WHO: Dumas, Florent, others pending. WHAT: Dumas keeps the Gallows safe while Riftwatch is away. Wildcard me or we can talk specific scenarios in plurk! WHEN: August through Kingsway WHERE: The Gallows NOTES: Pending.
Door, bed, chest, curtains. These are fancy rooms, full of fancy things. The slamming of doors and thudding of furniture has become steadily more rhythmic over the past several minutes, as a repetitive search is drilled down into routine. It’s also drawing steadily closer. New details emerge from the room just next-door -- the open door allows for the passage of such sounds as sheets being swept back, and the whispered, absolutely vitriolic swearing of a massive man heaving himself up off the stone floor after having a peek under the nth bed this hour.
It’s been a very slow week, a worker has tipped that they’ve seen a strange elf creeping about this wing, and after the second or third report of that nature, by the maker --
He is going to find it.
There is a pause in the routine, long and mysterious, and the shrieking protest of the bed frame next-door straining under intense duress -- a new addition to the routine. The bed frame quiets, after an adjustment or two.
A man clears his throat.
Minutes pass.
The sound of a loud snore echoes out into the hallway. It’s a loud snore. Bovine, or bearish.
Sylvester Dumas, sitting with a fancy bottle of ale balanced on his knee and his eyes fixed hard on the open door, pauses to listen. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, and so on he counts down, until he issues the next snore.
There is no strange elf creeping about this wing, Florent would say, only Florent. He is no stranger than the next elf, if you know where to find good elves, and to insinuate he is creeping--
But he doesn't know of these malignant accusations, having put his afternoon to good use. Lounging, rather than creeping, belly down on his new and current bed. A few days back, he had had to uncover some clean laundry himself, dust off surfaces, frighten off a small nest of mice, open wide the windows to rid these fine quarters of stale air, but he had decided this wasn't any trouble, really, what with all of Riftwatch apparently in Orlais. No need to alert the maids, the cooks, the. You know, whatever.
And so as noises begin to sound, thumping and sheet-whipping, he pauses where he is reading some curled pieces of parchment, his other hand holding a glass bottle, still mostly full of redolent red, cleaned of its dust so he can drink straight from it. (Did you know, there is a wine rack in the little antechamber, for what he can only assume is available to esteemed guests? He had been very pleased to find it.) He lies there, alert and still, before he carefully goes to move.
Quietly, he first reaches to set the bottle down on the floor, considering his options. He has no key to his own chambers, unfortunately, or else he would go and secure the door.
The room is full of his things. An open case of luggage in the corner. His boots by the corner chair.
Florent, attempting to avoid creaking bedframes of his own, pauses in his contemplation of whether he should slide under the bed itself when sonorous snoring begins to sound out. He stays frozen in place for the several seconds it takes for a second one to follow. Indecision collapses, and Florent moves from the bedroom on bare feet. He is not one of those stealthy elves, not well versed in which floorboard does or does not creak, and so a keen ear can track a presence moving through the apartments next door to Dumas.
Dumas’ big, scruffy head turns slowly to the pap pap pap of little elfy feet scurrying. He listens. He swigs the ale, now that he’s found a creature to pin the nuisance of its absence on.
Snores 3 and 4 occur on time in succession. Then there is a break.
A long, terrifying break. Three minutes, four, without any snoring, or creaking, or thuds or whuds, while the grown human man next-door sits and listen for any evidence of panic, until he has to stifle wheezing laughter into his elbow. He’s forced to bumble through an oddly choppy snore 5 to mask it.
Snore 6 is normal, if layered over the sound of a sinister creak.
Snore 7 is further away.
Snore 8 is right outside the apartment’s front door, and immediately followed by a try for the handle.
The door opens; Dumas stands framed in the jamb, a great, unkempt, unbathed bronto of a guardsman filling the space with a bottle of ale in hand. He is not in armor, because nobody of import is here to care, his arming jacket the ideal shade of brown for hiding stains, and only half fastened over his shirt.
He surveys the interior laid out before him in eerie quiet, apart from the heavy rustle of his breath.
There are further ensuing shuffles intended to be quiet, but occur within the safe assumption that the probable attacker, robber, or miscreant that has slipped within Riftwatch's thinned defenses to harass guests of these fine rooms has fallen asleep perhaps in drunken stupor. Something dragged across the floor. A door opened and closed, quietly, into its frame.
By Snore 8, and Dumas swinging open the door, there is a soft thump, a whisper of fabric.
Silence.
In immediate view of the front door, Sylvester finds the little entry chamber, a nice rug on the floor, a little decorative table with an empty vase, and a wall-mounted wooden rack full of wine bottles, with one-- no, three empty spaces where perhaps, if he were being generous, he might assume no one had bothered to replenish with fresh bottles. That being said, the spaces where they should be have no dust, unlike the rest of the rack.
Meanwhile, in the master bed chamber, Florent has returned to his initial very good plan and finds himself lying flat on the floor beneath the big four-poster bed, his gaze suddenly caught on the bottle of wine he'd left. Ever so carefully, he reaches a hand out from beneath the bed, grasps the bottle at a careful angle, and pulls it in with him.
The loose pages he'd been reading had been swept into a drawer. His luggage had been shoved into the changing room. His boots are still by the chair. The bed is still rumpled from his lounging.
“I don’t see them,” Dumas growls -- dark, dramatic, terse -- he turns to no one waiting in the hallway, jaw grit grim. “Send for the mabari.”
Rap rap rap rap rap rap rap rap he pats out the sound of retreating bootsteps on the wall outside.
He waits again before swinging a step inward, bottle glorking ahead of a swig. He plants it roughly aside on the little decorative table as he passes it, jolting all four feet from the floor.
“This is Captain Sylvestre Dumas of the Riftwatch Watch,” he announces himself, “and I’m warning you, elf,” with increasingly impressive volume, really filling up the space, “I am trained in 7 distinct and deadly schools of hand to hand combat.” He’s still roundabouts the entry, ill-groomed and half-dressed for the job, but were there anyone else residing in this wing currently, they would hear him.
“Reveal yourself and I may show you mercy!”
Edited (forgot im changing my name and spelled mabari wrong) 2020-09-16 04:36 (UTC)
None of this is very motivational for getting out from under the bed.
And he is trapped now between two powerful instincts. One is to remain in the apparent safety of being under the bed, where he is rather sure a mabari is too big to get at him, and so too does this man sound. The other is to clear up confusion and get on with his day, having done nothing wrong anyway.
Florent finds a middle ground. With one hand keeping a grasp of the wine bottle, he brings his other hand closer to his mouth, sets teeth against the coppery ring that adorns one of his fingers, and removes it. He lets the ring bounce on the wood-paneled floor, rolling to rest in front of him, the crystal cut to look like a sapphire glinting in the dimness.
This thing accomplished, Florent pushes himself up on his elbows a little so as to breathe in properly, and calls out;
"Hello? Okay, please come back another time, monsieur, I am not decent. Merci."
The voice that floats out to Dumas is a little strained, thickly Orlesian, but not quite as frightened as it should be when confronted with seven distinct and deadly schools of hand to hand combat.
Then heavy footfalls, advancing slowly through the apartment space for the master bedroom.
Once he’s in here, there’s really no mistaking Florent’s likely location, from whatever muffle, or the angle of his speech. Dumas considers his options. He could lift the bed. He could reach under it. He could set it on fire.
His boots, from the perspective of the floor, are truly enormous.
They advance, deliberately, upon the beside. He turns to take a seat.
The frame around Florent groans at its middle, thick beams straining against the strength of their own grain, begging to give. From beneath it, there is the softest feather of wood fraying around the heads of long-driven nails closest to where his weight is centered, close to the side.
“That’s cute, monsieur,” he rasps, piratey low in his throat and more quiet one to one, once he’s comfortable. “The last stowaway was cute too, until we brought out the deepstalkers.”
Florent kind of swivels away from where the bed bows, still intent on staying exactly where he is for as long as possible-- at least until the large man, or perhaps qunari, or minotaur? Until he speaks. Then, he very gingerly sets the wine bottle down so as not to announce its presence, and pulls himself towards the other side of the bed.
As he says, "Surely you won't expect one to walk the plank," and appears at the other side of the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress, head only just coming up over the edge. Assessing from a safe distance with obstacles between them what he is dealing with.
Only a man, it seems. As dignified as someone who has just emerged out from under a bed and is still sitting on the ground with his legs beneath its shadow can be, Florent asks, "Can I help you?" Eyebrows arched, head tipped.
“Och!” says Sylvestre, pitched kettle shrill right up out of his throaty bellowing only a moment ago. The twist in his side where he’s turned to see helps, sing-song air pinched off thin: “Cor blimey, there ‘e is, my fancy little lad.”
He pats the side of the mattress next to him with a palm like an overdone steak, pop pop, as he would call a pup, or an especially stupid baby. He flushes his throat like a toilet, also, more out of necessity to clear it for normal conversation than any desire to further affect nonsense babble at this wayward elf.
“Come over here and sit with me, won’t you?”
Smooooth. He smoothes the bed covers and gives them a little tug. Tidy.
“I’d like to have a chat.”
Edited (you didnt answer me quiclky enoug) 2020-10-01 05:52 (UTC)
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[closed] florent vascarelle
It’s been a very slow week, a worker has tipped that they’ve seen a strange elf creeping about this wing, and after the second or third report of that nature, by the maker --
He is going to find it.
There is a pause in the routine, long and mysterious, and the shrieking protest of the bed frame next-door straining under intense duress -- a new addition to the routine. The bed frame quiets, after an adjustment or two.
A man clears his throat.
Minutes pass.
The sound of a loud snore echoes out into the hallway. It’s a loud snore. Bovine, or bearish.
Sylvester Dumas, sitting with a fancy bottle of ale balanced on his knee and his eyes fixed hard on the open door, pauses to listen. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, and so on he counts down, until he issues the next snore.
no subject
But he doesn't know of these malignant accusations, having put his afternoon to good use. Lounging, rather than creeping, belly down on his new and current bed. A few days back, he had had to uncover some clean laundry himself, dust off surfaces, frighten off a small nest of mice, open wide the windows to rid these fine quarters of stale air, but he had decided this wasn't any trouble, really, what with all of Riftwatch apparently in Orlais. No need to alert the maids, the cooks, the. You know, whatever.
And so as noises begin to sound, thumping and sheet-whipping, he pauses where he is reading some curled pieces of parchment, his other hand holding a glass bottle, still mostly full of redolent red, cleaned of its dust so he can drink straight from it. (Did you know, there is a wine rack in the little antechamber, for what he can only assume is available to esteemed guests? He had been very pleased to find it.) He lies there, alert and still, before he carefully goes to move.
Quietly, he first reaches to set the bottle down on the floor, considering his options. He has no key to his own chambers, unfortunately, or else he would go and secure the door.
The room is full of his things. An open case of luggage in the corner. His boots by the corner chair.
Florent, attempting to avoid creaking bedframes of his own, pauses in his contemplation of whether he should slide under the bed itself when sonorous snoring begins to sound out. He stays frozen in place for the several seconds it takes for a second one to follow. Indecision collapses, and Florent moves from the bedroom on bare feet. He is not one of those stealthy elves, not well versed in which floorboard does or does not creak, and so a keen ear can track a presence moving through the apartments next door to Dumas.
no subject
Snores 3 and 4 occur on time in succession. Then there is a break.
A long, terrifying break. Three minutes, four, without any snoring, or creaking, or thuds or whuds, while the grown human man next-door sits and listen for any evidence of panic, until he has to stifle wheezing laughter into his elbow. He’s forced to bumble through an oddly choppy snore 5 to mask it.
Snore 6 is normal, if layered over the sound of a sinister creak.
Snore 7 is further away.
Snore 8 is right outside the apartment’s front door, and immediately followed by a try for the handle.
The door opens; Dumas stands framed in the jamb, a great, unkempt, unbathed bronto of a guardsman filling the space with a bottle of ale in hand. He is not in armor, because nobody of import is here to care, his arming jacket the ideal shade of brown for hiding stains, and only half fastened over his shirt.
He surveys the interior laid out before him in eerie quiet, apart from the heavy rustle of his breath.
no subject
By Snore 8, and Dumas swinging open the door, there is a soft thump, a whisper of fabric.
Silence.
In immediate view of the front door, Sylvester finds the little entry chamber, a nice rug on the floor, a little decorative table with an empty vase, and a wall-mounted wooden rack full of wine bottles, with one-- no, three empty spaces where perhaps, if he were being generous, he might assume no one had bothered to replenish with fresh bottles. That being said, the spaces where they should be have no dust, unlike the rest of the rack.
Meanwhile, in the master bed chamber, Florent has returned to his initial very good plan and finds himself lying flat on the floor beneath the big four-poster bed, his gaze suddenly caught on the bottle of wine he'd left. Ever so carefully, he reaches a hand out from beneath the bed, grasps the bottle at a careful angle, and pulls it in with him.
The loose pages he'd been reading had been swept into a drawer. His luggage had been shoved into the changing room. His boots are still by the chair. The bed is still rumpled from his lounging.
This is fine.
no subject
“I don’t see them,” Dumas growls -- dark, dramatic, terse -- he turns to no one waiting in the hallway, jaw grit grim. “Send for the mabari.”
Rap rap rap rap rap rap rap rap he pats out the sound of retreating bootsteps on the wall outside.
He waits again before swinging a step inward, bottle glorking ahead of a swig. He plants it roughly aside on the little decorative table as he passes it, jolting all four feet from the floor.
“This is Captain Sylvestre Dumas of the Riftwatch Watch,” he announces himself, “and I’m warning you, elf,” with increasingly impressive volume, really filling up the space, “I am trained in 7 distinct and deadly schools of hand to hand combat.” He’s still roundabouts the entry, ill-groomed and half-dressed for the job, but were there anyone else residing in this wing currently, they would hear him.
“Reveal yourself and I may show you mercy!”
no subject
And he is trapped now between two powerful instincts. One is to remain in the apparent safety of being under the bed, where he is rather sure a mabari is too big to get at him, and so too does this man sound. The other is to clear up confusion and get on with his day, having done nothing wrong anyway.
Florent finds a middle ground. With one hand keeping a grasp of the wine bottle, he brings his other hand closer to his mouth, sets teeth against the coppery ring that adorns one of his fingers, and removes it. He lets the ring bounce on the wood-paneled floor, rolling to rest in front of him, the crystal cut to look like a sapphire glinting in the dimness.
This thing accomplished, Florent pushes himself up on his elbows a little so as to breathe in properly, and calls out;
"Hello? Okay, please come back another time, monsieur, I am not decent. Merci."
The voice that floats out to Dumas is a little strained, thickly Orlesian, but not quite as frightened as it should be when confronted with seven distinct and deadly schools of hand to hand combat.
no subject
Then heavy footfalls, advancing slowly through the apartment space for the master bedroom.
Once he’s in here, there’s really no mistaking Florent’s likely location, from whatever muffle, or the angle of his speech. Dumas considers his options. He could lift the bed. He could reach under it. He could set it on fire.
His boots, from the perspective of the floor, are truly enormous.
They advance, deliberately, upon the beside. He turns to take a seat.
The frame around Florent groans at its middle, thick beams straining against the strength of their own grain, begging to give. From beneath it, there is the softest feather of wood fraying around the heads of long-driven nails closest to where his weight is centered, close to the side.
“That’s cute, monsieur,” he rasps, piratey low in his throat and more quiet one to one, once he’s comfortable. “The last stowaway was cute too, until we brought out the deepstalkers.”
no subject
As he says, "Surely you won't expect one to walk the plank," and appears at the other side of the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress, head only just coming up over the edge. Assessing from a safe distance with obstacles between them what he is dealing with.
Only a man, it seems. As dignified as someone who has just emerged out from under a bed and is still sitting on the ground with his legs beneath its shadow can be, Florent asks, "Can I help you?" Eyebrows arched, head tipped.
no subject
He pats the side of the mattress next to him with a palm like an overdone steak, pop pop, as he would call a pup, or an especially stupid baby. He flushes his throat like a toilet, also, more out of necessity to clear it for normal conversation than any desire to further affect nonsense babble at this wayward elf.
“Come over here and sit with me, won’t you?”
Smooooth. He smoothes the bed covers and gives them a little tug. Tidy.
“I’d like to have a chat.”