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]

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.