[open/intro] gimme shelter.

[justashotaway]

WHO: Laura Kint + YOU
WHAT: Laura shows up for...work? Kind of work. She shows up to stab things and eat food and maybe frown at ghost costumes.
WHEN: The first week(ish) of August
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: Please consider filling out Laura's permissions if you haven't already. CW TBD.

all souls.

Laura has never celebrated All Soul's Day before, which makes her first night in Kirkwall...unusual. People dressed as ghosts, bonfires everywhere, the smell of sweets masking some of the city's riper odors. Tomorrow, she'll go to the Gallows and demand entry, payment, protection--whatever it is she can expect from them at this point. That Riftwatch is no longer the Inquisition hadn't been carried as rumor to her corner of Cumberland (or if it had, she hadn't noticed), but it sounds as though they no longer have the same kind of favor they once did. It is a concern.

But a concern of unknown quantities, and that means it is for tomorrow. Tonight, she is in Kirkwall, where everyone around her seems to be pretending to be dead.

"Is it always like this?" she asks in slightly accented Trade, frowning at a huge pile branches about to be set afire.

eyrie.

She's never seen griffons before, either, and she's not sure she quite believes her eyes. Laura smells them first and follows the scent--an animal, clearly, but one she doesn't recognize, feathers and fur all at once--up and up stone steps until she's at the top of a tower, in the middle of a doorway.

One of the creatures looks at her, and she looks back levelly, her tentative fascination nowhere close to her face. It's like something out of a fairy tale, stopping her in her tracks. Hope you weren't planning to get through: she's going to be rooted to the spot for a bit, wary of getting too close to the beasts but evidently fascinated by them.

dinner.

She has, however, eaten before. And around other people, no less, though she gives approximately no care toward others' sensibilities when she's presented with food. It doesn't matter what it is, only that it's there and she hasn't had to do anything to get it except promise to fight for Riftwatch.

Coming to Kirkwall was a long walk through endless forests, one she's still hungry from. While she'd eaten reasonably well at times--nugs, mostly--it wasn't quite enough by the time she'd actually arrived at the Gallows.

At every meal for the first few days, she eats with determined speed. The claw over her right forefinger comes out, ghostly and terribly dangerous all at once, every time she needs to slice something or jab a morsel off a serving tray.

sparring.

It's no surprise that she ends up at the armory complex--someone probably told her to go there, for one thing, and for another, fighting's one of the things she knows intimately. And she stays in that area for some time, watching sparring matches with grim fascination, as if she's memorizing each move.

Ask her if she needs a weapon, and she'll shake her head. One hand goes up, two not-quite-there claws shimmer from between her knuckles.

Ask her if she wants to try a round, and that will get a nod. Having replaced (possibly by stealing) her worn, ill-fitting skirt for pair of black breeches, she's even more ready for a fight than usual.

around.

Laura's a small, human woman around sixteen or seventeen, who dresses entirely in black and skulks around the Gallows like she's still not sure she belongs there. She spends a good deal of time at the tops of towers, near windows, climbing things that probably shouldn't be climbed, and lurking in dark corners. She might enter your room to investigate it, without thinking about the fact that it's yours. Or she might stare a little too long, like she's trying to understand something or decide something. Maybe you're the person she took a pair of breeches from, or a pair of boots. It's not so hard to find her in the library, near the herb gardens, or perched on windowsills. When she's actively trying to conceal herself, she's more difficult to pick out from the rafters.

If you want to plot something specific, please reach out! Let's make your dreams come true.

Comments

sparring.

[tender]

Derrica's breath catches, watching Laura's hands.

She's had her go in the ring, emerged sweaty and pleased with herself. She'd traded her staff for a light wooden stave; she won't need magic for this type of sparring. Having lost a partner, she'd drawn to the side to wait for someone new to present themselves, but this girl's hands—

Laura had been watching. Derrica might have introduced herself properly at some point, but she has questions now. It takes her a moment before she draws a few steps closer, eyes flicking up to Laura's face.

"I'd like to go another few rounds today, if you'd like a partner."

It's likely rude to lead off with immediate questions about how this young woman acquired those possibly-claws. Not everyone encourages curiosity. That's one of the first things Derrica had learned when she'd been driven out of Dairsmuid.

[justashotaway]

Laura's claws disappear into air as she turns her attention towards the woman approaching. The question of weapons is not relevant for the moment, and the man who'd asked her about them is walking away--she doesn't need them out anymore.

Silently, she glances over her potential sparring partner. Potentially already tired but clearly strong, from the look of her upper body. Worthy as an opponent.

"Yes," she decides, nodding curtly. "Do you want a weapon?"

[tender]

"That depends," Derrica answers, hesitating a moment before continuing, "Are you going to use those?"

She nods at Laura's hands. The shimmer of claws are gone, as if they had never been.

There's no real objection to them in Derrica's voice. She's holding down her own questions, certainly, but there's more interest than anything else. Derrica's tutelage had come to such an abrupt halt that there are many spells and ways to utilize magic that she doesn't know of. If this is a spell, she'd like to know more of it. If it isn't—

Well, what else could it be? It's beyond Derrica to theorize.

[justashotaway]

Laura glances down at her hands, then shrugs. "Maybe."

It does not matter to her whether she fights with hands and claws or picks up some kind of weapon. She's comfortable either way--itching, in fact, to be doing something active. Life at the Gallows has not been sedentary, exactly, but she misses working her body hard and seeing just what it can take.