[It's amazing what a shower, a bed and not having a giant knifewound in one's back can do for a mood. Dixon woke up this morning feeling alive for the first time in weeks, clean and in fresh clothes and with only the milder pain of a healing, stitched wound. He feels warm again, the biting cold of the morgul-splinter removed; God only knows the Elves did with it.
For the first time in a long time he's felt his head on right. He keeps taking deep breaths every few minutes, as if to just savor the moment, the serenity. Every once in a while he thanks God. He's never been especially religious, but he's been grasping around trying to make good on Chief's command to find love. Unable to scrounge it up anywhere else, he turns to the one love he knows to be as unconditional as his momma's. It's a phrase baked into his bones by the geography he was born into: Jesus loves you.
Currently, he's sitting on the floor in the hallway, sketching away on some of the paper the Elves gave them all. It's not high-quality art, but it's relaxing, and the pages start to fill up with badly-proportioned trees, elves and birds. A few squad members make it into the art too, although with such little resemblance to their actual personages that they could be forgiven for mistaking themselves for other people. Or for blobs.
Unfortunately, he's positioned in such a way that someone coming down the staircase could easily trip right over him. He hasn't been considerate enough about the needs of people on the second floor.]
II. Hall of Fire
[For the first time since that endless fall that brought them here, Dixon feels like he's found his people. The main activity around supper has started to peter out, and that leaves the elves and dwarves who came to socialize and eat dessert and break into the store of dwarven beer. Dixon's rarely better (and rarely worse) than when he has a drink and company, and when he gets chatty he cozies up to the nearest table.
By luck, the table Dixon ended up at was full of Mirkwood elves and a group of dwarves (who don't seem to know to be offended when he refers to them as "midgets"), all of whom discussing the Elven musical performance that preceded. Dixon doesn't know any technical terms for music, but he does get enthusiastic in his appreciation for what he just heard, and one lubricated thing led to another slightly more lubricated thing.
Within half an hour, the table is singing together, a combination of Elven paeans, dwarven working songs and human classics like "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Joy to the World" (the fun one). It's the very definition of merriment. The dwarves get a little looser with their tap and the group starts to break into harmonies over "It Must Have Been Love", although it's just the chorus over and over as Dixon doesn't spend time teaching them the verses.
He can be caught between these rounds of song getting up and grabbing food or rounds of beer from the tuns for the table, grinning ear to ear, only a little tipsy, whistling in harmony with whatever dwarven song they're still singing at the table.]
III. Balcony
[On the rare occasion that Dixon decides he's going to be any sort of productive, he's been trying to work out the magic of his shield. None of the elves seem keen to help him with it - they look at it as if he just brought in a handful of roadkill, something disgusting and possibly poisonous - but after running out of magic on the battlefield earlier, he figures it's best to understand its limits.
One of the things he's noticed (rather abruptly) is that the instant it leaves his hand he forgets how to use it. And that he can call it back to his hand if he throws it or leaves it somewhere. It'll zip around corners or fly to get back to him.
The combination of the two leaves him in the tricky position where he can call it, but he can't catch it. If it's built up any speed at all, it has a tendency to crash back into him, knocking him on his ass or rapping his knuckles or smashing into his face. He tries it about four times before realizing that that's the problem.
And then he tries it about a hundred more times trying to fix it, tossing the shield off the balcony, calling it back and making a vain and flailing attempt to keep control of it. It isn't a shield designed for throwing - the shape is all wrong - but he can still get fifty yards or so on it with the distance of the balcony. That sends it coming back pretty quickly, which he thinks he'll need to know.
It's way harder than catching a baseball. Figuring the healers will cover for him, he doesn't worry about the cut hands, bruised knuckles or black eye. He even finds it satisfying. Deserved, at least.
To his credit, he doesn't stop. That's about all that he can be given credit for, because he also doesn't seem to be improving. Every few minutes there's a "fuck!" or a "Jesus Christ!" or even the occasional "shit, I'm bleeding" somewhat audible from below the balcony.]
DIXON | OTA
[It's amazing what a shower, a bed and not having a giant knifewound in one's back can do for a mood. Dixon woke up this morning feeling alive for the first time in weeks, clean and in fresh clothes and with only the milder pain of a healing, stitched wound. He feels warm again, the biting cold of the morgul-splinter removed; God only knows the Elves did with it.
For the first time in a long time he's felt his head on right. He keeps taking deep breaths every few minutes, as if to just savor the moment, the serenity. Every once in a while he thanks God. He's never been especially religious, but he's been grasping around trying to make good on Chief's command to find love. Unable to scrounge it up anywhere else, he turns to the one love he knows to be as unconditional as his momma's. It's a phrase baked into his bones by the geography he was born into: Jesus loves you.
Currently, he's sitting on the floor in the hallway, sketching away on some of the paper the Elves gave them all. It's not high-quality art, but it's relaxing, and the pages start to fill up with badly-proportioned trees, elves and birds. A few squad members make it into the art too, although with such little resemblance to their actual personages that they could be forgiven for mistaking themselves for other people. Or for blobs.
Unfortunately, he's positioned in such a way that someone coming down the staircase could easily trip right over him. He hasn't been considerate enough about the needs of people on the second floor.]
II. Hall of Fire
[For the first time since that endless fall that brought them here, Dixon feels like he's found his people. The main activity around supper has started to peter out, and that leaves the elves and dwarves who came to socialize and eat dessert and break into the store of dwarven beer. Dixon's rarely better (and rarely worse) than when he has a drink and company, and when he gets chatty he cozies up to the nearest table.
By luck, the table Dixon ended up at was full of Mirkwood elves and a group of dwarves (who don't seem to know to be offended when he refers to them as "midgets"), all of whom discussing the Elven musical performance that preceded. Dixon doesn't know any technical terms for music, but he does get enthusiastic in his appreciation for what he just heard, and one lubricated thing led to another slightly more lubricated thing.
Within half an hour, the table is singing together, a combination of Elven paeans, dwarven working songs and human classics like "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Joy to the World" (the fun one). It's the very definition of merriment. The dwarves get a little looser with their tap and the group starts to break into harmonies over "It Must Have Been Love", although it's just the chorus over and over as Dixon doesn't spend time teaching them the verses.
He can be caught between these rounds of song getting up and grabbing food or rounds of beer from the tuns for the table, grinning ear to ear, only a little tipsy, whistling in harmony with whatever dwarven song they're still singing at the table.]
III. Balcony
[On the rare occasion that Dixon decides he's going to be any sort of productive, he's been trying to work out the magic of his shield. None of the elves seem keen to help him with it - they look at it as if he just brought in a handful of roadkill, something disgusting and possibly poisonous - but after running out of magic on the battlefield earlier, he figures it's best to understand its limits.
One of the things he's noticed (rather abruptly) is that the instant it leaves his hand he forgets how to use it. And that he can call it back to his hand if he throws it or leaves it somewhere. It'll zip around corners or fly to get back to him.
The combination of the two leaves him in the tricky position where he can call it, but he can't catch it. If it's built up any speed at all, it has a tendency to crash back into him, knocking him on his ass or rapping his knuckles or smashing into his face. He tries it about four times before realizing that that's the problem.
And then he tries it about a hundred more times trying to fix it, tossing the shield off the balcony, calling it back and making a vain and flailing attempt to keep control of it. It isn't a shield designed for throwing - the shape is all wrong - but he can still get fifty yards or so on it with the distance of the balcony. That sends it coming back pretty quickly, which he thinks he'll need to know.
It's way harder than catching a baseball. Figuring the healers will cover for him, he doesn't worry about the cut hands, bruised knuckles or black eye. He even finds it satisfying. Deserved, at least.
To his credit, he doesn't stop. That's about all that he can be given credit for, because he also doesn't seem to be improving. Every few minutes there's a "fuck!" or a "Jesus Christ!" or even the occasional "shit, I'm bleeding" somewhat audible from below the balcony.]