open; like a house falling into the sea

[sarcophage]

WHO: Leander + Byerly + Matthias + Thor + ?
WHAT: wandering around like some kind of grief zombie, breaking and entering, making it weird
WHEN: after the death announcement, before the memorial
WHERE: various Gallows locations
NOTES: will match brackets etc; possible violence; will add warnings as needed

open i;

The Mage Tower. Sixth floor.

At one of the doors stands a man of average height and lean build, a head of loose brown curls, and fair complexion, clothed all in grey and black. He is not merely loitering there, but standing close to the frame, looking down to where both his hands are occupied at the latch. There is nothing furtive in his posture, his expression, nor the way he moves, and while it isn't immediately clear what he's doing, it may be noted he's doing it to the door of a dead man.

This is—was, as far as anyone knows—the room where the Mortalitasi lives.
Lived.

He will be there for hours, standing with his back turned to the hall or, occasionally, leaning against the door, breathing visibly, wearing the lustre of sweat. Wringing his hands, perhaps. Massaging his palm with his thumb.

Those attuned to magic may have the advantage of a guess.

---

open ii;

The Infirmary.

Leander may be found here—not among medics or patients, but in the odd hours—standing in the doorway to the main offices and looking in, or drifting from one work station to the next, from shelf to shelf, table to table, like a sombre tourist perusing items in a museum. Or, if the timing is just right, one may catch him sitting in a particular chair, behind a particular desk, with his hands folded neatly among Sidony's things, touching none of them—except when he notices something slightly out of place.

With a delicately applied finger and thumb, he moves it to where she would put it.

There.

Those who mourn will do so in any number of ways, however they were taught, however it comes naturally to them, whatever moves them through their grief—and some people are simply trying it on for a day.

---

etc;

Less specifically, one may encounter Leander in other public areas, especially a particular section of the ramparts, the library, any of the gardens, a particular boathouse near the docks, and others. One may even venture into his workshop space if one is inclined to corner him in a closed area. Or whatever else your heart desires.

Comments

ii

[bouchonne]

"You've been here a while."

There's nothing unpleasant about Byerly's manner, or Byerly's smile. Indeed, they're perfectly urbane and charming. Yet even so, there's something there, something perhaps in the way he stands or the way he moves, that hints at unwelcome. A sense of why are you here.

yesss

[sarcophage]

If Leander is accustomed to that particular something, he is equally practised at doing what he likes despite it; talking to it, perhaps, until it diminishes; throwing sparks on it until it ignites into full honesty. At the moment he is empty of impulse, and so what he decides to do with Byerly's something will, in this instance, depend on Byerly himself.

"True." From Sidony's desk he smiles in return, and it's a wan, unfeeling thing of pure courtesy. "I'm not entirely sure how long. Can't see the moon from here."

[bouchonne]

"What a dreadful thing that is." Byerly's smile doesn't falter in the least. He just keeps that tranquilly pleasant look on his face - yet still, there's something about him that suggests a cat whose tail is twitching.

"The moon is absolutely lovely tonight. You should go and see it." A cheerful, warm demand to get the hell out.

[sarcophage]

The mage sitting at Sidony's desk looks at Byerly for what may begin to feel like a very long time, given tension's habit of distortion. He blinks once, slowly, and smiles once more, and this time it seems more than polite.

So it's a spark he's looking for, then.

"No."

[bouchonne]

The smile doesn't falter or change.

"But dear fellow, you just expressed a desire. To refuse now - why, that seems rather perverse, no?"

[sarcophage]

"No," he repeats, and glances over the arrangement of things on the desk before him. It's as though he's considering touching something—this, perhaps. Or this item here. He decides upon a humble reed pen, the tip stained from its last use.

"She was my friend, too, Byerly." He turns the pen over, squints down its length, as though it matters at all how straight it is. (It's quite straight.) "I've every right to be here. If you're looking to take your grief out on someone, my advice to you is to look elsewhere."

(He's looking, too.)

[bouchonne]

Grief? What, pray, does this man know of grief? For Sidony was not a friend. She had claimed Byerly as a brother, or something like it. And while a friend could feel sorrow, the pain of a brother -

By's lips pull back from his teeth. His smile turns gleaming and broad. "A strange way to grieve," he observes, voice turning less florid, more matter-of-fact. "Poking about her things. Rearranging them. You look more like a thief than you do a friend, friend."

[sarcophage]

He knows enough of grief to recognize it, to appreciate its significance, to recall the echo of his own suffering—and there lies the limit of his understanding. Leander sees clearly the pain in the peeling of those lips and feels nothing for it.

Still, he's not here to disrespect Sidony—that he's here at all is a high compliment—so he sets the pen back down, and with a few sensitive nudges positions it just as it was. "Are we friends? That's interesting." When he raises his eyes, they seek to make contact, and to hold it keenly. "Did you make a habit of picking fights with her as well, or is there something special between us?"

[bouchonne]

"I am but an observer, friend," By responds, pressing a mock-sincere hand to his chest. He looks back, unblinking, practically steely but for the faint red along his eyelids. Not a sign of weeping - not him - but of exhaustion, perhaps of the use of a substance rather stronger than alcohol.

"If I were picking a fight with you, you'd know it. Do you find yourself provoked?"

[sarcophage]

"Not especially." Maybe a little. Maybe he's disappointed that the urge to stand up out of this chair and cross the room toward that lanky body has yet to solidify. "I'm sure you could do better."

Raising his eyebrows, tilting his head just slightly away, "Were you going to sit here yourself? Is that why you're cross?"

[bouchonne]

It is a space that should be preserved. That's what he wants. At least until the wind carries her ashes away. Perhaps for all time. It shouldn't have him already sitting there, fiddling with things. Moving them. Changing them.

"I'm hardly cross. Why, it gives my heart the deepest joy to see you making use of all of these fine items. After all, there's nothing remotely strange about wanting to use a dead girl's things." He smooths down his mustache. "Perhaps you're having trouble finding pens elsewhere? Perhaps you should speak with the Seneschal."

etc. - ramparts

[inkindled]

I'll come and find you carries with it the implication of after. To some, it is a passing promise. To Matthias, it is binding. He has said those words many times, in stables and in country lanes and in the corridors of Circles and in camps and on battlefields. And sometimes it's been a promise easy to keep, and sometimes it's been bloody impossible, all range of experience between two tents away after dinner and a dead face in a field of corpses.

Leander should then by all rights be easy to find. And the finding is in fact one of the first things that Matthias turns himself to, an easy mission. Why is he looking for Leander at all? Simple: because he said that he would. It's not a word easily broken. And because Leander had sounded perfectly all right, when they'd spoken, and Matthias was, too, perfectly all right, walking about with another great hole carved in him, in a way he's grown very much used to. He's always admired composure. Strove for it, himself, when all of him felt like going to pieces, when he was blubbering on the battlefield and someone came along and hauled him up at the armpits and said get on with it, when they had to get away quickly or risk dying themselves, by nightfall this will be your grave too--

All of that is what Matthias is thinking of. And perhaps he's worried for Leander, too. He's grown used to stiffing his lip and soldiering on. But Enchanter Averesch had said. They're not all like that. Not all at once. Not all your friends, killed at once. Leander has to know at least one or two of them. He's been around the Inquisition longer. And he'd been very kind to Matthias, before, so if nothing else, there's that.

It's still nearly a full day after their slinking return that Matthias finds him. And even then, it's chance. He's moving across the courtyard, carrying uneaten sausages from lunch to where the griffons roost, when a seagull's call makes him look up, past them ramparts--and then at the ramparts and sees Leander, there, looking out somewhere--or the back of his head, more properly--but he'd learned long ago to identify someone quickly, soon after meeting them. He's spent time with Leander, even. Doubles the chances of recognition.

Seeing him, something catches in Matthias, some urgency, and he abandons headlong his self-appointed task. Finds the stairs up and takes them three at a time, great strides that prove too much for him--trips, nearly to the top, and his knee smashes down hard on the stone edge of the step, but he pushes himself up and carries on. Now that he's seen Leander, he has to get to him. What if he's gone from the place he was standing, by the time Matthias reaches him?

But he isn't. He's there, still, now in profile, and Matthias, halfway down the way, says, "Oi!" loudly, just the way he'd greet any friend, and hurries to close the distance between them. His knee feels weird and squashy under his breeches, and the packet of sausages is greasy in his hand. His staff is still strapped to his back, ever-present, ever-ready, bumping against his calves as he runs.

[sarcophage]

When Matthias glimpses Leander's head of curls from below, it's smoke in the distance that he's watching, and matching that grey plume on the horizon with a little one of his own. A cough inspires him to snuff it out, so with little nips of finger and thumb, he worries at the cigarillo's ash until it slumbers. Normally he would lick his fingers beforehand, but today he doesn't. It only hurts a little, and the end result is the same.

And it's the same for everyone. It's the most natural part of life, dying. Growth becomes decay. Even the grandest monuments crumble under the gentle brush of time. The transition always comes. It's inevitable; it's perfect.

It's not that he's dead—it's that Leander wasn't there to see it.

He's still there, staring at that distant smoke, when Matthias crests the stairs. Oi, he belts, and that head of curls turns toward him, and that thin silhouette becomes distinct from the wall, and by the time he's come close enough to see Leander's expression in greater detail, it's been arranged in a smile.

"Oi yourself," he answers—a touch hoarse from his long silence—and lifts his arm to welcome Matthias into his space.

[inkindled]

Matthias slows as he approaches, in an effort to appear as dignified as possible. It isn't an easy thing, given that he's still holding a greasy packet of sausages in one hand. He can't bring himself to abandon them. And really, where would be chuck them? Over the wall? That would be weirder than carrying them in the first place. So he does his best, trying to imagine the dignity that permeates all the people he admires. He's spent time with some of them on this trip, mages that don't run about like idiots. Shades of Enchanter Averesch, Isaac, the Rifter knight with her armor and great stately height, people he wishes he was.

But he still grins when he's come in conversational distance to Leander, answering the smile he's given. Quick, fleeting, just for the pleasure of seeing him. Seeing live friends is a marked improvement when compared to trudging around thinking of dead friends.

"Told you." That he'd find him, obviously. He points (with the sausage-free hand) to his crystal, which is lashed to his belt, in case the promise has been forgotten. "And I would have done yesterday, only, y'know. It was madness. Still is, actually. That's," and he takes stock now, of Leander, giving him a less than subtle once-over, in case there's any clues as to how he's doing more immediately obvious, "a given, I s'ppose. Considering. So you're really all right?"

[sarcophage]

It is, isn't it. Madness. Paralysis of thought. Notions cracking off the walls and crumbling on their way down, the abyss dark and silent below. Everything is far away—even Matthias, standing right here, even as Leander's hand lights upon the boy's shoulder, he's watching his own ghost act in his stead.

Taking stock, he looks like he could use a rest and a shave, and has been blithely ignoring these needs for... however long... but he doesn't seem too poorly for it. Not like some. There's little trace of turmoil, no sign of the plans he's making to leave.

Calmly, as though he's only out here taking the air on any ordinary day, he lies, "I'm all right. It's good to see you again." —Less a lie, that one. His hand leaves Matthias's shoulder, points to the handful of... are those sausages. "What're those for?"

[inkindled]

"The--" Matthias risks a glance down, but the sausages haven't done him the favor of disappearing or concealing themselves from view. Bugger. "The griffons. It's for the griffons. They like them. I was thinking that-- Some of those that were killed, they had griffons that they were caring for. Bonding with, like. So the creatures'll be lonely for that company, won't they."

He's thinking of that day with Merrill, in the griffon's roost. The little hatchlings all bumping up against him, and Ghostface catching sausages out of the air. It's unfair. Merrill was good. It's unfair, and that's why it happened, because there's nothing fair in this world and that's the way it is.

Manfully, he looks back at Leander. The place where his hand had laid still tingles, warm, like a badge someone put too close to the fire. Enchanter Averesch had said. They don't all know how it is, to lose everyone at once. If Leander is suffering for that--and he looks to be suffering--then he's suffering quietly, not saying anything, and that's as it should be, Matthias hasn't got time for whingers--but they're still friends, aren't they. You're kind to your friends.

"D'you want to come and see 'em? The griffons? Reckon I can get you in. Unless you're," and he darts a glance out at the wide beyond, water and Kirkwall and horizon all laid out in open volume, "busy."

[sarcophage]

In silence, Leander studies him a moment. Matthias and his wide eyes and his generous nature, still bright with a child's yearning as he approaches adulthood. He wonders how many of his heart's soft places have crusted over, and how many will grow harder still, whether building across years in concentric layers or in a single galvanizing moment. Wonders to which he might be predisposed. What might happen if he were dropped. Would the pieces come together again? What shape would they take?
(A flash of the ceiling in collapse, the taste of settling dust; a glimpse of how the Maker must feel.)

He's been still for probably too long now. After a slow blink, with the suggestion of a smile, he shakes his head.

"I'm not busy. But they're quite noisy—I'd prefer to stay where it's quiet." He might care about the griffons another time; not today. Still, "What do you do when you visit them? Aside from," another gesture: sausages. Still there.

[inkindled]

"Oh, yeah," Matthias says, quickly, rushing to retract his offer and simultaneously give his agreement to Leander's point, "yeah, sure. 'Course."

And like, really, what idiot would have suggested such a thing, to a man who is likely not feeling altogether well after the sudden death of a load of people that he knew and--at a guess--gave a shit about. And while Matthias wouldn't give most people this generous consideration, he certainly allows it for someone he would call a friend. Friends are entitled to a great deal off leeway.

He looks down at the sausages when Leander gestures to them, and raises the package up so he can look at it, grease spots and all. "Nothing," he says, first. Kicks the heel of his boot against the paving stone. "Well, like--feed 'em, mostly. That's what they're interested in. The food. Different food than they usually get. And then I just hang about, 'cause... I dunno."

Another kick, this small movement, buying himself time to think. "S'ppose I sort of like the noise, and that. I'm used to it. When it's all quiet, that's when I'm crawling out of my skin. Whatever that says about me, that I'm most comfortable in chaos, I dunno, but it's true. I'm not opposed to quiet, right. Everyone needs it sometimes. Hey," and he looks up at Leander at last, making another quick search of his face, looking for new clues and then forging on when he doesn't really find anything, "if you wanted to, you know. Fuck off for awhile. Not hang about the Gallows. That'd be all right. 'Cause it's kind of shit being here, right. And we're all here as volunteers, aren't we, so--"

He shrugs, and, embarrassed all over again--this time for talking too much--kicks again at the flagstone.

[sarcophage]

Matthias talks, and talks, and fidgets and scuffs, and when he reaches the end, that suggestion of a smile grows unequivocally. No sign of a patronizing air, pity, any other such diminishment, only fondness. If it doesn't quite reach Leander's eyes—well, given givens, perhaps that can be excused.

"I've considered it." More than that: he's planned for it, with few considerations remaining. "After the memorial, maybe." Precisely then. "I don't mind it so much. Being here. There's a bit of nostalgia in it. Not for you, though, if I recall—you've never lived in a Circle, have you?"

[inkindled]

After the memorial, yeah, that makes sense, to have a change--so Matthias is nodding as he puts that together, before the thought has even been completed. So agreeable that it makes his little lip curl all that more dramatic.

Nostalgia. Well, people can't be blamed for what they feel. And the Circles were, supposedly, different, some of them better than others. But still oppressive, as a system, so.

"Not long enough for it to count. Or catch any kind of sentimentality," which is a little unfair, but he's got to add it. "We fucked off pretty quickly after I arrived. I remember parts of it."

The unforgettable parts. Dark hallways like a maze. Sitting petrified, shoulder to shoulder on a narrow bench. Dust motes in shafts of sunlight and something worse going on in the background. A scar no bigger than a comma at his hairline, from getting cuffed by a gauntleted fist. Someone sniffling to the left of him. Listening. Tension like a wound string. Eyes glittering under a helmet--loads of eyes, really--and that feeling like being watched, but always; even in a room by yourself, you were never alone. And in between those are all the stories that he's heard, filling in the gaps and magnifying the horror.

"What d'you have to feel nostalgic about?"

hope he wanted a resume

[sarcophage]

Unfair, perhaps, but not unfounded; many of their memories could easily be interchanged without losing much beyond details. The name of the building, the scale of the maze, the placement of a scar (scalp, caused by a fall, caused by the thrust of a boot against the stool he'd climbed to grasp at a shelf he was too small to reach). The colours of all those eyes. So many dismal moments diminished in their importance by the brighter casts of belonging, wonder, discovery. (And secrets. And terror. And learning the value of pain. A child's history illuminated in blood.)

"My life," he says to the open air, to the city and smoke beyond the wall, and turns his face back to the boy a moment after, now wearing a gleam in his eye.

"I'd never lived anywhere else until the rebellion began. Not many of us were fortunate enough to escape the Annulment, but we were enough to survive. I would've been... mmm, twenty-six, then. I'm just over thirty now," he adds, in case Matthias is the sort of youth to fixate on age, and then follows the thread himself. "By your age I'd have been living in the Circle for," ten or eleven years, he reckons, but might as well pad it a little to make him feel cool, "perhaps thirteen years already." See, Matthias, he totally thinks you're an Adult.

"I did everything there—cast my first traditional spell, my first glyph. Read my first book from beginning to end." Made a friend. Fell in love. "Learned much of what I know from Mages and Enchanters, and from the Mortalitasi. I wouldn't be..."

Whatever thought's just fetched him up, it demands a brisk clearing of his throat before he goes on. "I wouldn't be who I am without them."

i

[thorndergod]

Stairs are one of his favorite forms of a workout. Thor had been jogging between Darktown and Hightown until the March announcement came, but since then he's stuck closer to the Gallows. He's powerful, but a mob can still take down one mage. Now that certain news has come Thor needs to work out all the more so it's the mage tower stairs he attacks.

The first time through the halls he'd scarcely noticed the other mage. Sure, there had been a feeling of magic, but so what? Mages do magic. The second time, he nods to the young man. By the third loop he's getting curious, so finally, on fourth pass, Thor stops and watches for a few moments.

"Are you attempting to break into the room?"

[sarcophage]

The first time, Thor was likewise ignored.
The second, a glance cast over one shoulder; no reaction to the nod but to look away. (Perhaps the quality of his sullen stare will ring a familiar note.)
The third, and the fourth, he's lifted his shoulders in a huddle of privacy, silently willing the onlooker away. Even when the footfalls slow, and finally cease, he refuses to turn. Even after the stranger asks a question of the back of his head—or, he tries to ignore it, but he does not trust himself to act rationally if the stranger's curiosity brings him near.

The barest handful of crumbs, then... perhaps it will be enough:

"Yes. The key's lost." It isn't a lie. It isn't the truth, either. The man who held the key is lost; the key is wherever it is. "I'd like to be left alone, please."

[thorndergod]

He takes a breath in and out, trying to decide if he has the energy for this. Working out is easy. Everything else is a little complicated right now.

"Is it your room?" Whose business is it if it's not? Who would be the person in charge of that? Thor's pretty sure it's not him. He glances back at the staircase. Maybe he could walk away and pretend he'd seen nothing, but he's not the sort to ignore problems.

[sarcophage]

Whose business, indeed. This huge stranger's business, evidently. Leander would like the option to decide he hasn't the energy, himself, but it's not exactly normal, what he's doing. He's lucky it hasn't attracted any attention before now—this floor isn't empty like his. (Like theirs.)

At length, he stops whatever it is he's doing and turns around in place. Both sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, both forearms bear an array of old scars—acquired in defence against a blade, it seems like—and his hands have the pink and cramped look of sustained manual work.

"No," he says, and meets Thor's eye steadily. (He's nearly a foot shorter.) Flat, "The man who lived here is dead."