[OPEN] You were my direction and my roots.

[faithlikeaseed]

WHO: (open) Myr and everyone; (closed) Myr, Vandelin, and Kit
WHAT: Some days in the life of a busy blind mage as he settles in.
WHEN: First part of August
WHERE: All around the Gallows.
NOTES: no one here but us elves

i.

Myrobalan had hardly put his request in to Casoferrazza before the harried seneschal had given him his approval and chased him off again. The man's haste to get the mage out of his hair had been a little alarming, but Myr isn't about to question what small blessings the Maker dealt out to him.

He places the first of his glyphs on the door to his double room and builds outward, weaving a network of sound and magic he can follow like a spider does the strands of its web. One glyph by every room he needs to know, a matching pair at the end of every major hallway. They're only active when he's close, glowing green and chiming softly in an assortment of different tones; otherwise, they fade to near-transparency and fall silent.

Still, they're a fairly obvious indicator of where he's been and where he hasn't in the three days it takes him to map the length and breadth of the Gallows, measuring his steps and marking what he needs to find again.

[OOC: Myr will be everywhere but the inside of the templar quarters and the upper levels of the mage quarters; feel free to encounter him anywhere but the dungeon.]

ii.

It's been no more than two weeks since the Hasmal contingent arrived and Myr's already out of sync with the waking life of the Gallows.

It isn't something that troubles him much any longer. His gutted Circle had grown used to him being awake all hours of the night and asleep much of the day, or elsewise--he contributed as much as they all did to their survival, so what of it?--so there had been little reason try and repair his schedule.

Besides, it's afforded him certain opportunities for peace and quiet he couldn't have otherwise. He'd marked how some of the more dedicated templars (and at least one knight-enchanter) were up well before dawn to attend to their own conditioning in the courtyard; how it rang with blades or hurried activity at all other hours of the day and into the torchlit evening.

The second hour after midnight, however, sees it standing empty, and Myr slips out into the darkness as gladly as a man going to meet a lover. He takes a moment to stand without the door of the mage tower, muting the glyph there so he can enjoy the velvet silence of the night. Then he begins to pace the courtyard in a regular grid, marking obstructions as he finds them. It isn't so hard like that to locate the space others have cleared for their own practice and bound it in his mind.

Only once he's sure it will be large enough for his own needs does he strip to the waist, folding up his light robe and laying it aside outside one corner of the practice area. Then he retreats back across cleared space, staff in-hand, counting his steps to the center where he stops and crisply salutes an imaginary opponent. The ritual gesture flows easily into the first of the forms, the patterns of attack graven into his muscle-memory.

Out here, unwatched, in the predawn darkness, he becomes for a little while the creature he was meant to be.

iii. (closed)

While they're harder to notice when Myr's not nearby, the locator glyphs aren't invisible at rest. They won't be so hard to follow back to their source at his room in the mage tower, where the glyph on the door gleams faintly in mute indication of the mage's presence.

Comments

ii

[paladingus]

The Inquisition, lightly staffed though the Kirkwall outpost is, does not actually require its templars to do patrol duty, let alone the graveyard shift. But it's strange to live in an empty room for the first time in his life, just off-kilter enough to make him feel like the old barracks are too damn quiet even if Cade's presence hadn't made them much louder when he was there--and as long as he can't quite get himself to sleep, he thinks he might as well ride the high of the Venatori capture by making himself feel useful for a little longer.

How useful he'll actually be without armor or sword is debatable, but he leaves them behind anyway, willing to risk the roving nocturnal gangs. Inquisition space is safe enough, or should be.

Should be. He isn't expecting any other wanderers, nor sounds of combat, nor the unearthly swish of a spirit blade slicing the air, and he zeroes in on it promptly, though he ought to be more careful without his breastplate--

Oh. It's only the blind elf from the forest, displaying skills Simon certainly would never have expected of him (and a physique he might not have imagined either, were he inclined to imagine such things of tangential mage acquaintances.) He watches for a moment, eyebrows raised, analyzing Myr's form as he practices. It's clear he's anything but a novice, blind or no.

He doesn't have a reason to ambush him this time, nor does he want to. He calls out from a safe distance. "You've really got to stop doing suspicious-looking things, mate. It's not always going to be me who finds you at it."

[faithlikeaseed]

So all-consuming is Myr's focus that he doesn't notice that someone's walked up on him, and that's his first mistake.

His second is startling when Simon opens his mouth and calls out; he puts a foot wrong in the midst of a tricky passage, stumbles, recovers--and grounds his staff to catch himself, breathing heavily. The spirit blade in his other hand winks out and he secures the hilt to his belt without thinking. Then he straightens and turns toward the templar--and cringes, a little physically, mostly mentally, to think that someone saw him pretending at something better left dead.

Thankfully, he's winded enough that the momentary mental stagger looks like he's simply getting breath enough to speak. "You want me to take this somewhere else instead?" he retorts. "Or quit doing things altogether to avoid being suspicious."

[paladingus]

He hadn't meant to trip Myr up, and feels momentarily bad for it--more so, at that snappish reply. There's nowhere else that would be better for him to take it, and no reason he should be forbidden from practicing where the others do during the day--it would hardly be ideal for him to try and share the courtyard with anyone.

"I was going for the second one, really," he says, "but it would be a shame. You had some nice form there, from what I can tell. I haven't seen many knight-enchanters at work." It had been a bit high-and-mighty a field for the humble mages of Ansburg, though a few had tried.

"I suppose you could handle yourself all right if anyone did take issue, then. I just thought I ought to investigate."

III

[ragweed]

He'd never tell Myr this lest he hurt his new friend's feelings, but the glyphs are creepy, and they weird him out. For that reason, Kit is more than happy to let Vandelin take the lead in navigating from the Gallows' library back to the mages' quarters, so that he doesn't have to look at the glyphs longer than necessary.

Once they reach the closed door with the final glyph on it, he glances at Vandelin. "I'm guessing this is it?" he asks, and starts forward to knock unless he's stopped.

[misdirection_hex]

The glyphs don't bother Vandelin by nature, exactly. Devoid of any context, he'd think they were an interesting and really clever use of magic, and would probably be fascinated by them and want to pick his cousin's brain about how exactly he invented them and tell him what a cool idea they were.

Knowing exactly why they're necessary, though, and still squirming internally with dread and unfamiliar guilt, he keeps his eyes mostly averted from them as well. He has not called Myr ahead of time about any of this. He'd considered it, because it would have been only sensible, but he'd been swarmed by visions of being hung up on without ceremony and having to tell Kit there was nothing to be done, and he'd lost his nerve. Now, at least, Kit can make his own case to someone who bears no grudge against him.

To that end, he lets Kit do the knocking. "I assume," he says, standing back. He'll announce his presence eventually, if Kit doesn't first, but he'll let their mutual friend soften Myr up before he does.

[faithlikeaseed]

There's no response to the first knock for nearly a minute.

Then a muted thump, a muffled noise that might be a yawn, and a sleepy, "Coming. One minute."

It's actually somewhat more than a minute by the time Myr gets to the door and opens it, clad in that breed of generally shapeless clothing most suited to sleep. His hair's more disheveled than usual, and he looks tired beneath the blindfold.

Not quite so tired he can't manage to be pleasant, though. "Can I help you?"

I

[circleprodigy]

Inessa's out and about with her mabari when the chiming gets her attention. She glances around as Garahel inspects something glowing and green, coming to stand beside him. "Ah, the marker glyphs...." She's only passed them when they were near-transparent and silent, so of course she has to take a moment to inspect it as is right now. Upon spotting the one responsible, she turns to face him better. "I see someone's been busy. Hello, serah."

Garahel pads over, sniffing and curious. "This is my mabari, Garahel. Garahel, be nice." There's a soft whine in response. He's always nice.

[faithlikeaseed]

"Warden Serra!" No disguising Myr's delight at encountering in the flesh one of the friends he so lately made over the communication crystals. (And what a strange way to make friends that is, though he's hardly about to complain about their utility.)

He marks his place along the wall he's been following with a different sort of glyph before turning toward Inessa and Garahel. The latter is cause for some mild internal consternation on Myr's part; he's read about mabari but certainly never thought to encounter one in the flesh. Uh... "Hello, Garahel," he says, feeling a little strange to be greeting a dog. "It's good to meet you, as well. I hope we'll get along."

While most of him's dead certain the stories exaggerated the famed mabari intelligence, a tiny part argues convincingly he ought to err on the side of caution. They're big dogs, after all, and who knows what an unhappy one could do to a small elf.

[circleprodigy]

"Fear not, outside battle he's just a big friendly puppy. Belly rubs and treats are all he wants in life." The mabari huffs in agreement, happy with his goal as an affection sponge. Satisfied with the sniffing, Garahel licks his hand before returning to his mistress.

"Have you completed your project, or are there more glyphs yet to place?"

i

[limier]

Someone didn't get the message.

Wren stands stock-still in place, staring at the glyph with an expression of utter puzzlement — really, it's a lucky thing Myr can't see it, it's pretty stupid.

She'd thought to be imagining them at first, these little marks so easy to miss among all the rest, but they'd been placed far too methodically for that. An unfamiliar make: Perhaps some project of the researchers? She leans in to inspect,

It chimes at her in a flash of green noise, and despite herself, she startles. Instinct draws her back sharply and suddenly into Myr's path.

It's not tackling the blind, but it sure is close.

[faithlikeaseed]

It's been an ambitious project to install the network of locator glyphs over such a short timespan, and Myr's already learned a great deal about what not to do when mapping a new space. Among them was "don't forget halfway through what range of tones you used for the living quarters," and he's been fixing that particular screw-up for the past three hours now.

He's so preoccupied with remembering which of the miscast glyphs he has to reset that he doesn't notice anyone else is present until he's plowed face-first into her and rebounds off that big ol' wall of templar with a startled oath. "Maker's blood!"

It would be nice to say that all his old training and poise take over and he recovers from the collision flawlessly, but he actually ends up on his ass with a stunned look on his face. He gives his head a rapid shake to clear it, and realizes only belatedly that he actually ran into a person.

"--Ah, shit. Are you all right?"

[limier]

"Fuck,"

She hisses in low Orlesian. Not only a mage, from the look of it, but a blind one. Double fuck.

Wren pushes a breath out through her teeth (heart slowing from its drumbeat pace), shoots a brief glance over her shoulder to check the glyph’s done nothing nasty. Dryly — or what must pass for it as she stoops —

"I might ask the same." She extends a hand, allows her fingers to brush his, doesn’t push them forward to clasp his palm and haul without some sign of permission. The boy’s blind, not feeble; she hadn’t known elves came in broad. "Please, allow me. The error was mine."

ii

[theexile]

Though she spent little time in this area of Kirkwall, she still felt it was a place she needed to be familiar with in order to be part of the Inquisition. It was for that reason that she went at night when she felt she might not run into so many who she wasn't sure of. Especially given the fact that there were plenty in this city not so comfortable with her Avvar background.

Still, she didn't let that stop her from walking around until she noted what looked like an elf mage. A Circle one if she were to guess. Still, she wasn't about to judge one for that and she watched in silence for a short while.

At least until the fennec at her side moved closer.

"I apologize for interrupting you. My small companion seems to be curious about you though."

She hadn't quite gotten a good look at his face just yet to know that she should explain that her companion was that of a small animal.

[the next night]

[faithlikeaseed]

Owing to his bruises from the impromptu sparring bout with Simon the previous night, Myr's limited himself this morning to simple staff exercises any Circle mage would be expected to drill in. They require far less concentration and don't make him nearly so jumpy about discovery--which is why, when he hears someone walk up on him again, he doesn't startle or bolt or even so much as stop what he's doing. So long as whoever-it-is is content to watch quietly, he's not averse to putting on a show, albeit with a kind of rueful self-conscious thought that he's finding somewhere else for tomorrow's practice. The courtyard is obviously not so abandoned as he thought after midnight.

When Kattrin speaks up, though, politeness obliges him to answer; he finishes the form he's working on, grounds his staff, and leans his weight against it. "Ah. Any questions I can answer for your companion, then?" There's a hint of annoyance behind his usual cheer he can't quite kill. Two nights in a row, and this time it's a total unknown.

[theexile]

"It is unlikely for he is a fennec."

Stepping forward she saw his face then. Ah, she should have explained that sooner. Well, there was no point in regretting an act that was something of a mistake due to not being able to see as easily in the darkness. Besides, he clearly seemed to handle himself despite that fact.

"He will avoid you should you wish to continue. There will be no need to be concerned about striking him."

Getting out of the way herself, she sat down, taking her staff off her back and setting it near her. If the fennec was going to spend time here sniffing about then she may as well linger.

we're just going for the hat trick here okay

[sans_harmony]

Diwaniya has been here for three months, and he still would like to say he doesn't hold with this weird "Fade" bullshit when it comes to magic. What kind of a world is it where power comes from intangible dreams, things you can't grasp, things that slip away as soon as you wake?

But his dreams are different now. He can't deny that.

And while he can still reliably summon up a gout of flame or a blast of frozen wind by thinking about it and demanding that it be so, it's nothing like what he's seen from the native mages. Next to them, he's a child annoying the grownups with silly parlor tricks. (And those, those are only the Circle-trained mages. Next to the Dalish--it doesn't bear thinking about. It still makes his chest ache to look at Sina now, and not with empathy.) He can't call down lightning, or crush a thing with invisible force, or summon a shield, no matter how he trains his mind--

--but if there were some tangible component to the magic, maybe it would be another matter. He watches this man in his vaguely-familiar robes (he must be from a Circle; Diwa can tell that much, but perhaps a further-afield one than he's heard of yet) inscribe these little flashing sigils on the walls, tilting his head with fascination as they chime. It's the sort of utility magic his people would have liked. He comes closer, not meaning to sneak up on a blind man, but not exactly thinking of the consequences of failing to announce his presence, either.

"That's really very clever," he says. "Are they only for finding your way, or are they multi-purpose?"

give love to elf

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr's been approached often enough by curious gawkers during the course of this whole project that he really ought to be keeping an ear out by now for them--but it's too easy to get lost reviewing everything he's got to keep straight in his head to place the glyphs as he wants them. So many tones assigned for one area of the Gallows, so much distance paced out between the glyphs on the longest stretches of wall, with the chimes so many seconds apart and the radius of the magic they radiate set so wide; it's only with three years of practice at this sort of mental note-taking that he's gotten as good at it as he has, and it's still not perfected to the point he can do it without effort.

So it is he nearly jumps out of his skin with an inarticulate noise of alarm when Diwa addresses him, smearing the glyph he's working on into an awkward splash of magic across the wall of the keep. He sucks down a breath to calm his racing heart, slaps his hand against the stone, and swipes it over the errant glyph to erase it, all while his mind works to recover from that alarmed stumble and the surge of irritation it brought with it. "--Just for finding my way," he responds at length, when he's sure of his voice, "and decoration, if you like the looks of them."

He considers a moment trying to rewrite the glyph he botched--the thwarted magic's an unpleasant prickling sting across his skin; or is that the nearness of an anchor shard?--and decides against it while he's got company apt to distract him. "I could have them do more, but every additional function I put in is more invested power, which means more mischief if someone disrupts one."

Schooling his expression into something more pleasant--he can scowl his annoyance at the wall, but he's got to do better with a person--he turns to face in Diwa's direction. "Besides, while I can think of a dozen other things to do with them, it'd be impolite to do half and impractical for the other six.

"And I don't think we've spoken before. What's your name?"

III

[judgemewhole]

There was now magic everywhere.

For a mage it is a natural state of being - they are born of magic, they live and breath it. For a Templar - for a Knight Commander no less - it is ... odd. James would be the first to admit that he was distracted lately, and honestly it felt so much like Ostwick that he didn't even consider the consequences of such a thing until he finally had his head somewhat clear from the whole Cade fiasco.

Right now - as he was mentally composing a letter to all the damned Seekers, he felt the magic go - ping, ping, ping against his inner senses, and he stopped. dead in his tracks. There were glyphs. Glyphs everywhere. He stared at them, the faint outline of magic on his senses, and frowned, moving to follow them, papers in hand.

[faithlikeaseed]

The culprit for all the magical graffiti isn't too hard to find. While the glyphs are either on or off when it comes to the noisemaking, the insistent tickling feel of them gets stronger the nearer one comes to their caster. Who, at this moment, is propped up against a wall in the courtyard near the herb garden, enjoying the late-afternoon sunlight. It's not quite the sweltering desert warmth from back home, but it's good enough for Myr.

I

[gatheringstorm]

To say that Korrin doesn't like the Gallows is a vast understatement. It may be purged of red lyrium and Veil tears at least, but its past still makes her skin crawl. Even without the slave statues and murals, she can't bring herself to stomach the site of such abuse for very long. The only reason she enters is for official business, or to use the communal baths.

The latter is what draws her to the Gallows this evening, as she's been missing the hot springs under Skyhold something fierce. Since hot water's available for only a few hours in the evening, she makes the best of it after a long shift. Soaking for a while is just she she needs to unwind, and it works, at least until she's ready to haul herself out. She's still robed and drying off her hair when the chiming reaches her ears.

Frowning in confusion, she lifts her head. "...the hell?" She hasn't heard that noise before or realizes what it means, so she stands to her full height and glances around for it.

[faithlikeaseed]

The lure of hot water is a potent one, especially for a northerner who's been missing his chances at it owing to an erratic sleep schedule. Myr's meticulously clean by nature--he'd been sure to mark the way to baths early on the first day of his project--but for the past few days that's meant cold baths at odd hours when no one's likely to be there. Now that he's awake at the right time, for once, a long hot soak seems a suitable celebration for completing all the glyphs.

Speaking of: The one Korrin's looking for is right inside the door to the baths, at roughly shoulder-height for a particularly short elf. Who, conveniently, happens to be available for comparison purposes as he makes his careful way toward the baths, staff tick-ticking against the stone. He hauls up short at the sound of a voice from within, weighing his options--he was hoping to not run into anyone, though he knew that hope largely futile--before shrugging his shoulders in resignation. A much-needed opportunity to warm up completely trumps his reservations.

"Hello?" he calls, reaching out to mute the glyph with a tap once he's inside the door. That'll get annoying quickly otherwise.

i

[mythalenaste]

"What are you doing?" Pel asks warily.

"Ih?" a baby asks similarly.

Pel came upon the peculiar mage while heading back to the room she shares with her cousin. The baby cranes her neck, trying to peer further out of the sling Pel has her in, curious and fearless. This mage-boy clearly has something he's going for, and it is shiny enough to attract attention from them both.

[faithlikeaseed]

The final step in Myr's ambitious little project is making sure everything's working the way it's supposed to, which required one last walk around the Gallows and everywhere he'd left the glyphs. It's already netted him two that weren't activating correctly and a third with the wrong sound to it, and he's in the process of redoing a fourth he'd put in the wrong location when Pel walks up on him.

At least this time he's not so involved to startle when she speaks up. "Fixing a mistake," he replies, a little absent. "I set this one too close to the others and now I've got to recast it."

He pauses to do just that, then realizes that his questioner isn't a voice he recognizes. ...To say nothing of--was that a baby with her? "These are for navigation," he explains. "So I can find things around the Gallows more easily."

[arlathvhen]

The night is not just the home of blind mages, it's the haunt of those who require stealth and guile. Spies and scouts and everyone who deals in the less conspicuous dealings within the Inquisition--and as such, is well known by the one running those clandestine operations in Kirkwall.

Beleth is actually heading to bed at the moment, on her way from her office, eyes cast anxiously towards the sky. If the sun hasn't risen yet, she's not technically that late to bed, right? That's the rule.

Movement catches her eye, and curious, Beleth's eyes dart down. To her surprise, it's not another of her people up at this unholy hour, it's someone she's never seen before--a mage, if she had to guess by the staff that he was twirling around. That only furthers her curiosity, and she veers her path to get closer to the elf in question. Maintaining a respectful distance, she pauses to watch for a few moments. She knows that staves can be used as weapons, and has seen others use it as such. But not quite like this.

Then, she realizes that she's standing around in the middle of the night, watching this random guy twirling a staff around. He's probably going to think that's weird. Or worse--that she's weird.

"That's very impressive." There, a compliment. Weird people don't give compliments, right? Wait--damn it.

[faithlikeaseed]

It's certainly not any less weird to be up training at this unholy hour of the morning. Closer to dawn, with some of the templars? Completely normal. All by yourself in a totally empty courtyard a couple of hours after midnight? Definitely weird. Though being out so late hasn't kept Myr from being seen like he'd intended to, so maybe once he's back to sleeping at these small hours he'll be less hesitant about practice during the daylight ones.

...Except he's more liable to get a crowd of gawkers, then, which is decidedly less tolerable than a single, solitary watcher calling compliments.

He doesn't hear Beleth's approach--too involved with pursuing his imaginary opponent through an imaginary retreat--but he gradually gets the feeling he's being watched, and by the time Beleth calls out to him it comes as no surprise. He exhales a breath that's almost like a laugh, trips and pins the invisible monster he's fighting, then grounds his staff with a flourish. "Thanks," he manages, breathlessly.

It takes a little longer before he's breathing evenly enough he can converse normally; time he uses to flip his bangs away from his blindfold and get more comfortable leaning on his staff. "Glad I'm putting on a good show." There's only a tiny bit of ruefulness in his tone; he's starting to get used to this idea that people don't see this as...sad, or pathetic, somehow, from someone no one would expect in front-line combat.