faderift | EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( gwenaëlle sets her sewing down.

(the pointed look goes ignored.) )

What do you want out of saying this?

( it's a matter of fact question. what does she expect to achieve? what's she looking for? justification, an argument, comfort? none or all of the above? )

Nothing. The saying of it. Everyone else in the whole of my life will take my worries and attempt to use them as a prybar to change my course to something they deem more clever. You will listen to them, tell me I am being an idiot, and then proceed to let me be an idiot if I am still so inclined. Which I am.

And then for some absurd reason you will stand by me in any case, which makes you the finest friend I have ever had. [ this, delivered as if it makes her cross. ]

Because I'm the finest friend you've ever had, ( as if this is a very reasonable thing to declare for oneself, like it's a fact. which as far as she's concerned it is, so: you're welcome, lexie.

she regards her with a somewhat tired eye—there is a reason she's avoided having to directly address this, and it's because...well, that's so. she disagrees with what alexandrie is doing, and where she is going, but she knows better than to think she'll be talked out of it, or that alienating her entirely is going to help anyone, so, )

Of course you're being an idiot. If you manage to get within grasping distance of half the things you purport to want, you're either going to die or be so humiliated you'll wish you had.

( maybe she'd have managed not to say that part out loud, another day, )

You know it's stupid and wrong, and you're going to do it regardless. I don't see the point in making you do it friendless as well. There's a slim chance that at some point you will come to your senses, at which point it'll be better you don't feel you can't come to me, and if you don't, at least you'll know someone cared. For you, and not just for what your feelings do for them.

( if that's pointed, she doubts it's going to cut hard through alexandrie's dick haze. )

You are, I assume, not as stupid as your brother-in-wish, ( it's never going to be in law, not now, ) to carry on shouting those intentions from the rooftops. I shouldn't have to tell you how to play your hand. You are supposed to be better at this than me. You can understand why, then, I'm not necessarily expecting to have to stand by it indefinitely.

( because thor wasn't smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and they are at war with tevinter, and those are potentially very useful prisoners of war if someone's head doesn't get pulled in. why should she argue with lexie when the war itself might solve this problem for her? )

A lot of things are going to happen. We can't predict them all.

[ Speaking to Gwenaëlle on matters they diverge on is much like eating a fine fish cooked whole. The flesh of it is always good, but it is filled with a ready supply of sharp thin slivers of bone dispersed through it.

If Alexandrie minded needles she wouldn't talk to the woman at all, let alone about this, let alone today. So she listens. ]

I shall endeavor to return to some of my senses, at the very least. And once I have, well. I have turned disasters of my own foolish making to cards before.

[ She lifts a shoulder. It's almost certainly not what Gwen meant when advising her to play a different game, but here we are.

After a moment she shifts to settle her elbow on the arm of the chair, her chin on the curl of her hand, to regard Gwenaelle with curiosity and make a steady inquiry where fears might once have made her snappish; there is little foothold for them now. ]

Why is it you maintain he does not truly care for me?

I'm sure that you imagine there's basis for any other opinion in anything you've said or done or shown me over the past months, ( on this note returning to her sewing, and apparently considering the matter drawing to a close rather than beginning a new line of discussion,

because maker knows she has absolutely no interest in arguing the finer points of it with alexandrie on any day, )

but I haven't the faintest idea what that is, and I can't say it seems like the most pressing thing in front of us at the moment.

[ A displeased noise. But what point is there in arguing? Despite the public nature of their involvement she and Loki have kept their genuine intimacies largely to themselves, and she's not about to strew them on the floor like so much straw in a vain attempt to win acceptance she won't get. ]

And the most pressing thing?

Well,

( extraordinarily dryly, )

I might be mistaken, but I think it's probably Corypheus.

( she doesn't think she's mistaken, it is definitely corypheus. the war. at any given moment, it's corypheus, which doesn't actually mean nothing else ever can be discussed or addressed, but

this is already more than she wants to discuss this particular subject. )

[ the look Alexandrie returns Gwenaelle is as arid as the latter's tone. ]

I rather thought it was this catastrophic miasma covering the island prompting many of us to speak about things we would largely prefer to keep to ourselves. [ you know, like this, but thanks for listening. ]

It is difficult to combat Corypheus when we are in quarantine. Again. Something is hideously wrong with this island.

( genuine surprise, now- )

The what?

( look, she's been in this room on her own and busy, and absolutely nothing she just said needed magic to prompt it. the likelihood of her having noticed already was slim at best. )

[ For a moment, Alexandrie just looks at her. Then, a small wry smile twitches at the corner of her mouth. ]

You have an exciting repository of crystal messages to listen to whilst you finish that mending.

( the small noise of disgust, )

What are you talking about? What's going on now?

( and then, mildly aggrieved, ) I should think it'd do everyone a bit of good to say what they fucking mean for once.

The cause remains unknown, but all on the island seem to have developed varying degrees of compulsory engagement in saying what they fucking mean for once.

Which I am sure is doing a bit of good for those who do not know dangerous or inconvenient things that might be forcibly divulged where the rank and file might hear them [ say: the Division Heads, any number of spies, (one particular spy), ] or those whose sudden violent abandonment of the small degree of politicking they are capable of does not spark further ill-will for their country, and consequently their family, and consequently me [ say: Thor. ]

EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

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