[Closed] Got A Light?

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Leander, Colin?, Benedict??
WHAT: Walking the parapet aka trying to get that cigarette case
WHEN: the days before Satinalia
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: following this plan, loosely

Despite all the planning, plotting, scheming that's been happening, when Athessa comes across Leander on the ramparts of the Gallows, it actually is by happenstance alone and not because she was looking for him.

The unfortunate part of this is that it means she's not as prepared as she'd like to be, but maybe that's a blessing in disguise. Maybe that's the elfroot talking. If elfroot could talk, what would it say?

"See any red birds?" She asks, the game they played while traveling a while back well remembered.

Comments

[sarcophage]

Happenstance has presented Athessa with something of a poetic scenario: Leander alone, a dark cigarillo perched light between his fingers, breathing fragrant smoke as he paces, here and there, with a book spread open in his other hand. Slim silhouette and windblown curls. He's just made a slow swivelling turn on one boot heel when,

See any—

he turns his head to find her there. Swift, not startled. The glimpse of expressionless concentration disappears behind a pleasant—if slightly wan—smile.

"Not today." Briefly raising the book, I'm busy. "Haven't been looking."

[sulahnan]

She shrugs, because she doesn't really care about whether or not he's seen any red birds anyway. Leaning on the parapet, she produces a joint from behind her ear and nods at the book.

"Wassat?"

[sarcophage]

"A book."

Hardy har har. He leaves time enough for a moment of exasperation, should she require it, before continuing on, "Of Nevarran language. Brushing up on vocabulary before we set off." With his own tightly rolled leaf he gestures to its cousin over yonder in Athessa's hand. "Same as usual?"

[sulahnan]

She nods. "Plus some Prophet's Laurel."

As if checking herself for matches--which she never has, making it a pointless action--she pats her pockets, and looks around. The nearest torch is far enough away to make her not want to jog over, light her joint, and jog back. She could do it, of course, but ugh.

"Got a light?"

[sarcophage]

His answer is a silent, and visually sarcastic, pause—is that a real question?—but the book in his hand closes all the same, and he beckons her casually.

"This won't do, will it?" The cigarillo's smouldering tip, he means, reckoning not.

[sulahnan]

"Nah, gotta be an open flame or it won't burn evenly."

[sarcophage]

"Bring it here, then," and he slips the book under his arm. Here means closer, and closer means within arm's reach, while he rubs two fingers and thumb together in preparation. Warming up, as it were.

Those three fingertips press lightly together—wait—then the flame ignites, settling after the initial burst into a soft and steady shape, as though he's holding a candle wick.

[sulahnan]

She does as bidden, with only slight hesitation. It's just fire, it'll be fine.

"Doesn't everyone in Nevarra speak Trade, anyway?" She rotates the joint over the flame, making sure the cherry that's formed will burn evenly the whole way down. "Why brush up?"

[sarcophage]

"True, it's easy enough to get by in the major cities, but the most interesting conversations happen in Nevarran."

Leander holds steady for her, watching her technique with mild interest. It's just fire; it's fine. When she's finished he'll slide his fingers down the length of his thumb, in something like a mock snap, to snuff the flame. Back to his own smoke, then. He seems ready to reopen the book.

"And I enjoy speaking it, besides. It's a beautiful language."

[sulahnan]

"Got any favorite words, then?" She steps over to the parapet, hopping up onto it to sit instead of just leaning this time. Brings the freshly lit herb to her mouth and takes a drag. "Any good swears?"

The swears and raunchy stuff are the best things to learn in any language, as far as Athessa is concerned.

[sarcophage]

"Oh, yes—the profanity is fantastic. Would you like an example?" Of course she would. "When a Nevarran man doesn't care about anything you've just told him, he might say," a few crisply plucked words in another language, "which means he plans to write it on his balls. That's tame, of course—there's some astonishingly filthy stuff. I'm not sure I could bring myself to speak it in front of a young lady."

(A young lady named Clio taught him most of it.)

[sulahnan]

Athessa laughs, hoping she'll remember that useful phrase when it's pertinent.

"Luckily there aren't any young ladies about. Let's hear some of the filthy stuff!" She leans forward, elbows on her knees, a rapt audience.

[sarcophage]

While taking one of the last pulls from his diminished cigarillo, Leander looks like he's ready to laugh along with her; instead he exhales around a smile.

"All right, one more." After he clears his throat, he pronounces a brief phrase, pointing at her once—lightly, with the hand holding the smoke—for emphasis. "Literally: I shit in your mother's ribcage. Extremely offensive. Sounds pretty, though, doesn't it?"

[sulahnan]

"It did before I knew what it meant." Now all she'll be able to hear is the meaning, not the melodic cadence of the language. She takes in some more smoke, holds it, and lets it go.

"I didn't know you spoke Nevarran."

[sarcophage]

"I lived there for a time."

It's conversational, the way he says it, but for him the attachment runs much, much deeper than that—and not only for the reasons with human shape. He never stopped writing Nevarran in his journals (most of which he burnt as they filled up), never stopped thinking in it privately, conversing with himself in silence or murmurs, even when he was otherwise immersed in Rivaini sounds. (He developed a reputation for it, ended up having to explain to a group of senior mages that he wasn't conversing with demons. That was less distressing than it should've been.)

If he had to lose everything else of Nevarra, he could keep the language, at least.

"Kostos Averesch has been helping me keep it up. Not the profanity," he's quick to add, as if Averesch would care either way. "That I kept from earlier."

[sulahnan]

She snorts. "That's a surprise. I would've thought he'd swear like a sailor."

It's mostly a joke. His temperament is right for the swearing but his demeanor is more tight-lipped, at least around her. Sure, they get to talking about this and that over drinks or a smoke, much like this, but the idea of Kostos offering up vocabulary when he uses a fraction of any language is still very funny.

[sarcophage]

"In Trade, certainly. Nevarran profanity is a little more... severe. They don't tend to throw it around so casually, especially in the Circles. It's a bit upper class that way—they raise their children to be proper." Obedience in all respects. The strange, semi-privileged oppression of magical boarding schools. "That's only my experience, of course. Averesch could well have grown out of that—I'm not personally acquainted with his proclivities."

With a particular glance aside, mostly through his eyelashes, he murmurs through smoke, "Not all of them, anyway."

[sulahnan]

Her only answer to that is a shrug. Just because she fucked him once doesn't mean she's any more acquainted with Kostos' proclivities, whatever that means.

Athessa sits back, propping herself up on the heel of one hand while the other holds her gently smoldering joint. "Dalish swearing is pretty much the same as swearing in Trade, far as I can remember."

[sarcophage]

Leander's response to that is a vague hum with a falling tone of polite acknowledgement to soften his disinterest in wandering any further from the text under his arm. Shortly, he draws his last from the depleted cigarillo, and breathes the smoke back on it while he snuffs it with a few calm, bare-fingered pinches to the cinder. (It's only halfway showing off; this is his habit even when alone.)

"Have you ever thought to combine one of these with one of yours? It's quite common in Rivain."

[sulahnan]

"Nah, never liked the smell," or the taste. Sometimes, back when she lived and worked in Rivain, she'd get stuck in a small room with multiple people smoking cigarillos or their hybrid spliffs, and end up ducking out as soon as her business was finished. It would turn her stomach and spin her head, if she wasn't careful.

"Did you live in Rivain, too?"

[sarcophage]

"At Dairsmuid, yes."

Once he's tucked the stub in his pocket, Leander stands there holding the book in as plain a fashion as he can manage without losing that casual air. Perhaps if he makes himself less visually interesting she will become bored with him and wander away again.

"You're familiar with Derrica, yes? We were there together."

[sulahnan]

If Leander wanted to bore her into leaving, mentioning Derrica was the wrong tactic. It only makes Athessa look more interested, and she leans forward.

"Really? What was that like?"

[sarcophage]

Her interest is met with its opposite: a polite shuttering.

"It was all right, as far as Circles go, until they tried to kill us."

[sulahnan]

"That does tend to put a damper on things..."

[sarcophage]

"Indeed."

Andraste save him from this conversation. Leander abruptly smiles, scoops the book back into hand, and gestures with it meaningfully. Soft thump of his fingers on the cover and all.

"Anyway, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to it."