faderift | [OPEN] you don't have to catch on, lay it out and be gone

WHO: Simon Ashlock
WHAT: Catchall post.
WHEN: Throughout Kingsway.
WHERE: Various places.
NOTES: Starters for Cade, Kattrin and Myr, and open prompts for everyone else!

CADE

Simon should probably have come to visit sooner. Either after the first night of Callum's visit, or after the bar fight he'd heard rumors of, or...really, at any point before now, but better later-than-ideal than never. He's heard snippets through the grapevine about how Cade's doing, but it's still no substitute for checking in on him in person.

Only as he's being shown up to Cade's room at the inn does he wonder if he should have brought some kind of peace offering, or small token, or...something. He's never quite sure how Cade's going to feel about seeing him.

KATTRIN

Even without the intervention of the spirits, Kattrin's herbal salve had done wonders for Simon's shoulder strain, and he hasn't needed anything further in the way of healing since then--though Simon could be missing three quarters of his limbs and still insist on trying to walk it off, so this does not say a great deal. On the rare occasions when their paths have intersected since, he's never had time for more than a friendly greeting, but today, he'd found himself scraping the bottom of the liniment jar and he has the afternoon free to do something about that.

It takes some searching to find her, but another healer eventually recalls where she'd last seen Kattrin and directs Simon that way (after offering to help him herself, which he politely declines.) He sets off, scanning the ground for the fennec along the way.

MYR

It has somehow not occurred to Simon that Myr has a very good reason to want to stay Gallows-side and avoid too much wandering around by the ferry dock. It's only on the day they've arranged to begin Phase One of their card-sharking plan, when he's about to send a crystal message and suggest they meet up, that he realizes his friend might perhaps like some accompaniment to the city proper.

The mage quarters aren't foreign to him, exactly--he can remember patrolling them as a fresh recruit, years ago. But he hasn't had reason to set foot in them since his return to Kirkwall with the Inquisition, and his memories of them are not ones he would like to dredge up. He hastens to follow the trail of glyphs and knock on Myr's door.

*****

I. BATHS

Simon is a man of few creature comforts, and he has accustomed himself, after long years of communal living, to bathing in cold water. Privacy has always been a rarer and more precious commodity than a hot bath.

Since Cade moved out, though, he's had more of that than he knows what to do with, and today has been a long day of extensive physical exertion. Maybe he can deal with the evening hot water rush tonight, if he comes in near the tail end of it when people will be mostly done.

Of course, if everyone else has that same idea, then he's no better off. But he'll just have to make do.

II. FOREST

How much longer the forest is going to be here, Simon doesn't know. He's well aware of the talks in progress about cutting it down, and more than a little dismayed about them even if he shouldn't be, but...he's found himself too often in opposition to his fellow templars and Chantry liaisons lately. He's got to pick his battles, and he can't afford for this to be one.

The best he can do is enjoy the little bit of nature within the city walls while he can, and maybe if people see a templar basking in the shade of an apple tree along its borders and eating one just tinged with the beauty of approaching autumn, they'll see that it doesn't have to be an act of blasphemy.

III. LIBRARY

Guarding one prisoner is easier than guarding two, and Simon appreciates this. As tasks go, he doesn't particularly mind standing around while Vedici conducts his research, not least because Simon's pretty sure by now that the man's not going to try anything stupid. There's always the possibility that he's simply trying to lull them all into complacency, thus the need for continued templar presence, and Simon can't let himself get too distracted--

--but still, as the time wears on, there's only so much meditative prayer and light daydreaming he can do. He casts a longing eye toward the nearest bookshelf, wishing he could get away with keeping one eye on a book and one eye on the prisoner.

He can't, he knows, even if nobody's looking, but he reaches discreetly for one nonetheless just to peek inside the cover and see what it's about.

IV. WILDCARD

Make my day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Simon will tell himself that it's the former reason, if he has to analyze the lack of an answer, but will let it go without further comment regardless.

Whatever it is that Kit has to say, Simon's curious, and he doesn't hold much of a grudge against anyone not from Tevinter. He nods, and reaches up to pick another apple as a sort of peace offering as well, holding it out.

"What brings you by?"

"What brings you by?"

"I like this place," Kit replies affably enough, and when the apple is offered out, he takes it and then eases himself down onto the rock next to Simon's tree. He takes a bite out of it, studiously ignoring the reptile part of his brain that is screaming at him not to eat magic fruit, are you crazy, and instead turns his attention back on the Templar. "And I've been meaning to track you down and talk to you anyway. Kind of a--" He waves a hand idly, "--continuation of what we were talking about before."

'Talking about.' That's a charitable way of putting it, isn't it? He takes another bite out of the apple while he thinks, bouncing one knee. Then: "I figure you think I'm pretty nuts, don't you."

"It's a nice place," he agrees. He's not one of the ones who can manage to see it as blasphemy, even when he tries. He'll always enjoy the peace and beauty of wind rustling fruit trees, even magic-enhanced ones, but he understands too where the skeptics are coming from when they worry.

He's not quite sure where any continuation of their previous discussion--such as it was--can go. But there's no sense in dismissing it out of hand, so he leans against the apple tree and folds his arms and listens without interruption.

"No," he says, after weighing that for a moment. "I don't think you're crazy. I just think you're being taken advantage of. You're a kind soul and you want to believe that whatever potential for reform you see in this kid is the real deal--but it's just a front. He's playing you like a fiddle and you're doing exactly what he wants. Not a bit of that scared vulnerable act is genuine. With the rest of us, he doesn't even bother putting it on."

"Not a bit of that scared vulnerable act is genuine. With the rest of us, he doesn't even bother putting it on."

It's about as good an opening for the subject as Kit could have asked for. He nods, though the move is less about agreement and more about acknowledgement. After one more bite from the apple, he considers the fruit in silence a second or two, then says, "I used to run with the Carta, back in Orzammar. Started doing it when I was knee-high to a nug, and just as stupid." He almost smiles at the memory, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Anyway, I did that because that's all duster kids could do in Dust Town--just..." A shrug, "...get on their good side before you ended up in the way." In the way, and dead.

After a moment, he meets Simon's eyes and tells him frankly, "I did bad things while I was with them. Didn't matter whether I wanted to do those things or not; it was do the job they gave me, or they beat the tar out of me. You don't show weakness to folks like that. No one teaches you to hide it, either. It's... instinct." Another bite from the apple.

Simon has always been inclined to think of himself as a man of the working class. Compared to some, he knows, he doesn't have a strong claim to tales of hardship--his father's trade had served the family decently; they'd never starved and only rarely worried about the roof over their heads, and his templar education and training distance him even further from that population--but he has some very clear opinions about class distinctions and where among them his allegiances lie.

He listens to Kit's tale with genuine interest, factoring in what little he knows about Orzammar and the slightly more he knows about the Carta. He understands, by the end of it, what Kit's aiming for--but he doesn't yet buy it.

"All right," he says. "Now tell me what this has to do with the wealthy Tevinter nobleman who's used to being waited on hand and foot by slaves."

Kit gives his head the smallest shake, as if that detail is just cobweb hiding the bigger picture. "Nothing, if you look at it that way," he says and catches Simon's gaze again. He leans in to rest his elbows on his knees. "Jarvia and Beraht--the Carta bosses I worked for--yeah, they beat me and ran me ragged, but I was good at what I did. I was good at it, and when I did what they wanted, they rewarded me for it. I got better clothes, better food, a better place to sleep at night... better weapons, of course. They put me in charge of other dusters, too, some of 'em just little things, and I put the fear of gods we don't even have in them to make them do what the bosses wanted--and I was just a kid. I was just a dumb kid." Something in that memory makes him stop speaking for a second, lips pursed.

He looks down at the apple core he's still holding, then tosses it over his shoulder back into the bush. "When I finally fucked up badly enough, they beat me and these other kids so bloody--" There's no point in finishing the sentence; Simon can probably fill in the rest on his own. Instead, he says, "...Before that, they kept us in these cages meant to hold nugs before taking them off to slaughter. And they yelled at us and demanded answers from us, and the only thing that kept them from killing us for the longest time was the fact that they weren't sure they could take us down without going down with us." He shakes his head. "It wasn't because we weren't petrified--we all were--but that anger we'd been taught was all we had."

We all do things we regret when we're kids, he almost says, recalling his own teenage zealotry, the religious fundamentalism that had made him argue passionately in favor of things like raiding Dalish clans to drag their apostates to the Circles by force--and just a few years later, the cowardice that had made him flee Kirkwall for Ansburg rather than face up to the atrocities that brand of zealotry had wrought.

He'd been Benedict's age then, just about exactly. He doesn't pursue that train of thought any further.

"I get why you're telling me this," he says finally. "I do. I'm still not at all sure I believe that's what's going on with this little pissant, but...I'll allow it as a possibility."

It's a step in the right direction, and Kit will take it. He nods, accepting that answer with a look of gratitude in his eyes, then gets up to make his farewells and leave. Before he does, though, a last thought occurs to him. He almost smiles.

"The Legion found me," he says. "After the Carta dumped me in the Deep Roads and left me for dead. They patched me up, got me back on my feet. I was a total shit to them at first, too."

People can change.

[OPEN] you don't have to catch on, lay it out and be gone

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject