[closed] test flight

[doneisdone]

WHO: Marcoulf, Nikos, Teren
WHAT: ostensibly subterfuge, in truth a lot of shitfighting
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Perendale
NOTES: stupid

"I've got a lead," Teren says in a low voice, tugging off the middling-quality Orlesian mask she's taken to wearing in the guise of a wine merchant (it covers the scars on her eye, makes her less memorable). She shuts and latches the door behind her, enclosing them in one of their inn rooms where they can speak with some privacy.
They've been here for several days now, conducting their 'business', listening to surrounding conversations and gauging the state of affairs in Perendale. These are Teren's old stomping grounds, and she knows the gathering places where sound doesn't carry, the shady haunts where the respectable and loud-mouthed don't dare to go-- but with this in mind, it's all the more vital that she conceal her own identity.

"There's some sort of meeting happening tomorrow evening," Teren continues sinking down onto a stool and tugging off her terrible Orlesian boots, "if we're lucky, we'll meet some faces of the resistance."

Comments

[esquive]

"They don't change the facts. The griffons cannot stay past the new moon."

The rest is all just-- some unrealized possibility. Maybe they will find something useful. Maybe the Scoutmaster needs this place for something. Maybe tomorrow General-Mayor Gosleus will choke on a fish bone. Maybe Averesch is right and the intent matters more than the means. But it sounds like bullshit and he has been to bloody places with no plan and a certain lack of concrete truths and that uneasy unreality can't really satisfy anyone, can it?

The dense thread hums a sweet twang as he leverages the last stitch, then plies the needle to knot it. "Pass me that candle, would you?"

[exsecutus]

There's a moment that might seem like refusal before, with a stilted cordiality, Nikos slumps forward and slide the candle over. Not quite passing, as was requested, but halfway to it. Almost helpful but holding back. Even if he weren't in a dejected drunken sulk, this behavior is just him.

"Do you intend to return?"

The chair creaks when he slumps back again, as if irritated by the constant shifting of his weight.

[esquive]

Good enough. He leans forward to take the candle from its plate and sets the flame to the twisted thread end until it smokes and catches to cauterize the fibers. Marcoulf doesn't raise his eyes from the task.

"To Kirkwall with the griffons, or here under some future order?

[exsecutus]

The chair creaks again as Nikos shifts, irritated, unable to sit still. Old habits and all.

"Here. As you were the one who really pushed for Kirkwall, with the griffons, I assumed that one."

[esquive]

"It's not my decision," he says, setting the candle back on the little table.