faderift | OPEN

i. Gallows - baths.
Doki, submerged in hot water up to her nose, closes her eyes. She is enjoying this. She looks shorter without her bulky furs and armor. The blue tattoo that starts at her chin continues down her throat and over the dip between collarbone, down between her breasts. She has a nomad's immodesty, someone used to stripping down and having a quick wash in a free moment, or changing clothes in inconvenient alleys. A bath is a very natural place to be naked by comparison. A hot bath is a luxury. Under the water, the glowing of her anchor shard casts a strange wavery light.

Her clothes are in a nearby heap. The armor she has left behind in her room. Water rust. Steam is bad, at least for armor. She has brought a big thick dagger with her, the grip of which is sticking out of her clothes. The pommel is carved to look like a lion. It does not fit with her vibe.

"I won it," she says, if she senses anyone looking at it. "Big contest, very competitive. I pissed the farthest so? The dagger became mine."

She stays late in the baths, as late as she can. She does endeavor to be third-to-last to leave, and maybe passes a little too closely to any other pile of clothes that might be nearby. If a button or brooch or any nice wool socks might be found missing--well, they could have been otherwise misplaced, yes? A half naked Avvar, she would have nowhere to hide these things on her person.

ii. the Wounded Coast.
The mission is an escort mission. A representative from the University of Markham has come to Kirkwall to gather a particular type of abalone shells, with the aim to study their restorative properties on damaged cow hooves. With a scholar's wariness, she had asked for protection, but had quickly split off from the Riftwatch agents dispatched to guard her. She is now down by the line of the surf, digging in the wet sand.

And Doki is eating a seagull. Its neck has been wrung. Its wings lay spread on the sand, splattered with blood and sea foam. The feathers ruffle gently in the breeze. The belly has been split open, and Doki is knuckle deep, rooting around in the body cavity. There is blood smeared on her chin and around her mouth.

With a quiet aha! she pulls out a dark purple shape. She is proud as she holds her prize aloft, blood dripping down her hand.

"A kidney! It is good for you."

iii. Kirkwall.
There is a market stall selling pewter drinking mugs from the Anderfels. Big heavy things, scenes and patterns beaten into the sides, thick handles, lids that open and close by pressing your thumb just above the handle and pressing down on the raised decorative piece.

Doki is sitting across from this stall. There are crowds between her and it--people walking aimlessly, people walking with purpose, people here to buy and people here to sell and people just browsing, enjoying the brief sunshine that spites the cold. Doki is doing none of these things except for maybe enjoying the sunshine.

Twenty minutes pass. Twenty-five. The door to a nearby tavern opens, and a brace of day-drinkers spills out, wandering down the street. Doki vanishes from her vantage point. Then she is beside the stall. Then a mug is gone--one from the back--and Doki is walking with the drunks, swinging her step to keep in time with them, a woman far in her cups.

But then the merchant yells out: "Thief! Thief!" and the crowd breaks apart, everyone murmuring, everyone looking, trying to figure out who he's pointing to.

Doki keeps walking. To the nearest person she casts a look, a smile--and thrusts a cloth-wrapped bundle into their hands.

iv - WILDCARD.

i. the Gallows - all over.
"Let me help you with that."

Tiffany likes to be useful. If it's a burden you're shouldering alone, she appears to lend a hand. If it's a heavy trunk you're trying to drag up the stairs, she shows up to grab the other end. If a load of supplies fresh from the ferry need to be transported to a storeroom, she's there. Making beds (she does great tidy corners on the sheets and blankets), sweeping hallways, peeling potatoes--all of the day-to-day grunt work gets an extra help from Tiffany. She's friendly, good at conversations, and you might just find yourself sharing some piece of your backstory without realizing you've been pulled into doing so.

In the library, she's less outgoing, content to work alone at a table with sheaves of parchment and folios spread out in front of her, taking up a corner of some out of the way table. If someone drops down to share the space, she gives a polite and friendly smile, and--very surreptitiously--turns the folio to hide whatever it is she's reading. She stays just long enough that her departure might seem a coincidence, nothing at all to do with sharing a space.

Before dinner, Tiffany can be found at the training yard, working on drills. She has a gracefulness even with her longsword and Seeker armor, and she moves through the motions of training with ease--starts with moving between the points, one step to the next carrying her through the four standard positions, blade to an invisible enemy's shoulder, blade forward, a chop, blade to the ground, and then repeat--and, once she's warmed up, she moves into an entry strike, a follow up strike, works her way to the training dummies standing across the yard so she can move between them. She never hits with her blade, but keeps tight control, pulling the swing so it stops just short of a strike.

Whenever she decides that she's done, she sticks her sword into the dirt and leans on it as she crouches, catching her breath. She's always smiling when she finishes the drills, breathless and happy in the work.

ii. the Gallows - the Templar Tower chapel.
In the chapel, Tiffany can be found doing one of two things: praying (fairly common in a chapel and thus unsurprising to discover) or cleaning. It's the sort of cleaning that you do when you've sat for a long time in a room and noticed one fluff of dust that turned into you noticing a whole swathe of dust that needs dusting, which then leads to washing windows and wiping tables and puttering around tidying whatever catches your eye.

And while she cleans, she sings. Of course it's the Chant--what song more appropriate in a chapel?--and Tiffany sings from memory. She has a fairly good voice, nothing that would win her a place on the stage or anything. And she's more loud than she is talented, so--though she starts quietly--eventually the song overtakes her. She favors the Canticle of Exaltations and the Canticle of Benedictions, or simply the Canticle of Andraste. If anyone steps in to the chapel, attracted to the singing or just curious as to its source, Tiffany is confident enough to finish the phrase that she's on, once she notices that she has company, but self-conscious enough not to continue, and stops herself with a little smile and a, "Sorry!"

iii. the Gallows - the rookery.
"That one's for me."

It's a very large and sleek raven, well-cared for. The message it bears has been lashed to its leg with a decorative cord, each strand of the braid a different shade of green. Tiffany reaches for it with a little smile. The raven gives a qurk, almost as if in greeting, and pecks playfully at her hand. She's still able to detach the scroll of parchment and when she opens it, a handful of pressed and dried violets fall out onto the floor.

Surprised, Tiffany laughs. She plucks one off the floor and holds it out.

"Want this?"

iv. WILDCARD.

i. Forces office.
As the assistant, Matthias is a normal fixture in the Forces office. He shows up on time, does the work that's assigned to him with painstaking and focused attention (especially the bits that require writing and proper spelling), and takes messages from anyone who shows up expecting to find Commander Flint and instead finding themselves faced with a slightly self-serious teenager who will ask them to confirm the spelling of their name at least three times.

Once the day has gone on and the hour has gotten later, Matthias is still in the office, but not at his desk. Instead he is near to where Flint seats himself (for those few rare hours each fortnight when he is in the office), paging through files and records and reports. If someone enters suddenly and noisily, Matthias will snap back from whatever he's perusing in that moment, guilt stamped all over his face, with a hasty, "What?"

If someone enters quietly, he won't notice. He's focused on looking for something.

ii. the Gallows - a garden.
In a garden, Matthias is killing flowers.

Or nearly, at least. These are snowdrops, hardy flowers of early spring, the sort that grow hidden by snow and, once there's been enough of a melt, pop out fully in bloom. Matthias, sat cross-legged right on the ground, unconcerned with cold or mud or anything, plucks one and holds it pinched between his fingers. Carefully, he holds his hand over it--and the flower begins to wither, and crumple inward, all the life and juice leaving its thick stalk, its petals browning.

Once it's close to dead, he drops it on the ground and plucks another one, and does it all over again. His staff is laying on the ground behind him. It's a brutish and ugly thing, all function and no form. Someone who had never seen a mage before might think it just a piece of driftwood.

iii. the Gallows - chasing a cat.
One night at dinner, the doors burst open and a sleek shape runs in, low to the ground. A jingling of bells accompanies its mad dash. Out in the corridor is the sound of footsteps, someone's heavy boots beating down on the flagstone--and then Matthias comes bursting in after, running full tilt into the room.

A bench has been pulled away from the table nearest to the door and Matthias runs right into it. It catches him at the knees and he falls with a yelp, right over the bench and onto the floor. He's on his feet just a second later, tearing off after the shape that is still running away from him, its bells jingling frantically.

Matthias hits a table next. He's lunging for the shape but it dodges him nimbly, and--far less nimble--he hits his forehead on the edge of the table with a great crack, jarring plates and spilling drinks. "Sorry," he gasps as he pushes back, holding his head with one hand, "sorry, sorry-- stoppit--" and he's off again before anyone can say anything to him or intervene.

iv. WILDCARD.

"Most certainly," By says, and takes the violet from her hand. He considers it a moment, gives it a light sniff, frowns thoughtfully.

"Alas that they weren't preserved in sugar. Those can be quite delicious. Love letter?"

"No, it's-- fine."

Benedict isn't entirely the Southern Chantry type-- he's not even the Northern Chantry type, truth be told-- but he'd heard singing from a part of the building he doesn't often frequent, and followed the sound to make sure the Gallows isn't haunted again. Or... whatever other brand of fuckery is to be inflicted on them, he's not picky.

He's only just poked his head in, and immediately feels guilty for being caught out in his snooping.

"Um. It sounds nice."

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.

Edited 2021-03-07 00:07 (UTC)

"We always had them in salads, unsugared."

Tiffany shakes the parchment so that the rest of the pressed violets drift out. She has her palm beneath this time, ready to catch them so as to make less of a mess on the floor.

"They're supposedly good for you--I don't know about that, but they're certainly pretty. And no, not a love letter. Sorry to disappoint."

He pops the flower into his mouth and chews experimentally. "Not excellent," he says, "but not terrible, either. So who's sending you flowers?"

Diana's speed is not what it used to be. Slower and strangely draining in a way it wasn't before. Nor has she found much occasion to use it (or less than she did at home at least), but here seems as good a time as any. She's a great deal more nimble than the poor boy, scooping the moving blur up easily in one hand.

The cat is not in the least bit pleased, giving a loud, startled yell. Claws and fangs sink into skin before Diana remembers that's a problem. She flinches and lets out a surprised grunt, but manages not to drop the cat, using her other hand to support it's butt. "You're vicious indeed, little one," she says to the cat, "But I think your spree has come to an end." The cat grumbles its disagreement low in it's throat. Diana laughs and directs her smile at the boy, "Are you all right? You hit your head rather hard."

She'll have little luck with Diana's pile. She arrives with the intention of taking a bath and so wears very little more than a linen robe. They're well matched in immodesty at least, even if Diana doesn't quite see it that way, accustomed as she is to communal bathing. She smiles at Doki's story, a little bemused.

"I admit, I can't picture how such a contest would go." For a variety of reasons. Diana is not as naïve as she once was, but there are still some things she's missed in her exploration of the wider world.

"Thanks."

There's a lingering self-consciousness to Tiffany's smile. She scrapes some dust into a neat pile with the side of her boot.

"That's very kind of you to say. I'm getting the impression that Riftwatch isn't a singing sort of organization, is it."

"My little sister." Tiffany follows suit with the flower-eating, just for solidarity. It doesn't quite taste like she remembers. That's nostalgia for you. "One of my little sisters. She's always collected flowers. Now she collects flowers, and most of her letters are love letters, so I suffer this as a fallout."

She chucks the raven on the top of its glossy head. The bird shakes it off, briskly, with another quork. Tiffany shoots a glance to her conversational partner.

"Your voice is familiar, serrah."

"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.

"Yeah," Matthias says breathlessly, "yeah, yeah, I'm, f," oh, shit, this is a lady. Or that's more or less how his thoughts go as his eyes uncross and his vision comes back into focus and he sees the lady what's in front of him. A Lady, more like. A Lady, holding the cat with the bells tangled about it, and Matthias startles into life, and reaches for it.

"Sorry. I mean, er, thank you, m' lady. I'm all right. I've had worse." He scrubs his arm over his forehead. "No major damage or anything. Erm, since you've got the ba, uh, blighter, can you," and he gestures about his neck, "Just--the bells? That's what I was first after."

The bells are minuscule, and the cord that binds them together is a supple soft thing, shot through with fibers of silver. The cat, meanwhile, is a dark thing, all sleek and short-haired, with a tail only half the size of what you would expect. Its grumbling continues.

"First, you must be drinking water. Buckets of water. And beer, too, twice as many buckets. And then it is stance. And making sure all competitors, they are too drunk to participate, or else have tiny little dicks that are not very good for anything."

She lifts one hand out of the water to measure with her fingers, thumb and forefinger pinched very close together. Tiny.

"Of course, I cannot be giving away secrets. What if this is a contest you and I have? And then you would know how it is I win. Very bad for me."

"Not that I'm aware of."

The corner of his mouth twitches upward, then falls again.

"...I don't think I've seen you before." It's something like an awkward prompt for introduction, but there's always the lingering fear that his reputation precedes him.

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.

Ah. For just a brief moment, Byerly's smile softens just a touch. It does not last too terribly long - it wouldn't do, looking all soppy over a ten-word story about someone he doesn't know - but that little anecdote is altogether charming.

"Well, such is the chatter over the crystals," he says. "We all hear each other before seeing one another." He finishes tying his message to his raven's leg. "Your name is...?"

"Too bad."

She gives a little sigh, a mild regret, and goes back to sweeping. The broom is a rough thing, twig bristles and a blunt handle. The floor isn't all that dirty. The sweeping is more a meditation, even if she continues their conversation.

"Mundane chores are a little more bearable if there's singing. I'm Tiffany." She shoots him a smile. "Theophania Hart. I'm new to Riftwatch, thus me breaking tradition by singing."

"Tiffany Hart. I suppose that's true, about hearing each other first. I think I've said you sound familiar to just about every person that I've met here, like it's some surprise. Eventually I'll get used to carrying around the voices of Riftwatch in my pocket."

She stoops to pick up the rest of the violets, cups them gently in her hand as she tidies up.

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."

He can't help but smile as she tidies. Maker, how is there such virtue in the world?

"You don't have to clean that up, you know."

She looks up at him, then down at the little pile of violets in her hand, and laughs at herself.

"Habit. But I can't imagine anyone would be thrilled to come up here and find a mess left behind, even a mess as pleasant as a handful of flowers. It's no trouble for me to gather them up instead of leaving them for someone else to gather later."

He shakes his head with a smile. "The blooms shall be a pleasant change from the usual bird-droppings they scrub off the ground," he says, hand tucked into his pocket. "But if you wish to do a good deed, I shan't stop you. - Do you like wine?"

The Wounded Coast is not the Gallows, and it’s not Kirkwall, and nobody on this mission roster is anyone Richard Dickeson managed to kill or betray in a dream. So he is here in the salt wind and cold spay, seated on a barnacle-crusty boulder in scruffy black furs, peering after the progress of Doki palpating through the sticky cattail fluff and wet bone of a dismembered seagull.

There’s an air about him familiar to anyone who’s supervised a puppy tearing a squeak toy to shreds. Better this than those wicked little fingers finding their way into their scholar’s pack, left up on the back of a mule up the beach.

Flecks of blood and offal speckle his boots, carried by the wind. A feather flags across the sand and finds a place to stick at his toe.

“Are you offering?”

He puts out his gloved hand, polite, palm up.

OPEN

Yevdokiya an Waslyna O Bearhold || OTA

Theophania Hart || OTA

Matthias || OTA

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