EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: TRUTH BOMB
WHEN: Bloomingtide 15-17
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC information. Use appropriate content warnings in your subject lines, please.

It’s an ordinary day—so not a very pleasant one. The weather is dreary and muggy, and the day’s lunch is a soup that’s a little too watery and bland. The griffons are being their usual level of noisy and swoopy. The work is its usual level of urgent and difficult.

But in the storage rooms, something wiggles. Then it hums. Then it pops.

Outside of the storage room, there’s no actual sound, no shift in the wind, and no visible sign of a change. But the pop might be felt—like the moment something finally clicks, or two ideas suddenly fit together, except the opposite. In the heads of everyone in the fortress, something is suddenly not connected quite right.

The first sign of what’s gone wrong is that someone immediately stands up and tells the cook how bad the soup is.

A lot of people’s days are about to get exponentially worse.

Comments

[sulahnan]

She freezes, her mouth agape like some kind of dumbstruck fish who is also a buffoon. After a beat, she manages to clamp her mouth shut and make some kind of weighing hum, as if trying to remember how to speak. She almost gets there.

"There wasn't but now I--Ijustgottasaythatummmmm--" The elf clears her throat, holding the book to herself as if it might magically get big enough to hide behind. "Whooooo youuuuuu're so handsome and I kinda wish I'd been sitting over there for a better view when you walked in and that'sveryinappropriateI'msosorry."

Thank the Maker that her skin is as dark as it is, it might just hide how warm her whole face is. She stares bug-eyed at nothing a few feet ahead of her instead of at him, and croaks in a small voice: "Nice to meet you?"

[thorndergod]

That's about the last thing he'd expect out of the mouth of an elf, and Thor blinks at her. Yelling about slavery, certainly, but gushing over his looks? He straightens despite himself, anger transforming into pride.

"I thank you." He works hard to look this good. Why wouldn't people notice? "You do not have to apologize. You are with the Inquisition?" Perhaps she's looking for a place. Their household is due to increase shortly here and an elf with taste is preferable to one with none.

[sulahnan]

She can't help but stare when he stands taller, heightening her awareness of just how very tall that is.

"You could snap me like a twig and I wouldn't mind...Ahem, yes. Scouting." She nods and, as an afterthought, holds out her hand in introduction.

"Athessa. You can call me Tess. Or...whatever you like."

[thorndergod]

"I could snap most elves like twigs and barely notice. You are all small. But I think most would mind. Most elves would mind, that is to say." Would anyone else really notice? Certainly if the elf was owned by someone the owner would mind, but in the South no one actually cared. They just pretended.

After a beat, he holds out his hand in return. "Thor, of House Asgard." While he doesn't think highly of elves in general, he won't deny that they're good at scouting. She's chosen, or been assigned to, a position suited to her race. "I am in Forces,Athessa."

[sulahnan]

The difference between most would mind and most elves would mind doesn't strike Athessa just yet, because during the time that her brain should connect those dots, her mouth is too busy saying:

"Oh, that's not--I wasn't meaning literally, I meant like, in a sexual way but you're right, we should just breeze past that, save us both the embarrassment. Smart. Forces, huh? That makes sense. Put all that strength to good use."

She nods through her rambling, then clamps her mouth shut to keep anything else from tumbling out. What is wrong with me?! Someone ought to gag me or something. He should do it. Oh, for fucks sake--