leander (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sarcophage) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2020-01-08 10:26 pm
sarcophage) wrote in faderift2020-01-08 10:26 pm
Entry tags:
open; strike up the tinderbox
WHO: Leander + a cast of thousands
WHAT: various things
WHEN: Wintermarch
WHERE: the Gallows and also not the Gallows
NOTES: none yet
WHAT: various things
WHEN: Wintermarch
WHERE: the Gallows and also not the Gallows
NOTES: none yet
open i;
"Do you like it here?"
A question he's bound to ask more than once, of more than one person, should they share with him the relative quiet of the ramparts or the baths, or the library, or happen to walk alongside him in a staircase or corridor, going the same way. All will be at some late hour, when most are asleep.
open ii;
In the twilight hours he may be found on a path in the Gallows medicinal garden, surrounded by the husks of useful things, frozen reed stalks and little stems curled like match heads, just
staring
like he's seeing through the world and into the space beyond it. Like he's listening to a voice from far away. Across the allotment are some evergreen plants, juniper berries and such things happy to carry on through the unfriendly island winter. Eventually, he walks across to meet them.
open iii;
Or, late some afternoons one may discover him in the stable, leaning on a door in the back in the fashion of a boy, bent with his head resting on his arm while his other hand hangs inside the stall. Murmuring low, either to himself or to the horse inside—the reanimated corpse thereof. No precious paper or wooden sketching slab today, only himself, touching the beast while it appears to doze, grazing the shoulder or neck, curling his hand around an ear and rubbing the dead fur inside.
open iv;
For those who tend, like most, to sleep during the night and conduct their business during the day, it may seem like Leander has abandoned his office, for he's been keeping nocturnal hours for over a month—but now, apropos of nothing made public, that's changed, and things have gone back to normal. Catch him coming after breakfast or going before dinner, unlocking or locking his office door.
It's likely he will try to brush most people off with a bland smile and polite good morning or good night, but should they both happen to be headed in the same direction... or perhaps one might share with him an intentionally well-timed walk to the ferry, to minimize waiting...
open v;
Or chance upon him while he stands there at street's edge, passively observing a two-man brawl outside a tavern not very far from the Kirkwall docks, the participants looking about ready to escalate beyond fists...
etc;
...anything can happen.
no subject
"Was that a concern of yours?"
no subject
"I take it you're unaware of what the Inquisition encountered at Adamant."
no subject
It's just that he's been a hot mess for the last year and his obsessive diligence has yet to settle fully on his job—but now that he's failed to know something in front of a human being, he will make time to revisit every report available to him, ensure they're correctly on file in his head, even (especially) when he's not at his best. (Or maybe he'll continue not to care.)
Not that any of the above is evident. He does indeed look a bit tired.
"You were there, then?"
no subject
“No,” she answers easily, “had I been, I doubt I’d be here today.” She twitches her eyebrows in mild, morbid amusement.
“Those of us here, you could say we all defected. Or... I suppose the others did, seeing as we’re supposed to be killing Darkspawn, not bloody taking orders from them. Some have come to their senses, but it’s a lucky thing we allied with the Inquisition and Riftwatch, seeing as the Weisshaupt lot don’t seem like to forgive easy.”
no subject
His delivery lacks the usual signs of flattery.
"Back in Ferelden, when the Warden came to the Circle Tower, I considered myself lucky to've met one. Seen one up close, anyway. It felt like... something special. And now here you are, a pack of you."
no subject
She shifts her weight, looking at her nails.
"Is that a problem for you?" There's no rancor in the question.
no subject
It wasn't intended as an insult, but perhaps it came off that way nonetheless; neutrality can be skewed by perception and he isn't much concerned with how his face is being read.
"Would you care if it were? I wouldn't, were our places reversed."
no subject
"I don't expect so." She cants her head to one side. "It's not as though Wardens have built up an excess of community goodwill, at least since the Fifth Blight ended. It's our lot in life. In these times especially."