faderift | [CLOSED] Dwarf business.

Entry tags:

{ kit },
{ yngvi }

[CLOSED] Dwarf business.

WHO: Kit + Yngvi
WHAT: A meeting between two fellows at the Blooming Rose--er, not like that.
WHEN: Some time in early August.
WHERE: The Blooming Rose
NOTES: Dwarf shenanigans, probably foul language; will update if anything comes up.

LATE EVENING AT THE BLOOMING ROSE

Kit is no blushing virgin, but it still feels a little bit strange for him to open the door to Kirkwall's Hightown brothel and see himself inside. In the Deep Roads, there was no room for modesty when it came to dressing and washing and looking after oneself in the company of others, so it's not the lack of clothes on some of the hosts that gives him pause. He's not sure what it is, exactly. But in the main parlor, guests and hosts alike all appear to be enjoying themselves, and in varying states of inebriation.

There aren't many dwarves present at this establishment--at least, none that he can see just yet--and so he goes to find a seat at the bar to enjoy a smoke, and wait.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

”Good way to find out what friends you got.”

He isn’t so sure it is; plenty of topsiders don’t get it, won’t ever get it, much though they try. But if their hearts are in the right place, if they come at this shit in good faith and not looking for a quarrel--

Kit isn’t looking for a quarrel.

He takes another drag off his cigarette and leans his large forearms against the countertop. Around them, the lazy, indolent chatter of the patrons and workers of the Rose around them carries on; there’s nothing of note happening to really warrant a distraction for either of them. “I know you don’t know me from any other old duster come up from Orzammar,” he admits and glances Yngvi’s way, “but I want to be your friend. If you’re in the market for making new ones. What do you say to that?”

Yngvi looks hard at Kit's face, scratches at old memories buried down in an old dark place, digs them out from a place he doesn't disturb easily. Maybe he looks different and he's not entirely convinced but what does he have to lose? It'd go easier with Gunnar to confirm but this is him alone, solo.

"Just cause you helped me out as a kid don't mean you owe me shit," Yngvi sniffs, not as confident in this as he'd like but he's right, he has to be right. Why else would he care? Everything else has come back since he's back so why not this one too?

He continues, sitting up straighter from his slouch because that's what Asher would have done, what his lady would do. "I'm a big boy now, don't need to be mates with me because you feel sorry for the whelp you helped."

”I’m a big boy now, don’t need to be mates with me because you feel sorry for the whelp you helped.”

“What?” If he looks blindsided by Yngvi’s response, it’s because he is. Kit takes the cigarette out from between his lips and blows the smoke off to the side, then returns his full attention to Yngvi; he missed something here, that much is obvious, but he can’t figure out where he went awry. And either Yngvi is mistaking him for someone else, or Kit has just traipsed right into uneven ground without the right boots on.

“I’m--sorry--” he starts, brows drawing together in a deep furrow, “--I don’t remember…” His words taper off into baffled silence, and he looks back at Yngvi with both regret and apology in his eyes. His response falls far short of the mark, but it’s all he has to offer in the moment, as caught flat footed as he is.

Why would he remember? Stupid Yngvi, why are you this stupid, comes creeping, finds a way same as the cold wind does through the tent. Same as you always try to peg it shut, cinch the fastenings, Yngvi forges ahead, grips his mug tight in both hands and leans across the table as if to help Kit remember.

They all looked the same then, what's one more face in the dark, in the dirt, how many faces did Kit see all his life before the Legion and after, just as hollow in the same places, the feral starveling fire in the eyes.

"There were humans and they had shivs, me and Gunnar were smaller," he's insistent, he remembers this, he remembers this so clearly now and why is it so important that Kit does, why does he care, he doesn't, he shouldn't, this is more than half his life ago. "You stopped them. It was you, I fuckin' know it was you."

Just two faces that passed you by, not even a footnote in your life, that's it, that's always the sum of it Yngvi.

A couple of kids in the streets of Darktown, just two warm bodies repurposed by the Carta to do the rough work, to thrive or die for the family, and the family's bottom line. Two young scamps without any manners who'd have been no match for six drunk Marchers looking to rough up some dwarf kids before their shit ale and gin worked its way out of their systems--

It had felt good to put them face down in the dirt and teach them a thing or two about backing the fuck off. He hadn't even needed to use either of the axes that he'd carried with him since he was about the age of those two boys, if not younger--

Kit stares back at Yngvi in dumbfounded silence, the slow light of recognition kindling in his eyes.

"...you got taller," is his stupid response, along with a hesitant, wondering sort of smile. He shakes his head in disbelief, reaches for his cigarette.

Darktown was always Darktown and will always be Darktown; the underbelly of Kirkwall that ripples with that thick smoke choked in from the foundries and the spray of the sea, a damp that hangs in the air with the misery and the malice. Darktown is the great hall and misery, malace, suffering, shattered dreams, drowned hope and all the rest are the high lords and ladies all pay homage to. You sit at their table and glance sidelong. Never look too long or then your luck sours.

Yngvi or Gunnar or both of them must've done it then. He still remembers it. Flashes here and there (maybe he'd remember more if he dreamt, that's something he's noticed living around humans and elves and elfbloods as long as he has) of how sharp the blades had been and the tang of his blood in his mouth when he'd been grabbed hard enough that he'd bitten his tongue, Gunnar's sweat that even then had the acrid layer of whatever he'd been working on with the alchemists.

And then another dwarf, not one of theirs--

The laugh chokes out of him, like he's back in the Vauquelin estate in front of one of his lady's mirrors (if only, if only). "Not much. Fucked up royally then, missed a few dinners for that." Missed a lot of dinners because even an investment needs some lean periods because it has to be reminded that it isn't the only one.

Kit doesn't laugh; his smile grows pained at those words: "Fucked up royally then, missed a few dinners for that." It doesn't shock or stun him, but something in him cracks at it anyway, some part of him that remembers being that disposable child down in the dark; he was a prized fighter until he suddenly wasn't. How quickly the Carta had ripped him apart then.

"Yngvi," he starts to say, lifts a hand as though to brace a hand on his shoulder like he would a son, a nephew, but he stops himself, scratches at his short beard instead. At last he drops his hand to his cigarette again, picks it up, and takes a drag from it. "Shit, I don't even know what to say."

When flinching is trained out of you (trained isn't the most accurate word but if he goes fishing around for them then he'll think on it too long and best not, not in public) you adopt other ways to do it. Shaking his hair out of his face is a production his collar gets involved in when it gets down there too because you don't flinch when people touch you, that's the first big mistake you make after all, then they know weakness sure as the wolf spots the weak, the very old, the very young first in the flock.

"What's there to say?" It's a long time ago now (not that long ago though, Kit one of the few people who could hazard a fairly accurate guess at his age) so he shoves down whatever he's feeling, puts on a smile he practiced enough that it's good, better than good, looks right convincing. "Grew up, didn't get m'self killed. Had plenty to say on the crystal I think."

"What's there to say? Grew up, didn't get m'self killed. Had plenty to say on the crystal I think."

At that Kit smiles again, a warmer grin that shows some white teeth. "Yeah, you said a fair bit," he agrees. He tries not to, but he ends up going a bit quiet again, considering the young man who sits at the table with him with new eyes. It's rare for him to cross paths again with the people he's helped throughout his life--mostly because he does what he can to put some distance between them. Better them only know that he helped them once, rather than know him any better than that. (Before he can let them down.)

He digs his heels in against the instinct to bolt, turns his slight fidgeting instead to fiddling with his cigarette. "For what it's worth," he says, "I think you've done real good for yourself."

Life as a mercenary means people drift in and out. Some of them are contacts for jobs, equipment, lodgings, odds and ends or just bits of gossip, some of them are firm friends you know how to get hold of or leave notes for. Even nobles become people you become accustomed to on a regular basis too since that's the nature of it all; work for them, go to the parties, mingle, find new work. (None of them are his lady, none are so loved by all, none do quite so much or have that same presence she has.)

Not knowing what to do with this information because when did another dwarf last tell him that? Has another dwarf ever said that without a qualifier? Wasn't there always something about improving himself. About how he could do it better, faster, quieter, no unbridled praise in the Carta and he can feel his cheeks heat in a way he will absolutely blame on the drink if he's called out on it. "Yeah you say that, don't know 'bout all the other shit and you-- I mean shit, Legion to this? How'd that even work? Legion to Darktown to wherever you went to now." The deflection is a little desperate, mead sloshing over his hand as he refills his drink but this is embarrassing, what does he do with those words?

He doesn't try to draw any attention to how Yngvi's hands shake, spilling a bit of mead across his fingers, and instead turns to tap ash off his cigarette. It's a deflection, but it's still a good question, one that Kit feels he needs to provide an answer for. What kind of answer is the only thing.

"I left the Legion," he replies, tone carefully neutral. Then, "Well, I didn't leave--no one ever really leaves, it stays with you--" He pats his chest over his heart. "But I couldn't stay down there, after the Blight. Couldn't stay away, either; I went back, time to time, but not for long." He goes quiet then, studying the end of his cigarette; there's obviously more to say about what led him to the Inquisition, but he seems suddenly unsure of how to say any of it.

"But you're dead. With the Legion." Admitting things to another dwarf about dwarf stuff is a slightly more tricky country to navigate because everyone keeps moving borders and boundaries but he's been with the Inquistion near a year, he can claim he picked things up here if he wants. "Isn't the whole deal that you just stay down there and die down there, how d'you even come up here?"

Yngvi had been a kid who hadn't cared much more beyond making sure he had food in his belly when he'd met Kit, he certainly hadn't been going to ask after his life story back then but this...this is something. Something he knows not personally but about going back and not being able to stay and that murky strange business.

"Yeah. That's the deal." Kit remains very still, looking at his half-empty mug of mead. He picks it up, twists it to look at it a second, then drains a substantial portion of its contents in one go. When he sets it down again, he's still quiet.

It's not that he's avoiding answering the question; Kit's deft enough at deflecting questions when he doesn't want to answer them. It's the sheer enormity of the reason, the gravity of his own mistakes--his crime--that makes him stop short before he can even begin speak it. Like being at the bottom of the mountain and looking up.

"We came up," he says, after a long spell of silence, "to fight the Blight. Went to Denerim, saw that mess." He waves a hand idly; for a second or two, he struggles to find his words, and there's an odd little smile at the corner of his mouth when he speaks. "I saw so many surface dwarves there, you know. They had good lives, got to spend their days in the sunshine--what difference did it make to them if some deep lords thought they'd lost their stone sense? What's the shame in being casteless up here when you've got the chance for so much?

"And it got me thinking--it made me think, if my folks had just come up here when I was a little thing--if the other dusters had just come up here, instead of..." He trails off there, jaw clenching, then unclenching.

The Blight is a thing that happened somewhere else and made Kirkwall harder to live with. It's uncomfortable to hear about it. Boneflayers didn't talk too much on those things since they were all a mishmash of places and people, and Asher more Avvar than he was doglord, too young to have been a soldier but too many people all flooding in here hungry, desperate, and probably sad but it's not like people in Kirkwall weren't hungry and desperate already so why was he expected to care then and still care to this day? It was the people in the dark and the people in the alienage who lost out the most to that flood of folk.

Still, doesn't change that he doesn't like hearing about it much but he asked so he listens.

"Been to Denerim after that, full of cheap tat," Yngvi proclaims because that's probably helpful yeah? Can't let Kit think Denerim is the be-all, end-all, Denerim isn't all sunshine. (Still shame in being casteless, live long enough up here and stay put in a place and there are those who carry it all on their back like the Dalish do, asking ancestors permission to sneeze.) "Spend their days in the rain too, like, s'all sort of balanced out and you got taxes and all, someone's takin' a cut."

Good life, what the hell is that, how do you even measure a good life? He squints, tips his head to examine Kit, wonders how someone can live the life he has and see a good life instead of maybe just a better life.

Yngvi knows the other uncomfortable truth though. "How does a demon get into the world, well a mage has to go make a certain sort of deal usually it's a whole nasty business and that's usually how a duster gets their family up to the surface but a demon deal ends a bit quicker than a dwarf one."

"...but a demon deal ends a bit quicker than a dwarf one."

"Yeah," Kit replies, and he agrees, with all of it. No, maybe 'good' wasn't the right word, maybe 'better' was... well, better. Maybe trying to put the mass of feeling and memory that led to his departure from the Legion into words was the mistake. He can feel the pressure of Yngvi's scrutinizing gaze on the side of his face, and while he doesn't exactly wince under it, he does reach for his cigarette again, only to discover that it's finally burnt out and there's nothing left of it. He mashes the cherry out in the ash tray.

"Maybe I just didn't want to die for fucking Orzammar twice."

Flagging over one of the girls, Yngvi puts on his best smile for a mug of the house special ale because it's been forever and sometimes a man does miss that, one for Kit too because Yngvi has zero shame about drinking the drink someone else doesn't want.

Yngvi wouldn't want to die for Orzammar once. Wouldn't want to die for a place once. Not even Kirkwall (especially not Kirkwall because as much as he loves it, what has it ever actually done for him really?) but maybe there's a different pride or something similar you get if you belong to a place. Humans with their home countries. Elves for the home they don't have. Dwarves that did come from down there.

So his question is...awkward. It shows on his face because he's young and not some practiced honeyed bard, morbidly curious about dying for somewhere. Not for people (his lady who he'd open a vein for, the Boneflayers and Aura Hardie who he'd lay his life down for, Wren who wouldn't let him probably but who he'd still fight for) and some bigger more complicated things that he thinks matter more than home. Things that have gotten him in arguments lately. "Was it really for Orzammar?"

"No." It's not an answer he has to mull over for very long; the truth comes to him easily, and it's probably one he's always known, even if he hasn't exactly had the opportunity to put the thought into words. He shakes his head once, jaw working as he tries again to find the right words, and fails. Instead he reaches for the mug of ale, briefly glances Yngvi's way in thanks, and then sips from it.

Once he's done with it (for the moment, anyway), he sets it down and says, "If I died for anyone, it was for the Legionnaires."

Suddenly self-conscious over how much of himself he's been pouring into this conversation, he glances at Yngvi again wearing a chagrined expression. "This is probably a lot more about some old guy than you ever wanted to know, huh?" he says, his tone and expression self-deprecating out of sudden nervousness.

"Shit, I-- I didn't expect you to answer that one." So rare are the occasions when Yngvi's given an answer to questions like the one he just asked that he's unsure what to do with what he's found out. It's a big thing. To have someone tell you that and it makes him feel strange, like maybe he's been trusted with it even if they're miles from Orzammar or anyone that'd give a shit about why a dwarf does or doesn't do anything.

It's a subtle distinction but he finds himself nodding before he finds his voice. "Yeah, I get that. Like, I'd do that for the Boneflayers and there's a few folk I'd do a lot for. Open a vein. No questions." See, Yngvi can do dwarf humour too.

(Only he doesn't mean those veins, he means his, without hesitation, without thinking, without flinching, he'd do it and wouldn't regret it.)

"Listen, you could be Orlesian or a doglord," he teases with a big grin, leaning over to give Kit a shove, "'sides you're not old. You'd be fuckin' dead if you were."

"Open a vein. No questions," Yngvi says, and when Kit nods along in silent agreement, he's not talking about the stone kind either. He'd have died for his brothers and sisters in the Legion, if they hadn't died for him, first.

(He likes to wish that they died for him, for the Legion, rather than for Orzammar. It's the only way he can stomach knowing that they're still dead down there.)

His thoughts are leagues away when Yngvi gives him that shove, and he almost sloshes his mead out of his mug when he catches himself on the table. He turns to look at Yngvi in surprise, only to find that big, teasing grin on his face, and he instantly finds himself slowly but surely smiling in return; the kid has an infectious smile, if no one has told him that before.

"'sides you're not old. You'd be fuckin' dead if you were."

That makes him laugh, warm and genuine. "Yeah? I can't be alive and old at the same time, huh? Guess that makes me a spring nug like you in that case." Now if only his knees would agree with him.

"Carta has old people but they're like, proper sort of old and you don't know how they got that old but you ever see cats with one eye, bits gone out their ears, think they're curling their lip at you but no that's just their face? That's old. Then it's rich folk who get other people to do stuff. Maybe you strike it lucky if you do a thing and people look after you." Healers get to be old if the things they're curing don't kill them first, and someone who can do smart stuff like reading and writing, special mending and that, folk'll keep them alive if they can outside the ranks of the nobles or the ones with money but him and Kit's like?

Nah. Don't get to be old and alive. Not if they're the kind that pick up the weapons and do the work.

Besides, Yngvi's seen old people and he takes a drink, pulls a face. "I'd hate bein' old. Sounds proper shit."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[CLOSED] Dwarf business.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject