faderift | [OPEN] lets say its like the sunrise

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[OPEN] lets say its like the sunrise

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.]]

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"Well enough. Patrols and guard duty is easy work." He lets the mare pick her way through the crowded streets, hand all light on her rein. The closeness of his knee keeps her from lengthening her stride, though he can feel how she wants to go, go, go. It reflects something in his own shifting heels. When they get free of the city, he thinks he'd like to stand in the stirrups and let the mare run for a bit. It's hard to hold conversation with wind in your ears. "And your leg?"

He tips his head a little, shooting the line of her calf and thigh a glance up from under the broad brim of the felted hat. It must be doing reasonably; she'd climbed up into the saddle without too much trouble.

"I have been doing the same. It seems even the Inquisition must recover after such a battle." So many wounded men, so many people who had lost their lives, so many apologies to make. Six had been forced to make her own fair share - to Isaac, to John, to others - and she feels some disconnect from that, a kind of twisting nausea that haunts her even now. This is why she had always preferred to work alone, or with one other than she trusted; it made it easier.

Reaching out, she squeezes the top of her thigh.

"It is better. I was given time to heal and I have made sure not to push myself too hard. The loss of my ability to fight would make me entirely useless to the Inquisition."

"Mm." A low hum, mostly devoured by the noise of the street. "I'm sure Commander Coupe could find some use for you. If nothing else, you're lettered. I get the impression the Inquisition has more than its share of paperwork."

It's some kind of humor, dry and cracking as clay earth in summer, that resolves back into breezy platitudes: "But I'm glad to hear it mended. You're a fine fighter and the Inquisition is better for having you in the field."

The traffic on the road is easing now the higher it climbs - not for lack of bodies, but as it's widened considerably from its genesis down in Kirkwall's harbor. Marcoulf lets the little roan mare pick up into a trot.

"My lettering is a technicality. I was never formally knighted." Her voice is soft, almost enough that it might not be heard over the din and chatter of the people around them. "I was chosen by Saranrae, not by a monarch that granted me such a lofty title. I think the Inquisition was simply glad to have someone adept in their ranks."

Dismissing her own worth comes far too easily for Six, who breathes out and nudges her horse forward. She doesn't want to overtake Marcoulf - there's no reason for that - but she doesn't want to be left behind either. She already feels foolish enough around him, there is no desire in her to make it worse.

"I have been training again. It has been good to do something with my sword, with my weapons. I missed that."

"Good. If you need sparring partners who are able to square with you, I could recommend a few." It strictly isn't an offer to join her in the training yard. It's anything but. (He wouldn't be able to match her right now anyway.)

A pause here in conversation as a wagon rumbles by, the driver shouting loudly at the boy running alongside switching at the mule team's hocks.

"But no. I meant you've reading. We'll take a right here." They've reached the crossing at the crest of the road. With a twitch of the rein, they go East.

"I will work my way back to proper sparring soon, I think. The last few months have been... Difficult." The battle, Kirkwall, the ghosts, the loss of her sister and the fresh, slap in the face memories of her father and Adrian; she's had to bury so much, so deeply. There is no one she can speak to about it - she doesn't trust herself not to break into pieces.

Glancing at Marcoulf, she hesitates. Her voice feels stuck in her throat, but she forces herself to breathe.

"I - I suppose I do. I was taught by my father, before." Before she was too old to be sweet and cute, before she was too big to be ignored, before before.

"A pity it wasn't someone kinder."

He lapses into silence then, his hand balanced idly on the pommel of the saddle as they make their way along the east road. Soon, the laid stones of the city will fall away from under the clip of their horse's hooves. In ten or fifteen minutes they'll have ridden to Kirkwall's outskirts and the road will lead them to the rocky foothills of Sudnermount, then down farther yet to the grey coast. Maybe the rain will start again. Maybe--

It will take a day's riding to meet the merchant train. An evening spent around a drab campfire alongside a muddy road. Another day's ride back, should all go well.

"Yes. A pity."

Sometimes she thinks it would be easier if she had no fond memories of Haylon, if there was nothing that made her feel as though she owed him anything. The first few years of her life were recognisable as something acceptable, but then she had grown. Perhaps she looked too human, or too like her mother, or too unlike him - something she had done had been so offensive that the only thing he had left was his drink.

She swallows. There's no point thinking about it now. It doesn't matter, bizarrely, how much Marcoulf knows of her. It doesn't matter.

Glancing at Marcoulf, she breathes out slowly. He has never been a talkative person, never spoken much, and she doesn't want to force that, but... She dislikes the silence, dislikes how uncomfortable she feels, wishing to fill that void with her own idle chatter.

Then it's unfortunate that he's so unrelenting in his quiet, reduced to little more than a cheek and the wiry shape of his ginger beard from under the broad brim of the felted hat as they ride along the East road. The horses footfalls - ringing sharply against stone and then softening as the road gives way from paving to gravel, from gravel to dirt - and the jingling of the tack does little to fill the quiet of his presence beside her. He's just a sure rider, left hand steady on the reins and his right with its heavy winter glove tucked carefully against his middle. For the moment, that's all he is.

At least the dark weather hasn't resolved into rain yet.

There are a dozen or so questions that settle through her mind, things she could ask him. Could she learn something more from him? Might she name her horse with him? Is he well, since they last met? Does he miss her sparring? Does he miss her? Are they friends now, with the wide gorge between them, Six's heart on her sleeve as she looks at him? None of them come to her lips, however, her fingers tight on her reigns and her horse trotting along, happy to be going on a ride that seems to be planned for longer than a few hours.

Idly, she stares up at the sky, a frown on her lips. It's a familiar sight, and she breathes out a soft noise.

"Sirocco. Do you think it will do for a proper name?"

The wide brim of the hat tips in such a way that suggests he must be listening, must be evaluating the horse beneath her out from under the shadow of the felt.

"It's a fine name." A pause. IT's follow by the low, wheezing sound of a laugh. "Shortened easily as well." Sir is a pleasantly funny thing to call a horse.

It seems, for a short moment, that Six doesn't quite understand where the joke is coming from - she gazes blankly at Marcoulf as if waiting for another punchline to come to explain - and when it does she blinks, a laugh startled from her.

"I think that sounds marvellous." Leaning down, Six runs her hand against his flank, careful and soft as she smiles, fondly. "I think he would like to be called Sir."

"Most do."

It's a good joke and a welcome stitch of good humor in a day that's otherwise been cold and fumbling. Best to embrace a good change in the wind while he's able then: "Would you mind if we ran them to the next crossing. She'd care to stretch her legs."

He makes a small gesture to the roan mare.

"I used to have a friend who had the power to speak with the animals I knew. I would like to ask him if that were true. I had one that I could create myself, too, a Frey creature, but I no longer have that gift."

Her fingers are still careful, gentle, and she strokes gently before she leans back and makes herself comfortable. Sir is a good name for her steed, she thinks, even if it is not the same as the one she could summon with her own magic.

Nodding her head, she offers a smile. "As fast as you would like."

What he hears is: superstition and Rifter bullshit and like a thousand other things, they do get set gently aside. They sound like a conversation for another time (or for never). Instead, with a flick of the rein, he guide the mare up out of the muddy wagon tracks and onto the relative hard pack of the road's edge. She goes with a backwards flick of the ear, already sharpening in anticipation of his heel. When it comes, she springs forward.

The mare's no racing animal, but weeks spend in the Inquisition's stable and narrow courtyards have her blood well up enough that she devours the ground. Marcoulf, standing in the stirrups to keep out of her way as she runs, has to raise his spare hand to keep his hat on against the wind whistling about his ears as his heart leaps after her.

It is sweet and sharp and marvelously cutting. The cold air transforms into daggers by the speed and the joy of the animals as they hack down the roadside feels like something physical in his fingers past the reins. Maker, he thinks the moment he's free of it: what an awful place Kirkwall is.

She is trying, that is all she can say. She is trying to share what she knows of her world with him because she is aware that this is what friendships are built on - truth and honesty. She shares that with some others and Six knows that pushing too hard might result in the opposite of what she wants; her anxiety is already enough that she wishes to make no more demands of him. Is it not enough that they are together like this, able to at least talk?

As soon as Marcoulf has his mare moving Six is following suit, grasping the reigns of Sir and nudging him forward. She's glad again for the choice to braid her hair up into its bun, keeping it from her face as she pushes herself and lifts her head, enjoying the feel of the world against her skin.

She cannot remember the last time she did this, and she laughs, joyful.

The air swallows up the sound of her laughter. It's there and gone, snatched away almost before he's heard it, though he's glad for the flicker of it that reaches him. Good. There's no reason for her to be so staid and miserable. What a lonely thing she is, he thinks, and then that too is whisked away by the cold air and the sound of the horse's footfalls on the road and the mare's sides blowing against the inside of his calves. Tomorrow, when they return to Kirkwall, the thought may return to him. He may lay in his narrow bed and think that something should be done to fix it and the morning after he might apply himself to it. There are any number of perfectly kind young ladies in the Gallows who might be suitable company. Or men. Or whatever company she might find some security in. Appointments can be set for anything; someone can be found to mend clothes or shod a horse or to write letters on one's behalf. It's perfectly plausible to arrange a meeting between two people who might be likely friends.

But that's a line of thought for some other time. Today he thinks of nothing but giving the roan mare her head so they can make their way from Kirkwall's shadow at speed. Maybe when they reach the crossroads and finally rein the horses back, the air will have shaken everything loose thing free and she will be content company again.

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[OPEN] lets say its like the sunrise

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