OPEN

[vorbratta]

WHO: Sonia Barra and YOU
WHAT: Wandering about the Gallows and Kirkwall, getting comfortable with her new locale, meeting people, all the good stuff
WHEN: this week, ish
WHERE: the Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: check out her info post if you're looking for a hook, or feel free to hit me up at runawayballista to plot something!

the courtyard
There's something decidedly gloomy about the Gallows -- all that statuary in the courtyard is off-putting enough, but the general air of urgency and pressing danger seems to fill the place with a psychological fog that dims the heart. It reminds her of the civil war, an echo of a feeling more than a memory. But that's the thing, isn't it? This is war, too. She can't have expected it to feel like anything else.

Maybe if the scenery were a little less grotesque she'd feel lighter. She'd brought her paints with her, all her supplies wrapped in a cloth bundle tucked under her arm, but as she stands at the edge of the courtyard staring at all those tortured souls immortalized in stone, she purses her lips in dismay and blows a piece of hair from her face with a puff of breath.

"Surely there has to be better scenery somewhere."

the baths
There's nothing like a good long journey to make one feel so deeply in need of a bath. Sonia's well-acquainted with travel, but the trip from Wildcrest to Denerim is a stone's throw compared to the long haul all the way to Kirkwall. She'd come down to the heated baths with a bucket fully intent on bringing some nice hot water up to her room for a private soak, but as she stares at the bucket in her hands and contemplates the five flights of stairs up to her room, the price of modesty suddenly seems far too high.

Hm, no. She's not body-shy enough for any more grueling stair-climbing, and she wants a hot bath more than anything else right now. She sets the bucket firmly down and begins to strip down. A heated bath sounds like absolute bliss right now.

the library
It's not so much that Sonia has a dedicated work ethic so much as she is occasionally inspired by fits of duty and honor and the prospect of doing something good. When she feels like it, she can sit at a desk all day writing and reading and sorting correspondence, setting up meetings, coordinating the minutiae of an important party -- when she feels like it, Sonia has boundless energy for work.

Today, she does not particularly feel like it. Today, she is not in the library to work or to study, but to take advantage of the quiet to nurse a moderate hangover. It's a cruel cosmic joke that fun sometimes comes at such a vicious price, one she mourns as she stares blearily at the book laid open in front of her. It's some history or another -- she didn't really pay attention to the title when she grabbed it, she just needed something to put in front of her to distract from the fact that she is, actually, still drinking. From a flask this time, and a classily ornamental one at that, but anyone who gets close enough will be able to tell that it is most definitely not water.

kirkwall
Shopping! So much shopping. Sonia has, honestly, missed shopping. The journey to Kirkwall hadn't really permitted any detours, and there's something about packing up and leaving home that just makes her want things. Not just any things -- she's not usually in the habit of picking up bric-a-brac simply to collect. Some nice clothes and a few fine bottles of wine would do nicely.

"Pardon me -- hello!" She smiles sunnily, waving down someone she thinks might be able to help, familiar face or no. "You don't happen to know the merchants around here, do you? I've got a bit of a shopping list, and I'd rather skip over the ones not worth dealing with."

wildcard
SURPRISE ME MY DUDES

Comments

[vorbratta]

Sonia nods, her eyes bright and intent. Gwen has made an impression on her already -- reinforcing her own ideas about being here. That just being here matters. That they can't give up without a fight.

"We have to at least try," she says, her voice a little muted, but it echoes hollowly off the water. "I don't understand the ambivalence. I don't understand just...sitting around, waiting for bad things to happen."

[elegiaque]

“Someone else will handle it, or, it isn't their problem yet, nevermind how much worse it'll be by the time they realise that it is, or they think they can benefit from the chaos, or...”

A hundred selfish things that come all too easily to mind.

“We have to step with such care around things that don't matter, it's stupid.”