CLOSED | a shadow crossed the sky,

[poleaxed]

WHO: scarlett johansson poleaxed & chris evans archademode
WHAT: Dirty jobs done dirt cheap.
WHEN: Mid-Cloudreach.
WHERE: Denerim.
NOTES: Discussions of past child abuse are highly likely.

Long travel after long travel, Jone only wants rest; unfortunately, there is none for wickedness. Taoran Hawkwind always struck Jone as a small minded mercenary. She's never met the man, of course, but they've mutual friends. He always sounded a little thick, and his camp, just outside Denerim's walls, proves it. Jone talks shop with him anyway, joking that her 'armed guard' is actually a qunari, and this far south? Everybody believes it.

Taoran is doing grunt work, trying to get a rich merchant out of taxes. Not terribly clever, especially since he's going through the Brecilian to do it. Then again, Jone's always had a bias against Gwaren and Amaranthine and does she just hate Fereldan nobles? No, not interrogating that night now.

She agrees to go with him, lying that they could use the cash. Half pay up front is bargained for, and Jone immediately uses it getting them a respectable room at a respectable inn. Within the walls of Denerim, a thatch-roofed city stacked with as many pickpockets as rich men (and more that like to slum, besides) The Wailing Willow doesn't double as a brothel, as far as Jone can tell, so she hopes Gabranth won't pitch too much of a fit.

They can only afford one room with the coin Jone's scraped together, though Jone requests a divider, explaining in her poshest accent that they're not yet married.

The innkeeper rolls her eyes, but gets the divider.

As soon as the door is closed, Jone collapses on the bed nearest the window, luxuriating in sleeping on tightly bound rope and straw mattress. She's slept on better. She doesn't care.

"Ah, this is the life, innit. Going off to do something pointlessly dangerous on the morrow, but after sleeping on a bed."

No one they've encountered in Denerim has Jone's accent, because they've steered clear of the part of the city Jone's from. She hopes Gabranth hasn't noticed.

"What d'you think of Hawkwind, Gab? Besides that bloody name. It ain't his fault; his Da picked it out of a hat."

Comments

[archademode]

That is, of course, exactly it. Pride.

And there's an irony to it somewhere, how much more candid he is without his helm in place, behind closed doors, pacing as he talks to someone he considers his own peer— a set of qualifiers for a harsher tone and more embittered commentary, free of all usual restraint.

Were they in this moment sharing space with someone set above their station, Jone might guess (correctly) that his tongue would be held, and he'd say nothing more than the usual cycle of 'As you wish', or 'I trust fully in your judgment'.

"We will do what need be done," he starts, stubbornly lifting his own chin by degrees, cinching his own fingers against his palm. Somehow, the armor makes him seem more passive than he truly is unmasked. "They will not dare to go back on their word once our work here is finished.”

A threat, a promise— the difference is so nominal it hardly matters.

[poleaxed]

Jone feels as though, watching these emotions unfold in Gabranth's posture and bearing, that she's finally met the real him. An honored place, this familiarity makes their tiny room at a grubby inn feel holy to a woman who places relationships between people above politics or even, truthfully, religion. The smile won't go away. She can't stop looking at him. Her expression reads of deep contentment.

What a fucking berk she is.

"'Preciate it, Gab, you looking out for me." Because that's what it is. "I've your back as well. You needn't worry for none, alright? Not while we're here."

Even if she plans to sneak out tonight. She'll be back by morning. Everything will be fine.

[archademode]

She sees it truthfully.

His emotions were never clean-flowing: kindness prompting anger, mercy giving rise to resentment, worry met with irritation and a willingness to make the world meet his own expectations, rather than permit it to pull he or those around him into its own designs. Protective, demanding, inflexible—

But when she thanks him, he stops.

Lashes flickering where they lower beneath a knitted brow, tight grip on thin air relaxing by cautious degrees. He realizes she’s watching him, recognizes at last her state— and his own— and all lividity leaves him, as if drained through his bare heels into the floor. Lip twitching where it pulls into a thin line, visibly resetting himself.

“Apologies for my intrusion.” It wasn't his place to snap his teeth over their given contract, just as it wasn't his place to press beyond the partition without warning, knowing full well she deserves privacy. A matter easily corrected with a single step back towards his own given portion of the room.

"Know that I meant no disrespect by it."

[poleaxed]

She snorts, laughter withheld, yet again amused at how chivalrously Gabranth attempts to comport himself. Had she been lying, when she told little Ben that Gabranth came from a land of faerie knights and honorable princesses, or had she accidentally told the truth.

"Gab, mate," she says, the smile obvious even in her voice, "grew up with three older brothers, I did, the four of us all stuffed in one room. I'll not be spooked for being seen in me knickers by a good mate."

She considers asking if he has anything to sleep in, or if he intends to try and find rest in that leather suit of his. She considers it, and recognizes it's none of her business. It'd only make him discomforted, judging from this most recent retreat.

"You've never disrespected me. Might be why I'm sharing a room with you, you knob."

The partition is for him. She wouldn't bother with one for Barrow or Si. She doubts they'd care.

[archademode]

He puffs out another irritable little sound at being called a knob, face only half-hidden by the divider, though he still stubbornly keeps his gaze trained well towards the wall instead.

“We should leave before sunrise. Acclimate ourselves with the start of our route.”

[poleaxed]

"That's the right of it," Jone says, perhaps even a little wistfully. Certainly not sadly. She's had enough of that lately, and is winding herself up for more.

"Denerim were sacked..." She does some quick math, "close on twenty years ago? Blimey, I'm old. Anyroad, I know the streets, those ain't changed, but most all the shops have. Wouldn't be surprised if the neighborhoods've shifted, but I reckon not too much."

Which is to say, she knows where to look.

[archademode]

“You will be fine, then?” He asks, this time tilting his head far enough that the blurred vision of her combing out her hair sits soundly in his peripheral vision. Not direct, not even enough to make out expression or movement more than just the rough shape of her.

He cannot conceal the narrow little glint of concern in his voice. This is not just about scouting their surroundings.

[poleaxed]

Concern, a soft poison she refuses and, in this case, ignores. That it's there proves both Gabranth's character, and the danger she poses, the weight, the undeserved. She is not worthy of this.

"Completely," she says, wondering if her plan to sneak out without him is obvious. Wondering if he'll catch her. "Even if it's a maze now-- which it ain't-- I'll not go out with anything worth stealing."

[archademode]

It isn't obvious, if that concern sticks somewhere in the back of her mind. Instead he only considers the weight of her counter, brushing the rough edge of his own thumb across his forefinger, pausing where he stands.

But he will not force her to say more, nor confess any amount of unease, if it truly exists at all.

"As you say." His tried and true concession, offering only one last beat before he's gone to little more than a silhouette behind the partition, settling down on a bed that feels— well, it works better than bracing across the ground, or a thin wooden cot.

"Rest now. I've no intention of holding myself back come morning, and I'll not wait for you if you cannot keep pace."

[poleaxed]

"Always the most polite threats, with you."

After blowing the candle out, she lies on the bed and pretends to sleep. He said get out early, so she needs to get this done quick. Still, for a few hours her mind flutters between wakefulness and dreaming, and the images that stain her mind are typical. What is worse, to be remembered, or for every scrap of childhood to be razed into undeserving purity?

She sits up with a sigh, and begins, quietly as she's able, to pull her jerkin and breeches on, boots next. No expensive weapons, just the knife everyone keeps at their side. No money.

The Wailing Willow, a wooden structure like most of Denerim's lesser buildings, was made after the Blight, but that doesn't make it new; floorboards creak underfoot. She's never slept near Gabranth (why does that thought make her blood twist in her veins?) and doesn't know how deeply he sleeps.

She hopes, fiddling with the doorknob, that he sleeps deep as shit.

[archademode]

He does not.

By the time her fingertips are at the door, he's stirred, exhaling hard through his nose as he shifts across that dense mattress to squint blearily into darkness: there's something almost practiced about it in a way, how hard he fights the dull drag of sleep in favor of showing some semblance of alertness while rolling up onto his side.

He can make her out, yes, but her dress is another thing entirely, and it proves a certain amount of intent on her part. She aims to leave, not simply to fetch something from the inn proper.

"...what are you doing?"

Far from eloquent, his mind still swims with half-forgotten dreams.

[poleaxed]

Her shoulders sag, her held breath is let out in one smooth and disappointed sigh. "Going out," she admits. "Reckon you know that."

She feels a new sense of embarrassment, as though getting caught won't lead to a thrashing. And then, what is she, thirteen? She's an adult, she doesn't have to wait on anybody's permission.

No, she's a git; it's that she was caught in a lie.

[archademode]

"For what purpose?" he asks, his voice now bearing some amount of its usual sharpness, already sitting upright and casting a glance past the divider towards the window, trying to gauge the stars, the moonlight—

—before remembering he cannot read them in this world.

[poleaxed]

"You know why," she says, voice dull with the shame of admitting it. "I can do this alone. Poke me head near the tanning pits, quicker and easier alone where I know me footing."

[archademode]

“You are correct,” roughly said as he returns to meeting her own restless stare in the dark, keeping his eyes on her even as he stoops down to begin tugging on his boots. “I do know why.”

It isn’t for the reason she cites.

“But you will not think to do this alone, else there was no point in my inclusion on this journey.”

[poleaxed]

"Maybe," she says, staring at her own boots, "maybe I just wanted a shoulder to cry on when it goes tits up. Did you think of that?"

[archademode]

“I did.”

And he must mean it, for he fully sounds the part: no hesitation, no momentary pause between her question and his answer, his focus spent on working his heel in past the buckles of his boots before rising, reaching with swift, practiced precision for his armor to begin working it in place.

Unlike last time, he doesn’t ask for her help. It goes quicker without it.

“Which is why you’ll have me there.”

Not here, asleep, but at her side to weather the worst.

[poleaxed]

"Right, then," and she must mean it, for her voice lacks all the false confidence she tries so hard, in waking hours, to inject it with. She waits by the doorway like a shade, eyes studying the dark outline of her hand on the handle, waiting.

"Just-- I know you're a judge and all, but where we're going... it ain't a place to judge anyone."

[archademode]

She cannot know it, he’s said too little of his homeland for her to grasp at in this moment, but— though it remains true that Judge Magister Gabranth has never held a heart for empathy, it isn’t Gabranth that speaks.

His hands lingering for too long across the helm held before him, as if he cannot bring himself to put it on.

“Trust I would not do that to you.”

It’s better— should they be seen— that he does wear it. Something to shield them both from prying eyes, should she find naught but misery set before her tonight. Should she need the buffer of a Magister's silhouette positioned between herself and the world in which she remains mired.

So he does. And so he moves to stand at her back, ready to depart.

[poleaxed]

Jone doesn't cry anymore, not unless someone's died, so she doesn't cry now. Maybe, though, if she'd been a different person, she would have. The rush of painful kinship ensnares her all at once, her breath sharp in her throat, her teeth itching, a body betraying itself.

She takes a deep breath. She takes another deep breath. She manages not to tell Gabranth he's better than she deserves. She can't imagine it'd do them any good.

She just reaches up, putting her hand on his breastplate, over where his heart is hidden by metal, bone and flesh. "Then I can get us through this."

The inn is quiet, and the night watchman at the doorway doesn't pay them mind beyond respectfully acknowledging their presence. Instinct takes over, after that; Jone's feet still know how to take her home.

"It's on the outskirts," Jone says, "'cos the smell."

She doesn't know anything about his past. She doesn't know if he's highborn enough to have no clue how hides are tanned.

[archademode]

Hardly highborn, though his own childhood was spent in the narrower corridors of Landis’ inner workings; the worst smells to be found there were ever overwritten by freshly baked bread and chocobo down. Or perhaps that’s his own lost longing promising as such.

All he offers her is a nod, a low humming breath as he moves to keep pace with her strides.

“Should you need rest, I will stop at your behest.”

A polite way of saying take it slow if you need to.

[poleaxed]

"Thinking we ought to sleep in tomorrow," Jone answers, expression trying to smile under the pall of worry that is slowly overtaking her.

She is quieter, more careful, more deliberate. The brusquely confident woman, self-assertive and loud, is replaced by a cautious figure filled with second-guesses. She stops at every street corner, inspects every house, and ultimately? It doesn't matter.

The stench hits first, even at night. A stray dog watches them in moonlight, eyes reflecting the moon. It's no mabari, but a lean and starved creature, and it disappears quickly into the narrow spaces between cheap housing. Buildings are little more than bracketed thatch and mud. The ground shifts under them, winding into trenches, the tanning pits.

In a bleak whisper, Jone murmurs, "all the houses're wrong..."

[archademode]

It is a dismal place. Perhaps more miserable in its timeworn decay than she remembers, judging by the discomfort in her voice— or perhaps just as miserable, only differently rearranged. He cannot say for certain, it is too far removed from his own understanding.

“Does enough remain for you to track?”

If not, he wonders if it would be best to surrender their efforts for the night. Returning in daylight might, at the very least, come with the benefit of gathered information by way of local interrogation.

[poleaxed]

Local interrogation runs too high a risk of discovering relatives still clinging to life. There are things she'll do for Bede, but facing Mattieu and Marec again?

It isn't worth it.

Jone trudges on, knowing eyes watch them from the houses they slide between, and knowing every single watcher has deemed them too dangerous to bother with. This is what she meant, a place with no judgement. These people have nothing, and that includes choices. How can their desperation be held to law?

There's a pole between two of the pits, a long wooden structure that used to be a tree, before it died. Somehow, the message tree survived the Blight. Jone squares her shoulders, and begins to climb it with a deft familiarity; this is something she's done a thousand times.

"There's enough," she says as she hefts herself up. "If I fall, don't let me land in shite."

[archademode]

It’s a mercy granted at her request, of course. The lawless are often starved, often desperate, often grasping for whatever opportunity finds them— but that, in the eyes of Archadia’s Magistrate principles, excuses nothing. Gabranth would so keenly, were he asked, bring to bear the full weight of the law upon each of these houses.

But these are not his laws, and this is neither his world nor his home. Instead it is Jone’s mandate he dutifully maintains within these bounds, as devotedly as if spoken by Emperor Gramis himself.

“Then do not fall.” He chides, moving a step closer to the edge as if measuring whether or not he can truly grant her that request.