closed | couldn't drag me away.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Butch Porkfist poleaxed & Final Fantasy's Amelia Bedelia archademode & Snidely Whiplash altusimperius
WHAT: I don't want to ride my chocobo all day. Neither does Benedict.
WHEN: Now.
WHERE: The stables.
NOTES: I don't actually know how horses work.

UNO.

Every stable has an old nag, so old and docile no one really uses it anymore. Some of them had names once, but when a horse gets old enough, they just fade into the background until they die. It'd be sad, if Jone gave a shit, but she doesn't, so it isn't.

Nag is a grey mare, born some time in, presumably, the Blessed age. She walks slowly and calmly behind Jone, who is holding a carrot. Nag slowly uses her flat yellow teeth to saw into the carrot.

"This," Jone says to the tower of metal standing before her, "is a horse."

DOS.

Later, at some point after Jone has menaced Gabranth with the platonic concept of equestrianism, she spots young Benedict in the distance. What he's doing doesn't really matter to her, and the fact that she might be about to make a fool of herself barely crosses her mind.

Without warning, she just shouts, with (practiced, but) real (sounding) concern in her voice. "Oi! Ben! They're coming, they are! Hide here!"

She waves her hand, looking generally distressed.

Comments

wow thanks dw

[poleaxed]

Jone reaches up to her wrist, pulling away a knotted bracelet of thick fabric and leather. It looks decorative, if out of fashion. The reality is more simple: it hides a cool green glow.

"Weren't my choice, I swear it." Her voice carries the humor of a joke-- if she's done any harm, it was on purpose; the opposite is clearly accidental.

[archademode]

"So you would not tread the same path, were it not for that."

His helmet shifts, clearly attempting to better glimpse it over the sight of Moira's long ears and occasionally tossing head, the way she flicks each in turn to combat the nuisance of flies that seem only attracted to her existence.

[poleaxed]

"Not here," she says. "Pay is awful, though the bed and board makes up for some."

Not enough. All told, she's used to living better, in her wild years. She wonders if they've passed entirely, if Riftwatch is the whole rest of her life, but... she doesn't want to think that far ahead. It never does her any good.

"Might've been swayed to a proper army, given time, but I'm getting up in years. And I've not the blood for it, as we've discussed." She gives him a look, lightly teasing, as though nearly getting into a shouting match minutes ago is now a source of fun.

[archademode]

“The problem with armies lies in a narrow field of view.”

Riftwatch, at least, for all its faults, seems to have a broader ambition than simple politics, embittered rivalries of the need for supply alone, so far as he can tell. 

“Their concerns are too small. You would die for so little.”

[poleaxed]

Jone looks up at him, but whatever expression she holds is ruined by her squinting through the sunlight glinting off his armor. "Everybody dies for something little. Ta for the concern, though."

[archademode]

“Is that truly your belief?”

That death is a small thing. A narrow occurrence to be put at the end of a lifetime, little more than punctuation at the end of a penned sentence.

He has, by now, entirely forgotten his posture. Simply settled upon that horse with distracted ease, concentrated more on Jone than anything else.

It seems her bid at demanding his focus has paid off.

[poleaxed]

Jone notices his ease, and isn't of a mood to spook it out of him. He seems, at times, more likely to jolt than the bloody horse. She keeps walking him about, having their conversation, and she'll comment on his riding when he's done with it. If she ruins it, all he'll think on is his failure, even though he's doing right well.

"You don't die because honor killed you, or justice stopped your heart," she says softly, "you die 'cos your lungs gave out, or you ran outta blood, or your skull were crushed. I seen it happen. Poets say poison's an ugly way to die, but I ain't seen a pretty one yet. Just like being born, it's small and ugly and stupid."

[archademode]

It felt different than that, he thinks.

He would say as much (he would always say as much, given the opportunity to dig in his heels), but he isn’t certain that this is the conversation he wants to have while seated atop a horse as they pad around in listless circles. Still— it’s knowledge spirited away for later. Something to discuss when he isn’t acclimating to hoof beats and horse hair.

“Easier to rest, when your heart stops beating for the sake of someone worth defending.”

[poleaxed]

Jone nods her head to that, chewing the thought over. Causes, she thinks, are too big to die for. You go out there for honor and glory, but really it's the dream of a good woman or because your Da hit you too hard. People, now, that's something to believe in. They're just the right size to die for.

But she can't say any of that.

"Poet, you are," her voice has that raspy softness again. "Come now, let's get you down."

She pulls Moira back to their starting spot, next to the step up.

[archademode]

“Only in your world.”

In Archades he’s a blunt instrument, in the realm of the gods he was cast as little more than a shadow; it’s difficult for him— as she likely already knows— to reconcile the differences between what he understands within those two existences and Thedas itself.

The step is easy enough to find, even on the way down. One smooth movement from saddle to ground, despite the way his gloved hands still tightly grip the saddle as he dismounts.

It won’t be an easy trip ahead of him, but if nothing else, this experience will have made it bearable.