crystal

[undergrunn]

( Behold, a new voice on the crystals. Soft, good-humoured, with an accent that sounds Scandinavian / relative equivalent. The crystal catches a quiet breath of laughter before she speaks. )

I don’t know if you’re really lucky to have an engineer turn up, or if I’m really unlucky that I need to figure out the machinery.

I mean, learning about the infrastructure of a city in a whole different world isn’t even a “once in a lifetime” kind of opportunity, and pretending I’m some sort of genius at kinetic motion just because I know some mechanisms from home would be pretty fun, but…

Wow.

( Maybe that sounds a little weightier than her first "wow.")

Oh, I'm Abella. Riftwatch, you’re gonna have to have a lot more ramps by the time I’m done with you. Somewhere has to accommodate wheelchair users, even if it’s some kind of fairy tale world.

( Hmmm. )

Wait, can you just make them float, here? (More softly, ) Flying wheelchairs would explain the lack of ramps. I mean, this crystal thing is remarkable, so... let me know if I don't need to think about the ramps.

Comments

[elegiaque]

Children?

( —is a joke, lilted in her low, musical voice with a quirk of her eyebrows. heavens no, they're so sticky and there's all of these war crimes. she doesn't sit but rests against her desk, her ankles crossed, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling. thank god abella isn't from one of those places that thinks its uncouth or unhealthy to smoke indoors. )

We have the idea of a soul, ( she offers, moving a marble tray toward the edge of her desk so that they can both use it, ) and I've heard of things, from other rifters, about — the ways that someone's soul might be. Communicated, I suppose.

( she is thinking of jude, now, and the things the shades of his people recognised in her, and she is trying not to linger on it, )

But the phrase as you use it, no, I've not heard that.

[undergrunn]

( Evident as it is that Abella is inclined to smiles and light-heartedness, that might be first proper joke she's heard today. The thread of tension that survived the first drag of her cigarette eases with her quiet laughter. )

Mm. We have, um-- a tradition, I suppose? I always thought it was harmless fun, make-believe, like so many old stories.

( And then. She hopes that isn't too obvious, doesn't want to bring down the mood. I always believed is easier to brush over than, I used to. )

Each month has two types of souls under it. Some have more, for solstices, and the like. When you are born dictates what kind of soul you have, and the belief is that... ( she waves her hand vaguely, trying to find the right words for summing up astrology without being particularly clued into it. ) The forces of the universe influence you in particular ways, your personality, your fate, maybe? But it's not like everyone born with a particular soul is identical. There's so many, Changeling, Suffocated, Radiant.

( Decrepit, a memory presses forward unbidden, unwanted, and Abella is glad that a drag of the cigarette keeps her hand from shaking. )

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle makes a little huh sound, more thoughtful than the dismissive that she might have been if her guard weren't already lowered, at least a bit. radiant sounds like a nice sort of soul type to be told you have; suffocated, not so much. it snags on something in her mind, a thought only half-formed, and she keeps turning it over, and— )

Harmless traditions, ( she echoes. thinks, unwillingly, of the dalish. of everything they have learned about ancient elvhenan. about her fucking eye.

she flicks ash into the tray, and settles on, )

I've always been interested, ( after a moment, ) in the stories that a people tell about themselves. They're revealing, traditions.

( beyond just what they mean. but including that. even if there's truth to it. especially if there's truth to it. )

[undergrunn]

( They're revealing, traditions. Ourselves, our history, and she thinks of Marina. All-Mer, please be safe.

There's no time for that worry to be entirely too apparent, cut off by an odd, skittering clatter. tap-tap-tap-tap, slow at first, and then speeding up. Abella looks puzzled, glancing at Gwenaëlle with her brow furrowed before leaning out into the hall.

It is then that a tradition reveals itself, sliding into the office. A pinecone with sticks for legs. Or, at least, something alarmingly similar to a pinecone with sticks for legs, and Abella stares at it, baffled. )

Pinecone pig?

( A look to her new acquaintance - are they friends, yet? - then back to the creature, and back to Gwenaëlle, before she's staring at the new arrival because, well, who wouldn't. )

It's-- my pinecone pig is alive? Or-- animated?

( What is happening.

Pinecone pig twirls, more akin to a puppy than, well, a pinecone, and rears up to rest its stick forelegs on Abella's boot. Again, a puppy eager for pats - its body language suggests a wagging tail, even without the tail. )

[elegiaque]

Oh— ( gwenaëlle nearly asks is it not meant to be? because as fucked up as that thing looks — affectionately — pinecone pig sounds, you know, like an animal. it sort of moves like a nug, and she leans forward to study the ... thing? the skirt hikes mean it's easy to hitch the remainder of her hem out of her way and kneel down, curiously.

if she didn't bring it with her, then— )

Hello, little thing, haven't you had a big adventure, ( is simply the friendliest that abella has heard this woman's voice sound, orlesian accent thickening as she coos to it. ) Did you come all the way from the rift by yourself?

( when she draws its attention, she reaches a hand out to tentatively stroke it, studying the little creature to see if it has. a face? the body language does suggest which end is which but it's sort of hard to tell.

glancing up at abella, she says, )

Don't let it unsupervised into the infirmary, ( sounds like it's going to be a normal thing to say, except: ) Isaac's nasty teapot will fuck it up.

( she still sounds affectionate. she sort of loves that horrorshow of scuttling and tempestuousness. )

[undergrunn]

( Seeing the Captain of the Guard coo at a pinecone pig takes her rather more off-balance than if it were, say, a cat or dog. )

It-- I just kept it with my other things. I didn't realise it was-- alive.

( Pinecone pig is wiggling around, and its odd that the pinecone torso can wiggle. The legs aren't so rigid as sticks should be, but the limbs are certainly very strange and awkward. She crouches down, fascinated. )

Children in Oldegård make them. A forest friend, of pinecones, sticks and love.

( Oh!!! With Abella crouching down, the pinecone pig is smooshes against her hands, before squiggling back to Gwen, and just continuing the loop to try and get as much attention as possible. )

Isaac has a nasty teapot?

( Does she know who Isaac is? No. )

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle loves isaac's nasty teapot, which she has been actively trying to befriend when they're in the infirmary together. )

Like if a teapot were a spider, ( is definitely the most horrifying thing she could have said, but she sounds off-hand and pleased by it, her attention more immediately taken by the little pinecone pig, scampering between them to try and maximise how many hands it has available to it. given the cigarettes, about half as many as seems entirely fair, probably.

made of sticks and love is a phrase that will stick in her mind, but in the moment she doesn't examine the way it strikes her. surely that doesn't need to be looked at particularly. )

Working in the infirmary gives him the best access to put salt in people's wounds if he's bored, ( sounds like it's probably a joke, albeit a rude one about how isaac has a shitty personality. abella can draw her own conclusions when she meets him about its accuracy. ) We work together sometimes, I assist the head healer when I'm free.

[undergrunn]

There are so many ways to visualise that.

( Probably everything that's popped to mind is far more horrifying than the reality. She hopes so, at any rate. She's Seen Some Things.

It's easy to let her focus slip back to the little creature, the sort of thing she taught her younger siblings to make. Learning magic is real should explain it, and yet she's looking for any sign of a mechanism as she scritches the ridges of the pine cone. The way it moves don't seem at all mechanical. )

Do you help with applying the salt, or...?

[elegiaque]

Isaac isn't the head healer, ( she clarifies, ) or in need of any assistance to be a cunt.

( honestly, doing smashing work solo. really knocking it out of the park. you have to admire, etcetera. gwenaëlle's sideways glance betrays this for the joke it is, too: ) I let Dr Strange tell me what to do at work so he doesn't feel badly that I pay for everything at home.

( it doesn't matter that he isn't here to hear her make that crack; she knows what his face would have done if he heard it, and it's still funny. more seriously, ) I have a history with medicine, a little, so mostly it's alchemy, inventory, rolling bandages. Doing the sort of work any hands can do so that the hands we need for specialist work can focus. But sometimes—

( a shrug. )

Stephen — Strange — and I have done battlefield surgery, his knowledge of the work and my steady hands, I know how to clean and stitch and care for wounds, I can manage a dislocation with a second set of hands. I've overseen lyrium detox, now, though I doubt it's going to come up again soon.