002.

[periastron]

FORM: Crystal & extra.
SENDER: Simon, Bronach, Alex
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Fulfilling their assignment for a medical survey
WHEN: pre-strike
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: If you feel so inclined, please fill in the survey over here; Please note that this survey is totally optional both ICly and OOCly, and is an expanded version of a survey requested by Commander Coupe. All comments are screened, and responses will be used for an ic report issued to the Forces division. ICly the information will be kept centralised and confidential, with the intention of it being accessed only by treating medical personnel. (If you are able to do this by April 25th for the sake of us submitting the report by the end of the month that would be really appreciated.)

G’day, it’s Alex… again. Sorry mates, I promise you’ll be liberated from my dulcet tones as soon as I can manage to feel tired of my own voice.

( So, never being her very cocky and extremely self-deprecating implication. At the same time, yes. )

We got an assignment needs completing, but to get that done we need to get a survey done, so that requires plaguin’ you lot for some information about health and doctorin’.

[And kind of ignoring all those words she doesn't understand at all--] If you're concerned about who can read it, it won't be something nailed to a board where anyone can get hold of it. But so the healers know not to give you a thing you hate or can't have when you were stupid enough to land in their laps.

[Look she has so much faith in you people.]

Your bedside manner is inspirin’.

( Barely audible, muttered, and… not as hypocritical as it seems. Maybe. )

But she’s right, medical shit is confidential, this is just to help make sure the Inquisition treats you right and in accordance with your wishes and all that. We’ll be using it to make a report for Commander Coupe, but beyond that it’ll be for medical personnel only.

All right, that’s--let’s not--get in our own way here, shall we. [That’s certainly helping.] If you’d feel better speaking to an Andrastian about all this, or just...a native, and you don’t mind it being a templar, that’s what I’m here for. [Simon doesn’t really get why all the preoccupation with fancy things like “privacy” and “confidentiality,” but if it gets them answers.]

And if you want we got paper copies you can fill in, or if you’d rather chat it out and none of us are people you’d be comfortable talkin’ with, we’ll grab someone else for you and figure it out. So uh— any questions, let us know.

Comments

[elegiaque]

No. ( one word, but a hint of distaste at the suggestion. ) I have an anchor-shard. It renders leaving not an option.

[periastron]

From what I hear, there's a project that partly looks into how them thinks fuck about. Might be worth submitting it, given the impact the shard could unexpectedly have on health.

[elegiaque]

Mmm. Perhaps when they stop being useful, that'll start being a priority.

( that's a good deal more matter of fact said than one might expect. )

They did their own survey some months prior. I don't recall any suggestion they'd be interested in medical complaints.

[periastron]

They're doing their rift nonsense, we're doing medical. Just different areas of focus, I guess. Anyway, it's up to you, you don't gotta decide now. If you decide later on you'd like to chuck some extra info our way, just gimme a shout.

in person;

[earthbones]

[And, looking slightly more urgent than she has through this whole process, trying not to hiss:]

This is why I wanted to ask about who had access to things. Some of us already have notes on who we are, what we are. To be monitored. It isn't a comfortable subject when there are papers in a desk somewhere that someone else might lift down the line.

[As she has from others, to put to less destructive purposes.]

[periastron]

Calm your farm, Bronach.

( For all the obnoxious phrasing, she's actually calming in how she says it. )

That's why this is optional and we aren't gonna force anyone to share information they don't wanna. And it's why I'm gonna do whatever I can to make sure their information is handled respectfully.

[earthbones]

Farming got people exiled into caves in my homeland. It's forbidden.

[Completely. Goddamn. Deadpan.]

We're rifters. Granted, you're a human, more chance they'll listen to you than an elf but-- is it really just normal for you? People knowing things about you like that?

[periastron]

Oh, shit? Seriously?

( is Bronach god-tier sarcastic or is shit really that intense? she's got no idea. either way: intrigue. )

Well, we're from different worlds. It's normal for their to be records, but there's good in it. I mean, but there's also laws and stuff to try and keep information from being abused or confidentiality violated. It's good because, in theory, it helps look after people better. It's bad because... I mean, sometimes you want your shit private, yeah?

[earthbones]

Do not harm the green, it's the first story we're told as children. People relax it but there are rules, and we know what happens to those who violate it.

[And it won't happen to her. Her voice is-- choked. Uncomfortable. Somewhere else where it smells of humid wet dirt after heavy rain.]

Do you trust the people writing your laws not to abuse them? [No she does not know what's she potentially getting into here regarding data integrity just that there are bad experiences to be had. There are bad experiences that are par for the course that are never spoken of until they are, a knowing about them. Sometimes a slyness to them that she would prefer not to have.] The people who make the laws or who have a say in their wording or shaping care little for how they're kept all the time or for people who don't look just like them, who don't think and behave just like them. Someone here said having children: deciding who has children is information they keep at home, not far from where I come from. For their own citizens.

[periastron]

Do not harm the green is a policy I respect. In my world—

my Yia Yia, she had a farm for raisin' sheep. She and my Baba, they cared a lot about nature. Wanted to treat the land right, but... I mean, even with the best intentions and the planting trees and the lookin' after the rivers, you're still changing it aren't you? And sheep, bless their cotton socks, they got then cloved hooves that can carve up the land right proper. And in my world, we've done some terrible things to it. Some people don't care, some people care a lot, but— some people care a lot. I hope we can do better. Sometimes lawmakers even help, y'know?

Sorry, um— I just think its really cool, having a law like that? Anyway, uh. I don't trust all people. Some people look at the law as something they can manipulate and profit from, but some of them are really good, and they want to do it right. Just because some people are shit though doesn't mean everything behind an idea is shit too, yeah?

[earthbones]

This isn't-- I--

[Her hands are curling on empty air instead of ragged nails digging into her own palms (they're surveying healing, she has no desire to perhaps volunteer herself to be put to the front of a line to test the new system even in the earliest moments). One breath. Another. And another.]

I don't mean it that way. This is a pact made by the Bosmer to Y'ffre, the forest deity, in exchange for his patronage. Y'ffre the spirit of the now, first of the Earth Bones. [A shaking voice; this is faith speaking, halting, reverent, someone who doesn't know how fit she is to speak the words but she tries for the sake of trying now when Alexandra has tried, has already listened.] Y'ffre taught us lessons and he's the Storyteller; after creation of the mortal plane all was chaos. Shapes were not fixed, the world was formlessness so Y'ffree turned himself into the first of the Earth Bones and the laws of nature were set down to give us safety. We could understand the world now. But Y'ffre commanded us that the Green would be our shelter and so long as we respected it, it would obey. No wood or plants can be used to build, no trees or plants harmed for our own betterment, nothing plant-based can be smoked, only things that come from meat can be consumed, and we cannot alter our physical forms.

[As someone as bright as Alexandra can imagine, there are loopholes, exceptions. Is that, perhaps, the reason for the guilt in her gaze, the turn in her mouth?]

The people who write laws came to my home and carry out purges you hear nothing of. They manipulate, deceive, swarm as ants in black and gold to turn back time to force us all to be what they were without asking the rest of us. Because they know best. Because that's what they want.

[periastron]

No, I mean— hey, Bronach. ( A breath of laughter, totally self-deprecating. )

I'm a dumbass. We aren't even from the same bloody world. Just, um. I might fuck up sometimes, but please know I wanna respect your beliefs. And if I ever do some shit or ask you do do something that goes against that, that I'd rather you tell me so I can fix it, than it like— I dunno, be some bloody sword swinging over our necks. You're out of your world, same as me. I've got your back, alright? Your beliefs matter. They're worth respecting. I'll do my best, I just might need telling sometimes. Is that okay?

[earthbones]

I'm bad at this. Sometimes it is a sword swinging over my neck because that's what it is but I'm trying, there's just part of me that makes it difficult. [A will to dominate that she struggles over. Has to force down, stuff into a sack sometimes because it won't get her places if she's kicking and screaming the whole time but it's there, the defiance, the readiness to curl her lip and snarl.] I can respect your ways and the same goes, I know how it is to see how you live made small and strange or worse. I might have more questions about this with the laws away from [a gesture to encompass the nearness of it, or the time, it's the same thing to her] so I can explain things if they need it.

Or if you need to ask. Or want to. I'm aware that I'm difficult.

[The smile is genuine enough to say that she's been told it multiple times in the course of her life.]

[periastron]

It's alright. I reckon we can be difficult together. Give everyone else the worst headaches they ever had, yeah?

[earthbones]

I don't have any hawk feathers for those, shame for everyone else.

[Again, she's being deathly serious.]

[faithlikeaseed]

All the same it's something we ought to add to the survey, now that you've said as much aloud.

We should be taking it into account.

[Given Sina.]

[elegiaque]

It doesn't seem irrelevant. For example, I have it on good authority that the anchor-shard probably wouldn't cause a baby to be born possessed, if someone were to have one, with one.


( it'd be ill-advised on like seventeen other levels, which is why she's saying it so very flippantly now and mostly as a joke, but solas did say. )

[faithlikeaseed]

[...Huh. Well. That's not something he'd had cause to consider but now that he has...] That's so? S'pose that'll be good to have in mind when we've gotten rid of Corypheus and children are more of a possibility.

Anything else from that same--ah--authority?

[elegiaque]

I can't think having a child before it's removed is wise, regardless, but.

( it's a subject she's discussed at some length. )

Solas is a part of that project, I believe. If he isn't, I can't think why not.

[faithlikeaseed]

Nor can I--but in the event we don't find a way to remove them-- [He could see how shardbearers of a certain mindset might still want to have children and damn the consequences.]

--That he is, though I confess I've not had much occasion to speak to him. [Except the once, sort of indirectly, and not about rifts, the Veil, or shards.] I'd gotten the impression he's not the sort to submit to much focused questioning.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle, mercifully, spares everyone her commentary on those people. )

Is the only way you ever speak to people best described as something they 'submit' to?

( SOUNDS FAKE. )

Because I've not had any trouble speaking with Solas, as a friend. I can't imagine 'as a colleague' is all that dissimilar.

tfw you realize after that last tag that the two characters have actually talked more than, *whoops*

[faithlikeaseed]

[He laughs, softly.] Only when it's questions. I've been told before I ask too many.

[Not that he's much ashamed of that.]

But you've a point.

sweeps aside facts

[elegiaque]

Well, knowing the problem is half the battle. I know it's going to be an immense challenge for you, particularly, but I recommend just trying not to be an arsehole.

( it's funny because he's like, the nicest person she knows. )

nOTHING IS REAL

[faithlikeaseed]

[Somewhere, he's putting a hand against his chest.] If it's for the good of Research and the Inquisition, I'll find a way not to sharpen my tongue on his hide--a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

[elegiaque]

( she briefly entertains alluding to solas's love of sweet cakes, but he did get a little bit bent out of joint about the combined efforts of herself and thranduil to fatten him up, so—

tuck that one back under the hat for another time. )

You're so noble, Shivana.

( obligatory fluttery sigh. she might not actually be much of an ingenue, but she knows how it's done. )

Be interested and interesting, that's my advice. It almost always works for me.