OPEN

[nonvenomous]

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.

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.

Comments

Lowtown

[thereneverwas]

"Ah. Shit."

It's a familiar Wall Of Man that obstructs Dick's vision of the street beyond, smelling of tobacco and elfroot and whiskey, if such olfactory cues can be differentiated from the rest of the world in one's drunken haze.
Barrow's been in his own cups, that much is evident, but he's not nearly so sore a sight as this poor wretch.

"C'mon mate, up you get." The words are brusque and slurred, but the touch comparatively gentle as Barrow stoops to heft Dick's arm over his broad shoulders.

The Gallows

[okayimin]

The cot in the rectory office is too large for Sawbones, the way most things on the surface are. That isn't why she's stopped sleeping in it, rather she's just stopped sleeping entierly. When sleep does finally catch up to her, it's similar to Richard's.

Though her preferred alcoves are a bit different from his and that's why Richard will have to deal with his foot being knocked as Sawbones crawls out from under one of the back pews. She squints up at him, "What're you doin'?"

lowtown.

[tender]

"Wait," is pitched from some distance back, a little breathless but carrying all the same. Derrica's flushed and a little unsteady with drink, layers of densely knit shawl hanging loose and fluttering as she hurries from the warm threshold of a tavern towards Richard.

She's quick, but Richard is tall and leggy, and she can only move so quickly in the snow to catch up.

But clearly she means to catch up. Even if it means skidding along on snowy stonework, keeping her balance mostly by chance. Two years of winter and it's still an affront to Derrica that snow and ice continues to happen to her.

The Gallows

[muckspout]

Edgard is wandering down what he thought was an empty aisle, deep in the stacks at the library. He jumps and twirls around when the book hits the ground and alerts him to Dick's presence. Edgard holds his hands up, palms facing. The joint he was just about to light flies into the air.

"Easy!" He says. "Didn't see you there."

the gallows

[unshut]

Likely, it is the sound of the chair scuffing against the floor as its drawn out from the opposite side of the small reading table which wakes him. There can be little other reason for it. The hour is late; the library is hushed in the way it only can be when occupation is low; this remote back corner he's worked so hard to secret himself in isn't exactly bustling with foot traffic. Mostly though, Fitcher isn't yet looking at him as if she's expecting an answer so he can't have missed an opening question.

While his nerves settle (or rabbit harder; who can say?), the dark haired Antivan woman tucks herself into the chair. She places the marker ribbon in his languishing open book, then shuts and and moves it aside in favor of methodically spreading out a series of papers between them. They are right side up to his side of the table, reading--'...and so with news of the affair, I regret to say there has been a great shift in the mood here in Cumberland. Poor Lord Bayros has--'

Fitcher folds her long hands over the letters. Her attention on him is quite direct, all dark eyes and candlelit. Keen as a waiting mongoose.

"I thought you might help me with something."

gallows, ferry.

[poleaxed]

Jone is not the cleverest or most keen, and she'll tell you that loudly and with great enthusiasm, given the opportunity. It's relatively always true; Jone is no genius, but a blunt and bullheaded seeker of, at the best of times, basic information. Once she has a subject, she'll pursue it.

This is all to say that she's been watching Si for the last few days, and isn't fucking thrilled. When she sees the opportunity to get a minute alone with him (in her mind, the word cornered flashes up, unbidden), she takes it. He's on the boat, it's sailing away, but before it can get too far, Jone makes a long-legged jump over the water.

She makes it in, of course, but not without a literal fucking splash.

flagrant invasions of privacy.

[propulsion]

When Richard returns to his room, the door will be locked, just as he left it. When he opens the door, there's first the slight flicker of lamplight that tells him he has company.

And when he opens it all the way, he sees there is a man at his desk. His feet are up and crossed at the corner of it, slouched way back in his chair. Tony Stark has some loose pieces of paper in his hands that he's perusing, not immediately looking up when he is caught red-handed. He is bundled up warm in a heavy fur coat that bristles thick off his shoulders, sleeves slipping a little from his wrists.

(There's a wall that Tony continues to hit every now and then since he arrived in Thedas: if you wanna know stuff about somebody, you gotta do the work. It's not so easy as plugging in someone's name or a second of grainy security cam footage into a supercomputer and bringing up their criminal history, where they went to school, their dog's instagram. No, you have to keep tabs, observe, ask around—heck, even talk to them.

Or this. What he's doing now. Which is not not talking to someone.)

"Hey," Tony says, tipping a look up. "Come in, take a seat."

[pittance]

Glass shatters.

"Easy," He's half a step into recoil when Richard wakes. Some slow inch of expression settles for it: No recognition. He stoops to collect the fallen book, picks a stubborn shard from the spine. "Hey, you're alright."

Call the Gallows what you will, places with mages are full of little alcoves, abandoned nooks. Someone might've studied here, once. These days it's just a closet with aspirations.

"Didn't realize no one was in here."

gallows

[acreage]

Some might say that the time of night where it's unclear whether it's late or early is a strange time to be at the baths.

Less so, though, for habitual insomniacs; and even less so, lately, for anyone in Riftwatch. Sleep and dreams haven't been especially safe as of late, and it'll probably be some time before everybody's done feeling jumpy about them. He hadn't noticed anything on arriving; but it's on the way out, wearing something fresh and old things balled up under an arm, hair damp and curling, that he notices a shape in a corner.

It's been months, but a part of his mind still thinks Miller, looks for that stupid hat as he approaches, crouching to get a better look. And then the man startles awake, and it's obvious who he's looking at.

" — what the hell are you doing here?"