propulsion | fade rift. inbox.

[ She'll start with his room and move on from there. Having spent the better part of her life among Carta enforcers and thugs, she doesn't bother with stealth or subtlety. She lifts a stool and starts slamming it against the door until something gives or someone shows up to stop her. ]

[ The door swings open. Her stool is already in swoop down momentum, Tony barely catching it at the edge with a— ]

Hey now.

[ —and a defensive, slightly delayed raise of a knee. ]

I need those to live. What the hell are you doing?

[ He looks better, anyway. Younger, too, and decently fed, with appropriate muscle mass filling out his shirt shoulders, complexion healthy. Healthy enough. It's winter, who couldn't use a little of that D. ]

I'm breaking in.

[ She says it very primly for someone still wielding a stool. She lowers it, but does not put it down, frowning up at him. ]

Good, you're looking better. Any dizziness or chest pains when you got up?

So you do crimes, actually. That's a crime, this? It's crime. You're a criminal.

[ He keeps a hand kind of blocking the potential for further stool assault between himself and the dwarf, hovered crotch level. ]

And like I said I'm fine. Crazy dream, huh?

[ She huffs, sets down the stool and ignores that first part entierly. ]

Very, particularly the part where I had it. Answer the question, please.

[ Sawbones stands down. Tony's posture straightens. ]

No and no to the things you said. [ Oh, right. ] Chest pains, really?

Considering the last time I saw you, you were dying from either blood poisoning or heart failure from the great hole you had in your chest, yes really.

[ And she's not looking at his face, instead scrutinizing the approximate space said hole had been. ]

[ Now that she knows to look for it, the slight glow of lyrium blue is just visible through the fabric of his shirt.

And Tony slaps a hand over it. ]

What am I, a piece of meat to you? Eyes up here, shortstuff.

[ If he wants to make that joke every time, he's allowed. ]

As far as I know, you're running a very real risk of becoming a piece of meat.

[ But she does look back up at his face. ]

So? How often will you need to go to Orzammar? And how does that work? Have you spoken to a rune scribe about it?

I'm gonna ask you something I know will be incredibly difficult, but please bear with me.

[ A gesture, placating. ]

Can you be cool? For like a minute. And keep your voice down.

If you answer my questions, then yes. I can "be cool."

[ That sounds exactly as weird coming out of her mouth as one could expect. ]

Get in here.

[ Tony steps back into his room, a resigned turn on his heel. His quarters are as unremarkable as anyone else's, although the chest at the end of his bed has a heavy duty lock on it that seems unnecessary for a person's standard collection of belongings. There's an oil lamp burning, a stack of books, parchment rolled out.

Also a tankard which carries with it the smell of strong coffee. He picks this up as he finds a seat. ]

Questions, okay, uh. Orzammar, not frequently. The core is stable enough that I can get a supply to last me a while. Whatever I had in the dream was—busted by design.

And it works in tandem with the device it runs, which activates its magical properties [ and he's been here long enough that he doesn't even roll his eyes when he puts it in these terms ] and provides a source of power without a person needing to be a mage, or immune to raw lyrium, or whatever. Like the enchantment I told you about when I was, uh, dying.

Top secret, by the way. [ He rotates his hand around where the device is housed. ] But I don't figure you for a tattle-tale.

[ Which comes out breezy, but there is a certain weight to his regarding her. ]

And no. I haven't talked to a rune scribe. I haven't talked to basically anybody.

[ She follows him in, of course. Her nose twitches briefly at the scent of coffee, but otherwise, her full attention is zeroed in on Tony to it's full intensity. She does not pull out her field journal to start taking notes, you're welcome, Tony.

She does huff disapprovingly at him though. ]

Given how wrong it can apparently go, you ought've told somebody by now. We only got one or two folks in the Infirmary who I'd give a solid chance of doing something for it without flipping the cart entierly.

You have none folks in the infirmary who can do something for it.

[ Firm, but not snappish. She helped him out. She has his secrets in her tiny, tiny hands. If there is some run-off irritation, it only crisps the edges of his tone, directed outwards, at the situation he is in, at this stupid place, these stupid dreams. ]

And even if that weren't true, this thing [ he taps the centre of his chest ] can't get out. What it is, what it does. Poppell knows, you know, can't spread further than that.

[ Her chin tips up in challenge, but she doesn't fight him on it. He's right, at least as far as them being able to do fuck all for him if things go bad. ]

Well, if Miss Poppell knows, that's enough for me. Reckon between the two of you, you'll be fine. [ She sighs and rubs her face. ] Just be careful, all right? And don't go wandering off to die alone in the snow if it comes to it.

[ Tony's expression changes by subtle degrees—for once—in that it goes a little still and fixed, and he says, ] Uh huh.

[ And snaps out of it, and he isn't being insincere as he says, ] I will be. Fine. Kind of hard to put the pieces together seeing as we're missing a big chunk of picture, but I assume the Venatori replaced the normal core with something with a faster decay rate. Way faster. A preventative measure if I escaped, who knows, but if so, it worked.

So as long as that doesn't happen again— [ —spoken into his mug of coffee. ]

We'll just have to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

[ Her nose wrinkles. ] Or at all, if everyone is going to be insisting that these dreams aren't real things. [ Which sounds like a load of nug shit, but- ] Either way, I wasn't there for the start of that mess. And I didn't make it out of the Deep Roads to see any of my crew dragged off by Darkspawn fuckers. So it ain't happening.

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she woke up this morning and chose violence

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