WHO: Mine and yours WHAT: Catch-all WHEN: ~Harvestmere WHERE: Various NOTES: Closed starters (for now); if you're after something or someone, hit me up and I'll craft you something bespoke!
(At the request of the visiting Baron von Hesterhuttl of Markham, give his twins (aged 14) a tour of Kirkwall that is safe, educational, yet also somehow interesting enough that they provide a positive report of Riftwatch to their father.)
"Okay," Abby says, knuckling an eye over the dining hall table. "How do we wanna do this."
It's early, but circumstances dictact that it has to be; their charges arrive in a little over an hour. They are meeting beforehand to solidify the game plan and to finish actually waking up over coffee and, in Abby's case, porridge and bread, and two apples. She's using a knife to cut one apple up into slices. She gives it to Benedict. "Don't laugh, but I did homework. I could probably tell them weird facts about Kirkwall until it's time for them to go home again."
"Well, it used to be called Emerius, or City of Chains," he explains idly, academically, and reaches over to pluck another piece of apple from Abby's hand.
"It was a massive slavery hub for the ancient Imperium. The big chains in the harbor can be used to block ships from entering or leaving, which... I suppose explains why it's lasted this long." A nerdy little smile: "there are a few books on it upstairs."
Abby's nodding in recognition of this fact now. "Yeah, I know the one." It's literally called Kirkwall: The City of Chains. Not the most inventive title but it does what it says on the tin. "Okay. Well, let's lean into that.
"And," leaning forward in her seat, "Maybe the chains are haunted."
"I think Kirkwall's haunted enough without the chains," Benedict snorts, rolling his eyes with a smirk, "Darktown especially. But we. ...shouldn't bring them to Darktown." The latest tourism trend: getting mugged and thrown off a cliff!
"Thanks," Perched alongside the wall, company for yet another guard shift. "For trying this out. I ask something too dumb, you can pitch it over the side."
A chalky thumb to the ramparts. Slate scratches.
"This is, uh, Abby Anderson. Assistant archivist and Forces member," You know, in case she's leaping to correct a title, reveal a psueodnym. "How long you been with Riftwatch?"
No such correction comes — only 'assistant archivist' gets a snort. But it does sound more impressive than 'book stacker'...
While they're on guard duty, Abby doesn't look at him when he's speaking. She's listening and answering but the biggest chunk of her attention is on the job.
"Three years. I dunno if you should be using me as your bar for what's too dumb to answer." She doesn't mean that in a self-deprecating way for once. "What I think is fine could be somebody else's too dumb, you know?"
Abby seems mollified by this, maybe even a bit touched. Okay then.
Time to destroy that nice opinion of her by answering these questions honestly. "I was a solider with the Washington Liberation Front. It's a — it was a paramilitary group."
"Like Riftwatch?" Or the Inquisition, before it folded in. Between the mages and mercenaries, it's most here outside a real army. "What were you fighting?"
"Yeah. No magic though. We were fighting a creepy death cult called the Seraphites. And the infected obviously," wait does he know about that? It's hard to keep track of who knows about that, "But that was kinda secondary to the whole Scars — uh, Seraphites thing. We wanted control of the same city."
Without thinking about it she's brought her hand up, knuckles kneading into the crook of her neck while she talks. Cedric's gaze prickles on the side of her jaw. Abby's voice is level, almost brisk. "I was originally with another group working on a cure for the infected but we got attacked and lost most of our members, and our leader. We voted to formally disband. And then a friend of mine heard about the WLF, so we decided to throw in with them."
She finally looks at him and shrugs. "Was there for a couple years. Now I'm here."
The chalk could scrape. He sets it down. Lot of skipped ground, lot of details he might pry. But these aren't histories, not really; not meant to be a list of facts alone.
"Been a lot of fighting," Been more than just that. The books, sure — the Infirmary, too. A cure. "Y'ever get sick of it?"
Abby lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Yeah. When I got here I thought..."
She frowns and takes her hand from her neck, looking at her palm. This is embarrassing to admit but she's started saying it already. "I wasn't gonna join Forces at first. I didn't like who I was and the fighting made me that way. But that's what I'm the best at doing."
Eluvian possibly compromised. Check it out, sit guard duty, make anyone who shows up regret it. Oh, but it's probably nothing major so we only need a couple people and it might as well be you and Abby.
Clarisse could just die. Like throw herself over the side of this already-half-sunk boat and drown. And it's not Gwenaëlle's fault—she obviously put them on this guard rotation because she thought they'd be happy to do it together, not as a punishment—but Clarisse is still feeling punished.
Which she should, probably. Because this is her fault.
She turns and begins walking the length of the deck, at least the length of the deck that's accessible, humming softly under her breath. She's already done about six of these little circuits, trying to dispel some of the nervous energy she's feeling, but weirdly it's not working at all. In fact, she feels even more anxious each time she passes Abby by and doesn't quite look at her.
So, finally, she does look—and then away again, oh fuck, nope, mistake.
Abby is unpleasantly remembering that, once, nobody had any idea her and Ellie didn't get along, to the point where they were assigned to share a room in Antiva. This feels like that. Nobody knows her and Clarisse have been manoeuvring awkwardly around each other, or what might have caused that, and they're not gonna know either — but it means shit like this happens.
Guard duty. Together. Standing stock still in place without looking at each other. Barely speaking.
She's thinking about jumping off of the boat. Or throwing herself through the eluvian. Maybe there's an entire Venatori firing squad on the other side of it. Abby would much rather deal with that than attempt to address how she feels right now, which is uncharacteristically awkward around Clarisse, and like she should say something just to break the silence but not knowing what or how.
When Clarisse starts to jerkily pace it does, at least, help. Sort of. It's hard to ignore her when she's moving around though and Abby looks at her quickly, seeing the back of her head for a moment before she turns around. One time she does this they make brief, fleeting eye contact and Abby grimaces without thinking in response to the pulse of anticipation that coasts her spine. She sighs. "Can you stop that?"
Quickly adds, "Somebody will come through when your back is turned, or something."
Clarisse very much doubts that, but she can concede that she is probably being annoying with her pacing, so on her next loop around she goes back to her original spot near the rail and stops. Arms crossed, slowly rocking her shoulders forward and back.
This sucks. She's never felt this way around Abby before. Not even when she first started messing around with Ellie and she could tell that Abby hated it—because she knew she hadn't done anything wrong and she knew if she just kept trying she could make it work out for all of them.
This is like... not something she can take back. Or excuse. She feels like she's ruined something good and she isn't sure how to fix it, or even if she can.
"Ares gave me my own ship once," she says, just to say something. She's still looking at a spot on the deck near Abby's feet. "It was an old ironclad from the Civil War. I blew it up a few days later."
Hard to believe that Clarisse feels so uncomfortable around her that bringing up Ares has become safe ground. Abby isn't looking at her either. She's prickly all over with guilt; feeling this way always makes her angry and defensive, and now she can feel a sour reaction fizzing up in the back of her throat. She's already got her arms folded across her chest so she pushes her fingers into her skin hard to make that impulse fuck off.
She understands this about herself now. The person she's mad at isn't Clarisse.
A breath, to calm down. It helps. "... How'd you blow it up?"
This is actually not really an Ares story, because she's avoiding the parts of it that involve him, so it's fine. Besides, this is much better than standing around in awkward silence all night. The more she speaks, the less stilted Clarisse sounds, until by the end it's almost like they're just having a normal conversation.
"To sail into the Sea of Monsters, you need to go past either Scylla or Charybdis. There's no avoiding them. I picked Charybdis, since she's in the water and I could aim my cannons at her, but there's this giant whirlpool surrounding her and it made it so that I had to stay full speed in reverse once I got close enough to fire. It totally overheated the old steam boiler. The whole ship went up. Lost the entire crew in the blast." Clarisse lifts her hands to mimic an explosion, then lets them drop to her sides.
"It's fine, I still made it to where I was going," she adds.
As Clarisse talks, without realising it, she relaxes. There's familiarity in this, the two of them on guard duty standing around talking when they're supposed to be paying attention to the watch and it's easy to slip back into that. This could be any other day. If she doesn't look directly at the new, confusing slant to their relationship it doesn't really exist. Abby can leave it in the corner of her eye.
"You sound really cut up about that." Teasing is okay, right? That's fine? "How the fuck did you make it after losing the ship?"
What she's really doing is giving Clarisse even more opportunity to keep bragging to her, which is something she's always liked being on the receiving end of anyway.
Teasing seems to be okay. It's a thousand times better than awkward, stilted small talk. And this is a great plan on Abby's part, if she wants her to keep talking about something that isn't That Other Thing, because Clarisse can never pass up an opportunity to brag.
"I managed to get to one of the lifeboats in time. It had oars, so I started rowing. It took the rest of that day, that night, and part of the following day, but I made it."
She leans back a bit, resting her elbows on the rail. It's kind of wild thinking back to that time, when it had seemed like she was on her own in a world she only half-understood. She'd had no idea what was coming.
Okay, that's good. She has a fleeting memory of Manny punching her arm for being awkward with Mel and releases a held breath, trying to will her body to loosen, herself to relax. Do better. It's just Clarisse.
"That's crazy." She's grinning a bit when she says it. The thing is she can picture it completely, Clarisse in the rowboat, hauling herself with fatal determination through the waves. Not stopping to rest. "You're crazy."
She looks at Clarisse as she moves. She lingers, watching her elbows come into contact with the rail and her arms shift to take the weight as she leans back — and then glances up to her face and away. A hot awkwardness washes up over her, makes her palms suddenly sweaty. Right. That's something else she can't look directly at right now.
Hard to miss the way Abby looks at her and then abruptly stops looking at her. Clarisse's stomach drops, a sudden sick feeling rushing through her core and all the ease she'd been able to coax back into herself evaporating.
She turns her head to look down at a spot on the deck, memorizing the faded pattern of grain in the wood. Even though Abby's already looking away from her, it feels like Clarisse is being held in place by the sheer possibility of her gaze.
"The island of the Cyclopes," she says finally, but the bragging quality has dropped out of her voice. "To capture the golden fleece from Polyphemus, the Cyclops. They used to give us quests to prove we could be as good as the old heroes."
Clarisse takes a breath and opens her mouth to say something else, but she stops herself. Fuck.
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Benedict
"Okay," Abby says, knuckling an eye over the dining hall table. "How do we wanna do this."
It's early, but circumstances dictact that it has to be; their charges arrive in a little over an hour. They are meeting beforehand to solidify the game plan and to finish actually waking up over coffee and, in Abby's case, porridge and bread, and two apples. She's using a knife to cut one apple up into slices. She gives it to Benedict. "Don't laugh, but I did homework. I could probably tell them weird facts about Kirkwall until it's time for them to go home again."
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"It's rich with Ancient Tevinter history," he muses, "controversial. But factual. We can tell them about the chains."
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They can probably spice it up a tiny bit, right, history is no fun without all the sordid details.
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"It was a massive slavery hub for the ancient Imperium. The big chains in the harbor can be used to block ships from entering or leaving, which... I suppose explains why it's lasted this long."
A nerdy little smile: "there are a few books on it upstairs."
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"And," leaning forward in her seat, "Maybe the chains are haunted."
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A chalky thumb to the ramparts. Slate scratches.
"This is, uh, Abby Anderson. Assistant archivist and Forces member," You know, in case she's leaping to correct a title, reveal a psueodnym. "How long you been with Riftwatch?"
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While they're on guard duty, Abby doesn't look at him when he's speaking. She's listening and answering but the biggest chunk of her attention is on the job.
"Three years. I dunno if you should be using me as your bar for what's too dumb to answer." She doesn't mean that in a self-deprecating way for once. "What I think is fine could be somebody else's too dumb, you know?"
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He's not asking Vega what's stupid. Never get another word in.
"Anyway, 's the privilege of going first. Alright. What you'd do back home? Before all this."
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Time to destroy that nice opinion of her by answering these questions honestly. "I was a solider with the Washington Liberation Front. It's a — it was a paramilitary group."
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Creepy death cult, scars, and Abby may not be looking at him, but he's watching her face sidelong. Isn't only Abella came in here ugly.
"How'd you get involved with it all?"
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She finally looks at him and shrugs. "Was there for a couple years. Now I'm here."
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"Been a lot of fighting," Been more than just that. The books, sure — the Infirmary, too. A cure. "Y'ever get sick of it?"
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She frowns and takes her hand from her neck, looking at her palm. This is embarrassing to admit but she's started saying it already. "I wasn't gonna join Forces at first. I didn't like who I was and the fighting made me that way. But that's what I'm the best at doing."
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sashays in
Clarisse could just die. Like throw herself over the side of this already-half-sunk boat and drown. And it's not Gwenaëlle's fault—she obviously put them on this guard rotation because she thought they'd be happy to do it together, not as a punishment—but Clarisse is still feeling punished.
Which she should, probably. Because this is her fault.
She turns and begins walking the length of the deck, at least the length of the deck that's accessible, humming softly under her breath. She's already done about six of these little circuits, trying to dispel some of the nervous energy she's feeling, but weirdly it's not working at all. In fact, she feels even more anxious each time she passes Abby by and doesn't quite look at her.
So, finally, she does look—and then away again, oh fuck, nope, mistake.
Velcome
Guard duty. Together. Standing stock still in place without looking at each other. Barely speaking.
She's thinking about jumping off of the boat. Or throwing herself through the eluvian. Maybe there's an entire Venatori firing squad on the other side of it. Abby would much rather deal with that than attempt to address how she feels right now, which is uncharacteristically awkward around Clarisse, and like she should say something just to break the silence but not knowing what or how.
When Clarisse starts to jerkily pace it does, at least, help. Sort of. It's hard to ignore her when she's moving around though and Abby looks at her quickly, seeing the back of her head for a moment before she turns around. One time she does this they make brief, fleeting eye contact and Abby grimaces without thinking in response to the pulse of anticipation that coasts her spine. She sighs. "Can you stop that?"
Quickly adds, "Somebody will come through when your back is turned, or something."
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This sucks. She's never felt this way around Abby before. Not even when she first started messing around with Ellie and she could tell that Abby hated it—because she knew she hadn't done anything wrong and she knew if she just kept trying she could make it work out for all of them.
This is like... not something she can take back. Or excuse. She feels like she's ruined something good and she isn't sure how to fix it, or even if she can.
"Ares gave me my own ship once," she says, just to say something. She's still looking at a spot on the deck near Abby's feet. "It was an old ironclad from the Civil War. I blew it up a few days later."
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She understands this about herself now. The person she's mad at isn't Clarisse.
A breath, to calm down. It helps. "... How'd you blow it up?"
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"To sail into the Sea of Monsters, you need to go past either Scylla or Charybdis. There's no avoiding them. I picked Charybdis, since she's in the water and I could aim my cannons at her, but there's this giant whirlpool surrounding her and it made it so that I had to stay full speed in reverse once I got close enough to fire. It totally overheated the old steam boiler. The whole ship went up. Lost the entire crew in the blast." Clarisse lifts her hands to mimic an explosion, then lets them drop to her sides.
"It's fine, I still made it to where I was going," she adds.
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"You sound really cut up about that." Teasing is okay, right? That's fine? "How the fuck did you make it after losing the ship?"
What she's really doing is giving Clarisse even more opportunity to keep bragging to her, which is something she's always liked being on the receiving end of anyway.
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Teasing seems to be okay. It's a thousand times better than awkward, stilted small talk. And this is a great plan on Abby's part, if she wants her to keep talking about something that isn't That Other Thing, because Clarisse can never pass up an opportunity to brag.
"I managed to get to one of the lifeboats in time. It had oars, so I started rowing. It took the rest of that day, that night, and part of the following day, but I made it."
She leans back a bit, resting her elbows on the rail. It's kind of wild thinking back to that time, when it had seemed like she was on her own in a world she only half-understood. She'd had no idea what was coming.
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"That's crazy." She's grinning a bit when she says it. The thing is she can picture it completely, Clarisse in the rowboat, hauling herself with fatal determination through the waves. Not stopping to rest. "You're crazy."
She looks at Clarisse as she moves. She lingers, watching her elbows come into contact with the rail and her arms shift to take the weight as she leans back — and then glances up to her face and away. A hot awkwardness washes up over her, makes her palms suddenly sweaty. Right. That's something else she can't look directly at right now.
"Where were you going?"
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She turns her head to look down at a spot on the deck, memorizing the faded pattern of grain in the wood. Even though Abby's already looking away from her, it feels like Clarisse is being held in place by the sheer possibility of her gaze.
"The island of the Cyclopes," she says finally, but the bragging quality has dropped out of her voice. "To capture the golden fleece from Polyphemus, the Cyclops. They used to give us quests to prove we could be as good as the old heroes."
Clarisse takes a breath and opens her mouth to say something else, but she stops herself. Fuck.
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