001

[openhands]

Who: Cassandra Pentaghast & YOU!!
Broadcast: Fleet-wide
Action: SS Marsiva
When: week of April 12-18

[When Cassandra wakes, she goes from sound asleep to alert in just a matter of a couple of seconds. She's out of bed immediately with a reflexive reach for weapons that aren't there. Naturally, this merits a frustrated growl, but no matter. She doesn't need a sword or shield to do some damage if she must to get out of...wherever this place is.]

[She scans the room with a little more scrutiny with a scowl before she notices the communicator and picks it up. Enjoy your new view of the ceiling, network, while she looks the device over in her hands because she doesn't understand why she has some vague sense of familiarity with it without ever having seen it before in her life. It's at least something to take her mind off the fact she has absolutely no idea how she got here in the first place.]

What is this?

[Answer her before books start getting stabbed, you guys.]

Comments

[merchantprince]

[CAN'T BE TAMED!!!!

Seriously though, he knows he's antagonizing her and that's bad, but he's comfortable where he is. He has people he wants to protect. He has people who Cassandra absolutely cannot fuck with in any circumstance, even if she's not the mustache-twirling villain he pretends she is.

If he was alone without a friend in the world, dragged by swordpoint across the ocean? Yeah, he might be a little nicer. Or at least terrified. And he is a bit terrified, regardless. But mostly he's peeved because this is yet another person who might know more than he does and she still doesn't see anything wrong with what she did to him. And Hawke.

Hawke.

He sighs in resignation. The least he can do is give her a layman's explanation.]

Supposedly we're entertainment for a bunch of people we can't see. If you've ever been to one of those fancy Orlesian plays, it's a lot like that. The actors are us, the clothes are crap, and we can't leave the stage. We get paid for it, at least.

[He rubs his chin.]

You ought to have something in the back of your neck. It... kinda puts books in your head, as far as I can tell. Makes sure you know how to turn the lanterns on and not to shove your head out into space. [What a weird name. Space is full of things, so why do they call it space? Unless he's understanding that wrong.]

[openhands]

[At the mention of Orlesian plays, Cassandra makes a small noise of disdain. Being paid doesn't incentivize engaging in what Cassandra considers to be frivolous behavior. If she didn't already hate being taken against her will in a place she doesn't know, she really hates it now.]

[She reaches up to feel the back of her neck, ready to dismiss what Varric is saying as a fanciful lie until she feels the small bump. Her attention is immediately off the dwarf and she's only vaguely aware of the words that are continuing to come out of his mouth. She could make quite a long list of things she doesn't like right now, but the discovery of something being put into her like that ranks right at the very top.]

How is that even possible?

[The question is more rhetorical than actually directed at Varric, muttered under her breath. She's not worried. She's not. It's just maybe a little more difficult to hold onto that anger at the present moment because what is going on here? She snaps herself out of it quickly.]

Who is responsible for this?