[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]

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."

[lumelume]

"Ah! That's a good question!" Mado replies, with the air of a dog whose tail has only just begun tentatively wagging upon eye contact with a person.

"I've never met my father, but he's-- your mother's brother?" he guesses, since he has at least a vague idea of how surnames tend to work, "...Vivas. And my mother was Dalish, so it's unlikely you'd know her." He smiles eagerly.

[exequy]

"What," Kostos says to Athessa, because she's leaving, and then, "Uh," to the new fellow, because he's just said his mother was Dalish.

He steps in front of Athessa to block her path. If this is some sort of prank, she's going to stay here and answer for it—maybe, if stepping in front of her is enough to make her stay.

[sulahnan]

Athessa does stop, looking as surprised by it as a marionette would be when hefted by the eyebrows.

"Whaddya mean what," She gestures to Mado as if he's Exhibit One. "This is Mado, he's your cousin. And since your family is none of my business, this--" Here she turns back to Kostos and gestures to herself. Exhibit Two. "--is me walking away."

[lumelume]

Mado stands there smiling blithely, unsure what to make of any of this and therefore not contributing. When Kostos looks at him again, he waves.

[exequy]

“When you bring me supposed family members, it becomes your—” Kostos is saying, when Mado waves at him and his brain trips mid-sentence over the absurdity and falls flat into several seconds of silence.

He steps out of Athessa’s way.

“Fine,” he says to her, but he’s still looking at Mado. The next part is for him: “Do you have any proof?”

[sulahnan]

Athessa smiles, triumphant, and walks away. But not without a lilting call of "Play nice" thrown over her shoulder.

[lumelume]

"Oh-- no, of course not," Mado replies, a little confused, even hurt by the question; what would he gain by lying about such a thing?

"I only know what I was told! Which is that the sister of my father married someone named Averesch, and that she was your mother." He holds out his hands in a helpless shrug.

[exequy]

Kostos twists to give Athessa’s retreating back a look—a look he’ll follow up with words later, when he can talk to her alone instead of in front of a potential con artist—while he says, “And you believe everything you are told?”