WHO: Fitz, Lukas, Sahren, Caspar & misc WHAT: Lots of things WHEN: Whenever WHERE: Lots of places NOTES: Open and closed starters for the month, feel free to DM or hit me up at awarewolf on plurk to plot!
Tomorrow, one hour past the noon bell arrives and Fitz is where he said he'd be: standing at the docks, arms crossed in that vaguely stiff way that conveys uncertainty instead of confidence. He's abandoned his Rifter clothes in favor of a casual mash-up of fabric and leather that looks convincingly local at a quick glance and at least arguably local at a closer one. Either way: not totally embarrassing, somehow.
The way he's squinting dubiously at the water and the boats trawling through it is more of a tell. The heavy leather gloves, thick enough to hide any suspicious green glowing, would be more of one if it weren't cold enough to excuse them. Possibly the most obvious tell, however, is the way he looks up whenever new footsteps hit the docks, like he's expecting to see someone he knows.
Which he obviously doesn't. The list of people he knows is small. Other things he doesn't know: what this expert Orlesian is supposed to look like.
The thing about Kirkwall is that almost all of the houses look the same and, for the most part, they're all a little ugly: a weird mash-up of Roman aesthetic and tetris-like brutalism. This one's no exception. He stares uncertainly at the heavy door for a minute before glancing over to the neighbor's, uncertain, then finally knocks.
Sahren has been with Riftwatch for two weeks, and in that time he's done everything in his power to avoid Riftwatch entirely: loitering in the quiet corners of the Gallows, pretending to be napping whenever someone's in earshot. Volunteering to hunt game. The most reliable option, if regrettably helpful.
But then regrettably helpful was misinterpreted as deliberately helpful, and then it was assumed that he was helpful. Then he was volunteered for hunting lessons. Cut to now, miles away from the Gallows in the cold, dense woods, with a stranger he's been diligently ignoring for most of the trek out.
"Do you know anything about hunting?"
A little terse and a little bored, all low expectations. He's focused on a bush, carefully pulling down a thin branch to inspect its dry leaves.
Fifteen minutes past one hour past the noon bell, and clouds begin to gather and clog the sky overhead. They are thick with the promise of rain and cast a low ceiling of gloom on the dock and the choppy waters in the bay, which reflect a steely gray back to the sky.
Twenty minutes past one hour past the noon bell, and fat raindrops begin to plunk on the dock. The ferryman has come and gone and here he comes again, drawing his boat back through the water. He had sense to wear his cloak, and the hood is drawn up. As the boat bumps against the dock, the passengers disembark.
Val jumps off the boat with great cheer, and stands a moment, squinting up at the sky. He is not wearing his hood, but lets the rain plink down on him without complaint. His satchel is weighed down with--well, things, bulging with things, vials and jars and bottles and books and something suspiciously hairy-looking that trails out the one side. It is, perhaps, a tail. Or a scalp. He is already muddy, and he cuts a cheerful figure in his well-worn but still expensive-looking field research clothing. And then he cuts a dashing figure as he sets off down the pier, and walks right up to Fitz, to whom he says, in Orlesian, "You are expecting me, monsieur, but you are not expecting me," using the very particular Orlesian form of me reserved for a person of great respect and renown and figures typically historic.
He won't get it. That's the funny part.
just pretends this happens before jenny lou's post
In answer, there's a few ominous thuds and a muffled curses before the curtains twitch and Ellis's face appears and vanishes before the door opens with a rattle.
"We use the side entrance," he says, as the coat rack to his right starts rattling lightly. "Come on, quickly."
Does Fitz need to be told explicitly there are ghosts? Nah. He'll figure it out, or he'll get some small spooky figurine chucked at his head.
Athessa sighs and rolls her eyes. Is it the lack of a vallaslin? Or maybe her hair is hiding her ears for once, and this guy doesn't realize he's talking to an elf at all, much less a Dalish one.
"Are you serious?" They're supposed to be hunting together, aren't they? He's clearly set his expectations low. "Yes. I know how to hunt. That's why they sent us--" She points between the two of them, back and forth and back and forth. "--out hunting. Unless that's your weird way of telling me you don't know how."
not jealous of your timeline gymnastics right now tbh
Impatience flashes across Ellis' face, though it isn't really fair to Fitz. Had no one warned him about the perils of using the front door? Ellis had learned the hard way, so it seems that's just how people are introduced to Wysteria's household.
"No, quickly into—"
But before he can clarify, a small porcelain pony whips through the air and shatters on the doorframe.
"Quickly," Ellis repeats, gesturing intensely into the house.
Fitz back home, not in Thedas, wouldn't have time for this. He'd give it ten or fifteen minutes, tops. Then he'd get annoyed and go on with his day and his piles and piles of responsibilities, because he's busy, and he absolutely doesn't have time to wait around for someone who's wasting his time.
Fitz here, in Thedas, has only a stack of extremely unhelpful books about poetry and dwarven innuendo and the occasional vague reference to magic or the fade, which is apparently one level shy of Voldemort status. He also has very bad tea and a slightly haunted house, none of which are things he urgently wishes or needs to get back to.
So he's still standing on the docks come twenty minutes past one hour past the noon bell, getting slightly damp. And while back-home Fitz would look very annoyed, he mostly looks bored and a little restless. And where back-home Fitz would have a lecture prepared for whoever disrespected his time, this Fitz just has a blank look when a man abruptly approaches and speaks in a sort of off-brand French accent. The look swerves quickly to disgruntled as he clocks what looks like a tail in his periphery.
"Okay."
He doesn't get it. But, to be totally fair: this is not what he was expecting. He drags his focus away from the fur with some effort.
"You're late."
It doesn't sound mad. It sounds like an observation, deadpan, because he has no idea what else to say and stating the obvious is always an option.
i'll drop a landmine in this thread so you're forced to make bold choices
"What," again, although this time it sounds more like an accusation. Also: still not moving, quickly or otherwise. His gaze tracks the pony as it whizzes into the door frame, then the shattered bits as they scatter across the ground at his and Ellis' feet.
"What the hell— is someone joking?"
Playing a prank on the new guy makes more sense than ghosts, though he hasn't assumed ghosts yet (because ghosts aren't real), so unsure what kind of joke throwing things at his head is. He can't see anybody past Ellis and Tony Stark would probably have more advanced pranks, but he also woke up in another dimension. All bets are off.
"I keep trying to get rid of the porcelain," Ellis says, as if that explains anything.
A snowglobe sails past Fitz's head and to explode a shower of glass and glitter across the front steps. Ellis, clearly having reached the end of his patience, reaches over to grab Fitz's elbow and haul him bodily forward.
"It usually leaves us alone when we get to the back of the house. I think it's protective of the sitting room."
Not that it's kept from throwing plates in the kitchen, but Ellis suspects that's just self-defense. Wysteria has been setting more small fires lately.
"Walk quickly. If we lag it'll throw an end table."
Cut off by the snowglobe and being hauled through the doorway, but it's easy to guess where it was going. Fitz gives the end table down the hallway a distrustful look, then he yanks his elbow away from Ellis and strides past him down the hall. He's got enough sense to wait until he's through a doorframe (and at the back of the house, presumably) to stop and wheel on Ellis.
"If you tell me this bloody house is haunted, I'm—," pause for breath, forcing calm for a very serious: "Don't."
His investigation pauses, brow furrowing sharply. A beat of silence before he looks back over his shoulder, glare shifting from the leaves to her.
"It isn't." Sahren stands up and turns towards her, taking a moment for a critical once-over. "And I don't need a hunting partner, either. They said you needed lessons."
It's an explanation, which could theoretically be given amicably. It sounds more like an accusation.
"Hunting is one of the few things I don't need lessons for!" Her exasperation is a little misplaced, here. Really she's frustrated at the idea that she'd be assigned lessons in something she's good at immediately after being assigned lessons in everything she's bad at, too. As if she's a complete wash and someone decided to just start from scratch.
She frowns, planting her hands on her hips and tapping her unshod foot on the dirt. "Are you sure they said I needed lessons? Not someone else?"
"I have no idea who you are. Just that they saddled me with lessons and you're the one who showed up."
He both sounds and looks significantly less exasperated, though he does make you sound like an insult. Even the tinge of annoyance is cool enough to sound patronizing. He crosses his arms and glances behind him, back towards the quiet woods and, more metaphorically, the hunting he's meant to be doing.
"Please, my friend," and Val mercifully has switched to Trade so that he might be understood, "let us speak as friends and scholars, for that is what we now are. I am not late. How is it, that you would expect me to tear myself from my work--"
And, here, he does a quick and very presentational sort of half-turn, so Fitz might get another glimpse of his satchel. Work.
"--Simply to keep an appointment. Surely you know how it is when you are enraptured by a project. What could tear you from it? Time itself? No. Time is nothing. I have stayed awake for days on end, working, and studying, and researching, only to look about and realize how long that I have been at it, and then collapsed into sleep. Now, your study of Orlesian, I will not expect quite such devotion to. I am not unreasonable. Do you know anything at all of the language? What is it that interests you of it?"
He gestures, expectantly. It is now Fitz's turn to monologue, here on the dock.
"Alright, I won't tell you," Ellis replies briskly, also looking back warily to be sure no other items are going to be flung through the doorway after him. It's only happened once, but Ellis doesn't pretend to predict what Wysteria's flatmate is capable of when the mood strikes.
"Now," Ellis says, crossing the room to push his own abandoned chair back into place at the table and close the book he'd been reading. "Why are you here?"
Not more comforting, actually. Fitz doesn't look particularly appeased; he shoots another wary look down the corridor, now quiet, before reluctantly following Ellis across the room to stand across from him at the table.
"I've got your socks," he says, regrettably. There's an awkward pause before he retrieves them from the pocket of his coat and tosses them onto the closed book. "And Wysteria invited me over. Is she not here?"
"There's a compound she's attempting. I don't know the details, but I wanted to be on hand to put out the fire."
Will there be a fire? Probably. Wysteria had sworn up and down that there was no possibility, but Ellis knows better after several situations where he'd been caught unprepared.
"Did you want to see her, or did she promise you a tour first?"
Or not, because now that he's got words to process there's a lot to process. The silence stretches with a flat stare until, finally, he ventures a few more words:
"I don't know anything," he says, regrettably open-ended. He's too busy sifting through that monologue to filter out which bits he's actually meant to respond to. "And it's for research, or—", yet another pause as the intense contrast between him, quiet and staring dumbly and This Guy, the self-proclaimed poster child of Orlais, sinks in. The statement ends on a regrettably dubious note. "Blending in."
Fire isn't a word so much as a disgruntled expression. He gives the ceiling a suspicious glance — difficult not to imagine some kind of Frankenstein lab in the attic or the basement, given the state of this world and this specific neighborhood. Not so much the state of Wysteria, but maybe a little bit the state of Wysteria.
"Is the bloody ghost coming?"
The delivery's more petty than panicked. He's not scared!!! But that's a yes to a tour.
Maybe they should have attempted to ease Fitz into this, but Ellis finds it's better to just unfurl all the questionable and dangerous events at once while they aren't all happening at once. Yes, the ghost will throw things. Yes, Wysteria will start small chemical fires. The house has survived thus far, so onwards and upwards.
"It's hard to say what will hold the ghost's interest, but it's best to assume it'll be coming along."
Though Ellis seems undecided as to where exactly they should head first. He spends a few seconds just idly shuffling papers on the table into some semblance of order before he points at the second door.
"We can start there. Second floor, then third if nothing's happened."
How many floors does Wysteria's house have? Unclear.
"All right," he says, taking a moment to make a quick assessment. It's a good answer. He hadn't been given much of a choice when the lessons had been proposed, and they'd had a valid point — too many mouths to feed, not enough skilled hunters.
Now that it's no longer a lesson, there's no obligation. He could send her home. Or—
"Fantastic," he says, which sounds like the worst. It isn't patience that bears Fitz out for those few indecisive moments of shuffling papers around so much as a willingness to delay the inevitable. It's about to run out, all the same; Ellis points towards the door in the nick of time.
"If—"
The disbelief is too intense to verbalize, apparently, but the look he shoots Ellis gets it across nicely. Another clipped breath, eyes briefly closing in an effort to get centered. "Fine. But you first."
If anyone's getting ambushed by the ghost headed through a doorway, it's not going to be him.
"Ah. A fruitless goal, the latter." Val shakes his head with a measure of sympathy. "An Orlesian can spot a foreigner with great ease. It would take a master to truly fit himself in and pose, undetected, as a countryman. There are so many small cues that one cannot be taught, and to eschew them or forget them, a dead giveaway. But you might present yourself as a son of some other country--perhaps the Marches--and simply state your interest in the language. You might be found amusing, then, but we do not expect very much of the Marchers, so you would be tolerated. As for research--"
His hand goes to his heart, and his eyes close a moment. A sigh.
"A worthier goal has never been, monsieur. This I can help you toward. I will not pretend that it will be an easy achievement, but what thing worth achieving ever is? And if you have the thirst within your heart, you will survive it. We are in agreement, yes?"
It's not like Ellis doesn't fully understand the emotions Fitz is experiencing right now. That's partly why he isn't trying to soften the truth. It lessens the potential for surprise down the road. (Though in fairness, Wysteria and Tony will always find a way to surprise him, so what's the point?) Nevertheless, Ellis goes through the doorway first.
"Skip the third step. It squeaks, and I think the ghost resents the sound."
But somehow not what Wysteria gets up to in the kitchen?
"We're still cleaning it out. When she..." How did Wysteria get the house? Ellis still isn't clear. "When she inherited it, it was filled with more broken furniture than you can imagine. I kept aside what's interesting, but there's still more to go through."
Ellis glances over his shoulder meaningfully as they clear the landing. Welcome to that task, Fitz.
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( closed ) for val
The way he's squinting dubiously at the water and the boats trawling through it is more of a tell. The heavy leather gloves, thick enough to hide any suspicious green glowing, would be more of one if it weren't cold enough to excuse them. Possibly the most obvious tell, however, is the way he looks up whenever new footsteps hit the docks, like he's expecting to see someone he knows.
Which he obviously doesn't. The list of people he knows is small. Other things he doesn't know: what this expert Orlesian is supposed to look like.
( closed ) for ellis & co
( open )
But then regrettably helpful was misinterpreted as deliberately helpful, and then it was assumed that he was helpful. Then he was volunteered for hunting lessons. Cut to now, miles away from the Gallows in the cold, dense woods, with a stranger he's been diligently ignoring for most of the trek out.
"Do you know anything about hunting?"
A little terse and a little bored, all low expectations. He's focused on a bush, carefully pulling down a thin branch to inspect its dry leaves.
no subject
Twenty minutes past one hour past the noon bell, and fat raindrops begin to plunk on the dock. The ferryman has come and gone and here he comes again, drawing his boat back through the water. He had sense to wear his cloak, and the hood is drawn up. As the boat bumps against the dock, the passengers disembark.
Val jumps off the boat with great cheer, and stands a moment, squinting up at the sky. He is not wearing his hood, but lets the rain plink down on him without complaint. His satchel is weighed down with--well, things, bulging with things, vials and jars and bottles and books and something suspiciously hairy-looking that trails out the one side. It is, perhaps, a tail. Or a scalp. He is already muddy, and he cuts a cheerful figure in his well-worn but still expensive-looking field research clothing. And then he cuts a dashing figure as he sets off down the pier, and walks right up to Fitz, to whom he says, in Orlesian, "You are expecting me, monsieur, but you are not expecting me," using the very particular Orlesian form of me reserved for a person of great respect and renown and figures typically historic.
He won't get it. That's the funny part.
just pretends this happens before jenny lou's post
"We use the side entrance," he says, as the coat rack to his right starts rattling lightly. "Come on, quickly."
Does Fitz need to be told explicitly there are ghosts? Nah. He'll figure it out, or he'll get some small spooky figurine chucked at his head.
for the lulz
"Are you serious?" They're supposed to be hunting together, aren't they? He's clearly set his expectations low. "Yes. I know how to hunt. That's why they sent us--" She points between the two of them, back and forth and back and forth. "--out hunting. Unless that's your weird way of telling me you don't know how."
not jealous of your timeline gymnastics right now tbh
He says, very dumbly and not especially quickly. Fitz gives the coat rack a confused look before turning the same look back to Ellis.
"Quickly through the side entrance, or—"
By quick you meant go nowhere and ask for clarification, right.
live footage of me https://i.imgur.com/nWH601q.jpg
"No, quickly into—"
But before he can clarify, a small porcelain pony whips through the air and shatters on the doorframe.
"Quickly," Ellis repeats, gesturing intensely into the house.
no subject
Fitz here, in Thedas, has only a stack of extremely unhelpful books about poetry and dwarven innuendo and the occasional vague reference to magic or the fade, which is apparently one level shy of Voldemort status. He also has very bad tea and a slightly haunted house, none of which are things he urgently wishes or needs to get back to.
So he's still standing on the docks come twenty minutes past one hour past the noon bell, getting slightly damp. And while back-home Fitz would look very annoyed, he mostly looks bored and a little restless. And where back-home Fitz would have a lecture prepared for whoever disrespected his time, this Fitz just has a blank look when a man abruptly approaches and speaks in a sort of off-brand French accent. The look swerves quickly to disgruntled as he clocks what looks like a tail in his periphery.
"Okay."
He doesn't get it. But, to be totally fair: this is not what he was expecting. He drags his focus away from the fur with some effort.
"You're late."
It doesn't sound mad. It sounds like an observation, deadpan, because he has no idea what else to say and stating the obvious is always an option.
i'll drop a landmine in this thread so you're forced to make bold choices
"What the hell— is someone joking?"
Playing a prank on the new guy makes more sense than ghosts, though he hasn't assumed ghosts yet (because ghosts aren't real), so unsure what kind of joke throwing things at his head is. He can't see anybody past Ellis and Tony Stark would probably have more advanced pranks, but he also woke up in another dimension. All bets are off.
(Except ghosts being fake. That bet's still on.)
i'm ready for the drama
A snowglobe sails past Fitz's head and to explode a shower of glass and glitter across the front steps. Ellis, clearly having reached the end of his patience, reaches over to grab Fitz's elbow and haul him bodily forward.
"It usually leaves us alone when we get to the back of the house. I think it's protective of the sitting room."
Not that it's kept from throwing plates in the kitchen, but Ellis suspects that's just self-defense. Wysteria has been setting more small fires lately.
"Walk quickly. If we lag it'll throw an end table."
no subject
Cut off by the snowglobe and being hauled through the doorway, but it's easy to guess where it was going. Fitz gives the end table down the hallway a distrustful look, then he yanks his elbow away from Ellis and strides past him down the hall. He's got enough sense to wait until he's through a doorframe (and at the back of the house, presumably) to stop and wheel on Ellis.
"If you tell me this bloody house is haunted, I'm—," pause for breath, forcing calm for a very serious: "Don't."
no subject
"It isn't." Sahren stands up and turns towards her, taking a moment for a critical once-over. "And I don't need a hunting partner, either. They said you needed lessons."
It's an explanation, which could theoretically be given amicably. It sounds more like an accusation.
no subject
She frowns, planting her hands on her hips and tapping her unshod foot on the dirt. "Are you sure they said I needed lessons? Not someone else?"
no subject
He both sounds and looks significantly less exasperated, though he does make you sound like an insult. Even the tinge of annoyance is cool enough to sound patronizing. He crosses his arms and glances behind him, back towards the quiet woods and, more metaphorically, the hunting he's meant to be doing.
"How much weight can you carry?"
no subject
"That depends. Am I carrying it with my arms or can I pull it on a sled?"
no subject
And, here, he does a quick and very presentational sort of half-turn, so Fitz might get another glimpse of his satchel. Work.
"--Simply to keep an appointment. Surely you know how it is when you are enraptured by a project. What could tear you from it? Time itself? No. Time is nothing. I have stayed awake for days on end, working, and studying, and researching, only to look about and realize how long that I have been at it, and then collapsed into sleep. Now, your study of Orlesian, I will not expect quite such devotion to. I am not unreasonable. Do you know anything at all of the language? What is it that interests you of it?"
He gestures, expectantly. It is now Fitz's turn to monologue, here on the dock.
no subject
"Now," Ellis says, crossing the room to push his own abandoned chair back into place at the table and close the book he'd been reading. "Why are you here?"
What's caused this man to brave the front rooms?
no subject
"I've got your socks," he says, regrettably. There's an awkward pause before he retrieves them from the pocket of his coat and tosses them onto the closed book. "And Wysteria invited me over. Is she not here?"
no subject
Ellis sounds tired.
"There's a compound she's attempting. I don't know the details, but I wanted to be on hand to put out the fire."
Will there be a fire? Probably. Wysteria had sworn up and down that there was no possibility, but Ellis knows better after several situations where he'd been caught unprepared.
"Did you want to see her, or did she promise you a tour first?"
no subject
"...... Okay."
Or not, because now that he's got words to process there's a lot to process. The silence stretches with a flat stare until, finally, he ventures a few more words:
"I don't know anything," he says, regrettably open-ended. He's too busy sifting through that monologue to filter out which bits he's actually meant to respond to. "And it's for research, or—", yet another pause as the intense contrast between him, quiet and staring dumbly and This Guy, the self-proclaimed poster child of Orlais, sinks in. The statement ends on a regrettably dubious note. "Blending in."
no subject
Fire isn't a word so much as a disgruntled expression. He gives the ceiling a suspicious glance — difficult not to imagine some kind of Frankenstein lab in the attic or the basement, given the state of this world and this specific neighborhood. Not so much the state of Wysteria, but maybe a little bit the state of Wysteria.
"Is the bloody ghost coming?"
The delivery's more petty than panicked. He's not scared!!! But that's a yes to a tour.
no subject
"It's hard to say what will hold the ghost's interest, but it's best to assume it'll be coming along."
Though Ellis seems undecided as to where exactly they should head first. He spends a few seconds just idly shuffling papers on the table into some semblance of order before he points at the second door.
"We can start there. Second floor, then third if nothing's happened."
How many floors does Wysteria's house have? Unclear.
no subject
Now that it's no longer a lesson, there's no obligation. He could send her home. Or—
"Just keep quiet."
no subject
...But she does keep quiet. They're hunting, it'd be stupid to start mouthing off just because he's a jerk.
"What's your name?" She asks, quietly.
no subject
"If—"
The disbelief is too intense to verbalize, apparently, but the look he shoots Ellis gets it across nicely. Another clipped breath, eyes briefly closing in an effort to get centered. "Fine. But you first."
If anyone's getting ambushed by the ghost headed through a doorway, it's not going to be him.
no subject
His hand goes to his heart, and his eyes close a moment. A sigh.
"A worthier goal has never been, monsieur. This I can help you toward. I will not pretend that it will be an easy achievement, but what thing worth achieving ever is? And if you have the thirst within your heart, you will survive it. We are in agreement, yes?"
no subject
"Skip the third step. It squeaks, and I think the ghost resents the sound."
But somehow not what Wysteria gets up to in the kitchen?
"We're still cleaning it out. When she..." How did Wysteria get the house? Ellis still isn't clear. "When she inherited it, it was filled with more broken furniture than you can imagine. I kept aside what's interesting, but there's still more to go through."
Ellis glances over his shoulder meaningfully as they clear the landing. Welcome to that task, Fitz.