PARTY BANTER MEME

[faderifting]

In the Dragon Age games, as you travel Thedas with your best pals, they have a lot of short conversations about politics, the weather, butts, etc. So this is the Fade Rift equivalent, in four easy steps!

1. Imagine your characters are on a very long walk somewhere, or on a very long walk back after kicking ass, or standing guard together, or gathering herbs, or working in the library late at night, or anything else sort of boring. You can provide context if you'd like, like "[ On the way back from Antiva: ]," but it isn't mandatory.

2. Post a few different remarks your character might make—similar to TFLN, except spoken out loud and less ridiculous, maybe, or maybe not, I don’t know your life—while passing the time.

3. Tag around to reply to those general remarks or to start new/wildcard conversations! Threads should be pretty short and involve minimal action; there’s no need to turn anything into a big production. Threadjacking to create multiperson conversations is encouraged (unless someone says not to). Multiple different conversations between the same characters occurring on different days are also encouraged.

4. Gather up all of your little conversation snippets like a bouquet and keep them forever, because they’re game canon.

Comments

[heorte]

[ What Ellie is describing is not so far from what Ellis recalls of his time rotating in and out of the Deep Roads, or pursuing rumors of darkspawn across Thedas. There are Wardens with notches on their belts, or the hilts of their swords, or the haft of their axe.

But Ellis has very much learned his lesson about invoking Wardens too closely in conversation, so his answer takes a different form. ]

There are many in Riftwatch who haven't fought on those terms. Or seen open combat. It is different, for people who cannot imagine what it's like to live so close to different kinds of danger.

[ Is it morbid? Maybe. But Ellis has shown off his scars here too, and received a kind of shocked fascination for it, rather than the knowing rejoinders he had been so used to. ]

Even the ones who brag aren't bragging in the same way as someone who's had to make a habit of scraping through dangerous conditions daily.

[tender]

I don't think Research knows how to turn down samples.

[ honestly. ]

We're going to likely damage the boat, so we should try to steal one for this.

[notathreat]

Sounds good.

Why is it that we're always hijacking boats when we work together?

[armd]

I'm bad at sleeping, the rest of my hygiene is fine.

[notathreat]

[Ellie nods to herself. There's a difference between the patrol stories of the veterans and the younger ones, the ones who haven't running into anything pants-shittingly terrifying over and over and over again, and been humbled by their near-misses and mistakes.]

If you're doing it every day, you're gonna feel different about it.

[heorte]

Aye.

[ And for many Riftwatch members, brutality is something they visit. Not something they live alongside. ]

Here, [ is a little conciliatory, meant to draw Ellie a step back from the severity of this shared thread between them. ] I've scarring all alongside here, [ One hand sweeps across his ribs, indicating. ] from where I fell through a ruin. Some ribs were broken.

[ "some" ]

[tender]

Perhaps the Divison heads have decided on what we're best at.

[ ha ha ]

[notathreat]

[Ellie winces, giving him a deeply sympathetic look. Ribs are the worst, hurting with every breath.]

What were you doing in a ruin?

[notathreat]

We just did a really good job at convincing a fisherman that he didn't want to be a fisherman anymore.

[har har]

[heorte]

Warden business.

[ To the tune of hunting darkspawn.

Ellis' fingers have tiptoed down along his side, the bone of his hip. Scarring he knows by heart. ]

I was younger. I didn't know to be careful about where I was putting my feet, and I was impatient. It was a good lesson to correct that.

[notathreat]

[Even if she can't see the scars due to what he's wearing, the vivid picture his fingertips paint as her by the throat.]

That's always something you learn the hard way. Glad you lived through it.

[detestable]

Oh yeah, that's a real upgrade.

[ gross ]

Why don't you spare me the generosity and keep it for yourself?

[doggish]

[Relief, quiet but fervent, suffuses through him. His trust in Riftwatch is still such a tentative thing, but to hear that this girl has been treated with kindness is a balm in ways he did not quite expect. Assuring, even if it does not assuage all his fears.]

Yes.

[It's less answer and more faint echo of what she says: weapons do not make choices, oh, yes, he knows that feeling very well. His eyes aren't soft, for pity is never his way, but . . . sympathetic, perhaps. Sympathetic and pained both, radiating out from him unintentionally.]

Which king do you refer to?

trapping you in backtagland. yknow. the usual.

[katabasis]

Bastien for Scouting. [His certainty has little to do with any great faith he might or might not have in the man in question. He just knows who Byerly would advocate for.]

Rowntree for Forces if they're desperate. One of the Wardens if they're not.

[hassaran]

[ Bastien gets a nod, her pick as well. Some rare consensus, shame their presumed death is the way it comes up. ]

Rowntree's more likely than Ellis. And they'll like the idea of a mage. We should go this way, if there are any more bandits lingering we'll see them from the hill.

[katabasis]

[Sure. Right after he wrestles this quiver of bolts off this corpse.]

How's your aim?

[His draw, at present, is shit even with the mechanical advantage of the crossbow's lever. But if they're going to make their way over a hill then they might benefit with reach as well as vantage.]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult looks at her hands, flexes and clenches fingers a couple times. Some of the blood flakes off, other knuckles flood freshly red. Something twitches in her cheek when she rolls her wrists. She shrugs. ]

Not my strongest suit, but at this distance: fine. Better if we can set up in cover and pick them off.

[katabasis]

If we stay low while cresting the hill, we might not have to. A clear path forward may be just as plain as any reinforcements.

[That said, the look he gives her with the crossbow and quiver rings of skepticism. That's not what they're going to do though, is it?]

[hassaran]

[ No, that is not what they're going to do. Yseult's answering look is equally clear. ]

And let them take revenge on the village?

[ Not a chance. She slings the quiver over a shoulder and takes the bow in both arms, heading up toward the ridge, path angled toward a bristle of shrubbery at its apex, remains of some long-abandoned border hedge. ]

[katabasis]

[Flint fetches his commandeered sword from the soggy patch of grass into which it was thrust after having hacked through a half dozen bandits, and follows after her without protest.

Fair enough.]

[hassaran]

[ As they near the top of the hill she crouches to remain hidden behind it, bending lower the higher they go until she crawls the last few meters into the brush. The scrap of hedgerow is gnarled and spiny, but the twist of the trunk has left a gap at the base wide enough to accommodate them.

There is a little cluster of remaining bandits behind a larger clump of hedge at the base of the hill. One sharpens a blade while another checks gathered arrows and returns them to a quiver. Another helps wrap a bandage around his fellow's head. Yseult loads a bolt and winds the mechanism taut before lining up a shot. ]

Ready?

[katabasis]

[Having trailed after her in kind, Flint gently eases himself back up to a crouch behind the imperfect shield of the most dense part of their cover. The gentle rustle of dead leaves and brambly fingers of the brush is more or less in keeping with the soft click-click crank of the crossbow's draw. He's slower to move than she is, and will need his feet under him to start with if he means to intercept whatever may come tearing up this hill toward them once that first bolt flies free.

Flint shifts his grip on the heavy sword's grip. He nods without looking at her, attention fixed on bandits. ]

Ready.

[hassaran]

[ The clack of the bowstring is not much louder than the snap of a twig, and the bandits are too far for the impact of the bolt to carry up the hill to their ears. So there's a moment of silent suspense after Flint confirms and before the man sharpening his blade slumps far enough over to slide off the stump he'd been sat on and alert his comrades to the bolt that's now lodged in the back of his neck. Then there are shouts, men on their feet scrambling for weapons, looking around. It's not difficult to figure out the direction and, given that hint, the precise spot where the shot must have come from.

Yseult tips onto her side to crank the string back again. Her second bolt hits their archer in the hip, too late to stop him launching one of those scavenged arrows at their position. ]

cw: bloody action sequences can be banter if you squint

[katabasis]

[The crackle of the arrow punching through the brush would be chilling if it weren't competing with a half dozen other pressing concerns and it's more than enough to prompt an unconscious, instinctive flinch from Flint as the scraggly sticks about them tremble from the blow. Where the arrow flies after is a mystery—either between them or too high—unlikely to be solved in the moment. He certainly doesn't do more than to verify that Yseult remains capable of continuing to load the crossbow before breaking free of cover.

He makes directly for the wounded archer, half sliding down the muddy incline toward the man who apparently still has the wherewithal to recognize the disadvantage of his situation enough to go scrabbling through the mud toward another arrow. That there are more hands rapidly finding arms and their bearings is a problem for ten seconds from now. The arrow is nearer by half that.

With the alacrity afforded by adrenaline, Flint springs from the base of the incline, takes two long strides, and hacks directly through the archer's wrist.]

it sure can

[hassaran]

[ The bandit shouts, first, lifting his arm to ward off Flint's attack, and then screams as his hand falls free of it and drops to the ground beside his boot.

Behind him, two of his colleagues have found their weapons, an axe and a sword, respectively. They're coming fast up the hill and Yseult's next bolt hisses harmlessly by them, the one after digging into the dirt just ahead. She waits until they near Flint and slow in the approach, winding up to strike him, before firing again, this time putting a bolt past Flint's ear and through the larger man's biceps. ]