faderift | closed | Venatori Gone Wild

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

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