THE SKULL IS IN

[skulltasm]

WHO: Eshal, Haku, Laura, and anyone else!
WHAT: Catch-all threading
WHEN: During this heat wave, of course! But not during Monster Madness.
WHERE: Everywhere!
NOTES: Bad advice.

I. ESHAL

It is an ongoing mystery how Skull ends up where he does. He is frequently decorating some surface in the Seneschal's office, in the library, in the dining hall, or propping open doors, or being a perch for some damned raven, or being used to crack open hard-shelled nuts.

It's all very demeaning. Particularly when it forces you to depend on the kindness of morons.

"YOO-HOO, OVER HERE!"

II. HAKU

This time, he's in the storeroom, right next to a jar of pickles. Leering would work so much better if he weren't on such a low shelf.

"YOU'RE A LONG WAY FROM HOME."

He says it to a set of ankles. It's a safe enough assumption even for one who isn't fairly sure those ankles came from a different world.

III. LAURA

And then there's this one, with knives for bones and all the trappings of a feral child.

"AN ODD DUCK, THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE."

IV. OTA - WILDCARD

[[ Feel free to godmod where Skull ends up. He's bound to turn up literally anywhere. ]]

Comments

II

[thekohakuriver]

And Haku, exploring with only sidelong purpose, passes right by that comment with the disdain it deserves. At the end of the shelf-row, he hesitates, curious despite himself.

This is stupid: he shouldn't be indulging the whims of random yokai hiding on shelves in the dark. That much is true, even if he's not doing much better himself, by skulking around. Haku is always skulking, these days. He has no choice.

But he does have a choice in this; he turns around, coming back into Skull's view, and then crouches to stare directly into his eyesockets.

He stays like that for a few seconds, considering. Haku doesn't seem surprised by what he sees, or alarmed, only curious in the same way one might be to see that a sock has gone missing in the wash, or a package mislabeled.

"So are you," He says, finally, quite as if he knows exactly where Skull belongs, and isn't concerned that it might not be somewhere pleasant, "Though as it happens, I don't have a home right now."

Not strictly true. But he's not sure he'd call what he does have an actual home, at any rate.

I(t me).

[saam]

She's paging through the library, trying to find books with more pictures, or maybe some maps, and then-

Eshal's scream is loud and bellowing. She stumbles backward a step, but refuses to be afraid-- anger is easier-- and immediately picks the skull up. Qunari are afraid of magic. She is not qunari.

"What the fuck is this?" She groans, and slides the jar under her arm, intending to find the prankster.

iv

[limier]

Crack —

Coupe sets the jar back upon its perch: Today, the window of a watchtower. They’ve been nominated to guard duty.

A responsibility that she is, of course, treating with the solemnity and vigilance it’s due. That's why she’s reclining, wet cloth across a sweaty brow, amid a growing pile of walnut shells.

“Whose head was it?”

[justashotaway]

The corridor is dark, and Laura hears no footsteps. She has been assuming she is alone.

But then there's a voice, unfamiliar and deeply strange: the stone echoes, but she doesn't smell anyone there. She freezes into a fighter's stance, claws giving off a deceptively soft glow. It's only after they come out that she realizes she brought them out.

"Who's there?" she demands, her voice a hiss.

[skulltasm]

"AND AS IT HAPPENS, THIS JAR IS MY HOME, SO I'M NOT FAR AT ALL."

The Skull bobs gently in the noxious green of its plasm, the motion hinging its jaw as if in speech.

"BUT I WOULD RATHER NOT BE SHARING A SHELF WITH PICKLED VEGETABLES, IF YOU DON'T MIND."

[skulltasm]

"THIS IS A SKULL IN A JAR, NEATLY TUCKED UNDER YOUR ARM AND VERY GLAD THAT IT DOESN'T HAVE A SENSE OF SMELL."

The insinuation, naturally, being that she looks like someone who would smell.

[saam]

"Fuck off, head," she murmurs, before she realizes she's talking to, well, a head. She holds it up to stare into its eye... sockets.

"No tongue or lips. There's no damn point to you, is there?" A sharp smile. She keeps walking.

[skulltasm]

The motion of being used as a nutcracker has the skull lolling about within its plasm, green-faced because the plasm is green, not because of any kind of motion sickness, though for the first few cracks he did pretend to retch, complete with comical illusory visage.

Now, though, he's little better than a skull-shaped pip in a jar-shaped magic 8-ball. Unclear. Ask again later.

"MINE, OF COURSE."

[skulltasm]

"OOH, CAREFUL WITH THOSE. YOU MIGHT PUT AN EYE OUT."

The voice is coming from beneath a cloth-draped side table, tucked against a wall in an alcove. Someone's attempt to make the corridor more homey, probably.

[skulltasm]

The teeth chatter indignantly.

"THERE'S NO POINT TO YOU, EITHER, KID. SO I'D SAY WE'RE ABOUT EVEN."

[saam]

She clacks her teeth back at him, it, whatever. Mocking.

"Funny little head in a jar. Can you do magic, head? Or are you magic?" An idea is forming.

[skulltasm]

"...I DON'T LIKE THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES, MORTAL."

[saam]

Fear is good. She can work with fear. She kisses the glass of the jar, more for effect than genuine affection. Obviously.

"I don't like that you don't have eyes. Can't be picky, hm?"

[skulltasm]

Oh but he can! One by one, two eyes pop into existence in Skull's sockets. Too-round, too-mobile, and moving independent of one another.

"BETTER?

[saam]

She cackles, delighted.

"What else can you do?" She shakes him a little, sloshing the goo in the jar about.

[skulltasm]

As if jostled loose, one of the phantom eyeballs rolls out of its socket and bounces once on the glass before disappearing like a popped soap bubble.

"STOP THAT! STOP! THE INDIGNITY!"

[saam]

Time to shake even harder, then. "Answer my questions, then."

[skulltasm]

"AIIIIIEEEEEEE! A-AM MAGIC! CAN'T DO ANYTHIIING!"

With luck, Bartimaeus won't be around to overhear this admission. Skull would never hear the end of it. Bad enough he always shows off by walking.

[thekohakuriver]

"Must be nice," Haku replies, flat. He doesn't appreciate you, Skull, but then genius is rarely recognized in its own time.

He almost says what's in it for me. The words stand in the coldness of his eyes, and the steady gaze, like two chips of green ice. But then Haku bends a little further, and grips the jar with both slim hands. It doesn't look like he ought to be able to lift it, slim elf-shaped person that he is, but Haku seems to have no trouble at all.

He's not completely without spite though; he tucks the jar under his arm, and walks right out of the room. Got a perfect spot for you, Skull, and we're on our way to it.

[skulltasm]

"Nice? NICE!? TO BE IMPRISONED IN A JAR? YOU MUST BE JOKING,"

Skull bobs and drifts in the sloshing green ooze as Haku absconds with the jar.

"AT THE MERCY OF ANYONE WITH A MIND TO HAUL YOU OFF SOMEWHERE? DO YOU KNOW, I WAS ON THAT QUNARI DREADNOUGHT FOR AGES BEFORE SOMEBODY CAME TO FIND ME."

[thekohakuriver]

Haku lets him rant, saying nothing at first. The gallows is an odd tower, originally constructed for what was, at the time, considered merely a sort of livestock. The stairwells are therefore wider than they ought to be in many places, all the better to move masses upwards and down along the tracts of mercantile interests. But here, he's turned and is now climbing, jar still tucked askew under one arm, up a much narrower flight.

Up and up, round and round, ever tighter, and the sounds of life below grow slowly quieter. The rush of wind begins to claim precedence, and still Haku climbs. He isn't listening very well, he's thinking of another climb, another tower.

"It could be worse," Haku replies, finally, rousing from his reverie with a sharp, refreshing inhale, "Do you have a name?"

[skulltasm]

There's a pause in the Skull's rant at the question. It floats idly for a second before responding.

"I MUST HAVE, LONG AGO. CAN'T REMEMBER IT NOW, BUT WHO NEEDS NAMES ANYWAY?"

[thekohakuriver]

Haku hesitates. There's a roof above them or a ceiling, the wooden bottom of a floor.

"People who want to live outside of jars," He replies, very quietly, then continues upwards, feeling in the dim light for a catch, then pushes at the wooden surface. It gives, admitting them both into a claustrophobic little space, with a sharply slanted roof; it's narrow enough that Haku has to put the jar through first, and then climb up after. The effect is much like being inside a stone-and-wooden tent.

When Haku pulls the trap door shut after them, it is pitchy black. Then, there is light; a little bobbing glow, like a droplet of water in Haku's palm, illuminating the space.

"Don't worry, I'm not leaving you here in the dark," He says, and almost smiles, "Look at this."

There's a little give in part of the roof. When Haku pushes it up and open, the sudden daylight is blinding; it's a beautiful day, and on the stone crenelation just visible from this angle, there's a seagull perched, looking out over kirkwall from on high.

[skulltasm]

".....OHHH YOU LITTLE SHIT."

[thekohakuriver]

"I could put you back with the pickles," He points out, while carefully wedging the jar into a secure place, "But I won't."

It really is a beautiful day, and from here you can see out over the greyish waters of the bay and the city of chains itself. Laid out like a map, it's all there, the dingy warehouse district and the round scar where the Qunari compound once was, now overrun by squatters and other entrepreneurial folk. Sunlight glints off the white walls of hightown, and if one squints then the little hightown copse of trees where the Chantry used to be is even visible, a tuft of green among the grey and white stone, just aside the viscount's palace.

The seagull drops away in fright, a glorious vision of white-winged freedom. The door shuts. Skull is alone.