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WHO: The Medicine Seller and You!
WHAT: Various starters
WHEN: Throughout March/Drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall proper and surrounding areas
NOTES: Will update as needed

KIRKWALL

a. The Gallows Living Quarters - Spring Cleaning---

His old room seemed to be unexpectedly intact. It was true that most of the potions and poultices and herbs had either been given to the infirmary or tossed out, and the more expensive tools and knickknacks he'd acquired on his previous adventures in Thedas had been sold. No great loss - the Medicine Seller collected things like a magpie - the room would soon be cluttered with all his nonsense again.

Not that he'd asked about having it back. It had been his before, and he doubted any roommate(s) would appreciate the late nights where he was mixing strange and pungent ingredients. It seemed a good enough reason to him and protocol was not his strong suit anyway.

The only problem was that it looked like it hadn't been dusted in nearly the year he'd been gone. Which was a better state it was in than when he first came here. Silver lining and all that.

The shelves and the low table and desk were vigourously dusted, along with every other corner and crevice of the room. He'd taken a broom and mop to the floor while the thick rugs hung out the windows to have the dust shaken out of them. Cobwebs were swept away and any remaining spiders were gently but firmly sent off into the wide world outside to make their fortune. Within the afternoon, it was spotless, though the same could not be said of the Medicine Seller who looked uncharacteristically dirty and disheveled.

b. The Gallows Library - Bookworm---

The Medicine Seller was not ideal to have in the library. Not because he was particularly noisy or disruptive - on that front he was the perfect guest. The problem was literally everything else. The Medicine Seller's method of research was to pick out every book he found interesting, select one, start reading, come upon something he didn't know or understand, and then get up to go dig up any potential books on the matter, open one up, read until he got to something else he didn't know or understand, rinse and repeat.

Needless to say his workspace was cluttered. And there he was, sprawled out in a comfy armchair, smoking contentedly with the book you need in the absolute mountain of materials he hadn't yet touched.

c. Lowtown Markets - Remedies to Mend---

The Medicine Seller sometimes set up shop here. He had no stall or sign - usually he just picked whatever spot on the side of the road that he could squeeze into and laid out his wares on a cloth. He didn't shout across the market square either - he was quite quiet and demure, simply watching the passersby. That being said, the bottles and jars and boxes and little paper packets were all bright and colourful and strange, that there were a good number who stopped to browse, and even occasionally purchase something.

...Much to the chagrin of the neighboring alchemist who redoubled his efforts in yelling people over to his stall and casting nasty looks to his unwanted neighbor who seemed, for all the world, utterly oblivious.

SUNDERMOUNT

a. Sundermount Base - Sprouting---

Early spring at the foot of the mountain was terribly inviting to someone like the Medicine Seller, and he made regular treks along the deer trails to enjoy the clean air and absence of the city noise. More than just needing to get away from the walls of the city, he also needed to replenish his stock, and many young herbs would be in bloom this time of year. Sighting a bit of greenery from the corner of his eye, his choice to trek out this early in spring was validated.

"Ah... fuki."

No he wasn't swearing. Among the dull grays and browns of the dead or drowsing foliage, there were splotches of vibrant green; butterbur shoots. He uprooted a number of the bulbous shoots, examining each one like it was some precious treasure, before wrapping them in a cloth and stowing them away in the recesses of the medicine pack.

b. South of Sundermount - Hanami (Late Drakonis)---

At this time of year, he'd have made his way north from Okinawa to Hanshu, following the blooming of the trees. He didn't have the luxury of chasing such fancies in Thedas - the anchor in his hand saw to that. Regardless, when he got out the city, he made it a point to take a route where trees were blooming. There weren't many but the Free Marches were far enough north that a few snowy white buds and blooms had popped up in the overgrown orchard of an abandoned farmstead.

It was odd that it had been left so long. The land here seemed good, albeit overgrown. He was no farmer, however. Perhaps something he didn't know had soured the place. Though given that it was wedged between a city of horrors, a mountain of dark tales and half a day's trek to the Bone Pit, it was likely something much more in the Medicine Seller's purview that had kept anyone from reclaiming the property.

But he had time enough to satisfy his curiosity. There was the much more pressing matter that this was the first burst of warmth in weeks, and he hadn't had a smoke all day.

The pipe was produced from the folds of his robe, lit, and the smoke inhaled as he watched the decrepit old farmhouse, his eyes unblinking.

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"There are many rumours one hears," he said by way of explanation.

"This one was more intriguing."

You could only hear so much about ritual human sacrifice and live-baby-eating before things got exhausting. Tevinter was not without its problems but some things were just ludicrous.

"About--" Benedict stammers, and, realizing the Medicine Seller may be mocking him, cools his tone, "--cows?"
He adjusts his posture, kicking a knee out to lean back against a bookshelf and begin flipping through the book. He can't be too interested in or offended by this ludicrous discussion, it would be untoward.

"Flying cows," he corrected, because the distinction was important. Normal cows were quite mundane.

"Airborne," he added, just in case Benedict didn't know what 'flying' meant.

The clarification is not appreciated, and receives a dull look.

"There aren't any," Benedict replies, "that's not real."

"How unfortunate."

He sank back in the chair, flipping to the next page in what he was reading.

"You are looking into matters on the Fade as well, yes?" He asked as he set the book aside, picking up his brush instead and scrawling a few notes in his meticulous and elegant writing.

Benedict almost looks disappointed that that's the end of the conversation, but then, at least, it isn't. He raises his eyebrows at the Medicine Seller, pausing his motions with the book.

"It seems like something we should know," he muses, "for all the trouble it causes us."

"Trouble," he repeated, with a soft chuckle. The Medicine Seller didn't have a particularly nice laugh and the markings on his face and lips gave the thin smile a much more sinister edge.

"Perhaps. But without it , I think there would be more."

The laugh is unnerving, and Benedict eyes the Medicine Seller warily. He's not sure what it is that made it so, but all at once he suspects this would be the wrong person to cross.

"...maybe," he says, "it's what separates us from the Fade, after all."

"Ah. You mean the veil?"

He arched one small brow.

"No, such a thing is troublesome. I have never known such a sharp divide between physical and spiritual before coming here."

"You'd have it all run together?" The question leaves him before he can stop it, as incredulous as it is curious.

"What I would have is rather irrelevant. What I knew, and what is, however..."

He hummed a moment, contemplating. It was always tricky to put words to his kind of ambivalence to things.

"...there are many differences in this world. It is intriguing."

"Such as?"

Since this conversation seems like it will continue for a time, Benedict glances around until he finds a chair, then goes to perch on it and rest the book on its accompanying table. Might as well get comfortable.

"Many things. Why there are some closely linked to the Fade, why are some so completely cut off from it. Why does either plane drive the denizens of the other to such madness."

He tapped his chin in thought, eyes falling to his notes.

"Ah, but my thoughts are going in circles it seems."

Watching him contemplatively, Benedict scratches the back of his neck and considers. "There aren't distinctions like that in your world?" he asks, cocking an eyebrow.
"They help to determine the natural order of things."

"Some distinctions exist. But they are ... muddier."

There was no real categorizing Ayakashi and it was so very easy for them to exist alongside people. Most either ignored their existence or simply found ways to share their world with the supernatural.

"I am curious however. What does 'natural order' look like to you?"

"You know. Mages, elves, everyone else." A quick glance at the Medicine Seller's ears, and he seems a little embarrassed. "...no offense. But the way we sort ourselves seems predicated on what gifts are granted us by magic, and the way magic has worked in the past."

He doesn't look particularly offended. It is, after all, not his offense to take. He wasn't an elf, however much he looked like one. Not that he would correct the mistake though - people saw what they wanted to see. He'd passed for human in his own world for centuries and there were many more tells to his appearance there than here.

"How," he asks slowly, an amused quirk to his lips, "has magic worked in the past?"

"Well," Benedict proceeds, in a more scholarly air, "they say magic was given to man by the Old Gods themselves, which empowered our dominion over the living world. There's little accounting for how the elves got ahold of it, but the rise and fall of the Tevinter Imperium was predicated entirely on who had access to magic and who didn't."

He curls his fingers, inspecting his nails as he speaks. "The Exalted Marches were what broke up the old Imperium and made the South as it was until recently, with mages collared and holed up in little towers. People fear us." He looks up again, and back to the Medicine Seller with a little smirk, "and perhaps they're right to."

"No, I do not think so," he said softly, his eyes narrowing in thought.

"In my home, in the western countries, there was a war. Gas and bombs, tanks and trenches. Men fell in the millions to storms of bullets. People do not need magic to find inventive ways of slaughtering each other."

He met Benedict's gaze with his own, frigid and cold.

"And the Chantry found a way to leash that power for centuries. Such a thing is far more frightening."

The smirk dwindles, and Benedict watches him carefully, confusedly. Bombs, tanks? Bullets? None of these words mean anything to him, and he isn't certain if they're supposed to.

"...I don't understand the comparison," he says after a moment, a little indignantly.

"If such a thing happens in your world, it will be a long time off," he said with a shrug.

"Though from what I have heard, the Qunari weapons bear some semblance."

A small shudder follows-- the Qunari have dogged the nightmares of many a Tevene for some time, even (especially?) those of one who has never seen the war in person.
"What do they do?" he asks, more solemnly, "these weapons."

"They kill," he explained. What else would you expect them to do? Make a nice, hot cup of tea?

"As you said, someone always has to be at the top. Even if it is a mountain of corpses. That is the natural order, isn't it?"

"...so does an arrow," Benedict mutters, pouting, but recognizes he's likely not about to get a straight answer.
"I don't know. Mass slaughter doesn't necessarily mean rightness. It's about... it's about how power is used."

"Oh? And how would you use such power?" he asked, leaning back in his seat and surveying Benedict with that chilly, unblinking stare.

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altusimperius - 2019-03-22 07:03 (UTC) - Expand

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