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Entry tags:
a woman like that is not ashamed to die.
WHO: Petrana, Julius, Melys.
WHAT: Nightmares, of a sort.
WHEN: Concurrent to the rifter arrival.
WHERE: The Gallows.
NOTES: Per this.
WHAT: Nightmares, of a sort.
WHEN: Concurrent to the rifter arrival.
WHERE: The Gallows.
NOTES: Per this.
( petrana wakes abruptly, a start—
a heartbeat. another. her hand presses to her chest and in the dark, nothing makes sense; blinking through shadows when she had been (falling) in broad daylight, the psychosomatic ache in her head, her shoulders, her neck. a second body, warm and heavy with sleep beside her, a comfortable bed. thaïs—
thedas. she is in thedas. this is julius's bed. she is in the gallows. she is (thirty-five) twenty-nine, and has never borne a second daughter, and is going to be sick. she doesn't mean to wake julius but it seems unlikely he will somehow sleep through being climbed over, suddenly, scrambled over in her haste to find the basin and empty the meagre contents of her stomach into it, clinging to the edges of the table beneath. heaving great, ugly breaths.
i have died, she thinks, and then, no, and somehow, that's worse.
petrana de lammorraine is dead. alone and afraid and having known no life but the one stolen from her. and petrana de cedoux is—
weeping. )
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Still, it's only moments before he's moving to her side.]
Petrana -- Petra. What's wrong?
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she's free; she never was. she says, )
I—
( she hiccups on a sob, hates the indignity of it. tries again. )
I need you to find Melys. Please. Melys, she's redhaired, and short an arm, she's often in the stables, I need her to be here, please.
( the effort she makes to ask this politely is somewhat undermined by the urgency of the request, how tightly she's still gripping the table. )
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...alright. But will be... it may take me some time to find her, even if I'm hurrying.
[He's clearly reluctant to leave her entirely alone in this state.]
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( and she doesn't want to be left alone, particularly, not under the circumstances, but -
she would have melys here. doesn't want to have to wait any longer than it takes to do, and it won't be quick, he's right, so he should go. she could go, but she thinks of the stairs and balks, which is going to be a problem but a problem that can wait.
it can wait. she can wait. this is just one more thing. a small thing: the rest of her life. )
Please, Julius. I will - I'm going to clean this up.
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[He isn't sure, obviously, but he's already reaching for proper clothes, reluctant to be still in the face of her urgency.]
Can I do anything for you before I go, at least?
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It’ll be well after midnight by the time Julius makes his way to the correct cell (a tiresome bit of navigation: boatman to bar to the aftermath of some sort of brawl — provided good sense doesn’t just skip him to his destination), but the air stifles with late heat, bakes it into the stones.
The usual gaggled collection of petty criminals bides their time behind bars dozing, or chatting, or staring out into the dim hall beyond. It’s a bored guardsman who shows Julius down, waiting expectantly for something between bail and a bribe. Melys rouses herself from a corner to investigate, a spectacularly fat dwarf trailing behind.
"Oi, what’s this now, Greg."
Greg mutters something low as he goes about fitting key to lock, something that includes the words fucking Fereldens. Melys steps back a pace to watch, fist curled and eyes lingering on Julius with sudden suspicious intent.
Everyone present smells a bit like stale beer, and piss, and vomit. So. Like Kirkwall, basically.
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He does look like someone who can pay the right amount of money to get Melys out of her cell, though. (Probably something to do with how recently he's washed his hair.)
"Melys," because he has no reason to doubt it's her given the description. "We've not had a chance to meet, but my name is Julius. I'm here on the behalf of a mutual friend." Whose name he'd prefer not to blurt out in front of Greg and whoever else is here, though he will if she makes him.
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(There are cheaper ways to kill someone here.)
"Right," She agrees, with the abrupt velocity of the slightly drunk. "Julius. Bosom,"
"Helluva surname," The dwarf rumbles.
"Bosom pals," Melys less corrects than just continues. "Him and me."
The door rattles open, and she claps hand to Julius' shoulder, makes an effort to beam. Greg doesn't seem to care. The dwarf slips free behind them, having invited himself along.
"'S it," Melys leans in with her full weight to speak directly into his ear. Mages only mean so many things, and it's difficult to imagine that any of them involve bailing her out. "If 's that Nevarran cunt she can shove that staff where —"
It's definitely not Nell. Melys isn't an idiot. But you've got to start a conversation somewhere.
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For all that no one farther away than Melys can probably see it... he's worried, and he'd rather get moving sooner than later. She doesn't have any reason to trust him, he supposes, but also he's not sure what she imagines he could get out of lying about it.
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That’s bad.
That’s bad; Petra doesn’t ask for anything. Her eyes don’t lift, her mouth doesn’t purse, but the pressure of fingers upon his shoulder tenses hard— covered poorly by the way her arm swings forward, to wrap about them entire. It’s a bit of an awkward stretch.
"She’s married, y’know,"
Idly, which is to say, not idly at all. Early to bed, early to rise, makes for a pretty clear idea on why this guy (Researcher? Probably, half the bloody mages are) has shown up in such a hurry.
Not like it matters that she’s married. Not as though the prick’s here — yet — and it’s not as though Julius particularly needs to know. She wants to hear what he says back.
Greg waits for the money before turning them loose, coughs with an expectant lift of his eyebrows to the dwarf, already slipped free past to the street beyond. That was two. You’re paying for two, Julius.
"I got a quicker way back." Melys rumbles. "How d’you feel on heights?"
Probably that they're better taken sober, but time's apparently an issue here.
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(He has a brief, uncomfortable moment of picturing some man turning up out of a rift and announcing he was Petrana's husband. He puts the thought aside as intensely unhelpful.)
Regardless, the tone was fairly neutral, besides the ongoing worry. He pays, possibly for three because he's not paying attention (or because he'd prefer Greg not complain about this later).
"I'm not bothered by heights, especially. Quicker is probably best. Lead on."
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(Mentioned, and it might be the polite shrug-off it could be for anyone, but two can do that, and it's an awful wide space for words to play. How much has she mentioned, exactly? How much of it nothing she didn't want him to know?
At least he can keep his temper.)
It’s not a short walk to the docks — particularly to cut a path wide about Darktown — but shorter than it might be, shivering another few hours in the dark or purloining a pair of oars. Empty chatter spills to fill the silence, a sprawling narrative beneath her breath about this ratfucker or that. Their steps wind out between boats, beyond the merchant vessels and on towards the Inquisition’s array of cramped warehouses.
They’re well into the compound, past another tired guard on shift, before Melys relinquishes Julius at last to shove two fingers in her mouth and whistle. The creak of wood, rustle of — canvas?
Nothing happens.
"C’mon, you great pisser," She mutters. Another whistle, impatient. "Fuck's sake."
A huge shape unfolds itself from the roof above, turns heavy eyes down to reflect lamplight through the gloom. Weight scrapes on shingles, and Melys shoves off Julius at last, paces back. The reason for this may become apparent when several hundred pounds of white feathers and extended talons vaults into the street directly in front of him, to lift its beak in his face and scream.
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Julius is not a man many people have seen visibly surprised, much less off-balance. But he definitely takes at least two distinct steps backward before he catches himself and stops.
"...Maker," he says, faintly, to no one in particular.
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Under other circumstances, Julius’ face might be hilarious. But the contrast of restraint, or rather, its memory — of Kit sprawled flat on his ass —
Tonight eats at her belly, leaves impatience behind.
"Oh, give it a rest." Maybe it’s familiarity — or a side effect of having fewer fingers to lose — but Melys reaches over without hesitation to scratch Monster's fluffy throat, neatly avoids the irritated stomp of lion’s paws. "Know I’m late."
She waves a stump at Julius.
"'S alright. She won’t take nothing y’won’t miss." Reassuring?? "Harness ’s in the trunk inside. Think there’s some fish too. Chuck her that, and she’ll warm right up."
There is, in fact, a bucket of fish guts. It’s pretty old by now, so the flies are delighted. There's also a saddle, tack that's peculiar in make, and stamped in griffin seal. These are a bit heavy, so it’s probably super helpful to shout at him to hurry up.
By the time he returns, Monster will be rolling on her back in the puddled muck, enthusiastically getting her belly rubbed. Melys just looks tense.
"Julius, yeah?"
That is his name, yes. There's a caution to the slur of words that only succeeds in emphasizing it.
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Julius is, at least, adept at following directions. He has no experience with griffins, and so the best way forward is clearly to listen to the woman who is petting this one like a large and winged mabari. And, to his credit or otherwise, he doesn't hesitate to take the fish guts, for all he gives the impression of a thoroughly domesticated man.
"She asked me to fetch you."
And for all everything since has been... deeply not what he expected, he trusts Petrana. He trusts her to know her own mind, and in her ability to read others.
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It's not pleasant, but those are pleased sounds. Probably. When she's finished, she pulls back, butts the side of her feathery head hard against his chest.
"She doesn't," Petrana. Grammar slips, unpleasantly, awkwardly correct. "She doesn't do that."
There's an unspoken question in that, one she knows better than to expect he can answer. Maybe there's some admission to it too: It's bad, he came, he didn't need to know. Speaks to a certain decency, maybe, or just how hard he's whipped.
He's a man. How different could it be.
"Ask. For people, for — dunno, shit. She don't ask." It's a few minutes hauling on the saddle, arranging the harness. Monster watches him from wide hopeful eyes, gaze tipping occasionally back to the bucket. Is it somehow full again? No reason. Just curious. Melys hauls herself up, hand extended down to him. "You oughta know."
"Hold tight. There's straps for cargo." Her own look a bit more securely fastened. A breath, she recollects the previous thought: "You do know?"
Someone's going to have to soon.
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"I knew she didn't ask me." And it hadn't been long enough yet to be sure whether that was him or anyone, regardless of his suspicions. Then again, he could hardly blame her for being self-contained. It wasn't as if he were any better.
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Heavy wings beat down, brush the surface, dip and make to drag under. A close moment, and then they're properly aloft, surf disappearing beneath black. The night grows thinner, colder for the distance: Breath stretched into stars like those above Skyhold's frigid expanse. Free of the crowd of buildings, the press of the streets, one might forget that it's summer at all.
"Way I see it," At last, coughing out (a fly? something) swallowed on the way up, "Pressing it, that shuts folks down. And if you give something first,"
A sucked breath through her teeth.
"Ain't no saying you'll get it back. But being there, you see things. You got eyes," She's rambling again now, disjointed, and it's a little easier to remember that an hour ago she was sitting in the drunk tank. "You'll see. And you see more. The more you... See."
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When he does, though, he gives her a serious answer. "I am hoping she'll let me stay long enough. I intend to try, at least." A pause, then: "You two are close?"
It's not accusative. Of course she wouldn't have mentioned. That's what they're discussing, in a way.
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She will owe more favours, for pulling her out of bed, but the basin is dealt with and herbs burning against the bitter, lingering smell of bile in the air. She has pulled a robe around herself, awkwardly not her own; they aren't keeping belongings in each other's room, yet, but now it feels strange and uncomfortable to need something of his, for it to be this moment, for Melys to come here, but the thought of bestirring herself anywhere else...she would like to be a hundred other places, she would like very much to be at the bottom of the stairs and not obliged to return up them, but the prospect of stairs at all is daunting. Unwelcome. The baths at the bottom, and the probable isolation of them at this hour, more appealing, but Melys is coming, Julius went to fetch her.
The waiting is interminable. Intolerable. She forgets it, at once, when the door opens.
“He killed me,” she says, train of thought colliding abruptly with moment as if it ought to make sense. She stands up, clutching the too-large robe around herself, fingers white-knuckled, pale and difficult and still aching where her body did not, in fact, collide with anything. She starts as if to go to her, stops, and then starts again; presses her face to Melys's shoulder, repeats: “He killed me,” as if she can't quite believe what's coming out of her own mouth.
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"When?" It's a stupid thing to ask; it isn't as stupid as who or why, else scraping some thin sympathy over dismissal. You get used to the dreams, but this is different. Slept in her room often enough to know they both reckon pretty well on dreams.
Fever, again? Can't tell for the damp — somewhere along the walk, salt's slicked into sweat. It clings clammy to her neck, dampens the robe in little wet transfers of down. The taste of sky muddled for waves; small blessings.
No, not fever. Julius wouldn't have left. Her arm slings about Petra on what seems lately to be second nature, small and sturdy and sized for the crook of it. It's never done good to think that way, this hasn't ever been that. But something strange in the hour, in those words (he killed me) sets more than just her head to aching.
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“My life, without me. A whole life without any of this.”
I dreamed makes it sound like it could be something lovely; it is only ugliness written in the voice that shape the words.
“He killed me,” she repeats, so much quieter. “He took my child from me—all of it for naught—”
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Well, visions happen too.
"Not for naught," Real enough, but still a leap she can't quite stretch, the leg between a life and multiple. Visions happen, because they didn't. She's here. "Not long, 's not the same as nothing."
Clearly they're still talking about Veda. What baby.