[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

[faithlikeaseed]

Even though Myr's anticipating the throw and the fall, letting himself relax so it's less of a bruising jolt when he hits the ground, it still knocks the breath out of him. He's content to lie there defeated until he can regain it, and the first thing out of him when he does is a laugh. "Oughta do that again sometime," he manages at length. "That was fun."

He's sweaty and exhausted and mana-drained and bruised all over, but right now that feels marvelous because he outdid his own expectations--against a templar, to boot. (A templar in rather fine condition, at that; he didn't miss the opportunity to feel what he could with his hand against Simon's belly.) Maybe there's some hope for him after all; maybe he doesn't have to feel so guilty and worthless about struggling to keep his skills sharp, about holding on to what he can't have any longer.

Maybe all that will go away once the adrenaline fades.

But maybe not.

He pats Simon's makeshift sword with one hand. "All right, I yield. Let me up before I get any colder down here."

[paladingus]

In spite of himself, he grins. He tells himself it's only because the mage can't see it anyway, but he can't entirely erase it from his voice.

"I can't promise I'll make a habit of being awake at arse o'clock in the morning," he says, "but if I happen to be, I'll bring a proper practice blade along and make you really work for it."

He's aware that any stronger trash talk might be ill-advised, no matter how jesting the intent. It's no mystery why Myr might be self-conscious about his hard-learned skills, reluctant to keep honing them for a goal that Simon knows as well as anyone is likely impossible. But professions like theirs don't have to be an all-or-nothing deal; he's learning that slowly. One isn't simply a templar or not, a knight-enchanter or not, as if the title is everything and the training inconsequential.

He tosses the pole lightly aside and reaches down to help Myr up, though it takes a second's thought before he realizes what little good it will do if Myr can't see him doing it. "Here, give me your hand."

[faithlikeaseed]

"Can't say I'm in the habit myself," Myr replies, "but if I'm awake when the courtyard's empty I might as well avail myself. Find somewhere quieter elsewhere and I'll go another bout with you any time you like."

As he thought it might, the high's already begun to fade; thinking of just why he's so often awake when the rest of the Gallows sleeps poisons it further. But it's not so bad he can't maintain his usual cheer, as he reaches out to grab Simon's hand and pull himself to his feet with the other man's help. Acting on something that feels like instinct, he brings the templar's hand to his lips and kisses the back of it in a gesture of spontaneous esteem--

What by Andraste's sainted name do you think you're doing??

Oh, just casually transgressing the boundaries they'd tacitly agreed to abide by as a tenuous, comforting kind of security in an uncertain world.

No big deal.

Thankfully his manners--rudely interrupted as they were for a moment--are well ahead of any stupid thing panic could make him do. He releases Simon's hand like he'd planned that, stepping back and smiling up at the templar. "Thanks," he says, absolutely sincere despite the anxiety suddenly gibbering in the back of his mind. "Didn't realize how much I'd missed that until now."

[paladingus]

Simon has held those boundaries sacred for as long as he can remember. Don't fraternize with the mages--because it's dangerous, because it undermines your authority, because you have authority that they can't freely say no to, any number of reasons and any one of them good enough on its own to make him keep his sword firmly sheathed.

They're all gone now, irrelevant within the structure of the Inquisition, no matter how he might like them back, and it doesn't matter if nice like-minded mages like this fellow agree with him on that or not--but this is still a different kind of contact than he feels like he'd signed up for when he agreed to a quick spar. His hand twitches convulsively with surprise, but he doesn't yank it back or anything before the mage relinquishes it on his own.

Easy confidence is not something Simon can relate to or comprehend well enough to realize when it's a panicky facade, and as far as he can tell, Myr had planned that all along. It gives the gesture the overtone of a joke, something nonchalant and ironic, and he relaxes just a little, though he's still staring as if Myr is a package making some kind of ominous noise. (It's not like the guy can see it, after all.)

Don't ask. It'll just be weirder if you ask.

"Well, you know where to find me," he says awkwardly, and promptly makes a face, because what. "...no, you don't. But you don't need to, so it doesn't matter. Just...drop me a line if you ever find a steady practice spot, I guess."

[faithlikeaseed]

Oh, Maker, he's gone and made things (irrevocably?) awkward between them. The panic ratchets a notch higher; he can't see the look Simon's giving him but the change in his tone speaks volumes, and what were you thinking, Myrobalan, why would you do something like that, with a templar, of all people--

There's nothing of calm or confidence about the breath he sucks in to quiet his racing thoughts, nor the way he's flushed despite the chill of the air. Maybe, hopefully, they can be written off as lingering effects of exertion, or it's dark enough that Simon won't notice the lie that's been put to Myr's air of nonchalance. "I will," he replies, a little too abrupt and eager for all his mounting anxiety; some part of him is still struggling mightily to keep this amiable relationship together for less-than-altruistic reasons. "--Ser Ashlock." And another is trying to put back up the wall of discipline he knocked over, so things could go back to what they'd been before he ruined it.

Another quick breath in, and he retreats a step from Simon, toward where--he thinks--he left his personal effects. (It's the wrong direction.) "For now, though, I'm--" For the baths, he was going to say before his sense of propriety finally kicked in to intercept it. "--going--done for the night. Will leave you to your patrols and try not to do anything else too suspicious."

[paladingus]

Less of that overt anxiety registers with Simon than Myr thinks it does, now that he's got that image in his head of a no-fucks-given rake who does that kind of thing without a second thought. He wonders, then, if the deliberate return to titles and formality is meant to be cheeky, or if it really is just a reassurance that there won't be any more boundary-jumping from here on out.

Had Myr mentioned the baths after all, Simon might have doubted that further and wondered just how serious the mage's flirting was, but as it is, this feels like a sufficient return to form. No need to dwell.

"All right," he says. "Try to keep the bees to a minimum on your way back, if you please."

[faithlikeaseed]

"They don't fly at night, ser. I'd hate to wake them without reason."

The joke sets them firmly back on familiar ground. And if I got away with that, what else can I do? some perverse part of Myr wonders; he gives a firm shake of his head to dispel it.

Let it go. No matter how good in conversation he is, how fine a voice and body he's got, (and he doesn't pity me,) Ashlock is a templar and there are rules about this kind of thing. Walk away.

The mage tips his erstwhile sparring partner a salute with his staff, turning on his heel to go collect his robe and hilt. It does not take him long to realize he's gotten turned around, flustered as he was, and heave an impatient sigh at himself. "Where did I put my things..."