what the water gives you

[necrocabbage]

Characters: Trahearne, Leo, Kit, and possibly you!
Date: Through the second half of March
Location: The Dreaming Bridge and the beach
Situation: In which Trahearne gets cornered by Leo and also helps with the beach cleanup efforts. There's fewer open prompts this time, but I included a wildcard if you want to interact with him elsewhere.
Warnings/Rating: None yet


A. A TALK (for Leo)
Trahearne has his room to himself for the moment, sitting on his bed with a good handful of books, a notebook on his lap and a mug of the closest thing to a tea-like drink the cafeteria had to offer on the nightstand next to him. This time, he's changed his reading to general magic theory and writings about Dreamfolk and the planes, and he's taking notes on what he finds interesting or might need to cross-reference. Most of it is easily readable, but every now and then he takes five minutes to struggle to write a sentence in New Krytan instead, the lettering looking a little like basic calligraphy in the way the foreign letters are stylized.

He gives the door a confused look at hearing the knock, but doesn't take long to get to his feet and step over to open it. Trahearne's possibly more wilted than the last time Leo saw him, the edges of the leaves on his head curled inwards somewhat and looking brittle to the touch.

"Hello again, Leo. Are you here looking for someone?"



B. BEACH CLEANUP (for Kit & Open)
Being no stranger to dead creatures out of the ocean, the cleanup job at the beach rather appealed to him. It was a nice excuse to spend the day out in the sun, and the beaches here were nice enough that it felt more like a vacation than coming out to do heavy lifting. Perhaps Trahearne wasn't exactly suited for physical work, but he did have other tricks up his sleeve.

After being sent out onto the beach with their tools, Trahearne turned to the other members of his assigned team. "I have a spell that will make the going a little bit easier. Please, don't be alarmed by it." With that said, he summoned fourth a couple of flesh golems, two of his largest and most intimidating-looking minions.

... Which then proceeded to act entirely docile. While the flesh golems each had a single long talon instead of hands, they were still somewhat helpful in scooping up pieces of jellyfish on their own, perhaps moreso in pushing wheelbarrows. It distracted Trahearne somewhat to be mentally conducting their movements as he was working alongside them, but the work didn't require one's full attention in the first place.


C. WILDCARD
[If you want to run into Trahearne somewhere else, feel free to pick another location!]

Comments

[bestofthevein]

For his part, Kit doesn't look particularly bothered by their appearance; it's the magic that continues to make him ill at ease, even though magic of any kind appears to be something that he now also has at his own disposal. He keeps eyeing the golems as they bend to the task of cleaning up the dead sea creatures from the beach, gives his head the minutest of shakes, then shifts his eyes to Trahearne again.

The guy himself is already pretty peculiar looking... but then again, Kit himself probably looks pretty strange to the locals. He grabs hold of a wheelbarrow and wheels it over to make the task less arduous.

"Fear's not really the right word," he says wryly, giving Trahearne a crooked smirk. He waves a hand as if to dismiss his initial reaction. "Don't worry about it. I didn't catch your name either--I'm Kit."

[necrocabbage]

Trahearne follows along after him, shovel in hand. It honestly didn't cross his mind that he could sit back and let his minions do the work for him - it would still go faster with everyone pitching in, and really, he's handled much more disgusting things before than overly large jellyfish. Considering all the time he's spent in Orr, he's practically used to foul smells.

His eye is admittedly drawn to Kit, though not only for typical reasons. There was something about his stature that he's seen only once before... "My name is Trahearne. It's very nice to meet you." Those pleasantries aside, he managed to last for all of a moment before blurting out, "Are you a dwarf? I apologize but - I've never seen a living dwarf before. Or perhaps I should say I've never seen a fleshy one?"

[bestofthevein]

"Good to meet you, Trahearne," Kit responds affably, flashing his strange new friend a lopsided grin, and sets to the task of shovelling another piece of dead sea creature into the wheelbarrow. The flesh golems are certainly weird, but truthfully they can't be any weirder than the stone golems of the Deep Roads. However those were forged--and he isn't precisely sure how--he expects he'd find being in their presence just as unsettling as the flesh ones. And besides, it's the next question that really snags his attention though.

"Are you a dwarf? I apologize but - I've never seen a living dwarf before. Or perhaps I should say I've never seen a fleshy one?"

He stops short, holding the shovel, and blinks back at Trahearne in startled surprise. "Uh, yeah," he says, then slowly dumps the rest of the dead jellyfish into the wheelbarrow. "I'm a dwarf, even though the rest of the stuffed up sods in Orzammar probably wouldn't agree. Why?" he adds, frowning. "There aren't any dwarves where you're from?"

[necrocabbage]

Trahearne gives him a small, somewhat awkward smile at that reaction, briefly turning away to use the edge of his shovel to slice part of one of the jellyfish into more manageable chunks. Maybe those squishing sounds weren't entirely pleasant, but it made it easier to add to the pile in the wheelbarrow.

"There is only one dwarf that I know of. A rather cranky and irritable one, but I try not to take it personally. You see, some two hundred years ago, the dwarves of my world underwent a powerful magical rite that turned them all to stone. They did it so that they could fight against one of the champions of the Elder Dragon Primordus - the Great Destroyer was spoken of both in their religion and in prophecy, if I recall correctly. So many of them joined that battle that it's difficult to know how many of the dwarves might still be alive."

[bestofthevein]

Dwarves and magical rites--never a combination that could have occurred in Thedas. Even the idea of it sketches clear incredulity onto Kit's face as Trahearne speaks, but the more he hears, the more his expression changes into something approaching melancholy.

"Damn," he swears quietly, and turns to shovel more of the dead sea creatures into the wheelbarrow. For a moment he doesn't say anything else, just working in silence. Then, grimacing, he says, "I didn't figure it out 'til I went topside--I mean, when I left Orzammar and the Deep Roads and went above ground--but dwarves aren't doing that great where I'm from, either. Trouble having kids. I guess it has something to do with the darkspawn, but," here he shrugs, though clearly not from complacency. "Regardless, give it a couple hundred years and I don't know if there will be any dwarves left in Thedas."

Out of all the other more personal tragedies he's endured, this one was the farthest from the forefront of his thoughts most of the time. Mulling it over now, though, it makes him a little heartsick.

[necrocabbage]

"Oh thorns, I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to bring up such a depressing topic." Yet he had anyway, all because he liked telling stories too much. He had gotten used to it, in fact, with how often he spent talking to other Dreamfolk about what life on Tyria was like.

"Just because the dwarves of my world essentially died out, doesn't necessarily mean that it'll happen to your world. Where there's life, there's hope. It could very well be that there's a solution already within their reach." Trahearne couldn't really say any more on the topic. Sylvari couldn't even have children, leaving what little he knew about population pressure from small tidbits in history books.

He deposited another chunk of jellyfish into the wheelbarrow before asking, "Could you tell me what a 'darkspawn' is? That's a term I'm unfamiliar with."