[open]

[lumelume]

WHO: Mado and you!
WHAT: Just a weird asshole causing disturbances in the Gallows and surrounding area, explicitly here to make friends!!
WHEN: Kingsway!
WHERE: Around and about!
NOTES: Possible NSFW depending on who shows up and what their intentions are!

I. The Gallows Courtyard

He hasn't been kicked out yet, so Mado has to make the most of the time he has left. He's not overtly panhandling, but he is busking, with a floppy old hat put out to collect coins while he alternates between doing acrobatic feats and magic tricks, taking breaks to simply shake a tambourine and sing beautiful, plaintive Antivan love songs.
He plays to passersby, strolling alongside them and, at times, offering them opportunities to join.

"A song for you, ser!" he calls, and Maker have mercy on the victim.

II. Lowtown

Hightown being far out of his budget when it comes to entertainment, Mado can be found in some of the slummier taverns, offering services similar to his street busking but with hope of receiving drinks rather than money.

He sits on a table, crooning a drinking song while several of the local boozehounds sway and slosh their mugs around, at least one of them weeping with passion.

His eye is easily caught by a face either familiar or interesting, and it isn't long before he slips over with a bow and a brilliant smile.

III. The Ferry

Periodically, a little brown-and-white spotted dog will hop onto the ferry right behind someone, sitting close and casually looking around as if it belongs to them.
It's the very same dog that been seen wandering around the Gallows, begging and doing tricks for scraps, but the owner, if it has one, has not yet been identified.

Comments

[cozen]

"No, no." Unfazed—who hasn't fucked someone for money at one time or another? But still: "I just do not have any money with me. No plans to leave the fortress today, you know, and I hate to jingle when I do not have to."

He glances over, smiling.

"But your jingling isn't bad. Amador." A trying-it-out, committing-it-to-memory sort of repetition. "Are you new here?"

[lumelume]

"You can call me Mado for short," he exclaims, now even more confused about why they're going to Bastien's room, yet he continues along easily as anything.

"I prefer to jingle whenever I can," he says cheerfully, "except when I'm trying to hide, I suppose, but that's not very often."

[cozen]

“A sign of a good life,” Bastien says. Bullshit—at least mostly—but the prompting kind. Confirm or deny.

[lumelume]

"Just as good as can be," Mado replies easily. Perhaps it could be better, but he's never been in any hurry to get there.

[cozen]

“Good.”

Around a corner, toward one of the towers.

“That is not usually how people feel when they find themselves here, I think.”

[lumelume]

"Why is it called the Gallows?" comes the question, unprompted. "I haven't seen any gallows here. Is it a metaphor?"

[cozen]

"Ah, no. It is an old name. In the days of the Imperium, when the fortress was used for slaves, they hung people here all the time."

[lumelume]

This produces a whine of unease that sounds oddly canine, if one pays attention that sort of thing.

"But they don't still?" Here's hoping.

[cozen]

Someone slightly less affable and apparently guileless, he might tease. But Mado he smiles at, shaking his head.

"We have not hung anyone at all the entire time I have been here," he says.

[lumelume]

"That's a relief." The smile returns, Mado's hands slipping easily into his pockets.

"Not that it's uncommon to see, of course, Rialto being full of Corvi as it is. Subtlety is not always their strong point."

[cozen]

"They do love sending their messages."

At least in the stories he's heard. Queen Madrigal. Carlota Montivecchio.

"Is that where you are from? Rialto?"

[lumelume]

"Si si! Although-- well, yes. Yes and no." He grins oddly. "It's where I came from, not where I was born. But that only matters if you like stories about children raised in the woods."

[cozen]

“I adore stories about children raised in the woods.”

[lumelume]

"Then prepare your adoration, Signore!" Mado stops, planting his feet so he can gesture properly with both hands.

"Imagine, in this scenario, the baby of a wealthy man born to a wild elf of the Dales, who, on seeing his tiny rounded ears, turns to walk from the clan and drown her shame in the Bay. The innocent lad is raised among her kin and taught to speak, to dance, to sustain life, then escorted to the city outskirts to make his way in the world once old enough to wield his own dagger. But instead of a dagger, he chooses a drum, and instead of vallaslin, his face bears the dust of many days and nights playing the streets."

He hasn't stopped smiling all the while, seeming rather to be enjoying the telling.