#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]

"Yes, yes, Jester--wow, you have a really pretty name. Christine, the Knight-Enchanter Delacroix." The sound of it is mostly right, if a little extra hoity-toity. That is what fancy people sound like, and Christine sounds like a pretty fancy name.

"Who else are you teaching? Maybe I know them, too. Maybe we could have lessons together. If they're cool. Are they cool? I hope so. Um," and she casts a look up at her own sign, "I am... we-ell, I started working with Forces because I am so muscley and I have all of my adventuring experience and stuff, and then I also do stuff with the Veils, but then I applied to be a morale officer, and I got the job! Which is very cool. So that's what I have been doing. But I could totally, totally make time for pastry lessons. It could even help with morale."

[aceso]

"Thank you." Christine just so happens to bask in compliments like a cat does in a beam of sunlight streaming through a window pane, so Jester is off to a good start with her.

"His name is Carlos. He's one of the mage healers in the infirmary. Quite young, but eager to learn and very sweet." And very much into the idea of the Circles returning to protect people from them, so Christine wisely keeps the lessons to just cooking and not her own thoughts on Circles.

"I think distributing baked goods is definitely a morale booster," she agrees with a nod. "It sounds as though we are both busy, but should you wish to do this, we can make time. Let's see... Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I work late in the infirmary so it could be on a Tuesday or Thursday in the late afternoon. Or on the weekends, perhaps? I wouldn't mind you coming by my apartment, unless you would prefer to stay in the Gallows, in which case I could take the boat for a few hours." Really, Christine is the sort to put herself out there. It's the mothering side to her.

[the_cleric]

"No, I don't know him." Undeterred, Jester smiles. "But I will, if we are going to bake cakes together! Okay, so, I could do pro-bably any of those days. Because baking cakes will now be part of being a morale officer so it will be totally fine."

She leans forward again, eager. "How did you get an apartment? What does it look like? I painted a mural on my wall so it would look better. I bet your walls are soooo pretty. Or they could be!"

[aceso]

Her eagerness is quite refreshing, really. Being a part of the Inquisition for so long has worn on her, especially since she's a workaholic. Seeing enthusiasm for something is something in short supply. It seems Jester is the perfect choice for a morale officer.

"Oh, well once the city allowed us to take lodgings outside the Gallows and the docks, my boyfriend and I found one to rent. The Gallows can be... oppressive." She may work here everyday, has her own office, and frequents the infirmary, but she can never forget what occurred on this ground to mages and Tranquil alike. There's no way she ever wants to live here on her off hours.

"It is in Lowtown. Quite the simple place, really. Small, but it suits us." She isn't sure if Jester wants to know about decor or what exactly. Christine's tried her best, but space is limited. "Our walls aren't really decorated, I'm afraid. We have some things on our mantelpiece. But what does your mural look like?"

[the_cleric]

"Ye-eah." Jester nods, knowingly, at oppressive. "Ugly, you mean. Totally, yes. It is so ugly. Like I said, I am decorating my room? But all of these other rooms?"

She pulls a face.

"That is why you and your boyfriend are so lucky! You can do whatever you want, and you can do whatever you want in every room! I am talking about doing whatever you want in every room for decorating, but I guess you can do everything else too. You know." She winks, hugely. "Because what is living with your boyfriend for otherwise, right? Anyways, my mural is really really big. It is a picture of my mom, and my friends, and this one time, when we got to go to a party after we saved a whole village from gnolls and hyenas. But I added my mom, because she was still back in Nicodranas, and I wish she had been there so she could see how happy everyone was, and how brave and cool I was, fighting the gnolls. And the Traveler is there, too, of course, but in secret. He is hiding behind a tree and you can ju-ust see him."

[aceso]

Christine gives a hint of a smile. Ugly works, and she won't start into a tirade about abusive Circles here and now.

The thought quickly leaves her anyway when Jester winks. This is honestly a personality Christine isn't used to dealing with on a daily basis, and she has to admit for all the talking without breath that Jester does, she is drawn in to her stories. Perhaps because she's a Rifter and everything is so new?

"Ah, yes," in response to the comment about her boyfriend. She'll just leave it at that. "You must be a talented artist. But what are gnolls? And the Traveler? I'm afraid others' worlds can be quite different from this one and I am unfamiliar."

[the_cleric]

"Oh, yeah, I bet. Okay, okay, okay--"

She shoves aside the plate of pastry bites and flips open her sketchbook. She flips past some vibrant illustrations--a dick-butt, an inflated rat about the size of a small balloon, a pile of what looks like severed dog ears, a cute tiny unicorn with a rainbow mane--until she comes to a full-page illustration of a man wrapped in a green cloak. Slender, tall, his hood is pulled low, down over the bridge of his nose. His chin, a little bit of his cheeks, his mouth, which is curled in a mischievous little smirk--all of it is rendered lovingly. And in the depths of the shadow that obscures the upper part of his face, his eyes gleam, bright and verdant.

"This," Jester says, turning the sketchbook around so Christine can see, "is the Traveler. He is the best god ever. And he is very handsome. Or, I think he is, anyways."

[aceso]

The drawings are... special. Christine is starting to get a wider sense of who Jester is, and she's thinking a part of her is a little bit crazy. Is she getting herself into a mess by offering to teach Jester how to bake?

At least the sketch of the Traveler doesn't have anything odd about it, as far as she can tell.

"I see. Does he protect travelers on their journeys?"