OPEN

[deceivingly]

WHO: Yevdokiya an Waslyna O Bearhold, Tiffany Hart, Matthias, maybe my other characters + YOU
WHAT: a humble open log
WHEN: Fantasy March
WHERE: the Gallows, Kirkwall, the Wounded Coast
NOTES: bath nudity, butchering a seagull, nothing worse atm

Comments

i

[untiltheyarent]

Fifi did enter quietly, as she does most places; she stops in the doorway, looking over the scene. She recognizes the boy as Matthias, but this is an unusual time for him to be here-- granted, it's an unusual time for her to be here, but she suspects she left a cup in here early this morning and it's embarrassing enough that it went the whole day unnoticed, etc, etc.

"Messere?" she finally says, in a careful voice, with a little tilt of her head.

[inkindled]

"What?" Matthias says loudly, and then, "fuck," because he'd been crouching half beneath a work table and had stood up at the salutation and cracked his head on it.

He's red in the ears and in the face when he straightens up properly, and rubbing at the back of his head. He recognizes her, but doesn't precisely recognize her either, if that makes sense.

Gruffly, he tries on a kind of Flint voice. "Yeah, what?"

It doesn't suit him. Maker, but he's a tit.

[untiltheyarent]

Fifi doesn't laugh, or even smile, when he hits his head-- men who get angry easily can be unpredictable, and although Matthias is a young man, he is also a mage. Poking at him is inadvisable.

"Is there something you needed?"

Her tone is polite enough, but her gaze is fixed: she can be on his side, or not, and it will all depend on the answer he gives.

[inkindled]

He straightens up, squares his shoulders and raises his chin a little. This, he hopes, will make him look older, or at least more legitimate. Maybe a little more imposing as well, but that's less his intent.

"To get my work done? Yeah. I'm Forces assistant." Real pride creeps in there, despite the maybe-slightly-odd circumstances in which he's saying it. "So I'm just, y'know. Working."

[untiltheyarent]

Fifi's expression doesn't change; she's known far too many boys in her life, pretending at being men-- some far older than Matthias-- to be fooled for an instant.

"Commander Flint doesn't strike me as the kind to want people going through his things," she says patiently, taking a few steps forward, "shall I ask him?"

Her thin fingers tug at the chain around her neck, on which the sending crystal hangs below her shirt.

[inkindled]

"No," Matthias says, quickly. Too quickly. Idiot. He'd taken half a step toward her which he now tries to make look very normal and incidental and not at all the step of a person desperate to stop her from asking Commander Flint anything.

"No," he tries again, and practically interrupts himself to say more: "Look, I know it looks suspect, but I'm really not doing anything. I'm not going through the commander's things. I'm only looking for a, a paper that I think might be here. It really is all right, I swear."

[untiltheyarent]

Interesting.

"What paper?" she asks quietly, innocuously, "if you've misplaced it, I may have come across it in my dusting."

[inkindled]

Matthias wrinkles his nose. This isn't even an attempt at a misdirect--he's genuinely asking. "You dust the Commander's desk?"

[untiltheyarent]

The face Matthias receives is that of someone who has been here, doing this, likely since before he had even heard of Riftwatch.

"Yes."

[inkindled]

Well. That look is fair. Matthias makes a face back to say as much.

"Why, though? Desks don't get that dusty, do they?"

[untiltheyarent]

"Yes," patiently, "if they aren't dusted regularly."

[inkindled]

"Oh." He looks down at the surface of the desk again. "Well--good, then. Thanks. Erm, but--the paper I'm looking for, it's only about mission assignments, and things. I thought it might be over here."

[untiltheyarent]

"Then why all the fuss?"

Stepping further into the room, but only to move past him, Fifi raises her eyebrows and goes to where she left the cup. Rather than bend at the waist to pick it up, she pliés down to it, as habitually as one might scratch their cheek or adjust their clothes.

"You looked as though you'd seen a ghost."

Straightening, she turns back to smirk at him.

[inkindled]

Matthias steps back to give her plenty of space to get by. He pulls a face at her as she goes by, and then again when she smirks at him.

"You did surprise me by showing up bloody suddenly, ghost-like. Isn't that reason enough to get, y'know, put on edge?"

[untiltheyarent]

"Is it?" He's cute. And hostile, perhaps unexpectedly, but it takes all sorts.

"Perhaps at first, but I don't imagine I'd still be on edge even now, what with having not been caught doing anything amiss."

At this point, Fifi is trying not to smile at him, suspecting it will only make the situation worse. "Shall I leave you to your rifling?"