WHO: Athessa, Madi, Lucien, Skull, and YOU!! WHAT: catch-all WHEN: mostly Satinalia and later WHERE: Kirkwall and The Gallows NOTES: post-murderhaus h/c is gonna go here
Well. She certainly looks appropriately pathetic, doesn't she? Maybe beyond the point where sobbing and wailing and having a complete meltdown is warranted, but the quiet aftermath of such things is just as pitiable. That's what she'd be embarrassed about, more than being seen naked. Being seen naked and sad? Perish the thought.
"That makes sense," she says, words dampened by resting her chin on her knees. "I think."
When in doubt, hedge your bets isn't a saying. But it could be.
Well, bucket two — and three, and four, and at last enough time has passed in silence (in the rush of water) for him to stoop soggily down once more, propped on the side of the tub to ask:
Closing her eyes for a moment, she lets the hot water take away some of the tension in aching muscles, though it doesn't quite smooth out the raw feeling of having her metaphorical guts scooped out like a pumpkin. Hollow. Bereft. Maybe it'll be better the longer she soaks.
But lest she fall asleep there, she wills her eyes open again and aims them past Isaac at the fire in the hearth. Watches it dance.
"When we closed the rift in Ostwick, Lady Pickney told us her son had gone missing, and wanted us to find him. Talk about town was he'd gone and married a Dalish, so it seemed pretty obvious he'd just run off with her," Not that it made them take the request less seriously, of course. What's a little more guilt on the pile? "On our way back, we got caught up in a storm and had to hole up at a roadside inn for the night, but—
"—I woke up on a rack. Barrow in an iron maiden. We'd been drugged and moved under the inn to some kind of fucked up maze, and...well. We found what was left of Lady Pickney's son. And his bride. And four other Dalish, preserved. Stuffed. Like hunting trophies."
Tears flow from her eyes, but she's too tired to do anything about them. No scrunching of her face to try and stop them, no contorted expression of anguish. Just tears. Just a dazed, far-off look in her eyes.
"The whole place was rigged with traps. It's a wonder none of us got decapitated."
"F-five total," she corrects, remembering their faces. Dispassionate details. "Four in a room with a bunch of books. The bride was...turned into a puppet. She was in the room where we found Richard and that new Rifter, Holden.
"We met up with the others that had escaped, everyone but Mhavos and Leander. Me and Vanadi and Edgard went to find the Innkeeper while Sister Sara and the others stayed put, made sure nobody bled out before we could escape."
And once they did escape, they buried the elves. Burned the inn and everything beneath it to oblivion. (She hopes.) And they rode the rest of the way back to Kirkwall, reeling from the ordeal.
A secondary concern — they returned in poor enough shape that he much doubts they stopped to chat.
(Peculiar to target elves, yet take the others. A vagabond or two might go missing — but seven men, with recent meetings and an expected destination? Desperation, perhaps: Coincidence taken for the closing of hounds.
As though there's any purpose in divining a madman's. He's no more interest in that game.)
There's also the matter of finding out which clan those elves belonged to so she can tell the Keeper about their loss, tell them where they were buried. Assure them that she killed the man responsible.
He thinks, and does not say, that it would be kinder for a human to do it. Grief lashes for a target (A vagabond or two might go missing; four indicates a certain blindness of eye.)
Instead,
"Mhavos will know how to put it." A clerk in a rich man's house. He'll know which details to omit — one hopes: most. At last, "I'm sorry."
To the Honorable Lady Elsed Pickney, On behalf of Riftwatch, please allow me to extend my most heartfelt condolences. Your son, Gawen, and his wife, whose name is as yet unknown to us, were found slain along the road from Ostwick to Kirkwall. Rest assured the man responsible has been brought to justice.
Or something like that. Athessa lets out a breath and wipes at her face with her good arm, which is then used to point out the soap on a nearby vanity. (Of sorts. It's just a table with a drawer that sits behind the privacy screen.)
"I can't decide whether or not it's worse that the man was...just a man. Not a maleficar, not Venatori, just...an old man."
"Be better if he didn't do it at all," she asserts, a bit more quickly than she feels she should've. Too snappish, when she doesn't mean to be short with Isaac. (She can't help it height-wise, but she can try to keep her head.)
"Worse...if he hadn't been a stranger. If he was someone we knew and thought we could trust."
"Sure fucking hope not," She could make a highly disrespectful joke about knowing a number of Nevarrans, but she draws the line well away from it. Mummification isn't taxidermy.
"Hey kids, I've got some bad news about your grand-dad. Nevermind that he's dead but you'll never guess the fucked up perversions he got up to in his spare time."
"Maybe. More that I couldn't...see through the lies."
Last year, with the shared nightmares, she'd been betrayed by some version of Bastien. Sold out to the enemy for a crystal and some coin. She thinks about it sometimes, and wonders. What if?
There were others that might have caught it. Richard pays attention to his own presentation; doubtless keeps an eye to others. If Mhavos is open, it's with his curiousity. Ellis watches more closely than he might be given credit.
But —
"How many inns do you see a year?" Too many. Every mission, and half the time home. "How many were kind?"
Not all of them. Enough. Any with few enough visitors, with enough need of coin. (If Leander can't sniff out one dog as another)
Few enough that it should've been suspicious, maybe.
"Less than half," she answers. Should she have known based on the general treatment of elves? Perhaps not. But as a Bard in training she should be able to predict or be prepared for anything.
"There's a principle called Ockham's Razor: That the simplest answer cuts sharpest. If you hear a noise in the bush, don't assume it's a dragon."
Isaac raises both hands, palms flat.
"As a rule alone, it's useless. Perhaps you're standing beside a dragon nest. And whether it's a dragon or not, it may be quite willing to bite. But what we assume tells us a great deal."
"When I hear a noise in the bush, I think: Knight. Do you follow?"
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"That makes sense," she says, words dampened by resting her chin on her knees. "I think."
When in doubt, hedge your bets isn't a saying. But it could be.
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Well, bucket two — and three, and four, and at last enough time has passed in silence (in the rush of water) for him to stoop soggily down once more, propped on the side of the tub to ask:
"What happened, Athessa?"
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But lest she fall asleep there, she wills her eyes open again and aims them past Isaac at the fire in the hearth. Watches it dance.
"When we closed the rift in Ostwick, Lady Pickney told us her son had gone missing, and wanted us to find him. Talk about town was he'd gone and married a Dalish, so it seemed pretty obvious he'd just run off with her," Not that it made them take the request less seriously, of course. What's a little more guilt on the pile? "On our way back, we got caught up in a storm and had to hole up at a roadside inn for the night, but—
"—I woke up on a rack. Barrow in an iron maiden. We'd been drugged and moved under the inn to some kind of fucked up maze, and...well. We found what was left of Lady Pickney's son. And his bride. And four other Dalish, preserved. Stuffed. Like hunting trophies."
Tears flow from her eyes, but she's too tired to do anything about them. No scrunching of her face to try and stop them, no contorted expression of anguish. Just tears. Just a dazed, far-off look in her eyes.
"The whole place was rigged with traps. It's a wonder none of us got decapitated."
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Satinalia, He thinks, in brief, stupid disbelief. Was last week.
And then she's crying, and sometimes one need let that carry on; and then she's staring altogether distant, and that itself familiar.
(Gareth had looked like that once, a long time ago. Gareth must be dead by now.)
"Five other Dalish?"
He doesn't reel back in. Not yet. Let her talk, until the talking's done.
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"We met up with the others that had escaped, everyone but Mhavos and Leander. Me and Vanadi and Edgard went to find the Innkeeper while Sister Sara and the others stayed put, made sure nobody bled out before we could escape."
And once they did escape, they buried the elves. Burned the inn and everything beneath it to oblivion. (She hopes.) And they rode the rest of the way back to Kirkwall, reeling from the ordeal.
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A secondary concern — they returned in poor enough shape that he much doubts they stopped to chat.
(Peculiar to target elves, yet take the others. A vagabond or two might go missing — but seven men, with recent meetings and an expected destination? Desperation, perhaps: Coincidence taken for the closing of hounds.
As though there's any purpose in divining a madman's. He's no more interest in that game.)
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"Not yet. I'll take care of it."
There's also the matter of finding out which clan those elves belonged to so she can tell the Keeper about their loss, tell them where they were buried. Assure them that she killed the man responsible.
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Instead,
"Mhavos will know how to put it." A clerk in a rich man's house. He'll know which details to omit — one hopes: most. At last, "I'm sorry."
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To the Honorable Lady Elsed Pickney, On behalf of Riftwatch, please allow me to extend my most heartfelt condolences. Your son, Gawen, and his wife, whose name is as yet unknown to us, were found slain along the road from Ostwick to Kirkwall. Rest assured the man responsible has been brought to justice.
Or something like that. Athessa lets out a breath and wipes at her face with her good arm, which is then used to point out the soap on a nearby vanity. (Of sorts. It's just a table with a drawer that sits behind the privacy screen.)
"I can't decide whether or not it's worse that the man was...just a man. Not a maleficar, not Venatori, just...an old man."
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The mathematics of these things seldom add up.
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"Worse...if he hadn't been a stranger. If he was someone we knew and thought we could trust."
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(The trouble with gallows humour is its capacity to strangle.)
"Yes," It would be better if he hadn't done it. It would be worse to have trusted. "Do you think you know anyone like that?"
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"Gods, how awful for his family, if he had any."
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"You said he was quite old,"
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"Hey kids, I've got some bad news about your grand-dad. Nevermind that he's dead but you'll never guess the fucked up perversions he got up to in his spare time."
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"Dunno," she sighs. "It's not like you can really blame yourself for being related to a nutter. Not like you can if you were fooled by a monster."
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That's half a question: Check whether he's keeping up.
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She makes a face like she just bit into something bitter, distracting herself briefly with her ablutions.
"Not like the smile he wore in the basement."
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"Maybe. More that I couldn't...see through the lies."
Last year, with the shared nightmares, she'd been betrayed by some version of Bastien. Sold out to the enemy for a crystal and some coin. She thinks about it sometimes, and wonders. What if?
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There were others that might have caught it. Richard pays attention to his own presentation; doubtless keeps an eye to others. If Mhavos is open, it's with his curiousity. Ellis watches more closely than he might be given credit.
But —
"How many inns do you see a year?" Too many. Every mission, and half the time home. "How many were kind?"
Not all of them. Enough. Any with few enough visitors, with enough need of coin. (If Leander can't sniff out one dog as another)
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"Less than half," she answers. Should she have known based on the general treatment of elves? Perhaps not. But as a Bard in training she should be able to predict or be prepared for anything.
She still has to tell Bastien.
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"There's a principle called Ockham's Razor: That the simplest answer cuts sharpest. If you hear a noise in the bush, don't assume it's a dragon."
Isaac raises both hands, palms flat.
"As a rule alone, it's useless. Perhaps you're standing beside a dragon nest. And whether it's a dragon or not, it may be quite willing to bite. But what we assume tells us a great deal."
"When I hear a noise in the bush, I think: Knight. Do you follow?"
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"No."
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