open. “Please tell a story about a girl who gets away.”

[delphian]

WHO: Tsenka Abendroth + YOU?
WHAT: Tsenka takes a bath. A lot.
WHEN: After the skeleton wars.
WHERE: The heated baths in the former Templar tower.
NOTES: Nudity, discussion of trauma, the uzh.

Against all of the odds stacked heavily out of her favour, Tsenka Abendroth is alive. She has survived her first, unlikely rescue; she has endured time in the infirmary, ensuring that having made it to the Gallows she wouldn't simply collapse with all of the foundations of her taken away. She has survived, again, the attack on the Gallows itself by what Riftwatch left behind in Nevarra City—it feels like a thread pulling tight, somehow, her Nevarran name buying her freedom and the Nevarran dead coming to take it away from her again—

she is alive. She is with Riftwatch because she has chosen to be, and not for any other reason. If she decided the choice didn't suit her any longer, she could leave. She has been released from the infirmary under her own power, and she can choose any unused room she wishes,

but right now, she has decided to choose the baths. Tsenka is not, typically, given to overindulgence in luxurious hygiene, but it's been actual years since she's had the leisure to do or not do at her own inclination. Bathing, during captivity, had been...nonexistent, if one were not to stretch the definition to include the occasional bucket of cold water thrown on her if she seemed like she might be sleeping easy. There had certainly not been any soap involved. At liberty to do as she pleases until she can commit to doing something useful to anyone else, it pleases her to set up camp in a corner of the heated baths with a clean robe and towels, a platter of food she'd gathered from mealtimes and the occasional application of large, sad eyes. A bottle of cheap wine, easier to drink from directly with hot, wet hands than fuss about with cups or glasses—some incense that she'd found, and had set up to burn where the ash would fall directly into the water, making it much easier to clean up after.

A few books, though she hasn't figured out the best way to read them without getting them wet, yet. Her crystal. Scissors, because even wet it's obvious that about half her hair is a good several inches different from the rest.

She will be here for some time.

Comments

[acreage]

The first surprise is the funny collection of things — open bottle of wine, the food and books, the unexpected smell of incense. The second is the face surrounded by uneven hair, unfamiliar. New arrivals aren't altogether rare around the Gallows, and a part of him wonders whether she's another who got spat out of a rift, or a local to Thedas. Hard to say without seeing her hands.

His own are in gloves despite the location. It's cold out, though, and he's had to dress for the walk as much as bring bathing implements, a clean change of clothes.

"Enjoying yourself?"

— is asked with a kind of indulgent amusement, not unkind. He's not sure how amenable she really is to interruption, and so it's a sort of quick question asked before he goes to undress, himself, and probably take up (briefer) residence at another pool of warm water.

[delphian]

“It is a simple pleasure,” is the answer she decides on, and if he looks back to see her give it then he'll get a good look at her unmarred hands in the process of lighting a pipe, filling her corner of the baths with a second source of pungent smoke; she shakes out the lit match when she's done with it and relaxes luxuriantly against the edge, her arms spread out either side of her to hold herself there.

“I am accepting suggestions for more complex ones.”

[acreage]

He does look back when she answers; and while his smile had always been sincere, some real humor warms it now.

"You don't look like you need the help."

He sets his things down, kneels so he can work at the laces on his shoes.

[poleaxed]

The baths are good, because everyone generally minds their own business. Even Jone, generally outgoing to a literal fault, can appreciate some quiet. She just prefers to be alone in company. A form of rolling muscle, old scars and red hair makes its way into the bathing area, and Jone sits calmly, expression stoney.

She's usually not prone to such stoicism, but the clearly new scar through her upper lip inspires something like calm, lest she pop a stitch and make it worse. She is trying not to focus too much on vanity-- she isn't pretty enough to be vain-- and think instead on the fact that if this doesn't heal right, she won't be able to talk right.

Fucking pain in the mouth, aye?

She makes a coughing sound, catching a laugh at her own stupid joke before it can escape.

She notices the elf, because she's a fighter and it befuckinghooves her to notice everyone else in a room she enters. The elf doesn't really register-- most don't-- until she sees the scissors, and Jone is a woman who has cut her own hair several times. It's always a kick in the dick.

She holds up one too-large, utterly human hand and gestures to the shears. Her words are slow and careful, spoken around the sutures holding the upper half of her fucking mouth together. "Need a trim?"

Say what you will about Jone's looks (and many have), but her hair is always neat and orderly.

[delphian]

The elf in question is already looking at Jone with placid interest when she's noticed—it's probable she's sort of looking at everybody that comes in and out while she's in here, because whatever else is happening in all of this indulgence she doesn't carry herself like someone in the habit of presuming her surroundings to be safe. Stitches around the mouth do look like a ball ache and no mistake, the twist of her own in sympathy a subtler expression than the boldly drawn, lazy way she's lounging,

but it's the offer that takes her off-guard, not unpleasantly. Her staff is not in immediate evidence, which might contribute generally to more inclination to offer help to perfect strangers, but then it's her understanding that Riftwatch is where bleeding hearts go to punch knives into less understanding sorts. So it's entirely possible she'd have offered even if it were, actually.

People have been kind to her, here, so far. At some point, she'll consider trusting it.

“My brother is coming down to do it,” she says, touching the shorter side; it's been long enough since they hacked it off on the road that even the shorter pieces hang below her collarbone, and she's still weighing up exactly how much she wants him to chop. Her instinct had been to take it back to her jaw, but they're not in quite the same straits. For a start, she can wash it. “When he's finished for the day. Has a more pressing schedule than I, presently.”

And mostly people do mind their business in the baths, but apparently opening conversation is as good as inviting Tsenka not to do that because she shifts forward to continue it— “The undead?” with a querying gesture at her own mouth.

[poleaxed]

Jone shrugs it off. It's not her concern who cuts hair-- and honestly, if the elf wants to hack her own locks off blessings be to her-- but it's nice to know somebody new already has someone looking out for them. It'd been different for Jone, and she is able to reckognize that now, how terribly lost she was, at the beginning of things, and how terribly vicious she was because of it.

Oh, well. Good that it's over, as the hangman said to the squire.

Jone sees the interest in the scar, and realizes this is about to be her new life. Where'd you get it? Eventually, she'll have to come up with an amusing enough lie, though right now no one will believe anything but the truth.

(It were dragons.)

She nods. "Dead now, they are," she says after a moment spent double checking... No, none of those words, blessedly, use anything other than teeth and tongue.

[overharrowed]

Someone setting up camp in the bathrooms is unusual, but not unheard of, especially as it gets colder outside. What gives Julius pause, instead, is that the woman who has done so looks familiar. He can't immediately place why, but the familiarity is still a tug that's hard to ignore.

Instead of just guessing, he decides to take the risk and simply ask. He comes over, robed and likely coming to rather than from a bath (or, at least, his hair is dry). "I'm so sorry to bother you. Have we met before?"

[delphian]

It's polite, when someone's undressing in communal bathing, not to regard them do it quite so frankly. Or at all. Tsenka can probably ride the excuse of having been out of polite society long enough to lose the familiarity of the rules for at least a while longer; it's not even as if it isn't true.

(It's just that she was like this before, too.)

“No?” She clicks her tongue against her teeth. “Maybe. Do you?”

[delphian]

More than anything, it is a very direct interest in Jone now that she has put herself in Tsenka's view, and she is stymied momentarily by the obvious realization that it's going to be fucking difficult to make conversation with a woman whose mouth is in the process of healing such a wound. Probably it'd have been easier to get closer acquainted if she'd accepted the assistance — she thinks for a moment that she should — but a half idle attempt to get into a stranger's pants is slightly less pressing than the soothing symmetry of reunion.

Fixing something they'd broken together. Making it neat again. Here I am, not dead.

“He thought I was, too,” she says. She taps her fingers against the edge of the bath, then— “You don't want soap slipping in,” touching the corner of her own mouth, “you want help, washing yours?”

The slight lean that lifts half a breast out the water is not not an invitation, but the offer of assistance, in turn, is sincere even if the flirtation gets shot down.

[delphian]

After Richard introduced himself as—well, Richard, Tsenka is slightly better prepared to meet the dreamers whose minds she touched without immediately tipping her hand. It isn't actually a yes or a no, precisely, when she casts an admiring gaze from his feet up to his hair—

“I'm sure I'd remember.”

She tips a hand toward the open space in the heated water, her pipe loosely held between her fingers and trailing smoke: “You can join me if you'd like to try and jog my memory.” Stud.

(How is she supposed to know Marcus is banging the arse off the cat guy.)

[overharrowed]

He'd been so focused on his question that the tone of her response takes him off guard. It translates merely into him raising his eyebrows and considering a moment. But he does want know.

(He has the brief thought that he is sure Petrana would understand leaning on a perceived attraction for information, but he isn't sure where Marcus stands on it: a conversation they should probably have later.)

Still, for now, he takes her invitation. "It wasn't a line, for what it's worth. You really do look familiar, but I can't quite place it."

[acreage]

If he notices her attention, he does a stellar job of not showing it. He isn't precious about privacy, is the thing. Barracks and tight quarters on various ships. The room he sleeps in now, when he does, is disconcertingly spacious; the choice had made more sense with Amos next door, when he'd briefly had cause to share.

"Do you ask everyone who comes in here, or am I just special?"

The look on his face, when he glances towards her, suggests he does know the answer to that.

Boots and socks done, he straightens to shuck off his coat, and then the gloves, a tell-tale green shimmer appearing at his palm.

[poleaxed]

Well, there's something for the old self esteem. Jone has spent time enough in Orlais to have plenty of tangled feelings about elvenkind, but seeing as Jone's got no tangible benefit she can provide this new elf, she doesn't think it's that. Quaint, in a way. She'd smile, if she could. Instead, she tilts her head, not quite accustomed to emoting without her fucking mouth.

"Dead charmed, I am," spoken, again, carefully. "Can manage myself."

That fucking Mmm in manage is a killer. The entire affair is making her come off more stone-faced and placid than she usually prefers... or, you know, is.

[delphian]

A flicker of a smile—it's just a faint thing, but it lingers. She seems steady in a way that there's no immediate reason to question, because if she isn't, really,

well, who among them. World's fucked.

“High opinion of Riftwatch,” she proposes, “or low opinion of bathtub flirts?”

Smoke wreathes her when she breathes it out. It isn't anything he's going to get more than the risk of lung disease from, if he gets near.

[delphian]

Tsenka relaxes back into the water, letting it swallow her again to her collarbones, with much the same sort of philosophical shrug as had accompanied Jone's acceptance of her preferences for hairstyling. And probably with about the same weight—these simple things, these means of connection. The nothing personal of it all, but the kind that doesn't sour when studied.

It just feels sort of refreshing. Freedom is an agreement. It is interesting, agreeing with people.

“Aye, I expect so.” She can have that, too, for the old self-esteem; it is not without the lingering warmth of casual admiration. “Most here, I expect.”

[delphian]

Uncorking her wine bottle again with her teeth, she takes a drink before offering it to him—

“There's still time, should you like to try one.” A line, she means, perfectly aware of what about her must have drawn his attention but equally willing to see if she can hold it with something else, while she's here. Getting into the water isn't demurring, after all. And some people like to be flirted with, a bit.

She leans back against the solid stone behind her. Says, “My name is Tsenka,” as if she thinks that might be what he recognizes.

[acreage]

The rest of the process of undressing goes quickly enough, so it's not long before he's easing himself into the warm water. There's an assortment of small scars, unexceptional for the lifestyle at Riftwatch; most noticeable is the large, ugly one at his stomach. Less obvious is the suggestion of something under the skin near his shoulder, a faint blue lyrium glow at his upper arm. Easily missed, maybe, between the warm mist in the air and the smoke.

"It's been pointed out," he says, sitting, "that there are a lot of attractive people on the island."

High opinion of Riftwatch, then.

[poleaxed]

A grunt of a laugh-- real laughter requires smiling, which is a dangerous proposition until the stitches are out, and maybe after. Still, her humor at the elf's words is obvious.

"Tough... gettin' company?" She'd meant to say tough pickings, not being one to mince words, but the euphemism saves her having to flex that damned fucking lip again. "Were hard meself, first days."

From one free with her company to another, or someone who used to be, anyway.

[delphian]

“Might've lost my touch,” she allows, “but I've been out the infirmary all of—”

The illustrative gesture she makes in the air above her doesn't really mean anything, but presumably Jone can interpret it to mean: fuck all time, actually. Probably about as long as it took her to gather up everything she needs and park her slippery little self in this corner of the communal baths.

Her smile is something just barely there; suggestive of the bright boldness, underneath.

“I don't consider myself hard up, as yet. Apparently you're all very attractive around here.” So how bad can her odds be, honestly.

[delphian]

“Is that a fact.” Gosh, well, that is convenient. Bound to be a handful among them of a like inclination. It's statistics. “I've not met the many of you, yet.”

She considers it, apparently in all seriousness, tipping her head back to gaze up at the stone ceiling, smoke from her pipe curling lazily into the air next to her.

“I wouldn't kick Richard out of bed,” she decides. “And I know them as have fancied my brother. There was a pretty mage with him, too, when he came to fetch me. Handful of strapping babies who'll probably be rugged in a few years.”

[acreage]

That list of considerations earns a smile, face briefly tipping downwards. Good For Her, honestly.

"You have a brother?"

One in Riftwatch by the sound of it, and he can't help wondering if it's someone he knows.

[poleaxed]

Another sniff of laughter. Jone usually knows when to avoid her euphemisms, but she's so focused on not saying a word that'd rip her mouth apart, she's fallen right into one. A shrug. What can you do?

She brings her hand out of the water, waggling it a bit. So-so. Her own feelings on her personal level of attractiveness, with or without the scar, aside... well, humility never hurt nobody, at least not when they were starkers.

"How long you been-..." Jone manages to say without any evident difficulty, saved by the fact that her accent shaves the H off of the front of every word... "Here. Gallows."

So close. 'Gallows' comes out like 'gals'.

[overharrowed]

He looks, perhaps unexpectedly, started. "...not Marcus's Tsenka?" That wouldn't be how he'd know her face, even if it were true. But it certainly shifts the interaction in an unanticipated direction.

(He can't help the brief, rueful thought that the last time he'd met some of Marcus's family, at least he'd been fully dressed.)

[delphian]

“From the Circle,” she says, which is probably intended as some manner of explanation for the name she gives: “Marcus Rowntree.”

The hint of mischief in the tilt of her mouth before she corrects herself, very seriously, “Captain Rowntree,” is all little sister.

[delphian]

On the one hand,

it's not as if it's news to her that Marcus is in the Gallows, that he's part of Riftwatch. Captain of the Guard and all. And this man is a mage, so it naturally follows that they'd be acquainted, but even still, she's caught momentarily off-guard.

“You'll find he's my Marcus,” she says, milder. “Friend of yours, is he?”

The joke is that Marcus is a friend to all mages.