Essek Thelyss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unconsecuted) wrote2024-06-23 09:33 pm
unconsecuted) wrote2024-06-23 09:33 pmroxana catchall
just remembered the posts i didn't go back to in order to put a shitpost in
unconsecuted) wrote2024-06-23 09:33 pm
w3, monday
He is coming out of Michel's, but doesn't seem to have anything in his arms. Frumpkin, however, has apparently pilfered some sort of fluffy arts and crafts item and is marching along behind Essek with it in his mouth.
Essek nods at her in greeting.]
Hello. It's a store of mercantile items...?
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she inclines her head in turn. ]
Was nothing to your tastes?
[ she glances at frumpkin behind him. ]
Are you not the creative and crafting sort?
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[He follows her gaze behind him to Frumpkin. Oh. Yes. Right.]
Well, Frumpkin seems to have found something to his liking, I guess.
[Frumpkin drops the puff ball at Roxana's feet and sits.]
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All that matters is his enjoyment, hm?
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Essek shakes his head.]
That seems to be the way of it all
nowadays.
[The way of it is also being plagued by the usual weekly effects. This is a week he had been dreading, but why not just put his life on display to people he does not know.
Roxana is slapped with a memory (until like 17:35). She is instilled with context which would be lost any other time: the nervous energy of Essek talking frankly for once to a group of seven, from left top to right bottom: Fjord, a half-orc; Beauregard, a brazen-looking human woman; Caleb, a soft-spoken human man; Nott, a green goblin woman; Jester, a blue tiefling; Caduceus, a tall firbolg with pink hair; and Yasha, a warrior-looking woman with black to white ombré hair and dark makeup. These are, she knows, the Mighty Nein, a group she has come to find belonging in somehow.
The blatant and empty solitude he now feels when they are away has, truthfully, made him always eager to hear or see from them. Jester is right.]
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she knows loneliness and solitude, too. ]
They seem like a rambunctious group, your Mighty Nein.
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He closes his eyes. Sigh.]
They are not unlike a plague.
[(fond)]
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A plague you wish to be infected with. Or one that has made you better instead of worse.
[ not unlike how jester said. ]
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I wouldn't... Nevermind, there is no point in denying your observation. They are... em, [he's sounding so shy] my friends.
My... first friends.
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How adorable. You must miss them, now that you're here.
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His brows furrow - the first part, not the last part.]
...A little.
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she smiles, faintly amused. ]
You can be a little more honest.
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Essek is quiet for a long time. His eyes lift to glance at her briefly, then look away again.]
...I miss them.
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he's so reluctant to admit how much he cares, but at least he's genuine about it. she can't knock it too much. ]
It's only a few more weeks until you can return to them, at least. A drop in the ocean for someone your age.
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Do you honestly think we will be allowed to return so simply?
[He's a distrustful, paranoid sort of man. This is why it took him, like, 120 years to get friends.]
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Simply? No. Could they be lying about the premise of why we're here? Yes, absolutely, but I also don't think that'll stop people from working towards leaving this place.
[ she has her own distrust and paranoia. that's why she says she doesn't make friends easily. she doesn't make it easy on purpose. ]
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I don't think it'll cowl the confidence and fortitude necessarily, but I don't trust the... [He makes a sort of frustrated noise trying to decide what he wants to say.] ...fabrication they are attempting to sell us.
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she nods. ]
Fabrication is a nicer way to describe it. I've called it a farce many times.
[ this is perhaps why scaramouche just did what she asked during her execution. they use the same word. ]
I know there was a paper circulating around that made people think this was more like a production than an audit.
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Yes. Anders had one he showed us from his little trek with the others. I don't know if it should be believed. What if even that is a trick? I can't tell what's more insulting - an audit, or being used for entertainment.
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One calls your work into question. The other implies we're here to be silly puppets on a stage. If you don't want to believe either of those, what would you want this to be? I don't think they could keep two ruses going without slipping up.
[ she can understand his paranoia, but she doesn't want this to get that complicated. ]
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Neither, though I guess I don't have the luxury to choose such a thing. And, in the end, perhaps it doesn't even matter. We will have to endure whatever it is regardless.
The achievements do make me feel rather like a morality play puppet doing a jig on a string for nobles' children.
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It's a false choice in the end.
[ she has to agree with him there because no matter what the veneer is, it's still something they have to endure much in the same way. ]
Everything is set up to make it seem much more lighthearted than it is. Oh, it's a little game or play for us to collect accolades while you were compacted into cubes.
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A frown.]
I feel the cavalier way things are set up makes it feel as if our previous tribulations and current ones are not taken seriously, yes.
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she nods. ]
It's insulting, isn't it? If it isn't infuriating.