WHO: Athessa, Madi, Lucien, Skull, and YOU!! WHAT: catch-all WHEN: mostly Satinalia and later WHERE: Kirkwall and The Gallows NOTES: post-murderhaus h/c is gonna go here
She might be able to go to the Alienage and find a place for herself, but something tells her it wouldn't be much better being in a societal prison for elves than being in a literal one made for mages. And when she thinks about the elves at the Alienage, and how they would receive her, all she can see are the eyes of those Dalish she just buried. The stitches holding them together, the way their skin turned to leather and the vallaslin on their faces faded and warped.
She sniffles, and wipes at her nose with her sleeve, using that as an excuse to turn her face away in case she can't control the expression on it.
Jenny Lou doesn't know how to ask about that pain she can tell Athessa's carrying, the one she doesn't know that's probably on top of the regular people being fucking shitty about elves. She leans over and bumps her shoulder gently against Athessa's.
"That's shitty," she says, because it is and she doesn't know what she can do to help make it less shitty.
"Yeah," she tries for a laugh, which doesn't work at all. It shudders free in a sob, and there's no hiding that one. Fucking hell.
The tears sting her eyes before they fall and her cheeks after, the cold air biting at any moisture she doesn't manage to wipe away ere too long. She covers her face with her forearm for a few ragged breaths, mumbling out a "sorry" for Jenny Lou being party to this misery.
Well fuck. Jenny Lou slings an arm over Athessa's shoulder and holds the bottle out to her, "It's really fucked. And no sorry, okay. You need to cry? You fuckin' cry, dude."
Ugh, but she doesn't want to cry! But what she wants doesn't matter. The tears fall no matter how much she wipes at her face, no matter how many steeling breaths she takes, and she has to let some of it die down before she can take the brandy in shaking hand and knock back a hearty swig.
What comes tumbling out is disjointed, only semi-coherent, and punctuated with alternating drinks from the bottle and drags on the blunt she'd been smoking when Jenny Lou arrived.
"—I can't stop seeing them and I can't even tell whose face it is anymore, I just see those fucking stitches and the way they stared and— and he turned one into a fucking puppet and— I didn't know them but I could have known them, they could've been my family and I wouldn't have— Like how long has this shit been going on? How does a man just get away with it all those years—"
Well, fuck. Jenny Lou hugs her (an awkward side hug, since Athessa needs all the fortification she can get, clearly).
"It's fucked up. Like crazy fucked up, girl, I'm sorry." She only has the vaguest clue about the details, but like, clearly shit went down. And one would think surviving a war would've made comforting someone easier, but nope. "Fuck that guy, hope he goes to like the fiftieth circle in Hell."
"H-he turned the whole fucking Inn into a...a torture mirror maze and abducted people and—and—stuffed them, like hunting trophies."
That might be as good as she's going to manage right now. She takes a few gulping breaths and drinks more brandy, tipping her head back as if that'll keep the tears from falling out of her eyes. It's just a balance issue, see? If you balance the tears on top of your eyeballs like this, they can't spill.
Except they can. Fuck.
"Gawen Pickney eloped with a Dalish elf and we found both of them, plus four more elves. Killed and preserved and sewn up like rag dolls. In a fucking torture maze."
Because no really, what the fuck else do you say. Selfishly, in the part of herself that Jenny Lou will never admit to, she's glad she wasn't there. She already has enough weird dreams to contend with.
"You burned it down, yeah?" Because that seems pertinent. "Like. All of it?"
She nods, blinking rapidly and wiping her face with her sleeve.
"Yeah. Yeah we torched the place. I don't know if everything underground burned, but we made sure nobody'd ever set foot in that Inn. I...I gave the elves their rites, too. Best as I could."
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no subject
She might be able to go to the Alienage and find a place for herself, but something tells her it wouldn't be much better being in a societal prison for elves than being in a literal one made for mages. And when she thinks about the elves at the Alienage, and how they would receive her, all she can see are the eyes of those Dalish she just buried. The stitches holding them together, the way their skin turned to leather and the vallaslin on their faces faded and warped.
She sniffles, and wipes at her nose with her sleeve, using that as an excuse to turn her face away in case she can't control the expression on it.
"Not outside of the Alienage, anyway."
no subject
"That's shitty," she says, because it is and she doesn't know what she can do to help make it less shitty.
no subject
The tears sting her eyes before they fall and her cheeks after, the cold air biting at any moisture she doesn't manage to wipe away ere too long. She covers her face with her forearm for a few ragged breaths, mumbling out a "sorry" for Jenny Lou being party to this misery.
"It's just so fucked."
no subject
no subject
What comes tumbling out is disjointed, only semi-coherent, and punctuated with alternating drinks from the bottle and drags on the blunt she'd been smoking when Jenny Lou arrived.
"—I can't stop seeing them and I can't even tell whose face it is anymore, I just see those fucking stitches and the way they stared and— and he turned one into a fucking puppet and— I didn't know them but I could have known them, they could've been my family and I wouldn't have— Like how long has this shit been going on? How does a man just get away with it all those years—"
no subject
"It's fucked up. Like crazy fucked up, girl, I'm sorry." She only has the vaguest clue about the details, but like, clearly shit went down. And one would think surviving a war would've made comforting someone easier, but nope. "Fuck that guy, hope he goes to like the fiftieth circle in Hell."
no subject
That might be as good as she's going to manage right now. She takes a few gulping breaths and drinks more brandy, tipping her head back as if that'll keep the tears from falling out of her eyes. It's just a balance issue, see? If you balance the tears on top of your eyeballs like this, they can't spill.
Except they can. Fuck.
"Gawen Pickney eloped with a Dalish elf and we found both of them, plus four more elves. Killed and preserved and sewn up like rag dolls. In a fucking torture maze."
no subject
Because no really, what the fuck else do you say. Selfishly, in the part of herself that Jenny Lou will never admit to, she's glad she wasn't there. She already has enough weird dreams to contend with.
"You burned it down, yeah?" Because that seems pertinent. "Like. All of it?"
no subject
"Yeah. Yeah we torched the place. I don't know if everything underground burned, but we made sure nobody'd ever set foot in that Inn. I...I gave the elves their rites, too. Best as I could."