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{ laura kint }

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WHO: Laura Kint & Matthias, Abby, and POTENTIALLY YOU
WHAT: Returning to Riftwatch HQ after half a year spent helping Marchers dealing with the aftermath of sieges and other nastiness. Did she chop wood with her claws? Almost certainly.
WHEN: End of Wintermarch, start of Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall, the general area
NOTES: The deal is this: Coming up with open starters usually just means I write bullshit "Laura exists, come bother her" things. However, if we plan something out together, I can write you a slightly more interesting starter, like "Laura stabs something dangerously near your character" or "Laura awkwardly hugs your character without warning because she missed them." If you PM me or PP

prettydoes, we can plan out something specific, and I'll write it up.

Starters in the comments.

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"You can still be angry." His anger comes through in his clenching hand and the hardness in his expression, as much as in his words. It's familiar, and Laura thinks it just. "They put you in a cage."

Matthias had been a boy. He'd done nothing to justify being locked away. For all she doesn't trust mages - for all she can see the purpose of keeping them from hurting others - nearly two years lived among them has introduced her to people who have caused harm to none. They have wanted safety and happiness, and they have not smelled cruel.

"If Cumberland disappeared," she adds, haltingly, looking down at the smooth old stones of the battlements, "I would not mourn. I would want to know everyone who...who hurt me...that they died with it. I am tired of killing people, but I don't think they should be alive."

Laura looks down; Matthias looks over at her. He holds tight to her hand. Her claws could split through his fingers if she wanted them to, but she doesn't, wouldn't. She's tired of killing people, even those that shouldn't be alive. People who did terrible things to her, people who let other people do terrible things to her.

"Sometimes I think," he starts, before he stops with a frown. If he can't say this to Laura, who might he say it to? "Sometimes I think Riftwatch doesn't do enough. To-- To help people, I s'ppose. It does, right--we do, actually, help--but-- We could do more, I think. Or at least we could try harder and really help. I met this mage, he's called Linden, he's all right--he's the one that put me on to lightning--and he asked what I think of Riftwatch, and I've been thinking about that a great deal. I like that it stands for something. I don't like how slow it is. I know you've got to be, sometimes, I'm not stupid, but--if we weren't, if we did that--actually did things to, I dunno, save people--decisively, like-- Sometimes I think I ought to just go off and do that on my own. Even if I'd not get very far."

Edited 2022-04-07 03:02 (UTC)

There is a pause.

"Do you want to leave Riftwatch?" She asks the way normal people touch bruises - barely touching, wary of pain. Which answer would hurt, though, no or yes? Laura's not sure. She did things while she was away, in the ways Matthias means, but they had all been small things. Riftwatch can make greater changes, if one waits - but one must wait.

Linden's name sounds familiar. Her memory dredges up a conversation in which a voice had decided her voice was human before she'd said so. But the question of Riftwatch is what's foremost in her mind right now.

Matthias holds his breath for about twenty seconds, then lets it all out in a great exhale.

"Not yet," he says. "'Least I don't think so. I think--for me--there's still things I can do by being here. And I like it most days. It's better'n I had. But I've learnt a great deal as well. I feel like I was a right idiot when I came in--not that I'm so much cleverer now--but I've learnt things from being with Riftwatch. And I think, before anything else, we've got to see to Corypheus, haven't we? As long as that stays what we're doing, really doing, well, that's good work on its own. I think that's what I think--right now, anyways. Could change my mind."

He squeezes at her hand again.

"What about you?"

"Riftwatch has helped us," Laura says, after some thought - standing silently beside Matthias, looking at the sea, feeling the weight of his hand in hers. This, perhaps more than anything else, she's missed. For all his chattering, Matthias will wait for her to find the words she wants to say, when it takes time for her to gather them. Talking with him comes without expectations, beyond that they both enjoy the conversation. "I dislike the idea of leaving when others still need our aid."

Her eyes cut up to Matthias', head hardly tilting. "But when I am away, I decide what to, and how to do it. I think...I think someday I will tire of taking orders. Do you think you'll tire of working for Commander Flint?"

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