[ open] hijinks with sonia

[vorbratta]

WHO: Sonia & YOU
WHAT: Catch-all for social calls, missions and hijinks
WHEN: gestures vaguely at this month
WHERE: Kirkwall, the Gallows
NOTES: Sonia’s info page is here!

Sonia got back from an extended mission that took her out of Kirkwall just a few weeks ago, and then spent the last few weeks fighting off an minor and irritatingly resistant cold. Now that she's no longer sniffling 24/7, it's time for her to get into some more interesting work and socialize like the wine-toting butterfly she is.

She also seems to be amassing quite the collection of children's toys and some clothes, evidently meant as souvenirs. They are slowly taking over one corner of her quarters, like an adorable invasion of stuffed animals.

If you'd like to work on a mission together, hang out (or meet for the first time), or get into trouble (cause problems) with Sonia, hit me up at runawayballista for a starter because I am too old and weary to write generic prompts

Comments

[sulahnan]

A slow smile creeps onto Athessa's features and she impulsively leans over to kiss Sonia. Just one solid smooch of appreciation for that earnestness.

"You're wonderful," she says, and sits back. She takes another drag and offers it to Sonia for a second try. "I still haven't figured out how to talk about it that isn't uncomfortable for everyone. 'S just one of those things." If Athessa were keeping track, she'd count this as the most casual she's been while talking about it.

She might be keeping track. Just a little bit.

[vorbratta]

That kiss is a pleasant surprise, as is the simple declaration of affection, and Sonia blinks, rose-cheeked, as a silly little smile unfolds on her face. Not fair, part of her wants to protest, she's not used to being so sweetly finessed like that -- but she loves it, clearly. It also immediately puts to rest any unease that she might have unwittingly offended Athessa in the past. A ridiculous notion, anyhow. Athessa is decidedly difficult to offend.

"Some things, there's no clean or easy way of talking about them," Sonia acknowledges with a slow nod, leaning back against her. She takes the joint carefully again, though with a slightly surer hold, and her next drag is far slower and shorter. She's still making a face, it's an effort to hold the smoke back, but she does manage to hold it -- and then promptly coughs it all out. Not as bad as the first time, though, and when she internally thinks my god, this is the price of fun? she remembers about hangovers.

"If you ever -- " She starts to offer with sincerity plain in her voice, but interrupted by another small bout of coughing. She clears her throat, shaking her head briskly, and looks back at Athessa. "If you ever want to try," she tries again, "I'll listen. Maybe it will come easier with practice."

[sulahnan]

"Maybe," she says with a lopsided smile. "But definitely not until we're proper stoned. Let's try this--"

She takes the joint from Sonia again once she's stopped coughing and takes a slow drag, then tips Sonia's face towards hers with a finger under her chin. Her lips just barely brush against Sonia's and when they part, she exhales just as slowly as she took the smoke in.

[vorbratta]

Sonia didn't know smoking could be so...sensual. As Athessa's fingers graze her skin, she feels something -- odd, something new, almost like a soft ripple in her consciousness, and then Athessa is giving her just the barest of kisses. Sonia shivers slightly, inhales a little to laugh and coughs again -- turns her head to the side just in time, but she feels awash in soft smoke, everything going pleasantly misty and hushed around her. She turns back with a quiet little laugh and kisses Athessa, nearly as gently, and then sways slightly to the side.

"Ohh," Sonia says softly, partly in rapt attention to Athessa's beautiful face, partly because she is just now experiencing what weed is like for the first time.

[sulahnan]

Athessa smiles against the kiss and laughs afterwards. She recognizes the look on Sonia's face despite always being on the other side of it.

"Ohh is right," she nods, and sinks down more comfortably beside the fire. "My favorite is this part where the sides of your face feel kinda tingly, like someone took the sound that bees make and magicked up two pillows with it and are just--" Her fingers flutter by her temples, then she presses her palms to her cheeks and presses in, smushing her head between two imaginary pillows.

[vorbratta]

That train of thought goes nonsense places to Sonia, but she bursts into giggles as Athessa smushes her own face. She's so very cute, and it's hilarious.

"It's different from drinking," Sonia concludes with a smile, and she can feel herself swaying slightly, but she's not sure if it's her or the air around her. She runs a hand through her hair absently, combing it away from her shoulder. But oh, that felt weirdly nice. She does it again, running her hands over her own hair with a dawning look of abject fascination.

"Was my hair always this soft?"

[sulahnan]

"Lemme see--" She lifts a hand to Sonia's hair to see for herself how soft it is, and suddenly everything starts to just...make sense. Athessa looks at the lock draped over her hand, and she sees every individual strand at the same time as the whole.

"Isn't it weird how a single strand of hair looks the same as this much?" Lifting away as much as one might split into a braid, Athessa's expression somehow manages to be sleepy and entranced. "It's like a rope, which is made of tiny threads. But what if the single strand wasn't a single strand at all? What if it's made up of even tinier strands?"

[vorbratta]

Sonia listens to her with wide, owlish eyes, the words washing over her and blooming in her mind. She parses them, some of it registers, but about half of it glides effortlessly off of her, leaving her blinking and open-mouthed as she tries to catch up to Athessa in real-time. She stares at the lock of hair in Athessa's hand.

"You mean...you think there's even more hair in here?"

Galaxy brain.

[sulahnan]

She nods too many times.

"Yeah, maybe! But...you can roll a single strand of hair between your fingers and it doesn't fray, so maybe not." Athessa lets Sonia's hair fall free of her hands and she sits for a moment just looking at her own fingers. What would they look like with more knuckles? Or less?

Her own train of thought is interrupted by her giggling about the mental image, and she falls back onto the pillow that Past-Athessa cleverly placed there. Good job, Past-Athessa.

"Is painting pictures different than painting rooms?"

[vorbratta]

It takes Sonia a full beat to parse Athessa's question, trying to puzzle out why painting a room in a picture would be any different than painting a --

Ohh.

"Well, I suppose I wouldn't know," Sonia says decisively, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "I've never painted a room. The walls, that is. I mean I've painted rooms, on my canvas, when I'm painting a scene indoors, I obviously paint the walls...why, do you need someone to paint your walls?" A little gasp, and she sits up straighter. "What if I tried painting walls?"

[sulahnan]

Another little gasp, this time from Athessa. She points aloft with one languid arm.

"What if you tried painting ceilings?"

[vorbratta]

"What if," Sonia echoes, and she is strangely conscious of the way her mouth feels around those words. She mouths them again, silently this time, then blinks.

"Maker, I've never thought of painting on ceilings before. What would I paint? The stars, maybe?" She giggles suddenly. "How would I reach all the way up there? I'd drip paint all over me."

[sulahnan]

"We'd build you a scaffolding, of course. Right up to the top so you can lay down on it while you paint!" Of course she mimes painting, waving her invisible brush in the air above her.

[vorbratta]

Something about the mental image and Athessa's artful little wave of her phantom brush strikes Sonia as incredibly funny, and she collapses against Athessa in an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

"Maybe I should paint myself a portrait while I'm at it." She unsuccessfully tries to smother her laughter with a hand. "Everyone will have to look at my beautiful countenance whenever they look up! Genius!"

[sulahnan]

"But then nobody'd ever get out of bed," she snorts, giggling because Sonia's giggling, and also because she can just imagine that people would find portraits of Sonia Barra on their ceilings to be a bit too stimulating. "Maybe we should paint the ceilings in every enemy household, then they'd never get out, and we'd win by default."

[vorbratta]

"I'll be a war hero," Sonia sings, "my face in every enemy fortress." Her giggling subsides slightly, although her face is still graced by that relaxed, slightly disfocused smile. "Oh, if only the war could be settled with art."

[sulahnan]

"If only," Athessa agrees, and her giggles calm down to a little chuckle here and there as she dreamily stares up at nothing.

"Or food," she says after her mind makes the leap from art to statues, from statues to Rivain, and from Rivain to food. She's not hungry, really, but she could eat. "Shit. We forgot to get snacks."

A rookie mistake. Usually she at least has bread to nibble on, or cheese, or fruit, or something.

[vorbratta]

Oh, no. The second Athessa mentions food, Sonia realizes she is starving. No, not starving. She had dinner only an hour or so ago. She just...really, really wants to be eating something right now.

"Maker, you're right," she breathes. "I think I might die without food. Oh, you know what I could do with right now? My mother makes a wonderful tomato stew with poached eggs..." Her voice trails off dreamily.

[sulahnan]

It's almost like smoking confuses the mouth, makes it think it wants food when really, water would suffice. But that's a thought for after they have snacks and drinks and whatever else.

"Normally I wouldn't think any kind of stew sounds good, but tomato?! With eggs, ugh, that sounds so good. With the runny yolks that just sorta ooze..." Athessa claps her hands onto her cheeks and drags them downwards. "When I was in Rivain I'd get this spicy curry from an old woman I'm pretty sure used to be a pirate queen or something, it was soooo good, it had potatoes and a bunch of vegetables and bits of chicken in it, and soft, warm bread to dip in it."

[vorbratta]

"Ugh, that sounds divine," Sonia says, throwing herself dramatically across Athessa's lap as though it were a fainting couch. "I can't believe you're torturing me like this. I'd kill a man for soft warm bread. I've never wanted soft warm bread so much in my life."

[sulahnan]

"We could...maybe...go get some...?"

She wiggles her legs a little, just enough to convey I'm trapped! but not enough to actually jostle Sonia. Athessa likes having friends who lay on her, or sit on her, or drape limbs over her. It's nice.

But also: WARM BREAD!!

"We can check the kitchen."

[vorbratta]

Sonia rolls herself off of Athessa's lap with surprising grace for someone so thoroughly stoned, her eyes huge and bright.

"Oh, let's." She springs to her feet with a swish of her hair and offers a hand to Athessa. "Athessa, you're brilliant."

[sulahnan]

Athessa tucks her knees to her chest and rolls backwards into a crouch before hopping up. She pauses for a moment to let her head stop swimming at the sudden change in altitude, then pivots on her heel to lead the way.

"To the kitchen!"

--

But of course, when they get there, there's no bread. Not warm, not cold, not stale. No bread. At all. The elf drops to her knees and lets out a petulant whine that kind of sounds like but I wanted breaaaad but it's too inarticulate to tell for sure.

"What do we do now?!"

[vorbratta]

This is tantamount to emergency. Sonia frowns, fiercely, staring at into a fairly well-stocked pantry in intense contemplation.

"We improvise," she announces finally, pointing directly ahead. "With whatever we find in there."

[sulahnan]

She looks doubtfully in the direction Sonia is pointing.

"Sonia. I have a terrible confession to make. I...don't know how to make bread." In other words: she's gonna be terrible at improvising in this department.