faderift | OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

WHO: All
WHAT: WINTER IS HERE
WHEN: Haring 15-Wintermarch 1
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: You can use this post as an event-style mingle log, or just use it as background information for your RP elsewhere!

It's been a chilly month already, but in mid-Haring the temperature suddenly plummets. One day it's merely cold, and the next morning the Inquisition wakes to frost on the inside of the window panes and an icy draft whistling through every crack in the tower's masonry. Downstairs, the pipes that feed the bathing chambers and the kitchens creak in the walls, loud enough to be heard even out in the courtyard, where they run beneath the stones, and around midday, when the sun has failed to raise the temperature above freezing, a blocked pipe finally gives, cracking open to spill water across the central court and send it running down side passages. The whole area floods several inches deep and almost immediately begins to freeze, presenting at first a gigantic, treacherous slush puddle and, after a few hours, a sheet of sheer ice.

Melting a safe path from door to door and laying down sand or wood to keep it from becoming slick again is a simple enough undertaking, but before the entire courtyard can be thawed, someone appears with ice skates—and that’s a better idea, surely, for at least a few days. Anyone who complains about the frivolity can be assured it’s good exercise, not to mention good training for a force that may have to travel or fight on ice in the future.

Temperatures remain cold enough that even some parts of the harbor begin to freeze, first just at the calmest edges of the shoreline, and then the more protected nooks and crannies of the bay, inlets and the spaces between piers and beneath docks. It snows most days--not real storms, just a couple inches here and there--little enough for the window to blow most of it off the icy plain of the courtyard and other wide open, paved spaces, accumulating on branches and in alleyways, and creating growing drifts in corners and against walls.

After a week or so actual chunks of floating ice begin to fill the narrow channels of the harbor, threatening smaller and less-sturdy vessels, and the situation in the poorer parts of the city begins to grow dire. With the Viscount's blessing, Inquisition teams (particularly mages) are called in to help. Some are assigned to the docks, to clear ice that makes landing and unloading treacherous, others to help escort ships into harbor by melting a path ahead. Others are sent into Lowtown to clear ice and snow and to provide warmth and medical attention where needed. At least one mage is sent with each team, and while many neighborhoods are pleasantly surprised and grateful for the quick work fire glyphs make of cold hearths and frozen streets, a few are unable to overcome their distrust, and refuse the teams entry, determined to take care of their own without the help of dangerous outsiders.

In the last week of the year, a true blizzard strikes, snow falling steadily for more than a day, blanketing the city at least three feet deep. Digging out the Gallows will be a group effort, and most non-essential trips outside the base will be cancelled for a few days until travel is less difficult, while those who reside in the city or elsewhere may be encouraged to stay a night or two in the fortress so they might continue to work without traveling through the storm. But on the first day of Wintermarch the First Day feast goes on as planned, with modest but plentiful food and ale served in the Gallows' dining hall for anyone who wishes to celebrate the new year.

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The key difference is: Nikos is not kissing back.

Perhaps that is not the key difference. Perhaps Kostos would also not kiss her back, or else would not suffer the kiss for very long. Perhaps they have already kissed.

So, for one true and inarguable difference: Nikos is softer than his brother--not in the face, perhaps, but certainly in the body. Not as easy to dip and kiss. And then the kiss itself is wrong, in the flat press of his lips beneath hers, under force, before Nikos manages to get a hand on her shoulder and push her back, give himself time enough to say, "Wrong."

Very. So is his voice, which has a similar timbre to Kostos' voice, but a touch of a different accent. He at least share the same unimpressed look.

"Please." Dryly. "Before this day gets any worse."

Nell drops him.

Well, she's drops her arms-- maybe she didn't manage to dip him far enough, maybe he had feet beneath him again when he pushed her back, but if not, Nell drops him, in her haste to pull away as she becomes aware of the Wrongness.

She doesn't have her staff but she lifts a hand, fire crackling to life above her fist in instant threat. She doesn't launch it and makes no move toward him but she looks like she wants to, face gone red and then pale again. (Her first guess isn't twin--because obviously if he had a twin she would know about it--it's possession.)

"What have you done to Kostos?"

Nikos is mostly dropped. He was just starting to get his feet under him, preparing to right himself--and then the woman loosens her arms and Nikos stumbles back, wrong-footed.

He was, at one point, more coordinated than he is now. Now he is an old part-time drunk, and inactivity and wine have both begun to take a toll on his balance. This means that he stumbles back against the doorframe, does not fall down entirely in a heap, but misses the part where the flame crackles to life over the woman's hand until it is too late and she is staring at him with a pale intensity that Nikos can't mistake for anything other than grim certainty. Will she roast him with that fire?

He sighs. "Oh."

Kostos.

"Does he enjoy being kissed out of nowhere? Time has changed him, then. I certainly don't enjoy it. I will tell you that I have done nothing with Kostos. He lives to kiss another day. Extinguish that, please," with a nod toward her hand. He is playing this cool only because he has been in terribly tense situations, faced down with threats unnumbered. And also, he's a little drunk. "I don't care for fire up-close."

The flame hovering above Nell's fist flares brighter, contrarily, and in case the menacing weren't clear enough she takes a half-step toward him, something of a lunge in her posture.

"Then leave him, demon," she demands, because it's difficult to spot details like a few extra pounds around the middle when preoccupied by something like the abrupt discovery that your most-trusted friend has been possessed. And honestly, when is 'surprise twin' ever the more likely explanation?

"If you think I wouldn't burn him to drive you out, you're wrong."

"Demon?" Nikos repeats, incredulously. But he also does a surreptitious shrink back, pulls in his stomach, flattens himself up against the doorframe as secretly as possible. He is too proud to shy away, but--

Fire. Always with the fire.

"You can't honestly think that I am possessing-- look, is it so much to believe that I have done nothing with him? That you have kissed the wrong man?"

"When you're wearing his face?" Nell snaps back, "Yes! That is too much to believe!"

She takes another half-step forward, more posturing than true advance--it's not as if she needs to be within arm's reach, after all. Since he seems to dislike fire so much, she launches that fireball with a thrust of her hand, and it speeds through the air to stop a foot from his nose, hovering menacingly, close enough to feel its heat.

"This is my last warning. Leave him now, or I'll do what I must to force you out. You cannot have him."

Edited (important italics) 2017-12-22 00:44 (UTC)

"I have been wearing his face since the day of my birth," Nikos starts, more irritated than anything else. And here is where, truly, he would have started an explanation, that he and Kostos are twins, quite obviously, that there are other possibilities besides demons and possession and that whoever she is, she could stand to broaden her worldview if her first thought is demon and only demon.

All of that quite withers away when she throws the fire at him.

Nikos starts to dodge, or at least to minimize the amount of Nikos facing down the fire. He freezes even in that when the orb comes to a stop just before him. The heat is like an open oven, out very concentrated, a knot. Nikos sets his teeth together in a grimace.

Fine. Just fine.

"I do not want him. I leave him entirely up to you. We are brothers, you idiot. Brothers. Surely you have heard of brothers."

She has heard of brothers. She has even, now that he mentions it, heard of Kostos having one. But surely, surely if that brother were a twin she would have heard that, too?

...But maybe not. Her eyes narrow and lips purse, but it's a look more of blossoming irritation than continued contemplation of violence. The fireball retreats slightly, but she holds up a finger and a stern look: "Don't move."

She digs a crystal out of her pocket and activates it, demanding: "Kostos Averesch." A pause, before she speaks into it, looking hard at Nikos all the while.

"Kostos. Is it possible that you have a twin brother you've neglected to mention?"

The crystal responds, in Kostos’ voice, which is flatly unconcerned and unaware of any threats of fire, “It’s not impossible.”

"You complete ass!" Nell replies, the fireball abruptly vanishing with a faint crackle as she turns the heat of her anger on the other Averesch, twisting away from Nikos to hiss at the crystal: "How long have we known each other?? I thought you were posessed."

Nikos sags a little when the fireball disappears. Luckily, the woman has turned away to yell at his brother through the crystal clutched in her hand, and so she misses his relief. He takes a moment to tug at the front of his doublet, demonstratively straightening himself out.

"Hello, Kostos," he says, raising his voice just a little so that his brother will be able to hear him. "I have met your paranoid and insane woman. You have always had the most interesting friends. Incidentally," this to said insane woman, "can I go, now that you've had my identity proved?"

“Oh,” the crystal says, “you’re here.”

Should Kostos have known this? Possibly. But possibly he’s been Elsewhere dealing with Elsethings until just now, or else so secure in his belief that Nikos would never truly find the resolution needed to come here underneath all those wine bottles that he would have attributed any sighting of him to a trick of the light. But light tricks don’t talk, and this one is calling Nell paranoid and insane, soooo.

“Don’t go. She won’t hurt you.” A pause. “Don’t hurt him, Nell. Where are you?”

"I'm going to hurt you," Nell says, very directly at the crystal. "How could you not ever tell me that! And why is he here, all of a sudden?"

She turns back toward Nikos and repeats, "Why are you here all of a sudden? Wait, what's your name?"

Nikos, who is here, and about to not be in the immediate here, no matter what Kostos advises, stops his side step away from this scene when he is addressed, lest he introduce another fireball into his life.

"Nikos Averesch, since you've at last kindly asked. Not demon. You'll notice the familiarity of the surname, I hope. And as to why I am here, I came first for the wine."

“Antivans do come to Kirkwall in search of wine so frequently,” Kostos says, under his breath but also perfectly aware it’s audible, so not really to himself. More loudly, he says, “He was never relevant,” which is maybe not the kindest explanation for never mentioning a brother to announce in said brother’s earshot, but he means it only as badly as it sounds on the surface and not a bit worse. And, lastly, “I am coming down.”

He doesn’t know where they are, but nonetheless.

Nell snorts. "If you came all this way for the wine you're about to be disappointed. And we're in the pantry hall, Kostos. Never relevant," is grumbled beneath her breath as she turns back to Nikos, really looking at him for the first time. No, not so Kostos-y after all. It's very easy to spot, once you know.

"So what do you do, Nikos Averesch?"

Never relevant gets a huff out of Nikos, and he looks away with some resigned indignation. Yes, very nice, thank you. The never relevant brother.

"There is no need to come down for irrelevance," a significant point directed at Kostos. "I did say that I came for the wine first. And drinking wine is also what I mostly do. It does not pay very well, yet I am lucky enough to have a small fortune to fall back on."

From the crystal there are only noises: an unimpressed snort at no need, but mainly noises that communicate nothing at all except that he’s moving around, shutting a door, and walking down stone steps in an echo-y spiral.

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OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

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