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Entry tags:
open.
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.
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 ;
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. ]
kirkwall;
There's a hitch in his voice, and a sway to his steps that lingers even when he's stopped walking and tried to get a look at the man that's spoken to him. Might look like sea legs but for the fact that they're on solid ground, and for the fact that Matthias smells as if he's been dipped in a barrel of ale. Takes a moment to fix on the man's face, and even once Matthias has managed it, he can't be sure. Does he know him?
"New, are you." The pleasant tint that the abundance of drink had given the tavern has not transferred well to the open streets of Kirkwall. It's loud out here, too full of people or too empty of them by turns, depending on which street you're walking. And it smells, and it's all over gray, and damp, and now there's something talking at him. One, someone. Matthias scrubs a hand over his face, and scratches at his hair. Trying to be normal, and steady. "D'you really not yet know where the ferry is?"
no subject
There is a patient sort of humour to his tone, recognition having settled already in his features as he gives the younger man-- no, boy, really-- an open and frank assessment as to his state. Upright in spite of the way he seems to be adjusting his feet and stance as though the solid earth beneath them were shifting like a ship deck, so that could all go to pot as soon as they start moving.
Still, Marcus continues to address him as he has been, which is, as though he were sober and capable, sharp focus couched in bland pleasantry. "But perhaps not in time for the last ferry back. So if you'd be kind enough to let me join you your way there?"
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Mild judgement swings immediately toward inclusiveness. Even if Matthias wasn't sure he knew who he was talking to (or rather, sure that he knows that he's talking to someone he knows), he'd still have warmed to such a request. Doesn't at all mind being the one that knows what's going on. There's authority to it. Something brilliant. Like being on the inside.
Right, only how does he know this fellow? If he could get a real focus on him that would help, but his attention keeps sliding off. To help himself, Matthias grabs blindly for the arm he can see just in the edge of his vision, intending to pull him along and escort him.
"S' this way," he says, loosely, pleasantly. "Helps to memorize the landmarks. And all. There's a, erm, like, a statue... there. Ahead. See it?"
no subject
Well, the advice is fair. Marcus lifts his eyes to note the statue, as if picking it out from the rise of buildings hadn’t occurred to him completely. The idea of lifting his gaze above his head to orient himself at all, at that.
"I see it," he confirms. "Just." It's getting darker, and everything looks a lot stranger than it did during the hazy daylight he'd been exploring under a few hours ago.
Rain starts in fits, the kind where it feels like an intermittent shaking of droplets from a canopy. It doesn't spur Marcus on much faster than he's already going, and he is none too careful about the puddles they traipse through either, save for any that seem particularly deep or polluted. He's saying, as they go, a little like explanation for his poor sense of direction; "Starkhaven hasn't anything like a Lowtown, from what I recall of it. Kirkwall feels like something that grew out from itself."
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"Never been t' there. Starkhaven." Matthias stretches his right hand out in front of him so he can look at his fingers. They do not look particularly ale-y, but then, he hasn't got them held up before a light. Always helps to try to see liquid through light. He looks about for some--torchlight, maybe, or the light of some house that's not closed up shutters just yet. Everything has a kind of haze to it, a little like fog. Has it gone foggy? If it is, he won't be able to see anyways.
Anyways. He drops his hand. "But you're onto it, yeah? 'Cause, 'cause Kirkwall, and like... it grew up, right? Like... a shell, sort of. A snail. That's its history, all the mines and things. That's Darktown, and Lowton, all there on the bottom, so that makes Lowtown, it's its softie bits, the snail's. Or," and Matthias frowns, and rubs a hand over his face, "maybe... well, how do shells grow, d'you reckon? Maybe it's all shell. Softie bits inside. Can we stop a moment?"
He's dragging to a stop on his own. Up to his companion if he walks on without him.
no subject
That it's all shell, anyway. Protecting something, brittle, all anyone sees, strangely organic in a spiral that grows out of itself instead of in. But Matthias is stopping and Marcus stops as well on a slight delay, giving pause to a metaphor he was quite enjoying, drunkenly inspired or not -- mostly so that he can lazily pivot around and reach a hand out to touch the boy's shoulder in the interests of steadying him.
There are some he'd be fine with leaving in the gutter if he were impatient enough. He feels impatience now, but it's tempered with concern. "You're alright -- let's take a moment, then, aye?"
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He sways into that shoulder touch, commits some of his weight there. The man might as well be a wall that he is leaning up against. He takes a few thick breaths, then lets his head flop back so he's squinting up at the sky. It's a murky sky. Probably Kirkwall's fault. Has he said that aloud? No, he decides after a moment of reflection, he hadn't said anything aloud, but he ought to say something soon, or he'll start to look like a real weirdie.
And then, like lighting, recognition comes to him. His chin drops nearly to his chest in his haste to look around at the man he's talking to.
"You're Marcus Rowantree." Revered, awed, still very drunk. "I knew I knew you! I knew it. I'm--Matthias--we met in the, oh, shit. Shit. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not--I mean, this isn't, there's," and he grabs at Rowantree's arm so that he can push himself away, stand on his own two feet, put to rights his rumpled tunic and shirt and cloak. Which proves to be his undoing, because the wave of nausea comes so fast that he can't do anything about it except fold nearly in half and vomit right on Marcus Rowantree's boots.
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And then that happens.
And perhaps apology is called for.
He does jerk an instinctive step back -- too late -- and processes the warm and wet sensation splashing now against one of the two pairs of boots he owns. "Alright," he says, out loud and not necessarily to Matthias so much as the universe. The hand that had been resting on Matthias' shoulder -- and leapt up at a hover -- comes down to pat the young man's back, and then sort of scruff the back of his shirt to ensure steadiness, and the ability to pull him along.
"Come on, we're getting cleaned up," he says. "If you're quite done."
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"Yeah," he manages in a wrung-out voice, "Maker's... I'm an idiot. I'm sorry. Sorry. And now you'll never speak to me again, and you'll think I'm this... I promise, I am not this... I promise, all right? I can manage, normally, I really can. Just, it's, you know? Freedom. And money. I have money now you don't even know people are always complaining about it but it's more'n I ever had and so I forget, that, like... We're not going to miss the last ferry, will we? Ahh, your bo-ots, I'll-- You have to let me clean them. Later. Please? Shit."
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Still pushing him along, and gripping harder should he start to waver.
"You're drunk," Marcus says, and there is an impatient edge to his tone, intended more to cut through Matthias's abject despair than it is to convey his own annoyance. "That's all. C'mon, sit down--"
Because they've arrived in a courtyard, and there's a blocky rise of stone at a comfortable height for sitting, one of four low walls that make up a large square fountain. The actual mechanisms look as though they've rusted up from disuse a long time ago, but the basin is full of murky looking water, which is Good Enough, if for literally nothing else.
It's beginning to rain. The spitting quality from before is gaining a more consistent patter, but Marcus ignores this as sets a foot against the edge of the basin, locating a kerchief from his pocket to best clean off his boots with the tolerance of someone who has probably had to clean off worse.
"You know," he says, "other young men your age are usually coming into having coin and freedoms the first time as well. Not just mages liberated from their Circles."
no subject
From here, Matthias looks dimly over his shoulder and down into the basin of water. Considers touching it. Remembers that he isn't alone, as Marcus Rowantree speaks again, and looks around wildly, his hands gripping at the crumbly edge of the Kirkwall fountain.
"Yeah," he agrees, with lingering misery now that he's come back to what's going on around him. That's his vomit on that boot. "And they're also idiots, aren't they. Other young men f'my age. Me and all like me. S'not an excuse, serah. I know that. And I don't mean for it to be, either. I shouldn't have said it. Done it. Both of 'em, really."
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It's right, that Matthias should go out into town and get stupidly drunk and maybe do things like gamble and lose his week's pension or kiss another young person and be late for the ferry. It's right that he should do these things as other young men do them. Still, there's the nagging concern, the unfair one, that this world is not balanced the way they might like to pretend it is.
Marcus knows he never got to be a reckless teenager himself, not in the ordinary ways. It's not nothing.
"I accept your apologies," he says. That's the matter done. "And if we hurry, we may make the ferry. If you're unwell, however, I can put us up somewhere for the evening."
It's maybe a little cruel that he offers the choice rather than make a decision, but he's still cleaning off his other boot, so. Regardless, he won't leave Matthias alone in this state. The natural inclination to play German Shepherd to an idiot drunk sheep is immediate and innate.
no subject
"Maker," he says, limply, "that's a right relief, serah. I mean it. I was thinking--"
Oh, wait, there's more. And the more sinks in, and--
"No, no--" Hastily, Matthias begins tugging at his shirtfront and cloak and tunic, trying to straighten himself out. It has the air of a man fighting with a wall hanging, a struggle against inanimate cloth that does not care at all what anyone wants of it. "I can manage the ferry. Can get to the ferry. I'm not, I mean, that was it. Serah. It's over. I think. You haven't got to spend money on me, I can, I've my own money. Which I've said, already, I s'ppose, I," oh, damn, and he rocks himself forward, trying to get onto his feet, "let's. I can manage. I swear."