[Open] The World It Learns

[wontforgetyou]

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.]

Comments

[wontforgetyou]

Jamie McCrimmon. It's good to meet you properly, Araceli.

[He glances down at the pie for a moment, then breaks it in half and offers over a piece. If she wants that for herself - or the fox, since it is a meat pie - she's welcome to it.]

Can't say as I blame Lux for wanting to stick by the fire, to tell you the truth. The foxes back home used to stick to the drier sorts of places, from the signs I'd used to see. Although I think that probably made him the smartest one out of all of us when it came to the Mire.

[If he could've gotten away with staying by the fire back then, he might have very well done so. At least for some of the time.]

There's not bogs where you come from, though? That must've been interesting when you first wound up in the Mire, then.

[foxsays]

[As much of a growing girl (shut up, she might have a super late growth spurt) as she is, she gives Lux a nudge so he can wolf it down because the food here is stodgy. She has to be able to keep climbing walls when there are pies and potatoes a-plenty about these parts.]

Honestly, I didn't want to have to wrestle him into quite so many baths upon returning. The big native dogs already smell like a bog before they even get near one, trust me on that.

[Ah the joys of sharing a tent with a Fereldan with such a hound that probably weighs at least twice as much as she does.]

There's quicksand in certain places in the right conditions but plenty of sea and sand instead, I had no idea people would ever live somewhere so damp, how could anybody stand it? Have you ever been to such a place before?

[wontforgetyou]

The Mabari? Och, they're not so bad.

[Then again, he has yet to share a tent with a Fereldan with one, so his experiences haven't been quite so up close and personal. If that changes at some point, then perhaps his opinions might change as well. For right now, though, he's got no issues with them. Or with her turning down the pie (growing girl or no). He'll just see about thriftily taking care of the half he's kept. No sense in letting food go to waste.]

Mmphmm.

[He should probably finish what's in his mouth before answering her, though, and he holds up a finger so he can take a second to finish swallowing.]

Oh, you'd be surprised. There's plenty of places where I've been with damp and cold, if you're there the right time of year. Although...not so many that usually come with their own supply of walking corpses. That part I'd not expected, to tell you the truth. Other things, but not corpses.

[foxsays]

Oh the big thing was very friendly though I know I should never like to meet one that doesn't like me.

[Only most dogs she's ever met are very small, average or tall but very slender, long lean lines not all that muscle, not something she could quite possibly ride. Most things are about the size of Lux though it's clearly a miracle he's not much more portly given how quickly he wolfs down the pie.]

So you come from a place without such things too? I am glad, I hadn't known what to expect even after speaking to a scout and to see them was an experience, I suppose. And hearing about how such things occur-- [But it does prompt a thought here, seeing as she feels a little in the minority regarding a few subjects.] Is there magic where you come from? Anything at all like the stuff they take for granted in this world?

[wontforgetyou]

[It's hard to miss how quickly the pie disappears on Lux's end, and he can't quite help but hide a grin behind his hand for a moment before another small piece of his half 'accidentally' winds up falling to the ground, conveniently placed so the fox only has to move a little bit to snatch that part up too. Maybe he shouldn't do that sort of thing, but Lux makes that hard to resist.

As is his person, for that matter, especially when it seems they do have some things in common - at least when it comes to some similarities in their worlds.]

Only in stories. There's things out there that people might think are magic if they'd not seen them before, certain machines and the like, but they're not actually magical. You have to build them with your hands, or learn how to use them. Can't say as I really understand how all this magic stuff works, to tell you the truth.

[foxsays]

You've fed him now, you will never know peace again.

[The seriousness is only joking but she does manage the proper solemn expression because there are two main ways to the heart of her fox: food and scratching him behind the ears.]

I have to wonder about some of the things I haven't told them, if they'd try to call it magic, some of that would be the machines too. Trying to explain pistols went well with one and a little disastrously with another. [More the rifter bit but that was a bad day for both parties and she'd been forced to take the high ground.] A few people have explained it but honestly? It just gives me a headache. It's useful in a fight, I would guess it'll be useful if I need healing quickly but it's all so complicated. And a bit of it happens to be stuck in our hands - aren't we the lucky ones.

[Bad or good though, she has no idea and she tries not to have opinions about it.]

[wontforgetyou]

[The words 'never know peace' coupled with that solemn face gets his eyebrows arch up and disappear into his bangs - but after a moment she decides she can't be being completely serious, and a slightly amused sounding noise replaces his own expression.]

Oh, aye, we'll see. I'm willing to take that chance.

[If he catches on that Lux likes ear scritches, though, he might just have to oblige there too. It's been awhile since he's gotten a chance to do anything like that.]

And you're right about magic. At least guns make sense. All I've been able to figure out with the mark is it'll close rifts. Once you get through the demons, anyway. Suppose it could be worse, though.

[foxsays]

Sometimes I think that half the reason my father gave him to me instead of keeping him on the ship is because he's about five times as much mischief and menace as you would think when he's not so very big.

[Because to him? Any and all attention is absolutely the best thing.]

Have you actually done that? I was there when people came through at the Mire but I need both hands for my blades and fighting on that sort of ground comes naturally so stabbing corpses felt like a better idea. [Plus she's seen what happens to the demons, the way they go back through in something that looks almost like green ash to her.] I was worried it would spread, perhaps get bigger too because when I do really look, it's almost like a wound but it's not as if I can stitch it shut. It doesn't hurt but I can't ever forget it.

[Oddly, that bothers her more than anything else. You pick up plenty of hurts scrambling up buildings, leaping down, getting into duels or just running everywhere but she can ignore all of those if she tries. A hand isn't so easy.]

[wontforgetyou]

Aye, I have. I was with the group that wound up going out from there.

[Not that there hadn't been a part of him that hadn't considered staying back and stabbing corpses, but he'd gotten pulled in before he'd realized it. So off he'd gone, and maybe the fact his eyes wind up flicking down to the mark in his hand isn't all that surprising.]

Far as I can tell it hasn't grown any since I used it, but- do you remember how the mark ached when we first got it?

[There's a bit of an assumption on his end, that her mark had ached the same as his when they'd first fallen through. Still, when he glances up again, it's with a faintly questioning look, in case he's mistaken there somehow. After a moment, though, he goes on.]

It ached for a couple of hours after we managed to figure out how to close the rift, just like it had back then. That wasn't the only thing, either.

[foxsays]

I felt like I'd been stung. [Not the worst thing she'd ever felt but worrying all the same, worst at the centre and flaring outwards steadily until it had stopped at last so she needs, flexing her fingers as if to confirm that things have settled now.]

What else was there then?

[Because when a woman died, when she was native to here and the first one to have something like that, it still weighs on the mind. It's honestly the one time her eagerness to learn and explore isn't getting the better of her.]

How did you even do it? Arriving was all such a rush, I try to only focus on the good and not the bad.

[wontforgetyou]

It...well, best way to put it is tires you out. Like you've spent a day doing a lot of work, aye? You'd think it'd not, since all you're doing is pointing your hand at something and willing it to close the rift.

[But it did, and that'd been a strange experience. He still wondered sometimes if it'd been like that for the Herald, too, but with her gone there was no way of knowing, and all they could really do was keep going forward and see if they could figure out things from here.]

Galadriel'd be better at explaining how it works than I would. She was the one that sorted it out. All I really know is that you have to focus your will and concentrate on closing the rift. And that you need more than one person to do it. It'd not worked until the three of us worked together on it, and even then we wound up with another batch of demons to fight before we got the thing to close.

[foxsays]

That's...that's a little worrying, if I'm honest, though if it doesn't hurt more after then I suppose it can be taken for a good sign.

[It's the not knowing that bothers her and all the strange bits and pieces she's putting together about magic, conversation carefully written down for later so she doesn't forget them all.]

There was-- there was a boy I think, in a very large floppy hat, he said something about...oh what was it. [That encounter is still in the 'what the actual hell happened to me' column of her life but parts of it stick out now. Snapping her fingers, she clicks her tongue as it falls into place.] He told me there are more pieces of the mark now, and that the song was scattered but that we couldn't lose it? Having to fight more of those creatures at the same time though...And Galadriel? Is she a rifter like us or is she a native here?

[wontforgetyou]

[His first instinctive reaction is to start to give her a puzzled look, but something about the description coupled with the notion of the song being scattered gets him to pause, and think for a moment. While his brows do still wind up knitting together, it's more in a thoughtful way than a puzzled one, and after a few moments he winds up nodding, albeit slowly.]

You know, I think I met someone like that. He said something much the same to me, although I've no idea what that's supposed to mean. [Galadriel, on the other hand, is a subject that he can talk about without being completely confused, so he doesn't dwell on his own odd encounter with the strange boy, simply goes forward.] She's a rifter like us. Although she looks more like the elves here, just much taller.

[To demonstrate, he stands up to his full height (which isn't nearly as tall as some of the men around here) and reaches a hand over his head. It's hard to get the measurement exact that way, but she's a good 20 centimeters taller than he is, and that's a large enough space that hopefully Araceli'll get an idea.]

She's some sort of magic of her own, back in her world. It works a bit here too, I think, because she could walk on the snow on the way up here without breaking through it like I did.