closed ||

[staysail]

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

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.