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
Matthias snorts. "Stupid," he chides--but fondly, and he's smiling a little, so well done. He wraps his arms around his legs, tucks his nose against his knees to protect it from the wind. Of course, he's got to untuck it again to answer her, but that's all right. The brief respite is enough.
"Pie." No hesitation. "Not likely to be there but pie, absolutely. Any sort. What about you?"
He accepts the joint, this time with more certainty than the last time she'd made such an offer. Still a little too stiff in the way that he smokes it, determined not to be clumsy and absolutely overthinking every movement.
"I'd try it. With meat and things? S'ppose they're not much more likely to have that on hand. We might have to settle for something else. Like they'll have bread for certain. Ooh, there's this place in Kirkwall--just outside the docks--they do a fishcake with potato, I could eat six of those myself."
"Not with meat," she says, shaking her head. The look of distaste on her face is delayed, but not by the elfroot. "I think I'm gonna be off meat for a little bit."
Images of the butchered people they found flash in her mind, the books and their horrifying contents. It won't be until she stops seeing those things that she'll be able to eat meat without thinking about it.
He shoots her a glance, catches the expression on her face, and then hands the joint back to her, as if that might mitigate it.
"Well, fish isn't meat, at least. So you could do the fishcakes. Wouldn't be very good in a pie with pumpkin, I think. Maybe. I dunno, I'm not a cook, maybe it could be made to work, but--I don't think so."
She'll take that hand, thank-you-very-much, because she is not supposed to use her right arm, and getting to her feet while disarmed and stoned is likely to be embarrassing.
Far more embarrassing than accepting a hand up from a teen. This is practically distinguished.
"So sad that they leave it unlocked for us street urchins. Oh, but if we're going to Kirkwall and not just the kitchens, I'm not stealing your cloak the whole way," Not that she'll take it off just yet. Having a warm cloak draped over your shoulders is a fine way to accentuate just how cold it is without one. She flashes a crooked grin.
"I'll steal someone else's so we can both be warm."
The way down to the ferry always feels as if it has got a slight downwards angle to it. Or maybe that's Matthias' imagination--a memory of making camp up a hills, so leaving was always downhill.
"We can share on the ferry, at least, it's plenty big enough. And I don't get cold easy besides, so. Are you stealing a cloak off of someone, like, actually off--" He touches his shoulders and mimes throwing a cloak off. "And them without noticing? 'Cause that'd be something I'd want to see before I was going to just believe you could do it. And I'm saying that as a friend, with every faith in you."
Hmmm...The thought hadn't occurred to her before, but now she's intrigued. Could she do that?
"I dunno...I've never tried that before but I might be able to do it..." She squints in thought, imagining the logistics. Unlikely that she could just walk up behind someone and relieve them of their cloak, but if she distracted them enough she might be able to just walk away with it.
"Maybe," he repeats. "If I say we ought to bet on it, are you going to bet against yourself? 'Cause you don't sound very convinced. Maybe it isn't something we ought to be doing."
It is, actually, cold. As ever, Matthias is determined not to complain. He has too many marches and camps and battles spent in the snow under his belt to whinge about a chilly wind. Plus he has a good thick quilted shirt on, and a wool tunic, and gloves and all. On the ferry, he deigns to stick his hands into his armpits to keep them warm, but that's all.
He has to sit with an awkward straightness to keep his staff in place. Probably better that way, or else he'd be slouching. They're maybe halfway to Kirkwall proper, conversation coming in starts and stops, when he says, "I heard about what happened."
Athessa's sitting beside him, good arm resting on the gunwale as she stares off at the horizon with the soft echo of a smile on her features. Her high is wearing off, slowly, but there's just enough haze for her to seem content.
Until Matthias says that. Her smile fades. She expected this, but had hoped it'd come a bit sooner, to be cushioned by the smoke.
He digs his boot heel against the bottom of the ferry, rocks his foot back and forth on that axis. It's an old habit, one fidget in a thousand.
"I wasn't going to say anything," he admits. "I thought maybe that'd be better. But then it seemed--I dunno. That I didn't care. So I wanted to say something. We haven't got to talk about it if you don't want to, though--if you do want to, I'm. You know. Here, and all. But we haven't got to. We can steal a cloak instead, get some food, whatever."
Matthias is a good friend. She knows that he means it when he says she doesn't have to talk about it, and tonight...she might just take him up on that. Mostly.
"I appreciate it, Matty, but I uh...don't really want to talk about it," she sighs and drags a hand down her face wearily. "It's not as bad as it could've been, and I'm not—This isn't like what happened with Devigny so you don't have to worry about that."
It had been Alexandrie's first assumption, her entreaty of tell me he didn't... Athessa isn't sure she has a way to explain the unique experience of seeing her kin gutted and stuffed like dolls.
Maybe this is what it feels like to be a mage and be confronted by an Abomination.
"So let's just. Get some food and have a real normal one, eh?"
He nods, quickly--very deliberately not looking at her but looking ahead as the little details of the docks and the city start to become clearer.
"Yeah," he says. As Kirkwall looms closer he studies its skyline, the crude shapes of Lowtown, the glimmering peaks of Hightown just visible if you look in the right places. Devigny: that big empty house is up there somewhere. There's loads of horrors, is what he is thinking, but he bites at his lip. "All right. Just-- if you wanted."
He drops his foot to the floor of the ferry, done with that particular bit of fidgeting. "I mean, you haven't got to ask me twice. I'm hungry."
"I'll let ya know if anything changes and I gotta talk about it after all," she assures, "Maybe when I can talk through it without...feeling like I'm there, seeing those things."
She blows out a breath, doing her own survey of the cityscape.
"Wonder if anyone's bought that estate," she muses, then nudges her shoulder against Matty's. "Whaddya think an estate like that goes for?"
Not that either of them could afford it, but it can't hurt to think about, right?
He nods, first--and then true to his word, moves on. Which in this case means leaning his shoulder back against hers.
"Oh," which he says airily, with an extra effort to shift out of his country Free Marcher accent to sound more of Hightown, "fifty hundred thousand Sovereigns, milady, and not a coin less. And they'd have to be delivered in velvet bags, each one of 'em a different color. We'd have to invent new colors. That's what sort of thing us posh folk respect, right?"
She follows suit, taking on a far too lofty accent to be anything but a parody.
"Oh yes, indeed, nothing short of newly invented colors will earn our respect and interest, my good man," Athessa nods. "Fifty hundred thousand...hey, wouldn't that be five million Sovereigns?"
"Like I would bloody know," still said in his fake accent, as he sticks his nose in the air, "making my money into other money is someone else's job, serrah, not mine. I'm too busy, don't you know, buying up massive expansive mansions and then knocking 'em down for sport. And... racing horses. I expect that's something we do as well. As the elite and all."
"Yes, yes, racing horses and sending those long-legged dogs after hares and taking tea on the veranda, whatever that is."
If Matty is of a mind to keep up the silly talk until they've hopped off the ferry and onto the docks, then Athessa will play along, sticking her nose so high in the air that at times there's some risk of falling backwards, but mostly the ache in her shoulder curbs that.
"Right," she announces when they've reached the official end of Riftwatch territory and the official start of Lowtown proper. "Lead on, my good man. I haven't the foggiest where this place is."
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"Hi, Hungry. I'm Athessa." She smirks, sniffs, and rubs her nose with her sleeve. A chilly night to be smoking your feelings.
"What would you wanna find there, if it could be anything?"
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"Pie." No hesitation. "Not likely to be there but pie, absolutely. Any sort. What about you?"
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"Pumpkin soup," she decides, and offers the joint to Matthias. "Or I guess pumpkin pie, to split the difference."
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"I'd try it. With meat and things? S'ppose they're not much more likely to have that on hand. We might have to settle for something else. Like they'll have bread for certain. Ooh, there's this place in Kirkwall--just outside the docks--they do a fishcake with potato, I could eat six of those myself."
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Images of the butchered people they found flash in her mind, the books and their horrifying contents. It won't be until she stops seeing those things that she'll be able to eat meat without thinking about it.
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He shoots her a glance, catches the expression on her face, and then hands the joint back to her, as if that might mitigate it.
"Well, fish isn't meat, at least. So you could do the fishcakes. Wouldn't be very good in a pie with pumpkin, I think. Maybe. I dunno, I'm not a cook, maybe it could be made to work, but--I don't think so."
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"Maybe in a pumpkin curry," she says around her exhale, "Curry pot-pie, maybe."
And as if on cue, Athessa's stomach growls. She looks down at it. Hush, you.
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"That a vote to go see what we can find, then? C'mon--" He offers her a hand. "They don't bother locking up. Sad, really."
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Far more embarrassing than accepting a hand up from a teen. This is practically distinguished.
"So sad that they leave it unlocked for us street urchins. Oh, but if we're going to Kirkwall and not just the kitchens, I'm not stealing your cloak the whole way," Not that she'll take it off just yet. Having a warm cloak draped over your shoulders is a fine way to accentuate just how cold it is without one. She flashes a crooked grin.
"I'll steal someone else's so we can both be warm."
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"We can share on the ferry, at least, it's plenty big enough. And I don't get cold easy besides, so. Are you stealing a cloak off of someone, like, actually off--" He touches his shoulders and mimes throwing a cloak off. "And them without noticing? 'Cause that'd be something I'd want to see before I was going to just believe you could do it. And I'm saying that as a friend, with every faith in you."
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"I dunno...I've never tried that before but I might be able to do it..." She squints in thought, imagining the logistics. Unlikely that she could just walk up behind someone and relieve them of their cloak, but if she distracted them enough she might be able to just walk away with it.
"Maybe."
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She has to tilt her head a moment to think about what she just said, and whether or not it made sense. Oh well. It did or it didn't.
"You sure you're not gonna be cold?"
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So there. Anyways-- "What's Loxley and Vanadi got to do with you being able to steal cloaks off of people?"
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But with his reassurance, they go to the ferry without the detour that would be necessary to grab a second cloak not from somebody's shoulders.
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He has to sit with an awkward straightness to keep his staff in place. Probably better that way, or else he'd be slouching. They're maybe halfway to Kirkwall proper, conversation coming in starts and stops, when he says, "I heard about what happened."
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Until Matthias says that. Her smile fades. She expected this, but had hoped it'd come a bit sooner, to be cushioned by the smoke.
"What'd you hear?"
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He digs his boot heel against the bottom of the ferry, rocks his foot back and forth on that axis. It's an old habit, one fidget in a thousand.
"I wasn't going to say anything," he admits. "I thought maybe that'd be better. But then it seemed--I dunno. That I didn't care. So I wanted to say something. We haven't got to talk about it if you don't want to, though--if you do want to, I'm. You know. Here, and all. But we haven't got to. We can steal a cloak instead, get some food, whatever."
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"I appreciate it, Matty, but I uh...don't really want to talk about it," she sighs and drags a hand down her face wearily. "It's not as bad as it could've been, and I'm not—This isn't like what happened with Devigny so you don't have to worry about that."
It had been Alexandrie's first assumption, her entreaty of tell me he didn't... Athessa isn't sure she has a way to explain the unique experience of seeing her kin gutted and stuffed like dolls.
Maybe this is what it feels like to be a mage and be confronted by an Abomination.
"So let's just. Get some food and have a real normal one, eh?"
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"Yeah," he says. As Kirkwall looms closer he studies its skyline, the crude shapes of Lowtown, the glimmering peaks of Hightown just visible if you look in the right places. Devigny: that big empty house is up there somewhere. There's loads of horrors, is what he is thinking, but he bites at his lip. "All right. Just-- if you wanted."
He drops his foot to the floor of the ferry, done with that particular bit of fidgeting. "I mean, you haven't got to ask me twice. I'm hungry."
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She blows out a breath, doing her own survey of the cityscape.
"Wonder if anyone's bought that estate," she muses, then nudges her shoulder against Matty's. "Whaddya think an estate like that goes for?"
Not that either of them could afford it, but it can't hurt to think about, right?
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"Oh," which he says airily, with an extra effort to shift out of his country Free Marcher accent to sound more of Hightown, "fifty hundred thousand Sovereigns, milady, and not a coin less. And they'd have to be delivered in velvet bags, each one of 'em a different color. We'd have to invent new colors. That's what sort of thing us posh folk respect, right?"
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"Oh yes, indeed, nothing short of newly invented colors will earn our respect and interest, my good man," Athessa nods. "Fifty hundred thousand...hey, wouldn't that be five million Sovereigns?"
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If Matty is of a mind to keep up the silly talk until they've hopped off the ferry and onto the docks, then Athessa will play along, sticking her nose so high in the air that at times there's some risk of falling backwards, but mostly the ache in her shoulder curbs that.
"Right," she announces when they've reached the official end of Riftwatch territory and the official start of Lowtown proper. "Lead on, my good man. I haven't the foggiest where this place is."