(closed) cozy smokes

[pathlit]

WHO: Clarisse, Viktor & Jayce
WHAT: Elfroot therapy
WHEN: Post-forgetti, pre-dreams (Haring 9:50)
WHERE: Hunterhorn Lodge
NOTES: -

On a quiet, snowy Haring evening, occupying Jayce's room at the Hunterhorn Lodge, where the window is cracked open to permit airflow with minimal sacrifice of interior heat, are Clarisse, Viktor and Jayce -- specifically, sitting on his mattress, which has been relocated to the floor and supplemented with extra blankets and cushions scavenged from unclaimed rooms. Some of them still smell musty, despite giving them a good thwacking earlier.

The brazier serves as their main source of warmth, but the lantern on the floor beside them provides both heat and light. A wooden chair has been repurposed into a little table upon which lies a plate of humble finger foods: pickled vegetables, cheese and sausage on one. Beside it, on the floor, is a plate of cookies and brittle. Open before this likewise humble party is the wooden board game Clarisse had gifted Jayce for Satinalia.

What is a game without stakes? He doesn't remember who said that -- maybe it was him, and maybe the stakes include First Place invoking Truth-or-Dare upon Last Place. He's a bit light-headed in a fuzzy way that isn't wholly unpleasant, different from the way a glass of brandy might dampen the edge of his troubles. This is the first time Jayce has smoked elfroot, which probably comes at no surprise to anyone. The surprise instead might lie in the fact that he's the one who asked Clarisse about it earlier, in the stables, under the guise of decompressing after the week-long bullshit of memory-magic (true) with Viktor and herself (sincere, if not entirely forthcoming).

(Somehow, he wasn't that surprised to learn that Viktor was already familiar with this use of the herb. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about the route of administration.)

Now, a few rounds into the night, Jayce interrupts whoever was just speaking, not maliciously but utterly self-centeredly, to blurt, "Did anyone else get a task from Isaac? On Satinalia."

Comments

[grindset]

Viktor, sitting half-bundled in a blanket stolen directly from Jayce's bed, because he doesn't care to have a musty smell wafting up around his face when there's already smoke to contend with, now looks up from the bowl of nuts and bolts in his lap—that is, actual nuts and literal bolts, not for eating. (His contribution to the snacks was an abundance of sugared peanuts, which are magnificently crunchy, especially at this point in the evening.)

Beside him is a partitioned tray, which he brought, along with the jumble of mixed fasteners, because he suspected (correctly) that he would find the board game dull. At this point, he's about halfway through.

After the first token... toke... he switched to a brew of middling strength, as not to encourage his lungs to join the conversation; having drained much of his cup, his head is now feeling comfortably uninhabited, as though no physical brain dwells inside and his thoughts are teleporting into the fuzz of its absence from some parallel dimension. He doesn't like elfroot's effect, conceptually, but it is undeniably beneficial to his body on the whole—and, guise or no, he is in such dire need of decompression that he agreed to this without even needing to be cajoled into it. (That and the opportunity to spend time with Jayce and Clarisse together, which he has considered, but made no effort to arrange himself.)

He doesn't like being interrupted, either, but whatever—

"—whereas nugs have five," he finishes, with one eyebrow raised and a tone to match, and drops a nut in the tray.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse, sprawled belly down on a series of cushions on the floor, might normally laugh out loud at the look Viktor's giving Jayce, but two things are stopping her.

The first is that Isaac is kind of a sobering subject right now, especially for her—she assumes Viktor, as well, the two of them having been on the mission with him, but then again it isn't like they've talked about it. The second, more minor, is that she doesn't know Viktor super well but she has a feeling he isn't going to love being laughed at.

Still, she's high, so she does make an amused noise that she belatedly tries to muffle with a handful of peanuts. The muffling doesn't work, but they're the exact kind of snack her body wants right now, so it balances out.

"Um," she says, after chewing. "He left me a book and a firestriker. He didn't sign it, but I knew it was from him. He left you a task?"

[pathlit]

Jayce shoots Viktor a baffled look that clearly says, What's wrong with that?

More power to them. Maybe. (Clearly not an evolutionary disadvantage, anyway.)

"Yeah," he grunts, in the midst of pushing himself up to his knees to peer over his desk. Procuring a small vial containing a bright green liquid, he holds it up and waggles it. "Said to test it on someone from Forces or Scouting."

Now it's his eyebrows' turn to waggle. "Wanna give it a shot?" he asks Clarisse.

[grindset]

Indeed, both these things are true: he has been preoccupied with thoughts of Isaac, off and on, his memories of the man slow to filter back in a way he finds challenging to bear; and he does not love being laughed at. But he does readily distinguish between at and with, so Clarisse's little sound goes unremarked upon.

Anyway, it's not about the nugs, Jayce. Now it's about— whatever is happening, or about to happen. Both his eyebrows have now engaged, and with great dexterity seem to be attempting to furrow and lift at the same time.

"Right now?"

It's not clear whether he's invited, no, but still—

[laruetheday]

Clarisse is already reaching for the vial. She pauses at Viktor's question, fingertips a few inches from the glass, not a hesitation so much as a huh. Then she says, "Do you know what it does?"

She's not worried, just curious. For one thing, she's high. For another, she trusts Jayce not to give her something that will poison her. For a third, if Jayce were to poison her, she figures chances are she won't die and won't catch any of the blame.

Test it on someone from Forces or Scouting. Why? She's dying to know.

[pathlit]

"Not a single idea," he says, passing the vial off to Clarisse. "Route of administration? Expectations? None. I'm assuming it's not dangerous--"

He shoots Viktor an alarmed look. "--right?"

Isaac wouldn't request testing a hazardous material on another member of Riftwatch, right? That's what Jayce's face is asking.