[OPEN] You've got your reasons / And me, I've got mine

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit + OPEN
WHAT: Back from the Korcari Wilds, Kit kicks about town finding trouble.
WHEN: Towards the end of August.
WHERE: The Gallows, Lowtown, Darktown.
NOTES: Will update as they become relevant.

The Korcari Wilds were strange, and the experiences had within them even stranger. Kit still can't completely shake the feeling of persistent dread that has hounded him since that night spent around the Chasind campfire listening to the words spun for him and the rest of his companions by the shaman. Since his return to Kirkwall, it has been easier for him to eschew the company of the friends he's made since arriving, though he knows it's beyond unreasonable to avoid them forever.



I. THE GALLOWS - TRAINING GROUNDS

About a week after his return from the Wilds, Kit rouses himself early enough to get to the training grounds before the sun has decided whether it's ready to drag itself above the horizon or not. There are a handful of dutiful Templars and other Inquisition soldiers at work there already, either engaging in sparring or in warm up exercises. Kit stands out like the sorest of thumbs among all the humans, but he's used to that.

He heads over to a rack of training war axes and examines them, picking them up to test the heft, then hanging them back up again. Truthfully, he's not even sure what he's doing here without an Inquisition scout trainee in need of remedial lessons to attend to; sleep just wouldn't stay with him.

It's a pity he isn't human; he can't even blame nightmares for keeping him awake.



II. KIRKWALL - THE HANGED MAN

It's easier to lose his money than it is for him to keep it, and he's doing a great job of proving that to himself again tonight. Card shark or not, there's always bound to be a night where even your best poker face isn't good enough, and this is one of those nights.

He's seated at a table near the back of the taproom floor surrounded by a number of other dwarves who, judging by the clean cut of their clothes and their absurdly coiffed beards, are likely representatives of the Merchants' Guild. It's not exactly clear when the stakes of this game got quite so high as to include Kit betting his tiny, exquisite carving of Paragon Hrildan, but that's where he's at now.

He sits very still in his chair, examining the hand of cards he holds in one hand while the other keeps a lit cigarette within easy reach of his lips.



III. DARKTOWN

He ends up in Darktown like it's ten years ago and he's in need of a spell of quiet. The darkness, the stink, the distance people give each other in lieu of making trouble, reminds him with a pang of bitter homesickness of Dust Town, and he almost can't conscience how much he misses it for one shitty moment.

There's a single rickety railing that exists to prevent the idle wanderer from tripping over their own feet and careening down into the depths of the channel leading into the city, and that is where Kit stands, smoking a cigarette and watching the small, distant shapes of the barges as they move through the gates.

Comments

[ragweed]

It isn't too little consequence that's the trouble--it's too much.

"Guess that's why Orzammar's not renowned for it. All we've got to write about is holes in the dirt." Kit closes his eyes and lets his head thump against the rack of axes. He's an idiot, that's not up for debate. But where the idiocy begin--with letting Vandelin so close so quickly, or with pushing him away now?

He makes himself pretend at courage and turns back around, makes himself meet Vandelin's eyes like a man who isn't on the cusp of cowardice. The look he receives is deserved, and he forces himself not to look aside from it, but whatever words he knows he should offer up in the face of Vandelin's justifiable anger, he can't find them.

[misdirection_hex]

And the problem, likewise, is that Vandelin understands Kit's rationale a little too well, rather than not at all. He just hadn't expected to be on the receiving end of it for once. When he has made the decision to throw his usual caution aside and be vulnerable with someone--a decision predicated on the not-unlikely possibility that Kit might not have returned from the Wilds, admittedly, but Van had still hoped and planned for him to be all right--he doesn't expect to have it thrown back in his face. That's supposed to be his power to unleash as he sees fit.

He doesn't know how to regain the upper hand here. He can pretend he isn't wounded by Kit's dismissal, maintain that impassive Wicked Grace expression, but he's still at just as much of a loss for what to say. Something petty, incisive, something that will make him feel like shit--

"Do you do this with everyone?" The question is genuine enough that once he's asked it, he wishes he hadn't.

[ragweed]

"Do you do this with everyone?"

"Just the special ones."

Kit's smile is pained, like the worst part of this whole encounter is how inevitable it feels, how very like greeting someone he knows, who he hasn't seen in a while. The steps to this dance are familiar, no matter how many times he wishes he could learn his lesson and not end up on the dance floor again.

He swallows. "I'm sorry, Vandelin," he repeats, willing himself not to do what some small instinct bids him to do and go to him now. What can a guy like him give someone like Vandelin anyway? Scratch too far below the surface and Kit knows what Vandelin will find--and he can't bear the thought of anyone seeing it--

"I know how it looks--it's not like that. But it's still--it's better, this way. I know how that sounds, but it is."

[misdirection_hex]

I won't stay where I'm not wanted is as sacred a mantra to Vandelin as ever it was, even--or perhaps especially--in light of the bridges he has spectacularly torched with his cousin. At the moment, it feels all the more like a matter of pride.

"I do love to be special," he says. You know me well, he could add, all sarcasm again, but it's yet another thing that would ring too true for comfort. Not literally; they have not, after all, known each other long, but if Kit's already decided he doesn't want to get any closer, that says...something.

"It sounds like bullshit to me, but that's your business. You might consider giving the next guy some warning, though." He holds up his hands, unrepentantly patronizing, and turns to saunter away. "Good luck with the shovels and holes."

[ragweed]

Vandelin means for his words to wound, and they do. Kit doesn't flinch, though; he'd been bracing himself for this particular barrage, and he weathers it as well as can be expected. (As for the next guy, well. Kit's learned his lesson well. There won't be a 'next guy.')

He watches Vandelin walk away from him in grim, defeated silence, and only turns back to the line of training axes once he can no longer track his retreating figure with his eyes.

It's better this way.