i'll face my fears even if it damn kills me

[armd]

WHO: Abby & OPEN
WHAT: Coming through the rift. Making a real splash
WHEN: Both arrival and within the first week of her quarantine
WHERE: Kirkwall (specifically The Waking Sea); The Gallows
NOTES: Swear words galore, mentions of past injuries

arrival.

Tonight Abby's lucid enough to realise she's in her usual nightmare but not enough to stop it from happening, which is both depressing and boring. The hallway is endless even though she knows that it isn't, and she walks down it with her gun in her hands and her heart in her throat. The alarm is so loud she can barely think over the top of it.

The door at the end doesn't reveal a body on the floor. Abby, familiar with the routine, screams like she's seen one anyway even as she takes a step through and falls forward, out into empty, white space. She's still processing the shift when she hits the churning waves of The Waking Sea with an extra yelp, spun around underneath the tide until she barely knows which way is up.

If you're down at the shore you've got the absolute privilege of seeing her dredge up from the water like a drowned rat, shivering and bewildered.

She hasn't even noticed the rage demon looming up behind her as she staggers up onto shore. Still trying to get her bearings. Still half-convinced she's dreaming.

quarantine; week one.

The Gallows are like something out of a book she's read, Gothic and strange and thrilling. The buildings inside of it draw her eye; the Smithy, in particular, where Abby can be found watching curiously as workers hammer out hot metal and shape it into tools, and weapons. She's feeling the uselessness of her 'gun' but she's kept it anyway, perhaps out of habit, strapped to the side of her leg. It's just to feel something, okay, any measure of normalcy in a world where she's found herself kept in a fortress and wearing some kind of loose, cloth shirt and plain trousers held together by drawstring rather than zipper, so. Don't point it out.

The apothecary reminds her of The Once and Future King, comfortably smoky, sweet-smelling, and filled to the fucking brim with little bottles of... stuff, and things. Abby's most intrigued by the potions, though ultimately belligerent with the shop owner when she finds out she can't just. Y'know, have it.

Yeah yeah she's heard about the 'economy'. She doesn't have enough coin for the bottle she's interested in, but that shouldn't matter because-

"I'm supposed to be going out and fighting for you, but you're not going to give me any first aid? What the fuck do I do if something cuts me down out there? Slap a leaf on it?"

Comments

[hornswoggle]

"There'll be plenty to do, once you're finished with your quarantine."

This would be true, even if the Tevinter army wasn't actively pushing south. But with so many of their number attempting to stave off the impossible, there was still the usual business of Riftwatch to be dealt with.

"Forces, I assume?" feels like a safe bet. Even if she hasn't chosen any particular Division yet, John has a sense that she'll land in Forces once all is said and done.

[armd]

"Good." She doesn't want to languish around waiting for things to happen to her, Abby wants shit to do. A list, even, of tasks that she can put her mind to just to take it off of how helpless being stuck here makes her feel.

"Forces," she echoes, raising an eyebrow. "What gave it away?" It's a bad joke, she knows what she looks like, and that she probably wouldn't be of help working for any other division.

"Research division sounds interesting, though."

[hornswoggle]

"If you're interested, I think you could withstand the enthusiasm of the Research Division."

Is John speaking solely of Wysteria Poppell? Who can say.

"Their members do have a tendency to be found poking at the nearest danger and then observing the effects from safe distance, as I understand it."

[armd]

"Yeah? Might check it out."

If only to try and do something different. It would sound strange to say it out loud to anybody, let alone somebody she's only just met, but she's been wondering what it might be like to... stop, while she's here. She could focus her efforts elsewhere, instead of solely on violence, and killing to get ahead.

Maybe research could be that, but Abby's not too sure of that yet. Her hands don't know how to be anything other than brutal.

"Are you allowed to change? Or is it a one and done kind of thing."