faderift | gather jewels from graveyards

It isn't a geranium.

Weddings, true friendship, a folly of the heart — too many possible meanings, and few timely for it. Embrium, and the child's story it evokes, seems a better joke (freed of one's bedroom).

His smile's familiar at the door, though this time the jacket's a touch shabbier, expression less carefully composed. It grows more languid to descend the steps toward Lowtown, arm offered in a companionable brace that she almost certainly doesn't need. The business of Orlesian delicacy is performative as any other trade.

"Tell me," Gamely. "Do you find bear-baiting cruel?"

That's not where they're going.

Edited 2019-01-04 05:49 (UTC)

She doesn't.

Need the brace, that is, but she takes his arm in any case and lays her other hand comfortably over the one that rests in the crook of his elbow.

"Surpassingly," she replies, with the same sort of lightness, "I believe it a dreadful sport and have only been well pleased by it once the bear has been loosed from its bindings to wreak its vengeance."

The Embrium is tucked cunningly into the band of her hat.

"Is it that, then? The chains?"

There are (he's heard) arenas in Tevinter.

That's not where he's going, either. The entire country seems a path best cut about for the time being, ground to be retrod once under steadier foot. Ideally: Lexie's. Isaac isn't above tripping into puddles as he must; doesn't mean he cares for the effects.

"We might pose another question: What renders that violence ignoble?" Vendors hawk their wares. Hawke, a few of them: Tired as that legend must grow, still spins up enough coin. "Beside that of the Tourney?"

With its wyverns, and gasts, and — slime.

"Might we?" She returns, her brows lifting.

It's something she's missed, this. Having a conversation that might be about anything from the plight of Mages in the south, to the Inquisition being bound by honor and humanity in combat in a way Corypheus and his troops certainly weren't, to the actual sport being discussed. The game in attempting to see whether or not, by the end of the conversation, you could be having the same one.

"I shall answer both at once. Men who make sport of fettered beasts that should be stronger than them unfettered in order to boast themselves as great and powerful as that which they have caught and bound are, I think, made the smaller for it."

No such thing seen in the Tourney's creatures. Fabricated though the circumstances had been, Geneviève had earned her victory.

"Ah, then wits are no great power —" Kirkwall descends, one great slope to the ocean. He cuts their path aside before it can dip too far (no one loves a fishmarket). "— Or wealth."

To supply the iron, to craft and place it. Whether there’s honour in Orlais is a matter of contention, but it wasn’t Gaspard's strength of arm that brought him so near to the throne.

"Think you that wits and wealth are shackles on those who have none rather than wings on those who do?" Alexandrie asks, her eyebrows lofting gracefully.

Edited 2019-01-21 18:10 (UTC)

"Consider the falcon," A self-effacing gesture, the quirk of a mouth, "If you'll permit a bit of zoological meandering."

Too much metaphor, and they'll both sink into some ridiculous guessing game. Well. More ridiculous.

"Shackled and winged alike — a bird of uncommon cleverness, and finely-kept for it," If it isn't about mages (about Tevinter), it may as well be. But there are other confines than a tower: If less politically important, more presently relevant. "Kept, the same."

Hooded, blind; talons fettered to another's purpose. He does recall whose walls he scorched.

His glance finds hers: A moment, two, and then they round the corner. There's a sign at the end of the street, the Grizzly Arms. It hangs before a set of steps, themselves vanishing underground. A heavily-tattooed woman loiters outside the entrance.

"Of course it's a sight when they get loose. Whether after the hare," He's heard about the wedding. Merrill, a particularly scandalous choice if one needs to piss on the memory of a would-be Magister. "Or one's eyes."

There are more direct means than scandal. It's lightly-said, might be a joke. Might be.

Edited (realized that sounded like) 2019-01-22 07:07 (UTC)

"An odd relationship, to be sure. One likes to imagine that the falcon respects its falconer as well as its falconer respects it," or as well as its falconer ought to, "but if it is to be a truly effective hunter it must be as wild as it is tame. I have sometime thought jesses crueler than chains for the brief illusion of freedom the bird enjoys for a few wingbeats."

About the bird, about its 'master'. Little for the hare; it irks her to be thought prey, despite making herself an attractive target.

"It is a rare bird who would fly to the glove a-purpose, rather than being born to it or caught. I should simultaneous cherish it and wonder always why it came. Why it stays."

The woman's tattoos are rather lovely.

He doesn't work this time of day.

He also doesn't generally invite strangers into his room (more faces lurking the hall lately than he'd prefer), doesn't care for the library, and has meandered his way into the winter gardens by the time he bothers to relay as much.

Doesn't bother with any self-description: Seems more fun — in theme with the rest of this mess — to make him work a little for it.

There aren't many others about; certainly, most aren't Orlesian, though it takes getting close to lift an accent. For his part, Isaac sits on a bench, and shreds the petals from a wizened daisy.

Edited (I totally remember what season it is) 2019-01-04 19:02 (UTC)

In the library they'd probably be shushed, anyway, and an invitation to private quarters—well. Winter or not, the garden is probably the wisest option out of the three.

He's still dressed in layers of comfortable dark colours for travel—nary a magely robe among them—and a favourite scarf that makes his indecisively coloured irises look green, but missing the sea-beard thanks to a timely shave. Between the bare jaw and the winter blush he's looking more boyish than he typically cares for, but that will correct itself soon enough.

Travelling clothes aside, the way he's looking around the atrophied garden all obvious and bright-eyed, it's dead easy to clock this slim young stranger as a tourist. He may even be observed making a full, leisurely turn around before he spots—

Something on the ground.

Whereupon he crouches down to pick up whatever little thing he's found and look at it.

It will serve Isaac right, if he spends this long eyeing a local.

The signs are obvious, which is precisely what makes them bad signs, but life isn't a detective story and sometimes the (medium, pale) stranger is only that. A newcomer, the newcomer, plain as day.

If he'd a touch more pride (patience), Isaac might draw this out, but he doesn't; one spin of the yard is enough. He squints, watches Leander inspect — whatever speck he's stooped to, can't quite tell. It's a dead giveaway, to be paying so much attention, but no telling how the man's own splits; between hand and bush.

What is he holding?

Edited 2019-01-06 04:13 (UTC)

There he is.

Leander takes just enough time to stand that it seems natural; when he finally turns toward the bench, its occupant will know that it wasn't. Partly, at least. He really was interested in whatever that was—is, still is, as he's bringing it with him, his hand a delicate shape around it.

"Isaac," he says, and it does sound at least half like a question. You know, for the sake of sportsmanship. "Sorry to keep you waiting—I couldn't resist." By way of explanation, "The carapace is intact." He holds it up for Isaac to see: a little larger than his own thumbnail, a faint sheen, coloured like oxidizing bronze.

That's his left hand. His right, he extends in greeting. Finally he smiles. "Hello."

Edited 2019-01-06 04:29 (UTC)

How charming.

He shakes, first, because he's not an animal; smiles as though he hasn't at all noticed the deliberation of their back-and-forth (mutual pretense: the essence of courtesy).

"Lea," He says — it's what you say — before turning his attention to the bug. Not uncommon about the rows, but large enough to make a prize. Agreeably, "You'll find more of them in the storerooms."

Which is both a recommendation and a warning. Check one's dinner.

"May I?"

Slips his own hand free to unfurl a palm, cracked by hairline fissures. Recalls a moment, half a year prior; this bench, the gardens. Marisol, a scorpion, and glass.

For just a moment, that smile creeps beyond the polite and bunches gently in the skin around his eyes. A minuscule difference; important nonetheless.

"Of course." One deceased beetle, passed from one chilly hand to another. He's careful not to allow their skin to touch (although certainly wouldn't mind). "Have a closer look at it." As if he would stoop to pick up a common larder pest. Please.

That done, he moves to occupy the as yet unoccupied bench space, casual as you please, settling easily, crossing one lean leg over his other at the knee. His boots aren't new, nor of the latest fashion, but they're well cared-for and they fit him very well. "Beautiful garden here—I hadn't expected."

"The statues didn't improve it." Or so he's heard. Isaac doesn't look up quite yet, carefully working at the joint where wings hide. It's magic, of course, the garden — and Leander's a stranger. Isaac isn't hiding here (too bad at it), but he isn't any more inclined to give up the edge in a conversation. Bad enough that the beetle's such a pretty little thing. "Or the jutting spikes, I suppose."

He is, for a moment, quite preoccupied. Thirty-odd years since he stopped stabling the things in boxes, but the habit's never precisely vanished.

Neither have his manners. His glance up is half apology; it isn't as though he started it, so half's precisely where it stays.

"What caught your eye?"

Passes the little corpse back.

Edited 2019-01-06 05:34 (UTC)

"The iridescence." Palm up to accept; this time he's less careful. "And the man on the bench," he adds, with a brief and flirtatious cant of his head. "On the way down here, I was prepared to be extremely polite. Imagine my luck."

And away skips his gaze again, to find something or other to ponder over yonder. It finds the gnarled shape of a tree and lingers there among its wet-black branches in genuine, if heavy-lidded, interest. His chin lifts; he breathes deeply, in through the nose and out again between his lips. The little corpse turns lightly between his fingers like a fidgeting coin.

Suddenly inspired, he reaches into the folds of his clothing, where a breast pocket would be. And is. Somewhere in there.

What a fucking weirdo.

— Which tracks, really, when has anyone to spare him a glance not been. The eyes aren’t bad (wet branches), the wrists (gnarled); he’s human, he thinks of it.

A stranger's groping about his chest in public, of course he thinks of it.

But Isaac can follow a glance well as any. And this is public. And he’s still holding a beetle, palmed between thumb and finger so lightly that any moment might threaten to crush black.

"That one will bloom, come spring."

The tree — the beetle, too; if left long enough, to the right devices. Rot finds a way.

If Leander knew he'd already hit notes of both charming and weirdo during this exchange, he might be proud of it. He's not rummaging around in there to put on a show, however—a bit lower, perhaps, turning his head to look with a little frown between his eyebrows, not quite as smooth as he'd have liked—but to retrieve a leather pouch, about the size of a deck of cards. In goes the beetle's fragile little body for safe keeping, out comes a slim cylinder of leaf, smooth and dark, wrapped tightly by hand.

"Oh? That ought to be lovely. Something to look forward to." The cigarette tips toward Isaac, offering and appeal combined. "Hope you don't mind." Whether or not he accepts, "I'd heard of those statues—it's too bad they were all removed. I was looking forward to seeing them. Are there any left?"

If Isaac were the suspicious type, this would trip every signal. A chance meeting; the insect, the smoke. May as well check off a list of curious trouble. Praise the Maker that he isn't suspicious. Not enough that he'll not first see this path around a corner or two —

"Melted down," A nod (what passes for gratitude), slips the cigarette between his fingers to roll against knuckle. Deliberates, "Before my time."

But people talk. Satisfied, he presses it up between teeth, cups the end in hands that haven't reached for a light. The pinch of Leander's brow is bizarre reassurance: So much for that conversation's edge.

A spark between his fingers, paper flares into ash. Isaac observes, steady over the top an inhale, and tries to imagine who'd earnestly want that bit of Imperial wreckage. Screaming slaves. Picturesque.

"I heard they saved a sculpture," Relief is the word he's looking for, chooses not to find. "But I couldn't tell you where. The archives might know."

If Gareth wouldn't just take his staff to the fucking thing. He offers the cigarette back.

Edited 2019-01-16 16:12 (UTC)

Leander, meanwhile, is counting items on a list of a different sort entirely, and the unexpected surprise of a shared cigarette is among them. He was going to tap out one of his own, but forget about that. And that reveal when Isaac lights it, so casually—if there were no spark of magic to reflect in the shine of Leander's eyes, there'd have been a spark in them regardless.
That's on his list, too, very near the top.

"I'll have to ask after it, then." Fingers crossed for screaming slaves. "Nice bit of history."

A pause, here, as he draws his own mouthful, without attempting anything stylish. (The pocket thing threw him off a bit.) Ever so courteously, he blows the smoke away from Isaac. Doesn't immediately pass it back. Does decide to see how long he can hold eye contact before one of them gives in to the typically human urge to smile—properly, not like the almost thing his mouth is so often doing—or to look away.

Imagine the coincidence panic it might cause if either of them were aware of Leander's future in Research; he'll be assigned to artifact restoration roughly a day from now. (And if he does manage to track down that relief, he'll casually correct him about the terminology later.)

Isaac’s chin tips back, curious — what exactly is he doing — before his eyebrows sketch up in a smile of a different sort.

(A smile, the same.)

"Nice bit of present." The implication of a future crawling steadily closer. There was a time in his life when he might have named the nearest alcove; the Gallows decidedly aren’t it. Even so, "What was it you came here to do?"

"I can't remember." It's only halfway a joke. If he had something in mind for this meeting, any specific reason to connect with a stranger based on just a few words exchanged, it wasn't this. (His objection to the crystals, though, that part's true.) "Mustn't have been important."

Leander probably, almost certainly, definitely doesn't need to lean quite so close to Isaac to return the cigarette. They both have arms capable of extending, proven only moments ago. And yet.

A curious frown bunches between his eyebrows—not a bad one. The ghost of a smile still lingers below. "Is that you or the garden? That planty scent."

Planty, herbal, some other adult-sounding word. Oh well. His bare chin's already dug that hole, might as well hop into it.

Planty. That startles a laugh, a cough about smoke. Isaac plucks the cigarette from between his lips; doesn’t lean away to tap it toward grass.

"Dreadful, isn’t it." Overdone, maybe; particularly this close. The air’s cold, breath’s warmer. "But it’s this or the Infirmary."

Soap can’t always ease the stain of blood and bowels. Or worse (more frequent), cats.

The Infirmary, is it—that's interesting. Intriguing, even. It's also a line of thought that forks dramatically away from this pleasant path they've come to wander, and while he does enjoy a good blood and bowel story as much as the next charming weirdo, now is perhaps not the time. But since he laughed—

"I don't mind it." Now is, perhaps, the time to slip his finger under a hem, somewhere not too familiar (the front of a shoulder, or a center button line) and trail it along to sample the texture of Isaac's outermost layer. "Moths, though—they must find you very intimidating."

Sampling over, and nary a moth-hole was discovered. His reward: a few light victory pats and the cheekiest look.

"As they ought." His voice lilts clownish, self-aware: "Daresay I could pin a flighty thing."

It's not cheap stitching (his shoulder, the sleeve); it clearly isn't new. Dark to hide stains, thick to hide a shiver — to allow his attention to track that line of contact with more languid affect. But if that's the game they're playing,

Isaac leans back. Blithely, disentangled:

"Of course, it's never moths by daylight."

In the arcane language of eyebrows: You could, eh? Leander turns in his seat, hooks his elbow over the back of the bench and laces his fingers together between the two of them. Thusly prepared, he lifts his chin just so, doesn't quite look down his (slightly crooked) nose.

"What, then? If not a moth. Tell me."

Go on. Tell him what he is.

gather jewels from graveyards | closed

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