The Dragon (Sarkan) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fireandsmoke) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2017-08-16 08:40 pm
fireandsmoke) wrote in faderift2017-08-16 08:40 pm
Entry tags:
[Open] Weary/Hungry/Hunched Over Labwork or Irritable and Lost, Take Your Pick
WHO: The Dragon (Sarkan) & You
WHAT: In which the Dragon is splitting his time amongst the Gallows library, the alchemy labs/herb gardens, and the Darktown Clinic (first time venturing out there!).
WHEN: Throughout August
WHERE: Various locations around the Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: Includes references back to his agreement with Kit. Also seeking out the Darktown Clinic to personally introduce himself to Anders.
WHAT: In which the Dragon is splitting his time amongst the Gallows library, the alchemy labs/herb gardens, and the Darktown Clinic (first time venturing out there!).
WHEN: Throughout August
WHERE: Various locations around the Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: Includes references back to his agreement with Kit. Also seeking out the Darktown Clinic to personally introduce himself to Anders.
THE GALLOWS, ALCHEMY LABS
The herb garden and alchemy labs have been seeing a lot of activity lately.
Astute observers and wanderers may have noticed for, oh, the past week or so, plentiful flickering flames and brightly flashing lights emanating from a cracked door into the most isolated vacant lab. Lyrium blue, orange, gold, pale blue, back to gold… for a full day the blue-gold tone swells and ebbs but never extinguishes completely, a sustained and steady light show in a relatively quiet section of the Gallows. Then comes the noises: high-volume chants, eerie, lyrical whispers, an hour-long song in an unrecognizable language that could give even the least magic-sensitive pinpricks to their necks.
And just as suddenly as the preternatural activity began, it quits and silences, reduced to the flicker of unadulterated lamplight deep into the night.
It is after a few hours of relative quiet when a voice snaps curtly to an invisible presence, “I need you to come to the alchemy labs.”
A peer into the lab's cracked door would reveal a tall, youthful man bent over a lab table, turning something about the size of a small coin over and over again absently in his palm, testing its weight and other invisible attributes with the pensiveness of a fine jeweler. It is a highly weary Sarkan, the one called the Dragon, hovering over a tangle of alembics, flasks, flames, and vials, finally finished with his self-imposed quarantine. While he considers and carefully encircles the small object, he shovels a half-consumed hunk of bread slathered in thick, luscious, fatty cheese with a shocking lack of grace for such a refined and well-dressed individual (and even he would be disgusted with himself, if he were not beyond caring at this point in his efforts). He does not appear terribly aware that he is being observed -- if he's being observed -- and actually looks very much like he could use a bigger feast than he's got, followed by a nice glug of fine wine and a soft bed...
HERB GARDENS AND HALLS AROUND THE LABS, OUT AND ABOUT EARLY IN THE MORNING AFTER THE SCENARIO ABOVE
Out and about the Gallows, the Dragon walks around with a palm cupped close to his left ear, a look of concentration etched into his cold face. He doesn't appear to notice or care if he passes anyone; the most they will get is a pause and a quick glance over the shoulder, his cupped left ear tilted in their general direction. It's a strange sight, to be sure, and one probably couldn't help but wonder if he were going a trite deaf in that ear, or if some sort of pesky fly had bitten him in the lobe...
DARKTOWN
Imperiousness has a habit of sticking out like a sore thumb when it’s the slums you’re walking. It does not matter how thickly the Dragon buries his rich clothes under a heavy, drab cloak, he still manages to stand out, whether it is the nature of his strong and aristocratic gait, or his disdainful glances to the puddles of filth muddying his boots, or the gentle clinking of elixir-bottles and magical artifacts in his hip pouch, or just a combination of the entire package. Even the air smells thicker with decay and destitution to his senses. It is something Sarkan did not miss about his youth in the capital city; he much preferred to tuck himself away from prying, fearful, squealing eyes and surround himself with handsome effects, things that weren’t painful to look at.
Darktown definitely isn’t his taste, to say the least. Beleth’s warning to him about a trek to the Clinic absolutely holds true, and he heeded it wisely, keeping an eye and an ear out for any ruffians that dare to obstruct his path. Anders, skilled mage that Sarkan hears he is, is a strange one, choosing the grittiest reaches of the city to set up a respectable magic school. Was the real estate cheaper?
Though the Dragon was very careful and thorough in requesting directions from the Inquisition and a few guards on his way out, he has not yet had a chance to master his sense of direction in this accursed realm. And now he finds himself referencing his parchment of hastily-scrawled instructions with a deep, irritated frown. He made it this far. Did he miss the last turn-off for the Clinic? What a profound waste of time…
"You over there!" Yes, that is an edge of superiority and disdain in his voice. Mostly impatience, sure, but there is a definite dash of ungraciousness in that tone. "I'm looking for the Clinic. The directions I've got are absurdly useless. Which way is it?"
WILDCARD
For any scenario outside the two described above. He is most likely to frequent the libraries. You may also run into him fielding some of his ‘rifter’ magic in quiet, secluded areas or gardens (like creating little mist-sentinels which he can theoretically send out to spy and listen in on other people, like certain Tevinter in the dungeons, but obviously his range will be much poorer than he’s used to). Any other ideas, you’re welcome to just surprise me or hit me up at
Herb Gardens
It's not that uncommon for people to move through it around this time, either to help out or just pass through, but periodically she has to correct them, and it appears today is one of those days.
First she clears her throat, then calls a polite "excuse me", then pads around to stand in front of him, pressing her hands onto her hips in exasperation.
"Please stop standing on the embrium," she sighs, and gestures a foot away, where there's a non-flowered path.
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"What does it matter? It plainly isn't a rare plant--"
Then something catches his eye. A big something. An impossibly large, sickly green something, not unlike the anchor shard in his palm, protruding across her entire chest.
That earns something more than a glance. He affixes both of his probing dark eyes on the girl, a grim and cold understanding slowly dawning on him. Rather than bark at her further as he is inclined to do, he steps out of the flowers and onto a sparse dirt path without further complaint.
"Embrium, you said," Sarkan lowers his cupped palm and drops a shining copper-toned earring into a pocket hidden in the folds of his cloak. He thinks aloud, reciting what he recalls from a recent book, murmuring to himself, "Certainly common, healing and invigoration properties." He raises his voice, adding in a barely-reassuring, offhanded tone, "Never you mind it. I'll use what I crushed, if that eases your soul."
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"You can help me pick them," she suggests, her tone weary. She knows why he censored himself. A glance downward at the embrium, and Sina bites her lip with a shrug of one shoulder. "They're not crushed too badly. It's fine."
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Hmph. Fine. He can pick a few flowers. Perhaps he can try mixing up his own dreamed-up concoction of a vitality elixir, using a mix of Embrium and his own silken incantations to imbue the distillation.
"Well, do you want me to take them or not?" he prompts impatiently, crouching by the flowerbeds and poising to dig up his handiwork. He has firmly and promptly avoided looking at the girl's obvious 'mark,' surmising full well that her condition was likely a painful and wholly damning one. Cosima had told him that an anchor-shard in the palm was enough to eventually inflict disease and death; one in the heart could only compound and hasten those ills.
"I can leave the roots behind or pull them. I don't know if you want them cut or pulled, or if the root is especially valuable in distillation."
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"I was thoroughly absorbed." His hand hovers near his concealed pocket. "From now onward, I'll take greater pains to trod gingerly around the greenery at the expense of my twisted ankles."
He regards the winding path through the garden with a pinch to the bridge of his nose.
"Since you clearly have a vested interest in the herbs and flowers, you would know the answer to this. Say I need these for a brew. Are they for public use?" He adds caustically, because he just can't help himself, "Or do I risk the puling of a wrathful gardener-girl if, Heaven forbid, I clip the wrong plant?"
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Sina watches him with dull patience, standing still and waiting for the tantrum to blow out before she speaks again.
"They're free for public use," she says flatly.
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Without further ado, and their undeniably awkward little entanglement finished, he turns his back on Sina. The less he acknowledges her severe condition, the less he must confront it (and the reality that his own shard may slowly consume him one day. At least here, in Thedas, there is no need to immediately burn shard-bearers like the corrupted sods covered in sickly green and black gangrene in his own realm. Luckily for one such as himself, too. Or unluckily, if it did no more than mark them for prolonged suffering and death without hope of reversal.
Sarkan frowns, shrugging away his grim thoughts, and lazily waves a palm past his left ear yet again and chants a foreign string of syllables: "Niemalum." He snaps his fingers a couple of times in front of his ear, then draws the earring back out of his pocket and presses it to his lobe. After a moment's thought, an idea occurs to him.
"Here's something useful you can do," he asserts without bothering to look at her again. "Go and tend to the flowers on the far end of the garden. Make some noise over there, some loud, some quiet."
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Instead, since he isn't looking at her, Sina just shakes her head and continues away. Shem'len. Sometimes she forgets they're not all like Araceli.