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

[cozen]

A thoughtful hum, while he considers first the scuffle, then briefly the mage.

"They were lovers at sea," he ventures, while someone nearer to the center of the scene has to scramble out of their way, cursing over the jeers as he goes. "When they returned to shore, it was like coming out of a dream. One of them has a child on the way. The other owes a debt and has to sail again soon. Neither wants to be the first to say that they miss their dark corner of the hold. Both are angry the other does not. And they are running out of time."

He flicks ash and shrugs.

"Or it is money."

[sarcophage]

Like coming out of a dream— neither wants to be the first to say—

Leander stares at the brawlers. Silently wills one to draw a knife. Neither of them do; one escapes the hold by the slick of his own blood and drops to hands and knees, coughing, the other staggers for the loss of balance and doesn't regain his footing.

And they are running out of time.

Both men, exhausted, recovering in slow motion. A few bodies leave the perimeter crowd to see to one or the other, to varied levels of acceptance. At length, Leander looks to Bastien.

"What's the child's name?"

[cozen]

“Phoebe,” Bastien says, leisurely paced but without pause to think. “If it is a girl. He hopes it is. Philip for a boy—I suppose that neither of them won.”

The fight, he means, with its twin limping retreats. Not over money, then. Some other slight, the sort of debt that can more easily be settled by a little blood and punishment. Bastien eyes Leander, sidelong, with the open interest of an acquaintance trying to divine the mood of someone they don’t know well enough to read.

“I could buy you a drink all the same, if you like.”

[sarcophage]

The returning look is less furtive, with a full turn of the head and several seconds of inscrutable scrutiny, not suggestive as such, but likewise unashamed. A weighing of thoughts less obvious than the route his eyes have taken. Jawline, shoulder, hand, shoes, the blood on the street, the tavern door. (His body is here; he is somewhere else.)

The conclusion: a sense of settling, of dutiful engagement, the impression of a smile without the proper appearance of one. "Only if you'll permit me to do the same in return. In honour of the twins he's about to have."

An easy gesture: Shall we?