faderift | [OPEN]

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[OPEN]

WHO: Wysteria and YOU
WHAT: Catch-all for post-Starkhaven
WHEN: Now!
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: n/a, will add if applicable

THE (UNSTAFFED) DINING HALL.

One of the Gallows' towers keeps a kitchen, and a fire in its hearth which services the prodigious main hall. At this particular hour in the morning, that one may in fact presently be seeing to the feeding and watering of Riftwatch's various late risers who may yet be avoiding facing the truly atrocious weather of the day.

This one, however, —that hall's twin in the opposite tower—has been turned to a far more critical business. With buckets of late winter and/or early spring rain falling out of doors, the great underutilized space is—

being cleared of its various heavy furniture at Wysteria's shrill, too-cheerful-for-the-hour, direction. If someone had been unlucky enough to have breakfasted in the same early hour as herself, they may have been pressed into this task of lifting and carrying: shifting unused benches and various scattered tables to the walls of the room so as to leave the center of the hall cleared.

"Wait, wait. It's only just occurred to me. Perhaps we should move two of the tables over before the hearth and turn them on their sides to act as a sort of backstop," Wysteria is saying while, about their heels, a small white dog does his level best to put himself underfoot.

Or, later, once the space has been properly rearranged, is acting as a testing ground for various Research Division atrocities. The poor weather will not delay Madame de Foncé's very strict trial schedule. She has very strictly laid out a great array of materials to one side of the hall, including but not limited to: a six by six square of woven metal strips; a light net halfway to being packed inside of a wooden tube, a prodigious amount of sail cloth wrapped in a tangle of ropes, and a straw padded crate of palm-sized jars with wicks sticking ominously out of their tops, and...a rudimentary bicycle.

THE KIRKWALL DOCKS.

A familiar young woman is standing on one of the low stone walls that zigs and zags about, slicing the Kirkwall docks into its various ramps and stairs and overhangs. She has a little spyglass tucked against her eye, and is presently watching the mouth of the harbor—where a fat mercantile ship is currently wallowing against the weather in an attempt to work itself toward its anchorage—with considerable interest.

So much interest, in fact, that she is presently blind to the pair of shifty looking teenaged boys on the landing behind her who are clearly giving some serious consideration to how they might manage slicing the purse strings running from her chatelaine to her skirt pockets, and whether they could fish away the prize of the purse quickly enough to avoid capture if they made a go at shoving her off the wall.

AN AMBUSH. (wildcard with a twist; please describe what your character is up to and I'll riff off it.)

To describe Wysteria de Foncé as a relentless act of nature devised to make all persons about her thankful for the comparative peace afforded by her absence would be rude. It also wouldn't always be entirely unfair given the woman's propensity for appearing at the most inopportune of moments. There is a particularly uncanny way in which she turns her attention upon her desired victim with the ominous focus of a crossbow swiveling to aim a bolt directly down a helm's eye slot, and a marked tenacity with which she will cross any measure of distance and navigate any obstacle to reach the aforementioned target of her interests.

So maybe Wysteria is suddenly adjusting her trajectory to intercept, skirts swishing about her heels; or maybe she is rushing down a Kirkwall stairwell; or calling "You! I've a very important matter to discuss with you! Wait a moment, I'll be right down!" from the upstairs window of an unlikely Lowtown public house; or merely right there on the other side of the door when it's opened.

Regardless, the trap is sprung. Escape is futile.

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A kind and honorable man would intervene at once. It wouldn't matter if he knew the young woman in question or not; he would leap into action, place himself between the girl and the dreadful brigands, and ensure her safety. Chaperon her back to Kirkwall for good measure.

But the thing is, Byerly does know the young woman in question. And she has, in the past, made her thoughts on his impulse towards chivalry quite well-known. And anyway, the lads aren't muttering to one another about cutting her throat; they're muttering about shoving her, and if they succeed, the drop is a few feet at most.

And so By, leaning idly against the stone wall, arranges his features in an uninterested sort of expression, communicating with every fiber of his being to the two little criminals I'm not paying attention. Perhaps the lads will decide it's not worth the risk; perhaps they'll have a go and succeed; or perhaps they'll have a go and be foiled by some ingenuity of Wysteria nee Poppell. He's quite thrilled to find out.

Uninterrupted—indeed, seemingly ignorant of the possibility that they've been spotted at all (which hardly bodes well for the longevity of their thieving careers)—, the two young men conclude their conspiring with a pair of subtle little nods before pitching casually forward. There is a clear intention to sidle up to the wall where the young lady is standing with the glass pressed so faithfully to her eye, posing as perfectly innocent layabouts before going about the whole rough business of upending the lady off the wall's edge. One of them has even picked up a heretofore nonexistent line of conversation in order to emphasize the harmlessly thoughtless nature of their proximity ("—Which is why I said we should come down here first thing, as he'll be sold out if we wait until after")—

Only to be spoiled by the small white dog who appears without warning out from under the hem of Wysteria's skirts. It begins yapping enthusiastically. The teens stop abruptly. The spyglass lowers from Wysteria's eye and she twists round.

For a split second, the four of them make up an excellent comedy pantomime. And then one boy lunges in the same moment that the little dog launches itself off the wall at his partner. His partner and Wysteria squawk in nearly identical pitches, but only one of them has a spyglass to clobber their attacker with.

Josias is not the man who should've been co-opted for this task. His lack of experience in strenuous physical labour is practically visible just from glancing at him at any normal time - after having moved only one or two of the hall's benches, it becomes even clearer. He's winded, sweating, and keeps breaking to lean against any remaining furniture or the walls while the woman dictates the next set of instructions.

Why he would've agreed to any of this in the first place is questionable, but that was often a problem with being excessively polite and avoiding any argument where possible: when you met an unstoppable force, you were pushed right along with it.

"A backstop?" His voice squeaks a little high on the question. It's hard to tell if he's asking for clarification on the word, or he's dismayed at the prospect of having to move the tables again.

When surveying the crowded main hall of the opposite tower than morning, Wysteria had made recruitment choices based primarily on who might be least likely to argue with her. There are rare insta ces where obvious efficiency must be scrapped in favor of obtaining a particular result. If she had pursued only the strongest of the resources available to her, the inevitable griping and complaining would have occured. One of them would have thought to refuse her, and 'no' has a particularly contagious quality that is best to be avoided when are where possible even if it means pressing underworked Antivan merchants.

Hence their present circumstances. Anyway, Josias is tall and her general impression has always been that additional vertical inches usually translate slightly more leverage even when the arms might otherwise be useless.

"Yes, a backstop. We'll need something to fire the crossbow bolts into."

Obviously.

"It's not far. Let's take this table and that one over before the hearth and turn them over so their tops face down the firing range. The entry way, I mean," is a very easy direction to give when one has no ability to assist in its execution. Presumably the prosthetic strapped to Wysteria's left shoulder is only rated to a certain degree of lifting and carrying.

"Crossbow bolts?" Is repeated in much the same way, except lapsing far more into squeaking, incredulity and apprehension clearly squeezing at his throat. But also, far too quiet, as Wysteria just continues talking. Josias is left looking a little like a fish out of water, gaping, but also like he might bolt from the room if she were to be distracted enough for him to escape.

Not that he actually will. As much as he really doesn't enjoy unnecessary physical labour, she's delightfully mad. This is looking like it might be one of the most interesting days he's had since he got here.

So he does as directed, seemingly entirely downtrodden about the whole thing, but still giving no word of argument. Until a thought seems to occur, just as the makeshift backstop is assembled.

"I'm not to be a target too, yes?"

He definitely looks like he's about to bolt now.

"Not today," is her cheerful answer from the other side of the firing range where Wysteria (and her little dog) have moved to begin sorting through the large pile of Research Division-looking detritus piled against the hall's wall. Maker only knows who she strong armed into carrying all of this down for her, but clearly they wised up and made themselves scare quickly after.

With a minor clatter of various shifting objects, Wysteria drags a heavy sheet of what appears to be (and indeed is) strips of metal basketwoven together. There is a rope handle on each of its ends. Apparently at some point, she'd tired of wrangling it otherwise.

"Now if you would be so kind as to pick up that end, we may set your substitute into place."

Ha ha ha. What a fine, witty joke!

Anyone other than Josias might have looked relieved at that, perhaps even smiled at the joke. Instead he looks only marginally less terrified, as if she has made a very real threat that yes, on another day, he will be the target. It only causes a momentary hesitation in him coming over to help as directed, though, as he seems to decide that his best chance of survival is to keep her appeased.

Honestly, from his manner, he's probably decided that about the entire world.

"I ah- I didn't ask." Is an obvious, and he sounds apologetic about it. Or about asking now. "This is a Research matter?"

The idea clearly only just occurring to him.

The tall gentleman's flightiness is, regretfully, quite instantly endearing. For it reminds her of her friend the old Seneschal, Salvio, and for a brief moment as they hoist the basketwoven metal square between them and make for her makeshift backstop, she misses the man very dearly.

"Yes, it is a Research matter. I'm catching up on a great deal of work today and am most sincerely grateful for your assistance. —Remind me, you are our new recruit from Rialto, yes?"

Asked with the secret sort of authority which suggests that she knows she is right, and is only being polite. Ish.

"Ah," he says, as precursor to correcting her. Then shuts his mouth again, almost audibly, because he'd need to correct two parts of that statement, and that's just one too many for him. He has to choose.

"I wouldn't say so new," is what he opts for, after a moment of looking as though he was suddenly in pain. Then smiles a little, self-effacing. "But not so long here to know how Research would need... this."

Surely targets and their associated parts would be a Forces matter.

"Forgive me. I have a somewhat warped perception of the concept, having been here for so very long. And I no longer keep track as I used to when I was assisting the old Seneschal." This is all perfectly cheerful, insubstantial fluff of chatter as they traipse along to the backstop.

"But as for this! You will have noticed the distinct weave of the metal, of course. The strips have been crafted from different ones with various resistant properties in the hopes that they might might offer better protections against arcane assaults. This is naturally only a proof of concept prototype, but if it fares well then we might look to disassembling this and reshaping it for actual wear."

They have reached the turned table. Wysteria plants the lower edge of the woven square on the ground before it and helps to guide the plate upright to prop there.

It's both impressive and somewhat bemusing how the lady can talk. Most especially, though, it's useful - as long as she's saying useful things. To be able to simply sit back and have information given freely is always a more comfortable experience than having to find the best route for his persona to somehow squeeze it out. He can't say there's much comfort in what she's sharing, though, even if his true aversions are less overt than those he puts forward. Better protections against arcane assaults is alarming regardless, he thinks.

"This is much concern? Often?"

They are, of course, colleagues.

It doesn’t change the fact that Stephen Strange still finds Wysteria only marginally more baffling than elvhen artifacts, even if he’s still been roped into this endeavour under the guise of departmental collaboration. He’s in Research. She is conducting Research. He should help with the research, probably, in the interests of getting a good end-of-year review from the boss.

After she’s started to lay out a mystifying array of equipment and supplies in the commandeered dining hall, he finds himself scrutinising each one in turn. The bicycle draws particular interest and he examines the rotary cranks and pedals, and spins the wheel with an absentminded touch. He’s not an engineer, but he can admire the work nonetheless.

“They called early versions of these velocipedes. Excellent name,” Strange says, then, “Are you working on twelve different experiments at once? I can’t see the connective tissue between all of these objects.”

"Working on? No, absolutely not. Don't be ridiculous, Doctor."

This, as she is making some effort to gather the rest of that light cord netting and cram it the rest of the way into the mouth of the wooden tube. There are various metal weights attached to the net at intervals and the combination of them are making it difficult to pack the whole thing appropriately with just the one hand. Also not helpful: the little white dog currently prancing all over the net's loose ends.

"We are testing a dozen different experiments at once. I've fallen very behind on it what with the holidays and the whole business at Starkhaven and that nonsense in the Crossroads and, of course, the general sense of despair inflicted by all this weather. Which is why I am so very grateful for your assistance. —Although you must promise not to say velocipede against lest de Foncé hear it. Valentine, I mean," she corrects, only belatedly remembering that would technically also be her. "It sounds like an insect which means he would like it far too much.

"And charming as that might be,"—(she does not sound particularly charmed)—"I would rather we not change the thing's name now. I've already written down 'bimobile' on a great deal of paperwork. —Oh, come now Tabouret!"

This for the little dog, who seems not to mind terribly when she pushes him off the net with the toe of her field boot.

Viktor, on the other hand, hasn't been roped into anything; there's no need. Say the word test and he's in. Moreover, he's now comfortable enough as a member of this company to, if necessary, invite himself to whatever interests him, with or without prior warning. (It was not necessary this time.)

"I like velocipede," he says, not very helpfully, as he taps his way across to the staged area.

In previous engagements, Wysteria's tiny menace has found Viktor's three-legged gait enticing for whatever doggy reason—the cadence and clicking, perhaps, or some misplaced optimism that surely this will be the time he'll throw his stick—so she may shortly be given reprieve.

"Did you bring the jars? —Ah!" There they are. Hello to them and no one else.

“You should lock that thing up when we’re technically in the middle of fieldwork,” Strange says, as Tabouret is ricocheted off the net for the nth time. The doctor grouses, but he doth protest too much, since he’s usually quite fond of animals — they are so very much easier than people — but he does look a little overwhelmed by the sheer unstoppable energy of this one.

The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, reduced to carrying heavy objects and shepherding a tiny dog. How the mighty have fallen.

He takes a nearby yardstick originally meant for measuring distance between the tables, and tosses it towards the archway in the hopes of deterring the creature— this only buys them about fifteen seconds of freedom, however, before Tabouret returns with the yardstick, as inevitable as the heat death of the universe.

“If there’s an explosion of arcane energies and your dog turns into a horror,” he adds, “I’m just saying, I disavow all involvement.”

"My, someone certainly woke up on the wrong side of their bed this morning. Viktor, would you please inform the good doctor that we plan to all have an excellent afternoon, and that no one—four legged or otherwise—is very likely to find themselves exploded. Honestly, if that were such a risk, we would hardly be working indoors to begin with."

This stroppy bit of behavior being somewhat actively undermine as Wysteria, having finally plugged the rest of the net into the tube, has set about feeding a wick free from the back of the canister.

"Now, perhaps if you might be so kind as to pull one of those training yard targets out into our firing lane. Then I will have you shoot this for me."

Once eye contact with said good doctor has been achieved, Viktor informs him of the aforementioned by holding a gesture to Wysteria, and his head at a deferential cant, as she rounds out the content of her message. His open hand then crisply returns to him as a fist. Transmission over.

His contribution, as he turns back to snooping: "We have blast chambers for that."

That same hand forms an elegant shape, pinky and ring fingers raised, as he very carefully draws one of the jars halfway from its nest of straw to peek at its contents.

“Viktor, would you please inform the good woman that one never thinks they’re going to be exploded, and that is precisely when one winds up exploded,” but there’s no heat to the patter, no real anger, simply sarcasm as ambient background noise. Because Strange still crosses the room obediently enough, and he starts to haul the target dummies further into the center of the hall, rearranging them into the line of fire. They’re straw-stuffed things, typically used for sword practice, but evidently stolen for their purposes today.

The physical labour isn’t much up Strange’s alley, but his training had been like this, too, once upon a time. Break down that arrogant ego. Go carry some groceries for the monks.

“Are we trying to shoot the dummies with a net?” he asks. Because overwhelming as Wysteria is, he still perks up whenever the arcane-slash-scientific principles come into play. He might not be an engineer like so many of his colleagues — present company included — but he’s still interested.

Somewhere, possibly behind Strange's back, Wysteria makes pointed eye contact with Viktor and maybe empathically rolls her eyes. Which, being a very dramatic gesture, is generally more cheerful and well meaning than if she'd only done so very slightly. This guy.

(Ha ha, we have fun here.)

"We are trying to shoot dummies with a net," she confirms, pleased that the work is so transparent. That's good; it bears promising results for when they put the net gun into the hands of less thoughtful people.

"I've been thinking of the dracolisks in Starkhaven—oh, Viktor; be careful, some of those have had a measure of dracolisk venom added. Yes, the ones with the Xs marked on the seals. We may want to save those for the outdoors during some break in the rain—, and that it seems much easier to tangle cavalry or a rider up than it does to puncture the animals' hides and take them down that way. And also we might wish to take a few hostages at some point."

In exchange for Wysteria's cheerful exasperation, between jars and with an oblique pleasure of his own, Viktor offers a briefer gesture: and there's her message in return, amenably crossing the stage.

Merrily sniping at one another over the day's work is indeed one of life's finer little joys—

Oh, the ones marked X? Like the one he's holding now? Where someone else might be encouraged to paranoid avoidance by this news, Viktor simply re-draws the previous jar and compares the look of the two, one in each hand.

Hostages inspires a little twist of his mouth, left unspoken.

“That’s a good idea. I can summon magical chains, which worked well enough on the battlefield in a pinch, but a tool that anyone can deploy — and which will last longer — is more universally applicable.”

There’s a comfortable ebb-and-flow to this work; it reminds Strange of the way he’d always bantered with fellow doctors in the surgical theater, conducting a perpetual jovial ongoing patter despite the blood on their hands, the intensive task at hand. He likes to keep talking throughout, and so he does:

“Are dracolisks popular? Are they present anywhere in Kirkwall? If not then I, personally, think it’s deeply unfair that the enemy has nightmare dragon-horses but we can’t have nightmare dragon-horses.”

"I don't know that I've ever seen a dracolisk in Kirkwall, no. Though it is a major port city. Surely some have been traded through here. But I believe they're primarily known in the capacity you may have witnessed at Starkhaven—as Tevene cavalry mounts. I saw one for the first time at the battle at Ghislain, for example. So I imagine their lack of popularity here in the south may be something of an issue of reputation."

And thank the gods Valentine de Foncé isn't present to squabble over this point. No doubt he would take this as license to insist that there was nothing inherently wrong or destructive about the animals, that there was no reason to fear them, and so on and so forth, nevermind that she had said nothing of the sort.

But there is only one insistent interlope ok this conversation, and that is the little white dog who has turned his attention from chasing the dregs of the net in order to pivot his attention to Viktor—rollicking gamely in the direction of the individual who seems most in possession of a toy that might be thrown for him to chase.

Wysteria makes no effort to stop him. She instead takes the heavy shears from her chatelaine and trims the wick sticking out of the gun launcher to a less unreasonable length.

"Which of you would like to do the honors?"

"All yours," says Viktor, without looking their way.

He's turned his attention down to the unruly creature bounding up to his feet, and turned up his toe to waggle enticingly. It might be inconsiderate to encourage Wysteria's excitable dog to greater excitement, especially in a way that seems to condone attacking shoes... but the lunging feints are objectively adorable, so, too bad.

Still not looking up, still holding two jars of explosive fluid, pivoting elusive taps off his heel, "Regardless of their popularity, dracolisks don't fly, so we still have the advantage there."

“True. I do enjoy flight. Still need to befriend one of those griffons, though—”

With the honours ceded to him, Strange has sidled up to the launcher, sleeves of his robes rolled up to his elbows and pinned back to keep out of the way. He holds up his scarred hands with a decidedly theatrical flourish, then glances over to the others, ensuring no one’s standing too close — the dog hasn’t gambolled its way into the firing line — at least a mere net isn’t liable to explode in their faces, probably — and he says, “Alright then. Three, two, one…”

And because he’s not just dramatic but melodramatic, rather than use a normal match like a normal person, Doctor Strange goes through a complex series of movements with his fingers with a certain unnecessary flair,

and he summons a small palmful flare of fire, which catches merrily on the wick, and then he takes a long step backwards.

Fifi pauses mid-sweep, casting an uneasy glance back over her shoulder to check: did 'you' mean her? It wouldn't be the first time she's been addressed thus, not by a wide margin, but Riftwatch has spoiled her over the last few years with its relative, well, humanity.

"Madame?" She turns, a mask of quiet attention over her exasperation.

Wysteria is speeding down the length of the corridor, her hard soled field boots thumping far more loudly along the stone than a young lady's shoes ordinarily ought to. But this is Riftwatch, and one never knows when they may find themselves fighting off animated skeletons, or being kidnapped from dinner parties, or being confronted with the hauntings of some mysterious artifact brought out of the wilds to the Gallows where it may wreak whatever havoc it pleases.

(It short—she has given up the habit of soft ladylike slippers.)

"Yes! Hello. Thank you," is all in one breath, Yeshellothankyou as Wysteria draws up before Fifi. Up close, she looks distinctly harried as is already shooting an anxious glance back the way she'd come as if any moment she expects someone to appear blistering after her. "I was wondering whether I might consult your expertise on something. It is not an emergency."

Which means it definitely is an emergency.

“My… expertise, Madame,” Fifi replies flatly, nonetheless awaiting elaboration.

"Yes. Your expertise."

She is, apparently, not going to elaborate here in this corridor. Rather, shifting slightly anxiously from one foot to another and not quite wring her hands together—

"But we should be on our way, actually. It would be best if we didn't stand here and were on our way. Time is off the essence, as it were."

The concerns of well-dressed shems have tended to be more exhausting than pressing in Fifi’s experience, but something about this encounter sends a jolt of unease through her thin frame. She’s certainly familiar with Madame de Fonce, or more specifically her voice echoing through the halls and stairwells, but now doesn’t seem the time to be overly doubtful.

“As you say, Madame,” she says quietly, offering a small nod of acquiescence and setting her broom to rest against a corner as she prepares to accompany her.

"Yes. Good. Excellent," has the distinct air of Ha ha ha, crisis averted! Only there was no crisis ever to begin with! This is just a charming diversion and no one should think anything of it and definitely no one should be concerned!'

"Well!" Wysteria exclaims with a sweeping gesture of the arm like a Hollywood tour guide (which she now knows everything about) who has just reached the manic paranoia part of an ill-timed methamphetamine high. "Right this way!"

And then Wysteria is whirling round in a flurry of skirts with the clear expectation that Fifi will follow, and heading—right back in the direction she'd first come from. Everything is fine.

The sigh that leaves Fifi’s nose is more visible than audible, her gaze wearily tracking with Wysteria’s movement— back in the direction from which she came— before she begins to pad after her.

Whatever this is, it’s at least probably more interesting than sweeping.

They hurry along to the staccato clack clack clack of Wysteria hard-soled field boots. Eventually, they reach the door of one of the private rooms assigned to various members of Riftwatch. That door is shouldered open.

—And Wysteria bars immediate entry with a flung out, cautionary arm. Rather than pass into the room directly, she kicks the door wider so that light from the corridor may filter into the room. Given that the weather is so very bad, very little sunlight comes in through the slit of a window opposite of them; but the combination of the two sources of light is quite sufficient to illuminate the oily black stain at the center of the room, gleaming nefariously back at them while the carpet it's eaten a hole directly through smokes about the spill's margins.

This room is clearly no longer much of a room for sleeping in. Though a bed has been shoved up against the wall, the rest of the room is consumed with all the Hallmark of a private little office—kept here on some pretense of her still partly residing in the Gallows, but clearly largely is dedicated to experiments too foul for her own little house in Hightown and too questionable for the Research workroom.

"I've tried sweeping it," Wysteria explains. "It only melted the broom."

Oh. So this does actually merit her expertise.

Fifi’s eyes go wide at the sight of the stain, from which her first reaction is to recoil—- they’re not supposed to steam like that, as far as she knows.

“What,” she gasps, horrified and intrigued all at once, “what is it?”

"It is an experiment," Wysteria says, and only afterward does she consider the possibility that she ought to have said otherwise. So when she continues along to explain the more prescient facts of the matter, there is a somewhat limping quality to the whole description:

"It contains a great deal of dracolisk venom. I have been testing how we might reinforce armor against it, given all that occurred in Starkhaven."

It's fine. No maid in the history of the universe has ever been a narc.

Why would you do this here is the first question that comes to mind, followed closely by why would you do this at all, but Fifi isn't in the business of pestering people for their reasoning behind poor decisions. Instead, she stares at the spot a little longer to get used to its existence, in the meantime shuffling through all the potential ways to handle it.
This is rather outside the sphere of her knowledge.

"Have you," she stammers, "mentioned it to the Provost?" He's a nerd, right? "I can't say I've worked with... dracolisk venom."

"Oh no. That hardly seems necessary," is the sort of thing which might very easily sound like a lie or a young lady, how shall we say, attempting to cover her ass. But not so. She sounds completely genuine. Mister Stark has more important things to concern himself with, and what does he particularly care about the state of her carpet? No, her primarily concern has entirely to do with—

"I believe our visiting Chantry Mother is touring some of these floors today, and I am largely only concerned for the smell."

(Which is in fact quite pungent—burning fibres and a rancid biological stench.)

Fifi's mouth opens, then closes again, leaving an expression one might describe as Vexed, With A Tinge of Impending Doom. Merde, she will be in here today. There's no time.

Quickly scanning the room, and then peering back out into the hall, a plan begins to take form.
"This is a storage room," she declares, "filled with odds and ends, nothing worth looking at for too long." Her eyes cut to Wysteria's. Do You Catch My Drift

"But it isn't a—" she begins to protest instantly, only to interrupt herself with an 'Oh!' at the best of That Look.

Yes of course. A storage room.

"Perhaps then we might only concern ourselves with covering or concealing the odor so it doesn't leech into the corridor. For the present, of course. At some point I suspect the venom must stop, er, doing what it is currently doing."

"One hopes," Fifi says so quietly as to be potentially inaudible, and turns back toward the hall. "Find things to put in here," she instructs Wysteria, "I'll be back with some natron."

"Yes, all right. I'll find, er, something."

Does not, strictly speaking, sound particularly promising as to Wysteria's ability to scrounge objects to fill the room with. But she has already pulled the door shut again, and is spinning on her heel to hurry off in search of anything that might be piled directly inside the door.

"Best of luck! We will reconvene in five minutes!" She calls back across her shoulder, hard soled little boots clattering rapidly off.

Will we, Fifi wants to say, but instead just sighs and goes her own way. She'll reconvene when she damn well pleases (it's just, you know, likely to be sooner than in five minutes).

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docks

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dining hall; clearing

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testing ground

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entangled in cobwebs on my way back to this thread

spins in similar cobwebs

ambush

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wow how many typos can I make in a single tag

anything is possible if you believe in yourself

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