[open] together we can see what we will find

[onlyhymns]

WHO: Cade, his smarmy brother Callum, you!!
WHAT: Cade's life has been turned inside out and upside down. His brother has chosen a terrible time to visit, but has resolved to make the most of it. Come be part of the trainwreck.
WHEN: late Solace
WHERE: mostly around Lowtown
NOTES: There's gonna be a lot of drunken debauchery, and both brothers are going to do things likely both stupid and offensive, so if that's not your bag then you might want to steer clear.

It all began when a blond man strode into the barracks in the Gallows, whistling to himself as he perused the numbers on the doors and finally knocked on one. There, Simon was treated to the sight of someone very familiar and yet not: he resembled Cade, but taller, healthier, and significantly more charming. His name was Callum, and he had come to find his little brother, whom he knew to have just returned to Kirkwall.

Thus they went from the Gallows to Lowtown, where the little brother in question was found in the inn where he'd begun to take up residence not a full day previous. An exceedingly awkward greeting was had, a brotherly razzing that might have been less menacing if they had seen each other at any point over the last twenty-seven years, and the decision to celebrate Callum's visit with a night on the town.

Cade, being who he is, was unable to say no-- and, in his current state, thought a sustained poisoning via alcohol might just be what the doctor ordered.
And the rest... is not yet history, but it's about to be.

I. The First Night

The brothers Harimann and Simon have begun their night of carousing with a visit to the Hanged Man, where Callum diligently ensures that no one wants for a drink or a laugh. They're at a table towards the front, the older brother chatting effusively to Simon and the younger staring into his mug. Callum is quick enough to smile and greet anyone who should come their way, with an offer to join them.

Anyone remaining in the tavern long enough to see them leave might note that Cade can barely stand on his own, but at least it can be inferred that he gets home safely.

II. The Second Night

a. Back in the Hanged Man for another session, tonight is all about catching up. Callum, however, quickly grows bored with Cade's reticence and total unwillingness to pick up girls, and not-so-subtly ditches him at their table in favor of chatting up any locals pretty enough to catch his eye.

b. This ultimately resolves in Callum disappearing into one of the upstairs room with a few ladies, where he remains indefinitely. Cade remains at their table, idly spinning a coin with his head resting on his hand. Either he has total faith that his brother is coming back, or he's too drunk to stand.

III. The Third Night

It starts the same as the others, then Callum starts talking some shit. Any Fereldans in the pub are the subject of his mockery, and it isn't long before things escalate. [I would like this to be one thread, even if multiple people join!]

IV. The Following Morning

A badly-bruised and aching Cade awakens in a cell with no sign of Callum or memory of how he got there. He is, at least, relieved to find that this is not the dungeon of the Gallows, but the drunk tank of the City Guard.

a. Perhaps someone comes to collect him and pay his bail, either in a timely fashion or ...not. [one thread only please, first come first serve]

b. The rest of the day is spent nursing a hangover and trying to come to terms with what's been going on. Callum is nowhere to be found, which is cause for some concern.

V. Special prompts

If you'd like a character-specific scene that isn't covered above, hit me up!

Comments

[onlyhymns]

Cade stares at the pinkened water as he kneels there, at least grudgingly accepting the treated rag and pressing it to his eye as Wren speaks.
"It's shit," he mutters to himself, perhaps just loudly enough to be heard. Nothing about living has treated him well, least of all lately.

[limier]

"It is," She agrees — regrets it, before the words have even fully left her mouth. Life's shit, but what else is there to do? That's precisely the problem. Still, no taking it back now. "Utter shit, at times."

"How is it shit lately?"

[onlyhymns]

Cade pauses for a few seconds before looking up at Wren, his expression saying it all. Are You Being Serious

[limier]

She lifts her eyebrows in response, waits. Use your words bitch.

[onlyhymns]

Words are for people who aren't sitting on the floor of their post-firing inn room with bloody knuckles, smelling like booze and vomit! Probably.

He's bad at holding eye contact, so Cade breaks first, naturally, his face going red beneath the cloth he holds against it. "...it's all wrong," he mumbles. "I'm all wrong."

[limier]

Wren can guess, can pull together pieces enough (conversation, conjecture) to suppose the shape of what he's saying. Harriman's spent his life shoved into the mold of a sole purpose.

The context cracks, the shape remains; the expectations do — right up until they don't. She can guess, but guessing at what he's saying, assuming the words for him is the easy way out for them both.

"Wrong for what? For the Order, for the Inquisition?" She eases down to a crouch, to put them both closer to level. "For living?"

Just wrong.

[onlyhymns]

Still he avoids her gaze, his petulance draining as shame replaces it. Cade can be childish, and he knows this, hates it as much as anything else, but has no explanation or solution for it. He's afraid most of the time, and it makes him rash and emotional. He's embarrassing himself and he knows it.

"I'm sorry," he says, resting back into a more comfortable kneel, self-consciously tucking his free hand under the elbow of the one holding the cloth. "For all of it. For. ...everything." For living. Wren is trying to help, and he's being awful.

and then i took out the chancy line but forgot to take out this header whoop

[limier]

She lets the silent sit a moment, before doing the same. A huff of breath, she leans back against the bedframe; still perhaps half a foot of distance between them.

"You do not need to apologize for the world." Everything is a lot to pin on any one head. "Or for this. It happens."

More softly, she repeats,

"This happens," Her fingers lace together loose, fall away once more. "It hurts."

"It does not hurt forever."

[onlyhymns]

What she means by 'it' or 'this', Cade can't conceive, because she can't possibly mean his exact scenario. Has anyone ever truly been this wretched?

"...how do you know?" he asks, having a difficult time believing it'll ever stop. He's not being impudent; the question is vulnerable and yearns for a good answer.

[limier]

"Everyone," She begins slowly, tries to decide how much to offer. Her tongue pulls jealous at the words, would sooner keep them for itself, unsaid. You don’t speak of this. "I have ever led is gone."

Arnault alone, not dead; gone the same.

"The last — when we went to that town. Gone now. And when we returned, all that I could think was, Maker. At least it is over." Wren glances up to the ceiling, watches a stain there. "At least I could stop."

What the fuck is this helping. This really isn’t helping. She tries again,

"The hurt has not, but it is fresh. Every day, there is less. At times," Something catches. "At times, I think that is to do them an injustice. To allow the wound to dull."

"But it does, and. That makes it easier, to remember the other things. The things they were, outside that pain."

[onlyhymns]

Cade watches her closely, his non-swollen eye alert and searching. Something in what Wren says strikes a cord, making it easier for him to take her words to heart.
"I'm sorry, ser," he says after a pause-- not the usual self-deprecating apology for existing, but an expression of sympathy. "...I... mine are all gone too." For the briefest of moments, despite the circumstances, they're both lieutenants again.

[limier]

"Thank you." Silence folds, "I am sorry too."

It stings that he should need to know this so well. You lose people, in this line of work. Even then, before things got bad — truly bad — you lost people. In isolation, a tragedy. In sum? Numbers, as they've all been reduced to these past years. Numbers upon either side of a war; upon either side of an old pain.

At length, she looks back to him.

"It is a monstrous Age we live in," Aptly-named, for it. "But Ages end. Years turn. However we might bid them otherwise,"

A beat. Lower, now,

"You needn't call me Ser."

[onlyhymns]

Nodding, Cade rubs the bridge of his nose. He's calmed a little, reassured by the minor shift in balance, even if most of the shift exists because he's no longer a part of her power structure.
"Sorry," he murmurs without thinking, but at least doesn't add 'ser' to it. Staring for several moments into the basin of water, he sighs, takes a deep breath, and tugs off his filthy shirt, still keeping his upper body hunched as though afraid any bare skin is too indecent to be seen by another human being. Still folding it nicely before setting it down, he keeps his eyes low as he moves to the pile of clothes on the bed, keeping himself at an awkward angle such that his back is never to Wren.

[limier]

She finds herself winded. But there’s work to be done.

Wren stands, takes the discarded shirt aside. Folded or not, it’ll need to be laundered; someone in the inn might at least work out the stink, if not the stains. The motion catches her, the lingering of thoughts does: it’s a moment before she observes the peculiarities of his posture. Cade moves to protect his chest, even as he won’t turn his back. Both vulnerabilities, and yet,

She wets another rag to hand out.

"There is salve, for the impact —" For anywhere it might have broken the skin. "— How is your breathing?"

Nothing punctured or fractured, or they’d surely know by now. A deeper bruise might still require monitoring.

[onlyhymns]

He's a piece of work, to be certain. Cade has bruises and small cuts all around his ribs and midsection, his arms, most likely his lower half as well, though he's not so daring as to go that far with Wren here. He nods with a mouthed 'thank you' to the floor as he accepts the new rag and starts going about the miserable process of wiping the dried blood from each small cut, none of which are unlikely to heal normally, but all of which are a nuisance anyway.
Cade is staring into the middle distance when he finds he can't reach over his left shoulder, his right arm too swollen and sore to make the bend. Resigned, he squeezes the rag and lowers it. He has no idea how his back is looking-- well, he has some idea, but no idea how the fight affected it-- and part of him knows what has to be done next. He just needs to take a moment to pretend it doesn't.

[limier]

It's not an answer; rather, it's not the one she'd asked for. She allows him to linger a moment, to prepare, but it's still short work to slip about his side,

To stop and stare, despite herself. She's abruptly grateful he's not watching her face, the reflex she can't quite hide.

She's seen the like, but never to this degree. If Val Royeaux little went in for this breed of discipline, some of the outlying abbeys had left marks enough upon their recruits. Others, nursing more private sins —

— They used to joke of it (was there anything they hadn't?), she and Arnault. Used to make their small remarks of those whose piety was screwed in so tightly to pain. Young and untested and certain in themselves, they hadn't understood to look upon it: half self-loathing, half insane competition. Who's the sorriest son of a bitch?

Holding her hands over a flame every night, Arnault on his knees until they gave out. Both of them struggling to reach, to prove, to force the unseen into flesh. No, she hadn't understood it then; she doubts she does now. She doesn't understand, but she knows the burn of her lungs each morning, the way that it flares to swallow conscious thought. She knows a little of what it is, to rend oneself.

This is on another level.

(Some of it so recent — must have been while he'd still been rooming with Ashlock —)

"Here," She tries hard to hold her voice still, isn't sure whether she's succeeded. A hand out for the rag. "Stretch your arm. Do not let the blood pool."

Give him a distraction. Give her one, Maker.

[onlyhymns]

Cade can feel her consternation as easily as if he were just looking at her face, and he stares at the floor rather than engage with Wren. He holds his arm out as bidden, suddenly more tired than he's ever felt. This is a part of his life he's never wanted to share with anyone, and now 200% more people know about it.
"It's fine," he says quietly, unable to bear the awkwardness of the moment, "I don't let it get infected." Any pain that isn't self-inflicted is the Maker's will, but there's no need to be an idiot about it.

[limier]

It's not fine. It's acutely not fine, but there's still work that needs doing. A distraction,

"I am going to wash them," An obvious statement, one she wouldn't bother with if he weren't so cagey about the business. Water, herbs — it'll sting, and that's worth her own quiet frown. "Who else knows?"

This must have gone years unchecked. Let him at least be seeing a healer, speaking with a Mother, something.

(A brother. Fuck.)

[onlyhymns]

"I'll do it," Cade says immediately, straightening. Being treated like an invalid will only make this worse-- a stupid invalid, at that. He nearly misses Wren's question in his haste, and it takes some of the wind out of his sails. "...Simon."

[limier]

"You cannot reach them," She points out, with a calm she doesn't feel. That shoulder swelling’s not going down any time soon. "It will be quick. Tell me what you told him."

If he's had to explain this before, it's some reference of what to give.

(It's some reference for how badly she needs to chew out Ashlock.)

[onlyhymns]

Well. That's a. ....good point.

Cade sighs irritably and relaxes back on his heels with a scowl. It takes work to be a one-man island, and he's doing a shit job at present.
"...I just feel better after," he mumbles, the reddening of his face compelling him to duck his head and hide it from view. "Penance." That's the word Simon used, and it fits well enough.

[limier]

"Penance for what?"

For feeling? She's brisk enough about it, hands practiced about similar work (nothing so similar as this). In better circumstances, it'd be worth dragging a healer into this, to ensure there's been no deeper damage of the scarring. Better circumstances are awfully distant from these. She doesn't even know who she'd trust to the work, let alone who Cade might.

[onlyhymns]

He's so sore all over that Cade can't believe he still flinches at Wren's contact with the welts on his back, but there it is. Such a big man getting himself all roughed up.
He tries not to hiss, gritting his teeth and waiting until it passes before he answers. "Bad choices," he mutters, "...bad thoughts." He grimaces, either from the pain or the conversation. "Wrongness. Stupid mistakes." Otherwise known as most of his life, at least as he sees it.

[limier]

"Is there sin in a mistake?"

Neutrally. Bad choices, bad thoughts; difficult to argue against what those might invite when they’ve both seen them manifested. But wrongness? Mistakes? So terribly vague.

[onlyhymns]

Cade considers this for a moment, clenching his jaw. Maker, everything hurts.
"If you repeat it," he says, his voice hard.