camp. Matthias is already working when the rain comes. He's been working, actually, having slipped away from whatever everyone else was doing and striking out on his own. He's been industrious with a triangular piece of canvas, crouched in the brittle grass, sharpening short bits of wood into stakes. As the rain begins in earnest, he squints up at the sky, and thrusts his knife into the dirt so he can pull up his hood.
"Oi," he calls out, cheerfully, to whoever is passing by, "c'mere. I need about six of these."
tent. Once his tent is established, it looks like this: the circle skirt edge of it stretched and staked intermittently, and the tip of the canvas pulled taut and lashed to a narrow scrubby tree, leaving that whole side open. Matthias begins to build a fire easily, feeding it with his magic. The rain can't touch the flames, given sharp angle of the pointed tip of the canvas. The fire cuts a cheery patch of color in the otherwise dismal setting of their camp.
He's generous with it, too, and scoots over to make room for anyone that looks like they need it. The price you'll pay is conversation. Only a moment passes, and then Matthias--cloak pulled tight, huddled around his staff like a funny little hermit--will say:
"Not that good at this, are you?"
Just saying. Or, if there's more than one person, he'll wait for a lull in the conversation to speak up.
"Right, so. 'Cause this is boring. Truth or dare?"
Kitty squints over at Matthias, not certain whether or not to take offense.
"Not good at what?" Before she decides, she'll need a bit of clarification. "Camping?" To be fair, of course, she quite transparently isn't - no one good at camping would look quite this miserable. Still, it's not necessarily something that ought to be pointed out.
Kitty debates a moment longer whether to be sour or not about his obvious amusement, but, well...He doesn't seem mean-spirited about it. So instead of snapping, she sighs, and replies -
"It is so bad. The outdoors is dreadful. Full of nasty bugs - " She slaps at a biting insect for emphasis. "And why would you sleep on the ground when you could have a bed?"
"Well, if you've got any spare beds in your pocket, I'll not turn one down. Otherwise I think we haven't got much choice."
He gestures, to their surroundings. At least beneath his weirdly-shaped tent, things are warm and dry, with plenty of open ground to roll out a blanket or a bedroll. Or set up a bed, if there was a bed about.
"You're from a city, then? Where there's no bugs at all?"
"Well, of course we've got bugs. But not ones like this." In truth, London actually had many bugs like this, but, well - she'd sound rather stupid if she admitted that. Plus, they were quite a lot smaller, which is enough of a difference to justify the claim, really.
"Free Marches, yeah. Where the bugs are larger, but at least they haven't got Orlesian accents. Go proper bzzz instead of--" How do you do a bug with an Orlesian accent? Well-- "Bizzzet," and he does a little flourish with his left hand and bends forward slightly in a seated bow.
He continues normally, and sensibly, once he's sat himself up again. "If you slap a bit of mud on you they're as like to leave you alone. Only then you've got mud on you, and I dunno how your city sensibilities handle that one. It does work, though. Honest. Sounds as if I'm taking the piss, but I don't mess about with bugs. You can get sick off of 'em, y'know. Nasty. Saw it a few times in the field."
Edited (i'm sorry i have to edit to break my icon repetition ugh) 2019-09-22 22:15 (UTC)
He's really a bit of a clown, isn't he, this kid? Kitty doesn't disapprove of clowns, really, not exactly. Stan had been one, and she'd liked Stan. At least she'd liked Stan during the peaceful times. Of which there hadn't been so many. All right, she'd actually hated Stan most of the time, but that doesn't mean that this kid isn't all right, for all his twitchy energy and flopping about and weird bug impressions.
"Yeah?" She cups her hands around her knees, and doesn't respond to anything that went before, because it's probably better that she not respond. "What kind of sickness?"
"Bug... sickness." Vague. Matthias scratches thoughtfully at the side of his nose. "Er, like... yellowy, your eyes go all yellowy. And you have a massive vomit, really bake your guts backwards. Bleeding, a bit, usually. Anyhow, it's nasty. So, mud."
He picks a bit of twig up off of the ground and chucks it into the low fire. It makes a pleasant sizzle upon entry, and goes quite up in flames. Matthias watches it, tiny limbs twisting and embering and burning away.
Well, that sounds...fake. Stan used to take the piss like that sometimes, too, make shit up and see what he could fool Kitty into believing and have quite a laugh when he tricked her. Though, to be fair, this kid seems actually rather sincere. Is it just that he's a good actor? Or...
Oh. She's thrown out of her train of thought by the suddenness of that last question.
"Why'd I - " That's quite a lengthy answer, and one she's not really ready to jump into yet. So instead, all she offers is a cautious, cagy, "Thought I'd be useful." Then: "Why'd you decide to come along?"
"'Cause I'm a mage." Easy answer, for him. Matthias shrugs, a lift and fall of his shoulders. "And it was to do with mages, and mage stuff. Seems important to have mages along with for it. And anyone that wants to go out in the world and act like a bastard ought to know that they can't get away with it. It's something I care about. All of it."
Simple and true. Which means, for once, it's nothing that Matthias feels self-conscious about admitting. Passion can get him worked up, make him say things with such firmness and conviction that he goes too far, overshares, says too much, spends the rest of the day wanting to fall into a hole. This one's easy by comparison.
He tosses another twig into the fire. "You weren't not useful," he says, to Kitty, "so I s'ppose you managed what you came for all right."
That earns Matthias a look. "Of course I wasn't not useful," she sniffs. "You lot were, and are, absolutely lucky to have a bit of my time, because I'm very good at what I do, and you're welcome."
Another slap at her arm. This time, a darker smear shows that she got the little bastard.
"Anyway," she says, arrogance ebbing away, "I've known plenty of mages who don't mind bastards if the bastards are their own. Plenty of people like that in general."
He grins a little at that look, but holds his hands up in surrender. Fair play, that. It was a bit cruel to pretend like she'd counted for nothing. And he's not so arrogant that he thinks mages are automatically better than everyone. They're not worse either, mind; he'd not absorbed all that shame that loads of other people carry about with them. But all the same.
"Right, but all that means is you've known bastards, and bastardy mages. People who're worth knowing and hanging about with, they're not about to start behaving like tits just 'cause they get a moment of freedom to act in. So it's not a fair comparison, is it."
"I used to be better at it," Derrica answers, a little sheepish as she crosses her legs and settles into the space he's made for her. "But it's been a while since I had to even pretend to try to make a tent."
It had never really mattered very much at Dairsmuid. There'd always been someone more capable for her to rely on the few times they'd strayed out into the trees. Derrica takes a deep breath and cuts that memory off before her thoughts snag on it.
"You did well back there," She tells him; the praise feels important to impart. "I always wanted to be better with fire than I am."
"Thanks," Matthias says. And then he looks very hard at the fire and tries not to fall to pieces over a few words of compliment but, really. How can he do anything but fall to pieces, or at least grin, hugely--which he does, now, even though he fights against it.
Look: he likes being good at things. He likes people recognizing him. He likes especially people that he likes or respects--likes and respects, sometimes--recognizing him for a job well done. Enchanter Peggins used to call him puppy out of that eagerness, you'd kill yourself trying to earn a kind word, Matthias, but even shame hadn't curbed that instinct in Matthias.
He hunches his shoulders and leans forward, hoping the fall of his hood will shield his stupid smile from view. At least until he can master his expression.
"I mean, like, so, fire's always been easiest for me. Probably 'cause it's quick and it, y'know. Destroys the way that it does. First time I did magic it was fire, and it's always been there for me since. Which is it you're best at, then?"
Derrica spreads her hands out over the fire. She'd put on her own cloak again, but her skin is still chilled from the rainfall. She doesn't feel clean, exactly, but the grit and rust of battle has been passably rinsed. At his question, she makes a little face; it's long-suffering and amused all at once.
"Healing," she tells him. "But I'd always wanted to be better at other things."
Much had been made of that when she was smaller. A blessing, the First Enchanter had said. Maybe it was, just not in the way anyone had expected it to be. It had helped her flee, gotten her aboard a ship, instead of being the kind of tool she'd have used in the villages, at the Seers request.
She breathes out hard, rubs her palms together over the flame.
"People don't usually think the healer's going to be the one leading charges, you know?"
And he probably does. He'd fought properly, likely had to think these sorts of things himself.
He grins a little--yeah, he does know, and quite well.
"Wouldn't get anywhere without healers, though. Which is likely what everyone says to you, but s' true. I've been properly fucked before except by the grace of a healer, I wasn't."
Loads of Matthias' stories go that way, darting from danger to danger as they always were. The fact that he's sitting here to tell it means that healers really have saved his arse, time and time again. He scratches at the corner of his mouth, thoughtfully.
"But like, you could learn. Yeah? You've got loads of time now. Just 'cause healing's easiest doesn't mean that's it. I bet I could show you something of fire. If you wanted."
Extremely sincerely. Derrica wants to break the earth apart, throw grown men across battlefields and root them in place to be cracked down by her staff, but there's a certain appeal in starting fires.
"I don't mind healing. It's nice, it's just..." Derrica trails off, shrugs a little. "Sometimes I want to do more."
She opens and closes her hands over the fire once more, then curls in slightly on herself, pulls her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around them.
Pleased at her interest, Matthias grins. A little flicker of warmth has kindled in his chest. This is precisely the sort of thing he's been missing, not being around other mages--or, well, not the same way he's used to, at least.
"Loads," he confirms, easily, "and loads. But that's just the way it was. Like, that's what we were doing. Fighting for mages and no Circles and all of it. I know what you mean, though. Before the war, I was just a kid. I was a mage, yeah, but no one thought twice about me outside of that. And then when the war started, I was someone. That's not what it was about, right--I know that. I'm not stupid. But it was great. It was... Well, we've got loads of potential, don't we? We're full of it. People only want you to do one thing. Even in Riftwatch it gets bloody frustrating. So if you want to learn more'n healing, you ought to do it. You can do it. And everyone ought to trust that."
"You're sweet," Derrica tells him, resting her cheek on her arm. Her hair's come loose from her braid, tumbles in damp waves over her shoulder.
"Riftwatch isn't really...I haven't been among this many mages in a long time," She admits, eyes on Matthias' face. "It's nice to fight with people who don't spook when you call down lightening."
As much as she loved the crews she'd sailed with, there is something different about standing with people who aren't afraid of a mage's power. She'd always kept certain parts of herself in check, terrified that she would cross some imaginary line and be thrown overboard, or gifted to a spate of templars. Matthias and Nell and Kostos are newly met and she does not know them, not the way she knows Leander, but being in their company soothes loneliness she'd grown so accustomed to she hadn't even noticed it's presence.
Color comes into Matthias' face, and his ears. Hopefully she won't notice, thanks to the shadows of the fire and the shadow cast by the hood of his cloak. He doesn't want to be known as sweet. He does want compliments, especially from Derrica, and he wants not to shit on Derrica's intentions in calling him sweet, which were kind and appreciative and friendly, in a way that Matthias can understand.
Just, why sweet. He squirms a little--very small and contained--and lifts his chin. He'll bear it. Sweet. Sure.
"Yeah--it's good," he says, and thinks then of how stupid that sounds. Idiot. "To be with everyone, I mean. I've only ever fought with mages, right, before this, so--sort of the opposite for me. You were with pirates before, yeah? Balls to that. No wonder you didn't do much practicing with fire. One wrong move and you'd set the ship aflame, and then where would you be? Shark's breakfast."
"It would be useful if I were setting fire to someone else's ship."
Theoretically. Derrica had shied away from big displays like that out of what felt like self-preservation. There was such a thin line between helpful magic and the kind of magic that terrified men. Even pirates, who had seen so much more of the world than most people, had their own set of superstitions. Using magic was always a balancing act.
Maybe Matthias had never had to think like that. Being in the midst of people who knew what you were and didn't fear it, maybe that particular tension had never introduced itself.
"I do alright without it. I know some showy tricks you can do with a dagger, if you aren't afraid of cutting yourself once or twice learning it."
Derrica hadn't been, but not everyone can just patch themselves up if they want to.
"I'll trade you. Knife tricks for helping me learn how to use fire. Does it sound fair?"
It's a question, but barely. And the answer had better be yes, because Matthias is already excited. Beyond excited. His grin splits across his face, immediate and honest.
"That's fair, yeah. And it's a deal. Knife tricks, really? That's brilliant. I always wanted to do things like that. Learn things like that, I mean. Fight with magic's the best, and all, 'course it is, but I'd rather know it all, y'know? I'm definitely not afraid of cutting myself. Completely fine with it. Plus, you're a healer, yeah? So you can just--"
He whistles on an upswing, and snaps his fingers. A ta-da sort of gesture at nothing. Imagination is required for this. "Healing." There's a kind of camaraderie to his grin now. Friendly ribbing.
Derrica reaches over to poke at his arm in return, eyes bright.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you should be flattering healers?" She teases, gently. "Praising their art so they remember you kindly in your time of need?"
As if Derrica were so swayed. As if she were that kind of healer, willing to turn a blind eye to someone's suffering for petty reasons. She prods at Matthias' shoulder once more before readjusting, fussing at the folds of her cloak.
"You know how to fight with a sword, don't you? Or your fists?"
It's not a new sensation, but she feels the sharp, panicky need to be sure Matthias will be safe. She needs to know that if someone smothers his magic, he'll be able to kill them still.
He grins as he shies away from her, trying to avoid her retribution.
"A really kind healer wouldn't attack me, y'know. What's that make you? Anyway, I know how to fight-fight. Fists and all--I'm no boxer or anything but I'm not soppy oatmeal either, I can keep up. Knives, keep hold of the handle, push the sharp bit in--that's you done. Or them done, really."
The battles are all there, in the back of his head. Looming great shapes and smoke and shouting, with the earth squashy underfoot. Mud and blood and clumps of grass torn up, laying weirdly. A pale arm that ends in wet ragged red. He's seen it. Put a knife in someone. Blood under your fingernails. Scars and salt and everything. Ache so deep it feels like you're breathing through wet wool.
"None of that stops me from wanting to learn knife tricks, that's totally different. And brilliant. D'you do--swords, as well? Not tricks, just-- well, s'stupid, right. Just something I wanted to learn, always."
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matthias || ota
Matthias is already working when the rain comes. He's been working, actually, having slipped away from whatever everyone else was doing and striking out on his own. He's been industrious with a triangular piece of canvas, crouched in the brittle grass, sharpening short bits of wood into stakes. As the rain begins in earnest, he squints up at the sky, and thrusts his knife into the dirt so he can pull up his hood.
"Oi," he calls out, cheerfully, to whoever is passing by, "c'mere. I need about six of these."
tent.
Once his tent is established, it looks like this: the circle skirt edge of it stretched and staked intermittently, and the tip of the canvas pulled taut and lashed to a narrow scrubby tree, leaving that whole side open. Matthias begins to build a fire easily, feeding it with his magic. The rain can't touch the flames, given sharp angle of the pointed tip of the canvas. The fire cuts a cheery patch of color in the otherwise dismal setting of their camp.
He's generous with it, too, and scoots over to make room for anyone that looks like they need it. The price you'll pay is conversation. Only a moment passes, and then Matthias--cloak pulled tight, huddled around his staff like a funny little hermit--will say:
"Not that good at this, are you?"
Just saying. Or, if there's more than one person, he'll wait for a lull in the conversation to speak up.
"Right, so. 'Cause this is boring. Truth or dare?"
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"Not good at what?" Before she decides, she'll need a bit of clarification. "Camping?" To be fair, of course, she quite transparently isn't - no one good at camping would look quite this miserable. Still, it's not necessarily something that ought to be pointed out.
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The cowl of Matthias' cloak casts a weird shadow over his face, but nothing so severe that it will disguise his grin.
"Yeah, camping. Obviously. You look a fair bit miserable about it. S'not so bad."
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"It is so bad. The outdoors is dreadful. Full of nasty bugs - " She slaps at a biting insect for emphasis. "And why would you sleep on the ground when you could have a bed?"
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He gestures, to their surroundings. At least beneath his weirdly-shaped tent, things are warm and dry, with plenty of open ground to roll out a blanket or a bedroll. Or set up a bed, if there was a bed about.
"You're from a city, then? Where there's no bugs at all?"
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"Well, of course we've got bugs. But not ones like this." In truth, London actually had many bugs like this, but, well - she'd sound rather stupid if she admitted that. Plus, they were quite a lot smaller, which is enough of a difference to justify the claim, really.
"What about you? Free Marches, you said, yeah?"
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He continues normally, and sensibly, once he's sat himself up again. "If you slap a bit of mud on you they're as like to leave you alone. Only then you've got mud on you, and I dunno how your city sensibilities handle that one. It does work, though. Honest. Sounds as if I'm taking the piss, but I don't mess about with bugs. You can get sick off of 'em, y'know. Nasty. Saw it a few times in the field."
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"Yeah?" She cups her hands around her knees, and doesn't respond to anything that went before, because it's probably better that she not respond. "What kind of sickness?"
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He picks a bit of twig up off of the ground and chucks it into the low fire. It makes a pleasant sizzle upon entry, and goes quite up in flames. Matthias watches it, tiny limbs twisting and embering and burning away.
"Why'd you come along on this?"
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Oh. She's thrown out of her train of thought by the suddenness of that last question.
"Why'd I - " That's quite a lengthy answer, and one she's not really ready to jump into yet. So instead, all she offers is a cautious, cagy, "Thought I'd be useful." Then: "Why'd you decide to come along?"
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Simple and true. Which means, for once, it's nothing that Matthias feels self-conscious about admitting. Passion can get him worked up, make him say things with such firmness and conviction that he goes too far, overshares, says too much, spends the rest of the day wanting to fall into a hole. This one's easy by comparison.
He tosses another twig into the fire. "You weren't not useful," he says, to Kitty, "so I s'ppose you managed what you came for all right."
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Another slap at her arm. This time, a darker smear shows that she got the little bastard.
"Anyway," she says, arrogance ebbing away, "I've known plenty of mages who don't mind bastards if the bastards are their own. Plenty of people like that in general."
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"Right, but all that means is you've known bastards, and bastardy mages. People who're worth knowing and hanging about with, they're not about to start behaving like tits just 'cause they get a moment of freedom to act in. So it's not a fair comparison, is it."
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barges in here
It had never really mattered very much at Dairsmuid. There'd always been someone more capable for her to rely on the few times they'd strayed out into the trees. Derrica takes a deep breath and cuts that memory off before her thoughts snag on it.
"You did well back there," She tells him; the praise feels important to impart. "I always wanted to be better with fire than I am."
welcome
Look: he likes being good at things. He likes people recognizing him. He likes especially people that he likes or respects--likes and respects, sometimes--recognizing him for a job well done. Enchanter Peggins used to call him puppy out of that eagerness, you'd kill yourself trying to earn a kind word, Matthias, but even shame hadn't curbed that instinct in Matthias.
He hunches his shoulders and leans forward, hoping the fall of his hood will shield his stupid smile from view. At least until he can master his expression.
"I mean, like, so, fire's always been easiest for me. Probably 'cause it's quick and it, y'know. Destroys the way that it does. First time I did magic it was fire, and it's always been there for me since. Which is it you're best at, then?"
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"Healing," she tells him. "But I'd always wanted to be better at other things."
Much had been made of that when she was smaller. A blessing, the First Enchanter had said. Maybe it was, just not in the way anyone had expected it to be. It had helped her flee, gotten her aboard a ship, instead of being the kind of tool she'd have used in the villages, at the Seers request.
She breathes out hard, rubs her palms together over the flame.
"People don't usually think the healer's going to be the one leading charges, you know?"
And he probably does. He'd fought properly, likely had to think these sorts of things himself.
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"Wouldn't get anywhere without healers, though. Which is likely what everyone says to you, but s' true. I've been properly fucked before except by the grace of a healer, I wasn't."
Loads of Matthias' stories go that way, darting from danger to danger as they always were. The fact that he's sitting here to tell it means that healers really have saved his arse, time and time again. He scratches at the corner of his mouth, thoughtfully.
"But like, you could learn. Yeah? You've got loads of time now. Just 'cause healing's easiest doesn't mean that's it. I bet I could show you something of fire. If you wanted."
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Extremely sincerely. Derrica wants to break the earth apart, throw grown men across battlefields and root them in place to be cracked down by her staff, but there's a certain appeal in starting fires.
"I don't mind healing. It's nice, it's just..." Derrica trails off, shrugs a little. "Sometimes I want to do more."
She opens and closes her hands over the fire once more, then curls in slightly on herself, pulls her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around them.
"You've been in a lot of fights, haven't you?"
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"Loads," he confirms, easily, "and loads. But that's just the way it was. Like, that's what we were doing. Fighting for mages and no Circles and all of it. I know what you mean, though. Before the war, I was just a kid. I was a mage, yeah, but no one thought twice about me outside of that. And then when the war started, I was someone. That's not what it was about, right--I know that. I'm not stupid. But it was great. It was... Well, we've got loads of potential, don't we? We're full of it. People only want you to do one thing. Even in Riftwatch it gets bloody frustrating. So if you want to learn more'n healing, you ought to do it. You can do it. And everyone ought to trust that."
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"Riftwatch isn't really...I haven't been among this many mages in a long time," She admits, eyes on Matthias' face. "It's nice to fight with people who don't spook when you call down lightening."
As much as she loved the crews she'd sailed with, there is something different about standing with people who aren't afraid of a mage's power. She'd always kept certain parts of herself in check, terrified that she would cross some imaginary line and be thrown overboard, or gifted to a spate of templars. Matthias and Nell and Kostos are newly met and she does not know them, not the way she knows Leander, but being in their company soothes loneliness she'd grown so accustomed to she hadn't even noticed it's presence.
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Just, why sweet. He squirms a little--very small and contained--and lifts his chin. He'll bear it. Sweet. Sure.
"Yeah--it's good," he says, and thinks then of how stupid that sounds. Idiot. "To be with everyone, I mean. I've only ever fought with mages, right, before this, so--sort of the opposite for me. You were with pirates before, yeah? Balls to that. No wonder you didn't do much practicing with fire. One wrong move and you'd set the ship aflame, and then where would you be? Shark's breakfast."
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Theoretically. Derrica had shied away from big displays like that out of what felt like self-preservation. There was such a thin line between helpful magic and the kind of magic that terrified men. Even pirates, who had seen so much more of the world than most people, had their own set of superstitions. Using magic was always a balancing act.
Maybe Matthias had never had to think like that. Being in the midst of people who knew what you were and didn't fear it, maybe that particular tension had never introduced itself.
"I do alright without it. I know some showy tricks you can do with a dagger, if you aren't afraid of cutting yourself once or twice learning it."
Derrica hadn't been, but not everyone can just patch themselves up if they want to.
"I'll trade you. Knife tricks for helping me learn how to use fire. Does it sound fair?"
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It's a question, but barely. And the answer had better be yes, because Matthias is already excited. Beyond excited. His grin splits across his face, immediate and honest.
"That's fair, yeah. And it's a deal. Knife tricks, really? That's brilliant. I always wanted to do things like that. Learn things like that, I mean. Fight with magic's the best, and all, 'course it is, but I'd rather know it all, y'know? I'm definitely not afraid of cutting myself. Completely fine with it. Plus, you're a healer, yeah? So you can just--"
He whistles on an upswing, and snaps his fingers. A ta-da sort of gesture at nothing. Imagination is required for this. "Healing." There's a kind of camaraderie to his grin now. Friendly ribbing.
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"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you should be flattering healers?" She teases, gently. "Praising their art so they remember you kindly in your time of need?"
As if Derrica were so swayed. As if she were that kind of healer, willing to turn a blind eye to someone's suffering for petty reasons. She prods at Matthias' shoulder once more before readjusting, fussing at the folds of her cloak.
"You know how to fight with a sword, don't you? Or your fists?"
It's not a new sensation, but she feels the sharp, panicky need to be sure Matthias will be safe. She needs to know that if someone smothers his magic, he'll be able to kill them still.
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"A really kind healer wouldn't attack me, y'know. What's that make you? Anyway, I know how to fight-fight. Fists and all--I'm no boxer or anything but I'm not soppy oatmeal either, I can keep up. Knives, keep hold of the handle, push the sharp bit in--that's you done. Or them done, really."
The battles are all there, in the back of his head. Looming great shapes and smoke and shouting, with the earth squashy underfoot. Mud and blood and clumps of grass torn up, laying weirdly. A pale arm that ends in wet ragged red. He's seen it. Put a knife in someone. Blood under your fingernails. Scars and salt and everything. Ache so deep it feels like you're breathing through wet wool.
"None of that stops me from wanting to learn knife tricks, that's totally different. And brilliant. D'you do--swords, as well? Not tricks, just-- well, s'stupid, right. Just something I wanted to learn, always."
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you know what's fun when you think of a question and then forget it before you write the tag
i did the same thing yesterday i'm sympathetic
ty for your understanding
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