[OPEN] lets say its like the sunrise

[esquive]

WHO: Flint, Wysteria, Marcoulf + YOU
WHAT: Guardian Catch-all
WHEN: Right Now
WHERE: Kirkwall, unless otherwise noted
NOTES: Hit me up if you want a specific starter!

FLINT

I. BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Somewhere in the Gallows, there is a narrow interior courtyard. It's shielded by much of the weather if not the chill by the high walls surrounding it which makes it more conducive to loitering than most. In this courtyard, a minor noblewoman from Ostwick and a merchant of some middling means are carrying on a conversation while the noblelady tosses a ball down the length of the narrow yard. Her dog, long-legged and mad from hours locked away in a Gallows apartment, races after it - digs up the winter bare planters - rolls in the ice - while his mistress is saying:

"--It could be done, of course. But the price would be astronomical."

The shape of the conversation wanders upward, carried by the cold air and the narrow walls of the courtyard to where on the balcony above, a man in a dark coat is taking some air. Flint stands far enough from the balcony's wall that it would be difficult to see him from the courtyard below. He's nursing a steaming cup of something and is absolutely not eavesdropping.

WYSTERIA

I. INDEPENDENT STUDY
There's a young woman with possession of an entire table in the library. Frankly speaking? That's rude and unfair to the six dozen other scholars jockeying for any available study space to be found in the Gallows. And yet Wysteria Poppell persists with her charts and papers and open books sprawled about her in every direction.

For the most part they're awfully boring sorts of books - natural history and long, dry examinations of the Fade. But one of the books - in fact the one that sits open over top of everything else - is at least interesting for the fact that it's so comically massive and seems to be all but crumbling under its own weight. Wysteria's isolated a section in the back and seems to be studying this book very carefully indeed, pausing frequently to make chicken scratch notes in the sheaf of papers at her right hand.

(Yes, she is technically avoiding her work for Base Operations by hiding out here. No, she'd rather not discuss it.)

MARCOULF

I. WICKED GRACE
The weather's miserable to the point that they're no point in spending any more of it than necessary out in that cutting harbor wind or through the rain and sleet slick the plagues the higher reaches of the city. Between patrol assignments along the Inquisition's harbor space and work in the Gallows, Marcoulf spends any spare scrap of time available near whatever fire is most convenient.

Translation: he's in a tavern, nursing something warm to drink with a hot plate of doesn't-really-matter-as-long-as-it's-warm while losing hands of Wicked Grace. Hemorrhaging the coin this way should bother him (it does); he shouldn't be spending it in the first place (he is).

"Ah," He makes a low noise, then turns the card he's just draw face up on the table. There she is: Lady Death. Time for a show of hands.

II. MUD WRASSLIN'
Kirkwall is no city for a horse in the best of weather. It's all miserable stone roadways and twisting stairwells, made incalculably worse by the rain and the freeze and the melt and the rain and-- All the sand and dirt pulled down into the Inquisition's stables compound and training yards have only turned to mud in winter. The creatures there - exercising fighters and unused mounts - are the worst combination of restless and caked with filth. Trying to keep anything clean and happy is a fool's errand.

But here Marcoulf is, religiously making an attempt anyway. The little roan mare keeps shifting around and stamping her feet, mud-clumped tail thrashing irritably while he scrubs at her mud-caked haunch with a stiff bristled brush. He keeps having to raise an arm to fend off the WHACK! as she swings it like a mace.

[[...or wildcard whatever you want/shoot me a PM for a starter. I'm not the boss of you.]]

Comments

marflouf

[notched]

She's asleep in the stable. It was the first warm place she found when she was tired of roaming the rooftops in the night. Someone had warned her they might try to shoot her, if she continued to do this, she had mostly declared they could certainly try.

She's curled up, deep in the recesses of the rafters, her coat wrapped around herself firmly, the big hat covering her face. This is how she usually sleeps. Finds some nook somewhere and just squeezes her small frame into it like a rat and draws all the leathers in tight to keep her body heat in. It's the irritable noises of the roan that wakes her, draws her up, and then the obvious daylight wakes her further. She spends another moment longer curled tight into the foul smelling cloak of hers, daydreaming about someone dead.

Then she comes down. She looks as sunken eyed and pale as always, and she offers voice still muffled with drowsiness, "Do you need help?"

[esquive]

THACK! The mare's mud-clumped tail finally makes it through his defenses, giving him a solid beating where he stands. Marcoulf hisses at the impact, pinching the mare on her soft underbelly, newly scraped clean. The horse pins her ears accordingly, continues to flick her tail with irritation and simply adds the irregular, bored bob of her head to the elaborate dance she's performing. He doesn't imagine it possible to really lose his temper at the nasty little thing, but maybe he's near enough to it that the company - however unexpected, however ragged - is a relief.

Marcoulf takes a full step backwards from the mare, retreating to stand beside Anna outside the mare's range. He wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist, a little clumsily with the bristle brush still in his grip.

"There's no helping it. She only needs her legs stretched, but getting in and out of the city in this weather is a curse." A tip of the head in her direction, head cocked just far enough to make some effort at seeing beneath the broad brim of her beaten hat. "Sleeping here, are you?"

[notched]

She tilts her head to look back at him, the leather that laces up around her face loose enough to see inside. A drowsy, placid look.

"Did-- for a bit," she agrees. There's some small amount of pleasure in her tone. The horses had been comforting, shifting and huffing beneath her, great bodies of warmth. It had, for maybe a moment, taken her back to a forgotten childhood when she and her sister had huddled into the hay together when they'd had nowhere else to go. Perhaps her daydreams weren't so terrible this morning. "It was nearby."

She wouldn't want to give the impression she would be returning.

"I could hold her tail for you," at the very least. Maybe give her a reassuring pat or two.

[esquive]

He makes a low sound - hm - that might be for her sleeping habits as easily for the rest of her offer. But after a moment's consideration, Marcoulf cocks his head to indicate back up into the loft. "Fetch some hay. She may stand if you're there and feeding it to her. Holding the tail won't do any good."

In the meantime, he knocks the thick bristles of the brush against his knee to free some of the collected mud and dirt.

"Did the cats keep you company?" In the autumn, the loft had been home to a litter of kittens. They're grown now, wandered off or swept up mostly, but sometimes he sees the piebald mother and one of her dark girls.

[notched]

"Cats?" she's already turned away to head back into the stable. "Why are people always asking me about cats?"

Maybe it was a normal topic of conversation and she just didn't realize that. All the cats had fled Yharnam. The dogs and rats and crows had all mutated as they consumed more and more infected flesh, but there wasn't a cat in sight. Not even the corpse of one. Apparently they had realized long before any others that something was amiss in Yharnam. The loss of them had not been a primary concern as more and more dead bodies had piled up in the streets.

idk my bff wildcard

[swordproof]

It has been a long time since Six has deliberately sought out Marcoulf. She has stopped training with him; she had stopped seeing him, tracking him down, bothering him. The only time she allows herself to think about him is when she is tacking up or brushing down her horse, when her mind wanders and she thinks of that day when he had aided her. Inevitably, it makes her think of her wrapped up and bandaged leg, her crutch, the heartbreak of realising that what she thought was true was a lie.

It cannot be avoided forever, however; there's no way that she can dodge him until she dies or is forced home. He is there in the Gallows, he is sent on missions, they are pushed and dance around one another.

Six isn't entirely sure what their mission is; all she knows is that she's been sent to work with Marcoulf. The rest of it is a blur, her mission orders crumpled in her fist as she realises that they're going to be forced together and it is going to be awkward. Neither of them are good at speaking, neither of them are good at conversing with one another, and she has to force herself to gather her confidence. She is better than this, she thinks; she survived death. She can survive an awkward, broken friendship with a man she respects.

She goes, strapped in full armour, sword on her back, hair braided. She does not let herself fumble or falter; she stands tall, reaching to stroke her hand over the snout of her horse, resting her forehead against his before she breathes out. Waiting.

[esquive]

It isn't so complicated as all that. The work isn't anyway. They've only to ride out east along the wounded coast to meet some merchant wagons from Ostwick, the limping result of a small trade skiff run along the rocks in the high winter sea, and see them back into Kirkwall. It's all at the behest of some minor Lord or Lady whose name he can't recall, who had forgotten as soon as it was told to him because he cannot imagine it will be at all relevant. They have orders, a signed and sealed letter from the noble in question, and merely need to present the packet to the merchants before falling in with them. It's easy work, allowing for the fact that the wagons will be bristling with guards of their own, and the poor weather will keep most trouble from the road entirely.

Anyway, the company is reliable as well so even if the orders weren't simple, there would be no reason to fuss.

Which is maybe why Marcoulf seems so at ease when he appears in the barn. He's a pair of saddlebags slung over his shoulder, a heavy cloak wrapped about him and a felted hat low on his head. Alongside Six's big gelding, a roan mare is tacked up and waiting as well. She's a spry little thing, as ginger and lean as her master. Her head comes up when Marcoulf appears in the doorway.

"Good morning," he says to Six, as if it hasn't been weeks since they last exchanges any kind of real pleasantry. Without pausing, Marcoulf moves to the roan mare, pats her shoulder, then slings his kit up behind the saddle. "Are there stops you would see made as we leave the city, or may we go directly?"

[swordproof]

The mission might end up being quite simple, but Six is anxious all the same. She thinks her sweet gelding can feel it too, can feel the way her hands twitch a little with nerves as she pets along his face and flank, trying to soothe a nervousness in him that isn't even there. He snorts, shaking his head, and she sighs as she forces herself to move back. There's no point getting him more and more anxious because of her own nerves; it will do no more than make the journey more awkward and uncomfortable. More than she thinks it already will be.

She almost jumps when she hears Marcoulf's voice behind her.

Turning her head, she glances at him, eyes flickering over his features. He looks relaxed, comfortable, as if their disagreement - was it even that? - hasn't bothered him in the least. It makes her feel all the worse for the sadness she has felt, as if she ought to have stopped herself from feeling the twisting mix of guilt and uncertainty all over again. How foolish she has been, to think him her friend and then feel such uncertainty about herself after.

"Good morning." Quietly, soft, gentle. Different from her usual certainty and confidence. She moves around herself, strapping on the saddle and checking everything she needs before she goes. "I do not need to stop. We can make a direct journey."

[esquive]

He nods curtly, tugging hard on the saddle bag to be certain of their security, and then just as simply looses the mare's tether and leads her from the stable by the reins. The little roan horse seems eager to be on her way, mincing about the courtyard like a princess fussed about the mud though she goes stock still the moment Marcoulf puts his foot in the stirrup. She's back to restless shifting and circling the moment he's seated, light on her feet like she means to run from the city.

And just like that, he's waiting on Six and her gelding instead of the other way around.

[swordproof]

Eyes dance over him as he gets up and makes himself comfortable on his horse, and Six hesitates. Her fingers stroke against soft hair gently before she gathers herself and takes a deep breath - then she turns, climbing up onto the gelding's back and tugging on the reigns. He's still easy enough to ride and doesn't complain under the weight of her and her armour, which she appreciates; a click of her tongue and she's moving up to Marcoulf's side.

"Apologies. I am ready." Her gelding huffs another snort and she smiles at him fondly, stroking against his mane.

wyyyysteria! what up CR bro

[faithlikeaseed]

It's a testament to how radically his life's shifted on assumption of his new duties that Myr isn't one of those six dozen scholars trying to find a place to sit; he has the luxury of an office to himself now when he wants to study. But he's still down here often enough--for his Chantry discussion group, to drop in on the archivist, to borrow a tome or two for that self-same study--that it's sometimes a temptation to plunk down at one of the tables to do his reading instead of hoofing it all the way back up the tower.

Today is one of those days; and given the dismal weather outside, Myr's not inclined to fight that particular temptation as he ambles through the stacks with a slim volume tucked under one arm. Old habit laid down before he could see guides him to him to his favorite table--only to find it occupied. Very occupied. Impressively, extravagantly occupied, by only one person.

One very busy person who--yes--might be in breach of library etiquette but that doesn't warrant Myr's being impolite (or needlessly surprising) in turn. He drifts to stop beside the table, smiling a little to watch her work hard as any apprentice before an exam, and clears his throat to make himself known. "Serah Poppell? You look like you've gotten down a quarter of the library to read; has the Seneschal sprung a pop quiz on you?"

[heirring]

"Oh!" Whatever his intention might be, Wysteria jumps. It sends her hand skipping across her notes, smearing the ink over the page and-- "Messere Shivana! No, no. Nothing like that. In fact, if you see him you really must tell him you've seen me walking in the opposite direction. Toward the gardens or looking very busy with a stack of requisition requests, you know."

It's a very chipper, breezy request for his confidence, made as she blots the side her hand on a spare piece of paper.

"Are you well? What brings you here this fine afternoon? --Is it still afternoon? Spirits, I'm not even sure how long I've been buried back here."

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr sees that coming in time to flinch in sympathy but not do a damn thing about it. Well--beyond retrieving a neatly (if oddly) folded handkerchief and offering it to her in lieu of the paper. "Ah. Is this a case where he'd protest if I took you off his hands for a while?"

It's probably not the most responsible thing to do, as one project leader to another, on hearing someone had reason to avoid the man she was reporting to--but on the other hand he's not so far removed from his own apprentice days not to be slightly sympathetic to that request. And he does have need of her.

"And quite well, thank you; it is," a glance toward the nearest window, which requires him to rock up on his toes and crane a little to look around the shelves; it had never mattered much before that they're hard to see from here, "barely still afternoon, so I daresay you won't be late for dinner if you missed lunch. Though if you're not inclined that way, would you mind if I joined you?"

[heirring]

The handkerchief is gratefully, if largely wordlessly (ah, what a miracle!) accepted. "Oh, happily. Feel free to take whatever space you require. Or can find? Here, let me do some rearrangement."

The handkerchief gets tucked halfway up her sleeve so swiftly that it's clear she must have some practice with the motion. Wysteria sets to clearing space immediately - stacking books and ordering bits of paper, humming and hawing over the placement of certain texts and so on until a corner of the table has been excavated.

"But no, I don't believe the Seneschal would protest. But you know, it's rather hard to say. I feel like he's rather particular about when and where and to whom he lodges complaints. He's a rather tentative kind of person, I gather. Here-- and thank you so much for it's use." This last part she says as she whips the handkerchief back from her sleeve in order to return it to him. The black mark on the side of her hand is at least reduced now to a stain rather than an active hazard.

"In any case, are you studying something in particular this afternoon?"

[faithlikeaseed]

The single book promptly goes on the table in the space cleared for it, and Myr hauls a chair around to make himself comfortable in. "You're very welcome--and I find he's somewhat easier to approach in writing; more his element, perhaps." He refolds the handkerchief as he speaks, turning it into a different shape than it had been before returning it to the other pocket. Then he sits, feeling to ascertain the chair before he does--old habits, etc.

"The Dissonant Verses of the Chant, as it happens; this," he taps the book pointedly, "is a rather infamous little gloss on the Canticle of Maferath that got its writer excommunicated. I'm surprised we had a copy at all."

A look toward the monster she's been reading. "And you? What's got your attention?"

Flint, Naval Presence Office

[justice_is_blond]

A few hours after one particular conversation, when he's found some time to breathe and slightly gather his thoughts, Anders heads out to try to find Flint. The pirate hadn't helped the first time they'd spoken, but Anders needs something to actually do so even if this fails at least he's out trying.

He raps on the open door and comes in, briefly rubbing the back of his neck to relieve a little tension.

"Do you have a few minutes? And do you mind if I close the door?" It's probably a little more direct than he should be, but Anders has walked here on nervous energy and it's not dissipating yet.

[katabasis]

The interior of the Naval Presence office isn't quite a disaster, but it's close enough to it to warrant the descriptor. Papers are scattered over every flat surface, a series of book and charts stacked waist high in the window so as to block out a considerably portion of light meant to penetrate the room. Someone, it appears, is going through a considerable backlog of paperwork and record keeping. Between the abrupt departure of Bonaventura and Vane's aversion to anything resembling real work, there's quite a lot of sorting left to do even now.

Flint, sitting behind the desk with a pen in hand, raises his face toward the open door, to Anders, and then past him toward the corridor beyond. It's a flickering look - one that casts back to the mage there quickly enough when no one else materializes behind him. The fact that Anders is somehow not followed at every point of the day by an armed guard still somehow comes as a surprise. Could anyone blame him for looking, really?

"If you like." He doesn't set aside the pen, but he does pick it up from the sheet of paper under his hand and set the edge on the waiting inkwell. "Is this conversation a new one or are we back to tackling the old one again?"

[justice_is_blond]

"New. Mostly." He closes the door and leans against the wall as he's not been invited to take a seat. He wants something from Flint so there's no reason to push his luck. Also, the glance out the door had perhaps suggested Flint was expecting someone. Anders might not have much time.

"The rough rumor is that your group got out from under some serious thumbs. Once the Divine election happens, no matter who wins, there will be focus on putting us back in Circles." Even Elise only wants serious reform. She hasn't said anything about abolition. "I'd like to pick your brain on how one starts fights among factions, or finds a way to get their people out. And then what happens after that."

Because the next question is 'out to where' and he's not taking them to Blood Mage Central, Tevinter. They don't want power. They just want to live.

[katabasis]

"Rumor says all that, does it?"

Vane is saying so. Or the men from the ship are. Or-- he'd nearly said as much himself to Bonaventura in this very room. What does it matter? It's isn't wrong and they'd never made anything but the hollowest of overtures to hide it. If they'd wanted to, the Walrus wouldn't have sailed into the Kirkwall harbor flying only her sailcloth and no flag or marker.

That said, they've been playing this game for long enough now that it's something of a habit to be start coy even behind a closed door, especially in unknown company. Not that he denies the man his beliefs - no, Anders has made those quite clear -, but his discretion? That much seems questionable.

Regardless, Flint does set aside the pen and nods to the spare chair across the desk. For Maker's sake, come away from the door.

"Pick away."

[justice_is_blond]

"Well. Rumor also says you can't cook and you've tried making soup from your boots three times now," he drawls as he takes the indicated seat. "I tried to be selective with which ones I gave any weight and felt were worth repeating."

There's a thousand rumors about anyone who has made any waves at the end of the day, really. His problem is that he jumped in and made a great deal of waves without knowing how to swim in these particular waters. Death might have really been easier. It's certainly easier than reading Flint's face. Oh, he can guess that the man isn't exactly happy to see him, but that's about all Anders can get. He, on the other hand, is clearly a little nervous - little lines at the corner of his eyes, the way his fingers drum on his knee. There's nothing like the selection of Divine candidates to emphasize that people will soon be trying to put a cage back around his people.

"I guess the biggest thing is that they don't seem to be chasing you. Was there some sort of... diversion you caused, or did you find a way to be more trouble than it's worth to lash back at you?"

4 gareth

[reshapes]

One thing leads to another, and another things leads to another thing (as they are often wont to do), all of which converges to put him squarely outside of the Gallows dungeons. It doesn't liberate him from suffering through the dull passage of quarantine on the island proper, however. Which, look, technically he's under no obligation to do what anyone tells him to much less obey rules like 'Hey, Bartimaeus, maybe don't leave the Gallows until we give you the official say-so', but for the sake of keeping the peace and not having to sneak past a guard every time he wants to stretch his legs... sure, he'll play along for a bit. He can be a good sport.

That's the idea anyway. The reality is that he's had about two days of peace and quiet outside the dungeon's walls and more than a handful within them, and it turns out the former isn't really markedly different from the latter in terms of entertainment value. The fact that no one's asked him for much of anything doesn't really square with how this is supposed to go either. Not that he misses the whole 'getting ordered around and doing it or else' thing of course, but do you know how irritating it is to be stuck in a physical form like this with nothing to do with it? One can only play high stakes card games with the soldiers loitering around the margins of the Gallows courtyard before they've won more money than they know what to do with¹.

So the invitation, oh so mysterious though it might be, is something of a welcome respite from the drudgery of being idle. Sure, he might be walking straight into someone unhappy with him being released now trying to stuff him into a sack and purloin him away from the Gallows in order to subject him to the good old fashioned Essence Rack or whatever these people do to torture spirits for fun, but hey! What's life without a little excitement, eh?

He's not going to be stupid about it though. Which is why, when the other half of this party arrives (looking confused? holding a similar looking invitation? having been being pushed by the winds of fate and whimsy in this direction? who can say), he'll not find a sketchy looking boy in his late teens waiting. Rather, sitting on the bench of that awful derelict swan boat is someone who looks very like a certain miss Kitty Jones.

The girl sets one of the oars. "It's about time you showed up."

1. Or has lost their shirt. But not to worry, he's acquired a new one. You should see the other guy, etc.

[foundmyselfagain]

The person who shows up does indeed carry a similar invitation, and definitely looks confused. The invitation had seemed...suspicious, at best, and the first thing Gareth thinks of is that someone, somehow, figured out that there was more to him than a scrawny mage nerd. Which is why he accepts the invitation at all, because if there’s going to be trouble, it’s his job to find out, and face it.

But he hadn’t expected trouble to come in the form of a teenage girl.

He knows of her, in a vague manner that includes little more than that she's a rifter with Opinions. Which is not the kind of person he would expect to attempt to confront him about possibly less than savory magical use—and he’s definitely sure he’s never engaged in anything akin to it around her.

But if this isn’t about his propensity for bloodletting, then what could it possibly be about?

Utterly baffled and just a touch paranoid, Gareth steps up to the boat, but doesn’t quite get in yet. Instead, he holds up the smelly invitation in one hand, and gestures to it. "It didn’t give me a meeting time. Or a deadline, really. I don’t suppose you'd know anything about that?"

[reshapes]

"Come on, Romeo. Don't be so coy."

The teenage girl in question - who, come to think of it, must have a hell of a head cold; she sounds almost nothing at all like how she usually does in her waxing sending crystal monologues - quirks an eyebrow that segues impressively into a truly phenomenal eye roll. She reaches into her tunic, produces a similarly scenty invitation.

"Honestly? Your guess is as good as mine. If I were a betting--" something "--hm. If I had money on it, I'd say whoever set this all up has a pair of eyes someplace sneaky watching all of this right now. Why?, you ask? Who knows. But there's only one way to find out."

4 kostos

[katabasis]

He doesn't know that he's ever seen a room clear so neatly before in his life. Maybe there's a grim satisfaction to be had in that. At least the persons who'd orchestrated all this knew what they were doing. And so, left with little more than a narrow card table, questionable company, a blaze of candlelight, and what he's now realizing is a suspicious absence of any cards at hand, Flint pursues the most obvious course of action: finishing his first drink and moving directly onto a second.

"Stop me if you think I should worry about this being poisoned."

[exequy]

Kostos is looking at the bartender, like—

Like there’s a story, in Orlais, about a goat that sees a lion each afternoon at the river where they both drink, and each day the lion leaves the ram alone, while seasons change and years pass, and the goat decides that the lion is a kind one, perhaps toothless, perhaps a vegetarian, perhaps too old to give chase, until on a day like all of the others the lion leaps over the river and seizes the goat in her claws.

The goat is shocked and betrayed, he explains before he dies, because it’s a talking animal story. Shocked and betrayed, that the lion spent so long tricking him into trusting her. So much effort for so little meat. She must enjoy cruelty for its own sake. And the lion says shh, no, she meant nothing by it; this is the first time she has seen him while she was hungry.

Kostos isn’t going to kill anyone. But it’s a weird mix of funny, annoying, and pitiable that no one seems aware that he could, and that’s how he’s looking at the bartender, until the pirate speaks and Kostos looks at him instead, then at his possibly-poisoned drink.

“Stop,” he says. Not serious, despite the flat delivery.

—maybe if he only lit the violin on fire, and not the violinist.