faderift | [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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?"

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.

Kit is certain that Julius just placed a lot of useful recommendations down on the table in front of him (figuratively, of course), but it's at this particular moment that he feels keenly his lack of any formal schooling, or much education in general--beyond how to hold an axe, walk quietly, and pick locks, that is. (The School of Hard Knocks didn't exactly have much of a liberal arts curriculum.) He's gotten to this point largely as a result of his judgment and charisma, but he's not bad at context clues, so--

"...you mean like a list of books?" he says cautiously, and looks immediately a bit chagrined as a result of his own ignorance. He starts up to his feet and rubs his jaws, and turns to look back at the walls of dusty reference material that his predecessor left behind. "Um. I don't think anyone on the project has put anything together recently--it would be good for you to do that, if you can spare the time for it."

Julius nods, pleased that Kit seems receptive more than put off that no one's done it already. "Precisely. A list of useful titles, maybe even pointing out particular passages that seem most helpful. Once we have one started, it wouldn't be hard to add to it over time. And I don't think it would take me much extra effort, while I'm doing the reading anyhow."

He's been trying to walk a line, in Kirkwall, between making himself useful and listening to make sure he wasn't ignorant of reasons his suggestions hadn't already been implemented by someone else.

Kit turns from the bookshelf to look back at Julius in some mild surprise, though the source of it takes a bit of time to make itself fully known to him. It's the willingness to help, he thinks, without much external prompting, without so much as a wink and a nudge--and this isn't even his primary project, is it?

"Well, shit--yeah," he says, cracking a smile, and turns back around to face Julius across his desk. He reaches for his still lit cigarette but doesn't raise it up to his mouth again just yet, toying with the end. "That would be fantastic, Julius, really."

The surprise is, itself, mildly surprising -- but then again, Julius supposes, people have all sorts of motivations for joining the Inquisition. Perhaps not every motivation prompted making oneself useful. Julius, though, wants the Inquisition to succeed. He also wouldn't mind being seen to help the Inquisition succeed; he'll sign the bibliography. Still.

"Excellent, I'll get to work on it then. If you think of anything else that might be useful in getting new additions to your project up to speed, let me know. I'm still getting settled in, and I'm not always sure what I know because it's common knowledge and what I know because I spent a lot of my life to this point reading."

"However you came by the knowledge, I'm glad you've decided to help us out. Don't know if you can tell, but," this said with a slow gesture around the state of the office, with its paperwork stored every which way, and a distinct lack of many core staff, "we've really needed it."

He watches his friend for a short moment, hardly more than a second or two, as though considering something. Then he smiles and adds, "Thanks for the drink, by the way. The Satinalia gift, I mean."

Julius brightens. "I'm glad you liked it. I know I'm a new arrival, but it's been years since I had any occasion to exchange gifts. And I thought... who'd complain about a gift? Well. An Orlesian, maybe."

Well.

"And thank you for yours. I'm more than happy to help -- I thought, a bit, that I might be superfluous when I first arrived. I'm not entirely sure whether I'm pleased to be of use or concerned that you don't have more help. Both, possibly."

"And I thought... who'd complain about a gift? Well. An Orlesian, maybe."

"Yeah, they seem to turn complaint into high art," Kit answers him wryly, chuckling.

He's sold his team a little bit short, he realizes, making such an issue of how little help he has. Chagrined, he leans his hip against the desk. "The folks who do help out pull their weight," he says, not wanting Julius to walk away from their conversation with a negative opinion of the others, "it's just that this isn't their primary project. Can't fault 'em for focusing their efforts elsewhere, it just--puts me in a tricky place, is all.

"But you're definitely not superfluous," he finishes, cracking another smile. "It's nice to have the company, time to time; this place gets a little lonesome." Especially now, a part of his mind suggests unhelpfully, but he keeps that thought to himself.

"I don't have anything to criticize in anyone else's work," Julius agrees, clarifying he hadn't meant to disparage anyone else. "It's just... out in the world, it sounds sometimes like the Inquisition's a bit of a juggernaut, right? But then I got here and discovered there's always more work than people to do it."

He was just as glad to be useful.

"Of course, that means it's easy to get wrapped up in your work, too. Perhaps I should come collect you some evenings and make sure you get a drink out at the taverns, where the people are?" It's a light suggestion, meant to be easy to turn down if it's unwelcome. But for all that, it is still genuinely meant.

There's a hint of hesitation preceding Kit's reply, a look in his eyes that seems--unsure, but then it's replaced by warmth, and he smiles. "Sure. Yeah, that sounds great." It sounds, in fact, a lot like some unexpectedly sage advice he'd received not that long ago from Cyril, which had led him to interesting places. "Just, you know," a quick gesture with one hand, one meant to be casual, "whenever you're free."

"If you only wait until there's no work left to do, you'll never go," Julius observed. "I'll come find you when I'm free enough, how's that?" In fairness, that's advice Julius himself had received years ago, if in a slightly different context. When you had a certain temperament, work was never done; sometimes it needed to be actively set aside, at least for a few hours.

It's hard to find fault with that logic, Kit has to admit, and he chuckles, ducking his head once. "Free enough it is. That sounds just fine, salroka," he says, and finds himself still smiling a moment later.

[OPEN] a dwarf making bad decisions

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