Kingsway Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters, rescuers, and anyone else
WHAT: New arrivals are collected and transported to Kirkwall
WHEN: Mid-Kingsway
WHERE: The Brecilian Forest, near south of Denerim
NOTES: This log contains prompts for the ARRIVAL and RECOVERY of new rifters, as well as the subsequent QUARANTINE period. All prompts are open to anyone.

Comments

[notched]

[ If she'd said any of it aloud, Anna would have laughed herself. It wasn't so hard to summon a confederate, though Anna herself did so rarely. All you had to do was ring a bell. The thing is her pockets somewhere, she's sure. Or perhaps it tumbled out, now useless, when they had been besieged tumbling from the rift. It was easy to summon a hunter in a dream; dreams nested in dreams, guarded by nightmares and foolish men gone mad in the cages they made... ]

It can be kept at bay. Powers and madness far beyond the likes of me.

[ She doesn't really string that together in a full sentence, she's chewing on the corner of her lip instead. She doesn't like to think about what had been done to stop Yharnam in that final ugly night. She doesn't want to think about the intentions, nor the means. She already knows more than she wishes she did and the whole of it is disgusting. Rot catches in her eye and she flinches, lifting the back of her hand to dab at it. ]

[heirring]

[It sounds, Wysteria thinks, like the kind of strange old superstitions a hedgewitch might say. Be careful not to wander in these woods when the mood is such shape, child, or you'll find yourself in a night that lasts half your life. It's a silly old, grandmothery thing for a woman so young to be saying. Though, if this is a dream then there must be no rules about what a hedgewitch looks like and if it isn't (ha), then all witches are young women at some point. Besides, her companion at least looks the part in other ways. Bedraggled and rough - my, all that ratty hair!]

Then lets hope those powers aren't at work tonight. [Her breeziness is clearly a fiction, but she likes to believe if she commits herself to it then in a few minutes it will be true. Stiff upper lip and all that, Wysteria.] I'd very much like to wake up to a bit of sunshine given the choice. I'm already a heavy a sleeper; night eternal would make it completely impossible to find my way out of bed.

[notched]

[ It's exactly that sort of thing. That's exactly how Anna, at least, had come to be a part of that night. How she had become moon-scented, recognizable to those with the noses for such things. ]

You're a posh girl.

[ Did she mean to say that? Her regulation for such things is broken after so much time alone. ]

I mean...

[ But what did she mean? And she trails off with a sigh. ]

[heirring]

[It's-- it's not at all what she expects. So much so that she laughs again, this time with enough shock to be slightly more genuine, more even keeled.]

Me? My gods, you must have hit your head on the way through the hole in the sky. My dear, you really have mistaken me for someone else entirely.

[Her? Posh? Spirits, her mother would wake up with ten less gray hairs at the mere suggestion.]

[notched]

[ Oh great ones... The laughter makes her large eyes go round, and she looks as startled and confused as a cat. What the fuck is laughter. Who does that except psychopaths like Alfred?

She's so tongue-tied she says nothing for a long moment, ]

I'd be dead if I were a heavy sleeper.

[ She is considering the ability to sleep deeply as a luxury. When she was young, she would have considered a bed a luxury. A mother a luxury. #TroubledChildhood ]

[heirring]

[It's as if she's spoken something in a different language entirely. Wysteria gives her a questioning sideways glance, that laughter resolving into something of a proverbial question mark. The young lady is a bit queer, isn't she?]

Well. [Well, what does she say to that?] I'm sorry. You should give it a try now that you're surrounded by-- well, not friends, exactly. But certainly people who don't seem keen on killing you while you sleep. I'm a great fan of a good, solid sleep now and again.

[She pokes once more at her ankle.]

[notched]

[ Brows pinching, as if that's the only expression she knows how to make. She hasn't so much as contemplated a smile this entire time, and something probably indicates it's a very difficult expression to get out of her. Anna is unrelentingly serious. She was never known for her sense of humor, nor her levity. Her enthusiasm and devotion for the Hunt, yes. Her company? No. ]

No. I'll be keeping watch.

[ And wondering what the point is because we're all going to die horribly anyway. ]

But you may rest at ease.

[ It's not like she needed your permission, Anna. ]

[heirring]

[How-- exhausting. Or maybe that's just the entirety of this everything catching up with her. But the words keeping watch, for all that they may be perfectly sensible, sound like the most trying combination of language ever conceived. Wysteria sighs heavily. She gives her ankle a last poke for good measure.]

I suppose someone has to do it. But really, you ought to mind yourself just a little. You'll wear yourself out with that kind of enthusiasm.

[She shifts then, testing her weight against the swollen joint.]

Best that I get this looked at and wrapped up, I suppose. If there's to be any hope of walking on it come morning, hm? [Clearly a metaphorical question as a moment later Wysteria is hopping to her feet with a sway of skirts and petticoats.] I'll be right back. Hold this shockingly comfortable seat on a log for me, would you?

[notched]

[ She does, for a few minutes. Enough that she feels she has met the criteria of 'minding herself just a little' and then she's gone to prowl the perimeters of their encampment. It would be a lie to say she didn't hope, a little, that more demons would come to taste her whip. ]