And in the sea that's painted black | OTA

[novokribirsk]

WHO: Zoya Nazyalensky, Nikolai Lantsov, and yOU
WHAT: Two new rifters arrive, shenanigans ensue.
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: N/A

Comments

i

[exequy]

It's the head snapping loose that makes Kostos stop walking through the colonnade along one side of the courtyard. It's the woman's face that turns that stop into something more than a pause. He steps level with the stone columns, into the sunlight, so as not to be lurking creepily in the shadows—though he might have been noticeable either way. He's dark and dark-clad, still and a quiet walker, but there's a spot of bright white-blue light drifting near him. It wanders close and far with a mind of its own.

The polite thing to say is hello.

What he says is, "Are you a rifter?"

[novokribirsk]

Good thing neither of them are concerned with politeness.

She notices his approach, as he moves closer, and what might have been a snapped out answer is — tempered. Her eyes catch on the dancing spot of brightness, linger; Sun Summoning is not such a rare sight as it had been, but she hadn't expected to find anything like it here.

"That's what I've been called," she says, sour.

[exequy]

Her voice makes the light change its trajectory and zip toward her, while Kostos nods and gestures toward the dummies.

"We would need staves," he says, "to—don't bother her."

That last part is directed to the spirit wisp, which arrests mid-air a few feet away from her. It's making a quiet shimmering brrr noise, and the noise changes pitch into something almost disappointed. Its brightness dims, too.

Kostos waits a moment to make sure it's going to obey before he continues, "To do something like that, at that distance."

[novokribirsk]

Not light, then. Alina, the Soldat Sol, can bring light and heat, but only that. No more animate than the winds at Zoya's command, or the water a Tidemaker shapes. Which makes the light some thing of Thedas's so-called magic, which makes her — not uninterested. But there's a shift in her attention from the wisp to Kostos. She's curious, so she refuses to show it.

"The only tool a Grisha might use is an amplifier." A difference, then, between her power and what those here do. "How does a stave help?"