open; strike up the tinderbox

[sarcophage]

WHO: Leander + a cast of thousands
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.

Comments

[taxonomy]

"I don't like to overlook them, more often than not they've known more about rare breeds for all the time they spend with them than the riders who might only take them out a time or two a month." There's a small attempt to keep his voice neutral at the start but that disappears fairly soon; why bother having a wonderful mount only to have it and know nothing about it yourself? He's never going to understand that if he lives to be old and grey himself.

Still, he looks over to the reanimated horse and the young man probably has a point because even some of the younger Mortalitasi might hesitate around it. At least regarding the sword. Which brings him to his question as Cedric slinks closer, scenting the air, mouth hanging open.

"The first was about the demeanour - most things that die with any sort of weapon about tend to have, shall we say, proclivities? And horses have their reasons for spooking and tempers but this one...I've not heard anything I'd expect to. Especially for them being with Riftwatch."

[sarcophage]

"It wasn't a weapon that killed him. It was magic." A form of magic yet unnamed—that will never be named, if its bearer has his way. But not only that. "A shot of ice," he adds, and turns to cluck his tongue at the creature in the stall. The head raises, milky eyes unblinking. He points, just short of touching. "Here, through the brain."

His hand finds the plane of a big forehead, mummified but conditioned soft, rubs gently between the eyes. (Alas, this one wears no sword, even when its rider is up.)

"And it was magic that brought her back. If anything, he ought to be afraid of arrows—there was a sniper on the trail. But I doubt he'll flinch at a full volley now. Will you, darling?" Of course not. His maker's skill is greater than that.

[taxonomy]

"Magic has--" Mmm how to phrase it especially here when he's still finding his feet around everyone and it's not Nevarra where attitudes are what they are and mage family members aren't the end of the world they so often are most other places. (Minus Tevinter and Tevinter is, and probably always will be, Tevinter and can't be counted.) "Well magic introduces other issues into the bargain doesn't it? Animal possessions are somewhat rare but I've heard of them, never seen them."

Glad not to have seen them, that's not his field of study but he supposes a few might be into it as he approaches with a hand held out the way he would for any new horse, wondering if the smell of quillback and other dead specimens might spook it. Or maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe the senses are different now.

"Ah, she, I hadn't looked long enugh to know. Berto," he waves roughly in the direction of a big black horse that turns his head at his name, "isn't too fond but he's not fond of many things so-- well. More docile than other horses then? I know they be fine with something one day and spook at it the next with no rhyme or reason to it or so it seems but to not react to arrows is...I can't say if that's an advantage or not, truth be told."

[sarcophage]

"Truth be told," placidly repeated, "I don't know how he'll act in the field. I neither own nor ride him—we're merely friends."

It seems as though he won't make room at first, but he does, allowing for polite personal space and then some. The corpse he's fine with touching; the human, less so. The corpse in question, meanwhile, seems interested in the human's interest, and the newness of him, and plays at examining the offered hand. Soft, cool breaths. Calm, cloudy eyes.

Leander looks for the quillback, wherever it is now.

"You're Nevarran, aren't you?"

[taxonomy]

"It's rare, to have a friend." Which on the face of it could sound like a sad sort of thing but he's smiling because look: his whole life is out and about, it's not always with humans, and this isn't really where he expected his day to go but here he is. "Not enough people value this," a gesture, loose-limbed, the edge of old awkwardness not entirely gone from younger years but part of him, "between man and animal. You see all sorts out in the world. Maybe stay clear of Sundermount though? I've run into-- well between the old stories and the sheer size of the spiders then perhaps that would be to tempt fate."

Hopefully Tavin doesn't smell too strongly of anything horrific to more sensitive noses (if undead horses smell, he might need to pester a Warden about these things, there's still that other paper anyway) from dissections. The quillback stalks closer, beak clicking, the short quills on the back bristling but over he comes because he's too curious not to want to be involved and noticed as Tavin almost laughs at the question.

"I think I still qualify even if I'm only home long enough to stop by to see my family and change my clothes."