(Open) They'll steal your patents for the sun

[youwonscience]

WHO: Cosima and YOU
WHAT: Open post/catchall
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Gallows and environs
NOTES: Prose or brackets are fine. If you want to talk about another scenario/your wildcard ideas before diving in, DM me or hit me up on plurk/discord. All comers welcome!

I. Infirmary

It's almost easy to forget that she's not in good health, sometimes, which Cosima supposes does credit to spirit healing. But she also never misses her twice-monthly appointments, too conscious of the potential consequences. Since she's here anyway, she brings a few goodies from the kitchen for people well enough to have them but not well enough to fetch them on their own. She's conscious of people who seem to want to be left alone and people who could use a friendly word. And of course, by now she knows the regulars, staff and otherwise.

II. Cosima's lab, the Gallows

Damn, Cosima, back at it again with the microscope. Ever since the phylactery negotiations -- and arguably, since Tevinter, though Cosima wasn't even there herself -- she's thrown herself into her work, harder than ever. They still have so much to learn, and it feels like the conflict is multiplying faster than they can keep up sometimes. She's doing her best, and frustrated she can't do more, though she keeps the latter sentiment to herself.

III. Docks

There's nearly always activity at the docks, so it takes some doing to find a spot that isn't in anyone's way. But Cosima has managed it, and is using her find to watch the water. She's alert enough to her surroundings, since it never pays to let your guard down out and about in Kirkwall, especially as a rifter. But the water makes her feel better. Not like home. It demonstrably isn't home. But as if it's a place that at least makes sense to her.

IV. Wildcard

[Choose your own adventure.]

Comments

[youwonscience]

Once they're sitting, she leans her head against Herian's shoulder. She doesn't point out that it seems increasingly likely that she'd be back in her world, the more they learn; more likely in the Fade, or nowhere at all, but it's not helpful to say.

"I think that's good. I mean, I worry too. But actually... it's weird. I might end up having longer here, than I did at home. Spirit healing can treat my illness, but we don't have it where I'm from. I was working on a treatment, but there was no guarantee I was going to find one. So I guess... I try to do that too. Be presented here, now, and not try to worry too much about things I can't do anything about."

She turns her head and kisses Herian's neck. "I wouldn't want to leave you, either."

[dashing]

As Cosima leans against her, Herian wraps her arm around her, thumb gently rubbing the crest of Cosima's shoulder. The more she thinks about how Cosima's illness might not be cured or managed at home, how much she relies on magic, the more she is thankful for the gifted magical healers they have amongst the Inquisition ranks. Magic healing was not, generally speaking, readily available, and it makes a quiet anxiety twist in her gut that she tries to press back.

A flicker of a smile, though, at the kiss. "It would be a sorry day if you were waiting for an opportunity to escape my clutches," she replies, faintly dramatised.

She pauses for a second, before going on. "When I think of being in the Circle, and I remember that what we have would be forbidden, and that if the Circles still stood, we may never have met..." Herian sighs, and shakes her head. "I have so resolutely called myself a Loyalist for so long, but I wonder if I am lying to myself on that count."

It seems silly, though, and she clears her throat, and tilts her head to kiss Cosima's temple. "I love you." Quiet, a reminder, even if it's unnecessary.

[youwonscience]

"I love you too," she says, leaning into Herian's embrace. "And I don't know. I mean... I think anyone who didn't live in a Circle has less of a right to an opinion about it, in some ways, but I do sometimes wonder if they took a real thing, that you actually need to be careful about, and used it to justify a system that was more about making sure people don't have to actually deal with mages in their everyday lives than about keeping people safe."

Maybe not! But Cosima's seen enough to wonder. And it's not as if she has no context for systems of segregating one group from another.

"There's all kinds of reasons we might not have ever met. But I think that's part of what's beautiful about the universe, you know? It's this improbable mixture of order and chance. And here we are."

[dashing]

Herian kisses Cosima's temple as she listens, and makes a quiet sound of agreement. Or, if not entire agreement, consideration.

"I know not. I... think there was good in it, at some stage." Maybe she needs to think that, and that much Herian can acknowledge, even to herself. "I know that... an abomination, should that be what becomes of a mage, can destroy towns entire, and that the fear of that can lead to the persecution of mages, and a spiral of— of fear and desperation on both sides. The more and more I think on it though, I cannot but wonder if... with so many choices taken from mages as an inherent aspect of the Circles, if that potential for despair and desperation could make resisting the offers of a demon all the more difficult, and makes us all the more alien and alarming to the outside world. If there could be Circles but where... where there is freedom to be a person and not have that be all you know, then surely that would be the safer thing for all people."

She chews on her lip, worry etching itself into her expression despite herself. Herian shakes her head a little, and smiles apologetically. This is perhaps not an uplifting topic for date night. "And here we are."

[youwonscience]

"I think it can be both things, you know? I mean, the middle of a war isn't a great time for making that kind of observation, usually, but it can be addressing a real problem and also not doing it well. I think, for instance, if you let people learn at the circles but like... go home to their loved ones on holidays. Check in regularly but otherwise have real lives. There might be a lot less of that fear you're talking about. On both sides. It's like the Inquisition sending the Rifters to Kirkwall. No one was going to be less scared of us if we all stayed hidden away in Skyhold, right?"

She touches her thumb to the corner of Herian's mouth, fond. "It's complicated. Everyone who's not trying to spew propaganda knows that."

[dashing]

In a whimsical burst, Herian tilts her head, so she can lightly catch Cosima's thumb with her teeth - a teasing smile, shortlived, followed by a slightly apologetic smile. A kiss, then, to the pad of Cosima's thumb, and she allows her eyes to close for a moment and list into the contact.

"You're right." Cosima is probably always rights — Herian, unbiased expert, 9:44.

With a soft sigh, she continues. "It's almost as though increasing our understanding of one another might heighten our sense of commonality and community. And yet... animosity remains even in the face of a common adversary. It is no longer mages versus the many, but all theoretically against Corypheus, and we are still a threat." Another moment, and she adds, "I'm sorry. This is not... the uplifting conversation I'd hoped to conjure for a date."

[youwonscience]

Cosima laughs. "I guess I haven't been helping there. What would you rather talk about? I'm game for pretty much whatever, it's just, you know. Corypheus is kind of hard not to think about a lot of the time." Under the circumstances.

[dashing]

“It’s important to talk about.” Amending, in case she’d sounded closed off, in some fashion. Herian sighs softly, and tilts her head back to look at the slowly emerging stars.

“I... this is not the most lighthearted topic of conversation either, but if ever there are matters from home you want to talk about, whether because you miss them or any reason at all, I am always more than happy to listen.” She looks back to Cosima. “For topics I wish to discuss this very moment— does your science know more of stars than we do?”