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Entry tags:
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WHO: Yseult, Darras, Beleth, Wren (eventually)
WHAT: a reunion, a heist gone wrong. as the saying goes, to catch a pirate you gotta have pretended to be a pirate for like almost a year and then also just be in the right place at the right time.
WHEN: nowish, but at night
WHERE: the Gallows, a tower
NOTES: none yet
WHAT: a reunion, a heist gone wrong. as the saying goes, to catch a pirate you gotta have pretended to be a pirate for like almost a year and then also just be in the right place at the right time.
WHEN: nowish, but at night
WHERE: the Gallows, a tower
NOTES: none yet
There are now twenty-six doors between Darras and the sea.
He's kept count. Twenty-six, a curtain wall he's scaled, and some smaller walls as well. The arduous climb up the bloody craggy face of the cliff--that one was almost fun, with saltwater spitting up around him as the waves crashed against the rock far below. Far more Darras' style than creeping about inside a fortress, or whatever it is they'd call the Gallows.
And each obstacle he's overcome, each threshold he's crossed, each door that he closed carefully, soundlessly, behind him--well, it would be poetic, to say that each one has wound Darras tighter, increased his tension, over-tuned him until he was quivering like the string of a crossbow. Perhaps that's how he'll retell this, later, if in the moment of retelling the tension suits his narrative purpose.
In actuality, Darras is calm. Like a flea, he'd crawled up those sea cliffs. Like a flea, he moves now. Sure and he's no master thief, but he's done his share of thieving. Less like this, moving like smoke across stone floors and courtyards, skirting by Inquisition guards as best and as easily as he can. Dressed head-to-toe in darker colors, to blend him in--no tell-tale all black, that's like flashing a calling-card that says I AM HERE TO STEAL in sixty-foot block letters. Dark colors for concealment, but he walks like anyone else, so the few times he's been caught face-to-face with some Inquisition innocent walking back to their tower rooms or making some late-night visit to the kitchens, well then, he's looked just like--well, a man, out for a stroll. A man who favors dark colors, and who walks easily, if a little quietly, on account of Darras' new-bought and very quiet boots of supple leather that won't give him away with an errant squeak.
And he'd left his falchion behind on the Fancy in favor of two plain daggers, easily concealed to preserve that image. And a lockpick, of course, which he slips into his hand now that he's face-to-face with the twenty-seventh door.
He makes quick work of it, slips in to the little antechamber beyond. The Inquisition, as he's heard it, is a humble cadre. Easy to believe, what with this contingent squatting in the Gallows here at Kirkwall. Darras has clapped eyes on it before, in passing. And of all the times he's put in at Kirkwall, or sailed on by, Darras has never much fancied darkening these particular doorsteps.
But the Inquisition has got something he wants, so he's here, with the Fancy lying some ways up the Wounded Coast, waiting for him to return with that single bit of treasure he's promised his crew.
Now, the Inquisition has precious little treasure to recommend it. Runs clean, lean, no great stockpiles of gems and gold left lying about to be thieved up. Luckily (and isn't he nearly always a man of luck), Darras wants precious little treasure.
In the antechamber, there's a short flight of stairs--four, shallow risers; Darras takes them in two strides--and then the narrow notched doorway to the room proper, just beyond. Larger than the antechamber, but that's easy enough to accomplish. High ceiling, and four windows cut high on the wall. Through two of those windows, there's streaming in these shafts of pale moonlight. This part of the tale will require little embellishment.
And here's four chests, big strong ones with hefty locks. Darras passes right by them, bound instead for the smaller chests set out on the table pushed up against the western wall. There's a ledger book beside them, a stack of older ledgers just behind. Quill, ink, all closed up and put away neat. Darras wastes little time. He counts the small chests: six, of varying sizes. Two painted red, the rest plain wood. The smaller of the red is what he goes for, snaps it up and stuff it in the sack he's carrying at his side. He's got the sack lashed to his belt with a bit of rope, for security, and when he shoves aside his coat to get at it, the belt buckle flashes gold in the moonlight.
Garish, Yseult had once called it. Proper for a pirate. Darras doesn't think of her, until he turns around to go back through those twenty-seven doors and all those walls and corridors and courtyards. He turns around and there's her ghost standing there.
He doesn't yell out. He doesn't say anything. He freezes, dead.
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What precisely that business is her contact didn't know, just something from the high tower, some talk of all the walls and floors and doors the thief was prepared to best, confident in his boast that neither cliff nor watch nor lock could keep him from his prize. Typical pirate, she'd thought, the attitude if not the crime itself. She'd gotten the message late, the moon already high, the theft already in progress. Little chance of catching him on the climb, or spotting him out among the milling crowds of Inquisition faces she doesn't yet know. Risk in raising a full alarm before she's sure it's happening at all. A quick message to those who matter, instead, easier played off if he never shows. A quiet corner found where she can wait and see. It doesn't take long, not ten minutes from finding her perch in the dark til now, stepping out from the shadows to block the door, his only means of escape.
The faint glow from the box is enough to recognize him by, just before he puts it in the sack. She's all in black herself, color drained from her skin by the moonlight. The eeriness of it is ruined as soon as she speaks: "Oh, you idiot."
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Darras isn't thinking anything that clever. The moment he takes is a blank, lasts a moment, and then longer, as he tries to work himself to understanding just what it is he's looking at.
Surely she's dead. Surely. Because the last news he had of her, was nothing, and he'd come to the only conclusion he could, which is that she was killed, because that's the only way it could have ended. And whatever he thought, after that, whatever he'd remembered of the last time they spoke, it all washes away as he stands staring across the room at her shade, or whatever this is.
Only when she speaks, he knows that it's her. A ghost's mouth wouldn't twist in just that way when she delivers that line. As impossible as it is--but it's Yseult, isn't it. If anyone could slip away, get free, escape what would have been death for someone else--
He steps toward her. Despite himself, he steps toward her. His tread is heavier, not half so quiet as he'd been entering the room now that he's got that chest tied to his belt.
"What," is all he can think to say. And then nothing else.
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Yseult steps forward, not to meet him, but to gesture at the sack at his hip, the faint glow sneaking through the loose weave of the burlap. "You're about to get caught, Darras, take the box out of your bag, now. And for Maker's sake, follow my lead."
There isn't time to say anything more, only to turn back toward the door. There's no mistaking them coming, now, and down the hall one of the guards is telling the Commander and the Scoutmaster, for what is not the first time and in what he means to be a whisper, that he's sure he saw the man headed up this way.
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And even as he's blacking out these possibilities, even as he's thinking through his odds of escaping whatever bleak dungeon they've got in the Gallows, and thinking through grimmer fates, direr circumstances--there's a part of Darras that does want to cross to Yseult, to take her by the arms and pull her close.
It never even occurs to him to take it out of the bag. The chest? His gaze flickers back to her, and a frown tugs at his mouth.
"You have no idea," he says, a little too loud, "what you're asking, of me, saying that." The chest is for her, in a way. Buying time, while Darras buys information, about whatever became of Tavino's quartermaster. And here's Yseult, in the flesh, with her face shut to him. Beautiful and terrible, both at once. "Follow your lead? When you've been as good as dead, for--how long? And never a word, to me, and now you're here, a bloody ghost--"
Or not bloody. Bloodless, as neat and efficient and ordered as ever, and Darras closes a few more steps between them, as if there isn't someone at the door, as if he doesn't have stolen property lashed to his side in a sack.
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She steps close, a misleading urgency in her approach, only to produce a knife from up one sleeve and neatly slice the ties attaching the sack to his belt. His prize in her hands, she steps back, almost before he's had a chance to register the proximity, and turns back to the door once again, stripping the bag from the chest and throwing it into the corner just in time as the Division Heads and at least the one guard arrive in the doorway.
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There's a sword, and not armor, because poorly-dressed strangers rifling priceless artifacts in the dead of night seldom wait politely while you struggle on your fucking vambraces —
"Drop," The jerk of her chin to the chest; her eyes don't leave Yseult, straining to judge Darras from their corners. Must be Buckles, and that'd be worse odds if the guard and Ashara weren't themselves a few paces away. How the Scoutmaster's gotten the tip-off, she can only guess. Right now, it seems like a later question. "Hands in front of you."
(Someone should probably make that sooner.)
The guard's face bobs into view at her shoulder, expression mingling relief and concern to come out looking as though he badly needs to pee. He lingers, uncertain whether he's meant to clear the way for Beleth or charge before her; settles for inching back, fingers wrapped around his own blade. Discretion is the better part of valour. And he really does need to pee.
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...Kirkwall, probably. Figures.
Way now cleared, she steps into the room, as unarmored as Wren, and clearly having just recently been roused from sleep. She’s wearing little more than a robe over the shift she sleeps in. But her hands are steady, aim sure as she points her bow at the gaudy stranger. Electricity dances in ribbons over the wood, giving additional light to the room.
"Yseult," It’s a struggle to sound authoritative when every force in Thedas wants to wake you up at 2am. "Is the person who asked me to come here, and I assume has an explanation for this?" A nod to the irritatingly attractive man, with terrible taste in accessories.
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Well, surely she deserves being left behind, thinks a part of Darras. Surely she can save herself, if she needs saving.
The new arrival onto the scene is in the form of a half-dressed elf with a light-up bow that puts him in mind of a thunderstorm itself, makes the little hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. That's the bit that makes Darras feel outclassed. Magic isn't entirely foreign to him, and magical artifacts are especially less than foreign--but he's not had cause to be facing it down directly. The second bit that catches at him is that the elf calls Yseult by name. By her true name, no alias, and Darras' gaze jumps back to Yseult herself. Still a glare, tinted with more expectancy than before. When has Yseult been Yseult, and nothing else?
"She asked you, did she?" The corner of his mouth tugs into a smirk, directed right at Yseult. He is not following her lead. And he does not have his hands in front of him, but the guardswoman was talking to Yseult, so that's all right. Darras looks unarmed besides. (And finely dressed, thanks.) "And who are you, that she'd be reporting such things to you?"
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"You can drop the act now," she says to him, "This is Scoutmaster Ashara, who I alerted as we discussed. And Commander Coupe." She nods politely to Wren, "A pleasure to meet you. Allow me to introduce my associate, Darras. We apologize for waking you, but security is often weakest in the small hours, and it was important to give it a proper test based on the plans we heard. I'm pleased to see that the guard did spot him. It speaks highly of your Watchmen."
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She repeats, simply. Live by the sword, die haranguing your loved ones about how no one listens to you.
"How long?" To Beleth, for all that she doesn't shift her gaze to exchange a look of incredulosity with Beleth's back, or to meet Darras' very dashing glare. The point of the blade stays where it is: Steel, and very sharp, and wholly underwhelming next to — whatever that is. Where did Beleth even get that. "The agent, how long have you known her?"
It'd be a fine way to case the place. Not that there aren't plenty in their ranks who would do something so foolish as this in good faith. It's just that most of them have glowing green hands, or facial tattoos, or know who they're pretending to rob.
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"A week or so," She replies to Wren, which would normally just make things worse for Yseult, because a week is a perfect time to plant an informant, let them case the joint before the heist. However--"She came on behalf of Count Lloris of Hercinia, which I had verified. And she did send the letter, which seems like a poor idea if you're planning anything illegal."
Yseult's explanation is...a lot to consider, more consideration than Beleth wants to attempt while half-asleep and in her pajamas. Rusty gears clank in her head, and after a few moments, she follows up with, "This was a test?" which is pretty much what Yseult just said, but it bares stating again.
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"A test," he repeats, instead. Dull. With everything else held in his periphery, he's kept his stare on Yseult, can't stop himself from looking at her, and not just because she was, not five minutes ago, probably dead. Not just because he still wants to seize hold of her and not let her go. Not just because he still wants that bloody chest. "Yeah."
Which, to be sure: is not an entirely convincing endorsement. Following her lead is not so easy. Putting on an act of obedience, fighting down the urge to cut and run, and the likewise clamoring urge to seize Yseult, and the urge to seize Yseult by the arms and hold her in place so he can pick up an argument far more private with her--this is a great deal to ask of a man deep in his feelings.
Still somewhat mutinous, Darras looks back at the representatives of the Inquisition. Chin raised a little. Small tight smile. "Only I'm not with Count Lloris of Hercinia." A name he's going to remember. Yseult has always been careful with her details. "Truth be all told, I don't know much about nobility at all. But I do know thieves, and this place you've got here?" He strikes the heel of his boot against the pavingstones of the floor. "Ooh, it's tops. Difficult. Anyone'd have a time of it. Good work to you all."
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The temptation to shoot him a Look is incredible, but luckily she's a professional and unlike certain people who will go unnamed, able to control her face.
"Yes," she answers Beleth more directly, though her eye contact shifts to Wren often enough to include her, "It was a test, and also a preventative measure. We learned this evening that there was a plan to steal this item," she drums her fingers against the box she's still holding, "By this route. I asked Darras to volunteer to do it, to test whether it was possible, and--by getting caught--to dissuade those who think the Inquisition is a soft target. I apologize for the cryptic note," she adds, and her smile, small and crooked, does look earnest, "I thought it would be easiest to explain in person, but perhaps erred too much on the side of brevity."
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Frowning. A lifetime guarding people who’d generally prefer that she didn’t means coming to hold compliments — even those that mostly serve to lionize certain thieves — in suspicion. The attitude’s an irritant; the attitude helps.
(As do several weeks of already minimal rest.)
"May we not repeat this charade." Hercinia. Does Hercinia have any reason to want to wool one over on them? Kirkwall, perhaps, by proximity. But this is Beleth's area. At some point you have to let go.
The tip of the sword lowers, is sheathed.
"That they should be dissuaded asks the appearance of consequence."
And whatever his intentions, a man who knows thieves has just seen far more of the Gallows’ interior than she’d like.
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And Yseult herself has only given Beleth reason to trust her. Once again: Why would she send the note, if she had malicious intentions?
But there's also Darras to consider, and Beleth turns back to him, purple eyes shining in the light of her bow as she studies him intently. Whatever his intentions, the undeniable proof was that he had successfully broken into the Gallows, and this secure room. And that made him valuable. And if his intentions were anything but pure, that made him trapped.
"I agree with Commander Coupe, and perhaps consider adjusting the time to a more reasonable hour. But what you've done is very impressive." She strides across the room, over to Darras, holding out a hand. The smile is polite, but with an underlay of I am really tired and half-dressed and I want to go back to bed more than I want to deal with you. "Welcome to the Inquisition, Ser...?"
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The sword is gone now, some of the more overt tension done with, but he's still got to ask.
Regardless of a real answer from any of the assembled, he drops his hands with the air of a man brushing the dust off, there, that's over with, fallen into an act of charming helpful erstwhile thief-turned-thief-catcher, if not quite following Yseult's lead. All of this puts him in a place to accepts Beleth's handshake, with jaunty ease. The rope from the sack is still tied to his belt, its cut ends hanging. That puts him in mind that he still wants that chest, and maybe that fine glowing bow, while he's at it. For his trouble, like.
"Wish I could say it's a pleasure and all, but I'm a bit preoccupied with the thought of consequence dangling over my head. I'm not interested in charades. If it helps, the next time I soft rob your fine old Gallows, I'll send a letter of my own first. Give you Inquisitional types a chance to buff the armor of your guards there, get a proper night's rest, a bit of breakfast... We can manage that courtesy, eh, Yseult?"
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At least, be named as her responsibility, should anyone take a mind to slip out.
"I imagine she may find my office." She steps for the door, pauses to add: "We might save your pay for you, a time. The illusion of conscription. But I leave this to the Scoutmaster's discretion."
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She is quiet another moment, thoughtful, and then adds, "It may be best if he is not seen outside the Gallows for a time, as well. To add to the illusion of conscription, and suggest to those less-informed that he may even have been imprisoned or killed."
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Does anyone care enough to come looking for him, with less pure intentions than these?
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Except his ship, except the second he's clear of this, he'll be out the door and back aboard the Fancy, sailing away from all of this. Away from Kirkwall, from the Gallows--away from the Inquisition and their poor treasure store, their scoutmasters and commanders and half-asleep guardsmen--away from Yseult, which he both wants and does not want, a constant shifting that's left him feeling wrong-footed, like a man trying to hold his balance in a strong tide.
"A man without attachments or masters, free to be choosing what he wants and where he wants t' go. So what's this about not being let outside of the Gallows? Sounds suspiciously like imprisonment. I know what she's like," he adds to Beleth, though the jerk of his chin indicates he's talking about Yseult. "Cold like the Frozen Seas. What about her, though? The one with the sword. She always like this?"
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She gives his hand a good, firm shake, and then withdraws it, listening to suggestions from both Yseult and Wren. And speaking of--"Commander Coupe is the head of the Forces Division. She takes her responsibility to keep us safe seriously, and does a commendable job of it." Which is a yes, she's always like that.
"I will leave whether you wish to work for her or myself up to your discretion, but I think that you--" And here, she turns to Wren and Yseult, "both had good ideas. We'll keep him here without pay for now, and ease him into his new responsibilities. It wouldn't be the first time we've conscripted somebody who had attempted to steal from us, so there will be a precedent for them to believe."
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Well, once Darras could have said, with reasonable authority, what Yseult would do. Now he doesn't know. Like that sinking pitch, when you step forward thinking there's a step there and your foot comes down on only air.
What he would say, if it were only the two of them, is that she had better help him, and not make this worse. Darras can make it perfectly worse all on his own, with no help from anyone. Case and point, he turns that look on Beleth instead.
"Maybe you didn't hear her. I wasn't attempting to steal." Not strictly a lie: he was getting away with it, so it was better than an attempt. "And I'm not here to be conscripted by any of you, for any reason. Not here to join up, not here for anything, other than--"
What exactly was Yseult's lie? Besides stupid, made-up, transparent--but when he looks back at her again, that's where he sees his first reason to stay. Soft, sentimental, foolish, when she's made clear how she feels about him and his kind. He can't help it.
"It was a test," Darras finishes. It's somewhat delayed, as he was busy sorting through Yseult a little. And what would she say, if she were talking now? She'd lie. She'd buy time. All right. "Now, if you want to be discussing this in the morning, after everyone's had a bit more rest, feeling a bit more reasonable, thinking sensibly--I'd be amendable."
Amendable, and gone. Yseult will surely know that. The rest of them won't, and he'll be well gone before they've worked him out.
"Put guards on me if you like. Your commander can spare the one half-asleep back there, yeah? He doesn't look like he's doing much."
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It requires substantial effort to resist the urge to sigh, but she holds out at least until he is finished, shaking her head as if as exasperated by this as Beleth and Coupe must be, maybe more. "Clearly we need to discuss again the terms I laid out when you agreed to do this job," she says to Darras, "But maybe it would be best to leave that til morning. I think we are none of us at our best just now. Commander, Scoutmaster, I apologize for all the confusion. I'll have a word with Darras and see if we can't clear things up, and we'll report to--" she glances between them, questioning, "--one of your offices? in the morning to finalize things. If that's agreeable to you both?"
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Since he's clearly not being conscripted. Meursault, for his part, looks about to protest — he's nearly off his shift, already bristling for Darras' words — stops, grudgingly echoes:
"'Course." It'll be no particular difficulty to see he stays outside a door; provided they're quiet, conversation might continue in confidence. "After you, Serah."