[OPEN] mountain on top, a fire below

[bestofthevein]

Characters: Kit, Rutile + you!! yes, you!!
Date: throughout August
Location: around Aifaran and the Dreaming Bridge
Situation: a catch-all for Kit this month. One closed prompt and one open prompt for now, but I will add more later.
Warnings/Rating: None atm!



Since Vandelin’s disappearance along with the rest of the other visiting Dreamfolk at the end of July, Kit has been moody and uncharacteristically stand-offish. Their time together had provided him with a sense of closure he knows had been denied him in Thedas--but there’s cruelty in having someone you’ve longed for at last brought to you, only to have them ripped away again shortly thereafter.

To say he’s currently a bit cross with the Dreaming would be an understatement.

Regardless, when he makes his reluctant return to his small circle of friends, it’s a little sheepishly, and with the best of intentions.


I. CSPAN Snooze (Justice 1; closed to Rutile)

He’s on the skytrain, trundling from one station towards the next, when his yimo decides to stop working.

At least, that is the only explanation Kit has for its sudden and peculiar behaviour. One minute, he is absently browsing through his most recent album of poorly curated yimo photos (many of them of Vandelin at various stages of benign irritation with him); the next, the network’s most popular news app has opened itself on the device’s screen and is broadcasting some dull, uninteresting piece of legislative news coverage.

He frowns and tabs back to the home screen. Or rather, that is what he tries to do. Pressing the home key only results in the news app reloading.

Scowling, he stuffs the yimo into his pocket and resolves to deal with it once he’s back at the Dreaming Bridge, assuming he doesn’t forget--though forgetting seems highly unlikely given that every public terminal he passes en route to the Bridge from the station. (And probably a few other personal devices, given the sudden exclamations of annoyance and confusion from people around him on the streets.)

By the time he reaches the Bridge’s common area, he’s looking a particular brand of both annoyed and freaked out that only he can accomplish; magical weird shit is not his forte, and frankly neither is technology. Finding a free seat, he tosses himself onto it and sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his eyes shut.

That is, of course, when one of the display screens in the common area promptly changes channels away from Igheeri Eye to--yes, of course--the Assembly’s legislative proceedings.

“Sod it,” Kit mumbles, giving up, and drops his head backward onto the seat.


II. Bridge Under Construction (Arts 3; OPEN)

Kit doesn’t object to the Bridge staff choosing to invest more time and energy in updating the building’s amenities. He didn’t object to the amenities as they were before, either; actually, this is the first time he’s ever lived in a place where the word ‘amenities’ was used to describe anything.

It’s the drilling and hammering at all hours that is driving him to distraction. And a particularly loud THUMP! in the middle of the night has him waking up in a thrashing tangle of his own bedsheets, fumbling around for an axe that he definitely does not keep on his person while sleeping.

Another thump follows shortly thereafter as he topples from the top bunk and hits the floor.

“Ah, shit.”

Either you’re his roommate checking on him after his tumble, or you spot him in the Bridge’s common area a few hours later with a pretty large ice pack pressed against the back of his head.


III. Wildcard!!

(surprise me!)
 

Comments

I

[rutility]

Rutile has no intention of stopping in the common room on their way out the door, but the sight of a familiar figure in their peripheral vision catches their eye as they pass by. They take a step back and glance in - yes, that's Kit, after several days of silence, and though their expression does not change their mood does improve at finding he hasn't disappeared after all.

They slip into the common room, their footfall unfortunately heavy, and get a good before greeting him. Kit does look rather the worse for wear, though honestly Rutile can't say they've ever seen him not looking that way. He appears to have given up on the nonsense is taking place on the common room monitor in favor of whatever solace sleep could offer him.

"There's an easier way about this," Rutile points out, and reaches beneath the monitor to switch it off. The screen goes black, and the common room is left in blissful silence. They turn back to Kit, amusement on their face. "It would require standing up, though."

[bestofthevein]

If he'd known that his friends here would suspect that the Dreaming had taken him, he'd feel considerably worse for his radio silence.

Rutile's particular gait is familiar enough to Kit know that he recognizes their approach before they speak up. He doesn't bother to lift his head or open his eyes at their clever observation, only smirking lopsidedly and reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Knowing my luck, the sodding thing would've turned itself back on. Guess the Dreaming really wants me to pay attention to--" a tired wave at the screen as he at last makes himself sit upright, "--whatever that was."

He may look like he's been put through the wringer (emotionally, at least), but frankly this is an improvement upon a week ago. Still, when he clears his throat and asks, "How've you been?" it's clear from his expression that he knows he's been scarce, and feels rather badly about it.

[rutility]

There are no hard feelings; Rutile knows well the emotions that can drive one to solitude, and blames no one for them (usually). Still, they would have been glad of company the last few days. Their expression changes into one of embarrassment and regret, and they parse their answer before speaking. They are not certain if they and Kit are close enough for confidence - not that they don't trust Kit, because they certainly do, but rather they would hardly burden Kit with their worries. Especially not when he seems so burdened himself.

"Well enough," they say, keeping their cheerful demeanor. "Maintaining the status quo, and trying to ignore the renovations at all hours of the night. Even were there peace and quiet, though, I don't know that I'd be sleeping."

They sink into a chair near the monitor, their knees together and ankles neatly crossed. Their voice lowered, they explain, "This stone plagues my thoughts. I've held and observed it several times, but I cannot understand why it burned you, or what its make is."

[bestofthevein]

"Maintaining the status quo, and trying to ignore the renovations at all hours of the night..."

He makes a sound halfway between a snort and a scoff. "Yeah, I could do without all the damn drilling and hammering when I'm trying to get some shut-eye," he agrees. "It's hard enough staying asleep here, for me. Dwarves don't dream where I'm from, we sleep like rocks." A pause, then, "Literally, like rocks--no connection to the Fade or anything. That's, uh, where human and elf souls go when they dream. Or when they die."

What a tangent. He looks momentarily abashed by it; hopefully Rutile won't take any of it as an insult. They're definitely among the most lively rocks that Kit has ever met. (Excluding a few particularly aggressive rock wraiths in the Deep Roads.)

When Rutile lowers their voice and brings up the obsidian stone from the wreckage of the Narrakra, however, Kit instinctively glances around the common room to make sure they're alone. He's not expressly sure why he feels the need to maintain some secrecy here, aside from his general mistrust of Aifaran authority... or authority figures in general. The forces of the Inquisition in Thedas had not left him well disposed towards powerful organizations meddling in the affairs of the little people (or in the affairs of the arcane, frankly). "It wasn't even really a burn," he admits quietly and looks down at his hand, which he shows to Rutile. The rash itself is hardly visible anymore, and there's no scar tissue left behind indicating a burn. "It was just... intense sensation, kind of."

He hesitates. Then, more quietly, "Do you still have the stone?"

[rutility]

"Dwarves don't dream where I'm from, we sleep like rocks."

Rutile's expression there is all you need, really - somewhat puzzled, very amused, because rocks very much do sleep, with varying levels of frequency, and some more restfully than others. They take Kit's elaboration on the subject with a smile before they pick up on the more curious of his statements. "If human and elf souls go to the Fade when they dream and when they die," they ponder, "what is the difference between dreaming and dying?"

Another question at the back of their mind is, are we in the Fade right now? ... but this they keep to themselves. Kit is the only authority on his world there is, and he says dwarfs are excluded. It's a small point to quibble.

Kit's instinct to maintain secrecy regarding the stone is shared. Less because of a mistrust of the local authorities - though that is certainly part of it - and more because they don't need twenty other Dreamfolk's opinions on it. When Kit shows them the remnants of the rash, they lean closer to examine it; sure enough, there are no mementos of their time on the Narrakra.

Rutile nods in answer to Kit's inquiry about the stone, and surreptitiously reaches into their pocket, gently pulling it out and setting it on a side table. In the full light of day it seems no less ominous; if anything, it is more obvious that the thing is not of this earth - of any earth. With the way it absorbs light, it seems more like an absence of space than an object taking it up.

"I'm loathe to ask you," they say, "but since it seems to have done you no harm, would you hold it again?"

[bestofthevein]

"...what is the difference between dreaming and dying?"

Well that's a question that Kit doesn't particularly want to know the answer to, given the Dreaming itself brought him to Konryu at the moment of his death in Thedas. Maybe the answer for him is, there isn't a difference. He shifts uncomfortably the more he thinks about it, but the appearance of that strange obsidian stone pushes all other thoughts to the fringes. Dealing with this is what matters now.

Then Rutile asks him that question.

He glances up, his eyebrows arching high towards his hairline, then gives the stone a shifty, uncertain look. "All right," he begins slowly, hesitates, then reaches out to carefully collect it up into his grasp. This time he doesn't drop it when he feels that strange rush of sensation, or the hum that resonates low in his ears. "...you can't hear that?" he asks Rutile, glancing their way.

[rutility]

Kit’s discomfort with the question is noted - Rutile doesn’t know enough about his backstory to have a guess at why, but they resolve to be less cavalier with the topics of both dreaming and dying in the future.

Rutile watches like a hawk as Kit reaches for the stone and closes his fingers around it. They are ready for a cry of discomfort, a shock of sound, perhaps a change in visual that they hadn’t noticed in the dark of the ship’s underbelly; they are tense with anticipation -

- and there it is, so faint it is barely detectable, though it grows in volume as Rutile adjusts their expectations. When Kit grasps the rock the gentlest hum emanates from it, the noise causing miniscule vibrations through their jaw and extremities.

“You can’t hear that?”

“No, I think I can,” Rutile says, soft with wonder. They lean closer to the cube to get a better look at it, but there is no visible change. “I can’t fathom it - why it does this for you, and not for me. What is the discriminating factor? Body heat?”

Or is it more sophisticated than that?

[bestofthevein]

"Constitution, maybe?" Kit muses aloud, his eyes still on the stone in his hand. After a moment, the uncanny feeling of wrongness becomes too much for him, and he sets the stone back down on the table between them. He glances down at his palm and grimaces; sure enough, the rash has returned, though now that the rushing sensation from before has faded, he's caught off-guard by how strange it is to have such a mark on his skin without any pain to go with it.

"Can gems get rashes like this?" He holds his hand out for Rutile's inspection, then considers his friend's appearance. "I don't suppose you can, being what you are. Maybe that's the difference."

[rutility]

The strange hum ends as soon as Kit drops the stone; quickly Rutile picks it up again, examining it once more for any changes, but when there is nothing to observe they set it down again, disappointed.

"Can gems get rashes like this?"

This time Rutile does take Kit's hand, gently holding this fingers spread apart as they peer at the rash in his palm. They don't anticipate their actions hurting him more from a lack of understanding about rashes than their own careful movements, and they are unafraid to turn the hand any which way so as to get a good look. "Your hand is warm," they note, "and I can feel your pulse, but I think those are normal - ah, dwarf things, I suppose? I could say the same as most other living beings, is my point."

With pursed lips, they let Kit have his hand back. "I've never seen anything like this on a gem, though," they reply, frustration evident in their tone. It is so difficult to have so few answers, and so little background to work from in answering them. "It's certainly possible that the difference is in chemical makeup, but I just don't understand why that in particular would be a discriminatory factor.

"I just wish there was someone else we could ask."