at least the dark don't hide it; OTA

[wythersake]

WHO: Isaac + OTA
WHAT: Dream aftermath
WHEN: First day or so after everyone wakes up
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: Probable vague discussion of torture, will edit as appropriate.

 

Comments

[okayimin]

"You're an idiot." It's a ghost of the outrage she'd felt in the dream.

She sighs and rubs a hand over her face, "Are you staying in the Gallows at least?"

[wythersake]

"It seems a poor time to climb out the window."

An incriminating one, at least.

[okayimin]

"Might reflect poorly." Then she hopes off her stool and takes a few steps towards him, "Well, whatever you plan on doing, let me have a look at you first. You're one of the ones on my list I haven't seen yet."

[wythersake]

"I'm well, Sara." A rare thing — she has always been Sister. "A full night's rest."

He looks as ever: A little tired, a little bald. She is a little thing herself, and perhaps that's why he doesn't step away; uncoils each knuckle slow.

[okayimin]

She scowls and looks him over the best she can from where she is, hands on her hips.

"No aches or pains that might have carried over from the dream? Vision all right?" Her frown deepens, "I ought to make you take off your shoes. It was so blasted cold on that stupid mountain, I'm surprised we didn't all wake up with frostbite. Even if it was a dream."

[wythersake]

The twinge in his jaw is nothing that Isaac cares to discuss —

"If you begin shucking boots, the Dalish will never put them back on." Or whatever elf is bending to the claim this week. "Do you feel ill?"

[okayimin]

Had Athessa even worn boots in the mountains? But it's not a thought she has room to chase.

"My head feels like it's going to tear itself in two, if you must know," she says primly, "I don't know how you do that every night without going mad. It feels like the first time I came out from the Roads all over again." It had been dark then too, the sky like a huge dome of obsidian. Then it had started snowing and she'd screamed till a traveling party of Chantry sisters found her.

[wythersake]

"They aren't typically so elabourate." No point in waving a draught — if she needs rest, she'll find the remedy herself. "Forgetting an exam, dancing with a stranger."

Or so others have told him.

"It grew easier?"

The sky, the weight of it.

[okayimin]

"Not really. There's just other things to do that worry about the giant void with things floating in it above us." And she arches a brow at him, "And when it gets to be too much, I go and sleep in the closet." It's not the only reason, but it's not a small one either.

[wythersake]

There's a joke in there, somewhere. Alone in the darkness of the Gallows, Rowntree must know something of it —

"The Maker loves an architect," (There's a joke in everything here: Men sunburnt by a sky they'd never seen.) "The same must be said of ceilings."

[okayimin]

There are parts of the Chant she could recite. Some pithy thing in relation to those parts she could say. Should probably say.

What she says instead comes out almost idly: "Suppose. Me and the Maker don't have much to do with each other."

It's easy to say, which isn't a surprise. It's a relief to say, which perhaps is.

[wythersake]

It is not, particularly, a surprise. That she holds it as such, when otherwise far too free with disregard,

"Has it been on your mind?"

[okayimin]

"Only as something I suspect will have to be resolved sooner rather than later," she says, "We've enough to do in the meantime. Would you be willing to come back if we have another grippe outbreak this year?"

Which is arguably the most important question that needs to be asked.

[wythersake]

"Resolved in what manner?"

(They've a dozen qualified hands. Riftwatch will survive his temporary indecision.)

[okayimin]

"Answer my question and I'll answer yours."

[wythersake]

"I asked first."

[okayimin]

She sets her hands on her hips and gives a deeply disgruntled huff.

"You didn't, you're avoiding my question."

[wythersake]

"Yes."

— He's avoiding it. Isaac jostles the box in emphasis. How badly does she want an answer?

[okayimin]

She glares up at him, but-

"Excommunication or resignation," she snips, "Those are my options."

[wythersake]

"They are options," He grants. "But I'm afraid you've been misled, if you imagine every servant of the Chantry supplicant to the Maker."

[okayimin]

"I'm not completely sunblind, whatever else you might think of me," she says, "They're my options because I chose them for myself. Just a matter of figuring out which is the best for the folks that come after me."

[wythersake]

"Would remaining injure your character, or theirs?"

[okayimin]

Her nose scrunches a little. Honestly, what character did she even have to worry about injuring.

"Run a real risk of turning some of those mud stuck Tantervale type nugfuckers away from the idea of letting anybody they don't like join up properly if I leave wrong. Getting a few high ranking elf Mothers and Clerics might actually get some repercussions for fuckers purging alienages whenever pleases them." There's an Orlesian mayor in a small hamlet with an empty alienage who is at the top of Sawbones' list. And then of course, there was the matter of the Circles.

She sighs, rubbing the heels of her hands against her tired eyes, "Or that Corypheus will make the whole thing irrelevant. Or whoever comes after him. Or Orzammar will fall to the 'spawn and the hordes will start moving through the surface and I'll go mad."

whips a drape over the date

[wythersake]

An elf is not a dwarf, he might say; doesn't. The conversation presents an uncommon view: A picture he has not been previously certain she grasps, much less values.

(Perhaps it would do to be, from time to time, a tad less smug in one's assumptions —)

"Perhaps," He agrees. "But I'd lay odds you go mad before that. Dueling season is around the corner."

A joke.

"If you will permit an observation," He perches temporarily upon table-edge. No purpose, save that it sets him scant inches closer to eye level. "It is that you speak most often as a woman alone."

time isn't real

[okayimin]

She half expects him to. Even lifts her chin in challenge. She's thought about this.
She's been actively encouraged to not speak on it, but the infirmary is dark and the lingering terror of the dream has her snappish and reckless. Instead he gives her a joke and she makes a noise that's almost a laugh, if a bit choked. "Stone, don't remind me. Half hope the gripe comes back and keeps everyone in their beds for another month."

A joke in turn, as much as she makes one.

She doesn't say whether the observation is permitted or not, because she figures he'd offer it anyway. And... well. "Habit," she says, "When you do Caste work in Dust Town, you can't be close with anyone else. If you're caught, best case scenario is you get a quick execution."