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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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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.
no subject
Satisfied that Kit's knuckles weren't going to go gangrenous any time soon, he layered gauze over the split skin and then wound a bandage around thrice, securing it in place. It was tight enough to hold the gauze in place, but not so much that Kit had any particular limitations on his hand's movement.
"What incited the split? You two did not seem prone to quarreling."
In fact, the Medicine Seller had found them a tolerable couple which, given his general attitude towards such things, was probably high praise. They were kind enough to let him sleep by the hearth in the small hours of the morning when he'd slipped his guard and didn't feel like returning to the Gallows, and were very polite about hinting when they wanted some privacy.
no subject
Rather the reverse, given Kit's track record with such things, but he keeps this to himself. It's the Medicine Seller's next comment that earns him a look that would be wry if Kit weren't so sodding sore about the whole split. He holds his peace a moment or two longer, watching his friend perform the deft work of binding his injured hands.
Then, with a matter-of-fact kind of grimace, "We did," he admits, glances up to meet his friend's eyes a moment, then away. "Just in private. Over--" a hand gesture to the crystal at his neck, "--crystals, mostly." A short, bitter silence follows. Then, "I guess it's only fair. I left him the first time."
This is doing neither of them, or his hands, any good. He sighs and pushes himself up to his feet. "Thanks, for this," he says and holds up his hands, offering the Medicine Seller what he hopes passes for a close approximation of his usual smile. "Listen, salroka, I'm no good company tonight, I'm just going to head on home."
no subject
He suspected there was probably more to it than that, but there was no point pressing the matter here.
"Come with me. I can tolerate poor company easily," he said. He did it on a daily basis, and Kit was certainly not anywhere close to some people he'd had the 'pleasure' of putting up with.
--!!quickie timeskip!!--
He led the way through the winding streets, guiding Kit to his little claim in the gallows. It was one part room and one part shop, with an elegantly painted screen dividing the two sections. The shelves were lined with ingredients, spare bottles, coloured paper, and other various nicknacks that were maybe useful or maybe just something the Medicine Seller collected, magpie-like on his travels.
There was a table, low to the ground with a blanket over it and another wood top laid on top, where a bowl of fruit was laid out. There weren't chairs, but rather cushions and the Medicine Seller directed Kit there.
"Sit please. I will make tea."
no subject
"Please sit. I will make tea."
"Right, sure." The little cushion looks like he could crush it under his weight, but he obliges and folds his stocky frame onto it, somehow.
Nothing inside this peculiar little room looks like anything Kit has ever seen in his wanderings around Ferelden and the Free Marches, and he'd seen plenty of cultural imports from Rivain to the Anderfels. He picks up a piece of fruit, sniffs it, and takes a bite, and lets his eyes absently follow the Medicine Seller's progress as he prepares the tea. At last, reluctantly, he asks, "I'm not putting you out, am I?"