faderift | open | intro log.

Entry tags:

open | intro log.

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!]

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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."

Edited 2019-08-01 15:40 (UTC)

It took some doing, some convincing, but Mhavos has managed to secure an appointment with the head of tradecraft ('scouting', they call it. Mhavo had read that the proper pronunciation for l'espionnage was tradecraft, but the book was rather old).

He waits, standing dutifully and staring at nothing, until he's informed that the Division Head will see him now.

This entire time, he's been wondering how he ought to address her. In Orlais it was always very simple, but Kirkwall has entirely different forms of address and prestige, nevermind the fact that many of those working within Riftwatch don't hail from Kirkwall originally. The name 'Yseult' could be from any number of places, the majority of which Mhavos is woefully unfamiliar. He braces himself, internally, for reprimand, and makes his best guess.

"Messire Yseult," Mhavos says. He stands before her desk, every inch rigid obedience. "Thank you for seeing me."

He is an elf, after all. Always best to make oneself appear grateful.

“What? Motherfucker,” is not, typically, the sort of thing that one expects to hear out of a young woman with an accent like hers—she might have been dragged out of Orlais's upper echelons, but she still sounds like a High Quarter princess, aggrieved when she accepts back the delicate and costly bracelet she hadn't noticed being slipped off her thin wrist.

Snapping it back into place, she appraises him—a little shorter than she is, but not much. Elven. Oddly proportioned in the face, but she's hardly one to talk about great big eyes, or to try and claim that a goodly portion of her acquaintance couldn't be described as 'mildly unsettling at best'.

“Thank you,” seems appropriate, some of the tension that had coiled in her like a spring on being touched lessening. “I'd have been annoyed to lose that.”

Terrible, terrible,

"Dog-eared as the east." In agreeable Orlesian. A belated gesture to the book pages (of course that's what he meant); Isaac pulls out another chair. "I'm sorry to interrupt,"

He's not, or he wouldn't have.

"Is that a catalogue?"

Mhavos pauses a moment, unsure. He was expecting to be accused of extortion, or being the pickpocket himself. What does he do next?

It's only a second's pause, though. Hard to notice, harder to comment on, if one is bound to the rules of propriety. Anyway, he can always just state his expectation. It feels like a lie, but only because it's convenient; it's very much the truth.

He nods, a little dip of the head. Her Orlesian accent is unmistakable, and he can feel a Madame or Mademoiselle hiding beneath his tongue. He tries to forestall anything overt, but he does fall back on old habits, an almost courtly obsequience. "Of course."

He turns to go, wanting to detach himself from this unwanted memory, when he hears shouting. It's profanity and invective, knife ear and thief and bastard. The man running toward them has a bloody nose; Mhavos remembers it well. He took great pains to remove all signs of blood or fighting before returning the jewelry.

He's still not sure why he did it. It was something to do?

The pickpocket-- for that is obviously what he is-- comes at them running. Mhavos stands in front, sighing, braces himself.

"You can go," he says over his shoulder.

Mhavos is not, in fact, one of those creatures overinvested in the well fare of books. Perhaps it's because he's never owned one, but their upkeep is always the responsibility of others. As long as the tome is legible, he reasons, it's fine enough for him.

He's almost confused a moment, before realizing the man's meaning. He ought to be annoyed at the interruption, but it doesn't cross his mind; he's human, after all, and his Orlesian accent is unmistakable.

Mhavos looks up from the books he's comparing. One of them is, indeed, a catalogue. "Yes," he says mildly. "It lists eminent translations and their sources."

He wonders if he should complain, before realizing the man can't penalize him if he does. Right? Best phrase it mildly.

"Though 'eminent' may be a stretch."

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.

Her first instinct is one she tamps down, immediately; as satisfying as it would be to sweep around him and raise her shield (and it would be, because she's seen things collide with her barrier before and she doesn't get bored of it), it would also be courting clusterfuck on Kirkwall streets, liable to have her mistaken for a mage by locals less familiar with the precise details of the anchor-shards certain members of Riftwatch bear, and potentially provoke mage-related unrest in her immediate vicinity. Which she has definitely lectured other people about, and which she could expect them to waste absolutely no time in reminding her—

but for as small as she is, she still has weight to be thrown around, and she draws herself up to her full height of fuck all, fingers curling around his elbow, objecting immediately and implicitly to the way that this has been framed.

She could go. She doesn't, skirting around him (literally; they are heavy, even the lighter fabrics in this summer heat, and they swirl around his ankles with the speed of her movement) to plant herself and her spoiled, expensive humanity between him and who she surmises to be in fact her pickpocket. It is no less literal a barrier than the one she might have exploded out of her left hand.

“Felix,” she says, tranquilly.

The aging, gaunt Orlesian man who rejoins her has at least a foot on the both of them, and every appearance of having also probably just the one expression.

“This man wishes to apologise to me for his theft. Assist him.”

One small elf is one thing; the crowd would have been on his side. Guilfoyle moves like an assassin because it's what he was before he was anything else and he might be slower than he once was, but not so much that he can't take full advantage of the pickpocket's forward momentum to prevent him from making it very quickly backwards momentum, catching him by the collar of his shirt.

"Oh," he says when she stands in front of him.

"Ah," he says when the literal man in black steps in front of her.

He'd be (even more of) a liar if he pretended that wasn't enjoyable to watch. The vindictive part of him thinks, that's what you get. The rest of him thinks, what do I owe.

Hedging himself carefully, he politely extracts himself from the woman's grasp, and gives a murmured thank you. "May I ask-" He sounds hesitant, because he genuinely is- "May I ask why, mademoiselle?"

He does not ask the servant, for he is clearly a servant, and thus all his actions are credited to his master.

For some reason, namely that occasionally Gwenaëlle is so clever as to be a fucking idiot, she visibly doesn't anticipate the question, is discomfited by it and lacks an immediate, obvious answer. He could only have tipped her further into unease by expressing his gratitude loud enough that she couldn't pretend not to have noticed, but the murmur is easy enough to ignore. Less the (reasonable, easily anticipated) question.

“Madame,” she says, both to sidestep it at least momentarily and because she doesn't care what the Divine says about her marriage, likes the way her husband savors it when she is addressed correctly. “Baudin.”

(There are a lot of Baudins, in Orlais, but in Kirkwall the number of prominent young Orlesian women whose increasingly scandalous name has been signed to recently republished works is just one.)

Guilfoyle is still holding the pickpocket. His toes are touching the ground, but his heels are not. An exchange of glances sees him set down, resentful, muttering something that might have borne vague resemblance to penitence when Guilfoyle's heavy gaze doesn't leave him and then fleeing when his hands do.

Gwenaëlle regards Mhavos. At this point, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that she isn't actually going to answer him, but she says— “I like that bracelet. I gave its twin to a friend.” And in the moment, that had been enough.

Edited 2019-08-03 13:26 (UTC)

"Je suis désolé," he murmurs out of habit, "Madame Baudin."

He hasn't been in Kirkwall long enough to know of any infamous Baudins. It's just a name, a familiar one at that, for a whole host of reasons. Anyway, her answer is unsatisfactory, perhaps pointedly so. He shouldn't press it.

He does anyway. "You believed I was not the pickpocket. You defended me from another man who, for all you know, is entirely innocent. I-... Why?"

What will he do with his freedom? Blunder into stupid situations and try to get himself killed, apparently.

Edited 2019-08-03 17:28 (UTC)

If Yseult has any objection to the form he's chosen, she does not show it, well-practiced at such things. (Nearly anything is preferable to the 'Scoutmaster' title popularized by the office's previous occupants and she bears that with good grace every day.) Her office is furnished with the sort of understated elegance that plays second-fiddle to functionality--handsome and comfortable but only out of necessity as a room in which much time is spent--and as a frequenter of the homes of the wealthy he may recognize the quality as decidedly middle-class.

Yseult herself is perhaps less-easily measured, looking up from behind a desk neatly stacked with papers to offer a polite smile and gesture toward the chair opposite. "A pleasure to meet you, Mhavos. Please, sit." She tidies up the space directly in front of her as he does, paper tucked away in a file, pen returned to its holder, and folds her hands together on the blotter. "What did you wish to discuss?"

Mhavos sits more out of duty than comfort; it's an order, one to be followed, and he does immediately. He nods his head, obliging.

He wishes he could glean more from this encounter. Orlesian nobles, he knows how to read, servants as well, courtiers and troubadours and bards and other players in the Great Game. But this is a woman working for her own goals, and he has no clue how to model himself to meet her.

There is a painting in the Musée de la Grâce Perdue, depicting a conquered Fereldan bowing before his new lord, throat bared. Ever helpful, his subconscious flashes that image, lovingly painted and softened by memory, behind his eyes.

How bloody melodramatic.

He straightens his poster further than it was before, and speaks even-toned, though one with an eye for such things may catch hints of well-buried anxiety in his tone and bearing. "My employment with your organization," he says. "My previous... work in Orlais. I was known to most as a clerk and a scrivener. However..."

Resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, he lets out a quiet sigh. "To put it plainly, I worked as a spy and occasionally an assassin. My clerical work was largely a cover to allow me to go unnoticed."

And then he waits for a reaction. If this woman is worthy of her position, he doesn't imagine he'll see much of one.

Yseult inclines her head in slight suggestion of a nod. "I appreciate your candor. Is this work you would be willing to continue for Riftwatch? Or disclosure in anticipation that it may interfere with our efforts?"

He takes a moment to think, but only a moment. "Both," he says. "I intend to earn my pay in this- in your organization."

He places his hands gently on his knees, sitting with an air of concentration. "As an elven servant, I am easily overlooked and can pass unnoticed. I'm sure you can see the utility of that."

"Of course." Her agreement is immediate, and though her tone remains blandly polite it has the ring of acknowledgment, not a brush-off. Any real spy knows the value of that sort of effective invisibility.

"There is plenty of work for those willing and able. I take it you have training." Not really a question, though there is a beat left in which he might disagree if he chooses. But elves don't become clerks without patrons. "What are you specialties?"

"I do," he says quietly. "Spying in plain sight is a mainstay. I can pass unnoticed in most places. The fact that I am a trained clerk and scrivener, bookkeeper... it helps."

Another sigh. It's a tell, he knows it. Likely she does, too.

"In assassination, I specialized in stealth. Poisoning, sleeping targets, or studying their patterns until I could reliably catch them unawares. I can engage in direct combat, but it is not my forte or..." preference? "It's not my forte."

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."

The scornful look she sends after the pickpocket's retreating back is immediate, and she thinks speaks for itself on whether or not she lends any credence to for all she might know. That her entire argument being 'he looked sort of guilty, under the blood' and 'you gave me back my bracelet' isn't actually very compelling is probably why she allows it to only speak for itself. It's much harder to argue with things that aren't said.

“I wouldn't have done it if I knew there was going to be a quiz after,” she says, with some asperity. “What answer are you going to find satisfactory?”

If there is such an answer. If there is such an answer that she would give, even less likely.

“Madame,” Guilfoyle's voice is quiet, steady; polished by years of upper class service but originating somewhere much lower. “The ferry.”

To the Gallows, back to Riftwatch.

“There'll be another,” is a reflex.

In that tone, with that accent-- he takes the answer as a reprimand. What little expression on his face fades completely. A quick dip of his head, deferential, servile, and he takes a step back.

"My apologies, Madame," he says. "I'll be on my way."

Her expression shifts—frustration, but she angles it past him in a way that is both purposeful and not precisely personal. It is a point of pride that she is only ever unkind on purpose, so people fucking know—

“I don't pay him,” she says, and Guilfoyle's expression doesn't shift but his eyes do briefly cast towards the Maker, as if to beg of strength, “he's doing charity work.”

—although just because she thinks and strives for that to be the case doesn't make it necessarily so. It isn't precisely an apology, only that she can see what happens in the moment and dislikes it.

“Where's your way?”

That she proposes he's under no obligation to defer to her and then poses a question that only a lifetime of entitlement could suggest to her he'll answer is a contradiction she doesn't notice.

Mhavos is, in fact, entirely unsure what her meaning is. Plenty of people aren't paid to do work. Most are Chantry laymen, slaves or indentured servants. She assumes the hulking mass behind her is the former; it makes no difference to Mhavos, but why point it out?

He takes a half-second to consider his answer, looking for the one that seems least suspicious. Which won't lead him to the stocks, or worse? It's the truth, oddly enough. Stray elves ought always be able to prove their employment. Their masters would miss them, making them a less appealing subject for capture, and most importantly, it explains what they're doing on their own.

"Back to my place of work, Madame." He says, his eyes still carefully downcast. "I was heading to the Gallows. I am a clerk there."

“Oh—good. Then we're going the same way, but we're going to miss the ferry—”

that a moment ago she was indifferent to in pursuit of unraveling this confusing interaction,

“—so we should probably get a move on before someone else interrupts you.”

Not her, but she's not insensible to the fact that her timely intervention might just make him a target in the next hour or so. Not enough, she thinks, to merit a lingering grudge; enough to prompt a petty retaliation, though, the moment her back is turned.

Mhavos is just confused. This interaction has, continuously, failed to go as expected, and he's somewhat at a loss. Having only gut instinct and decades of conditioning to guide him, he falls into step immediately. "I'll see if I can catch it."

After all, a well-dressed noblewoman (or a woman who looks like a noblewoman; in many situations, there really is no difference) is enough to stall a ferry a few moments in hopes of getting a few extra coin in thanks. Mhavos dashes forward, fleet-footed through the crowd at the docks.

There is some shouting. In Kirkwall, Mhavos has learned, there is always shouting. He lets out a shrill whistle, and says a highborn woman is coming; as predicted, the ferryman eases his oar back, paddling in reverse.

An odd feeling settles in the pit of her stomach that Gwenaëlle doesn't know how to identify, and behind her, Guilfoyle folds his hands behind his back and continues at an unhurried pace, observing. She doesn't need to decipher his behaviour the way he does hers; she understands what's happening, what she's looking at. That it's been a while since she inspired it doesn't mean she's forgotten.

She wonders what her mother would think. It occurs to her she doesn't know which of them she means.

Deciphering her own reactions is set momentarily aside when the ferry comes to enough of a stop that they can board it and the ferryman's expression clears into familiarity, “Head too delicate to run for it yourself, girl?”

“Excuse me,” she says, very primly, as if she has never crawled hungover into the bottom of this ferry in her entire life and has absolutely no idea to what he could possibly be referring. Guilfoyle meets his eyes over her head, and when all of them are stowed, he pushes off.

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open | intro log.

closed to nikos, ilias & kostos.

closed to yseult.

the streets of kirkwall.

b

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