Open | Words in my mouth

[keenly]

WHO: Colin + you
WHAT: Catch-all for February
WHEN: February/Guardian
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Starters available by request.

Clarke - Apothecary

Once the ghosts are gone and Colin is permitted back to work, he finds himself short of almost everything. He's come back from the garden with a fresh batch of winter herbs to dry and is hanging them in the closet when he hears the door open.

"Right with you!" he calls out, voice muffled by the wooden walls. A second later, he's walking out and shutting the closet door behind him, giving Clarke a searching look.

Cade

There is a knock at Cade's chamber door; upon opening, he will find Colin there, looking a little uneasy but smiling wanly and holding a box.

"You didn't pick this up," he says, offering the lyrium.

Julius

Colin arrives at Julius' work space with a box of cookies. He gives a little wave and sets the box before him. These are spicy, chewy things with bits of candied ginger. He heard how bad things got here, and it sounds like Julius could use a lot of delicious cookies.

Byerly - Lexie's apartment

"So." Colin shows Byerly in to where he has light refreshments set up--tea, anise seed cakes, and buttered bread. A small smile is on his face. "I had to learn your name from someone else, but at least I got it."

It's a light jab; there are no hard feelings here. He pours tea for his guest.

Lexie & Byerly - Lexie's apartment, a while after By arrives

Of course, it's too much to hope they could chat in private about things no one is supposed to know about. Colin asked the servants to take a break when By arrived, but didn't realize they hadn't stopped working after they left. It's not really an underestimation of them as much as of Alexandrie, who he has slowly come to realize has way more of a past than she will ever admit to him. Which is just.

Fine! It's fine. It's, it's fine. It's fine!

Myr - Delivery

A package is delivered to Myr's doorstep. It is full of sketches. The first is an abomination, not drawn in great detail except for the tattered remains of an apprentice's robe around its waist. There's page after page of hands, the same pair of hands in various positions--clenching, scratching, clawing, clinging to brick and mortar. There's an almost informative sketch of a fortified wall--two layers of stone sandwiching crumbling clay. A templar with a terrified face. The Great Doors, shut so tightly not even light can get through. Wide-open faces of screaming mages. Shallow-eyed corpses. A glimpse of a lake beyond broken brick. Dirt under fingernails, a pair of twisted legs learning to walk.

Wildcard

Comments

[bouchonne]

"Don't be ridiculous, dear creature," Byerly responds, crossing his long legs at the knee. He's tense, in spite of himself, in this space; it's haunted in a way that sets his anxiety on edge. But to confess to his discomfort would be to give this child some view into his soul, and he'd sooner not.

"We've met before. Remember? I had a head-wound. You had...some other injury, I presume; I wasn't paying attention to anyone save myself."

[keenly]

And now Byerly can continue to familiarize himself with Colin's particular brand of restrained eyeroll-that-doesn't-quite-roll-enough.

"And you were very pointed in not telling me your name," he reminds the man, sitting and pouring his own cup.

[bouchonne]

"Was I? How strange for me." By lifts the tea, and sniffs it - and wrinkles his nose, clearly disapproving of something.

"Normally I'm quite the egoist. Well, blame the head-wound. Still, how flattering, that you continued to pursue me."

[keenly]

"Or, we were both flagged for the same project?" Colin blows across the top of his tea--not because it's too hot, but because he likes seeing what it does to the swirls of steam coming from the surface.

"The, um, the reading thing you can do." He glances at his guest. "Like how you worked out I'm a mage. Does that mean you're a professional?"

Meee

[onlyhymns]

Cade is slightly disheveled when he opens it, and looks like he's been ill, or... perhaps just very tired, or had his face powdered and his eyes reddened by a marauding makeup artist. Nobody ever comes to the room he shares with Nari, and what begins as suspicion yields to immediate embarrassment when he realizes what's happening.

"I've been--" he stammers, taking the box, "--out of..."

Stepping back from the doorway, he moves to bring it inside, but doesn't invite Colin in. It's a nice corner room as seen from the doorway, with a small living space with a table between a double bed on one end and a single on the other, separated by privacy screens. Cade moves toward the single bed's nightstand, where he finds a pouch and brings it back over to the doorway, mouthing the numbers as he counts coins from it.

[keenly]

The nervous smile is sapped away at the sight of Cade. By the time he returns with payment, Colin is shifting his weight from foot to foot, working himself up to something.

“Um. Have you been, um, have you been f-feeling ill? Trouble sleeping, stomach discomfort, any of that?

[onlyhymns]

Though he looks like he might protest, Cade catches himself and sheepishly nods. "Things got-- got a little difficult recently," he says, feeling strange for saying so, "but... as long as we don't have another... spirit situation, it should be fine."
He extends the coins to Colin, still in the doorway.

[keenly]

Colin isn't looking at the coin, only at the man. After a second, his shoulders squirm and he rubs the back of his neck. He does not take the coin.

"Can I get you to the apothecary for a minute? I'd like to get you some senna. Maybe some lavender." Definitely some lavender. He should probably compound an entire myriad of herbs for this man.

[altusimperius]

It's some impossible hour of the morning, 2am or so, when a weary young voice crackles onto Colin's sending crystal.

"Wake up," it growls, "and come to the guest apartments. We've got a problem."

[keenly]

There’s the sound of shifting blankets, and a second later, the clatter of someone picking up a live crystal. A series of completely unintelligible mutters comes forth with the cadence of a question.

[altusimperius]

"NOW, if you please," comes the voice again, "the guest apartments! Something has.... it.... it smells rancid in here." A mutter to someone else in the room, with a more genial tone, but only barely.

[keenly]

Another sound of shuffling, accompanied by a bewildered pause.

"You know I'm not a servant, right?"

[overharrowed]

Baked goods definitely will not go amiss. Julius, contrarily, looks a bit better than he has, at least physically. He's still got his staff propped nearby, as much to lean on as for anything else, but his color is better and if he's still bandaged, it's lightly enough that his robes and boots can conceal the damage. His demeanor is muted, though, as he sifts through some of the paperwork on his desk.

When he hears Colin come in, he looks up with a faint smile, but his eyebrows raise as the box is deposited in front of him. "What's this, then?"

1/2

[keenly]

"Cookies." A shrug. A beat.

2/2

[keenly]

"Oh." That wasn't the question. "Um, comfort food. They said the Veil ripped when the ferry stopped running?"

Colin doesn't offer explanation as to where he was. In truth, he was living in the home of a beautiful noblewoman and that's not a thing he wants to be overheard at a door, no matter how platonic the arrangement is. This also just isn't the time. Being trapped in a Circle surrounded by demons would be horrific for anyone, but for someone who survived Uldred, it's old hat horrific.

[overharrowed]

Ah. He doesn't say it, but his expression does.

"...it did. I'm glad you weren't here, frankly." He doesn't ask for the explanation that wasn't offered. "It was not the best few days I've ever spent, but no lasting harm done, as far as anyone can tell."

He doesn't want to curse it, but even so. His words are even, good-natured, but there's a bit less jauntiness than he usually manages, even so.

Finel

[keenly]

It doesn't take long for Colin to start making a list in his head of people who might have set him up.

Of course this stranger seems nice? And kind of cute, except that he can't see much of his face when they're riding on the same hart, Colin sitting behind because damned if he knows how to ride a hart. He doesn't even know how to ride a horse.

But he does know how to cook, even without utensils, and spends the journey trying to read the list. After quite some time spent on the road in silence, Colin speaks up.

"So we've been set up. We should probably head back to Kirkwall."

[malavhenan]

In truth, Finel has no idea that this isn't legitimate - he's still adjusting to life with the Inquisition, still figuring out what was expected. So all of it seemed real, if also in part because he's rather unfamiliar with this kind of cooking.

The hart was a pleasant surprise, even if he's only ridden one a handful of times, but it's easy enough to take the lead, and he's hardly fussed about having to share. Colin is mostly quiet, but Finel doesn't find the silence awkward, not when the path before them is so enjoyable. It's always nice to get out of the Gallows, after all.

Finel pulls their mount to a gentle stop, twisting to look at Colin as well as he can. His brows knit together in confusion, a slight frown on his lips.

"What do you mean? Are we in danger?"

It certainly seemed like an awful lot of trouble for someone to do such a thing to lure them both out here.

[keenly]

"Maybe?"

Colin flips the page over in his hand to make sure there's nothing on the back.

"We've been sent meandering through the countryside to pick up ingredients for a fish dinner. So even if we're not in danger, it's definitely a waste of time."

you're both in trouble

[coquettish_trees]

The look on Marceau's face when she'd come home had been such that Alexandrie had closed the door quietly and stilled the call to Colin she'd opened her mouth to send ringing gaily through the apartments.

A moment and short quiet explanation later her mood is dampened, and a stealthy tread aided by lesson, rug, and house-slippers and a listen at the door to get some idea of why Byerly is visiting Colin gives her enough information for the dampened mood to turn thunderous. She considers briefly whether it would be more useful to sneak to the entrance and call out as she'd planned or to simply knock, decides on the former, and a few careful minutes later:

"Colin, cher," how bright and cheerful she sounds! "The man who imports the Antivan preserves you like is back at the market, do let us go pick some out!"

[keenly]

She wasn't supposed to be back yet. Colin starts halfway to his feet before realizing he hasn't done anything worth getting in trouble over. Still, she's on to something, which makes it hard to keep from blushing.

"Not a good time, Lexie. Um. Have you met...?"

He gestures between her and Byerly vaguely as if a handwave is a proper introduction. Which it is not.

[bouchonne]

Byerly's smile is faint. He sips carefully on his cup of tea, and murmurs, "We're acquainted."

Then he leans down, and sets the cup of tea on the table, and rises to his feet. "It's all right," he says to the boy. "Go and find your preserves. Your presence is much desired, it seems."

leaps into this at last

[faithlikeaseed]

At first he doesn't parse the meaning of the package.

The images are so like his nightmares (Evrion) since Ghislain and Kirkwall's subsequent haunting that his first response is to blanch and bury them, neatly indexed but safely out of sight, on his desk.

But they aren't out of mind for all that, lodged in memory and apt to leap out at him whenever he has a quiet moment. Colin wouldn't send them out of malice--the thought scarcely occurs to Myr--but why, why these images of a Circle's dissolution drawn with such lurid clarity--

Later, in daylight, Colin had written when Myr had asked what kept him awake--and later, in daylight, it clicks for him. He's back to his room on the instant, digging out the package and splaying the pictures out for study. They've lost none of their power to turn his guts to water but witnessing this isn't about his comfort.

He asked. This happened. He needs to see it, for the sake of any honest argument he'd ever make about the fates of mages--and for Colin's sake, more important still.

---
A day or two after the package's delivery he shows at Colin's stall, punctual as ever when lunch is on offer. Despite that he waits out the rest of the line--and a little after that, for any stragglers--before approaching the counter and setting down payment. "Brisk today," he says with a smile. "The business and the weather. How are you?"

[keenly]

Colin ladles a hot, spicy soup into Myr's bowl, sticks in a slice of fresh bread, and shrugs. He's been on weird terms with the elf since their arguing, and though there's no debt between them, Myr has put a lot on Colin's mind. He's still not sure how he feels about most of it.

"I've been better. And worse. It's a day. You?"

[faithlikeaseed]

"'It's a day' is as good a summary as any," he replies, juggling bowl and utensils so he can take a bite of the bread and assess the soup soaking into it. Perhaps not the politest thing to do after striking up a conversation, but that's curiosity for you. "S'great, as usual," comes the verdict--and then he sets it aside and clears his throat.

"Have a moment to talk?"