laura kinney (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justashotaway) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2019-10-21 07:13 pm
justashotaway) wrote in faderift2019-10-21 07:13 pm
Entry tags:
[OPEN] not good with words.
WHO: Laura Kint and YOU
WHAT: How's Laura doing? WELL, SHE'S BEEN BETTER. If you'd like a closed starter with something more specific, please drop me a line on dw or elsewhere o/
WHEN: Various days mid-Harvestmere, after the initial messenger drama
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: TBD
WHAT: How's Laura doing? WELL, SHE'S BEEN BETTER. If you'd like a closed starter with something more specific, please drop me a line on dw or elsewhere o/
WHEN: Various days mid-Harvestmere, after the initial messenger drama
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: TBD
first, a wildcard.
It's not exactly the easiest these days, finding Laura. She doesn't linger in common areas and frequently takes food away from the dining hall to eat privately. It's possible to catch her in corridors, however, or loading up a plate to run away with, or holed up in the corner of a nominally public room. (The library is a good place to try, Laura trying to be as unnoticeable as possible while reading fairy tales and other decidedly-not-war-philosophy books.)
But occasionally, things work out differently.
and then the ferry.
Early one morning, she strikes out for the first ferry of the day, with what she's hoping is unimpeachable logic: The messenger gave no description of her, and the townspeople have no reason to know who she is. In a way, is she not safer there?
(More importantly, walking through the Gallows is suffocating. People here know who she is and what she has done. Whether they care is immaterial.)
She wears her hood and tries to stay near enough others that she looks like she belongs here at the water's edge, waiting to go away from the Gallows for a time. It might not entirely work.
or the memorial garden.
The green, dying scent of plants draws her into Hightown despite her best efforts to avoid it. (If the messenger is still here, if the diplomat she answered to is here, they will both be in Hightown. Laura is nearly sure of that.) She hasn't spent much time there in general--it does not seem especially welcoming--but when she does, she goes to the garden that used to be a building. So it goes today.
"What is this called?" she asks the person near her. The plant, that's what she means, but anyone even mildly familiar with her could be forgiven for assuming she's referring to the garden as a whole.
or the market.
Normally, she goes to the market to examine the jewelry and spices available. Today, she is looking at boots and sacks and water skins and trying to determine which might be the best purchases to consider. She is not here to buy, only to think.
And to follow a sound down an alleyway--someplace in the shadows between buildings, a person is being held up at knifepoint. Laura stops short, heat in her gaze, and gives a flat, "Leave," to the would-be mugger.
or the ships.
Some of the ships are huge--others, little more than fishing boats--and in the months she's been in Kirkwall, Laura has taken notice of them for the first time. (She does not like water, in her defense. There has been little reason to acknowledge the possibility of sailing.) She does her best not to gawk, but it is difficult not to feel some awe at the sight of a ship in the harbor, nearly tall enough to scrape clouds.
And she occasionally asks others questions, people who look like they belong in this place. "Where is it going?" and "Does it take travelers?" and "What does it cost to travel?"
She promised Matthias she would stay until she couldn't. When that day comes, she wants to be ready.
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Her handiwork from last time she did that is still scattered on the floor directly below the ledge, splintered wood and bits of ceramic. She tosses the vase again, this time to that spot on the ground so it may shatter and join the rest of the rubbish. The sound startles the rats and a few roosting birds in the rafters, but as the echoes die down, all is quiet again.
"It's really satisfying."
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You know. As you do. She's had far less use for the claws in her feet, these weeks with Riftwatch, but they're always convenient at moments like this.
Once she's up there, she pauses at the side of one of the crates, frowning at it. After a moment, she glances back Athessa's way--on the ground, up with her, wherever she might be. "Why do you like breaking things?"
She is unsure Athessa will wish to answer, but she is curious.
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And, on top of considering the question, she has to consider which answer to give. Because it's fun is easy and quick and likely as not isn't one worth pursuing deeper. But it's also only partly true. She's not ready to admit that she likes breaking things as proof that she herself isn't broken.
"I pretend they're things that've hurt me," she says. She won't get more specific than that. "So I can give them a taste of their own medicine."
Looking up to Laura from below, she shrugs and cocks a grin. "And because it's fun."
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(Perhaps it is like her claws, the Xes she makes with them. Laura does not wish to investigate that thought further.)
Bending over one of the crates, she pulls out a teacup with a chip already in the rim. After pondering the painted nugs along the top edge, she hurls it down to the floor. It explodes into countless shards, a few large and far more small. She stands there a moment, staring down at the wreckage, then turns her attention back to Athessa. "Do you wish to break things today?"
It is not unenjoyable by any means. But she thinks it might be better if they both were up here; as it is, she feels faintly like she is on display.
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"The teacups are especially fun," One of the crates was originally meant to supply either a merchant or a noble family, because it holds far more cups and saucers and cream pitchers than any one person needs. Athessa fishes a cup and saucer out, ignoring the cracks and missing pieces, and holds it like a dignified lady having tea. "Because sometimes you just wanna smack the drink out of someone's hand--" And she knocks the cup out of her own hand, sending it sailing down to the floor.
"This is no time for tea Madame, the enemy is storming the gates!" This, said in her best impression of a military man. Then, playing the other character in her imaginary play, she presses the back of her hand to her forehead.
"Woe is me, whatever shall we do?"
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But definitely, she realizes, something she has no idea how to contribute to. Is she supposed to affect a voice as well? She would not know where to start.
The best she can come up with is to reach for another cup and saucer, place the former on the latter, and offer it silently to Athessa. Your replacement tea, Madame.
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"You ever see those street plays? The ones with real folks acting out the story, not the ones with the puppets--" She nods down at the cup and saucer she accepted from Laura, trying to convey go on, slap it out of my hands with her eyebrows. "--the puppet ones are better because it's just puppets hitting each other with sticks, but there's always some dramatic tea parties in the other ones."
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Athessa is looking at her pointedly--that much is clear. Her brow moves, and there is that nod down to her teacup. Laura makes her best guess at what this means and sweeps her hand over Athessa's, so the dishes fly out in an arc and smash against the floor.
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"If they do them here, we should go see one. They're pretty stupid, but fun. Sometimes." You know, when they're not garbage.
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Going to another crate, she digs into old straw--meant to keep things from breaking, surely--and pulls out a pair of vases. Silently, she turns around and holds one out to Athessa.
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