls don't eat lizards, especially raw. But the wolf in her isn't so easily tamed, and instinctive about it. She stares at the little limp body. "And because...it was instinct?"

"We-ellll..."

Still somewhat tremulous, but wavering, Jester looks down at poor Dick. Her lower lip pokes out as her frown grows sadder. Poor, poor Dick Kock. He was a good guy.

"I guess... those are pretty good reasons... but, there's a kitchen, okay! If you are hungry, you can go there, and they will basically give you food whenever you want, as long as you are really really nice when you ask for it. And you can keep stuff in your room! No one tells you not to. So you can have a whole bunch of snacks that you eat later, okay, and then you will not eat any more lizards or cats or cute puppies or, or whatever!"

She gives this extremely tall horned creature a slight look. She heard that in Japan there are weird giant blue creatures called oni, and that they're a kind of demon. And in Sweden-or was it Norway?- there are trolls like that. She wants to ask. She does not.

This girl seems kind of dumb. "I wouldn't eat a dog," she points out, eyebrows up.

Jester snorts. "Well, how am I supposed to know that you wouldn't eat a dog! I didn't think that you would eat a lizard, either, but then you did!"

And as proof, she waves Dick Kock's body at the wolf girl. The corpse gives a sad wiggle, floppy tail and arms. A little bit of blood spurts from the decapitated head and runs down Jester's hand. With a muted little scream, she pulls the body back to her chest.

"Look, even if you were hungry and ate him because of instincts, you still ate him! Okay?!"

She sighs. "If I had known it was someone's pet, I wouldn't have done it, if it makes you feel better."

She stares at the dead, limp body, and raises her eyebrows. "Now, I mean, it's just. I could finish the rest. No sense in, uh. Throwing it away."

"What?" Jester's voice rises in pitch again, high and indignant. She holds Dick Kock a little closer. "No! We will get you another snack, okay, on our way to Dick's funeral! Which you are helping me with, because you ate his head off. It is the only way."

She turns to sweep out of the room. "Come on!"

Luana stares, but then she drags herself up, easily bullied into things like this. "A funeral? But it's just a lizard-" she whines, sighing as she follows. Look, Jester, here she comes.

#morale || OTA

oh my god

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