[open & closed] and when that day comes

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Barrow & friends
WHAT: ye olde lyrium detox in its various stages
WHEN: vaguely Wintermarch
WHERE: the infirmary
NOTES: I'll be adding a few starters at a time since I want later developments to feel organic and make sense. please feel free to request something if you don't see it here!

Comments

[thereneverwas]

Prudence, at least, is from a provincial enough community that she's unlikely to know all the nuance of a noble family that don't affect her directly: Rutyer from Dragonmount is enough to ring a bell, to tell her she's in the presence of someone important. It's for this reason that she's reassured by his answer, and manages to relax slightly, but only slightly.

"What brought you to work with Riftwatch?" she asks, out of genuine curiosity and an additional need to fill silence.

[bouchonne]

"Service to Queen Anora." He offers a slight smile to Prudence. "I went to observe what Riftwatch was doing and report back to her, to ensure we wouldn't be caught off-guard by any developments in the North."

I was spying is such a dreadfully ugly way to put it.

"Has the war touched you here at all?"

[thereneverwas]

"Some."

Prudence isn't a fool, she knows what a spy does. He might be spying now, but the shape of her dismay looms too large for her to care: Riftwatch already knows where Obeisance is from, there's nothing else to learn anyway.

"The Inquisition came through some years back. Drained the lake." It's difficult to mark how she feels, or felt, about this, stating it as an objective fact.

[bouchonne]

He nods. Not something he was involved with, of course, but something he knows about. And it's not hard to imagine the impact it would have had; that's disruption to fishing, and - maybe more relevant to Prudence - disruption to transportation. Any artisan goods that they used to purchase made more expensive, if they could even be found. All the small pleasures that keep a hardworking freewoman sane - ribbons, sugar, toys for the children - likely out of reach.

"While you're in Kirkwall - " He glances over at her. "We ought to take some time to go to the market. Is there anything in particular you've been lacking? Or any of your neighbors?"

[thereneverwas]

Her expression is briefly startled, marked by a rapid blink as Prudence realizes how unprepared she was for that question. Lacking? Maker.

"...maybe," she admits, "fabric never goes amiss." And when one is clothing a whole heap of kids, one needs a lot of it.