Open | Life is just a troubled sea

[keenly]

WHO: Colin + You
WHAT: Open post for Haring
WHEN: Throughout the month
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: If you would like a starter, let me know.

I. Eyrie

No one here has yet been eaten by a griffon, but there's a first time for everything.

They're big. They're all so, so big, and they look hungry, and one of them is literally drooling. Fortunately, most of them are ignoring the normal-sized healer as he creeps about two feet into the eyrie, then stands there frozen. Is this a bad idea? This is a bad idea. Animals can smell fear, and these animals have sharp claws and sharp beaks and sharp talons. Thing is, these animals could mean life or death to a wounded ally. Moreover, he's learned a thing or two about himself from these bizarre dreams, and the most important of those things is that he's not as normal and boring as he has striven to be all his life. His instinct to hide from all things remotely heroic isn't as important as his curiosity, and when faced with both fear and wonder, he's going to try to act on the wonder.

That is, until one large, glossy, black griffon comes up behind him and nudges his elbow gently, at which point he chokes on a squawk and stumbles away from it. It follows. He bumps into another griffon, which makes an annoyed sound. Eventually he remembers to stand still. The black griffon approaches him and gives his shoulder a tiny headbutt. Colin turns positively grey. It gives his hand the gentlest of nips and Colin squeaks, backing away again.

II. Closed to Alexandrie

The doorman doesn't even have time to announce Lexie's guest before Colin is storming up to her. She has never seen him this angry, not even during their recent fight.

"You won't believe the conversation I just had," he snarls at the same time as the doorman stammers "A-apothecary Colin, my lady."

III. Obligatory workplace setting prompt

It's the apothecary. Maybe Colin is bottling potions and tinctures. Maybe he is sweeping. Maybe he is compounding various herbs. Maybe he is cooking lunch over the fireplace. Maybe he has run out of things to do and is sketching in a book. Come bother him.

IV. Wildcard

Comments

I. Eyrie

[sulahnan]

At first Athessa thinks that choked squawk was one of the griffons, barely affording it a thought, but when Colin squeaks, she ducks to look out from under Chawcey's neck and sees the tableau of affectionate griffin and terrified mage.

"I think Sunbeam likes you," she announces, ruffling Chawcey's feathers once more before stepping away, towards Colin. Or at least, starting to. Chawcey bumps his head against Athessa's back, making her stumble forward a step, and she huffs at him, only to have his massive head rest against her shoulder. "Quit it, ya nugget," she says, scratching under his chin and then shoving his head away. This time, Chawcey stays put.

"She's not gonna eat you, ya know."

[keenly]

"How do you know?" Sunbeam? This death machine is called Sunbeam? The griffon bumps her head against him again, this time closer to where he carries a satchel. By nuzzling, she manages to begin to open the flap.

"No, no," Colin says cautiously, drawing the satchel out of the way. Sunbeam follows it. What's in there that--

Colin follows a hunch and pulls out a bundle of fresh herbs. Sunbeam cannot have it soon enough and nearly gobbles it up straight away, but Colin holds it behind his back and raises a finger.

"Wait," he commands. To his surprise, the griffon obeys. He looks over at Athessa. "Catnip," he says with a small laugh. "Do you know if it's safe for them?"

[sulahnan]

"Catnip?" She repeats, raising her eyebrows. Then her shoulders, in a shrug. "Probably, they're part cat, right?"

But then of course, the effect it has on cats...

"Maybe just a little bit, it might make her a bit more aggressive."

[keenly]

More aggressive? Colin's eyes widen and he takes a single sprig from the bunch and drops it to the floor for Sunbeam to collect. He starts to put the rest in his pack, but now another griffon is approaching and nosing for it. Which leads others to wonder what all the fuss is about, and why not, catnip grows fast, so Colin simply scatters all of it on the floor and legs it to Athessa's side.

"What would you have done if I'd died?" he asks.

[sulahnan]

Athessa laughs as the spectacle unfolds, the griffons that congregate around the catnip starting to roll on it and prance and puff up their feathers and fur.

"You wouldn't have," she makes a point to say first, then considers it. "But I guess I would've been sad about it and made sure the griffons all got to their pens once they were done eating you."

[keenly]

"You're terrible," Colin accuses. One of the griffons passes too close to him on its way to the catnip and he shies away, bumping into her by accident. "Sorry," he says, extending an arm to return her to balance.

[sulahnan]

"Thanks," she says, as if terrible is an earnest compliment. "You gotta stop acting like you're smaller than them," she says, ignoring his apology and the bump itself in order to walk to where he'd dropped the catnip.

"Okay, okay, break it up--" She scoops up the catnip, shouldering aside some of the more feisty griffons and shooing away the others, but of course once the herb is in hand, that's what they gravitate to. But the good thing about the griffons is: they're all trained. So all it takes is a little authority to keep them in check. "Artichoke, you first. Blanche. Hugo, come on."

One by one, she gets them back in order, throwing a sprig of catnip each into their pens and closing the gates behind them. All, of course, except Chawcey (who doesn't seem to care about catnip or misbehaving) and Sunbeam.

[keenly]

"I am definitely not acting," Colin replies. Sunbeam, having made short work of the catnip, is now grooming herself, so he is given a bit of peace for now. Athessa is so at ease around the beasts, and here he is keeping his distance, arms folded protectively in front of his chest. He watches Sunbeam intently, noting the inky black of her coat makes her name deeply ironic. She moves rather like a cat, doesn't she?

"She's...actually quite pretty," he decides. "I'd need to train her to fly very still, if she's going to carry wounded. I don't even know how to go about doing that."

[sulahnan]

"Well, first you gotta be able to fly her at all, and before you can do that, you gotta relax."

Athessa pats Sunbeam idly on her way to stand before Colin and makes a face at his closed off posture. "I mean just look at you, I bet even your ass-cheeks are tense right now."

pour moi

[coquettish_trees]

The lady turns, her hands full of the evergreen boughs she’s arranging, eyebrows curving upwards at the approach. Her look quickly turns to genuine concern as she takes in the storm on his face, the set of his body, and Alexandrie releases the greenery, making her her hands free to reach for his as she moves to meet him.

“What has happened, Colin?” His name, not her customary endearment; acknowledgement that this is something not yet to be smoothed or comforted.

[keenly]

He could break something. He'd like to break something. He won't break anything. Just to have the satisfaction of aggressing upon something, he lays hands on a stool and tips it over. It barely makes a sound when it hits the floor.

[coquettish_trees]

Done like a man who’s never before given rein to his temper. A man who needs what he has whole more than he needs it broken. Alexandrie, who has never had any such compunction, who has always needed shards more than glasses, stains more than cloth, pauses in her movement to wordlessly retrieve her half-empty wine glass from the table and offer it to him with a level look. Given his gesture of just previous, there’s little room for doubt as to what she means him to do with it.

It’s claret. It will look striking—beautiful and terrible and inexorable—wherever it lands, should he oblige them both.

tw: mentions of attempted suicide

[keenly]

Colin sees the claret and imagines throwing it in Byerly's face. But Byerly isn't here, and the more Colin stares at the wine, the closer a bad memory creeps. Finding the bottle, opening the bottle, dumping its contents in the glass of wine. The image of it has the glass flying from his hand into the fireplace, crystal shattering against the stone, wine consumed by flame in a hot flash that heats Colin's face. He smiles.

That was satisfying.

"Thank you," he sighs.

[coquettish_trees]

She’d wondered if he would, or if he would not. And, if he would, what his choice would be. Alexandrie picks the ground for short sharp flares of rage when she only needs the feeling of the throw, the sound of the shatter for emphasis. The wall when she is righteous in her anger, so she can see the devastation and make visible its aftermath, wave it like a flag.

The fireplace is her choice when some of it is for herself. When she needs to have it strike back at her, if only with the flare of heat. Perhaps it is so for Colin as well. Or perhaps he chose it simply for the extra element of destruction. Perhaps to save the staff the pains of cleaning up a spill. It hardly matters. The sigh that follows it loosens her shoulders as well, the height of the tension broken with the glass, and she offers her hand again. It’s empty this time, palm up and waiting for his.

[keenly]

He takes her hand, and with the contact, the tirade begins.

"I might have overreacted. The trouble is, when someone knows you need something, and they offer it in exchange for something else, but then it turns out they have no right to offer it and no way of guaranteeing you that you will get that thing you need, that's wrong. And in this situation, that thing I need is protection from the Chantry after the war is over, provided the world hasn't ended. I tried to kill myself because I thought I had no way of getting that. And then it's offered, but with a whole lot of strings attached.
Vested interest, he called it. Because I need something, I then belong to his cause?"

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie thins her lips in concentration while she follows the quick darting patter of Colin’s speech, her hand a still quiet presence in his as she waits to see if more will flood forth.

[keenly]

"You, and Byerly. When I needed justice in order to live, you rigged a trial for me, and I'm grateful. You did all the work, and all I did was stand in front of a blackhaller and await your pre-ordained verdict." He seems to run out of a thought then, or at least find that it isn't quite lining up with what's bothering him. It's close, but not quite the same road. His lips part, his gaze wanders, and after a moment, he breathes in.

"But manipulation, and vested interest. I can't help think that's how you treat an enemy, or at least a potential rival. But not a friend. And it's...I don't doubt Byerly really wants me to have the land. But I feel taunted. He says the land is mine, he waits for me to finish asking questions, and then he tells me the catch. If he'd just asked for my help, I'd have done it. But he gave me a glimpse of something I desperately need--hope--and then took it away. And I'm..."

He finds a chair and sits with a heavy sigh. "I have to look to other people to provide me with that. Hope. I can't make a place for myself in a world where I'm an apostate. And it's the most frightening thing of all, because I don't want to die. I don't want to go back to that place in my head. I know it's still there. And I know when I go there, I'm completely powerless. I need hope, and I can't make it for myself. So I see a little glimmer of it, a friend's spontaneous offer, and I think, 'I'm going to be all right.' And then it turns out he's just trying to get me to do something.

"He doesn't know what I did to myself, but it felt...exploitative. Because even though he doesn't know about that, he knows I don't have any choice but to do what he says because my life depends on it."

[coquettish_trees]

She listens, nodding slightly as he speaks, and when there is another pause she squeezes his hand and pulls at it lightly to guide him to sit with her in a pair of chairs nearby. A flicker of her eyes towards and brief arch of her brow at an attentive servant means there will be some tea joining them shortly, and then she returns her full attention to Colin, waiting to see if there is more forthcoming.

iii.

[cozen]

Bastien enters with a light knock on the door frame, with a reason for the visit wrapped in a handkerchief in his hand, and the sort of slight smile that indicates he hopes he isn’t being a nuisance and might easily be turned away if he is—but only for a moment. As soon as he has a good look at the room, his eyes light up, and he’s coming in without waiting to be invited.

“I did not know you could draw,” he says.

[keenly]

"I can't," Colin says with a chuckle, showing him. It's actually pretty good, but that's not what he thinks. "But I like it. It's soothing."

[cozen]

“Arrête tes conneries,” Bastien says while leaning over to look. “It’s wonderful. I always wished I could draw—but not enough to put the time into learning, I suppose, so it is not fair of me to be too jealous.”

[keenly]

That's unexpected. Colin grins bashfully at the praise.

"I must have started working at it a couple of years ago. No learning, just practice. Nothing you couldn't do."

[cozen]

"Perhaps," Bastien says. "But I am still working on legible handwriting. Maybe after I have mastered that."

He leans on the edge of a worktop—not quite sitting on it, to avoid disturbing anything—and puts his little bundle next to his hip for later. It can wait a bit.

"How are you? Better, I hope?"

[keenly]

Colin nods. "Still not sure what to make of the Divine's decision, but she didn't nullify what happened in Ferelden. So."

A shrug. "How are you?"

[cozen]

“Ah, you know,” Bastien says, with the uninterested ease of a man fortunate to be no one in particular, with human ears and no anchor and no ability to shoot fire out of his fingertips. Relatively speaking, he’s always fine. Obviously. “I have rewritten the same letter three times today, so I decided to let it sit a while, to see if that helps—high drama in the diplomacy offices.”