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

[galvanising]

"Why the fuck would I tell you about it?" is something Nell would say without any external compulsion at all, "You made it very clear you weren't interested in lifting a finger to do anything about the election. You wouldn't even work against Clorentine when Skyhold agreed she was a disaster that needed to be stopped. Of course nobody would tell you about this."

[exequy]

“Because—” he starts to say, but she keeps talking. And he hears her. But he also resumes well before she’s finished. “Because I have to live with it. I always have to live—do you think anyone is going to believe it if I say I didn’t know?” He no longer qualifies as quiet. Not loud, either, but his fists are balled. “Do you think anyone would believe I didn’t know about the blood magic? About fucking Nevarra? I am going to spend the rest of my life hiding your stupid fucking decisions.”

[galvanising]

"So, what," she says, the split-second comma-like pause key to converting this from the dismissive question to the prelude to a different dismissive question, "I'm supposed to live my life by your rules so you don't feel guilty by association? Sit by and twiddle my thumbs on the sidelines while everything stays shit so you can feel good about yourself in confession? You chose to work with me, Kostos. You chose during the war, and you chose to stay with me after, and you chose to start up again here. You chose to help me in Nevarra City. You chose to help me with the strike. You saddle yourself with my stupid fucking decisions, you're just too much of a coward to ever admit why."

[exequy]

Slipped in like a dagger, that coward, between armor panels, quick and sharp and barely felt at first—when you know something's cut, you know you're bleeding, but you think you might survive it if you keep fighting, and he lifts his chin like he's squaring off.

"Because I care about you," more spat than soothing, "and I keep thinking that we're some sort of fucking team, and when you veer off without warning and jump off the ledge into some stupid—bullshit—"

He doesn't let himself struggle for the words long enough to leave space for her to elbow back in. He'd rather just sound stupid. But he switches to Nevarran, in the process, because it's easier, and because he means it.

"—thing that's going to make everything worse, I can pull you back, and all of the damage and the murder was just a mistake. But it's not. It's what you are. I don't know if you're stupid, or it's revenge, or if something's broken in your head—I don't care. I'm done."