faderift | Where There's Smoke Pt. 2

Beleth huffs right back at him, making sure he's secure on level ground, before turning to Alistair. "No, you don't." Then she turns to give Gavin a playful swat. What a loser.

Once everyone has agreed that she has the best plan, she nods, her lips quirking at Alistair's reassurances. "And they say chivalry is dead." She murmurs as she heads to the bridge. She starts picking her way across, tapping with her foot against the wood. When a spot creaks a little more than she likes, she reaches into the vials on her hip, and gently pours one of them onto the bridge, marking out the spot in a green paste. Then she moves on.

So far, so good--until the very end. By that point she's eager to get over this damn bridge, and gets impatient. She makes the final leap...only to slip as she lands on the final bit of bridge. Luckily for all involved, she manages to throw her weight towards the solid ground, and lands with a disgruntled noise, ungraceful but safe in the mud on the other side.

"Not a word." She shouts at them as she slowly rises, reaching up to wipe the mud from her arms. Or try. She might just be spreading it around.

"No words here," Alistair calls back to her. No words other than those three, which are delivered with a grin that's worth a few more. These elves are all very charming.

And it's good they don't actually need to be stealthy about this, considering all of the falling and shouting. Alistair starts across the bridge after her, looking back to invite Gavin to follow, and other than stepping too close to the creaky green rotting wood that she marked and breaking a board in half, he doesn't have trouble.

Gavin didn't speak but he chuckled to himself under his breath and then quickly followed Alistair, very nearly tripping over the half broken board, but managing to not go tumbling face first into the water. Good job!

Once on solid ground he strode right up to the door to knock on it with a sharp rap.

"Hello! Anyone home?"

At first there is no response. The house is still, but it's the sort of stillness that prickles at the back of the neck, unnatural, held too carefully to be real. Someone holding their breath in hopes the visitors will leave.

But they don't, of course, and after a twitchy minute or two there's the scrape of wood on the floor and a grunt, the sound of footsteps. The door opens a tiny crack and a lined face with an unkempt beard peers out from it.

"What do you want?" he asks, none too kindly, the words run and ground together in a thick Mire accent. He gives them a quick, squinty looking over.

Beleth waits fretfully by the bridge as she watches Alistair and Gavin fumble their way across the bridge. She's particularly on edge when Gavin crosses, tensed and ready to dive into the water to rescue her clanmate if need be. It's not that she doesn't trust Gavin--okay, that's exactly what it is. She only dares to breath a sigh of relief when all three are safely on the other side. She isn't looking forward to what the return trip is going to do to her blood pressure. She's too young for this kind of stress.

And then Gavin knocks on the door, and they wait. Beleth is just about to suggest they try a window, when the door opens up. The guy doesn't look very pleased to see them, but that's what Beleth is there for. Hopefully. It's not like she can play good cop bad cop when the most intimidating member of their party is a puppy that someone put Grey Warden armor on. You don't fool her, Alistair.

"Oh--! Hello, ser," The elf starts out, suddenly all sweet, nervous smiles and big doe eyes. "Um--are you Lemuel, ser? We were looking for you--well, um, if you're him, I mean...if that's alright?" She fidgeted with her scarf as she spoke, giving a nervous little laugh. Isn't she adorable. You should help her, look how cute she is. "We were looking for the Mage Widris--I'm one of the people who helped him when his house caught on fire!" She cheered up when she mentioned that part. "We were told you might know where he was...?"

The act makes Alistair's eyebrows do a thing—not quite a raise, because he's at least that good at keeping a straight face, but there's definitely a twitch. He's definitely going to grin about it as soon as they don't have an audience. Until then, he keeps it contained to a half-smile, more reserved, while he surveys the narrow strip of man visible through the door.

He can probably take him. Even if, expression-wise, he doesn't look like someone who wants to take anybody anywhere, thanks.

"Please," he adds. "We think he needs help."

Gavin, for his part, mostly just grinned in an amiable and slightly stupid way, stepping back to stand beside Alistair.

Beleth had this one in the bag.

Lemuel-- because the way his eyes narrow further when the name is spoken gives away that it is he-- seems taken aback by Beleth. It's quite an act, and big-eyed sweet-voiced elf girls don't turn up on a man's doorstep every day, especially not around here. His own eyes go a little wide themselves, and he glances from Beleth to her companions and back, mouth opening beneath his beard as if about to speak.

But he doesn't quite, catching himself right on the precipice and shrinking back again, eyes going even narrower than before. He strokes at his beard, fingers matting it down around his mouth in a calming, time-wasting gesture.

"And what's a sweet little rabbit doing looking for Widris?" he asks, casting a skeptical look back to Alistair and Gavin, "What help are the likes of you going to give?"

The smile freezes on Beleth's lips at the word 'rabbit', her jaw clenching to keep from any regrettable words slipping out. It's an act of sheer willpower to remember what Zevran told her about smiling through insults, and to keep talking to the man, instead of lobbing a couple arrows in the water, and running while the corpses shambled over.

But the Inquisition would probably frown on her having to submit a report that they not only failed their mission, but got the only contact able to let them complete it killed, because of an insult.

"Well, when his house was on fire, he asked us to get him his notebook that had notes on curing the plague," She told him calmly, smile firmly reestablished. "We got it for him, but later on, he contacted the Inquisition, and he...um. He seemed to think...something had happened to the notes? He, ah. Wasn't very happy." At least here, she could allow her smile to be a touch sardonic, because she suspected that Lemuel would know that was a bit of an understatement.

"So...we're looking into it! Making sure that no one has messed with his notes, seeing if we can figure out what the situation is," She tilted her head slightly, glancing away. "But...he disappeared. We were worried it might be related. So our job is to make sure that Widris is safe, and to try to ascertain the status of his relationship with the Inquisition--make sure that we're all being helpful."

Or if that status is very firmly 'violent and unhelpful', to make sure that no one else gets attacked by Widris. But, you know. Details.

This is why Beleth gets to do the talking, despite her long ears and the local(/global) prejudices: Alistair isn't even the one being insulted, but his smile disappears, rather than freezing, and it doesn't come back. He has enough sense not to open his mouth, at least, and the longer Beleth goes on without any outward sign that she's upset, the more his posture eases.

Gavin's smile only faded slightly - the only outward sign that he noticed the slur was a twitch of his ears. He was well used to it. As much as he wished he could keep Beleth and the others from it, he knew it was impossible. So there was no point letting it get to him. At least visibly.

"We feel responsible for his well being," He added, managing to look worried. Or maybe like he really had to go to the washroom. It's a fine line.

Where There's Smoke Pt. 2

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