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

[hassaran]

There used to be clear, simple lines between the two halves of her life. A long ride, a few days' sail, time enough to set things aside, pick others back up. Llomerryn was more complicated, but even there the boundaries were clear: one person here, another everywhere else. And now Darras is in her office, wanting to tell her where he's been and also how he may've met an enemy agent there.

The apology and the confusion never quite make it fully onto her face, there but fleeting, stopped short by the rest of Darras's story. Her attention sharpens, especially at the last, which sees her holding up a finger as she rises to cross to her desk for pen and paper. Quick notes take down what he's shared so far.

"Do you remember anything else he said? A reason why he wanted it, or how he knew of it? Any hint of working with others?" All business, she seems to remember something suddenly, and flips through a drawer for a folder, opening it to fan out a sheaf of portrait sketches across the corner of the desk. "Do you see him in here?"

[staysail]

There's a small petty part of him that's pleased when her attention sharpens suddenly. Not on him, precisely, more on what it is that he's saying--as well she should, considering, and she should have from the start. It's a feeling that is short-lived, drowned when Darras realizes how unsatisfying and ugly it really is. Makes him feel worse rather than better.

He's slow to start considering the answers to her question, as she fires them off at him. Another sip of rum before he crosses over to her desk, just in time for her to lay out those sketches for him. He picks up a few and glances them over before discarding them, facedown, and spreading out the rest.

"Should he be? I don't know what I'm looking at with these. They're all Vints?"

[hassaran]

Yseult shrugs, dressing gown tugged back up as it slips from her shoulder. "They're agents or suspected agents we've encountered. This folder is those around ports, along the coast, involved in shipping, pirates, anything like that."

She watches him flip through, settling on the corner of her desk to wait.

"If he's not in there I'd like you to sit with an artist tomorrow and create a new sketch. Do you have any idea why they might want the treasure? Was there anything magical about it? I'm told the enemy is usually interested in elven magical artifacts."

[staysail]

He nods, as he sifts through the sketches, pausing on a few before moving on past. There's a little twist to his mouth at the word pirate, but he doesn't comment on it.

"He didn't mention any magic. I've been told there's nothing particularly magical about that bit of rock," and he nods back toward the abandoned bag, which has fallen off somewhat from around the sculpted dwarf's face, revealing the carved details of the hair and eyebrows, and the top fold of the blank eyes. "I had it checked over. That's not to say that whatever this statue was stood around wasn't magical. He said it was important. To him, at first. Toward the end of our conversation I was getting the impression that there was someone else he was reporting to. Think he was trying to stop himself from saying a name or a title. Perhaps he was hoping it would frighten me."

He's pushed a few of the portraits out from the rest, but there's more to look through. Darras takes a moment to look over at Yseult instead, abandoning the work in favor of focusing on her. "What d'you think the elven artifacts would be for, then?"