WHO: Tony Stark, Joselyn Smythe, Richard Dickerson, Wysteria Poppell, Vanadi de Vadarta WHAT: A group of nerds and one cool elf investigate some strange reports coming out of a Free Marches village. WHEN: Second week of August. WHERE: Free Marches NOTES: TBA.
His eyes leave the snake only to track the progress of Richard's hands. It's interesting, if nothing else, to see what things a person checks on first.
"No, it's been mercifully dull," he answers, and sinks to a crouch where he'd stood, the better to keep voices between the two of them. His eyes flick back to the snake again as it moves, his brow quirks very slightly. "I hope that's yours," he says, with no indication made at all of which that he means.
The talisman is of a rounded design -- an eye framed by an open scroll carved into red clay, and suspended around his neck by a rough leather cord. It’s symbology that belongs to Oghma -- in his particular universe, anyway. Dick tucks it away on his way to sitting upright, as a matter of course.
Closer to eye level, he sweeps his combover back out of his eyes and scuffs under his nose at news of no news. Working to sharpen up out of his hasn’t-missed-sleeping-on-a-bedroll torpor.
“You hope what’s mine?”
He has a jacket, somewhere -- thrown over his satchel. He reaches for it.
That's precisely the answer Vanadi had been hoping not to hear, and his brows draw together as he regards the man. Does everyone else have a snake somewhere on them? Is this going to become a thing? He flicks a quick glance around, but — no snakes so far as he can see.
"There's a snake in your sleeve," he says, "Which I don't mean flirtatiously, for the time being."
“Yes,” Richard answers, distracted with the act of shaking less desirable hitchhikers out of his jacket, and then again, with more reassuring conviction: “Yes. She’s mine.”
There is no cause for alarm. There are no other snakes.
Richard stands before he’s fully registered the rest of what Vanadi has said. An up and down look in aside is all he can muster in response before he has to justify further silence by focusing every fiber of his being into the act of shrugging into his coat and centering his belt.
“Were you an elf before?”
He just like, asks. Quietly. In the thick of their sleepy time compadres.
Right. Some people, it seems, just own snakes. Snakes which, as far as Vanadi is concerned, are all venomous, soulless things and make a terrible choice for a pet. But he manages not to make a face -- even in the wake of the very strange question.
"Mostly," is the answer he settles on, and slowly rises to meet Richard's stand. He eyes him with a wary curiosity. "And what of you, before?"
“Human,” Richard lies, point blank in the face of curiosity. “Obviously.”
He furrows his brow, standing opposite Vanadi over his disturbed bedroll and meager travel belongings, because look at him. What else could he possibly have been.
That strikes him as distinctly untrue -- not by the sound, it's a convincing display of stolid honesty. And, really, what reason would the man have to lie? But even still ... Vanadi tilts his head just so, and keeps silent for just enough long seconds to make his skepticism very apparent.
"Of course," he finally says, and does not at all move to go and rest. "If I may, though -- I don't know very many humans who can see through darkness."
There is a distinct pause wherein Dick Dickerson realizes he hasn’t had his name or pedigree questioned at any point in the nearly a year that he’s been in Thedas. He hoods his brows down into a harder line as he sizes Vanadi up anew, skeptical of his skepticism.
“A witch kissed me,” he says. Dry.
He breathes in to speak again, but pauses more thoughtfully, centering himself in the mien and posture of this new elf.
“How were elves treated where you’re from?”
He is curious. Also quiet, as necessitated by the setting for this standoff.
Not quite buying that one either, thanks, but Vanadi doesn't dispute it aloud. It merely gets filled away under what a strange thing to lie about.
"Somewhat better than they are here," he says, which is not quite true. It's the difference between common laborer and aristocratic ruling class. This, though, is beginning to feel like a conversation, and he has a few moments to spare for conversation. May as well close the jaws of the trap on the idea.
"I haven't yet spoken to very many rifters, actually," he says, his quiet tone lightening to something (quietly) conversational. He steps back toward the post he'd kept watch from, a nod of his head inviting Richard. "Come, there's no harm in two sets of keen eyes overlapping for a bit."
Richard nods and follows as a matter of course; there is a soft scuff and crunch of boot on gravel to mark his pursuit in the predawn quiet. The sound of moving water still whispers in the distance, constant behind the rattle of wind through the brush.
He doesn’t speak as they walk -- although he does step a few long paces off to one side to take a leak as soon as they’re out of camp -- or after they’ve arrived at their destination. He just checks Vanadi again in aside for his intent, and twists the cap off the canteen under his arm, expectant.
This is Vanadi’s private aside. Dick is just visiting.
Vanadi is happy enough to make himself comfortable, leaned up against a tree. Unfortunately for Richard he's used to running on little sleep, this conversation can be as long as it wants to be.
"How long have you been here?" he asks, which is as good a starting point as any. He doesn't necessarily care, but one must lay the polite groundwork.
There’s no alcohol stink to what’s in Richard’s open canteen; he drinks, and screws the cap back on. He hooks the bottle on his belt, preferring to keep to his feet while he gets a feel for the night smothering in strangely around the low burn of the watch fire. Darkvision only reaches so far.
His eyes are turned outward of course, idly scanning more or less nothing. He'd known almost as soon as he arrived here that he preferred it to home, even taking the attitude toward elves into consideration. It's quite understandable that it's not a common viewpoint.
He casts a glance upward and has to admit, yes, he does resent them a bit for their unfamiliar shapes. He'd just not though to complain about it before.
"Mm. I can't say I'm fond of their take on elves." His eyes shift from sky to Richard. "Was there any particular attitude toward them in your world?"
“Nothing that comes close to what the elves here have experienced.”
There’s a felled log within the ring of the fire’s glow. Dick crosses behind the flames to take up a seat near its center, hands laced loose between his knees.
“Humans outnumber most of the other races two to one, but half-elves are common, and racial subjugation was virtually unheard of before the Sultana started hanging dragonborn.” He has a plain way of speaking, to the point. “Some of the same slurs exist. One of my companions set a shop on fire after the owner called him ‘knife ear.’”
Well, they have something called dragonborn, which he hasn't heard of here, so that's one more similarity. And a way of speaking passionlessly on mass hangings, but he supposes one might pick that up anywhere.
"Well done to your companion," he says, though he can't say he's ever felt moved to set anything on fire after a mild insult. You've got to appreciate spirit, though.
He's quiet for a moment, and the only sounds are the dubiously relaxing sounds of the strange life around them. In a moment more, though, he adds, "Did the witch give you the snake, too?"
It resulted in them being wanted throughout the local stretch of the empire. As a creature sharing scales in common with the source of the Sultana’s ire, Dick had not been amused.
Now he is content to let the chirr of insects and the occasional disembodied peep of a gecko fill the silence that settles between them, until Vanadi breaks it. Underlit by the low lick of the fire as he is, it’s clear he’s doing a better job of watching an elf than he is the surrounding countryside.
The camp will have to go unguarded for a few seconds, as Vanadi's gaze cuts away from the dark and toward his companion. It's gone a little teasing, with a sharp smile that's been hardly seen at all on this trip.
"In a manner of speaking is no kind of answer at all, Richard Dickerson."
Ridiculous names aside, he hasn't been away from courtly intrigue and drama for that long; he knows a half-told truth when he hears one.
Richard al-most smiles at the sound of his full name, a wry crook at the corner of his mouth tough to resist for the very good joke he’s made at humanity’s expense. It’s clear he’s ceded the point before it fades, but he doesn’t answer immediately, leaning back instead to bring a dry log up from behind his seat.
“She was given to me by a handler as a means of staying in contact.”
He drops the log on the fire.
As it settles, a beetle burrowed into the bark pops in a spit of steam and with a whistle that probably only coincidentally sounds like the scream of a very, very tiny human. Dick doesn’t seem to notice, or chooses not to, affect returned to its default flatline.
That wry crook of Richard's mouth feels like a victory, and Vanadi is happy to take it. It doesn't bother him that the real answer only leads to more questions; you've got to start somewhere.
He spends a brief moment contemplating which races he might know would have a vested interest in seeming human, but that tiny hissing nearly-a-scream shakes him out of it. They're keeping watch for a reason. He returns his gaze dutifully to the foliage around them.
"A cultist," he says, because one dash of honesty deserves another. It's not a truth he's told very much -- or ever, really. "That is, if you mean the one across my nose. I've quite a few, take your pick."
“That is the one that I meant,” Dickerson assures, after a quick and uncertain perusal of his memory for any others of equal prominence or greater scandal he might have seen and somehow forgotten since they’ve been here. More direct to the point, he wastes no time asking:
“What kind of cultist?”
Pop, hiss, a shrill, protracted scream, almost outside the threshold for hearing. He nudges the log into a roll with his boot, and the sound muffles and truncates with a second pop.
It was an unfair question, Vanadi doesn't tend to display much skin — and really the only other scar that promises some juicy tale is the one dragged across his neck by a jagged blade, and he is so very careful with his high necklines. Maybe it was an attempt to distract. The topic is a splinter driven under his casual veneer, and that second little scream gets a flinch from him.
He clears his throat and resettles, as if that's all the flinch was, and his tone has a practiced airiness to it. "The kind which dies disappointed," he says. And then, a little less airy, "Your handler isn't here, I take it."
They have an affinity for high collars and long sleeves in common. That Richard is slightly more free about limiting layers to one or two is a natural byproduct of his having been here nearly a year, and human in every meaningful sense of the word.
He marks that flinch with a close eye, measuring for affectation the way he’d inspect a chest in a dungeon for signs that it might be breathing: at a distance, and with intensity.
It’s odd. But Dick is an odd person.
“No,” he says, once he’s reasonably certain he’s not staring down another snake. “Fortunately.”
He's not sure what to make of the close scrutiny, but bears it without complaint. It's related somehow — and maybe it doesn't look so very different from his own, when he's carefully weighing the pros and cons of some tiny measure of extended trust.
The eventual answer quirks half his mouth into a smile. Fortunately is relatable. Maybe that's what makes him reckless with his own response.
"Nor mine," he says, and runs a hand through his hair as the quirked smile widens to a quick grin. "A bit freeing, isn't it?"
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faderift2020-08-04 09:35 pm
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"No, it's been mercifully dull," he answers, and sinks to a crouch where he'd stood, the better to keep voices between the two of them. His eyes flick back to the snake again as it moves, his brow quirks very slightly. "I hope that's yours," he says, with no indication made at all of which that he means.
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Closer to eye level, he sweeps his combover back out of his eyes and scuffs under his nose at news of no news. Working to sharpen up out of his hasn’t-missed-sleeping-on-a-bedroll torpor.
“You hope what’s mine?”
He has a jacket, somewhere -- thrown over his satchel. He reaches for it.
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"There's a snake in your sleeve," he says, "Which I don't mean flirtatiously, for the time being."
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There is no cause for alarm. There are no other snakes.
Richard stands before he’s fully registered the rest of what Vanadi has said. An up and down look in aside is all he can muster in response before he has to justify further silence by focusing every fiber of his being into the act of shrugging into his coat and centering his belt.
“Were you an elf before?”
He just like, asks. Quietly. In the thick of their sleepy time compadres.
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"Mostly," is the answer he settles on, and slowly rises to meet Richard's stand. He eyes him with a wary curiosity. "And what of you, before?"
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He furrows his brow, standing opposite Vanadi over his disturbed bedroll and meager travel belongings, because look at him. What else could he possibly have been.
“You should rest.”
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"Of course," he finally says, and does not at all move to go and rest. "If I may, though -- I don't know very many humans who can see through darkness."
Explain yourself, sir.
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“A witch kissed me,” he says. Dry.
He breathes in to speak again, but pauses more thoughtfully, centering himself in the mien and posture of this new elf.
“How were elves treated where you’re from?”
He is curious. Also quiet, as necessitated by the setting for this standoff.
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"Somewhat better than they are here," he says, which is not quite true. It's the difference between common laborer and aristocratic ruling class. This, though, is beginning to feel like a conversation, and he has a few moments to spare for conversation. May as well close the jaws of the trap on the idea.
"I haven't yet spoken to very many rifters, actually," he says, his quiet tone lightening to something (quietly) conversational. He steps back toward the post he'd kept watch from, a nod of his head inviting Richard. "Come, there's no harm in two sets of keen eyes overlapping for a bit."
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He doesn’t speak as they walk -- although he does step a few long paces off to one side to take a leak as soon as they’re out of camp -- or after they’ve arrived at their destination. He just checks Vanadi again in aside for his intent, and twists the cap off the canteen under his arm, expectant.
This is Vanadi’s private aside. Dick is just visiting.
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"How long have you been here?" he asks, which is as good a starting point as any. He doesn't necessarily care, but one must lay the polite groundwork.
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Easy questions have easy answers.
There’s no alcohol stink to what’s in Richard’s open canteen; he drinks, and screws the cap back on. He hooks the bottle on his belt, preferring to keep to his feet while he gets a feel for the night smothering in strangely around the low burn of the watch fire. Darkvision only reaches so far.
“It’s starting to grow on me.”
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His eyes are turned outward of course, idly scanning more or less nothing. He'd known almost as soon as he arrived here that he preferred it to home, even taking the attitude toward elves into consideration. It's quite understandable that it's not a common viewpoint.
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He meant what he said. Only just now.
“I still don’t like the stars,” smattered as they are across the night sky, in unfamiliar constellations, “or the clergy.”
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"Mm. I can't say I'm fond of their take on elves." His eyes shift from sky to Richard. "Was there any particular attitude toward them in your world?"
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There’s a felled log within the ring of the fire’s glow. Dick crosses behind the flames to take up a seat near its center, hands laced loose between his knees.
“Humans outnumber most of the other races two to one, but half-elves are common, and racial subjugation was virtually unheard of before the Sultana started hanging dragonborn.” He has a plain way of speaking, to the point. “Some of the same slurs exist. One of my companions set a shop on fire after the owner called him ‘knife ear.’”
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"Well done to your companion," he says, though he can't say he's ever felt moved to set anything on fire after a mild insult. You've got to appreciate spirit, though.
He's quiet for a moment, and the only sounds are the dubiously relaxing sounds of the strange life around them. In a moment more, though, he adds, "Did the witch give you the snake, too?"
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Now he is content to let the chirr of insects and the occasional disembodied peep of a gecko fill the silence that settles between them, until Vanadi breaks it. Underlit by the low lick of the fire as he is, it’s clear he’s doing a better job of watching an elf than he is the surrounding countryside.
“In a manner of speaking.”
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"In a manner of speaking is no kind of answer at all, Richard Dickerson."
Ridiculous names aside, he hasn't been away from courtly intrigue and drama for that long; he knows a half-told truth when he hears one.
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“She was given to me by a handler as a means of staying in contact.”
He drops the log on the fire.
As it settles, a beetle burrowed into the bark pops in a spit of steam and with a whistle that probably only coincidentally sounds like the scream of a very, very tiny human. Dick doesn’t seem to notice, or chooses not to, affect returned to its default flatline.
“Who gave you that scar?”
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He spends a brief moment contemplating which races he might know would have a vested interest in seeming human, but that tiny hissing nearly-a-scream shakes him out of it. They're keeping watch for a reason. He returns his gaze dutifully to the foliage around them.
"A cultist," he says, because one dash of honesty deserves another. It's not a truth he's told very much -- or ever, really. "That is, if you mean the one across my nose. I've quite a few, take your pick."
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“What kind of cultist?”
Pop, hiss, a shrill, protracted scream, almost outside the threshold for hearing. He nudges the log into a roll with his boot, and the sound muffles and truncates with a second pop.
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He clears his throat and resettles, as if that's all the flinch was, and his tone has a practiced airiness to it. "The kind which dies disappointed," he says. And then, a little less airy, "Your handler isn't here, I take it."
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He marks that flinch with a close eye, measuring for affectation the way he’d inspect a chest in a dungeon for signs that it might be breathing: at a distance, and with intensity.
It’s odd. But Dick is an odd person.
“No,” he says, once he’s reasonably certain he’s not staring down another snake. “Fortunately.”
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The eventual answer quirks half his mouth into a smile. Fortunately is relatable. Maybe that's what makes him reckless with his own response.
"Nor mine," he says, and runs a hand through his hair as the quirked smile widens to a quick grin. "A bit freeing, isn't it?"
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