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Entry tags:
open | tracks will fade in the snow
WHO: Ilias Fabria + YOU
WHAT: Open post + catch-all for the month
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: Around the Gallows, mostly
NOTES: Feel free to toss your own starter at this if you'd rather!
WHAT: Open post + catch-all for the month
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: Around the Gallows, mostly
NOTES: Feel free to toss your own starter at this if you'd rather!
labs / infirmary;
[ A Mortalitasi walks into the Gallows. There ought to be a punch line, is what he thinks while he does it. Clio would have given it a good punch line. He would have written her a letter, Today I sailed up the Waking Sea in a cabin the size of Grandmother's pantry, sick as you after that custard, and when I landed, they put me on another boat. "You must have been dying to get there." "Sounds like the perfect place to hang around." Something better. Cleverer. The rafters are quite high.library;
When Ilias reaches the laboratory space that is to be his new home, he still has a touch of pallor, grey to match his robes. But steady hands pull vial and jar from a travel chest, rod and hook, placing each one precisely in its place. The space is different. The people will be different. The work, too. But he can find ways to make himself useful here. It's why he'd picked the Inquisition — a safer place for him today than Nevarra City, even his Grandmother could not argue with that, but not a safe place. Not anyone's gilded cage.
Still, he'll need the tools for it. A bedroll, in case of late nights, is the last thing he pulls from the chest, but not the last thing he needs.
So it's to the infirmary next, by pale lamplight and cautious step. It's late, perhaps a little later than he ought to be poking around a building he hasn't specifically been granted access to, but his nosing is restrained— ]
Excuse me. [ —And his sheepishness is genuine, upon discovering he's less alone than he'd hoped. ] I meant no intrusion.
[ He isn't here to judge the Gallows' library. Truly, he isn't. It's important to understand what one has to work with. The Necropolis would be an unfair comparison, he'd known that before he stepped through the doors, but even Nevarra City's Circle had its specialities. Its particular benefactors. The Gallows, he assumes, will have the same.kitchens;
Fewer benefactors, he gathers rather quickly.
Still, Ilias cranes his neck to scan the shelves, top to bottom. Careful fingers ghost across the exposed spines, but it's his face that betrays his mind. A considering hover of the eyes over Beyond the Veil. A warm cringe at Enchanter van Heigl's A Life Among the Dead. A gentle raise of the brows at Our Honoured Dead: A Guide to the Mortalitasi Order.
Well. It's better than nothing. ]
[ It'd been late when he'd started; by the time Ilias finds his way to the mage tower's kitchens, it's well into the small hours, the time of night when quiet beings to take on a certain density, a heaviness in the dark. There's a bed somewhere he's not in, a room whose walls and ceilings he's not eager to get to know just yet. Instead, he has a candle burning down at his right side, a cup of tea at his left getting bitter and cold.
In front of him are just papers — pamphlets, Inquisition briefings, the things every new recruit should know about the state of the world, and a few about its future. A battle they know is coming and can't stop. His breath slows, just so. Knuckles tap-tap against the surface of the table like a count-down before he pulls away, abandoning the lot of it. Not forever, just— he could use a smoke. Fresh air. Stretch his legs. Something.
(Maybe he should have picked the cage.) ]
infirmary;
Sometimes there are others, sometimes there aren’t. This isn’t the desert: Injuries are rare, and they’ve a surplus of hands. Tonight (in the moment, in this particular hour) he’s alone and chopping — something. Some plant, and probably he could go on about it, and probably he'd send his own brains dripping out his ears.
He works nights, that doesn't make them interesting.
"You can’t be Madame Venaras."
Obviously. Still. Rounding up enough Nevarrans of late, aren't they?
kitchens;
Eating is mechanical, mundane; disquieting. It puts others off their own breakfasts, and if he's never quite intuited why, he's learned to plan around it.
It's not a ghost's face that presents itself at the doorway. Not quite. Casimir pauses mid-step, glowstone gleaming faint within his fist. There's always someone up late, but even so —
He hesitates. Ten years (more?) is a long time to recollect a face grown fuller, distant. Ten years, but not so different as that.
"I apologize to interrupt," It carries the pattern of something learned from a book. It carries no tone at all. "May I assist you?"
library
Or perhaps not wonderful, and not a particularly Antivan trait, but she certainly wasn't there moment ago, and now she is reaching over the stranger's shoulder, setting her hand over his to trap it against the shelf - playfully. )
It leaves something to be desired, I think.
( Teasing, conspiratorial, and here 2 troll. ) So, are you here to be scandalised by Nevarra, or try to find decent literature?
Library
[Such is the assessment of the slight elven woman nearby, replacing a book on the shelf before reaching for another one. The selections of the man nearby have caught her interest, though, so she lingers with a raised eyebrow.]
So is it morbid curiosity, or professional interest that brings you here?
no subject
It's not unaffectionate. He likes Sidony, in his way. She's very young. She'd probably hate that he'd even thought that.
"Ilias Fabria," he says instead, with a bow of the head in lieu of a handshake, since-- chopping. He settles across the table. "I am set up just around the courtyard, but unfortunately it seems not all of my equipment made the journey."
infirmary
He had spoken to her, and she is thankful for that, but she wants a little more. She had been denied the knowledge she sought before, after all. Perhaps now he might be a touch more forthcoming.
She's been spending much of her time in the infirmary already, preparing to pack her things up for the evening and see if she might be able to make her way to wherever it is that her dear friend Ilias might have found himself. Hearing the familiar voice makes her pause and she could laugh, she thinks, if it was not so strange an occasion, closing her book and slipping a mark between the pages. ]
You are not disturbing me.
no subject
Only it doesn't. The cool light catches on brow and jaw, a pair of eyes he knows the shape of in late nights, and for a split second he looks grateful to see a familiar face.
And then-- less so. The brand stands out like a smudge on a painting, out of place. The room feels very large.
"Casimir?" is quiet.
no subject
I had hoped for the latter, [ But alas. He makes no move to free himself, but lets his eyes slide over to their trapped hands all the same, as if to politely inquire what exactly you intend to do with those, madam. ]
This one, [ The one she's caught him against, by the way, ] it is at least written by a prelate. So, not inaccurate, but written I think for outsiders looking in.
[ Not for him. ]
no subject
Technically speaking, I am not certain there is a difference. [ he decides. By way of explanation, he extends a hand, ] Speaker Ilias Fabria, of the Mortalitasi.
no subject
( The horror. Her smile is sharp, as she leans against the shelves, and looks up to scan for any decent titles. )
It is possible for the Inquisition to source better books, I think, if there is good reason for the acquisition. Some individuals may have collections they are willing to share.
no subject
"Ilias."
A name pulled from deep water, some still interior pool. People move in and out of view: You think of them less, you think of them not at all.
It's routine to smile now. It sits at strange angle, placidly detached from his gaze. He might drop it for another, but there's too little to navigate upon here; Ilias' memory occluded long before the brand. You speak to people less, you speak of them not at all.
He sits, though — and that's an older reflex. Doesn't look to the papers (nothing he hasn't seen before), instead finds his eyes, unblinking. The switch to Nevarran is automatic.
"Have you just arrived?"
no subject
A wry gesture (more restrained, he needs his digits) to the pile of roots. Shuffle them aside, lay down the blade.
"Research, is it?" It's no skin off his back to volunteer other people's supplies — provided those people are actually with the Inquisition. It's an odd hour to go rummaging. "When did you get in?"
no subject
"This evening," he answers, like all that's happened is the passage of time. Like Casimir's smile reaches his eyes. He should let it be, he knows he should let it be.
"—I'd heard you were Harrowed."
Heard, and checked it off in his mind. One more tie cleanly severed. One less loss to dread. One more excuse to continue as he was. Not this.
no subject
Warden Inessa Serra, at your service. I have been studying necromancy when time permits, though I'm afraid I'm not as familiar with your order as I perhaps ought to be. We don't see many, in the south.
no subject
"Mn," Research, yes. "Near dusk."
So, long enough ago to unpack a trunk and almost nothing else? Yes. Hm.
"I thought it best to start as soon as I could, given," An expansive gesture. You know. "The state of things. And with the work I do — as, I imagine, with yours," Mr. Knife Skills, "It is important to know your tools."
no subject
[ And he seems it, only— there is that distance still, a hesitation, the way there had been in the last few of their meetings. Caution, where in another life he would have taken her enthusiasm for knowledge as nothing more than what it seemed. Where he hadn't learned how very wrong his instincts could be.
But it has been several years. She calls herself a medical practitioner now. He need not be responsible for what she has already learned. ]
Perhaps you could help me. [ he begins, closing in to a more comfortable distance. ] I do not wish to deprive anyone of their equipment, but I seem to have arrived with one less forceps than I left with. I am not certain if there are instruments provided to you here, or—
[ What, how else does one acquire these things? A smith? ]
no subject
[ It's meant as a tease, genuinely, but it comes out a touch sharper than she intends, and she looks chagrined for it. He had kept her at arms length and cut their meetings short for good reason, she is sure - she had been young, and curious, and desperate, likely not the kind of person anyone wanted to be around - but that doesn't mean she has entirely forgiven him for the way she felt quite slighted.
He moves closer and, slowly, her eyes drink him in. His isn't a face that she had taken to remember much over the last few years and her frown softens into a gentle, polite small, nodding her head and resisting the rather overdone urge to curtsey. She's not in her mother's house anymore and not prey to the whims of ladylike fancy. ]
I think I might have a spare, in fact. [ She moves around a table, clean and bare of books other than ones that are clearly her own, prepared for her by the lovely Anders when she had announced herself. The surgeons bag she carries seems nearly untouched, near new, and she reaches inside for the forceps. ]
There are more instruments around and others can be commissions, certainly, but, please. Use mine until you find time to get another.
no subject
If there is anything specific I find I need, I will look into it.
[ But at the moment, perhaps the woman in front of him is as worthwhile a subject of study as any book. ]
You are not scandalized by mages, my lady? Or by Mortalitasi?
no subject
I am scandalised by people who do not respect spirits, and who believe mages belong in prisons. I may not be Nevarran,
( in case he could have missed the Antivan accent, ) But I have family who are, and I have been taught a reverence for the dead. I am grateful for the work of the Mortalitasi.
no subject
That's too kind of you, Sidony. Only for tonight, yes?
[ His eyes follow her hands, but-- pause yet again. She's more fastidious than he remembers, perhaps. Her parents had given her a fresh surgical set for her new endeavor, and she hadn't been attached to a single one of the old instruments. There are several possible explanations, and the polite thing would be to trust that one of the kinder options is true. It isn't any of his business. (She is putting herself forward as a doctor in the middle of a war.) ]
You've certainly expanded your skillset since we last spoke, [ is what he settles on. As evidenced by all of these tools she owns and therefore must know how to use. ] Who did you say you studied with?
no subject
She doesn't necessarily hold a grudge, but she can still be sour. ]
For as long as you need, please. I doubt that I will be leaping into surgery so soon after my arrival.
[ She's barely unpacked, really. Her dresses and cloaks are barely enough for the wardrobe she has managed to find in her room; she didn't have enough space to bring everything she wanted with her. The books and equipment were more important and she had spent quite a bit of her own money on that, seeing as her parents would never have let her otherwise.
Moving, she leans against the table, smiling gently, a touch of something flirty about it. It's not even conscious, as if she does it without thinking. ]
It's been enough years. [ But, ah, well. She hums. ] Myself, mostly.
no subject
[ Which is to say, everyone else thinks they're some kind of weird death cult. He seems at peace with it, though. ]
Still, it is a pleasure to meet a fellow necromancer. How do you find it, practicing what I understand is a somewhat controversial discipline here in the south?
no subject
(Though the word prisons earns a certain shift of the eyes -- of the polite, keeping-one's-mouth-shut sort.) ]
My colleagues would be glad to hear it -- as am I. [ With a gracious dip of the chin, ] Speaker Ilias Fabria, at your service, señora.
no subject
Yourself. [ he repeats, voice a bit tight. Not the answer he'd been hoping for. Perhaps it would be best if you sought out another tutor, had been the admittedly rather spineless way he had put it; he hadn't imagined she would not find one. That she would continue her pursuits whether she found one or not. ]
From books, then? Have you been seeing patients?
[ Please tell him you've been seeing patients. ]
no subject
Speaker Fabria, it is an honour. Lady Marisol Vivas.
( That shift of the eyes was interesting, but what does it mean? Curious. ) Perhaps speak to the Provost. He is a rifter by the name of Thranduil, and leads the Research division. It may be that he can source particular tomes for you, especially if you frame it in a way... beneficial to the Inquisition.
no subject
There's no denying it has a certain reputation outside your homeland, to be sure. But I'm a Grey Warden, and my order tends to have a more practical bent. Why shun magic that could help serve our cause, or this one? That said, I do try to exercise common sense and restrict the bulk of its use to locations away from the eyes of civilians.
no subject
Who else was there? [ Her brother, perhaps, but he had buggered off as soon as his magic had appeared. The problem was that there were few people willing to teach someone without magic when there was someone with magic of equal talent, and she had been forced to books and whatever she could get away with from the ones her mother had hired.
It was not much, and certainly not enough by her own measure. ]
I've seen enough. [ Handmaidens, mostly, or servants she had peered at in the kitchens. ] I didn't realise you were so concerned for my education. I'd imagined that was beneath you now.
no subject
This isn't fine. He rubs a palm across his forehead. ]
Nothing about you is beneath me, Sidony -- and it is not only your education that concerns me.
[ It's-- so many other things, that words alone just now seem woefully insufficient to convey. ]
--Come with me, if you please.
[ Sharp, he turns for the door, toward his own lab. If she wants to argue with him, she can argue with his back, but she'll need to follow him to do it. ]
no subject
She had given up rather a lot. She had given up on him, on her parents and their desire for her to marry, on her studies and her tutors and her languages. She had given up on Nevarra, not that her parents are aware yet. Fleeing in the night has its advantages. ]
You have an excellent way of showing your affection, then. Dismissing me and years of silence - I should have known you were deeply in love with me.
[ Clearly, she has not quite forgiven him, and she has no reason to. She had been spurned and it shows in the viciousness of her glare. ]
You do not command me, Ilias.
[ But, for goodness sake, she is as curious now as she had been when they had first met, and she chases him, shoes making soft noises along the ground. ]
no subject
If you would have my confidence in your skills — or my silence about their absence — I would ask this of you.
[ Deal? He starts pulling items from his trunk and setting them on the work table in front of her, one by one: starting with something long, leathery and misshapen. ]
This is Avelus. He is a twenty-year-old stablehand from Starkhaven.
[ It's a mummified weasel with a hide ripped near in half. ... Just work with him. ]
He loves bawdy tavern songs, and sea shells that won't open, and his best friend, who he followed to the Inquisition six weeks ago. [ As he speaks, Ilias pulls more from his trunk: a spool of thin black thread, a needle. ] Which is coincidentally all the training he got with a sword before riding out with a scouting party and catching an Ander axe in the leg. He was lucky; it was at the end of the battle, they turned back right away. It only took them a few minutes to reach you.
So, you have thirty seconds before you lose him.
[ Go. ]
no subject
[ Inconvenient, too, under certain circumstances. His eyes drop to the book in his hands, thumbing at the pages as he considers how to approach the issue. ]
Does that not become rather complicated on a battlefield?
no subject
Magic always becomes more complicated on the battlefield, doesn't it? So many factors to take into account...but yes, it's even more complicated given the stigma surrounding that particular discipline. I try to keep my companions informed of my abilities, though to be honest I am still relatively new to necromancy and don't yet possess those deemed more controversial.
no subject
I do not see how you have any right to judge my skills.
[ She supposes, in the end, he would know better than anyone how best to judge her. He had been her tutor for a short time, and it must come as a surprise to him to bear witness to her actually having skill. She's not a young girl anymore and while her training might have been more intimate than public...
She scoffs, frowning as she looks down at the weasel. ]
Avelus. Truly, I cannot believe you are making me do this, Ilias, really -
[ All the same, Sidony takes the tools with a clear huff in the set of her shoulders, taking the needle and the thread. Actually threading the needle is something she has done hundreds of times - not just because of the practice she has done but because of all the embroidery and stitching her mother had her do in her spare time. Sewing is second nature to her, even when it comes to bodies.
The sour looks she gives Ilias doesn't dissipate. ]
I am not going to talk to him, considering he is a weasel and not a man from Starkhaven, no matter how much we might play pretend. Avelus, though, is a fine name. However did you think of it?
[ Thirty seconds. She scoffs again, her stitching secure and careful, bringing the two pieces back together. They're neat, almost fanciful stitches; good enough for an operation where she has the time to do it, and she's well aware of it, but hardly the work of someone with real time battle practice. She can do this, but she has a little more that she needs to learn.
She knows that and now Ilias will know it too. ]
What was the point of this? Do you truly believe so little of me that I would come here, offering aid, and cause only trouble? Is that what you think when you see me?
[ Snip. She cuts off the end of the thread. ]
no subject
No, [ he answers, pulling the weasel back to examine the stitching. It is good work. Not perfect, but much better than he'd been afraid of. That she considered talking to the 'patient' at all is a favorable sign, too. But, ]
I think that you are very dedicated to your work. I think you have an incredible drive to learn and to be acknowledged for what you have learned. And I think if you are more concerned with being taken seriously than accurately representing your capabilities to your colleagues, you will get someone killed.
[ Just saying. ]
What I do not know is whether that work is more important to you than the people. [ And that is the critical difference — the distinction he hadn't trusted himself to make when last she'd studied with him, the question he hadn't been willing to leave unanswered again. ] If this boy had died, if you had done everything right and he had died anyway, do you know who you would have told first? What would you have said to them?
no subject
She simply does not like it being made so obvious, especially by someone who had slighted her so surely in Nevarra. ]
I do not intend to get anyone killed. I know what I'm doing, no matter what your judgements of me might be.
[ It's clear from her look what she thinks of his idea of her needing to learn. There's a dozen things she could say to him on that front and not very many of them would be anything close to pleasant.
Her gaze is sharp, soured by him, and the stiffness of her shoulders shows the hurt and anger that colours the flush of her cheeks. He might be right but that doesn't mean he has to say it and she's determined not to give in to his foolishness. How dare he, she thinks, how dare he come here and lecture her when he had been the one to shun her in the first place.
Bastard. ]
It would depend on who was present, wasn't it? I imagine his friend would've wished to know, and a letter must be sent to whoever was waiting for him in Starkhaven. Apologies, of course. I am not entirely brainless, no matter what you might think of me. [ There's a prickle, then - something like hurt. She's tired and she's far too used to being second best. It feels almost like being home. ] I do not see what right you have to judge me, to test me. You gave up on me a long time ago, Ilias Fabria.
no subject
“Yes,” He’s aware it was a subject of discussion — less, charitably, debate. If he’s aware too of where that unspoken question leads (a desert and a dozen inked books), he doesn’t give any sign. “I’d not heard from you at all.”
Of, a little more, less than he might. Rumour always flowed more readily out of the Circle than into it; after a while there’d been no purpose to trying. Casimir had always wanted to know what refuses to be known, but everyone has priorities. Even now:
“You came for the Necropolis?”
Rather, last year’s incident within. What else would draw him out? Casimir doesn’t travel, didn’t then, but he knows enough of what happened. A little more, a little less than he might.
crawls determinedly back here
But for what it's worth, his eyes do soften. Shoulders shrink. ]
Sidony.
[ What can he say? Years after it would have made a difference, he's sorry? ]
I gave up on many things. It was not any fault of yours.
I do not want to be your judge, I want— [ To undo the last 10 years of his life, maybe? He presses his lips together, trying to center himself. (This is a mistake.) ] Perhaps I was too hasty in ending our meetings. If there are things you need to practice or learn that I can help with, I would rather you have that opportunity than not.
[ It isn't a guarantee. There are things he may still not show her, if he has reason to doubt. But it's an offer, at least. ]
grips ur hands
Touching dead things, for all that she loves it, does leave a rather rotting smell.
The problem is, of course, that these are all words that she would have liked to have heard years before now. She had been a dedicated student, there was no one in Nevarra that could deny that, for all her faults. She may have been more than a little vocal in her frustrations with Chantry limitations on study and medicine, but most chalked that up to a childish curiosity that would die with age, when she found herself wedded and bedded and baring child. Clearly, that was not the route she intended to take. ]
If you did not intend to be my judge then what was this?
[ She motions to the animal on the table between them. ]
Did you even spare the thought, for a moment, to imagine that I might be genuine in my study? That after you had turned your attention away from me I might have found someone else to fill in the gaps? I did not come here to kill people, Ilias. I did not come here to do harm. The very fact that your first instinct upon seeing me here, a welcomed member of the Inquisition, was to make sure that I was up to your standards says more than enough about your view of me. Do you know how very cruel that is? How demeaning? Do you not think I have heard enough of it?
[ She swallows, shaking her head. ]
If I wish to further my education then the Inquisition has many healers I can speak with, all of whom will not find it a trial to spend their time with me. I would not want to waste your time as I have so clearly done before. [ Hands somewhat cleaner and tears gathering in her eyes, she blinks them back, standing up as tall as she can manage, face set in as much measure of composure as she can muster.
It could be better, but, well. Ilias knows her. It makes it harder to pretend. ]
Are we done with your tests? Might I return to my station now?
no subject
Ten years ago, an apology might have been enough. An answer. Anything. Now, it feels cheap, unearned. A thumb turns at his temple instead. They're talking about the Necropolis. They're not talking about so much else.
"Not only that." It's on his mind, but not at the top of the list, even before Casimir had walked into the room. "I came to join the Inquisition. To help, I hope, with research or wherever else I can be of use."
"You are assisting as well?"
no subject
It's not a correction (the Inquisition); it's more of one than there's been cause to test. There are others here who pull that same strange tangle, who glimpse the word as it breaks into syllables: Loyalty.
There are others — and if gratitude were any easier to imitate, he'd try, recollects how terrible it was once to be alone — but they're not his function. The Inquisition isn't.
Casimir palms the stone down, ghosting the table into dim blue light. It requires focus to chart the shape of a jaw, the heaviness of a brow, but he's had practice. Kostos speaks to him when necessary, Nell doesn't speak at all. And Myrobalan,
"I don't intend to disturb you." He hasn't thought to lower his voice, to try and alter the pitch. "I'm aware that it can be difficult."
Maybe that's progress. That he's aware.
"But if you came to help, we might both try."
crawls back to finish this tag 10 years later
"I would like that." Ilias gives a shaky exhale; a smile that is more a wretched gratitude than any measure of happiness. "I don't imagine it's only me, that it is difficult for."
Just him who's demonstrating poor command of his face. How much simpler for either of them, to continue not to think of the other.
"Stay," he says, pushing himself from the table. "I'll make more tea."
Maybe courtesy can be a place to start.