WHO: Fitcher, Marcoulf, Bartimaeus (+) & YOU WHAT: Ye Olde Catch'all WHEN: Nowish WHERE: Kirkwall, The Gallows, le Misc. NOTES: Starters in comments; if you want something/someone who isn't here, just hit me up and I'll scrape something together.
This elicits a laugh. "Well, a man who prefers not to smell like a barn when he's exploring the dark and dangerous places," Barrow muses, "at the ferry slip, after sundown. You can count on it." He gives her a wink as he steps away, going to replace the hammer with the practice weapons before he heads toward the living quarters.
Later that evening, true to his word, he's clean and dressed for an outing: which is to say, nice enough, but not at all lacking in all the accoutrements necessary for knocking heads.
Fitcher's there to meet him when he arrives. Dressed as she is - in a smart long dark blue coat buttoned to the very throat and cinched with a plated belt in which a sensible and unadorned working dagger has been tucked -, she looks less equipped for cracking skulls and rather more like the image of a woman acquainted with business requiring paper and stamps and sealed envelopes. Her dark hair, typically worn in some easy twist, has been pulled severely back from her the lines of her face. The whole effect is very sharp, verging dangerously toward the severe, and it is ruined entirely by her quick smile as she spots him.
"Ah, at last - my trusted companion. Shall we?" Fitcher doesn't linger for confirmation before stepping down into waiting ferry. "I've arranged for a room in Kirkwall should our business keep us late."
That last revelation sends Barrow's eyebrows near to his hairline, but he resists every impulse to make a crack about it. Business, yes, they're here for business.
"You're looking well," he says instead, stepping down after her, "might I ask the nature of tonight's excursion?"
(There are, naturally, two very separate rooms, but she rather likes the look of raised eyebrows.)
"There is a warehouse in Lowtown currently housing a shipment of goods destined for a particular auction house in Tantervale. We," she says, with a nod to the Gallows. We, meaning Riftwatch apparently. "Have a friend who would like an independent appraisal of a few of the items before they reach the market there, so I've arranged a meeting with one of the watchmen. Only I'm afraid he may have gotten the wrong idea, and I'd like to be certain he is dispelled of the notion so I can see to my business without unnecessary distraction."
She smiles sweetly, looking at him through her dark eyelashes. "You understand."
"And should the notion remain stubbornly in his mind," he says, looking out at the water as they begin to traverse it, "I imagine convincing him ought to be done with some discretion?"
"I believe subtle would suit our purposes best, yes. Now, would you do me one other favor?" She extends her gloved hand out to him, clearly expecting he take it in his own.
"I've improved tremendously, but my stomach can't take it when the water is chopping like this. You'll have to let me squeeze your hand and tell me something interesting to keep my mind from it."
He takes her hand as indicated, his own ungloved but large and warm, coarse from his many years of handling weapons and transient living. "If you want something interesting, you may have asked along the wrong company," Barrow remarks, "but I suppose I'll do my best." He furrows his brow and looks out at the water, bracing himself in the boat with one hand and gripping Fitcher with the other. "Did you hear about Mayor Dedrick of Crestwood?"
She similarly sets her spare hand there against the little boat's opposite side to brace herself and begins to count down from four hundred in her head.
"He was a worse mayor," Barrow supplies, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk.
"The only thing notable about Crestwood was how boring it was," he explains, "but in the thick of the Blight, refugees are pouring northward from Ostagar, which means a lot of them are going to Crestwood. They're scared, a lot of them are sick, they're causing a panic, and before you know it there's a big chunk of the village that's entirely Blighted.
A diplomatic nightmare, you might say. The mayor is at his wits' end. Well, fortunately for him, all those marauding darkspawn coming out of the ground, they've learned how to do things like turn levers. They open up the dam holding back the lake, and they flood the town, drowning everyone in the village before they even know what's happening."
There is a rhythm to this, no matter how unpleasant the story. She counts. She locks her elbow and clenches her hand about his and studies the shape of the words more than their meaning and she does not regard the harbor or the rising and falling lights of Kirkwall through the dusky haze as they cross the water.
"How bitterly sad. Have you been there? To Crestwood. Or to what remains of it, I suppose."
"You might say that," comes his amiable response, his gaze growing more distant, "and you might also say, having learned that darkspawn have no such cognitive abilities, that the mayor ordered the dam opened himself and then absconded like a coward when the Inquisition came too close to making that realization-- you might say the only reason to go back is to wring his ugly neck, at least if he ever shows his face again."
A tremor of something comes over his face, but he stills it quickly, turning a sheepish smile on Fitcher and giving her hand a little squeeze. "Sorry," Barrow chuckles, "...morbid."
"A bit, yes." She doesn't mind. Her regard of him is very fixed, though it has been from the beginning. "Were you familiar with any of the people there?"
(Three hundred and sixty two. Three hundred and sixty one. Three hundred and sixty.)
It occurs to Barrow he has no idea why he felt the need to even bring this up, let alone relay it in such detail. Perhaps, he realizes, it's the open water: it's always at the back of his mind, but it's all too easy to imagine oneself at the bottom of such an expanse. If the flood had only happened a few decades earlier, well. Who knows.
"No need to dampen the mood with that, love," he says, smiling, but there's a bitterness that he can't quite extricate from his tone. Nonetheless, he gives her hand another little squeeze. "Look, we'll be across soon enough. I could serenade you, though I doubt you'll enjoy it as much."
"Then you may recite a song to me instead of singing it if you have no confidence in your voice," she allows, and does not look to see how close they are because the view of the shore is at least part of the issue.
That's fine. He doesn't have to tell her if he doesn't care to. And anyway, refusing to say means something too. That's a kind of answer all on its own.
Well that just seems like quitting. Noting the tension in Fitcher's jaw, Barrow gives a little chuckle and shakes his head. Then, in an untrained but nonetheless pleasant baritone:
"I've been a wild rover for many's a year, and I've spent all me money on whiskey and beer." He lightly drums the side of the boat with his other hand, keeping time. "But now I'm returning with gold in great store, and I never will play the wild rover no more,
and it's no, nay, never--" (He thumps his free hand five times.) "No nay never, no more,
will I play the wild rover, no never, no more."
He smiles at her. "You have to sing the next chorus with me, or I'll forget the words." On purpose.
She laughs at the thump, thump, thump of his hand on the gunwale and covers her eyes with her own free hand as if flustered by the slash of his smile. She isn't, and it's obvious - there is artifice to this just as there is in the hard scraped back look of how she's wearing her dark hair. But let us enjoy the sentiment.
"I cannot," she refuses from behind the shield of her hand. "I'll only be sick all over your shoes, and besides - I only know the Chant."
"IIII went into an alehouse I used to frequent," Barrow sings, the volume seeming to raise along with his enthusiasm, "and I told the landlady me money was spent!"
The Chant. Please.
"I asked her for credit, she answered me 'nay'-- such custom as yours I can have any day, and it's--"
Even if she won't sing with him, he sways Fitcher's hand with his while he sings the chorus.
"Stop, stop-- Can you do nothing about this? Row faster maybe?" This to the ferryman, valiantly struggling through their shenanigans. Fitcher allows the absolute reprobate in possession of her hand to swing it around willy-nilly in the mean time.
No, she's perfectly all right. There is a faint paleness about her that speaks to an unsettled stomach, yes, but otherwise it's all just the overplayed drama of a woman enjoying the harassment - a shared joke that she is now choosing to inflict on their poor beleagured ferryman.
"Go on then," she relents, all faux-exasperation. "You may as well finish the song."
"I took from my pocket, ten sovereigns bright, and the landlady's eyes opened wide with delight!" The drumming begins anew, and he sways a little, at least doing his best not to violently rock the boat. "She says I have whiskey and wines on the best, and the words that I told you were only in jest, AND IT'S,"
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"Well, a man who prefers not to smell like a barn when he's exploring the dark and dangerous places," Barrow muses, "at the ferry slip, after sundown. You can count on it."
He gives her a wink as he steps away, going to replace the hammer with the practice weapons before he heads toward the living quarters.
Later that evening, true to his word, he's clean and dressed for an outing: which is to say, nice enough, but not at all lacking in all the accoutrements necessary for knocking heads.
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"Ah, at last - my trusted companion. Shall we?" Fitcher doesn't linger for confirmation before stepping down into waiting ferry. "I've arranged for a room in Kirkwall should our business keep us late."
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"You're looking well," he says instead, stepping down after her, "might I ask the nature of tonight's excursion?"
no subject
"There is a warehouse in Lowtown currently housing a shipment of goods destined for a particular auction house in Tantervale. We," she says, with a nod to the Gallows. We, meaning Riftwatch apparently. "Have a friend who would like an independent appraisal of a few of the items before they reach the market there, so I've arranged a meeting with one of the watchmen. Only I'm afraid he may have gotten the wrong idea, and I'd like to be certain he is dispelled of the notion so I can see to my business without unnecessary distraction."
She smiles sweetly, looking at him through her dark eyelashes. "You understand."
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"And should the notion remain stubbornly in his mind," he says, looking out at the water as they begin to traverse it, "I imagine convincing him ought to be done with some discretion?"
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"I've improved tremendously, but my stomach can't take it when the water is chopping like this. You'll have to let me squeeze your hand and tell me something interesting to keep my mind from it."
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"If you want something interesting, you may have asked along the wrong company," Barrow remarks, "but I suppose I'll do my best." He furrows his brow and looks out at the water, bracing himself in the boat with one hand and gripping Fitcher with the other.
"Did you hear about Mayor Dedrick of Crestwood?"
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"Dedrick is an awful name. But no, regale me."
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"The only thing notable about Crestwood was how boring it was," he explains, "but in the thick of the Blight, refugees are pouring northward from Ostagar, which means a lot of them are going to Crestwood. They're scared, a lot of them are sick, they're causing a panic, and before you know it there's a big chunk of the village that's entirely Blighted.
A diplomatic nightmare, you might say. The mayor is at his wits' end. Well, fortunately for him, all those marauding darkspawn coming out of the ground, they've learned how to do things like turn levers. They open up the dam holding back the lake, and they flood the town, drowning everyone in the village before they even know what's happening."
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"How bitterly sad. Have you been there? To Crestwood. Or to what remains of it, I suppose."
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A tremor of something comes over his face, but he stills it quickly, turning a sheepish smile on Fitcher and giving her hand a little squeeze. "Sorry," Barrow chuckles, "...morbid."
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(Three hundred and sixty two. Three hundred and sixty one. Three hundred and sixty.)
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If the flood had only happened a few decades earlier, well. Who knows.
"No need to dampen the mood with that, love," he says, smiling, but there's a bitterness that he can't quite extricate from his tone. Nonetheless, he gives her hand another little squeeze. "Look, we'll be across soon enough. I could serenade you, though I doubt you'll enjoy it as much."
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That's fine. He doesn't have to tell her if he doesn't care to. And anyway, refusing to say means something too. That's a kind of answer all on its own.
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Noting the tension in Fitcher's jaw, Barrow gives a little chuckle and shakes his head. Then, in an untrained but nonetheless pleasant baritone:
"I've been a wild rover for many's a year, and I've spent all me money on whiskey and beer." He lightly drums the side of the boat with his other hand, keeping time.
"But now I'm returning with gold in great store, and I never will play the wild rover no more,
and it's no, nay, never--" (He thumps his free hand five times.) "No nay never, no more,
will I play the wild rover, no never, no more."
He smiles at her. "You have to sing the next chorus with me, or I'll forget the words." On purpose.
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"I cannot," she refuses from behind the shield of her hand. "I'll only be sick all over your shoes, and besides - I only know the Chant."
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"IIII went into an alehouse I used to frequent," Barrow sings, the volume seeming to raise along with his enthusiasm, "and I told the landlady me money was spent!"
The Chant. Please.
"I asked her for credit, she answered me 'nay'-- such custom as yours I can have any day, and it's--"
Even if she won't sing with him, he sways Fitcher's hand with his while he sings the chorus.
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"You told me to be interesting," he reminds Fitcher.
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"Go on then," she relents, all faux-exasperation. "You may as well finish the song."
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"I took from my pocket, ten sovereigns bright, and the landlady's eyes opened wide with delight!" The drumming begins anew, and he sways a little, at least doing his best not to violently rock the boat.
"She says I have whiskey and wines on the best, and the words that I told you were only in jest, AND IT'S,"
EVERYBODY