faderift | [Open] The World It Learns

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[Open] The World It Learns

WHO: Jamie McCrimmon and you!
WHAT: Rifter reflections and various other things
WHEN: Mid-to-late Haring unless otherwise specified
WHERE: Various places in Skyhold
NOTES: Either brackets or prose is fine with me, so feel free to use either and I will match your style. I'm also happy to set threads prior to the Abomination appearing, so if you would prefer one of those, just say so in the header. Will update warnings as needed.

Battlements
[Monsters. It seems no matter where he goes, there's monsters. It's something that's been a part of his life for so long now that he normally he doesn't even think twice about the fact they're here, too, just falls into the habits he's developed over the past few years when they turn up.

The night the Abomination shows up is one of those nights, although he doesn't wind up facing it directly. Instead, he helps others get out of its path and tries to keep the fires from spreading, and when all is said and done the night becomes a bit of a blur. It's not until a few days later that he finds himself up on the battlements, staring down at the Courtyard below.

It's entirely not because of what's happened, although it is part of it. Losing people is never easy, and there's a part of him that regrets they couldn't do more to save them, especially that poor mage lass who'd never stood a chance. However, what happened also reminds him all too much of the way life used to be, before he'd fallen through the rift. Only a few months ago he'd still been with the Doctor and Zoe, fighting beasties and helping the people wherever they'd wound up. Sometimes they'd died, too, but they'd done their best to stop things from getting worse. Maybe he's doing the same here now, in a way, but now he's doing it alone. As much as he likes to think that he can handle what this world is throwing at him, deep down he misses his friends - and he winds up caught up in those thoughts, making it all too easy to sneak up on him at the moment and catch him unawares.]

Library
[Jamie's not normally the sort to be found in the library. He's neither a mage or a scholar, and much prefers trying to see about getting something to eat rather than nosing around old books. But the longer he's here, the more he's starting to realize that the books here can be useful, too. The main problem with that - or with reading anything that's being written down around here - is that he has no idea how to make heads or tales out of the runes people seem to be using for writing. Having to learn to read all over again in the space of only a few years isn't something he's particularly keen on doing, but given that it could be something that would be handy to know, he's determined to figure it out.

The problem, in his case, is getting started. There were books the Doctor used to when he first taught him to read. Simple children's books, ones where it was easy enough to take the letters he'd been taught and string them into words, and from there, start to puzzle out sentences. He hasn't seen all that many children about, but the library here has a lot of different books. Surely there's something her that'd work. On the days he's trying to find these books anyone who happens to come by the library can find him pulling tomes off the shelves, leafing through them (often while the book is upside down), and putting them back again, although not necessarily the right way around. Sometimes he finds a couple that look almost promising, and settles in a nearby chair, slowly tracing the symbols with a finger as if trying to make some sort of sense out of them. More often than not, though, he simply winds up looking frustrated with the whole exercise and winds up grumbling to himself. He tries to keep that part of things quiet...but he's also not particularly good at always being quiet. If it means he gets glared at, well, that's only to be expected.]

Out and about
[Being at Skyhold for the moment means that he can be found just about anywhere: having a drink at the tavern, trying to sneak a bit of food from the kitchens, or hanging out with the horses in the stables. Occasionally he can be found carving a piece of wood. It's a longer piece, about the length of someone's forearm, and to those who can recognize such it's slowly starting to resemble something rather akin to a recorder, although still very roughly formed. He seems to be taking his time with it, although it's hard to say if it's because he wants it to be perfect or if he just needs the practice. Either way, if you need him for something, you should be able to track him down one way or another.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She folds her arms on the table, leveling him with a grey-eyed look that is completely serious, even if her lips are still curving up at the corners.

"I am. But because you didn't tell me you were alive you get a moment of Free Marcher's accent." She gave him a measured look for a minute longer, before she sighed softly, "It must have been very bad, for you to have forgotten."

There you go, Jamie. You have an out as long as you tell her what happened.

His own expression grows quite solemn at that, a seriousness that replaces that faintly guilty expression. It was bad, although he hadn't had the worst of it, unlike the people who'd been in the garden at the time.

"I'd been sleeping when it happened so I'm not sure how it started, but aye, it was. From what I've heard, one of the mages that was sleeping the garden sort of...changed into some sort of monster. It attacked the mages there, and then it started attacking other places."

He doesn't say exactly what happened to those mages, but the look on his face says it for him, a sadness in his eyes mixed with the knowledge there was nothing he could do for them.

"It had some some sort of fire magic, and it was all we could do to keep it from spreading. Between that and getting the people who couldn't fight somewhere safe...everything was a bit of a blur, to tell you the truth."

She listened quietly to Jamie, folding her hands together on the table tightly while he told her what happened. He doesn't have to tell her what happened to those mages - she's seen what happens when abominations rise. Her gaze shifts down to the table, and she inhales, sharply.

She looks back up to him, her voice rough, "...I am so sorry I wasn't here to help. With any of it." A pause, and a quiet, "How did everyone stop it?"

Edited 2015-12-29 23:57 (UTC)

"Aye, well, there's no way you would've known."

No way anyone away from Skyhold would've known, given how fast everything happened. She shouldn't blame herself for that - never mind that he would've done the same, had their places been reversed - and he tries to put as much of that as he can in the look he gives her after that.

Still, when she mentions it being stopped, he winds up hesitating, bringing up a hand to rub at his eyebrow in an effort to try and think of how to put it. So much of that evening is a blur, and it's hard to remember what exactly happened to the creature itself.

Eventually, though, he ventures, "There...there was a group that drew it out, away from the gardens and into the main hall. Mages, mostly, but there might have been one or two other people there, too."

He'd heard the Commander shouting things, and he thought he might have glimpsed Adelaide, but he's uncertain enough about how much they participated that he doesn't mention anyone by name.

"I'm afraid I don't know enough about magic to know what all they did, but they managed to bring it down after some time. Not before...well, you've seen some of the damage, surely?"

"No ... it doesn't mean I don't feel like I could have done something, though." She sighed again, trying not to imagine dead bodies in front of her. It is ... hard. Instead, she focuses on the problem before them - or rather, the story of the problem.

Of course, since it involved an abomination wandering free, she was certain it was going to involve a lot more problems in the future.

"That ... sounds about right." She nodded her head soberly, "The garden. The bloodstains. Guess they haven't scrubbed it all clean yet."

"That one balcony inside took a pretty good hit, too," he adds in a fairly matter-of-fact way. Still, it's all too easy to remember the chaos, even if he doesn't recall all the specifics, and he lapses into silence for a few moments after that, a somewhat subdued expression on his face. Before the silence can stretch into something completely uncomfortable, however, he winds up piping up again.

"By the time they were able to defeat it and we'd managed to put out the fires, everyone was exhausted. I don't even remember getting back to the stables, only that I woke up there. Like I said, it'd not even occurred to me to contact you about it. With any luck we'll not have to worry about that again, though."

"Better a balcony than any more people... " Katniss murmured quietly, before she sighed herself and brought her hands up to her face to rub it. Then she looked back over at him, going to reach out and take his hands. Squeezing them between her own.

"I hope so too. I've spoken to my mage friends - it looks like they are already putting things into place so this doesn't happen again."

A flicker of a smile crossed his face when she took his hands, and he curled his fingers around hers as best as he could to give her a squeeze back.

"Aye, better that than anything else."

Still, people had been lost, and he'd been left wondering if it could've been stopped at all. From what she was saying, it seemed it could, something which got him to give her a closer, quizzical look.

"Wait, you mean they can stop something like that? I thought it just sort of...happened."

She gave him a game smile, because they both knew it was too little and too late, but to stop it in the future? She saw his confusion, before she pressed her lips together.

"There are ... ways. Some of them will not be used because of the cruelty -- but there are ways to train the mages to be able to resist demons in their sleep, and when they are awake. It gives them a fighting chance."

She shook her head, "No. It's a choice - a choice the mage makes, to allow a demon in."

"It's a choice?"

Disbelief colored his voice, in large part because he was having a very hard time trying to figure out why anyone would willingly want to do that. In fact, he was just about to ask "why?" when something occurred to him, and a more thoughtful look crept over his face instead.

"Wait a minute. Demons try to get people to listen to their lies, don't they? If they talked someone into accepting them then they'd be letting the demon in, and then...then that turns them into the abomination-thingy." He pursed his lips briefly, then went on. "So it's a choice, but not necessarily one they'd make if they could fight it better. Is that it?"

Katniss opened her mouth, but there was Jamie, thinking about it, so she held her tongue until he had finished. After he had, she tapped her nose a few times.

"Right on the mark. Demons are infamous liars and manipulators, and in our dreams we are vulnerable because we do not have all of our every day defenses up."

"Oh, I see. So the mages get the training, and they'll be stronger when they dream because of it."

It made sense, but there was still something missing, and his brow furrowed slightly as he tried to think of it. After a few seconds of that - and a bit of chewing on his lower lip - he thought he had it, however, and looked back up again.

"What about the rest of us, though? How do we protect ourselves when we dream?"

"Precisely." She paused, and then sighed, "Demons aren't attracted to normal dreamers, unless they're somehow special and even then, our connection to dreams so, so fragile that they can't go through us. But they can swarm around our nightmares and fears. Adelaide was telling me that with as many nightmares were flooding Skyhold after Haven and the war?"

She sighed. "We'd ... best make sure all the rifts stay closed, is all I am saying."

"Special, is it?"

He couldn't help but glance down at his hand after he said it, his mouth tugging off to one side just the tiniest amount at the same time. That was "special", right enough, and he only hoped she was right about the dreams being fragile enough to keep the demons from going through him. It was bad enough that they'd try and go through him in other ways when they fought them - but at least there he knew he could fight. And do something about those rifts, too. When he looked up again, it was with a determined look on his face.

"Good thing that us rifters have ways of helping stop them then. Assuming there's enough of us in any one given place to pull it off, anyway."

"As far as I understand it -- oh."

She stared at the shard in his hand, before her lips pressedtogether tightly. They didn't know enough about the shards to know if they did attract demons or spirits, but ... well.

"You're right, you can. And ... I think when we go back to Emprise du Lion -- a lot of you will be coming with us." She gave a crooked smile. "I asked specifically for more, outside of Kain."

Edited 2016-01-23 14:39 (UTC)

That got a slightly lopsided smile of his own in return, even as he let his hand drop back out of sight under the table.

"Well, I'd be going anyway even if you'd not asked. There's people there that need to be helped. I've run into a few people who'd filled me in."

By 'a few' he means Korrin, mostly. But there'd been some rumors about what was going on there, so it was easy enough to count those too. And there were other factors as well, besides just wanting to help, something that got his lopsided smile to grow just a tiny bit.

"Well, that and I've actually joined up officially, you know. Think that means where the Inquisition goes I go, no matter whether I'm a rifter or not."

Katniss looked relieved at that - she'd been scared of how little the Rifters knew about what was going on, and where, and why.

"Good I'm glad you're going and -- welcome to the Inquisition, ah, Soldier? Jamie? Or are you a scout, like me?" She wasn't really sure where Jamie fell in the scope of things.

"You can still call me Jamie, you know," he commented, with a bit of a chuckle. It was a good question, though, and after a moment, his expression turned more thoughtful.

"I've not talked to anyone about being a scout just yet, so I suppose I'm just a soldier for now. But...what I'd like to do isn't something I think anyone has here, so I don't know if there's any way to get that sorted properly."

Edited 2016-01-27 18:05 (UTC)

"Oh, I think you know that I'm going to call you Jamie." Katniss said with a straight face, even as her mouth curved up at the edges. She met his thoughtful gaze, listening to him consider his position here.

"Maybe you Rifters should be your own squadron. The Shard Squad."

"The Shard Squad?"

That got his eyebrows to arch up enough that they disappeared into his bangs. The other Rifters becoming a squadron wasn't a bad notion, assuming they'd want to do something like that, but the name was another matter altogether.

"Aye, well, I don't know about that. I'd have to talk with the other Rifters and see what they think there. No, what I was wondering if there'd be need for a piper here."

"...I really am horrible at naming things." Katniss admitted, before she gave him a crooked sort of smile.

"A piper? You mean, someone who played the pipes during battle?" She frowned a little. "I have heard of drummers, but never pipers."

The crooked smile brought out one of his own - but there was a hint of a tease in it as well, something that he couldn't help but give into a moment or so later when he spoke up again.

"Oh, aye, so I see. Remind me not to ask for your help naming any horses I might get later on."

That part he wasn't serious about, for more that one reason, but at her faint frown he winds up dropping the teasing note from his voice, nodding at her rather more seriously.

"Ah, the horse isn't important. Being a piper, well, that's another story. We did pipe the clan into battle - well, along with other things. But mostly we'd play to give our men courage, and strike fear into the heart of the enemy at the same time."

"Hey, no one ever said I was witty. They just said I could shoot better than most." She leaned over and flicked him on the arm lightly, before she looked at him thoughtfully.

"You know ... I can't say that's a bad idea. With all that we're up against, we could really use the moral builders." She paused, then said quietly, "I've only been in battle a few times - nothing like this. Nothing like ...full on war-fare. Have you?"

At that, it was Jamie's turn to pause. Any thought he'd had about trying to lighten the mood again was gone, and the already serious expression on his face grew even more solemn.

"More than once."

Even before he'd started traveling with the Doctor, he'd fought with the clans that followed Charles Stuart, and that part of things hadn't exactly changed after he'd left, only the time and place. And the weapons they used, sometimes, but when it came down to it was very similar - something that meant he wound up glancing up to one side before turning his attention back towards Katniss.

"Back before I'd left Scotland, and...well, I told you about our ship, aye? There were times where we'd wound up in places where there were wars going on, right up to where I was before I got pulled here."

She took in his serious expression, and let her own expression slip into a more serious mode. Whatever thought she had struck, it had resonated with her friend.

"What happened?" She asked quietly, folding her hands together on the table. "Clearly ... it wasn't a battle you wanted to fight in."

[Open] The World It Learns

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