OPEN | Looking Down on Empty Streets

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Lexie, Evie, Loki, Thor, Fifi, Gwen, anyone else who wants to deal with this actual mess of a woman (special shout out to anyone who has a four letter (nick)name apparently)
WHAT: Late nights, early mornings, a bunch of processing the horrible things that happened!
WHEN: Post return from Tevinter (so... mid-month?)
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: cw: a nice violent nightmare, general mental trauma. hmu if you want something special, will do brackets or prose as desired.

I. The Apartments (Day)

When Alexandrie is home, much of her time is spent laying on the chaise out on the balcony staring into nothing and hardly seeming to care about the oppressive heat that so irked her the month before. Her hair, if it is styled at all, is woven into a simple braid and pinned up, a far cry from the way she used to wear it. Sometimes she is a fury of diplomatic paperwork, sometimes she is repetitively and grimly throwing a knife into a target that is a new fixture in the area. Sometimes she will, all of a sudden, snap into the light and cheerful woman she was, although her laughter is harder to come by. Whichever it is, she is still welcoming of callers.


II. Hightown (Night)

She haunts the streets like a ghost; all loose hair and pale wan skin and simple white dress, dressing gown layered over it against the slight chill that still manages to cover Kirkwall by second or third bell despite the heat of the day. Often, she is in the memorial garden, sitting and watching the fountain or pacing the paths repetitively. Sometimes she makes her way to wherever the sea can be best seen. Like a spectre, too, she is gone by the time the sky begins to lighten.

Anyone else out and about in the dark hours?


III. Loki/Evie:

Smell. Noise. There's so much of it. The screams of panic, the mortal ones unlike any other, some far too high to have issued from fully grown throats. The ozone of magic ripping the air mixing with the choking char of burning stalls, the metallic smell of blood. Blood. Far too much of it. How can there be so much. The visceral nigh-unbelievable revulsion at how thickly it drips. It clings to her hands, sliding, sticking. The wink of sunlight on silver. The noise he makes around it is so desperately wrong: liquid, bubbling. The same thing, then, on a far slenderer throat. Sudden. Silver again, but streaked with red. Silver where it doesn't belong. Cannot belong. Disbelief. Overwhelming horror that grips so hard she is frozen and the sound, the sound that comes from them.

She never quite screams. While there is noise that accompanies Alexandrie's gasping terrified surges to consciousness, the shriek in her throat never truly makes it past the hands that fly reflexively to cover her mouth to fiercely stifle it as her knees shoot to her chest, her heart pounding like something is trying to fight its way outside of her. Sometimes they are clapped flat against her face; sometimes it's the side of her hand between her teeth, her jaw clenching hard enough to bruise, even to draw blood, although that is more rare. Always it is a desperate bid to prevent her horrified shuddering panic from waking her bedmate.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not.


IV. Thor/Fifi:

There is a small disturbance in the kitchens. The pour of water, the clink of metal, of china, rummaging through dry goods. Investigating will reveal Alexandrie, wrapped in a white silk dressing gown, her hair finger-combed and tied around itself in a simple knot, quietly looking through the selection of tea as the glyphs on the kettle do their work of setting the water to boil.

She looks tired and subdued—she often looks so, recently—but she manages a small smile all the same.

“Pardonnez-moi. Did I wake you?”


V. Gwenaëlle:

[ she has come looking for Gwenaëlle for a reason she can't really fathom. Perhaps it is because there is precious little in Kirkwall that is familiar and they had walked the same streets and halls, seen much of the same art, known many of the same faces, have the same mother tongue. Perhaps it is because Gwen too had been abruptly thrown from that world into one that so immediately included brutal violence and death that stood close enough to feel the hot splatter of it. Perhaps it is both things.

Whatever the reason, Alexandrie is knocking now on the door to the Provost's rooms in hopes of finding the small, concentrated, dark-haired woman, wearing a simple summer dress with her hair pinned up just as simply, the neck of a bottle containing something substantially stronger than the wine she'd offered at the Tourney in her fist. ]

Comments

1

[notacrow]

[ Myira is tired. Very tired. She had ridden to Tevinter and back and had to deal with Lakshmi and Kitty acting like a pair of angry cats shoved into a bag together and also mind the damn refugees. Then there had been the flurry of worried activity around Kirkwall in preparation for escapees and she still wasn't really sure what's been going on around here. She needs to clear her head.

So she does what she always does, fly away and try not to worry about it. She wheels over Kirkwall in the warm air that rises from below her, occasionally flapping against a gust of wind from off the sea. Finally, after a couple of hours just riding the wind she begins to lazily circle down and down and down and finally settles on a familiar balcony. Without waiting for even a 'hello' she changes her shape and flops over onto the chaise with a tired groan. Her hair is... not as much a mess as it has been. At least today she seems to have combed and brushed it. She's still favoring simple clothing--today a tunic and breeches to try and ward off the summer's heat. ]

Wotcher, Lexie?

[ She speaks with a muffled voice, face buried in a cushion. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ Having just been walking to pull her knife from where it had lodged, Lexie is within reach of its hilt when Myira makes her surprise landing and transformation. The sudden appearance of another person and the greeting, even in a familiar voice, is startling enough to already frayed and sleepless nerves that Lexie yanks the blade free and whirls around, already sinking back into a defensive crouch, her eyes wide and wild.

It takes the space of a breath for her to recognize that the woman flopped on her couch isn't a threat, and half a breath further to recognize who it is. Once she does, her indrawn breath is released shakily, and she relaxes back to standing, lowering the knife. ]

Myira. Forgive me. It is... I am so very pleased to see you. [ She smiles, although it is not the wide sparkling one from before the trip, and there is a tinge of apology to it. ] Could I, however, prevail upon you to... let me know before you stop by, in the future?

[notacrow]

[ Myira hasn't even looked up yet, so she has exactly zero idea what sort of reaction she's induced from poor Lexie. There's a muffled groan and she finally rolls over onto her back to look at the older woman. Her head tilts. ]

Oh. Ayuh. Sorry about that. I was just flyin' and I got kinda tired and I didn't wanna go back to the Gallows yet so I just... came here.

[ She sits up, tucking her feet under her as she tries to put her thoughts in order. She feels frayed and tired and emotional. Everything seems to be happening at once lately and she's struggling to keep up with it all. ]

...I been feelin' real windblown over all this stuff that's been happenin'. You doing alright? I just...

[ She rubs an eye with the heel of one palm, trying not to let herself get too jittery. ]

I dunno what.

[coquettish_trees]

[ she makes some swift nigh-untrackable movement, the slender blade disappearing somewhere on her person, and moves to come and sit on the couch beside the raven, pulling her feet up in a similar manner. ]

If it is any consolation, [ here, Lexie offers a hand; the solace of connection. ] I, too, do not know what.

IV

[thorndergod]

He's supposed to be standing vigil. Has been, even. But Thor cannot summon the energy to care if someone spreads word that he left his mother's side long enough to take a desperately needed break. He can't even care if Loki sees him and snipes at him, he doesn't think, though the presence of someone else in the kitchens startles him enough he takes a step back. It's just Lexie, it turns out, and Thor gives her an exhausted shake of his head.

"Is there enough water for two cups of tea?" This is not what duty requires of him, but they are not in Tevinter and he is not actually the head of the family.

[coquettish_trees]

It is a thing Alexandrie has wanted to ask more than once as Thor stands his vigil day after day by the dais in the music room where Frigga lies: where is your father. But Odin is a respected general, a warleader, and the war has come spectacularly to Tevinter on the back of a red lyrium corrupted high dragon to rip the earth asunder.

Her eyes shut briefly against the memory echoes of its roar, and then she nods, reaching to search out a second cup and the saucer that shares its pattern. Just because it's sometime after third bell and the world has shattered around them doesn't mean they have to succumb to improperly matched porcelain.

"Any blend in particular, my lord?" Alexandrie asks, before thinning her lips in sympathy. "Or just something for wakefulness."

He will be standing long after she has returned upstairs to have another dogged try at sleep.

[thorndergod]

"Thor," he corrects. She was there for the death, she seems to genuinely be into his brother (and even more surprisingly, the reverse seems to be true,) she's basically staying at their house, and she'd been in danger alongside him. The time for lord is past.

"Anything for wakefulness we have." There's a pause before he wearily sinks down into a chair. "But please do not tell my brother."

Maybe Loki's worn out enough as well that it won't turn into something he uses to needle Thor later, but there's a fair chance he's not. Loki holds on to things. Lexie may as well, but at least her question seems to imply this weakness she'll let pass.

i

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty comes by a few days after the rescue. In contrast to Lexie, her demeanor is altogether unchanged by her experiences in Tevinter. Part of it is that she didn't go through what Lexie went through, certainly - only saw the aftermath - but part of it is that this is also just how Kitty operates. She refuses to dwell. She just moves on.

So she comes calling as she ever does, a tall skinny figure brimming with scarcely-restrained energy. In one hand is a bundle of plums; in the other is a bottle of lemonade. Without so much as a how d'you do, she lifts the latter and asks - ]

Where are your cups?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Lexie's voice comes from the balcony, where she is half curled on the chaise facing away from the main rooms of the house. ]

In the kitchen. Emile will show--

[ No, she won't. Emile isn't here. Emile is missing. Has been, since the afternoon Lexie had sent her back to the Archon's palace with their purchases just before heading to lunch. Just before everything went wrong. When she speaks again, it's flatter even than it had been. ]

--Marceau, then. Eloise. Someone knows where they are. [ a little louder, then: ] Someone show her where they are.

[rathercommon]

[ They don't, of course, show her where they are, but instead take the lemonade and the plums from her with little murmurs of thanks. Kitty wrinkles her nose - she still doesn't like dealing with servants, makes her feel rather grotesque - but she supposes that's just something she needs to get used to around Alexandrie.

She sits down on a couch across from Lexie. She doesn't lounge; instead, she leans forward, hands loosely clasped before her. ]

So, when's the last time you left this room?

Spirit Healer Special (for Anders)

[coquettish_trees]

Darktown is not a place where Alexandrie would normally have even briefly considered stepping her dainty slippered foot for any reason at all. With Emile gone she still wouldn’t.

So she doesn’t. She steps Geneviève’s confident booted foot in it instead.

Despite their being identical, it is very rarely that they raid each other’s closets—especially so in this direction—but here she is in pants with a fitted shirt tucked into them and well worn and cared for leather boots to her knees, her hair pulled back in a functional tail at the nape of her neck, knife visible at her back as a deterrent. Her face is set severely, and she walks with both purpose and the aped gait of a practiced swordswoman. She hasn’t the skills to back it, but perhaps any would-be toughs won’t know.

Even so she is nervous and jumpy, and is glad when she finally reaches the clinic where she’d been told she could find the Inquisition’s most veteran healer. She could have sent by crystal, yes, but she wants to see his face when he answers her question. Has to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he believes whatever it is he says.

The door is open when she pushes it, leans through, and then walks inside to call to him softly.

“...Anders?”

[justice_is_blond]

He's used to hearing his name down here. He's not all that used to hearing it called quietly and almost nervously, and that pulls his attention to the woman who has come down here. He can't exactly tell the twins apart, having spent little time in the vicinity of either, but the clothes suggest it's the more serious one.

"Genevieve, yes? Come over." There are a few people scattered around, a table full of students, a volunteer rolling bandages, another handing out potions to a harried-looking woman, so his voice carries well enough from the table he's making a few other potions at. "What brings you here?"

She doesn't look seriously injured, which has him very curious about why she chose the Clinic in Darktown and not the Infirmary in the Gallows.

[coquettish_trees]

“The other one, as it happens,” she corrects on the approach, with a small half-smile.

It’s an odd circumstance. Usually Alexandrie is pleased as punch to let people confuse the two of them all day long, but she finds she hasn’t the energy or desire to play that game just now.

“I find myself in need of your expertise. It may be a strange question I ask, but it is... important.“ She realizes, as she speaks, that it may very well not be strange. Surely a healer with as much experience as Anders has seen countless friends, mothers, brothers, sons, berating themselves for not doing more. For letting whoever it is they loved die, as if somehow they had been the one who caused it. As if they had been the one holding the sword.

“If I tell you the manner in which someone was killed,” her voice is even, even as her shoulders tense and her fingers tremble with the knowledge that she would soon be purposefully dredging up memory that wakes her each night in breathless horror, “could you tell me what, if any, degree of skill at magical healing would have been required to save them?”

III

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki has not slept well in weeks; on some nights he refrains from it actively, avoids sleep as one might avoid walking too closely to the border of darktown, and on others he attempts to succumb and finds he cannot. Tonight had been neither and, for a few hours, wrapped in the warmth of his bed and the warmth of his bedmate--ah but touch still scalds and he finds he cannot force the tension out when it is upon him--he found some measure of peace.

His dreams were black and formless, a mass of nothing wrought from a mind to exhausted to even conjure images. He rises from the depths of that blessed darkness as the bedding pulls--shears away from him at an angle--and he knows that Alexandrie has bolted upright. He does not need to ask, nor even be fully awake, to know what has awoken her so. The image is back in the forefront of his mind and his hands tense where they are fisted in his coverlet.

She is trembling, he can feel it despite how she draws away. She wants to scream and, at the same time, is desperate not to. Her silence is caustic and, tonight, it comes with the smell of blood.

He will not be able to sleep again.

"Are you alright?" He asks, knowing already that the answer is 'no'. Had he more wits about him he might have pretended that he had awoken slowly, that his ascent hadn't been abrupt and draining, but he was drawn thin. He sits, lets the blankets fall away, and turns to look at the woman beside him.

[coquettish_trees]

She knows it for the rhetorical question it is, and it suits her to not answer. ‘Yes’ was a lie so flimsy as to be insulting, and ‘no’ would feel like asking attention be granted her that she does not warrant. After all, for all the horror in her, Frigga was not her mother. She does not deserve to wake like this, and she hates it. Even more she hates that Loki’s sleep is such that even in the rare instances he finds it she often wakes him.

And so, rather than any words, Alexandrie answers by reaching out to find where his hand clenches in the covers and rests hers lightly atop it.

“Forgive me,” she murmurs into the shell of her other hand, still loud enough to be heard in the early quiet. “It is too often that I wake you.” Then, after a slowly released breath: “Shall I stay a larger portion of time with Evie? I do not wish to be another weight.”

She doesn’t want to. She wants to stay. As much as she hates that bits of these nightmares are ones they share, there is some small comfort in his immediate wordless knowing of what it was that had flung her into consciousness.

But she wants more to help in some small way. Any small way.

[hwaaaitsme]

He stares at her hand, where it rests on his, and feels the tension mounting in his neck and shoulders. He wants to pull away but, at the same time, wants nothing of the sort. He draws a slow breath through his nose before he answers and, when he does, he doesn't quite look at her.

He recalls so distinctly Thor's insult, his accusation that Loki could not have carried her so far nor so long. They all think him so weak--

"It is fine, there is nothing to forgive," Loki assures her hollowly, his voice laden with exhaustion. He settles a hand atop hers and gently pulls her fingers off of his. He moves to rise, to swing his legs out over the edge of the bed and simply resign himself to the day.

"You should sleep if you can. Shall I bring you some tea?"

hightown

[sulena]

It is usually night when it feels safe enough to venture into Hightown without the strange or annoyed looks of its human occupants. There is little for them to worry about in their sleep, even a small elven mage visiting the sight where several elves once weaved a forest into existence with magic alone. Although she, at times, misses the forest there is solace to be found in the memorial that was built in the ashes of two tragic events.

She is often not alone in the garden, even in these early hours before the sun rises up but she does not expect to find this ghost of a woman when she enters carrying a woven crown of wildflowers. There is a moment of pause before she bows her head, a simple greeting.

"I hope I am not disturbing you."

[coquettish_trees]

Someone else walking in the space in the small hours of the night is equally unexpected on Alexandrie's part. The turn of her head toward Saoirse's voice is quick, its corresponding startle rabbit-like, something glinting in her hand in the moonlight for a brief moment before disappearing again. She pulls her robe more tightly around herself and shakes her head.

"I... no," is the response. When she is staring emptily and walking just to walk, there is little in the way of a woman to disturb. And distractions are welcome.

[sulena]

If there is any sort of negative response to the glint of something in the moonlight then there is little to be seen on her face as Saoirse carefully tilts her head, half hidden beneath the hood she wears and frowning ever so slightly. Her staff rests secured on her back but does not make much in the way of motions besides lightly adjusting her hold on the crown of flowers.

"It is not often that I find others out here," she says lightly. "Have you come hoping to clear your head? I find myself wandering out here in need of such things more often than not."

IV again fight me

[untiltheyarent]

It's the second time in as many nights, but at least this time Fifi suspects she knows who it is. And she finds she's right, as she emerges from her room again and, this time, simply pads into the kitchen half-asleep and takes out a cup and saucer for the lady.
She sets it down in front of Alexandrie and checks the kettle, resting her cheek on her curled hand as she watches it boil, letting Lexie investigate the brews. "Something to help you sleep, Madame?" Fifi asks, her voice raspy from sleep.

that face lmf

[coquettish_trees]

"Ah, I did wake you." Lexie sounds genuinely apologetic, although truth be told, she was a little glad for Fifi's company. With the ability to speak in their shared language and the memory of seeing the elven woman in a flurry of bright ruffled skirts and stage lights back in even the rougher parts of Val Royeaux, Fifi brought a radius of normalcy along with her. A little flicker of 'before' that Lexie always finds her heart leaning towards with no small longing.

"Have you something to suggest for that?"

[untiltheyarent]

They're always genuinely apologetic, until half an hour later when they're happy again and stop caring. Fifi doesn't hold it against them, but doesn't necessarily buy into it either.

"I'm afraid I don't know my herbs," she says, perhaps a bit too drily, "but I've found red wine to do the trick."

v.

[elegiaque]

( it's been a hell of a month, and it's not yet over. most are returned from tevinter, but as kostos so bluntly put it to her they left people behind—mostly people gwenaëlle could easily put from her mind, but for one name. that adalia's loss would be survivable wouldn't make it less a loss, wouldn't make it acceptable. they will have to go back. there is work still to do.

yet it's a relief she wouldn't have thought, just being back in the gallows. the fucking gallows, of all the places in all of thedas, become familiar; solas's mural on the walls, her things among her husband's, hardie a welcoming weight leaned against her. home, for now. for a time.

when she comes to the door (and it is she who comes to the door) she's dressed similarly simply, exchanged her ship-clothes for a soft gown and undone, washed and combed out her salt-water plaits. traces of what happened colour her in bruises stark against soft, pale fabric; her jaw, her arms. but she's whole, and so is lexie—

who she embraces, which is a very fine greeting. she takes in the bottle when she draws back, holding a hand light underneath it, then looking up to meet her eyes, )

Come on, ( linking their arms, ) I know somewhere we won't be interrupted by anyone else's work.

[coquettish_trees]

[ the paths of the gallows were not as familiar to alexandrie and so granted little of that peace that gwenaëlle had found-- but everything was unfamiliar right now, as if she had taken a step an inch to the side of what was real. even marceau looked strange. even geneviéve. herself, in the mirror. sometimes she had to reach up and touch her own cheek-- a half-shade darker from weeks of unavoidable sun-- to assure herself she existed. sometimes even that didn't work.

the pall of grief at the asgard estate was real. the yawning gap in even the smallest spaces between loki and herself which neither of them could bear bridging was real. and, oddly, unexpectedly enough that her eyes widen slightly in surprise when the petite woman answers the door, so was gwen. perhaps it was because she too was forged a little harder in tevinter, still wearing the bruises which lexie cannot help but reach up to touch gently not in sympathy or concern but in recognition. the embrace of greeting is solid and grounding, the link of their arms a tether, and she will go wherever she is led by it. ]

I can see the sea in you. [ apropos of nothing, as they walk. she has spent enough time watching the waves while painting to recognize a woman of the land turned siren. ] It suits you.

[elegiaque]

I joined Naval Presence officially when we got back, ( in agreement, contemplative and her mood a little strange with it, but likely no stranger than anyone else's, just now. at times lexie feels like a mirror held up, reminding her what her reflection used to be—it's selfish, probably, that she's more at ease with her as the war leaves its mark in ways she understands, that are familiar.

it's neither kind nor unkind—she did not wish it, she can tell herself that and have it be true—but it's natural, and nature is unmoral. they understand each other. there was no one like that for her, at the start; patience, but different kinds. it's not good, exactly, that lexie goes through this or that gwenaëlle did—it's happened, though, and they're here.

they don't go far: guilfoyle had not wished his quarters to be far out of reach, if needed. he rises, somehow impeccable in shirtsleeves with his whetstone and blades, query implied in his impassive expression. )

May we have the room, Felix? I don't want to be bothered.

( an inclination of his head—a murmured mademoiselle—and he will not go far now, either, so if lexie needs to be poured into a carriage later there will be a sober pair of hands ready to do it. but he closes the door behind himself, gives them privacy. it's an impersonal but comfortable space, and she sweeps them down in front of the hearth; empty, too warm for a fire. )