faderift | [Open] But when we are apart I feel it too

Entry tags:

[Open] But when we are apart I feel it too

WHO: Anders and open
WHAT: General stuff around Kirkwall
WHEN: Through Bloomingtide
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Nothing as of yet!.

1. Making the Band

The crowd is the new mix of normals, people Anders is starting to learn by face though he's avoiding names. Most here do, which he's thankful for. What's not normal is that Juke Bachs has dropped by, and has been singing a new song about two or three times an hour. On top of that, he's been getting some of the more drunk patrons involved in some... Anders can only call it a dance because they're trying to move in time to the music. It involved weird patterns and flailing limbs, and he's deliberately sticking around to keep watching this.

He leans over when someone sits next to him, not quite looking at the person. "A copper on the blond one falling over in the next minute." It seems a safe bet. That guy's more coordinated than the really beardy guy, but he's already tripped over his feet enough that his palms are scraped and nose is bleeding.

Juke starts in on another round of what's apparently called Tearin' Up My Heart, and Anders takes a sip of his drink, very well pleased.

2. CSI: Thedas

He's taken a larger, unclaimed room for this, coating it in ice, using runes to make sure the ice doesn't melt, and he's also gathered as many tables as he can, lining them up together and creating a rather large, cold surface. On that surface is most of a corpse of a high dragon, many parts already cut open so he can get at the heart of the matter. So to speak.

There's a sign on the door warning about what he's working on, doing more research into the taint and the Blight, but that's all - the last thing he's going to do is barricade a door. He doesn't need to invite suspicion or fear any more than his breathing already does.

Those who might be scientifically inclined and he trusts to not take too many risks of exposure have been invited to join him in trying to see what they can learn from how High Dragons deal with the Blight.

3. Call the Anders

Most days, his hours in the medical rooms in the Gallows are regular. There's always more work that needs doing, after all, herbs to be chopped, processed, and mixed into potions, bandages to prepare, healing to do, and even housecalls to make from time to time. Purrelden knows not to be on the table while he works, which is exactly why she's on the table the moment he's turning to greet whatever patient or person has walked in the door.

[ooc: if you take this option and your character is injured/ill, please drop me an ooc note about what he'll find when going to heal them.]

4. Dr. Anders, Medicine Man

There are whispers in Darktown, spreading slowly, that their healer is back. Follow the lit lanterns, they say. Not every day are they lit, and there's no particular order to the days that they are, which is as deliberate as the moving of the clinic down there every time. ...Until today. Today, he's found a small building that two of the Darktown gangs have been fighting over for months. For equal healing for both of them, they're letting him use it. It's win-win for both. Neither is losing territory, and both gain a healer. It's a double win for him too, because it means that he has protection.

Today a new whisper joins the others - there are some tables and chairs, and between healing, he's offering reading and writing lessons. For free, no questions asked. He's also looking for assistants, if there's anyone out there willing to instruct down here or help heal or do prep work around the Clinic. There's a lot to do when setting up something that's going to stand for a while.

5. Anders Howe, Pet Detective.

Dogs and leashes are natural combinations. They take to it well and quickly. Cats and leashes... not so much. Purrelden's legs have apparently stopped working in the middle of the market and she's limp, giving him the saddest expression.

"You're fine," he tells her. "You can walk. This is to keep you safer, and to protect Merrill's twine. Please get up."

Pleading with a cat doesn't seem to ever work, and more than a few are staring at him, but at least they're staring at him for this and not other reasons. He looks up, meeting gazes and giving a slightly sheepish smile and shrug to anyone familiar.

"Cats," Anders says as explanation.

6. Wildcard me!

[ooc: Got something you want with Anders but it's not here? Toss up a header. If you're not sure about it, go ahead and poke me on Plurk at Nadat or on Discord at Nadat#4647 and we can chat!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The cat is less friendly to Anders, trying to hiss before being shushed softly by Cole, who catches the paw with his hand and lets the claws bite in before it relaxes again.

He stands there, rocking on his feet and holding onto his injured, feral cat. He sits when prompted to, head bowing to shield him from sight. "His leg hurts from the bite. I told him you could help him, but he doesn't really understand yet."

"All right." Now he has some even footing. Anders sits down as well and casts, healing the injured leg and undoing the damage from the bite.

"Some cats have trouble understanding." Not Purrelden, and not Ser Pounce. But if they're not used to hearing humans speak with them, they may not follow so well. It only makes sense. "It's all right, Ser. You're in good hands now."

So that's bite portion understood. Faith and hard words, not sorted out so much. The chair is at least out of the way.

"Are you all right, Cole?"

"Tom-Holds-The-Fish-Alley," Cole informs Anders. "His name. He's Tom-Holds-The-Fish-Alley." He lets the cat gnaw affectionately on his fingers while he's healed and even after, the cat apparently not minding attention from a spirit and spirit healer.

"I am."

It's not a statement of much. Cole is. He always is. He's not sure he's ever been 'right'.

"He's going to hurt people. Their words are going to make his body hurt people. Is Faith better than Compassion? Stronger? Stronger how?"

"Tom-Holds-The-Fish-Alley," Anders echoes with a smile. Of course he figured that cats had names, but he's never had the chance to hear one before. For a moment, he wonders what Hero of Purrelden's name was, but he'd gotten her when she'd been so young and so small it's likely she didn't have one. ...Or didn't know it. That brings a little twinge of guilt, considering how he'd been renamed. He's going to have to bring her extra tuna tonight.

Thoughts of tuna are pushed away, though, by the warning. Someone is going to hurt people because of words? They're... controlled?

"Faith and Compassion are both good. There's not a better or a stronger there. Sometimes faith overwhelms, though, when it's blind and uninformed." Like with the people who follow the Chantry and enslave mages. "Compassion is, in my opinion, better. Is there a way we can inspire compassion in the person who is going to hurt for Faith?" It's the most logical conclusion he can come to. Cole will tell him if he's wrong, but he thinks Cole appreciates someone trying to understand what he says.

The 'names' tend to be descriptors more than anything and mostly from animals living in cities. "They don't care if humans give them a name. Just, this one never had any humans to do that." Hero of Purrelden almost certainly gave no damns about her name, so long as she got loved and fed.

"Christine heals with Faith and I don't understand how. Faith never drives people to heal. Mercy does. Compassion does. Faith doesn't." He wrinkles his nose. "I don't want him to hurt people. But they're being hurt, because he's so cold to them."

At least now he knows Purrelden is fine with a pun, considering how much attention Anders lavishes on her.

"I'd honestly not try to apply any sort of logic to Christine, Cole." His voice is gentle. She's someone who hates him, but also hates what happened in the Gallows so much she can't go in? Every mage would have been annulled if not for him, and it would be an afterthought with her still in the Circle. She doesn't make sense to Anders; she really won't make sense to Cole.

"But you're using him and he, not her and she. Is Faith masculine? Is he being cold to people?" Faith would be cold. It makes sense. Mercy doesn't weigh in, but he can feel her attention on the conversation. How would Faith's coldness hurt, though? There's something he's missing here.

"Can I help stop people from being hurt? Can you?"

"My logic isn't people logic, but I still don't understand. I think I don't understand because there's no space in me for Faith. I don't have any fish, you'll have to go and steal the left overs yourself." He rubs under the cat's chin and lets him wrestle off his lap and go trotting off, using the healed leg just fine.

"No. Different beings. Faith is she down here, because the Chantry is Faith and we reflect people." He watches the door, but his gaze shifts once or twice to where he knows the chair is. "Faith is- strange to me. But the empty boy is empty. Their words are cold and make him be cold in turn."

Faith is not the boy. A boy is empty, turned to cold by words, due to faith? It fits so many Templars, but that's not a new thing. That's not something that would work Cole up enough to send him to Anders. Anders frowns, and catches the glance toward the door. He jerks his head to the side.

"Should we walk as we talk? You'll be further away from the chair, then." If he didn't need everything in his Clinic and more, he'd sacrifice the chair for Cole's sake. But he has students and patients to think about. He can't add to the expenses.

Back to the topic on hand - Cole has come to him to help a boy who is empty. ...Tranquil? No, he thinks Cole would know how to express that.

"What does the boy need? To talk? To listen? I will help however I can."

Cole nods, standing up and moving to the door out in a flicker of smoke. "Not Tranquil. Their words fill him up, push him out, so there's only what they say inside of him. He doesn't hurt, so I don't know how to help him, but he hurts others with his absence."

He looks at his own hands. They're become grubbier living in Kirkwall; he's generally thinner and dirtier. "I don't know how to help."

He walks, trying to sort this out in his head as they go. Someone young and male is following orders, by the sound of things, to the exclusion of everything else, and people are hurting. His friends are hurting - that would explain the absence part.

"He's pushing them away because he's focused on what he has to do." That's the logical first step from here. Since Cole came worried about helping, Anders is assuming that what the person is doing isn't actively posing a threat.

"You're worried because they're hurting, and to help them we'd have to help him, and you can't overcome the words? The orders?" Anders isn't sure what to do either, unless he knows the person and can appeal to them. Somehow. Depending on the orders.

"No. Um, sort of, less questions, one at a time, I can't focus on too much at once, Kirkwall's too loud." He rubs at his face, smudging some blood from the cat on his cheekbone.

"He's empty. Their words fill all the space where it should be him. And then... He can't connect with people. Because he's not there. And their words don't know kindness. Don't know people. Only know duty. I can't help because he's not suffering. There's no hurt for me to heal."

"I'm sorry." Of course. He's used to talking a lot and answering a lot, but Cole isn't Anders.

"There's hurt in the others. Can you give me his name? Do you know it?" Maybe that's a better place to start. From there they can figure out who is giving the orders that are causing the problems.

"Dust."

That's not right, but it's what he has.

"Issala? Dust. No, Dust. There's only Dust."

Issala. It sounds very qunari, and if it means dust then it makes sense, in a way. They don't give their people names, generally speaking. So they're probably looking for a qunari who has gone cold and is hur--Anders stops mid-thought and mid-step. He knows a qunari who has gone cold and odd, and he's been hurt.

"Did they go by Kas, before? A small qunari? Used to smile a lot?" Hero-worshiped Anders, too, and nobody did that. It meant a lot to not be tarnished in the kid's eyes.

Cole shrugs slightly. "I don't know who used to be in there, just that he's gone and in being gone, he's hurting people. Like you. Their words are there right now. A lamb instead of a bull."

He rubs his face with his hands again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Open] But when we are apart I feel it too

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject