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[At the few minutes mark.]

Abby? Abby, are you there? Clarisse isn't responding, I just- want to check in. You guys okay?

Abby.

[This time it's barely more than a whisper.]

Abby. I'm on my way.

[Tell her that, she wants to say. Instead:]

Just let me know. Let me know you're okay.

Abby, I fucking swear, if you let this kill you-

I'm not letting you go. I told you that, remember?

Abby?

[An envelope appears in Abby's assigned pigeon hole in the main hall. The envelope itself is quite plain, though the wax sealing it has been stamped with an official mark of Riftwatch—a hand with a rune in its palm. The contents of the envelope, which consist of a single page with excellently looping handwriting, reads:]

Miss Anderson,

You are formally and immediately required to supply a full written account of your whereabouts on the 19th day of Kingsway, 9:49. Please include remarks regarding your assigned duties, any transit to and from the Gallows, and notable persons who might corroborate your account should it be required.

Please submit your account to my desk in the Research division offices directly.

Wysteria A.P. de Foncé
Mediation Officer

(A note shows up on Wysteria's desk a few hours later, folded over in half to hide its message. The paper is clearly from the corner of a page, torn off and reused. There is some irrelevant scribbling on the other side of it.

The bit for Wysteria says:)

Why

Abby Anderson
Forces

[She considers this note. She considers for a few hours how she means to answer this note. And then, finally, because she is much better at doing so on paper than in person, she lies.

The next missive left in Abby's pigeon hole is written on the back of the original summons (there is, after all, still a paper shortage). It reads:]

Miss Anderson,

A suit has been filed against you by a member of this company. As Mediation Officer, it is my most unfortunate responsibility to give these matters a measure of due diligence so I may either

1. Dismiss the matter
2. Seek to reconcile the aggrieved parties with the minor liberties afforded my office
3. Pen a recommendation to the division heads responsible for the individuals in question

Your cooperation is most appreciated by myself and Division Heads, whose time I would dearly like not to waste with trivial inquiries.

Wysteria A.P de Foncé
Mediation Officer
Research Division

('A suit?' Like a lawsuit...? The crystal is much quicker than passing notes.)

... Wysteria, what does this mean?

[She answers the blue flash of the crystal without thinking, and only after hearing Abby on the other side of it does she think to regret it.

Airily, breezily, perfectly normally:]

Is that you, Abby? What does what mean? [Stop there, good sense dictates. So naturally:] Oh! You must be referring to the note. Which part is unclear?

(On the other end, Abby bristles, thinking. There's something weird going on here...

Her reply is careful.) Why did somebody file a suit against me?

(She gets to know that, right? All she can think of is that thing they say in old police procedural shows, you have the right to remain silent. Well she doesn't wanna do that, she wants to ask questions.)

I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say. It would be— well if it is something then it would be imprudent of me to say too much. And if it is nothing, then I guarantee I will see to taking the other party to task as is fit.

I have every confidence the matter will be resolved if only— [Here, a pause. Then, as if she has remembered she has an unsatisfied request:] Is there a particular reason you're hesitant to share your whereabouts?

... Why not?

I'm not allowed to defend myself from somebody accusing me of something? (That doesn't seem fair.

Yes she's ignoring the other question.)

[Suspicious.

Some of that airiness drops further from her tone.]

Obviously you will be permitted to defend yourself should the matter prove legitimate. In fact this account I have requested is the preliminary stages of doing just that—defending yourself.

(Under her breath,) —so stupid.

(But she doesn't know enough about the... judicial system of Riftwatch to debate this treatment. She has a little feeling that Wysteria is tripping on the scant amount of power 'mediation officer' grants her, though. This is probably about something so minor.

At normal volume,) I guess you actually want me to write down where I was instead of telling you right now.

[~~IT'S NOT MINOR IT'S SCIENCE.~~

In the tones of a young woman who is being incredibly generous and accommodating with her very precious time—]

If you like you might tell me and I will take it down on paper. Though you may need to sign it to validate its accuracy should it come to— er, should it be presented before the Division Heads.

[Sure sounds legit.]

Whatever. I was at the training yards in the morning, the Forces workroom and the library for the afternoon, and I hung out with Ellie all evening.

Happy?

Well of course I am happy.

[Her? She's merely a completely objective third party performing her solemn duties.]

But for the sake of being thorough about the inquiry, was there anyone in the training yard, or library and workrooms with you who might corroborate your account?

Edited 2023-10-18 13:53 (UTC)

Mobius was in the library. I was the only person at the training yard.

Maybe there should be a sign-in sheet somewhere.

[Laser eyes. Local woman conspiracies a theory.]

Yes, maybe there should, [is all brightness and cheer, however—that airy, high quality of her humoring the sentiment moreso than really endorsing it.] I'll be sure to include a note that you suggested it when I next speak with the Provost.

When you're next speaking to the Provost about whatever suit you've filed against me, you mean?

The suit I may be forced to file as an obligation of my post, should this present conversation and ones like it not bear out a satisfactory resolution.

[Wow she is an innocent and entirely neutral third party!!]

Are you familiar with Mister Talis, by the way?

(wait what)

Why did Jayce file a suit against me?

I didn't say he did. I only asked if you were at all familiar with him; would you consider the two of you on friendly terms, and so on.

(... Grumble.)

Yeah. I do. (Did? What gives.)

I see.

[In her head, Wysteria counts to five. It's the sort of pause in which someone might be making a note, if they were taking them. Then—]

Well, thank you. I appreciate your cooperation, Miss Anderson. I will let you know if I have any other questions, otherwise please do go about your business as per usual.

And if I want to know more information about this, I should talk to your boss. Right?

If I were to determine that the complaint should be formally filed with our upper leadership, then I believe it would be most appropriate to discuss it with your Division Head.

Good to know. We done?

Yes, that should be all for now. Thank you for your time.

[Nailed it.]

Hey? You didn't actually sabotage the study, did you?

What do you think?

I think that that's not your style. You don't do sabotage. If you wanted to fuck with someone you'd just do it it head-on, no bullshit.

... I don't think you're even that mad about the study. Not really.

(She wasn't expecting this kind of answer and is quiet for a long moment in response, both mollified and riled, frowning. Wondering how she is supposed to reply to it.

Eventually, a grunt.)

What am I, then.

Pissed off and sad. 'Cause we lost somebody.

Even after all the shit we went through to get you all back.

(That's a pretty good assessment. There's a sigh, the sound of hands skimming down over a face. Then, a thumbnail pinging off of teeth. She feels too-seen, and is trying to decide if she's comfortable with it.

In an attempt to break the tension:) And 'cause Wysteria is being fucking annoying.

Yeah, she definitely does that.

[A slow, deep sigh.]

You're not wrong, though. About what you said about the experiments.

Yeah. I—yeah.

(She sounds a little surprised.)

Thanks.

You're welcome.

[It sounds a little awkward. Ellie didn't expect to be thanked for telling the truth.]

From what I can see, Derrica's overseeing stuff. But.

I dunno. I keep hearing Astarion and Fenris in my head. It's gonna go and go until all of a sudden, it goes too far.

(It's not because she's telling the truth, it's because she's telling it to Abby at all. She didn't have to.

With satisfaction:) Exactly. And I know they're going to be as careful as possible, but if something goes wrong that's—Benedict, with a hole in his face. And that would really piss him off!

It'd piss a lot of people off.

I can get where he's coming from, and I trust Viktor. Mostly. But it's gonna be tense.

The last time it came up almost everybody was against it. What changed?

Good question. I don't remember a lot of the actual conversation before everybody got upset.

I didn't even comment when she came around asking for people to volunteer again. (This is why it's so annoying. She was good!)

Me either. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

You're telling me. (BIG HUFF.)

Anyway. I think she's run out of steam for now.

For now. I dunno what set her off in the first place. She blows up easy but usually not like that.

I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology then.

One fine autumn evening, very soon after this, Benedict finds Abby in the dining hall and sashays over to plunk his tray down across from her, quite decisively seating himself right after.
Then he takes a sip of water, eyeing her shrewdly over the rim of the tin cup, choosing his words.

Ah. Abby doesn't say anything as he definitely claims a seat across from her, only continuing to pick pieces off a bread roll and pop them into her mouth one at a time. She does make a point out of checking him over though. Two arms, still? That's good.

So she's still feeling a little stung.

The silence hangs between them a little longer, perhaps, than Benedict intended. He finishes drinking, picks up his spoon and twirls it around a moment in his stew, raises it, blows on the contents, takes a bite. Chews it thoughtfully. And then, finally:

"It's worth doing."

Unkindly, "Then do it."

Like she said: she is not stopping anybody from doing anything. "If you're here to try and convince me to change my mind, I'm not gonna. You're wasting your time."

He frowns, temper flaring in the glint of his eyes before he pushes it down, takes another resolute bite.

"Do you know how many Rifters have come through this place, Abby?" he asks, once he's collected himself, his gaze hard. Hurt.

"Nope."

But she's sure he's about to tell her. There's something familiar and aching jammed up behind her teeth but she's refusing to examine it too closely.

He's not really the lecturing kind, but Abby's stubbornness is butting up against Benedict's own, and he feels his resolve weakening quickly.

"Lots of them," he continues, steeling his voice to keep emotion out of it (and probably failing). "They would probably fill this room, shoulder to shoulder. Some of them are still here, and most of them. Aren't. Because they vanished into thin air."

His mouth twitches when he closes it, and he tosses his head in the guise of straightening his hair. "We don't know where they went. They don't get a funeral, because they might be alive. But they might not be. The main thing is that they're gone forever, and nobody gets--"

He tosses his head again, clearing his throat harshly.

When that emotion twists up through his voice she looks at him quick, eyes sharp and narrowed—she waits for him to finish speaking, or at least, to run out of words. "You don't have to explain to me what it's like to have people one day and lose them the next. I get it." Did he forget where she came from? He was there himself, if only for a moment.

She adds, clearing her throat and finding it dislodges that ache. "What I don't get is why you're all so okay with experimenting with lyrium. What if it does something to you, and you can't take that back?"

There is worry, there. Buried deep.

"Not just lose them," Benedict insists, and he's getting sloppy, he knows this, but-- "there's no death or farewell or-- or anything, you just can't find them one day. And it doesn't matter who they were to you, they're just-- you don't know. You don't know where they are, or if they are. Just that they're gone."

The level to which he's straining to keep his face straight is borderline comical, and he eventually cedes a temporary defeat as he ducks his head and pretends to focus on his as-of-now untouched meal.

"Plenty of things have been done to me that I can't take back. At least it's my choice this time. It's worth it." He sniffs wetly, angrily. "...it's worth it if we can find even one answer."

"No," she argues, pushing back, but he keeps going over the top of her. She has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from saying that it is like that, was like that back home. People left, people disappeared, they defected. They died out on missions you weren't part of, you never saw a body, only heard a story. Or drew your own conclusions when they stopped showing up at breakfast.

Benedict is upset, and trying not to show it. Abby waits him out. She isn't looking at him either, she's picking bits off her bread but not bringing them to her mouth any more, opting to create a pile to the side of her plate.

"I get it. Okay? I do, I just—" How does she explain this? It's difficult. She's frowning thoughtfully. "Fenris told me about what happens when people are exposed to lyrium. When he was here, I mean, he told me, and it's fucked up. And we all just fucking died and came back." Though, not all of them did; Jude is gone, and what Ellie said is true. She is mad and upset, and burying it under other things, lashing out in a different direction. She breathes out. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you guys. And this lyrium shit feels bad."

This has gone wretchedly, Benedict already knows he's far overplayed his hand and made a fool of himself like he always does, and he shoves another bite in his deeply frowning mouth to stop it from either talking or quivering.
Abby thus gets a word in edgewise, and although he bristles in response, he doesn't argue-- say what you will about Benedict Artemaeus, but he'll never talk with his mouth full. By the time he's finished chewing again, Abby has said her piece, and the wind has left his sails.

"Well," he says in an attempt at his usual primness, "I don't. Want anything bad to happen to you. ...guys." He's thrown off momentarily by the colloquialism, squinting as if he isn't sure he's saying it right, or that he should be saying it at all.

Abby doesn't really notice him tripping up over the expression. She's eating the shredded bits of her roll to remove the evidence of it, brow furrowed. Mouth curling down at the corners, jaw set and back teeth touching each other painfully when she chews, sensitive from being ground in her sleep.

"I know." And there's no talking the other out of it, is there.

A pause. She nibbles bread. She adds, less angry and worried, more sulky, "I didn't do anything to that fucking sign-up sheet, you know."

"What?"

He looks up, taken entirely out of his head by the remark.

"...the one for the study?"

She meets his gaze, frowning.

"Yeah. I didn't do that."

"Oh. I didn't realize..."

Did something happen to the signup sheet? After he put his name down he just went on living his life.

"...wait, is that what Wysteria was going on about?"

"Uh-huh." With mouth full, cuz she's back to eating grumpily. "S'what she meant by sabotage."

Benedict stares at Abby for a moment, incredulous, but a slow smile of amusement begins to creep over his face. Sabotage.

A snicker spills out of him before he can stop it.

"She made it sound like someone tampered with the lyrium."

Despite her grouchiness, seeing Benedict start to smile makes Abby slowly grin too, ruefully. She's shaking her head.

"She's so dramatic. She messaged me about a week ago telling me that somebody had filed a suit against me and she needed to know where I was for the whole day."

"A suit?" Benedict exclaims, instantly delighted, "about what??"

Edited 2023-11-13 21:27 (UTC)

"Oh, as if she would deign to tell me." But hey, at least somebody thinks this is funny. "She tricked me into thinking Jayce filed it."

A bark of disbelieving (and highly entertained) laughter, and Benedict shakes his head. "Are you and Jayce even in conflict?"

"No. I really only just met him." So maybe she fell for it, a little bit. It was quickly rectified anyway. "He told me that somebody else fucked with the sign-up sheet, but he didn't tell me who. Or how he knows."

Maybe it was him.

Bene listens, he thinks on it, he considers the evidence. And then he chooses violence.

"Maybe Wysteria did it."

Abby frowns. "I don't think she'd do it."

Though, now that she's sitting here considering it, the argument did drum up some sympathy for her. And people promptly crawled out of the woodwork to defend her precious study too, including the idiot sitting opposite her at the table, she has not forgotten about that. "... Would she?"

He takes a bite and shrugs, smiling a little. Maybe.

To be honest: "I can't tell if you're trying to help me or stirring shit."

His eyes widen, and for a moment he looks a little sheepish. Swallowing quickly, he clears his throat.

“Maybe a little of both,” he admits, “but—- either way, blaming you for it wasn’t right.”

Yeah, there we go. "Okay. Well, I don't want this to be a weekly thing. If she did it, I don't care."

She said, caringly.

"That would be awfully vindictive, if she had," Bene points out, playing his own devil's advocate, "does she have any reason to want to make you look bad? Apart from her disagreeing with you."

"I don't think so..."

But she could have been rude without realising it. Or fully realising it. She's good at doing both of those things. "It's not like we cross paths often."

"Who knows." He takes another bite, chews it, and adds cheerfully afterward, "who can ever know why she does anything."

By the time the ferry has hacked across the harbor, dusk has given way to a purplish early evening. Various lamps have been lit in public house windows; the merchant stalls have rolled up their mats and hurried off with their wares; and the crowding of hawkers and traders which stuffs the harbor front during daylight hours is diminishing with each passing hour as upstanding tradesman quit their work to hurry home or find their way to a drink. In their place, the sailors and fishermen and businessmen and women of somewhat sketchier repute bustle to fill various vacated posts. Here are is a roving knot of merchant sailors, hard handed and already stinking of ale, laughing loudly as they traipse up a stairwell; and here are two harried members of the Kirkwall guard peeling a wriggling pickpocket out of a gutter; and there pass a cadre of dwarven mercenaries, clinking in their ring mail and leathers as they walk ahead of a bobbing palanquin whose curtains have been drawn tight shut.

Desidério Amanza cuts a sharp little figure in this muggy scrapped light between intermittent lanterns as he and Abby climb the stairwell up out of the harbor front and into the warren-like tangle of streets which begin a half story above it. At some point between his arriving and today, he's found himself a smart coat more fit for the weather than what he'd arrived with. He's also wearing the long Riftwatch uniform cloak, jauntily tossed across one shoulder thanks to the fact that it is not, presently, pissing down buckets of rain on their heads.

Every step he takes clinks softly: the wear of leather and metal from the sword belt he wears, the rapier's pommel cajoling eagerly against a buckle or miscellaneous stud.

"I don't think I managed to catch your roommate's name," he is saying while rifling around in the interior pocket of his coat.

Stepping out into a narrow alleyway doesn't carry the same feeling as trying to cross lanes of traffic; it is busy but not in the same, urgent way it is during the day. Awkward silences don't exist when you can instantly tune into somebody else's conversation whether you'd like to or not and even loud, long belly-laughter bounces off the brick walls, creating a constant hum of noise and energy. Any conversation held has to raised slightly, just to be heard.

Which is why Abby says, "Huh?"

Then, "Oh," sighing, "Yeah. That's—her name's Clarisse. She's my best friend." But she's not wading into the contents of that embarrassing conversation, not if she can help it (even though she listened to the entire thing, both irritated and curious). 'Tis the season, and so she chose the smart, dark-blue, double-breasted jacket that Loki gifted her a couple of Satinalias ago to come out and meet Desidério in, because it's a nicer thing that she owns. A Riftwatch pin is affixed neatly in place.

She adds, gesturing ahead, "The place I was talking about is off the edge of Hightown. Wanna go up and circle back onto it?" It'd be thematically appropriate, given the name.

"Suits me," is a thing he may regret saying seven stairwells from now, but at present he means it.

He'd fallen into step easily enough down at the docks—evidently well used or suited to briskly striding along taller companions (or covering lots of ground to stab someone with longer reach; potayto, potahto). The tenor of his moving alongside her somehow manages to not be hurried or trotting, pace kept easily even as he—ah ha—successfully fishes a silver case from his interior coat pocket.

"Your best friend who is also sleeping with your sworn enemy. Ha," is not so much a laugh as a sympathetic punctuating note, his eyebrows flexing briefly upward. "Complicated. Smoke?"

The silver case is nipped open and tipped amicably in her direction, dark papered cigarillos rowed close inside.

"It's a long story," Abby admits, but holy fuck does it ever feel good to have somebody point that out if only to comment on how it's weird and complicated. Yes, it is! Thank you. She declines the offer of the cigarillo, eyeing the line of them, shaking her head (mentally dividing by the amount of stairs they're about to climb to arrive at the answer: not the best idea).

Somewhere beyond the alley there is a clattering of cargo being pulled into place, the loud protest of a cart bowing lower to the ground. A dog is barking. Abby's head tilts momentarily in the direction of the sound, attention easily diverted, alert.

Soon, she glances back, easing.

"I was listening into some of the other conversations." No point trying to hide that. "What's the deal with you and Lia?"

Who, he doesn't say, only because he has set a cigarillo between his lips and made to light it off the Riftwatch pocket lighter. By the time he has nipped the ember into burning, sense has caught up to knee-jerk response.

Enough to give a deprecating sniff as he slips the case back into his coat.

"There's no deal." Which is the problem. "Apparently it would be bad for Riftwatch's reputation to send her packing back to a Seleny gallows with an anchor in her hand. So there goes my fee."

He takes a long pull on the cigarillo, exhaling a cloud of nutty smelling smoke as they track along. If he is keeping a careful eye on their surroundings while they go, he doesn't look it.

"I wrote the fucker who sent me tracking after her, but I doubt he'll pay for the damage." A gesture of his right hand. He's wearing a dark shirt glove on it—a mismatch to the wide cuffed longer glove on his left—, but presumably his anchor shard is glowing under it.

Abby's eyes go to the glove once the smoke passes her by. She scoffs. "What, did you chase each other into a rift?"

She's spoken to Lia once, not enough to get an interesting backstory out of her (only that she's a real flirt and dislikes the sight of a plain, stone wall). Her current impression of Desidério is not dissimilar: a flirt who likes a smart, snappy conversation, smoking; writing to his mother.

Testing him, Abby says, "Surely the money doesn't bother you. You'll get paid here."

It must be something else.

"If that's what you call it."

He'd written straight away to Seleny upon his arrival in the Gallows—'Lady Fonteyn, I'm sure you'll be as pleased as I am to learn that you'll finally be rid of me. As a show of gratitude, expedite x sum to my current residence. I would appreciate good terms for it. P.S. I'd like to keep up the little apartment; please mind the lease for me, should I unexpectedly be able to effect my return. Sincerely, D', being more or less the gist of the thing wrapped to the leg of a raven—, but that hardly changes the point of the thing. Riftwatch's pay is—

Fine.

He takes a brisk huff off the cigarillo, then continues, "This Exalted March and demons falling out of the sky business is none of mine."

"Neither," Abby says patiently. Sometimes she has to try really hard to keep the sound of um, duh, out of her voice. "But I live here now, so it has to be."

She can see it from his perspective though. He had a entire life before here, lived elsewhere and made his money terrorising widows, which was fun for him, and then he had to drop everything to pick up this cause. Suddenly, he had to care about demons falling out of the sky.

Relenting, she adds, "We're good people, despite what you've heard about us. It's hard at first, but it gets easier."

Could always be worse, as trite as that seems.

"I don't doubt that you're good people. But you're also people who stick your nose into Venatori business, and that's all a bit prickly for my taste. And the Gallows—" he blows out his cheeks, and gives her a sidelong look. It's not exactly the world's most pleasant place to live, is it?

Which really makes the point he's boiling down to—

"I get along with Seleny. We're old friends. And that two bit thief has got between me and it unless I'm keen to, whack,"—a hacking gesture at his wrist—"Part with something else. It's reasonable to be, mm, irritated with her."

"Yeah," Abby admits, "I get it. I was pretty pissed off when I first got here. Kept trying to figure out how to get back." And then she didn't want to take no for an answer, and then she sulked around complaining about how unfair it all was. She grimaces in memory of it.

She doesn't have much else to say about the state of the Gallows themselves, not when they're leagues better than anything she had at home, bar the lack of electricity. Honestly, she can't be bothered getting into it right off the bat. Let somebody have a totally normal opinion of her for a while before she drops the whole so-I-came-here-from-an-apocalypse reveal.

"... Would you actually consider chopping off your hand?"

Snort. "Dude."

His eyebrows do a thing on his face—first furrowing and then quirkjng upward toward the neighboring hairline of dark curls—over the possibility of chopping his right hand off. Wouldn't that be nice? Shame about—

"No, I'm attached to it," He says around the cigarillo while working the fingers in question opened and closed for emphasis. "So you can stop swearing your demon oaths at me."

Dear Momma, You'll be gratified to hear that I went to Riftwatch and that all the spirits there said naughty words, he will not actually write in a letter, on account of not caring to have a Chantry inquiry to muddle through on top of everything else. And if there were one woman in the world who might see it done—

Well. Best not to risk it.

Also, it's a joke.

"It's not swearing," she says, unable to help laughter getting in underneath the reply. Locals are so funny. "You'd know if it was swearing."

Would sound a whole lot meaner. And it seems fair to add, "You're just like me." She holds up her gloved hand. "Technically they're you're demon oaths too.

"If it helps, I'm not about to chop any part of myself off to get rid of it either, so." Even if that meant going home. Would be a real smart move, to toss her dominant hand and immediately be sent back there.

"Point of order," he quibbles right back as they traipse along. Probably, this keenness to wheedle and negotiate is somewhat the people of Seleny find endearing. Or deeply annoying. Who can say?

It helps, maybe, that he sounds like he's at least halfway joking when he says: "They're not my demon oaths, because unlike you I'm not a demon." Say it louder for the random passersby, Desidério. "Magic gash in the hand? I'll grant we have that much in common. But the rest?" He gives her a once over and sucks a doubtful note through his teeth.

She's taller, for starters.

Abby makes a mental note to say the term 'magic gash' unprompted to Gwenaëlle at some point in the future. Then, misunderstanding his point, she huffs. "Really? You're gonna go for 'you're a woman, I'm a man'? You can be more creative than that. You don't have to admit you're actually a demon if you lose, either."

So give her something to work with.

She prompts, "We've both cracked other people's kneecaps before."

Point of similarity. Not so hard.

"No, no." A wag of the finger, less scolding and more just habitual punctuation. The man talks with his hands. "You fell out of the sky. I came from my mother's—"

Somewhere nearby, a dog barks loudly.

"But I'll give you the kneecaps." Wait, will he? He files back through the rough slew of questions pressed and answered. Squints. Gives her a look to confirm— "Cultist kneecaps?" Right?

She shrugs. "Any kneecaps." That's the secret—but he's a dagger-for-hire-type, right, so it's something he'll understand.

Arguing with him is actually quite fun. Abby's enjoying herself and she's long-since forgotten to start playing good tour guide, pointing things out to him in passing. Hands deep in her pockets she says, "We have mothers in the sky, you know."

'Any kneecaps' prompts a certain off the cuff approving head tilt and flex of eyebrows. Yeah, he gets it. He might get it more if the full reply was 'Any kneecaps I'm getting paid to break,' but what is he, particular? No. No Amanza for four generations has survived well by being choosy.

"Allegedly. You can't show me one."

To say that he's made a career of being fun to argue with wouldn't, strictly, be an understatement. It probably helps that in this instance, he is blatantly less than serious as they wind along various narrow streets and traipse up two to five stairs at a time. Or maybe it's just hard to take a man seriously who springs along like an aggressive little dog, cigarillo bobbing between his lips and the buckle of his sword belt clinking companionably against some rivet at his hip.

"You," rifters, "Could say anything about anything and everyone would just have to take your word for it. That's some opportunity for bullshit, if you ask me."

"I think," Abby replies dryly, nudging into him to make him go left at the top of the flight of stairs that they're currently working on, "You underestimate how much people take my word for it."

It isn't actually fun to bullshit people who don't understand the bullshit you're trying to sell to them either, which can be an issue with people from Thedas. The flow of the joke gets ruined when you have to stop and explain parts of it, et cetera.

She points at him now.

"You just told me that moms from my world aren't real until I can show you one." Case in point??

"That's different," he says as he's nudged left. A deep drag on the bobbing cigarillo circles back with a heavy exhale of woody smelling smoke. "On account of mine being very sharp."

These rifters may have it in them to hoodwink the rest of Thedas, but he's built different.'

(Ha ha ha; this, says some punctuation of his dark eyebrows, is a good joke.)

Sometimes when she looks at him right after he's exhaled he's simply a talking cloud of smoke. Her nose wrinkles. "Yeah, okay."

Yet he believed that she fell from the sky in the first place, which Abby would argue is one of the harder parts of the sell. Anyway.

"So what if I told you that I came here from my world's version of a Blight? Bullshit or real?"

"Real," is a briskly made decision. "The Blight's too miserable to be just in the one place. It makes sense to have spilled over into other places."

Desidério Amanza, ladies and gentleman. An optomist.

"Also, you're built like you've been fighting darkspawn all day. Has the Warden tried to recruit you yet? I hear Riftwatch has one."

"Jesus," she mutters, grimacing at the thought of the CBI outbreak spilling out like that into other places, moulding over the entirety of existence bit by bit. Abby doesn't doubt that it would fucking try it out of sheer, weaponised aggression.

New nightmare unlocked? Thank you, Desidério Amanza.

She scoffs. "No. Kinda think I deserve to be retired from fighting darkspawn."

And yet, if they dared to pop up again, she'd go out there with everybody else and do something about it. Abby knows this. She adds, "Couple years back the entire Gallows got attacked by walking skeletons. Ever popped knees like that? S'kinda satisfying."

It's the evening after this bullshit and Benedict, having spent most of it likely hiding in his office, has descended to the dining hall, where he sits alone (as he often does, this in itself isn't unusual) and scowls at his food, periodically pushing his hair back from his face in a nervous gesture. He seems anxious and hurried, in the manner of one who is trying to sustain himself and then disappear again as quickly as possible.

If he came to the dining hall late hoping to miss most of the usual crowd he may be disappointed when Abby comes in, fresh from the baths, her hair drawn back in a tight, still-damp braid. There is a wet spot on the back of her shirt where the tail end rests against it.

Naturally, the moment she spots him, she takes her food over to the same table to she can sit down opposite from him.

"Hey."

He does seem anxious and hurried, but these are not unusual Benedict emotions, so.

He offers Abby a little smile of greeting, glancing at the state of her hair but refraining from commenting on it-- people are allowed (and encouraged!) to take baths, after all. Not everyone is finicky about ensuring they're all dried off before they appear in public again.

"H'llo," he replies, pleasantly enough.

And it almost would have been normal if Abby hadn't been expecting a little comment about her hair, because he always makes one (either positive or negative). She pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. And then she says, "Hi," and puts it in.

Now she's really looking at him. The nervy fidgeting, the way he scoops his hair back but then lets it curtain dramatically across his face again.

She says, casually, "You good?"

He freezes briefly, and that’s as much an indictment than if he’d simply said no.
“Of course,” he says nonetheless, and straightens, raising his head haughtily to tuck his hair back behind one ear; he glances at Abby furtively, playing at his stereotypical arrogance, but he’s a poor liar.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Nothing hideously stupid and embarrassing happened earlier, after all.

"Because you're acting weird," Abby points out, fairly. He should know that he's being obvious, at the very least.

But she stops looking directly at him.

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," is not a guilt-trip, or to reverse engineer him into telling her. Abby gets it. Sometimes you want to sit around having a bad fucking time without lifting a single finger to do anything about it. She starts to eat her dinner, spooning stew into her mouth.

He wrinkles his nose a little in response, as if to say no, you're acting weird, and seems content to leave it at that as they both eat in silence.

...until he can't anymore, and he sets his fork down in a huff, using the same hand to prop his chin instead.

"I'm not a crier," he mutters.

Took him under five minutes to crack. Not as good as the current record; Abby will keep trying.

"Don't listen to Kostos."

She puts potato in her mouth. "He'sth an athhole."

Edited 2024-01-18 11:44 (UTC)

"I guess," is stated in sulky defeat.

But I want him anyway, goes unsaid, as he pushes food around the plate with the fork in his free hand, his brow furrowing prettily.

"I'm stupid for trying."

Abby scoffs. "No you aren't. You're going about it the wrong way."

Desperately wanting him via crystal isn't going to work on somebody like Kostos. This is her theory. "He probably likes saying no to you because he gets a kick out of it."

"I know." That much has been made abundantly clear, but it does little to assuage Benedict's anxiety or his self-doubt. He lowers his head, pressing at his temple, seeming to crumple in on himself.

"It doesn't matter. If it's not him, it's someone else." He gives a little shake of his head-- this isn't a problem that began with Kostos, even if Kostos is the most recent visible example.

Abby points her fork at him. "Yeah. You have bad taste in men."

Which is a little rich coming from her, but he doesn't know that. She doesn't think she's ever been in a position to give anybody relationship advice but that isn't about to stop her from trying. Benedict looks deflated, a little sad. Abby doesn't like seeing him like that.

"Have you tried sleeping with somebody who would treat you nicer?"

Opening his mouth, Benedict shoots Abby a glare, but the retort dies on his lips and becomes a scowl instead. He hunches his shoulders, directing his sulky gaze to the table instead.

"I have," he mumbles, "it's not... the same." She hit a sore spot, perhaps.

Abby realises a little too late that her usual, bolshie attitude isn't funny right now, it's only kicking him while he's down. She pauses, jaw working, reluctant.

"... Sorry." Like he needs her being a dick to him too.

New tactic. "Do you want me to help, or d'you just want me to listen."

He hesitates, still looking away, and doesn't entirely seem to know how to answer that question. After a long moment, he turns his gaze back to Abby in a searching look, as though half-expecting her to take another crack at him. When she doesn't, a bit of the tension releases from around his eyes, but there's an element of shame to it, too: constantly expecting the worst from people is a Him problem, after all.

"I don't know," he admits, lightly biting the inside of his cheek, "I don't want..." He trails off, looking for better phrasing, "...it's not your problem."

"Yeah, I know. But I want to help."

This better, stronger relationship between them isn't exactly new but Abby is bad at expressing herself. More than that, she ribs the people she likes, leaning mercilessly on them because she expects them to take it, and understand that she's saying I like you. It's not a great way to be.

So she clarifies. "You're my friend."

To hear it stated so bluntly reopens a wound that hadn't closed quite right, that Benedict wasn't even fully aware was still there until it gives a jolt of pain; his eyes well up, and he's rapidly blinking away the damp, because he's not a crier. Or at least doesn't want to be.

"I'm not good at," he begins, but is now all too aware of where they're sitting, and that anyone around them might spot him-- he's never had a good poker face-- and take a shot. "...I don't want to talk about it here."

She notices, and her brow furrows in concern but she doesn't say anything. This all feels very fragile and she's said stupid, thoughtless shit to him in the past that had him storming off. Abby wants to show she's being careful.

"Okay. We—it doesn't have to be here. Or now. I just want you to know, you can... come to me, to talk, whenever you're ready. If that's something you wanna do."

God, she feels too big, almost clumsy. Still new to being a good friend, to anyone.

"Let's go upstairs," he mutters, because the idea of starting this conversation back over at some future date is almost worse than just continuing it now, in public. He rises abruptly, bringing his plate along and waiting with an impatient fidget for Abby to follow.

Assuming she does, he leads the way to his room-- which used to be the room containing only his water pipe and its paraphernalia, but which is now actually somewhat furnished with the sorts of things people keep when they live in a place. He's moved back upstairs.

It's a good spot. And it's exactly what Abby would imagine if asked to describe a room that Benedict lives in; a water pipe, his only roommate. Slouchy, comfortable cushions everywhere. Throws and rugs a central feature. "Nice."

She takes one of those big cushions to sit down with, and looks at him expectantly.

She's glad this is happening right away too, without a pause in-between. Means she doesn't have time to second guess anything she just said to him even though it was sincere.

The room has had a few years to build back towards its former glory, but still hasn't quite attained the sheer luxury of being financed by a high Magisterial house in Minrathous; perhaps it never will, and perhaps that's all right.

Still holding his plate, Benedict flumps onto one of his pillows and takes another bite, seeming to relax somewhat now that they're somewhere more private, even if he doesn't speak again right away. It's several thoughtful bites later that he finally mumbles,

"I'm not good at being a friend. Or... a lover. Whatever." Bite, chew, chew. "I'm selfish, and I'm stupid, I don't notice things."

Abby thinks of saying same, but this isn't about her. She stops herself by putting food into her mouth (though talking around it has never been something she's shied from in the past).

She observes, "At least you know that." So, theoretically, he can work on it and... change? Why does she have a feeling that isn't the case. Hmm. "Like—I mean, you're self aware."

That is a good thing.

Bene shrugs a shoulder, not dismissing the notion, but not entirely accepting it either.

"It only goes so far." He takes a final bite, and, setting his plate aside, settles onto the pillow on his stomach, arms folded in front of him with his legs crossed at the ankle and kicked up behind.
"At a certain point it's just. Me. You know?" He fiddles with some trim on the edge of the pillow, staring at that instead of Abby, "a person can only change so much."

"So... what." Whoops, that sounded pretty blunt. Abby swears she is trying to listen and be helpful. She even puts her plate aside even though she isn't finished eating her dinner, saying loud and clear: you are more important than roasted potato.

"What do you want to happen?" Is what she means.

He winces, but ultimately takes no offense: if Abby were genuinely cruel, they’d never have gotten this far.

“I want,” he says weakly, “I want to be someone people can like.” He scowls, looking down, embarrassed. One long finger begins to trace the embroidered pattern on the pillow.
“But not—- because they see potential for this or that, or because I’m changing myself, or… not that change is a bad thing, but,”

He hesitates, a distinctly weary quality overtaking his frown.
“I… Maybe I’m not sure who I even am anymore. But whoever it is, I don’t think he’s worth much. I don’t think there’s much to love there, and I don’t think there ever has been. And maybe I—-“

His voice hitches a bit and he angles his head away.
“—maybe I like people who treat me like shit because at least they’re honest, aren’t they? And I can give them what they want.”

It's difficult to listen to him say this. He is saying it about himself and Abby likes him (it's sad), but also because it is deeply relatable. How many times has she thought these exact things about herself whenever she's stuck in some gross, self-pitying loop? I want to be someone people can like. I'm not sure who I even am anymore. Whoever I am, I don't think I'm worth very much. It's weird to hear that come out of somebody else's mouth.

She's quiet as she listens, looking at her plate and letting herself be uncomfortable, to sit in her feelings and sort through them. That's something she's learning to do too.

Finally, she clears her throat.

"I mean—I know it's not the same thing, but I like you. And other people like you, Benedict. Byerly does, and Ellie does." There's more, of course, but a list isn't the point she's trying to make here. Let her guess at something. "I think you like people who treat you like shit because you don't think you deserve anything better than that, even though you do."

The point isn't to litigate the issue or to be swayed away from it, which is what prevents Benedict from denying or nitpicking Abby's argument. He gives a helpless little shrug instead, finally looking at her, his expression oddly sympathetic: she may be right, but his heart is much more difficult to convince than his mind.

"What does it even mean to deserve something?" he asks, fiddling once more with the trim.

Abby shrugs.

She doesn't have all the answers. She isn't going to pretend she does, either. He isn't looking at her so she replies again, out loud this time. "I dunno. If you figure that out, could you let me know?"

A little chuckle follows, laced with actual amusement-- it's hard to have a conversation like this without any form of self-effacement, even for him.

"Yeah," he agrees, with a serious nod, "as long as you do the same." His eyes flit up to meet Abby's, his expression still mostly somber, but bearing a quiet gratitude. Thanks for listening.

"'Course," she says quickly. They make eye contact for a moment, wherein lies a moment of genuine, mutual gratitude and care.

And then Abby says, "Are you eating that," and takes some leftover food off his plate with her fingers before he can say anything at all, popping it into her mouth.

You're welcome.

Benedict has enough time to gasp when Abby's hand snakes out, and he watches her eat, his mouth agape in scandalized shock.

"Yes," he says indignantly, "...I'm going to get you for that."

Edited (punctuation) 2024-01-31 22:24 (UTC)

"Whol," she says, mouth full, "Now you're nuht—" and nearly chokes when she starts laughing, breathing in hard through her nose.

He's pretending to look and stay mad, but it's impossible with Abby's rapid collapse into whatever this is. Benedict watches her a moment in minor concern, but it's quickly split by a grin of genuine amusement.

"Look at you," he scoffs, "felled by your own hubris."

She has to swallow quick to be able to cough, the sound that and half of a laugh mixed in. When she calms down and wipes her eyes, she says, "Fuck. I always am."

Stupid.

But she thinks she might have made him feel a bit better in the process, so it was worth it.

So who was strongest?

Huh?

Oh. Me, for daring to suggest it in the first place.

Think you might've tipped something over - all that talk of up and down stairs, now we're getting some fancy lift.

For real?

How are they managing that?

Beats me. Maybe you're gonna pull it up and down - strongest, and all.

Dunno. I don't like lifts.

Who am I speaking to?

Knew a guy fell off one once. High winds.

[ and a good push. ]

Name's Lazar. Don't reckon you were around last time I came through.

(There's a gulp, an audible shudder.

A mutter.) Christ.

I'm Abby. Guess I wasn't. How long has it been?

Edited 2024-02-02 00:20 (UTC)

Dunno - three years, ish? Bit less. If you got something on heights, I reckon you picked the wrong city.

I've been here for about that long. We must have just missed each other.

This place, gets hard to tell. All the - time shite, you know. Sound mad if you ever try and talk on it.

Tell me about it. The new time travel magic didn't help with that.

You bite it in that?

[ delicacy isn't a strong suit ]

(This approach is preferred.)

Yep. Hard.

Weird. Remember any of it?

The whole thing.

Sucks that I missed out on attending my own funeral, but I guess the timeline stuff didn't work that way.

Shit, that's rough. You do a wake? That's the good bit, anyway.

Nope. Think we missed our window.

Nah. Fuck that. You die, you get to do a wake. Wrap it in next time there's drinks.

Hmm. I think I'll use it as an excuse whenever somebody asks me to do something I don't want to do.

'Sorry, can't, have to go to my own wake'—

Nah, can't put me on duty. I've been dead for months.

I'd better do nothing for maybe three more months actually, just to be safe.

I wanted to say thank you for stopping that interviewer from intruding further. I'm sorry that you heard all you did about... my condition. Please let me know if I can make it up to you.

It's okay. They're being annoying, I've been looking for an excuse to yell at them all day.

(She makes an indifferent sound, a sort of scoff.) I can pretend I didn't hear anything if it makes you feel better. It really doesn't bother me.

[There’s a pause.]

It doesn’t bother you?

[Potential friend get?]

No.

(Maybe it should.)

We are fighting a war. Most of us have murdered other people. It would be harder to find somebody who hasn't.

[There’s a small sigh of relief from Tav.]

I’m Tav. You’re Abby, right? That’s what the interviewer called you.

That's me.

What do I call you?

Tav is fine. [Considering how to ask this question.]

Are you from this land or another?

Another one. I'm a rifter.

You?

Rifter as well. [] Another sigh.]

How long have you been here? And, if I may, how long does it take before you start feeling like you might fit in with all this?

Welcome. Where'd you fall into Thedas from?

(Tricky question, Tav.) Been here nearly three years. I think—you gotta fake it until you make it.

A city named Baldur’s Gate, from the land of Faerun.

[As for her other answer:] Three…

[He doesn’t even have three years of memories in his head.] And there’s never been a chance to leave?

(Never heard of it. But what else is new.)

Not that I've heard of. (Her tone gentles somewhat. She remembers being new and freaking out about this.) Sorry.

[Not that Tav is in a rush to get back to being a leader and all the hassle comes with that, but three years without Gale, Astarion, Shadowheart, Halsin, and the rest.]

Has anyone from your home arrived?

One other person.

(Quickly,) But it isn't very common. I think there's only one other person who had somebody arrive from their home world too.

[The immediate rush of hope is crushed by Abby’s continued words. One other person. In what seems to be a rather large organization.]

One more question, I apologize, but how many of us rifters are there?

(A moment of silence as she counts on her fingers...)

Ten... no, eleven. Including you. (She always forgets about Wysteria.)

[A longer silence hangs from Tav’s end. Eleven of them, and one of them is a monster, a murderer, capable of terrible things. If given the chance, the Bhaalspawn could wipe them all out.

Fuck.]

I don’t suppose you are a flowers person, for listening to my droll questions?

(Abby takes careful note of this seemingly stunned silence.)

I'm not. Seriously—you're new here, of course I'm going to listen to your questions.

[There's a silent nod on Tav's side, trying to keep his mind from the thoughts of slaughtering the eleven rifters remaining, the way a blade would would slide through skin and sinew as they slept.

No. He can't allow that. Maybe he needs to talk to the Captain again, see if they've come up with restrictions for him.]

Regardless, thank you Abby. If I may, if I have other questions, may I return to you?

Yeah, sure. (She remembers what it was like. Having a million questions, not wanting to ask all of them in case she got annoying, or somebody told her to go read a book about it. Which she did, but—usually that lead to more questions.)

Any time.

I appreciate it, thank you. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.

Do you you think I always need to be the center of attention? And that me and Ellie talk about each other all the time?

What?

[ She's just gonna say it again, but louder and more annoyed this time. ]

Do you THINK I need to be the center of ATTENTION all the time. And do me and Ellie TALK about each other too MUCH.

(Well now Abby's raising her voice back at her.) Jesus christ, no! Why would I think that??

I don't know, apparently everyone else does! You wouldn't lie to me, right?

I wouldn't. Where did you hear this?? I've never heard anybody say something like that about you.

And if I did, I'd fuck them up.

Just—somebody. She said she wanted to let me know, as a friend? And that most other people here feel the same way.

That's a lie. I don't think that person is your friend.

So you don't think it's true? You haven't heard anyone mention it?

[ But maybe they wouldn't say anything in front of Abby because they know she's Clarisse's roommate. HMM. ]

I haven't. But—Clarisse, I don't think anybody cares about how much you talk about Ellie. (Like not to be too harsh about it but,) You're together, of course you're gonna talk about each other. That's normal.

And you're not 'the center of attention' more than anybody else is.

Yeah, I guess... I don't want to make people hate me about it, though.

[ She sounds a little more chill now, though. ]

It was really weird, the whole conversation.

If somebody hates you for that they need to grow up. Seriously.

I'm the only one who has the right to find you and Ellie annoying. And I don't, so what's their excuse.

Don't bullshit me. I know you do.

[ But, like, she has a better excuse than anyone else. ]

I kind of do.

Less than I used to. (Wait, should she be saying this? Hmm too late)

Well, I try to bring her up less when I talk to you.

[ It's hard not to, though. They're all very... enmeshed. ]

Do you?

(That feels... a bit bad. Abby sits with it for a moment, making sure of her feelings before she adds,) You don't have to do that.

Don't I?

[ To be fair to Abby, this is a restriction Clarisse has applied to herself, but she still feels like it was her only choice in order to keep everyone civil. ]

No.

(She feels awkward suddenly, defensive of this sudden decision.)

I don't care.

Okay. [ Clarisse isn't actually going to say she doesn't believe her, but her tone is definitely saying that. She at least seems to have picked up on how awkward she's just made things, though, and tries to steer back to her original reason for calling. ]

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Just promise you'll tell me if you hear anyone talking about me, okay?

(Abby bites back on the impulse to say something else about it; arguing for Clarisse to talk more about Ellie around her will sound insane and that isn't what she wants anyway, what she actually wants is for Clarisse to say whatever she wants and not have to tailor herself because she thinks Abby won't like it.

But she doesn't know how to say that.)

I will. You'd do the same for me, so.

Course I would. I'd tell you after I beat their ass.

(Abby laughs a bit.)

You're so cool, Clarisse. (Sincere.)

Shut up. [ Pleased. ]

( it's early — the sun has been up, but not for altogether long — and in the background of gwenaëlle's message, the sound of boiling water, quietly bustling movement. )

Abby?

(The reply takes a moment. Early isn't a problem for Abby, the delay is because she's just paused her current lap around the Gallows and is catching her breath before she answers; even then her reply is short.)

Yeah?

I—

( wait. )

Don't think about how long it's been since we talked about this, ( nailed it, ) but I talked to Stephen.

(Abby immediately tries to think about it and nearly misses the next bit. She says,) Huh? (Then,) Oh.

Oh my god. Spill.

It went— it went very well,

( with a quiet laugh, mostly at herself. what if he was just being polite. what about him suggested that was a thing he would be. )

We talked last night— he's in my bath, now, I'm making coffee. ( this is a process that takes longer when you don't have modern innovations like electricity and coffee machines, and it had seemed like abby would probably be awake, so. it had seemed like a good time to call. )

Talked more, this morning. He's recovered from accidentally making full eye contact with the bear.

(She can picture Gwen as she says this: her waiting for water to boil and reaching for her crystal at the same time to send Abby a message, being excited to tell her everything. That makes her feel really good; she realises she's smiling, and hooks a hand around the back of her neck.)

Wow. Just like that, huh?

(Her, Stephen Strange and the bearskin — she bursts out laughing.) You left it on the bed??

( whatever she'd been about to say, what she does say is: )

It lives on the bed! And I wasn't thinking about bedding, I was thinking he'd forgotten we were standing in the infirmary and we needed to leave—

(She starts talking over the end of that sentence,) Woooow that's so romantic—

( the kitchen on the boat is far enough away from the bath that stephen is not going to hear her dissolving into giggles (again), )

We were both incredibly romantic, fuck you, ( through her laughter, )

I don't know how to fucking act when people are being romantic at me, ( more of a sigh, ) it undoes me, you know, sincerity. He said being in love with me is the easy part.

( like, has he met her, even. )

(Abby does a little gasp.) He said he loves you?

(No, that's so different!) I thought you guys were only fucking, I didn't — that's so cool.

I said it first and he said thank you,

( but she sounds smug, so it might not have been the only thing she said that shorted out his brain at the time, )

I fucked him about it when he said it, so. No, I mean—

( an exhale. she sounds lighter than she has done; happy. )

He said— that when I died at Granitefell it was unbearable. That he decided not to bear it. We've... he's been essential to me. Before I blew him.

( but don't worry, she got to that. )

(Abby is trying to construct the timeline in her head, but only for a moment. She gives up quickly. The Granitefell thing... that is actual romance. Just hearing it makes her feel kinda funny, it's so private, like something out of a book. She doesn't know what to say for a moment; before she was reacting to something almost insubstantial and now, suddenly, it's a whole thing. It's I love you and it was unbearable when you died at Granitefell, what the hell.)

So — a spring wedding?

(this is what you get)

( it makes her laugh again, which probably at least means they're not going to dwell on that time they died. )

Lexie had to keep me drunk enough not to run and not so drunk I fell over at the last one.

( had to tell her she's allowed to let her heart stop hurting, too; that she's allowed this. )

Edited (everything doesn't need an emdash) 2024-03-21 09:58 (UTC)

(Abby so wants to know more about all of that, but she is savvy enough to know it isn't the right time to be asking about it. Maybe later, maybe never, doesn't really matter. She's started walking again as she talks, by the way, to keep her muscles warm.)

Are you guys gonna go public?

It's not a secret, ( thoughtfully, ) though I'm not planning a grand crystal announcement.

Bit much.

I wanted to tell you. Lexie. Loxley, so he can tell me he told me so for all the times he's told me to stop being dramatic and unkind to myself.

Maybe not Loxley, ( mostly a joke. )

Aw c'mon, it'll be fun. (joking, please understand,)

You should tell Loxley. I'm glad you told me.

( impulsively— )

I'm glad we're— tell each other these things friends. It means a great deal to me.

( it's important abby know that. )

(Abby grins suddenly.)

Yeah. Me too.

It's really fun.

( her breath out is not a laugh, but like one, maybe. warm. )

We can have fun here. Sometimes.

( amidst

... everything. )

Don't have too much fun, (she warns, and she's only half-joking,) or something fucking terrible will happen just to even it out.

I refuse to be blamed for the next crisis just because I finally had several orgasms.

The balance has shifted—

Stop wishing ill on my cunt!

Go take a bath with the head healer!

( laughing— )

I'm going. I'll return himself to the infirmary in perfect working order.

See you.

Have funnnnn.

[ He waits a day or two, and then he waits until he sees her without working very hard to seek her out—though he didn't have to walk past the training yard, to get where he's going. ]

Hello.

[ She doesn't have to stop what she's doing, unless she wants to. He's going to sit on a barrel a safe distance away regardless. ]

(Abby pauses with a practice weapon held high over her head, some sort of hatchet; she brings it down hard into the target and leaves it there, stuck halfway in. Her hands go to her hips. Bastien is sitting on the barrel and seemingly waiting for something so she wipes her mouth on her arm and calls to him.) Is it your turn next?

(Ha ha

Anyway. She pauses to put her boot on the target and yank the hatchet out; for all that it was buried deep in there, this poses very little problem. She joins him at the barrel, trailing the weapon at her side, catching her breath. Hopefully he won't mind a sweaty conversation. Despite the joke, she can tell why he's here.)

You good?

[ Bastien nods, a grin still lingering from the first question but beginning to fade. Not all the way. Just to a fainter smile, friendly instead of entertained. ]

Always.

[ He doesn't mind sweaty conversation. He has his bag with him, a slingy leather thing meant to carry books and papers from home to the Gallows and back, and he ducks out of it to let it drop to the ground beside him. ]

Are you? [ And to head off a similar answer to his own— ] Last night, it seemed to get your skin a little.

Yeah, (Abby sighs, pressing her hand into her neck and rubbing there, making a face at the slick of sweat against her palm. She's visiting the baths right after this, pronto, her usual routine. Good to have one, as always. What's also good is being honest here.) It kinda did.

(How to explain this. She's looking at a point over his head when she starts, hedging her way.) I've — it's not the first time somebody has begged me to kill them because they thought they were about to become a monster. Doesn't exactly get easier.

(She doesn't seem upset talking about it, though. Only matter-of-fact, nearly calm.)

Seems like it would be a bad thing if it did.

[ He saw some small slice of her world, back when. Enough that he doesn't have to ask her to explain what might have given her experience with people becoming monsters. ]

Someone you were close to, or—?

Nah. (The smallest of mercies, that her loved ones died while she wasn't there, and didn't have to watch it happen. She looks at him then, a little glance to catch any reaction he may have.)

Anyone. People back home get bit, get infected, they can't — they don't wanna do it themselves, or they don't have anything on them and they're too freaked out. I dunno. I guess it's easier to ask somebody else.

I wouldn't leave somebody who was suffering like that and asking for help. Ever. Nobody back home would do that, no matter how much of an asshole you are. (Probably the one rule all survivors could all agree on: don't let somebody turn, not if you can help it.)

[ Bastien nods, a faint twitch of the head. Serious. Attentive.

He's never known anyone who's been infected with the Blight. But that's their equivalence, in stories—the irreversible, mind-destroying disease. Sometimes people are put out of their misery, sometimes they come back as ghouls intent on destroying their friends. Sometimes the Wardens swoop in with a happy ending. Or at least a mysterious one.

He's not here to argue that Tav is different. He's still not convinced they shouldn't kill him, himself. ]

How long would it take? Between when they knew and when they were gone.

Takes about two days to turn, but it can be faster. It kinda depends on where you're bitten.

(Somewhere meaty like an arm or a leg? You're probably gonna hang around for a day and a half and feel yourself losing your mind. Abby understands that the neck is a lot faster but she doesn't know why. It's not like major arteries don't exist in your arms.)

It really hurts, though. Apparently. And it sounded like he was in pain.

(Tav, she means. Like he was battling something, trying to fight it off, and losing.)

It did.

[ He chews on the inside of his mouth. What a terrible way to go. ]

We should talk to him when he isn't the throes of it. It comes and goes for him, you know? It isn't getting worse, that I know of.

(She heaves a breath in and out.)

Yeah. Okay.

(Gruffly,) Sorry. It — I know it's not the same as back home here, it just reminded me of it.

[ Bastien shakes his head. ]

You don't need to apologize. I think—I don't know what I think, about rifters. I think it would be terrible to feel like you had been made or brought here intentionally to save us. What about your own life? I think if I were a rifter I would rather think it was random.

[ He's only partway to the point he intended to make, but he pauses, because he'd like to know what she thinks of this too. ]

I — yeah, (Abby sort of sighs, and rubs the back of her neck.) I hope it's random. I don't think I can... save everybody, that's kind of a lot. (Like, maybe one or two people would be fine? Max.)

Or... (Shrug,) I dunno, it's kinda cool thinking that we were brought here because we needed it, not you guys. Sorry.

[About one hour after Minrathous starts going to shit and concurrent with the start of this.]

Abby? Sound off, you okay?

Edited 2024-04-03 17:17 (UTC)

(She answers quick, panting.) Yeah.

(A dog is barking in the background, deep and booming.) The fuck is going on??

Clarisse is saying they're signaling for dragons from the watchtowers.

Fuck. I heard the explosion—

(She swears again and the crystal jostles around, the sound of her footsteps taking over.

Then,) Where are you?

Fucking Minrathous. I'm on my way back.

Why the hell are you in Minrathous?

(Dude.)

Scouting mission. I'm coming back through the Eluvian.

Great fucking timing.

Take it up with my boss. Things here are blowing up too. It's some kind of fucking Venatori coup.

Perfect.

Get back here, now. Don't die.

Like I'd make it that easy.

(Under her breath,) Don't I know it.

( the walrus is gone, and gwenaëlle sits with the note she finds in her pigeonhole for a time. smooths it out, sets it and the book down on coupe's letter still on her desk.

what a cunt. she misses him a great deal already. she sits there, understanding no nevarran at all, for quite some time before she reaches for her crystal, hanging from the chatelaine at her waist with her spectacles. )

Abby, you remember we were talking about books.

Edited 2024-04-11 21:23 (UTC)

Hey. Yeah.

(Books. They're a sensitive subject right now, what with the top half of the Templar tower blown to pieces and nobody being allowed inside. She actually has no idea what has happened to her stuff, that reading stack beside her bed. It's stupid to hang around and feel sad about something like that but she kinda does anyway.)

What about them?

( can't get their things, or the library, or—

gwenaëlle sits silently for a short time, awkward, finding the words. finally: )

Flint left with the Walrus and now I have to learn fucking Nevarran—

we would, we had a book club. We'd spar and first he taught me swordfighting and then I had to teach it back to him after Arlathan and we'd talk about poetry and literature—

I was wondering if you wanted to do that. With me.

—What? (But Gwenaëlle keeps going, keeps talking, so she doesn't say anything more. She's jawing at nothing, trying to understand. Why's she talking like he's dead?

The moment she's done:) What do you mean? He left? Where did he go?

( gwenaëlle lifts the note, although she doesn't really need to in order to read aloud: )

Gone hunting. The Walrus is gone. And he's left me a translation project that's going to take months, at best—

and Maker forbid he come back and I haven't done it, ( mildly aggrieved. she didn't have any plans to learn nevarran! she has to learn nevarran now! )

That's all. Gone hunting. I imagine you will have enough opinions on this to keep occupied. I found it this morning.

'Gone hunting'.

(Sharp, like a slap: the Walrus is gone and he left Gwenaëlle a translation project that may or may not mean anything at all. And what is he hunting, the Venatori? He didn't take anybody with him?

She's angry, confused. It feels unfair.)

I don't get it.

( it almost feels like a test, like: is she meant to know something, do something, react better—

all the times she's felt as if he were examining her, and so many she was never sure if she'd passed or not. it feels impossible to be angry with him; he must have a good reason. if she just focuses on how absurdly unfair it is that she has to learn nevarran now, then she doesn't have to examine any more complicated feelings about this development, )

It's all I know. There must—

the division heads will have to say something. He must have said more to them.

(Abby will be angry for two, then.)

Yeah? You think? I hope he did, considering half the fucking Gallows just got blown up.

( gwenaëlle doesn't respond immediately; her instinct to withdraw, wanting to push back and not wanting to fight with abby, especially when—

what. what's she got except, I trust him. true, but not necessarily a compelling counterargument.

finally, )

I wish he hadn't.

( that's true, too. )

(And Abby exhales rough, because Gwen is just the messenger. She didn't make him go. She knuckles at her face, pushing into the spot where her jaw hurts from clenching it, pushing her skin in circles underneath a firm pressure. Looks intense, but helps.)

Yeah.

What are we gonna do? (By 'we' she means Forces. Obviously Riftwatch will move forward, like it always does.)

There'll be a new Commander. He's not— he's the,

( harlungin, that big man that no one liked, coupe— )

fourth. My aunt was before him, before the lyrium started getting to her.

( they've been here before. they can continue. )

Edited (I can count.) 2024-04-12 02:21 (UTC)

I guess.

(Abby doesn't know the aunt. She doesn't know the other two that came before her, either. She has been here for almost three years and all she's known is Flint.)

... Would you?

—be Commander?

( in the tone of someone who is certain she must have misunderstood the question. )

Uh— (Well, now she wants to redact it!!

Instead,) Who do you think will take it?

( she has to think about it. obvious contenders are thin on the ground these days— )

It can't be a Templar again. If Rowntree wants it, maybe? He might like where he is.

(It could sit empty for a while... They'll be self-governing. Ha.) Maybe.

(Then she redirects sharply, pivoting back to what Gwen said to her right at the start of this conversation, the bit she totally ignored.) I do wanna do that with you. Talking about poetry and literature, I mean.

(Maybe also the sword fighting? She'll come back to it.)

( she reorients on an only slight delay; too used to swerving herself to startle much when someone else does. )

I'd like it. We don't have to spar, during.

( but it is cooler. )

I like sparring. (She likes all of these things.) Let's do it.

(She can ruminate on this Flint shit later.)

[ where is abby staying now? with her friends, probably; where there's a roof, maybe. but for whatever reason, tonight, she's not. they're both stuck in a shitty little tent, on bedrolls too thin not to feel every last stone,

so he's awake. and he's sure she is. and it's 3 am or so when a very important question arises - ]

If you were a dracolisk, what kinda breath would you want?

(Abby doesn't think she'd be able to sleep even if she were lying on a bed of feathers; everything is uneasy following the attack on the Gallows. Like what, realistically, exists to stop the Venatori from launching another ambush while they're picking up the remains of the towers? She keeps catching herself watching the skies. She's not the only one doing it.

Hearing a stupid question now is sweet relief from gnashing her teeth together in the darkness.)

Spaghetti. (It would be funny and getting pelted with boiling hot, wet spaghetti sounds fucking awful.) You?

Maker. That’s good, [ corrects: ] Awful? Awful good? D’you think it’d still be edible?

[ He’s seen dogs eat their puke, but dracolisks - maybe that’s a question for the new animal man ]

I was gonna say smaller dracolisks.

My breath is spaghetti. My blood is spaghetti sauce.

(That is the answer to the question.)

God, you're the worst. What do the smaller dracolisks breathe, even smaller dracolisks? How far down does it go?

Smaller, and smaller. Then smaller, and smaller still. Until it gets so small you can hardly see it, gotta get spectacles to tell -

[ drumroll: ]

Then spaghetti.

I said spaghetti. (She's kinda laughing.) Pick another food.

Think they’ve got other names, when they're other sizes. Not copying if it's spaghettiny.

How spaghettiny are we talking? Length of my fingernail?

If I say yes, and turns out you've been hiding some witch claw -

You wish you could see my witch claw.

[ he lifts his anchor hand, turning it over in the gloom,

splays it into a claw ]

Boo.

[ that's definitely not the sound witches make ]

That's not what they do, they —

(She does a loud witch cackle, high-pitched.)

Shit - [ starts laughing, starts wheezing for the laugh, ] - You hexed me.

(Abby's laughing too, soft and chuckly.)

You're so dumb. (Affectionate.)

How did you go about naming your dog?

[ —is probably a little shower-thoughts in energy, given the call comes in sometime during the evening, a few days after the Agonies. Impulse, either way. ]

Oh, I—

(Hold on,) You're not asking about him 'cuz he got into your stuff, are you?

Not to my knowledge. He'd have to be handy with a lockpick.

But I've, er. I've not had a pet before, and now I find myself responsible for something that I am fairly sure has enough personality to warrant a name.

(She exhales in relief.) Good.

I... named him after my favourite composer. (Is that normal? Too late, she said it. She skips ahead.) What are you responsible for?

Edited 2024-04-21 11:48 (UTC)

Really?

[ Yes, he sounds surprised—but pleased. ]

I thought it was just for the wags part and my wordplay skills are eluding me. It's a wisp, that I have. I found it in all the mess, after the attack.

Yeah. Richard Wagner. (She remembers Gwenaëlle saying something about 'Wags' not sounding very butch and the recollection makes her grin a bit.)

What's a wisp?

They're a kind of spirit, from this world. They'll loiter a bit around rifts and be pests, and one of the mages here tends to summon them to do little tasks and such.

This one's in a jar.

... And it has a personality?

You don't believe me?

It's been pretty stressful around here lately. Are you good?

I was never one for imaginary friends and I'm not planning on starting now. Also, it lights up brighter when it sees something new and interesting.

I have to see it before I can believe it. I'm sure you understand.

Hmmm.

[ Like he's thinking about it. ]

I suppose that follows, if it's to be named well. I don't suppose you're dreadfully attached to hanging out around the ruins? I have a place over a tavern, in Lowtown, if you'd like to visit.

Definitely not attached. (They're fucking gloomy. And standing around looking at them is even worse so yeah, Lowtown sounds pretty good.)

Which tavern?

The Anvil. It's a little walk up the hill from the docks, and there's some private steps to get up to where I am without having to go through the place, though we could get a pint if you like.

[ It's a good time for vices. ]

(Proposal:) We name the wisp first and if we come up with something really funny and smart, we celebrate at The Anvil.

If it's fucking awful, we drown our sorrows at The Anvil.

Agreed, a verbal handshake and a smile somehow transmitted across the crystals—followed by some finicky directions, landmarks, and so on.

The Anvil itself is settled on a corner, making it easy to find, and has a sort of top-heavy, slightly sunken feel to it, set a few steps down from the street if one were to go through the front doors. As promised, though, there's a painted gate off to the side with a rattly lock currently left open, and wooden steps curling up to the second storey. The heavy wooden door that leads inside is currently wedged open, and here, a hallway,

it's all clearly rather small and cheap, but not destitute. Of the three doors available, with the middle one clearly leading down to the tavern, Abby was told to knock on the third.

Beyond the door behind her, a dog immediately activates, yapping.

But the one she's at swings open, Loxley smiling and beckoning her inside. Again, small and cheap, but there's a nice rug on the ground, clean if faded in patches. There's a wood-burning stove in the corner, currently low-burning and warm. A slightly low-slung bed in the opposite corner, roughly made. Empty wine bottles, dried flowers decorate the windowsill. Cushions, curtains, a heavy trunk, a little clutter. A couple of chairs, a table, a jar with a wisp in it.

A wisp that drifts up, glows a little brighter than before. Loxley is saying, "Easy enough to find?" as he latches the door to hold it closed, and doesn't fuss with wat are altogether too many locks on a surprisingly sturdy frame.

"Yup," Abby says. She's not looking at him she's looking at his room, this little place and all the lived-in clutter that makes it unique to him. Everybody in Riftwatch has more or less the same furniture, the standard issue bed frame with slouchy straw mattress, the one pillow so you have to try a little harder to make it look like yours. Loxley has done a good job. She likes the dried flowers on the windowsill. The light from the stove skips through the wine bottles and throws tiny yellow slivers all over the rug.

The wisp is bobbing around in the jar as she comes in properly, getting out of the way to allow Loxley better access to the lock-festooned door. Having that many seems like a safety hazard in the other direction; what if you need to get out quickly?

She bends to examine the jar.

"Is this it?"

... Are you supposed to call a wisp an it??

"That's it."

As Abby leans in, the wisp floats up higher, its spirals compressing as it seems to focus in under her attention. By now, it shines brightly enough that it could be its own light source in a room, enough to read by if one fancied, a pleasant blue-tinged illumination that isn't any harder to look directly at as a lantern.

The jar itself is clearly built to purpose for keeping it in. Large enough for the wisp to move about, and formed of clear thick glass. The lid itself is latched on with metal, a frame that encompasses the jar entirely, and small runes pressed into the bronze might serve more function than just decoration.

"You can pick it up, if you like," Loxley adds as he comes to stand near her elbow, hands on his hips. "Just don't shake it around too hard, it gets—"

Side glance, abruptly unsure if she is convinced of its emotional sentience enough to buy 'angry'.

"—fussy."

Oh, okay, well if Loxley called it an it —

She watches it circle and bob underneath her scrutiny and picks the jar up the moment he says that she can to hold it aloft, over her head, and look at the wisp from below. It doesn't offer a view that is any different from the top or side, but the light output is pretty impressive. It would be enough to read by. Reminds Abby of how she'd take a torch to bed at night and read under her blankets until she fell asleep.

"I'm not gonna shake it." She's not a monster, okay. Even if it is only alive in the same way that plants or lichen are alive, it's... still alive.

Carefully, she hands the glass jar to him.

"You can't open it?" The lid, that is. The latch implies this. And the runes. Her assessment? "Kinda sucks that you can't let it out, it'd be cute if it followed you around."

Something about the night is twisted when Clarisse is away from the Gallows.

Ellie can never sleep, so she doesn't try. Instead she haunts the Gallows grounds, tracking the obvious shadow of the guard up on the walls, the one she recognizes instantly without considering what time it is or who's on shift.

Not that she didn't know exactly who was on shift tonight. Maybe that's not... better.

Ellie shows up like a ghost on the crenellations near the stairs, her hands bundled in her pockets and looking way too much like an intruder for comfort, especially in the dimly lit stairwell.

"S'up?" she says, which may be the least threatening greeting, and hopefully enough to tip Abby off that she isn't about to get murdered.

Abby swears and fumbles her mace, knocking the handle into the wall with a dull thunk. Straightening up she hisses, "I almost hit you."

It's the end of a long shift. She's been up here for hours; Forces has been spread thin across the Gallows and partly into Kirkwall, thanks to their recent disaster. Abby doesn't mind pulling her weight but guard duty is deeply fucking boring and officially her least favourite task. Grants so much time to stand around and think.

She squints at Ellie's shadow, only just visible where it hovers by the top of the stairs. "What are you doing up here?"

Ellie isn't taking her place for the rest of the night, is she? Abby's pretty much done her time.

Ellie doesn't even flinch. The moonlight hits her eyes, making them reflect a little before she snorts.

"I mean, you coulda tried," she answers with a shrug, and glances back down the stairs. She thinks about lying.

Decides against it. Abby gets her honesty.

"Clarisse is still away, can't sleep. Though I'd come see what you were up to."

"I know I can hit you," Abby says, shrugging. Is this what they do now? Come and see what the other is up to? She doesn't... hate it, actually. Especially when Clarisse is out of the Gallows and she's barely spoken with anyone else today.

"You're in luck." She's coming over to her, strapping her mace back into its holster. Noting that odd, shadowy look about her, the stars reflected in her eyes. It's starting to get warmer out at night, not enough to be comfortable in anything without sleeves, but enough that she doesn't have to layer up, maybe wear a hat. It's good. "Just finished my shift. I need food."

"You could still try," Ellie answers, raising both of her eyebrows at Abby, a little serious, but also not. She likes that they mess with each other like this, even if it's probably unfunny as hell to anyone else.

"... yeah, I should probably eat something too," she concedes, frowning to herself as she tries to think of the last time she ate. Huh.

She trails Abby, at her side and just a step back. Almost with her and yet not quite. Habit almost, watching her braid sway against her back.

"Dunno how you stay awake for these."

"I kinda write books in my head," she confesses, folding her arms across her chest as they take the stairs back down. Is that weird...? Whatever. It helps the time pass. "But I heard that some people are getting double shifts. If that happens to me, I'll scream."

That's a threat.

It's hard not to feel a little bitter about this arrangement. It's all over the place and Abby feels like Forces is flagging as they wait for somebody to step up and into Flint's place. Diplomacy is fairing the exact same. Riftwatch doesn't feel as strong as it did when Abby joined. It's been making her weirdly antsy, kinda pissed off.

"That's a good way to get yourself reassigned."

By Ellie's tone that doesn't sound like something she disapproves of.

When Abby confesses what she does for one, Ellie's head snaps to the side, her eyes narrowing into a frown, both confused and desperately fucking curious.

"Okay, but what are the books about?"

"Maybe I wanna get reassigned." You don't know her.

She gives Ellie a funny look to cover up the fact that she's thinking about how much to confess to, exactly. "I dunno. Just — historical stuff, I guess. From back home I mean. Like Jane Eyre."

A plain girl, battling life's struggles? Um, relatable.

"Where to? Scouting?"

Ellie lifts her eyebrows, then frowns again, giving Abby a long look.

"Jane Eyre?"

She doesn't just sound dubious. She might not even know what that is.

"No," she deadpans, eyeballing Ellie right back. "To Diplomacy, cuz I'm a people person."

Har har. She's not gonna say that if she did have to pick another division to be in she would probably pick Scouting... Not when Ellie has just handed a chance to discuss Jane Eyre to her on a plate.

"It's about this girl who grows up with her aunt after she's orphaned. Her aunt's awful and she lives in this shitty charity home with a bunch of other kids but when she's old enough to leave she finds work as a governess, which is a good thing. But then she falls in love with her boss, and discovers a dark secret about him. And she basically has to decide if she's gonna stick around or not."

"What, you don't want to be in charge of matters of state?" She asks, flashing a grin then tilting her head to listen.

She sounds very interested up until the girl has the shitty sense to fall in love with her boss. Ugh.

"Well, what was the dark secret?"

"She finds out he's keeping his previous wife locked in the attic after she went crazy."

You know.

"Hey real quick, what the fuck?"

Ellie reaches out to lightly punch Abby in the arm, leaning forward so Abby can see the flabbergasted expression on her face.

"The fuck kind of books are you reading?"

Abby laughs and takes the punch, tickled by the constipated look on Ellie's face. "Don't look at me! It was a thing back then!"

All those classics are always talking about women spiraling into bouts of hysteria. Must have been something they found a cure for, because it doesn't seem to exist outside of that time period. That's good.

Edited 2024-05-29 03:26 (UTC)

"See, this is why I always stuck to comic books," Ellie spouts off, knowing that it'll rub Abby's fur the wrong way, only barely bothering to hide her smile.

"Space battles. People punching each other. Things blowing up. None of this falling in love with your absolutely psycho of a boss who keeps his wife in an attic somewhere."

"You know you can get those things in books too," she says witheringly, turning her head sharply so her braid flounces off her shoulder. "You'd like the Narnia series. It's about evil witches and kids doing magic and battles at sea, shit like that—

"Though," amending, softening as they reach the bottom of the staircase and Abby angles her feet toward the dining hall, "Guess it doesn't matter. Can't get them here anyway."

She sighs heavily, like this is the worst thing in the world.

Edited (nukes the extra hard return from space) 2024-05-31 04:25 (UTC)

"Actually, that does sound pretty fucking cool."

Ellie starts to resist the urge to reach out and yank the braid, and decides, fuck it. She's going to live dangerously.

She reaches out and bats at it hard enough that it smacks back between her shoulder blades when gravity reasserts itself. She'll be able to hear the grin in Ellie's voice.

"Maybe you should write that book after all."

Abby's so caught off guard by this sudden audacity that she doesn't react right away, not knowing quite what to do. Then she stops dead mid-stride and turns to fix Ellie with a single, unimpressed look.

Cut that shit out.

Once she's satisfied with having made her non-verbal point, she keeps walking. Her stomach is also grumbling, she really does want that food. Ellie, keep up.

"I'm not gonna write a book. Are you gonna draw your own comic?"

This is the moment where Abby figures out something she already knew: Ellie has no goddamn sense of self-preservation. She gives Abby a shit-eating grin right back, and continues to catch up to Abby.

She restrains herself, momentarily, in order to keep up.

"Fuck you, I might."

"Fuck you," Abby shoots back, amused. She's resisting the urge to look at her over her shoulder, not wanting to encourage her; her own heart is thumping a little bit, adrenaline up. Ellie never fails to make her feel off-kilter whenever they talk and Abby still doesn't know how to react to it, even after all this time. Ellie really is the only person who can make her feel this kind of awkward.

"If you only came looking for me to be annoying, go away."

They still do this fucking thing where they make each other a little uncomfortable on purpose, almost to prove that they still can. And Abby trying so hard not to react to her only makes Ellie want to bare her teeth in a grin.

She won't outright bully her, but can she put her a little bit on edge? Sure.

"Please. Like you aren't just as bored out of your skull as I am."

"I'm not that dependent on Clarisse for entertainment," Abby shoots back, which is a bold-faced lie. She would tell Ellie that she thinks the two of them act just like Leah and Jordan used to, if that would have any impact on Ellie at all. She wasn't there, she didn't have to deal with all the eye fucking. She'll never know.

"Are you gonna keep following me after dinner? Are you gonna come for a sleepover?"

Ellie laughs rudely, way more loudly than is neccessary, but the smile's real. She catches up to Abby's side.

"Shit," she says, shoving both of her hands in her pockets and dipping her head forward to hide a grin. She scuffs her boots against the stone as she walks.

"That sounded almost like an invitation."

Abby splutters, can't help it. Her mouth is open to tell her to fuck off and of course it's not an invitation. They've been sharing a tent! She's had more than her fair share of Ellie Williams all up in her space, but... fuck if it doesn't feel like some weird dare. Ellie doesn't ever push her like this either, she's usually the first to back off. Are they still teasing?

This is confusing, but she'd like to understand.

Abby can't quite look at her when she asks, "What are you doing?"

Her voice is steady and quiet.

The smile falls away.

It's not the first time Abby's asked her this, and she didn't have the answer back then either. She falls to silence, still walking with her, hands in her pockets, her hair brushing the back of her neck.

Something crazy occurs to her, but then she can't. Shake it.

"... Abby? Are we friends?"

Abby snorts, even though nothing about this is funny.

"I dunno."

Her relationship with Ellie is unlike any friendship she's ever had before and, honestly, she wouldn't call it being friends. At the same time, it isn't nothing. They hang out. Have conversations, even about things that are hard. Ellie used to be so frustratingly opaque but now Abby knows things about her, what she reads, where she goes during the day, songs that are stuck in her head. Abby has laughed at her dumb jokes. She can't slap a label on it any more than she could explain why she'd be so upset if she ever lost this.

She hates the way she sounds when she asks, "Do you want to be friends?" Halting, awkward. Vulnerable.

Ellie's skin prickles, but despite the strange vulnerability of it, it does feel like she and Abby are standing there together. In this weird, impossible situation together. She is from home. Despite all the pain they've inflicting on each other, in another life, in another world, they probably would have been friends.

Here they are. In another life, in another world.

"... yeah, I think so."

Abby nods, holding her own reply in her mouth for a moment. She feels uncomfortable but not in a bad way, just off-balance and working to keep herself from tripping. It's not bad to do work like this. She thinks she's getting good at it, existing in discomfort and letting things between them both be strange. Letting strange things slowly become good.

"Same."

Now she looks, guessing at Ellie's reaction. "We could try it."

See what happens.

"Abby. Hey, Abs."

The nudge to her shoulder is too worried to be gentle. It's more of a yank, and then another follows for good measure. As soon as she stirs, Clarisse draws her hand back, but she stays where she is, crouched next to Abby in her pajamas, her hair a mess.

It's morning. Barely. Pale light is bleeding in through the gap in the tent flap, and though they’re in Clarisse's new temperature-controlled tent, the quality of the light suggests fog and a slight chill in the air, at least until the sun gets a little stronger a couple hours from now.

It's not strange for Clarisse to be up this early. (Unfortunately.) It's not even weird for her to be waking everyone else up, on purpose or by accident.

What's strange is everything else, the sense of something being slightly off. Wrong.

It's like a switch is flipped on Abby: she was asleep and then isn't, from the moment Clarisse yanks her shoulder a second time. Her eyes open and squint through the dim light. "What," she whispers. She's not really looking at Clarisse, more holding utterly still and listening. It takes a moment to place herself. She stares at the canvas of the tent over her head, feels the lumpy bedroll underneath of her, hears Clarisse shifting her weight restlessly beside her. Later, she'll realise what she was listening intently for was the sound of the Venatori attacking—

But they aren't. She pushes up onto an elbow.

"What's going on?" Her voice is thick, tired.

It's only the two of them in the tent.

"Ellie's not here."

Clarisse sits back on her heels and watches Abby as she blinks the sleep from her eyes and props herself up on one elbow. As soon as it seems like Abby is coherent, she continues, "Did she wake you up? Did you see her leave?"

The tone of her voice is accusatory and impatient, but not Clarisse's usual waspishness sparked from embarrassment or hunger or boredom. She sounds like someone who's snapping at their kid because they ran into the road and almost got run over and now they don't know what to do with all the adrenaline shot through them.

The tent isn't that big, that's all. Not with three people sharing it. There's room for their bedrolls and some of their stuff and not really any free space, and she's been sleeping in the middle so it's not as awkward for any of them, and it's weird that she wouldn't have woken up when Ellie basically climbed over her to leave the tent. One of them would have woken up, surely. If not her, Abby.

So.

"What?" This is a lot for having just woken up. Abby sits up, legs crossed, blanket pooled at her waist. She kneads her knuckles into the side of her neck and looks over Clarisse's hunched body at Ellie's bedroll: empty, sheets pushed back. "... Clarisse, she probably went to the bathroom."

Clarisse's frantic energy isn't completely misplaced. It has been really strange being in the tents, not unlivable, but not entirely comfortable either. The three of them are sharing with little tension, the weirdness having more or less dissipated over time. It is what it is. Abby still wants their rooms back but right now, she can live like this.

She looks at Clarisse. There is something undeniably off about her. It's giving Abby a sort of tummy ache, a strange nausea. "You okay?"

She's overreacting and Abby's right. It's a relief to hear someone say it out loud, even if it makes Clarisse feel a little stupid. Yeah, Ellie is probably, like, peeing. Or trying to take a bath. Or she couldn't sleep and decided to take a walk.

She exhales, "Yeah," all in a rush, and pulls her legs out from under herself so she can sit properly.

It had just been so weird to wake up like that. Her body had known something was wrong first, and she'd woken up with one arm stretched out and reaching for someone who wasn't where she should be. The blanket had been pulled up most of the way. Clarisse had crawled to the tent flap and looked out and there had been Ellie's boots next to the entrance. Further down, Artichoke, asleep with his head tucked under one wing. Nothing outside had moved, aside from the slow, smoky coils fog just above the ground.

It had felt really strange. It had felt really wrong. But she's a little better now, a little less anxious.

"Maybe I had a weird dream," she says, like that excuses the way she woke Abby up. "I can't remember it."

Abby watches her uncoil, the tension sloughing off when she sits. Aside from the two of them talking inside the tent, the morning is still. Quiet. Most people are probably still asleep and Abby could lie down, try grab another hour, but she knows there's no point now. She's up, it's fine.

Skimming her hands through her hair, she follows the motion back and plucks the tie from the end of it, shaking her braid out with her fingers so she can redo it. It was all fuzzy from getting slept on.

"Maybe." She yawns saying it, the word becomes the yawn, maaaaybe. In hindsight it is a little odd that Ellie didn't wake her up when she was leaving, because she would have had to step over Abby's legs to get to the tent flap. She would have had to open it and let in a bit of cold air on the way out and that usually does wake her up a little in the morning, enough that when she falls back asleep again she has one of those weird, forty-five minute dreams that are ridiculous, vivid and never make any sense.

She's at the end of her braid already, her hands were moving on autopilot. She takes the tie off her knee where she put it. "What are you guys doing today?"

There's no way she could fall back to sleep now, so Clarisse runs a hand through her own hair a few times in a vague approximation of brushing it—good enough—and then reaches over to grab some clothes out of her pack. They've all gotten pretty good at living out of a tent, keeping what's left of their stuff organized and easy to find.

"Not sure yet, we haven't talked about it," she admits. "Maybe we'll get a drink after work or something."

Since, you know, the tavern is sitting there completely undamaged and they might as well use it. The thought of a cold drink after a day of hauling rubble around does sound appealing. She pulls a clean shirt over her head and asks, very slightly muffled, "You want to come?"

By the time she's finished getting dressed, Ellie still hasn't come back. Clarisse decides to give her a few more minutes, but she's visibly antsy, cracking her knuckles and then messing with a half-healed scrape on her wrist.

Seems kinda pointless to ask something like 'what are you doing today' when all of them have been doing the same thing every day for a while now: clearing rubble, sweeping up, getting everything back in order. Once they sort out the structural integrity of the remaining tower they'll be back in there and doing much of the same. Abby doesn't mind it, she likes good, repetitive work. She likes being tired and sore at the end of the day because it sends her to sleep quickly.

Having a drink after work doesn't hurt, either. She grins, even though she's still got that weird, nauseous cramp in her stomach. She's probably just hungry. "Okay."

There's a loud noise — Abby flinches and Wags comes barreling through the tent flap with something in his mouth, tail going at a hundred miles an hour. She swears and grabs at whatever he has, tugging. "Hey, give that—" It's one of Ellie's boots, an old favourite. She's expecting Ellie to come charging into the tent after him, but she doesn't.

For a split second she's sure the sound outside must be Ellie coming back, but then Wags comes busting into the tent with her boot in his mouth instead. And it should be funny watching Abby lunge for it, but it's not. Clarisse can already tell there's nobody following him in, that the area just outside the tent is quiet and still.

It wouldn't have been out of character for Ellie to take Wags out for a walk. Without shoes, though? One of them's in Abby's hand right now and the other one is still sitting outside the tent. Clarisse feels the first fluttery sensation of nerves again, rising in her stomach.

It's strange that Ellie would—

She shuts the thought down before it can finish.

"I'm going to go find her," Clarisse says. She hates sitting around waiting for people; she should've gone and looked around before she even woke Abby. She'll check the baths first. "I'll see you at breakfast."

It is strange. This time Abby feels it in that same way Clarisse seems to, a sudden twitchy need to get up and move, do something. Go look. She stops tugging the boot and Wags actually lets it go because she isn't playing with him anymore. She's looking at Clarisse; Clarisse is looking intently at the entrance to the tent like she can see through it.

The dog whines and it cuts the silence.

"Okay," Abby says. She glances down between her and the dog where Ellie's boot is on its side, a lace all chewed-up and spitty. "I'll..."

Abby doesn't know what she's gonna do. She waits as Clarisse leaves and then she thinks to send the dog too, actually. "Go help," she tells him, holding the tent open so he can go bounding out, racing to catch up. And then she's alone, the last to actually get up. She hangs around for longer than she means to, folding up their bedrolls and waiting to be interrupted but nothing happens; she's late to breakfast but not the only one to take food away at this time, go sit down with a bowl of porridge.

Clarisse isn't there yet, though.

Clarisse shows up too late to grab breakfast and makes her way to Abby's spot. Wags is with her. He's spent some of the walk darting ahead, some of it trailing behind as he stopped to sniff at something interesting, but more or less having stayed by her side as she went from place to place.

She sinks onto the bench across from Abby. "I can't find her." Obviously. "I looked everywhere," she adds. Everywhere in the Gallows, including circling around the giant heap of rubble that used to be the Mage tower just in case Ellie was... poking around trying to find more of her stuff, or something. Whatever. Anything.

She's petting Wags in a detached way, squeezing the loose skin between his shoulders and then releasing it over and over again but not looking down at him while she does it. All the muscles in her shoulders and her neck feel like they've stiffened up and there's a low, anxious nausea rolling in her stomach. It started when she got to the baths and found them empty, and has gotten worse with each place she's checked since then.

"I'm going to take Blunder." To the city. Riftwatch is helping out there, too, offering assistance with the rebuilding going on, and of course the stables are across the bay. It's not... it's not impossible that Ellie could be there. "Can you, like—keep checking around? Just in case she goes back to the tent or shows up somewhere?"

The please? is unspoken but definitely there. Right now it feels like she's balancing on a knife edge between handling this like a normal person and doing the opposite of that, and however Abby responds is gonna push her one way or the other.

Abby doesn't eat. She sits with her bowl of porridge and brings her crystal out of her pocket, fiddling slowly with it as the food goes cold. She was gonna get Ellie on and tell her to pull her head out, something like that, but she's just realised if Ellie doesn't reply it's going to freak her out, it's going to make this so, so real. She puts her crystal on the table instead, in case Clarisse reaches out.

She sits and stares off into space for she doesn't know how long and then Clarisse is there, sitting across from her, Wags at her side, sticking close. He's leaning into her while she rubs him down because he knows she needs comfort. He does that for Abby when she's upset.

Without a word, Abby pushes the bowl of untouched food across the table toward Clarisse as if she got it for her.

"Yeah." She says it instantly, the moment Clarisse's mouth shuts. "I'll go back to the tent and then I'll do a couple rounds. Yseult'll know."

She feels so strange. She feels off-balance, the same way she does whenever she's staring down over the side of a sharp drop and feeling like she's about to fall. Her voice is so, so calm. "Take Blunder," she encourages, scooping her crystal, slipping it into her pocket, getting up. "Call me in an hour."

Abby, as usual, somehow manages to say the exact right thing. She sounds so calm—not unbothered, just steady, and it settles Clarisse the slightest bit. The house of cards trembles and then rights itself, an internal storm quieting.

"Thanks," she says quietly as Abby stands up. She feels like this is less out of their control now that she knows somebody will be checking in back at the tent, the most likely place for Ellie to stop whenever she comes back. She lets go of Wags and watches him trot along with Abby as she walks out of the dining hall.

She isn't hungry, but she knows she needs it, so Clarisse forces herself to eat half the bowl Abby passed to her. Three big, tasteless spoonfuls, and then she can't manage any more. She needs to be moving, to be doing something. So she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and moves.

It takes her longer than an hour to call Abby. She stops at the stables and walks down the length of the building, looking into each stall as she passes it. She checks Viscount's Keep and the temporary scaffolding at the staircase. She checks any place she recognizes as a spot where she and Ellie have stopped, any place that looks like somewhere Ellie might like. She calls Ellie on her crystal. She doesn't cry, she doesn't panic. Her anxiety feels like some distant thing, like she's watching somebody else.

Finally she does it. "Anything?" She knows the answer already.

Abby does go back to the tent first. It's still empty, she knew that it would be, but she still finds what she's actually here for — Ellie's pack, leaning up against the side of the tent, right where it shouldn't be. She's been thinking about it ever since she got that boot out of Wags' mouth and kneels beside the bag now, dragging it across the ground toward herself. She opens it.

All of her things are inside. Weapons (knifes, not all of them sheathed), first aid supplies, a couple trinkets, her sketchbook, wrapped food. There's stuff all smashed into the lining at the bottom, pencil shavings and crumbs, lint, loose hairs, woody splinters that might have come off of arrows.

Wags is sitting beside her being usually silent; she lifts the bag up to him to let him get a good sniff inside. "Go find her," she says, rubbing his back urgently. "Find Ellie. Go find her."

He tilts his head. Wags isn't a tracking dog, he doesn't know what she's asking him to do. She stares at the bag, the one she knows Ellie would never leave behind for any reason and then she slings it carelessly toward the bedrolls, grabs her stuff and leaves. She's done a full circuit and asked a few people passing by if they've seen Ellie anywhere (they haven't), when Clarisse's voice finally crackles through the crystals.

"Nothing." It's like she just... vanished into thin air. Abby's still moving though, still walking. She says, "Clarisse," and then her throat closes up and she can't say anything else, can't complete the sentence.

A silence follows, hanging in the air between them. Clarisse knows that if she lets it go on for too long, Abby will say something terrible. She tips her head back, pressing the crown of her head against the soft feathers of Blunder's chest. They've made their way to the docks, back to the point where she might climb into the saddle and make the short trip across the water to the Gallows.

Back to the place where Ellie isn't.

She's already mapping out the area surrounding the city in her head. The mountains are right there. Ellie likes to explore, camp out. Maybe she got sick of sharing the tent and needed time to be alone. Once she borrowed that special climbing gear from Tony. Did she still have it? Clarisse can't remember seeing it, but it doesn't mean—Ellie could have—

"I'm going to keep looking," she says, before Abby can continue. "Call me if anything changes."

She's already swinging herself back up and into the saddle.

Abby wrestles with herself hard for a moment, knowing what she should probably say here and not wanting to, dreading it. If she says it now, neither of them can go back.

"... Okay." Great. She's a coward. "I'll keep looking too."

And she will, even though she knows it's pointless. She's not gonna ask anybody else if they've seen Ellie though, there's no need to start a manhunt over it; from a distance her brisk pace will look like she's exercising or running an errand rather than searching for somebody. She grabs her crystal again. "Come back before it gets dark." It's not a request, it's an order. She's not gonna deal with something preventable and stupid happening to Clarisse on top of Ellie being gone.

Oh, god. She's gone.

The weight of it slams into Abby like a baseball bat. She gasps like there's no air in her lungs, pausing to heave down a couple breaths. She has to wait for that heavy, sick feeling to subside, to be certain she's not about to throw up — then she keeps walking, to go check the tent.

Edited 2024-06-08 12:53 (UTC)

Clarisse does come back, just before sunset. It's not because she wants to, or even because Abby has ordered her to, only because she hadn't planned on being gone all day when she left this morning and she has no supplies. Blunder needs to rest. She needs to gather up the things she'll need.

The sky has gone cloudy with impending rain, cool gusts of wind whipping up and blowing her hair back as she unsaddles Blunder and then makes her way back to the tent. She can't make eye contact with Abby as she walks in. It feels like everything's moving too slowly for the frenetic energy coursing through her body, and her hands are shaking as she crouches to start throwing supplies into a spare bag.

She'll need a change of clothes, probably, if it rains. Her bedroll. An extra blanket. Rope. A knife, of course. She'll have to stop and grab food for Blunder, water. Should swing by the infirmary and grab something she can use as bandages or a sling, too.

"I'm going back out," she says without looking up.

Going back to the tent feels awful, it's so empty. Abby doesn't think she'll stay. She will keep walking around and looking like she said because she doesn't know what else to say and moving helps (if she sits down she won't be able to get back up again). She's back here for that same bag again, grabbing it from where she threw it in a corner, yanking it open. She takes out Ellie's sketchbook.

Paging through it from the start, her eyes slide over the words in messy handwriting, sketches of pine trees covered in snow, deer, giraffes. A drawing of Joel with his eyes scribbled through, captioned: Tommy said her name was ABBY, her name boxed off from the rest of the sentence in angry black lines. Abby skips ahead.

She's seen Ellie's drawings of her once before. Now she finds the same page and tears it out inelegantly, turns back to the book, searching for more. When she sees a hint of herself, the shape of her face or eyes, her braid interlocking edges of a page (there is a lot of braid), she takes it out, easing it from the binding of the book with her thumb. She places each one by her leg, makes a little pile. She'll read them later. Or maybe she won't, she just — wants them, they belong to her. They are of her.

She shoves them inside her own bag, puts everything back the way she found it and leaves, only comes back once the sun is starting to drop because she told Clarisse to come back, and she has to be there when she does. Having her back fills Abby with both relief and dread because she's realised that Clarisse isn't going to say the quiet part out loud. She's going to make Abby do it, and she's probably going to fight her every step of the way.

"You can't." Clarisse is too busy shoving things into her pack to look at her but Abby reaches over and takes the length of rope back out, holding tightly onto it. Maybe she can use it to tie Clarisse to her bedroll if she has to? "It's getting dark — and it's gonna rain. It's not safe to go flying."

Edited 2024-06-09 01:42 (UTC)

She can feel Abby's eyes on her, but doesn't turn around until Abby reaches down and takes the rope out of her bag. She just doesn't want to see the look Abby's giving her, or hear the logic in what she's saying.

"I don't care." She feels desperate. She feels like she's running out of time, and every second she spends standing here is a step closer to the end. "What if she's hurt?"

In the dark. In the rain. It makes Clarisse want to throw up.

"I don't have to fly. I'll leave Blunder in the stables and take a horse." That would be better, actually. She wouldn't be able to see shit from the air after sunset anyway.

"She's not hurt." Abby changes her mind and puts the rope down, reaches out for Clarisse's forearm. She holds that instead. She isn't gentle about it, in the gesture or her tone. She clutches Clarisse, can tell that she sounds stressed out, her voice all tight like she's forcing it out from between her clenched teeth. "You have to stay here."

A horse would be worse. When she thinks about Clarisse riding all by herself out there in the dark while it's raining, calling Ellie's name, it makes her want to cry, it just — hurts. That spike is back in her throat, making it hurt to swallow. She doubles her grip.

If Clarisse wants her off so she can get up and move outside she's going to have to throw her off.

Abby's not fucking around. It's clear in her tone that if Clarisse tries to leave again this is going to be a problem. Abby wants her to just give up, and stop looking, and wait around like Ellie would ever do this on her own, like this is something that can just wait until tomorrow.

"God, this is like a dream come true for you, isn't it?" she says quietly. Ellie missing. Maybe hurt, maybe dead, maybe just—

she stops the thought.

Clarisse has never raised a hand to Abby before. Not in anger. They've sparred plenty, and it's gotten pretty rough, but it's all been in fun. Now she's staring down at Abby's fingers closed tight on her arm and all she wants to do is wrench out of her grip and haul back and hit her as hard as she can.

She does—wrench her arm back, anyway. Abby's grip is not gentle. She uses all of her strength to do it and then stops that way, arm held back like she's about to go at her, breathing heavy through her teeth. For a second the look on her face looks so much like the god they met in the desert, like she's given up everything human in her, and then it drops and she looks like herself again, exhausted and hungry and so fucking scared.

What the fuck is she doing, standing there like she's about to hit Abby? Standing there just like her father always stood over her, with a raised fist. She swallows around what feels like a jagged rock in her throat. She thinks she might cry, or throw up. She doesn't know what to do.

She hugs her arms around herself. "I'll wait," she says, hating herself more with every word. "Until Blunder eats. And rests."

Abby ducks her head at that, feeling her teeth with her tongue, all the parts where the enamel's gone smooth and oddly flat in juxtaposition with the sharper gaps between them. What Clarisse said sounds like Joel's raspy voice in her ear, Why don't you say your little speech, because he expected her to be satisfied in his death and she wasn't. She couldn't work out why not. She can't work out how to tell Clarisse it feels like she's having a nightmare.

Taking advantage of her silence, Clarisse yanks out of her grip like Abby knew she would. She's stronger. Really, if she wanted to go, she could. And, glancing up — her pulse quickens at the look on her face because it isn't anything she's seen before. It's beyond. She doesn't know what's going to happen, she's just crouched there staring up at Clarisse with her heartbeat clanging against the inside of her chest, a warning klaxon. She gets a sudden crawling sensation on her skin that doesn't fit right, not when she's looking at her best friend, but then sense floods back into Clarisse's face. She drops her arm.

Abby is still staring.

"Okay." Her voice sounds like it's on the other side of the tent. She can see the indents of her fingers on Clarisse's arm as she's hugging herself, white half-moons where her nails dug in.

"I'll wait with you."

"Okay," Clarisse murmurs.

Now that she's made the decision to stay (to stay until Blunder can head back out), she's not sure what to do. She sinks back to a sitting position and pushes the bag back against the side of the tent, and once that's done and there's nothing to busy herself with, she's lost.

It feels like she can't look at Abby. Somehow it's worse because Abby isn't being mean now, isn't lashing out the way Clarisse would have if this had happened with their positions in reverse. Abby's going to wait with her anyway, like Clarisse didn't just say something horrible and then come within seconds of fighting her.

She stares at her lap instead, and messes with the fabric of her shirt, tugging at it even though there's nothing wrong with it. She still feels sick with anxiety, with all that energy and nowhere to put it, and she knows what she should say, but the longer she doesn't say it the harder it gets to say anything at all.

Finally, still not looking up, she manages. "I'm sorry I said that to you. I know it's not true."

Abby doesn't know what to do either. Well — she'd love to get out of the fucking tent and maybe go for a hard run, push all thought from her mind, but she can't leave or Clarisse will take a horse out into the oncoming storm. She cracks her knuckles slowly and slumps in place. She feels a bit sweaty, not entirely comfortable. The side of her face aches from clenching her jaw and she's trying to relax it, to stop the oncoming headache it'll give her, but it's impossible right now.

She grunts at what Clarisse says, rubbing the back of her neck. It's equally as impossible to reply to her the way she wants to right now. Seems important to choose her words carefully.

"Yeah." Abby herself doesn't really know if it's not true, though. It'd be easier if it was.

She isn't looking at Clarisse either. "She left her bag here."

Clarisse looks at the spot where Ellie's bag should be, and yeah, there it is. It looks pretty much just the way it looked the previous night when they'd gone to bed. She's pretty sure it does. She'd seen it this morning, too, she realizes that now, but it's like her brain had skipped over that in the moment. She had been so focused on convincing herself that nothing was wrong that she thinks her brain must have skipped over a lot.

She nods. Abby's not looking at her, though, so she says, "Yeah."

Yeah, but what if Ellie hadn't planned on being gone long? What if someone hurt her? Took her? People do weird things all the time. People act in ways you don't expect. Maybe Ellie left her bag behind because it's supposed to mean something and Clarisse is too fucking stupid to figure out what. Maybe she left it and it doesn't mean anything at all.

"It doesn't mean anything," she decides out loud. It can't.

"Yeah it does, Clarisse. It's her bag."

It sounds weird the way she's saying it, like Ellie being gone hinges on the bag being here without her but — it kinda does. Abby wouldn't go anywhere without her stuff and Ellie came here from the exact same apocalypse. They're survivors, Ellie even wrote that out in her sketchbook a couple times, the words carefully printed, endure and survive. "Her shoes are here."

It's like she's lining up dominoes just to knock them all down. She doesn't know if it's right to force Clarisse into putting two and two together like this, but she does know that she's exhausted, upset, freaked out, she's absolutely dreading the thought of having to try and stop Clarisse from leaving again in a couple hours time.

She needs them to be on the same page right now.

Clarisse is stubborn, not stupid, and there is a limit to how much even she can metaphorically cover her ears and pretend that Abby isn't making any sense. She knows, and has known all day, that the idea of flying off into the mountains and actually finding Ellie there is laughable. As ridiculous as the idea that Ellie would leave the Gallows without her bag, her shoes, or her griffon. And that she'd do it without saying anything.

It's Clarisse who's not making sense. And she knows that but it feels like she can't stop, either, because stopping would be admitting that there is no chance, and no hope.

This—whatever she says or does next—is going to change everything. Clarisse knows that. It feels exactly like it did after she landed the chariot in Manhattan and she knew, she knew that as soon as she stepped down onto the street that her life would be different. Permanently, irreversibly.

So she says nothing, does nothing. She doesn't blink, she can't even breathe. On the canvas above them, she hears the first fat raindrops hitting the tent. She watches Abby, as if there's something Abby can say that will somehow undo this, somehow make it right.

It's weird that this is the first time Abby is doing this for somebody else. Other people have done this for her, approached her grief slow as if it were a wild animal, hands out. She wonders if Owen felt like this when he was trying to coax her to stand up from the slick hospital floor, clumsy and useless.

It's achy in her throat, this harsh sadness, and she hates that she doesn't have anything other than words right now. Nobody wants to hear shit like 'I'm so sorry' but it's really all there is. This isn't like when Yara was killed and she had to keep Lev moving no matter what, pushing him through the loss; her and Clarisse aren't running for their lives, they're just sitting in a tent with Ellie's stuff left in it. They're alone.

"She's gone."

She swallows and tries to say it again in another way, as if Clarisse won't believe her otherwise. "She went back."

She's gone somehow lands more softly than she went back. That one feels like a bone snapping. Clarisse flinches, her mouth opening.

She wants to argue that Abby doesn't know, actually, where Ellie is. That if the leading theory is true, the Ellie who was here doesn't exist anymore. A person can't go back to a place they never left. She might just be nowhere. Nowhere.

She thinks those things, but she can't seem to make any sound. She doesn't think she can breathe. All the muscles in her chest are seizing up. She might be nodding—she thinks she is nodding—but it feels unreal, like she's no longer connected to her body. Like she's the one who disappeared.

She's gone.

She knew it when she reached out for Ellie in her sleep and there was nothing there. She knew it when she sat up and brushed a hand over Ellie's blanket, pulled up all the way to the pillow, and it had still felt slightly warm. Like she'd just gotten up, like she'd be right back. When she had looked outside and seen Ellie's shoes and the grass covered in dew with no footprints leading away from the tent.

All day. Ellie's been gone all day.

Clarisse lifts a hand to her mouth as if she can stop what's going to happen next. She can't. She says it anyway.

"I know." Her voice is stretched taut, a rubber band about to snap. "She's gone."

It doesn't help to hear her say that. Abby thought it'd bring the relief of having broken through a seal; it has, but now everything behind it is pouring out and she has to try and keep her chin above it. She has to look up and see Clarisse sitting frozen still, clenched muscle evident in the blunt line of her neck and jaw, and the grief setting down on her like a weight trying to snap her in half.

Abby's mouth feels tacky, like she needs to drink water. She's dimly aware that her and Clarisse probably haven't eaten much of anything, all day. She saw Clarisse take those few spoonfuls of breakfast but that was hours ago, hours of searching ago. They've been tearing this fucking place apart for somebody they both knew was already gone.

She wants to say she's sorry but she can't. Not because she isn't, but because it won't come out, and because she feels sort of wild right now, more angry than upset. Maybe even the same way Clarisse was feeling before when she nearly hit her.

She's angry at Ellie. It's a nice, safe way to be.

It's starting to really come down outside. It's the only sound there is and Abby reaches out under the cover of it, putting her hand on Clarisse's arm and squeezing. She doesn't do anything else just yet, just — tethers them, silently.

This is a nightmare.

This is a nightmare and all Clarisse needs to do to wake up is move. Twitch a finger, blink her eyes, take a breath, and the spell will break and she'll wake up and her heart will be pounding and she'll feel sick to her stomach but she'll be warm under her blanket and Ellie's back will be rising and falling slowly under her open hand.

It will. They both promised.

She is frozen, and maybe that's a good thing, because if she wasn't, she's not sure what would happen. Whatever is rising up in her chest is something awful and nameless and when it crests like a wave it might drown her, but at least she'll go quietly.

Clarisse looks at Abby and waits for her to say something that will fix this. Abby always knows what to say. She's rolled over in bed and given Clarisse words of comfort too many times to count, but now, when Clarisse needs her the most, she's quiet. Instead of hitting her to make her shut up, Clarisse wants to hit her to make her talk, to make her say something that will make sense of this. This nightmare.

It's Abby who moves first. She just reaches out and puts a hand on Clarisse's arm and squeezes. Clarisse can't feel it. The simplicity of it makes her think of Granitefell, the way they'd bumped knuckles and smiled even though they already knew they were dying, how they hadn't said anything out loud but she'd still felt it, known it.

She wonders if Abby is saying anything to her now, silently, with that hand on her arm, and she just can't hear it because of the screaming inside her own head.

"Abby?" she manages in a shaking voice, and can't say anything else.

Clarisse's voice breaking on her name dislodges Abby instantly.

"Hey." She scoots her body across the tent and opens her arms instantly. This time, she won't keep herself from reaching out to her best friend in the face of the worst happening (of course she's thinking about Granitefell; somehow, it was easier than this. Why is it easier to walk to your death than to lose somebody important?). She lets go of Clarisse's arm but only so she can wrap her in an embrace, pulling her bodily closer. Holding on. Holding them both together, tight as she can.

"I'm here," she says. Her voice is low, a little trembly. The rain is so loud on the roof of the tent. "I'm still here."

Shitty consolation prize, huh? But it's all Abby has right now. God, she hopes it can be enough.

She wouldn't have ever asked for it, but when Abby reaches out and pulls her into a hug Clarisse falls into it. She presses her face against Abby's shoulder and holds onto her like she's terrified of what will happen if she lets go.

When Silena died, nobody touched her. She just held the body and wept and eventually she got up and went into battle. And nobody touched her, even long after the enemy had retreated. Chris hung back. Waiting, he said later, for her to tire herself out.

This time there is no body to cry over. And it doesn't make sense. She can understand death, and tragedy, and loss. But in this way, where the other person just disappears, and there is no closure and no reason? She can't wrap her head around this. It feels like she's drowning in the contradictions of it, and the only thing she can do is cry into Abby's shirt and hold on tighter.

Abby keeps feeling like Ellie's going to walk back in at any moment. She can sort of imagine Ellie coming in and seeing Clarisse in her arms — something out of a sitcom, funny and stupid, a misunderstanding. But she isn't coming back, the thought shattered, rebuilt, shattered again when Clarisse slumps her weight into her and cries into her shirt hard, holds her even harder.

This is so horribly familiar. Losing someone; the little moments where you look instinctively for them and realise all over again that they are never going to be there again; when you forget temporarily while you're distracted with something else, then remember and feel guilty. She's done this before, so many times.

Abby can't tell if she cries because she's upset, or if she's crying because Clarisse is crying and listening to her hurts. Either way she doesn't move. She holds onto her just as tight, wet cheek pressed against her head.

It hurts. Something wrenched out of her chest, replaced, ripped out again. It feels like the kind of pain that should, at some point, reach a peak and then start to recede, but it doesn't. It only seems to get worse, and worse, and worse.

She lifts her head and looks at Abby, trying to find some kind of reason, some kind of relief. There isn't one. Abby's crying, too. And later Clarisse will see that it was wrong to expect something so insurmountable from her. She'll understand that Abby is hurting, too, in a way that must be far more complicated and fragile than her own grief.

Right now she can't stop herself. The hurt is too huge.

"I don't understand," she chokes out, "I don't understand, I don't understand how she could just... leave, and be gone, in the middle of the night, and never come back, I—what should I have done?"

There has to be something she could have done to keep Ellie tethered to this place. She could have been better, done more, not taken it as a matter of course that she'd close her eyes and that Ellie would still be there when she opened them again. Not taken it so much for granted that someone had loved her, chosen her, out of everyone she could have had. She could have been someone worth staying for.

Clarisse puts both hands over her mouth like she's going to be sick, like if she presses hard enough she can keep her grief from spilling out. The sobs just keep coming, so forceful that she can barely breathe.

"Why wasn't I enough to keep her here?"

Edited 2024-07-18 01:45 (UTC)

"Hey." Her voice breaks on the word and a few more tears well up hotly, skipping down her cheeks when she blinks. "Don't do that."

Yeah she's saying it for Clarisse — it's heart-wrenching, that she would assume this is somehow her fault — but she's saying it for herself too, because she doesn't know how to begin talking Clarisse down from the ledge of this idea. It's not like Abby can offer hard proof or reassurance of any kind, not when nobody even knows why rifters disappear when they do or like they do, with no warning, like they'd never been there in the first place.

She takes Clarisse's shoulders, smoothing her thumbs up and down her arms. Is reassurance even going to work when she's got tears in her eyes? Her throat hurts so bad, there's a spike in it. "It's not you. Okay? It would never be you."

Clarisse has her hands over her mouth. Her breath comes through her fingers in quick, ragged gasps. Abby changes track: she takes her wrists, eases her hands from her mouth and holds them tight. They're clammy from Clarisse's rough, wet breathing, filmy with tears, but she links their fingers together, she squeezes her hard. She raises her voice. "Clarisse, listen to me. If there was a way to keep people here for good, we would have figured it out by now. This isn't on you — or her."

But she gets why it hurts, why it feels like somebody should take the blame. The only thing they can point fingers at is a fucking rip in the sky.

Abby squeezes her hands tight and Clarisse takes a gasping shudder of a breath in response. Everything looks blurry and unreal. Her eyelashes are wet, her cheeks feel hot, her chest aches.

She can't speak to acknowledge the things Abby is telling her. She only listens, absorbing the words and tucking them away to go over again later, later when she's not so close to the knife's edge of this and can start to process it. Later. But the thought of the hours and days stretching out in front of her is its own gut punch.

All that time ahead of them, without Ellie in it.

Clarisse makes a little moaning sound, sick. "Don't leave," she begs, like it's something Abby can promise her, like by saying it out loud they can stop the worst thing from happening. Maybe it's even true. She and Ellie never said those words to each other: don't leave, don't go back. They never thought they had to.

"Don't leave. I don't know what I'd do."

"I'm not gonna leave." This is wildly wrong of her to say, it's not something she gets to decide. Abby has already considered that Ellie arrived only months before her, is this... heralding something? Is this the warning shot? She has no idea but she does know that she doesn't want to go and wouldn't choose to either, if she ever got to. Knowing that makes it easier to hold Clarisse so tight. "We're gonna stay here, both of us. You and me."

Together.

It doesn't make losing Ellie so abruptly more bearable, but it will. Eventually it will.

God, she's basically implying that Ellie chose to go or left on purpose. How dare she, Abby would never do that, not to Clarisse. Ugh. It's not like she's any better, just that she doesn't know what else to do other than lash herself to Clarisse as tight as she can right now to ride out the storm. It's just for now.

"It'll be okay."

Not it is, but it will be. And she pries a hand away to pat Clarisse's shoulder, soothing, then her back. She rubs up and down her spine. She has barely-there memories of being a kid, soothed like this after a nightmare or injury. Something that could be healed over time.

It's not like it's anything Abby can control, but it still helps, hearing her promise not to leave. That they'll stay together. It takes what happened and twists it into something different, something that isn't predestined. Into a choice.

I feel like we were fated to meet, she'd said to Ellie over a year ago, sitting on a half-wall and watching the sun go down. But you were also my choice.

At the time it had seemed like a good thing, that strange intersection between destiny and free will. Maybe that's the trick of it. That she is fated to make the choices that will hurt her the most in the end, just like all the other heroes. She's no different from any of them.

Abby rubs her back, the palm of her hand following the curve of Clarisse's spine down and then back up again. She tries to match her breathing to it, inhale, exhale, repeat, focusing on that. And it works, sort of—a heavy exhaustion spreads through the core of her, making her feel weighed down in a way that feels almost good, because it means she's too tired to panic. She's aware of the way her eyes ache and her cheeks feel sticky with half-dried tears, and she wipes them with the hem of her shirt. Abby's still holding her other hand, and Clarisse could extract herself from it but she doesn't want to yet.

"We have to—tell everyone," she manages after a minute, grasping for something that makes sense. "Figure out what to do with all... her stuff."

They sit together like that in silence for a while. Rubbing Clarisse's back helps Abby too because all she has to do is concentrate on that movement, keep it going, slow and even. Up and down. She can feel Clarisse's breathing starting to slow under her palm and if she thinks about that, lets it fill up her mind, she can walk herself back from the edge of needing to scream.

She tunes back in inelegantly, hand stalling but remaining, tethered, to Clarisse. Oh, fuck. "Yeah.

"Tomorrow." There's no way she could figure something like that out right now. She eyes Ellie's bag where she left it, sitting in the tent. Opens her mouth to tell Clarisse that she went through it before and took things out of it to keep, that she can have the rest — and closes it again. She doesn't need to know that. And what if she asks Abby to give it back? She has the better claim to it but Abby feels oddly possessive over the Ellie that existed before she came through the rift, even the Ellie that, in the early days of them being here together, stabbed her in the marketplace.

She has so few things to remind her of it. Scars and old notebook pages.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow."

Clarisse lets the air out of her lungs in a tired sigh. "... Yeah."

In a way, it's a relief being given permission to put those things off until the next day. She would have done them tonight if Abby had wanted to but the thought of having to divvy up Ellie's things makes her feel like throwing up. So does the way she'd brought up the idea almost as soon as she'd finished crying, like some fucking vulture.

It's just that she doesn't know what else to do, and if she's not doing something, Clarisse doesn't know how to handle herself. She opens her mouth a couple times and closes it again, feeling like she should say something to Abby but not sure what.

Slowly, she extracts her hand from Abby's, though she doesn't try to move away from the palm resting on her back. Secretly, she hopes Abby keeps it there. The weight of it is warm and comforting.

"Kind of wish we had some Ambien right now." As an attempt at humor, it mostly falls flat. And she's not even a little bit kidding, anyway. She would absolutely say yes to being unconscious for a while right now.

She keeps it there, not in a firm grip, clinging, but gentle, moving every so often in a slow circle; it's helping her as much. Feels good to move, to feel like she's helping in some way, even if all she's doing is rubbing Clarisse's back, keeping them linked. It's a reminder, a reassurance. I'm still here. I won't go.

She laughs, once. It sounds flat, fake. "God, yeah. Same.

"Want me to punch you in the head until you're out cold? I'd do it."

You know, as a friend.

It wrenches a shaky, morbid laugh out of her, too. "Don't tempt me."

Clarisse sniffs. She's not really crying anymore, but every so often her chest hitches. She pinches the bridge of her nose and blinks, hard. Her eyes feel swollen, scratchy.

It's dark out now, helped along by the rainstorm, but not that late, all things considered. She'd never go to bed this early normally, but what else are they supposed to do? Go get dinner, and have to explain why it looks like they've both been crying? Potentially field some awkward question about where Ellie is? Her stomach flips, and she bites down on her lower lip, hard.

"Did you eat?" she asks Abby, finally. "There's food in..." Well. In Ellie's bag.

Abby's lip twitches but she doesn't say anything more, falling silent to listen to the rain on the tent and Clarisse sniffling, her own heart thumping in her ears. There's so much to think about... where the fuck does she even start, with all of this? She kind of wants to lie down and curl up.

It's a relief when Clarisse says something and she has to focus on that instead.

"No." It makes her realise that she's actually really fucking hungry, and that she hasn't eaten anything all day. Too busy looking, too busy worrying, waiting for everything to turn out in the end. She didn't even pretend to finish off that bowl of whatever she made Clarisse eat in the morning, she left it there at the table missing three big bites.

She looks at the bag for a long moment before she gets to her feet to go retrieve it from the corner of the tent. "She won't mind." She doesn't need it any more. Survivor rules. Abby opens it up like she's never done it before, extracts some fruit and bread, something wrapped in wax paper that smells sweet; she tosses the little package to Clarisse.

Abby says she won't mind, but it still feels like stealing to Clarisse as she watches Abby go and get Ellie's bag from the corner, open it up, and take out the food. She doesn't even hesitate.

Clarisse has been to Seattle. She remembers the way they went out and picked over dead people's stuff, and that it was normal, but she hadn't known those people and hadn't cared about them, which had made it easy. Ellie's not dead. She didn't bequeath them her stuff, or anticipate last night when she went to bed that the following evening Clarisse and Abby would open her bag and dig through it for food. It feels gross and wrong to be doing this. Clarisse catches the package Abby tosses her way, on instinct more than anything, but doesn't unwrap it yet. It smells like something sweet inside.

Ellie wouldn't mind. Ellie shared food with her all the time. Sometimes she brought food along just to give to Clarisse, if they were out for the day, because she knew that Clarisse would get cranky and annoying if she didn't eat something. For all she knows, this little package of wax paper could have been intended for her.

Telling herself this, she slowly unwraps it. There are three cookies inside, hard biscuits with raisins baked into them. She takes one and offers the rest of the package to Abby.

"Trade you for some of the bread." She's not very hungry, though. Her stomach feels like it's all knotted up. Still, she'll eat if Abby does, just to keep herself going.

All Abby takes is the food. She doesn't keep rooting around, once she's got these things and tossed the third one to Clarisse she puts the pack back down where she found it in the corner. If this were reversed — if she left and Ellie had her stuff she'd do the same thing, Abby has no doubt.

She's bringing Ellie's apple to her mouth and thinking about what she would have found in Abby's bag, what she'd be standing here eating now. Bread and nuts. Oh, and that jerky she got from the Kirkwall markets last week.

She's gotta be making a face while she eats but Clarisse hasn't pointed it out.

"Sure."

Abby comes to sit. She takes the package and hands her the bread in return, glancing into the wax paper wrapping, lifting it up to sniff. Then she sighs. "I hate raisin cookies." Like Ellie did this on purpose, to spite her from beyond the rift.

Clarisse is tearing the bread in half and doesn't say anything until she's finished and can set one piece aside for Abby. Then, "Ellie doesn't like those either."

She lifts the cookie to her mouth and takes a bite out of it, but it's clear her heart isn't in it.

They agreed on dealing with it tomorrow, but she's still thinking about what else is in the bag and what they'll end up doing with Ellie's stuff. Most of it will get absorbed back into Riftwatch, she guesses, like any extra supplies. Weapons. The knife she made Ellie she doesn't want going to anyone else, but she doesn't want it for herself, either.

This sucks. Part of her hates how unfair it is that she's going to have to figure this out. The other part of her wouldn't trust anyone else to do it. Except for Abby, but she's not sure how much Abby will want to involve herself in dealing with Ellie's things.

Abby watches her take a bite out of the cookie and then she looks away, down at her hands instead. She takes the bread that Clarisse ripped off for her and puts it absentmindedly into her mouth, ignoring the dull ache when she clenches her teeth down to bite through the crust. Her stomach feels like it's in her shoes.

It's just gonna be like this now, huh. Everything is gonna remind her of Ellie one way or the other until enough time passes that it doesn't. Even shitty cookies aren't safe. It feels a little like she has a gut wound, like she's gonna be working around it for a while, instinctively moving her body in a different way to protect the part that's hurt.

Wags has put his chin on her knee in an attempt to commiserate — or maybe he just wants some of the bread.

"Wanna stay up and just... watch the rain?"

She doesn't know what else to do. There is nothing else to do right now except wait until tomorrow, when they can start doing something about this.

Clarisse sees Abby look away, and the bite of cookie feels like it turns into a dry lump in the back of her throat. She swallows it down, feeling even worse now. She hadn't meant to make Abby feel bad, it had just... been the truth. But she shouldn't have said anything about Ellie. She's always saying things, never thinking about them first.

She forces herself to eat the bread, at least. It's better than nothing. And tomorrow she'll make herself eat breakfast even if she doesn't want that, either. That's step one.

Unfortunately, step one being several hours in the future means they're still living in step zero right now, so it's a relief when Abby finally speaks up.

"Yeah. I don't think I could sleep." Maybe if they sit watching the rain long enough, it will sort of... lull them?

"Neither." It's gonna be a shitty first night, but you only have to do the first night once. "C'mon."

She's getting up, grabbing her bedroll and bringing it over to the lip of the tent, pulling back the front of it so that it exposes the rain fall. Still loud and heavy but there's no wind, so it comes straight down. She parks it on the bedroll, turned to face the outside. This way they don't have to sit inside the tent and feel how empty it is, or have to look at Ellie's bag slumped in the corner. They can sit here instead and stare at the rain until it stops or until they finally get tired and have to go to bed. Whatever comes first.

[maybe like 20 minutes after the ellie-ing:]

Hey. Let me know if you want some other company. Or need some kind of distracting work to do. Or- [if she wants help tucking herself into a space in the library? but maybe don't suggest that outright] -anything.

(It's a flat, wooden reply that comes back maybe ten minutes later.)

Sure. I'll come into the library soon.

Clarisse might come.

You guys are welcome anytime. Obviously. [Since Abby works there. And--look...] See you when I see you.

Yeah.

(She was going to leave it at that, but a couple of minutes later something occurs to her, an abrupt postscript:) I don't want to talk about it when I come in. I just want to work.

(If Mobius tries to draw her gently aside, however well-meaning it is, Abby can't promise a good reaction. It seems better to address this now.)

[That...actually is a good warning to have. Because Maker knows he'd at least make the offer.]

You know if you need something a little more physical as a distraction, there's plenty of construction and rubble clearing and the like that could use doing. If the library's not gonna cut it.

(She grunts in acknowledgement of this.)

Library's fine. I'll look into the construction afterwards. (Both is good.)

When you got a moment,

[ when she can stand to have one, from the sound of things ]

Got a project to talk on. For the library.

I got a moment.

(Especially for distracting, busy-work.) What's the project?

It's, uh -

[ wellp sorry abby ]

- 'S about Rifters. When we all talked on a Memorial, you thought it'd be better to remember what folks do. And I agree. Only: Matters what someone's good at, sure, but reckon it matters what they're bad at too.

And I think maybe it'd be worth it to write that down. Record folks' stories, histories. Whatever about themselves they wanna share. Seems like it could mean more than just a name or a statue.

(Well... at least nobody can see her grimacing via sending crystal. Your timing isn't great, dude.)

Right. (Actually she doesn't wanna do this any more. But she just said she had a moment, damnit, and Cedric is actually a really nice guy...) What do you want me to do, exactly? Interviews? Or — am I coming with you to write stuff down?

Interviews, I guess. You're good at listening, and folks like talking t'you. You know the right questions.

[ a pause, at which point it maybe settles in that he's just volunteered her for a job — ]

You don't gotta do it. If we do it, it doesn't gotta me now. Just,

[ he trails off. didn't know ellie, not really; only a conversation, and a moment at the pyre. just like that, he's not gonna know her better. no one is. maybe whatever scrap of fade pressed itself to her shape is still out there, transformed. maybe one day it comes back new.

maybe. ]

Thought you'd be good at it.

[ would want someone to remember that. ]

Really?

(Do they? Wait, who said this about her? His backpedaling washes over her while she thinks about this and feels strange about it, and maybe a little good. You're good at listening, and folks like talking to you.

Huh.)

I — look. (He's in Diplomacy, right?) If you help me come up with some set questions, I'll. Try.

Really. We can work on it together, yeah? Take me a bit to put some in,

[ but maybe, by then, the wound'll be a bit less fresh ]

Let you know when I do.

Vanya and Abby don't train together so regularly that there's anything to reschedule; if they're both in the training yard at the same time, they tend to spar, but that's mainly routines that happen to sync sometimes. So after the crystal announcement about Ellie vanishing, he doesn't know if he'll see her more often or less. Either would make some sense.

(He'd, himself, gone up to the eyrie for a while after he heard. Just to be quiet, and maybe to sneak an extra treat to Artichoke as well as Pamplemousse.)

The first time he sees her, it's brief when he says "I'm sorry," quiet and low, but he doesn't linger over it. He mainly plans it to be a normal match, starting with his normal warm ups. He's working his way back after a the month of malnutrition due to demons, and he's getting back toward normal these days. Close enough he doesn't expect her to go easy on him, certainly.

Abby doesn't say anything. It's been not a whole week, though it has felt like longer than that, and the feelings haven't subsided — they haven't even made themselves truly known, really. Every day is a bit different. She's upset, often angry, almost spiteful. She's thought some deeply uncharitable shit about Ellie ever since her disappearance and, when she catches a glimpse of Clarisse looking upset or listless, she immediately feels guilty about that. It's hard to know how to feel.

Clearly other people think she should be told 'I'm sorry', like she's suffering an important loss, but that doesn't sit so well with her.

It's good that Vanya doesn't linger on the point. Abby came down here because she's tired of people looking at her with sympathy or trying to be nice to her. She wants to hit things with a fake weapon. It was going to be targets but it can be Vanya, that works too.

"First to five?" Hits, that is. She's got her training armor on and is bouncing her weight from foot to foot, restless.

He nods his acceptance. He's also wearing his protective gear, and while he sometimes changes his weapon up in training, today he's working with his standard practice sword and shield combination.

Her restlessness isn't hard to see, so he doesn't bother with more small talk. (Not that it's something he excels at in normal circumstances.) Instead, he falls into a guard stance, suspecting she'll opt to go on the offensive as they begin. She's sparred him enough to know he's an opponent who likes to observe, especially at first. She has the advantage of her youth and the attendant speed, but he's been doing this a long time. If that experience doesn't exactly even the field, it at least gives him a resource to draw on, especially with an opponent he's sparred with before.

Yes, he was correct. She takes a moment to assess that stance — both familiar in that she sort of remembers a way to get around it, but thinks it's more likely that she could smash through it and surprise him — before she lunges forward, all offence. She's not changed up her weapon either, she's coming at him with the training mace and no shield combination she usually rocks in battle.

And all of the power behind it, too.

She's gonna tuck in and try barrel hard through his shield and sword set-up, leading hard with one shoulder.

She's faster than he is, no question. Age aside, they're the same height, so he doesn't have much of a reach advantage. But he doesn't need to go far if he's correctly gauged that she's committed her momentum.

He moves to the side as late in the charge as he dares, letting the mace glance off the shield instead of hitting it head-on. He has only a moment before she turns, and he tries to use it to get a blow on her arm as she passes him. It's a testing strike as much as anything; how much is she paying attention to defense?

Not at all. She takes that strike, grimacing, the brief chafe of the wood on her arm unpleasant but not enough to stop her from carrying the momentum through. Worth it, to be hit once but return a harder strike. In battle, Abby usually only needs one blow; this is not an actual battle but her reply is not testing, and she slams her mace down hard on Vanya's shield with the intent to knock it out of his hands (or him off-balance).

Out here, she doesn't have to think about anything else; it's safe. Her muscles burn, and Abby feels good.

That one is going to hurt tomorrow; he keeps his shield, absorbing the blow between it and his arm, but the attack pushes him a step back before he can plant his feet. Templars are meant to hold lines. It's still his first instinct, but he shakes it off, moving a step or two farther back deliberately. If Abby isn't concerned with defense, he's in danger of her ending the bout while he's still considering, and distance is his best bet.

While he's moving, though, he's thinking. If she's careless of her defense, she may be easy to draw into a trap, exposing something vulnerable out of the inability to resist an inviting opening. It's just a matter of whether he can guard himself long enough to set up such a move when she's coming fast.

She huffs out her nose when he won't retaliate, when he steps back to draw her forward again, and part of her can see what he's doing in baiting her over and over, but a bigger part of her doesn't care. The faster she strikes him the closer he gets to hitting her back and actually starting a bout, right?

"Come on," she mutters, watching him keep on his toes, waiting.

A few more seconds respite — then she lunges again, the same as before. Mace back, behind her body, starting to swing forward.

Expecting it this time, he takes the opening. Most men his height are used to being taller than their opponents, and he was no exception when he was younger, but he's learned a few more strategies in the meantime. He lunges, shield up to catch the place he expects the mace to be. She's created an opening with the swing where he can hit her lower abdomen; if she's nimble enough to change course, her blow will necessarily lose its power, and if she's not, he's likely to get his hit in, even as she jars his arm. It does, however, mean sacrificing his own mobility for a moment if he's misjudged the arc of her blow.

Nah, Abby doesn't do nimble, no precise moment. Once she's moving forward, with energy and purpose, that's the way she's going. She sees every hit through for better or for worse and so she collides with his shield, feeling the block ring satisfactorily down both her arms. Her hands sting on the handle of the mace. She grins, pressing her teeth together until they hurt.

"Are you gonna do anything? Or block me until I give up?"

No one has seen much of Edgard since he returned from his capture several months ago. He has thrown himself into work and kept to himself mostly. Until one day, he shows up extremely drunk to Abby's quarters and stumbles in through the door.

"You have to tell me!" He shouts at her, eyes glistening. "Have to. Please!"

It's unclear what he's asking for. He half sits half falls onto the floor and blinks, surprised at the perspective change. He hiccups.

Abby actually smells him coming first and turns in her seat to greet him, both surprised and pleased, but the moment she sees him and takes in those glistening eyes, the red face and slightly sweaty sheen to him, she stands.

"Hey — holy shit, stop yelling at me."

He sits. Abby stares at him, then — fuck it — sits down on the ground too, opposite. "What is it? I don't know what you're talking about."

Edgard twitches and puts his hands to his forehead.

"Didn't mean to yell." He says barely audible, erring too far in the other direction now.

He takes a deep breath.

"Want to know what the other one did. The one who looked like me."

He doesn't want to say demon.

"Everyone avoiding me and won't talk about it and--"

Edgard's face goes slack and sunken, looking past Abby.

Oh.

"Shit," Abby says under her breath, because this immediately makes her feel sad for him. She reaches out after a moment and steadies him by the shoulder, squeezing. Solidarity. "I'll tell you about it, if that's what you want. It's not great though, Edgard. It's probably gonna make you mad."

She'll still tell him, but he should be forewarned.

Edgard's face falls. It must be even worse than he feared. His breath hitches, but then he nods once and hard.

"Tell me." And then softly, "please."

Oh boy.

Abby takes a breath and finds she can't quite look at him when she says this. "You got pretty angry with everybody trying to talk to you. Yelled a lot. And, uh — you were shitty to Xiomara, because she's an elf.

"We know it wasn't you," she hastens to add. "Just looked like you. I figured there was something wrong when you started calling me an asshole for no reason."

Do the compatibility quiz.

I did. Did you?

Yeah. Who'd you do it for?

Couple people. Apparently you're my 'eternal lover'.

[ she laughs ]

No, you're my eternal lover. I think you got a solid 15 when I did it.

(That immediately makes Abby laugh.) I got 15 too, guess it's right.

Got any other eternal lovers?

Nope. Plenty of warm friends, though. You?

Yeah, same here. You're the only one for me.

[ pfft ]

Wow. Okay, see you back at the tent, lover.

(She's doing a fake vomitting noise in response.)

[ heheheh ]

[ ooc; Shortly after this, in the Gallows. ]

[ There's thankfully nobody in the training yard this early in the morning, and therefore nobody can witness Hermione Granger sitting in front of a dummy, legs crossed, a tome open in her lap, attempting to wrap the knuckles of her right hand carefully.

According to the instructions of All You Need To K.O.: A Comprehensive and Brief Guide to Boxing, which is half written in Orlesian (she can just about half-understand those parts), she has to hold the end of the bandage in her fist, then roll it over her knuckles, and then -

The important thing, you understand, is that this is after punching Clarisse LaRue in the middle of a mission because the young woman had basically told her to. Did it awaken something in Hermione, the adrenaline rush of a well-aimed punch, the violence, the feeling of competence? Yes, sure, but so does incendio. This is just going to be back-up.

She's decided to take these matters into her own hands, here! (And has therefore found a book promising instructions on how to box, so she doesn't get put through the LaRue School Of 'Just Hit Me You Coward' for self-defence.)

(When have books ever lead her astray?) ]

...what the bloody hell is a pouce?

(You mean there's nobody around to witness this... yet.

Several people frequent the training yard early in the morning. The best time for a run is when the sun is still struggling to get up; any later and it gets too hot and, most importantly, heading off to the baths later afterwards all but ensures you're gonna have a weird, crowded wash with your coworkers. Better to be up and at 'em. That's Abby this morning, turning toward the training yard to pass it on her second lap of the grounds.

From a distance she doesn't recognise her at first, but as she approaches and slows it becomes more obvious — she's also in Forces, Abby's seen her at Gwenaëlle's elbow a few times as she's disappeared through eluvians. They haven't spoken much.

She slows to a stop.

Hermione might have heard her coming but Abby makes a point out of scuffing her shoes against the ground anyway, reaching up to wipe her brow against the back of her bare arm with a sniff and loud exhale. So hopefully it isn't too surprising when she suddenly answers the question from the fence ringing the training yard, leaning on it for a moment.)

You know there are swords and stuff, right? You don't have to take a book into a fight. (It's a light heckling, okay. She's grinning.)

[ Oh, she was sort of hoping this would be early enough that people prone to be out there running with the crack of dawn (you know the type), would not be around for a while to witness Hermione fumble with wrist wraps.

She does not want to be laughed at. It was hard enough (of a sort) to admit that she wanted to learn to punch better, if she was meant to have a back-up plan aside from magic in the first place, but to be reminded that she's short, human, and fragile-looking? Thank you, no.

She misses, therefore, that she has been perceived, and nearly jumps out of her skin at the heckle. Does keep her wrap in place with - ironically, the pouce - her thumb, and looks up. ]

You don't know how good my throwing aim might be. [ Arms. And a familiar face, albeit one who she can't put a name to yet, on account of how busy she's kept herself since leaving quarantine.

Busy work is, of course, the most efficient way to deal with one's trauma. ]

I'm not sure I could pick up any of the great swords or axes, let alone swing them.

True. But you'd have to... put a strap on it, so you could get it back after you throw it. Or take a whole series with you. (Har har.

Please know she's laughing at this imaginary scenario and not at Hermione directly. To her, it looks like Hermione is getting ready to shadowbox that dummy. This isn't unusual Forces behaviour.)

When I first got here I wanted to be a sword fighter. It's a lot harder than it looks. (What it looks, is cool. It ended up being deceptively fast and fluid, two things that Abby is not. Not with arms like these.)

I have ways to get it back. [ There's a practical thought. Throw a book, accio it back. There's a beat, and then she gives the tome in her lap a gentle tap, almost as if promising I'd never throw you, don't worry. ]

Ah - well. [ She lifts her book enough for the title - in large, gaudy and gilded font - to be legible. ] I've decided to start small. You're a Rifter, too?

[ She gets up from the grass, abandoning all pretense of trying to wrap her knuckles now, in favour of holding the closed book in one hand and holding her right one out for a handshake. ]

Hermione Granger.

(Squinting at the cover gets a scoff out of her but she doesn't elaborate, instead extending her arm for a shake. Feels good, feels normal. Her grip is solid but not painful or overpowering.) Abby Anderson. Yeah, I'm a Rifter too.

D'you want somebody to spar with? (It's time to make it known she has noticed the knuckle wraps.) It'd be easier than punching that thing and getting no feedback.

(Abby's warmed up already and, now, officially interested. Still leaning over the fence, but clearly ready to hop it if she needs to. Hermione is only gonna get so far with the reading; soon, she'll need actual practice.)

[ Earth, possibly - where and when are mysteries, for now, parked to the side in favour of answering the question about sparring.

Punch me. How am I supposed to help you learn to punch better if I don't know how bad you punch now? ]

Uhm - It's not a no, but I am currently trying to figure out how to properly wrap my knuckles so I don't bruise or break them? I kind of need the use of my hands, and -

[ She is rambling, and that's not really the reason she's saying not right now. ] When you say spar, you don't mean tell me to punch you to see how hard I can hit, right? Because I've been through that with Clarisse already and I think might've almost broken her nose. Do you know Clarisse?

(Abby opens her mouth and closes it again when Hermione barrels on — and her nose scrunches up in amusement. God, that is so Clarisse.) You hit her in the face? (She should probably defend her, right, except that it's really funny and she's obviously having trouble not laughing.) Wow. Guess she underestimated you.

(+1 approval.)

I know how to wrap knuckles. D'you want help?

[ Oh, she can tell - having been the perpetrator of similar amused looks and bitten back laughter before, she can tell that Abby is amused and that is endearing. +2 approval, there. ]

More like she told me to.

[ She doesn't bother to say I am not a violent person, because it'd be a lie. Several giant spider nests in Thedas and harpies from Akhuras could confirm that she very much is, and there is the fact that she joined Forces to stay on the front lines.

But Clarisse did order her to punch her, in Hermione's defense.

She looks desolately at her failed attempt to learn how to wrap her knuckles with a book, and then at Abby, nodding. ] Please and thank you. Can you teach me how to do it, also?

(Abby mutters,) Oh I bet she did, (but it may be lost underneath her hoisting herself over the fence with a grunt, coming over to Hermione properly. She actually hasn't wrapped her own knuckles in a while — punching infected back home is more of a last resort than a go-to strategy; here she has access to good weapons — so this will be good practice for her too.)

Sure. (She takes the roll of fabric from her, unwinding a section and laying it briefly across her own outstretched hand. When Abby is thinking it probably looks like she's pissed off, brow furrowed and jaw set.

Then she shrugs.)

You wanna make sure your wrist is straight out, don't curl your hand. (She demonstrates this, the wrong thing to do.) Honestly, getting the tension right is the hardest part. If the wrap is too tight it'll cut off your circulation, and if it's too loose you won't feel supported. Make sense?

[ The high definition of muscles is more pronounced up close, although Hermione is respectfully observing. What kind of training does it take for someone to get so fit?

It's funny, because she considered herself in rather good shape - and then joining Forces meant sometimes hoisting wooden beams, or rocks, or hammering nails. She thought they'd throw her at non-descript enemies, tell her to do with the magic thing, and get patted on the head for not dying.

Instead, here she is, trying to learn how to box at the tender (?) age of twenty-two. Or three. ]

Thank you for this.

[ She holds her wrist out straight, not paying much attention to her visible scar inches up from where Abby has laid down the strip of fabric. ]

Why do this? Out of curiosity. I imagine that in a real life situation, whoever has me that deserves a punch won't be inclined to wait so I wrap my knuckles.

(Abby sees the scar but it doesn't seem to register to her as something out of place at all — and up close, Hermione will notice the several that are more visible to her by way of proximity, like the prominent slash across Abby's cheek or the notch on her chin.) It's okay.

This isn't for real-life situations, it's just for training. The wrapping supports your wrist and your hand while you're using it. You're right that nobody is gonna wait until you wrap anything — but if you learn how to throw a good punch, hopefully that's all you'll have to do. Throw one good punch, I mean.

(And, yeah, you'll have bruised knuckles afterwards and it'll feel tender and awful the entire time they're healing. Or you'll break your knuckles or your fist on their body. She's not gonna say that though, it's not exactly conducive to enthusiastic learning.)

I'm gonna start at your wrist. Hold this? (She's looped the end of the wrap around Hermione's thumb, indicating that she should hold it in place with her fingers for now.) Lemme know if you want me to repeat anything. I'll try and go slow.

[ She's not about to ask where all those scar come from, that's not her style - Abby is tall and strong and in Forces; she might be a Rifter but Hermione can tell Abby's been in Thedas a long time - scars get collected just as easily as coins, in their line of work. ]

I appreciate this, thank you. I do want to do that - if for no other reason than that it will get people to stop asking me what I can do when I don't have spellwork to aid me.

So you're a mage? (Huh. Never heard of a mage wanting to punch things before. She doesn't laugh or anything but her mouth does curl a little in the corners.

She's wrapping Hermione's wrist, taking her time.) Tell me if this feels too loose or too tight. (Hard to gauge the tension when you're doing it on somebody else... but if there are no objections, she'll finish up the wrist and bring the roll of fabric up, to start going around and between Hermione's fingers, one at a time.)

[ She shrugs with her free shoulder, keeping her hand quite still and her eyes on the way Abby wraps her wrist. ]

A witch, if you wanted to be technical about it. I'd like to claim some differentiation from the local mages, because I can't do the things they do with the Fade. I can't even tell how my magic works here, to be fair...

[ She wiggles her fingers lightly, to test them. ] Feels secured, but not cutting off any circulation?

Oh, okay. (This is really amusing to her but she's not about to use the wrong term of address for somebody who knows magic. Witch it is.) Where did you come here from?

(The answer about the circulation appears to be correct, because Abby keeps winding. Through the fingers, around the palm again, back down to the wrist. Secured, but not too tight.)

[ It's nice, she's learning by watching someone do it. Taking mental notes, deciding on the spot that she will ask Abby to watch and judge if she does the second hand well, by herself.

Still, undistracted: ] Scotland, actually. Originally, I mean, even though I have very clear, very vivid memories of spending close to three years in a strange other world, before the Fade rift spat me out here.

You're from Earth. (It's reassuring, actually, to learn this. A different Earth though, because of the magic... unless witches were always in Scotland and Abby never knew, on account of having never gone there before she fell through a hole in a dream. Who knows.

But this next thing—

She stops wrapping and looks up.) You did? What was it called?

(What had Glimmer called the place she and Ellie came here from...?)

[ Without the understanding of why Abby just goes still, she frowns a little and answers. ] Akhuras. [ A beat. ] And yes, I'm from Earth.

(Wait, the place Glimmer and Ellie came from also started with A. Hold on. She's staring at Hermione's face until the bit of memory finally surfaces and she can relax again. New Amsterdam, not Akhuras. This must have happened... twice.

Weird.)

How did you get to Akhuras?

I've been thinking about what you said.

[ Months ago. ]

That maybe rifters are not here by chance or to save us all, but you're here because it is what you need. Do you feel that? That it is better you are here, I mean. For you.

... Yeah, (is the eventual answer, after Abby has paused to reassess her feelings.) It is. Better for me here, I mean, and — I'm better here.

How come?

I've only been thinking about it. Now and then, with our new arrivals... I had always thought it was more like we were something horrible happening to all of you. Interrupting your lives.

I can't speak for everybody, but it's not like I had much to interrupt. I was in a pretty bad place when I came here.

Your world was the worst one we saw.

[ Obviously. But it's meant more as an invitation to elaborate on bad place without making her refuse a direct question. ]

Exactly. (You were there.)

If I hadn't come through the rift I dunno what would have happened to me. (When she thinks of herself in the boat with Lev and how ruined they both were, it's hard to imagine a happy ending.)

From what I have heard, a lot of people believe you are still there. Or who you were is still there. And the you who is here is a copy of the idea of you, stolen from your dreams. I don't know if they're right, but—where do you think she is? The person you were.

(She's quiet for a while. It's not like she hasn't heard this theory before — she actually prefers it to thinking she was whisked away from her world entirely, leaving nothing of herself behind — but it's still uncomfortable to think about. When Ellie went back, did she take the place of the other Ellie? How does that work?

Finally she says,) I know where I hope she is.

Lev and I were trying to make it to Santa Catalina by boat, but... we were really injured.

Lev?

[ Only one of two names he doesn't recognize, but he can tell Santa Catalina is a place, which seems the main relevant detail. ]

My friend. (Friend doesn't feel like the right word for Lev but Abby can't think of a better one. Some relationships can't be boiled down into a single word.)

All we had left was each other.

I miss him so much.

It would be nice if we could ask the rifts for particular people next time. At least in cases like yours, where Thedas wouldn't be such a downgrade.

Yeah.

He'd like it here. He'd be in Scouting.

Scouting always needs good people.

[ Relatedly—

or all of this is related, really, but now on multiple fronts— ]

I talked to Ellie, not long before she... It wasn't my place, but I asked her about what Madame de Foncé has theorized. That removing your anchors might keep you here permanently. She said we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. She said she did not want to borrow grief from the future.

I would not give up my arm, either, if I could believe I might have years to figure something else out. There has to be some other way.

(Abby rolls her eyes.) She's so full of shit.

(It's just that it's... oddly profound. And every time this happens, every time she hears something about Ellie from somebody who was removed from the two of them — Abby-and-Ellie, all their collective, combined bullshit — it fleshes her out a little more and makes her whole.

It's still weird to realise she misses her. Abby doesn't think it ever won't be, but she's becoming more and more okay with that each day.)

You already know how I feel about Wysteria's crazy theories. (Everybody does. That fight was in public,) We'll just have to find something else. (A cure. Ha.)

Edited 2024-10-24 23:31 (UTC)

Ouais.

[ He thinks: they need to actually do it. Fast. And fast still might not be fast enough, because Abby could disappear tomorrow. Abby could disappear today, in the middle of his conversation, a kind of death because there's no guarantee that who and what she has become in this world will exist in any other, and— ]

I would miss you.

[ It's what he wished he'd said to Ellie. Even if it wouldn't have changed anything. ]

But alright. [ Out of his hands. New topic. ] Is there anything you wanted to do in your own world that you never had a chance to?

(There isn't really time to react out loud to that before the new topic comes along — Abby's expression shifts into surprise and she looks at him side on, seeing if he meant it. She can't think of why he wouldn't. I'd miss you too, she thinks, and remembers walking into a cold, wet room, finding two bodies lying still on the floor.)

I'd miss you too. (Okay.

Now new topic.) Um — yeah, actually. (Abby decides she can tell him this because he has seen her in a feathery hat.) I've always wanted to try playing a piano. It's not like they didn't exist in my world but I never found one that was actually in tune.

Oh!

[ Any suspicion he may harbor that she's intentionally giving him the sort of wish she must know he would be able to grant—that's fine. Overshadowed by delight. (And a bit of relief that she didn't take the opportunity to leave him hanging, missing-wise.) ]

We can do that! Let's do that. Byerly is in good with most of the local theaters—he plays sometimes when they're missing a violinist—and some of them have pianos. He can get us in when it's empty, and if you only want to be left alone to play around with it without anyone to listening to you, I will make him go outside with me and we will not eavesdrop at all.

Yeah? (She's getting infected by his excitement, smiling now.) Um, okay. You guys don't have to leave if you don't want to but it's not like I know how to play anything, so...

(It will be boring. But maybe she could learn how to play, and then somehow figure out how to play some of the pieces she misses from home. Abby likes the sound of that.)

( following this: )

Delivered to Abby's cubby are a small book of drawings, done on the backs of old pamphlets and tied together with string. They depict the journey of a very brave dog, named Dog, who flies out of the sun to eat demons and put out fires. His paw is green and magic, and so is his poop.

The artist-slash-author, TONI age SIX, seems to think this last bit is quite funny. There's a whole page about it.

Cedric's added a note at the end: FOR YOUR PERSONAL LIBRARY

Edited 2024-10-30 06:49 (UTC)

This is not going in the bookshelf

It is going on top of the bookshelf. On full display.

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