O1 ♚ I'M IN NEED OF AN ANSWER

[slaveking]

WHO: Marcel Gerard & you
WHAT: A vampire chillin' in Thedas gets a log with both open and closed starter options. Running on rooftops, hanging at the tavern, murder practice, the usual.
WHEN: December
WHERE: Various throughout the fortress Skyhold
NOTES: Up to PG-13 for language, will note more in subject headers as they arise

See comments for starters!

Comments

[demonicbeauty]

She was used to being laughed at. Mostly when she failed to grasp some sort of humanoid euphemism or figure of speech. But as Ariadne watched him laugh, she replayed their conversation and couldn't imagine any of it being especially funny.

Well, all the more reason to better get to know his world, she supposed.

"I said track," she pointed out, as soon as he'd stopped seeing the humor in the situation. "Not write down. No, we shouldn't write any of it down. I don't want us being...what's the word? Registered?" An involuntary shudder ran through her shoulders at the thought.

[slaveking]

"Hey, I didn't think you meant that," Marcel says, lifting a hand-- an understated gesture of surrender. "Just thinking out loud. I got no idea how many Rifters there are in Skyhold right now." He crooks his eyebrows upward, and belatedly recognizes that she probably thought that laughter was at her. In reality, that couldn't be further from the truth. Wits and a sense about people are good assets to have.

Marcel tucks his hands into his pockets. "I think those are excellent ideas. Important material to get hammered out, if there's any kind of possibility." A beat. His eyes flatten slightly, but however sour the recollection is, he knows that it's only that: a recollection. And finding common ground is important here, this alien world to which they've been stolen. "I don't like the idea of being Registered either. They used to do that with my people. It meant we weren't see as people." He twitches a smile at her. Small, brief, dry. Humorless. "If I remember right, you know something about that.

"We're on the same page, ma'am. And I appreciate you looking out."

[demonicbeauty]

How curious this man was. A scent that made no sense. A pleasing face. And ways about him that she couldn't even begin to understand. Humanoids were always such puzzles, but generally much more easily solved than this one.

"I know something about that," she said carefully, still trying to measure each of his words. "Where I come from, there's a war that makes everything going on here look like a petty squabble." Not that any war was a good thing, but even in her hopeless optimism, she had to admit that some were better than others.

Or maybe it was more that some were worse than others.

It didn't matter.

"But," she continued, "looking out is something I do. And if we're all...Rifters..." She liked the term and would use it from this point forward, "...I see that as making us a kind of family. Which means we need to look out for each other and for the whole. Otherwise, we'll just get swept up in this violence. Without ever really having a true stake."

[slaveking]

Marcel's head tilts fractionally one way as he listens to her, some of the shinier, more facetious good humor easing out of his face. Mostly, he's paying attention. For someone who seems to fumble around with social niceties a little bit, he finds that particular sentiment remarkably well-spoken.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," he says, nodding his head. The curl of his hands changes slightly where his arms are folded. "Maybe if we'd ended up a few thousand miles out from the borders of conflict, yeah all right. Ignore a war, focus on the rest. But it seems like the mechanics of how we got here are pretty inextricable from the war. Details varying on who you ask." Marcel weaves his head left and right for a moment. "I mean violence has a way of getting to people even without magic connections. I think you're right.

"Even for people who don't care about going home." Do they exist? Marcel hasn't met any thus far. He hadn't asked Church straight-up, but it had been clear from the way the man spoke about adjusting to Thedas that he'd sooner be embroiled in the bizarre futuristic terms of his own world, for one reason or another. He angles a curious look at her, smile starting again. "Is there anyone else you'd think to bring to the meeting?"

[demonicbeauty]

She demurred. Ariadne had strong opinions and plenty of beliefs, many of them contrary, but she wasn't one to speak up quite as much as she just had. It was only that it was so important to her.

Let charismatic figures like Marcel take the lead. Ariadne knew how to play her part from behind the scenes.

"I'm just worried about us," she said shyly. "Worried about us become tools and soldiers for others. We need to stick together."

[slaveking]

"That's a worthy concern," Marcel answers, nodding his head. He notices the subtle way that she retreats into herself just then, and marks it down in his mind as something else to know about her. It does't bother him, partly because he's loud enough for dozens of people, yes, but also as he's met women of a similar demeanor before.

All one has to do is remember, in the future, to ask. He's never minded taking the time to mine for insight where it's available, even from unlikely or unassuming sources.

"I'm pretty sure there are gonna be some of us who'd rather go it alone." The Klaus Mikaelsons of the world. There will always be a Klaus Mikaelson. "But I want there to be somewhere for people to go if they don't." He crooks a smile at her, then turns slightly, back toward the flowerbed. "Do you have to get back to work?"

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne didn't have to do anything. And when it was all said and done, that was her very real problem in Thedas. She didn't belong. In every sense of the word. And without obligations to anyone, she felt lost and adrift.

Maybe she wasn't alone though. Maybe joining up with others was the answer.

And even if it wasn't...at least she'd tried.

She gave Marcel another smile. "You're just as interesting as you promised to be, Marcel Gerard," she told him.

[slaveking]

"I don't remember making that promise," Marcel answers, but there's no humility in his eyes to match the tone of his voice when he says, "Seems a lot to live up to, when you're in the company of inter-dimensional travelers. You know?" But he smiles, wide and easy, not evidently concerned about the possibility of failing to live up to anything he sets forth.

He inherited overconfidence from the Mikaelsons, too.

But he puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs up his shoulders. "I'll try not to disappoint."

[demonicbeauty]

Never have expectations and you'll never be disappointed. It was a mantra she often heard Princess Amanda murmuring to herself, as she went about the daily tasks of watching war destroy the realm.

For Ariadne, it wasn't so simple. Her optimism and idealism made her expect to see the best people had to offer. And while she was often disappointed, she still clung fiercely to her beliefs.

And would continue to do so. Because, otherwise, Thedas would truly claim her.

So she merely smiled, ducking her head. "I'm not too worried."