faderift | closed | Venatori Gone Wild

“We—us?” Bastien echoes, from where he’s squinting up at the canopy over them and the little bits of sky showing between the leaves, wondering about smoke.

He’s down to his shirtsleeves. Rolled-up shirtsleeves, even, and the lacing around the neck loosened to a point somewhere short of debonair. He hates summer. Summer in an increasingly jungle-like forest is not an improvement. But he’s remained pleasant, if quiet, and not doing particularly much to help with the silence left by anyone’s surliness or passive aggression.

He could be cocky about evading a sizable party of magic-equipped Tevinters. He could be cocky about tracking and surviving in the wilderness. He doesn’t have it in him to be cocky about both at once.

“People disappear in this forest,” he says, tone more conversational than argumentative. “Even the ones who know what they are doing.”

"Is there anyone that knows what they're doing."

Certainly there isn't here. Not with a cook, a sulk, and whatever the Orlesian is meant to be. And Nikos, who does not know what he's doing, or indeed how he came to be tromping about in the woods in the first place. He hates the outdoors. A consummate city boy, able to sleep in a doorwell but not among trees.

Trees. Everywhere, trees. And it's sticky hot. Nikos plucks at the neck of his shirt and peels it from his chest with a scowl. His sleeves are resolutely rolled down. He's thinking of his wine. There's not enough to get him through this day.

"If we make the fire larger, they might see the smoke, turn around, and come to us. Anyone know any Vint smoke signals?"

Do people even do smoke signals? Like he fucking cares. It's not a genuine suggestion. Standing around waiting is already eating at him, putting an itch behind his eyeballs--deep, deep down, like he'd need to dig a finger behind them to get at it. Instead Nikos gives in and goes for his wineskin. Unstops it with his teeth--they are in the woods--and gets a swig in before he goes unhelpfully on.

"And then when they come around we can feed them. I brought poison, if you're interested."

Well. Colin looks up above the fire with a bit of a face. There's not much smoke, at least nothing that could be seen miles off. He doesn't know a lot about the woods, but he makes a lot of fires. Since he lives in a city, all of them are meant to make minimal smoke at a very controlled heat. Maker knows Kirkwall has enough smoke from its foundry district.

"Making the fire larger would make it hotter," he points out, "which would make less smoke. But the wood we've got here is very dry and hard." Therefore, it's not making much smoke. "So leave off, and enter the actual conversation. It's dangerous, but we're here to venture into danger and bring back useful information. If we don't go in and risk ourselves, someone else will. So what do we do?"

He's not sulking, he's just...

...sulking.

But now he's finished, so there.

"I'm happy to leave the risk of disappearance to those better equipped," he says, and uses loosening his own collar as a reason to un-sulk his arms.

For his part, Lea's been tolerating both the weather and woodsy terrain without complaint (despite his general air of delicacy, some might say); were it not for the pallor of his skin and the occasional peevish episode, he might even seem comfortable. On the other hand, had he not finally caved to Lexie's suggestion of just a hint of powder on his cheeks, he might look very ill. He'd almost prefer that to the decidedly boyish glow he's got going now—looks a bit like he's had a couple of drinks, actually. Here's hoping the sun will soon cover it up. A few freckles wouldn't hurt, either, he's missed having those...

"It's not as though we're in a race against time. They're all a bit rubbish at covering their tracks, aren't they. Hope you plan on sharing that."

That last bit, delivered with a sort of companionable edge—because take your shut-up and plug yourself with it, xoxo, smileyface—is obviously for Nikos.

"You can have as much poison as you want," Nikos says, with an edgier companionable tone that he pairs with this big deliberate look at Leander. Then he takes a huge swig from the wineskin--almost too much--but he's a professional, so he doesn't choke.

A mouthful of wine does prevent him from offering any other immediate comment or clever rejoinders to the rest of it. This leaves space for someone else to be immediately brave, if they like, and say that they should go charging off after those really obvious tracks that Leander has apparently spotted with his big wide doe-eyes, or sit around a campfire eating whatever Colin plans to cook over his miraculous smokeless fire and wait together for who-the-fuck-knows-what, an obvious answer or a hero or Corypheus to end the world as they know it.

These are all the sorts of things that everyone is spared from hearing. By the time he's swallowed the wine, Nikos has moved through it all, and lands on: "Sadly, I think we are the 'better equipped'. The best that Riftwatch has to offer." He wipes his wrist over his mouth, catching a little dribble of wine, and licks it right off of his own skin. No sense in waste. "All of which means we're here and therefore expected to go in and risk ourselves. Who exactly would be going in, if not us?"

"Elves," Bastien volunteers, because elves—Maker bless them—are good at woods, and that's a fact, "except even the Dalish avoid these woods. A merchant in Val Royeaux—his shop was just down the street from mine—his uncle was lost here, once, and his grandfather hired expedition after expedition to bring him back, or at least his bones. He told each one they were the first, so they would not be frightened by the fact that none before them had returned, but it was always the same, until money was gone and my neighbor's inheritance was a fruit stand."

It's partly true. He comes closer to the fire, mostly out of curiosity at what might be cooking on it, but backs away again immediately because, on second thought, the idea of any added warmth on his skin is repulsive.

"We are the best that Riftwatch has to offer," he adds, because he is, at least, and he suspects the others average out to competent, "for handling the barons."

Edited 2019-07-04 19:37 (UTC)

"We could ask the Scoutmaster," Colin says, spooning a pat of butter into the pot. "But, I guess you might be right. Those people going in have strength in numbers and we don't. So...staying here for now and awaiting further orders?"

It seems like a pretty safe bet, to allow it to be Yseult's decision. Meanwhile, he melts butter in the pot. Onions. He wishes he had onions. Yes, onions, mushrooms, garlic, a dash of diced chilies. But he all he has is meat, bread, butter, some nuts, and his little spice jar. Some of the bread has gone stale, and he positions it near the fire to toast. Once that's done, he crushes it onto a shallow wooden plate and adds a generous amount of his dried spice. They don't have eggs, but adding plenty of butter to the fresh beef he bought in the last village makes the breadcrumbs stick. Then it goes into the pan to cook in the remaining butter.

"Yes, I have a pigeon here in my pocket," Nikos says, sourly, "and who would like to write to the scoutmaster and ask her opinion? Or do we just wait for her to wade in and bring us out pinched by the ears? We were sent here to do something, not to get to the bloody brink of doing something only to decide instead to put our thumbs up our arses."

He doesn't much like the story about a million bones in the wood. But there are millions of bones everywhere, aren't there. And it would be much nicer if this path had led them to a city or a baron's mansion instead of bumfucking woodsy nowhere, but.

Nikos takes another swig of wine and drives the stopper back into it by banging the back of his hand against it with finality. "If we're going to be fucking cowards about it, we should at least take two steps in so we can say we did. Look around. Go back and say we didn't see anything, not for lack of trying, and if she wants to send a whole squadron of elves in, be our guest. All of this after dinner, apparently."

"I've found the menu," Leander says, from a few metres away.

You see, through Bastien's placid yarning, Colin's culinary distraction, and Nikos's increasingly crusty monologues, Lea went meandering off with the slow, swinging, stiff-legged strides of boredom, taking little scuffs at the dirt with each. The wandering Venatori didn't even bother to dig a midden for themselves despite their size—careless—and their leavings lay in plain sight. Some might still be useful, but he wasn't scrounging for scraps, only nudging at evidence with the toe of one boot or the other, until he skimmed something surprising: a little piece of paper, folded, trodden upon. Overlooked, perhaps.

Upon opening it, he smiled, just a little, to himself. What luck: the ink's hardly even smudged. It could be a plant—the entire event could be staged, the group made to seem less savvy than they are—but this would be an awfully tedious act to keep up.

Post-announcement, he moseys back toward the trio, with a loose and hippy sort of walk, casual as you please.

"Or, rather, the map, leading from..." A pause, for effect, while he looks it over. "From the very estate we just left," meaning that of the Baron Loutain, "to the Arbor Wilds. Funny, that." Considering where they stand.

To Bastien, indicating the bit about Vinsier, "What do you make of this bit here?"

(He may look, even touch, but Leander isn't about to hand it off entirely.)

Edited 2019-07-07 01:54 (UTC)

Bastien turns—placidly, yes, despite his usual impulse to match the energy of the room, or in this case the energy of the clearing. At the moment that energy is very negative, and he isn't here to impress anyone, or fleece anyone, or to die stupidly learning nothing for no one's benefit, and that same impulse is an impulse that plenty of other people have, at varying strengths, without thinking about it or weaponizing it or perhaps realizing it at all. Which is to say: sometimes, if he chills the fuck out, people follow suit.

No luck so far, with Averesch. But maybe the wine and some food will do what Bastien cannot. And if that doesn't work, there is always taking the opposite tack, and being less calm and more negative than everyone else until they feel compelled to set a better example.

Anyway, he turns, eyebrows raised and expression as pleasant as if someone had asked for his attention in his old shop, and leans over closer to peer at the map, without touching or taking. For a moment he's quiet, thinking back to the village, setting aside his first instinct long enough to be sure there isn't a better instinct hiding somewhere beyond it. There isn't.

"Warning them about the guard presence, perhaps," he offers, "unless the guards were a response to the Tevinters after the fact. If we pass back through we can find out."

Colin gives a forced smile to avoid responding to Nikos. People used to communicate before the advent of sending crystals. But responding will only add fuel to the whining, so it will have to roll off his back again. He gestures with the knife he's using to cook the steak.

"Let's do that." He stabs the steak and flips it. "Good find," he adds to Leander. Goes to show what a scout can find when he's not, well, cooking dinner in the camp he's supposed to be searching.

"Who do we think drew that map for them?" he asks.

Oh, fine, Nikos thinks to himself. Now we all want to be useful and find things? Fine. Just fine. He shoulders his stupid wineskin back into place, content to be the most wine-fueled negative person here.

But not so negative that he can't go over and look at the map, and its small scrawled notes.

"The 'A.' who recommended avoiding, maybe. There's an 'A' in 'Arnoul'--" Baron the first, that is-- "And an 'A' in 'Arcenaux'--" Baron the second. "And an 'A' in 'Bastien' and 'Leander', but buried, and 'Averesch' begins in 'A'."

So maybe it's Nikos' work. Just kidding. He looks sourly back toward where Leander had found the note, giving it a once-over.

"It's all very convenient, isn't it. If de Loutain is the A, the Vints were very familiar with him. Calling him by his given name."

He tips a nod for Colin's compliment, feeling appropriately—modestly—chuffed to have done something useful that will both reflect well upon him within the agency and enhance the reputation he wants to cultivate. It's relatively new to him, having such an impersonal target for his ambition, and he's quite enjoying it so far.

The hike's put him in a decent mood, too. Moving in a group through the wilderness with a staff on his back reminds him very much of Rivain. The better times there. He'll surely feel it tomorrow—he's already showing superficial signs of feeling it, that interlude of petulance being among them, and gamely ignoring them all—and perhaps a few days after, but for now it's all right.

"Mm. It's very interesting, either way. I'd like to compare this to any correspondence we've had from either of the barons, in case there are any similarities in the hand, or even the ink," he says, in a voice gone smooth with intent, circling finger and thumb to feel the paper between them. Brighter, then: "But, unless one of you is carrying any mail, that's a matter for later. Since we're already out here, I'd like to press on a bit before we head back to Vinsier, see if we can turn up anything else."

Edited 2019-07-12 22:28 (UTC)

Unless one of you is carrying any mail, Leander says, and Bastien tilts his head, one eye squinched shut from moderate sheepishness and mild effort of contortion as he turns his shed jacket to and fro and extracts from one of the inner pockets an unrolled, unsealed letter—already read by its intended recipient, who is not him—and from another a handful of charred, ash-edged scraps surreptitiously scooped from an unattended fire somewhere between a sitting room and garderobe.

He transfers all of that to one hand, held aloft for anyone who'd like to relieve him of, so he can kneel and unfasten the side of one boot, in pursuit of a curve of paper there, too.

Habit, he does not say, because what a strange habit that would be for a printer.

Nikos looks over with mild interest as Bastien begins to unburden himself. He reaches out and takes both scrap and letter from his hand, and twists his wrist so he can look at the writing.

Hm.

His free hand goes for his belt and, with only a little fumbling, he produces a thin reed-shaped object. Sticks the end into his mouth, pops it open with his teeth--takes it into hand again, and tips out its contents into his palm, to join Bastien's letters.

Out of the tube comes a tube of close-rolled paper. Freed from its prison, the paper slowly begins to uncurl itself. Two pages, more writing.

"I'll want mine back."

The steak is out of the pan, but Colin stops there, squinting at what's going on.

"What?" he asks softly, glancing at Leander because frankly neither of them exactly grew up doing this but Leander is probably closer to it than he is. He glances between these papers and his fellow mage.

"Were they," he looks back to the others, "do you have their handwriting on-hand?" Because that would be extraordinarily fortuitous.

Wouldn't it, just?

Colin happens to look at Leander at the exact moment he's turning a look on him, and for that one instant they are united in the camaraderie of what the fuck, amidst a trapezoid of glances between faces and letters. A beautiful moment to be framed in the scrapbook of the universe.

"You're mad," he says, slowly and carefully accepting a handful of materials that, as far as he knew, didn't exist a moment ago, or at least not where they'd be immediately useful to anyone. And yet here they are, sprung fully-formed from various body parts. "Both of you. Wonderfully mad." And a fine tactic, though he'd feel better about it if he'd been participating on purpose. (Next time.)

With a particular sideways look to Bastien, "What else've you got in there?" It isn't meant to be answered.

Presently, he finds himself a place to sit.

"I'll do my best to return them, but if someone higher up decides they're worth keeping... well, you'll just have to steal them back, I suppose. Not that I'm endorsing theft," a glance to Nikos, and then to Bastien, one eyebrow raised in what might be wry disapproval on someone else's face, but has exactly the opposite effect on his, "but it would be impressive."

The answer to that hypothetical question is: a set of lock picks, a handkerchief, cigarettes, a vial of non-deadly sedative, a knife, several paper-wrapped candies from de Loutain's estate, torn and somewhat smushed wax remnants of both barons' seals, and a flat, rusted iron rose that had fallen (already, he didn't do it) off an ornate gate.

But it isn't meant to be answered, so he doesn't answer it. Instead he winks at Colin, friendly-like, and gives Nikos an approving look that's less friendly, because he doesn't seem interested in friendliness, and in the meanwhile crooks a finger at his side in an unobtrusive, absenty-fidgeting way that would signal amusement—or that a target had made an exploitable error, depending on the context, but in this context, amusement—if anyone trained to understand it were around to see it.

He was recently useless and half-dead in a desert, and now he is useless and likely to end up dead in a jungle, but at least he has this.

And steak, apparently. He inches closer to the fire again.

A wide and half-stifled smile spreads over Colin's face, and he makes sure to cut a slightly bigger portion for Bastien and Nikos.

"Plates, please."

Of course Nikos is going to take them back if they're not returned to him. No one needed to make that concession to him. His mouth hitches into this less-than-amused smirk, but he makes a gesture like of course, all deferential and permissive.

"I do like approval."

It's funny because he doesn't. Perish the thought of some follow-up thievery, says the sarcasm, pulling the curtain over it. Perish the thought, too, of him having his own agenda, a reason for having taken those letters in the first place. But don't they all? Bastien, with his letters--he clearly does, and that will take a second thought, a deeper investigation. Leander, Colin--maybe their motives less known, or more obvious. Work for Riftwatch, move up in esteem. Or perhaps they're something more obscure, something no one would expect, some secret well-kept behind friendly eyes. That's the thing about people.

But there's steak, too, which tastes, in Nikos' opinion, very good with wine. So he gets a plate and slouches closer to the fire, like he wasn't just sulking a moment ago.

It's a wonder Bastien doesn't jingle when he walks.

Leander doesn't bother with a plate right away, on account of he's got his nose in someone's personal property, and has somehow turned his narrow lap into a serviceable desk. A key to his very obscure identity: he knows how to wrangle paper in the woods. Spooky.

Without looking up, "I'll have mine later." The steak, not the approval. He'd meant it companionably, but whatever, it's not the first time he's failed to relate to a human being and it certainly won't be the last. Besides that, it's possible to get along with at least one Averesch simply by carrying on as though he's not being a complete dick, so this one still bears experimentation. (No luck so far; the science of moody twins shall continue.)

Still not looking up, "When did you take these?" Both of them, either of them, whoever feels like answering. "And where did you get a steak, Colin?"

Hopefully the steak wasn’t pulled out of anywhere too unsavory, because Bastien’s already chewing a mouthful. He points to his mouth in answer to the question—full!—but as the steak has been cooked well, and not down to a chewy mess, it only takes a couple seconds for him to solve that problem.

“The burned ones are from de Loutain,” he says once his mouth is clear, with the ambling pace and half-questioning stretches of words that signal he’s not really paid any of it much mind. “From his estate, I mean. They may not be his writing. The large one was inside a book. I think that is his.”

Thrilling notes on Orlesian history. There’s a bit of dust along the top where it was sticking out above the pages it had been tucked between.

“And the one with the seal was in Arcinaux’s entryway. Someone had dropped it behind a table. But it was sent to him, not from him, no?”

So an actual sample of his writing will depend on Nikos’ find, or else on a hike back to his estate to go hunting or back to the Gallows to review his original correspondence, and two-thirds of what Bastien has produced is likely useless. Useless for this. For building a bigger picture of the men’s lives, entanglements, dreams, problems, routines—less so.

Not that there’s any need for such a picture at the moment. Habit.

"Magic," Colin says mysteriously to Leander. "The last town," he adds seriously. It's not a prime cut, but it's been basted well and so it still melts in the mouth. He sits down with his own piece and cuts into it.

"So we might go back and find something that we know belongs to them," he says around a mouthful of steak, "now we know what we're looking for. But if it was Arcenaux, why'd he tip us off? It would explain how he knew so much, but why send us after them?"

Desks, would be Nikos' answer. If he felt like answering. Which, perhaps predictably, he doesn't.

He's eating steak now anyways, indelicate and disinterested in manners. It is good, wherever it comes from. He washes it down with a mouthful of wine.

"One is de Loutain's, one is Arcenaux's." The letters, that is. And beyond the invaluable handwriting, their contents will not be of any particular interest, for anyone other than Nikos, who is tuned specifically toward-- well, Caspar Perakis, really. Like fuck he'd tell anyone that.

"As to why the tip off, idle speculation will likely do little for us. Unless you want to make up answers as some fireside game." Not that he's likely to participate enthusiastically in that exercise, but still. The offer is there. With his fork, he gestures, magnanimously: be my guest. "Perhaps he was hoping we'd be killed while investigating."

Magic, Colin jokes, and Leander glances up; his little smile persists for a while after he's gone back to aligning the pages. Whether or not the information upon them will bring the party closer to the answers they seek, he finds it all interesting, and the practice useful.

"Mm, it's possible. Equally likely, he doesn't care either way and just wants us to investigate somewhere else. The same could be said for de Loutain." Sobering now, and sitting up a bit straighter, "This one's somewhat similar to the map. It's one of the Arcenaux samples. Same foundation, perhaps... same teacher? Hmmn... not an exact match, I'm afraid."

closed | Venatori Gone Wild

yes i am writing about him looking up mainly because i have an icon for it shut up

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