open (like hermione's heart)

[reparo]

WHO: Hermione Granger + you
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: end of Harvestmere to Haring
WHERE: Gallows, Crossroads, anywhere else that suits*
NOTES: * I will write you a starter, come at me with any idea at all. Otherwise, generic starters around, pick and choose

Comments

gallows library (open)

[reparo]

Burning the candle at both ends here (metaphorically), she's up past whatever passes for a curfew in the Gallows. Maybe it's because she's found a fascinating book about the history of elves, and a comfortable armchair to read it in without taking it out of the library.

Or maybe it's the Anals of Dragon Hunting that's got her attention tonight, which - under her breath, "Why does everything has to be either the comprehensive history of something or the anals of something here? Bit obnoxious."

lmk if you need any adjustments!

[youwonscience]

Cosima's actually returning some books to general circulation, this evening. She knows she's guilty of building towers of them in her office when left to her own devices, so she actually put on her calendar clear out books you're done using once a month or so. (Will she take an equal number of books back to her office? Possibly. Don't ask.)

She glances over from where she's sliding something onto a shelf, toward where Hermione is working through the dragon hunting. "Oh, I know. I can't say whether it's a Thedas problem or an our-specific-library problem. Like, it's always tempting to blame the Kirkwall Templar contingent for everything, but it's possible that it's just what publishers think the people want. Scale of one to ten, how dry is that one?" She's not shouting, but it's late enough that they're probably the only two people in the library, so she doesn't see a need to whisper either.

it's perfect let them cook

[reparo]

In her defense, she wasn't expecting an audience this late in the library - most patrons have left for their quarters or homes by this hour, which is a late one if the shortness of Hermione's candle is anything to go by. So the voice, at once familiar, surprises her into sitting upright.

Provost Niehaus is here, and she's heard Hermione's comment about anals - in book titles! How mortifying.

On second thought, however, Provost Niehaus is also a bookworm (read: nerd) and probably won't balk at Hermione's pile of books being four high, volume in her hands notwithstanding.

"I used to take History of Magic classes from a ghost who only ever droned on about the same three wars, much to everyone's dismay," she answers - not shouting but not whispering either. "His was the one class that everyone napped in, and this book would make his lectures entertaining in comparison." A long-winded way to say a twelve. She closes the book with a sigh.

"Maybe it's my fault, I'm not interested in hunting them."

[youwonscience]

"Woof, I know. I've got a lot of interest in animals native to Thedas that don't exist back home, and like, half of what's out there is how to kill them. Another quarter is how to prepare them to eat." Not her areas of interest in any way. "Oh, wait, have you run across ... We've got a pamphlet somewhere that's more zoological. Granted, a pamphlet still isn't a book, but. Uh, Spada, I think is the author. Contemporary; I think some Riftwatch agents met her a while back."

Cosima comes over properly to join Hermione, her own book back where it goes. As predicted, she doesn't balk at the book stack. Instead, she asks, "The Commander have you looking for something, or is this extracurricular?" No judgment in her voice, if perhaps the lightest note of are you open to being poached to a division where books are your job?.

[reparo]

"I think I understand these things better if I can compare them to magical creatures or animals I am already familiar with," she says quickly, in complete agreement, already taking a note of Spada. Pamphlet or not, she's going to look for it.

She does follow Cosima's line of sight to her stack of books at that question, and lets out a quiet little laugh. "I doubt the Commander knows who I am." No judgement, and it can't be told that Hermione's been trying to climb up the ranks in Forces either. She's kept her head down where it mattered, and stuck her neck out when it mattered to her. If not for checking with the Commander whether he could spare her for the eluvian project, she's not sure she's exchanged more than three pleasantries with the man. "But he's a busy man, I'm sure," she adds.

It's not that she wouldn't gravitate towards Research. It's just that she can brew potions, think on her feet, and keep fighters alive longer. Forces makes her feel useful. (What if Research just makes her feel naive?)

"It's extracurricular," she finally answers. "I don't know if I'll ever run out of things to read to learn about Thedas, I just hate being thought of as the poor Rifter who hasn't got a clue."

[youwonscience]

"Riftwatch isn't that big, I'd lose a bet if he hasn't at least put a name to a face for everyone in Forces." Rowntree takes the job at least that seriously, she's sure. "But you're totally allowed to want to know things without it having an assignment to go with it. I think it's pretty natural for rifters."

Then again, she supposes she would, considering.

"Years ago, we had a wider problem with rifters who like.... didn't think this was real. Or maybe it was real, but it didn't matter to them, they were just marking time until they could figure out a way to leave. Even granted that we've learned things about the nature of rifters since then, it always struck me as kind of a shit attitude. You discover other worlds exist, and you aren't even lightly curious about the one you're now living in?" One problem, at least, Hermione doesn't seem to have. "I guess I shouldn't assume, though. I don't know enough about where you're from, maybe you knew that there were more worlds out there."

[reparo]

Whether that was a direct request for exposition or not, Cosima is going to get it. "I got introduced to the concept by necessity, before arriving here."

It's not much, by way of explanation, and this is the leader of Research. Hermione has to assume that curiosity would come with the job, and learning things? Part of the motivation, possibly. "I spent three years travelling through a different world from my own, with people who'd ended up there from just about everywhere, all with the promise that we would be returned to our respective homes. Every city, every country we ended in, they had these beacons that allowed my fellow travellers to return - though some would end up coming back, maybe by accident or irony. They would return, and talk about how it had been months or years for them back home, whereas for me it had been days of not seeing them."

Red, she remembers Red. How she'd shared a cot with the young girl after a world-ending battle one day, how she'd encountered her on a train weeks later, changed. Grown. Aged. And buried somewhere, amid all the emotions of that reunion and the fragile rebuilding of their friendship, had been Hermione and her realisation of all the missed opportunities.

She continues, "They wouldn't remember. If they used the beacons, and went home, they wouldn't remember anything from the travels and adventures in that place we were in together. Wouldn't remember anyone, either. Then they'd somehow return, and it would be a strange sort of situation. Knowing that your friends say they're glad to see you again, but they're still looking for a way back." A shrug. "I didn't use the beacon, until it was the very last one - and even then, I was afraid of forgetting everything..."

She grows quiet, her gaze drawn to her books. Then finally, looks back at Cosima. "It's real and it matters, and even if it's not the world Hermione Granger from England lives in, it's the world I live in. So yes, I'm curious about it."

[youwonscience]

Cosima hops up to sit on the table she'd been leaning on as it's clear Hermione is taking the invitation to elaborate. She listens intently, nodding once or twice.

"You're not the very first person to come here from somewhere other than their home world, but it's not common. But I don't think it changes ... well, I don't know how existential you've gotten about rifters as a concept yet. But I have memories now I didn't have the first time I was in Thedas. So I can say for certain that the Cosima back in San Fransisco doesn't know anything about Corypheus or Riftwatch or any of the people I met here. I remember not knowing."

And this is the less existential version.

"But even the first time I was here. A lot of people live in this world, and as long as I'm here, it's my world too. Which is to say ... I get what you mean, I guess."

[reparo]

The other side of the mirror: Cosima. She's been here and there and back here again, from what she tells Hermione. She's done that thing that Hermione avoided for the longest time - return, and submit herself to forgetting.

At the core of it, though, there's understanding. If she could respect the Provost even more, she's found a way.

"That means a lot to hear." A pause, after which she sheepishly adds, "I'm sorry for just venting all my past experiences at you out of the blue."

[youwonscience]

"Hey, no, I asked. Or at least teed you up. Nothing to apologize for." And it's not as if she can't understand what Hermione's describing. Cosima was lucky, in her way, that she got her memories back her second time through a rift. She knows it can happen the other way, too. (They've had plenty of examples.)

"If anything," she adds, "I should apologize, I'm the one who took your frustrated remark to nobody in particular as an invitation to sit down with you, so like. Maybe you're dying to get back to the bone-dry dragon hunting." A little smile makes clear this is to lighten the mood and not anything Cosima is particularly worried about. It's a hand up to less fraught ground, if Hermione prefers it.

[allthatgleamsisgold]

The Anals of Dragon Hunting sure is a book. Vlast appraises it with a dismissive grunt, the kind that suggests it's a very good thing for the library he's not able to breathe fire at the moment.

"It came from the anals of something, that is certain."

Look who's learning proper terms for human anatomy! Everyone say thank you, Benedict.

Vlast has his own stack of books; oddly enough, many on Antivan histories and sticking out among them like a duck in an assessor's office is a thin tome of popular songs in Thedas.

[reparo]

Unexpectedly, as soon as she hears that mutter, she lets out a laugh. Under her breath, mind you - this is still a library!

"That's fair," Hermione says after a quick recovery, "I'm two chapters in, and it does feel like the author is talking out of their arse a lot."

sorry for the delay - work drama ate my life

[allthatgleamsisgold]

"Hunting them seems a pointless endeavor. They're far from mindless, unreasonable beasts. There are even human settlements that have cohabited with entire nests."

Hunted to extinction is what the books said and then, by some miracle, dragons returned to life from the heart of Antiva. How is one of the many questions plaguing Vlast.

"Does it say anything useful? Like how long their eggs can survive...?"

it's all good

[reparo]

She closes the book with a slightly louder - if enthusiastic, "I agree. Actually, in my world they are a protected species and hunting them is forbidden in most places. There are reservations set up to shield them from the non-magical people, who have no idea that dragons exists but I'm pretty sure would rush at the thought of owning a piece if they did... some, anyway."

Did Vlast ask for an Exposition Rant (TM)? No, too bad. With a little bit of amusement, she adds, "In the place I was before landing here, there were definitely dragons cohabitating with humans..."

One, in particular, she'd been very fond of - maybe misses, almost every date. She kept his secret for so long, would Wrathion be upset if she told people that there are dragons in other worlds who can inhabit human form at will? Probably - but she lives with the hope that her loved ones never find themselves in Thedas, so he will never know.

She shakes off the thought, and looks down at the book she just closed. "No, see - that would be useful information, instead of the fact that Stormriders like to electrocute fish with their breath before diving in to scoop them up?"

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Did Vlast ask? No. But he listens nonetheless. Even his thick coat of jaded cynicism is not impervious to Hermione's enthusiasm and it's not like there isn't a number of things there that ping his interests.

"Pah. Stormriders must have a poor sense of taste then," he gruffs. Everyone knows fish are best when they're going down still wriggling.

"Why do mages live apart from non-magical people in your world? Are there organizations like the Chantry and the Qun that mistreat them?"

[reparo]

Vlast and his opinions about what makes animals good food is going to forever be a subject of intrigue, but she hasn't even begun to put two and two together. He's just a funny little (very big) guy, right?

She has no idea if Stormriders have good sense of taste or not, she's not a dragon. (That would be neat.)

"They've kept themselves a secret since back in the times when they used to burn witches at the stake." She shrugs. "The mages are the minority, even if it doesn't feel like it when you're surrounded by them and go to school with hundreds of them, but the way things are... We're forbidden from revealing that magic is real to non-magical people. As for the why...I don't know."

here for the anals

[untiltheyarent]

A fascinating subject arrives, in the form of an elf wearing the bland workaday clothes of the housekeeping staff. She offers Hermione a glance, perhaps a little smile of greeting should she look up, then begins to set out a workspace for herself at a nearby table: a little chalkboard, its accompanying chalk, and a thin book that appears to be a primer on letters and simple words.

She begins her exercises, first simply writing out the alphabet in capital letters, her face relaxed and pleasant.

everyone's here for her anals

[reparo]

She does look up from the book as soon as she hears someone approach, so the elf woman gets a polite smile right back. What would be the polite thing here would be for Hermione to return to her book, and carry on. Instead what happens is that she continues to steal little glances in the direction of the newcomer, for a few reasons:

Reason one, although she's been here a while now, she doesn't think she's met this woman before. Is she wearing the housekeeping staff clothes? Maybe that would explain it, but Hermione doesn't want to be the type of person who doesn't know who brings the food, or cleans the dishes.

Reason two, she's learning to read - very clearly. From the brief moments of sneaking a peak (tm), she can tell the elf is practicing writing on a chalkboard.

Reason three, she's an elf. Not that Hermione is going to stare, mind you - or point to the pointed ears and call her names! But there aren't many elf elves around that she's spoken to, and...

Oh, what the hell.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't believe we've met. Hello." She waves here. "I'm Hermione."

[untiltheyarent]

Looking up from her task, the elf offers a pleasant smile-- it's not entirely typical for Riftwatchers to introduce themselves to her, but she's familiar enough with many of them that it doesn't throw her off. Maybe she looks like someone the girl knows.

Rising from the chair to give a little curtsy, she replies, "nice to meet you. Josephine Mariette."

[reparo]

"Oh, you don't have to -" Curtsy, she wants to say. Too late. Josephine has completed the curtsy.

"Nice to meet you as well. Are you...with a Division in particular, miss Josephine?"

CURTSY PROCESSED

[untiltheyarent]

"I'm with the housekeeping staff," she replies easily, "if I'm disturbing you, I can take my studies elsewhere." A twitch of her eyebrow-- she may have clocked Hermione's unease, and might just be slightly fucking with her, but she's not going to show her hand just yet.

kill bill sirens respectfully

[reparo]

"Oh, no - you're not!" she rushes to say, completely mortified now. Look at her, stuffing her foot in her mouth over here. "If anything I'm the one disturbing you - so sorry. It's just, you were an unfamiliar face."

It not unease, exactly. It's more curiosity, and the knowledge that she can't very well be asking people whether they're elves.

"And this book is dull."

check vour putain privilege

[untiltheyarent]

Fifi opens her mouth to answer, but pauses and shakes her head-- she's not being disturbed, she came in after, etc-- and it's clear that this girl is too sincere to need fucking with, so friendliness wins out.

"What's it about?" she asks, nodding toward the book.

she has a lot of housekeeping staff friends okay

[reparo]

She doesn't need to look back down to answer that. She would know, she picked it out of the many books in this library. "Orlesian history. The author claims it's a comprehensive account, but I'm calling that a bluff."

[untiltheyarent]

"Ooh."

Perching her hip against the table, Fifi clicks her tongue. "Heavy reading. What do you find lacking?"