faderift | OPEN + starters | nothing is what it seems

WHO: Myr & YOU; starter for Simon (and more by request)
WHAT: Divine Election nonsense + an elf/mage doing elf/mage things
WHEN: All through Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: hit me up if we've discussed something for this month & you would like a starter for it!

i. extended office hours - Chantry Relations office
With the Divine's election in the offing, there's much for Chantry Relations to do, both officially and not. Above the board there's letters to be sent on Inquisition policy, research to be done on the various candidates' intentions for the organization, requests to answer for their agents as guards or troubleshooters at Chantry functions, good will on all fronts to curry and maintain. That by itself would be enough to keep Myr in the office most working days of the week--

But there was also the matter of Skyhold's unofficial suggestion that Grand Cleric Clorentine ought to be discouraged in her ambitions. After much deliberation (and thought, and prayer), he had agreed to go along with it--and so there is all that much more deniable work to sort through as well, often later in the evenings when he's alone.

So: If anyone's looking for him they would find him in the office from shortly after breakfast to not long before dinner (and sometimes well after it), with or without Cade present; the door's usually open in invitation, a kettle of hot water for tea and a plate of treats on a side table to share with anyone who stops by with a concern or a report.

In the new-minted Inquisition tradition, he's also left a box outside for anyone who'd prefer to bring their comments, complaints, or other communications through writing.

ii. cash me outside - the gallows & kirkwall
Despite the workload, keeping at it seven days a week through the whole month would be a recipe for disaster and cruel to Cade, besides. Myr can afford to set aside a day to tend to body and soul, whether that means spending time in the library with some light reading (Hard in Hightown for the umpteenth time) or mucking around in the garden with the Comtesse on hand to dispose of grubs or dead plants with all a nug's voracity.

Sometimes you might catch him practicing spells in a disused corner of the courtyard, tweaking the Fade in volatile ways that are prone to backfiring (though mercifully without much effect on anyone but him).

On good days he'll make the trip out to Kirkwall and the Chantry memorial garden there, to pray at Andraste's feet or simply sit on a bench and absorb the early spring sunshine.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Though he sucks his breath in when the voice that woke him comes again, they're both fortunate that any dreams Cade was having were not of the violent sort, and he recognizes Myr pretty quickly. Then the moonlight from the window, the desk in front of him, the faint smell of smoke from the candle going out.
"--oh," he breathes, and looks to where he can see the elf partially illuminated. "Yes. I'm sorry."

"Truly, it's all right. I'd almost a mind to get a blanket for you rather than wake you."

Myr pads back to the desk with the new candle in hand, changing it out for the old one before lighting it. (With a striker and not with magic, as he'd ordinarily do.) Once the flame steadies, he offers the holder out to Cade with a smile. "Shall we?"

They can get back to the office and tidy it all up in the morning, he thinks. Better to get Cade home to Nari than dither about a few papers and a pen when it's this late. Or early, as the case might be.

Nodding sleepily, and offering a faint smile, Cade takes the candle and shuffles away from the desk toward the hall. He's still running on a bit of adrenaline from being suddenly awakened, but beyond that is the fatigue threatening to overtake him, and he's more than happy to be ordered to his bed on that account.

The document, on closer inspection, is no standard correspondence. It starts as such, in Cade's usual neat and orderly hand, more or less a form letter, but there's a strange shift at a point: even the quality of the line is different, as though he changed pens partway through (and the evidence lies by the parchment, in the form of a quill with a bent nib), and the words begin to take on a more candid tone.
And they get far more than candid.

--manifest has been received, with all the scrolls accounted for and inspected. But then, it's unlikely anyone even read past the first line, so one simply hopes you'll take my word for it, in which case the only person whose time was wasted was mine. Your courier is a miserable little wanker whose company I abhor, and in fact I wish sometimes that everyone here were subject to the same penalties as within the Abbey, because then people who say stupid awful things would get a good switching up and down their legs and even if they never learned anything it would be satisfying to watch. They can do penance afterwards too, even the ones who don't believe in Andraste. They can do it to... what are the Elf gods' names again? Algernon is one I think? I should ask Nari, but she might ask me why I'm asking, and I don't think I could ever say something like that to her. She's not like the others, but it might still hurt her. Maker, what if I hurt her? She is so special and so pretty, how could anyone hurt her? I wonder if she would be angry if I bought her a dress, not one like the Orlesians wear, but maybe just a nice Marcher one, not too fancy, in green or gold. She would look so nice and so pretty, I would want to kiss her, maybe she would let me, sometimes [it goes on like this for literal pages, until there's a moment where the ink blots and smears beyond legibility in the vague imprint of a person's cheek.]

Edited 2019-03-21 07:02 (UTC)

Of course, when insomnia's in play, in the morning could be, well,

Right after Myr's sure Cade is safely home. Four years of learned obsessive neatness just so he could lay hands on things when he couldn't see them weren't unlearned easily; the thought of actually leaving things so far out of place rankles when it wouldn't take that long to tidy up.

So back he goes to the office, humming to himself the while, to see to the mess. First to go is the damaged pen into a box for the midden heap, then he scoops the quill Cade'd been using off the floor along with the scattered pages. The former he racks neatly with the rest of Cade's quills and the latter appear out of order, which requires a quick riffle through them to find out...exactly...what...

...What even is this? Myr sits down heavily on the chair Cade so-recently occupied, frowning to himself and trying not to read too closely as he looks for the first page in the set. Which he almost misses, because the beginning's that tedious bit of boilerplate they've had to put out so often that it's become invisible to him, but the change in character of the writing is obvious even to a formerly blind man.

He snorts in sympathy at the bit about the courier, his eye drawn onward without his willing it into the rest of the first paragraph--

Oh, no. No, he should not be reading this. He rolls the lot up and binds it off as if to deliver before stuffing it in the supply cabinet to be dealt with later.

THE NEXT MORNING........

"Cade," Myr says with his usual warmth, once they've finished all the various little steps of getting settled in for a day's work. "Let's talk a moment before we start on the correspondence for the day."

He sets one piece of folded parchment on the desk in front of him. He doesn't slide it over Cade's way--yet--wisely suspecting that he's probably set up an anxiety trap by even saying they had to talk. Baby steps in figuring out....whatever the Void it is that's going on here.

Still mixing a new pot of ink, Cade nods with a glance toward Myr, though he pauses-- call it learned intuition, but he has a sixth sense for when A Conversation is about to happen. Setting the inkpot aside, he gives the elf his fuller attention, with a tension in posture and paleness of countenance that indicates the level of his trepidation.

Right. Well. Here it goes.

"I found this," Myr taps the parchment, "last night, while I was picking up. I haven't read it or any of the other sheets in full, but I did look long enough to note it's--ah--probably not something you intended to write."

Having thus prefaced it, he offers the page to Cade. "None of which bothers me, mind; and we can burn the lot of it if that's your preference--but I did want to know if--is everything all right with you?"

Cade's fear turns to confusion, and he takes the parchment carefully to begin reading over it. At first he doesn't seem to understand the problem, but the moment he hits it, color begins to rise in his face, his free hand slowly moving to rest over his mouth. Oh.
Oh Maker.
Glancing up at Myr, he looks like he would love nothing more than to evaporate right here and now, struck speechless by his own mortification. Oh Maker.

The look Myr returns to him is worry writ large. I didn't read that much of it, truly, he wants to say--which is true, but sounds even to his own internal ear like he's scrambling to cover for a guilty conscience.

So, instead, he gets up to retrieve the rest of the document from the cabinet and set it before Cade. "Say the word," he says, simply, "and it's gone."

He doesn't need to be asked twice. Cade gives a hurried nod when Myr makes the offer, hand still over his mouth, face now bright red. The less said about it, the better.

No more needs to be said. Myr takes up the pages and tips them into the brazier pan, breathing an invocation for fire under his breath. It's maybe a little needlessly dramatic--they'd catch on hitting the embers, anyway--but it gets rid of them all the faster.

Only once they've sifted down to ash does he sigh, and ask quietly, "So you didn't know you'd written that?"

OPEN + starters | nothing is what it seems

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sets us up for TIMESKIP ACTIOOOON

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