OPEN | you ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Jone & u
WHAT: Jone's intro log.
WHEN: Nowish.
WHERE: Kirkwall.
NOTES: Violence and strong language. Will update if things get w...orse.....

a. LOWTOWN.

Whenever you show up anyplace, you have to make some coin. If you've no contract, there are ways to do it, but they're messy methods.

Jone, standing at a few inches over six feet, long hair a muddy tangle in the middle of a fighting ring walled by bodies yelling for their bet, does not seem to mind messy.

Her opponent is a human of similar stature, moves to punch her square in the stomach, and Jone takes it. Hurts like fuckall, but that never matters much to a Reaver. Anyway, she needs it to grab him, her hands a vicegrip on his arm. He can't pull away, and ends up dragging Jone a few feet in either direction, attempting to dislodge her. She's too close, now, and it's too easy to knee him in the bollocks, adding to the gesture with a solid bite at his neck. She doesn't break the skin enough to really hurt him, but it's a scary thing to see, and she wants the reputation as much as the coin.

Her opponent goes down, and the crowd cheers. Blood in her mouth, she cheers back: "Next!"

b. HIGHTOWN.

Jone knows where her money comes from, so she knows how to look. She's not pristine, walking the streets of Hightown, but her hair is clean enough to see it's red, pulled back and way from a face no longer covered in blood and muck. Wearing a worn but workable enough suit of armor, she's holding a piece of parchment, reading it while moving her lips. She looks up, looks down, reading it again.

The door she goes to knock on-- maybe you know it? Maybe you're familiar enough with Kirkwall to know this is a prank? Maybe you're also thinking about taking a mercenary contract? Maybe the noble within is someone to be avoided? Help a girl out-- or don't.

c. THE GALLOWS.

She's only been here a day, but she's a little bored. No real reputation yet, but you gotta start small. Little things first. Late night arm wrestling. She's one two out of three so far, and the pot is growing.

She reaches forward for her next opponent, and her sleeve falls down to reveal the glowing green just above her elbow.

She shrugs. "Believe me, mate, this made me stronger, I wouldn't be fighting you with it."

d. WILDCARD.

go 4 it i believe in u.

Comments

o hello jone-o

[coeurdulyon]

Time has not atrophied this muscle memory, and Lucien falls in alongside Jone as they once did daily. It's happening even before he's fully comprehended the fact that this is her. This is Jone. And she's alive. More than alive, living, fighting, undiminished.

The tightness in his chest at the sight of her is what he might call profound.

Steel rings at Jone's back as Lucien draws his sword and blocks a demon's slash with blade and scabbard crossed. The demon recoils, and Lucien takes its arm with one smooth strike, its head with another.

"On your right!" He calls, as he used to, and moves to engage another enemy. Fighting alongside a Reaver is made easier by identifying where you are. That's a lesson he learned early.

[poleaxed]

Jone is deep in the angry haze of her power. The knowledge that Lucien is with her dawns slowly, and with the anger and the blood and the fire, the fact that this is bad doesn't register. In a fight, you're immortal (until you're not), time stops (until it doesn't), and everything is true and fair (until it all stops).

She'd meant to fight with Lucien. Everything makes sense, if she just keeps pushing forward.

She moves out of the way on the volley on her right, striking back immediately, a demon hissing into nothing, the sand turned to glass from lava-like heat. The rift shines a terrible, sickly green, and Jone rips off her vambrace off, hoping whatever happens next will be instinct.

The rift connects with the shard in her arm. She feels a kind of pulling pain, but when the rift-- against all odds-- closes, everything slows down. As always, there's a few moments of ragged breathing, where she has to discern the pain from the rage, get both under control, locate any serious wounds. She's going to have bruises all up her arm, she thinks, but she's fine otherwise. A few light burns. Who cares, they won't even scar.

"You were..." Her mind comes back to her. You were good, of course he was good; it's Lucien, the man who's supposed to think she's dead for his own bloody good. This, not monsters or demons or bloody rifts, makes her stumble. The grip on her poleaxe keeps her from falling. "You're not- I-..."

She starts walking away, the armor slowing her movements, the terror robbing her of the strength in her pain.

[coeurdulyon]

"Jone," he says, assuming that saying her name will be like a pin to a soap bubble. She'll disappear, a figment or some kind of hallucination. When she doesn't, he starts after her, reaching for her. A hand, a wrist, an arm, a shoulder, some point of contact to drive the point home — to plunge the dagger further into his back.

"Attendez, Jone!"

[poleaxed]

Of course, he grabs her arm, with the vambrace still open, his fingers on the glowing green pinwheel of light. It should hurt more than it does. Everything should hurt more. It never feels like enough.

She wrestles her arm out of his hand, stumbling back, using the poleaxe like an old man's walking stick. She steadies herself in the sand, feeling too heavy to move. The armor's usually like her second skin, but for the first time in years, she feels awkward and trapped within it.

You can't really run in plate.

She's never planned to see Luc again, so she really never thought about what she'd say. No, that's not right-- in her mind, she'd run into him by accident, because he'd be in some kind of parade, married to the right kind of person, being proper celebrated and maybe their eyes would meet and she'd know she made the right choice.

That doesn't give her shit to say to him, though. What comes out is a messy, "I'm not sorry."

[coeurdulyon]

That should tell him everything he needs to know. That she's here shows clearly, she isn't dead. She isn't unwell, despite her exhaustion. She left him to keep living her life, while his has been nearly at a stand-still.

"Neither am I," he says. What does he have to apologize for? For loving her? For asking her to marry him because of that, regardless of the scandal that would ensue? The Lionheart has taken a wild dog as his wife, the gossips would say. No doubt it's his Vint blood to blame for his poor taste.

[poleaxed]

She wasn't expecting that, but then, she wasn't expecting any of this, so at least everything's fucking on track.

The problem, she suddenly realizes, is that she can't find any anger in this. Anger makes her strong. Anger makes her willing to put up with pain, which makes her invincible. Without anger, she's nothing, and when she looks at him, all she feels is sorrow. If she'd married him, she'd be dead, and she'd take him with her. It really was for the best. This awful feeling is just proof.

"Then we're sorted."

She tries to walk away again, turning away to hide the fact that her eyes are watering and she doesn't know why.

[coeurdulyon]

"What?" Dumbfounded. A feeling Lucien isn't used to, even though he's felt it quite often of late. "Nothing is sorted, Jone."

Why does she keep turning away from him?

"Do I not deserve to know why you disappeared? Why you let me think you were dead?"

[poleaxed]

Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was never prepared for this. She could have been, but it was never supposed to happen. Fuck, where did she fuck up. She should have kept better tabs on him.

She reviews his words while trying to keep tears from falling-- she can't rub at her face in fucking gauntlets, Andraste Almighty-- and there's something to pick at. Deserve. Same old everything.

"No," she says, turning to glare. If her eyes are watery, so what. Fuck him. "Life's not fair, Luc. I don't gotta explain shit."

[coeurdulyon]

It's hard to keep tabs on a dead man. They both know this well enough. If Lucien had been able to track Jone, he would have. He never would have given up, either, oaths be damned.

Maybe that's his disillusionment talking. Maybe it's the truth.

"If you did not want to marry me you could have just said."

[poleaxed]

Her head whips around, eyes blazing. "You shouldn't bloody want to! Don't you know me? I couldn't fucking- I couldn't do that to you."

She presses a hand to her face-- gauntleted, painful, but that may be the point. Comfort is beyond her. She doesn't deserve it.

[coeurdulyon]

"I know well enough what I shouldn't fucking do or want!" He steps closer, though surprised a little at his own outburst. At least it isn't how he reacted in Ghislain. You forget your place. Knowing that she'll just try to push him away, pull herself away, attack out of some misplaced (or well-placed) anger, he reaches for her again to grip her arms, to try and keep her in place and upright.

"Couldn't do what to me, Jone? I thought you were dead. How is that better than being my wife?"

[poleaxed]

It all comes out, and when it does, thank the Holy Lady Andraste, Ever-Loving and Soft-Singing, it comes out angry.

"Couldn't drag you through the fucking mud! Is that what you wanna do to yourself? Your duty, your honor, your word, all of it worth shit? I live that! You don't, you dumb twat. Let me the fuck go!"

She could break his hold if she tried. Maybe she could. She doesn't want to find out. She could hurt him.

[coeurdulyon]

"Since when did you care about any of that?"

She's always been the one undercutting the importance of things like duty, honor, a man's word, all of it. The one keeping Lucien honest.

Perhaps that's the reason everything fell apart when she left.

He doesn't let go. "You expect me to believe that after all your talk about what utter bollocks honor is, you'd leave to protect mine? Bullshit."

[poleaxed]

So she rips her arms free of his, and uses them to hit him-- not hard. If she wanted, she could hurt him properly. Just them, all she wants to do is beat impotently at his chest and wail like a fishwife. It's what she's always been afraid of happening. It's what she deserves.

"I don't fucking care! I never cared! You care! And I- I couldn't..." There is a sob, even as she struggles to keep it back, "I couldn't fucking watch that rip you apart. Watch you start fucking hating me. You're too fucking good, and you don't even know it."

[coeurdulyon]

Lucien just stands there and lets her hit him, hands shaken off but hovering as if to steady her. That sob wrenches at him, and for some stupid reason he feels the urge to apologize.

Apologize. For what? For loving her? For thinking love alone could be enough for her? Those tears are my fault.

"Sacre Créateur, Jone! Look at me," he spreads his arms wide. "Even now, when I have every reason to, I cannot hate you! I could never."

[poleaxed]

"Bullshit!" She pushes him, again without enough strength to truly hurt him. "Bullshit, I would've dragged you down. I drag everyone down. Just call me a fucking- a harridan bitch and get it over with. Everyone can hate me."

She's letting too much show. It barely occurs to her, in the midst of this loss, that it might be obvious, for the first time, that she does not quite thrive on hatred as she once pretended.

[coeurdulyon]

Even without strength enough behind it, Lucien is shoved back a step.

"No," he says. Time was, he'd protest that he isn't everyone, that who he is exempts him from her declaration. But he was wrong to think that. He is everyone; no better than anyone else.

"I cannot. And you would not have dragged me anywhere I did not go willingly."

[poleaxed]

As soon as he moves away, she stops still. Hurting him is always incidental. It happens, it always does, but it's never her intention. Not really. At least, she hopes not.

"You know what I mean," she says, and tears are falling now, through demon blood and matted hair, "It's not about what you want. For once. I'm not sorry. It was for your own fucking good."

[coeurdulyon]

So death is for his own good. Her death brought him to his knees, stopped his heart though his body kept moving. And when it came time to die himself, he was passed over.

Surely he could have engineered it, could have forced the Venatori's hands or taken matters into his own, but instead he suffered. Suffered, because it was better than feeling nothing. Because it was what he deserved.

Maybe it was for his own good. He reaches for her, to wipe the tears from her blood-stained cheeks and brush the hair from her face. He expects she won't let him, but he has to try.

"Jone..."

[poleaxed]

She lets him, because she doesn't know what to do. What's the point of anything, now? All that she gave up, and he doesn't even have the decency to loathe her for it. She can't move forward from this.

She asks the question, though she suspects she knows the answer, and fears it. "Why can't you just hate me? Everybody else does."

[coeurdulyon]

"Because," he says, holding her face in his hands and brushing his thumbs over her cheeks. Surely, surely she knows the answer. How could she not? Does she think he had other designs when he asked her to be his wife?

He looks for some flicker of what he feels for her in her eyes, some sign that she might give in to it. "Because I love you, Jone."

[poleaxed]

She drops her gaze immediately, trying to hide, to save what little face she has left. This is intolerable. Unconditional love is fucking mythological. Yet all evidence points to it being right there, in her hands. A place where she could always be safe.

"I don't know what to do."

Admitting it feels a little like dying, and she certainly deserves that, too.

[coeurdulyon]

"The answer is simple, if you feel the same way."

[poleaxed]

Jone doesn't walk back from demons, but this? She takes a step back, unsteady in the sand. "I ain't marrying you."

[coeurdulyon]

Jone steps away, and Lucien stays in place, hands slack at his sides without her to hold onto.

"You don't have to," he says, though it pains him. What does he have to offer her now, anyway? No lands, no money, his material possessions sold off. All he has is his horse, his name, and the reputation of a dead man.

"It won't change how I feel."