open.

[luaithre]

WHO: Marcus Rowntree and some random happenstances personified.
WHAT: Covering off Marcus' arrival to Riftwatch, and whatever interactions may occur immediately after.
WHEN: Throughout Firstfall.
WHERE: Many places!
NOTES: Some open prompts beneath the text. I will also use this post as a catch all for specific threads so let me know if you'd like to do anything else.

THE DOCKS AND STABLE; ARRIVAL.

It's a vague hour of the morning when a man and his horse arrive at the Gallows, made vaguer thanks to the heavily overcast nature of the sky obscuring the sun's position within it. It's late enough that the frost is melted, and horse hooves impress deep tracks in the slush that's already accumulated in the path leading from the docks to the compound where Marcus has been informed are also the stables.

The horse is large, and grey like churned snow, and sedate. The stranger leading it is of a medium build and dressed in a similar palette and also sedate, though as he moves, his gaze inevitably drags back up to the hulking shadow of the Gallows proper.

Within the stables, he doesn't seek help -- he directs the large gelding towards the likeliest looking stall, unloads saddle bags, finds a secure place to stash saddle and all the rest of it, tends to feeding and watering and a brush down. He doesn't speak out loud to the animal as some might, no soothing humming or praise, but his actions are all gentle and attentive. Although Marcus does not seek interruption, nor let it stop him from going about his tasks, he isn't actively deflecting it, taking note of every person and animal that move through the stables.

THE GALLOWS; FINDING A ROOM.

[ ooc ; limited to one. and taken! ]

The fortress feels very empty.

And it isn't, of course. The sconces have been tended to and the floors seem more or less swept, and where they don't, fresh bootprints glisten on worked stone, indicative of people passing through. But the Gallows are immense in dimension compared to most constructions, and the last time Marcus was here, it was borderline crowded.

He takes himself to the mage tower without much thought behind it, but explores both it and its Templar twin as he peruses for a place to stay, taking his time. Along with his staff strapped across his back, his other worldly possessions are contained to a compact set of saddlebags he hooks over his shoulder, held in place as he walks the rows of doors.

Noting those that are taken as well as those that aren't, Marcus touches his hand to one door with just a seam showing between it and the frame, pushing. The hinges creak and the door swings and-- opens up to a furnished room with firelight, and a person in it.

"Oh," he says, standing still, hand hovered. "Pardon me."

DINING; LETTERS AND CARDS.

If Marcus eats among with everyone else, he normally chooses a time less crowded, and brings something to do with him.

Here, he has a few loose pages of inexpensive parchment, and he uses some extra implements to keep the corners down -- an empty candle holder, a heavy fork -- and writes while his food cools. His handwriting is neat and without particular elegance, and he concentrates on completing a section or even a whole page before he sets his pencil down and returns to his meal.

On another evening, he has set an empty plate aside and filled his cup from a pitcher of dark wine, and is laying out cards in front of himself. They don't look like any kind of conventional set of playing cards, with painted images in fine colours that wash out too easily under the golden light of the hearth, the candles on the table.

He offers to whoever catches his eye or is sitting at the same table, "Care to play?"

KIRKWALL; ASKING SIRI.

"Excuse me."

It's getting late, and if you don't start for the docks soon, the last few ferries will be leaving for the Gallows without you. Not to lean into an awkward second person narrative situation, but you are stopped by a voice from your blindspot, belonging to a man you may or may not recognise as a new arrival. A man pushing into his late thirties, manner calm and collected as he stands still in the bustle of the street, apparently impervious to people pushing by. Dressed neatly and warmly, hands in gloves of fine leather, and his expression is mild in some contrast to the innate severity that pale eyes have, and the squiggled scar running down one cheek.

Marcus has a quick smile ready, which resettles to fade as he speaks in an accent that pegs him as originating from the nearbyish Starkhaven. "I don't mean to intrude, but I believe you're with Riftwatch. By any chance were you heading back that ways for the evening?"

WILD CARD; THRILL ME.

[ ooc ; stock standard riftwatch mission, a ferry ride to kirkwall, requesting help to lift something heavy, trapped in an elevator, whatever you like. ]

Comments

[luaithre]

"The Gallows I know a little," Marcus says. Her name filed away for later inquiry, as well as, like. How it's good to know people's names. "The Riftwatch is new."

And there's a crinkle at his brow, articulating a little apology since his initial and very reflexive pardon from before. Lots of empty rooms and he happens to intrude on one of the few taken, while the lady has her hair down and everything. His hand wanders out to go ahead and grip the handle of her door so that he might start on a graceful exeunt.

But now that he's quit scoping the place, his eyes dart to the green light emanating from her hand, and apology vanishes from his expression in place of an interest at remove, movement hesitating. He says;

"I have a rude question. Seeing as I've already transgressed." May as well make it a twofer.

[ipseite]

Her eyebrow rises, very slightly. Lord knows that might very well mean just about anything, under the circumstances. From his demeanor, from the staff that he carries on his back and the way he has approached this thus far—in all likelihood, not something disinteresting, though there is room for her to have violently misjudged.

She says, “I may have a rude answer,” which based on about thirty seconds acquaintance with her he might reasonably conclude is unlikely.

It is permission, all the same. At least to ask.

[luaithre]

It might be disinteresting.

If only because certain realities are likely very pedestrian for most of Riftwatch but are very fascinating, maybe frightening, for those that are not of Riftwatch. Marcus has heard of people who wander too close to a Fade rift getting lanced with magic and bound to it, or however that actually goes, and it seems like a likelier guess than the alternative.

But he's been around enough Orlesians for her accent's subtleties to move him to guess at the unlikelier thing. Her response is-- unexpected, in a fun way, even if he doubts that she will in fact have a rude answer.

"Are you not from this world?" is the phrasing he lands on, standing in the doorway with a hand on the handle. If this is awkward, he doesn't seem to notice.

[ipseite]

All it takes to see the pedestrian as something fascinating again is to stand in a slightly different place to look upon it. It is a professional obligation to not tire of this, particularly; she does less direct, outward facing diplomatic work than she once did, but not none. If the loudest voice is the one that carries, then she had better not be silent.

So her expression says ah, but that's all.

“There are several schools of thought on the most precise technical answer,” she says, which means yes. “An argument might be made that I am now, as I am now, very much of this world. But the life I remember before Riftwatch is not, no. Not of Thedas.”

[luaithre]

His other hand rests on the doorframe to lean as he listens, blankly absorbing as to The Discourse until she builds to her answer. Thoughtful, he angles a look downwards, before he steps into the room.

Careful, so as not to knock staff against the frame of the doorway, well used to accounting for its presence in the way he moves. Once inside, she can see where the end of the weapon angled to clear the floor is built in with a blade that runs for almost a foot, embedded and fixed well into dense wood. Most of the more polite Enchanters this side of the continent don't come with those.

Though perhaps more, as of late. He shoulders the saddlebags off of himself, but stops short of just flinging them down -- propriety demands he hold them hovered and ask, "May I?"

[ipseite]

The contrast between man and weapon is stark. She considers it a moment, lowering herself into one of the chairs by the desk; the second less well-matched to it, a recent addition to the room. She settles on, “I should not think of asking you to stand with their weight while we are speaking,” as if all of this is very ordinary, and as if by striking the right tone of courtesy she can neatly arrange and package it into something familiar and controllable.

There are no true loyalists in Riftwatch, but the number of dedicated rebels has long been nearly as low.

It is a particularly large stick that he carries, walking softly.

“Please. Sit.”

All five feet of her the gracious lady. She reaches out to her teapot again, the glyph flaring to life under her hand— “It isn't tea, but it is pleasant heated,” and the scent that begins to rise is very slightly alcoholic.

[luaithre]

The saddlebags are lowered, and he loosens the buckle near his shoulder that releases the harness keeping his staff strapped to his back. The weapon itself is set down with more care, keeping blade up from marking her floors.

He sits. He does so like he is glad to be of his feet, some.

But there remains some propriety beneath the occasional smudge of dirt and his own weariness (and the situation entire), arrangement of limbs and posture all mannerly in the way that such habits are bone deep. His attention goes to the pot and the distinct sharp scent it emanates as the glyph glows, and he tips his head to best examine this little mark of magic.

"That one of your own devising?" he queries.

[ipseite]

“It is,” she agrees, arranging two cups while the little teapot glows obediently, warming its contents. “Though I would classify much of my practise of magic as rediscovery. Books on witchcraft, I fear, had gone the way of most known witches—into the pyre.”

When she says that Thedas was revelatory in the freedoms which mages did have even within the Circle system, she has never meant that to reflect well on Thedas so much as an indictment of her own home. Knowing some of what became of it, then, as well as the different positioning of magic and magical ability in Sulleciel in the first place...

Neither have lived up to their promise. Here, though, she is still alive; there is still time.

[luaithre]

She can consider herself watched as well as looked at, whatever subtle line between those two things may exist. He absorbs this information quietly and it disappears behind a somewhat inscrutable expression, content to sit and ponder to the subtle sounds of water warming, of cups being placed. It's maybe odd, that he offers, "You have my sympathies.

"How long have you been here?" as he wanders out a hand to idle with the cup in front of him, turning it. He supplies; "I'd wager long enough to have a handle on how our witches get along."

[ipseite]

Not unwelcome, if it's so odd. If it was wrong for Marius to build his empire on the back of martyred women, it is not wrong to mourn them; it is not wrong, she thinks, to have made anyone care. Nor to mourn the loss of knowledge as well as lives, of history that was unwritten and picked apart and remade, what was lost that no amount of laws changed or churches burned would ever bring back.

She pours two cups.

“Two and a half years,” she says, with a small smile he might take for agreement. More than long enough for that. “I am the organization's chief cryptographer, though I previously occupied the role of ambassador at the head of the diplomacy division. To date, though multiple rifters have held such positions of power in our tower of leadership, and staffed their offices with this mage or that, we have yet to ask anyone to expressly follow the orders of a native-born mage as provost, ambassador, commander or scoutmaster.”

So she has a handle on how things stand. Yes.

“The ability to learn from one another was a revelation to me,” she says, considering him. “I would have been remiss to overlook anything before me.”

[luaithre]

Marcus picks up the cup once its charged, bringing it up to catch its scent more fully. His attention flicks up at her summary of Riftwatch leadership to date as he does so, and his mouth curls a little at the corner -- something like a smile, even if it never reaches any other part of his face.

He sips from his cup. "I'm certain many would say that it's enough that mages are free to come and go and collaborate as I heard they do here," he says. He lifts his cup a little to her, indicating her revelations. "It's not for nothing, of course."

Upon sitting down and putting himself in proximity, there'd been the overriding scent of things like 'horse' and 'mud' and 'rain-soaked wool', quickly extinguished or at least neutralised with the rise of warm alcohol and the cleaner aromas of her own living space. His clothing, anyway, has long since captured and held hostage the scent of smoke, released with minor movement, subtle enough as to be borderline subliminal.

"Those are lofty sounding titles."

[ipseite]

“Many,” she agrees, without agreeing any further. It is not nothing, but neither is not nothing a place to stop and where mages within Riftwatch fall upon that subject is of great and immediate interest to her. She supposes she might be more direct, but then: he is very new. And she has not gone so native as to forget the lessons that have allowed her to thrive here.

Burned in as they are.

“Riftwatch's hierarchy is most direct. Possessing a title within it typically means a great deal more responsibility, and markedly less respect.” Which can be true and still coexist with the fact that it is interesting that a mage might not possess the highest of them. Responsibility in Riftwatch means, usually, suspicion and blame from one's own subordinates—that a mage might still be less trusted to have a hand in decisions that will lead to them almost certainly being blamed for things that had nothing to do with those decisions and were in fact not their fault (among the things that might be), and less trusted than a pirate from Tevinter, well.

It makes the pirate from Tevinter's interest in them interesting, too. Another time.

[luaithre]

He's had conversations like this before, where something unsaid fills in the gaps of what is said like shadow, silent but seen. It is in his nature to be direct, but it is also in his nature to be tactical.

So Marcus focuses on this more apparent thing they're talking about. Gladly, at that. The Riftwatch is an enigma to those on the outside, after all.

There's a twinge of humour writ at the corner of his mouth as he asks, "Which one of those two things had you step down?"

[ipseite]

Petrana hums over her cup, something like ruefulness tugging at her own mouth—

“I suppose, boiled down as simply as that, the latter. I had sooner leap than be pushed, and so. I did appreciate the forewarning that I would be, when it came, but that was confirmation more than...I was not surprised.”

A tilt of her hand. “Are you at all familiar with the negotiations between the Inquisition, Chantry and the mages who joined the former?”

[luaithre]

Marcus finds himself waiting for her to demystify what are elusive references, at best, and equally interested to see if she refrains. But then her question, and he taps his fingertips a little on the side of the cup he's holding.

"I avoided conscription, myself," he says, after a moment of thought, his tone neutral in spite of a vaguely inaccurate, loaded way of terming what exactly happened, way back when. "And so I only know of hearsay. Which negotiations in particular?"

Because what news got to him has come fragmented. Of the whispered declarations out of the Inquisition, of the strikes, the availability of phylacteries, of Riftwatch's casting off from its main body.

[ipseite]

Conscription is certainly an interesting choice of word. Particularly, given the particulars of the subject that she has of late circled back to repeatedly. She holds her teacup with her fingertips resting gently against its warm sides, and shrugs, elegant.

Less elegant than if she were slightly more put together, but it rather adds to her charm in the moment.

“The Inquisition came into possession of a significant number of phylacteries which were at one point housed here. We were informed of Inquisition leadership's intention to unilaterally decide what would be done with them, with regard to the Chantry, and—you know, I rather forget if the instruction we sit upon our hands waiting was explicit or merely implied.”

You know, she probably doesn't.

“It seemed to me that the Inquisition had an opportunity to prove that it had not—as you say—conscripted mages to act as indentured servants. It would have been regrettable for them to so disappointingly overlook it in the interests of pacifying familiarity. In the interests, therefore, of removing that temptation, I shared the information that had come to me with the concerned parties that they might act upon it as they saw fit. Direct action against the phylacteries themselves might have served,” with a musing frown, “but I think regardless of the longevity of the agreements that were reached, there was value to be had in forcing the Chantry to the table at all. No one left happy, but that is rather the nature of negotiation.”

[luaithre]

"So I've heard."

Said simply, it'd be easy to miss the humour seeded there.

And Marcus is thoughtful besides, bringing his cup up to finish the mouthful that's left, watching her as he does so before his gaze dips back down into the emptied vessel. "I'm certain you made some interesting friends since then," he says. "And otherwise."

His hand hovers out, in silent request of pouring himself another drink. Polite enough, given the context. He will offer to top up her glass as well, all silent gesture, as they speak of other things.

[ipseite]

“You must meet Enchanter Julius,” she says of her interesting friends (though if they were adding quotation marks, Julius would probably cite Melys) and probably not unrelated to some of the traces of humor, permitting his charge of the teapot with a slight tilt of her fingers. “Well, I expect you will make the acquaintance of many here in short order.”

It is so absent of dryness that it must be when she says, over the rim of her teacup, “I have not found you shy.”

[luaithre]

That gets a subtle smile, keeping his eyes on the task of distributing a second helping of liquor and setting the pot back down. "I opened an interesting door," he says, as if that might be adequate enough explanation for having then gone through it.

The liquor is relaxing. It shouldn't shock most to know how many full grown adults are lightweights after spending their life in the Circles and so he is not quick to drink from his refill, sitting back and feeling muscles bleed a little of their natural tension. He glances aside, then, to the detail that had caught his attention before -- the larger boots, next to smaller slippers.

"Enchanter Julius?" is as much a prompt as it is a guess, bringing cup to mouth.

[ipseite]

“A project leader,” she elaborates, following his gaze to Julius's boots and allowing the smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth in consequence. “He oversees research specifically regarding Corypheus and the blights. He is, himself, a veteran of the fifth.”

Her gaze wanders from Julius's boots to other evidence of his presence in her life, and their shared quarters; his papers on the table rather than her desk. A cloak that from this angle might belong to anyone.

“He is a most reasonable and intelligent man. I fear I have been a terrible influence on him,” mildly, “as he did once consider himself a Loyalist. In truth, I have found that to be a lightly worn title and inevitably shed, this far from Madame Vivienne and Skyhold.”

[luaithre]

If Petrana is astute, she can likely read interest from the man sitting across from her. Curiousity, in its mildest form, as though matters of Circle politics were polite conversation to be had over tea. But they are drinking something stronger, all the same.

"Ah," Marcus says, "all the better to reach mass consensus on any given day."

Little joke, from someone having mingled with enough mages to know how tangled opinions can become. Which has always struck him has strange. It all seems very straight forward, most days, like a tangled nest of yarn that a set of silver scissors could make quick work of.

"I've not yet met a convert, anyway. Not quite so cleanly as that. I suppose the questions I'd have there, I ought preserve for the Enchanter. But I always thought it telling about that Loyalists fly one banner, and the rest have almost as many as there are mages. That's how it was a bit, anyway, at Andoral's Reach."