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Entry tags:
open | brain heat meme
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
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.
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.
no subject
Instead, she puts her hand on Derrica's forearm, just letting herself breathe, letting her fingers be loose as she lets herself relax. Lets the nightmares fade.
"Were you sleeping?"
no subject
Not really. It was more of a doze, hardly something that could count as proper, restful sleep.
And even if she had been asleep, she wouldn't have admitted it. Ellie doesn't need to be worrying about waking Derrica, on top of whatever she had seen. Her thumb strokes gently across Ellie's cheek, watching her. Whatever had woken her, it seems to be receding. Or settling enough that the bow-tight tension is ebbing away.
"Was it a memory? What you were dreaming of?"
no subject
Her thumb makes its careful way across her cheek. She doesn't want to tell her, but she too keenly remembers the feeling of rejection. And she's spent a lot of time over the years being protected when it was the last thing she wanted.
"The things that happened back home," she admits, finally. "But happening to the people here."
It covers a lot of ground in just a couple of sentences. Hopefully, the vagueness of it leaves it less horrifying rather than moreso.
Ellie's eyes focus on Derrica's. It's not the first time she's made appearance in a nightmare and it won't be the last.
no subject
The exact nature of the things differs, but the outcome has to be the same: people they cared about, hurt or dying or dead in front of them.
"I see."
Is that all that needs to be said? Derrica tucks a stray wisp of hair behind Ellie's ear. Traces the line of her jaw.
"I think mine are similar. They're more frequent, lately."
Which might be her position in Project Haven, or the closeness of the war, or something else entirely. There is so much weighing on her these days, that it makes sense it would disrupt her sleep.
"But they're only dreams," is softer, her fingers light over Ellie's cheek. "We're safe here."
no subject
If she hadn't just awakened out of a horrible nightmare, and knew that more of it awaited her if she let herself drift off, she could fall asleep on this.
"I think that's everyone, lately."
Ellie draws her thumb along the back of Derrica's wrist, manages to ease her eyes open again.
"What are you dreaming about, Derrica?"
no subject
It's not that she flinches away from discussing Dairsmuid. But she is careful in how she invokes it. The extreme tragedy can be overwhelming. It can dwarf other experiences. It takes up all the air in a room. There's no space for anything else, after she speaks of the Annulment.
Derrica's thumb draws along Ellie's cheek, follows the line of her jaw. Sweeps over freckles. Just light, intimate touches that seem permissible. She is watching Ellie's face, careful of her reaction.
"Sometimes I dream of the place I grew up," she tells Ellie quietly. "And then other times I dream of all the people I care about hurt and alone, where I couldn't help them."
Not unique dreams. She's had them before.
"Then I wake up. And I see them all nearby, and it's a comfort."
no subject
Derrica has given her glimpses of what she's held, pieces of it that form a picture. She can see the shadow of the pain but not the exact shape. Not the details.
But rock steady, her eyes sure when she asks:
"All of them?"
no subject
Confirmation, without bringing any specific thing into focus.
Her fingers slip along Ellie's neck, thumb at her collarbone, as she continues, "But I see the people I know now, who live with me here. And that is enough."
It is as she told Ellie once: the wound is still there, but she has grown around it. The pain of it is no longer overwhelming. There is room to breathe. There is room for other people to fit themselves into her lives. She loves them just as dearly.
no subject
Or at least, she hopes it's that way for her. At least most of the time. It's hard, sometimes, not to rub your fingertips raw, worrying at the places that hurt.
"I hope so."
Ellie is quiet again, sitting with things close to her in the semidarkness, the storm rains hissing outside and the smoky torches in here. She lifts her hand from Derrica's wrist, eases her hair back from where it lays against the side of her neck, very gently touches the tip of her thumb to the edge of her ear.
She wonders for half a second if it's too much, before she catches herself being ridiculous.
"Tell me... a happy story," Ellie murmurs, settling. "Or, y'know. It didn't have to be happy while it was happening. But a story that makes you happy now."
no subject
What makes her happy now? Sorting back through memories of Dairsmuid is delicate work.
So she is quiet, for a few moments. Letting her thoughts drift between Ellie's fingers and Ellie's pulse, beating steadily beneath her fingertips. She likes this look on Ellie's face. Enough so that she always notices it's absence, the stretches where Ellie goes tense or guarded. It has never stopped feeling like a precious thing, being so trusted.
"A true story?" she questions, watching Ellie. Feeling out the parameters of the request while she considers the options at hand.
no subject
It falters a little as Ellie pulls her attention back to Derrica's face, frowning slightly.
"Is that a bigger ask than I thought?" she asks, careful. She doesn't look caught out so much as worried that she might be treading on thin ice. Creaky, painful places with spreading cracks.
She doesn't think so, but if she is, she wants to know.
no subject
There are happy stories. Derrica can pull them to the surface, sluice away the parts that still sting. There are some that come to mind faster than others, a scattering of before and after stories that Derrica hasn't thought much on since she came to Riftwatch.
"I just wanted to know."
To be sure.
She has stories that are untrue. Folk tales, and then the kind of tall tales that might have been true but have been embellished into absurdity. They're stories Derrica heard in the Circle and on the deck of ships. Happy stories, but none of them are about her.
no subject
That's not how it works, Ellie. But she can't be bothered. Instead she traces a few strands of the softer hair that escapes Derrica's braids, tucks it back into the rest of her hair with a crooked half smile and ever-so-slightly pleading eyes.
Something else. Something good.
no subject
They are in a public place, which tempers the movements of Derrica's body. It limits everything to her hand, moving lightly along Ellie's collarbone now. Carefully in check. Mindful of what Ellie had proposed not so long ago, and even more so of all Ellie has told her before that proposal.
"Before I came to Kirkwall, I was a sailor."
A ""sailor."" On the account, Flint had once very delicately described it. Her fingers trace the cut of bone, left and then right, up along Ellie's neck, and back again.
"In Thedas, there is a creature called a Cetus. They're rare, more of a rumor this far south. I think they must love warmth, because I've only ever heard of them living in the Boeric Ocean. They're long, long enough to wrap their coils around a ship and sink it, but they're so beautiful."
And terrifying, but.
"I saw one. Only once, the whole time I was at sea. It was during a storm, and I was climbing up into the rigging, and when I looked down I could see it, swimming alongside our ship. It could have attacked us, but it didn't."
Her thumb sets into the hollow of Ellie's throat as Derrica slants a little smile up at her.
"No one ever believes me when I tell that story here."
no subject
She's quiet, lips parted, eyes wide, enraptured with the idea of it. Her pulse is a steady thump against Derrica's thumb, and she swallows before she speaks, like she doesn't want to shatter the magic of the idea.
"Do you think you could remember what it looked like?" she asks- because she absolutely believes her.
She doubts anyone would believe some of her stories, too.
no subject
It was unforgettable. Maybe there are sailors who would have been less impressed, but Derrica has never been one of them. She remembers the sight of such a massive, beautiful creature moving just beneath the waves. The scales would have gleamed in sunlight, she knows.
"I remember how blue it was. Almost black. If it had been further down I wouldn't have been able to see it at all."
A pause, then a little breath, smiling. The glow on Ellie's face is radiant. It is always good to see her so happy.
"It had teeth big as my arm. Bigger, maybe."
no subject
"Maybe you can help me try to paint it sometime."
no subject
Artistic ability is not in Derrica's toolkit.
Ellie's fingers are calloused. It's no unusual, or even surprising. Derrica is familiar with Ellie's hands by now, and even if she weren't, it would only make sense. Evidence of Ellie's bow, her knife, all other things she employs in the course of Riftwatch's work.
"Maybe we could find a wall, or a staircase for you to make it a mural."
no subject
Ellie grins at her. Even tired, and shredded to hell by nightmares, they have stories. It's good to be able to make plans for something else. For when morning inevitably comes.
"That would be awesome on one of the circular stairwells."
no subject
Not that Derrica believes anyone would object, sleep or no sleep. What is there to object to? Anything that distances the Gallows from it's former occupants is a positive thing. The incremental improvements they've made have softened it, degree by degree. Ellie could only help with that.
"You should get an assistant. Someone to carry your paint buckets."
no subject
"Wanna help me vandalize the Gallows?"
no subject
When Ellie puts it that way—
"And maybe we could get Matthias to help," might not be what Ellie intended exactly, but Derrica's voice is still warm over the words. "Astarion would join us, if you ask him."
Who doesn't like a little light vandalism? It's not quite a party, but it's close to it. And Ellie's work deserves the attention, as much as Derrica wants to draw people they care about closer, enjoy Ellie's artwork together.
no subject
She's laughing under her breath, relaxed, settling as she thinks about it. Some rainy day in the future, when they have a moment to breathe, and something horrible isn't happening.
"Will you run distractions?"
no subject
Obliging, even though Derrica doesn't really think it would be necessary. Who would stop them? Compared to the normal day to day in the Gallows, a little mural would be nothing.
But it is nice to think about. It's nice to think on something easy and sweet in their future. Derrica is resolved to make it happen. The paint will be easy enough to gather, and the library must have something she could find, some illustration of a Cetus that would be close enough for Ellie to work with.
"But first, you're going to need to try to sleep."
no subject
With luck, anyway.
"... fine."
Ellie softly muffles a yawn.
"But you, too."
bow on this y/y?
Y! <3