WHO: Simon, Myr, Kostos, and maybe a special guest WHAT: Collecting some vague number of phylacteries and one stray mage WHEN: Early Cloudreach 9:44 WHERE: Ansburg and the road there NOTES: Cw: sheep
Inside the fortress doors, horses and cart left outside, Kostos wipes the stinking picturesque spring mud off of his boots and glares—so his usual expression, with just a pinch more intensity—at the entrance hall. Ansburg was better than Ghislain the way an unreachable itch is better than a broken arm. Obviously it was better, but he would still have preferred to never see it again.
This one will probably still be standing when they leave, at least, rising up out of the green pastures that separate it from civilization only with distance instead of water or cliffs, because Nell isn't here. And he pretty desperately wishes that she were. Not to wreck the Circle; this one, a proper fortress, would be harder anyway. But over the course of the journey here he's gotten the distinct impression that Myr is less on his side than he'd hoped, or possibly completely unaware that there are sides to choose.
Ugh.
"Just as dull as we left it," he says to himself—under his breath, in Nevarran, just to be an asshole. He hopes Simon thinks he's talking about him.
Edited (that word was not the word i meant) 2018-04-05 05:29 (UTC)
He's not unaware--simply acting as if they already lived in that perfect world that hadn't need of sides any longer. It makes keeping his genial persona up that much easier and cuts down on sacrilegious prayers for the Maker to send His Bride right now before Myr can strangle someone.
Or worse, gets caught regarding Simon with more than merely platonic affection. How bad could it be? he'd wondered to himself while his lover explained the situation; he should've known better than to think the other man exaggerating any of it.
Still. It hasn't been all or even mostly bad as jaunts go. Just-- ... strained.
"Four Circles in eight months," Myr remarks cheerfully to his companions; months echoes faintly down the hall as he steps across the threshold to join Kostos. "At this rate I'll have visited all of them in three years." There's more to the idle chatter than the seed of a strange vacation: He's listening to the space, the depth and breadth of it. Not so grand as Nevarra City, but neither had Hasmal been. Something's oddly comforting about being back in a sleepy little backwater. Something's homey. Even if it does all smell far too much like sheep.
"D'you think the socks have begun reappearing with no one around to witness it?"
Simon does think Kostos is talking about him, and rewards him with a sharp, sullen scowl. There's no way Myr could have been unaware of the trap-laden field of tension he was stepping into when he agreed to come along; it would have been obvious from the first minute of the journey even if Simon hadn't begun his pitch with 'love, you've got to come to Ansburg or either Kostos Averesch or me is going to wind up in a shallow grave somewhere near Sundermount.'
But nobody's been so much as injured yet, and he's more than happy to give all the credit for that to Myr. He'll be more obnoxiously genial about it than strictly necessary, too, relishing the way he can almost hear Kostos' teeth grinding whenever he and Myr laugh together about something. Regardless of how he feels about the end goal of this mission, or about half of his company on it, he can find the silver lining in the chance to be out on the open road while spring flowers bloom. He's never enjoyed anything so much as he does the rare opportunity for travel.
It would be nice if they were going somewhere new, of course, and not the career-derailing nowheresville he'd cowered his way into spending the better part of a decade stuck in, but he'll take what he can get, and Myr's good cheer inspires him to meet it halfway.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," he says, breezing past Kostos without another glance. "I want to see what all I might've left in the laundry rooms anyway. Maker, I feel like I've spent a full quarter of my life in there."
It may be hard to hear when they're speaking, but a shuffling sound begins to emanate from one of the rooms off the hall: there is something alive here, and its bare feet tread quietly on the cold stone floor as it approaches the door.
The party will quickly find itself under investigation by several glowing wisps, which dance around them with a cheerful, absent-minded ease before one floats its way back toward the doorway to meet a skinny lad in a tattered Circle robe. He smiles at it as it returns, his face pallid and thin, his eyes a little bit too blue as he focuses them on the travelers. "Enchanter Kostos?" he whispers, in surprised delight, "...Ser Simon?" He doesn't recognize the third, but he gets an unseen smile anyway. "Is the war over?"
Socks makes Kostos' expression darken further. Socks. He can't believe he lived here, ever, for any length of time. The leniency was practically an insult, like they were nothing to worry about, because they were busy with socks. But at that point it's reached the depths of darkness that it can achieve in the absence of actual aggression, so there's no room for it to get darker yet again when Simon talks about the laundry room.
The wisps, of all things, brighten it—literally, ha ha, but also figuratively—back to his most standard degree of unhappiness. Their cheer is infectious, and they're a sign that this trip might get slightly more interesting than socks. He keeps his arms folded behind his back, watching them without moving his head and trying to get a sense—
Ah. Evrion. He does turn his head, then, and give in to a look of surprise.
"It's been paused," he says in answer to the question, immediately, which might explain—partially—why Myr and Simon's Sensational Singing Show and overall conduct has set his teeth so thoroughly on edge.
He has questions of his own, like what are you doing here and where are your shoes and are you possessed yet, but they can wait a moment.
"Better we check on the phylacteries first," Myr calls after Simon--laughingly, for all that. "As they're more likely to've grown legs over the years."
There's more he'd say--trying his damnedest to keep their little expedition on track with the lightest possible hand on the reins--but everything breaks out in wisps all at once. He hasn't Kostos' ease with the little spirits; he shuts his mouth sharply as the first goes drifting past him, expression briefly one of unease. The Veil hadn't felt thin enough here to permit any leaks but who knew, these days...
--But there's a summoner, who sounds fondly familiar with both his companions, and Myr lets out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding against the possibility of an ambush. Relief and more than a little guilt replace his unease--disturbing as the newcomer's coterie might be, he sounds utterly harmless and the guileless question sends a stab of empathy through Myr's heart. (Kostos' response--is tucked away for later thought.) "Largely," he adds aloud, and: "Hello; you've been here this whole time?"
Maybe "who're you," would've been the cannier question, but he's got the other two to introduce him now that introductions seem in order.
Myr's right, of course, and he's just glad Myr was the one to point it out and not Kostos, but the small mercy there is short-lived. There's no way the sound of those footsteps could be anything but foreboding, nothing that could be lying in wait for them after all this time that could mean them anything but harm--
--but he thinks, in the end, that he might have welcomed a demon more. A demon could be easily dispatched and make him out to be a proper templar, doing his job with the powers the Maker granted him. This puts the lie to that better than anything else could. He can tell himself until his throat runs dry that it didn't count as abandoning his post if he had the Knight-Commander's permission to do it, that he'd done better than most of his comrades in staying as long as he had, but whose responsibility had it been to ensure the tower was safely evacuated if not his? Whose job ought it have been to look after the fragile ones like this poor sod whose name he can't possibly remember, who seems so heartbreakingly happy to see him now? (Perhaps his mind can't supply a name, but it's all too quick to remind him what fate had been in store for the lad. His eyes flick upward to Evrion's forehead, half-expecting a brand.)
He realizes, with abject horror, that his conscience has taken on a tinge of Kostos' accent. He cuts that line of thought immediately off.
"It's over for all intents and purposes," he says, unwilling to let Kostos go unchallenged on that either. "But--yes, are you all right? Have you been here alone, then?"
The boy wanders out the door, and as he stirs all the wisps flee back to him and into a strange twinkling orbit, casting a glow on Evrion even in the shadow of the hall.
"Oh, yes," he replies to Simon and Myr, with a strange distant smile, "I've been here, but not alone. I'm never alone." The smile warms as one of the wisps drifts closer to his face, and he gently waves it away so it doesn't crash.
If they were dealing with anything less distracting and immediate than a barefoot apprentice who, Kostos would say, has at least a seven in ten chance of currently being possessed, he'd give Simon more than a flat and skeptical glance. And it's very tempting to give him another exactly like it at Evrion's question. Because it's a good question. One that doesn't have an answer other than probably—probably, because the mages were backed into a corner when they joined the Inquisition, crippled not by demons and corrupted leadership but by the fact that they were going to lose, that the world wasn't on their side, that they had children and elders and no options save waiting for a siege they couldn't survive in Redcliffe or allying with Tevinter, and there's currently no reason they won't revert to a similar situation as soon as they're no longer needed to stop something people fear more than them. There will continue not to be a reason unless they make one.
But.
Externally, Kostos ignores the question altogether in favor of going closer to look Evrion in his too-blue eyes and reach out to one of the wisps. He can't detect possession, innately, but wisps—however simple they are—know what's going on around them, know what is where in the Fade, and have memories at least a bit longer than a bird's.
While he's probing at it, silently, he says, "Where are your shoes?"
Myr might have to wait forever for that introduction, and Simon for a name, because Kostos' manners really are that atrocious.
There's a sinking premonition in Myr's breast that there's much more to this whole encounter than he's hearing; the tension over Evrion's innocent, loaded question is only the surface of it. (And what a surface-- There's much he could say to the idea of the Circles coming back, much he's thought and argued over the years, much he's agonized over when it comes to what mages owed the world and what the world owed them and how heartbreakingly wide the gap was. But now, perhaps, is not the time.)
Is the Circle coming back? "Not today," Myr says gently, well aware of the heart-hunger that could hide behind that question. "We're only here for the phylacteries. And to bring you back to the Inquisition with us--if you'd like," a mage has a choice now, after all, for as long as that might last.
Where he had leapt in to contradict Kostos mostly just for the sake of doing so, he leaves that question very much to Myr and doesn't dare tread near it himself. He doesn't even know anymore what sort of answer he would prefer to give, but he has none, and so he ventures nothing.
(He wishes, too, that he could answer that second question, when it's on the very edge of his mind and he keeps almost-grasping it like wet soap--Evan? Emory? No, those aren't even elven names, and why can't he remember?)
"There's certainly room for you with the Inquisition, if you fancy a trip to Kirkwall," he says, seizing on that instead. "And you ought to come with us to find the phylacteries as well." Best to keep them all together now, with a cautious eye on the lad.
The wisp in question has no concerns and indicates no danger around Evrion, against all odds.
"Evrion Thatch," he replies to Myr, and, in response to Kostos' question, looks down as though he just realized his shoes were missing. "Oh," he muses, "around." Who wears shoes at home? Charlatans.
Intrigued by mention of the Inquisition, but equally confused, he looks between Myr and Simon. "Kirkwall," he repeats, "isn't that where the war started?" Seems like maybe not the best place to be, for a mage. "What are the phylacteries for?" Despite his questions and hesitance, he steps all the way out of the room and seems intent on walking with them, even if just for now.
For his part, Kostos considers the offers to bring Evrion along superfluous. Obviously he's coming with them. That's why he needs shoes. And it's everyone else's faults for not reading his mind to understand that's why he was asking, so when Kostos releases Evrion's wisp, he first twists to give Simon and Myr a baleful look that only one of them will see—the one he most wants to—before turning his attention back to the boy.
Young man. He's grown a lot. And there's no sign or memory of possession to be found in the wisp's limited consciousness. so Kostos' shoulders relax a small fraction, closer to their usual level of uncomfortable tension.
"Safekeeping," he says. "They are easy to misuse."
And for good cause, Myr silently appends, but doesn't say, picking up without knowing it on that dubious subtext. Not the best place for mages to be at all, though a mage who was bound and determined to make the best of where he'd been placed might ignore that for a time. Better to leave that. "Evrion," he echoes aloud, smile widening to hear it. "Like Our Lady's stepson. It's good to meet you, Evrion--Myrobalan Shivana, of Hasmal."
Not Hasmal Circle. It's a slip Myr doesn't notice now, but might have cause to later. He tips his head in Kostos' direction, sunnily oblivious to the glare, and nods for the other mage's explanation. "The Inquisition's had some trouble with them lately, that we mean to set right."
Sobering stuff. Stuff better not talked about in front of an apprentice who's only got the vaguest idea of the war, the Inquisition, and the Inquisition's troubles--especially when they're such mixed company. Myr continues blithely, "Ser, enchanter--we might do better to search the Circle if we split up."
Evrion did eventually find his shoes, which at least aren't much louder than his bare feet were, on account of being the slippers most mages wear around the tower. He radiates a cheerful yet nervous energy as he trails after Kostos like a lost lamb, helping him inspect the place despite having never left it.
"How long does it take to get to Kirkwall?" he asks, and somehow the question is about more than distance.
"With those two?" Kostos says, referring to the companions they've abandoned elsewhere to... whatever. Look nostalgically at the laundry.
Kostos, for his part, is headed for the library, to see if there's anything of value or rarity left that needs to be taken into protective custody along with the phylacteries.
"—an eternity."
He opens a door for Evrion, and waiting for him, Kostos' clench-jawed irritation eases a bit. He doesn't feel precisely guilty for not having taken Evrion with him when he left, his apprentice or not. At the time it wasn't unreasonable to believe he'd be looked after here, whereas it was entirely reasonable to believe he'd be killed, they'd all be killed, for leaving. But that clearly worked out poorly in the end. It's not Kostos' fault, but it's someone's.
Kostos' answer yields an uncertain smile, since Evrion can tell he's joking, but isn't completely clear on what the joke is. The other elf seemed nice enough, and he knows that Simon is a good man.
Going into the library to look it over, his blue eyes checking here and there to make sure everything is in place, he dreamily half-smiles and approaches the section on entropic spells to gently straighten a book that's leaning.
"It wasn't just me, at first," he explains, "people left one by one. I went out once, with Enchanter Josen and Ser Erika. My father was dead." If he feels any emotion about this, it doesn't show. "They were going to bring me to his funeral, but we were going the wrong way. So I turned back, but then I got lost. I couldn't find them or where I was going." He touches his temple with a wince, suppressing the memory of his panic. "The spirits led me back here, and everyone was gone. I didn't go to the funeral, and I haven't seen Josen or Erika since."
Evrion looks back at Kostos, his pleasant expression tinged with dread. "Are you sure I should go back with you? I think... this is where I'm supposed to be."
An odd story. Kostos isn't sure what question to ask first—why Enchanter Josen and Ser Erika let him turn back alone, for example, or how long he was gone if everyone else vacated in the meantime, or—
"Evrion, have you let one in?" He puts a hand on the boy's shoulder and searches his face. The strength of his grip falls somewhere between the kind of hold intended to comfort and the kind of hold intended to hold. "If you have, I need to know now. While I can still help you."
Perhaps there's more to the story than Evrion knows, or perhaps he's leaving it out, but the latter seems less likely. The boy seems, for all intents and purposes, guileless. He's nervous, but only because of how the day is going.
He's slow to take Kostos' meaning, but when he finally does, a smile crosses Evry's face. He shakes his head. "I haven't forgotten my lessons, Enchanter," he chides him amiably, "my spirits, they're not like that. They want to be separate. They come and go as they please, and I help them see the world." Lowering his smile to his hands, he opens them to reveal a wisp who may or may not have been there before, but it glides harmlessly from his grip and whirls about their heads.
"They are not your spirits," Kostos chides back, less amiably, ignoring the wisp with the dispassionate ease of someone who's very, very used to them. But that is Nevarran reverence as much as a safety concern, if not more. He believes him about the possession, or lack thereof, so far, and lets go of his shoulder.
He turns to a bookshelf. Scans the titles.
"This is not where you are supposed to be," he says. "You should not have been here alone. How long have they been gone?"
There's a sting in the words, and Evry's smile diminishes, but doesn't go away entirely. The spirits are his the way that Mother and Father were his parents; not belonging to him, but... sharing in something, a life spent together. For a while at least.
With a placating tone, because Enchanter Kostos is getting very ruffled over nothing, Evrion replies with "I've been getting along all right. There's still food in dry storage, and I grew some things." He shrugs. "I don't know how long it's been. I haven't kept track."
It's easy to see how the fanatics on the Storm Coast collected as many phylacteries as they did: the Mother here barely glances over the written requisition request, with its Inquisition seal, and glances over their faces before leading them to one of the alcoves near the back of the Chantry and instructing them on how to move aside a pair of bookcases, and a heavy oak table, and then several wooden panels on the floor that actually could have been moved just fine without the bookcases being moved first. It's possible she just needed help rearranging the furniture.
The hole in the floor drops down into stairs that twist back under the building and open into a chamber. There's no light save what reflects from around the curving stairs and the spots of dim red glowing on the shelves along the walls—and one not dim at all, with Kostos so close to it. He's carrying an empty crate; he puts it down to prove a palmful of fire instead, but the way the flame sputters above his hand, threatening not to go out but to leap higher and hotter, suggests someone else might want to take over that particular responsibility soon.
He doesn't say anything. He isn't looking at his own. He's perfectly aware of it, like someone in a room who you're trying to ignore, but he's looking down the other shelves first, counting the vials that have gone dark.
Even before his blinding, Myr wasn't wholly conversant with the idea other people (other human people) might need light on entering an underground space. It doesn't occur to him to summon any as he follows Kostos down the stairs; the presence of the fire, dimly there in the Fade, is briefly mysterious to him. (The most parsimonious answer for it--mayhem, destruction--doesn't even occur to him, either; whatever the state of Kostos' self-control might be, he's Not Like That, as far as Myr's concerned.) And it can't be that any of them are cold, either--
...Ah. Light. He halts at the base of the stairs, considering his own options on that score, before reaching gingerly out to the nearest shelf--feels along it until he's at the wall beyond, with enough flat surface to draw a glyph the size of his outspread hand. It blinks on the instant it's complete, shining a soft and pale green that turns all the vials black. Nice.
"How many...?" Softly said. How many are there? How many have gone out? How many empty holes on the shelves, if any? He's not even sure what he's asking and trails back into silence forthwith.
It's raining, so the tavern is crowded, and Kostos isn't too enormous to comfortably move through that crowd. And he isn't blind. And he isn't—Evrion, he isn't Evrion, that's plenty said there. So somehow, for possibly the first time in his life, that all comes together and makes him the best available person to go talk to another human being. He leaves scowling. But shortly after plates of chicken and bread and mugs of whatever have been delivered to the table, he comes back looking not entirely unhappy. Not happy, either, because his face doesn't really do that without a much better reason than this:
"They have two rooms."
That's a first, on this trip, and it means no one will have to spend an evening having the negative energy between Simon and Kostos slowly shave hours off their lives. No one will have to share a room with Simon at all.
"Congratulations," he says to the Templar, one of only a few dozen words Kostos has aimed directly at him in the last few days. He's just that pleased. "If you push the beds together you may even be able to stretch out."
Simon, who has no compunctions whatsoever about letting Kostos do all the work while he lounges at the table and reaps the benefits of the efforts, is merrily munching on a chicken leg and attempting tentative small talk with Evrion, now that he can. (And it would be satisfying, he thinks, to monopolize all the conversation before Kostos gets back, so that he'll either have to put in effort to wrest it away or just sit there and stew in silence unless Myr takes pity on him.)
He does not expect Kostos to look quite so pleased on his return, and does not immediately understand why. Two rooms seems a bit extravagant on an Inquisition salary, but then, they've saved a bit of coin on the way here, and picked up an unexpected extra besides, so he supposes it does make sense to someone less frugal, and then there won't be any need to try and cram four to a bed or put anyone on the floor--
Lost as he is in the logistical dilemma, Kostos' suggestion does not immediately compute. Why would he do such a thing? Someone else has got to sleep in the other one. The confusion does not, however, curb his smart mouth at all, because it never has. "Maker, what a change of heart," he deadpans. "Last time you didn't think I deserved a bed at all, and now you're offering me two."
That's not a bad idea; why didn't we think of that before? Myr thinks, and manages through sheer discipline to keep his own self-deprecatory amusement from his face. Having food to focus on, and all the attendant little awkwardnesses one must go through when one can't see it, makes it easier to do.
"While I appreciate the desire to have Ser Ashlock well-rested for our trip back, we've four men and four beds. No need to put one of us on the floor." His tone is mild, placatory; he's getting used to intercepting these things before they get worse. (Or trying to, anyhow.)
Blithely sitting by and playing one of the little wooden peg table games found at some pubs, Evrion has no opinion on the matter at all. He's seemed a little uneasy since leaving the Circle, surprised at every turn that no one seems to care at all about three mages casually strolling around with one Templar, and it discomforts him greatly to have to keep his wisps under wraps (because the lad has some common sense, after all).
Periodically he looks up from what he's doing, waiting for the others to come to a conclusion.
It might help public perception that Kostos doesn't carry a staff and hasn't worn Circle robes in years—he stopped after he first took a spiked club to the ribs and learned that once your magic was cut off the only good mage fashion did you was to change the color and quality of the thread that had to be picked out of your very stylish gaping wounds.
But on the other hand he does look distinctly foreign, with his complexion and the dark tones and Nevarran lines of his clothing, so it can only help so much.
Simon's response evokes something—not quite a smile, not quite openly a sneer—brief and subtle from one corner of Kostos' mouth, and he tears apart a piece of bread without looking at it while he answers Myr.
"I do not mind," he says, which isn't exactly true, but close enough. It's a sacrifice he's willing to make. "If we are not bringing the crates inside I may sleep in the cart regardless."
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the circle.
This one will probably still be standing when they leave, at least, rising up out of the green pastures that separate it from civilization only with distance instead of water or cliffs, because Nell isn't here. And he pretty desperately wishes that she were. Not to wreck the Circle; this one, a proper fortress, would be harder anyway. But over the course of the journey here he's gotten the distinct impression that Myr is less on his side than he'd hoped, or possibly completely unaware that there are sides to choose.
Ugh.
"Just as dull as we left it," he says to himself—under his breath, in Nevarran, just to be an asshole. He hopes Simon thinks he's talking about him.
cw: optimism
Or worse, gets caught regarding Simon with more than merely platonic affection. How bad could it be? he'd wondered to himself while his lover explained the situation; he should've known better than to think the other man exaggerating any of it.
Still. It hasn't been all or even mostly bad as jaunts go. Just-- ... strained.
"Four Circles in eight months," Myr remarks cheerfully to his companions; months echoes faintly down the hall as he steps across the threshold to join Kostos. "At this rate I'll have visited all of them in three years." There's more to the idle chatter than the seed of a strange vacation: He's listening to the space, the depth and breadth of it. Not so grand as Nevarra City, but neither had Hasmal been. Something's oddly comforting about being back in a sleepy little backwater. Something's homey. Even if it does all smell far too much like sheep.
"D'you think the socks have begun reappearing with no one around to witness it?"
ew, optimism
But nobody's been so much as injured yet, and he's more than happy to give all the credit for that to Myr. He'll be more obnoxiously genial about it than strictly necessary, too, relishing the way he can almost hear Kostos' teeth grinding whenever he and Myr laugh together about something. Regardless of how he feels about the end goal of this mission, or about half of his company on it, he can find the silver lining in the chance to be out on the open road while spring flowers bloom. He's never enjoyed anything so much as he does the rare opportunity for travel.
It would be nice if they were going somewhere new, of course, and not the career-derailing nowheresville he'd cowered his way into spending the better part of a decade stuck in, but he'll take what he can get, and Myr's good cheer inspires him to meet it halfway.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," he says, breezing past Kostos without another glance. "I want to see what all I might've left in the laundry rooms anyway. Maker, I feel like I've spent a full quarter of my life in there."
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The party will quickly find itself under investigation by several glowing wisps, which dance around them with a cheerful, absent-minded ease before one floats its way back toward the doorway to meet a skinny lad in a tattered Circle robe. He smiles at it as it returns, his face pallid and thin, his eyes a little bit too blue as he focuses them on the travelers.
"Enchanter Kostos?" he whispers, in surprised delight, "...Ser Simon?" He doesn't recognize the third, but he gets an unseen smile anyway. "Is the war over?"
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The wisps, of all things, brighten it—literally, ha ha, but also figuratively—back to his most standard degree of unhappiness. Their cheer is infectious, and they're a sign that this trip might get slightly more interesting than socks. He keeps his arms folded behind his back, watching them without moving his head and trying to get a sense—
Ah. Evrion. He does turn his head, then, and give in to a look of surprise.
"It's been paused," he says in answer to the question, immediately, which might explain—partially—why Myr and Simon's Sensational Singing Show and overall conduct has set his teeth so thoroughly on edge.
He has questions of his own, like what are you doing here and where are your shoes and are you possessed yet, but they can wait a moment.
no subject
There's more he'd say--trying his damnedest to keep their little expedition on track with the lightest possible hand on the reins--but everything breaks out in wisps all at once. He hasn't Kostos' ease with the little spirits; he shuts his mouth sharply as the first goes drifting past him, expression briefly one of unease. The Veil hadn't felt thin enough here to permit any leaks but who knew, these days...
--But there's a summoner, who sounds fondly familiar with both his companions, and Myr lets out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding against the possibility of an ambush. Relief and more than a little guilt replace his unease--disturbing as the newcomer's coterie might be, he sounds utterly harmless and the guileless question sends a stab of empathy through Myr's heart. (Kostos' response--is tucked away for later thought.) "Largely," he adds aloud, and: "Hello; you've been here this whole time?"
Maybe "who're you," would've been the cannier question, but he's got the other two to introduce him now that introductions seem in order.
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--but he thinks, in the end, that he might have welcomed a demon more. A demon could be easily dispatched and make him out to be a proper templar, doing his job with the powers the Maker granted him. This puts the lie to that better than anything else could. He can tell himself until his throat runs dry that it didn't count as abandoning his post if he had the Knight-Commander's permission to do it, that he'd done better than most of his comrades in staying as long as he had, but whose responsibility had it been to ensure the tower was safely evacuated if not his? Whose job ought it have been to look after the fragile ones like this poor sod whose name he can't possibly remember, who seems so heartbreakingly happy to see him now? (Perhaps his mind can't supply a name, but it's all too quick to remind him what fate had been in store for the lad. His eyes flick upward to Evrion's forehead, half-expecting a brand.)
He realizes, with abject horror, that his conscience has taken on a tinge of Kostos' accent. He cuts that line of thought immediately off.
"It's over for all intents and purposes," he says, unwilling to let Kostos go unchallenged on that either. "But--yes, are you all right? Have you been here alone, then?"
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"Oh, yes," he replies to Simon and Myr, with a strange distant smile, "I've been here, but not alone. I'm never alone." The smile warms as one of the wisps drifts closer to his face, and he gently waves it away so it doesn't crash.
"Is the Circle coming back?"
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But.
Externally, Kostos ignores the question altogether in favor of going closer to look Evrion in his too-blue eyes and reach out to one of the wisps. He can't detect possession, innately, but wisps—however simple they are—know what's going on around them, know what is where in the Fade, and have memories at least a bit longer than a bird's.
While he's probing at it, silently, he says, "Where are your shoes?"
Myr might have to wait forever for that introduction, and Simon for a name, because Kostos' manners really are that atrocious.
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Is the Circle coming back? "Not today," Myr says gently, well aware of the heart-hunger that could hide behind that question. "We're only here for the phylacteries. And to bring you back to the Inquisition with us--if you'd like," a mage has a choice now, after all, for as long as that might last.
"What's your name?"
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(He wishes, too, that he could answer that second question, when it's on the very edge of his mind and he keeps almost-grasping it like wet soap--Evan? Emory? No, those aren't even elven names, and why can't he remember?)
"There's certainly room for you with the Inquisition, if you fancy a trip to Kirkwall," he says, seizing on that instead. "And you ought to come with us to find the phylacteries as well." Best to keep them all together now, with a cautious eye on the lad.
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"Evrion Thatch," he replies to Myr, and, in response to Kostos' question, looks down as though he just realized his shoes were missing. "Oh," he muses, "around." Who wears shoes at home? Charlatans.
Intrigued by mention of the Inquisition, but equally confused, he looks between Myr and Simon. "Kirkwall," he repeats, "isn't that where the war started?" Seems like maybe not the best place to be, for a mage. "What are the phylacteries for?"
Despite his questions and hesitance, he steps all the way out of the room and seems intent on walking with them, even if just for now.
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Young man. He's grown a lot. And there's no sign or memory of possession to be found in the wisp's limited consciousness. so Kostos' shoulders relax a small fraction, closer to their usual level of uncomfortable tension.
"Safekeeping," he says. "They are easy to misuse."
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And for good cause, Myr silently appends, but doesn't say, picking up without knowing it on that dubious subtext. Not the best place for mages to be at all, though a mage who was bound and determined to make the best of where he'd been placed might ignore that for a time. Better to leave that. "Evrion," he echoes aloud, smile widening to hear it. "Like Our Lady's stepson. It's good to meet you, Evrion--Myrobalan Shivana, of Hasmal."
Not Hasmal Circle. It's a slip Myr doesn't notice now, but might have cause to later. He tips his head in Kostos' direction, sunnily oblivious to the glare, and nods for the other mage's explanation. "The Inquisition's had some trouble with them lately, that we mean to set right."
Sobering stuff. Stuff better not talked about in front of an apprentice who's only got the vaguest idea of the war, the Inquisition, and the Inquisition's troubles--especially when they're such mixed company. Myr continues blithely, "Ser, enchanter--we might do better to search the Circle if we split up."
they split up
He radiates a cheerful yet nervous energy as he trails after Kostos like a lost lamb, helping him inspect the place despite having never left it.
"How long does it take to get to Kirkwall?" he asks, and somehow the question is about more than distance.
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Kostos, for his part, is headed for the library, to see if there's anything of value or rarity left that needs to be taken into protective custody along with the phylacteries.
"—an eternity."
He opens a door for Evrion, and waiting for him, Kostos' clench-jawed irritation eases a bit. He doesn't feel precisely guilty for not having taken Evrion with him when he left, his apprentice or not. At the time it wasn't unreasonable to believe he'd be looked after here, whereas it was entirely reasonable to believe he'd be killed, they'd all be killed, for leaving. But that clearly worked out poorly in the end. It's not Kostos' fault, but it's someone's.
"How did you wind up here alone?"
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Going into the library to look it over, his blue eyes checking here and there to make sure everything is in place, he dreamily half-smiles and approaches the section on entropic spells to gently straighten a book that's leaning.
"It wasn't just me, at first," he explains, "people left one by one. I went out once, with Enchanter Josen and Ser Erika. My father was dead."
If he feels any emotion about this, it doesn't show. "They were going to bring me to his funeral, but we were going the wrong way. So I turned back, but then I got lost. I couldn't find them or where I was going." He touches his temple with a wince, suppressing the memory of his panic. "The spirits led me back here, and everyone was gone. I didn't go to the funeral, and I haven't seen Josen or Erika since."
Evrion looks back at Kostos, his pleasant expression tinged with dread. "Are you sure I should go back with you? I think... this is where I'm supposed to be."
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"Evrion, have you let one in?" He puts a hand on the boy's shoulder and searches his face. The strength of his grip falls somewhere between the kind of hold intended to comfort and the kind of hold intended to hold. "If you have, I need to know now. While I can still help you."
While he can make it painless, mainly, and quiet.
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He's slow to take Kostos' meaning, but when he finally does, a smile crosses Evry's face. He shakes his head.
"I haven't forgotten my lessons, Enchanter," he chides him amiably, "my spirits, they're not like that. They want to be separate. They come and go as they please, and I help them see the world." Lowering his smile to his hands, he opens them to reveal a wisp who may or may not have been there before, but it glides harmlessly from his grip and whirls about their heads.
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He turns to a bookshelf. Scans the titles.
"This is not where you are supposed to be," he says. "You should not have been here alone. How long have they been gone?"
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With a placating tone, because Enchanter Kostos is getting very ruffled over nothing, Evrion replies with "I've been getting along all right. There's still food in dry storage, and I grew some things." He shrugs. "I don't know how long it's been. I haven't kept track."
a chantry.
The hole in the floor drops down into stairs that twist back under the building and open into a chamber. There's no light save what reflects from around the curving stairs and the spots of dim red glowing on the shelves along the walls—and one not dim at all, with Kostos so close to it. He's carrying an empty crate; he puts it down to prove a palmful of fire instead, but the way the flame sputters above his hand, threatening not to go out but to leap higher and hotter, suggests someone else might want to take over that particular responsibility soon.
He doesn't say anything. He isn't looking at his own. He's perfectly aware of it, like someone in a room who you're trying to ignore, but he's looking down the other shelves first, counting the vials that have gone dark.
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...Ah. Light. He halts at the base of the stairs, considering his own options on that score, before reaching gingerly out to the nearest shelf--feels along it until he's at the wall beyond, with enough flat surface to draw a glyph the size of his outspread hand. It blinks on the instant it's complete, shining a soft and pale green that turns all the vials black. Nice.
"How many...?" Softly said. How many are there? How many have gone out? How many empty holes on the shelves, if any? He's not even sure what he's asking and trails back into silence forthwith.
a tavern.
"They have two rooms."
That's a first, on this trip, and it means no one will have to spend an evening having the negative energy between Simon and Kostos slowly shave hours off their lives. No one will have to share a room with Simon at all.
"Congratulations," he says to the Templar, one of only a few dozen words Kostos has aimed directly at him in the last few days. He's just that pleased. "If you push the beds together you may even be able to stretch out."
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He does not expect Kostos to look quite so pleased on his return, and does not immediately understand why. Two rooms seems a bit extravagant on an Inquisition salary, but then, they've saved a bit of coin on the way here, and picked up an unexpected extra besides, so he supposes it does make sense to someone less frugal, and then there won't be any need to try and cram four to a bed or put anyone on the floor--
Lost as he is in the logistical dilemma, Kostos' suggestion does not immediately compute. Why would he do such a thing? Someone else has got to sleep in the other one. The confusion does not, however, curb his smart mouth at all, because it never has. "Maker, what a change of heart," he deadpans. "Last time you didn't think I deserved a bed at all, and now you're offering me two."
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"While I appreciate the desire to have Ser Ashlock well-rested for our trip back, we've four men and four beds. No need to put one of us on the floor." His tone is mild, placatory; he's getting used to intercepting these things before they get worse. (Or trying to, anyhow.)
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Periodically he looks up from what he's doing, waiting for the others to come to a conclusion.
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But on the other hand he does look distinctly foreign, with his complexion and the dark tones and Nevarran lines of his clothing, so it can only help so much.
Simon's response evokes something—not quite a smile, not quite openly a sneer—brief and subtle from one corner of Kostos' mouth, and he tears apart a piece of bread without looking at it while he answers Myr.
"I do not mind," he says, which isn't exactly true, but close enough. It's a sacrifice he's willing to make. "If we are not bringing the crates inside I may sleep in the cart regardless."