unshut: ([002])
mrs. fitcher ([personal profile] unshut) wrote in [community profile] faderift2020-08-01 06:11 am

[OPEN] FROM RIFTWATCH WITH LOVE: PART ONE

WHO: Everyone and anyone
WHAT: An abomination redecorates the Gallows.
WHEN: Early August
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Part One of FROM RIFTWATCH WITH LOVE. Will include some violence, some general chaos, and some light murderin'.


There is a man in a worn traveling cloak. He is dark haired, with sharp features dominated by a dark horizontal scar near his hairline, and later someone will describe him as having been soft spoken when he asked for directions.

But something in the Gallows' dining hall, with its unreliable population for the midday meal, must catch under his skin; he's found his voice again by the time he steps up onto one of the benches.

"Is this all of you?"

Someone nearby tells him to get his boots off the furniture, so the man climbs higher onto the table and is louder the second time: "Is this really all you are? A few people in a tower on an island?"

Heads are coming up. As his voice rises, he produces an envelope from his pocket.

"Do you think this is funny? Playing at being something, and telling people you can make a difference to them? You were supposed to be helping, but you're all just sitting here! Don't touch me"—to someone encouraging him to get off the fucking table—"You were meant to be helping us. You promised you would, and I told her I believed you!"

Hands are reaching for him. No, really, get off the table. You can explain what's wrong once you're down; you're with friends— The man jerks his arm free, snarling, "Don't touch me! You're nothing!" A stronger hand finds him then and begins pulling him struggling down. With a wrenched cry of, "Livia!" the man slips from the table.

A column of fire pours upward out of him like molten heat from a crack in the earth. It bursts so high that it scorches a circle on the dining hall ceiling, and burns so suddenly hot that it sends those nearest to him recoiling backward as their clothes catch. The fire licks again in random directions, in chaotic fits and starts of light and heat, and the thing that rises up again in the mage's place isn't really a man at all.

The rage abomination will ravage its way through the dining hall and prodigious Gallows kitchens, then out into the courtyard beyond leaving considerable destruction in its wake until finally brought down by Leander. In the charred aftermath, the following can be recovered from among the mage's belongings: a leather corded bracelet with a green bead woven in it (too small for anything but the smallest wrist), a functioning phylactery, and a letter from "Riftwatch" which implies a history of correspondence and familiarly refers to the recipient by name, 'Felix.' An investigation of Riftwatch's files will reveal the log of having received a message from a similar Felix, No Lastname six months earlier. The message itself is nowhere to be found among the Gallows records.

The recovered letter assures Felix that all will be well, and includes instructions to wait in the woods above the crossroads of a small Wildervale village.

'Help will be on its way. Good luck, and safe travels.'

indissection: (289)

[personal profile] indissection 2020-08-16 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
Well. If they're going for the drama of a full name -

"Sidony Celogera Allegra Venaras Rutyer." Sidony smiles in response, bowing her head a little. "Do you swear not to ruin me?"
deceivingly: (10)

[personal profile] deceivingly 2020-08-16 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
Her smile shifts into a smirk, and there is a great deal of suggestion in the way that she raises her eyebrows. Well.

"Ladies have picky definitions of ruin. I can make no promises. But for your hair, I will be very careful. This I swear."

Assuming this is enough, she stands up and pulls her shirt out from beneath the chainmail she is wearing, so she can wipe her hands on its clean tail. Then she comes over to study the hair of Sidony Celogera Allegra Venaras Rutyer.

"You have many names. What do you do with them all?"
indissection: (234)

[personal profile] indissection 2020-08-16 11:15 am (UTC)(link)
Sidony, of course, barely notes the rather charming way that her words could be mistaken and instead just nods.

"Good. I suppose that is all I can ask for."

It might do her some good to have her hair out of her face for later, anyway. She turns a little to make access easier before she huffs a little laugh, looking up at the sky for a moment.

"Use them to irritate my mother and husband, I imagine."
deceivingly: (01)

[personal profile] deceivingly 2020-08-16 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, they like shorter names?"

She takes the pretty hair in one hand, and uses the fingers of her other hand to comb it. She is gentle about it, working through the little tangles and snarls that come of having survived a big fuck-off mage stomping around in demonflesh.
indissection: (245)

[personal profile] indissection 2020-08-18 01:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"They like names easier to say when they wish to scold or summon."

Sidony settles down slowly, some calm curling around her shoulders as she relaxes.

"It's why I often ignore my middle names."
deceivingly: (04)

[personal profile] deceivingly 2020-08-20 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
"'Sidony' is the best of them. It sounds least silly."

With most of Sidony's nice hair combed out, Doki separates it into three sections. One big braid: that will be nice. She is careful about this, too, the way she takes each hank into her hand, not twisting or pulling too much, not any more than she would need to pull, in order to make a good tight braid.

"You could pick other names. I would do that if I was tired of the others."
indissection: (270)

[personal profile] indissection 2020-08-21 11:48 am (UTC)(link)
"I shall take that as a compliment. I'm sure that is how it was intended."

It doesn't feel painful or as though she is being tugged at or anything - it feels almost comfortable. Sidony breathes out and tries not to think of home, of mothers and maids and what she had left behind.

"I quite like Sidony Rutyer. I think it suits."
deceivingly: (10)

[personal profile] deceivingly 2020-08-30 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Doki makes a quiet mm of agreement. A compliment, yes. She starts to work, her fingers expertly moving between the hanks of hair. The braid begins to take its shape, solidly woven.

"Who does the Rutyer belong to? Mother, or husband? I am guessing... husband."
indissection: (183)

[personal profile] indissection 2020-08-31 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
It feels a little like she has been transported back in time, something warm and comfortable settling in her gut as she breathes out.

"Husband, yes. Byerly Rutyer. We were wed not so long ago."
deceivingly: (06)

[personal profile] deceivingly 2020-09-01 03:41 am (UTC)(link)
"A new bride," she murmurs, pleased. "I love new brides. Are you enjoying this, living as a bride in these Gallows? It is a funny place to be a married lady, I think."
indissection: (166)

[personal profile] indissection 2020-09-05 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"It is as good a place as any," Sidony shrugs her shoulders absently. "It would be worse at home. I would be pregnant already."