faderift | We're Back! A Gallows Tale

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We're Back! A Gallows Tale

WHO: Athessa and YOU!
WHAT: Oh, you know. Getting back from the jungle and getting way too into her work.
WHEN: Now, Post-Jungle
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall in general
NOTES: shrug.

I. Back on her Bullshit...or...not.

Athessa is quite possibly the best rested of the whole group that returns from the jungle, having found sleeping rough a lot easier than sleeping in a bed here. Weird. But in the few days that follow, she once again gets back to her habit of not sleeping well and prowling around in a cloud of root-smoke. She also has a small dagger strapped to her hip instead of going unarmed or strapping on her dual-wield blades, and an unusually heightened work ethic during daylight hours. Minimal antics, maximum...something else. Something like responsibility? Weird.

II. Can I Raas you a Question? (Closed to Raas, if that wasn't clear)

They don't know each other. They've never even interacted, at least as far as Athessa can recall. But where else is Athessa supposed to turn, when she doesn't know anyone else who speaks qunlat and doesn't want to snoop around unnecessarily before handing over what she found to the boss?

"'Scuse me..." She isn't timid, just a little awkward. It's not typical for her to introduce herself to someone just to ask a favor. "Do you have a minute?"

III. A New Kind of Office Visit (closed to Yseult)

Athessa knocks before entering, same as usual. But this isn't one of their scheduled check-ins or typical scout work that either of them expect from one another. They're barely settled after getting back from the jungle when Athessa is reporting to Yseult with a missive in one hand, and a qunari dagger in the other. Both are set on Yseult's desk.

"I...figured I should report this to you. I dunno if it even really matters, but I found these in De--in Sten's room."

IV. Wildcard

[ you know the drill ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"There's an empty room in the old mage tower, one with a balcony. I figured that'd be a good spot because my usual haunts--" Meaning the rooftops or high walls with no safety railings or what-have-you. "--aren't hookah-safe. I told Benedict to bring a blanket, I'm gonna be grabbing the covers and pillows from the spare bed in my room, too."

"I'm bringing biscuits," he says, wrapping paper around a bunch of gingersnaps. "What floor?"

Once he has directions, he seems to have gotten himself together. "On my way."

Although it's an "empty" room, that really just means that nobody is staying in it. It's still furnished, if sparsely, and the main selling point is that it does indeed have a balcony. It makes it terribly drafty in the winter, spring, and autumn, and too warm during the day in summer. It's no surprise that nobody has claimed it, but for their purposes? It's perfect. The sun is setting, so there's no blistering heat from its rays to worry about, just a cool evening breeze rustling through the moth-eaten curtains. The floor is warm from heat rising through the lower, more populous levels of the tower, and if they should deem it too chilly later in the night there's a fireplace at the ready.

With all three of them there, Athessa claims her spot among the blankets and pillows, to one side of the hookah, and sits with her legs stretched out toward the open balcony.

Bene comes shuffling in several moments after Athessa with the air of a cat in a new house, gripping the blanket under his folded arms and looking around as if afraid that at any moment he could be crept up on and surprised by lurking danger.
Or Flint. But, tomayto tomahto.

Something in his face changes when he sees the hookah, and his expression is almost a smile: wistful, bittersweet, tamping down deeper emotions.
It's just nice to see that it's still here.

Colin spreads his own blanket and sits, opening up the paper full of gingersnaps.

"These are all I brought," he warns, "so don't eat them all at once."

The hookah is another thing Athessa could tell Bene I told you so about, considering she promised to return it to him once he was freed, but she decides against it. Instead, she pats the floor beside her as an invitation.

"I make no promises not to eat all the biscuits at once, you know how impulsive I get when I'm high. Waln--Benedict, would you puh-lease do the honors?"

He doesn't even flinch when she nearly calls him Walnut, but sets the blanket down and crouches to run his fingers over the hookah, checking its cleanliness and simply admiring that it still exists.

The process isn't simple, but he's experienced enough that he makes short work of it, pausing only at the very end, when it's time to light the coal. Instinctively, he presses it between two fingers, only to look momentarily confused when nothing happens.
Then, pursing his lips, he sits back on one of the pillows and pushes his hair back out of his face with his free hand.

"Colin, um... can you do fire?"

Colin's brow furrows at Bene's confusion. He reaches out and touches the coal to light it--as abysmal as he is at elemental magic, even he can make a small flame.

"Are they still not letting you cast?"

Ah, mages. Athessa leans back on the heels of her hands, watching the process and waiting a beat before offering her contribution:

"There's always flint and steel by the fireplaces, ya know."

Bene looks almost surprised by the question, and shrugs.
"Why would they," he asks uneasily, "I'm a gardener." His eyes shift to Athessa with a look of trepidation.

Flint and steel? What is he, a scientist?

"Because magebane is literally a poison and I don't know what it's doing to you?" Which has Colin starting to feel hot and out of breath as he considers the implications, the idea that this will set a precedent for how to treat mages 'humanely' without knowing or caring about what they're doing to mages' bodies.

"Sister Sara is in charge," Athessa says, sitting forward now and looking across at Colin. "She's not likely to be careless about it." Then, to Benedict: "I can show you how to use them."

Bene just falls silent while they discuss it, getting that distant look in his eyes again-- he's been shutting down his own tendency to complain for long enough now that it's become second nature.

"Let's just smoke," he says quietly, almost pleading, and stokes the coals as they begin to glow faintly.
"I had this made by an artisan in Ventus for my fifteenth birthday," he says with quiet fondness.

Sawbones is anything but careless. The heat lowers, as does his heart rate, having been caught before it got too far. He sits back against a pillow, trying to relax. It doesn't work yet, but he's trying. He watches Bene's reverential treatment of the device, the uncomfortable narrative in his head switching to the fact that you can commission a hookah instead of just buying whatever the artisan already made. Why would you even...?

"So when do you smoke it?" he decides to ask instead.

Her first thought is that it must've been nice to have had money at fifteen, but she neither gives voice to the thought or dwells on it for very long. She's thought enough about being fifteen to last a lifetime this year alone, she'd rather not go there now. Fetching up one of the hoses on the hookah, she bides her time waiting for instruction by inspecting it. Oooh, aaah, very interesting, yes.

"Let me--" Benedict begins, and, picking up the nearest hose, he takes a series of small breaths that he subsequently puffs out until, after a little while, he begins to exhale smoke.

"Just... take a deep, slow breath," he demonstrates without the hose, "and then let it sit there a few moments before you blow it back out, slowly."

He shows them with the hookah this time, blowing a stream of smoke as his shoulders visibly begin to relax.

Colin reaches for a hose, finally having a chance to examine the craftsmanship of it. Maybe these things can only be made to order, with the sheer engineering that goes into this. He pinches the mouthpiece between his lips and inhales slowly. The rest, he knows already, and he holds his breath for as long as he can before letting it out.

"Nice," he comments before taking another long breath.

This is more like it. Smoke starting to fill the air, cut through by the sea breeze wafting in from the balcony, the sun setting in the distance...it's idyllic, even if stress is the main reason for being here.

Athessa keeps her mind on the smoking for the first few pulls, on the third one trying--and still failing--to blow smoke rings. They're just discs. Lame. She sighs and sits with the high as it settles over her, making her cheeks tingle and her limbs get heavier.

"If I get sappy tonight, you both have full permission to slap me out of it."

It's been so long that Benedict has felt this sense of calm, almost well-being, that it's almost enough to make him emotional on its own. He never thought he'd experience anything like this again, and it brings to light just how deep he had sunk in the past half a year.
So he's quiet, eyes shining and expression serene, his stillness only slightly disturbed by Athessa speaking again.

"Sappy about what?" he asks, and his voice is gentle.

Everything is unwinding, the little voice that constantly nags at him about all the ways the world is trying to kill him finally still for the first time since he was captured. Despite his warning to the others early on, he is the first one to reach for the gingersnaps.

"We won't slap you out of it," he says before crunching into a biscuit. Athessa has the worst time expressing emotions that aren't anger, so why should he discourage it when she finally does?

Colin reaching for a biscuit reminds her that they exist and she grabs two for herself, tapping them together idly while she answers.

"'Bout anything, really," she gives a one-shoulder shrug and bites down on a cookie, which has no business tasting so damn good. Like, really. Oh. The cookie is gone! Good thing she has another--it's gone too. Heck. "Like how good these biscuits are. I could weep."

It's a joke, but also kind of true. The sweetness of the cookie reminds her of Eshal's nickname for her: Sweet Tessa. Thinking of Eshal makes her wonder whatever happened to her errant Tal Vashoth friend. Thinking of that reminds her that Deimos is gone, and of the unfortunate revelations contained within her conversation with Raas. Eshal also organized that fight club, which makes Athessa remember Derrica kissing her bruises better after a bout.

All of these thoughts are normally just swirling chaotically in her mind with no coherent way to untangle them, but the smoke draws them out into a branching path. Athessa traverses the path, looking backwards at the thoughts as they drift away, out the window, to a respectable distance. She sighs.

"There's a lot going on all the time, isn't there."

Athessa talking about the biscuits reminds Benedict that they exist, and he leans forward, over Colin, to take one. He, too, looks deeply emotional at the moment he bites into it, and his eyes actually tear up while he chews.

"This is so good," he whimpers. Taking another bite to finish it, he almost sobs while he chews.

Welp, Colin has a Bene in his lap, he guesses. And now he doesn't.

"Thanks," he says to the compliment, noting to himself to move the gingersnaps to a more central location. Instead, he takes another drag from the hookah and forgets. About everything. Sinking bonelessly against the cushions.

"I really needed this," he sighs. "Though now I need to--"

He squirms a bit until he manages to lean against Bene and press a leg against Athessa. She's sappy, Colin is cuddly.

She absently pats his leg with her free hand, the other turning the nozzle over between her fingers.

It's a clear night out there, where she's staring beyond the balcony. Birds call and flit about, ships in the distance looking to be no bigger than those birds. That's perspective for you. Which direction is North? How far away is Seheron? But then again that doesn't really matter, because they've already made that journey and Raas said Deimos wasn't Qunari anymore. Tal Vashoth. Just like Eshal.

"Deimos left," Athessa says to the open window. Maybe she forgot to call him by his rank, or maybe she figures, why call him Sten when that's no longer true? "The big fuck-off Qunari I was...ya know. Fucking."

Bene slowly caves under the pressure from Colin leaning on him and slumps over himself, until he's lying back on one of the pillows with Colin draped across his middle.
He's still having an emotional crisis over the cookie when Athessa drops something of a bomb, and he looks over to her in trepidation.

"You were fucking a Qunari?"

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