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

[ophidia]

Richard, on his way over to Seth's cot and not expecting any interruptions, is caught a little off-foot by the sudden comment, stopped mid stride. Glancing the guy over. Not recognising him. But he's paid attention enough to know that Richard was out all night, curious enough to say something about it, and that's possibly stepping stones towards a problem.

"You know what it's like," he says with a smile that's a direct copy of something fratboy, caught out late partying. It doesn't really fit his face. "Drinks." A beat, and a slight lean in, faux conspiratorial. "Girls."

[hornswoggle]

Girls is mouthed back, silently. Some mirrored raise of eyebrows, carrying for the implication of Oh, well then.

It's a little—

Off.

A key that doesn't quite fit a lock, rattles when turned. That is interesting, in and of itself.

"I see," comes regardless, Richard's answer taken in stride. "I can't say anyone would blame you the late arrival when the alternative is another night packed in with the rest of our fellows in the dining hall."

There is such a thing as to much togetherness.

[ophidia]

"Yeah, but I wasn't really expecting anyone to notice."

He's still channelling that fratboy, tilting more caught out, testing the waters as to how bad the reprimanding might be. The guy's weighing validity behind the excuse Richard's given, but that blame, late arrival, that's implication of rules and giving a shit about them. Risky.

"They taking headcounts or something?"

[hornswoggle]

"Always," is blithely delivered, but far from a jest. "It's how we know whether or not to start considering the possibility that someone's been kidnapped or murdered or otherwise imperiled."

There is still something—

Like a wrinkle in a piece of parchment. Something that catches the eye, gnaws at the edges of his attention.

"It happens more than one might think," explains John Silver, two time kidnappee. "Do us a favor, notify your Division head when you get caught up. It'll save us the time mounting a search."

Not that John would be a member of said search party. Or that there's a guarantee this one's Division head (Stark? At a glance, it's hard to size up.) would notice immediately, but the possibility—

[ophidia]

"I have a brother," Richard says, pointing to Seth, currently across the room somewhere rubbing the sleep out of his face. Probably readying a bunch of new complaints about the day. "He's all the babysitter I need."

And all the alarm, should he actually go missing or whatever these people think might happen.

[hornswoggle]

"Too arduous to use your crystal to tell your Division Head you're going to be preoccupied with girls?"

A dip over girls, humor layering the word.

Rifters tend to be full of objections, John knows. But this specific objection is new. And interesting, considering the wealth of other complaints John knows to be more commonplace.

[ophidia]

"More like too preoccupied."

Bouncing it back, the same tone, the same catch of a smile in the corner of the mouth. The temptation had been there to ask if the guy had never had to live without needing to notify someone of his location all the time, because the idea of having to do it now was bullshit, regardless of Seth's presence.

But it still wasn't clear, yet, if this guy was just a jobsworth or was taking an interest in Richard's absence especially - the former was annoying, the latter was an actual problem.

[hornswoggle]

"I imagine so," is generous. John frequents Lowtown taverns. He is aware of what sort of offerings are on hand. "Though we have all been preoccupied from time to time, and remember our obligations alongside."

It's a nagging little thing. Rifters are by and large—

Well, difficult. Not all uniformly, but in one way or another. John has seen enough come and go. (Recalls Holden, who was exceptional in so many ways but still had moments where heels dug in. Or Six, quiet and eager but stubborn, in her time.) But there's something in this that doesn't quite square.

It's such a small thing. To object so stridently is a curiosity. John marks it the way one might fold a page over in a book. Something to come back to.

"It can be difficult with Rifters to know whether they've been kidnapped, or are entertaining someone in the city, or whether they've vanished into the air. That last tends to complicate an assessment," is what John says instead. "And a search, should it come to that."

[ophidia]

"Like I said: I have a brother."

Said brother now seeming to have clocked Richard's position in the room, directing a raised eyebrows pointed look, stop yapping with the locals already.

"Trust me, he'll make sure everyone knows if I've vanished."

There's that tone again, humour in camaraderie, but there's no ill-fitting pieces in this. Natural. Taking shots at his brother: easy as breathing.

[hornswoggle]

Here, something seamless with which to better compare against the earlier wrinkle.

A wave of the hand. Dismissal. If there is something to unravel, it will not compart in the course of one conversation on a single night.

An oddity, to turn over in the interim.

"A piece of advice," John offers, squaring his weight on the crutch. The courtyard door is open, and John can resume his initial trajectory easily enough. "You'll divert notice better by taking the opportunity to avoid giving anyone cause to ask the question in the first place."

[ophidia]

Unsolicited advice on things of this particular nature is almost as much of an insult as if the guy had just slapped him across the face. But then, it wasn't like anyone here knew who the Gecko Brothers were. And in this specific conversation, Richard needs to keep his cool. So he reigns it in, the reaction that could be incredulous outrage or could be dismissive arrogance. Plus the chaser, the irritation from where he doesn't really have a choice. He causes questions, or he starves.

Instead it's that grin again, unfitting on his face.

"Yeah," he says, stepping backwards away from the conversation already. "But that would mean no girls."