[open]

[unshut]

WHO: Fitcher + You
WHAT: a new face
WHEN: early Solace
WHERE: the gallows
NOTES: n/a, will add if necessary

i. A STAIRWELL (closed to whoever gets there first)
Climb a particular back staircase of the Gallows at a particular hour of the too-sweltering afternoon and there, as if waiting, is a woman in a mottled blueish cloak tossed over her shoulder and a pipe tucked behind her ear. She is in the company of - indeed, is sitting on - a great dark trunk bound shut with two heavy leather straps, however it can't be very good company as she seems relieved when someone appears above or below her.

"And here I was beginning to think it was hopeless." She's an older woman with a voice that sounds like a rich, dark wine - low and earthy, accompanied by some bursting ripe red fruit. "I don't suppose I could tempt you into helping me carry this the rest of the way, do you?"

Thump. The woman gives the dark trunk a sturdy pat and her new assistant an encouraging smile.

ii. THE FERRY
"Had you been to Kirkwall before your time with Riftwatch, or was it the Inquisition which first brought you here?"

It's small talk of the highest order, made as the ferry creeps across the chopping water of the harbor toward the city proper rising in ugly multicolored steppes above them. Fitcher, seated with one ankle hooked across her knee, isn't actually looking at it. She has her hand raised to shield her eyes and her face, discolored by a faint sheen of sweat from the dense heat, is turned low.

"You must forgive my curiosity," she confesses from the shadow of her hand. "It's this or focusing on my stomach, I'm afraid."

She does seem slightly green about the gills.

iii. WICKED GRACE (single thread please, no tagging order)
Night draws in. Every other lamp and candle is extinguished to save the oil and wicks, and what few fires are required to burn in Gallows hearths during summer are
stoked up in turn. It's a grim and grimy place by day, hollowed and painted with shadow at night. The dining hall is no exception; it is far too large for the sparse smattering of people in it, and would seem somehow both claustrophobic and intolerably cavernous if not for the evening's entertainment:

It's Fitcher's turn to deal. She does so with good cheer, flicking cards deftly toward their respective players around half eaten plates of cheese and bread nicked from the larder, the discarded skin of a cut apple, a bottle of wine (or two) and a series of cups, well attended or otherwise.

"Tell me it isn't always this quiet. I'll be disappointed if we don't live up to the rumors."

iv. WILDCARD
You know the drill.

Comments

[unshut]

A sly look. She's aware.

[hassaran]

Yseult doesn't quite roll her eyes, but there's something in the tilt of her jaw that suggests the urge. She rearranges her cards with deft fingers, and then discards and draws two.

"He's tall," she says of Salvio as she settles the new cards into her hand, "But doing his best not to be. I can almost credit him turning killer; I can't imagine how he'd have survived this long if there weren't something hidden beneath all the--" she can't find a word, so does a quick impression of Salvio's hand gestures when alarmed, familiar to anyone who's ever attempted to submit the wrong form or asked him any sort of even slightly direct question.

[wythersake]

"He must have blackmail on half the Gallows,"

The complaint box. Now that they've wider handwriting samples (those books, another initiative of his), how anonymous is it, really?

Isaac discards the Knight of Roses — in any light, he looks like a bit of a prick.

[cozen]

Between Byerly and Fitcher’s exchange and Yseult’s uncanny impression, Bastien has been left with no option but to duck his head to an angle designed to virtuously obscure a smile at something one considers slightly mean, but funny, but mean.

It means he nearly misses that Knight. But only nearly. He pays attention in time to snatch him up. Not a good play, at all—the Angel of Charity he discards in its favor was more useful—but he likes the look of the Knight, thanks very much, and those are currently the rules he’s playing by.

“After we have won this war,” he says in the meantime, with unwarranted optimism, “we must clearly turn our attention to defeating the Seneschal.”

[unshut]

"Seneschal for Riftwatch must be a very unappealing occupation. Otherwise, I can only assume we'd all have our tar and feathers out and ready to take to the man in question."

This said as she fetches up the bottle, dividing its meager remaining contents between all attended cups.

"There is a particular kind of security in doing a job no one else cares to."

[bouchonne]

A less subtle man would wink at Yseult in response to that question about job security in unglamorous, undesirable jobs. He is a subtle man, so he does not wink.

"It seems like the worst job of all," By reports, and reorders the cards in his hands. "Why would you want a lifetime of security in a job that's driving you mad?"

[wythersake]

"A familiar madness." He draws. "Can you not relate?"

They're each still here, for the Inquisition's withdrawal. Isaac is not a subtle man — he doesn't wink at Yseult, either. That has less to do with wit, and a great deal more to do with the Queen of Roses now in his hand. Ah, fuck.

[cozen]

“Shh,” Bastien says. He’s examining the beak on his teak rook with one hand, holding his newly-filled drink with the other. “We are all honored to be here.”

And it’s his turn, he realizes, and puts both objects aside to pick up his cards again and discard a serpent, just for being grotesque.

[unshut]

"My, aren't we all just bursting with enthusiasm," she chuckles, snatching up that serpent in lieu of a particularly mournful looking Song of Autumn. "I gathered already that argumentative and opinionated must be standard issue, but the droll sarcasm is the a pleasant surprise."

And you live with these reprobates? says the look shot in Yseult's direction - all exaggerated and meant to be seen.

"Surely it can't all be miserable."

[hassaran]

Unwinked-at, Yseult can remain focused on her hand, picking up that Song of Autumn and setting down in its place the Knight of Dawn, affecting an expression of exceptionally bland incomprehension at Fitcher's eyebrows.

And she shakes her head at the question. "No, of course it isn't." There is a pause as she exchanges cards for wine glass, leaving it hanging in midair a moment to add, "Occasionally people we believe have been abducted and murdered turn out to have only been abducted," before she drinks.

See? A perfectly happy place.