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

[aberratic]

Oh, wow, there's a lot to unpack here.

Ness takes in all this information quickly—Gwenaëlle is Fond of Stephen, capital F, Julius is a "beloved blonde" (one of how many??) to the Commander of Forces, Templars not as universally cool as she had hoped—none of it is a surprise, necessarily, especially not that last part. It is the first time she's had opportunity to ask about a lot of it, though, and the urge to chase after answers like a dog after a bone is strong indeed. Still, being strategic and keeping herself safe does come first.

Julius, then.

"I actually think, if memory serves," (it does,) "that I did tell him I was afraid of that when I first met him. The circumstances were about as stellar is this, though a little less dire, and I said I'd read about what was done to mages who couldn't control their magic."

That feels like a lifetime ago, though it was only a few weeks. Ness still hasn't shaken the fear, truth be told, though the magebane has abated it somewhat. The random bursts of telepathy do their damnedest to bring it right back.

"It just seems like such a risk to take, trusting a native with this specifically. It's not real, you know," blood magic, "but it's similar. It'd be close enough for someone who didn't care about the differences." Her mind makes the connection before Gwenaëlle can do it for her—"Better to make the choice, though, than to have it happen on accident, like now."

[elegiaque]

“Especially if you want to be indistinguishable from a native one day,” Gwenaëlle says, the reminder of her goal purposeful; the underline that Gwenaëlle has been paying attention to everything Ennaris says to her incidental, not the sort of thing it would occur to her needed underlining in particular.

That, obviously, is just a simple fact.

“You won't get there holding the mages at a distance. And Rowntree's a war criminal, depending on who you ask, so you could do worse than someone who thinks the sun shines out of his fiery arse for a gamble.” Despite the colourful description, she does sound — admiring, more than anything else. Of both of them, maybe, Julius and the Commander.

(Marcus Rowntree is so scary and cool.)

“My uncle — the magic he practises, it isn't blood magic, either, but he does magic and there's often a lot of blood. It's a tightrope that other people have walked before, in different ways. You have to be smart about it but you don't have to be alone.”

[aberratic]

If Ness is surprised by the idea that Gwenaëlle has actually been paying attention to her, it doesn't show much—a quick flick of her eyes to meet Gwen's, a wondering tilt of her head, no more. What's more important is acknowledging Gwen's point, even if her attention feels vastly more personally important.

"I'd thought maybe I could just be normal," rueful, looking off vaguely into an impossible, imagined future. "Avoid mages and their problems altogether and live somewhere remote, free."

It wouldn't work for a number of reasons, but knowing that didn't stop Ness wishing, vaguely.

"Before arriving here, I had no magic. I don't tend to think of myself as a mage, and it's not yet automatic to throw my lot in with them. Even if I couldn't do magic though," with a resigned huff, "rifter means we'll all be relying on each other sooner or later. Might as well make sure I'm more of a benefit than a liability."

Better they know what she can do, and how best to utilize her—even if she'd like to think the mage-templar war resurging isn't quite as inevitable as everyone acts like it is.

(The idea of making friends, confidants, confederates—it's completely passed her by. This is about usefulness and avoiding hardship for all parties, not getting people to care about her.)

There are a few mental calculations—uncle, present tense, magic, blood—that crystallize into theories (never assumptions) before Ness speaks.

"Do you hear from him often? Even with the war on pause, I can't imagine anyone appearing to do blood magic has it easy in the wider world."

[elegiaque]

To the Chantry, they're one and the same even the rifters that do less magic than Ness— but she notes as much before Gwenaëlle can point it out, so the moment settles into a thing it feels she doesn't need to hammer home further. She could press the point of what's normal, anyway, none of us are going to get to be,

she doesn't. Ness knows. They all wish for better worlds.

So, instead,

“Most months,” she says, feeling the familiar way her throat tightens to think of them and their letters. Every letter feels like it might be the last one. She wants to think he'd tell her. She tries to imagine herself in his shoes, and how hard it is even to be at this distance from it, and sometimes she thinks she'll just go to them, and stay a while, and she never does. “He and my aunt, they left Riftwatch to ... my aunt is in lyrium decline,”

steadily, steadily,

“so they live out where they can manage for themselves. Handy, in case we need to hide in the basement of a cottage in the woods for some reason.”

[aberratic]

There's not much to say to that, really. Ness sits with it in silence, instead, letting the gravity of it settle. Around them, the bustle of the training grounds continues, heedless of their somber little island. Grunts and groans of effort, clashing weapons, quick-patter rapid footfalls sound all around them, but muted, somehow, distant.

"Thank you," she says eventually, "for sharing that with me."

It may not be a secret, but it is still precious, all the same.

"You—" begins the sentence, and then stops short, Ness surprised that she spoke at all. Well. Now that she's started, the only thing to do is finish, unfortunately. "You're less angry than I expected. Or scared. Not that you should be, and I understand you've probably seen enough rifters not to get too terribly concerned when one shows up with weird magic, but, you know—"

Ness cuts herself with a huff and a roll of her eyes, looking to Gwen with an expression that pleads for her to be put out of her own misery.

[elegiaque]

“If there's a question buried in that somewhere,” she says, a little dry, “I think you answered it in asking.”

Ten years ago, this would have been terrifying — she would have reacted with panic, would have been furious, would not have heard Ness out and probably would have already been banging on Redvers Keen's door demanding he come do his job about it. Years of experience with what mages and rifters are capable of allow for a certain understanding that another person might not have, to wit: it's really hard to be intimidated by something that's so obviously embarrassing for the other person to be caught at.

Rifters have crossed Gwenaëlle's path with worse magic, worse attitudes and worse odds that they'd manage to only fuck over themselves and not everyone around them if unchecked. There's so much to be angry with in the world, so much that merits anger, it almost seems to baffle her that this even needs saying at all; that it should be as obvious to Ennaris as it is to her that she isn't whose anger or fear should be of most pressing concern.

“There's nothing productive about getting angry with you because you're going through some kind of fucked up magical puberty. I am extremely,” emphatically, a purposeful use of her own word back to her: “concerned about it. That's why we're having this conversation. If you don't handle it, we will have a different conversation.”

Give her a reason to be fucked off about it, and that conversation will be a lot less fun.

[aberratic]

As baffling as it is for Gwen that this needs to be said, Ness is clearly equally baffled that the obvious applies to her, and she isn't some terrible exception. That's dramatic and eyeroll-worthy enough that she doesn't plan to say it, but her wide, nervous, surprised eyes probably say it for her.

"I appreciate the opportunity to prove myself—that is, prove my responsibility, to you. Captain Baudin."

Gosh it would be so nice to not be... the way she is, generally, frankly. Throw the whole librarian in the bay, she's a lost cause—

A deep breath, centering herself, don't be weird.

"Thank you," once more, from the top, but better this time. "I'll handle it. Do you, in your official capacity as Captain of the Watch, want progress updates?"

[elegiaque]

The part of her that thinks, sort of no, briefly relieved that by her word Ennaris can't hear that thought particularly — that part does not answer to captain. That part can scarcely believe that she is thirty years of age, and has a profession, and cannot turn over this question to someone responsible because it is fucking her. She has turned around and discovered that she is, herself, the adult in the room.

It's less disorienting each time, but not none. Resignedly aware that in saying so she puts her own arse on the line in the event that this goes horribly tits up and she finds herself called to account by Commander Rowntree, she does not say, I'd kind of rather not, but instead:

“Yes, I'd like that.” For a given value of thinking she will deserve it if she's made a fool of for sticking her neck out— but she's done it, and so.

Her head tilts. She studies her, with that one remaining eye, and after a beat says, “At one time I had family here by way of my ex-husband. One of them, she did that, too.” It didn't not frighten her; the rising panic in her throat that she had ruthlessly quashed, trusting Thranduil, trusting those he trusted. Knowing Galadriel to be so ancient as to be far fucking beyond her ability to scold, would be still if she were here now Gwenaëlle is Captain Baudin, and had demonstrated on more than one occasion her willingness to fuck with the Inquisition. Her discretion in how.

Galadriel had been long gone by the end of her marriage, so she had never had to reckon with the fact of losing that connection in that way, and it crosses her mind now, a fleeting pang of loss. But to her point, “She was clever and she was discreet. I know that you can be both of those things.”

Believe, maybe, but it feels like she could use the bolstering of someone else's certainty. Gwenaëlle, already committed—

“We need every advantage we can get. Just make sure that that's what it is.”

[aberratic]

Ness certainly would like to think she can be clever and discreet... but if her own confidence there fails, perhaps Gwenaëlle's borrowed belief will do. She nods at Gwen, very serious, a junior officer determined to get her first assignment right—

"It will be. I'll work on it, as much as I can."

With that decided, she looks back to the course she'd interrupted Gwen in the middle of, and gestures at it with a heroically impassive expression.

"I won't interrupt again if you want to get back to your training. I have work I could—I'll be elsewhere, I mean. No, uh. Danger of a repeat."