[OPEN] falling through what's left of the fractions

[esquive]

WHO: Marcoulf & YOU
WHAT: Keeping busy and getting re-acquainted with Kirkwall's hot goss
WHEN: Early Bloomingtide
WHERE: All Over Kirkwall
NOTES: Can be before or after phylactery shennanigans.

I. JUST HORSIN' AROUND - THE STABLES

Tang! The sound of a hammer on iron rings in the courtyard.

Early on, Marcoulf had made the mistake of refitting one of the roan mare's shoes in sight of someone with a keen eye for putting new faces to work. Meaning his afternoon has been filled with putting bits of metal on an whole assortment of hooves - a number of which belong to animals not half so patient as the roan he'd ridden in on. The struggle to keep his subjects still has begun to plant an ache in his lower back and bruise the inside of his knees. The muggy pending-thunderstorm heat has the whole yard sweating.

Tang! He twists the cold shoe on the anvil horn and wails on it once or twice more, allowing himself to be purposefully finnicky over the shape. Anything to delay putting the nearby horse's leg up between his again. A moment ago the stupid animal had tried very hard to pull away while Marcoulf had been driving nails and nearly put its foot where it emphatically didn't belong. When he can put it off no longer--

"You." Yes, you. "Hold his head a moment." Marcoulf gestures to the horse with the hammer and jams a few nails between his lips.

II. GUARD DUTY - WHEREVER THAT HAPPENS

The rain falls so thick that come evening, visibility relies entirely on pools of barely sheltered lamplight. The weather's so heavy that it's surely driven even the most dedicated Inquisition sentries have retreated into doorways and into whatever shelter can be eked out of the shadow of Kirkwall's imposing walls.

Marcoulf certainly has anyway. His cloak, once waterproofed, has become sodden enough that the damp has begun to penetrate and the rain is so bad that he can't imagine anyone would choose tonight to cause trouble. No need to make themselves more miserable than necessary.

At some point, he produces a paper packet from a pocket. There's cheese in it. He offers it wordlessly to his companion. Sharing is caring.

III. A LONG LIST OF TO-DOs - MISC.

He sits poorly. Marcoulf can be found in a variety of Kirkwall's corners, quietly fussing over some task or another. He has a sword in need of sharpening, a pittance of coin in need of spending (new shirts, please and thank you), and some good old fashioned gossiping to eavesdrop on. The city's rife with talk and he intends to take in some part of it.

Need a note run? A sparring partner? Looking for an escort through shady back alleys at night? Despite what the scraggly appearance might suggest, you could pick worse.

((ooc: I'm good for whatever, but if you're thinking of something in particular that you want a starter for just shoot me a PM and I'll scrape something together.))

Comments

[earthbones]

When people can make the Stormcloaks and Imperials look competent, it says something. Of course that'd take her trying to untangle religion and politics that start getting complicated along the way so that was probably enough. This is good. This feels like the old complaints.

"Any of them those weird mages," a careful swallow, coughing past a crumb and not her distaste, absolutely not. "The mages from there? The ones doing things with the dead? Types like that or the scholars always needed escorting someplace they had no business being. Ploughing into some ruin because a book said they needed to go there but they'd trip over their own sword."

If they had one. If they didn't set you on fire with the first spell they set off or alert every damned thing in the barrow to both of you because traps are indeed a thing.

"Food could be better for what they pay us," she says after a moment. "Shouldn't have to go hunting this often because they're hurting for meat on the plate."

[esquive]

"Neither of them mages." It's said with a clipped, distinctive quality that says he'd probably have avoided them were that the case. "Closer to the other kind."

Which had made falling in with them easy. They'd been free enough with what coin they'd carried between them and reasonably good company the whole way to the border, and said very little about his business in Orlais. Apparently one or both of them had said something that was convincing, or his curiosity had finally gotten the better of him, or--

Anyway.

"There's worse places to be with worse food--" He's picking a string of venison from between his teeth now, squinting through the sheeting rain. And pauses, attention fixing there at the mouth of the narrow roadway on which they've been posted. There are three figures traipsing along in this direction, all of them wrapped in oiled cloaks against the weather. Could be a scouting contingent in from their post beyond the city. Could be anything. It's hard to tell in the grim shadows of Kirkwall at night under rain.

Marcoulf stuff the cheese back into his pocket, dusts his fingers on his shoulder, then pulls up the hood of his own cloak. He snaps his fingers at her and steps out into the rain.

[earthbones]

A noise comes out of her throat, aiming for sympathy because Y'ffre's green-knotted bones has she watched scholars get in amongst situations they've had no reason to be in amongst. Or, more commonly, read their hopeful journals prised out of their skeletal and/or charred fingers. Poor Lydia living the glamorous life of a housecarl attending to all of those propped up on the shelves.

"We've amateurs here. Surveys. Medical one is being kept locked tight but if you want to skirt it…" If it does the rounds again, Brónach feels better for giving a warning when she was one third of that whole act, somehow. Maybe as the jumpy paranoid one hissing about it the whole time. The elf for any of the elves who didn't want two humans taking their notes. "And how's anyone meant to be fighting full of grains?"

But whatever else is cut off when her mood changes, the relaxed joking going out of her voice as she straightens out of the comfortable slouch to slide a hand over the dagger at her hip; without prayer, without charity and without celebration does a Nightingale serve Nocturnal so she moves to shadow Marcoulf, presses tight into the wall. She might be far from where she was, even so she knows how to step to keep herself quiet, unseen.

Taking a deep breath, she calls out three words, "Zul Mey Gut," the words a rasped whisper but thrown the other way from her and Marcoulf to distract the trio since it doesn't sound like it's coming from their direction.