open.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien/Kostos/Southey/Jehan + you
WHAT: Catch-all/random opens
WHEN: Solace and August
WHERE: Kirkwall, for the most part
NOTES: I know the month ends in two days but tag me anyway.

Comments

bastien.

[cozen]

Wildcards welcome too.

open: a usually-unused corridor, late.

[cozen]

The Gallows is sprawling enough that, with only 80-odd inhabitants, there are plenty of places to halfway hide. Bastien's chosen a corridor in one of the smaller buildings adjacent to the tower. He's made off with some of the extraneous archery targets from the courtyard where people usually practice these sorts of things. It’s a shorter

Nearby doors or footsteps will make him stop. But there isn't much to be done about the evidence: the shortbow in his hand, the thumb ring, the arrows and one knife embedded in the targets. A few smooth stones lying where they fell after being thrown, too—with more accuracy than the knife, so it’s a bit sad there’s no evidence. The targets themselves are nearing tatters. Some of the damage was before he took them, but he's also been at it for a while. Too long. His aim has been getting wilder, the last hour, not better.

Anyway, it isn't the end of the world to be seen like this, at least not more than it's always the end of the world these days. But he still lowers the bow, for safety's sake if nothing else, and tries to stave off the invasion of anyone who might be looking for solitude or a last-minute place to fuck by calling out, "I have claimed this corridor for Orlais," before he knows who it might be.

[unshut]

The footsteps pause in reply, and for the briefest moment there is some possibility that the body they are connected to will be successfully warded off and away.

Then from around the corner, a voice says, "How fortunate I'm not Ferelden then. Would Orlais consider opening the border on behalf of trade?"

[cozen]

A familiar voice. He smiles down the corridor—only a little, alone, but by the time he's appeared at her corner, bow still in hand, it's stretched wider.

"Perhaps with a tariff," he offers, "if Antiva is amenable."

open: hightown, not late.

[cozen]

Whatever official business drew him out of the Gallows has been completed, and the results—a book, maybe, or a message—tucked under his arm for safekeeping. But it's a nice day, aside from the heat, and he's found shade to tuck himself into to watch the market for a while. There's a girl with a lute and a lovely voice out today. A pack of barely-supervised well-dressed children playing tag while their caretakers gossip. A man selling flowers has his roses hidden behind the stall so he can tell every browser that the three on display are the last he has left.

Eventually there's also familiar face. Whether it's friendly or not, Bastien peels himself off the wall and out of the shade to catch up and fall into step with them. "Hello," he says, with whatever Sers or Madames might also be polite. "Are you in a hurry?"`

[untiltheyarent]

"For once, I am not," comes Fifi's reply, and a pleasant but tired smile up at Bastien as she slips her arm through his.

"What mischief are you causing tonight, mon cher?"

[cozen]

"Mischief!" Bastien echoes, with cheerful affront. Mischief. Never in his life. He angles—with a hopeful pull of their interlocked arms—to turn Fifi away from the trajectory she'd been on, down another street, where there is no mischief waiting at all. "Tell me what you have been doing, first. Anything exciting?"

[keenly]

"Um, no?" Colin slows down enough to let Bastien catch up. "Can I help you?"

Somehow, the formality helps Colin cope a bit with how very much Bastien knows about him. Or really it doesn't, but he thinks it eventually will.

[cozen]

“Me, no,” Bastien says.

If he were looking for a good time, he might be deterred by that obligated shop clerk response. He’s not in the habit of inflicting himself where he isn’t wanted, without a reason.

But he has one.

“You are a healer, yes?” His voice is low enough to avoid drawing any attention to the fact, unless someone is very intent on eavesdropping. “Is it hard? Or I mean—does it take something out of you?”

He smiles a little. A hopeful about-to-ask-a-favor sort of smile.

“I suppose what I really mean is: would it be silly for me to ask you to heal a dog?”

closed: byerly.

[cozen]

Given that the black and orange dog that haunts the Gallows has followed Bastien up all however-many flights of stairs to the division office, it would be rude not to let him in. Plus Bastien might have trouble preventing it, with his hands as full as they are when he shoulders through the door.

"Why are you so high up?" he asks as a greeting. "I know that the rooms are well-appointed, but you could have us all carry your furniture down to the fourth floor. Perhaps the fifth."

It's a hot day. The climb has left him damper than he'd like to be. But he's shortly unburdened, at least, when he sets the egg-shaped wicker basket in his arms on Byerly's desk. The basket's contents answer with a skritch and a squeak, and Noose sets his chin on the desk to stare at it intently with a slow-wagging tail.

[bouchonne]

"I've considered it," Byerly says; his voice is light at first, casual, distracted as he studies a sheaf of papers, but every word becomes heavier by degrees as he starts to take in just what Bastien is carrying and just what he is doing. "It's quite annoying, trying to do a deal with someone who's already annoyed with you for having been forced to exert himself."

And then, fully absorbed by the thing on his desk: "Bastien, dear friend, there seems to be something wrong with the expensive Cumberlandish whiskey you've brought me. It seems to be making noise."

[cozen]

“Whiskey is a good name for a dog,” Bastien says, dropping one hand to pat the broad head of the larger, already-named dog beside him. In the other he gives a folded, seal-broken letter a neat, snappy shake to open it. “Better than Regards—that was going to be my suggestion.“

The whiskey and/or regards moves in the dark little cave of the basket, toward the circular opening on the upper edge of the wicker egg. A nose emerges. It’s attached to a wrinkly-faced, red and black hound, still a very young puppy, but starting to get leggy rather than stubby. She would very much like to not be in a basket anymore.

“Lord Fowler of Tantervale sends his regards, it says.”

closed: ellis.

[cozen]

"I am surprised anyone here chooses to complain about us," Bastien is telling Ellis as they make their way through a crowded Hightown street, "instead of camping in the Viscount's office until they add some color to the buildings."

They're very gray-tan. All of them. One after the other. It isn't that Bastien hates Kirkwall, exactly—Lowtown is fine. But Hightown makes him miss Val Royeaux, where the wealthy pricks at the top at least divert some of their time and money to making the place look nice.

But he shakes himself and gets back on topic. The topic is why he is making Ellis come with him, to call on the neighbors who have lately complained to the guard and the Provisional Viscount about the sounds and smells emanating from Miss Poppell's bizarre inheritance. "I am not sure if the Warden was his grandfather or his great-uncle, but I have heard that he is very proud. He keeps getting into arguments with people about whether you are all heroes or, ah... You know."

Corypheus'-allied demon-summoning snakes.

"So perhaps your presence will make up for my accent."

[heorte]

Since he arrived, Ellis hasn't found occasion to wear his full Warden uniform. After he'd received Bastien's request, he'd removed it from his pack, shined the armor, laundered the gambeson, polished his boots. This isn't Warden business, not really, but it can't hurt.

What he's really counting on is Bastien doing most of the talking, and Ellis' uniform speaking for itself. Bastien hasn't asked outright and Ellis hasn't volunteered any details about Wysteria's work or Tony and Fitz's contributions, but his suspicion is that the neighbors aren't going to be placated by the promise of Science.

"Can you affect another accent?" Ellis asks, dodging an attempted shoulder bump from a passing gentleman. Ah, to be a Warden. Respected, appreciated...

kostos.

[exequy]

Wildcards welcome too.

open: one of the gardens, after midnight.

[exequy]

There’s a difference between caring what people think and not wanting to have a conversation about it. The latter is why Kostos brings the mummy out in the middle of the night. Not the former.

There’s also a difference between the mummy and his sister. The mummy isn’t Keto. It’s Keto’s body, occupied by a spirit. Some spirits blur the lines, he knows, when the dead are not quite dead before the work begins, and many Nevarrans blur them further, say they're visiting their great-great-grandmother and believe it. They’re wrong. However, for the sake of brevity, Keto is easier than Keto's body and the spirit inhabiting it. So: fine. Keto.

Keto was six years old when she died and looks smaller now in death, with a long braid and a delicate dress that wound have been ruined within hours when she was alive. Kostos and Nikos would have led her through thorns in the garden or knocked her down in their haste to beat one another to a door. She would have cried. Now her eyes are empty sockets, and the spirit in her is complacent and serene, happy to sit on the bench where Kostos leaves her without trying to follow and catch his hand with one of hers, which were always damp and sticky, which he always pulled free of first chance he got.

He comes back with a cut of embrium, places it on her lap, and sit on the ground in front of the bench to watch her bony fingers try to pick it up.

[inkindled]

What is that? had been Matthias' first thought, with his breath stuck in his throat and his hand reaching, reflexively, for a staff that isn't there. Stupid.

Why is he awake and walking past a garden after midnight? Well, he has a girlfriend. And sometimes he visits her, and sometimes the hour gets to be very late, and no one cares what he does or where he is unless he's meant to be on a mission or working in the Forces office--so call it habit, maybe, that makes him return to his own room. Or maybe something more complicated, another thing he doesn't want to think too hard about, but what does any of that matter, now here is some thing, everyone in the Gallows ought to thank the Maker Matthias was out past midnight. He doesn't know what he's looking at, but he starts to walk closer.

He's only just stepped past the hedgerow when he sees the shape of someone else there in the garden, first a silhouette in the dark and then the moon comes out from behind the clouds, and oh, shit, it's Kostos Averesch, so whatever this is must be none of Matthias' business, he's clearly got it sorted, it's time to go before Averesch notices him.

But seriously, what is the thing.

Matthias steps backwards, carefully, trying to aim for the archway out of the garden without looking. He ends up backing into a stone wall instead. He's underdressed, so it's just soft shirt that scrapes against the wall. Desperately, Matthias flattens himself against the wall and tries to hold still, as the thing on the bench stirs, gently. Is it looking at him?

[exequy]

It—she—it is looking at him, fumbling fingers going still with distraction. Kostos frowns at her for a moment. But the effort required for him to pull images from a spirit in a body is significantly higher than the effort required for him to turn and look himself, so that's what he does.

All of his looks are a little hostile, by default. But this one isn't more hostile than normal. He sighs a loud, sharp sigh, fully intended to be overheard and convey that he's being inconvenienced, but he doesn't say fuck off.

"That is Matthias," he tells Keto, turning back to her. "He thinks you bite."

At a guess.

[tender]

Whatever Derrica has said to the contrary in her discussions with Flint and Ilias and Marcus Rowantree, she is afraid of going to Val Royeux. The absolute terror of all that can potentially go wrong has lodged in her chest like an arrowhead; she feels it every time she draws a breath. She refuses to let it change her mind, but it's hard to live in anticipation of walking into the Grand Cathedral. That structure and the people within it have dwelled on the edge of her consciousness for years, without any expectation of ever becoming a reality.

It would be nice to simply get it over with, but in the wake of confirmation there are preparations, things Ilias thinks of that Derrica wouldn't have. It leaves her at loose ends while she packs and tries to think of what she should leave here in case she doesn't return.

Loose ends of late mean staying late in Lowtown and coming back on the last ferry in some level of disarray. There's usually no one to see her, but tonight—

"Oh," is the first, quiet exclamation at the sight of the little mummy. Sweet is not what most people might think, but it's the word that pops into Derrica's head, watching her trying to grasp the plant.

"I didn't know you were having a visitor."

Some stalling around the urge to apologize. This feels like an intrusion, however accidental.

[exequy]

Kostos holds very still, at oh, waiting for more—enough to be certain whose voice it is, enough to know what sort of reaction he might be dealing with when he turns so he can adjust the intensity of his scowl accordingly.

But it's Derrica, the Seer, saying one of the few things that wouldn't put his back up. When he does look, he isn't scowling at all, except to the extent that his face just always looks a little dark.

"She has been staying in the basement," he says. For months now. And Cumberland hasn't fallen the way he'd feared it might, in the meantime, so perhaps they could have safely left here there in the dark with their ancestors, but it's too late now.

On her bench, Keto holds up a sprig of leaves, pinched between two fingers like tongs, and the spirit pushes air through her vocal cords to make a clumsy noise, like look what I can do.

[windyvoice]

"Whoah, mummy baby! Where'd you come from, baby?" announces Jenny Lou's arrival, spotting the animated body long before she spots Kostos and clearly delighted about it.

She should probably be more alarmed about the teeny tiny mummy just chilling in the garden. But one: she's just come from doing some mutual chill horse standing with Aggie Penny and two: holy shit, that's a cute tiny mummy. And then she sees Kosts and her grin doesn't falter.

"Oh hey. Who's your friend?"

[exequy]

That's not the sort of response he's used to. Not that he frequently parades child-sized mummies around. But even with conceptual mummies, Nevarrans are generally more somber and respectful, and the rest of the world is—well. The rest of the world's typical response is why he got into so many fistfights in the Orlesian Circle he wound up in.

So the look he turns to give Jenny Lou is too startled to be cross. Rifters. Maker.

"My—"

Friend? He was going to just echo the word back, confused, but he gets his bearings back in time to avoid that.

"My sister," he says, and amends, "Her body. The spirit does not have a name yet."

[sulahnan]

The gardens are still one of Athessa's frequent haunts, as the only place on the island where things are lush and green rather than rocky and gray. And she still doesn't sleep well, even with the mixture that Isaac gave her — if you take it, no more than a week, and no drinking, he'd said — she still finds herself wandering, smoking, sometimes even meditating.

Tonight, she just wants to lay in the grass while she reads. Look at the stars. Hear the rustle of the warm breeze through the leaves and smell the smells carried on that breeze. Dirt, flowers, tree bark, sea salt, elfroot.

Athessa pauses on the edge of the garden, seeing Kostos and seeing...

"I won't ask," she says, barely bothering to make her voice loud enough for him to hear. There's a nice patch to lay down just under the birch tree a short ways away from Kostos and the mummy child, and that's where Athessa settles herself with book and smoldering joint.

closed: athessa.

[exequy]

When he sees her crossing the Gallows courtyard, Kostos speeds up to catch her. It's a faster walk, not a run, but it's not subtle—the ground is made of stone, the new, worse boots replacing his stolen good boots are fairly loud. He has no aspirations of taking her by surprise.

"You can't seriously—" he starts to say once he's caught up to her, but then fight he's here to pick gets put on hold. Probably very brief hold. Still: "What the fuck happened to your face?"

[sulahnan]

He doesn't take her by surprise, but she does raise her eyebrows and give him a look.

"Nice to see you, too," she says flatly, and continues walking. "I snagged it on a Vint dagger in Orlais."