[ 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 fadeβwell. ]
Yes, I can help, [ is the immediate response, before cedric's full sentence has processed. ] Supply question? What do you need?
[ the first stupid thing he does is check the time. it's not everyone on dawn hours, and he'd be a right ass to forget. but an eye out the window finds the sun high overhead: noon. paper rustles. ]
It can wait, didn't mean t'wake you. [ takes a moment to find it, the roster of who's on this week. wycome. ] You just get back in?
Ah, yes, that is, just a day or so ago, I've beenβresearchingβ
[ said through a yawn and a stretch, ooh, she's getting too old to fall asleep hunched over a desk. at least this time it's her desk in the quartermaster's office, which means she's not drawing looks in the library, or late to work. plus, she knows herselfβshe opens a drawer and pulls out a hairbrush, and gets to work detangling the mess she's made. ]
Sorry, oof. I'm awake, I'm ready, what do you need?
[ distracted. she's on her way to skipping lunch, too. ]
Figured out one of the, uh, suggestions we got. Sjoklat, think 's meant t'be chocolate. Know cocoa comes dear right now. But if we can find something tastes near, maybe for Satinalia β
Skipped, [ would imply a purposeful decision, ] yes! Watching my figure, or something.
[ ness has never been skinnier in her life than she is nowβon rations, recently running around trying not to die in wycome, and now skipping meals to research until she physically can't keep her eyes open. it's a kind of diet, surelyβ ]
Substitutes, subs... I think, I was looking into rifter recipes, that Jude Adjei left one for cookies, they're supposed to have chocolate but I think he noted carob might do in a pinch? Do we have carob, in Thedas? What is carob, actually...
[ she has an encyclopedia in here somewhere, actually, maybe she can look it up. ]
[ thing is, he's not thick. mightn't have the first clue what carob is, but got a notion or two on what keeps someone up; away from routine. she's rambling. he's decided: ]
How 'bout I bring some up.
[ that's not really a question. he's moving. she can turn him aside if she pleases, but someone ought to make sure there's no reason to call strange, julius, again. else β
[ distractedly, distantly, left her crystal on her desk and has moved to her bookshelvesβ ] Do you have carob? That'd be convenient...
When Cedric arrives at the quartermaster's office, Ness isn't visible at first. It's only when he actually comes inside, glances around, that he'll find herβhidden away in a shadowy corner of the office, standing at a bookcase with an open book in hand while she peers in consternation at another on the shelf.
From this distance, at least, she doesn't look hideous. She's not skin and bones now, nor got the darkest of circles under her eyes, nor has her hair become some kind of nest. Her clothes are neat and clean, she's bathed, she's brushed, she's as pale as she's ever been but no paler. By all appearances, she's absolutely fine.
There's a vacancy to her expression, though. A faint sway as she should be standing still, breaths a shade too shallow for health.
"I could have sworn I had an actual encyclopedia in here somewhere. Have I gone blind? I may have gone blind. Oh, knotsβ"
The door creaks. He stumps it open, backing into the room with hands full of tray. A list tucks just out his pocket: Dandelion root, dates, acorn flour, linden,
"I'll beg one off Mobius."
Good for the old man to keep busy. Another time, maybe that'd do for this too. Chantry's no stranger to the comfort in a task. But Cedric's dug enough ditches to know that's got limits, to work a shovel six feet over your head. She's clean, she's tidy, and she's about to step out her own skin. Busy's not the problem.
He takes his time laying out mug, napkin, spoon. Clean. Tidy. He lets her fuss. Tries to think what Barrowβs done for him, only that thinking on that makes him think why Barrow had to, and that don't bear thinking at all. Eventually, stone scuffs under foot, slow and steady and purposefully loud. A palm at her elbow, gentle,
She blinks at Cedric, closer than she expected him to be, uncomprehending for a full second before the smell of food catches her attention. Her stomach, reminded of its needs, clenches painfully around nothing, and she winces audibly in surprise, snapping the book in her hand shut with the shock of it. Knees buckle, and she grips his wrist, leans harder to keep steady.
He's very warm. Or maybe she's very cold? He's solid, anyway, takes the weight of her like it's nothing,
"Sorry," she says to her shoes after the hunger pang subsides, less because she knows what she's apologizing for than feeling like she should apologize for something. Her whole existence, maybe.
gomen for all the delays on this ive been a mess this month
He's cold so often. The tips of his fingers, the crack of joints on morning air; he knows what does it, sure as he knows that the winters only get longer. Broward's hands were like ice by the end. That's what he'd say, anyway,
Couldn't tell.
She's warm on his arm, and he's young; and it's another evening gone before Cedric will notice the chill.
"'S alright," He says, instead of there's nothing to apologize for. Sometimes a word is just something you say; she's not ready to hear things. "Sit down, yeah?"
Bracing her, and that's nearly Broward too. Eggs and toast at the plate, some mystery Marcher meat, cut in a wedge. Fresh pear. The tea is β
Well, you boil any leaf long enough, you can call it tea. His hand closes around the book to ease her down, try and slip it from her grasp; eye to the title. He doesn't pull very hard.
(Candlekeep, she's said before: A library. He's not about to lose his own hand if she decides it's staying with her.)
The book parts from her grasp easilyβsomething on Cuisine in the North, unimportant to her in general except that Cedric needed her help. She's led, eminently biddable, to the desk and the plate, and when she sits and looks at it... She could not be further from hunger.
The pang hurt, yes; she needs to eat, yes; but to actually do itβ She looks at the plate and feels not desire but a faint disgust. It's a new experience, an unfamiliar sensation: sometimes you get so hungry, you circle right back around to not hungry at all.
She makes a face, picks up the fork, eats dutifully in silence, sips her tea with all the jolly enthusiasm of a recruit mucking out latrines. At the corner of the desk sits a pile of books, the top a collection of Dalish myths and legends, various treatises on the nature and origins of darkspawn below, a chantry brother's history of the Deep Roads on the bottom. Each book already has numerous scraps sticking out of the pages, markers for interesting information and passages to return to.
Ness has been returned from Sarrux's Pass for less than a week.
Plate cleared, she wipes her mouth with a handkerchief and looks over to Cedric. Her eyes can't linger on him long, gaze glancing off his face, shoulders curled in.
"Thank you for the meal. I didn't realize how hungry I was."
Cedric thunks into the chair opposite, pages the book slow. Place to put his eyes, other than dead on her, not the way she's jumping for it. And anyway, he'd like to know what kind of monster kebab don't take meat β
"Sure," He sets the book aside, leans out over his elbows. Clock the rest of the stack and its disparate subjects: Darkspawn, Dalish. Wycome, "Gets like that, sometimes."
His eyes finally find her face again. He isn't asking about hunger when he asks,
"Oh, no, I was well-fed in Candlekeep," comes brightly, conversationalβnot deflection, whatever else he may be referring to has passed entirely over her head. "I've simply beenβ well. There's a lot about Sarrux's Pass that I didn't understand, and then there's all the work I have to catch up on. Eating hasn't seemed all that... important, I suppose."
Her brow furrows, something about that sentence catching her ear. Sometimes you say things in complete earnest, so sure of their rationality, and then you hear them out loud and they sound so much worse than you thought they would. It's strange, and uncomfortable, and not something she has the time or, frankly, the desire to interrogate right now.
So she smiles at Cedric, meeting his gaze finally.
"I apologize for the diversionβwe were talking about chocolate, weren't we? Looking into substitutes?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
let's go post-horrors, for funsies
Yes, I can help, [ is the immediate response, before cedric's full sentence has processed. ] Supply question? What do you need?
no subject
It can wait, didn't mean t'wake you. [ takes a moment to find it, the roster of who's on this week. wycome. ] You just get back in?
no subject
[ said through a yawn and a stretch, ooh, she's getting too old to fall asleep hunched over a desk. at least this time it's her desk in the quartermaster's office, which means she's not drawing looks in the library, or late to work. plus, she knows herselfβshe opens a drawer and pulls out a hairbrush, and gets to work detangling the mess she's made. ]
Sorry, oof. I'm awake, I'm ready, what do you need?
no subject
[ distracted. she's on her way to skipping lunch, too. ]
Figured out one of the, uh, suggestions we got. Sjoklat, think 's meant t'be chocolate. Know cocoa comes dear right now. But if we can find something tastes near, maybe for Satinalia β
no subject
[ ness has never been skinnier in her life than she is nowβon rations, recently running around trying not to die in wycome, and now skipping meals to research until she physically can't keep her eyes open. it's a kind of diet, surelyβ ]
Substitutes, subs... I think, I was looking into rifter recipes, that Jude Adjei left one for cookies, they're supposed to have chocolate but I think he noted carob might do in a pinch? Do we have carob, in Thedas? What is carob, actually...
[ she has an encyclopedia in here somewhere, actually, maybe she can look it up. ]
no subject
How 'bout I bring some up.
[ that's not really a question. he's moving. she can turn him aside if she pleases, but someone ought to make sure there's no reason to call strange, julius, again. else β
a friend. he's decided. ]
β action;
When Cedric arrives at the quartermaster's office, Ness isn't visible at first. It's only when he actually comes inside, glances around, that he'll find herβhidden away in a shadowy corner of the office, standing at a bookcase with an open book in hand while she peers in consternation at another on the shelf.
From this distance, at least, she doesn't look hideous. She's not skin and bones now, nor got the darkest of circles under her eyes, nor has her hair become some kind of nest. Her clothes are neat and clean, she's bathed, she's brushed, she's as pale as she's ever been but no paler. By all appearances, she's absolutely fine.
There's a vacancy to her expression, though. A faint sway as she should be standing still, breaths a shade too shallow for health.
"I could have sworn I had an actual encyclopedia in here somewhere. Have I gone blind? I may have gone blind. Oh, knotsβ"
no subject
"I'll beg one off Mobius."
Good for the old man to keep busy. Another time, maybe that'd do for this too. Chantry's no stranger to the comfort in a task. But Cedric's dug enough ditches to know that's got limits, to work a shovel six feet over your head. She's clean, she's tidy, and she's about to step out her own skin. Busy's not the problem.
He takes his time laying out mug, napkin, spoon. Clean. Tidy. He lets her fuss. Tries to think what Barrowβs done for him, only that thinking on that makes him think why Barrow had to, and that don't bear thinking at all. Eventually, stone scuffs under foot, slow and steady and purposefully loud. A palm at her elbow, gentle,
"C'mon. It'll get cold."
no subject
She blinks at Cedric, closer than she expected him to be, uncomprehending for a full second before the smell of food catches her attention. Her stomach, reminded of its needs, clenches painfully around nothing, and she winces audibly in surprise, snapping the book in her hand shut with the shock of it. Knees buckle, and she grips his wrist, leans harder to keep steady.
He's very warm. Or maybe she's very cold? He's solid, anyway, takes the weight of her like it's nothing,
"Sorry," she says to her shoes after the hunger pang subsides, less because she knows what she's apologizing for than feeling like she should apologize for something. Her whole existence, maybe.
gomen for all the delays on this ive been a mess this month
Couldn't tell.
She's warm on his arm, and he's young; and it's another evening gone before Cedric will notice the chill.
"'S alright," He says, instead of there's nothing to apologize for. Sometimes a word is just something you say; she's not ready to hear things. "Sit down, yeah?"
Bracing her, and that's nearly Broward too. Eggs and toast at the plate, some mystery Marcher meat, cut in a wedge. Fresh pear. The tea is β
Well, you boil any leaf long enough, you can call it tea. His hand closes around the book to ease her down, try and slip it from her grasp; eye to the title. He doesn't pull very hard.
(Candlekeep, she's said before: A library. He's not about to lose his own hand if she decides it's staying with her.)
same, no worries!!
The pang hurt, yes; she needs to eat, yes; but to actually do itβ She looks at the plate and feels not desire but a faint disgust. It's a new experience, an unfamiliar sensation: sometimes you get so hungry, you circle right back around to not hungry at all.
She makes a face, picks up the fork, eats dutifully in silence, sips her tea with all the jolly enthusiasm of a recruit mucking out latrines. At the corner of the desk sits a pile of books, the top a collection of Dalish myths and legends, various treatises on the nature and origins of darkspawn below, a chantry brother's history of the Deep Roads on the bottom. Each book already has numerous scraps sticking out of the pages, markers for interesting information and passages to return to.
Ness has been returned from Sarrux's Pass for less than a week.
Plate cleared, she wipes her mouth with a handkerchief and looks over to Cedric. Her eyes can't linger on him long, gaze glancing off his face, shoulders curled in.
"Thank you for the meal. I didn't realize how hungry I was."
no subject
"Sure," He sets the book aside, leans out over his elbows. Clock the rest of the stack and its disparate subjects: Darkspawn, Dalish. Wycome, "Gets like that, sometimes."
His eyes finally find her face again. He isn't asking about hunger when he asks,
"It get like that before?"
no subject
Her brow furrows, something about that sentence catching her ear. Sometimes you say things in complete earnest, so sure of their rationality, and then you hear them out loud and they sound so much worse than you thought they would. It's strange, and uncomfortable, and not something she has the time or, frankly, the desire to interrogate right now.
So she smiles at Cedric, meeting his gaze finally.
"I apologize for the diversionβwe were talking about chocolate, weren't we? Looking into substitutes?"