[open]

[heirring]

WHO: Flint, Wysteria, Miriam, Cassius & You
WHAT: Catch-All
WHEN: Post-dreams, nebulously Guardian-ish
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Warnings (if any) in subject lines.

((OOC NOTE: Anything in bold is closed to one thread, though group threads a-okay.
Feel free to turn this into action brackets if The Spirit Moves You.
Wildcards welcome, bespoke starters available upon request.))

Comments

[wearyallalone]

The war is hardly a surprise, but it feels like it has a center of gravity that sucks their conversation toward it despite Vanya's effort to steer around it.

(He thinks, briefly, that maybe someday he truly won't care what anyone thinks of him, but this seems somehow unlikely.)

"To be perfectly honest with you," he says after a short pause. "I'm not sure how to talk about the war. People so often just assume and I let them, but. I have no idea what it was like here in the Marches." So why should anyone else know things they weren't there for? Or just an invitation to continue, perhaps.

[revise]

Miriam takes it as the latter. Further, she seems untroubled by aiming straight for the heart of the thing:

"More scattered than down south, I'm led to believe. Kirkwall was real and immediate to these people, and so was Dairsmuid. And with so many First Enchanters removed to White Spire and the bulk of the rebellion effort further south—" She tips her head, dismissive. "Up here it was just everyone jumping at everyone else's shadow from Hercinia to Tantervale."

She takes a drink, then adds, "Say what you like about the rest; at least now everyone more or less knows where everyone else stands and who's in charge of the decision, I suppose."

[wearyallalone]

"I suppose." It's mostly agreement. "My unit didn't leave Nevarra, at least while I was still with them. I think there was a faction in the leadership who believed that if the Order could just keep peace within our borders, the war would blow itself out south of us, which struck me as foolishness even at the time. It was never going to work like that."

He seems like he might stop there; he takes a drink. But then he adds: "You're right, though. The clarity lets people make the decisions they need to, instead of deciding that whatever outcome they liked best or feared most was most likely to arrive any day."

[revise]

Between the curtains of her dark, bluntly cut hair, a flicker of humor tugs at the corner of Miriam's mouth. If it reaches her eyes, the associated glint is too quick to see but apparently passing beyond that flat fixed look is a rare thing, and she's already laughed once. Better not to set too generous a precedent.

"I'll have to write the Grand Enchanter herself and share the good news. 'Madame, a Templar told me I was right about the war—'"

[wearyallalone]

The expression that flickers might almost be a smile, but it doesn't linger long enough for certainty. It's deadpan when he says, "Only a former Templar, it might lose you a point or two."

[revise]

Her "Can't have everything," in response is immediate, as if it were prepared in the wings and only waiting on that predictable cue.

With a rise and fall of her eyebrows, Miriam drains what remains in her tankard.

[wearyallalone]

"If you'd like I could rejoin, tell you you're right, and immediately quit again." Very polite.

[revise]

"If you would," is said in some similarly well-mannered tone, vowels all rounded toward some imagined version of high bred respectability. "That would be very considerate of you."

And then with a quirk of the head, Miriam's dark sheet of hair fanning along her shoulder, the faux air of quality is stripped away; the empty tankard is thunked for effect on the table top.

"Are you a second round sort, Ser Orlov?"

[wearyallalone]

There's a moment where it seems like he might say no, but only briefly. "I could still do with a bit of warming up. Why not?" Probably a lot of reasons, but that's an affirmative to staying all the same.