closedish.

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair, Kostos, Jehan, or Théo + Other People
WHAT: Catchall
WHEN: Guardian 9:44
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Closed in that there are no open prompts but feel free to spring something on me or hmu if you want a thing.

Comments

[galvanising]

It's been a quiet trip, neither of them exactly chatterboxes and concern clamming Nell up. If there were someone else here she might make an effort to hide it, find something to say around the campfire, some feature of the countryside to comment on as they ride. But it's just Kostos, so she doesn't. There's a compliment in that.

It's not hard to find the Chantry they seek, villagers willing-enough to give directions particularly when staves are out of sight, strapped to the opposite side of their horses. A remote town, small enough not to figure on many maps, large enough to have a Chantry of its own, spire rising above thatched roofs. Some part of Nell had expected to find it fortified, manned by a cadre of Templars behind heavy gates, impossible locks. Something more than a cellar vault and a single middle-aged Sister. She almost laughs at how easy it is to break in. Doesn't, when the vault proves to be empty, shelves bare but for racks the perfect size for phylactery vials and neat little labels: Apprentices, Mages, Enchanters, Deceased.

Upstairs, after, questioning the Sister has been a frustrating endeavor.

"Are you sure that's all they said about where they were going? South? There are a lot of places south of here."

[exequy]

“Cumberland,” Kostos offers from behind Nell. His gaze is elsewhere, along with some of his attention, toward a wisp left beyond the doorway in case someone comes looking. “Val Chevin. Jader. Highever. Val Royeaux.”

Standing back the way he is, hands clasped behind him, could be nonthreatening, but as much as it implies he isn’t going to lift a hand against anyone, it also implies he isn’t going to lift a hand to hold back Nell.

That might not be the case. There’s a line. Unarmed Chantry Sisters are on one side of it. But every time their unseen someone fucks with one of his friends, the line moves an inch.

When he does turn his head back to look at the Sister, he doesn’t look friendly. Not furious either. Mainly impatient.

“Perhaps you can blink if we guess correctly.”

The Sister, to her credit, is doing a good job of almost looking like she isn’t afraid of them. Her chin is high and her voice barely wavers when she says, “I cannot confirm what I do not know.”

[galvanising]

"You know more than you're saying," Nell snaps. She probably won't actually hurt the Sister. Her line is more flexible than his, bent and perforated by circumstance, but unarmed non-combatants aren't a target she relishes, whatever insignia they're wearing.

Still. The Sister doesn't know that, and her patience is too frayed to spend more time attempting the diplomatic tack.

Instead, Nell takes a step closer, the better to loom into the woman's space and make the most of her slight advantage in height, and to speak softly, almost into her ear. "Speaking of places south of here, have you ever heard about what happened in Marcheville? The entire village destroyed by rebel mages? I did that because at the time, I didn't see any other way to get what I wanted. This seems like a nice town, and all I want from you is information. You wouldn't want people to get hurt over that, would you?"

[exequy]

“I do not know where they went,” the Sister repeats, with firmness that frays at the edges as she tries to find space to move away from Nell without appearing to scramble for it. “They did not tell me what they planned.”

“But you gave them what they asked for,” Kostos says. “Did you put up a fight? Report the theft?”

He looks at the walls and the neatly ordered shelves with slightly more attention than they deserve. If there had been some sort of a struggle, she would have had plenty of time to put everything back in its place. But he doubts there was.

[galvanising]

"I didn't ask if you know where they went," Nell fumes, "Do you think we're stupid, that we won't see what you're doing?" Kostos is talking, and more productively at that, and she shuts up and lets him, for a moment, turning away to glare at the walls and shelves, attempting to reel back in her composure.

"Tell us everything you remember about them," she says, trying to sound calm as she turns back and mostly succeeding, but unable to pull the steely, urgent note from her tone. "What they looked like, what they wore, if they had accents, anything they said. How many of them there were. Insignia? Tattoos?"

[exequy]

The Sister lifts her chin, but it's only a show of dignity this time, not defiance. "They were within their rights," she says, and she doesn't make them pry an explanation out of her. Seekers, two of them, one bent with age and the other large enough to crowd the room. They knew the phylacteries were here; they had their armor; they knew the words to say.

Kostos only listens, then looks to Nell, eyebrows raised to ask if there's anything else.

[galvanising]

Nell thinks about it for a silent moment, long enough to make the sister sweat under the weight of her stare. But she has nothing, and angry as she is intimidating the woman isn't really satisfying. She jerks her head in denial, and turns on a heel to stride out of the Chantry without a word of farewell.

Their horses are tied up in a copse of trees just back of the building, out of plain sight of the road, and Nell heads that way. "Of course it's Seekers," she spits as soon as Kostos is at her side, voice low but the rage in it clear enough, "Who else would've known where to look for so many Circles? Those fucking bastards, when we find them I'm going to tear them apart."

[exequy]

He doesn’t doubt it.

He doubts other things: that they were truly Seekers, or at least all Seekers; that their intent was malicious if they were. They could have collected the phylacteries for benevolent reasons, or at least reasonably responsible ones, and lost them to someone else. They could have—

It doesn’t matter. Whoever has them, Kostos doesn’t doubt that Nell will likely rip them apart, and he won’t blame her. They’ve removed limbs for less. But for the moment he’s too distracted by worrying to join her in fuming.

“She will remember your face.”