open; telepathy hijinks for solace and august

[aberratic]

WHO: Ness Tavane (tadfool) and you (with stipulations, see notes)
WHAT: Ness does some telepathy in various areas of the Gallows and elsewhere.
WHEN: Covering Ness' first month in the Gallows.
WHERE: Various!
NOTES: In this thread, Ness will be speaking into characters' minds and hearing their responses. She will NOT be reading any thoughts that are not direct responses to her (that comes later). This may seem like blood magic to natives! I'm cool with negative CR as a result of this. I am not currently interested in Ness experiencing severe IC consequences for this magic at this point, so if your character would rat her out to the cops, I'd prefer they not take part in this log. Remember: snitches get stitches.

i. paper in the archives

At first, Ness spends most of her time in the archives, studying and maintaining her notes. It's a meditative process for her, calming even as she can sometimes get frustrated over the lack of consistency in historical accounts, and she finds genuine joy in taking information from different sources and creating a coherent whole out of it. The only thing keeping this from feeling like a normal day at home, truthfully, is the lack of readily available paper, something which never would have happened at Candlekeeep—there, they had no shortage of vellum, parchment, or paper on which to write, each surface suited for different tools and different jobs and kept in abundant supply. It won't do to keep comparing the archives to Candlekeep, much as Ness is tempted to... but she can't help the small sighs of frustration as her handwriting gets more and more cramped in her attempts to conserve.

I wonder if anyone here has stores of paper they'd be willing to part with, she thinks to herself—herself and anyone within a 30 foot radius of her in the archives at the moment, that is. There's a resonance to her mental voice that's lacking in her normal speech, a sort of echo and hiss that pervades the mind of whoever she's speaking to. It sounds, frankly, a bit sinister.

ii. got a song stuck in your head in the food court

Now that Ness has begun to work on getting her magic under control, she's started, ever so slowly, to allow herself in public spaces again, starting with the dining area. Truth be told, communal dining is one of the more familiar parts of Riftwatch—both in its practicalities and its loneliness. Most of her meals were taken alone in Candlekeep, and most of them here are the same.

She's alone at a table, picking at her plate, when she hears the music pick up. It's unfamiliar, and when she looks up, coming from seemingly nowhere. There's no one with an instrument here in the Gallows, and even if there was, she can't imagine what kind of instrument would make this noise. Not only that, the lyrics get indistinct at points, barely more than humming through a couple of phrases. At first, she tries to just wait for it to end, but the song—it loops, starts again, in the middle of a phrase this time, and Ness can't help the internal groan and frustrated Why me? thought to herself.

iii. observations in the training yard

Mid-month, Ness is taking a few more risks, letting herself out in public more often than not. She hasn't had an uncontrolled tentacles incident in days, and now that she's gaining confidence she wants to see more of the Gallows through eyes untainted by fear. The training grounds are one area she hasn't spent a lot of time in, so they're the subject of today's excursion—not to train in herself, heavens no. She's just here to watch from the sidelines.

Riftwatch is full of people of prodigious athletic talent, she's noticing, watching people drill forms and spar with each other. Handsome people too, and there must be a reason why everyone in the organization seems unreasonably attractive, but why ponder that when she can just enjoy watching very talented people be very attractive with sharp weapons?

Yes, alright, she's just here to ogle the hot people getting sweaty and breathless. Is that a crime?

Someone in particular catches her eye, whether for their impeccable form or their attractive looks or the stormy, brooding focus in their expression. Ness turns all her focus to whoever it is she's been struck by, unthinkingly creating a link between her thoughts and theirs—though her mind is blank, at the moment, too captivated to string together a coherent sentence.

iv. artichoke please no in the eyrie

Later still in the month, now that Ness has had some more practice controlling her more violent, tentacle-y magic, she starts spending more time in the Eyrie. This particular day, she's working with Artichoke, grooming some of the more hard-to-reach pin feathers left behind after a recent moult. Unfamiliar as she is with the care of birds (or bird-like creatures), she's gotten very close to his neck, in order to carefully observe her work and make sure she's not in danger of causing a bleed. The proximity hasn't been a problem with other griffons she's worked with—mostly she's had to worry about her fingers more than her head—so Ness has stopped paying attention to whatever Artichoke is doing.

That was her first mistake.

She first becomes aware of the insistent tug on her hair while she's in the middle of gently rubbing a keratin sheathe off of a pin feather.

"That's very rude," she calls back to whoever is grabbing her hair, but doesn't straighten to look back at them until the feather is fully freed from its sheathe, and the tugging doesn't stop. It gets more insistent, even, and more still as she begins to straighten up and turn around—begins to, because that's when she makes eye contact with Artichoke and realizes exactly who it is who's pulling on her ponytail.

Oh, hells, she thinks, broadcasting it to anyone else visible from Artichoke's nest in the Eyrie. Artichoke pulls again on her ponytail, and Ness stumbles toward him in mounting panic. How in the hells do I get through this without losing my scalp?

v. intrusive thoughts on the ferry

It's the end of her first month in Thedas, the end of her quarantine period, and Ness is finally, finally allowed to leave the Gallows. She's hopped on one of the earlier ferry crossings, excited to at last be able to see the rest of Kirkwall, even in its damaged state, and stands at the rail to watch as they move through the bay. It's a pristine morning. The sun's early rays sparkle on the water, gulls call, and waves lap gently at the side of the ferry. All is peaceful.

A thought, or a series of thoughts, occurs to Ness, halfway across—I could jump in here and drown and no one could stop me. Well, I might not drown immediately. I know the principles of how to swim, would that be enough to get me back to the Gallows? How big are the fish in here, anyway, would that be a concern? Are there sharks? If I jumped in right now how quickly would I become fish food?

These thoughts are all, to a one, broadcasted to someone else on the ferry, in the vaguely sinister, echo-y resonance of Ness' telepathic voice.

Comments

i (lmk if i need to edit anything!)

[tadpoled]

Tav is on another escorted visit to the archive to look for more books on the natural flora to look for on his next camping trip, gods allowing, when he hears something akin to a voice in his head.

It doesn’t sound like the Emperor, but its presence is still quite disturbing.

Who are you? he tries to focus his thoughts enough to answer her question.

[aberratic]

He's probably not expecting the shocked yelp that erupts elsewhere in the archives in response to his question. To be fair, Ness wasn't expecting to hear anyone else's thoughts—this is the first time this has happened to her.

What the fuck!!! is all the response he gets, but if he looks around he might see a petite blonde looking around in confusion, long braid whipping around herself as she twists this way and that in her seat.

[tadpoled]

Tav pauses when he hears the yelp, asking his guards to station by the door. There's no need for them to accidentally intimidate someone who doesn't need intimidating. He spots the blonde whipping this way and that just as her voice hits his mind again.

Is it bad that he can't help his smile? He makes his way past most of the tables until he reaches hers. He offers his brightest smile and taps his temple.

Didn't mean for anyone to hear you?

[aberratic]

Ness doesn't yelp, this time, but she does visibly jump, looking up at the elf in front of her with wide, shocked eyes. It takes a moment or two for her to come up with anything to say, shocked as she is, and this time when she speaks there's an echo—she asks her question aloud at the same time as she projects it into his mind, very eloquently:

"What?"

[tadpoled]

"I've an unfortunate past with someone speaking into my mind," Tav continues to smile. "Tav."

And then he pauses, waiting for a response.

[aberratic]

"With someone—sorry, I beg your pardon, you spoke into my mind, not the other way around?"

She doesn't sound entirely confident of that, but either way it doesn't seem like she's terribly upset, either. This isn't normal for her, but it's not an absolutely unheard of or monstrous abnormality, so she's more perplexed and curious than anything, and it shows in her expression.

Belatedly, she remembers: names. Introductions. Whoops.

"Ah, Ennaris Tavane, sorry, hello. Ness, if you'd prefer!"

[tadpoled]

Tav shifts his weight, watching Ness for a moment before deciding he he will have to check in on this psychic business later. For now, the prospect of another friend is too tempting to ignore.

"Pleasure to meet you Ness," Tav replies with a winning smile. "Are you new? I've not seen you around."

He, on the other hand is unfortunately quite easy to spot, being one of a handful of elves or the guards that follow him around. Either seems enough for most folk.

[aberratic]

"Ah... Yes," slowly, less willing to drop the subject of telepathy than Tav himself seems to be, "I am new, I only arrived recently. Sorry, we hadn't clarified—who was in whose mind, just now?"

Can't believe he's trying to move on, just like that, she grouses, the thought intended for the privacy of her own mind but projected straight into his instead.