[OPEN] a dwarf making bad decisions

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit + you?? (starters for the Medicine Seller, Simon, Anders, and Cyril)
WHAT: The best way to deal with your problems is to act like you don't have any, right??
WHEN: The latter half of November.
WHERE: Kirkwall and the surrounding area.
NOTES: None immediately come to mind, will update as needed.

I. DARKTOWN (THE MEDICINE SELLER)


Killing demons is far from tedious work, but for Kit it’s frankly a nice respite from having to think about the low-key disaster the rest of his life is swiftly en route to becoming.

It also leaves him cagey; magic and magickery in general set his teeth on edge in a way he finds difficult to articulate, even to the peculiar elf (the “Painted Blade,” Melys, really?) who has become his friend. Perhaps especially because they are friends. Possibly this explains why, as they meander back down the poorly lit Darktown streets back to Kit’s house, he’s a little rougher than usual when he drags a couple of Coterie thugs back from hassling a pair of frightened dwarf kids.

The end of the encounter--the street fight, more like--leaves his knuckles bruised and bloody, but he wins, which is all that matters!! A bit roughed up, and keyed up, he’s in the middle of snapping, “--yeah, piss off back to your rat holes--” to the backs of their retreating figures, when he realizes that he’s frightened the children off, too.

That realization seems to take the wind from his sails. He stares at the spot under a bit of rotting lumber where they’d been hiding, rubs a hand along his jaw, then glances uncomfortably towards the Medicine Seller. He spits some blood out into the dirt. “..well.”


II. TRAINING GROUNDS (SIMON + OPEN)

(OOC: The thread with Simon is closed, but other characters should feel free to approach Kit after training/sparring on another day!)


He’s off his game.

It’s not the recruits’ fault that they’re still wet behind the ears and don’t know the difference between a parry and a riposte, and on a good day, their inexperience would trigger his patience, his understanding, the part of him that has always made him good with stubborn kids and loose cannons alike. Today it just makes him cold.

(The bruises on his knuckles and what looks like a split lip probably don’t help much.)

Once they’ve cleared out of the training grounds, Kit directs his attention towards putting up the last of the training weapons, then retreats to the pier to light himself a cigarette, squint at the early morning light coming across the water, and try not to feel anything.


III. NEAR THE DEEP ROADS (ANDERS)


The door sealing off a section of the Deep Roads from the surface isn’t that far below ground; sunlight still reaches the stone floor of the ancient roads from what time has turned into a ravine, far above. The worst that they’ve had to tangle with so far were a couple of ranging deepstalkers who tested their luck against a Legionnaire and a Grey Warden mage one too many times. Kit’s now wiping a bit of viscera off of one of his axes.

A Grey Warden and a Legionnaire down near the dark shouldn’t be unusual, but it is, given the two in question. Did Kit invite Anders on this trek seemingly out of nowhere? Probably. Has he been his normal chatty self for most of the trip? Nope.

“I’ll check the map, but I think we’re close,” he says at length, expression distant and neutral.


IV. THE OTHER POWERS OFFICE (CYRIL + OPEN)

(OOC: The thread with Cyril is closed, but other characters should feel free to pop by the office on another day!)


It’s taken about a month for Kit to wrangle the office into some semblance of control, or to sort out the previous project leader’s archaic filing system (translation, there was no filing system)--but he’s in the perfect mindset to perform mind-numbingly dull labour at present, and so cobbles together order out of chaos with remarkable speed.

This is where he spends his early mornings--and a handful of very late evenings--when he isn’t on the training ground with the recruits… or covertly killing demons in Darktown with the Medicine Seller.
 

Comments

III

[justice_is_blond]

He grimaces at some of the goop on his boots before pulling a rag out of a belt pouch and scrubbing the leather clean. The Dwarf has been exceedingly quiet this trip, which has had Anders alternating between talking too much and being what feels to him like far too quiet. After the statement, though, Anders figures it might be time.

"Close to what, exactly?"

[ragweed]

"There's a door, further in," Kit replies, "or there's supposed to be. I guess the intel could be full of sod, but I'm guessing not."

He gives his axes a quick onceover, then affixes them back in place over his shoulder blades. Then he looks at Anders, reads his look in an instant, and grimaces. He spreads his hands to either side. "Look, you don't have to come the rest of the way with me, salroka. This ain't exactly the best way to pass an afternoon."

[justice_is_blond]

Anders exhales, shaking his head and looking a little amused.

"Please. I've spent many afternoons in far worse circumstances. I could tell you stories... but perhaps let's not." He straightens back up. "Besides. Only an asshole leaves a friend near the Deep Roads without backup and I try not to be too much of an asshole. Some days. But no one enjoys deepstalker muck on their gear or outfit."

The cloth gets discarded. Maybe in a few years some adventurer will come down here, find it, and sell it to a merchant for a few copper bits. In the meantime he's grabbing his staff back off his back and nodding forward.

"Lead on, Kit."

[ragweed]

Kit cracks a grin at him. "All right then."

Lead on he does, far enough down the ravine that the last of the light winks out, and they have to resort to the use of a torch. It gives them enough light to, eventually, illuminate the large dwarven door that rests ajar fixed into the side of the stone wall--and to catch the reflective glint off a pair of eyes belonging to two prowling genlocks.

Kit should not be this pleased to find them. "Sodding finally," he grunts, almost under his breath, and drops his still-burning torch to the ground where it continues to flare, providing light as he grabs for the axes again.

IV

[samahl]

Cyril knocks lightly on Kit's door. He had mostly wanted to make sure there were no other questions regarding the Qunari, but if he was honest he also liked looking at Kit. Every day he felt amazed that so many attractive men had joined this single organization.

"Do you mind if I take up a bit of your time?" he asked, smiling as if he didn't want to imagine doing anything else.

[ragweed]

At that knock, Kit's voice from inside says, "Come on in, door's open."

Inside, he's seated behind his desk with a lit cigarette in one hand and several sheafs of parchment laid out before him. It looks like he's been at this most of the night, judging by how low the candles next to him have burned. He glances up, a little weary from so long spent doing the same tedious work (and probably for other reasons), but he manages to put on a friendly, lopsided little smile for Cyril when he sees him. No sense in spreading his own misery around to those who don't deserve it.

"Don't mind at all," he greets him, takes a quick drag off the cigarette, and blows a whorl of smoke off to the side. "You need help with something?"

[samahl]

Cyril looks around and then settles his gaze on Kit. Damn, he really is so much better up close.

"Honestly? I was going to ask you the same thing. Do you need an extra pair of hands?"

[ragweed]

If he were privy to Cyril's internal monologue, he'd remind him that flattery will get him literally everywhere. (Keep up with the flattery, Cyril, Kit definitely needs to hear it.)

At those words, he lets out an amused if tired snort and sits back in his seat. He taps the ash from his cigarette off into a little clay tray sitting on the corner of his desk. "You asking to join the project?" he asks, still smiling, but he looks almost exasperated as he speaks. Not by Cyril, no, but by the mess that his predecessor has dropped into his lap. He gestures at the workload in front of him. "Because not counting myself and Yngvi, just about everyone else here is a part-timer."

He lifts his cigarette-wielding hand up to rub his eyebrows, grimacing. "Sorry," he says after a pause. "None of this is your fault, salroka. And thanks, by the way," he adds sincerely, "for the report about your talk with the Qunari. You did good." This last added with a sincere if crooked little smile.

(It evidently has not occurred to him that the purpose behind Cyril's visit might have an ulterior motive.)

IV, open

[faithlikeaseed]

At some point, it occurs to Myr that he hasn't been by to visit Kit in his new offices. Not that it would--for his purposes--be all that different from meeting his friend anywhere else in the Gallows, but it's the principle of the thing that has him dropping in unannounced one chill Kirkwall morning. It took a little questioning of the base staff to be sure he's got the right door, but now he's here and doesn't hesitate to rap his knuckles on it.

"Kit? It's Myr."

[ragweed]

"Hey," a familiar, though slightly distracted voice calls through the door. "Come on in."

Inside the office, there's the sound of some papers being shuffled around and a chair dragging across the floor. Then Kit (and a cigarette, naturally), approach, and he reaches out a hand to lightly touch Myr's arm, to help orient him. (He shouldn't be grateful that Myr can't see him, or read the lines of stress and unhappiness on his face, in his eyes, now that he knows how that blindness came to be.)

[faithlikeaseed]

It's touch meant as a courtesy, the kind of thing Myr's well-used to by now--and yet such has been his week (month, year--) that he can't keep from reaching back and brushing Kit's fingers with his own. "Thanks," quietly said and earnestly meant, before he clears his throat and makes an exaggerated joking pretext of "looking" around the office.

"Nice place," he remarks, mustering a reasonable facsimile of his usual sunny smile. "Guessing it's covered in paperwork the other fellow never bothered to file, though. How've you been settling into it?"

[ragweed]

Life's handed them both a nugshit sandwich; sharing the burden with a friend should be something Kit welcomes. Instead, he grimaces, feels the old instinct to withdraw gnawing at him, but where can he go? This is his office, and Myr is blind.

"Oh." He clears his throat, makes a sound like a chuckle appear, and leads his friend over to a chair, just in case he should choose to take a seat. "Well, it was," he admits, "I've wrangled it a bit under control--" and reaches out to pick up a box full of records, and shoves it onto a shelf already crammed full of other boxes full of records that are probably long past their required retention periods. (Time to send those suckers to off-site storage. Does the Inquisition have off-site storage? It should.)

"What brings you by, anyhow?" This asked in a tone he endeavours to keep light, but part of him dreads that Myr already knows, that he's come to offer his condolences, or worse, to suggest that Vandelin might change his mind.

[meds4sale]

He'd hung back to let Kit take his roiling temper out on the thugs. One had broken off to have a go at the Medicine Seller, only to find that the strange, colourful man moved far too deftly for someone with a massive wooden box strapped to his back. He danced circles around the Carta thug, wearing him down and finally struck with almost serpentine speed and precision, using the blunt end of his sheathed sword to land a blow at the back of the dwarf's head, rendering him unconscious.

When they finally fled, dragging their unconscious companion with them, he turned to Kit.

"That was unlike you," said the Medicine Seller who'd felt something was off with his companion the entire day. He's already kneeling down, opening the bottom drawer of his box to retrieve some medical supplies. Bandages and antiseptic, mostly. Hardly magical, but then that was the case for most of his medicine.

He beckoned Kit over.

"Sit," he said. "You are hurting."

Whether he meant the injuries Kit had sustained or something else was hard to say.

[ragweed]

"That was unlike you."

"You don't know shit about me." A retort that is also unlike him, frankly, but the frayed edges of his composure are just that, frayed and tattered, and the words fly free before he has the chance to let them pass through anything approximating a brain-mouth filter. Immediately, though, he closes his eyes and grimaces. "...Sorry."

(The apology is sincerely meant, even if the words themselves remain true.)

When the Medicine Seller beckons him over, he obeys with leaden feet, and seats himself with a wince and a grunt on an old crate. He takes the time to examine his knuckles. "Pretty sure I should've known better than to hit a guy with a closed fist," he says, trying to make a joke out of the whole debacle.

[meds4sale]

"You're correct," said the Medicine Seller, mopping Kit's bloodied knuckles with something that stung and stank of antiseptic.

"Should that not say how peculiar you are acting, if even I notice it is ...out of the ordinary?"

He didn't sound angry, and he didn't latch onto the forced joke to give Kit the leeway to pretend all was fine. He was, after all, a Medicine Seller.

Medicine sometimes stung.

[ragweed]

The shit on his fingers stings and stinks, and Kit pulls a face that's somewhere between a wince and a grimace. He studies the evidence of violence on his bloodied knuckles, then makes himself look away, his eyes exceptionally guarded like a dog that hasn't decide whether it will bite yet or not--

Then he sighs the tension out. No, this is a hand he won't bite.

He doesn't protest the Medicine Seller's ministrations to his hands, but he doesn't answer him immediately, either. The joke fell flat, and he doesn't reach to gather up the threads of it, to try again; the tactic might've worked on someone else, but not this one.

"Vandelin left me."

It's not the only reason, but it's the one he feels better equipped to grapple with. Better the pain of heartbreak than the pain of something older, darker, seen digging and mining for red lyrium in the Deep Roads. Better that, than revisiting older blood on his hands.

The Other Powers Office

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

And in one of those times when Kit is actually around? His latest pupil sticks his head through the door, sharp ears wiggling a little as he grinned at the dwarf.

"Hello there, Master Kit. You ready for our lesson?" He looked around, "Or are you still battling the good fight against parchment and pen?"

[ragweed]

He'd be better with a keener of a pupil like Adasse on a good day, but it seems like he's run out of good days in his deck of cards. Seated behind his desk, Kit glances up at Adasse from whatever boring bit of paperwork he's reading through and does what he can to put on a friendly smile for the kid. (It's an expression that doesn't quite reach his eyes, but give him some credit for trying, all right?)

"Yeah, sure," he says, forcing some lightness into his voice, and pushes himself up from his desk. Coming around the other side, he fixes the young man with a careful look. "You been working on your footwork since last time?"

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

Adasse grinned and stepped into the doorway proper, resisting the urge to lean against the door frame. No posturing was done in front of Kit - the man just saw through most of it anyways.

"You bet - I think I can handle the slide backwards without getting my arse handed to me as I stumble over my own feet."

[ragweed]

Kit definitely has a sharp bullshit meter, but Adasse's lack of posturing and general good nature mean that he receives an affable-enough smile from the dwarf as he steps out of the office and locks the door behind them. (It's easy to pretend you're fine, that everything's fine, when there's work to be done.)

"You bet - I think I can handle the slide backwards without getting my arse handed to me as I stumble over my own feet."

"Well, if it happens, better on the training grounds than in the Deep Roads." Kit gives his pockets a pat, just to make sure he's got everything, then motions for Adasse to follow him.

Once they reach the training grounds, Kit easily navigates past all the others who are currently at their work with their weaponry, seeking out a spot a bit away from the rest so they can have adequate room to maneuver. "I forgot to ask," he says as he starts to stretch his arms, shaking out his wrists to limber them up, "what sort of work is it you want to do for the Scoutmaster? Once you've caught up on your training." He looks at Adasse curiously; young kid, he must have ambitions.

II

[paladingus]

As poorly as the conversation had ended the last time Simon watched Kit train his recruits, he still remembers being impressed by Kit's talent with them, wishing he'd had a captain that patient and kind instead of the kind of drill sergeants who thrived in Starkhaven and the Gallows. He's always carried that impression with him.

Today, though he hasn't paid attention to the entire training session, he makes his own way back to the docks with a vague sense of something like disappointment. Still--everyone's got off days. Kit's recruits are still one of the best-off bunches in the Inquisition.

"Bad morning?" he asks, not unsympathetically. "You were doing my old knight-captain proud."

[ragweed]

Simon's approach must've come from the left, because Kit almost spooks when he hears Simon speak, nearly dropping his cigarette into the water. Seeing him, he looks chagrined and takes another drag from his cigarette. "Sorry," he says absently, and gestures up, "deaf in my left ear." Probably explains the scar.

That second comment doesn't receive any acknowledgement, at least not at first. He focuses on his smoke, taps off the excess ash. "Yeah," he begins at last, "you could say that." A pause, and then, "What about you? Feel like I haven't seen you around much; maybe we're just like ships passing in the night."

IV, open

[overharrowed]

Julius knocks lightly on the frame of Kit's open door. In his experience, most project heads -- most people affiliated with the Inquisition -- were always busy, so it's redundant to ask. Instead, he leads with, "Are you working on something you can pause for a few minutes?"

[ragweed]

It's a fair assumption, and not an incorrect one, though Kit's preoccupation (and inefficiency) has less to do with his work load right now. He glances up from his desk when Julius leans around the door frame and greets him with a small smile. "I wouldn't mind a break," he admits and waves him in. "What can I do for you?"

[overharrowed]

Julius enters and comes to find a seat. "I've been doing a lot of catch up reading, to the extent I can, and I was wondering whether you've got anyone working on a bibliography or a reading list of any kind. There's so little in our hands about the Qun, especially, it might be helpful to keep track of the information we've got so interested parties will know what to spend their time reading in the future. I don't mind putting one together, but if you already have something like it I wouldn't want to duplicate existing work."

It's been a lot of laborious work, going through texts, but it's the kind of work Julius doesn't mind -- at least not when there's a worthwhile point behind it.