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[OPEN] a dwarf making bad decisions
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.
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.
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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?"
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"Honestly? I was going to ask you the same thing. Do you need an extra pair of hands?"
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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.)
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"You know, I haven't joined any projects yet and I really should," he said thoughtfully. "I could be tempted to join yours even more if it means spending more time around you. You're rather impressive, you know."
He always starts flirting with a compliment like that, to see how it's taken. Even if it is flirting, though, he sounds sincere. He has heard really good things about Kit and had been impressed by their dealings.
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...Shit, this guy is flirting with him, isn't he?
"Is that right," he says, smiling a little, like he's just heard something quite interesting, but can't decide what to make of it yet. He presses his lips together and turns his eyes to the red ember burning at the end of the cigarette, then takes another pull from it and breathes out the smoke. (He should shut this down now--it's too soon after Vandelin, his heart is too raw--but Ancestors if it isn't nice to have someone look at him like that again.)
"Pretty sure all the stories you've heard are exaggerated," he says after a pause, smirking a little, but there's still a flicker of interest in his eyes when he looks back at Cyril. Interest, but hesitation, too.
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"That is why I'm here, you might say, to see for myself what sort of man you are, and to offer my hands to do your bidding." He looked around the office again, as if he was just innocently rephrasing his suggestion that he help Kit where needed, but his tone is too licentious to mean only that. "Or any other part of me, really."
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That's when Kit laughs, albeit quietly, but he flashes Cyril a white smile afterwards, his eyes crinkling warmly at their corners. "Damn, you get right to the point, don't you," he replies in kind. (It's not a 'yes,' not yet, but it's not a 'no,' either.)
He sits back in his seat, his eyes running quickly over what he can see of Cyril, before lifting to meet his gaze again. He exhales, then turns to tap the ash off his cigarette again, rubs a thumb against his brows. "Look," he starts, sounding almost on the cusp of an apology, "don't... think I'm not flattered, or interested, but I just had something pretty serious with someone more or less..." A vague gesture with one hand, his eyes gone distant and a touch bitter. "...fall apart on me." Silence follows behind his words, and he looks pensively off to the side. "I don't think I've got 'serious' in me again."
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"Do I look like I'm suggesting anything serious?" he asked. His tone now is kind, careful. He doesn't want Kit to think he's making light of anything traumatic. "If it's too soon for anything, I completely understand and I'll give you space or we can discuss the possibility of me actually joining the Project instead, or whatever else you'd like to talk about. Void, I'll even talk about the weather."
"But sometimes, just sometimes, the thing to help you recover from something serious is something not serious. Something fun. I know how to have fun and not have it mean anything more than that."
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"You feel like going for a walk?" he asks and meets his eyes. (That's a 'yes,' according to Kit.)
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At the offer to take a walk he gestures towards the door in a 'lead the way' sort of motion.
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Kit quirks another small smile, then reaches for his office keys and, with two callused fingers, pinches out the light of the candle on the desk, darkening the room save for a bit of moonlight coming in through the window. Then he stands up, quite close to Cyril in the dark now, and rather gently touches his cheek.
That's the extent of the intimacy he'll allow in his work space; business and pleasure should remain as far apart as is reasonably possible in an organization like this. "This way," he says, and makes his way out into the corridor.
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