open

[acreage]

WHO: Holden, you!
WHAT: A catch-all for the month(?)
WHEN: After Satinalia and onwards
WHERE: Kirkwall, Gallows
NOTES: There'll be post-murderhaus stuff in here, so there may be references to some of the horror movie occurrences!

Starters will be in the comments! I'm sorry, I'll write a real log one day.

Comments

kirkwall

[noonrodeon]

Noon sees him at the docks, means to wave and carry on with his business, but he pauses when he gets a better look at the man.

"Thought I saw you 'round the Gallows," Noon says, amiably, "But I'd been hopin' to see you better than you are now. You look like shit, friend."

[acreage]

"Yeah," he says, dry, but unoffended. "I noticed."

Still, he pauses to talk, leans his weight against a nearby wall.

"How have you been?"

[noonrodeon]

"Better than you," he says, because far be it from him to belabor a point, "Hard to beat working off a good Satinalia hangover in the library. They feed you while they had you in the healer's care?"

[acreage]

"That sounds a lot better," he agrees with a slight laugh, then pauses to consider the question. As if conspiratorially: "Don't tell them I said so, but all hospital food tastes the same."

Thoughts of coffee had prompted the visit into the city, but food isn't a bad idea.

[noonrodeon]

"Porridge is porridge," he says, shaking his head, "Always seemed to me an invalid's diet was as like to kill a man as anything. So let's get you some proper food as celebration for being back on your feet, eh?!" He gives Holden a cheerful (and mostly gentle) pat on the shoulder.

[acreage]

He doesn't actually flinch or anything, but it's still a relief Noon reins it in enough for a gentle(ish) pat on the shoulder. He straightens, smiling, and asks, "Do you have any place in mind?"

[noonrodeon]

" 'course," he says, leading the way, "Inn not to far from the docks serves a decent spread. Cheap too, since I'm light on the coin. You can tell me about that trouble you lot ran into as we go."

[acreage]

His demeanor had been conversational, light, since seeing Noon. But the word inn has him freezing for a good twenty seconds or so, and he falls behind the other man.

It's not like he can avoid every inn on the goddamned planet, though, or like all of them are run by crazy murderers.

So he moves to catch up, shaking his head at himself.

"It's not much of a story," he says, in blatant contradiction with reality.

[noonrodeon]

He won't be left very far behind, Noon taking only a step before he pauses and turns to look at Holden. Watches him, more like, with a studying gaze. Noon lets the lie sit in the air between them for a long moment.

Because it is a lie and they both know that.

But it's not the kind of lie you press someone about in a public street.
And as much of a busybody as Noon's been accused of being, he can occasionally remember the manners the Chantry sisters had pounded into his skull. "Suppose we'll find another story to tell then," Noon says with a rolling shrug, "How'd you enjoy your first Kirkwall Satinalia, eh? Wasn't expecting the bosses to put on half so fine a feast as what we got."

[acreage]

It's a lie, and they both know that; and it's a rare lie, because James Holden's faults usually tend towards the overly honest. He knows it's fruitless even as he speaks it, even as Noon looks at him, because there's no secret to their mission, more than enough people who can say what really happened. And, truthfully — more than he's been just now — his heart isn't in trying to keep up any deception.

Still, it's a relief when Noon lets the subject drop, at least for now.

"Neither did I," he says as they start walking again, "but I thought that was just because I was new."