[open]

[verminius]

WHO: Vandren et al.
WHAT: A Tevene defector slithers into the fold.
WHEN: Presently.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: A couple of loose starters, wildcard ok, brackets ok.

[ Q&A ]

Here sits Vandren Verminius, first and no doubt last of his name, summoned to an office, or a workroom, or some other private quarter fit for polite interrogation. He has been nothing if not accommodating of Riftwatch’s whims these past few days.

He’s unassuming in trousers and tunic, a rug of an old coat thrown over against the cold. It’s black and gold. Ornate, and threadbare.

No weapons, no armor.

Just an old man slouched in an old chair, gone distant in his struggle to reconcile that this place was once at the heart of the Imperium’s slave trade, screams ringing through the caverns below, flagstone sticky with blood enough to thin the veil. The stone halls are quiet now, between meals. Empty and still.

His seat creaks beneath him when he shifts, pricking his attention back to the present.

Sorry, he could say, or What was the question?

“No,” he guesses, instead. As blind answers go it feels like a safe bet, fifty-fifty, until he reflects more fully on his circumstance.

“Perhaps.”


[ nighttime yoga routine for better sleep ]

It’s late enough to be early when he finally makes his way out into the courtyard one dark night, his breath drifting after him. The statues he’s seen illustrated in historical tomes are long gone, sheer walls and pedestals stripped bare under the stars, to say nothing of all the damage and subsequent repairs.

The idea was to do some stretching; some meditation. Warm up and then jog a lap or two in the bitter cold.

He might yet try, depending on how long he has between finishing the cup of wine he’s just started and inevitable interruption.

Some of the people here are slow to trust, and it isn’t hard to imagine why.


[ WILDCARD ]

Dazzle and/or disorient me I'm still getting up to speed on what the world is like these days.

Comments

q&a;

[portalling]

“Perhaps you have an anchor-shard? I rather thought that was a yes-or-no question. Like, you’d probably have noticed already, unless it’s in some unmentionable hard-to-reach location—”

There’s an archness to Strange’s sense of humour; a little sharp, but it doesn’t seem like it’s directed at the Tevene mage in particular. It’s habitual and unthinking, a sarcasm he falls back on from old instinct. This conversation doesn’t feel much like an interrogation either; the man had simply corralled the new arrival in their shared Research workroom and sat him down for one of the rote, scheduled introductory meetings.

The Head Healer is reading out questions from a form and they haven’t gotten very far yet — name, age, certainly not a rifter — when they stalled here. But he relents; slides the piece of paper across the table for Vandren to examine and read for himself.

[verminius]

Verminius marks the error with the barest roll of his eyes. Less put out by Strange catching him than he is the inconvenience of abruptly needing to land on his feet when he’d prefer to continue imagining he’d arrived here in an era more exciting and hopeful than this one is for him personally.

“There are parts of me I haven’t seen in years,” he answers easily, mere moments after lying about his age. “You know how it is.”

When you’re old.

He reaches to flip up the piece of paper on offer. It takes him longer to skim the first few lines than it would if he didn’t have to squint at it from arm’s length.

“May I borrow a pen?”

[portalling]

“Certainly.” The sorcerer fishes around in his satchel; he finds a finely-wrought brass pen with its own ink reservoir, hesitates over it for a moment, and then pockets it again to hand over a standard-issue quill and inkwell instead. Slides them across the table for Verminius to start filling it out, turning the conversation more like bureaucratic interview and less like questioning.

“So. Anchor shard? And any pre-existing medical conditions which might require particular monitoring or accommodations?”

Strange remains polite, but impersonal and distant; these are just the questions he has to ask. (They’ll get to the far more interesting ones later—)

[verminius]

Verminius waits for Strange to excavate a writing instrument befitting his station without rankling; too tired and soggy on the inside for a spark of irritation to find kindling. If he’s still around six months from now and remembers this moment, he might attempt to steal this special brass pen then.

For now, he receives what he’s asked for, draws ink up from the well, and strains his eyes to find his place on the form again.

“Mmm,” His voice gravels muddy in the back of his throat, non-committal as he writes, n o. A brief pause to consider the lay of the ink, and he continues on writing to answer ahead: no, no, none, burn them. And so on.

“No,” he answers aloud, finally, as he ponders the last question.

“Where are you from?”

[portalling]

There’s a ghost of humour in the doctor’s face and voice, as he says with a faint degree of impishness, “New York,” which is probably one of the more irritating ways he could’ve answered that question.

After almost two and a half years, Strange does look very much like any other mage. He’s dressed like a local, his clothes comfortable and tailored better than if he were still rooting around in Riftwatch standard-issue castoffs; there’s an eye for style even in his working clothes, someone who has assimilated and wants to make sure he still looks sharp here. So it’s just: that accent, the occasionally inscrutable slang, the glint of green in his own palm.

“I expect the dwarven accent gave it away, but I’m a rifter. America, same general continent as a few other rifters here, albeit different universes and circumstances.”

[verminius]

At that answer, Vandren measures him up and down again from under the hood of his brow, looking for a moment even older than he is. Goes hand in hand with a particularly jaded flavor of suspicion re: the other.

“The Fade.”

Ugh.

He needs a moment for confirmation to steep. Not a long one. Time enough to wet his quill again. To find his focal length without a lense, and then down the list of questions to the remaining blank.

“You do look like a human,” sounds as though it’s intended to be congratulatory, something in the lift of his tone as he resumes writing: burn me. “A bit long in the face.”

[portalling]

Funny that it took this long for it to happen. It’s not the first time someone in Thedas has questioned his humanity, but it’s the first time it’s happened inside the Gallows — typically everyone here is so accustomed to rifters by now — and it shakes a surprised, bitter laugh loose from him.

“Yes, it’s a real irony, going grey when I’m only two and a half years old. I’m the most precocious toddler you’ll ever meet.”

Strange’s voice is arch, made even more biting from that small flicker of irritation. Most days, he’s able to push the existential anxiety down and not be reminded of it quite so bluntly. He hates being reminded of it.

“Am I the first rifter you’ve ever met?”