open.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien & Others
WHAT: New job, music stuff, etc.
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: Feel free to hit me up @ circuitry if you want me to start something for you!

i. project jeshavis office

The office for Project Jeshavis hasn’t been entirely empty since Madame d’Asgard’s noble resignation, probably. The work didn’t stop for want of an organizer, and it’s still home to files and books and resources people might need.

But it’s now more occupied than before. During the first few days of the month Bastien can be found arranging piles of documents into slightly different piles, and then perhaps putting them back the way they were. Or struggling to pin twin maps of Orlais and Ferelden to the wall without leaving them crooked. Or—once the maps are up—standing in front of Ferelden and plucking out muscle-memorized snatches of melody on his lute while he stares at a bit of the map for a moment, then at the ceiling, then back at the map.

He’s learning the place names. It’s fine.

After those first few days, he starts asking Fereldans and Orlesians, or anyone with known connections there, or anyone with some other obvious potential contribution to the project’s goal to come by whenever they have a moment.

If anyone takes him up on it—or if anyone stops in just for the sake of it, that’s fine too—they’ll find the door open and him sitting against the edge of the desk rather than in the nearby chair. But he’ll stand up right away for anyone of rank or who he doesn’t know very well.

ii. musician hunt

Elsewhere in the Gallows, Bastien is on the lookout. Or the listenout, more accurately. Is someone strumming a mandolin in the courtyard? Playing an upright bass in the privacy of their own room? Mentioning, in the course of idle conversation with someone who is not him, their experience with the pianoforte?

Great. He’ll stop, he’ll wait politely for them to be finished, and he’ll knock on their door and wait outside if necessary, and then he’ll say, “Allô,” with the distinct air of a man who wants something.

Comments

[bouchonne]

It's a good notion.

[ He rubs his chin. ]

It could help up here in the Free Marches, as well. Kirkwall especially. There's a reason this city is faintly dog-scented at all times. [ Then, a little wryly: ] And it could save me some time, if you started writing my reports for me.

[cozen]

[ He laughs again, and he thinks if I save you time can steal some of it—but not quite yet. A few more days. ]

I am sure you would need to provide supplements. I would not be sending anyone turnip drawings. But letting them know there was a rift here or a Tevinter spy there. It would be polite. And we come across so many problems we do not really have the authority to solve.

[ He looks at the maps. Orlais, this time, not Ferelden, and the tiny speck of Val Royeaux. It’s a little better now at least, knowing the line is behind Montfort, Tevinter that few map-inches further from home. ]

Do you think they might appreciate the gesture, at least? Even though they have you?