faderift | [OPEN] You were my direction and my roots.

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[OPEN] You were my direction and my roots.

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.

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Myr can't eye her up and down, of course, but he can certainly give the impression that's what he's doing. It's made slightly ridiculous by the fact he's not totally sure exactly where the top of her head is, but he tries. "You're at least the second most dread individual I've encountered here," he assesses at last with a grin. "Though the third and fourth were also worth fleeing. The thought of running all over the Gallows to avoid you all, though, is exhausting."

Vashoth is a term he hasn't heard often, and he puzzles over it a moment until it clicks. "Oh, you're--" Don't say an ox, don't say an ox. "--with the horns!" And, also, apparently, an apostate, since he's fairly sure Vashoth don't end up pulled into the Circles. He's not sure which of those is more alarming, though it's an alarm he compartmentalizes for later.

"--It's a pleasure to meet you, though. Myrobalan Shivana, lately of Hasmal Circle."

His hesitance to avoid that particular slur gets Korrin to laugh again, pleased that at least some people have manners. "It's alright, you can say 'qunari'. Not the most accurate term, and one I try to avoid using in Kirkwall since that people still remember the whole Qunari horde mess that happened a decade ago. Not that I had anything at all to do with that, but you know...." Yeah, Kirkwall's a fun and comfortable place for her, as with many others.

"Hasmal...I've been there a few times. I'm a Marcher myself, more or less from Wycome." 'More or less' because that's the closest thing that counts to a hometown in a life on the road. "Wait, who are the others on your list? I gotta know."

"But if they choose the names they'll respond to, it sounds like Crookytail didn't even think he was a 'Thunder,'" Myr replies, with a grin to show he's teasing. "Though I'm glad to hear Potato doesn't live up to her name. She sounds lovely."

He'd at least seen enough pictures of storybook griffons he can cobble together in his head what a streamlined, grey one might look like. It's not a bad image. "Certainly! Tonight? What time do they get fed?" It may mean forgoing his own bed for longer than he'd like...but griffons.

It's worth it for griffons.

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.

Oh, well-- That's not what he'd intended by his teasing at all. He peels himself off the wall, loath to give up his sunbeam but acutely aware he's being rude by lounging around like that. "Don't worry about it; if I were vain at all I'd be flattered," he replies, favoring Norrington's general direction with a faintly apologetic smile.

"Navigation, serah, so I know where I'm at in the Gallows." Since he can't see to do it, after all.

The teasing gets a small huff of amusement out of her, along with a small smirk that of course Myr won't see. "It usually happens around seven in the evening, so I would give...perhaps a quarter-hour after that? Unless you prefer to hear them enthusiastically tear apart their dinner, which I personally do not. Afterward, they're open to grooming and that's when I find them more agreeable. Buttons in particular tends to demand attention, since he will never have a rider." Poor Buttons and his one wing; they feed him like a royal, but it's not exactly compensation.

He laughs, briefly, at that. "There's been at least a few here who came boiling out like ants from a kicked nest to see what I was up to." Though by and large the response to his project had been nothing more than a good opportunity to get acquainted with the Gallows' population.

The opportunity to talk magic is as welcome as one to talk to a templar. "Actually a modified form of the passive glyphs we use for marking objects. The chimes were my addition, along with a few other changes that make them more useful for navigation." He looks briefly, justly proud at the accomplishment; it's worked out well, so far.

"...Next time I put them up, though, I'll give more advance warning so people are less startled by all of this."

"I am, if anything, a stickler for accuracy," Myr says, tongue partway in cheek. "So--Vashoth, you said? Suppose if I'm talking to someone who doesn't know the term themselves I'll resort to the other, but--I know." What can you do when the world's already made up its mind on who you are from what you look like? Ignore them and keep moving.

He raises an eyebrow at the mention of Wycome, still grinning. "Obviously I didn't make it out to Wycome myself, but from the stories I've heard I'll want to visit before I die." Definite bucket list item, now...that it's an option.

"Van Elris has the top spot. Don't know if you've met him but he's shorter than me and you can't miss the eyes." There is nothing whatsoever in his tone to betray that's his cousin he's talking about. "Then after you is that fellow calling himself the Dragon," because really, who except a very dreadful person does that?, "and then the Venatori down in the dungeons, since they come as a package deal." Right now, anyway.

And saying it that way lets him lightly gloss over the fact he only finds one of them legitimately unnerving, rather than jokingly so.

A swift mental calculation yields that yes, that's well past when he'd prefer to be asleep, but damn it, it's griffons. "I'll be there," he says, fervently.

The thought of Buttons' particular plight dims his smile. "...That's a shame about Buttons, though. Why couldn't he? Even with only one wing, he could surely run. Or--at least have someone who's there just for him, whether or not he can be ridden. If it's that important that the other griffons are bonded, why leave him out?"

It's personally galling to think of poor Buttons' life being defined entirely by not being able to fly. Small wonder, too; he'd heard enough of that kind of talk about himself.

Edited 2017-08-14 08:50 (UTC)

Why, indeed. Garahel huffs softly in agreement, prompting Inessa to bend down and stroke his head briefly. Her tone is thoughtful as she straightens up. "Are you volunteering? It would be interesting to see whether or not such a bond might happen with him. Maja's focused on him as much as she can, but...it's hardly the same."

A griffon who can't fly and an elf who can't see; stranger pairings have happened...in theory, anyway. Even if riding is out of the question, it would still warm her heart to see Buttons receive the kind of bond that several of his clutch-mates have gained.

"Vashoth, yep. Tal-Vashoth are the ones that left the Qun; Vashoth are the ones born outside it, but we get used to the Tal-Vashoth label, too." But the fact that Myr seems to be making an effort to keep that knowledge straight pleases her. She hasn't met many people who even attempt that. "Wycome is awesome, but you'd better have a lot of stamina. The good times never really end there.

Van Elris...don't know him. New, right?" Then she snorts and crosses her arms. "'The Dragon'...with a name like that, he'd better have horns, too. So many qunari/Tal-Vashoth names out there are some variation of 'dragon'. We're a bit obsessed like that, for some damn reason." And then a hardness creeps into her voice, her jaw working and eyes narrowed. "Venatori...I've seen their work, what their kind does to shardbearers. It's nothing I'd wish on anyone. If I saw them, I don't know if I could stop myself from punching them into paste. They'd better stay in that dungeon and rot."

"I--uh. Me?" It clearly had not occurred to Myr, for all his impassioned defense of Buttons' right to have a friend, that he could do such a thing; he gawps at Inessa for the few seconds it takes to let that offer sink in.

Let it never be said he won't stand for his beliefs, though, even if he's surprised into doing it. "If he'll have me, I'd be--I'd be glad to. He deserves it." A note of excitement creeps into his tone despite his own best efforts to throttle it; there's no saying any of this will work out, but-- He gets a chance to befriend a griffon. A griffon. That's absolutely worth attempting.

Edited 2017-08-14 16:39 (UTC)

"There's only one way to find out, isn't there? We'll see soon enough." He may not be able to see Inessa's smile, but there's warmth in her voice nonetheless. Garahel follows up with a happy bark, his tail wagging evident as he slaps it against the ground. A gesture from Inessa has him getting back to his feet, though. "I should wear out Garahel so he won't be restless while I'm away. The rookery is no place for a mabari, as you might have guessed."

The mabari lets out a contented huff, not a bit fan of those giant feathered beasts anyway. He does lean lightly on his new elf friend for a moment, as a way of saying it's been nice meeting him.

He starts as Garahel brushes up against him, but drops a hand to the mabari's back in an awkward acknowledging pat. If he's going to try making friends with a griffon--a bigger and pointier beast than a mabari--it is perhaps a little silly to be anxious about a dog. And besides, Garahel's been nothing but polite.

"I can imagine," Myr replies, having recovered both his smile and poise. "I'll finish up the rest of these," he gestures toward the nearest glyph, "that I'd planned for the day in the meantime."

"It's been good to meet the two of you in person. Don't tire her own too much, Garahel," he adds, to the mabari.

"...Right. Maybe that's the last thing on my list to do before I die." Myr's tone is the kind that would properly go along with a certain twinkle in the eye--but, well. "Go out with a proper bang." And not the kind mages are normally known for expiring in.

"Think so. He was here when we arrived from Hasmal--" Here he's got to pause and count, ticking dates off on his fingers across days broken up by his erratic sleep schedule. "--two weeks ago. Likely been haunting the library." Or destroying it and getting banned, as the case may be, but Myr hasn't heard about that.

"And I've been assured," here his tone takes a turn for the mock-annoyed, and even the way he leans on his staff looks irritated, "that Messere the Dragon doesn't have any dragon-like qualities whatsoever, at least as his anatomy goes. But he's certainly pricklish to get along with."

Which is a far cry from the level of destruction a real dragon can cause, so there's that, at least. And, thinking of destruction--Myr sobers quickly at the thought of their unwilling guests. "I hadn't heard," he says, quietly--maybe a little apologetically, for the joke. "About that. Maybe there's room for turning them into paste after we've gotten useful work out of them."

Though he doubts it; pleasant as it is to speculate on enacting retribution against their prisoners for what the rest of the Venatori were up to, word had been given, and it weakens the Inquisition to go back on its promises.

A wistful sigh at that lovely thought. Korrin tends to savor her grudges and the Venatori have gone out of their way to ensure they're on her shit list for all time. "One can only hope. I'm not about to trust they'll be that useful, honestly. All they care about is restoring Tevinter's 'lost glory'; you know, the glory that came at the expense of everyone else. Besides, anyone who'd trust an ancient darkspawn magister to do that for them is already pretty far gone." She huffs and holds back from further ranting because really, she could do on much longer if she ignores restraint.

"Ah, that explains it. I try not to spend time at the Gallows unless it's for work or...well, this. It makes me miss Skyhold's hot springs, those were much more convenient. I didn't need to take a boat ride for a heated bath." She reaches up to check her drying hair, then reaches for a towel to pad it and prevent it from dripping. "If this Dragon is a Reaver, that could explain it. I've heard stories about them getting more dragonish as time goes on. Or a Reaver wannabe, that happens too. There was a qunari one called the Iron Bull that joined the Inquisition for a while, but at least he had the horns to go with it."

In the darkness, with her focus on his movements and staff rather than his face, she hadn't noticed the blindfold. Curious. Was it a permanent fixture for him, or had he been using it to challenge himself? That he hadn't taken it off to see who was creeping on him hinted to the former, but Beleth knew better than to ask. That kind of question simply couldn't be asked politely.

Besides, she's too busy worrying about that whole 'putting on a show' bit. He thought she was being a weird oogler, didn't he? If he was blind, then maybe he thought she was surprised a blind person could move like that? Oh, Creators, he was going to think she saw him like some dancing bear.

"I wasn't--It wasn't a show. I wasn't...gawking. I'm not a gawker." Wow. That was smooth. "I just...I think it's interesting, using your staff as a physical weapon, as well as a magical one. My, um. My brother's the First of our clan, so...I thought I could...tell him about it." Yes, that's perfect. Nailed it. If you can't be smooth, be endearingly awkward enough that you can't be seen as malicious. And shamelessly use your brother to make yourself look less like an idiot.

She clears her throat, putting her hands behind her back. Okay, look, she can be serious--That's a bit wasted, isn't it.

"...I'm sorry. For interrupting."

That earned a faint snort from Norrington - it was rather refreshing to have someone start of by saying that they weren't vain. Or at least, say it in a way that sounded like they meant it. "Well, be flattered. You don't look more than twenty."

And him an old man at thirty-two.

"Aaaah - ah." Oh. OH. He's blind. He blinked, before he looked down, "I had no idea runes could be formatted to do that."

Well, this is just uncomfortable all around, isn't it? Though Beleth seems decidedly worse off than Myr is now that he's had his moment to deal with his own emotions. He smiles in her direction without malice. "Hey. Don't worry about it; I hardly mind," he replies, gently enough. "The courtyard's not private and there's places I could go if I really didn't want to be seen."

Which is as much a rebuke to himself (why exactly are you doing this again, Myrobalan) as it is reassurance to her.

He straightens up, gives his head and shoulders a shake, and takes a few cautious steps toward her voice. No sense in calling across the courtyard at this hour of the ~~night~~ morning. "Besides, all the interruptions give me an excuse to meet people. Myrobalan Shivana, of Hasmal Circle.

"--And if your brother," (a First, huh? So she's Dalish; he swallows his own sudden burst of nerves), "really is interested I wouldn't mind talking more about it."

At that, he laughs. "All right--extravagantly flattered, in that case; you've knocked a whole decade off." He looks like he'd say more--and then scent of ozone catches him as the breeze shifts, and his thoughts clunk to a halt.

...Has he been sassing a templar this whole time?

Maker's nails.

Well, whatever. The fellow's been so kind as to roll with it and he'll get over the fatal embarrassment eventually. "--Uhm. It's," he takes a breath to steady himself, "my own design, ser, though they're modified from a similar passive glyph we use for marking things. They're extremely flexible, if you're willing to experiment and risk the periodic exciting failure."

Edited 2017-08-16 05:23 (UTC)

At the mention of Tevinter's lost glory, Myr looks briefly ill; that's unpleasant to contemplate. "Their kind have done worse for power," he says. The usual humor's drained entirely from his tone. "He did worse for power. You've almost got to pity them for riding his coattails rather than taking his initiative."

He's as happy to drop the subject when she does, feeling almost like he shouldn't have joked about it in the first place. There are things that ought not be treated lightly and this--this may be one of them.

The mention of permanent hot springs at Skyhold makes him sigh wistfully. "Why'd you ever move away from those? That sounds lovely." He'd contrive a way to set himself up near them and never leave. It's too cold in the south.

"He's a rifter mage, actually--about the first thing we talked about was how his magic doesn't work right here and how much it'd inconvenienced him." One corner of his mouth twitches up in a smile. "I'm expecting to hear that from all of them, honestly, once I get around to talking to them--it's enlightening.

"But--what is a Reaver, exactly? They're the blood-drinkers, aren't they?" Where is that even from--some cultural study? But on whom? It sounds like an Avvar thing...

"Yep, they imbibe dragon's blood...or wyvern's blood, I hear that works just as well. It's a ritual, never seen it myself but I had an Avvar friend who was a Reaver. You'd never want to be on the business end of his ax, trust me." There's a fond though melancholic huff at that, as Korrin realizes it's been nearly a year since his death.

"It was lovely, I'll give you that. But being stuck on a mountain in the ass-end of nowhere wasn't very convenient, so the leadership moved some of us here we could be in the thick of things. Nevermind that there was a shit-ton of red lyrium and veil-tears all over this damn place to fix before we could really move in. They're all gone now, but still...." She shudders, glad to take her chances at the docks.

"Ah, another rifter mage? If you want to seek out more, I'd recommend Hermione. She calls herself a witch, but she's a lot more like a Circle mage than a hedge mage, in our terms. She's pretty damn intelligent and if she hasn't read every book in the Gallows library, I'm sure she's getting around to that."

"Well then I have greatly flattered you, and am pleased to do so." Norrington stated simply, before he went to kneel down to check out the glyph more closely.

He tipped his head, to the side, looking from one end to the other. "That is remarkably amazingly complex magic, serah. I'm impressed by the skill." This kind of magic was unbelievably delicate and this ... man had handled it with a magical grace that was amazing. It took a lot of power to create these.

A very strange expression crosses Myr's face at all the praise, accompanied by a faint blush. He's not used to anyone being quite so effusive about what he does under normal circumstances, but Norrington's...a templar? Which complicates his usual interpretation of this kind of praise something fierce.

"Thank you, ser," he manages, and promptly clears his throat. "They'd be less complex, I think, if I had more practice with them, but there's a lot of the underlying structure I was hesitant to modify. It could surely be removed and I've got plans, in fact, to do more in-depth testing on that when I've got a free moment, though as they work just fine and the war effort against Corypheus certainly needs all our attention it's a project I'll have to lay aside for the moment. Uhm."

He's babbling. This is bad.

"...That's...volatile stuff, isn't it?" What he'd read on Reavers is slowly coming back to him and painting quite the (overwrought?) picture. But an exciting one, certainly. "I'd--oh. Had. I take it he's not around to meet any longer."

So goes the world, of course, especially recently, but it's never pleasant to be reminded.

...Veil tears and red lyrium. He matches Korrin's shudder in unconscious sympathy. "Glad I wasn't here for that; I don't envy you any of it. No wonder you stay away." The thought of any of that coming back all of a sudden is enough to make him consider, maybe, a little, other housing options.

Buuut that would put him rather far from the majority of the people he's interested in meeting and require learning the city, besides, and somehow he doesn't think the people of Kirkwall would be quite so calm about a mage putting glyphs everywhere to find his way back home.

"--And she's more like a Circle mage, you say?" That sounds... absolutely opportune; neither Petrana nor Sarkan had seemed particularly academic in their focus, though they clearly knew what they were about with magic. Having a rifter who came to spellwork after the fashion of the Circles presents so many opportunities for comparison studies. "Right. I'll haunt the library until I find her, then. Maybe let her know I'm looking for her if you see her before I do." (~~Not that he'd ever see her, but shh.~~)

"Although on that note, I wouldn't mind sitting down and talking magic with you, either, sometime. What've you focused on?" If he thinks of it as an academic problem, her being apostate is manageable. So he'll keep it framed that way and not panic.

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[OPEN] You were my direction and my roots.

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