Flood

[in_extremis]

WHO: Lerith and Tony, and whoever else might be taking refuge in the library
WHERE: The library
WHAT: We haven't quite figured out how to handle the screaming moon
WHEN: Mid-event nyoom under the wire
WARNINGS: Depends on your Tony-tolerance.


There didn't yet seem to be a universal way of dealing with the whole moon. A heavenly body acted on them, not the other way around, and so far it appeared as though they had to adapt to this development like they did the tides. The mothcats were relatively instructive. As the sun went down, when they typically became more active and the scourge of the local spider population, they had begun to slink closer to the floors, then huddle as deep in the belly of the library as they could get, infiltrating the human-occupied basement more confidently than they usually would. It insulated them some from the sound, and Tony suspected some other effect that they had no way of articulating, just had them restlessly grooming to try to smooth their ruffled feathers.

He was trying not to stray too far from the library anymore, either, despite the limits. Even if it wasn't so disruptive to cajole Jon along with him back and forth to the forge, that was probably the last place Jon should have been when he had to reminded what they were talking about mid-sentence. Tony hurt himself most of the time he was in there, and he knew what everything did. Instead, he had to work slowly, his workshop at the library largely compromised with the network inactive. For some things, this wasn't a terrible imposition; he could furnish most of Jon's office without the processing power that he had installed. For others, like the stray pieces of the Iron Man that he was slowly collecting, it wasn't so straightforward; they had to be hunted down, then disengaged from Extremis so they didn't go once again hurtling into the walls, or someone's fleshy body, the next time the moon peered down at them with its wicked grin. He lounged now with one of them that he had found, sprawled on the couch on his back with his legs kicking over the arm, meticulously dismantling the errant shinguard with his fine tools and tongue between his teeth. So engrossed, he didn't take much notice of the mothcats slipping away, already sticking to the shadows and moving silently as they did. Only one remained close, tucked against the back of the couch and against the warmth of Tony's stomach, and purring intently in a way that Tony only knew the interpret as contentment. Cats purred when they were happy, right? It was a soothingly consistent sound, anyway, and the animal was very still where it had wedged itself, watching Tony through anxiously slitted eyes. It knew what was coming, even if Tony wasn't prepared for the scream that shattered the air.

Comments

[mutedsuspicions]

It had taken a little bit to get the not-Jon on the communicator to say the word 'Orlesian' correctly, and then 'Orlais' as well. Thedas names were not normal names here apparently.

Those yellow eyes watch Tony's erratically animated hand moving about. It's enough of a distraction from his fear that the sparks are starting to die off. Oh. This was Tony Stark. He frowns, trying to remember where he had interacted with this guy before. Had it been the network? Maybe... maybe the day the network got messed up and he was trying to reach Iron Bull? That sounded about right. He doesn't seem to notice the way Tony covers his abandoned handshake with the the wave.

Lerith stands, curling over in a manner to make himself smaller. It doesn't work as well as he keep thinking it does. 'You've heard of me? I am not handsome and I am sorry about the magic. Going outside and the moon screaming makes it...erratic.' Which was terrifying, which made the situation worse of course. But that last bit, he scowls.

'You're making the moon scream? Why?!' Not-Jon sounds as appalled as Lerith looks.

[in_extremis]

"Great, first you break into my house and now you're arguing with me," Tony rolled his eyes, already talking over the communicator before it got to Lerith's apology, so he must not have been listening to the explanation as he continued to tease, "Are you trying to get a date?" He had met enough girlfriends that way that maybe this was more of a threat. What the moon could and couldn't do was generally pretty clear to Tony now, and what finer details there were to learn about anybody's magic were not particularly interesting to him, if they could be avoided.

The impish glint in his eye and peek of his smirk was quickly gone in the face of Lerith's very reasonable shock, making Tony grit his teeth around another apology with his hand up again, this time in surrender. "I don't actually--I didn't mean to. I didn't know it would do this," was his only real defence. Some genius. "I thought I was joking, you know, sometimes you just say things, and the next thing you know, you have a lot of apologies to make."

[mutedsuspicions]

Lerith frowned. Others at least listened to the communicator when he was trying to speak. It felt rude. But then Tony's asking if he's here to get a date and his ears go red. He frowns more, trying to type quickly to answer. Only he stops as soon as the glint in the human's eyes are gone and that hand comes up.

'I don't understand how you made the moon scream. Moons don't do that in Thedas and I thought it happened before because of the ones who keep us here. I am not here because I want a date or because I was trying to break in. I am here because I am scared and the moon is screaming and making my fire uncontrollable when I am outside!

[in_extremis]

Tony looked as though he was going to interrupt again, lips already parted to argue before he realized he was going to be treated to a whole list of very obvious things that Lerith was under the impression Tony did not know. With his mouth still open, the quirk of Tony's smirk made the expression predaciously toothy, his keen focus on Lerith entirely invasive as he searched for any other vulnerability in his system.

"Don't be," might not have been terribly convincing then, but it at least reminded Tony to dial back the smirk again, gesturing another apology for it. "Moon's not coming down here," he continued, and had to give his hand a twirl to grudgingly admit, "Yet."

[mutedsuspicions]

Lerith hopes that Tony isn't going to interrupt again. Otherwise he'll give up the communicator entirely and either sign furiously or just leave. This human was almost as frustrating as he had been on the Network that day, but at least this way Tony could see the elf's emotions.

He takes a calming breath. No sense getting frustrated at someone... well, was Tony doing something to help? Whatever, it didn't matter in the here and now. Or so Lerith was going to try and convince himself.

'Do you know what you did to the moon to make it... act like that?' The elf lets the device speak and looks a little less scared, a little less frustrated. Talking angrily to people didn't really give out answers as much as talking calmly usually did.

[in_extremis]

This question had Tony looking guilty again, glancing away back up toward the stacks from where he had come, and hoisting the clinging animal he carried a little higher against his chest where his fingers could reach just enough to tap restlessly against his heart. The answer was not going to gain him any favour in this conversation, as he had already displayed his poor behavioural control, and he had to admit, "I told someone it did. So it does now." He tried to shrug like this was a perfectly reasonable thing to expect, what can you do?, and not like he was pressing his nails into his shirt. "Come on, you're not on fire now, right? I know I was messing with you, but honestly, sweetheart, if you burn this place down, that wouldn't be great, I've got some stuff here, it's a whole thing, we're going to have to set some boundaries. These guys, though, when they get freaked out, the moon is doing its thing, they go downstairs, it seems to chill them out, you know..." He gave a vague indication with his free hand around the whole animal, like he wasn't entirely sure how to best indicate it.

[mutedsuspicions]

The guilty look doesn't escape him, even with as quickly as Tony looks away. He's seen it on other faces, though those faces had been hollowed by years of slavery. He had seen the guilt when they stole sweets or something to hide under their beds down in their quarters. Fleeting bouts of happiness for the luxuries the magister hadn't noticed gone missing.

Lerith calms himself. Tony wasn't meaning any harm, was just teasing or something. Being... Tony, maybe. 'I am sorry. I get scared very easily. And the magic is... it is a work in progress. Reeve was helping me with it.' He does tilt his head at the motion around the mothcat.

'I promise not to intentionally burn anything down,' and held his hands open to show they were empty. Not burning. He takes a careful step forward, ready to jolt back if the human didn't like him getting closer. 'Is this your companion? Or, pet? This is a mothcat?' He looks very interested at least, yellow eyes looking over the creature.

[in_extremis]

How easily he did or did not get scared was not something that Tony would voluntary provide to just about anyone, and he started to make a gesture to suggest Lerith also maybe not say that too loud in case the wrong person was close enough to overhear it. That wrong person probably wasn't Reeve, at least, and Tony muttered, "Was he? He's probably a great teacher, very patient, never seen him set anything on fire so he must have a lot of control, sure."

As much as Tony rambled to try to fill the space, he didn't look as though he was going to recoil from Lerith, and shifted the animal again when he realized Lerith's focus was on it to try to draw it out of its anxious coil and reveal its face. "Not a pet, no," he was quick to deny. "They just hang around here, I don't know where this one came from. He just doesn't like the noise. It's probably worse for them, you know, the ears..." He gave a flick of his free hand up toward his own, mediocre human ears, only to quickly drop it because Lerith was probably having an experience with the sound slightly closer to the mothcat's and maybe he didn't need Tony bringing it up. "It's usually pretty quiet in here," he decided was a reasonable conclusion. "Library."

[mutedsuspicions]

'Reeve has magic rocks that help. He had a special name for them.' Of course, he can't fucking remember the name when he needs to. That was a little frustrating. No, don't think about that, that's how hands get set on fire.

He glances from the creature to Tony, and straightens up. 'It is very loud outside. With the screaming.' There's a small tilt of his head. 'You either talk a lot, or you are nervous and ramble?' There was another slave he knew of that did that, down in the servants' quarters. They'd keep the nervous energy in all day and then just let out a torrent of one sided conversation when away from the magister.

A very careful and gentle hand comes into contact with the mothcat, then smooths down in a petting fashion three times before drawing back. 'Libraries are quiet. The one in Haven is as well, though it's smaller than this one. And... has more books.'

Which was strange to think of for a library to be quite frank.

[in_extremis]

"If you're really nice, maybe he'll have a special name for you, too," Tony suggested with a wry smile, only to immediately regret it under this accusation about his very normal amount of conversation. It wasn't exactly helping any argument against either possibility. "It only sounds like I do," he tried to argue anyway, "because you're so quiet. Skewed perception. I don't get nervous. Look at me." Most of the time he did manage to look incredibly cool, so that might have worked, sometimes. Carrying around a feathery cat, without his sunglasses and his hair sticking up from being sprawled on the couch was probably incredibly uncool, and he only had his disarming grin to rely on. Maybe if he talked more, Lerith wouldn't notice.

"Yeah, the book thing, that's an ongoing problem. Rare commodity, turns out," he said as the mothcat seemed to asses whether or not he liked being pet like that, tipping its head too far back to stare at Lerith narrowly. "Not for lack of trying. You should have seen this place when we first got here. Garbage, everywhere. What they did have were more of those datapoints, like the one by the fountain, only they were all broken. Destroyed, definitely deliberate, if you trust my math. And you should. I've been trying to get one to work--to figure out how it works, then maybe we could get some of them back on these shelves."