[open]

[lumelume]

WHO: Mado and you
WHAT: where are my beloved cousins??
WHEN: whatever month this is
WHERE: the Gallows
NOTES: he's here

There's a strange man in the Gallows courtyard, a man nobody has seen before. He looks shabby, dressed in a long yellow surcoat that has seen much better days, but his face is lit with a plaintive grin as his melodic, Antivan-accented voice rings out:

"Averesk? I'm looking for Kostos, or Nikos Averesk! Have you seen them?"

It's not even entirely clear how he got here, because nobody saw him enter or leave the ferry, and this is not a person who escapes notice easily. Maybe he's a ghost. Maybe he's been living under the island this entire time.

"You there, please! I'm looking for my cousins!"

Comments

[sulahnan]

“Pfft, no, are you kidding?” But before she tells him the truth, that they’re a pair of nearly identical arse-holes who can barely stand each other, she gets another brilliant idea. Ohhhoho she’s going to enjoy this. “That’d be impractical, they’ve got work to do and all, see? And they gotta piss and shit sometimes.”

Athessa slows marginally to walk side by side with Mado, gesturing dismissively. “And Nikos? Ugh he’s just...he loves hugging people way too much, and I’m already not big on people touchin’ me.”

Hehehehehehehehehehehehe. Take that, Nikos.

[lumelume]

He actually looks significantly disappointed by her answer, and the smile on Mado's face wilts visibly-- but when Athessa doesn't elaborate, and instead begins to tell him about Nikos, it climbs right back on.

"Oh! Then I imagine we'll get along famously," he chirps, looking around the high stone hallway as they traverse it. "And I will remember this about you as well, Athessa."
At least he tries.

[sulahnan]

She does appreciate that, really.

"I appreciate that," See? "And don't get me wrong, hugs are fine, but I'd rather be the one to initiate, ya know?"

[lumelume]

"Yes! I love hugs," he exclaims, "but I suppose you don't want them from everyone! Or at least, not everyone wants them from me." This is probably the conclusion drawn from at least one painful conversation, but he is unflappable.

"I forgot that and hugged someone earlier today-- Sidony! My other cousin!" He almost stops, he's so delighted, but just sort of trips forward instead. "She's the head surgeon, do you know her?"

[sulahnan]

Oh, that's right. Athessa had forgotten that Sidony was their cousin. Well, it's not like they just go around reminding everyone who they're related to.

"I do, yes. I was at her wedding, sorta. More the reception, I guess. I'm also friends with her husband, Lord Ambassador Rutyer, head of the diplomacy division." She adopts a mockingly regal inflection on Lord Ambassador Rutyer, and leads them down a corridor. "Where are you from? Your accent--?"

[lumelume]

This seems to impress him even further, his eyes going wide-- an ambassador!!-- but before Mado is able to exclaim at it, Athessa asks him another question.

"Rialto!" he replies, "well, mostly."

[sulahnan]

“How’s that? Was one foot over the border when you were born?”

She’s in a mood. If anyone understands being mostly from somewhere and partly from somewhere else it’s the elf mostly from Kirkwall and partly from the woods.

[lumelume]

"Well," and for the first time, Mado exhibits a shred of self-doubt, "I'm Dalish, is the thing."
Telling elves this doesn't usually end well, but he is not a man well-suited for lying.

[sulahnan]

Athessa stops, turns, and looks him over dubiously. It’s an air of how did I miss that more so than that’s bullshit, but still skeptical.

“Elf-blooded and raised with a clan?” It’s the only guess that makes sense. He wouldn’t be allowed a vallaslin, but if no human family would take him, a clan likely wouldn’t just let him die. Probably.

[lumelume]

He stops as well, flinching in anticipation of a berating that never comes. He nods hopefully-- at least she seems to understand the situation.

[sulahnan]

“Well, aneth ara, or whatever,” she says with a brief, irreverent bow, then turns back around to keep looking for Kostos. “I’m Dalish and mostly from Kirkwall, myself. Not that anyone guesses the former until I start talking about clan shit ‘cos I never got my vallaslin.”

[lumelume]

"Serannas!" Mado chirps, his brow knitting sympathetically. "Well that we have in common. May I ask why?"

[sulahnan]

“Oh, my clan got wiped out when I was thirteen or thereabouts,” she preemptively waves off any potential moues of sympathy, or tries to with a dismissive gesture. “That’s why I’m mostly from Kirkwall, ‘cos it was closest and where I scraped by as a scrappy little urchin. I’m guessing your clan drifted near Rialto?”

[lumelume]

He does frown at this, but in a commiserating rather than patronizing sort of way-- he understands intimately the fear that all Dalish face, even being something of an outsider to them himself.

"I'm sorry," he says, despite her waving it off, "and yes, they left me there when I was... ten?" He cocks his eyebrow, thinking. "A boy, but old enough to do my own scraping and scrapping."

No reason to include how he initially thought it was an accident, how he went to find them and was chased away.

"The clan camp's no place for a shem'len," he says pleasantly.

[sulahnan]

She makes a soft noise in her throat, a hum of thought or understanding. Athessa has gone through the gamut of thinking the best and worst of her clan; maybe they left her intentionally, or by accident, were killed, or simply captured. Her fault, not her fault, and so on.

“What about your parents? They just let them dump you?”

tw suicide mention

[lumelume]

"Well," Mado says, only fractionally less upbeat than before, "I'm told my mother didn't stay long after my birth, by her own choice. And my father, well!"
He grins again, a strange expression. "My father is why I'm here! I've never met him, of course, but Keeper Misuin described him to me when I asked. His family name is Vivas, and though I couldn't find him, a friend of mine was able to identify his family, and a sister who married a Nevarran named Averes--sh."

He smiles.

"I'm lucky to know people who can read."

[sulahnan]

“Averesch,” she corrects again, absently. An automatic reaction disconnected from the sympathy she feels for him, apparent on her face even without looking directly at him. “So you’re just...trying to connect with family, then?”

[lumelume]

"Averesch," he repeats, determined to get it right, and nods. "It's a question gone long unanswered," he says with a smile, "I thought perhaps, in the absence of my mother's family, my father's might be a little happier to see me."

oh no

[sulahnan]

Athessa clicks her tongue against her teeth. "Yeaaaah, I wouldn't get your hopes up, bud."

[lumelume]

His face falls.

"Really?

But you said Nikos..."

[exequy]

"Nikos is in the city," Kostos says, crossing paths with them just in time to hear that last part, but too late to have heard any of the rest of it and to know it isn't only his brother he's throwing to the wolves. Or throwing to the lost newcomer who, he doesn't know, maybe thinks Nikos owes him money or something.

He's walking quickly, happy to deliver that information in passing and then pass on by.

[sulahnan]

"Well there you fuckin' are," Athessa exclaims, and gestures at him. "Mado, that right there is Kostos Averesch."

[lumelume]

"Kostos," comes the breathy gasp, and Mado turns quickly to see the back of the man's head, his whole being tensed for this moment.

"Kostos?" more direct, aimed toward the departing man, and suddenly Mado is all uncertainty, clasping his hands in front of him.
"I'm Amador. ...Vivas, if you like. I'm your cousin."

[exequy]

No, Kostos would like to say—but it’s been years since he spoke to most of his relatives, and there’s a full suite of aunts and uncles in Antiva, and maybe one of them has a son named Amador. He doesn’t know. He barely cares.

The no impulse arises less from the impossibility of a Cousin Amador and more from the impossibility of a Cousin Amador who dresses like that.

He manages to restrain it. But what he says instead is, “Who the fuck are your parents?”

So not much better, there.

[sulahnan]

"Well, that sounds like my cue to go," Athessa says, shooting a vaguely apologetic smile in Mado's direction and moving to step past Kostos. "Have fun catching up."