i declare this meeting of the midnight society [closed]

[esquive]

WHO: Merrill + Marcoulf
WHAT: Ghost stories
WHEN: Wintermarch 20
WHERE: Kirkwall, Merrill's house
NOTES: N/A, will edit if applicable

It's a dark and stormy night.

No, really. It's really coming down. The gale cutting through Kirkwall's harbor is so fierce that even the industrious fisherman that might sometimes be persuaded to row out to the Gallows after the ferries have quit service (for three times what is fair, of course) can't be roused to the work. Shutters have been closed. Lamps and signposts have been taken down from their hooks to keep them from being scattered and broken on the paving stones in the night. Even the whores and cut purses have tucked in off the streets.

More to the point, it's so cold and so wet that Marcoulf has been persuaded by the promise of a fire to follow Merrill into a place he'd otherwise not be caught dead in: Kirkwall's alienage. Usually when he finds himself stuck in Kirkwall (by accident or design), he makes his way to the Inquisition's stables and makes do with the relative comfort of the hayloft. But the wind is cutting enough that he'd have to bury himself in straw and the prospect of picking it out of his clothes and beard and hair for the next week is just torturous enough to have Marcoulf almost grateful about ducking in through the doorway of her home and out of the sleeting, bitter cold rain.

He promptly sheds his cloak and shakes the water from it.

Comments

[esquive]

"It likely will. The people will leave it and it will be forgotten as it's meant to." With the Abbey ruined, what reason was there left to be there? The fishing village had been little more than a ramshackle excuse for the people who'd traveled there for the healing of the Chantry there. Surely the sea wasn't reason enough to stay there. Plenty of that to be had in every direction. For some reason that thought, cold as it is, satisfies.

Good. No one should live in a place so grim as that. Just the thought of it makes this lean to house in Kirkwall's alienage seem pleasant by comparison.

He sets the stick aside, trades the cup into his good hand and hefts himself upright. Good enough, seems to be his official opinion of the fire.

[chainlightning]

"I hope so."

Her voice is quiet, and Merrill pulls her feet up onto her chair after a moment. She is a small elven ball covered in blankets, and she sets her cup down long enough to adjust the fabric and furs so that little more than her face and dominant hand are left exposed. It makes her look a bit like a rather fat rodent, but she's fine with that.

"Thank you for getting the fire," she says after a moment, not wanting to dwell on the Abbey and what they had found there - what they had learned there. "Much easier to warm up with two people sharing the work."

[esquive]

"No trouble," he says as he sorts himself - bundling himself clumsily in one of the furs with his awkward hand, settling into the spare chair there. It takes him a few moments to still, to relax into nursing the drink, to stretch his long narrow legs out toward the hearth. He avoids bumping the dog. Lets his chin rest low against his chest and the prickle of the dense fur.

After some minutes of being a very poor conversationalist indeed as the cold melts slowly from the room, he manages: "Have you had the house very long?"

[chainlightning]

"Oh, yes." She sounds a bit startled - either because she was too engrossed in warming up or because she's only just realized that she has, in fact, had the house for very long. At least, very long in Dalish considerations of staying in one spot. Despite the surprise, her expression gives way to a soft smile and she tilts her head to one side.

"Since... mm, 9:31 Dragon, now." She laughs a little. "Goodness, that really has been a while. I wasn't always here, of course; when I was in Skyhold or the like, the others would stay here and look after it."

'The others' meaning the other elves in the alienage, and she gestures toward the door when she says it.

"How about you? Do you have a house you're planning on going back to?"

[esquive]

He-- laughs. It's a small, crooked sound. He seems briefly startled by the question, a flicker of unease flashing in his face behind the veneer of good humor. "No, no house for me," he says. "When the Inquisition is finished, I'll see about finding work guarding a merchant train or something like it."

In theory. Until a few weeks ago and the matter of his hand, that had seemed the natural assumption. Today, with the cup balanced gingerly in numb fingers, it seems-- slightly more questionable. But it isn't as if he'd say so to some Dalish woman. It's none of her business.

[chainlightning]

If Merrill notices the unease, she doesn't mention it. She knows plenty of people with no houses, no homes to go back to. Whatever Marcoulf's story, she knows him now, likes him now.

"There's always merchants to guard," she says agreeably, settling back into her chair. "It's not as though robberies have stopped even with everything going on."

That would have been too kind.