[OPEN] A dwarf out and about

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit and OPEN
WHAT: Kit recovering from the injury he sustained in the Deep Roads, and then exploring the Gallows a bit.
WHEN: The latter half of Solace/July.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: This post is open to anyone who might have reason to drop by the infirmary, or interact with a slightly lost looking, ripped a f dwarf limping around the Gallows after his convalescence.

Kirkwall has changed since Kit was last in it.

He'd landed in the City of Chains the first time 'round the same summer the Arishok's warship ran aground and the Qunari themselves were camped out in their compound by the docks like dread sentinels. The dwarven mercenary band he'd been a part of at the time had been serving as a guard retinue for a Merchants' Guild caravan, and business had brought them into the city to settle old debts, and generate some new ones, all in the name of profit. The city had looked like a right shithole then, with the poor, the dead, and the dying right under the noses of the nobility, sitting pretty in their decadent Hightown estates. Chantry Templars and priestesses could be found at nearly every level of the city--save Darktown, of course, where they never set foot except in pursuit of apostates.

It still looked like a shithole--but at least the Gallows had a forest right in the middle of it now.


I. THE INFIRMARY


The cot he's been laid up in for the past couple of days is clean and comfortable; the blanket is a bit scratchy, and obviously cut for someone about a foot and a half taller than your average dwarf, but it gets the job done and keeps the chill out. A competent physicker has seen to his wounded leg, though after many failed attempts at cajoling Kit into accepting it, she finally accepts that he's just not going to tolerate a mage healer taking a look at the wound.

It means his leg still aches terribly days after his misadventure into the Deep Roads... but all things considered, he's definitely had worse.

It's a cool, early morning when he takes the crutch that has been left at his bedside and limps his way just outside the infirmary to roll himself a cigarette and have a smoke. Leaning against the doorframe, he squints his eyes against the morning light and enjoys the quiet, interrupted only by the drowsy sounds of the Gallows personnel as they wake, and the cries of seabirds.



II. THE LIBRARY


He's never been in a library before.

No, really. The casteless dwarves certainly weren't allowed into the Diamond Quarter back in Orzammar, let alone into the hallowed halls of the Shaperate with her many mysteries and memories of the dwarves who came before. As a dead-eyed duster kid looking up at the Diamond Quarter from the stifling ruins of Dust Town, Kit liked to imagine that there was, at one point, a Gandir dwarf who'd had a name, a caste, and a life recorded in those memories. Before he'd been reviled, and then forgotten, and then reviled again.

It was a stupid thing to waste energy daydreaming about, when he had no idea where his next meal was going to come from. And with the Legion, the only books he read were the ones that his fellows used to teach him his letters.

So it's not academic curiosity that brings Kit and his crutch limping into the Gallows library, each awkward step resonating with embarrassing noisiness throughout the cavernous chamber. He grimaces, and tries to peg-leg along more discreetly; does this place have anything on dwarven history? Probably not. He looks anyway.


III. WILDCARD


[got a better idea? go for it, man, I'll roll with anything as long as it's set in the Gallows]

Comments

I

[aceso]

She may not be the mage healer who failed to convince Kit to submit to a healing spell, but Christine has certainly heard about it from her. While it's a frustrating thing for a healer to hear, it's certainly understandable, and Christine has come quite far in her non-magical healing as a result -- though a surgeon she is not.

Watching the dwarf leave his tent as she sits on a stool outside rolling bandages, she gives him a moment to light up before speaking in her Orlesian accented voice.

"You know, some say that smoking is good for you. It helps clear out mucus from your lungs, it settles your diaphragm to cure stammering. Things like that. But I cannot see how something that makes you cough until you get used to it can have any medical benefit. What do you say? Do you feel healthier for doing it?"

Re: I

[ragweed]

Kit startles some at the sound of her voice and glances to his left; there she sits, which explains why the subtle sound of her work hadn't grabbed his attention.

He relaxes rather quickly, shrugs one muscled shoulder, and offers her a warm, lopsided grin. "I think I'm pretty healthy for a dead guy," he replies, humor sparkling in his eyes. "Either way, I doubt a cigarette is what will do me in."

[aceso]

"A dead guy?" she asks, brow lifting. "For the deceased, you certainly can hold a conversation." The corpses she's fought in the past were more the shambling, groaning types. Plus they were all decayed. Probably had no tongues. He's remarkably robust! And also kidding, of course. But it begs the question why he'd say so. She vaguely recalls something about dwarves and their relationship with death, but doesn't remember any of the specifics.

"How are you feeling?"

I

[eolasemah]

Kit has a bunkmate when he's not up and smoking, a waif of an elf with a glowing chest who sleeps placidly in the bed beside his. Periodically healers will come in to check her over, then leave again, letting her sleep it off, whatever 'it' is.
It's on a sunny afternoon that her eyes finally open, and she stretches widely and languidly with the air of someone who's simply been enjoying a nap. Then, she turns her head to see who's beside her, and smiles a sleepy greeting. Oh hi.

Re: I

[ragweed]

The glowing elf would probably freak him out a little bit if she didn't look cute as a nug swaddled in her blankets. ...Would being compared to a nug be offensive to one of the Dalish? Probably, he decides, and so chooses not to voice that particular comparison out loud.

All the attendants hovering around the young girl give him some pause. Whatever is wrong with her--and it doesn't take a genius to guess that it's connected to the magical green anomaly glowing in her chest--it can't be good news.

He's drifting along the edges of nodding off to sleep again when Sina wakes up and smiles at him. He immediately smiles back--how can you not?

"You missed breakfast," he notes dryly, "but I think you might be just in time for lunch."

[eolasemah]

Her smile widens when Kit's meets her, and Sina giggles mildly, looking away with a small shake of her head. "I was growing a forest," she explains, her voice soft and dreamy. She breathes in, sighs it out, and looks back at him, her large hazel eyes flitting over the man's face. "I don't know your vallaslin," she muses, "are you from far away?"
It's possible she isn't entirely awake yet, or she might have noticed that Kit's ears aren't pointed and that he's rather shorter in stature. But she's programmed to identify people by their facial tattoos, and his are not any that she recognizes.

I

[nadasharillen]

The waifish elven bunkmate often has a slightly less waifish elven visitor; a nut-brown elf, also Dalish, with cropped black hair and a chronically worried expression.

One morning finds her passing the dwarf as he stands outside. Her eyes light on him with some recognition. "You're in the bunk next to Sina," she says, "Has she woken at all yet?"

Re: I

[ragweed]

He recognizes her easily enough, having seen her often sitting a quiet vigil by Sina's bedside. Short of the occasional nod of greeting, however, he hasn't spoken to her. Sitting next to the unwell young woman in the cot beside him, she'd looked weary and sad. Small talk hadn't seemed appropriate.

Now, however, she pauses en route to Sina's bedside to address him. He exhales a lungful of smoke, waving it away and generally away from Nari, as best he can. "Just the one time," he replies, but the pitch of his voice suggests that as of now, she is still sleeping.

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

"But she did, though," Nari says with a long exhale that mirrors Kit's, albeit divesting herself of worry rather than smoke. "That's good. Means she's not... trapped in the Fade or in a spell-trance, or... whatever else bad happens to mages who aren't opening their eyes." She drags one hand through the crop of her hair, her expression saying plainly that she's at a loss when it comes to such matters.

She pauses for a moment, as if realigning her world, and then smiles a touch guiltily at the smoking dwarf. "Sorry, you've been laid up too haven't you. How's the--" She squints, her eyes searching out his bandages and the nearby crutch, "--leg?"

II

[circleprodigy]

The noise from Kit's limping attracts attention before long. He might get the sensation of being watched before a quiet huff likely clues him in to the adult mabari from nearby. Padding over, he pauses at the dwarf's side, as though to offer himself as support.

Stifling a yawn from a nearby table, Inessa glances up from her tome and cup of tea beside it. Her companion's absence hasn't gone unnoticed and that always has her on guard. He means well, but he can be a handful.

"...Garahel? Are you being a pest?" The answering whine is almost immediate. He's never a pest...right? He looks to the dwarf for confirmation.

Re: II

[ragweed]

"Hey there, fellow."

The mabari's shoulders could probably reach his head, and up this close, it's easy to imagine just how fearsome the dogs must look to oncoming darkspawn during combat. But the intelligent animal only seems interested in providing a bit of support, and frankly, it would seem rude to turn the offer down. He rests a hand lightly on the dog's broad shoulders, not quite leaning on him, but acknowledging the offer all the same.

"Garahel? Are you being a pest?"

"Not at all," Kit answers, and looks up to see the elven woman at her reading with her cup of tea. "Frankly I think it's more likely that I'm the pest." Guiltily, he hoists up his crutch for a moment, then sets it down again so he can go back to leaning on it.

[circleprodigy]

The elven woman isn't currently wearing her Grey Warden armor, rather civilian clothes, though the griffon pendant might give away her affiliation for someone in the know. Upon hearing a non-mabari reply, she straightens and pushes back her tome a little, eyes on Garahel a moment before a small, proud smile emerges. "Good boy. You can keep helping, as long as it's wanted."

As Garahel wags his tail, all pleased, Inessa gestures to an empty seat at her table. "There's available space at the table, if you don't mind sharing. I can make a little more when I put some of these books back, in a moment." Her eyes go to the crutch briefly, but she doesn't inquire. It's his business, unless he chooses to share it.

I

[misdirection_hex]

There's something ego-salvingly comforting to Vandelin about the fact that Kit's refused magical treatment from anyone, not just him. But he's not inclined to begrudge the dwarf that boundary either way, when he'd been otherwise perfectly courteous, and not having seen hide nor hair of him since they'd escaped the Deep Roads, Vandelin wants to make sure he's all right.

"Well, you look much-improved," he says, pleased that Kit's out of bed and upright on his own. "That's good to see."

Re: I

[ragweed]

He spots Vandelin's approach from a way's off, but it takes a moment for him to be sure that the young mage is in fact headed his way. He takes another drag off his cigarette, exhales the smoke off to the side, and then shrugs.

"From a mosquito bite like that? I'd hope so." Even as he speaks, though, there's a knowing, grateful look in his eyes, and a small smile at the corner of his mouth. He hasn't forgotten the help that Vandelin offered him, both during the fight and afterwards, offering him his shoulder when his leg could barely function.

He sticks the cigarette between his lips, reaches for his crutch, and steps forward to offer Vandelin his hand. He meets the mage's eyes and nods once. "Good to see you again, salroka."

[misdirection_hex]

It's hard to top the trick with the ogre head, but Vandelin continues to like this guy's style. A good air of bravado ought never to be underestimated--he wouldn't have begrudged Kit his response even were it not tempered by that visible gratitude, but that does engender all the more goodwill. Vandelin lives to be appreciated.

"And you, friend." He shakes the offered hand with his firmest grip, and a warmer smile than he's given anyone else since he arrived. The unfamiliar word he can grasp from context, but it intrigues him nonetheless.

"Is this your first time to the surface, or do you come here a lot?" Kit certainly looks comfortable enough up here, but there's no way of knowing for sure--particularly for one as woefully unfamiliar with dwarven culture as Vandelin.

II

[fireandsmoke]

It's the sound that grates on him.

CLICK. CLACK. SCRATCH. BANG. CLACK. CLACK. SCRAPE. CLACK.

Thedas's newest rifter has lately fashioned himself a second home in the most plush, luxurious, comfortable chair he could find in the library. He would rise at dawn, arrange a breakfast for himself, and take up his study as soon as his hunger was sated. He allowed himself dinner at one (roughly), supper at seven. But never, at any other point, would he venture to leave the flickering lamplight when there was so much material to pour through, so many new things he had yet to understand about his predicament and temporary lodgings. And he is perfectly content to lose track of the time in a thick, leather-bound tome in this way... for now. It certainly put most of his other troubles out of his mind, even the dull, throbbing ache in his palm.

On most days he is left to his own devices in peace and quiet.

Not so today.

Each scrape and clack deepened a scowl on his face until, sick and tired of the destruction, he dares to murmur sotto voce (and just barely audible to Kit's wary ears) a lyrical and distinctly foreign incantation.

It sounded something like, "Sishual, sishual, shhhhh..."

Kit may feel the prickling tendrils of magic brushing his ankles, and before he knows it, not a sound can be rattled from his crutch any longer. He can bang it, shake it, scrape it across a chalkboard, and all it shall yield is silence -- a feather drifting in the wind.

Ahhhhhh. Much better.

If Kit were to glance around, he would find a very sleek, satisfied tomcat of a man grinning to himself as he pages through a massive tome in his lap.

Re: II

[ragweed]

He can tell something is wrong almost immediately, when he doesn't hear the crutch hit the ground. Without the sound to clue in his brain, Kit lurches forward and has to catch himself against a solid bookshelf; a few of the tomes and some sheaves of paper come scattering down, and he awkwardly bends with his bad leg to pick it up. One awkward apprentice helps him; the rest apparently try to spare his pride by pretending they didn't see anything.

For a few seconds, both of them puzzle over what happened to his crutch, before the apprentice seems to clue in to the fact that the crutch itself has been spelled by... someone. Perhaps they only look Sarkan's way because he is the only fellow nearby who doesn't look ruffled by Kit's difficulties. Kit studies him, his jaw tightening. t's not so much the spell itself that sets his teeth on edge (although having the magic quite so close to him, and unable to get away from it, feels a bit like knowing there's a spider somewhere in your clothes, yet being unable to find it). It's the thoughtless, short-sightedness of it.

"Thanks, friend," he said absently to the apprentice, then limps his way over to Sarkan's chair. Without preamble, he pulls over another chair across the floor--it drags across the stone, making a bit of noise--then seats himself in it. He gets comfortable, looks at Sarkan, and doesn't say a damn thing.

[fireandsmoke]

Sarkan visibly cringes at the screech of furniture across stone, his grin dropping into a scowl. Most men would be tempted to slam their book shut and return the searing stare in kind; not so for the Dragon. He stubbornly stays glued to his page, dedicated absolutely to keeping on with his study -- or at least making an illustrious, resplendent show of it, distracted as he is. As a man famously oblivious and insensitive to others' feelings, there is also a slight problem with his understanding of the situation: he truly does not fathom why Kit is behaving so untoward. Spiteful, even. Did he not do Kit and the other library lurkers a favor by muting that confounded noise? What more does this little man want? That is certainly how Sarkan sees it.

"At least one of us is attempting to read," he bristles without looking up. "And I certainly want to do it without a clamoring racket, which you're doing a fine job of imposing on me regardless. Now, what do you want?"

When will you go away? would be Sarkan's most tempting follow-up. But he manages to bite his tongue a little bit and doesn't spout forth with that rude comment. Not yet, anyway.

I

[aforethought]

"You taking off, then?"

It's not that she's appeared from nowhere. It's just grey mornings like this, the fog still settled low over the water, they make it easy to fade into the background of things; to skulk around like every other restless servant and soldier, bundled against the early light.

So it's not that she's appeared from nowhere. One might be forgiven, even, for suggesting she's been hanging around this stretch a little more than strictly necessary. One might be forgiven — one might still be best off not venturing that guess aloud.

Arms crossed tight over her body, she regards him from the wall she's leaned herself up on, tries to sound patently disinterested. She almost manages.

Re: I

[ragweed]

Her voice doesn't quite catch him off-guard, but he still wasn't expecting it--at least, not from her. The lifting fog reveals her rangy form, all sharp lines and hunched shoulders, leaning against a nearby wall, looking for all the world like this specific location means nothing to her, just like everything else in the world. Hers is a face and a voice Kit recognizes--but her expression has been worn by countless others throughout his life.

She helped to save his life. Kit offers her an open smile.

"I was thinking about it," he admits, shrugging one shoulder. He reaches for his crutch, tucks it into place under his arm, and takes a few limping paces towards her. "Think I might stick around for a while though; looks like your outfit could use an extra axe or two. You smoke?" He reaches for a sachet of smoking herbs tied to his belt.

[aforethought]

Melys doesn't answer, just slips a pipe out of some pocket. It's not a smiling mood she's in, but her posture slips a bit, joints shift looser in the blunt agreement of lowered guard.

"Pay's alright," She considers, "Do better with a company, but it's steady here. Soft. Ain't seen them toss no one out yet."

Soft's one way to put it, desperate's another. Way Kit's own face looks, he knows something about one or the other. Not many top-side you ever catch wearing that sort of ink. Not so many at all. But only a dozen years ago, and all sorts of things swam up from the ground.

"Full of fucking mages,"

Casual as can be. She casts him a look from the corner of her eye, appraising: Didn't spook with bat-ears back down there, but if that limp's any indication, he hasn't gotten any more eager. That it's become her problem to keep ahead of,

She fiddles with the pipe at the end of her fingers (call her glove a lost cause after that fucking thing's blood), ignores the faint shimmer of green that follows beneath. Better to know, before putting any undue effort in.

I

[arlathvhen]

Beleth is no healer, but she is the apothecary, which means that she's been tasked with making sure that the infirmary is fully stocked with all the salves, poultices, and potions that they need. The small hours of the morning is her usual time to deliver them, and that's what she's doing right then, a box of bottles in her arms as she makes her way to the door and up to Kit.

She doesn't recognize the dwarf--odd, because it's not like there's a great deal of them running around. Any more so than the Dalish, anyway. But he's given a polite head nod all the same, a warm smile on her lips.

"Beautiful morning, isn't it?" And then, after a thought, she adjusts the box to hold it to one hip, the other hand grabbing one of the potions up so he can see it. "Care to get first grabs at one before I deliver them? I doubt anyone would mind, as long as it's going to a patient anyway."

Re: I

[ragweed]

The approaching elf with her armful of apothecary supplies catches his interest just because there's really nothing else going on outside his tent this morning. And she's friendly enough, it seems, greeting with a smile that he's happy to return.

"Care to get first grabs at one before I deliver them?"

A startling offer, but one the duster kid in him still cannot stand to turn down. Curious, he takes a couple limping steps over to her to peer at the potions. "What's on the menu this morning?"

I

[justice_is_blond]

"You can't decline magical healing and be so restless you feel the need to bolt for it," Anders says as he comes up to the front of the infirmary, cat draped sleepily over a shoulder.

"You've a choice, and if you're not going to let us speed it up, then you're going to rest and let nature take its course." There's no annoyance in his voice, simply wry certainty. "Now. May I give you a hand back inside? Or will I be spending half the morning checking to make sure you've not collapsed in an attempt to bolt?"

Re: I

[ragweed]

Anders might not be annoyed, but Kit is--a little bit, anyway. No moreso than he has been with all the other mage healers who have fussed at him over being out of his cot when he should be resting. (But he's tired of resting.)

"Pretty sure if I tried to bolt anywhere right now, you'd have no trouble catching me," he replies, then takes another drag from his cigarette and breathes out a whorl of smoke. He talks through it. "C'mon, I'm just out here for a smoke. Give me five minutes and I'll go back in."