001

[solmate]

WHO: Alina Starkov + OPEN
WHAT: July catch all, including backdated dungeon visits
WHERE: Dungeons, Horizon
WHEN: post-Frostwurm event through July event
NOTES: Starters in top levels, feel free to pm me or send me a private plurk (hellbender) if you want a custom start. I'll also take wildcards!

Comments

a visit from a special friend (closed to kirigan)

[solmate]

[ He must be alive, she decides. Otherwise they wouldn't have let her out of the solitary cell so quickly.

Not that her stint in there wasn't horrible, passage of time a meaningless thing stretching out to feel like something endless. She thought of Mal, of course, a guilt eating at her gut about drafting him to a fight that isn't his own. She has no choice — the kindest thing she can do for Mal is let him still have that choice. Let him be free.

At some point with her face pressed up against the stone floor, listening to a distant drip of water, she wonders what the passage of time must feel like for Kirigan.

It's no wonder he's gone a bit mad.

Weak, for more reasons just than a day or so of even worse food in solitary, Alina has little desire to do anything than lay on her straw bunk. One day, she convinces the guards to let her stay in her cell while the rest of her cellmates are released for their standard rec time.

Footsteps approaching, she cranes her neck to see if it's someone she recognized. Perhaps she can convince them to smuggle her another book or a pencil.

First, a resolution to the uncertainty knocking around her chest. Then, her nose wrinkles in irritation. She rolls from one side to the other, curling away, her symbol's noose emblazoned on her back.

Apparently she doesn't feel like talking. ]

dungeon visits (freed cr)

[solmate]

[ Alina's last attempt request didn't garner much of a response, but this time she's come prepared. She's stashed the jam and candies Assistant Mage Jolene brought to her solitary cell and guards them closely. Her cellmates seem like nice enough people, but this is valuable loot.

It's a last resort though, and probably not even that valuable to the people walking around the castle freely. So, she's keeping them only if she can't find any other way to convince them. ]

Hey—

[ She sticks her hand out of her cell, trying to wave a visitor down. If she catches their eye, she motions for them to come closer. ]

cell or rec yard chatter (prison cr)

[solmate]

[ Released from solitary, Alina missed the shuffling of prisoners out of the dungeons into the freedom of the castle. All she knows is they've at least gained one with Mal. ]

It feels like there's less of us... do you know if everyone came back from the mountains alright?

sometime after horizon

[solmate]

Aleksander,

Already her lips twist into a sour frown looking at it immortalized in ink in her own script. Paper is precious though, relying on the kindness of the honored others to smuggle parchment down to her. She could try scratching it out, but then she is left with a record of this transgression. It'd be easy enough for him to figure out what she's attempting to cover up. She absolutely cannot reuse this piece to draft a note to Mal.

(She decides to leave it.)

Still, drops of ink pool on the paper as her pen hovers in the air, unsure of how to proceed. Finally, she decides on the shortest possible way to communicate her agreement, should anyone able to read Ravkan see it by chance she has plausible deniability.

We all do what we must to survive.

-Alina

She folds the note as soon as the ink is dried. It now only presents the small problem of getting the note to him. Susan won't do after she's asked her to only ferry notes to Mal. Sam is an even worse option; Alina's sure Mal has already warned him about Kirigan.

No, this is a delicate matter that will require a different courier. Thankfully, it is not too long until a potential one finds himself walking in front of her cell.

"I recognize you."