[open/intro] gimme shelter.

[justashotaway]

WHO: Laura Kint + YOU
WHAT: Laura shows up for...work? Kind of work. She shows up to stab things and eat food and maybe frown at ghost costumes.
WHEN: The first week(ish) of August
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: Please consider filling out Laura's permissions if you haven't already. CW TBD.

all souls.

Laura has never celebrated All Soul's Day before, which makes her first night in Kirkwall...unusual. People dressed as ghosts, bonfires everywhere, the smell of sweets masking some of the city's riper odors. Tomorrow, she'll go to the Gallows and demand entry, payment, protection--whatever it is she can expect from them at this point. That Riftwatch is no longer the Inquisition hadn't been carried as rumor to her corner of Cumberland (or if it had, she hadn't noticed), but it sounds as though they no longer have the same kind of favor they once did. It is a concern.

But a concern of unknown quantities, and that means it is for tomorrow. Tonight, she is in Kirkwall, where everyone around her seems to be pretending to be dead.

"Is it always like this?" she asks in slightly accented Trade, frowning at a huge pile branches about to be set afire.

eyrie.

She's never seen griffons before, either, and she's not sure she quite believes her eyes. Laura smells them first and follows the scent--an animal, clearly, but one she doesn't recognize, feathers and fur all at once--up and up stone steps until she's at the top of a tower, in the middle of a doorway.

One of the creatures looks at her, and she looks back levelly, her tentative fascination nowhere close to her face. It's like something out of a fairy tale, stopping her in her tracks. Hope you weren't planning to get through: she's going to be rooted to the spot for a bit, wary of getting too close to the beasts but evidently fascinated by them.

dinner.

She has, however, eaten before. And around other people, no less, though she gives approximately no care toward others' sensibilities when she's presented with food. It doesn't matter what it is, only that it's there and she hasn't had to do anything to get it except promise to fight for Riftwatch.

Coming to Kirkwall was a long walk through endless forests, one she's still hungry from. While she'd eaten reasonably well at times--nugs, mostly--it wasn't quite enough by the time she'd actually arrived at the Gallows.

At every meal for the first few days, she eats with determined speed. The claw over her right forefinger comes out, ghostly and terribly dangerous all at once, every time she needs to slice something or jab a morsel off a serving tray.

sparring.

It's no surprise that she ends up at the armory complex--someone probably told her to go there, for one thing, and for another, fighting's one of the things she knows intimately. And she stays in that area for some time, watching sparring matches with grim fascination, as if she's memorizing each move.

Ask her if she needs a weapon, and she'll shake her head. One hand goes up, two not-quite-there claws shimmer from between her knuckles.

Ask her if she wants to try a round, and that will get a nod. Having replaced (possibly by stealing) her worn, ill-fitting skirt for pair of black breeches, she's even more ready for a fight than usual.

around.

Laura's a small, human woman around sixteen or seventeen, who dresses entirely in black and skulks around the Gallows like she's still not sure she belongs there. She spends a good deal of time at the tops of towers, near windows, climbing things that probably shouldn't be climbed, and lurking in dark corners. She might enter your room to investigate it, without thinking about the fact that it's yours. Or she might stare a little too long, like she's trying to understand something or decide something. Maybe you're the person she took a pair of breeches from, or a pair of boots. It's not so hard to find her in the library, near the herb gardens, or perched on windowsills. When she's actively trying to conceal herself, she's more difficult to pick out from the rafters.

If you want to plot something specific, please reach out! Let's make your dreams come true.

Comments

[inkindled]

"Right, but how does it--"

No, try again. Matthias screws up one eye in concentration. The effort tugs up at the corner of his mouth, and there's his teeth. Average teeth. The Circle was good for health, anyways, better than he would have had as a backwater Free Marcher.

"I mean, what is it. It's shaped like a claw. But it's not a proper claw. Animals have got proper claws. And they aren't foggy like that is. I'm not asking 'cause-- I dunno, 'cause I want to offend you or anything. I think it's brilliant. Can you do more than one? Double, like?"

He makes fists of his hands and holds them up close to his chin. If he had claws, he'd be stabbing himself in the face.

[justashotaway]

By the time Matthias is finished asking his question--question, explanation, more question--Laura's moved on to actually eating. Which means that claw's disappeared into the air, and her hand's a little busy with a spoon.

But the other one's free, and that's the one she lifts up for him to see. Two claws manifest, as though pulling the air into something slightly more solid, from a loose fist. He's right that they aren't much like animal claws: they're too long, too sharp, more like blades than anything that comes from a wolf's paw. But that's what they are.

Somewhere at another table, someone's staring with a look of confusion, or maybe disgust. Laura doesn't notice. She's mostly focused on eating.

[inkindled]

"Whoa."

Matthias is staring as well, but without confusion or disgust. It's more an awe, like. His mouth has dropped open a little, and he realizes it, and hastily closes it as he scoots closer to Laura, and to her claws.

Claws. How, and why, and can anyone are more questions that crowd forward, clamoring to be asked, but Matthias pushes them all aside as he reaches out one finger toward the two misty-yet-solid shapes just above Laura's fist.

"Can I-- I mean, they're real, yeah, as you're eating with them and all, so it's not like I need proof--wouldn't be asking for proof, even, 'cause it's not like I'm owed anything--but, can I." Touch. He scrunches his finger at the second knuckle in a kind of wave. Touch with this finger, here. Politeness, or a crude version of it, means that he hasn't yet touched.

[justashotaway]

He puts a finger near them, and Laura's spoon pauses on the way to her mouth. There are only a few reactions her claws usually merit. Fear, mostly, or anger, or a kind of possessive intrigue. I can make her kill someone or I can make her hurt me, while we--, someone else's thrill bound up in her bones.

But his curiosity is...it's innocent, almost. Trifling. He talks about them like they don't exist for any especial purpose except to be interesting. He doesn't want to use them, only to know what they feel like. And not, she's guessing, in ways that might bring him pain or pleasure.

Laura sets down her spoon and looks at him for a long moment, weighing his interest against the likelihood of deception. (Can he deceive people? He doesn't smell like he's lying, and he doesn't sound like he could.) Her answer isn't relenting--she doesn't move her hand any closer--but it doesn't shut the door on the possibility. "They are sharp."

[inkindled]

"S' okay," Matthias says, bracing and cheerful and entirely unafraid or any sort of nervous--and still with his finger waiting, not touching any bit of the terribly interesting misty claws that are just right there. "I've touched sharp things before, I know what they're about. I'm a mage and all, but I've worked with knives before. Skinned rabbits, things like that. Threshers. Had to have a go at those when I was a kid. Swords. Wish I was better with swords, really--"

No, hang on. Now he's just talking to talk. His grin goes a little sheepish, and he drops his eyes to the table for a second, giving her a break from his scrutiny.

"Sorry. I dunno how to shut up--it's a problem. Everyone says. Anyway, it's all right, if you say no. I can keep my hands to myself just as well. I've just never seen anything like 'em before--not like, claws, right. They're brilliant. You haven't got to sit around wishing you were any good with swords. All in one, you."

[justashotaway]

He talks more than Laura's ever known, but there's a certain novelty to it, at least this morning: it has the same feeling as the sound of cups rattling or footsteps on the flagstones, of an inevitable part of her surroundings. At some point, it might become annoying. In this breath, she's grateful she doesn't have to talk, just decide if she'll let him touch her claws.

In the end, it is not a difficult decision. Matthias says she can say no to him. And that is why she chooses to say yes--though she doesn't actually say it.

Laura covers his hand with hers, holding it firm and steady as she guides it. Long experience has taught her exactly how much pressure is required to cut, as opposed to simply threatening to. Under her grasp, his finger moves across the surface of her claw and rests lightly against the razor edge for a moment.

(She's not sure what it'll feel like to him--he says he's a mage, while Laura was only a mage's project--but for her, it's only the edge that truly feels like anything. The rest of the claw is more like a buzzing without sound, raising hairs on her forearm but not providing any solid shape. It isn't real in the same way.)

Drawing his hand away, she lets the claws disappear. All through it, her eyes have been on what she's doing, hair falling in her face, but after she lets go of him, she meets his gaze again. "Your breakfast will get cold."

[inkindled]

Maybe the hair on the back of his neck stands up, when she guides his finger to her claws. Maybe he feels something, that deep-down-gut feeling that he's gotten before, like being on some great swing when it's given a proper push, and feeling the world fall away. Maybe there's a prickle, a sensation, something--and there is--but a lot of it's lost on Matthias, at least at first, because he's still reeling from a girl having grabbed his hand.

Now, that's something.

But then there's: the claws. The tingle that comes of touching them passes up his arm, and he gives a little bitten-back shiver--but he's grinning a moment later, brilliant--and even once the claws are gone, the echo of that feeling is still thrumming away in Matthias.

And under that, there's such a directness in the way that Laura is looking at him that he feels funny about it. Not bad. Just, like, being looked at, that's good. And like maybe there's a lot to her. He's known people like that. Someone with disappearing claws, they're as like to be intense as all get-out. And he wants to tell her that he gets it, probably--maybe not exactly, but vaguely, the shape of things--because things are fucked right now, but that's why he's here, and maybe why she's here, too--that part of him that's always looking for other halves, people with questions and troubles and confusions, all best untangled with someone else--

So then it's funny to be talking about breakfast, like it matters. Matthias looks back at his bowl and swallows. Grins, again.

"Probably already is cold, honestly. I don't mind. I'll eat bloody anything. Look--" And he turns his hand about so he can grab for hers again, emphatic, trying to hold her attention, the focus of her gaze on his face. He likes the intentness he sees in it. Someone looking at him, like he's interesting or important or at least worth paying mind to. "Look, those're brilliant. Likely you know, but still. I've never seen anything, anything like that. Never felt anything like that either. They could have a slice off of a gnat or a druffalo, just as easy. They're-- lyrium, right? Got to be. That's, the feeling," and with his free hand, he wiggles his fingers in the air. "They don't hurt, do they? I mean, they're just there or not there, depending on how you want 'em. Bloody hell, you could fight anything with those. Demons or deepstalkers or Vints."

[justashotaway]

Laura, mistakenly, assumes this will be the end of it. He has touched a claw and smiled at her like she offered him his weight in gold, and he has breakfast to eat; his interest will obviously drift from her and into the rest of the day. He must think as he talks, flitting from one subject to another, ever driven onwards, if only to the next meal.

But that seems to be incorrect, because--as she starts to shift back to her own cooling meal--he catches her hand in his. Laura looks over again, intensity gone too sharp out of surprise; she can't remember ever having her hand held like this. Not to drive home a point, not with Matthias' particular ruddy-faced excitement accompanying it. She still half expects him to give a sharp tug, try to pull her arm out of its socket.

(But he doesn't do things like that. Her instincts are ready for someone crueler than Matthias.)

He means it all as a compliment, she can figure that much out. And it is...complimentary. More so than what she usually hears about them. The level of his interest is starting to feel more like a concern than it originally did--more like other mages, like there might be a desire to pick her apart and understand how it works--but she is not prepared to walk away from this conversation. Her breakfast is here, and Matthias is...he does not, she doesn't think, mean to sound like that kind of mage.

So she nods, silent, at the question about lyrium. When he finally stops talking, she lets her hand slip out of his and takes a breath, looking for an answer that doesn't feel like self-dissection.

"Not anymore." Getting them had hurt. Reis had strapped her down and told her he was doing this for his father, and she understands it no more now than she did then--and nothing has ever come close to those long weeks of flaying and healing and flaying again. But now, there is nothing, just the itch of something cousin to magic. After a moment, for reasons she can't explain to herself, she adds, "It is hard to hurt me."

She does not want him to think otherwise, and she does not know why it feels so important that he doesn't.

[inkindled]

"Good. Yeah," Matthias says manfully, as he picks up his spoon at long last, "I mean, me as well. Hard to hurt. Definitely."

Well. A beat, as he looks at his bowl. His grin goes a little sheepish again, and he shoots Laura a sidelong look.

"Mostly, anyways. Usually. Um, with... if I've got barriers, and things, and I'm no weakling. Only I'm guessing you mean that--differently, right. Tough, like."

He's not bothered by this confession, not in the moment--not with someone nearly of age with him, someone who's not questioned him so far. And he's not (perhaps surprisingly) bothered by his hand-hold having been shaken off. He hadn't meant it all that seriously, and she doesn't seem upset, or anything--a little cagey, perhaps, but who's not. And anyways, he's a force of nature when he gets talking. Everyone's always said.

And: he likes Laura. He can already tell. Once he's made up his mind, he's difficult to put off.

"I mean, I'm not not tough, right. I can hold my own. 'Specially now that I've got Inquisition armor. Er, sorry. Riftwatch armor. S' better than manky old robes or any of the tosh I had before. Which is sort of sad, 'cause it's not that great. And I've been in battle before, loads of times." Very matter-of-fact, that, which ought to imply that he means it quite seriously. "More than some people here, probably. So I'm not going to fall over if an arrow goes through me, or anything. If we stick together we can show 'em."

Just what he intends to show goes unsaid. But she'll know. Matthias shoves his spoon in his mouth with his next bite, to shut himself up.

[justashotaway]

Laura looks him over as he speaks, and while she doesn't exactly mean for that probing gaze to mean I distrust your use of the word 'tough'...

Matthias is a fair fighter, and he is willing to fight, which still surprises her in a mage. (Mages do not fight, in her limited experience. They let others do that for them.) But when she looks at his too-long arms, his not-especially-broad chest, the look in his eyes--he does not look tough to her. He looks like somebody more willing than able, whose will makes up for other shortcomings.

(But she does not look tough, either, by some people's reckoning. That was the appeal of her in Cumberland, she'd been told: someone small and pretty and quiet who could cause a great deal of pain. There might be other things to consider, Matthias being a mage.)

(It occurs to her that he is the only mage she has not wanted to stab.)

He begins eating, and Laura thinks that is something of a dismissal. Not to actually leave, but at least to eat her food. It does not sound like she has to respond to what he said, though that might be wishful thinking. She doesn't know, after all, what to answer with.

It's if we stick together that she's puzzling over as she eats, steadily bringing her spoon to her mouth as if concerned with the possibility of interruption. He means the Inquisition. Or Riftwatch, as it were. He must mean Riftwatch. But the way he said it sticks in her mind, the we. We is also the two of them, at least right now. She is not sure she wants that to be what he's trying to say, but she keeps thinking about it.

She does not ask. Uncertainty is preferable to a mistake.

When her spoon scrapes her trencher, peas porridge gone, she wonders if she should say something else. In itself, it's a fairly new feeling--historically, she has not spent her time with people whose opinions mattered to her, and does Matthias' opinion matter? It might. She does not look up at him when she asks, "When did you start fighting?"

[inkindled]

The quiet that has fallen between them is a few notches shy of perfectly companionable, but that's all right. Matthias was born affable, the sort that made friends easily before he set the stable on fire and got packed off to Tantervale. Managed to keep that trait, even amid the darkness of the Circle and the war and all.

And living through all that meant you never did knew who you were sitting next to, not properly, or where they'd been or where they were going or any of it. Someone might well be your friend, so leave them be until they demonstrate otherwise. Weather silences and fill in the gaps of conversations when you need to. She's not walked away from him, so she's not rejected his company entirely. Didn't look exactly as if she believed he could hold his own, but that's all right. Or at least, that's what Matthias tries to tell himself. If you're underestimated, you can prove everyone wrong. He's always being underestimated, is the thing.

Anyways, when Laura does speak, Matthias brightens visibly. The acknowledgement might be good enough, but he's keen enough on the topic as well. He swallows his last bite of porridge as well and wipes the back of his wrist over his mouth.

"Um," somewhat thickly, still with the gummy porridge, "well, I went to the Circle when I was about ten. And then that all fell apart, and the other mages and I fucked out of there, so... since I was eleven, maybe. I think. And it's sort of been all along since then, right. Every once and awhile they'd call a truce and things sort of would go quiet, or we'd hear there's big things being discussed elsewhere, this Grand Enchanter's meeting with that big cheese templar bodger. They had the Conclave, and we were camping out in the snow, still. Fighting, still. Eventually we heard the Inquisition was headed for Ghislain so we figured, all right, join up. Then--"

Well. This part he's far less keen on. Matthias screws up his face a little as he works out what to say next. Everyone died and the people left weren't worth a damn. No. There's something far too pitiful about that, and he never wants pity. Not that Laura seems inclined to be offering him pity. And anyways, everyone knows people who have died in this war, or another. And you don't fuck off from your group, even after a load of deaths. So he can't say that--or rather, can't admit to it, not without explaining, and if he's got to explain, then he's going to sound more pitiful, and more of a coward.

So. As steady as anything:

"Then I reckoned I'd see what the Inquisition was up to, so I headed off on my own to Kirkwall. By the time I made it here they were halfway to calling themselves Riftwatch, which is all right. Same idea and all. I mean, s'ppose that's why I'm here, isn't it. Because--well, the Inquisition, Riftwatch--they're doing things. Like," and he turns to look at Laura again, full on. "Why are you here?"

[justashotaway]

Laura, for her part, is vaguely aware of the fact that Matthias changes beside her--straightens up, maybe, his eyes different--but it does not seem particularly relevant. Listening to him, though, is. He speaks animatedly (which she's in the process of deciding is not animated for him, since it's how he always speaks) of the last few years of his life. Smiles and frowns and the hint of many more stories hidden in the broad strokes he paints. She has no idea what a Circle is, but that does not matter: she knows well what it is to have to hurt people, and to have to hide. Every word, she drinks in, and all the little shifts of face and body that go with.

His question runs right through her skin and under her ribs, burying itself into one of her lungs. For a moment, she can't answer with anything but a dark look with eyes turned away; her chest feels strange, like she exhaled without realizing.

(This had been a breakfast she had enjoyed, up to the point that Matthias asked about her. He caught her unawares, something she has yet to grow used to. And somehow, it seems that being asked to speak has spoiled something about the easiness with which she'd listening to every flicker of thought that came through Matthias' head.)

"I," she starts, then closes her mouth. She is not going to tell Matthias why she is here. That much, she knows. After a moment, she falls back on an answer she gave someone else: not a lie, not the truth he's looking for. Her eyes meet his again, her face uncertain. "I can fight."

That is why.