nonvenomous | Inbox

[ The pinch of his fingertips around the joint is awkward around the middle; he gives it a cursory sniff before he rights it round and goes through the paces of breathing in, holding for a few seconds and -- stifling a surprised cough.

Not a great sign.

The expelled smoke hangs in the air a beat -- he’s quick enough to hold the joint back out to her before he spirals fully into a dry, muffled fit. ]

[ She laughs, but not maliciously. She just can't help it! But, taking the joint back she hops up and fetches him something to drink. ]

Sorry, [ about laughing ] it helps to chug something when that happens.

[ With the drink handed off, she takes another hit for herself, holding in the smoke for a moment and then letting it stream out her nostrils as she laughs some more. ]

If you have a mind to, you'll get better at it.

[ He manages to curtail his coughing long enough to sip whatever’s offered, and sits for a moment after that struggling to keep it from kicking back up. A second sip and a dusty clearing of his throat, and he’s recovered enough to nod along with her assurance. ]

Thank you.

[ His voice rasps thin; he clears his throat again -- bleary from the coughing, but still quite sober. ]

May I ask you something?

No.

[ One of these days she'll stop ruining her own jokes by smiling through them, but today is not that day. ]

Yeah, of course you can.

[ Great. ]

Why is there a giant bat in your quarters?

[ He lifts his left hand in silent request, following her lead. ]

[ It takes until after she hands off the joint for Athessa to realize he means Batty Batkins. As if there were some new, interloping giant bat in the room. ]

Oh! That's Batty Batkins. Me n' Mhavos found him a while back, [ She moseys over to Barty and gives him a few affectionate scritches. ] I decided to take him in.

[ The joint spindles smoke in Richard’s fingers while he watches her drift over to scratch into Batty Batkin’s fur. Even now, his poker face is pristine -- absolute confusion limited to a non-judgmental slant at his brow. ]

Are they … native to the area?

[ Should he be looking out for these things on the towers after dark?

He takes a drag -- more confident than the first, and held substantially longer before he kicks it out through his sinuses with another cough. ]

[ Batty Batkins chitters happily about the scritches, and Athessa let's out a soft scoff. ]

Hardly. Best I can figure is someone used magic to make him like this, and then he got loose. The type of bat he is seems to be a relative of the tent making bats they have in Rivain, [ She returns to the pillow she was sitting on before and approximates the size of the Rivaini bats with two fingers. Barely bigger than a coin. ] Which are about this big and brown with stripes.

[ Dick half-listens as he stifles another bout of burning coughs into his drink, joint pinched aside for her to reclaim at will. ]

Any kind of permanent physical transformation is very difficult to achieve where I’m from.

[ He’s distracted, as he says so. Behind his eyes, gears and axles are starting to slow out of their locomotive chug. He lifts his drink, lowers it again. Lifts it. ]

[ She takes the joint back and ashes it into the fire before taking another slow drag. ]

I think it's probably difficult here, too, but I don't know how it's done at all. What does it take in your world?

[ That's a funny way to not drink a drink, Richard, what on earth? ]

A very powerful, very well-educated mage, [ says Richard, who successfully remembers to sip his drink before setting it aside on a flat stretch of floor. ] In lieu of that, there are pacts with devils, divine interventions, certain rites fueled by ritual sacrifice.

Naturally any of the latter might have unforeseen consequences.

[ He pauses again. Buffering. Then he chuckles, low in his throat.

It’s too self-deprecating to be wholly sinister. ]

[ Athessa nods, and nods, and continues nodding even after he's done speaking, but remembers to stop nodding right about the time Richard chuckles. ]

Sounds pre-tty similar to me. You have much experience with that kinda stuff?

No, of course not, [ Richard lies, his mirth snuffed at once to better support this discussion with the gravity it deserves. Transmutation can have grim implications. Brow hooded seriously, he breathes in to elaborate, and snorts at himself instead. ]

This would be dangerous in an interrogation.

[ Hypothetically speaking. ]

Are you the only Dalish elf with the watch?

[ Yeah, no kidding. ]

I think... I am, yeah. There've been a few others but they've all gone now.

Why have you stayed?

[ He asks more genuinely than he asked about the bat.

Slowly but surely, the habitual tension coiled behind his shoulders and up the back of his neck is unwinding. There’s no real urgency to him opening his left hand out to request another puff. ]

[ Good because he has to wait until she takes another before she hands it over. ]

Well, there'd be no point in leaving, would there? It's not like abandoning the war effort would make it go away, and I don't have any family to return to.

[ That's not about to change when the war is over, but better to save the world and be lonely later than be lonely now and watch the world burn. Or something. ]

[ He’s learned quickly. Breathe in, hold, breathe out, smoke spent in a lazy furl towards the fire -- which is, by the way, much more interesting to him now than it was when he first sat down, if the way he’s staring into it is any indication. Athessa’s sentiment is a familiar one, anyway. ]

Deceased or estranged?

[ Fire is so interesting, isn't it? The way it dances and warms and burns. It's like...a living thing. ]

Deceased. Coming up on...eighteen years, now?

[ She scoots down to lay more or less horizontal, propped up by her cushion and staring hazily up at the ceiling. It's all very casual, matter-of-fact. ]

I'm the last of my clan. Other Dalish treat me like a child because I didn't get my rites, and city elves hate me, so actually... both deceased and estranged.

[ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

[ Fascinating.

The fire, and an individual caught between the norms of two (three?) distinct cultures. Richard takes another (shorter) hit, baking in the bake to last, and offers the joint back, if she still wants it while she’s lying down. ]

I’m sorry to hear that, [ is a thing people say. ]

Thanks, [is a thing people say in response. ]

Do you have family back home?

[ Sure she'll take the last hit, prone, before flicking the roach into the fire. She tries again to blow rings and some of them kind of almost look good! Wow. ]

[ What should be an easy I don’t manifests as a scoff through his teeth, half a grin tell-tale before he can iron it into a grimace behind the scrub of his left hand. ]

Not as such, [ he says, turning to slant a brow at her in her recline. ]

Probably not at all anymore, if I’m honest. [ You know -- in that unlikely circumstance. Was that a ring? ]

What rites weren’t you given?

Rites of passage. When Dalish elves come of age, we get a symbol of the god that represents our values tattooed on our face. Going through it without making a sound is kind of proof that you're ready for adulthood.

[ The more she thinks about it, the more she has to wonder how different she might've been if she'd been able to earn that rite. Would she be happier? ]

Are you sad about not having much-or-as-such a family? [ Just to gauge how sad she should be for him. ]

I had wondered about the tattoos.

[ Specifically the absence of them, in her case. But more broadly beyond that as well -- his contact with anyone even remotely Dalish has been limited. Obviously. ]

A little bit, [ he’s willing to admit, in exchange. ] I’m not sad about much of anything.

[ Gravity has fully taken hold of his shoulders, and the set of his elbows over his knees, slouching them forward. His breathing has slowed; there’s an arch absence to his consideration of the question -- self-aware. Lying down is tempting.

He stays seated. ]

Could you still have it done?

[ Athessa gestures noncommitally at roughly the speed you'd expect from someone neck deep in treacle. ]

Not unless another clan wants to take pity on me, but I'm not even sure I'd want it, anyway.

[ She turns her head to regard him, her expression of awe muted by the elfroot haze and the languid relaxation it brings. The structural integrity of a Beanie Baby™. ]

I wish I could be not sad about stuff. Is that on purpose?

[ Dick hikes his brows, as mild in acceptance of her ambivalence as he is in most things. That’s fair.

Her next question isn’t necessarily more difficult to answer, but it is more complicated, and potentially more unsettling. His guard hasn’t entirely evaporated with his posture. ]

It’s the way that I am.

[ He woke up like this. ]

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