oh, when I dream it's in colour

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa and YOU
WHAT: Farewells, written and in-person
WHEN: ICly mid- to late-Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: Keeping all of Athessa's goodbyes in the same place, closed starters in the comments

open: packing

It's not difficult to see that something is happening, if you happen to be on the fourth floor of the old mage tower in the Gallows. At any given time of day Athessa's room may be wide open, with the elf within throwing things about in the typical spring cleaning fashion, only with more emphasis on putting things into a traveling trunk instead of tidying it.

Without looking, Athessa will call out to someone passing by her door, "Hey, hand me that, will ya?" and point at something or another. Yes, she could get up and get it herself, but she's sat on the floor trying to figure out how to fit everything she needs into this trunk. It'd be a lot easier if what she needs was confined to just her bug-out bag, but that's in the trunk, too.

Sometimes the door is shut, and there isn't much to see but the ruckus can be heard in the hall, the scrape and wheeze of furniture being moved around because when the fuck did she get all this stuff? It sure seems like she's preparing for something, and in a bit of a rush to do so.

open: docks

The day she leaves, Athessa can be found hauling her stuff down to the docks, one heavy trunk of what-have-you that thuds cacophonously down the stairs unless (or until) someone gets sick enough of the thudding to offer a hand in carrying it.

Once at the docks, that trunk will be hauled aboard by some deckhand or another, leaving Athessa to stare up at the sight of the ship that'll take her across the Waking Sea. It hasn't been all that long since she's been on a ship, of course, but it's been some time since she felt like this. Uncertain of what she's going to find where she's going.

Comments

silas.

[sulahnan]

[ Surely Dick or Silas or whatever he's calling himself now will have heard the chaos from just down the hall as she's prepared herself for leaving, so it should come as not much of a surprise at all when Athessa knocks on his door. ]

Open up, I know you're in there. I got a favor to ask.

matthias.

[sulahnan]

[ Let's just pretend that Athessa told Matthias ahead of time that she's leaving, so this can take place on the day that she's shipping out.

Dressed in traveling clothes and regretting that because climbing eight flights of stairs to the Forces office to see Matthias is warmer work than standing on the deck of a ship at the start of spring, Athessa knocks on the jamb of the office door and gives her friend a rather lukewarm smile. Leaving for months doesn't exactly warrant full wattage, as far as she's concerned. ]

Figured I'd stop in to give you a hug before I left.

colin & bene.

[sulahnan]

Where else would they be if not this room, the cushions on the floor supporting Athessa, Colin, and Benedict as they lounge in their respective positions, the hookah bubbling in its spot among the textiles.

"You know," Athessa sighs out a column of smoke towards the ceiling, blinking slowly. "You could use my room to smoke in while I'm gone. If ya want."

[nonvenomous]

[ Athessa’s open door has necessitated near silent movement through the hallway they share, but there’s no magic for Silas to stifle sound with here. The scrape of his key in the lock and the muffled click of the bolt mark his comings and goings, infrequent as they are. He hasn’t always been sleeping in his room.

But he’s inside to look to the door at the knock now, poised with pen in hand, the quiet inside tell-tale.

He is thinking about playing opossum.

Seconds pass; a chair scrapes back. He turns the lock, and draws the door open, shabby and lean on the other side of it in what she’s seen pass for his pajamas: a loose tunic and trousers rolled at the ankles. But there’s no whiskey on his breath, or wine, or weed. He looks her up and down, clear-eyed and kempt enough to pass for a resident, and not something that crawled in and made a nest beneath one of the cots. ]

What is it?

loxley.

[sulahnan]

Past experience has proven that Athessa fares better on ships when slightly inebriated, so it seems like the best course of action is to pay Loxley a visit. He is staying over a tavern, after all. And of course he's still her friend and she wants to be sure he gets a hug before she disappears for months.

So just as she's approaching the tavern door she gives him a call on the crystal to tell him, hey, I'm stopping in for a drink if you wanna join me for a few minutes.

Does he know already that she's leaving? It might have fallen by the wayside of priorities with their schedules being what they are and him not living one door away from her anymore. Maybe he does know, and will be able to piece together that this is something of a send-off.

"I ordered you something," she announces when she sees him, turning to pick up the glass of something in question and offer it. "Dunno if it's any good but the bottle had a dragon on it."

[sulahnan]

I need someone to look after Batty Batkins while I'm gone.

[ In contrast to Silas' kempt status, Athessa looks like a college student on day 3 of all-night cram sessions. Hair in a messy bun atop her head, eyes tired, clothes as close to sweats and a sweater as Thedas can muster. She doesn't even give his pajamas a second glance. ]

Would you mind?

[nonvenomous]

The giant bat, [ Silas asserts, thought to speech with no pause for consideration in between. That Batty Batkins, and not some other Batty Batkins. It’s a particular kind of skepticism -- not of the need itself, but that she is trusting him with it.

A quick assessment of the state of her is enough to convince him that she isn’t pulling his leg. ]

Of course, [ he says, trace excitement subdued in a serious furrow at his brow. He will do this out of the kindness of his heart and not because he has desperately wanted to stretch out the wings or test the saliva -- ] I will care for Batty Batkins.

[sulahnan]

[ She lets out a breath as if she'd been holding it — abject relief. ]

Thank you. The kitchen staff will give you a basket of any overripe fruit they have, he doesn't want for much but I don't want him to get lonely, ya know.

docks; I know I said packing in discord but this made more sense to me

[clawings]

[ There's some godawful noise on the stairs and Erik opens his door to find Athessa dragging a heavy trunk down the hall; he shuts the door just long enough to double back into his room to find his shoes and then he's sprinting out. ]

Hey. Lemme help you with that?

[ He knows she's leaving but not for how long or why, and honestly? He's nervous about asking. Doesn't want to be too much in her business but also doesn't want to seem like he's disinterested in what's happening with her. ]

packing.

[cozen]

Bastien passes her door on his way to his rooms, arms laden with papers, and only waves—sort of, with his elbow, because his hands are full. Ten minutes later he's back, though, in rolled-up shirtsleeves and closer to empty-handed. In lieu of knocking, he leans against the outer door frame and sings: "Assehta the elf grew tired of feeling like she was on show, so she packed her bags, painted her face, and went to…"

[sulahnan]

"Val Royeaux," she says, finishing his rhyme even if it doesn't make sense. She sits back on the heels of her hands and rests her cheek against he shoulder as she looks towards him.

"A silly place to go to avoid being on show.

[inkindled]

[Matthias, intently comparing one piece of parchment to another piece of parchment (checking his spelling against a preexisting text, making sure he's put all the fiddly little commas where they ought to be and not peppered throughout, as is his usual way), looks around abruptly at the knock. The moment he clocks Athessa, he smiles; the moment he realizes what day it is and what she's saying, he drops both parchments and shoves
hurriedly away from his desk.

He closes the short distance between them and throws himself at her in a hug. She neededn't have said that's what she was after.]

I'll miss you.

[Obviously. But he has to say it, even though it makes his ears turn pink to be so straightforward.]

[altusimperius]

"Then we'd have to move all the pillows," Bene points out, his eyelids drooping as he makes a lazy grabby-hand for the hose.

"Besides, you'll be back sooner or later."

neededn't

[sulahnan]

[ She asked for it, so being knocked back a half-step by the force of his hug is more for effect than because either of them is at risk of toppling. Sometimes, ya just gotta let a hug rattle you.

Athessa wraps her arms around him and gives him a squeeze, making the typical I'm gonna crush you out of love noises that people make when hugging little brothers who are getting too tall. ]

I'm gonna miss you like, a stupid lot, Matty. Even though I'm gonna write to you, and you better fuckin' wtite back.

[cozen]

"Oui."

That's the joke. But it's a very old joke, by now, so he doesn't collapse dramatically while clutching his chest and gasping that she's forgotten.

"Here, I made you something."

He comes inside, close enough to hold down a little collection of papers, sewn down a center fold to form a booklet. The front says: PLACES OF NO INTEREST. Which of course is a lie. The interior pages—only ten or so of them—each feature a place in the city, with partial little landmark-based maps drawn from memory and notes like (for a roof) you can hear the symphony from here or (for a cafe) ask for the special and wink twice.

[sulahnan]

[ Athessa cranes her neck to look around, not sure which side he's coming up on, and doing the silly thing where she doesn't put the trunk down to do it until she's already looked quite silly. She wheezes out a laugh and sets the end that she's dragging the trunk by down so she can stand upright like a normal person. ]

Please, yeah. Thing weighs a fuckin' tonne. I've never had to pack so much shit for a trip before.

packing

[thereneverwas]

"Aren't you gone yet?"

Barrow has come to lean uselessly in the doorway, one cat on his shoulder and another in his arms, a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth.

"Maker, you bringing the whole island?"

[sulahnan]

Athessa puffs out a breath to displace some errant curls from where they hang over her face and looks over at Barrow just long enough to nod and then nod again, this time indicating the traveling trunk.

"Yep, you're next. Get in."

[sulahnan]

Athessa takes the booklet and reads aloud:

"Places of No Interest. No thanks, not interested."

She even pretends to hand it back, but too quick for there to be any sincere doubt in Baz's mind, she clutches it protectively against her chest and smiles up at him.

"Thank you. Maybe I'll actually get to enjoy the city this way."

[thereneverwas]

"Now that's service. You heard her," Barrow says to the cat on his shoulder, giving it a shrug and prompting the animal to hop down, where she promptly begins to investigate the scene and, predictably, hops into the trunk of her own accord.

"Not sure I'll fit with her in there," he muses. The other cat, being held like a baby in his other arm, watches sleepily and shows no inclination to move.

[sulahnan]

"You're probably right," she says, and reaches into the trunk to fetch the cat up into her arms. The cat wiggles, more to aggressively headbutt Athessa's chin than to get away, and the elf surveys the chaos around her with a sigh.

"I'm not used to having so much shit to pack. This—" A small duffel in the trunk, deceptively heavy. "—is usually what I would take anywhere."

[cozen]

"A little, I hope," Bastien says.

He loves Val Royeaux like a mother. A mother who is extravagant, colorful, larger than life, inspiring, fickle, demanding, critical, petty, and vindictive. If it were up to him, he would be going along to smooth the introductions and stand in the way of the barbs—so it is good that it isn't up to him, probably, and that Alexandrie has her equal say in what Athessa is or isn't capable of, so she doesn't wind up coddled and smothered and Bastien's actual job isn't left half-done.

He surveys the room, then invites himself to sit and begin folding clothes.

"You must protect it with your life. If the lordlings or the university students get their hands on it, everything will be ruined."

[sulahnan]

"Maybe I should stitch the pages into the lining of my least fashionable jacket," she ventures, setting the booklet down so she can retrieve something else that needs to be packed. "That way nobody would think to steal it."

She frowns at a stack of books and picks out only a select few to put into the trunk. The rest get put on some other horizontal surface. If she were going to present as nothing but herself, she wouldn't be going to all this trouble, but she has to do more than just be there. She has to infiltrate society successfully enough to garner an invitation to a stupid fancy party and for that she has to present herself as interesting.

"How would you do it? If you were me?"

[nonvenomous]

He eats fruit.

[ Of course he does.

It’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly in this paraphrased realization there is an element of disappointment. This would certainly explain how the kittens were able to coexist within their shared space.

It’s fine. He’s still a giant bat with giant bat fangs and giant leathery bat wings. ]

Would you like to move him into my quarters or am I to check in on him?

[sulahnan]

[ Considering that everyone who has met Batty Batkins has been rather negative receiving him, except for Kostos, the offer of fostering him takes Athessa slightly aback. ]

Uhh if you want to have him in your room that's fine, but you'll wanna put something down under his perch for the droppings. On the other hand...he has been keeping the griffons company, so...you'd have to climb a lot of stairs.