open | brain heat meme

[cozen]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Nightmares, slumber parties, etc.
WHEN: Throughout Justinian
WHERE: Kirkwall and surrounding areas
NOTES: Ignore the first prompt if you're bothered by bugs. Also, while this is primarily to help people RP about their nightmares, feel free to use it for any kind of RP you want. (I.e., you have permission to set up a truth or dare game at the slumber party.) Talk about dreams OOC over here

This month, our heroes' sleep is getting more and more troubled. Here are some excuses to write about it.

I. SLUMBER PARTY: Mid-month, an infestation of hardy, prolific Antivan fleas requires everyone to avoid spending prolonged periods of time in their bedrooms while local alchemist Lloyd Meyers eradicates the bugs with his proprietary smoke bombs (and an equally proprietary flea bath for the Gallows' many pets). While the rooms air out for two or three nights post-treatment, bed rolls are available on the floor of the unstaffed dining hall. Sleeping outside in the courtyards is also an option, but a sudden squall of a thunderstorm will drive people inside on the second night.

Footnote: Characters who live in the city are welcome to join this slumber party anyway. Maybe they miss the ferry ashore, maybe they're afraid of tracking fleas into their own homes, maybe they already did track fleas into their homes and Lloyd is treating them too, etc.

II. ROOM SHARE: Does the thought of sleeping in the dining hall with all of your coworkers make you break out in hives? Have you missed the ferry on any other evening of the month? Lowtown has inns, and Riftwatch has a docks-side warehouse with a few side rooms outfitted as bedrooms. But there are only so many rooms available, so you might wind up sharing a room (or a bed) with a friend or whoever is nearby and desperate.

III. CAT NAP: A lack of sleep—whether it be from the nightmares, the workload, routine insomnia, or staying up too late playing Truth or Dare during the Antivan Flea Incident—might make a cat nap on a desk, in a reading nook, or over breakfast particularly appealing. And bad dreams don't need more than a few minutes to get rolling.

IV. CAMP OUT: Investigating reports of enemy scouts in the mountains, traveling along the roads to a neighboring city-state on a diplomatic errand, looking into reports of weird magic on the Wounded Coast, or heading north to provide some assistance to the war effort? All might require pitching a tent and bunking down for the night with your colleague, whether you like them or loathe them.

V. NORMAL NIGHT: If you’re already sharing a room or bed with someone, you don't need this post. But you can still use it for your nightmare threads.

VI. BETTER IDEA: Do whatever you want. Live your dreams.

Comments

I, III

[notathreat]

I. SLUMBER PARTY:

Ellie's been fighting it. The first night she managed to stay awake. Managed to get through it. She's taken cat naps at her desk, because her normal haunts (the stable hayloft, the Aerie) are being flea-bombed, and are all being overrun by well-meaning alchemists.

But nothing would be more embarrassing that having a good fucking scream on the floor in front of all of her coworkers. She's already on-edge enough.

So she tries to find a corner, tries to read a book. But eventually the candles gutter out, and the book ends up resting against her cheek.

And then the nightmares begin again.

It's subtle at first. Twitches, tight breathing. Small gasps and twisted expressions. A cold sweat breaking out over her skin. She shivers, first, curling around the old wound in her stomach, and then the sounds of the thunderstorm start to seep in.

The hiss of rain, the scent of fires. The salt of sea air.

And then a thundercrack hits hard enough to bring her from the nightmares, exploding like a gunshot across her skull.

Ellie wakes up with a scream. Loud, harsh, desperate, breaking and punching holes in her voice with the violence of it. It leaves her breathless and in a cold sweat, eyes wide open, still seeing something that isn't there, fingers clawed like a cornered animal.

Later, she'll be mortified. For now, she's just trying to survive the next ten seconds.


III. CAT NAP:

Maybe it's in the library, maybe it's up in a stairwell where she hopes she won't disturb anybody. Maybe it's one of the storage rooms, where she's tucked herself into a corner where she won't accidentally break anything. Maybe it's at her desk in Scouting, where she's settled her forehead down for just one moment to rest her eyes.

It's not a scream this time. Instead she's crying in her sleep, exhaustion catching up with her, the panic finding no more tinder to catch.

Ellie fights herself awake to stare at nothing, her eyes open, tears tracking down her cheeks. Every catching breath is as quiet as she can make it, like she's hoping no one notices. Like she's hoping she can disappear.

She takes rabbit-fast breaths, unable to hold them long enough to let Blue take her out of sight, to safety.


Wildcard: Ouch

It's probably not intentional. Everyone is on edge. Everyone is hurting. No one is sleeping well, and that's all it takes for one misstep. Tempers are short and desperation makes monsters.

Wherever it happens, it happens. Maybe it's a bumped shoulder in the hallway, maybe it's a startling corner taken too fast. Maybe someone approached just a little too quietly from behind.

But when Ellie lashes out this time, it's not so harmless.

Though she's small, she knows how to make it hurt, and she's so used to being hunted. So used to hesitation meaning death.

Ellie responds to being startled with a closed fist, a sharp punch that she pulls back on at the last moment, but only enough to prevent serious injury.

It's still enough to hurt.

Best to take it, though- self-defense may trigger worse before she fully pulls herself together.

ouch??

[armd]

Abby, having taken the corner too fast for some (apparently), goes oof in response to being punched in the solar plexus. Ellie is so lucky she doesn't respond the way she normally would. She's been dragging herself about the Gallows today, dull-edged and listing impressively; in her exhausted state she grasps for her attacker's wrist too late-

misses, her fingers closing uselessly around nothing, jesus- "What the fuck," she says, her voice catching.

Oh. It's Ellie staring back at her, wild eyed. Abby stares right back. She... thinks it was a mistake but she still says, "Watch it," gruffly. "Thought we had a truce."

library's open for snoozing apparently

[favoriteanalyst]

It's not uncommon these days to catch people dozing in the library, and so long as they don't get too violent on waking or scream too loudly, Mobius is content to allow it. It isn't that the sleep is any more restful this way. But it's spacious and quiet. He's been keeping a spare blanket tucked under the desk in case of his own naps in the times he can feel them coming while here.

This time, he brings it over to Ellie. She's finally gotten herself awake. And she looks like she's trying to suck in every last drop of air in the building.

Wordlessly, he drapes it over her shoulders, leaves his hands there as a solid and very real and not at all dreamt up weight.

slumber party.

[propulsion]

Tony tries. In that, he is here, in this whole adorable dining hall slumber party situation, thanks to some measure of poor planning compounded by some levels of insomnia finally catching up to him. Or so he figured.

No chance. People breathe weird. The squalls outside lash against stone and timber. He is itchily aware of his whole physical self, every minor discomfort, every twinge. Eventually, he curls into a sitting position, feeling the weight of a body that desperately wants to sleep while a brain has other ideas. Like avoiding the depths of what waits for him if flesh wins out.

He is pivoting a little when Ellie begins to dream, and he stops. Listens to the familiar sounds of panic.

Thunder. A scream.

Adrenaline, disorientation, darkness. People stirring. But she has company, Tony having materialised just next to her with a knee to the ground and the other bent, a little out of clawing range and a hand up like his instinct is to lay a hand but stopping just short. "Hey," he says. "You're good, we're good. Thedas, dining hall. Antivan fleas."

i.

[tender]

"Ellie," is so, so gentle, Derrica's voice coming to her in a murmur as she kneels. Just inside arm's reach, whenever Ellie's eyes focus.

What she wants is to fold Ellie in against her, alleviate this in some tangible way.

But the last thing Ellie needs is more guilt. Derrica knows how someone waking this way lashes out. She knows Ellie capable of defending herself. And she knows Ellie isn't quite yet rooted in this moment, in this place. It would be too easy for this to end badly, and—

And Derrica remembers that very first time they'd met, and stood together on the ramparts. Ellie asking Derrica to be mindful of how she reached out. Even as Ellie had thawed, Derrica has kept it in mind, and it's more important now than ever, perhaps.

III

[rowancrowned]

With long legs, he takes the stairs two at a time, thrumming down them with the tap-tap of leather soles on stone. He glances, when he passes, because the sight isn’t unusual, not with current events, but the tears are–

Let her sleep, or wake her?

He doesn’t have to choose. She wakes herself, in the half-light of the stairwell, and he is staring, inhumanly still and tall and with the shard in his palm shining.

“I did not mean to disturb you,” he says.

yseult

[hassaran]

I. SLUMBER PARTY

[ Yseult has no desire to participate in a slumber party. But she returns late to the Gallows, the last ferry is already gone by the time she's learned of the flea situation, and a cursory search finds her rooms being smoked and her preferred alternative sleeping locations already occupied. And, most importantly, Darras has already set up in the makeshift dining hall barracks.

So when she starts awake in the middle of the night for the third time and carefully extricates herself from beside him, it's to the kitchen at the back of the dining hall she goes. She lights a candle and then a stove, searching through the cabinets for tea with the quiet efficiency of a thief. Once she's found a packet of leaves and has a pot of water on the burner, she takes a seat at the long work table, head slumped into hands, and waits. ]

III. CAT NAP

[ On the other hand, Yseult has always been a cat napper. She just doesn't usually get caught at it, rarely napping outside her suite and adept at sensing approach just in time to look awake. She's failing at it now, which should probably be a harbinger of the sleep deprivation apocalypse. Whether it's in a quiet corner of the library, at her desk at the front of the Scouting workroom, tipped back in her chair in the dining hall between meal times, or beneath a tree in the Gallows garden with a report in her hand, she's a few seconds slower to wake than usual, just long enough to get spotted as she jerks awake and rapidly transforms expression and posture to appear like she's been alert and hard at work all along. ]

VI. WILDCARD

Hit me.

slumber party.

[hornswoggle]

"Enough for a second cup?" comes a voice out of the dark.

John has grown very nimble on his crutch, maneuvering quietly even by the meager light cast by the candle.

No, he cannot sleep either. He has left Flint to uneasy sleep in the dining hall, avoided the temptation to put his crutch down on any of their snoring compatriots, all to walk himself into the kitchen in hopes of perhaps the same thing Yseult has already secured.

Not that John has ever been much for tea. But these are desperate times, after all.

catnap

[favoriteanalyst]

[The library has plenty of quiet corners, and Mobius is perfectly fine with people using it as a napping refuge for it so long as nothing gets set on fire and no one is screaming bloody murder about it. He does it enough that he's hardly in a position to tell off anyone for it.

So he's just as fine with Yseult doing the same, only as he approaches--to file some books away in the general area--she's already coming to like she's heard him coming and seems to quickly enough rearrange herself like she definitely wasn't out like a light. He chuckles to himself, getting out a ladder to arrange just where he needs it.]

Maker forbid I tell anyone someone shut their eyes for a minute.

slumber party

[staysail]

Yseult is an expert at extricating herself: from binds, from traps, from cells, from uncomfortable conversations, from situations not to her liking. A shared bed is nothing to her. Darras has slept beside her—consistently, inconsistently—for years and is used to waking up to find her disappeared, out for a walk or sitting by the fire with a book or out working in the garden in the moonlight. Sometimes she comes back to bed quickly, before he even wakes up. Sometimes he gets up to find her. Sometimes he goes back to sleep, wakes up when she slips beneath the blankets again.

Tonight, she stays away. So eventually Darras — half awake, waiting for her — decides to stop waiting.

“Want to be alone?”

She’ll have known it was him approaching just by his footsteps. Darras announces himself anyways before he puts a hand on the back of her neck, gentle, and gives a little squeeze.

john silver.

[hornswoggle]

i. slumber party - adjacent.

There is a place for John in the dining hall, a camp in a far corner where he and Flint have spread out their sleeping rolls. It is not dissimilar to their arrangements when last most of Riftwatch was obliged to share sleeping space in the Donarks in both the laying out of their bedding and the humidity and the annoyance of nearly all of Riftwatch being less quiet than they think they are while others are trying to sleep.

The operative word: trying.

At a point, John has given up on the idea of a full night's sleep. Woken again, whether by his own dreams or someone else's conversation or the crack of thunder overhead, he has levered himself up from his sleeping mat. The door is open into the dark of the courtyard, where rain is coming down in sheets. The overhang is just enough to shelter the landing and the first few steps, where John settles himself to wait until he has worked his way around to resigning himself to attempting another restless hour of sleep inside the dining hall.

There's room on the landing, for any others fleeing the close quarters.

iii. cat nap.

This is not the first time in John's life where a good night's sleep has become an elusive thing, though normally there is some concrete cause to assign blame.

A week of squalls. Pulling a poor watch assignment. Sharing a ship's hold with noisy companions.

The doldrums.

But there is no particular reasons for this, and so John has run himself through a number of fixes, including but not limited to—

Brief, snatched stretches of sleep, minutes at a time, during the course of the day to tide him over. Some occurring in the relative privacy of his office, but others in the shaded bench in the Gallows courtyard or leaned in a corner of the ferry or even, very rarely, at a table on the balcony of any of his favored taverns.

He comes awake quickly, practiced at jolting awake under the pressure of scrutiny, but it's more difficult to go from drowsing to fully alert when what lies behind all of this are nights of poor, sparse sleep.

But still, the polite thing is probably not to mention being caught drowsing, yes?

wild card.

Don't let your dreams be dreams.

slumber party adjacent.

[obdurata]

The footsteps behind him happen— twice, before they're actually followed by a second person sitting down on the steps beside him. An explanation for the prevaricating is quickly in evidence, because Joselyn offers him a second mug of hot coffee—

“I'll drink 'em both if you don't want it,” with some quiet humour to suit the hour. It had struck her as polite to make the offer, anyway, and not being minded to have to get up again and deal with it if the answer was yes had just got two in the first place.

[armd]

SLUMBER PARTY:

Look. A group sleeping situation isn't Abby's favourite, but it's not like she hasn't spent time before lumped in to sleep with other people. She knows the drill. Everybody else will most likely shove up against the edges of the hall to keep well away, so she drops her bed roll right in the middle, spreads it out. Claims a spot.

She tries to stay up that first night, as long as she can. It isn't easy. There have been a lot of shitty, sleepless nights this week, and for once, her mind isn't buzzing with energy. Abby is actually tired. Bone deep.

If you're awake and sitting close by she'll appeal, sleepily, for some entertainment. "... Know any jokes?"

But if you're unlucky enough to be residing next door when she finally falls into a fitful sleep, you'll get an earful all night of her grinding her teeth heavily while she dreams. Maybe you're even treated to Abby shooting awake with a sudden jolt and a wet gasp, sitting upright in the dark.

DOG NAP:

... The dog isn't actually there (he's off getting flea bombed much to his indignance), but the way Abby twitches in her sleep could be said to be dog-like. She's slumped over an open book in the library, and tense all over. She jolts every so often, but never hard enough to wake herself up.

On the other hand, she'll shake somebody awake if she catches them in the throes of something awful, reaching out to touch a shoulder, or forearm. "Hey." She knows the risk. Abby can take a few hits if she has to. "Wake up. You're dreaming."

HAD A BAD DAY:

What's a bad night sleep and a bout of terrible nightmares good for? Shouting at people for the slightest grievance. Maybe you've knocked into her on the way through the corridors, or dropped a bit of work onto her desk in the Forces workspace, or scored the last bread roll out from under her nose at dinner time.

Whatever it was, it certainly doesn't warrant the way Abby sets her jaw and snaps, "Oh, fuck you."

WILDCARD:

(Have at!)

slumber party

[indissection]

"Jokes?"

Sidony pauses, thoughtful for a moment, before she hums, an absent little noise.

"Many people think medicine is quite humourous."

Get it?

naptime

[favoriteanalyst]

The library is usually where Mobius is, and that has not changed in the wake of...all this sleeplessness. He hasn't been taking up sleeping in the bunks lately, but with all the...everything else happening, well, he's especially not doing so. He'll avoid the sleepover, too, for the same reason he's temporarily abandoned his bed. Too many people in the same place, each afflicted with the same. damn. thing. Too much moving, crying, annoying, frustration, occasional screaming, lack of restful sleep.

So. Mobius has been in the habit of nodding off in odd places at stupid times, too, and the library is as good a place as any for anyone else to do the same in relative peace.

Abby's out, and he's content to let her stay that way because she needs it. So long as she doesn't drool heavily on the pages or anything. Until the twitching starts. It can't be restful, not with the way she's tight and tense, muscles bunched up. He leaves her to it for a bit; it'll either pass or she'll wake herself. But neither happens.

He takes a seat across from her. A little bit of safe distance, he thinks. And reaches out to gently shake her arm. He hates to wake anyone, but this is the part where it just won't help the body much. "Hey, you're okay. You're okay, open your eyes."

so you had a bad day.mp3

[heorte]

That whiplash of a response doesn't bring out a reaction in kind. Ellis' hands lift, roll held loosely, before it's surrendered back to the wicker basket on the table.

No offense meant.

Concern pinches at his brow, but anger doesn't follow. It had been a thoughtless, absent motion, grabbing what was left on the table. If Abby wants it, then it costs Ellis nothing to give it back to her.

dog nap.

[elegiaque]

Poor sleep and poorer dreams are nothing new or unusual to Gwenaëlle, whose sleeping habits have backslid badly since her separation from Thranduil; it's unlikely she's had a particularly good night's sleep in more than a full year. Nightmares and even night terrors have been a staple of her life since childhood, only the scenery changing, the fears.

(The memories.)

So it's insult to injury, frankly, for this plague of dreams to catch her as well—for her to be sleepless enough to fall asleep someplace she shouldn't, would strongly prefer not to have done. It will be, when she realises that it's happened, infuriating—

but that's not the first thing that happens. She's all angles and no chill, so when she's jostled awake the first thing that happens is that she lashes backwards with an elbow into Abby's face.

derrica.

[tender]

ii. room share.

There's no charge for the narrow little room over the dockside warehouse. Geordie Alois has a long-standing enthusiasm for Riftwatch, enough so that he seems thrilled to be housing its' agents beneath his roof.

There is hardly enough room in this space to turn without knocking a knee against the frame of the cot or an elbow into the shelving jutting out from the wall. This is likely a space meant for storage; the cots have been crammed in, leaving a strip of walking room, but traces of dust and cobweb have been left behind.

It'll have to do.

Kneeling on the cot farthest inward, Derrica cracks open the slats of the window.

"Do you think you'll be able to sleep?" she asks, propping the latch to keep the slats from sliding closed.

It's not meant to be a prying question. Yes, there is the obvious implication: no one has been sleeping very well. But right now, the biggest hurdle may very well be these rickety cots, rather than anything in their subconscious.

iv. camp out.

Is this a welcome change from bunking down in the dining hall on the hard stone floor of the Gallows? Maybe, as long as the weather holds.

The fire has been snuffed out, and there's nothing left to do but settle in, consider the question of—

"Should we decide who's taking watch?"

Or will they both be awake all night anyway, so what's the point?

wildcard.

Sweet dreams are made of—

kostos.

[tender]

Is a cheap, comically tiny room over a cobbler's shop better than being packed into the dining hall of the Gallows along with the rest of Riftwatch?

It's a toss up.

But the company is good, at least. If one has to share a narrow bed, then it helps to have to split the space with someone familiar. With the shutter pushed open, there's enough of a breeze to keep the room from growing painfully stuffy. Having arranged themselves more or less comfortably, sleep eventually happens.

For a little while, anyway.

It's hard to say who woke first, and whose waking disturbed the other's sleep. What is certain is that Derrica speaks first, soft and breathless in the dark, asking, "What is it?"

A nightmare. Obviously. There's little chance of it being anything else, but still.

loxley.

[tender]

The shutters of Loxley's little apartment have been thrown open. A cool breeze steals in from time to time, stirring Derrica's abandoned shawl where it drapes over a chairback, the long end of the coverlet where it has been kicked down to the bottom of the bed. A sliver of moonlight cuts through the window.

Derrica's palm presses soft over Loxley's heart, then slides further, slipping down the muscle of his chest and over his ribs as she turns into him. Bare leg hooking around his knee, her hair streaming across the pillow as she winds herself in closer to cinch tight in against his body.

"Are you awake?" comes as a breath against Loxley's shoulder. Soft enough not to disturb him, if he is asleep. She doesn't need him to wake up, isn't certain whether his erratic movements were even real, or if she'd dreamed them too. Proximity is enough, really.

ellis.

[heorte]

i. slumber party.

There are too many people in the dining hall.

It's not really an unfamiliar thing. Ellis has slept in barracks, crowded in with so many others before the watch rotated or some of them were sent out and away on assignment, and before—

The sacrifice. The coup. The way everything fractured around him.

Riftwatch had always operated in stark contrast, so much so that even this temporary similarity feels surreal.

Or maybe that's just the lack of sleep. Either way.

Regardless, Ellis shores up in far corner. He keeps his back set against the wall. Ruadh stretches out beside him, where Ellis' hand scratches behind his ears, strokes his wrinkled forehead. Occasionally drowses with his head tipped back against the stone, before some floating conversation or sudden movement within the room jolts him awake again. A book is pinned open across one thigh, holding his place.

There's space alongside him. If someone cared to claim it, he probably wouldn't interject.

iv. camp out.

Sleeping rough is nothing new for Ellis. This is all common place. He was doing it regularly, even more so before he joined up with Riftwatch.

Even the part where he isn't getting very much sleep.

They'd gone through all the motions, as if this were any other mission without any particular difficulty hanging over their head beyond the war, and the inherent danger of Venatori and Imperium groups ranging across the Marches. The Wounded Coast is cooler than Kirkwall, sparse prickle of foliage rain-drenched even as the actual storm passes out to sea. The crash of surf can be heard; they'd picked a good spot for a camp, just close enough to be out of sight while still observing the whole length of the beach.

It would be a good night for sleeping, if such a thing were possible of late.

Ellis comes awake near-silently. (With a sharp inhale of breath, every muscle momentarily locked tight, hands clenching into fists before his eyes opened.) If unobserved, the signs of what had jolted him awake would be so easily missed that it could be assumed he'd simply woken of his own accord.

Nothing is said of it, beyond some murmur of greeting as he rolls up from where he'd been lying on his back, turning towards the smoldering remains of their fire.

"Anything?"

Business as usual: check in on the goings on, consider whether they might move closer to the surf, what they might put into their report, and so on.

What other topics could there be?

wild card.

Dream a little dream of—

i.

[cozen]

Maybe it's Bastien's footsteps—quiet, but not silent, and perhaps more alarming for being quiet—that jolts Ellis awake. He's there to see it, regardless, paused mid-meander past his outstretched legs.

He's made a nest elsewhere. It's not only for him; there's empty space for By, when his nocturnal working hours and multiple lovers permit, and Whiskey is back there now, stretched out on her back like a dying beetle, feet twitching in the air with dreams that hopefully are not so bad. Despite her sweet snoring and the signs of exhaustion even he can't hide, Bastien couldn't fall asleep. He's been outside, back inside, to the kitchens, to the library. Now he's here.

He grimaces apologetically, at Ellis' sudden awareness, but he doesn't leave him to go back to sleep. He sits down in the empty space. On his way to rolling onto his back, he reaches over Ruadh to pluck the book off his thigh.

The light's dim and his eyes are aging. He has to squint, holding it up above his head with both hands, to make out any of the words.

seth.

[detestable]

i. slumber party.

So, joining a Division to get a private room turned out to be a scam.

Well, not technically a scam. But still, the timing is regrettable. Move in to a new space, and immediately have to pack up and move into the dining hall to camp out in the world's worst team building exercise.

Seth's complained. At length. Mostly to Richie, but who knows, maybe someone else has been in close enough proximity to be on the receiving end.

However, having given up on sleep for the moment, Seth has made his way directly to the kitchen. Is he supposed to be rummaging in here? Maybe not.

Is he rummaging? Yes.

"Hey," is tossed over his shoulder, casual acknowledgement of whoever might have wandered in behind him. "They keep any alcohol in here, or is that something we have to steal a rowboat to get at?"

wild card.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream...

[notathreat]

Honestly he's not the first to have this idea, or the last. Ellie isn't one to eat when she's bored but let's just say she's been gently bullied by well-meaning friends to put something in her stomach besides tea and jerky.

Ellie's enough of a dick to seriously consider alcohol as the answer, even if she'll probably put some bread in there too.

"The harder stuff, yeah, but they've got some ale and wine in the back. For anything more special you're gonna have to start digging. I think the division heads keep stashes."

Ellie takes a seat at one of the stools next to the counter in the kitchens, kept there for the staff to catch a breath, and puts both elbows on the countertop.

"There's always elfroot if you visit the med b- the apothecary cabinet. They don't even growl at you too much. 'Course, that only works if it hits you right."

[ophidia]

CAT NAPPING

Here's the thing: Richard doesn't keep a standard schedule at the best of times. Even before being turned, night was still when most of the action he cared about happened, or cover of darkness was best bet for a successful job. On the other side, plenty enough still happened in daytime to warrant full attention, scoping locations or workshift patterns. His aversion to sunlight hasn't had much impact on any of that - sleeping whenever and whereever has been a Gecko staple for a long time.

So it's not particularly out of the usual for him to find a seat in the library to catch 40 winks, or even to take use of his designated bedroll in the dining hall during the day. And if bad dreams are plaguing him, there's no particularly overt signs of it - no screams, or jolt-awake moments. Just the look of a man taking a long time to get himself settled on the reality of his surroundings again, on the reality of being awake, something haunted and disturbed clinging to the edges of his expression.

SLUMBER PARTY

The sleeping in the day might make more sense, if anyone (other than Seth) happens to notice that Richard's bedroll stays empty two nights in a row. Sure, he's still around, hasn't gone totally AWOL or been kidnapped or anything, but it's maybe notable that both mornings he's back at the Gallows at the first ferry in, hood of a cloak drawn up high to shade his face, even in the thin morning light.

Something's kept him out in Kirkwall all night, and it's not anything he's openly volunteering to anyone, only lingering in the dining hall long enough to check on his brother before (probably) heading up to the library.

partaayy

[foolsmakeitcolder]

He smells of blood.

It puts Jude's hackles up the first time he scents it, in wolf form and after running across the trail. Plenty of things here smell of blood- those coming back in from missions, the kitchens, the training yard- normal life smells that have other things that explain them readily enough. There are a lot of new scents- human and elf and qunari and dwarf, things that have their own nuances. New plants and new foods, new animals that he has to constantly add to his mental library.

But Richard -- that's his name, the man that puts his nerves on edge -- smells of something else, something that Jude hasn't placed anywhere else in the gallows. Reptile.

There are snakes about, here and there, but in the gallows they are few and far between and Jude knows where they nest. At first, he thinks the man must keep a snake or some smaller type of lizard as a pet, but it's always on him. Always. There's not a trace of droppings, either. Even if he were fastidiously clean about a secret scaly companion, there would be some trace.

It's not polite to pry, or to keep close watch on allies, but Jude's wolf doesn't understand that. Instead, Jude's wolf is prickly, jumpy, suspicious. He doesn't like the mix of scents, because it doesn't make sense. He doesn't understand.

Over and over, Jude soothes him, just because something's different doesn't make it dangerous, but it comes out in how he goes quiet and watchful around him, a low rumble in his chest that never quite translates to his human, but it's a near thing.

It's the addition of the blood, though, that puts him over the edge.

It wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't passed so close. But they nearly run into each other on Richard's way out of the dining hall, and Jude catches a whiff of blood. With his human nose.

Jude stops immediately, bristling, literally. Black fur sprouts along the skin of his bare arms, creeping along the back of his neck, and his eyes glisten yellow as his wolf makes a sudden and violent grab for his skin, all the more so because it catches Jude so utterly off-guard.

He clenches his teeth, like he can press the fangs back down into blunt human molars, and catches himself on the doorframe.

He says nothing, but his eyes are fixed on Richard, and they're not entirely human.