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.]

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"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."

"It's not that I wasn't willing to fight. A McCrimmon always is, you know."

That part of things hadn't been the issue. He'd never had a problem fighting when it was necessary, and he didn't see that changing any time soon. Still, he wound up shaking his head, the memory of some of the things he'd seen coming back to him.

"Mind you, I don't know how they managed it in the one zone, hiding in wee holes and shooting big guns at each other...but that wasn't really the problem, either. It turns out that there was more than just that one war where we'd wound up. There were a whole bunch of wars, set up by these al...er, people who wanted to make their own army. They kidnapped people without their knowledge and forced them to fight the way they wanted them to."

She nodded her head - because she can see where the honor of a family name would mean you would want to live up to your family's reputation. She pressed her lips together, her gaze narrowing.

"Like ..Corpheyeus, and the mages. And the templars. Not giving them all the information, until it was too late."

She had it somewhat right - although there was more to it than just withholding information, and his own lips pressed together in an expression not to dissimilar to her own, his own displeasure with the idea clearly showing.

"More like not giving them the information at all, at least not until we'd turned up and set things right. They'd brainwashed the people fighting for them into believing they were still in their own times, so they'd not even realized they'd been kidnapped at all. At least not until we were able to fix the brainwashing somewhat."

"By the Creators ..." She sighed deeply from her stomach. "You know how hard it is to think of the good of people, when people do things like that? How horrific is that - to kidnap people and make them murder other people. What if they were killing their spouses, or their children?"

"There weren't any children there."

At least not any that he'd seen. That didn't really make it any better, however, considering what the reasons behind the whole thing were. They weren't good at all, and even given what had happened after, he didn't regret stopping them.

"Don't think they would've thought twice if it'd been a place where there were any, though. They were trying to build an army to conquer the universe with, and they're the sort that'd not care who they took down in the process. If we'd not stopped them..." He shook his head briefly, but then lifted his chin somewhat proudly. "Still, we did stop them. They'll not be bothering anyone ever again."

"Thank the Maker for that..."

But it still didn't mean that innocent people didn't get hurt. She looks at Jamie when he lifts his chin, proclaiming they kept it from happening, that it would never happen there again, and she smiled warmly.

"Sounds like the Doctor is a one man Inquisition."

"Aye, well. I don't know about that."

He did have a lot of faith in the Doctor's abilities, but he knew well enough there were things the Doctor needed him and Zoe for - and the same had gone for the others, while they were still traveling with him. Likely if he was here he'd need the help of a lot of people to get things done. Still...if there was anyone Jamie believed could solve some of the problems here, it'd be the Doctor.

"But he's still the most clever man I know, and if he was here, he'd help for sure." He fell silent for a moment, glancing down at the table pensively before looking back up at Katniss and adding, a bit bluntly, "I miss him."

"Oh good, because otherwise, he sounds terrifying."

Was Katniss's faintly dry response. She looked at Jamie then, at the sudden silence at his mention of someone who was more than just a friend. Clearly, he was a mentor to Jamie.

"You'll get back to him, someday." She said quietly, looking at him earnestly. "I don't know when -- I don't even know if he'll come here first. But ... some day."

There were times when the Doctor could be terrifying, to be sure, but most times it was part of a plan, and Jamie had learned long ago to take things that happened during those times in stride. Well, usually, anyway. At the moment, all that really happened at first was that the corners of his mouth quirked a bit at Katniss's first comment - but then, as she went on, he wound up almost seeming to perk up for a moment, straightening up in his seat before turning slightly and giving her a hopeful look.

"Do you really think he could? Come here, that is. I thought because he hadn't gotten pulled through with me, he couldn't get here."

"Honestly, Jamie, anything is possible. Especially now." Katniss looked out the window, then back to him, grey eyes fixing on his. "We live in a world of chaotic wonder right now. Your Doctor would fit right in, from what you have told me."

While he wasn't entirely sure that 'fitting in' would be the words he'd use for something like that, he could see Katniss's point. There was a lot of chaotic wonder to be had here, and that and the mysteries would likely mean there'd be things the Doctor would want to do.

And Jamie would help him, of course, like he always did, but that'd still involve the Doctor winding up here first. For all that Katniss thought he might, Jamie still wasn't sure about that - and he knew that right now he probably shouldn't get his hopes up thinking that it might happen when there was no guarantee it ever would.

"Aye, maybe so. But I'll not hold my breath." His eyes drifted down to the table for a moment before he shook his head and pushed his chair back. "Think I'm going to go for a walk. Take my mind off of things for a bit. See you a bit later on, maybe?"

She looked at him, with a faintly worried expression on her face, before she nodded her head solemnly. "All right Jamie -- just remember, I'm here for you, just like I know you're here for me, all right?"

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wontforgetyou - 2016-02-24 16:36 (UTC) - Expand

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