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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That went better than expected.

Myr remains where he is with his hand outstretched over the wound as the spell resolves, waiting to feel the last wisps of it taken up by the healing tissue. Then he straightens and gives Kit a fond pat on the knee, knowing better than to say anything as inane as "you did well"--but still, Kit did, and Myr can only imagine the fortitude that took.

Certainly he'd have fled his own room in terror if it had been Van working an entropy spell anywhere near him. "You'll want to get the stitches checked and removed, at the physiker's discretion," he advises, then startles himself out of saying anything more with a yawn. Mmph. Right.

He pads back over to the bed to perch on it again, laughing a little at the thought of Chasind novelty hats. "Don't think they're selling tourists 'I went to the Korcari Wilds and all I got was this stupid hat and bitten by bears' swag? I would.

"Speaking of bears, if they've got them and you have to kill a dozen," because that's what you do out in the wilderness, right? Murder all the hostile wildlife? "Bring me back a pelt. It's summer and it's colder than Maferath's heart in here at night." Somebody is a delicate northern flower.

Then he pauses, weighing his words a moment before adding in a softer tone, "Though I think we'll both be happy just to have you back in one piece." There. He'll be the sentimental one; he's good for it.

Edited 2017-08-05 17:34 (UTC)

In spite of himself, he laughs at that, the way he'd have laughed at one of Myr's jokes back in Hasmal, as if for three seconds here nothing's changed or happened between them. There's nothing audible to indicate the speed with which the smile drops off his face when reality taps him on the shoulder again, but Van's not the only one in the room who can see.

But at least Kit's allowed him to smooth things over, and that's a triumph worth internally celebrating. And more of a relief than he's expected it to be, if he's honest with himself.

"Bring two," he says, because he's silently grateful not to be the only one who misses the desert heat. "Only if you're fighting them anyway, otherwise it's just a waste of perfectly good bears. But the south is a miserable place." He can think, unbidden, of a couple other nice ways to keep warm that he wouldn't mind Kit providing, but none of that is getting said aloud in front of his cousin. Or in front of Kit himself. Best keep those little daydreams altogether private.

But he does wish, just for a moment, that he could make sentimentality sound that natural.

Edited 2017-08-08 22:02 (UTC)

Kit is a good Legionnaire--he rarely fails a spot check. He marks the way Vandelin's laugh lights up his face like sunshine on a cloudy day--and how quickly it fades, his eyes growing guarded and pained; joy tempered by some reality that Kit can't see. That, coupled with the gentleness and surety of Myr's tone as he speaks for himself as well as his cousin, sparks a long troublesome instinct in Kit that he frankly should know better than to indulge by now. For a moment, his eyes shift between the two elves, the gears in his mind turning.

"Bring two. Only if you're fighting them anyway, otherwise it's just a waste of perfectly good bears. But the south is a miserable place."

"It's got plenty of blue sky," Kit answers him wryly, his smile lingering. "For a guy like me, that's paradise."

He looks down to his leg and gives it a tentative flex, his eyebrows immediately leaping up towards where his hairline would be if he, y'know, had any. Then he shoots a look at Myr, startled and clearly impressed. "...man, you know your shit, don't you? I can barely feel any pain now--ow." Spoke too soon. He hisses, grimacing, and touches those sutures. ...Yeah, he definitely needs to get those out.

For the space of a breath, with the tension in the room briefly banished like fog by the sun, Myr lets himself relax. Everything else in the world might be upset from its proper place, but within this little part of it he can call his own, there's peace. That's enough. (But with Vandelin here that isn't likely to last for long--don't, he stops the thought. Let it be for now. Let it be.)

He laces his hands together in his lap, breathes in, breathes out--and smiles to hear Kit's optimistic take on the miseries of the south. "Is it really blue that often here?" he asks. "Not overcast? It's clammy enough I'm not ever sure when there's clouds out." It wasn't as hard to tell back home in Hasmal, where it was most often storms that shuttered the sky, bringing with them the scent of rain and winds heavy with moisture.

Thinking of that tempts him to talk about it, offer up the idea of a trip north after all this is over and there's still a Thedas left to travel, Maker-willing-- And Kit's praise, earned as it might be, catches him in the middle of his deliberations and leaves him completely taken aback. It's so rare that he heals anyone other than himself that he's truly not used to having his meager skill in the area remarked upon. "--Easy," he admonishes, guilty and grateful at once he can buy himself time to process all that by responding to Kit's pain instead. "...Given the walk you've got to make back I may not have done you any favors there, telling you to wait to see a physiker. Those have to come out."

Or they're just going to undo some of what he's done, and he hates the thought of subjecting Kit to further magic if it's not necessary. "Either of you got a knife on you?"

We didn't see the sky that often in Hasmal either, he could say, if he wanted to be needlessly antagonistic again, but it would serve no useful purpose, and it's not so true that it wouldn't trivialize Kit's feelings into the bargain. Hasmal's tower had a courtyard, at least. It's far from the same thing as being trapped underground, in the Deep Roads or otherwise.

He hadn't thought that many dwarves would necessarily think of their underground home as an unhappy place next to which blue skies and open air would feel like paradise--but then, if one only talks to people like Myr, one might not think a mage would ever want to leave the Circle, either. His independent library research on dwarven custom tells him Kit wouldn't be allowed back into Orzammar if he wanted to go, but the rest is all still rather shrouded in mystery to him, and he's still not willing to reveal his own imperfect understanding by actually asking. Perhaps in time.

He's very pleased indeed that the healing has been a success, and there's that genuine smile again, but it melts rapidly into a wince when Kit's sutures prove to be a problem. "Here," he says, quickly rummaging through his robes, "Not that I'd mind being a shoulder to lean on again, but I've got one somewhere, give me a moment--" It's a last-resort kind of a thing, well-concealed, but every mage on the Hinterlands trail had taken to carrying a backup knife for those occasions when the roving templars could both silence and disarm.

"I've got one," Kit answers them both, and then suddenly it's in his hand. Hard to say what pocket it came from, exactly, but it's a mean-looking and serviceable knife that looks as though it has seen a number of varied uses throughout its lifetime. Need a fish gutted? This knife probably can do the trick. Got a bandit to shank? It'll work for that, too. The tip is just fine and neat enough to do this work, though it's definitely not something an amateur should attempt on his own.

Thankfully, Kit has spent over a decade accumulating experience in stitching up his own injuries--and then removing them, too.

Stretching out his leg as far as he's able, he squints down at his own wound, and begins the systematic process of delicately snicking each stitch. "Don't suppose," he mumbles to Myr as he works, "you've got any tweezers handy?"

He gets the sneaking suspicion that there's some kind of subtext--and at least one neat knife-trick--that he's missing in all of this. And it gnaws at him, a little, that he's left out of so much of the life around him, but he's had three years to get used to the feeling and besides, it isn't anyone's fault. Simply a fact of life now.

Besides, what he can pick up with the senses remaining him is interesting enough to work over. It's pleasant to sit out of the conversational loop for the moment and simply listen to the other two talk, to not have to trouble himself with what kind of veiled meaning might be lurking behind anything Van says. ...And he might also be drifting off a little sitting up, something he quickly snaps out of as Kit speaks to him.

"Yeah. First aid kit on my desk has one; it's the canvas bundle, top left corner, second in the stack." Since he isn't going to be using that desk for any writing or reading, it seemed prudent to turn it into a convenient storage space.

"Van, if you could?" You're closer to it than he is, and able to get the tweezers out without fumbling through the entire thing besides.

It's a shame that the deft knifework is lost on Myr, but Vandelin is glad to have at least looked up from his search in time to admire it. He's momentarily concerned, trying to hide his squeamishness--it's one thing to be afraid of darkspawn blood, but quite another to be distressed by that of a person, even if he has seen more of it lately than he ever wanted to--but when no blood is forthcoming, he relaxes, watching with admiration he can't quite hide. He can only begin to aspire to the kind of casual badassery that involves digging sutures out of one's own flesh without a single flinch or twitch.

As such, he doesn't notice his poor cousin beginning to nod off after his rudely-interrupted nap, though he snaps to attention and tears his eyes away from Kit once addressed. It's a politer request than he might perhaps have expected Myr to make, as tone and phrasing go, and he's not sure whether it's heartening or not, but he doesn't hesitate to go along with it. (It's not because Myr would have an easy time finding the tweezers himself if it weren't for Van. It's not.) "Of course."

He produces them in short order and hands them to Kit with a flourish. "I'd ask if you wanted help, but--you certainly don't look like you need it."

"I'd ask if you wanted help, but--you certainly don't look like you need it."

Kit laughs a little. "No," he says, "this is the easy part."

He takes the tweezers as Vandelin offers them out and sets to work. The task doesn't feel that badass to Kit; thanks to Myr's healing, the wound itself is hardly tender, and the stitches themselves don't draw any blood as they're tugged loose from his flesh. The sight of it is possibly a little unsettling for someone with a weaker stomach, or someone with a particular dread surrounding things protruding through skin. Kit got over those revulsions decades ago; this is nothing.

He puts the stray bits of stitching directly into his pocket so it won't litter the ground of Myr's bedroom, then reaches out a hand to brace himself on Vandelin's shoulder as he pushes himself up to his feet. (Possibly he didn't need to do this, and he doesn't really lean on his friend for support over much. His touch does linger just a hair longer than necessary before he pulls his hand away.)

Once upright, he gives his leg a tentative stretch and flex, examining the mean-looking scar cutting across his thigh as he does so. There's a little bit of tugging and pressure, but no pain; it should be fine. "That really is something," he muses out loud, and glances gratefully towards Myr as he does so--only to grimace guiltily over how exhausted he looks. "Ancestors," he sighs, almost under his breath, then adds, "We should get out of your hair."

The fact it's the middle of Myr's night is really beginning to tell, now that he's not trying to be an active participant in what's going on. He's slower to rouse from his half-doze this time when Kit addresses him, shaking himself completely awake and running a hand through his hair (~~albeit to remove neither cousin nor dwarf from it~~). "Uhm," he manages, intelligently. Then: "Might be good. Won't be much use for conversation here, much longer."

Though, given this may be his last opportunity to speak with Kit before the dwarf leaves for the Wilds-- He gives himself another little shake, squares his shoulders, sits up straighter. "Glad the leg's working for you, though. Is this going to be goodbye, or do we have more time for that before you leave?"

Van has not historically been in the habit of bothering his cousin in the middle of the night. He's not accustomed to seeing Myr struggling to keep awake during a conversation unless he's sick, or something else is wrong. It does not do wonders for that creeping, guilty this isn't right feeling.

"I'd be tired after that, too." He's going to pretend it's nothing more than the exertion of the spell, and he does mean it genuinely as a compliment on a job well done.

Beyond that--the prospect of goodbye, for however long this mission will take, makes a rather inconvenient little voice in the back of his mind whisper that it might be nice to talk alone with Kit, just for a moment, before they part ways too. He'll save that for when they're not in Myr's earshot.

"Is this going to be goodbye, or do we have more time for that before you leave?"

He hadn't thought of it in those terms exactly, but perhaps he should have. He exhales, running a quick tally in his head of the time he's got left at his disposal before the party ventures south. "I've got a few days yet to get my affairs sorted," he muses, but sounds rather apologetic even so, "but I don't think that will leave me much time for socializing before I go. I suppose this'll have to be my goodbye--sorry I put you out so much."

Kit looks to Vandelin as he says this, extending the apology to him as well, and tries not to let his look linger too long on his very green eyes, the hint of sadness (or guilt?) he sees in them. It's difficult not to feel as though he's run out of time, but truly, on expeditions like this, it's hard to make any casual promises to himself about what he'll do 'once he comes back.'

Edited 2017-08-12 12:10 (UTC)

He turns his face toward Van in a way that would be a grateful look in anyone with eyes; thanks, for that, and thanks also for being less prickly and strange in the last few minutes. In recognition of whatever fragile truce they've got going, he'll let the illusion stand that they're only talking about what the spell took out of him and not every other reason he's got to be tired.

"That's a shame. Would've liked to get you out for another drink and see you off in style." Perhaps only a little because he's still enjoying the novelty of being able to go around and do things in Kirkwall whenever he wants to. Only a little. As for the rest of it, he shrugs one shoulder and graces Kit's direction with a warm smile.

"Don't worry about it. I'm happy to help, even if you've got to wake me up for it. Maker go with you, Kit, and stay in touch." If the crystals have the range for it, anyhow.

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[OPEN] You were my direction and my roots.

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