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Entry tags:
I'm not no nice guy I'm just a good guy
WHO: Athessa & Matthias
WHAT: it's time to fight some orphans!!! to sway voters to Benedetta, some sad-eyed orphans and widows have made their way to Val Royeaux to stand outside the Consensus and look pathetic until everyone decides Benedetta is the best for the job. they must be stopped.
WHEN: mid Cloudreach
WHERE: the mean streets of Val Royeaux
NOTES: a very petty part of the Divine plot.
WHAT: it's time to fight some orphans!!! to sway voters to Benedetta, some sad-eyed orphans and widows have made their way to Val Royeaux to stand outside the Consensus and look pathetic until everyone decides Benedetta is the best for the job. they must be stopped.
WHEN: mid Cloudreach
WHERE: the mean streets of Val Royeaux
NOTES: a very petty part of the Divine plot.
They don't actually get a griffon. Griffons are for closers, if closers are defined as people who have actually earned the right to a griffon, done some training, bonded, whatever the reason, they don't get a griffon to take them to Val Royeaux.
But they do get to Val Royeaux. It's a city: that's Matthias' assessment. It's a city, and it smells like a city, shit and smoke and cookfires and food and animals and people and flowers and wet straw and sewage and perfume, and there's horses and carts and shopkeeps, and city noises, and everyone shouting and talking and speaking at once, only it's Orlais, isn't it, so they're all speaking stupidly, and--
And then there are the orphans.
"There they are," Matthias says, and points. Because there they are, a whole knot of orphans, standing together all smudgey and sad-eyed. There's about eight in this group, a range of ages and heights but equal in the category of pathetic. The smallest are huddled on the ground together, crouching on the pavement and drawing sad pictures in the dust of the street. The tallest is stood on an upturned bucket, and he's jabbering away about his life, about the horrors of the world, the raw hand he's been dealt. He's loud, and he's chosen a good street corner, where the buildings lean in just so and let his words carry. His voice cracks once, and he snuffles into his shirtsleeve, and Matthias snorts, loudly. They're across the street so no one notices, but still.
A small crowd has started to gather, drawn to the noise and the spectacle. Encouraged by the attention, the orphan on the bucket begins to windmill his arms to demonstrate his point. The storms of life, the bosom of Andraste is the only safe place, and the Reverend Mother, and Matthias, annoyed, is distracted from any potential planning enough to say aloud the remark that comes to mind: "Bosom? Hey, what's Benedetta's bosom like, ratboy?"
Some people at the fringe of the crowd turn dark looks back at them. Matthias makes a rude gesture, first, before he turns his focus back to Athessa, and what's passing for a plan here. "If we just start yelling about our dead parents. Then they'll look over here. Or there's a really good clod of mud on the ground just there, by your foot. So."
You know.
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The crowd is definitely doing the rest. Some people are laughing now, having decided that this is street theater at its finest. Some people are still visibly shocked at the treatment to orphans--so it's a good thing Matthias and Athessa forewent showing any affiliation with the Inquisition in their dress--and still others are talking about Bendetta. Which is a minor success, probably, because whether or not they believe the senseless accusations that Matthias and Athessa are putting out in the Orlesian zeitgeist, they're at least talking about her. Negatively. Confusedly. Something.
The other orphans, meanwhile, are rallying. With head orphan on the ground, two of his fellows fall back to help him up, and busy themselves with brushing dried mud from his already muddy shirtfront. The littlest is still nowhere to be seen, having disappeared down the alley, but the other four are squaring up, glaring at their assailants.
As Matthias wildly chucks another clod of dried mud, one of them--a scrawny girl with long unbound yellow hair--stoops and grabs for a rock. It clatters at Matthias' feet, and he seizes it, and chucks it back, missing the orphan girl entirely and instead hitting an old man in the shoulder. The old man cries out, staggers forward, and Matthias feels some color drain from his face.
Oh, shit. Well.
And it's then that the littlest orphan comes back onto the scene, running full-tilt and backed by a band of--well, at least twenty, at a glance, maybe more--but definitely twenty orphans.
Some of them have clubs. So. Well.
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She says it under her breath, and her face says it, and the look she shoots at Matthias says it, too. It's one frozen second but it screams out volumes of yikes.
Gotta think fast. Athessa grabs Matthias before she's decided whether to push him one way or pull him the other, the two of them scrabbling this way and that as she's looking for the exit and trying to buy time with another shout:
"LOOK, HIRED THUGS! DOES THAT SEEM VERY DIVINE TO YOU?!"
There, a narrow alley behind them to the left. It might not be a dead end. Pull, she settles on pulling Matthias with her as she jogs down the alley, hoping to bottleneck the too-many orphans that are bound to pursue. Anything to help even the odds.
"Don't be a dead end, don't be a dead end--"
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Except he does manage to get it together enough to shout: "THUGS! TH--"
And then he's pulled again, and his brains move the other direction, a loose mass in his skull. He's dragged for a half a second before his feet realize what's being asked of them, and instinct kicks in--which means he's running before he's realized that he's running, which is good, really--and the orphans are definitely behind them, he can hear them yelling, and the thunder of their crap shoes and bare feet on the cobblestones--and Athessa's prayer, which he is echoing, mentally, to Andraste, please no dead ends, please no dead ends--
The prayer is answered. They scarper together out of the alley, and into the next street over. It's a big street, ox carts and horses and pedestrians and traffic every which-way, hawkers yelling from their shops and stalls, people having conversations, pages running to and fro. Athessa and Matthias come thundering out of the alley and nearly bowl over a man in a mask and plush purple doublet. He staggers back a step, the hem of his cloak dips into a puddle of horse piss and water, and he makes a very angry Orlesian sound at them. The orphans are still behind, the din of their pursuit swelling from the alley at their backs, and Matthias kicks the Orlesian man in the shins and switches grip so he's grabbing at Athessa instead, and drags them both under the cart that is thundering by.
They come out just in time on the other side of it to avoid being crushed by the rear wheels. They have a second to stop, grin at each other--which Matthias does, breathless and pleased--and then the cart rolls by, and they're exposed to the sight of the wronged man and the orphan mob.
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Better add all the carts and horses they're impeding to the list of potential enemies in this arena. The pedestrians seem able and willing enough to just wander past with nothing more than mild annoyance or a sidelong glance.
"Time to fight?" Athessa asks, standing rigid with a fistful of Matthias' shirt still gripped tight. All the better to drag him by if they decide--
"Or swim?" Behind them, beyond the street, beyond the courtyard, there's a railing, and beyond that, the river. Presumably.
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He looks at the river, and then at the crowd, weighing the odds.
"Might as well fight," he says, after this careful deliberation. "And then swim when it gets too--"
You know, bad, and he gives Athessa an exaggerated grimace to get at that. Another cart rumbles past them, unbothered by two people standing in the road. Some of the sidelong glances are starting to linger, as contingent of club-bearing orphans start hefting their weapons--even the nobleman has noticed, and his swearing takes on a distinctly different pitch, as he grabs for his purse and starts trying to work his way out of the knot of unwashed children.
As the cart completes its pass, the line of orphans breaks, spilling into the street. Horses pull up, sharp and nervous, and chaos starts to unravel the bustle as the ragged battalion closes in on its opponents.
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This is how Athessa imagines how it should go:
She rushes the orphans, letting rip a vicious war cry. The orphans--the other orphans, of course--are taken aback, which works perfectly when she drops low at the last second and Matthias jumps over her to punch the biggest, baddest other-orphan in the ugly patch of pimples he calls a face. Another other-orphan is felled by a swift sweeping kick to the legs. Matthias wrangles a third, opening them up for Athessa's next attack. It happens fast, well-choreographed, and with tasteful use of slow-motion. It all ends with the ultimate combo tag-team move, the likes of which is too cool, too moving, too beautiful for words to express.
She'll probably tell it that way later, too.
What actually happens is: she yells, she rushes the big orphan, she tries to tackle him, and he doesn't budge. The curse of being small is felt in her bones. Or maybe that's the shock of impact, but it's hard to say.
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Well, it means when Athessa runs right into the big orphan, Matthias runs right into her, his charge so full-body full-force that there's a bodily thud, followed by a grunt from the orphan--who at last feels the impact, now that he's been hit with two scrawny assailants, enough impact that he staggers back at last, and Matthias (head spinning, stars in his eyes, holy Andraste's shit) grabs onto the back of Athessa's shirt to ground himself.
One, two, three. The big orphan tries to get Athessa in some kind of weird headlock while the others close around them, and Matthias sees out of the corner of his eye a club coming at him, and onetwothree, he's done recovering, he pushes away from Athessa and grabs the orphan by the wrist, wrenches it, hard--the club clatters to the ground and Matthias grabs it while the orphan is yelping in pain. Now that he's armed, he winds up to give the wrist-twisted orphan a huge smack in the gut with it.
The club breaks in half, because it's really just a thick stick. Not that thick. Undeterred, Matthias smacks the orphan again, and now it's a brawl.
It's a confusing fight. Some of them start fighting each other, at some point, an errant punch or an insult in Orlesian taken to heart by the wrong party. At one point, Matthias finds his nose is streaming blood, and he goes to wipe it on his shoulder, a moment of battlefield practicality as grabs for his next victim to club--when he realizes it's Athessa he's grabbed.
"Oi!"
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Chaos is another, but Athessa isn't thinking semantics right now. Everyone's trying to grab her, whether in aid or in attack, and instinct kicks in a little too late to be as helpful as it should.
Evade, punch, evade, kick, evade, shove, evade--it's a simple process but somewhere along the line she gets wrangled and her only way out is to shuck free of the baggy rag of a shirt she's wearing and use the moment when whoever-it-was looks at it in confusion to her advantage. She shoves up on his elbows, sending the shirt directly into his face and she punches through the shirt so he literally never sees it coming.
After that, it's pretty easy to avoid getting grabbed. Mind, she's not completely exposed, she's just...down to leggings and a bandeau. Really, it's the optimal outfit for fighting, because there's absolutely no chance of being hoisted by your own petard or hung by the scruff of your shirt from a coat hanger.
Then it's Matthias with a none-too-polite grip on her, and her brain is quick enough to want to respond to his Oi! but her mouth isn't, so what she ends up saying is:
"Uegh!" She plants her hands abruptly on the front of his shirt, spins, pulling him into a frankly impressive arc, then releases to send him catapulting into the orphan that was rushing up from behind him, wielding something sharp.
"These brats don't play fair!" She huffs, kicking the--what was that? A stake?!--into the street.
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There's blood on Matthias' teeth when he grins. He'd realized (just before Athessa had used him as an actual weapon) that she had at some point lost her shirt, and he hadn't know what to do with that information, was he to point it out, but would that have called attention to the fact that he's noticed, but how would he have been meant not to have noticed--and then she'd solved the whole conundrum by grabbing onto him and throwing him into the orphan--who did not stab him with the stake, who falls backwards with a grunt, and Matthias jams the heel of his boot down, hard, on the floored kid's windpipe.
"Playing fair is for lords, innit!" He has to shout over the din of the battle that surrounds them, and the loud wheezing choking sounds that the throat-stomped orphan is now making. Indifferent, Matthias jumps over his prone form, and rubs his shirtsleeve against his nose again, swiping away another bit of blood. "We can make our escape now, if we want to be proper unfair about it. Let this lot get carted off, to-- behind you!"
Like vengeance itself, the head orphan from before is looming behind Athessa. He has apparently given up on making speeches. The mud from the clod she'd throw at him stains the front of his roughspun tunic. He's got a rock in his hand now, and Matthias grabs for the stake on the ground, frantic, as the head orphan raises the rock above Athessa's head.
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Athessa throws her hands up to stop the rock on its downswing too late to actually avoid a bonk on the head, but grabbing the assailant's wrist before impact prevents much more than getting her bell rung. The orphan tries to draw back for another go, but the elf has latched on tight and his pull backwards just whirls Athessa around to face him. Not that she really registers much past the stars in her eyes. She's wrenched to one side, then the other, and on the backswing she lets go, using the momentum he's created to spin around, jump, and drive her shin into his temple, returning the head-injury favor.
Both orphans hit the ground, the rock-wielder face-first and Athessa gracelessly on her back.
"Did--did I get 'im?" She wheezes, sitting up and shaking her head clear. Seeing that yes, she did get him, she hops to her feet with an exultant whoop, then promptly falls over again. "Let's get the hell outta here."
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All this is to say that Matthias--dazzled by the acrobatics, dazed because his head is still spinning a little--nods wordlessly, first. It's not until Athessa is already starting that jump to her feet that he thinks to actually articulate his agreement.
"Yeah," all breathless and starting to grin. He grabs for her hand a little too late, and she falls, but that means he's there to offer his hand for real, to hoist her to her feet, his grin even wider now. "Yeah, it was brilliant--definitely time to we cut out, though, eh, now that they've turned on each other--"
The chaos of the moment gets worse as the sound of a tromping march comes in, like some new section in a symphony. Whatever idiotic Orlesian name Val Royeaux has for their city guard: they have arrived, uniformed and armed and stern, and they're starting to push their way into the knot of rioting orphans. The nobleman whose foot Matthias had trod on is pressed up against the wall, bloodied and babbling accusations, while the high frightened cries of carthorses and the shouts of merchants and pedestrians punctuate the palaver and pandemonium.
There's nothing else for it. Matthias switches his grip on Athessa's hand without really asking the question at hand. D'you want to jump into a river with me? It's the next logical step in an illogical situation, with the street gridlocked and a wall of spectators and stopped carts boxing them in to the brawl.
Together, they peel off, ducking under punches and clubs and blows, with the line of the bridge their only horizon and goal.
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It isn't until they reach the low railing bordering the bridge and the only thing between them and free fall that Athessa let's go of Matthias' hand to leap--
--and see the boat passing under the bridge too late to change course. Windmilling her arms frantically and making a sound not unlike a distressed chicken, she wills herself to fall on the coil of rope rather than the deck.
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He's not a child. Vehemently, he would insist to anyone that asked: he is not a child. It isn't only children that get flustered over hand-holding, especially not when the press of palm to palm feels like a bright spot of light, when his heartbeat feels like it stutters and his ears get hot, and that deep-down gut swoop, when you're on a swing, like the world fell out from under you--
Oh shit, that's because they're jumping over a bridge.
Oh shit, the boat.
The noise Matthias makes is more flattened cat than distressed chicken. Some of its frantic mishmash contains the word FUCK. Their hands are no longer joined, he's too busy clawing at the air, and the deck of the boat is rushing closer, and closer--until, with a sick THUNK of meat and bone and muscle, it's over. Matthias hits the deck full-on in a heap. Stars burst across his vision--first against an all-white background, then all-black, but only because he's closed his eyes.
Athessa. Shit. He starts to say her name, frantic, but it comes out Ahtr, all garbled, and he tries to sit up or at least roll onto his side so he can find out what happened to her.
If she's dead, says the mean little voice at the back of Matthias' head, all cold and realistic, it'll just bloody well figure, won't it. Shit.
"Ahtrews," he tries, aloud.
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"Matt? Matty?" Her voice is strained because for the second time in so many minutes, she's had the wind knocked out of her. Craning her neck, she sees him a few feet to her left, not tangled in rope like herself. "Oh good, you're not dead." They can officially call their mission a success, so long as the boat takes them away from the skirmish. "I hope the captain doesn't mind stowaways."
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"Not dead," he confirms, as his brain begins to unscramble and the power of speech returns to him. He puts his hands flat on the deck of the ship and pushes himself up to his hands and knees so that he can crawl toward the coil of rope where Athessa has landed. "And neither are you so-- so well done us. I s'ppose."
As he shoots a look back from where they'd fallen, he's got to grin. The bridge is rapidly moving away from them as the boat goes along the river. Already the din of the riot is behind them. The quiet shush of the boat's prow moving through the river takes over, and the more pleasant noises of city and life from the windows and docks that overlook the water fill in between.
"Any captain who tries to throw us off--I reckon we can take him between us. Yeah?" He grabs for some of the rope that she's tangled in, hauling it aside to start freeing her. The coils lay heavy and damp, so it takes considerably more effort than one might think.
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"Yeah we can take him. Thought I might've had more of a concussion than I do there for a minute, but it's fine. How're your noses?"
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Still.
"S' all right," he says, manfully, methodically rearranging his features into something less pained. "Like I've had worse, y'know, so I reckon I'll be all right."
He keeps that up for a second before he lets his shoulders slump, and a sheepish grin breaks over his face.
"I want a bloody drink, though. Hey--we did brilliantly, yeah?"
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"I mean I dunno if we accomplished what we set out to do but we threw some insults, some dirt, some punches, some sick kicks, I lost my shirt, got hit with a rock, you got hit in the face a LOT--"
Despite the downward turn of the words, her tone stays--for lack of a better word--pumped up. This was the best way to spend a day, even if they'll be too sore to move for a few days after.
"--and now we're on a boat going away from all the dumb jerks back there getting arrested! We've earned more than just a drink! We should drink the whole bar!"
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Her attitude is infectious, so despite his protest, Matthias' grin is getting wider. He looks back the way that they came. The bridge that they'd jumped from his quite far off at this point, fading into the background, and they're being borne along to safety. To drink. They are, more or less, a matched pair of successes, and there's not many that can say that.
"We're definitely drinking a whole bar. And I say we don't wait to get back to Kirkwall to do it, either! We're--"
Rumbled, is what they are. A shadow falls across them as one of the boathands looms over the pile of rope, having finally realized that he's been boarded. He says a long string of Orlesian words to them, first--and then, thickly accented, "Stowaways?"
Matthias shoots Athessa the barest look before, both buoyed and infected by her cheer, he answers, "Victors."
The boathand's weathered face creases in confusion. He doesn't seem inclined to chuck them in the river, so at least there's that.