open | intro log.

[murderbaby]

WHO: Mhavos Dalat, resident newbie, & YOU.
WHAT: Mhavos takes stock of... all this... weird fucking shit.
WHEN: Aug 1-3ish, presumably everything in here doesn't happen the same day.
WHERE: Various places around the Gallows and Kirkwall proper.
NOTES: Poetry, discussions of slavery, a nerd whining about religious authenticit. Will update if anything intense happens.

a. OUTSIDE THE CHANTRY.

It's All Fool's Day. Mhavos has read of this holiday, but he's never been given leave to witness the celebration. He fins himself curious, and a little daring; he's got nothing else on his schedule, anyway.

Outside the Chantry, a play is being put on. In front of a respectably sized bonfire, play actors dance about, mimicking the sacred immolation of Andraste. Mhavos stands in the crowd, watching intently. At one point, he almost flinches, before crossing his arms and shaking his head. To himself, he murmurs, "That's not what happens."

b. GALLOWS LIBRARY.

Among the rows of long tables, Mhavos has collected around him a fair pile of books. He pages through one, writes something down in a ledger, scoffs, and returns it to a different pile, before selecting another. This pattern repeats, complete with Mhavos moving his lips to read each word, several times. Coming close, one will find the books are written in both Orlesian and Trade, and detail a large range of subjects.

Occasionally, one may hear Mhavos murmur, "terrible, terrible," under his breath, his Orlesian accent thicker than usual.

c. THE STREETS OF KIRKWALL.

You are presumably minding your own business, wandering aroun town, doing whatever it is you do with your day. That's fine. That's fair. Allowed.

A gentle hand taps your shoulder, or, if you're particularly tall, your elbow. Turning around, you'll find Mhavos Dalat, an elf with an Orlesian accent. He hands you some coin, or an object that's definitely yours.

"Excuse me," he says mildly, "I believe you were pick-pocketed."

d. LOWTOWN.

After memorizing a map of Kirkwall, Mhavos is set and determined to explore as much of it as possible on his free time. Lowtown is inevitable, and Mhavos isn't much afraid of it. He's just an elf, after all, and he elects to bring none of his belongings. It's easy enough to pass through without making any waves. Any ripples.

He watches a street performer, an elf juggling a series of hard wooden balls. The performer is a bit clumsy, and their clothes are tatty, and the balls are chipped from old paint, dented from years of use. It's clear why the performer hasn't moved their act to Hightown yet.

The performer drops two of the wooden balls, and they thud on the dirty ground before Mhavos deftly kicks them up into his hands, balancing them gracefully in his hands before throwing them back. The entire maneuver is quick and fluid, betraying far more grace than Mhavos had meant.

The performer thanks him, and Mhavos quickly makes his exit from the scene, walking fast, face down.

e. HIGHTOWN.

There are street preachers in every part of Kirkwall, but from Mhavos' survey of the city, the worst are most certainly in Hightown. He listens silently, walks by them, ignores them, until he can't stand it anymore.

On matters of faith, Mhavos has little care. But being uninformed...

You'll find him standing before one such preacher, an annoyed look on both their faces.

"That's inconsistent," Mhavos says, voice mild despite his expression. "Either we are bidden to choose the direction of our lives-- as you say, to be with the Maker or against Him-- or we are all acting in accordance with his will, but you cannot have both. If you preach, you are asking us to choose. If you preach that His will shapes our lives in every aspect, you are contradi-"

He's cut off by a loud shout from the preacher, and the words 'knife ear' are heard. Mhavos massages the bridge of his nose. "You clearly haven't read the Messendrine Epistles..."

f. WILDCARD.

[yo i'm down for anything, mix and match prompts, come up with new stuff, whatever. hmu @ wehwalt (i'm open to adds!) or a dm if you want to discuss anything!]

Comments

closed to nikos, ilias & kostos.

[murderbaby]

Madame de Revin had informed him in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to see his ugly rabbit face again. Fine by him; he had no particular love for the woman. There were some servants who did, who loved their masters and adored their work. If Mhavos had ever been such a person, he could not recall it.

Madame de Revin had also thrown his employment contract at him, said she'd gambled him away, and that he was to find his new masters. This was not nearly so fine, but manageable enough. It was always a risk, moving from one master to another, but Mhavos had no say in the matter, so he tamped down the usual feeling of confusion and panic, and instead set about finding these people before he was reported as a runaway servant.

After Mhavo gave the names Madame de Revin had told him to the woman keeping bar, he was pointed toward a table with three gentlemen seated around, apparently in the midst of some heated discussion. They didn't look like nobility, but it didn't matter. Work was work. His life was his life.

He walks over and cleared his throat, waiting until expectant silence stetted. He then holds out his contract, crisply folded, to no one in particular. Someone would take it.

"Mhavos Dalat, a pleasure," he says in Orlesian-accented-Trade. "Madame de Revin said she would have the remainder of your winnings sent to you."

The contract reads, in both Trade and Orlesian:

EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT for indentured servant MHAVOS DALAT, elf.

The owner of this contract, undersigned, has in their employ the talents of INDENTURED SERVANT. INDENTURED SERVANT'S services shall be rendered until the time of which UNDERSIGNED OWNER consider his services no longer necessary, for the duration of UNDERSIGNED OWNER'S choosing, on the understanding that in return UNDERSIGNED OWNER shall provide food and clothing for INDENTURED SERVANT. If UNDERSIGNED OWNER wishes to sell, trade, gift, or otherwise give over INDENTURED SERVANT'S services to another, UNDERSIGNED OWNER need only to either give this contract to their intended recipient, or have a copy made and notarized, with the name of NEW OWNER written in.

Underneath the terms and conditions, Madame de Revin's name is scratched out, and the words bastard foreign gamblers is scrawled in.

Mhavos has, of course, read it. He coughs politely. "You need only to write the appropriate name. Or names."

[exequy]

Kostos—previously interrupted by that throat-clearing mid-Nevarran sentence in an argument about whether or not a misdeal several hours prior should have invalidated the hand, the game, the entire evening, anything to let him live in a world where he'd never lost a game of cards to Ilias Fabria—is closest, when the contract is held out, and in exactly the mood to take it like it's his to take.

He reads it. Twice. Scans the Orlesian, for good measure, even though he only sort of understands it.

He hasn't spoken more than a monosyllable directly to his brother all night, but it's him he holds the document toward next, not Ilias, while he looks at Mhavos Dalat with a sort of perplexed outrage. The outrage isn't directed at him, of course, but he's the current physical embodiment of the source, so he's the one getting scowled at.

[libratus]

Ilias — two fingers still poised at his temple, either from the amount of wine that'd made him think gambling with the Averesch brothers would be a better way to spend an evening than literally anything else, or from the burgeoning regret for having actually won — has taken the chair between them out of some form of masochism.

He does not bother reaching after the paper. The tick of his jaw at its passage from hand to hand twists instead into a restrained smile for their guest.

"Ilias Fabria," he offers to the elf in turn, wielding congeniality with spiteful determination. His own Trade is heavy with Nevarran vowels, as out of place as the dark robes he wears. "My associates are Kostos and Nikos Averesch, tragically raised by wolves. My apologies for the circumstance."

[exsecutus]

Nikos looks up from the paper to give Fabria a look that could wither grass. The fact that he is made of flesh and not grass means it has little effect on him, but it feels good.

Having come here to gamble and finding Kostos already within, he'd decided that purposefully approaching his brother would be his response to the circumstances, and to Kostos' disregard of him. The whole effect had been less satisfying than he'd wanted--Kostos bearing his presence with steel and chill and no real acknowledgement at all--but he'd dug in, stubbornness winning out over frustrated revenge.

Which hadn't meant a win at cards for him, which is what put him at this table, still, perfectly in place to accept the contract from Kostos, if only so Fabria didn't get hold of it first.

"For what circumstance," he says, as he turns the contract about so Fabria can see it. See, and not take. He's got his hands on it. "Ownership? Where is this de Revin?"

This last part is, obviously, to Mhavos Dalat. A pleasure.

"If this is a fucking joke, I'll dip this parchment in wine so she can eat it. If it isn't a fucking joke--"

It'll be worse. It's in his tone, and the trail off, though it goes unsaid.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos bares it all with quiet, expressionless obedience. He's not needed for an opinion, after all. He nods to them all, a quiet half-bow, before turning his head to the one that addressed him.

(Goodness, he thinks, do all Nevarrans look alike? But he's seen twins before. He keeps the joke to himself.)

"I believe Madame de Revin has already made her way down to the docks, with the intention of returning to Orlais. I was given over so she'd still have funds enough for passage. If I hurry, I may be able to retrieve her, Messire."

His tone is bland; he'd prefer not to see de Revin again, but he has no great desire to show a preference and have it manipulated.

[exequy]

Kostos continues to glare at him—it still isn’t personal, it still is unfortunately completely indistinguishable from if it were personal—and pulls his mostly-empty drink closer on the table out of restless aggravation rather than intent to do anything with it.

Of course this sort of thing happens. Kostos hasn’t had occasion to think about it in any detail, from beneath his mountain of mage concerns, but if someone had told him perpetual indentured servitude was a continuing practice in Orlais, or anywhere else, he wouldn’t have been shocked. What’s almost—not quite, but almost—shocking is the brazen confidence in a lack of consequences, legal or otherwise, that must be required to hand over proof to total strangers.

Anyway, he doesn’t have to be shocked to be outraged. Fetching de Revin back might not be out of order.

But first: “How long have you been under that contract?”

[murderbaby]

The man in front of him-- Kostos, Messire Averesch, or however one addresses a superior in Nevarra, he'll have to soon learn-- is clearly angry, but he hasn't made a move to strike yet. Mhavos can live with that. He wonders, idly, if Averesch does try to strike, if his ire will only be fed by Mhavos dodging. He decides to take the blow, just in case. It may inspire some sympathy.

His answer is prompt. "Twenty years. Not entirely with the de Revins. My contract was bought and sold as needed."

He speaks with as little emotion as possible. Not none, but only the most basic, courteous tones that show he's still pulling a pulse. Once, some years ago, his master at the time had been patron to a mage, who had compared Mhavos to a tranquil. Mhavos had tried, ever since then, to show some species of feeling to superiors, even if it was paper-thin and carefully ambiguous.

[exsecutus]

Nikos is still holding the contract. Contract: a very clean and tidy way of calling it, contract, as if it were intended only to hold a man in a position and not propose to own his fucking life. His fingers constrict their grip, somewhat crumpling the parchment.

Since it is a parchment that proposes to own a man's life (elf, that likely makes another jot of difference in Orlais, further degradating a class already degradated), it might be as if he is crumpling that life. For the sake of theatrics, he would crumple only the part with the name written in, Madame de Revin, bold as swollen balls.

"Are we really having a polite conversation? It isn't a contract," he snaps, turning his withering look on Kostos instead. "It's a fucking travesty. A system of unfree labor--forced, or otherwise--entrapment with the promise of release, where one party has power--status, wealth, title--and no one of us should even pretend to tolerate or entertain this piece of shit."

The contract, de Revin, the system that supports the buying and selling of service. The parchment rustles as Nikos shakes it for emphasis, crumpling it still further.

"There's only one question in this. One of freedom."

[libratus]

Ilias is quiet. Pinch-browed. A villain Madame de Revin may be, but Madame de Revin isn't who's in front of him now, and twenty years is a very long time. Long enough to grow into the shape of a thing, to mold yourself neatly to its boundaries. Mssr. Dalat is remarkably self-contained.

For the duration of UNDERSIGNED OWNER'S choosing, he might have remained so. Indefinite servitude is nothing Ilias knows anything about; as with many things, he had neglected to consider the reality of it beyond a vague awareness of its existence in parts of the world he wasn't in. It's nothing he expects to understand after reviewing one contract, either. There are aspects, however — boxes, boundaries, the stomach-dropping expanse of an open door — that he can't pretend he doesn't know well enough to be concerned for their equivalent.

"It isn't."

A question, that is. Declining to clarify that statement nor encourage further oration, however, he instead asks, "Have you any family? Or close friends, perhaps in Orlais?"

Do you have anywhere to go? seems too cruel a question to put directly, when one doesn't know the answer.

[murderbaby]

This is when Mhavos begins to feel real fear. He's been threatened with freedom before. I'll turn you out, and then where will you go? His pleasantly bland expression becomes a little more tight, rigidly held in place.

"No," he says softly, forcing himself to look at the man who addressed him. "I do not. Or the means to return to Orlais, if- if I wished."

[exequy]

Kostos endures Nikos’ impassioned lecturing without looking at him, endures Ilias’ general existence without looking at him, and does also finally stop glaring at Mhavos, in favor of assembling his belongings from where they’ve slowly spread across the table.

“No one with any sense should wish to return to Orlais,” he says, happy to include however many thousand native Orlesians in that judgment. He means it, partly, as a compliment. Sorry about the slavery; congratulations on having decent taste in countries, maybe.

He stands up. Ilias seems to have the gentle-handling-of-someone-in-a-difficult-position part handled (asshole) and Nikos, he finally deigns to acknowledge, temporarily setting aside their very fucking big differences with the speed that only a common enemy has ever inspired.

“We might be able to find her before she boards.”

[exsecutus]

Nikos doesn't even drain the last of his wine. At this point, it's mostly dregs, so that's hardly the big sacrifice it might sound, but still: Nikos doesn't finish the last of his wine, and he stands up, with a scrape of chair against floor, and snatches up the contract.

He spares a passing look at Fabria (asshole)--looks instead to Mhavos, with an expression that might well be read as stormy or angry, with none of that anger directed at him. Radiating, instead. Like when a wound festers and the heat roils off of it in waves, only this is a righteousness festering.

Here is where someone else might make a speech. Nikos spent his passion on his lecture, which was poor and halting and less than inspiring. So he just looks, for that moment--then nods, a jerk of his chin--and leaves.

"Come on," he says, brusquely, over his shoulder. Directed at Kostos, an ally of the moment.

[libratus]

Ilias successfully suppresses a roll of his eyes at the pair of them, but takes an extended sip from his wine rather than intervene. Kostos at least, for all they dislike each other, he trusts to be more brawler than murderer, whatever the result of their chase. If they're determined to make a scene, at least they'll be doing it somewhere else.

"We will find a place," he assures Mhavos, as if he has any more than a vague idea how things like finding employment and earning a wage actually work. Don't worry about it.

"Please, sit. Wine?" He gestures with his cup to Nikos's abandoned chair, and flags to the barkeep for another glass.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos sits a little slowly, letting too much of his genuine expression (deep confusion) show on his face. He takes the wine gratefully, but does not drink it, wanting to be in full control of what remains of his wit.

"What- I..." He takes a moment. Inhales. "Did I offend...?"

[libratus]

"No, not at all." Their faces are always like that; unsaid, humor curbing in light of the look on the elf's face. "Your former employer, however..."

An equivocal rock of the hand. Loyalty develops where it develops; Ilias tries not to make assumptions, for however little good that may do at times.

"The indefinite term of your contract is quite illegal in Kirkwall. --Well, and everywhere else outside Tevinter, but perhaps in Orlais that matters less. Here, it matters a great deal."

[murderbaby]

"You're telling me they're just... particularly enthusiastic about the law?" To his credit, his tone is only a little incredulous.

"In any case, I'm sorry to have caused such an uproar. What are they planning on doing with the contract?"

[libratus]

"I assume Nikos intends to burn it in the square if the opportunity arises." At least Ilias sounds apologetic on his behalf. "But more to the point, no one will be signing it." A beat. "Ever."

"It isn't the law that bothers them, you see, or me for that matter. It is more--" A bob of his head to one side, searching for the words-- "That you ought to have a choice. Who you work for, what you do, for how long, all of it."

[murderbaby]

Mhavos is silent for a moment, thinking on what to say, how to say it. In the expanse of this newfound freedom, he's entirely unsure what is politic.

"Forgive me if I am rude in this statement, but... I have read revolutionary pamphlets. I understand the theory. It's all an... admirable ideal." But it's theory, all theory, and it always ends in purges.

"I simply don't understand... They are educated human nobles with great belief in manumission, yes? As are, I assume, you." He doesn't want to leave him, this Ilias, out of something he believes important.

[libratus]

Ilias is content to let him lead in this. It is strange sometimes, how a life centered on grief has prepared him for things quite unlike it -- or perhaps how everything else prepares one for grief.

That wording earns a slight wince, though. "I would not call them nobles to their faces, if you can avoid it."

"Nor are my own beliefs particularly great. But yes, essentially. Is that so surprising?"

[murderbaby]

He looks up curiously. "Oh? What are they, then?"

Mhavos considers his undrunk wine, watching the stray ripple and letting himself relax. "I've read pamphlets written by revolutionaries, listened to speeches when I could. They aren't rare. I'm aware forced manumission is a moral failing."

A light way of putting it.

"But I've rarely seen a human push for it, much less with such... unsubtlety." He worries his lower lip a moment. "May I speak plainly?"

[libratus]

"Nobles who like to pretend otherwise," is his answer to the first. Exiled or no, mage or no, Ilias doesn't feel obliged to act like they don't all have a tidy sum to fall back on if they needed it.

"Please." A broad gesture. "I promise I am difficult to offend." If your name isn't Averesch, at least.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos droops forward. The wine is becoming tempting. "So my fate is held by impassioned fools."

Speaking of speaking plainly.

"They have lofty ideas. I can respect that. But... do they have any clue how to enact them? They seem more interested in punishing than saving." It was rather unnerving.

[libratus]

Sorry. Ilias gives an apologetic tip of the head, a bit charmed by his candor.

"Nikos might have a notion. He was involved in some manner of politics in Nevarra." --is one way to put Tried to assassinate the king. Anyway. "I can't speak for Kostos."

[murderbaby]

He sighs. "They remind me of every young idealistic aristo I have ever met. They all find laurels to rest upon eventually." It's not said without fondness. Idealism has its place. It just also gets people killed, if unchecked.

"May I ask one more favor of you? If I am to be freed... how do I tell them apart?"

[libratus]

"Mn." A breathed smile. "It is difficult with the stubble, but Kostos has the scar, now." Two fingers trace down his own cheek, cheekbone to jaw. "And the better abs."

Not that Ilias has ever seriously considered either.

Ahem. "Do you know what you would like to do next?"