inbox.

[fairforce]

Comments

Crystal, not long after their return to Kirkwall;

[illithidnapped]

I...wanted to thank you. If you survived, that is. Otherwise I—

Well I suppose I’m talking to nothing. No one.

[No harm in that, at least.]

[fairforce]

Fortunately for us both, I did survive. Which means that I get to go on living, and you get to carry on this conversation you've started.

[Glib in the way you only can be when you've survived a few tense long days in a ravine outside of a Tevinterian base of operations together.]

I'm glad we're both around for that. You don't need to thank me.

[illithidnapped]

Ahah...well. That's a relief, I suppose, though now I look quite the fool for all my stumbling.

[Still, better to get this over and done with, before he feels the urge to calcify and go acidic in all his usual splendor.]

Look, I'm not any good at this. I don't know how to— it's not normal for me to—

If it hadn't been for you, I might be stuck in Venatori clutches right now. So—

[Quickly. Quicker than anything else in the world:]

Thank you for having my back.

SECRETS

[venenifer]

It's during standard post-chapel office hours, and due to the relative irreverence of Riftwatch as a whole, Brother Gideon has spent them alone as usual.

It's fair to assume he hasn't been sleeping well, with dark circles appearing under his eyes over the last few days, a restless twitch overtaking his features as though he's constantly on the verge of nodding off. It would seem that he has done so, at the moment, with his chin dropped to his chest, his eyes closed and breathing steady, his hand still lightly grasping a quill that has since blotted the parchment on which he's writing a new sermon.

There are a few paragraphs of it already.

:]]]]]]

[fairforce]

Tiffany respects privacy. She is also accustomed to a certain lack of it, having grown up surrounded first by siblings and then by her fellow Seekers. And while neither of these were notably nosy, you can't help but to read over someone's shoulder from time to time, or overhear a conversation not meant for you, when you're living elbow-to-elbow.

She is here for an evening prayer, something she'd normally do in the privacy of her own room, but the chapel was there as she was walking back from the training yard. She'd felt the pull and had given in readily enough, and ducked inside the dim quiet sanctum, only to find that she wasn't alone.

She gives Brother Gideon a fond little smile as she starts down the aisle. Poor man, is what she thinks. He looks exhausted. And the ink on the page--should she wake him? Or try to move the quill so what he's written isn't entirely ruined?

The chapel isn't that large. She's there behind him in only a few quiet steps. The candlelight is bright enough that she can see what's written on the page--and she's not nosy, but she looks.

[venenifer]

It's not uncommon for Brother Gideon's sermons to have an intensity to them, which can be off-putting to those with a quieter idea of Andrastian faith; although soft-spoken and small of frame, the man's beliefs resonate through his being, his dark eyes glittering with fervor when he's speaking to a congregation.

That said, certain words often find themselves in his compositions: flame imagery, in tandem with Andraste's sacrifice, the notion that we should all be so selfless. The ills of the world can only be cured by radical change and purity of heart, so on and so forth.

The new document seems to follow along this same pattern, but with a few notable keywords that leap off the page in the candlelight:
Promisers. Churneau.

Pretenders.

Sacrifice.

[youwonscience]

The morning of the first of Umbralis, Cosima makes her way up the other residential tower with a small (somewhat lumpily wrapped) package in tow. If the door is at all open and there are signs of someone being about, she'll knock; otherwise, she leaves the package on the threshold. When opened, it contains a pair of knitted slippers. They're more or less socks with a thin leather sole, nothing fancy. But they're in a striking midnight blue with small white diamonds for decoration, meant to suggest a field of stars in a night sky.

[If you'd like a slow thread, I'm game, but otherwise happy Satinalia!

after Satinalia, before modplot

[thereneverwas]

There's a knock on Tiffany's door.

On the other side of it stands Barrow, looking a little pale in the face with his gaze darting anxiously, though it sticks a solid landing on Tiffany's once he catches sight of her.
And he sighs, the relief tangible in the sudden weight of his shoulders.

"I'd-- wanted to give you this in person," he says immediately, thrusting a little box toward her with the uncharacteristic air of a flustered schoolboy, "but you were-- well I'm-- I'm glad to see you're all right."

Or at least alive.

[fairforce]

One of Tiffany's hands keeps her blanket cinched at her neck like a shawl. She reaches out for the box with her other hand. Both are unremarkable, as is her bare arm that shows from the edge of the blanket. Her face is mostly unremarkable as well--tired, certainly, more hollow in the cheeks, and there are dark shadows under her eyes as if someone had pressed their thumbs in ink before pressed them to her face, leaving behind a faint coloration.

And there had been, originally, a bloom of surprise on her face. Maybe a little pink in her cheeks. By now it's all faded and she's only smiling.

"I'm glad you waited."

Her voice is a little scratchy as if she's just getting over a cold. She takes a half step back and inclines her head toward the room beyond.

"Do you want to come in for a moment? I'd hate to tear this open in the hallway."

[thereneverwas]

Though he hesitates a moment, Barrow nods and steps forward to be let in. The worry he'd felt before has magnified by the blanket, the darkness around her eyes, the scratch in her voice; it's a strange, helpless feeling, wishing he could go back in time to prevent what had happened to her.

Not that he knows the details. Just that it was Brother Gideon, and it was her.

"Are you all right?" he asks quietly, with a wince. Within the box is a little book of poetry, written-- topically-- by a Chantry brother living isolated in the wilderness.

crystal

[bouchonne]

Do you think that Maferath was redeemed after he betrayed Andraste?

[fairforce]

I think Maferath had the chance for redemption. Whether or not he took that chance was his choice.

[bouchonne]

[ A cluck of his tongue. ]

Come, come. A yes or a no. No wriggling out of it.

a day or so after Astarigeddon

[thereneverwas]

[the room is mostly elephant at this point]

Seeker, ah.

...how are you.

grimace emoji

[fairforce]

[Um.]

Well enough. A little hungry, if I'm being truthful.

And you?

[thereneverwas]

[an uncomfortable pause. then:]

...you know what, me too.

You like seafood? My treat.

crystal.

[luaithre]

Lady Seeker.

The circumstances that led to your joining us here in Riftwatch were Felix Naegle and his death. I recall that correctly?

[fairforce]

Yes. That is correct.

[luaithre]

From the outside looking in, it would seem apparent that the incident was simply one of a mage's loss of control. Did you have reason to expect otherwise, or is that enough for a Seeker to make her presence known?

crystal; after the Chantry Mother assignment postings

[thereneverwas]

Well-- it's been nice knowing you, Lady Seeker.

:)

[fairforce]

It's an assignment, not a death sentence. Or do you know something I don't?

spiders obeisance (action)

[thereneverwas]

It's no fun, convalescing.
Especially when one is doomed to do so lying exclusively on one's side, staring at either nothing or at the empty adjacent bed in the infirmary, allowing one's revolting venom-injected wound to drain so one can-- hopefully-- eventually-- properly move again.

He has to congratulate everyone who managed to get him this far, all things (and paralysis) considered.

With some control having returned to his extremities, Barrow is flipping slowly through a book, his head propped up high enough that he can get a good angle on it without losing too much comfort. And while allowing the venom to drain, of course.

He looks up at the sight of a visitor, offering a frank, slightly abashed little smirk of greeting.

covers date stamp with my entire being

[fairforce]

The Gallows are somewhat overlarge for Riftwatch's medium-sized company, but despite this--or maybe because of this--word travels quickly. It would be melodramatic to say that Tiffany rushed over to the infirmary upon hearing the news of its new patient. She prioritized, yes--but she didn't rush.

Once they've made eye contact, Tiffany takes a beat just short of Barrow's bedside. Arms folded over her chest, she raises her eyebrows.

"You didn't have to go to all of this trouble, you know. I would have come to welcome you back without your having suffered a nearly mortal wound."

crystal

[thereneverwas]

Tiffany! My friend. My comrade in arms.

[a pitch is imminent]

covers this date stamp too, slightly less dramatically

[fairforce]

[eyes narrowing (but in like a playful way)]

Yes, Barrow? What is it I can help you with?