OPEN | they've given you a number

[hassaran]

WHO: Open to all, plus a couple specific closed starters
WHAT: Moving into the DH quarters, general routines, and kicking off some particular intel-gathering ops
WHEN: Now-ish
WHERE: Around the Gallows, but if you'd prefer somewhere else hit me up on plurk and we can work something out.
NOTES: n/a, will be updated if that changes

Yseult's move into the Scouting office and Division Head quarters isn't immediate. There are Beleth's things to be packed up and new chosen to replace them, options scavenged from unused quarters or dusted off after years in storage. Gallows staff come and go, bearing away rolled-up wall-hangings and grumbling about how to get the old desk back out through the doorway (they got it in here so there must be a way without sawing it in half), and Yseult can be found "overseeing" the minor commotion. This appears to mostly involve her ignoring it, except to shift from perching on this windowsill to that end-table or crate corner as needed, rotating around the emptying rooms as she reads through a stack of files, occasionally making notes with a stub of pencil otherwise tucked behind an ear or rolled absent-mindedly between knuckles.

When she runs out of reading material she might instead be found even further up the central tower in the aerie, visiting with the griffons. One of the adolescents, a white female with grey-tan markings on face and wings, seems to delight in prowling on tip-toes behind her, attempting to discreetly sidle up and steal things out of her pockets as Yseult pretends not to notice, only to coincidentally shift out of reach just at the key moment. When this game grows old there are others: a version of Find-the-Lady played with three wooden cups and a hidden treat, or catch played with bits of food or a leather ball and other random objects tossed around the aerie, griffons darting between rafters and racing to beat their siblings to catch it.

The training grounds are another common haunt, though she prefers odd hours--at dusk or dawn, or during mealtimes--when they are at their emptiest. She trains most often empty-handed or with knives, obviously a favored weapon whether thrown or wielded against one of the straw-filled bags hung from the ceiling. But sometimes it's a long staff, or two short ones, a whip-fast rapier, occasionally even a regular longsword or mace if she really wants to sweat through a challenge. Most sessions begin and end with her scaling the walls of the training hall building up to the roof, light on her feet across the ridgeline to a far corner within leaping distance of the isle's outer wall and from there across parapets and rooftops and forgotten banner-line ropes back to the main towers. She usually chooses her moment carefully to make this climb without being spotted, but can occasionally be caught dangling from a gutter on her way up or down. With the Scouting suite in flux, she can still be found in the common baths in the Templar tower afterwards.

After a couple days, the dust settles on the eighth floor, and from then she can be often found in the re-fitted Scouting office, its door always cracked open to eavesdrop on the hallway invite a knock unless she is in conference with someone. The space has been rearranged, but some of the spirit of Beleth's office remains in the pair of armchairs and tea-table now set in front of the fire and in the bookcases that still line the walls. The desk, large but simply carved on its solid front, is already accumulating files and missives neatly collected in stacks around the central blotter and pewter inkwells. The walls are bare, but that seems likely to be temporary, a few rolled tapestries in a corner and paintings in frames propped against the wall. When not bent over a report, pen in hand, she might be found flipping through them, or contemplating the merits of a seaside landscape in various positions on the wall, frowning thoughtfully over a cup of tea late into the evening.

Comments

[limier]

[ She doesn't intend to disturb.

— It's why she does, the heavy trod of feet unmuffled by more than token effort (her best, she expects, would bear little difference). A warning: That neither of them is alone.

The box tucked under her arm is slim, inscribed with sun; her cloak pulled close against a season that hasn't haunted the air for a month or more. Flame flickers on upon a conscious silence. Yseult looks too composed for sleep, and for all the unity of the Chant, there is an honour due one's private devotions.

But privacy is what she sought here too, and neither will have it now. ]

Yseult,

[ She says, instead of Scoutmaster. It's small warmth, but present; if she'd come to arrangements with Ashara, their relationship yet snarled about the edge of some future dream. The future becomes present, and Beleth is not, and instead — ]

A poor time.

[ To speak, as she's hoped to. The twist of her mouth is wry, self-deprecative. The future becomes present, and if this is a poor time, there's no saying they'll be afforded better. ]

[hassaran]

[ Half-asleep, at least, or she was before the sound of a footstep in the doorway reached her ears. The shift to wakeful alertness was invisible, but had there been any bristling tension it would have eased at the careless tread and further at the voice. She lets the half-formed thoughts she'd been failing to weave into a coherent prayer drift away again for now.

Her smile matches Coupe's, once she gets her eyes open and her head turning. She shakes it, lifting an arm to lay along the back of the pew, open. ]

There are worse. You have need of me, or--? [ The gesture of her head takes in their surroundings. ] I can go you if you came for solitude. I've had my turn.