@funscarie asked: [QUESTION] -  for sender’s muse to check whether receiver’s muse is Okay, in the morning after a nightmare, in a wordless way (touching their arm, etc) ( for imogen ! )

asoiaf: a dance with dragons starters

“nonsense.”   well    ....   she was a little offputting.  like one who could not decide if dead or not,  too corpselike,  too uncanny,  not meant for the company of living beings.  still.  she'd offered no inclination or showed any overture of hostility.  far be it for he to judge    ----    or far be it for he to judge too harshly.   all of the delicacy in the realms could not erase wary instinct.  

the last few days had turned out to be far from what percy had expected. though he supposed he could apply that statement to most of his life, if he wanted to be specific. meeting this new group, finding out the information that he had, it was all rather... well, he wasn't sure quite how to place it all yet. he especially still wasn't sure how to place his feelings about laudna. he'd been stern, and while he was assured that all was fine ( and after receiving more than a few words from vex'ahlia about his behavior ), he was still hesitant. anything to do with the briarwoods instantly brought a shadow over him, looming, as if it were to take everything from him again. but for now, things were as close to normal as they would ever be. his family was safe, whitestone was safe, and was helping these adventurers not the right path forward?

he pushed those thoughts aside and brought his attention back to the chatter around him. as they all sat for dinner, he pushed some food around on his plate before he'd looked to laudna, holding onto his fork. " now, please do tell me more about this long lost cousin of mine you spoke of. " her dead rat. " pâté, as you called him. "

every group had their quirks, and if beau was being honest, her short period of time with the group her and caleb had stumbled upon brought back memories of all of her time with the nein. while her work was never really over, her and caleb constantly traveling and investigating the assembly, it was nothing compared to the chaos that traveling with the mighty nein had been. " hey, " she said, holding her hands up in defense. " you called it a shitshow first, not me. " she said with a hint of a laugh, shaking her head. " and, i mean... you guys literally could not be getting yourself into anything worse. so maybe shitshow fits. " if her and caleb had crossed paths with them, there was nothing but disaster looming on the horizon for anyone involved.

beau shrugged, looking over laudna's shoulder and at the others, caleb standing off to the side. " but... shitshow or not, you're all lucky to have each other. " hells, if caleb heard her, he was definitely going to say she was getting soft. she could already hear it now. " i had my own shitshow i traveled with for a long time. i just happen to still be hanging around with that one over there, " she commented, pointing her thumb over at caleb. while there was still work to be done with caleb, places to travel, taking a semblance of a break to relax and talk was something beau desperately needed.

Fearne's eyes are sparkling, and have bee since they started this whole thing. Laudna had been the only one truly interested in spending the WHOLE day just doing this, and the excitement about that had outweighed the disappointment of their friends pulling themselves back from it.

"Oh, how about some more GLITTER?" She suggests, glee evident on her face. "Or ribbons? I personally think there can never be enough ribbons, or glitter."

@funscarie / plotted starter.

imogen barely heard the sound of the door as she closed it behind her and laudna, far too lost in her own thoughts. she was fairly sure that her hands were shaking.

i don't accept this, laudna. it was the stone cold truth. she would rather make a deal with a devil than live without laudna. how was it fair that someone so kind-hearted could have a fate written in such violence? how was it fair that the universe, the fucking gods could allow this to happen? there had to be a way around it, and if not something she could easily find, was there a god who could help her? (did the gods even care about her?) there had to be a solution, had to be a way to stop it --

she let go of her own hand, if only to stop herself from picking at her nails, a habit she'd picked up over the past couple of weeks. instead, she let the thoughts fade into the back of her mind as she looked over at laudna, standing near the door. her irreplaceable, beautiful laudna. cursed to have a demon in her mind. cursed to have that demon listening in on their every thought. (was she here now? she did she know imogen would stop at nothing to kill her?) how far into insanity would imogen go to stop this?

(very far, without end.)

she let her thoughts sit in the back of her mind as she approached the other woman. in the darkness of the excessively large room they were staying in, anyone else maybe would've been terrified to see a dark, dead-looking woman standing in the shadows. to imogen, though, the darkness called to her; home laid in the arms of those shadows. she approached laudna, reaching her arms out and placing them on her forearms. she didn't pull her into a hug just yet, wanting laudna to make the first move; she'd had enough of other people determining her actions for the night.