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

i

[doneisdone]

A fellow nightwalker, Teren stops short when someone addresses her. The voice is familiar enough, she's certain she's heard it, even if she can't place it with a face until Leander is more visible in the lamplight.

"What?" is all she asks, with a brusqueness brought on by surprise.

[sarcophage]

Leander is excellent at suppressing his own incidental pleasure into invisibility, and having caught this particular woman off guard makes it necessary now. He slows near her, angled not directly at her but to pass her by, and doesn't smile.

"Living here. Working with Riftwatch. How do you find it?"

ii

[okayimin]

Sawbones is already among the pine, specifically in the lower boughs of a one. Even in the twilight, the red of her Chantry habit blazes brilliant red among the green of the trees. She's busily inspecting branches and choosing sprays of needles to cut. A half filled basket lies at the base of her tree.

The movement catches her attention and the vague quality of his walk earns him more than a glance.

"All right down there?" she calls down from her perch, which frankly is significantly less distance for him than for her.

[doneisdone]

What an odd question for a dark hallway in the middle of the night. Teren's expression conveys as much.

"Better than rotting in a Western Approach ravine with my throat slit," she muses.

iii

[taxonomy]

A chance to study up close and personal the menagerie that Riftwatch has about itself is part and parcel of why Tavin finally decided to sign up in the end and well they've nuggalopes, things he's not seen kept in close quarters before, not outside say the Avvar, and dracolisks--

Something more fitting too for some young Nevarrans who might come up with their own heraldry if given the chance as his quillback lurks. About as much as something that size can. Bristling. Maybe. But he's doing his best and Tavin is keeping him in the line of sight as he passes a hand over a nuggalope, taking more measurements because captivity tends to ruin some beasts and how much fatter can a nuggalope possibly get? (Orlesian gourmets would likely love to know but he'll not pass that along.)

"Hope I, well, we," an arm waves roughly to where Cedric damned well ought to be if he wants to be rewarded for good behaviour, "aren't disturbing you. Most seem to avoid your...friend. I wasn't quite sure of their condition and none of the stablehands ever seemed inclined to answer my questions."

ii

[keenly]

Not all things in the garden are dead, some magic being on the ground to keep it alive. But it is the juniper berries Colin is harvesting at sunup. It is the time of year for winter fever and the grippe, and the berries help to expel excess phlegm from the body. When someone arrives, he gives a quick glance before hurriedly pretending he is alone in the garden.

[sarcophage]

Likewise, an unusual response, although his own expression conveys nothing in particular to that effect. He's not in the mood to feign a smile.

"Was that a concern of yours?"

[sarcophage]

It's rude not to say hello, he thinks, aware of the hypocrisy, having done the same many times himself, especially throughout the last few months. Have patience, be merciful: these are his mantras of late. Necessary reminders to himself in the thickening gloom. It's not Colin's fault, after all, that the year mark has nearly come. He is annoying, certainly, but not responsible for the passage of time.

And so Leander stops not too close by, at a shrub still bearing rose hips, and speaks mildly. "Good harvest?"

[keenly]

In some other version of this conversation, somewhere in the Fade, Athessa is flying in to remove some of Leander's teeth. It is a fact that gives Colin some comfort. Good harvest, indeed. Usually Colin is better about keeping his mouth shut, but Leander brings it out in him.

"Does messing with peoples' heads get you off sexually," he asks nonchalantly, without looking up from his work, "or do you just find it funny?"

[sarcophage]

That he's surprised by the immediate hostility is itself a surprise; he ponders this while it curdles. The long thoughts that can occur in an instant. The numbing calm that he knows to be an early forewarning of anger, the rarest threat to his self-control, in this case kindled by frustration and not a little self-pity. He is aware. He smothers it gently.

"I'm only saying hello."

[sarcophage]

"More or less," blandly delivered, though not for lack of interest now that he's found focus on her bustling shape clambering around like a stout bird in one of the conifer trees. Their presence on this island is frankly remarkable—someone must have worked long to grow these few to such a size, through they're hardly as large as they could've grown elsewhere.

"Sister Sara. What're you doing, there?"

It's obvious enough, he just wants to hear her explain it.

[okayimin]

She leans down enough from her perch to give him a mild frown and a considering look.

"What's it look like." She holds out a spray of pine needles, freshly clipped. "Pine needles. Excellent treatment for an abundance of phlegm. Easy to come by in the winter too."

[keenly]

"While pretending you didn't try to get my friends in trouble over a piece of garbage you don't care about, yes." Athessa did get in trouble, and Benedict fretted himself sick. Colin, on the other hand, still looks and sounds falsely pleasant.

i

[ho_hum]

At this late hour, Henry is in the garden, which he's spent most of the afternoon weeding and tidying, trimming dead limbs off of a plant here, a plant there, uprooting and transplanting another elsewhere, and frowning at the plants that never stood a chance. Now, though, the hard work is behind him and he's about to get to the fun part when Leander asks a question meant for someone else, surely.

The lumbering old man, noting that there isn't anyone else the boy could be talking to, simply grunts and keeps going about his business.

[sarcophage]

"This isn't a Circle, Colin. Some of us have learnt to broaden our concerns beyond who's gotten who in trouble over some trivial nonsense—to the war, for example. And, as members of an organization engaged in said war, to the integrity of our fellows in arms."

Grounded by the tactile distraction of winter-dry fruit in the hand. The rose hip's leathery shell. The give beneath his thumb.

Softly, "And you haven't the faintest awareness of where my cares lie."

[keenly]

Oh, the grandstanding. How delightful. Colin leaves off the juniper and turns his attention to Leander.

"You can't fuss so much over a trinket and then expect to be believed when you say you're not petty," he says, raising an eyebrow. "If you don't want to be thought petty, don't be petty. If you don't want to be seen as creepy, don't be a creep. And if you don't want a pissed-off woman to fling something of yours into the sea, don't assault people without need."

[sarcophage]

"I see."

His thumbnail presses a yellowish seam into the skin, relaxes without crushing it. There are tiny fibres inside the fruit, little irritant hairs among the seeds, that every beginner knows not to touch.

"How did you come to these many conclusions of yours?"

[keenly]

"You know how." Colin goes back to picking berries. These will be perfect for peoples' winter maladies. "Besides seeing you be petty, and a creep," he says, "and knowing what you did to Benedict. That's only three conclusions, by the by. But the last one's nothing. It's knowing him, and knowing you made him feel safe. Seen. Knowing how anyone who's not a great fool would know force would be unnecessary, and a mage most of all. You could have drawn a glyph while he slept. Slipped the poison in his breakfast, and he was so desperate for someone he could trust he'd never have suspected. But are a mage, and you're not a great fool. That means you knew it wasn't necessary to assault him, and you did it anyway. You didn't have to, but you wanted to, and knew you could get away with it because he was a criminal. It was wrong, you must have known that, but you banked on no one caring."

The last berry is planted in the basket. Colin gives Leander a pointed look. I care.

[sarcophage]

"Three conclusions, plus these ones you've so generously produced. And more you've left unspoken, no doubt."

Not in response to the look, but after it nonetheless, he drops the injured fruit at the root of the bush and turns away—moves to take his leave, in fact, declining to be demeaned by this scolding as politely as he can manage.

[keenly]

"No, just the three in addition to their explanations, though it's interesting to note that this is the sticking point with you, not anything else I've said."

Leander turns to go, and Colin has a sense of satisfaction at the sight. "There are some people you can't fool," he says after him, "and those people are watching you closely."

[sarcophage]

This, the real sticking point, is what turns him back around.

"What people? You? Athessa? You're a pair of trifling children in love with your own moral superiority. I did as I was charged, and had the target not been someone you liked, you wouldn't've cared one way or the other. And now you're about to latch on to some other trivial semantics to justify yourself—or, better yet, to tell me it's pointless to continue this argument you started, this stupid argument that debases the both of us, because you've already decided who I am and why I've done everything I've ever done. You've decided it's fine to harass me, to steal from me, for doing my job in a way that you didn't like. And since you've decided I'm petty, and a creep, you're banking on no one caring."

Now stopping to catch his breath against the back of his hand, knuckles grazing his mouth—it's fantastic, like the aftermath of a sneeze—

[keenly]

Another raised eyebrow, and Colin is smiling.

"I'd've cared if the target was someone I didn't like," he says lightly, because he knows it to be true, "because I care about the kind of organization this is and whether or not I want to be a part of it. I'd extend the same thing to you if tables were turned, and will give you the best medical care I can if it comes to it, because that's all I want. Being there for people who aren't seen, like I wasn't seen. And to be clear, you are not one of those people. People already see you. People already trust you. The head of Scouting responds to you. My best friend in the world loves you, whether or not I like it. Try to paint yourself the victim all you like, but I haven't harassed you, I haven't stolen from you, and no one's saying that in a different situation with a more dangerous mark your actions wouldn't be justified. But they weren't. They were just cruel. And I don't want this organization to fall back on cruelty as the quickest means to an end."

[sarcophage]

And for his moment of honesty, he receives more of the same.

Try to paint yourself the victim leaves Colin's mouth, and Leander turns again to leave. This hypocritical boy who claims to want to see people in the same breath as he refuses to see, to acknowledge a point of view other than his own—again he insists on telling Leander who and what he is. More of the same.
Always the same.

There's no point—Colin isn't even the one he wants to be understood by—and he doesn't need to announce it, only to remove himself before he does something regrettable.

[keenly]

If he'd made it, it would have been a point to consider. The hypocrisy, the flaws by which Colin has gone about this quest of accountability. But Leander is free to leave. Colin is free to go back to speaking to him only when professionalism demands it. It's better this way, for them both.

v.

[cozen]

Drawn away from watching two old sailors' dice game by a familiar figure closer to the commotion, Bastien slides into the space beside Leander just in time to see a tooth fly. Winces, appropriately, but then offers: "Two silvers on the short one." His tone is balanced cleanly on the line between trying to make light despite genuine concern and seriously, though, two silvers on the short one.