open.

[luaithre]

WHO: Marcus Rowntree, Petrana de Coudoux, others TBA!
WHAT: A late night cabal of the magic kind.
WHEN: Late Guardian
WHERE: The gardens
NOTES: Early and accidental beginnings of mage cabal. Feel free to wander in and talk politics. Of most interest to mages and mage-identifying Rifters, but no one's counting.

It'll be some weeks before the grip of winter loosens its hold of the Gallows, and so many have done the sensible thing and retreated indoors. Near constant rain has ceased for the time being, which only means that puddles from earlier showers are likely to freeze by the morning.

And yet, two people and one dog are outside in the gardens.

There's an iron brazier currently crackling with flame which offers them both a source of light, and technically warmth as well, but it's not alone. Leaning against one of the stone benches is a bladed mage staff of dark wood and silver metal, with runic etchings currently glowing a deep volcanic red. It emanates heat in a peculiar way -- less the radial concentration of an open flame, but an even distribution of dry warmth that encompasses the immediate area by almost thirty feet. It still necessitates a cloak or a coat to totally defy the winter chill, but the temperature is much improved, and pleasant for those who prefer cooler climates.

Marcus (wearing a scarf and everything, although it now hangs loose) occasionally tends to the fire with a wave of his hand, dispersing smoke and letting fire run off magic rather than just the wood that it gnaws at. "I'd offer to accompany you if I didn't think my presence would cast some doubt as to Riftwatch's good intentions," is more good humoured than dour, leaning back then to search his coat pockets for something -- a pipe, and a small leather satchel.

There are more stone benches circled around. Don't mind the very big dog currently lounging nearest the fire.

Comments

[overharrowed]

"So what are you picturing then?" he asks Marcus (and Petrana, but mainly Marcus), his tone easy. "A future of mages picnic on the Wounded Coast?"

[luaithre]

If either of them knew Marcus a small percentage less, then his immediate quiet upon being called to offer detail could be interpreted as something shy. There is something like that going on as he thinks through an answer, but less a social anxiety, and more the exploration of new boundaries. He doesn't blame Julius for assuming this meeting would be conducted in secret.

"I'd bring the conversation out from the wilderness," he say, like perhaps the other man had been serious about picnics. "And anonymous rooms, and the crystals, and private walks through the forest." Derrica, Ilias, Leander. And Petrana herself.

He lists back in his chair, finding a little more physical ease from the warmth of the room, the warmth of the liquor. Relaxation betrays a sort of weariness, but that's alright. "I don't recall very much as to my family life, prior the Circle," he says. "But they were fond of hosting dinners and salons, excuses to present well and meet others, ostensibly of like minds. If their conversations of politics and business ever bore fruit, I wouldn't know. It wasn't a place for children.

"But it promoted legitimacy. I'd picture something similar. Petrana has friends in Hightown, I believe, who might enable a venue."

[ipseite]

“The idea has merit. Even this evening—which one would be hard pressed to call secretive—suggests there might be a hunger for it. And besides, if we behave as if the concerns of mages are fit only for the shadows, we will not soon persuade anyone else otherwise.”

A thought occurs to her, pleasingly, and she turns to Julius: “It is the skirts of your robes writ large.”

A statement. That they are legitimate, and they are not going anywhere.

“Such salons were where I cut my teeth, with my husband and his family, before exile. I know the type well.”

[overharrowed]

The discussion of a salon both eases some of his nerves and interests him. He sits back, thinking through the possibilities. "Yes... it could serve. And if there's any of your contacts who you wish to show special favor, solidify a connection, you might achieve multiple aims at once." The host of such a gathering would certainly have grounds for bragging that they were doing something unique, if nothing else.

[luaithre]

He wonders if this will be a pattern, in which suggestions and ideas are held in probing fingers, their facets explored and picked over, weighing advantage to disadvantage, spoken of in terms of what it might serve and what could be. He can imagine it becoming a point of argument, one day, but Marcus has had some practice in listening to the very intelligent talk and find complications in things he deems quite simple.

It's only a matter of waiting his turn. He nods to Petrana, and says, "I wished for you-- both of you, really, to meet with Derrica because it's my belief that one of the last surviving members of a Circle like Dairsmuid has something vital to say. If I had it my way, I'd wish the same for every mage in Thedas."

The dream and heartbreak that Dairsmuid represents isn't completely overridden by the prospect of a future in Nevarra, at least not while the possibility remains as ephemeral as hearsay. One political chess move away from collapse.

"I won't be wearing a robe," he adds. In case anyone had any ideas.

[ipseite]

If it's Petrana's preference to look before she leaps, it is hand in hand with a history of pole-vaulting the leap; she taps her fingers against the side of her cup with the look of a woman who is already making a mental list of prospective hosts they might prevail upon.

(The Duke de Coucy would not be her first preference, but he is on the list—if none else serve, she can see several obvious means of securing his support as a fail-safe fallback.)

“We should consider who else should hear her first, then,” she says, curling both hands around her cup in a habit made from its shape when the drink within is not warmed. “Prepare who we shall invite, and to what—we would raise fewer eyebrows at the beginning if some among them were sympathetic but not, themselves, wielding staves. Allow us to become...something to which people are accustomed. It is useful. I am, now, something to which Hightown is accustomed.”

And she can and does make use of it. Can lend that credibility to this endeavor, too.

[overharrowed]

"I don't wear robes because I think every mage should," Julius said, backtracking slightly. But then:

"But yes, a few well-chosen nonmage attendees could also go a long way. The trick will be finding people who won't inhibit conversation, even without meaning to." It can be done, he's fairly confident, but it will require some care. (Luckily, the sort of care Petrana excels at.) "Once we're part of the landscape, no one will bat an eye. It's the establishment that is the delicate part. But you sound as if you've already some ideas," to her.

[luaithre]

They seem in agreement. Marcus is not, in the past minute -- agitation a subtle thing but there in the way some of the prior amicable attitude calcifies at the edges. But he doesn't close himself off from the dialogue, but listens keenly. Still--

"I understand the purpose of pageantry," he says, objection mild in cadence and level, "but should we not cultivate something where mages can talk freely, first? Among their own."

Integration was never high on his list of interests.

[ipseite]

“My worry is only securing that,” she says, honestly; not arguing it immediately, considering both shapes. Her instinct is to what she finds familiar, and to protect it with the structures that she finds familiar—but, then, she has less direct experience with drawing mages together, has less history with their particulars.

A tilt of her hand: “I would like to be able to speak freely upon a solid ground. But if it would be to the detriment of its purpose—”

[overharrowed]

"We are going to need real allies," Julius said. "Not only for show. Maybe not many, maybe they just listen. But if we restrict meetings to only mages, we're back at the place we started. Maybe it is worth the risk, but it is a risk all the same."

Once, Julius' own presence might have been reassuring to outsiders that the meetings couldn't be too radical, but that window of opportunity has passed. It likely passed long before he stopped calling himself a Loyalist, in reality.

[luaithre]

Marcus shakes his head, but he doesn't verbalise disagreement immediately, directing his attention down at the floor while he thinks.

Expressing how little he cares about appearances is irrelevant. These two people care, and, as Julius says, not just for show. The need for allies, the need for recognition, the next steps that follow from here. By suggesting they comport themselves in Hightown suggests Marcus wants something similar, but of a more intrusive kind. Let them raise their eyebrows. Let them raise objections. Let them wonder.

But to double-down on this priority feels naive, even to him. Still--

"Not at first," he says, finally. "Only mages, for the first meeting. And then we decide together who else we would welcome."

[ipseite]

Petra tilts her cup very slightly toward him, acknowledgment and acquiescence both— “Better that all of us inclined have an understanding at the start. Yes. And either option is more tenable with numbers, regardless.”

The more mages in the first place, the more of a potential negotiating bloc, the harder to crowbar apart and object to.

“What would be most useful to begin with would be mages not presently strictly associated with Riftwatch, but I suspect that will have to come later.”

Proceeding forward will make that a question of when and not if, though.

[overharrowed]

"And the salon's host? I think it will be a bigger stretch to find someone willing to host such an event where they themselves are not welcome."

It's not a no, so much as a how, and at least one person present knows him well enough to tell the difference.

[luaithre]

Having at least partially gotten his way, Marcus is inclined to take the query on good faith, turning his attention towards Petrana as he says, "I don't doubt your ability to convince someone out of their own establishment for an evening. Particularly if they were to be the kind of ally would might understand the necessity.

"But if not, then we could begin somewhere of less stature."

[ipseite]

“It will be the tricky part,” she admits, though she doesn't sound as if she's taken the query amiss or as if she doesn't think it's possible. “But presented correctly—consider that the sponsor of a club might not be necessarily a member. And Thedas is already rather more egalitarian than Lamorre was, where such things are considered.”

They wouldn't need to explain women being in their club, for a start.

“A society of likeminded individuals might secure the premises of an establishment for an evening, and a suitably inclined and generous patron might foot some of the cost.” She takes a drink, shrugs elegant— “If we could secure a loan from someone to establish that, we could parley the subsequent talk into a more permanent arrangement with a suitably dazzled aristocrat with a suitable smoking room. Well; these are all merely ideas, but I might pursue them and see which bears fruit.”

[overharrowed]

"Very well." After a moment, he adds, "I suppose it has been some time since a number of Riftwatch's mages gathered to shout at one another. We're likely overdue." It's lightly said, not quite a joke but not quite not.

(He's almost the last one standing from Kinloch Hold, and he's inclined to think that might be for the best, at least when it comes to keeping disagreements from getting too personal.)

"I suppose it does raise the question of which Rifters count, if we're explicitly keeping the meeting mages only. Those who can do magic? Those who've expressed an interest in how their fate is linked to ours?" Obviously Petrana's attending, but it's worth making clear in advance whether she's an exception, and why.

[luaithre]

Here, Marcus chooses to fall quiet again, looking at the cup he'd set aside like he's contemplating requesting a top up, but ultimately declines to do so. Another would likely affect his mood in some way, already a little sodden with smoke and a late meal accompanied with ale. It doesn't take much.

He thinks about the joke that is not quite a joke and not quite not not a joke. The expectation that shouting would occur, naturally, is not one he shares, and he sits with the way this statement troubles him rather than immediately protest it.

[ipseite]

One of those bleak jokes that Petrana is like to make, and swift now to sigh over: “Allow me to hope, my love, that we are some way past the worst of the shouting at least amongst ourselves.”

Surely, there has been enough of it. And, for all that the thought tugs guilt's string in a quiet part of her insides, not all of the more controversial figures who have darkened Riftwatch's doorways still do. They are low on loyalists and Anders has been gone months, now; she hopes he has found some satisfaction wherever it is they have gone with that recognizable restlessness.

Doubtless word will come in time if it's the other.

“On the matter of other Rifters—I am uncharitably inclined to expect that that way lies more shouting. Beyond that—”

Her shrug is elegant.

“The Provost should not be in attendance, he cannot be trusted with mages and has made that quite clear.”

[overharrowed]

"Nothing would delight me more than to find the meeting more agreeable than our former attempts at discussing mage-centric affairs," he says, frankly. "You are right, though, that the mixture of personalities has altered, somewhat, since the last time we tried at any scale."

Isaac was still there to glare at him; glaring wasn't shouting.

"I agree, when it comes to the Provost. Let us take a less clear-cut case: Miss Poppell, say. She has proven herself friendly to a number of mages, and actively interested in the state of magic in the world. I'm inclined to say she should be invited, if she wishes to attend. But who, in the end, shall make that decision?"