open | i thought i found it

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair, Bastien, Kostos, and whoever wants to deal with them.
WHAT: Open/catch-all.
WHEN: Justinian
WHERE: Mostly Kirkwall
NOTES: hmu @ circuitry if you need to talk about something or want to plan something that doesn’t fit here! or just wildcard me without warning. and brackets are aces if that’s your preference.

–ALISTAIR→

i. project sashamiri offices

He hasn’t been gone all that long, in the scheme of things, but there are still reports to catch up on before Alistair can confidently spot himself into the reorganized effort to Make Corypheus Cut It Out.

He hates sitting and reading. It’s one of his least favorite things. Walking and reading is better. Sitting and not reading is fine. But this? Disgusting. The fact that he’s doing it anyway is proof that he cares a whole, whole lot about saving the world, even if he says things like, “Do you think it’s too late to make everyone call him Sethius instead? I think that would be better for morale.” He mimes a crier. “Orlais menaced by Seth.”

ii. eyrie

“Well, who cares what you think?” Alistair is asking one of the griffons—one that’s taken his offered strip of meat and retreated, leaving him alone with his arms crossed. He wouldn’t be fussing if he didn’t think he was alone with them, but their tussling and occasional screeches mask approaching footsteps. “You’re just an enormous bird. You eat hair.”

But he still wants one of them to like him. Just one. It doesn’t matter which.

–BASTIEN→

i. mage tower dining hall

Only the kitchen in the Templar Tower has a staff and food to serve, which is probably why Bastien has never seen anyone actually eat in the dining hall in the Mage Tower, and why he feels justified in completely rearranging it without asking anybody else what they think.

Or, he did feel justified, before it gave way to feeling tired. He’s moved all of the chairs but only about a third of the heavy wooden tables to the edges of the room, and turned most of the relocated onto their sides. But that was all his relatively meager muscle mass could handle. The tables have won. The tables were always fated to win.

Now he’s lying on his back on one of them, legs dangling, staring at the ceiling, with his lute held loose on his chest while he plucks out a messy sketch of a melody, able to be gracious in defeat if it means he doesn’t have to move for a while.

ii. practice range

Depending on how much someone knows about this and that, a couple things might be apparent.

The first is that Bastien has done this before. Good form—comfortably textbook, learned from someone who knew what they were doing—though he seems to be reminding himself of before each shot, like a child straining to recite a poem accurately.

The second is that he probably used to be better at it: he regards the arrows that land in the mid- and inner rings with the subdued satisfaction of a man whose expectations have just barely been met, not one who’s thrilled to have discovered how to hit the target at all, and when one arcs wild he drops his bow arm to his side and gives his eyes a frustrated, accusatory rub, like they’re to blame.

–KOSTOS→

i. wounded coast

If there were suspicious men along the coast, speaking a language that was definitely Tevinter (the Kirkwall guard who reported them had never heard Tevinter spoken before) and doing something that was definitely blood magic (she also couldn’t say what blood magic looked like, other than bloody), they’re gone by now, and the only signs of their potential existence are identical to the signs of standard-grade travelers stopping to butcher and cook a tusket.

That might have been fine. Better to be sure, and better that they be the ones making sure instead of a wet-eared local guard, and Kostos—crouching to poke around the campsite with a stick—is keeping the tusks, for his trouble.

Might have been fine, again, but for the storm clouds that have blustered in like they were late for a meeting. The first rain drops make him lift his head just in time for a lightning strike, not more than a few miles away, and a snarl of thunder.

“Fucking—” he says, suddenly reminded why he hates nature, and as the rain picks up he shrinks into his shoulders like a harassed cat. It doesn’t help.

ii. training grounds

The training dummy doesn’t deserve to die. But Kostos has been having a bad month/year/life, and trying to knock the shit out of the dummy with a staff has mainly served to highlight how much less useful and interesting that is than having the shit knocked out of him by Nell. Which brings him around to the important point of fuck Nell.

So that’s why, if someone wanders in, he’s standing there shirtless and a little sweaty, leaning on a training staff, and watching with dispassionate interest as four wisps circle wildly around the dummy—they’re having fun—and pelt it with ice and fire. It’s slow going, each pair counteracting the efforts of the other. The winners get a field trip and the losers go back to the Fade, however, so they’re putting their tiny wisp backs into it.

iii. lowtown

His month/year/life gets worse.

Down an alley most people know better than to traverse, with people most people know better than to bother, Kostos is currently sitting on the ground. He’s at an odd angle, because one of the dwarves flanking him is standing heavily on his right hand. The other has a handful of his shirt at the shoulder, and a third has a knife angled against his clavicle.

He doesn’t intend to lose any digits or eyes or ear lobes here. He let his nose be bloodied. And his lip. And his wrenched shoulder, fine, they could have that one too. But if it comes to genuine maiming, he’ll resort to magic—maybe. If he’s quick enough. Currently he’s attempting to call a bluff, and if he were a good gambler, he wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.

“What do you think we could get if we sell him for parts?” Knife Dwarf asks, and Stomp Dwarf says, “Less than he owes, but more than nothing.”

Witty one-liners aren’t really Kostos’ thing, but neither is pleading, so he just grits his teeth.

Comments

ii. Alistair

[justice_is_blond]

"Is that one of the ones that eats hair?" He watches the greedy one flounce off with a shake of his head before he's opening Buggie's stall and offering her a fish. She takes it and gulps it down, staying put so he can brush her.

"No, wait, you're right. That's the one that likes hair the most. And then getting sick after. Welcome back, by the way." It's nice to see Alistair around again. It makes the place feel a little less... something, and more something as well. "Have you seen if Chawcey's feeling up to making a new friend? Last I heard he's often got extra energy."

Buggie squawks and he shakes his head. "Hush. I'm not abandoning you."

[byblow]

"Yes he is," Alistair says, once he's done being surprised at the unheard entry, with his voice lifted toward the griffon, though his eyes and raised eyebrow are on Anders. "He's plotting it right now."

iii Kostos

[altusimperius]

Kostos' month/year/life isn't the only one heading rapidly down the shitter, which means it's been high time for Benedict to find the seediest, saddest, most repulsive dive bar in all of Kirkwall and drink himself stupid in it. It's exactly what Lakshmi wouldn't have wanted, but seeing as she's not here, who's to stop him?

Maybe just a big filthy Marcher who was talked down to one too many times, and who's solving the problem by throwing the little nonce out in the very same alley that's already hosting its own festivities.
They're at least briefly disrupted by the sound of a projectile Vint being hurled into a pile of crates on the far wall, the lot of them avalanching onto him in a cascade of plywood. He scrambles to free himself with a whine of irritation, then, still seated on the ground, focuses his eyes on the scene before him.

"Kostos," comes the observation, confused. Who's this, it seems to ask, as his gaze next moves to one dwarf, then the other.

[exequy]

While the wood is snapping and the Vint is extricating, the dwarves watch, not so much with interest as annoyance. The one standing on Kostos’ hand does an annoying little pivot, too, and the one holding his shoulder tightens her grip. But the one with the knife lowers it a few inches from where it had been threatening to poke through his skin. So there’s that, at least.

Kostos, for his part, is trying to do some mental calculations. The likelihood that Benedict just saved his life because they wouldn’t want witnesses, for example, as compared to the likelihood that Benedict is now going to die because they wouldn’t want witnesses.

There’s also the possibility they don’t give a fuck if there are witnesses. That’s a decent one. Equally decent is the possibility they never meant to hurt anyone, only to put the fear of their ancestors into him, because that would be more profitable in the long run.

Anyway: “I’m busy,” is what he winds up saying, half through his teeth, because once he starts talking that foot digs into his hand to remind him not to do that.

“He’s busy,” Knife Dwarf affirms.

[altusimperius]

Benedict isn't as drunk as he wanted to be, but he's still drunk enough to have lost a good chunk of his inhibitions, which is why he looks between all of them and is able to slowly puzzle out what's going on. Uncharacteristically, he doesn't seem too fazed, and begins to stumble to his feet with a shitty little smirk.

"What do you owe them," he asks, slurring his words a bit, and tugs the pouch at his belt around so he can start counting out coins. "...or do they owe you?"

[exequy]

"He owes us more than anyone is carrying around in a pouch, Handsome," Knife Dwarf says, and something—Benedict's slurring, maybe—has put her enough at ease that the titular knife swings back into Kostos' vicinity. "But you're welcome to donate toward the cause." She pats the flat of the blade against Kostos' cheek, and he can feel (or imagines he can feel) the bones in his hand straining and threatening to snap, so he only glares, letting fuck you fuck you fuck you simmer near the surface in hopes she can see it on his face. "You should have gone around with a tin cup."

"Hey," the one standing on his hand says, eyeing Benedict as he slow-churns some brilliance. "Hey. You know him?"

Bastien 2

[bouchonne]

"By the Maker," By says archly, "you're quite dreadful."

Which is perhaps an unfair assessment of a fellow who did just just land a number of very good shots. But By had known Bastien back in the day, back before, and nowadays, by comparison - terrible. He leans against a post, smiling archly at Bastien, waiting for a glib response.

[cozen]

Bastien doesn't turn to look. Even if he weren't good with voices—and gaits, and patterns of breathing—Byerly's is fairly distinct. The expression Bastien imagines him to have, while he aligns his elbow and his chin, is pretty accurate. He looses an arrow that thuds into the outer edge of the middle rings, and says, "Come over here and do better."

Flippant enough, but his tone is less airy than it would be if Byerly were someone he currently felt the need to fake a good mood for.

[bouchonne]

"See, you say that, anticipating that then I'll fail and you'll be able to rub my face in it." By pushes off his post, and saunters over, hands in his pockets, the absolute portrait of unconcern. "But I, unlike you, have been honing my skills in the past few years. I haven't let myself go to pot."

He gestures for the bow. Soon as he has it in his hand, he nocks and then looses...only to see his arrow, dismayingly, sink into the third ring out. Blast it, there'd been a gust of wind at the last second - Blast it all. Well - He turns to Bastien, smirking outrageously, hoping that the fellow will assume that By missed on purpose in service of a punchline.

[cozen]

Bastien inclines his head while he watches the arrow fly, considers its ultimate placement with an air of patient perplexity, and turns the same look on Byerly and his smirk. It’s a good smirk—which is to say it’s a terrible smirk. It would be easy to hate him, if not for all the nostalgic fondness.

He thinks, do you ever get tired?

He says, “Ah, yes, I can see the honing. You would put L’Épervier to shame, if you challenged her after she was blinded.” But also, magnanimous: “But we can call that one a warm up, if you would like,” while he bends sideways to pull another arrow up from where they’ve been stuck into the ground like so many reeds.

ii Kostos

[justice_is_blond]

"Are you... training them?" Anders isn't exactly sure of what he's just walked into. Kostos looks irate, which is nothing new, there are wisps, also nothing new, but that Kostos is just watching them tear apart a dummy seems a bit out of the ordinary.

"Or are you controlling them in some way and training yourself?" They're certainly putting effort in. As much as wisps can. He thinks. Can they do much more? Now he's even more curious.

[exequy]

The first sentence makes him start—but not very noticeably, just flinch that’s barely a twitch and an expression that’s already smoothed and then segued into irritation by the time he turns his head toward Anders.

“Fuck off,” he says, because he’s charming.

The wisps are still whirling, and whirring, and they might be genuinely and non-sarcastically charming, because one of them seems to notice Anders and spins out of its orbit—spitting one last badly-aimed bit of fire on the way, and Kostos has to step back to avoid being singed—to fly over to him and hover curiously in front of his face.

It likes his nose, but Kostos is too cross to tell him so.

[justice_is_blond]

He flips Kostos off in answer. He thinks Kostos' fuck-off greeting is generic, just Kostos being Kostos, so he's not offended. Most of his attention is on the wisps anyway, especially the one that comes up as if to greet him.

Anders raises a hand slowly, entirely unsure about how to be friendly with a seemingly friendly wisp. He's only ever sent them out for light before.

"Hi," he says. "Having... fun?" Justice hadn't exactly understood fun. He doesn't know if he should expect more or less from a wisp. "You can answer that one too, Kostos."

alistair ii.

[swordproof]

"I do not think that is the best way to encourage their kindness," Six admits with a smile, stepping over to the Griffon she had bonded with without too much hesitation. It's clear that she is accustomed to being there; there's an ease about her that's not shown as well in other places and she reaches out to touch its beak, careful of her hands as she breathes out.

This is a comfortable place for her to be and she accepts it as it is; animals are easier than people.

"Would you like to try with mine?" Not her animal, of course, but her bonded.

[byblow]

Alistair—caught, as he is, by someone he doesn't know well enough to pick on—drops his folded arms and looks immediately a little sheepish instead. He likes animals, too; it's why he's up here, when he could be doing something more useful and involving fewer noisy brutes who steal the treats he tries to give them and bite his fingers. But he likes them in the unsentimental, mildly adversarial way some people like their most annoying siblings.

Maybe it's because he shared a room with them, growing up.

"Try... charming it?" he asks.

[swordproof]

"Try touching it," which is said with a twitch of a smile as she steps to one side.

Six has been bonded with her griffon for a little while now and she knows what he likes and what he does not like. If she's somehow able to pass that on to someone else? She sees no reason to be dismissive of it. These animals should be making friends, especially if it is someone who might take care of them.

"I am bonded with Artichoke."

closed.

[exequy]

[ That it takes this long is due equally to Nell and to Nikos. Nell—she can go die, and he’s pretty sure, almost completely convinced, that he won’t care, but he’s never betrayed her confidence before, no matter however much he disagreed with her about something, and if nothing else that gives him a sense of martyred moral satisfaction. Look what he won’t stoop to. He won’t turn her in. He won’t even tell Nikos she told.

And Nikos, he’s almost been getting along with. Or he’s felt like he had a brother in the present tense, which doesn’t require getting along at all to be a step up from feeling like he doesn’t have anything except something from his past come back to irritate him. For as long as Kostos doesn’t see him again, doesn’t talk to him, he doesn’t have to shatter that and set it on fire.

But the Gallows aren’t that big or that densely populated, and Kostos does see him eventually, sitting on a bench in an otherwise deserted courtyard. Once that’s happened there’s no real decision to make. Maybe that’s why there’s nothing unusual about his approach; the way he walks, the look on his face, he could be going over to tell Nikos his beard looks stupid. He doesn’t know. He isn’t thinking about it.

Usually, in this sort of situation, Kostos throws a punch first. Leaves open the possibility that he’ll stay on his feet and maintain his dignity, even if it rarely works out that way.

This isn’t usual. This is Nikos. It’s Nell. It’s a dead Grand Cleric, a face and a name to put to wrecked hope, someone specific to blame, and Kostos skips the pretense of civilized fisticuffs and launches straight into a full body tackle, with one fist and one clutching, clawing hand both searching for something to hurt. ]

[exsecutus]

[When Kostos' shadow falls over him like a stain, Nikos is feeding biscuit crumbs to lizards. Pale green and whip-thin, yellow eyes like beads of sap fixed on either side of their spade-shaped heads. They were someone's pets, probably. An Inquisition someone's, less likely to be a Gallows someone's, though it's certainly possible.

Whenever a crumb drops on the flagstone, one of the lizards streaks out of hiding, the patter of its feet marking its pace. It snatches up the crumb and then skitters away, back to the safety of a near-by jumbled pile of stone, the remnants of a plinth that held Maker-knows-what memorial or commemoration. Something for a templar, probably. Isn't it nice that lizards live there now. Won't it be nice when all institutions like the Templar Order are similarly defunct and fallen-down, obscured by lizard shit, gauzy sections of shed skin, and stockpiled crumbs.

These are the thoughts that Nikos is having as he's sitting, afternoon wine-drunk, in the sunny courtyard. Pleasant, idle thoughts.

Then his brother's shadow falls into his periphery. He looks up.

By virtue of his reflexes, he doesn't crack his head open on the flagstone, when he's tackled--reflexes which are quite good, for an overweight alcoholic. Even with the bulk of Kostos on him, he manages to fall sort of sideways, twist to get a forearm on the stone instead of easily shattered hands or wrists or skull. It is still fucking dazing. And confusion is there to complicate things--and then a bizarre sort of betrayal--and then a familiar fury as he realizes that he was caught off-guard, he wasn't on point--he was caught off-guard by Kostos, of all fucking people--Kostos, who has a fist bunched in the shoulder of his shirt, whose other fist had connected clumsily with Nikos' cheek as he'd tackled, and that hurts, too--

The sentry lizards around the rubble scramble to get out of sight as Nikos growls a noise of pain, and twists again, this time to get a hand in Kostos' face, palming at him, trying to keep him at arm's length.]

That hurt, bastard-- The fuck are you doing, you stupid-- Get off of me--

[exequy]

Fuck you, [ Kostos says, words ripped raw out from the back of his throat but then smushed by the hand in his face. He doesn’t let go of his fistful of Nikos’ shirt, but for a moment there’s a reprieve from anything else while he tries to jerk his head free of the interference like a new colt resisting a bridle. ] I know—

[ Fuck it. He accepts his new place at arm’s length, gets one knee into Nikos’ side on his way to balancing there, and tries to punch him in the jaw regardless.

It’s sloppy. He doesn’t care. ]

I know what you fucking did.

[ It isn’t kindness or caution, that he isn’t more specifically announcing anyone’s assassination to their audience of hidden lizards and anyone with an open window correctly angled to catch the echos off the Gallows’ stone floors and narrow passages. If he were thinking clearly enough to be careful, he wouldn’t say anything at all. ]

i. kostos

[sulahnan]

Nor, for that matter, does it help track footprints that are, at this very moment, fading. All of them washed away leaving nothing but a vague idea of the direction whoever made this camp went. It might have been blood mages, or it might’ve been slavers. Or fishermen, or locals looking for a nice cave to boink in. Could’ve been anyone, really.

“You look appropriately miserable,” Athessa says, appearing behind Kostos. She keeps doing that. One more time and it’ll be three, and three makes a habit. Where she stands now, at two times, is still in the realm of accident or coincidence. She leans forward, hands on her knees, so she can speak over his shoulder and look at what he was poking at. “Any leads here? All I got is that they went thataway.”

[exequy]

Kostos—whose flinch at Athessa's sudden appearance was contained to one arm, fist curling in preparation for trouble in the half-second before oh, just you sets in instead—holds up one of the charred tusks from the animal remains.

"After dinner," he says. They went 'thataway' after dinner. He's being soaked—

fine, at the moment he's only damp, but soaking is in his immediate future

—because some travelers were too messy about butchering their meal, so the misery is appropriate, thanks very much. He straightens up, pockets the tusks, and holds a forearm over his eyes to shield against the rainfall while he looks at her, sort of glaring, even though it isn't her fault. "I'm finding shelter," he says, in a tone that would also perfectly fit I'm done with this bullshit. She can come or not.

[sulahnan]

"Oh, you are?" She asks, playful and mock-surprised. She's not grinning outright, but the tone of her voice conveys as much. Blithely unconcerned with the dreary weather that is a perfectly matched accessory to Kostos' demeanor.

Athessa pushes her hair back from her face, then folds her hands behind her back.

"Well there's a cave up there but if you have something else in mind I'll let you lead the way." She hadn't gone too far ahead of him in her perusal of the footprints, but even from here she can see the mouth of at least two caves, one at risk of being flooded with the tide and another on a higher path. The same quality that makes her eyes glint in low light helps her kind see further, in greater detail, at dawn and dusk.

[sulahnan]

[ Convenient, that Kostos is here. Athessa had been planning to wail on a dummy herself--that might still be her plan, but she doesn't know Kostos well enough to make a judgment call on whether or not he's a dummy.

She purses her lips and tilts her head to one side in thought. ]

Does attacking a training dummy help those things much?

[exequy]

No.

[ It might change them. They're wisps—wisps of consciousness, wisps of emotions—and when they go back to the Fade, they take their memories with them, more than they were before. Maybe they'll become spirits of rage, because of him. But they aren't angry. They're enjoying themselves, motivated by a desire to see more of the world. Hopefully they'll be spirits of curiosity instead.

Anyway.

He doesn't look at Athessa. ]

But I'm entertained.

[ Deadpan. Entertained like he's entertained at a funeral. ]

[sulahnan]

That's you entertained? [ Skeptical. He looks more like he's trying to will himself out of being nauseous, if you ask her. ]

I'd kill to see you in a rage, then. [ She looks at the wisps. What even are wisps? ] What exactly are they?