they believed in you.

I am taking time off roleplay and practically social interaction in general.

I'm not doing well. I won't have the energy for socialising for the most part, either, so if you message me OOC about non-rp related stuff, I'm more likely than usual to just emoji react (or leave you on read if not Discord because can't emoji react) and/or take even longer times replying than usual.

I won't be posting on my rp blogs, but I'm likely to be lurking on the dashboard. I want to ask people to please not unfollow me - because I'm not dropping things, but rather continuing them when I come back. If we're in the middle of plotting, I'll still reply to those conversations when I come back (if you haven't unfollowed me).

I will be away for longer than a couple of months but not as long as a full year. I don't know how to give you a more precise timeframe.

I know people are likely to move on and not be into the interactions that are on hold for that long, but I don't know what else to do about that than to reassure you that I am going to be back even if it takes me a long time. If you do unfollow for inactivity that's of course up to you.

[ PIN ]: sender pins receiver against the wall during combat/sparring. / for Ryker. I saw it and it had to happen-

Scuffed, worn boots marked the once well polished floor as he skirted another blow; deflecting his old friend's attack and putting some space between them for a moment as he pushed the hair from his brow. They'd been at this for barely ten minutes and already sweat had began to coat his skin and hold his shirt closer to his chest. I'm not unfit, she's just...

An ever threatening smirk appeared at his lips as Ryker let out a low whistle, dragging his eyes over Wren's body and taking in as much detail as possible. He noticed the way her now slightly crumpled uniform mirrored her dishevelled hair, the way her tattoo peeked from beneath her collar, the way her chest rose and fell with minimal exertion; the minor cuts and slight bruising forming on her knuckles. He noticed the way her eyes shone and felt a familiar warmth spread through his chest as he locked his gaze with hers.

It feels good to use her body. She hasn’t felt fully herself, in her own skin, ever since Cerberus brought her back; old scars gone, her physique augmented with nanotech she can’t even comprehend, making her just that little bit tougher, harder to harm. Not enough anyone would notice the difference, if they weren’t her, if they didn’t know her body, intimately. But Wren can tell. She wasn’t asked. No say in what was done to her dead body. No sense of ownership of herself...

So, it feels good. To move, to feel the impacts of sparring. She doesn’t need to hold back with Ryker, the way she’d be more careful with anyone else in her crew. She’s not scared of harming him; he’s not scared of harming her.

He’s busy flirting; she doesn’t let herself be baited, but instead takes gratification in interrupting his goading.

❝ I bet that’s what you say to all the girls, ❞    she quips, grinning as she presses her forearm to his throat (though she keeps the weight of it to his collar, to not actually restrict his airways in any way), the other hand pinning his wrist to the wall. She knows she doesn’t have the proper leverage to really hold him immobile, not face to face like this, not without actually hurting him. If she could get him on the floor... but it’s fun, the back-and-forth, the not knowing who’s going to win. Yes, it’s a competition, for her.    ❝ Do you really think you can distract me with all that? I’ve known you since I was sixteen. Predictable... so predictable... Feel like yielding, yet? ❞

@dutyworn asked: I'm scared. Hold me? / listen i still want to write their first meeting but listen, ok,...listen......... the first night after dammon fixes karlach's engine enough that she can touch people without setting them on fire, wren just saunters over to her at camp and says this, all the while brimming with enthusiasm and obviously not at all scared (they're already in a romance)

They did it.

They actually did it!

The first time in ten long years, Karlach was able to actually hug someone, and ooh, what a glorious thing it was, to hold Wren close for the first time, after all the long nights spent wishing she could.

Gods, she can barely sit still with just how excited she is. She'd even managed to get Fangs to let her hug him! He'd acted like he'd hated every second of it, of course, but she saw that little sparkle in his crimson gaze and the wry little smirk when he finally shoved her away. She wonders how long it'd been since he'd even had a hug...

No, best not to think about that right now. That's about like thinking of the other news, and she doesn't want to think about that. Not now, not ever. She's going to live every day to its fullest, and—

Oh, what's this?

Karlach watches in bemusement as Wren saunters across the camp to her, her happy smile turning into a low, teasing chuckle as she plays along. "That right? Well, we certainly can't have that, now can we?" she asks just seconds before swooping in to scoop the woman into her arms, easily lifting her off her feet as she holds her close to her chest and presses her face into her hair.

She can hear the others immediately set to gossiping, Gale trying to hush Astarion and Shadowheart as they start to laugh softly but goodnaturedly. This odd mix of companions have become a family, at least in Karlach's eyes, and she just rolls her eyes at their antics while enjoying holding her girlfriend against her.

She’s not going to think about Karlach’s approaching death, she’s just not. Wren would go to the literal Hells for this woman, for her girlfriend, in a heartbeat, no questions asked, if she thought she could help... but she’s burning out herself, more figuratively speaking, so who is she to ask another to put themselves through, again, the literal Hells, to hope to survive... Wren doesn’t have the competency, here, she once possessed, in another world. She’s been quick to learn new combat styles, what plants to utilise for what, and such, but she simply does not have the breadth of knowledge to presume to suggest...

Eventually, likely, she will. Think about it. Plead with Karlach to... fuck, she doesn’t know. Go to Avernus together to prolong her life? She has no right to ask. She more than half expects to be dead sooner herself. Risking her brain with the tadpoles...

She hadn’t expected to fall in love.

What matters right now, anyway, is that Karlach can finally touch people,  can finally touch her.  This is too good to sully with thinking of the future.

Wren lets herself be scooped up, wraps her arms round Karlach’s neck, laughing as she’s picked up. She doesn’t even care that the full camp can see them. Somehow it’s even more difficult to find privacy here, than on a warship. They’ve waited long enough... Fuck, if Karlach were to take her there and then, she’d find it very hard to resist, despite herself.

Wren shrugs, seating herself on top of a crate a few feet from Jack.    ❝ That’s fair. ❞

It is... unsettling, to say the least, to realise that the... thing that monster put behind her eye is somehow cutting off her connection to her patron. Even more so when she realises the loss of his presence in the back of her mind also means a drastic decline in the power she has available to her, much of it just out of reach where it came straight from the Prince of Frost. Though at least that which had came from her time spent in Vale of the Long Night seems to be with her still, if weaker than it should be as well.

Uncertain of how long she had been out, she briefly fidgets with a ring on her finger, muttering the Sylvan incantation under her breath to restore the glamour that masks her mismatched eyes, now a pale, icy blue rather than the otherworldly glow the Feywild and her patron has left her with. There is little to be done right now about the rest, feeling as unstable as she does, a faint trail of frost forming behind her with every step. At least that could be explained away between her gear that she thankfully still possessed and just precisely who her patron is.

Walking up to one of the other pods, she's surprised to find someone inside still — someone who appears to just returning to consciousness themselves, but unlike her own pod, the lid seems to have jammed part of the way.

Frowning at the strange, alien construction of the pod, she reaches out for what she can only assume is part of the mechanisms that controls the lid, supercooled ice spreading from her touch into the inner workings, weakening them to the point that they shatter with barely a touch, the lid falling away to clatter onto the floor as she takes a closer look at the person inside.

Human, that much is clear, simply by the shape of her ears. Dressed in things she's never seen the likes of in Faerûn or in the Feywilds — not that that is always all that surprising, particularly with the latter. Still, as the woman seems to recover her senses, Tavares watches her for a moment longer before looking around the rest of the room.

A few empty pods — their inhabitants presumably having got free on their own — and a few others with the burnt remains of those unlucky enough to make it out alive. They were both lucky in that regard, she supposes, as she looks back to the human.

Is she in a Collector pod...? Consciousness is  slow to return.  Wren’s jumbled memories make very little sense  —  the Crucible, Anderson, that’s clear enough, but then... she reels at the memory of  something in her eye.  Something alive, crawling behind her eyeball... it doesn’t make any sense, but the memory doesn’t have the haziness of a nightmare, even as the content seems strange.

She needs to get out of here. The pod, she can tell it’s not fully shut, and that’s the only reason she doesn’t panic, doesn’t expect to be turned into human goo to feed the... but how is she at the Collector Base? They’d destroyed it, even if the weapon to wipe the Reapers off the face of the galaxy didn’t work (gods, she hopes it did), how could this place still exist?

Feeling not-fully-there, she goes to push at the transparent material, but someone outside is faster, the pod lid clanging to the ground.

Wren blinks, slowly. She doesn’t recognise the species of the alien looking back at her  —  the person seems... almost human, the way the asari seem almost human, but different. She’s certainly not a Collector. It doesn’t matter. What matters is... she’s helped her. She is not hostile.

It’s the stranger’s voice that finally seems to wake Wren into full consciousness.    ❝ I... It looks like... ❞    she says, her voice hoarse, as she begins to clamber out of the pod,    ❝ I’ve seen something like this before... with the Collectors... ❞    It’s not really that akin to the Collector Base, now that she gets a better look. The room is much smaller, the small number of pods arranged differently, and... well, it looks weirdly organic, but not similarly than what she’s used to when fighting the Collectors.

as much as mark would like to let her out of here, there isn't really a lot she's going to find that will make sense to her just yet. maze-like white hallways filled with mostly empty offices, an elevator and an emergency exit that will just put her right back in here again the moment her outie decides to get back to the workspace again. so instead of agreeing to let her leave — which he isn't really supposed to do anyway, unless she asks three times, or when he's finished with giving her all the information she's supposed to have, whichever comes first — he tries to shift the focus back to providing her with more information. information that will hopefully make her understand her situation more.

' ' look, i know this is confusing. truth is, i've been where you are, ' ' he opts to tell her, gesturing at where she stands. ' ' waking up on this very table, no memories of who i am, what my life was like, u-up until that very moment... ' ' he trails off for just a second as the memories floods back, before shaking his head with an attempt at bringing back his smile again. after all, that time is past, and he's happy here, now, he thinks. ' ' turns out i was severed. it's a surgical procedure that splits your memories in two, one which exists outside... ' ' he points up, as they currently find themselves underground. ' ' and one, like you and me, which exists here, at the severed floor. ' '

The thing is,  he does seem to be sincere.  He’s pointedly dodging her asking to be let out, but he seems sincere. For someone who doesn’t know herself, she trusts her ability to be able to tell. He has his folders with him, but even though he’s read from a script before... he doesn’t act as if he were lying to her. It doesn’t mean she believes what he’s telling her  —  but she believes he believes himself.

mark remembers asking the same question to petey when he first woke up here. the fight or flight response had been strong, and he had felt great distrust in anything he was told. but something about petey's continuous calm and reassuring presence had eventually calmed him down enough to realize that he wanted to be here. anything else would essentially be death. so he attempted to channel his inner petey.

' ' well, the severance procedure tends to cause initial confusion, fear... sometimes hostility by the severed individual — in this case, you. for everyone's safety, it's ... best to catch the individual up to speed on everything first, ' ' mark tells her, while opening the manual and flipping through some pages at the same time, making sure to look up at her once and again to make sure she feels seen and heard. ' ' as for where you are, this is the severed floor of lumon industries, where you have been hired. ' '

She should focus on getting out of here. She’s not hostile, so if he’s telling her the truth, there’s no reason he should deny her request to open the door. She should get out, and not worry about the rest of it, the parts she doesn’t understand (which is practically everything). Yet she lingers, just staring at him.

❝ Are you trying to tell me  —  what do you mean, severed? ❞    What had he said? A separation of one’s work self. He can’t expect her to believe this is some... consensual employment situation? That, what, she agreed to have her memories wiped? For... for what purpose? What is the job? Something so classified she has to be  —  imprisoned for it? No, memory-wiped for it... every day? What?    ❝ What does that make me, a clone of some kind? You expect me to believe that? Why would anyone do that to themselves? ❞    Why would she do that to herself?