driftfleet | MINGLE - Blood Drive!

Who: Anyone Participating in the Blood Drive!
Broadcast:
Action: Open to All!
When: BACKDATED TO LAST SUNDAY, March 15th

[Hey remember that whole Blood Donation network post that came up a few days ago? Well it's time for the actual blood drive! On the network, there will a message posted reminding everyone of the blood drive located on the SS Blue Fish - which is parked in a volcano in Mor. You know the volcano.]

[If your character is Donating, please fill out this form here! ]

[If your character is Volunteering - they'll have been sent a message asked to arrive before the blood drive start to set up and go over procedures. Only Volunteers with Lab Assistant Augment or a Medical background will be helping with drawing blood! Volunteers without that (or lab assistants not interested in drawing blood) can be assisting with greeting people, helping people with paperwork, checking on donor's well-being, handling payments, or manning the cookie table. There's lots to do!]

[Be warned that since it's a blood drive, sections of this post will Contain Content with Blood and Needles. If that stuff makes you uneasy and you wish to handwave your character's involvement with the blood drive- that's totally fine! Otherwise go, have some fun full of blood and cookies!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Steph drops into a chair next to Steffa, sinking into it with a soft sigh. ]

Okay, so this feeling? This sucks a lot more than I remember. [ Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that she now has much more unpleasant memories associated with the light-headedness of losing blood. The last time she felt like this, she blacked out and tipped off a roof, she's pretty sure. ] Can I have another cookie, please?

[ Steph definitely doesn't look like she's doing well. Plus she's a fellow blonde Stephanie.

That definitely earns her a second cookie. ]

Absolutely. You all right?

[ She accepts the cookie with a smile and shoves half of it in her mouth before she answers. More sugar will definitely help this. ]

I'm fine. Just a little... [ She wobbles her free hand from side to side by way of explanation. Like that. ]

So are you donating too, or are you smart enough to keep your blood in your body?

That seems fair. You just lost a not-insignificant amount of blood.

[ And here she'd been hoping no one would ask... ]

Oh, no, I'm volunteering because I can't donate.

[ She blinks, tilts her head. ] Why not?

[ Pause. ]

I'm sorry, that was a little rude. You don't have to tell me that if it's personal.

[ Steffa chuckles softly and shakes her head ]

It's all right. Becoming a Grey Warden, it involves a certain amount of... tainting your blood, quite literally. It wouldn't be fit for use in the way the donated blood is meant for.

Oh. Okay, good reason. [ She eyes Steffa for a moment, brows furrowed. Are you like a Red Lantern? You seem way too chill for that. ]

What do you... taint it with? Why does that make you a Warden?

[ Well, sort of and yet not. Steffa ponders how much to say. The nice thing is she does not think that the making of wardens is something that needs to be kept secret here - anyone here from Thedas is either already a Warden, never would be a Warden, or would become a Warden if they had to anyway, even if they knew the truth. So... ]

Well, darkspawn, the monsters we fight and protect the world from? If a normal person fights them, they risk getting the taint from their blood. It's... it wastes you away, and then kills you. The only cure, if you can survive the cure, is becoming a Warden.

We say that Wardens are immune to the taint, but it's not really that we're immune so much as the rituals and magic infect us with the taint, but cause it to slow. Wardens can live as many as 30 years after their joining before they begin to succumb to it.

[ a more realistic estimate for someone like Steffa is probably "10 years if she's lucky", but hey, details. ]

[ Steph stares at her for a moment with wide, sad eyes before she manages to get it under control. ] Oh. That's... I'm sorry. That's a lot for... someone our age. Even if you signed up for it.

[ She says, as if an unpowered costume vigilante has that much more of a lifespan. No one acknowledges that. Ever. It's best for their sanity, especially when you're throwing teenagers into the field. ]

[ Steffa shrugs a little with a small, calm smile, but the fact that she looks away to rearrange and straighten the perfectly neat cookies-and-juice table belays the emotion under that. ]

It is more time than I would've had if Duncan hadn't conscripted me. I was in a... spot of trouble, for helping a friend do something he wasn't supposed to do.

[ Now she feels really bad for bringing it up. But Steffa's still talking, so Steph doesn't want to shut down the conversation entirely... ]

Did people die? 'Cause... if not, I've got you beat, and therefore can't possibly judge you for anything you did. [ She really hopes 'I screwed up bigger than you' is a good way to play this. It would make her feel better, at least. ]

Not right away, but...

[ She sighs ]

My friend Jowan was... using blood magic. It's very dangerous, illegal magic. I didn't know, though, I thought that he just... wanted to be able to run away with the girl he loved. So I helped him escape.

And then he summoned a demon that raised the dead and nearly destroyed an entire town.

[ she shoots Steph a small smile, though, so clearly "I screwed up bigger than you" wasn't a total loss. ]

But as I've also been in that position, I couldn't possibly judge you for anything you did, either.

...oh. Sorry I said that, then. Still no judgment, though. You didn't know your friend was crazy. I assume...

Helping a friend got you in that big trouble? I mean, you didn't do the demon summoning...

It's all right. It's not a situation most people find themselves in. [ dryly ] Aren't we lucky?

[ Man, okay, how to explain why she did a bad thing. ]

No, but... when he first escaped, what I did was help him destroy his phylactery. All mages in the Circle have some of their blood magically preserved in a phylactery, so if they ever try to flee the Circle, the Templars can use it to track them. Apprentice phylacteries are kept in their respective Circles, and then the phylacteries of full mages are kept somewhere different, for safety.

Jowan was still an apprentice, so I... helped him break into the cellars and destroy his phylactery. We were caught, and he used blood magic to escape.

I could've been executed or... made Tranquil. [ She shivers a little, and it's clear which is the worse option... NOT execution ]

Duncan conscripted me for the Wardens, though, so I was allowed to leave. Which was probably the best thing to ever happen to me, despite everything else.

...no offense, but that's really really sad.

Yes... I guess it really is.

Can I ask... how are you so calm about all this? I'd be... angry. Really angry.

[ She is angry, still. Less at Tim now, but at Bruce and Black Mask and her parents and herself, and she doesn't know how to stop it. ]

[ Steffa actually stops and considers that, because this question... this question doesn't sound like an absently curious question. ]

I... got lucky. A lot of horrible things have happened... people have died, I was used by people I thought cared about me, I lost-- [ she chokes on the words, and has to take a deep breath to be able to speak again ] I had to see my home destroyed and almost everyone I knew killed. But...

Good things happened too. I met Natalia and Morrigan and Zevran. I got to go places I never would've gone before. And I got to live more than I would've gotten to whether or not Jowan had convinced me to help him and I'd ended up conscripted.

[ She smiles wryly at Steph ]

I am angry, still, about so many things. I just... I decided that I wasn't going to let that be what defined me. So I focus on the good things. I focus on the places I've been, and the wonderful people I've met, and the things I've learned. And I pray to Andraste every day that it'll be enough and one day I won't be angry anymore.

MINGLE - Blood Drive!

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