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[amaizing]

Don't be shy!

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[armd]

It occurs to her only after the fact that she has proposed having a drink in a bar with a woman (who called her attractive) to tell her a really fucking awful story, and that maybe she should have led with something else? Too late now. From what she's gauged from Lia so far Abby thinks that she'd probably enjoy getting to dramatically react to the whole thing anyway, it'll be fine.

She told Lia she'd meet her in Kirkwall.

She lingers at the other side of the ferry, resisting the urge to touch or pluck at her hair—she did something different with it this time, is all, left it down, braiding only the sides away from her face—or fiddle. She got here first on account of going ahead earlier to scour through the marketplace, and eat fresh bread, and stare critically at secondhand books.

[amaizing]

Lia steps off the ferry, not looking particularly different than before, and glances around before spotting Abby. She flashes a smile at her and notes that she changed her hair for her. She approaches.

"I haven't been around Kirkwall much." She says breezily. "Take me somewhere exciting!"

[armd]

"I can tell." There aren't many exciting places in Kirkwall. Abby doesn't particularly enjoy Hightown because it feels like she gets stared at more there (not out of suspicion, but because the people up there are nosy and like staring), so she gestures with her chin, indicating that they'll continue down along the docks.

"Where were you before you came here?"

[amaizing]

Lia links arms with Abby, ready to be lead.

"Really? How can you tell?" She says it teasing. She doesn't love being asked questions, but she supposes she has to under these circumstances.

"I traveled a lot, most recently Antiva. Where were you?"

action;

[extortionate]

Cleaning up is tough when you got the one shirt. Somewhere, back in Val Royeaux, there's an engraved chest full of finely-embroidered clothes, all folded and smelling of rosewater. There's a blue one he'd pick for this, one Lunette always liked; soft beneath the hand, softer on her lips -

Or maybe she threw them all out. Burned them, most like.

So it's the one shirt: Not quite dry from scrubbing out pit stains. It's cold in Kirkwall this time of year, and the wind's a bitch through wet hair. There's a scab where beard-trimming went briefly awry. And he smells, despite his best efforts, a bit like Barrow's cats.

But he's here, at seven, lounging against the doorframe.

"Never did ask if you'd got schooling," Sure talks like it. "If you're a mage, you gotta let me know before I piss you off."

[amaizing]

Lia, who has only met this person via crystal, perks up when she sees him. This really could've gone very badly. What a relief!

"I am highly educated." She speaks. "So much schooling that I am probably ruined."

She gathers a cloak around her and joins him at the doorway.

"But, not a mage. I do not suggest getting on my bad side, however."

She grins up at him. She loves it when they're taller than her.

[armd]

She nearly laughs. "I'm not gonna answer that."

Like, if you have to ask...

"A traveler, huh?" Interesting. Lia doesn't strike her as somebody worldly, more like somebody who would stay in one place for a long time and get very used to being there. Creature comforts. She answers dutifully, "Seattle," even though Lia won't know it. "I'm—I fell out of a rift from another planet."

You know how it is.

[amaizing]

Lia eyes light up. She's heard about rifters.

"Seattle." She repeats, enjoying the sound of a name she's never heard before.

"Did it hurt when you fell out of a rift? or is that just--a manner of speaking?"

She waves her left hand.

"It hurt for a moment when I got this. Did this have anything to do with you dying? But wait--don't tell me that part until I have bought you a drink."

She leans in to whisper. "I'll keep my end of the bargain."

[armd]

Abby snorts. It sounds like she's trying to do that classic pick-up line wrong. Did it hurt, when you fell from heaven? "No. I fell in the ocean."

The Waking Sea. Fuck, that was a long time ago. Nearly three years now, or slightly over it? She hasn't been keeping proper track. When she turns her head to look at Lia's left hand waving, the whisper ends up very close to her ear and it gives her goosebumps. Christ.

"Uh—no, it didn't. It hurt when I got it too, it felt like... pins and needles. Or an electric shock."

[amaizing]

Lia's eyes widen.

"The ocean! I hope you could swim. You can swim? Your--" And with this she squeezes Abby's arm a little. "physique implies you would be good at it whether or not you know."

Lia half smiles and glances at Abby for a pause and then carries on.

"It must have not been from too high because otherwise the velocity would have made it hurt. You may not have died--but perhaps a bloody nose."

She suddenly looks close at Abby unexpectedly.

"Your nose looks fine to me." She says not moving away.

[armd]

"I can swim," Abby says uselessly, because it seems like Lia was really only asking so she could squeeze her arm and then lean in close to look at her face, almost unblinking. It's a little much.

Using their joined arms, she nudges into Lia's body, pushing her pointedly away and back into her own space. It's cool to know that going on a date has not stopped being weird since she was last doing it.

Something has just occurred to her.

"Are you messing with me?"

[amaizing]

Lia was going to ask how far she had to swim and if she was very scared and if there are oceans where she comes from when Abby asks her an unexpected question.

"How do you mean messing with you?" She responds.

[armd]

"Like... you're just pretending to be this interested in me."

As soon as she says it, Abby cringes a little. That sounded so stupid. She wishes she could take it back, but she can't, so she sets her jaw.

[amaizing]

Lia giggles a little in surprise and then stops because she doesn't want to appear rude.

"I am not pretending." She says matter of factly.

"I find you interesting. I wanted to buy you a drink because you told me interesting things and promised me even more intriguing stories. And you're attractive. Often, people are just one or the other."

She sighs.

"But, I hope I didn't offend. I've been told before I ask too many questions." She doesn't add that she thinks it's nonsense. You can never ask too many questions.

[armd]

The giggling is fair, actually.

"You didn't," Abby says quickly. "It's not the questions, I'm—" just an asshole. She kneads the sore bit between her neck and shoulder with the palm of her free hand, allowing herself a moment to let that knee-jerk reaction slip away.

It does.

"... I'm not used to this." Which has to be more than obvious. Hopefully it's also obvious that she's trying, here. She says, "I like questions." And that is true.

"Before I came here, I was traveling with a kid. He asked me lots of questions. Like, most of the time. It got kinda hard to shut him up."

[amaizing]

"He sounds like a very sensible child." Lia responds. "I think that questions are the only way to learn things. Questions and observation. The part where you stop asking questions and observe was harder to learn as a child. But, I did."

She nods her head once agreeing with herself.

"But!" Lia's smile widens excitedly. "You promised me a story about dying and time travel!"

She hasn't forgotten and she will not.

[armd]

"Yeah," Abby has to agree, "More sensible than me."

Which segues nicely into the story about dying and time travel that she promised to tell, huh.

"Don't look so eager," she complains, but she's grinning anyway. "I told you, it's not a nice story.

"We took a big group out into the Free Marches and got ambushed by soldiers on dracolisks. And they had a fucking dragon, we didn't stand a chance. They wiped almost all of us out at the same time, and then everybody who was left had to come in and pick up the pieces." Literally.

[amaizing]

Abby told her not to look eager, however Lia fails completely at this. Her mouth widens and her eyes pop out.

"Dracolisks and a dragon? So you were--" and here she falters. "You were part of the--group that got wiped out?" Her first inclination was to say 'one of the pieces' but that seems garrish somehow.

"Do you remember it?" She asks in a hushed whisper.

[armd]

At least somebody is impressed.

Abby really doesn't know how she feels about it. Maybe it should be easy to think of Granitefell as if it were a nightmare: terrible at the time, but something she woke up from; she's safe, fine. But part of her will always know trying to think of it like that won't work.

"Yeah." She was part of the group that got wiped out. She remembers it.

Moving along. "The Research team figured out a way to go back in time. Don't ask me how it works, 'cuz I don't get it. But they sent a couple people back to warn us before we got there. And we still went, to warn off the villagers, but we got back out before the ambush."

[amaizing]

Lia feels a little disappointment that Abby doesn't understand how it works. Lia desperately wants to understand how it works.

"So," She says delicately, picking up that Abby is sensitive about it, "you remember both dying and not dying?"

[armd]

Well, go out on a date with somebody from Research then, yeesh.

"Yeah. It's pretty weird. They're separate memories but I can tell where they overlap." And, to be fair, there isn't much to remember of being dead other than a deep, cold feeling that underlines what happened in the other timeline. "Shit like that doesn't happen often," she adds hastily, to reassure. "It probably won't happen to you."

Probably.

[amaizing]

A nerd? Please.

"Well, I definitely don't want to die, but it would be inconvenient to stop bad things from happening to you. Everyone makes mistakes, even me!"

She says this like it's extremely not often that she makes a mistake.

"I am very glad you are alive." She adds primly.

[armd]

"Thanks," Abby says. "Me too."

Obviously.

She says, "Ever had a near-death experience before?" like it's completely normal to ask about something that horrible on a first date experience.

[amaizing]

Lia doesn't mind.

"Not like that." She says.

"I've had my life threatened many times though and some meant it more seriously than others. I have a nasty tendency of infuriating men."

She speaks of this as if it's the weather.

"Women considerably less so." She gives Abby a sparkling grin.

[armd]

"Really?" This is interesting; Abby wants to laugh just looking at her, the way she said it was so blasé. "Why, what kinda stuff do you say to them?"

She could always use a lesson or two.

crystals, gently throws a blanket over the tag directly above this that i forgot about;

[extortionate]

[ at some point when nothing is happening in the gallows - no demons in disguise, no massive venatori assaults that will shortly dispose of the viscount - ]

Lia, beautiful - you know how you got the most regal voice?

[amaizing]

[Flattery will get you everywhere. With a small gasp]

No one has ever told me that before, no.

About my voice that is.

[Beautiful, she's heard.]

[amaizing]

"Generally, it's just no." She says with a tinkling laugh.