player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

[cozen]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.

This is a timeline where, some mild chaos aside, things for the last month have carried on as normal. Riftwatch hasn't lost anyone at all. There were no funerals. The work continued. The late afternoon of August 15 may find people at their desks, in the midst of meetings or debriefs, in the library, in the sparring yard. Or maybe afield, seeing to errands or meetings or missions somewhere else in Thedas. Maybe, if they are particularly unlucky, they are deep in conversation with an ally or embroiled in combat with an enemy agent at the precise moment when the magical connection between two realities closes and the diverging timelines snap together into one existence.

At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.

For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.

For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.

Comments

[laruetheday]

Clarisse remembers Abby mentioned Loxley back when this topic first came up between them. (And a clone?) This time she only says "Oh, right," and doesn't name any names, deciding to give Abby some kind of break for once instead of adding to her misery.

Except all that means is that Ellie is probably going to ask for a name instead, so... not an actual break after all. But the intent was there and that's all that matters!

[notathreat]

Clarisse knows her way too well, because Ellie doesn't even wait for Clarisse to ask before Ellie jumps on the opening.

"Who did you want to show up?" she asks, and tries to make her eyes very wide and innocent. She doesn't want Abby to think she's laughing at her, even if she is. Just a tiny bit, but only because of the Strange thing.

She's desperately curious.

[armd]

Ah, the rollercoaster ride of thinking you'd got away with it only to have to answer to Ellie Williams of all people. Abby thinks she would be well within her rights to tell her that it's none of her fucking business. Or, at the very least, that she wanted Nunya to show up. But... as previously established, she is trying, for Clarisse.

So, "Somebody more my age," is both true, and not-specific. And unlikely to be accepted. "Like Nina."

There you go.

[laruetheday]

Not the same person Abby named before, and also not someone Clarisse really knows... Hmm. Interesting. She'll have to look into this more, at some point when she isn't majorly struggling just to get through the day.

"Okay," she says, "but on this hypothetical date, would you rather go sky diving or cave diving?"

Inquiring minds need to know. Also she's trying to cut Abby a break from having to talk about the people she likes in front of Ellie.

[notathreat]

"Surprising, but great choice," Ellie admits, tilts her head to one side. "I didn't think she was your type."

Abby contains multitudes apparently.

And that's a great question, so she'll hold the rest of what she was going to say for the answer.

[armd]

Abby doesn't actually know if Nina is her type or not, she hasn't spoken to her very much. She was picked as bait and it worked. She shrugs, gives Clarisse a flat, unimpressed look.

"I'm not diving anywhere. Do we have to talk about this?"

She's starting to feel prickly and defensive. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it talk about hypothetical dates.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse rolls her eyes. Way to ruin her lighthearted half-assed kinda sorta subject change.

By the way, nobody asked, but she would go skydiving.

"Fine. Talk about something else."

[notathreat]

"I'd totally go skydiving."

Nobody asked her either, but. "Okay, fine. Both of you. Would you rather always have wet socks or always have a rock in your shoe?"

Clarisse is obviously really trying, so Ellie will do her best. C'mon, Abby. Get with the program.

[armd]

Oh, Clarisse was doing a would you rather. She wasn't trying to make Abby talk about going on a date for real in front of Ellie, or anything. She feels really stupid, then instantly grateful for Ellie jumping in with something else.

Let her think...

She mumbles, "Wet socks," and falls silent for a moment. Adds, "I knew a guy who broke his toe on a rock in his shoe."

Like is that fucked up or what. Also it was Manny but she won't be naming names.

[laruetheday]

"Socks," Clarisse agrees, like it's obvious. "I'd just stop wearing them."

She has to wear shoes into battle, but socks are optional, right?

"How do you break your toe on a rock in your shoe?" She turns to look at Abby again, a little skeptical. "Damn, was he putting them on at warp speed or something?"

Kinda funny to imagine, though.

[notathreat]

"The fuck would you wear? Sandals?"

Actually, didn't the Greeks just wear sandals most of the time anyway?

She winces outright at Abby's little nugget of information, wrinkling her nose. Yeah, broken toes are an absolute bitch, but geeze, guy.

[armd]

"No," Abby argues, "You can't take them off, you have to wear them, that's part of it. Otherwise I'd just tip the rock out of my shoe."

And to answer the question, "He said it got stuck in there at some point and he didn't have time to get it out before some shit went down and we had to run as fast as we could just to get out of there. It got stuck under his foot and... Yeah."

You can imagine.

[laruetheday]

"No," Clarisse argues back. "There's no rule saying you have to wear anything. The rock's only in your shoe if you choose to wear shoes. The socks are only wet if you put socks on. What, are you never allowed to take your shoes off in this universe? They're just attached to your legs? Stupid.

Also, I don't wear sandals," she adds, looking at Ellie. "I'd just wear my boots with no socks underneath." And they'd stink.

[notathreat]

"Ouch," Ellie mutters at Abby's explanation, scrunching her nose, and then, without missing a beat:

"And that's disgusting," Ellie says immediately to Clarisse, without a trance of irony or rancor. "Do you know how much fungus you'd get on your feet that way?"

[armd]

Abby's nose wrinkles. She looks revolted and tickled all at once. Foot fungus...

"Shouldn't be a problem for you, right? Aren't you immune?"

[laruetheday]

Hah. Tell her, Abby.

"Yeah. Plus it beats trench foot from permanently wet socks, right." Either way, there are no winners in this scenario.

[notathreat]

"I'm immune to cordyceps, not athlete's foot."

She's trying very hard not to laugh, though.

"And does it? If you have a rock in your shoe it'd eventually turn into a wound if you didn't take it out and that's a good way to lose a foot."

[armd]

"Have you tried being immune to athlete's foot?"

Seems like a skill issue. She isn't replying to the other half of this conversation at all by the way, it's just fun to sit here and gently needle Ellie.

[notathreat]

"Have you tried not being a smartass?"

The response is so instant, and it could be nasty, but unlike the last time Ellie quipped something like this at her, it's actually not.

They're on shaky ground, but it's like they're proving that they can tease each other and not have it turn into something actually shitty. It's new ground.

[laruetheday]

"Nope," Clarisse says. "She can't."

Nobody who lives in this room is allowed to let anybody know they have actual feelings except for once every few months. It's the rule when you live with military jock types.

Except for Wags, who can feel whatever he wants whenever he wants.

"Also, you're the one who created this no-win situation," she reminds Ellie. Trench foot or gangrene.

[armd]

Abby immediately starts quietly chuckling the moment that comes out of Ellie's mouth, and doesn't stop at what Clarisse says either... not even to try defend herself. Why bother when it's true?

"Create a different one," she says eventually, a bit breathy from laughing. "I wanna stop talking about feet."

[notathreat]

"That's the whole point of would-you-rather!"

Ellie doesn't laugh but she can't contain a smile sneaking in, either. Her eyes have got that glint in them. She's trying to hold out.

"Fine. Would you rather fight a bear with a machine gun or a pterodactyl with a flamethrower?"

[laruetheday]

"The pterodactyl with the flamethrower," Clarisse says, sounding almost offended by the options, "obviously."

She leans back against her pillows and stretches her legs out, almost like she's contemplating going to sleep. She isn't, but she at least wants to be comfortable. "It would be so easy going after a bear with a machine gun. There would be no challenge."

[notathreat]

"Nonono."

Ellie holds up a finger.

"The pterodactyl is USING the flamethrower. And the bear is using the machine gun. For the purposes of the question they're totally able to do that."

[armd]

"The Scars had some big guys," Abby mutters, "Felt like fighting a bear with a machine gun.

"You know, when they were allowed to have them. And use them. Only in 'special circumstances', like whenever I fucking showed up."