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Entry tags:
open.
WHO: The ex-bard currently known as Édouard & you
WHAT: Moving in, making friends
WHEN: Mid-Haring
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: :V
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
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
no subject
It's still odd to give out her name so freely, but never more so than now. He'd known her as Sophie Reynard of Val Royeaux with the accent to match, and there's a fleeting impulse to take that name up again, or offer another alias in its place. Not that he has any means of knowing that this name is a true one--or that she'd even be very concerned if he did. But this unexpected intrusion of an associate into the already-confused commingling of personal and professional that is her Inquisition service has her off-balance, even if it doesn't show.
"Forgive me if this is too bold on such short acquaintance, Monsieur Almary, but would you care to have a drink? I'd be interested to hear more about what you will be printing for us."
no subject
"Of course," he says, standing up and tri-folding his papers in on themselves. They're only old reports, meant to get him up to speed, but still something he wouldn't take into a tavern for no good reason. That isn't something he feels the need to explain, to Yseult, in any more detail than is conveyed by holding them up as an exhibit. "How far away is the drink?"
no subject
"The best options are in the city, across the water. But we could see if there's a quiet corner of the dining hall if you'd prefer."
no subject
"I have the press set up in the—" He turns to gesture wordlessly, like a hapless new arrival, which is half correct, at the largest tower rising over them. "—but in the basement." Still using the papers as a pointer, he turns the upwards gesture down. "If you find some wine and meet me there in twenty minutes, I can show you the machine. It's dwarven. Fascinating engineering."
And an excellent plan, so of course she agrees to it, and twenty minutes later he’s sitting on the floor beside the press, sorting through the letter tiles he spilled on arrival. It’s an ongoing project. He might die before it’s done, because he might walk himself into the frozen sea.
When she arrives, he looks up, and his smile is a different smile than before.
“Yseult.”
no subject
She agreed for the ease and the privacy, but she's curious about the press, too, especially now she's seen that it actually exists. She vaguely recalls mention of printing when they'd met previously, but she's never been much for allowing a mission to be waylaid by small talk when companionable silence will do. But this isn't a mission, so she makes her way over to fold herself to a seat in a clear space nearby him, a single letter--R--scooped up and handed over. Cups are set on the floor, and the wine uncorked.
"What actually brings you here?"
no subject
Wayward R tossed in with the rest, Bastien digs his heels into the stone floor to push away from the mess and closer to her. That way she doesn’t have to play along when he beckons and leans in with the sort of conspirational I’m about to tell you a secret eye contact that often gets him places.
“Printing.” And on the way back to being perpendicular with the floor, he adds, again, with contemplative skepticism, “Yseult.”
He’ll stop saying her name weirdly once he’s used to it. Maybe. Maybe not. But not in public. He’s polite that way. Not so polite as to keep his hands off the wine bottle, but polite enough to pour wine for her first.
“I retired,” he says. “Years ago. I print gardening manuals now.” It isn’t even a lie, though also not the whole truth. The stack of said manuals he gestures to is only the unsold stock nobody wanted because it’s all hideously dull. “And for the sake of my eulogy I would be very grateful to not be tracked down and murdered before I’ve found a more interesting niche.”
no subject
She glances back over her shoulder, and nudges one of the crates to a better angle before leaning back, an elbow propped up on one knee and the wine dangling. "I suppose printing propaganda for the Inquisition is something of a compromise between your previous career and garden manuals." She tips her head in a contemplative moment of her own. "It does sound like a career for a man named Édouard."
no subject
He imagines they all do, at least. Perhaps she has never taken a wrong turn or a life that could have been spared, or chosen a hideous false name and then had to live with it longer than expected, and perhaps her inscrutable smiles hide nothing in particular. Maybe this time around he'll have the honor of finding out, one way or the other.
And if she has ever had a terrible name, then she's in trouble.
In the meantime: "What are you doing here? Where have you been? You do not have to tell me everything—" Wouldn't, he's sure, regardless. "—but you have to tell me something interesting, or I will start reading from the manuals."
no subject
no subject
"And it is not saved yet?" he says, whirling his wine glass and looking toward the wall, which doesn't have a window, but will have to substitute for an illustration of the world anyway. "When you have been here for at least an hour? Perhaps it is time for you to consider retirement."
no subject
She holds it out for a refill after, letting her other palm thwap against her thigh. "But now you're here, nearly doubling the number of seasoned professionals on the payroll. I would be grateful for your help."