#morale || OTA

[the_cleric]

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.

Comments

[the_cleric]

Uh-oh.

Uh. Shit. Jester-as-Alistair freezes, eyes very round. Her mouth (looking like Alistair's mouth) drops open. Uh, uh, uh--

Thank the Traveler that inspiration breaks over her like a fart in church. Risky, stupid, someone is going to have something to say to you, but it's kind of fun, too, and--

She jumps to her feet--or to Alistair's feet--that is to say, Alistair's twin jumps to his feet--and strikes a pose that mirrors Alistair's. As in, it should look a little bit like he is looking in a mirror.

"What in the Prophet's name," she says, in more-or-less his voice, matching his pitch. And then she just waits for him to move, or say something else.

Harry Johnson crawls onto the toe of her boot. Alistair's boot. She doesn't flinch, not even when he makes a plaintive nrllup? up at her.

[byblow]

"Oh," he says. "Oh, that's funny."

Is it funny? He and his tone and his face are not actually sure. Or at least not sure if it's funny as in something funny is going on around here or funny as in ha. The earlier freezing and gaping pretty well eliminate the possibility that this is a demon or something, but not the possibility that whatever it is will convincingly pretend to be him long enough for someone else to panic and put them both in cells.

He looks around, without moving much, because if he moves the other him will move and it's sort of disconcerting—eyes scanning until they land on the pink paint on the wall.

Uh-huh.

"Is Jester your real name? Or did someone pick it because you're so funny."

[the_cleric]

Jester, busily trying to rearrange her face to match Alistair's expression, misses out on repeating his words after him. Man, is it hard looking like someone and trying to convince them you're their mirror image.

Maybe she should stop pretending? She could also just make a run for it.

"Uh," she says, in that same almost-Alistair voice, "well, well, I don't know what you are talking about. But if someone's name was Jester, it is pro-bably because their mom thought it was a really pretty name. Just guessing."

The real Alistair is between here and the way out. If she smacks into him, he will probably fall. She is taller than he is. Bigger, too, even if he looks pretty solid.

She tries a grin. "Pretty crazy, huh? Us being twins? It is funny."

[byblow]

"Hilarious." Sarcasm. But his bewildered skepticism is starting to melt into bewildered amusement, and he adds, "I know some obsessed old men in Ferelden who would love to speak to you," even though he would never, ever, he wouldn't even joke. To them. Joking to Jester is all right. If she repeats it someone might wind up assassinated, but that's neither here nor there nor very likely, only distantly plausible.

He cocks his head, and makes a decision. It is funny. Just in a weird way that he would prefer to not continue indefinitely.

"How about you take my face off," he says, "and tell me about your Traveler? I have been wishing for a god that cares about... anything."

[the_cleric]

"We-e-e-ell..."

Jester, as Alistair, bites her lip as she considers. Considering here is wavering: between revealing herself so she can talk all about the Traveler, or refusing and continuing the trick, or pushing Alistair over and running away.

"I mean, the Traveler is pretty great," she says, slowly. Her attempt to imitate Alistair's voice has melted away, as her actual accent melts back in. "And you did ask nicely, so-o-o.... Ahhh, okay, okay, okay. Fine."

Without a sound, the illusion drops. Where once was Alistair, now is Jester: seven feet tall, wearing a cute blue dress with tiny pink flowers embroidered on the bodice, and matching pink and blue ribbons and flowers wrapped artfully around her horns. She is pouting a little, too.

"The Traveler doesn't like it when pranks are totally ruined, though, so this is pushing it," she warns Alistair. "But he is still great. And handsome, too."