[OPEN] A new world hangs outside the window

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit + OPEN; starters for Cade and Benedict
WHAT: Just a catchall kind of post for early September.
WHEN: Throughout early September; sometime after Benedict is removed from solitary.
WHERE: Halfway between Lowtown and Darktown; around the Gallows, generally;
NOTES: None yet, will update as needed.

It's not quite mending broken fences with the people he's most recently pushed away, but Kit has taken some concrete steps towards getting his shit carefully pieced back together after the end of a particularly turbulent previous month.



I. A HOVEL SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LOWTOWN AND DARKTOWN

This is his home turf now:



It's a ramshackle sort of hole in the wall just off one of the too-beaten footpaths leading from Lowtown down, down into the dark; but in the morning, there's still a sliver of light that comes through the window, and that's enough for Kit.

Sharing lodgings with some other Inquisition personnel, while ostensibly the safer option, just doesn't suit him right now. And besides, one can hardly call his existence here lonely. Just about every evening when he comes home, he's got to escort the same blear-eyed drunk out of his dining area; "c'mon, Chuck, we did this yesterday--your place is just down the street a way's, need me to walk you there?" Etc. (Who even knows how the guy keeps getting in.)

Whoever used to make use of this hovel left some of their belongings behind; at present, Kit is setting out old crates of random junk near the street. Already, some of the stuff is being picked through by street kids and other urchins.



II. THE GALLOWS DUNGEON (BENEDICT)


Word reaches him via some avenue that the Tevinter kid has (finally) been removed from solitary confinement and placed in a new prison cell--this one far removed from the magister's. Kit isn't sure how much interaction those two are allowed anymore, and decides that it isn't his mess to sort out or clean up.

The guards don't give him any trouble when he arrives at the dungeons and states the purpose of his visit, but give him straightforward directions on how to reach Benedict's cell. Down the stairs he goes, a freshly lit cigarette tucked into one corner of his mouth, and he wanders down the corridor of cells--some empty, some sporting the odd occupant--until he finds Benedict.

Kit stops just outside the bars and looks in at him appraisingly. "Hey," he says--it's a pretty straight-forward greeting, all things considered.



III. AROUND THE GALLOWS


Whether or not the Scouting Division has staked its claim on specific hours for the purposes of training exercises, Kit has set aside time in the very early morning for taking certain members of the division (i.e., anyone Beleth Ashara has sent his way) through some remedial work. To him, the exercises are fairly basic: fighting stances; weapons and armour maintenance; how best to engage an opponent in close-range combat when one doesn't have the training in close-quarters combat. He'll save reconnaissance and other skills for a time after he's sure his current gaggle of students know enough to keep themselves alive in combat.

Once the training session is over and his students have dispersed, Kit takes a smoke break by the dingy ferry that shuttles Inquisition personnel back and forth between the Gallows and Kirkwall, then heads up to wherever the Other Powers research offices are situated.

[OOC: Please feel free to interact with Kit at any point during this series of events! Want to be part of the remedial training session? Go for it. Want to ambush him for conversation in the mess hall? Ambush away! This would also be an excellent opportunity for him to interact with anyone else who is part of the Other Powers special project.]



IV. LOWTOWN (CADE)


Whomever previously squatted in the hovel Kit has recently begun renting left behind a few belongings that seem too valuable to just toss out like garbage. He gave first dibs to the homeless and the urchins that haunt the roads and alleys near his new place; however, after a handful of days, there are some plates and other bits of crockery left behind that he's got no use for, and evidently no one else in Darktown does, either. Kit won't get much money selling them, but he knows of a place somewhere in Lowtown that will take donations for the poor--or at least, they did so when he was last in Kirkwall, after the Blight.

So that's where he is now, milling around in Lowtown after dropping off his donations (along with what little money he's got left that he can spare). He's ambling away from the front door of the shop when he spots the back of a familiar blonde head, accompanied by some drooping, hunched shoulders that belong to someone who looks so generally defeated by life that Kit finds he recognizes the fellow instantaneously.

He cuts his way neatly through the middling crowd to catch up to him. "Cade, right?" he starts, coming into his line of sight, and offers him an easy-going grin. "How's it going with you, salroka?"

Comments

[fireandsmoke]

The Dragon freezes where he stands, his face icy, a hint of rage seeping into his aged eyes. He scowls.

"What did you expect?" he asks silkily. "I can't grant you immediacy. I'm no charlatan."

[ragweed]

"What did you expect?" the Dragon asks, and the rest of his words glance off Kit like raindrops. He's had it.

"Keep the damn ring. Wear it yourself. I quit taking orders from stuffed up deep lords just like you a long time ago." He holds up both hands, like he's washed his hands of the mess, and backs up towards the door.

[fireandsmoke]

What?

"Oh, yes, wear it myself, the whole lot of good that will do!"

This actually transfigures his scowl into an almost astounded look, uncertain about the sudden rejection. The Dragon gives a small start, like he were bracing against a blow to the chest.

"I told you about the maintenance process for your enchanted earring," he says slowly. "Certainly I'm not forcing you into thinking of me with any fondness, but magic is not something to be trifled with. As I thought you understood; you didn't strike me as that much of an idiot."

[ragweed]

"Call me an idiot one more time, I'm walking out this door." He's not shouting or raising his voice; on the contrary, his voice has grown low, quiet, and cold. Already he's on the threshold between the laboratory and the corridors; while not a man in possession of a short fuse, once it's lit, he doesn't back down easily.

"I get that you were a big shot wherever it is you were before that Fade rift spat you out into our world, and maybe folks didn't have a choice but to deal with whatever sanctimonious bullshit you felt like spewing at them on any given day. Me?" He shrugs and smiles, and it's a decidedly unfriendly expression on a face so often accustomed to easy-going laughter. "I was half deaf before I met you, and it hadn't killed me yet. If I've got to deal with you treating me like dirt just to hear a little more clearly, then sod it. Not worth it."

[fireandsmoke]

Would it be tactless of the Dragon to point out that he was saying he thought better of Kit than idiocy? Probably. He actually manages to keep his trap shut on that point, though, and leave it to a fleeting thought. He throws his arms up.

"Has it eluded you that you came to me about this?" Flabbergasted. Weary. Annoyed. Some combination of all of these feelings, and for a moment he stood there staring at Kit from across the table, streaks of angry red coloring his cheeks. He goes through the effort and extra pains of ensuring a safe and usable enchanted object, and this is the thanks he gets, without even a word of whether he was satisfied with the function of it or with the work he bothered to waste on this project. He cannot say he did not expect this kind of response in the end, but it always manages to hit a nerve nonetheless. Particularly where it hurts him most: his dignity and pride. He steels himself and pours stony resolve into his expression. "First you demand a tight deadline, then you moan away when I have to, naturally, restore and improve your commission. You're certainly not my hired servant no more than I'm yours. Go, get out."

[ragweed]

It's that last part that sticks in his craw and really works its way in. Kit clenches and unclenches his jaw; he'll leave, but not until he drills one fact home beyond all the others.

"I'm not talking," he says slowly, "about the damn earring. The earring is fine. I'm talking about you--the way you talk at me like I ought to feel special you're taking the time to insult me." He stares at him hard, but also a bit incredulously. "Do you even hear yourself? When you talk to other people?"

[fireandsmoke]

Again, the Dragon stands there and stares fiercely, wordlessly, damn near to gaping across the room in a fury. A thousand thoughts buzz in a flurry through his head, all along the same lines -- What in hell does he want from me? Groveling? Bleating like a servile sheep? Obedience and acquiescence?

But eventually his thoughts make a darker turn, just about skirting the possibility that Kit may be pointing out a relatively reasonable request for tamer language, quick as Sarkan is to label it mollycoddling.

He turns and walks away from Kit, gazing off out a window instead, his hands clenched into fists. Or, rather, his hand; the one that glows a faint, sickly green and pulses with dull pain at inopportune moments.

"Tell me," the Dragon seethes, "do you really think I'm pitifully ignorant about my lack of title, or how that has nothing to do with my request that you follow my instructions? Or is it that most of you are all too eager to think I'm just a vile demon out to consume your souls, and thus characterize me in this way, to hell with what I do?"

[ragweed]

In the face of that retort, Kit just stares back at the Dragon in incredulous silence. He gives his head a minute shake. "Ancestors," he swears. "I've heard a lot of over-the-top nugshit in my time, salroka, but I'll tell you--this might be the first time I've watched a human scramble up onto the martyr's pyre that fast. You'd best climb down," he adds, his look hardening. "I don't think Andraste needs the company."

Then he turns and walks out, shutting the door behind him with more force than necessary.