[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

III

[villieldr]

Magni doesn't quite loom - she has the height for it, but not the dramatic intention. She's still something of a presence, with a giant hammer resting on her shoulder. She's not terribly talkative (an understatement), and she's walking back towards her new set-up in the Gallows when she spots someone familiar. Or, rather, possibly spots someone possibly familiar, and doubles back, swinging her hammer from her shoulder and using the top of it to gently butt Marcoulf's shoulder.

Hello, friend.

[esquive]

Technically speaking, he's in the middle of something. But as far as busy work goes, watching a handful of Templars beat away on practice targets in the muggy humidity of the courtyard is the sort that can stand interruption. Not that Marcoulf's initial instinct is to appreciate being butted in the shoulder (however gently). Mouth thinned and brow set, he twists around.

He sees the hammer first and the woman connected to it second, but the recognition sparks immediately after. Nevermind that its been some years since they did their work together - her looks are familiar enough that there can be no be no mistaking her given the combination of the heavy hammer. Marcoulf offers his hand to grip her forearm or some equally familiar gesture, his spare thumb still tucked neatly in his sword belt.

"You're some way from home, madam." There's a squint-and-miss-it wryness there, a crookedness to his mouth under the whiskers that might be good humor.

[villieldr]

Magni returns the gesture - her grip is firm, steady, before she eases. Her mouth is caught in a smile that isn't understated, exactly, but certainly isn't the wild, easy grins that some around these parts are inclined to. For all that, though, it's lacking neither warmth nor sincerity.

It takes a moment for her to speak; she does so rarely. This may actually be the first time she's said something she got here. "And you."

So verbose, many word.

Perhaps being far from home is a relative term; certainly there are enough cultural clashes between Orlais and everywhere else that she feels they are not on entirely uneven ground. Setting down her hammer, she looks over to the templars, and tilts her head in a silent question, eyebrows raised - what do you think?

[esquive]

Ah. Consider him heartened to find her so unchanged.

Marcoulf squints back to the templars sparring and sweating in the yard, pausing to consider them. Eventually: a shrug and a wobbly hand gesture. "Not bad."

He's seen worse fighting forces as of not so long ago. And perhaps it's the child in him, but even now there's some appeal to the flash of heavy armor and the shape of that sign on their shields. Maybe then he speaks more to the fact of their presence here in the Inquisition as it's stuffed on complication. The templars must be as fractious a segment as any other here. He would have to be blind and dumb not to recognize that. But at least it can be said that should something go terribly wrong as it has in Kirkwall before, that someone will be around who knows a thing or two about defending against what mages might do.

Anyway. He looks to her and raises his eyebrows right back. "You?"

I

[coiledscales]

Alacruun is crossing the courtyard, a couple of books that he's borrowed from the library under his arm. His mind is elsewhere, considering the recent political developments and trying to figure out how to get a decent foothold in this organization. Playing the lackey is not something he enjoys. On the other hand, does he really want that much attention-?

Oh, wait, someone is talking at him. A human.

Alacruun blinks slowly and then looks over his shoulder, as if expecting there to be someone behind him.

"...I've never shod one of those creatures in my life, you know."

He hasn't moved yet.

[esquive]

Marcoulf pinches the nails between his thumb and finger to keep then from slipping as he mumbles across his knuckles: "--Didn't ask you to. His head. The headstall. Have a hand to check him if he pulls."

Juggling the hammer and shaped shoe into one hand, he demonstrates with the other by tucking his fingers under the leather band of the halter. Firms his grip there for a beat, then gives his new apprentice a look so blank it can only be called expectant. Nevermind his victim's apparent unfamiliarity with the work; surely any Qunari is sturdy enough to manage that much.

[coiledscales]

Alacruun looks incredibly nonplussed by all of this and he allows the moment to stretch out, until it really is awkward and he's still just staring at Marcoulf. Then he finally sighs, as if he suffers far too much for someone of his intellect and stature, and carefully sets his books down where they won't get in the way and strides over. He doesn't know horses at all.

So he simply grasps the bridle firmly and holds still. He is big and that counts for a lot.

I

[justice_is_blond]

"What, his head?" Anders looks from the man to the horse and back, hands full of the barn cat he'd come down here to visit. It sinks in that the man is not going to be able to answer with nails in his mouth, though, so after a moment of trepidation Anders gently sets the cat down and comes closer.

"I need my hands, you know." How do you hold a horse's head in a way that doesn't get you bitten?

"Hello, horse," he offers tentatively before putting his hands on the horse's cheeks. This isn't a cat or a cow or even a griffon and he has no idea what he's doing.

[esquive]

For better or worse, the moment Alacruun has a hold on the animal Marcoulf simply nods curtly, rearranges the nails held between his lips to the corner of his mouth and then goes about his business of convincing the horse to fetch up his leg like a gentleman. Gratitude must be saved for the end, right?

The problem - indeed, the reason for the impromptu recruitments - becomes immediately evident the instant Marcoulf has the heavy hoof clutched between his knees. The horse begins to lean back against Alacruun's hand, rocking all his weight against both the grip and letting the foot grow heavier and heavier as Marcoulf doggedly hammers nails into it.

The grumbling out of Marcoulf might be cursing or it might be, "Pull him forward."

[esquive]

Mistakes have been made.

That seems self evident from the moment the other man sets the cat aside and picks his way closer to the horse like a steel trap. Marcoulf only has half an ear for him then, already looking past him to see if there's someone - anyone - else he might trade in for.

Welp.

He tucks the horse shoe into his belt. And turns on his heel, for every appearance abandoning Anders to the horse's company. --For a second anyway. Marcoulf crosses the yard, fetches a bucket, and stuffs it full of hay from the pile heaped against the yard wall. When he returns, he passes the bucket to his assistant. Mumbling: "Keep his attention."

ii;

[earthbones]

Usually in the evening after she's sluiced off the filth of the smithy, Brónach heads back to the Templar tower to do some reading with Galatea, but these evenings she's too restless to inflict that on a girl. (For all that Galatea has done, she's a girl, a girl with goodness in her or the intention to it, to do something else with herself.)

So outside. Hood low. Thieves guild leathers are made for every eventuality not that they're known here and she's been curled tight to a wall for who knows how long, pressed into the shadows. She could go out. Go thieving.

Her heart isn't in it, there's no Nocturnal to nudge her here as she tilts her head to let the water run off her hood and--

"That's-- just cheese? Nothing else?" Hopeful. Maybe a little too hopeful but some people (some elves, she's a little taller than most but that left hand glows beneath the gloves) are really into their cheese.

[villieldr]

She leans against a convenient... something. A stack of barrels, maybe, fingertips tapping very lightly against the coarse, weathered wood before she purses her lips a little, tips her head to the side. Not bad seems a reasonable assessment. Some are better than others, of course. Certainly Templars have access to different training than Magni herself has ever accessed, or sought.

"They fight with expectations," she eventually settles on, after a lengthy pause that might have driven people who didn't have some familiarity with her to assume she was just never going to reply - and generally she would just have left it at body language, because more wasn't necessarily... well. Necessary. Pointing to one of them, she elaborates, "he swings his sword like he wishes it were an axe."

[esquive]

Cue a low noise of apparent affirmation. As far as he's aware anyway. That said, it's clearly the cheap kind that crumbles. There are reasons why he's been keeping it in the little wax and paper packet and all of them are to avoid it turning to paste in his pocket and nothing to do with keeping the lint out.

"They've a kind with rosemary, but this isn't that." That sort doesn't belong in a pocket even if he could afford it (ha). This isn't terrible though. It certainly beats standing in the grim, rainy evening staring at the cramped through-way leading into the Inquisition's dock space without cheese.

Simple pleasures.

[esquive]

"Common enough." he says. "Here especially." He must mean more than just the Inquisition's base level of swordmanship. Indeed, it's the kind of thing he might not even speak aloud were she not a familiar face or the type to say so little.

Is there anything about the organization's ranks more immediately obvious to a newcomer than the dissatisfaction simmering under its surface? Mages and strangers with bits of magic stuck in them; a tower full of templars; elves and qunari and everything in between. The Gallows has a feel of a kennel: a pack of barking, snapping dogs who must somehow manage to sit and stay and speak when told to. This is why you don't put all sorts in the same pot, he might have reason to think, were it not for the fact that the they seem to be accomplishing things despite it all.

They'd certainly made a difference in Orlais.

[coiledscales]

Oh, joy. Alacruun stares at Marcoulf as he starts to work with a little frown, not quite sure what (if anything) he's really meant to do besides hold this thing. His question is answered in mere moments, because the horse has decided to be difficult. Alacruun tries to get a better grip, using both hands to try and brute force the animal back into place.

"I'm doing my best-" He replies, with a hint of irritation.

His best is... managing. Sort of. The horse isn't that happy with him and it's still tugging against his hold. Even with the weight and size of a qunari, it isn't easy.

[earthbones]

That means there's always some sort of food when you're up shit creek and reduced to rummaging in your pockets. Everyone's been there at some point or another, surely. Even here. Maybe especially here, who knows.

"Who ruins cheese with plants in it?" Pushing the hood back as she says it gives a better glance of how her mouth curls at the idea of it because Skyrim had the decency at least to be filled with people who kept the cheese simple. Wheels. Wedges. Near exclusively from goats. "I've got--venison or rabbit, cured. No salt."

Not hard to imagine why, Inquisition stipends being what they are.

"Haven't seen your face before, new or good at keeping it out of the light?"

[villieldr]

For a while longer, she watches the sword training, seems focused only on that. It seems, for her, almost to play in slow motion, watching the strike and counter strike, seeing if she can predict when and where each one would move, and then move again. "There are many worse fighters," she agrees. "I hope he is having to adapt to a new weapon, and not being denied use of something he'd be better suited to."

Broader skills, good. Using a weapon because it doesn't occur to you to try something else, bad.

"When did you arrive?"

[justice_is_blond]

For that second, Anders is actually worried. Horses are big. Horses are unpredictable. And one that needs to be held still is probably even more unpredictable than most... but then the man comes back.

Anders takes the bucket while trying to not look too relieved, holding it up to the horse who is happy to start munching away.

"I take it he doesn't appreciate what you're on about down there? Are you putting shoes on him?" It's the best guess he can make. For all that he doesn't pay a lot of attention to horses, there are some things that can be guessed at. "...Have you done this much?"

[esquive]

He glances back from the sparring men and women there in the yard, tipping his face toward her. "You've grown talkative."

It's punctuated by a slim, sly smile and the edge of teeth flashing from behind his whiskers. He thinks he's funny. --Or he's avoiding the answer to her question just long enough to decide on the exact shape of the answer.

Marcoulf laces his fingers easily across the pommel of the sword at his side. Shrugs. "In Kirkwall? Just a few days. But I've been in Inquisition company for some time on the road in this direction." He cocks his head a degree farther, studying her with a look that asks, And you?

[villieldr]

To be ever so slightly contrary, Magni just shrugs, non-committal.

A moment longer of watching, and she tilts her head away from the training, towards another section of the Gallows. In the direction of the forge, in fact, if Marcoulf has become familiar enough with the area.

[esquive]

The horse digs his heels in fantastically, but somewhere between the pressure applied to the headstall and Marcoulf clamping down on every available joint, the nails are driven in. After quite a bit of scuffling and pulling and misbehavior, the shoe is secured. Marcoulf releases the animal's foot with a heavy thunk. The horse immediately shifts his weight forward and turns his head to nudge Alacruun's arm and lip expectantly at his clothes.

With a hand to the small of his back, Marcoulf straightens. "Someone's spoiled him rotten." Still, he pats the horse high on his neck and flips a few handfuls of mane back to the right side. He also glances to Alacruun and nods in apparent approval: 'Good enough.

[esquive]

He has - made himself familiar. Or at the very least, a forge makes itself hard to miss. With a last glance for the templars, Marcoulf shifts forward from whatever pillar or wall he'd taken shelter near from the midday sun. He falls in step with her willingly enough.

"The Inquisition must keep you busy." How many swords and axes and maces and Maker knows what else must the they have on hand? How many need sharpening and mending? How many more need making? More than enough for whatever smiths they have, he's certain.

"But should you find the time--" Marcoulf touches the sword at his hip.

[coiledscales]

"I wouldn't know. He's certainly not mine," Alacruun replies with a frown as he's finally freed from the onerous chore of holding a horse and gives the horse a little nudge with his arm. Don't bite his clothes, horse. He doesn't have anything for you, so you'll have to deal with being shoed without a treat. "

I usually don't ride one, anyway. Unpleasant creatures..."

To be fair, he's also usually the size of a house and can fly. That makes riding horses sort of hard. Even here, he's a qunari - he needs a large horse.

[villieldr]

A nod; absolutely, to both. She'll make it high(er) priority, even.

She doesn't hold out her hand for the blade, for two reasons. First of all, the two of them are comparatively new faces here, so whipping out a sword in front of someone skittish could lead to unnecessary melodramatics. Second of all, and perhaps more importantly, she wouldn't presume to request a friend's weapon and leave them unarmed in, again, an unfamiliar and strange place with the reputation that the Gallows and Kirkwall more generally have. Strange people from beyond the Fade, Templars, the Chantry.

The forge door way is open, stone archway and descending staircase.

"They have some good runes here. If you wanted more—" A gesture, her fist closing. Oomph.

[esquive]

With the bucket passed away and the horse happily shoving his face into it, Marcoulf fetches the shoe from his belt and fetches up the hammer-- pausing to regard his impromptu assistant and all his questions with a blank look and a definitively brief: "Yes."

Which must apply to all of the above, given the next moment he's coaxing the animal's foot up and clenching it there between his knees.

"If he pulls, rattle the bucket," he mumbles around the nails while setting the shoe on the upturned foot.