minrathousian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minrathousian) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2017-12-01 03:10 pm
minrathousian) wrote in faderift2017-12-01 03:10 pm
[OPEN] this guy is out now
WHO: Atticus Vedici, the Division Heads, Wren, Myr + OPEN
WHAT: Someone is free-ish from prison, finally.
WHEN: Early December.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: In Benedict's thread, CW for Fade torture awfulness.
WHAT: Someone is free-ish from prison, finally.
WHEN: Early December.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: In Benedict's thread, CW for Fade torture awfulness.
I. THE AGREEMENT (Closed to the Division Heads, Wren, and Myr)
Atticus has no choice but to submit to this condition of his freedom, even if in doing so he exchanges one set of shackles for another.
Tight-lipped and silent as he follows Ser Coupe into the private chamber to be utilized for this process, he schools his face into a neutral expression that only just succeeds in masking his outrage. Yet in this he knows he has no leverage, no trump card to play that would not in turn be played against him, too.
He stops in the centre of the room and waits. At this stage, there is little else he can do.
II. THE GALLOWS COURTYARD (OPEN)
It is exceptionally pleasant to step outdoors into a brisk autumn morning and not feel the looming presence of a Templar guard at his back, nor suffer the weight of the runed shackles around his wrists. Atticus examines the reddened flesh on his hands pensively, gives his fingers a tentative flex first this way, then that way; there appears to be no permanent damage, nor any adverse effects of his limited exposure to the lyrium within the runed cuffs.
In short, nothing truly worth remarking upon to distract him from his cursory, near feline exploration of the Gallows that are now laid out before him.
The courtyard isn’t his destination so much as a stop along the way; already he’s encountered a number of locked or warded doors that his better judgment refrained him from investigating further. The mess hall, at the early hour when he chose to rise, only had a scattered few individuals in it having their breakfast; curiously, none of them seemed interested in eating with him. So it has been during most of the interminable hours he’s passed this morning, though he can find little to complain over in having one of the communal baths exclusively to himself.
Likely he cuts an odd figure standing alone in the courtyard admiring this first unobscured view of the cloudy sky that he’s enjoyed in months, but that’s not reason enough for him to change his behaviour.
III. DREAMING (Closed to Benedict)
On some night--which one doesn’t especially matter, only that it is a still one, peaceable and quiet--Atticus lets his fadewalking lead him towards the outskirts of Benedict’s dreaming mind. It’s less that he intrudes, and more that he finds for himself some way to interweave himself into the world of the dream, and to search through it with vague interest for some sign of his former apprentice’s consciousness.
IV. IN THE LIBRARY (OPEN)
His freedom from the Gallows prison is accompanied by certain expectations, chief among them that Atticus will put his keen intellect and insight into the activity of the Venatori to good use and work.
So that is what he is doing now--or at the very least, he is perusing range after range of books upon aging shelves, withdrawing them at his leisure, bringing down volumes as they strike him as relevant, replacing those that don’t. He has acquired a small work station for himself in the corner, and returns to it occasionally to work.
V. PETRANA'S OFFICE (CLOSED)
If little else can be said for the quality of his character, let it at least be said that Atticus Vedici is punctual.
At the prescribed time he arrives outside Petrana's office door, but does not yet knock. An unexpected compulsion sees him taking a moment to straighten the sleeves and collar of the simple black robe he's acquired since being freed from the prisoner's tunic required of him in the jail cell. The fabric of the robe would never pass muster in Minrathous society; that alone makes him inexplicably satisfied by it.
He straightens and lifts his hand, hesitates only a moment, and then raps his knuckles against the door. "Madame de Cedoux," he says (never her given name, not so casually, not here).
VI. THRANDUIL'S OFFICE (CLOSED)
(OOC: This thread takes place shortly after the phylactery thread.)
Shortly after the phylactery ritual is completed, Atticus is summoned to a private meeting with the head of the Research Division. Well, that didn't take long.
He's given some time to himself to bathe first, wash his hair, shave the growth of stubble on his chin, and change out of his prisoner's tunic into something more fitting for one who is no longer meant to look like a prisoner. (He still is, he knows; as long as that phylactery exists. But that is a problem to be dealt with in the future.)
Now, dressed and clean, Atticus approaches Thranduil's office door and knocks.
no subject
Ashara's entry is timely, prevents whatever words might next curdle from her mouth. The others filter in, and it's only with a glance to the package that she at last breaks his gaze. Is that a pie?
Little of this is so surreal as its audience. The act was routine once, may be so again; she isn’t blind to the implications of their work today. Only perhaps out of place, of time, within it.
Her expression doesn’t shift, but how bizarre — to reach for the hand of a man and not a shivering child. How welcome. What a weary relief, that no one in this room will cry for the lance across their palm, that none will ask after their mothers.
"There will be some discomfort." If not wholly to Atticus. Shivana wears his reservation like a coat of arms, but they’ve practiced this, and she’s faith he’ll see it through. (There is always Ceallach, if they must.) "When you are ready, Serah."
This last, directed to Myr, and not the Magister. A three-part ritual, however simple: Charmed glass. Charmed contents. And then,
She reaches for the knife. It will be a thin incision, a very tight grip.
no subject
"There will be some discomfort."
"Shocking." Whether he'll be provided with healing magic after this experience is a question they'll need to contend with later; surely a cut across the palm will draw attention from those Southern mages who have undergone the process before.
He steels himself for the cut and is still.
no subject
The Maker's got a warped sense of humor, Myr concludes, to give the magister eyes like that. (Now it's all he'll be imagining around the man. Some knowledge isn't worth having.)
Breathe out; ignore it and move on. He puts up his staff and crosses to join Wren and Atticus with temporary sighted confidence. (Let them think of that what they will; let Thranduil explain it if he will.) Out comes the vial; the enchantment to make it sturdy is the briefest to cast as he coaxes the Fade with words of reinforcement, realignment to alter the glass just so. Next, the spell against clotting, which requires the blood...
"Ser Coupe, if you would." Does it really lessen the appearance--the blot--of blood magic to have a templar hold the knife, rather than a mage? He wonders at it as he watches her make that crimson slash across Atticus' palm, as he collects enough of the magister's blood to half-fill the vial and launches into the charm to keep the stuff liquid. From there it's a too-easy transition to the heart of the ritual, to raveling up the latent power of spilled mageblood and using it to forge a link back to its own source.
A small part of him hopes still it will fail. The first of his own had.
But he's learned the spell too thoroughly: As he closes off the shape of the magic with curled fingers, the contents of the vial brighten to sudden lurid life, reporting the presence of their bound mage. Silently, he turns to offer the new-made phylactery up to Wren.
no subject
He had brought the pie, after all. Maybe he’ll insist that Myr take it, Coupe is as solid as ever, but Myr looks as if a strong breeze might blow him over, despite the strong set of his shoulders.
Still, with less blood than one might expect from a violent papercut, the deed is done, and Atticus is bound to them by one more small, thin rope. It is not as if he did not suggest stronger measures, but as this proves, he has not yet grasped all the subtleties of Theodosian politicking.
no subject
"That is all."
She affirms, places cloth to Atticus' palm (the squeeze of fingers: press down) before reaching to take the phylactery. Her hand clasps brief about Myr's; perhaps under other circumstance, it would reassure. Wren much doubts those intentions will carry now.
She studies his face — the peculiar ease with which he's moved —
Thoughts curl. Phial vanishes into coat, temporary; to be given to the Heads when Vedici's been healed over, seen out. Secure storage will be arranged.
no subject
He curls his hand into a fist around the cloth to stem the flow of blood, then looks in chilly silence from Wren to the others gathered to witness this moment. "Do you find this to be a satisfactory control?" he asks at last, endeavouring to keep the venom out of his voice. He succeeds. Mostly.