OPEN | Too Much Sunshine

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Nari, Lexie, Myr, Korrin, Kylo, You!
WHAT: Catchall for my gals (hmu if you want a prompt)
WHEN: Pre-Tevinter Solace
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: on a scale from Lexie to Nari, what's your work ethic?

Nari

I. Working (Gallows)

Despite the hot, sticky, relentless weather, there's still work to be done, and Nari is doing it. Sometimes in a loose light cotton tunic and sometimes stripped to a breastband and shorter leggings (she'd added the breastband after the casual habitual strip of her shirt she'd employed at home seemed to be vaguely distracting), but whether in the oppressive closeness, but shade, of the workshop or out under the blaze of the sun when it manages to peek through the haze, she's out in the Gallows at the constant repair tasks as well as light deconstruction on the finished pieces of the obstacle course to prepare for their move to the Wounded Coast.

Currently swearing and trying unsuccessfully at one of the boards securing the latter—her team had perhaps been too effective—it looks like she could use either help or a break.


II. The Beach Episode (Korrin, OTA, let's all go together)

Okay, maybe some time for leisure. As devoted as she is to working herself into a tired stupor on a daily basis, spending time with Korrin is always something that will make her take a pause. That, and it's a rare nice day. So, off they go to the beaches outside of town with some blankets to spread across the sand, some food, and the intention to heap sand on top of sand and purposefully cover themselves entirely in water that isn't falling from the sky in sheets.

It's gonna be a good day.


III. Wildcard!

She's around~



Lexie

I. It's Hot Up Here, A Lot up Here

Each day of unfavorable weather—which is to say, most of them—finds Alexandrie lounging out on the balcony of the apartments that faces the Waking Sea in dresses with fewer layers, lighter weight fabrics, and less corseting than she would wear out in society. Her hair is up more simply than usual and she looks alternately vexed and content depending on whether or not the breezes are currently blowing past her off the water.

All things considered, it is not a poor place to spend the afternoon. Do come play cards, or read, or chat about current events, or drink, or watch the late afternoon storms roll by in their brief cacophonies.

(Or be smugly used to the heat, you Tevene savages.)

[ impromptu group activities welcome :3 ]


II. Wildcard

Catch her outside painting on the two non-garbage days this month. Sit in the Memorial Garden. Something else!

Comments

Myr | A Couple of Nerds

[nadasharillen]

Rey had done some excellent work on siege engine design, and Nari had seen little way to improve on the mechanisms, but she'd been spending a decent amount of time thinking about the way ammunition could be improved. Alchemical processes had been an idea, since they could be delayed until the strike impacted the ground, but she'd been unable to think of a way to incorporate the magic they had at their disposal. It was all so... immediate.

Unable at least until one utterly unremarkable time the glyph on their door chimed as she opened it and suddenly the persistence of Myr's particular focus jolted through her mind like one of Korrin's lightning bolts. She slams the door the rest of the way open in the way she has when there's a sudden idea she needs to talk to her roommate about, and good, he's here.

"Myr! Glyphs!" Excitement! "Do they have to be broken by people to go off, or is it just the being broken that does it?"

Kylo | Being a Hypocrite

[nadasharillen]

Having become quite fond of the taciturn— albeit more open since moving in with Rey— fellow, Nari makes it a habit to pass by the forges at least once a day to make sure Kylo isn't working himself too hard in the heat. Like her, he tends to... focus.

"Hello the forge!" she calls, leaning against the fence that encloses the area, her eyes narrowing slightly against the wave of heat emanating out from the workspace. "When's the last time you took a break?"

Lexie I

[altusimperius]

Smug? Benedict? Such a fiendish accusation, he would n-- okay yeah he doesn't mind the heat much at all, except that he can't wear some of his more intricately embroidered jackets because they're too heavy. The world is truly unfair.

He's been out on a walk to get some things tailored for their sojourn up north, but at the sight of a familiar tendril of reddish hair at an equally familiar house, he pauses beneath the balcony and calls up.
"Have you melted?"

[coquettish_trees]

In response there is a loud disaffected sigh. So, yes.

"Do come upstairs Lord Artemaeus," follows a reply with actual words in it, "I would so like to see your face but am exceptionally disinclined to move."

dead

[altusimperius]

"It would be my pleasure," Bene replies, and takes the detour into the shade of the twins' foyer as he makes his way upstairs to join Lexie.

Once up on the balcony, he makes an impressed sound at the view of the sea before stepping forward to take Lexie's hand and kiss it in poised greeting. "You look wretched." Ever a gentleman.

[hwaaaitsme]

"Practicing our manners for the trip home, are we, Bene?"

Loki's voice preceeds him by a few steps. He has been a bit further in the apartments, not quite as bothered by the warmth of the indoors as much as Lexie. She is clad for staying in and, as a perfect gentleman, he has dressed down to match her.

This is not, of course, to say that he is dressed poorly. His black shirt and trousers are perfectly pressed and tailored. They are respectable in form and quality save, perhaps, for the way the front of his shirt is a bit unlaced. To nearly his navel. It hangs mostly closed. Mostly.

"Here you are, Lady de la Fontaine," Loki says as he steps alongside the chaise, two perspiring glasses of something sweet and likely alcoholic in hand. He extends one for her, on the side that Bene is kissing, and regards the other man with an arched brow.

"My apologies." He doesnt look even slightly sorry. "You shall have to ring for your own, my friend."

[coquettish_trees]

With her hand still in Bene's for the moment Lexie leans back over her shoulder to watch Loki's return with the kind of smile that suggests she may be responsible for the state of his shirt. Once offered the glass, she lightly squeezes Bene's hand with an accompanying look before extricating it to accept the drink.

"Why, the two of you are causing me to feel almost compelled to take my own turn at being so very welcoming," she says lightly, pressing the glass to her temple and closing her eyes for a few blissful moments. "But I am too warm to be clever, so instead you must play nicely." She lifts herself from her prone position on the chaise so that there's room for Loki again, should he desire to rejoin her.

[altusimperius]

"I'm always nice," Bene replies flippantly, tossing his head as he raises it from Lexie's hand and sends a similarly wry smile back at Loki. "Though I appreciate your hospitality, I won't be staying long."
Taking a few steps back, he leans against the balcony railing, resting his elbows behind him with feline languidness. "I assume you'll be joining us for the journey home?"

[hwaaaitsme]

"The Lady de la Fontaine shall be accompanying us to Minrathous, if that was what you were asking," Loki drawled as he draped himself into the space Alexandrie had made for him. His arms immediately sling over the back of the chaise. When a light breeze blows through it sets his hair just slightly askew and billows his shirt.

He could not have staged it better.

How dare this upstart kiss her hand in his presence.

"Excited to show her the Alma Mater, or just to revel in her company? Or perhaps mine?"

[coquettish_trees]

She'd intended to place herself where she had been before Loki had gotten up to refresh their drinks, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, but that was before she'd had access to this. Contrary to her earlier admonition, Lexie is more than happy to settle her back against the other side of the lounge, drape her legs— crossed at the ankles— over Loki's lap, and settle down with the drink she'd been brought to watch the two of them at each other with thinly veiled delight.

[faithlikeaseed]

"Technically, just being broken--you can set 'em off if you put one over the other the wrong way, though most of the time they'll just fizzle.

"What're you thinking?" He knows what that tone of voice and the slammed door mean; there's an anticipatory grin on his face as he tips his head in her direction, laying aside the very glyphs he's working on.

[nadasharillen]

This time Nari remembers to close the door again before continuing, but she's back at it in short order.

"So if we were to take something like, for example, a boulder, and you were to put a glyph on it," her voice moves back and forth across the length of the room a couple of times before there's finally the sound of her chair moving away from her desk and the quiet thud of her sitting, "it would remain inactive until the boulder was smashed?"

[altusimperius]

"Mm," Benedict intones, folding his arms over his chest with a look decidedly more like a sneer than a smile as he watches Loki prowl over to lie next to Alexandrie, shirt open like a common troubadour. It's not jealousy he feels, he reasons; he and Loki are expected to take up with tarts.
But one of them is firstborn, and one of them, as it so obviously shows, isn't.
"Would that we could all be so cavalier with flaunting the company we keep," he replies loftily, with a look at Lexie that's downright warm, followed by a wink. He's not insulting anyone, of course-- if they're seeing it that way, clearly they've a guilty conscience.

[hwaaaitsme]

"Oh, are you keeping company? I hadn't heard," Loki replies offhand as he takes a sip of his drink. He counters the sheer with an idle sort of smirk.

"You must be very discreet, indeed. I am impressed," he adds, almost lightly and arches a brow. "Speaking of discretion, how dare your lessons? Teaching Southerners what to expect in the homeland and how to avoid stabbings is quite a task."

[coquettish_trees]

The look and wink are met with the very slightest shrug of Lexie’s pale shoulders and an ‘apologetic’ pout that soon thereafter spreads to a warm self-satisfied smile.

Bene said he wouldn’t stay long, but she's so very amused by the proceedings that perhaps he can be enticed to linger a bit. To this end she raises her glass slightly so it can be seen over the back of the chaise and gestures at it with her closed fan before snapping the lace and ivory open again to provide a little breeze for herself as she returns her gaze to the younger man with great interest.

“Yes, do tell!” She exclaims. “Are we enthusiastic and eager students under your tutelage?”

Someone will be by soon with a drink for him.

[altusimperius]

The look Loki receives is sharp, but Bene hasn't taken the bait, not yet. He tucks a strand of shiny black hair behind his ear, a distant, pleasant expression on his face. "A task worth taking on," he replies, "when one is trying to be of use, and work toward something greater." In contrast, one might say, to lying around with trollops and stealing from nobles.
"If you like, my lady," he adds in response to Lexie, his smile taking on a charming air once again, and all at once it's like Loki was never here. "Many want to learn Tevinter's ways, but one of your particular standing should be taught privately."

[hwaaaitsme]

Oh, what a bold little gamble. Loki's stare turns a bit withering but he says nothing as he takes a drink from his glass. The fact that Alexandrie was already under his tutelage regarding the machinations of Tevene politics was neither here nor there. Let him have his fun...and let her learn what incompetence looks like.

Best to get that example out of the way early, yes?

[coquettish_trees]

"Such a thoughtful offer!" Lexie replies, perfectly happy to be the shuttlecock in this particular game of badminton. Her eyes sparkle with twinned amusement and mischief. "It is my long held opinion that opportunities to improve oneself should never be turned down, and I shall always have time in my schedule for you."

Nevermind that she already speaks fluent Tevene, has made a study of the Houses and the available knowledge on their interplay, and is up to her hips in Loki's planning, she'll take Benedict's offers hand over fist if it puts that look on her lover's face.

She takes a delicate drink from her glass and gleefully anticipates being slammed into something later.

[altusimperius]

"Then the pleasure shall be entirely mine, my lady," Bene replies with a grin, betraying no surprise when a servant arrives to hand him a drink after all. Of course they would. Don't they know who he is?
Taking a sip from the drink, he darts a glance at Loki, but that's the only attention he gives him at the moment.

I - Nari

[justice_is_blond]

"Have you considered taking a break for a cold drink?" It's absolutely hypocritical of him to ask anyone else about taking a break, he knows that, but at least he's working on his bad habits there. Slowly.

"Water, or something a little more... relaxing?" His robes are loose enough, flowy and light and pale blues, but he also enjoys the heat so he seems rather at ease. It's nice. Especially when he's spent most of the day in the dark of, well, Darktown. Sunshine and warmth is exactly what he wants.

"Or must that board meet a particular fate before you're free?"

I - Lexi

[thorndergod]

Smug is Thor's natural state of being. He calls on her in the early afternoon, dressed in a red tunic and grey pants that aren't too wildly out of place in Kirkwall.

"It is about time the weather turned to this," he says loudly, knowing very few out here will agree with him. It's time to see what his brother's fiance is actually like. Thor gestures at the cards next to her. "Are you interested in a game, my lady?"

[nadasharillen]

"It said something uncouth about mages," Nari says with a lopsided grin as she looks up at Anders, "I'm," she yanks at it again with a grunt, "defending your honor." It remains stubbornly in place. "Poorly," she amends wryly, and abandons the task for the time being to stand and stretch.

"Water would be perfect," she says with a nod. "If I get too... relaxed... I may actually devolve into debating the voidcursed thing."

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr makes a pass at tidying up his own desk as she talks, setting everything where he'll be able to find it again before pushing his chair back and turning it so he's (roughly) facing her. This is something he'll want to pay full attention to.

"Well--if you actually break up the surface the glyph's on the magic'll come apart without activating, most of the time. And if you didn't set the glyph right someone could set all your boulders off beforehand by getting too close--but..." He lapses into silence, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his chin on his crossed hands.

"...I've been working on glyphs that'll trigger in a series--you set one off and the others go once the disturbance reaches them, like ripples on a pond lifting a bunch of leaves. Might be I could make one that goes off when it's jolted physically, instead."

[nadasharillen]

Nari makes a disappointed noise at Myr's first clarification of how they work. That wouldn't do for her purposes at all. He's thinking, though, so she'll wait to set aside her new and exciting plans until he's run it through his mind a few times. After all, he tends to be as interested in solving unique problems as she is.

And there it is; or at least a possibility.

"It would have to be only a very large jolt, or the destruction of the surface, else the loading or actual flinging—" wait, she hadn't actually told him what she was thinking of. "—I'm trying to think of ways to use magic at long range during a siege. Ideally in a way that doesn't require many mages, so the same size force could have twice the impact. I thought maybe throwing glyphed boulders from a trebuchet might be an option?"

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie had been genuinely surprised to hear Marceau announce the elder Asgard, although given the sheer amount of time she'd been spending with his brother it was inevitable that Thor would come by eventually. After all, as evidenced by her conversation with Knight-Commander Norrington, she would joyously bother anyone Evie seemed to have the slightest interest in. On principle. What else is family for?

"I am sure the weather is pleased to have such illustrious support as yours, my lord," Lexie replies, rising from her recline to set aside the novel she'd been idly paging through and sitting again in a slightly more arranged fashion, "especially in the face of its many detractors."

His query after a game of cards is met with a nod, and an inclination of her head, "Have you one in mind? I am sure we know several in common, but I always enjoy learning new games." She smiles brightly. "Provided I have a patient instructor."