𝒇𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒕 𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒙

[aberratic]

SENDING CRYSTAL
PASSING NOTES
IN PERSON

Comments

action

[altusimperius]

[It's not long after her arrival through the Rift and subsequent journey to the Gallows that Ness is approached by a tall, slender young man with a board and parchment. He inclines his head in greeting, offering a polite smile:]

Ennaris Tavane? I'm Benedict Artemaeus, Personnel Officer.

[aberratic]

[ ness was told to wait in the central tower for a mssr. artemaeus to meet her and explain her new situation more fully, and—well, she would have waited, but the hustle and bustle of the gallows clean-up and rebuilding is vastly more interesting to watch than the interior walls and hallways of the tower. she didn't go far, at least, she's near the entrance to the central tower when benedict comes to meet her, and she turns to greet him with a somewhat guilty smile of her own. ]

Hi, yes, that's me! Ness, if Ennaris is too much of a mouthful, it's a pleasure to meet you Messere Artemaeus.

[ 'messere' doesn't sound quite natural on her lips yet, but she's been listening, she knows that's the polite address in this area of the world. ...at least, she's pretty certain it is. ]

[altusimperius]

[He doesn't seem bothered at all by the shift in location, in part because this one was on the way-- and knowing all the faces of his colleagues means identifying a new one is instant.]

Ness, [he repeats, making a note of it,] and you can call me Benedict. Or Artemaeus, whichever you prefer.

How are you finding it here? Settling in?

action;

[overharrowed]

(Continued from over here.)

[Cedric makes the introduction which, inevitably, feels a bit like a hand-off. Enchanter Julius, when he arrives is a tall man in his 40s, his initial expression concerned but sympathetic. (The air of a teacher, as promised.) He's dressed in trousers and a tunic, rather than robes, but he's brought his staff. He also has a a small bag of supplies slung over one shoulder.

After Cedric promises to stay close and excuses himself, Julius leans the staff close enough he can reach it, but out of the way as he settles next to her.]

Alright. So I've had a little bit, but if you feel up to it, why don't you tell me what's been happening? I think the more I know, the more helpful I can probably be.

[His tone is kind, quiet. There will be a lot to deal with in the morning, but right now, he can't help but be affected by a young woman in magical distress.]



[OOC: Happy to adjust if you want to approach this another way, just lmk.]

[aberratic]

[ some of the ease cedric had hard-fought to win out of her leaves with the hand-off, but not as much as could have: ness is accustomed to professorial types, and the presence of a familiar mien is calming, even if she's still nervous. it's difficult to begin, but it always would have been, no matter the circumstances or who she was explaining it to. ]

I didn't have magic before I came here, [ she starts, finding the threads of the story as she speaks. ] I was entirely average. Extremely so. The only interesting thing about me is my father's drow—a dark elf.

[ her fingers reach up, admirably still unless you look closely, and finger the point of an ear that isn't there anymore, replaced with the rounded cartilage of a human. lips purse, chin wobbles—she presses on. ]

Before I woke up here, I was... kidnapped. Taken. There are these things, [ she shudders, ] mindflayers. They infect you with their parasite and seven days later you die, and something that isn't at all you anymore takes your place. They meant that for me, but there was

[ a breath, eyes closed, don't linger, ]

a disturbance. I avoided the parasite, but got a faceful of its brine. Now, here, I—I do things, entirely on accident.

[ that is very important, on that she opens her eyes and seeks julius' gaze, earnest and pleading. ]

I haven't hurt anyone. I don't want to. It's all out of my control and I didn't know what to do but I didn't want to die, I read so many things—

action.

[portalling]

continued from.

Sorcerer, [ Strange corrects automatically, a kneejerk instinct; the verbiage doesn’t even really matter anymore, but he stands on the principle of getting it right. Naming things as they are. And the terminology might matter for a particular rifter universe, because he still remembers Wysteria being precise about the definitions between magicians, sorcerers, wizards, witches.

Seated beside this young woman, he peers over to look a little closer at the titles she’d selected to read, thinking: Oghma, the god of knowledge. He doesn’t much truck with gods, but if there’s one to follow, that sounds better than most. ]

It might be the same thing at the end of the day, however, and similar to what they call a mage here. Someone who’s studied and practiced magic and is capable of harnessing its powers to cast spells, yes?

[aberratic]

[ she opens her mouth to argue the point immediately, then closes it again just as quickly, rethinking her strategy. they're in a completely different plane, each from different worlds: perhaps sorcerer means something different to him than it does to her.

that in mind, she begins again, less immediately confrontational this time. ] Yes, though on my plane they're different. Those who have to learn their magic [ she nods at him, at the books in front of her—not magical tomes, but just to indicate the kind of study required, ] are called wizards, they have no innate magical talent and learn their spells by rote. Sorcerers, whether through birth or contact with intense magical energies later in life, are innately magical, they don't need to learn anything.

As you say, though, [ leaning back in her seat and smiling up at him, ] at the end of the day, the differences matter little here. A sorcerer is a wizard is a mage, whatever we called them in our previous lives.

crystal

[armd]

Hey. En-naris? (The pronunciation is a little weak, but hey.)

[aberratic]

Ehn-ahr-iss, yes, hello! Ness is fine if Ennaris is a mouthful, I don't mind.

[ she does, a little, but that's an old wound, not abby's fault. the effort was made, at least. ]

delivery.

[cozen]

[ Belatedly: after ending this conversation presumably more politely than falling completely silent out of nowhere (sorry), Bastien eventually gets around to leaving a bundle of papers in Ness' pigeonhole in the dining hall.

Most of it is an accumulation of pamphlets and clips from broadsheets and quarterlies from the last few years that he already had on hand, ranging from staid essays on the benefits of unifying behind the new Divine to furious screeds on the way the wealthy and powerful are using the prolonged threat of Corypheus as an excuse to tighten their fists around the common people. The contents trend toward the anti-monarchist, communitarian, anarchist, or otherwise revolutionary, because that's what he's naturally collected for himself. But there's certainly an attempt to provide a broader spectrum of opinions. Even the bootlicking ones.

On top are a few things he gathered specifically for the request, including a less imbalanced array of recent publications and a thin, saddle-stitched volume titled Common Knowledge: The World According to the Unlettered, by Aubertin Ménétries. It's something of an anthropological survey, reporting on common folks' accounts of the workings of government and the natural world and so on—but exceedingly condescending, clearly cultivated to mock its subjects.

The only note is in the cover of the book. It says,

Do not think I paid money for this. I would never. —Bastien ]

➛ crystal;

[aberratic]

Please tell me some horrible accident has befallen Aubertin Ménétries such that he can no longer hold a pen.

[ hello, how are you, thank you so much for the delivery— ]

crystals; whatever point in time

[dissolving]

Hey — when you got a minute, can I ask you on something? Supply question. 'S not urgent.

let's go post-horrors, for funsies

[aberratic]

[ if, when ness speaks up, she sounds like someone who has only just been startled into wakefulness, who slept in an uncomfortable position, whose hair is in complete disarray and whose faculties have not entirely returned to her from the fade—well. ]

Yes, I can help, [ is the immediate response, before cedric's full sentence has processed. ] Supply question? What do you need?

*bells jingling*

[armd]

(Delivered to her desk (only a day late): a leather-bound copy of Aveline, Knight of Orlais by Lord Francois Maigny, an embellished version of the life and adventures of an Orlesian woman, raised by Dalish elves, who disguises herself as a man to enter a Knight's tournament. The ending is sad.

Abby has tied a beautiful purple ribbon around it. A small scrap of paper on top contains a cramped note:) Lemme know what you think when you're done. I'd love to talk about it. Happy Satinalia. — Abby A.

i am so sorry, this hit right in the middle of the veilguard fugue 😭

[aberratic]

[ absolutely not late at all, certainly not this late, abby comes back to their room to find a sheaf of loose, handmade paper bound in a leather cord on her pillow. there is no indication who it's from, but atop hermione's bed sits a similar sheaf, while there's none on ness's bed.

a week after abby's gift to ness finds its way to her desk, another gift appears, this one in abby's nightstand (so as not to make hermione jealous): a handmade, handstitched collection of stories from faerûn, as best as ness could remember them, from myths to fairytales to epics. since she only had a week, they're all relatively brief, but the note on top of the collection reads: ]

Let me know which ones you like best, and I'll write them in more detail. I look forward to discussing them, and Aveline, with you!

—E. Tavane, Quartermaster

crystals;

[wythersake]

Mlle. Tavane, I've a question regarding Rifter health which I believe you uniquely suited to.

[aberratic]

[ how did you get this number ]

I would be happy to assist, Enchanter, go on.

book (backdated to after sarrux pass, like...v soon after)

[reparo]

Have you been given a clean bill of health yet?

[aberratic]

And a prescription for some healing potions, yes. Yourself?

[ they could literally just be talking to each other in their room, why are they both like this.]

[anthracite]

He waits until she's released, the Infirmary has enough hovering eyes. It's more difficult than he'd like to find time alone. She doesn't leave the library long enough, and when it isn't her in the offices, it's the Orlesian.

He doesn't want to talk to the Orlesian.

At last, she's carting some tray back up the stair. He rises from the nearest table — staked-out to purpose — without a meal, which makes it easier to slip a hand about her own and take the weight.

"Serah Tavane," Soft-spoken, a contrast to the snarling voice over the crystals. "Senior Warden Strand. We need to speak privately."

[aberratic]

Soft-spoken or not, Ness wanders through the Gallows with her mind only half-devoted to her physical surroundings at the best of times—she still startles for the Warden's appearance at her side. Her tray very nearly goes tumbling out of both their hands, but she lets it go in her surprise and he compensates, and that leaves her free to press her hand over her chest.

"Knots," she snaps, "where did you come from—"

It takes a moment for her to recover from the fright, not to mention process what he actually said. The resulting annoyance may be somewhat unfair, but, really,

"There is the Archivist's office, Messere, you could make an appointment."

a regularly-scheduled checkup.

[portalling]

Ness is back in the infirmary, but not due to any horrendous medical peril this time: it’s a regularly-scheduled appointment, for ongoing aftercare and to check in on her stump. She’s in a chair with her elbow resting on its arm, while Stephen pulls up another chair to sit sideways to her.

They’ve been waiting for the wound to finish healing over fully; it takes time, always more time than one expects, and the infection had set them back. There will be bandages to unravel and replace with clean ones, and tightly-wound fabric compressing her limb to pull loose.

“How has it been feeling?” he asks, cutting straight to that professional demeanour; the mask that Ness well-recognises by now as him being in Doctor Strange mode, not Stephen, her friend.

It’s been a strange time, no pun intended. He’s a little more stilted around her than usual, oddly stinging from his perceived failure. In the aftermath of the amputation and her infection, he had been sterner about ensuring the girl stayed in the infirmary to rest; even after she was discharged, he hasn’t been plying her with quite as much work as before. More coddling than usual.

He doesn’t really know what to do with that feeling, either.

[aberratic]

Focused as Ness is on Stephen, important as his friendship is to her, she has not missed the change in his treatment of her. He was never quite permissive, always exacting, a man of high standards who expected as much of her as himself—but he has not been strict with her either, has always been willing to indulge cleverness over blind adherence to rule or convention. Despite never being her boss in any real sense, Stephen has always had some kind of work for her, questions for her to ponder over to encourage critical thinking, curiosity, ingenuity. He's been a teacher and a friend to her as much as a colleague.

Now Ness sits next to her doctor, neither friend nor teacher, and she knows the demotion is nothing but her own fault. His medicine is not faulty, his mind could never fail them, so she must have been the one to ruin her own recovery. She was a bad patient, she made him look foolish, made him rely on magic over science. He resents her for it, and who can blame him?

Certainly not Ness.

"It's sore," she reports, dutiful, determined. She'll earn it back, she'll convince him to trust her again, "tender where it was stitched together.

"I've kept notes," in a small book which she offers him now, precious paper converted from an Oghman's Book of Remembrance to a collection of notes on her residual limb and its state since their last appointment—tenderness to touch, color, scarring, soreness of the bone and whether she's experienced phantom sensation. Detailed, deliberate, down to the minute notes.

action

[wearyallalone]

When Ness initially asks him to show her a place he loves in Thedas, Vanya is at first stymied — not by any reluctance to fulfill the request, but out of true uncertainty where he might show her. The Nevarra City of his childhood has been torn by undead and civil war, and has only just begun to rebuild. The Cumberland circle, still standing and gilded and grand, is complicated for reasons she already knows. Antosha's cabin, if it still exists at all, is either long abandoned or has been taken over by some new inhabitant. Skyhold is an active military base.

It is when he finally has the thought that his most uncomplicated, pleasant memories are of traveling that he lands on the answer. He consults with another griffon rider or two about his ideas for securing a rider with only one arm behind him, refining the choice and placement of knots until he's satisfied. Finally, he tells Ness he's ready to show her his answer, when they can find an afternoon they are both at liberty. (He also sacrifices part of the surprise by ensuring she has no fear of heights and asking her to meet him in the Gallows eyrie.)

[ty for your patience, lmk if you need any adjustments!]

[aberratic]

She told Vanya she planned to ask everyone she knows to show her their favourite places in Thedas, and that is true... but it's no coincidence that she started with him.

When she meets him in the Eyrie, Ennaris is in her standard-issue Riftwatch uniform, rather than her usual floor-length dress with its impractical skirts. Her hair is up in a neat and tidy bun, fringe pinned back away from her eyes. The forearm of the right sleeve of her uniform jacket is pinned up at her shoulder, to prevent its flapping about while they're airborne.

—not that she has any expectations about what they'll be doing today. Though if she did, she might also have smuggled a couple bits of dried meat in her pocket, in hopes of making a good impression.

"I haven't spent much time up here since I first arrived," she admits, watching the griffons with obvious affection, fascination—at a healthy, respectable distance. "The last time I was in the Eyrie, Artichoke tried to eat my hair."

So hopefully he's not the griffon Vanya intends them to ride today—though again, she's not making any assumptions! Ahem.