[OPEN] May catch-all for some side characters

[wheretheferngrows]

WHO: Fern, Romola + you??
WHAT: Fern and Romola do things in May, and maybe you're involved in some of them. Come meet a small elven apostate, and an introverted dwarven lampworker-by-day, strange Andrastian cultist-by-night.
WHEN: Throughout May.
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall, outside Kirkwall, /gestures vaguely Around
NOTES: A bit of violence in one of Romola's starters. If you'd like a specific starter for either of them, hmu on plurk @ ragweed or discord @ middlemarching#9936.

FERN


i. a picnic!! (closed to Chloe)


The landscape around Kirkwall isn't especially scenic, but it's more enjoyable to explore now than it was a few months ago when everything was covered completely by snow and ice. That's probably why Fern suggests to Chloe that they venture out a bit into the surrounding area for a picnic; the weather is pleasant enough, for once, and everyone needs a break from work in the Gallows occasionally.

She probably neglected to mention that they'd be venturing out on Rooster. But it's not difficult at all for him to support the weight of two skinny girls and a neatly packed lunch--and mercifully, he doesn't give Fern too much trouble as she guides him through the countryside to what passes for a grassy hillside, here in this part of the Free Marches.

So that's where they are now, with Fern setting out their simple lunch on a blanket beneath the sparse shade of a spindly tree while Rooster forages nearby. She's just settling in when she peers across at Chloe with an uncertain smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Have you told anyone?" she asks at length, then gives her head a knowing little tilt. "About, you know. Us."

Given how new this arrangement is for them, she doesn't expect so--but she figures she'd better ask anyway.



ii. out and about (open)


Fern is fairly easy to spot around the Gallows for the most part, and her schedule has changed only slightly with the arrival of the warmer months and, ahem, some recent developments in her personal life; most of her daylight hours are divided between tending to the growing needs of the Gallows' herb garden, or practicing her magical competency on the training grounds. It's her late afternoons and evenings that she's taken to spending more in the company of a particular blue-haired rifter girl (though she probably thinks she's being quite sneaky about it).

However, it's still not uncommon to find her in the Gallows' stables tending to her mule, Rooster, or out wandering about the Lowtown markets or within the alienage, searching for small trinkets to purchase for herself, or for the garden. (Or for the mule. She may or may not have tied little blue ribbons into his mane for the season.)



ROMOLA


i. The Lampworks (open)


Romola Kader's shop in Lowtown sticks to its regularly posted hours; if the dwarven proprietress herself isn't there to see to patrons, then normally an elderly elven woman is there in her place. The works she has on display are of exquisite quality, begging the occasional question as to what she's doing running this shop in Lowtown rather than in the neighbourhood of the Merchants' Guild in Hightown.

She can usually be found standing behind the counter within her shop quietly sorting through inventory, still wearing her leather apron as well as a pair of glass goggles pushed up to rest against her forehead.



ii. Lowtown at night (open)


She may live and work within her shop, but that doesn't mean she never leaves it.

On this particular late spring night, Romola appears to be making her way back through the labyrinthine Lowtown hexes towards the narrow, back alley entrance to her shop, and she isn't alone. Someone--an opportunistic mugger, perhaps--has been hounding her steps for several blocks.

These sorts of encounters tend to follow a particular script. When the mugger reveals himself, accosting her from the side, she startles and is momentarily caught off-guard; but when she drops whatever small parcel she was carrying, it's not to pull herself free from her assailant's grip, but to grab for a belt knife and slash the sharp blade of it across his arm.

This achieves the desired effect of making him stagger back, but the altercation is far from over. Someone should probably intervene.

Comments

ii (Fern)

[lightningbugs]

It's taken a lot of courage for Evrion to leave the tower at all, having kept himself cooped up in it for the first few days of his arrival in Kirkwall. This place is massive, many times the size of Ansburg's Circle and with so, so many more people, more than he knows what to do with.
Evry has never been especially shy, but for the sake of his own safety he's been avoidant of the Inquisition's denizens, at least until especially good weather coaxes him out into the herb garden to get some fresh air. He feels naked and alone without his usual entourage of spirit wisps, and his expression is uncertain if pleasant as he picks his way through the planters and rows of herbs.

[wheretheferngrows]

'Tis the season for mud, dirt, and more mud, especially for gardeners, and so that is where Fern is presently, kneeling in the dirt while carefully beginning the work of removing the warming glyphs that have kept the plants from freezing to death since the first frost. She's rather accustomed to the comings and goings of people through the gardens by now, and is good at distinguishing between people who are just out for a wander from people who are coming to speak with her for some particular reason.

Which is probably why she doesn't look up to greet Evrion for quite some time, content to focus on her work and let whoever is behind her... do whatever it is they're doing, since it doesn't appear to involve her. After a time, though, she sits back onto her knees and wipes off her brow, and in doing so happens to glance his way. Her curiosity is glancing at first, before she does an abrupt double-take, looking back at him in confusion. She frowns, contemplating him, the cogs clicking into place, and then--

"...Evry?"

[lightningbugs]

Historically, the only people who use the name 'Evry' are close to Evrion, and he's learned to distinguish between the nickname and when the word 'every' is being used, which makes it all the more alarming that he hears it. He pauses what he's doing and looks around, his eyes eventually focusing on a face that, while far older than last he saw it, is quite familiar.

His bemused expression splits into a grin of delight at the sight of Fern, and, forgetting all graces, Evrion rushes toward her to wrap her in a tight hug.

[wheretheferngrows]

For a moment she'd almost doubted herself--until that familiar, crooked smile lit up his face. It is him--!

Fern is quick to scramble up to her feet with a bright, excited laugh, and it's hard to say who reaches whom first, Evrion or Fern. Either way, she is quick to throw her arms around his scrawny shoulders and hug him tightly, so suddenly, unspeakably overwhelmed by feeling that there are tears in her eyes before she even realizes it.

"I thought you were dead!" she blurts out at last, and draws back enough to search his face, happiness and relief now competing with confusion in her expression. She shakes her head, unable to stop smiling. "No one would tell me where you went or what happened to you."

[lightningbugs]

Laughing too, for the sheer joy of it, Evrion almost doesn't want to let go when Fern pulls back. "I was just at the Circle," he replies, as if it were nothing, as if there hadn't been a day of such gut-wrenching tragedy as when he was taken from his family and disappeared from the world; to be fair, although he wasn't all that young, his mind has chosen not to recall the worst of it.
"I would've written if they'd let me," he continues, gripping Fern's shoulders, "but it was years before I learned how, and..." He pauses, just to smile a little wider. "You're so pretty." It's less direct compliment than delighted observation, seeing a boyhood friend anew through a man's eyes, pride swelling in him to know her.

[wheretheferngrows]

"You're so pretty."

Fern startles at the compliment before blushing, ducking her head in a sheepish smile, but maybe there's just something about the way Evry says the words that reassures her he doesn't mean it That Way. (If nothing else, this is the way she's choosing to interpret it for now.) "Thanks," she says dumbly, fidgeting a bit with the ends of her hair, before she smiles again and grabs hold of his arm. She tugs him over to one of the garden benches to sit down and catch up like they're still just kids, and it was perfectly normal for her to haul him hither and thither as was her whim.

"The Circle, all this time?" she exclaims, eyes widening. "Was it very terrible? My mentor told me awful things about her time in the Circle. Do you know Nell Voss?" She's getting ahead of herself and knows it, but with so much ground to cover after so many years apart, she's not even sure where to begin.

[lightningbugs]

Immediately Evrion feels bad for making her blush, but it passes quickly as Fern tugs him over to the bench. "Ah-- no! I liked it, actually, even if not at first--" He lands on the bench with a thud and laughs. "I'm not sure, there were a lot of people there... but I came back with Enchanter Kostos and Ser Simon, if you know either of them."

[wheretheferngrows]

She instantaneously brightens at Simon's name, a wide smile lighting up her face. "Oh, yes, I know Simon! He's the one who brought me here, actually. I got caught near a Fade rift and, well."

Fern pulls off one of her gloves with a frown and reveals her anchor shard to Evrion. It rests, mostly dormant, in her palm. "It's complicated everything now," she admits.