RIFTER ARRIVAL: Guardian 9:45

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters, rescuers, and anyone else
WHAT: New arrivals are collected and transported to Kirkwall
WHEN: Mid-Guardian, 9:45
WHERE: The hills north of Starkhaven
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

[cyclic]

The sudden interruption doesn't get much of a response, immediately. It does cause the bowl in his hands to slip into a perilous tilt, spilling soup on his hand and the ground, and it does nearly knock him off his perch on a cracked block of stone. But there's no shout of dismay, no severe look; it takes him a moment to snap out of whatever place his mind's wandered off to, and when he looks up at her his expression is blank.

Carefully blank. Neutral to the degree that the immediate impression is of a chilly disinterest, though that's countered slightly by the way he looks her over, studying.

"It's fine," also neutral. Polite. There's a dull pause, and the follow-up sounds a bit rote. Something obvious to say, also polite. "Would you like to sit?"

[seaboard]

Like is a strange word to her mind, what she would like is to be left alone, what she would like is to curl up and weep until this all went away, and what she would like is to curl up once more in her mother's arms and ask her what to do.

But here she is, being asked a question. And when did she refuse anything? Not in greed, but in some terrible fear of being rude.

"That is kind of you, sir, thank you."

The refinement is there, if different, in the way she arranges herself. Though the blood stains her clothes and the fear taints her movements. But she sweeps the skirts delicately, she curls her fingers lightly to brush the frazzled locks of hair out of her face (to no effect, there is no keeping them out of the way really), and she settled with her legs neatly underself, hands in her lap and her eyes turned down.

Mercifully, however, silent.