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allthisshitisweird2022-05-30 10:05 am
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2022-05-30 10:05 am
Entry tags:
PARTY BANTER MEME
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.
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[ With a glance at her hands. They're made fists without her noticing. ]
I still do not understand why humans dislike elves.
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Everyone wants someone else to feel superior over. All species do it, even elves— look at the Dalish, and their smug sense of superiorty over city elves. Dwarves and their castes, Qunari and Tal-Vashoth . . .
But humans conquered elves long ago. They left no space for elves to exist, no country nor land, and now reap the benefits of their malicious sowing: we live among them. We exist, fragmented but still alive, resentful in a way I suspect they do not wish to think of. And yet they take pains to make sure that elves know they are still a conquered species. So that even the poorest of humans— especially the poorest, perhaps— can enjoy that thought. Things may be bad, but at least I am not an elf.
I do not justify it, nor think it correct. But if you ask why . . .
[A shrug. There you go.]
You are a mage?
[Is that why they should?]
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[ There's too long a pause when he asks his question - no physical flinch, but perhaps in her silence a sort of verbal one. ]
No.
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[It comes out more roughly than he means it to be, an abrupt shut-down of what was clearly meant well. He grimaces faintly at himself, mildly regretful and yet unsure as always how to soften his more brittle edges.
But oh, that pause. He's patient throughout it, and (truthfully) quietly relieved when she answers.]
I will not press if it is a truth you wish to keep to yourself. Everyone has secrets, and they do not need to all be dragged out into the light for every nosy person.
But I am used to the unusual.
[He makes a sort of aborted gesture at himself, like, look at him, he has lyrium all over his body.]
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For a moment or two after he speaks again, though, she allows herself to study the lines that cut along his neck. (People dislike it when you stare at them. Laura learned that some time ago, and she's tried to avoid doing so to Fenris.) His markings are familiar and foreign all at once, the filled-in version of the thin scars that run along her hands and feet. ]
When we are alone, I will show you.
[ He might not know the gossip about her, all the horrors that swirled around her when she first came to Kirkwall - but there's no guarantee that others on the street don't. ]
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[Though he can't deny his curiosity is peaked now. But ah, that stare:]
. . . do you wish to ask?
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Do you wish to tell?
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I would not mind it. My appearance is strange, and I do not pretend otherwise.
They are lyrium, as you may have guessed. I was a slave in Tevinter once, and my former master a magister there. He branded these into me in a display of power and wealth, using magic that had not been seen in the Imperium for centuries, all so he could have a bodyguard unlike any other.
They proved to be his glory at first, I will admit. Certainly he had no end of admirers in the aftermath, and I served him well as muzzled wolf, biting at his enemies, keeping him safe and intimidating others all at once.
[A small, tight, nasty little smile as he holds his hands between them, letting the lyrium flare through his fingertips, a brief glowing surge of power.]
But they proved to be his downfall, too. As did I.
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There's only one thing she can think to ask, in the silence after he finishes speaking: ]
What was his name?
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[Not an unknown name even now, especially with his bastard sons having all died gruesome, bloody deaths.
And he is not unobservant, you know. Not in the least. He sees how flat her expression gets, how something switches behind her eyes.]
What name did you dread I might say?
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Reis.
[ some silence, in which she considers the fact that he explained everything of himself, showed her what he would, and no one around them said a word.
she might not pull the claws, but she'll at least explain - ]
He painted it on my bones.
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He—
[No, this is not a conversation to have in the middle of the streets, but nor is it one that can wait. His mind is screaming right now, but still, he jerks his head, indicating they ought to slip into a pub. It's easier to talk there; easier to blend in, too, even for him. For, ah, for them, he thinks faintly, and takes a seat in a dim corner, his eyes never leaving her.]
He painted them on.
How. Who was he? A magister?
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[ Remembering has made her quiet - quieter than she was before, if that's possible - all the way to this dim room and its wobbly table. But she answers his question without hesitation.
Laura sets her hands on the table, palms down. There are thin scars, old and difficult to see in the lamplight, above the places the bones of her hands are. They disappear beneath the cuffs of her shirt, and unseen under the fabric, they also disappear beneath newer scars. ]
In Nevarra. [ A pause. ] I killed him.
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[The word is harsh and sharp, a blunt confirmation that's spoken so quickly at the tail end of her sentence that he nearly steps on it. Seething rage boils up in him; with practice, he pushes it down. It will not help, neither him nor her.
What will help, then?
Perhaps this: his hand set between the two of them, palm-up, fingers outstretched. Lyrium is branded there (lyrium is branded everywhere), pooling in his palm before vivisecting up each of his fingers, so bright and bold that it's impossible to miss.]
. . . it gives me the ability to turn intangible. Either entirely, or in parts, depending on what I wish. That is not the only thing it does, but that is it primary function.
They are useful. And I am never sure if I resent them or value them for what they allow me to do. But I have never met anyone like me before, and I would help you, if I could, in whatever fashion you deem appropriate. It is no easy thing to be . . . different than everyone around you, especially involuntarily.
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[ For a fleeting moment, she's envious of his abilities. Her claws offer protection, as does her sharp sense of smell and the way she heals a little faster than most - but becoming untouchable might have spared her any number of horrors after she'd escaped.
Or perhaps not. She'd had claws and freedom, and she'd still suffered until she found Riftwatch. Different skills wouldn't have saved her.
(And what agony he must have gone through, to be marked by lyrium all over his body. What she'd experienced at nine had been pain enough.) ]
I think we are the only two. [ I hope we are the only two. ] Have you been with Riftwatch long?
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[He thinks. He hopes. Danarius had spent a fortune and a lifetime making Fenris, and he was wealthy beyond measure. It must have taken this Reis the same amount of effort, surely; such things are uncommon, and wickedly expensive to boot.]
No. That is . . . not in recent memory, but my memory is not always reliable. To my mind, it has been half a year or so.
[But perhaps longer. He studies her, his eyes not unfriendly. She's young, certainly. Green eyes, like his own; long hair, and though his own is a blunt undercut now, still, he remembers the joy that came from hiding his eyes beneath long bangs. Tension wracked throughout her frame, and he remembers that too. The poise of a creature used to having to fight: not a prey animal flinching from loud noises, but a predator that has been abused for too long ready to snarl at the world.
What is it to have a counterpart like this? An echo of the past, and yet so remarkably different from himself that there can be no mixing them up. What would he have given to have someone show him how to handle his pain? How not to just flinch warily from the world, but embrace it? He does not know if he, himself, can be such a thing for this girl, but oh, wouldn't it be lovely to try?]
What do you . . .
[No, that's not the way.]
How do you find it? Riftwatch. Do you fit in?
[Maker help him, he sounds like a guidance counselor, but bear with him.]
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[ Away to help people outside Kirkwall, rebuilding and protecting those who needed it. No wonder his face is unfamiliar; had he been here when she was sixteen, she would have followed him everywhere. ]
Riftwatch has helped me. People have been kind. [ Laura pauses - but Fenris has explained more of himself than might be expected. She can offer some explanation in turn. ] I came to Kirkwall - [ how long? ] - nearly three years ago. They did not have to take me in, or protect me, but they did. Even when Nevarra demanded my return for trial and execution, Riftwatch protected me.
[ Her expression changes minutely, a drawing-in of brows and pursing of lips. He will either hear the details from her, or he will hear them from someone else.
And she would prefer he didn't hear them from someone else. ]
When I was a child, I killed who I was told to kill. Weapons do not make choices - but the king did not see it that way.
no subject
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?