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

[degenere]

"The Madame must be confused," says Monsieur Dugrand, with great delicacy, whilst his look to Bravonak is saying, It certainly sounds like assassination but as we are in this lunacy together, we shall, for the moment, assume the very best. "If you could return your attention, just here--we are in fact discussing the, ah, undercroft added to the Hightown residence, and the subsequent and," a nod toward Val, "necessary renovations. I can understand how the subject of the estate might come into play, as the Monsieur's account--"

This thought is interrupted as Val wrenches free of Wysteria's grasp and shoves to his feet. Dugrand does not sigh but does sit back in his chair slightly, deferring to his client, who is now engaged in stabbing a finger at Wysteria.

"As if there would be any question of inheritance! Of course there would only be two benefactors--but you are correct, we need not speak anything more of that! In fact we should forget it as I am very much alive and if I were not," a thought which is very much like treading upon a rotten floorboard, and thus wrong-footed, Val's diatribe ends somewhat abruptly. His eyes cross slightly.

[heirring]

Wysteria, to her credit, has ceded the half step necessary so that Val's chair doesn't go clattering backwards as he leaps up out of it. But that is all the ground she gives, stabbing finger or no stabbing finger, and so she is more or less perfectly placed to give him a stout pat (or slap) on the bristly cheek in order to recall him back to her.

Stop that. This is no time for dramatics.

"Well I for one am quite pleased with having heroically snatched you from the jaws of death. Or from underfoot of a dragon, as I am led to believe. I look very poorly in black, you know!" It only emphasizes all the sun she regrettably takes in, and the prodigious number of freckles she has acquired. Worst of all, it makes her hair look very yellow. "Which two benefactors? Messere Dugrand, which two benefactors? Do not say the Baroness and the Chantry Brother. I will be very cross. Valentine," she gathers his collar closer. "Say you have revised your will."

[degenere]

"I have revised my will," Val says, a little too vehement for true obedience. But at least he is present in the moment once more with eyes uncrossed and mouth drawn into a stubborn scowl. "And you look poorly in everything," which is of course untrue so it is perfectly fine to say. Certainly it will not damage the feelings of Wysteria. "But especially black, yes. How fortunate you are that I am living."

Living: with his cheek just barely stinging from her little smack and his collar bunched uncomfortably around his neck because of her hand, which, too, is smattered with freckles very like the sampling of diorite he used to have--or yet has, somewhere, likely in the Val Royeaux apartments. How long ago it was that he had interest in geology. Another life, another person. Or so he might think, if he were given to fancy and introspection and poetics and things of that nature.

"Last year," Dugrand says to Bravonak, and more or less to the room at large, "you'll recall the document sent over last year, of course. Though I must confess I do not understand why we are speaking of it. The fifth revision to date. It was completed to further solidify evidence of the union. A simple act, when we were lodging for the annual disbursement and needed to free some of the funds for more general use. The University and the Madame of course are the benefactors."

[heirring]

Bravonak has finished cleaning his small glasses. He sets them back on his face now, going so far as to trouble himself with smoothing the hair at his temples and the lay of his vast muttonchops after he has worked the delicate wire arms of the glass back over his ears. This allows for the requisite period of time in which Wysteria might cry—

"Myself and the University!" She laughs again with perfect pleasure even more directly in her husband's face. The sound is bright and bell-like, warm as summer daylight. "Of course you have revised it. And mine is of course in similar good order even if you've never once saved my life. No, before you say anything, identifying the undercooked spearfish certainly doesn't count."

No, for all her threats of temper and his patently untrue insults, her good humor is quite impervious thank you. How fine! She will not have to write any terrible letters to his friends. She will not have to write any terrible letters to his family. She will not have to take Gwenaëlle Baduin's bird and dog on his behalf, or think of how terribly strange and unnaturally gray he had looked as a corpse.

It is an understatement to say she prefers him like this, even if his hair is far too long and he is in desperate need of a closer shave. Honestly, de Foncé, you look like a Lowtown cutpurse.

"Oh I am pleased! You must tell me what you remember. Did you see Andraste, or recall traveling through the Fade? If you say 'I remember nothing' we will have to arrange to immediately begin praying for your soul and see whether we can save you from the Void the next time."

—before Bravonak lowers his hands, saying, "I recall the document in question. Though perhaps," raising his voice the half measure to carry to the rest of their company. "We could consider returning our attentions to the current suit and worry about everyone's spirits after. I know of one or two charitable funds Monsieur might consider if there is concern."

And if there are kickbacks at all involved, maybe he will split them with Dugrand just this once.

[degenere]

"Yes, the current suit," and Dugrand--with no small relief--turns to pick up a page from the desk. A relief, to turn his attention to the matter at hand and avoid attending to whatever peculiar marital display is playing out before them. "We would entertain such a contribution--a modest but reasonable sum--if you have a suggestion to share to that end."

Meanwhile, "The spearfish does count," Val is saying, loudly, "the spearfish has always counted! You have not forgotten, mademoiselle, the effects one suffers when consuming such a dish? How can you say that this does not count! We must surely be halfway to even--or halfway to halfway--"

Halfway to halfway. Again Val thinks of that dark shadow and its sudden descent swallowing up familiar stars. His little commonplace book will be in his satchel, its pages nearly blank where once they were full. In the shaft of sunlight, motes of dust are drifting like ash.

"The dragon's scales." He twists to pluck the paper from Dugrand's hand, and scrabbles on the desk for something to write with. The dust motes whirl away, caught in the draft from his sharp movement. "Mademoiselle, they were marvels. The patterning, laid atop one another, like a mosaic-- Ah, merci," as Dugrand, resigned, hands Val his own pen.

[heirring]

They are emphatically not halfway to halfway. She begins to tell him this quite emphatically even as Val twists round and—

"Forgive me but are you extolling the virtues of the creature which splattered you underfoot?" She cries, the exact pitch and tenor of her voice rapidly climbing steps on a register to what might less than generously be dubbed a shriek.

(Behind the desk, Bravonak winces. He has acquainted himself with Madame's eccentrics, and has become accustomed to parting her hand while she sobs over this or that inconvenience, but there truly is no guarding one's self against the pen knife shape piercing note she occasionally strikes.)

"'That's fascinating, ma cocotte. How grateful I am not to be a corpse. Perhaps you might like to explain to me all the brilliant details as to how you heroically saved my life. Thank you, by the way.'" She reverts from this broad approximation of an Orlesian accent to say, "Mister Bravonak, would you please inform Monsieur Dugrand that his client should be grateful?"

Accordingly, the dwarf pivots a degree to regard his fellow captive. Well, suggests the turn of his hand. So it is.

[degenere]

Monsieur Dugrand touches the fingertips of his left hand to his temple. It is a small and hopeless gesture. The faux Orlesian accent has finished a good portion of his remaining defenses--but thank you, Mister Bravonak, for informing him that his client should be grateful.

"Monsieur," he says to Val, right as Val whips around again to push the scrap of paper in his wife's face. The flutter of the page helps to cover Dugrand's small and muted sigh. His fingertips rub gently at his temple.

Here on the page, Val has hastily scratched a sketch of a section of dragon scales, fitted together with geometric order. It is too flat and does nothing to communicate the true beauty of what he had seen. The sheen, deep and opalescent, impossible to render with ink alone, but it will, for now, suffice.

"Look, here--I am here, with you, so I was evidently not so splattered, yes?--look, would you! If anyone might appreciate, it is you, so it is very good that you were not killed by consuming the spearfish, thanks to me, and, yes, very good that I remain intact, thanks to," he gestures with the paper, a vague and inclusive you, "yes? We can save our slavering gratitude for another time."

Grateful, indeed. He makes sure to hold the page still so she might better see.

"Mademoiselle: the patterning of the scales was like a mosaic, as I have said. Intricate. Purposeful. It was of the Maker as anything else might be. And the color, you have not seen anything like it, I am sure."

[heirring]

In an extraordinarily rare instance of doing as asked, Wysteria—her face all red with pleasure and annoyance both—looks at the paper. She beholds the patterning. For a moment, it seems she might almost understand the majesty of the miracle she is looking at, flat and unidimensional though this rough approximation hastily scribbled onto a piece of legal ephemera may be.

Then she snatches the paper out of Val's hand. It is easy to do on account of his holding it so still.

"I am going to acquire a dragon scale. I am going to determine its strength. Then," she declared, stuffing the page into her skirt pocket. "I am going to make a mock up in this pattern so that I can determine how best to put a harpoon through it."

Behind the desk, Mister Bravonak slides a few significant inches lower in his chair.

[degenere]

"We cannot harpoon beauty."

He is too late to snatch the paper back. It has disappeared beyond his reach, to a pocket not his own. Val makes a gesture toward reaching for it even so. It is only a pocket! Before he commits, he decides against it, and transforms the momentum of the reach to a graceful--albeit slightly too low--gesture of allowance and accord, communicating that a point is here to be made.

"That is to say, mademoiselle, we can. Of course we are capable. It is the question of should we harpoon beauty that we must consider. The ruin of so fine a thing! There is sufficient ruin within this world. Must we contribute? Must we visit it upon a creature who has performed no ill act? Who cannot--when you consider consciousness, what it is to choose ill from good--who cannot perform ill acts! Only acts of instinct! How do we harpoon instinct?"

Monsieur Dugrand begins to reach again for his pen. His is a tentative reach, at first, but since his client is very much engaged in his lecture, his reach gains new confidence. It is safe.

"Mister Bravonak," in an undertone, "the list of officials you might suggest, if you please."

Now. While they are distracted. These moments are all too fleeting. This will surely be the only chance.

[heirring]

"I have just told you how we harpoon instinct," Madame is declaring in that shrill timbre of hers. "Perhaps if your dragon's instinct wasn't to be controlled by Ancient Magisters bent on waging war on the South, then there would be no need to pursue the subject. However seeing as it is—"

From low in his chair, Bravonak perks by by the narrowest degree as Wysteria's tirade continues. He pivots, adjusts his small spectacles on his bearded face. After a moment's consideration supplies a short list in a low aside to his not quite colleague, but certainly ally. There is Isotta Koller of the Viscount's office of clerks, and Jacotin Moran of the Guard overseeing the lady's particular district, and of course one must not forget—

"—and with all this said, even you must admit there comes a point where the natural impulse must be weighed against a thing's destructive capabilities and I am sorry, but can you not see that we are discussing something important?" Wysteria's attention has swiveled to aim directly at the pair of hushed solicitors, her face pink with exasperation.

"Honestly! Am I not allowed a single moment's peace to speak to my husband?"