WHO: Étienne, Kostos, and anyone who would like to stop and/or watch some unnecessary violence WHAT: Interpersonal conflict resolution WHEN: Nowish WHERE: The Templar dining hall in the Gallows NOTES: cw: punching; context
a punch that Kostos unmistakably was the one to throw, if anyone was watching, and that was preceded by no warning other than a touch on Etienne's arm to make him turn his attention and expose his face; and a punch that was pretty solid, backed by years of tavern brawls and weeks of training and a day and a half of seething fury in Etienne's specific direction; and one that might have been enough on its own, a last word, so there, except for a hundred other building pressures and Ghislain looming on the horizon, so instead was followed up by a shove into the nearest table
—anyone unlucky enough to be in the southwestern quadrant of the dining hall might have been splattered by some of the soup that's been sent flying from a perfectly innocent, broken bowl or, if they're even more unlucky, a little bit of blood from Etienne's face. A couple chairs have been overturned, a table jolted a few feet askance despite its legs' screeching protests. And Kostos and Etienne are on the ground, grappling for the right to strangle one another, or the right to stop the other from strangling them. It's a little hard to tell.
But they aren't going to actually kill each other, probably.
Maybe.
In the midst of it all, Kostos provides the only verbal explanation he's likely to: "Fuck you," he says, "you Orlesian fuck."
Reacting as any cool-headed man of science might, Étienne tried to defend himself against the onslaught. As he’s struggling on the floor, his hand first finds a hard, weighty object, and smacks it against his assailant’s head—
Ah. A loaf of bread. Admittedly unpleasant, possibly an Anders recipe, but even so. One of his hands is pulling Kostos’ head back by his hair, before he manages to grab something else, and slams that against his head this time. A wooden chair - better.
Nell, who had been eating nearby, rose abruptly when Kostos stormed in and was quick across the room. But now she appears in no hurry after all, leaning against the edge of a table juuuust clear of the danger zone, observing with arms crossed against her chest. She keeps an eye on the doors and the inevitable onlookers, too, ready to move should circumstances look likely to shift in Etienne's favor, but otherwise content to let them get on with it. If Kostos wants to get whacked with a chair, that's his business.
"The Nevarran," Byerly says. He's grinning openly with utter and complete delight. This is what the Inquisition has been missing. "Never bet against a Nevarran when there's a bit of murder in the offing."
The Nevarran is in the process of getting whacked with a chair (and maybe that is what he wants, Nell, maybe it is, especially since he could cheat with a barrier if it came down to it), and thus too busy to listen, or he might appreciate that Rutyer has such confidence in his countrymen despite the current hair pulling and chair-to-head situation.
It's enough to get him halfway off of Étienne, one hand landing on the discarded Ander bread while he tries to rebalance, and to start making his cheekbone and eye start swelling up immediately. But the initial burst of rage that might otherwise have started to fade by now is bolstered by the pain, and he's only halfway off, and he has one hand free to backfist Étienne across the mouth.
His lip is split and blood is smeared over his teeth, and more blood and spittle sprays across the floor.
Two things: Étienne may not be battle hardened as some, but he is a survivor, and has been for a long time. His hands release the chair, and both of his hands curl into the material of Kostos’ shirt to gain good anchorage as he brings his head up to snap his head into kistos’ nose, and deliver a sharp blow to his groin with a vicious jerk of his knee.
“Fucking heathen,” he says, only loud enough for Kostos to hear.
Ilias, who was just trying to get a coffee here between sending crystal messages, and is now holding said coffee up above shoulder level to keep from spilling it on anything important, nonetheless pauses between tables at you Orlesian fuck — and lifts not a finger to intervene.
With the toe of a shoe, though, he sets a fallen cup to rolling toward Kostos's reach. Purely accidental, obviously. If it happens to be palm-sized and conveniently sturdier than a loaf of bread, well, that's hardly his fault, is it.
Evrion had just finished wiping soup off his shirt when blood spatters onto his shoe, and he frowns and looks at it in mild surprise before bending to continue. Cleanliness is akin etc.
He scoots himself and his book a little farther from the fight, but spares a pleasant smile for the brawling Kostos.
Marisol claims a place alongside Nell and Byerly, the relaxed slouch hiding the ready tension in her as she watched her cousin backhand someone she doesn’t recognise.
Between the twin rushes of pain and the even stronger, hotter rush of fury, Kostos unfortunately isn't in the position to identify the sources of any kicked cups or pleasant smiles. Marisol's voice might have given him pause, but he can't hear her.
He isn't much of a survivor. Not by instinct. There's a moment where he curls like he might do the sensible thing and roll off of the man, get some distance, but the next moment—half-blind just from heathen and dripping blood from his nose—he seizes on that cup and crashes it into whatever part of his head is most accessible.
And twists his head to bite Étienne's forearm where he's gripping his shirt.
That might not help with the whole heathen perspective, but they're well past that now.
His response is a rather dignified... grunt. And then, his other arm looses off Kostos shirt and he grips his hair, to slam Kostos head into the floor as he twists to get on top of him. One slam into the floor, and then another, trying to get this feral fucking dog to let him go.
Wysteria's halfway through shouldering through the circle of onlookers (really, you're all taking up the whole bloody walkway between the tables) with a bowl of soup in one hand and a cup in the other. She's stopped short even before the THUMP! of Kostos' head on the floor.
And here Marisol strides forward, her hand slipping under Kostos’ head to stop it from striking the ground again, as her other hand hooks under his shoulder to try and pull him away - perhaps ineffectively. She’s not the strongest person, lets be honest.
Edited (The ave stork struck again ) 2018-11-12 04:23 (UTC)
She is joined by an unusual helper: The Priest threads the crowd like an eel and reaches to grab for Étienne by hair and shirt collar to yank him back. Clean separation is not the objective as a painful sudden rebuke.
Kostos could have tended to his own head. Barriers, protective and vengeful wisps, currents of under-the-skin electricity that shock anyone who touches him into paralysis, if he wanted to cheat and possibly cause some sort of anti-magic uproar, or just good old-fashioned physical maneuvering learned from a dozen fights as vicious as this one, against men with more muscles, if he didn't. Which is the case. He had a grip on Étienne's forearm, and his own bicep nearly below his head to cushion it, and a foot moving for leverage against the floor—but there's Marisol's hand instead, and maybe he'll feel sorry later for the way her fingers must get crushed between his skull and the floor, or appreciative for the attempt to drag him away.
Right now, he feels neither of those things and cooperates approximately not at all with her attempts at dragging him. Instead he uses the couple of feet of space that does appear between them, given the intervention on either end, to bend up a leg and aim a punchy, heel-first kick at Etienne's ribs.
Nell has been busy canvassing for bets to balance against Byerly's wager--she agrees with his sentiment too heartily to take him up on it herself--but who wins if the thing gets broken up before one gained a clear upper-hand?
"Leave them be," she warns Marisol, "He can handle this and won't thank you for stepping in early." And then Priest has appeared out of nowhere to do just that as well, and she throws up a hand in exasperation. "You would've won," she tells Byerly aside, keeping her eyes on the grapplers, "But too much interference now to fairly call it either way unless they continue."
Anyone other than Petronella she would disregard in this. But here is the sorry truth, a thing that gnaws at her sometimes: Nell knows Kostos better than Marisol does. She is more family to him, in a very specific way, and though Marisol doesn’t not grudge them that, it’s... sad to know, sometimes.
She releases Kostos in time to avoid being struck by any flailing and takes a couple of steps back. At least she saved his skull a little, she can tell herself, even as her hand throbs.
“Get me that wretch’s name,” she murmurs to Petronella, before stepping away to grant them more room and less clustering.
A cry from a familiar voice, a sharp pull at the back of his head, and a kick to the ribs, aided by his torso being momentarily extended by the tug. There is a cracking sound.
Étienne heaves a breath that sounds wet, rattling, like the bubble of swamp waters, as he looks to Wysteria to make an appeal. Clearly he is being attacked, and apparently now by multiple parties. His mouth is bloody, his cheek slip, and his arm bleeding from a bite. A step back, as he regain composure. “This man attacked me as I went about my business. I acted only in self-defence.”
The Priest steps back in mirror to Étienne but does not release his collar. Instead: Considers the room and the vague interweaving of sentiment that marks this abused creature as outsider to most of those watching.
Punishment, then, but gone wrong as things always do on this world. The Priest endeavors to catch Kostos' eye even knowing rage might well blind him.
"Say if you wish to continue."
The Priest will hold; Kostos can punch. Just say the word.
Étienne's summary is not a version of events Kostos plans to dispute, even if he could reasonably do so while sitting half-sprawled on the floor where Marisol gave up on him, blood pouring from his nose—which does at least, small blessing, make it impossible to tell if any of Étienne's blood is also smeared around his mouth—and a cut over his eye where the swelling from the chair split open against the ground. And still glaring at Étienne like he's considering not being finished with him yet.
So he doesn't say anything—until the Priest says something first, to him, and his glare flickers to her for a fraction of a second.
"No," he grates out, resentful of the offer and of the fact that he has to turn it down in equal measure. If he'd wanted an unfair fight, this wouldn't have been a fight at all.
"Oh, in the devil's name. Would you look at the both of you!" With a hard snap, Wysteria slams her soup bowl and cup down onto the disturbed table top, steps over the remnants of the chair and interceded between Etienne and the exceptionally tall-- wo...man...? -- who has the doctor by the collar. No one else is coming to the man's defense and it seems grossly unjust for such a thing not to be equitable if they've both got blood streaming down onto their shirts.
"If you're going to beat on one another, you could at least do everyone else the courtesy of not being underfoot."
Maker sing her praises. He is finally able to straighten up, Étienne rolling his shoulders as he pulls free with the good lady's aid.
"You are, of course, correct." A cough to clear his throat, as he stands properly, and glances down his doublet, smoothing it with his hand. Taking a step towards his adversary, Étienne extends one hand to shake. "I'm happy to declare our peace, if you are."
His smile is impressively genuine, gracious, his gaze a little more cautious. This is a man who just tried to gnaw off his hand, after all. "We're all of the Inquisition, after all."
"Boo," Byerly calls out, "boo." Honestly, what is wrong with these people? This was the best thing that had happened to the Inquisition in weeks.
With a disappointed sigh, he turns towards Nell. "What ought to have been a victory for me turns into a loss for us all." And he lifts his glass and downs it in the air of someone mourning a lost friend.
The Priest tips chin up at Kostos’ answer and steps back as Wysteria intervenes. Not far back—presence is tangible pressure to compel behavior—but enough the Priest might stare down at the smaller rifter in mute disapproval.
At Byerly’s interjection the Priest raises eyes to study him instead. Outsider to this also (distaste creeps into the Priest’s expression) but not wrong in his assessment. For whatever selfish reason it is made.
Nell shrugs at Marisol's question. "No idea. Some Orlesian fuck from the sound of it."
She still makes no effort to get involved, not with Priest hovering and Wysteria fussing. Kostos can wipe his own bloody nose. She does, however, spot a bowl of soup abandoned on the table just behind her, and twists to take it up, blowing on a spoonful before eating.
"You know there are fights every night at half the taverns in Lowtown," she points out to the apparently-bloodthirsty Byerly a bit dryly. "He's," she gestures at her fellow Nevarran, "Even in some of them."
Kostos half turns his head at the boos, an ear toward the source, which puts Evrion back into his field of vision. For a moment he feels—something. A hunger pang in the empty space where shame should be, to have let his control slip that far in front of an apprentice.
But then Étienne talks again. A smooth shirt and a smile. Easy as that. Maybe it could be that easy for Kostos, too, if he put in any practice, but he hasn’t ever, and he won’t now.
To wit: “You can go fuck yourself,” he says, dark and quiet, while he climbs back up onto his feet unassisted, “as peacefully as you want.”
The desired effect might be mitigated somewhat by the fact that his bloody nose leaves him sounding congested and, upon reaching a standing position, he briefly lists to one side before managing to manually rediscover his balance.
When Kostos meets his eyes, Evrion hops to his feet and comes over to duck under his former tutor's arm, helping him catch his balance after it falters.
"D'you want some elfroot tea, Enchanter?" he asks quietly, with a crooked grin, "you'll be feeling that chair tomorrow."
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a punch that Kostos unmistakably was the one to throw, if anyone was watching, and that was preceded by no warning other than a touch on Etienne's arm to make him turn his attention and expose his face; and a punch that was pretty solid, backed by years of tavern brawls and weeks of training and a day and a half of seething fury in Etienne's specific direction; and one that might have been enough on its own, a last word, so there, except for a hundred other building pressures and Ghislain looming on the horizon, so instead was followed up by a shove into the nearest table
—anyone unlucky enough to be in the southwestern quadrant of the dining hall might have been splattered by some of the soup that's been sent flying from a perfectly innocent, broken bowl or, if they're even more unlucky, a little bit of blood from Etienne's face. A couple chairs have been overturned, a table jolted a few feet askance despite its legs' screeching protests. And Kostos and Etienne are on the ground, grappling for the right to strangle one another, or the right to stop the other from strangling them. It's a little hard to tell.
But they aren't going to actually kill each other, probably.
Maybe.
In the midst of it all, Kostos provides the only verbal explanation he's likely to: "Fuck you," he says, "you Orlesian fuck."
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Ah. A loaf of bread. Admittedly unpleasant, possibly an Anders recipe, but even so. One of his hands is pulling Kostos’ head back by his hair, before he manages to grab something else, and slams that against his head this time. A wooden chair - better.
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"Anyone want to lay odds?"
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It's enough to get him halfway off of Étienne, one hand landing on the discarded Ander bread while he tries to rebalance, and to start making his cheekbone and eye start swelling up immediately. But the initial burst of rage that might otherwise have started to fade by now is bolstered by the pain, and he's only halfway off, and he has one hand free to backfist Étienne across the mouth.
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Two things: Étienne may not be battle hardened as some, but he is a survivor, and has been for a long time. His hands release the chair, and both of his hands curl into the material of Kostos’ shirt to gain good anchorage as he brings his head up to snap his head into kistos’ nose, and deliver a sharp blow to his groin with a vicious jerk of his knee.
“Fucking heathen,” he says, only loud enough for Kostos to hear.
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With the toe of a shoe, though, he sets a fallen cup to rolling toward Kostos's reach. Purely accidental, obviously. If it happens to be palm-sized and conveniently sturdier than a loaf of bread, well, that's hardly his fault, is it.
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He scoots himself and his book a little farther from the fight, but spares a pleasant smile for the brawling Kostos.
Don’t judge me, friends
“What exactly is going on?” She asks, quietly.
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He isn't much of a survivor. Not by instinct. There's a moment where he curls like he might do the sensible thing and roll off of the man, get some distance, but the next moment—half-blind just from heathen and dripping blood from his nose—he seizes on that cup and crashes it into whatever part of his head is most accessible.
And twists his head to bite Étienne's forearm where he's gripping his shirt.
That might not help with the whole heathen perspective, but they're well past that now.
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Wysteria's halfway through shouldering through the circle of onlookers (really, you're all taking up the whole bloody walkway between the tables) with a bowl of soup in one hand and a cup in the other. She's stopped short even before the THUMP! of Kostos' head on the floor.
"Doctor! What on earth are you doing?!"
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Right now, he feels neither of those things and cooperates approximately not at all with her attempts at dragging him. Instead he uses the couple of feet of space that does appear between them, given the intervention on either end, to bend up a leg and aim a punchy, heel-first kick at Etienne's ribs.
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"Leave them be," she warns Marisol, "He can handle this and won't thank you for stepping in early." And then Priest has appeared out of nowhere to do just that as well, and she throws up a hand in exasperation. "You would've won," she tells Byerly aside, keeping her eyes on the grapplers, "But too much interference now to fairly call it either way unless they continue."
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She releases Kostos in time to avoid being struck by any flailing and takes a couple of steps back. At least she saved his skull a little, she can tell herself, even as her hand throbs.
“Get me that wretch’s name,” she murmurs to Petronella, before stepping away to grant them more room and less clustering.
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Étienne heaves a breath that sounds wet, rattling, like the bubble of swamp waters, as he looks to Wysteria to make an appeal. Clearly he is being attacked, and apparently now by multiple parties. His mouth is bloody, his cheek slip, and his arm bleeding from a bite. A step back, as he regain composure. “This man attacked me as I went about my business. I acted only in self-defence.”
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Punishment, then, but gone wrong as things always do on this world. The Priest endeavors to catch Kostos' eye even knowing rage might well blind him.
"Say if you wish to continue."
The Priest will hold; Kostos can punch. Just say the word.
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So he doesn't say anything—until the Priest says something first, to him, and his glare flickers to her for a fraction of a second.
"No," he grates out, resentful of the offer and of the fact that he has to turn it down in equal measure. If he'd wanted an unfair fight, this wouldn't have been a fight at all.
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"If you're going to beat on one another, you could at least do everyone else the courtesy of not being underfoot."
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"You are, of course, correct." A cough to clear his throat, as he stands properly, and glances down his doublet, smoothing it with his hand. Taking a step towards his adversary, Étienne extends one hand to shake. "I'm happy to declare our peace, if you are."
His smile is impressively genuine, gracious, his gaze a little more cautious. This is a man who just tried to gnaw off his hand, after all. "We're all of the Inquisition, after all."
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With a disappointed sigh, he turns towards Nell. "What ought to have been a victory for me turns into a loss for us all." And he lifts his glass and downs it in the air of someone mourning a lost friend.
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Interesting. Disappointing.
Not wholly unexpected.
The Priest tips chin up at Kostos’ answer and steps back as Wysteria intervenes. Not far back—presence is tangible pressure to compel behavior—but enough the Priest might stare down at the smaller rifter in mute disapproval.
At Byerly’s interjection the Priest raises eyes to study him instead. Outsider to this also (distaste creeps into the Priest’s expression) but not wrong in his assessment. For whatever selfish reason it is made.
“Agreed.”
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She still makes no effort to get involved, not with Priest hovering and Wysteria fussing. Kostos can wipe his own bloody nose. She does, however, spot a bowl of soup abandoned on the table just behind her, and twists to take it up, blowing on a spoonful before eating.
"You know there are fights every night at half the taverns in Lowtown," she points out to the apparently-bloodthirsty Byerly a bit dryly. "He's," she gestures at her fellow Nevarran, "Even in some of them."
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But then Étienne talks again. A smooth shirt and a smile. Easy as that. Maybe it could be that easy for Kostos, too, if he put in any practice, but he hasn’t ever, and he won’t now.
To wit: “You can go fuck yourself,” he says, dark and quiet, while he climbs back up onto his feet unassisted, “as peacefully as you want.”
The desired effect might be mitigated somewhat by the fact that his bloody nose leaves him sounding congested and, upon reaching a standing position, he briefly lists to one side before managing to manually rediscover his balance.
He does not shake Étienne's fucking hand.
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"D'you want some elfroot tea, Enchanter?" he asks quietly, with a crooked grin, "you'll be feeling that chair tomorrow."