faderift | [Closed] Got A Light?

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[Closed] Got A Light?

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.

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"I mean, if you're offering--" She's definitely not gonna say no to free food, and judging by that pie, Colin's a good cook. Which is a new experience for her. Her own cooking, in the field, is all about necessity, and at the Gallows she never has to cook at all.

A playful grin spreads across her face. "Though I feel compelled to say that...while you're definitely cute," this is a joke, clearly. She knows he doesn't have ulterior motives here. "You're sadly not my type."

That gets a laugh. "Guest bedroom," he repeats. "But thank you for telling me I'm cute. You'll like everyone, if they haven't gone home already. The staff, I mean."

He clearly doesn't get told he's cute often enough.

"Are you saying I'll like only the staff, or that I'll like everyone, but the staff might have already gone home?"

It's very rare, at least.

"It's just me and the staff," Colin clarifies. "Obviously I wouldn't say you'll like everyone in the world."

They arrive, and he holds the door open for her. "M'lady," he says teasingly.

With someone more her type, or with Kostos (the only exception to the rule), her response to that would be: There are easier ways to get me alone, you know.

Instead, when he holds open the door she snorts--actually snorts with laughter and dips into a curtsy the way she learned at that etiquette party they all had to attend. "Oh, thank you, Ser."

Colin laughs. As she enters, he closes the door behind her.

"It's splendid to see you, Lady Moneyface. I believe the last time we saw each other was the post-Wintersend Ball Wintersend Soiree After-Party. So long ago, it's a travesty."

"Oh! My dear Hugh G. Fortune," she exclaims in a wildly fictional accent, clasping her hands together dramatically. "It has been far, far too long. I'm afraid daddy has completely taken over my schedule--" This, pronounced shed-jewel the way fancy folk do. "--with so much nonsense, and he's even taken to cancelling the lavish tea parties I keep trying to organize. It was simply too much, I had to sneak away!"

"I say, old thing!" Colin exclaims with his hand to his heart. "What an awful--a truly wret-ched thing to endure! Your tea parties have been a mainstay of Tuesday nights since the beginning of the age! Why, it's a travesty to deprive us all of them!"

As they banter, he leads her down the hallway toward the kitchen.

She hooks her arm in his as they walk and pats his hand consolingly. "Yes, it's simply dreadful to be deprived of our..." Fuck, her improv skills are failing her-- "...Darjeeling!"

Nice save. She grins, nearly breaking character but she reins it in. "What say we make up for lost time, eh? All we need is tea and sandwiches!"

"Huzzah!" Colin agrees, having no idea what Darjeeling means. "Tea and sandwiches! Except--" he breaks character "--is that an actual request for sandwiches, or am I still cooking?"

Oh good, she doesn't have to keep this up, him breaking is all the permission she needs to drop the facade and shake her head. "No, no, I mean, unless you want sandwiches, but I'm not picky."

-

After dinner, which is delicious and is only saved from having its last scraps licked off the plate by politeness' sake, Athessa tips her chair back and balances it on two legs, looking around and taking in the room. Even just the kitchen is pretty nice. There's probably a proper dining room around somewhere, but who's going to bother with the muss and fuss of a full dinner setting for only two people?

"It's really just you by yourself here?"

It's always so much more fun to cook for company than for oneself alone.

"Well, Lexie still has staff here," he replies. "But they live elsewhere, and she lives with her husband. So...yes, most of the time. I go to work before the staff gets here, and often I'm back after they leave."

Which, it sucks sometimes. He likes his alone time, but there can very much be too much of a good thing.

"Seems like that'd get kinda lonely after a while."

That's the main reason she hasn't moved into one of the single rooms in the Gallows. Sure, sometimes she wishes she had, for the sake of privacy and safekeeping, but other times the sounds of other people around is a comfort. Not in the least because it's how she grew up.

"Well, I talk to people all day." It's not a denial, but her statement does seem to take a bit of wind out of his sails. A finger taps against the tabletop a few times. "But it can be. But it's...living in the Gallows was very hard for me. I know it's not a Circle anymore, but it still looks like one."

She mulls that over for a moment before nodding, slowly.

"I can see that," she says, "I feel the same way about brothels and public houses. Fine to visit, not great to live in."

"Bad experiences?" He doesn't want to assume she worked at anything which might be described as an establishment, especially since it's the very last thing he would expect from someone like her. She speaks her mind.

"Something like that," she hedges. It's not a topic she likes to talk about, especially not when sober. The way she is with emotions, she knows that it'll be easier to process, easier to share that part of her past from a cloud, when she won't get overwhelmed with every little thought that crosses her mind or every feeling she doesn't have a name for.

So she isn't going to say anything more about it right now. The experience of panicking and throwing the cigarette case off the battlements was sobering in itself, to say nothing of the time spent on the ferry, at the woodworker's, and now here.

But, thinking of the cigarette case draws a furrow between her brows.

"Hey, I...don't think we should tell Benedict. About the case."

Colin hesitates. He's been so focused on what would make Benedict happy that he feels he's put Athessa in danger. And telling Benedict would increase the chances of Athessa being caught. He nods gently.

"Do you...want to return the box to Leander, when it's fixed? With your apologies. Say you had it fixed for him and I helped you get it out of the water. I can't help worrying it's going to come back to haunt you, and maybe Benedict as well."

"What? Oh, fuck no, I'm not apologizing to him," particular emphasis on him, like she's spitting the word out because it tastes bad. "I just don't think we should tell Benedict just yet. He's not exactly in a position to keep secrets right now, so..."

She shrugs and gestures vaguely. "It's...better for him if he doesn't know, because then if he's questioned, he doesn't have to lie."

"Then we won't." She's right about that. He'd imagined a Satinalia miracle and now it's anything but. He looks away. "But he does know I wanted to get it for him. So does Leander. And the last thing I want to come of this is you getting arrested for petty theft. Or me, for that matter."

That, she laughs at. "Wouldn't be the first time I've been arrested," And it won't be the last is the obvious end to that statement.

"If anyone gets arrested for theft it'll be me, which is fine. Honestly fine. Worse things could happen and at least then you'll be able to tell Benedict without having to worry about plausible deniability."

Or she'll be able to tell him herself from a neighboring cell in the dungeon.

He looks slightly alarmed when she mentions being arrested before, but the rest of her words seem to talk him down. If being arrested isn't as bad as he's been imagining, and she's okay with it? What is he so worried about?

He gives her a little smile. "I guess this definitely means we're friends. You and I." He leans back in his chair and folds his arms. "Though no one can prove you stole anything, you know. You threw it, and either it was lost at sea or it was destroyed or both. The box will be safe here, and they're not about to raid a noblewoman's house over a two-bit cigarette box. I'm extremely good at hiding things."

"Nice to meet you, Extremely Good At Hiding Things, I'm Extremely Bad At Lying," she chuckles and dismisses her own words with a wave. Yeah, so the chances of getting caught are pretty good, but-- "At least it'll be arrest via Riftwatch and not the city guard."

Even though they had just posited the question of whether or not they can trust their organization, when they'd stoop to such measures to bring in someone who is clearly more fool than felon, Athessa can't bring herself to look on Riftwatch through the same veil she sees Kirkwall's officials. If Riftwatch were corrupt, then they'd have something to worry about. As it is, one of the Division heads is...an elf, of sorts. And mages are treated fairly, as far as she can tell. The Gallows isn't Kirkwall, and Riftwatch isn't the group of enforcers whose hands delivered her into such lasting pain.

That storm cloud passes over her as soon as it appears, and her voice rises to just shy of her very fictional impression of nobility once again. "I'm shocked, nay, wounded that our friendship wasn't cemented the moment you called me Lady Moneyface, dear Hugh."

A grin splits his face open. "Well, it was. But you realize it's not a true friendship until we can implicate one another and don't, and that happened before I called you Lady Moneyface."

"Aha, so we've been friends this whole time! And it took you this long to realize it? Tsk tsk, Colin, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one."

Clearly the smart one isn't her. See: chucking their prize off the battlements. She's gonna kick herself over that for a good long while, in the back of her mind.

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