Richard Dickerson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nonvenomous) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2021-02-16 10:31 pm
nonvenomous) wrote in faderift2021-02-16 10:31 pm
OPEN
WHO: Dick
WHAT: Dick.
WHEN: Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows/Kirkwall
NOTES: Brackets or prose ok, wildcard ok. Other starters maybe later who knows what could happen.
WHAT: Dick.
WHEN: Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows/Kirkwall
NOTES: Brackets or prose ok, wildcard ok. Other starters maybe later who knows what could happen.
The Gallows
A sharp intake of breath, pupils blown out in freefall panic that quickly pins into blearier confusion, Richard Dickerson jolts awake where he’s sat. Sometimes he reaches for his hip, sometimes he flinches blind to jostle an empty glass, or knocks the book at his knee to the floor.
In the library, in the chantry, in the baths, in any seldom-used nook or cranny between the towers after hours, he might be found dozing and nudged or shaken or spooked by instinct at the proximity of another living creature’s presence.
Lowtown
In a Lowtown tavern, he’s being hefted off a table by the shoulder, levered to his feet to have his satchel shoved into his arms.
A gossamer thread of drool keeps him tied to the surface for a moment after he’s upright. There might be blood spindling through it if his nap was unscheduled at the end of a sucker punch at some smart remark. Or maybe it’s clear -- maybe it’s just past closing time and he doesn’t have to go home, but he can’t stay here.
Regardless, he cuts a distinct figure at a distance -- long legs and beak and beard and the shaggy ruff of his cloak, which will serve him well in the snow outside.
Kirkwall/The Gallows
On business in the streets of Kirkwall, or in the hallways between spaces within the Gallows, his reluctance to engage in anything but the most cursory of conversation is clear: he keeps odd hours and waits behind blind corners for approaching footsteps to carry on past.
This is especially true of ferry trips and mealtimes, when he must watch from afar to see that the boat is likely to stay empty, or snake in and skim off the scraps left over -- cold eggs, lukewarm dregs of stew. He’s not picky, so long as he doesn’t have to make small talk.
He’s always been this way, but now more than ever, there’s a clockwork regularity to his comings and goings that makes him easier to find than he’d like for anyone who’s looking.
Wildcard
Choose your own adventure -- check in w/me about meetings arranged or requested IC, as he is likely to be rude or otherwise strange about them for the foreseeable future.
no subject
Her attention flickers down to the letters between them, then back up.
"I've yet to decide whether I'll discuss it with him or if I mean to let it lay as is. I shouldn't want him finding out and thinking that I'm avoiding the matter, but I'd also prefer not to make an enemy of the man."
no subject
On the table between them, of course if young Harric had his way, the beast would have a place of her own at the dinner table meanders into a list of grievances that could be attributed to an adulterous lover or a dog, it’s hard to say.
Fitcher and her dilemmas have proven to be the bigger draw -- he’s watching her now as if he’s only just registered her intent to grab an actual tiger by its tail. He shifts in his seat, 5% concerned, 95% Highly Interested.
“He split the earth and brought molten rock to the surface in a temper.”
no subject
Unproductive.
"I gather he was something of an extremist during his time in the mage rebellion as well." Her head tips gently in one direction, though her chin doesn't lift. "On whose request?"
no subject
As opposed to being consumed by rage in any kind of literal sense, presumably.
“The majority of those I’ve spoken to are eager to dismiss actions taken while dreaming as a fiction. Perhaps in their haste to limit or deny their own exposure.”
He pauses; his gaze trips absently down to the height of her collar.
“I’m not sure.”
no subject
Yes, there is nothing a pressed mage loves so much as another mage. And yes, she will evidently have to do her own digging on the subject.
(As that old Antivan proverb goes, Birds of a feather flock together.)
"Say it like that and I will think you feel differently about it. You played your part with so much intent?"
A cat with a mouse. A clever dog assessing a quail in the reeds. A mongoose with a snake. The faint tip of her head sets the edge of her collar just there against the underside of her jaw.
no subject
For better or worse.
Mostly for worse.
In any case, Fitcher is one of a few he’s comfortable looking in the eye while he says it, and he fleets a crook at his mouth back at her, suggestion well divorced of earlier intrigue. As a mouse or a quail or a snake, he is comfortable with his supposed place in the food chain and how he must rate.
no subject
—Is, on the surface, a simple thing. It is direct. Honest, in a sense. Straightforward, certainly.
And then Fitcher draws her chin from the unwinding cradle of her fingers. Her hands settle quietly on the table top, the tips of her fingers touching the topmost edge of the letters which lie just there between them.
"No, I can't say that I see anything in them I could outright deny either. Though saying so to anyone who thought to ask would—" Hm. A flicker of resistance in her face, a rare beat of hesitation. "Complicate things. Generally moreso than I would like."
no subject
Just as quietly, he tugs the pages in a shade closer to himself. Hard to read.
He’s certainly more awake than he was when she found him, clear and crisp now in spite of tatty edges and stale breath.
“I don’t know that I expect Rowntree to be among them.”
no subject
After all, why question the practicality of building a fence around the grubbier details?
"I'm sure I'll muddle through it," she finally says, for a moment seemingly content to observe him and the papers and the work. Then— "There is one other thing I think we should discuss."
no subject
There would be no visual marker for the buzz of his nerves at what she says next — that queer falling sensation in the basket if his rib cage — if not for the pinch at his brow when he recognizes it. Unexpected.
“Of course,” he says, mild. There is ample opportunity for him to guess aloud what he suspects it might be.
He looks at her instead, a little too keen and a shade too sidelong for innocuous expectation.
no subject
"Your little messenger. And the interest you expressed in the abomination which set flame to the dining hall last summer. I would like to know how much of your world's magic comes readily to you and your assessment of how much of a danger it represents here."
—because she knows there are other options yet at her fingertips.
"If we are to be candid with one another, it's important to me that I know."
no subject
“Thot,” he reminds, easily, because it is easy, while he looks back into her dark eyes and realizes there is very little he knows about Miss Fitcher’s politics, beyond that it was very easy to tell her about his when they were getting naked. Her scars, he supposes, speak for themselves.
He thinks rather than descend directly into it, with the air of one who’s seldom been asked to explain. Surely a careful kind of framework is necessary for easy understanding of the alien arcane.
“My abilities here are -- limited.” For lack of a less inflammatory word. “The Fade is a poor substitute for the aether I’m accustomed to. It runs thin. And I recognize nothing of the methods used by native mages to interact with it.”
1 out of 5 stars, is the sentiment. QUITE candid.
“Are there any recorded instances of Rifters falling prey to demonic influence?”
His interest is too coolly diagnostic to read as coy. This inquiring mind would very much like to know.
no subject
"I don't know," is a tentative confession. The truth.
"But I suspect if there were you would know. As divided as the Inquisition and as leaderless as the Chantry was, I can't imagine they would have permitted to treat you as anything more than demons of the Fade if such a thing were possible. If a Rifter working on behalf of them were to be possessed in the field—They would have looked to enforce training to safeguard again the possibility, at the very least. It would have been made part of your—" Hm. "Orientation."
no subject
It was kind of her to allow him to wake up all the way before catching him flat-footed.
The process of him deciding as much is easy to read in a glance down, and back up again.
"It’s an ugly fate. But not one I live in fear of."
no subject
"There are ways a whole mage with a mind untouched by a demon might still consciously choose to abuse."
Is not an implication. It is merely unwavering fact.
no subject
He narrows one of his in a less amicable rest easy.
no subject
One of those long hands moves, spidering out with the intention of slipping one of the back pages free from the stack in Silas' care.
"I would prefer if you didn't ever touch me with it."
no subject
But just shy is still shy.
With invisible care, he slowly folds away his wracked memory of who’s seen what, and what has he said to who. He recalls instead that this stack of papers is not his stack of papers actually, and takes care to gently square the pages that remain, lingering unease soothed into pointless housekeeping.
“If I’m directed to kill you, I pledge to do it through mundane means.”
He knows what she meant, less flippant assurance imparted in a look, if she cares to field it.
“Should I assume this preference carries over to the cat?”
no subject
Is all of this not a stretch of her confidence in two directions at once? She could not ask; it would be more succinct to simply say no. And if she didn't trust him to be true, what good would the asking do?
They are not his papers, and yet here she is.
no subject
That’s an affirmative, timed to coincide with him pushing the remaining pages neatly across the table to her.
This boundary gives him more pause than the last, while he thinks about puffy white fangs and old injuries ripping Rowntree off his feet. It’s a valid precaution.
“Magestoffelees would be disappointed.”
no subject
"He's a far cleverer chat than I."
Accepting the papers with a quiet rustle and a most crooked grin, Fitcher folds them once before drawing them off the table entirely. They're tucked under her broad belt and crinkle as they go.
no subject
Grinning back at her feels foolhardy. He has been honest but not thorough, measuring more directly in the quiet around crinkled pages.
“I’d still like to know your name.”
no subject
It's kind. A little less practiced.
"No you don't," she assures him in that gravel low timbre. "Though the sentiment is appreciated."
no subject
Ultimately he nods rather than dispute dismissal, acceptance thrown like a rug over lingering uncertainty. Haphazard, a little lumpy over the thing beneath, but already recovering.
“Alright,” he says, and it sounds like fair enough. It was a leap, after open interrogation. He no-scopes the book, far hand flattened over it to bring it close to the table’s edge while he weighs the need for an apology.
no subject
The table is cleared. He has his book slid back over. This is the point where she rises from her chair, says she will give the letters some thought and consult him with a draft. It is better to leave the matter a little off-footed so it may settle on its own with no further questions. Is that not how to best narrow the scope of a person's curiosity? To square this into an easily managed shape like rearranging a hard of cards from a deck whose backs she all has memorized.
Instead, she reaches out across the narrow reading table and sets her fingertips gently at the edge of his book.
"Really. The interest isn't unwelcome, only complicated."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)