open.

[cozen]

WHO: The ex-bard currently known as Édouard & you
WHAT: Moving in, making friends
WHEN: Mid-Haring
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: :V

I. CENTRAL TOWER

Another casualty for the Inquisition's records: a type case belonging to Édouard Almary, which, after scandalously bumpy journey from Val Royeaux that wore without mercy on its rickety old joints, expired in the corridor of the Gallows' central tower in an overdramatic explosion of rune-stamped tiles, mere feet from its final destination, leaving its owner holding only two narrow pieces of its frame.

Très tragique.

He is sure that the various pieces of the type case are now pieces small enough he can carry them himself, however, and the printing press is already where it's meant to be. So he drops the two sticks in his hands onto the wreckage, flips the dockhand who'd been waylaid to assist him him a silver for his service, and sends him on his way.

The he stands there for a short while, frowning at the riot of sorts and splintered wood. One of the long, shallow drawers has skidded several yards back toward the stairs, like it was making a break for it. Is this a bad omen? Does he believe in omens? No, he doesn't. Yet—possibly.

But there isn't anything to do about it now. He's here. He isn't carrying the damned press back down the stairs. So after that short while of frowning he begins picking up the pieces, beginning by pushing the drawer that made a break for it along the floor toward the rest of the mess with one foot, sweeping tiles along with it, and humming "Girl in Red Crossing" to accompany the sound of skittering metal bits on stone.

II. DINING HALL

"Were you there, in Ghislain?"

The question is Orlesian-accented and aimed at whoever is closest: someone he sat down next to for lack of empty seating elsewhere, someone he sat nearby because they looked like they could use the company, someone who is left in his vague proximity after the other people around them have finished their meals and left. When he asks it, he glances up, long enough for a flicker of a friendly but appropriately muted smile for the subject matter.

Many deaths, as he's heard it, and a disheartening degree of chaos. Asking about it is possibly not the best way to go about making friends. But on the other hand, they are soldiers and spies; it might be the only way.

III. TRAINING GROUNDS

It is not so cold here, in his opinion, especially in the fortress, where the walls break the wind. On one of the brighter days during his first week he spends midday outside, watching those who don't have the luxury of letting their training lapse for the winter practice swinging swords or loosing arrows while he reads through a short stack of documents.

He's a safe distance away, but not so distant he can't make a single pitying tsk when one of the cloth and straw training dummies is thoroughly obliterated.

"Brutal," he says. "Did it have a name?"

IV. WILDCARD

Comments

[cozen]

Bastien finishes humming out the verse, waiting by the chantry to marry me, because his very rude spectator isn't worth leaving it unfinished, but also sweeps the tiles the last few feet into the pile with added flourish bordering on dance steps, because his very rude spectator is still a spectator.

That done, he says, "The sorts are where the money is," stepping on the edge of one of the larger tiles to stand it on end and put it on illustrative display. That's when he properly looks up, too, to see who exactly is being a useless bastard—looks up, and swiftly tucks any recognition and surprise into a ten-degree tilt of his head before it can bleed onto his face. "The rest is a funny-shaped chest of drawers. But if you are volunteering—?"

[bouchonne]

Ah - Byerly's eyes narrow just a moment, flicking over the man's face. The voice is familiar, certainly, but at times it's hard to tell Orlesian voices apart; the thick vowels make them all sound roughly the same. And the moustache (new, isn't it?) changes the contours of his face. So he might be excused for not recognizing him immediately. But it is him; that little tilt of the head is so familiar that Byerly might as well have seen it yesterday.

"To replace it? No," Byerly responds cheerily. "But I believe I may know of a man who has something rather like this and who isn't using it. We could pay him a visit."

[cozen]

Bastien tilts his head further, this time intentionally, narrowing his eyes and smiling at once in cheerful warning. Visiting people who aren't using all of their possessions is a young man's game, and Byerly, however many years younger he is, (two, it's two,) is welcome to it, but Bastien—

"If the seneschal will part with any coins, perhaps," he says, and crouches to begin tossing sorts into one of the less-destroyed drawers lying in the wreckage. He'll have to arrange them later, "but I would hate to become an unforeseen expense an hour after arriving. I read in Judicael Martin's latest that six hours is the absolute minimum, in polite society."

He offers one hand up to shake, from where he's crouched, while the other continues shoveling metal tiles.

"Édouard Almary."

[bouchonne]

"Is that so," Byerly murmurs, eyebrow ticking upwards. To an outside observer, a comment about Martin; to Byerly, and to Bastien, a comment about Edouard Almary. But Bastien's games have always been a pleasure; By is loath to kill this one, particularly when it is so fresh and new.

So: he takes Bastien's hand, and bows over it, and presses his lips most impudently against the man's wrist. Then he lifts his eyes and privileges the fellow with his best smoulder.

"Byerly Rutyer. What a pleasure it shall be to have such an honest man in the Inquisition."

[cozen]

Because Bastien knows something about these tricks, regardless of who's playing them, and what he knows about Byerly from their misspent youths doesn't lend it any additional credibility, he raises his eyebrows and arranges his mouth into something unimpressed.

But because he has a pulse, and because Byerly's face is, you know, the face that it is, he also blushes.

It's very faint, but nonetheless: bastard. Bastien takes his hand back at a good clip without quite stooping to snatching it back, and says, "Has it been lacking?"

[bouchonne]

There are days when Byerly reflects on his advancing age with a bit of worry. Am I losing my touch? he thinks. What will happen once my looks fade? Do I still have it?

Every once in a while, it gives him great succor to remember that: yes. He still has it.

"Desperately," By says, his grin openly mocking and blatantly pleased. "Oh, there are people telling little truths, here and there - petty, inconsequential truths - and can you consider a man truly honest if he's only engaging in petty honesty? But then, here comes you. My dearest and most esteemed Edouard. With the ability to print." He waves broadly at the busted equipment at his feet. "Now, that is honesty at scale."