closed.

[exequy]

WHO: Ilias, Isaac, Kostos, Leander
WHAT: Four mages stuck in a library (a bottle episode)
WHEN: Early Solace
WHERE: Outside Starkhaven
NOTES: Probably some violence at some point

Comments

I. TRAVELOGUE

[exequy]

Conversations from the road. Excessive action punishable by death or fines up to $25.

[sarcophage]

—Some of them are quite dangerous, actually, if you fumble them badly enough. I once watched an apprentice lose a hand, right up to the elbow. That was a short lesson.

[wythersake]

[ skeptically: ]

And all that dangled from the doorknob was his bloody hook?

[sarcophage]

Yes, and his mangled spirit still haunts the tower to this very day, moaning about his wretched chalking skills.

It was an ice mine that did it.

[wythersake]

How did he even manage it? Sneeze midway?

[libratus]

Do you actually— know anything about driving a horse?

[wythersake]

[ not remotely




however, ]


It's just — having a rest.

[libratus]

For the third time since lunch?

[wythersake]

Would you care to take over?

II. LIBRARY

[exequy]

Lady Violant De Vique never asked for all of these books. Neither did her late mother, from whom she inherited them. No one in the family has had the slighted interest in magic—certainly no inclination toward magical ability—and only so much more of an interest in books. Fox hunting, on the other hand. There's a pastime.

So the library is not particularly large, so far as large libraries in massive estates go. It's impossible to get lost in, especially over-stuffed as it is with the remnants of the Starkhaven Circle's collection. Originally considered a loan, when it seemed the lack of a local Circle was temporary, the collection has since been stacked in front of the library's inadequate shelving, left to the dust and silverfish and mice, and never once catalogued.

That four Riftwatch mages are taking care of this has more to do with needing favor and donations than the possibility that any of the books contain the secret to destroying Corypheus and ending the war, but that is the justification offered by Lady De Vique herself, for requesting someone come take a look, along with a barely-subtextual promise to owe them one if they get these horrid things out of her house.

The errand is not complicated so much as made exceedingly more miserable by the heavy storms that roll in the same morning they arrive. The particular irrigation and damming of the Minater in the region—which De Vique is happy to explain, in detail, because caring for the land she oversees is also a pastime—combine with the already-sodden ground to swell the river from its banks, blocking bridges and roads, and by mid-afternoon she's gathered enough endangered farmers and artisans into her walls that the possibility of bedrooms, let alone separate ones, has evaporated.

So has the prospect of loading the lot of the books into a wagon and leaving anytime soon, with rain still beating against the windows and growls of thunder occasionally rattling the shelves well into the evening, letting up overnight only to begin with renewed fury after breakfast.

It is probably not Venatori weather-magic designed specifically to torment the four mages trapped in the library with nothing but bed rolls and one another. Probably.

ota threadjack etc

[wythersake]

They need favours, they could stand for the books, travel is safest in number. This isn't a complete waste of time.

Which is easily the most irritating part of it.

Or — no. The most irritating part of it is the way that a stack of papers can become at once dusty and damp, wherever rain drips from an unattended leak or batters through the latches. The most irritating part is that he's dropped his cigarettes in a puddle outside. The most irritating part are the staring glass eyes, soulless and exquisitely expensive, of the De Vique's least-favoured trophies.

(No foxes. Not much of the foxes left, he understands.)

The most irritating part is —

"Present company," He picks a silverfish from his sleeve. "Are unwelcome with the potters, or the weavers. There’s a bit of room by the stairs, but it comes with a baby."

He's been scouting. The library is everyone’s best option.

[sarcophage]

"Ugh."

With all pretense of propriety abandoned in their relative privacy, Leander has already lain himself down on top of a bedroll, fully clothed, and draped an arm across his eyes. The resulting arrangement of limbs is something like a doll that's been flung down and left there, and maybe the doll is also feeling a little dramatic about it. His leg is definitely encroaching on the bed next to him; but at least he removed his shoes.

On the other hand, his socks were wet, so they're off too. Hope you like feet.

"No thank you. Is there no room in the kitchen? I'd sleep in the dog's bed if it were near the hearth."

No he wouldn't. But he'd consider it, and that's dire enough.

[exequy]

Kostos comes to the edge of the narrow row he's been picking through in the dim light, tattered book in hand, to hear Isaac's report, and then to give Leander a look at is, at least, less annoyed than it would be if he were Ilias.

But he only has so much room to judge. He's taken his shirt off. It was damp.

"Would we drown before we made it to an inn?"

If they would only possibly drown, it may be worth it, even if the inns may also possibly be full.

III. Go the fuck to sleep

[libratus]

The only good thing about settling in with four grown men and their bedrolls, crammed beside a dying fire in a nonetheless continuously damp room, is, eventually, for some blessed and far too brief span of hours between the ceaseless dripping of some unlocateable leak and someone's elbow in your back, at least a few of them will be unconscious.

And maybe a few won't.

Packed bookshelves muffle sound; the door to the hallway, better; the howling wind outside best of all, and none to the satisfaction of whoever you manage to wake up anyway, or Maker forbid step on in the near dark. Until then, however, perhaps it's quieter.

ota, multiple threads and threadjacking ok

[libratus]

Ilias is not much of a sleeper on a good day, and this isn't. But he is accustomed enough to sleeping beside someone (two of the three someones in this room, to be specific, though he'd chosen the bedroll between Kostos and Leander -- previously occupied by the latter's feet -- with a distinct lack of fuss) that he knows when to take his tossing and turning elsewhere.

Not terribly far elsewhere, of course. Nothing can be simple today. In a corner of the room that's a little less damp than the others, he's choosen precarious perch on an uneven bench over a soggy seat on a sturdier one. The steady drip into the basin at his feet is the sort you either get used to or hear echoing endlessly as if from the fucking Deep Roads.

Maybe the soft turning of parchment is the only sign of his presence, a book on his lap spread from robed knee to crossed ankle to knee again, even if the shadows have barely receded enough to illuminate the shapes of the pictures. Maybe there's a silver case there instead, a cigarette in hand, and a look passing better the Mortalitasi and the window above not unlike might be cast toward a bough of hanging fruit. Maybe it's the idle tap-tap-tap of curled fingers and still-unlit cigarette upon the benchtop. His striker glints merrily in the firelight back beside the bedroll and the fire and fucking everyone else.

Maybe it's the stream of hissed Nevarran profanities that graces the air next, alongside the tang of singed skin.

leander;

[libratus]

[ Eventually, one way or another, a window is cautiously cracked, a cigarette is lit, neither library nor mage is set aflame in the process, and Ilias makes room for Leander on his rickety bench.

The cigarette, too, is for sharing. Ilias is taking a long, miserable drag from it, two fingers inelegantly pinched, when it occurs to him to ask, murmured on the next smoke-heavy breath, ]

Is this what it is like for you? Being around me now?

[ This. An exposed nerve. A set of rattling bones. They haven't talked about this new blank space in his life, the one he skirts even today when the effort is near entirely wasted. As ever, Ilias prefers to disintegrate in private if he must, but there are limits to his resolve -- stretched vellum thin, just now. ]

It has always been very different for me, with you.

[sarcophage]

[It's one of Leander's, wrapped of a dark leaf, the smoke thick and fragrant: Rivaini, harder to come by than Antivan stock (although the latter will do in a pinch). He reaches to take it as he answers,]

It's... challenging to navigate, at times. But I don't mind it.

[Sitting close enough to bump shoulders, still barefoot, wearing only breeches and loose shirt, the rest hanging somewhere comparatively dry. He looks comfortable. He can look comfortable almost anywhere.]

What's it like? Being with someone else.

[wythersake]

The bed is too large, is the sort of thing that dramatic men and women flourish in their books. The bed is too large without him.

It's not; it's never been. If anything, the bed was and remains undersized, and Isaac's been sleeping very well alone. Fewer elbows in his ribs.

But he doesn't often sleep by night, and it's a fucking bother to now, with the air dank and humid and no way of saying which two, three, four of them are only pretending to doze. The campfire's dying, never quite enough light, enough dark.

They might all be staring at the same high, cracked ceiling, and no way to tell.

Well. The curses are a way. There are a dozen or so words that Isaac can say in Nevarran; hasn't expected to hear any of them from Ilias. (Or Kostos, Leander.) His chin twists to survey the little silver box between blanket and floor. Ah. Ah, well. His eyes slip shut again.

The vault inverts, becomes a garden,

Not tonight. He sits up.

Easy to catch his silhouette, neither tallest or leanest; advance warning on a familiar step. A familiar scene, if not a frequent one. Ilias isn't much of a sleeper.

He knows. The bed's too small.

"Don't go," Itself dismissal and not plea. The striker clatters to set on ledge. "I'll only be a minute."

[libratus]

He's still got the pad of a thumb caught between teeth, an instinctive effort to trade one hurt for another (the burn is small, the pain of it sharp as it is absurd for its disproportion, the bite a welcome distraction). Too quick, it drops from lips to lap again, a sliver of soft motion in the dark.

The striker rings louder. Ilias lets it, for a beat.

"If that's what you want." To leave. To keep leaving.

Or—

Metal scrapes across wood, the striker pulled over the edge between two fingers, and the silver case pushed across the ledge into its place. An offer. Sooner or later, they are going to have to figure out how to be alone together again — for more than a minute.

open, banter spam welcome;

[sarcophage]

[An unfamiliar house, a strange room, two men he's never slept beside and one to whom he'd like to sleep closer, all of them variously interesting. In arrangements like these, Leander sleeps lightly and intermittently; at any time, even as he lies still with eyes closed, one may fairly assume he's awake and listening.

One may even glimpse the glint of an eye in the dark.

Or—if the timing is right—Lea might be caught awake and out of bed entirely, just opening the library door, or else already leaning into the gap and listening to the hallway beyond it—]

[exequy]

[ Kostos jerks himself awake in near-silence—a foot placed on a step in the Fade, moving here and finding nothing beneath it—and summons a wisp to hover overhead the same way. Out loud, though, he whispers, ] Not so bright, [ so it dims its glow to the level of a dying ember.

A moment later, he props up on an elbow to look over Ilias (ugh) at Leander and his glinting eyes. ]

Need someone to knock you out?

[ Still a whisper, but slightly louder. ]

[sarcophage]

[Both eyes, now, brighter for the wisp's light. Silently, they narrow: a drowsy smile.

He snakes a hand up to his mouth, lays a finger against it, points to Ilias. He wakes up easily.]

kostos

[wythersake]

"I'm not coming back in nine months."

Hello, Kostos.

Isaac makes a poor gargoyle, slumped on the floor at the side of the doorway. The hall is more ledge, a short stop before a sharp drop; the stairs blessedly empty of bodies. No one's about to turf out into the storm for the presence of a few mages, but one or two have decided to pack in a little tighter elsewhere.

He casts a brief, baleful look to the handle.

"Where'd you even find the room?"

[exequy]

His shirt, since dried, is back on, and he stands at the bottom of the stairs and finishes fastening the upper buttons (but not all of them, he's not Ilias) before drawing a vague square around himself with both hands, large enough for two upright bodies and some movement, small enough to be an alcove or space behind furniture. One of his hands still has teeth marks.

"Doesn't take much."

He's in a better mood. It's identical to a cockier mood. And it will be ruined as soon as he goes back into the stupid library (or, really, sooner, but for now he thinks, as soon as he goes back into the stupid library), so he only climbs halfway up the stairs before sitting down sideways and looking up at Isaac.

"Which one are you hiding from?"

[wythersake]

I'm not hiding —

Dies before it begins, on the shake of his head: Both, neither. He's overheard enough to not want to hear anything else. Would prefer Kostos not hear it, either.

"They're worse together," He means that, if not like this. A gesture falls to his knee, eyes to Kostos' hand, away. Alcoves. How nostalgic. "I don't know how you put up with it then."

Nevarra City. Happy days.