[closed-ish] where the sun don't ever shine

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Fitcher & Barrow + anyone who feels like dropping in
WHAT: old farts play cards
WHEN: the night of the wedding
WHERE: the Riftwatch dining hall
NOTES: waves hands around

Barrow isn't often stricken with melancholy, but tonight is one of those nights. It was his choice to stay back from the wedding, his need for comfort and silence outweighing any desire to get wasted and make poor decisions, but he's doing a bit of wallowing nonetheless.

With a blanket spread beneath him, he lies on his back atop one of the tables in the empty, cavernous dining hall, smoke drifting toward the ceiling from a blunt he holds in one hand. In the other is a bottle of whiskey, from which he occasionally lifts his head to take a gulp and then lowers it back with a thunk and a groan.
It's not the worst way to spend an evening, and with most of the Gallows deserted, his picnic is almost guaranteed to go undisturbed.
Almost.

Comments

[unshut]

"And you chose to do so by resigning yourself to a tower?"

It is not all that Templars do. True; some do travel. But Templars are meant to go where mages do, and by and large that is meant to mean one thing, isn't it?

(She is patient about dealing the next hand, puffing leisurely away on her pipe.)

[thereneverwas]

"Well."

She has a point, and it's cause enough for him to chuckle-- "I s'pose I never thought about it that way. ...and Mother never would've let me hear the end of it, if I'd gone out for the Wardens instead."

He plays his hand, barely reacting to the win apart from:

"Where'd you learn to shoot a crossbow?"

[unshut]

"From my husband," she says around the pipe's stem. The cards are swept up, though before dealing the next hand Fitcher pauses to remove the pipe from between her teeth so she might add, "But the practice came from traveling. A young lady ought to know how to defend herself if she means to be on the road alone."

The whisk whisk of the cards grant her a win.

"Is your mother still alive?"

[thereneverwas]

The topic of her husband is one that warrants more questions, but not with the hands he's been playing.

"No," Barrow answers quietly, and follows it with a sigh through his nose as he loses again.

[unshut]

"And your sister. Prudence. Have you reconsidered writing her at all since last we spoke on the subject?"

In a little restaurant in Kirkwall, where the nominally Antivan food had all stuck together as if it had been made with paste.

Fitcher, wreathed in chestnut scented smoke across from him, seems to consider it perfectly fair line of questioning for all that she doesn't hesitate at all over the asking of it. She even goes so far as to deal the next hand.

[thereneverwas]

At once Barrow feels as though he's being pursued, but instead of in the charming, cat-and-mouse sort of way, it's rather more like an elk who can hear the hounds closing in.
He raises his gaze to meet Fitcher's, blandly and perhaps stupidly surprised at her forwardness-- he should have known, going into this, that he'd have to take as well as he dishes out.

He should always have known, and yet.

"Prudence is alive, as far as I know," he replies with muted politeness, "and I have not written to her."

He turns his hand and grimaces at the sight of it.

[unshut]

It is not an act of mercy that instead of interrogating him further, she says, "You should. I didn't write my brothers much and I've always regretted it."

[thereneverwas]

Some of the fun has gone out of the mood now, but the game isn't beyond salvaging.
"Maybe I will," Barrow sighs with a grudging smirk up at Fitcher, dropping his losing cards on the table.

"I don't know why I thought you wouldn't smoke me."

[unshut]

"It was a little foolish. You know that I'm practically a professional at this," she says with a winning, fox-like smile, though she has restrained herself admirably from cheating.

Hasn't she? Who can say.

But she has one truth left to get out of him, and so: "What's your favorite color?"

See, she can play very nicely.

[thereneverwas]

"Practically," Barrow patiently repeats, but with good humor. And then, chuckling with that last question, he narrows his eyes at her in a way one might describe as vengeful.

"I don't know. Red."

[unshut]

If there is any part of that answer which she ought to take umbrage with, Fitcher seems not to realize it. Instead, she smiles about the stem of the pipe as she gathers up the cards and says,

"What a coincidence. Red is my favorite too."

With a whisk-rasp of the cardstock, she shuffles. Squares the deck, and then sets it between them without cutting or dealing.

"Would you like to play a different game, or for different stakes? I can't help but get the sense that you've been disappointed with this particular arrangement."

[thereneverwas]

"Disappointed? Never." His smile is genuine, though he begins to rise, cracking the joints in his knuckles and wrists as he goes.
"It's been a pleasure, my lady, but I ought to take this opportunity to wallow properly in my disgrace. Which is to say, in a comfy bed. Covered in cats."

[unshut]

Her smile is a crooked thing, which must mean it's real. Though why wouldn't it be?

"I suppose I should make some attempt at being responsible," she defers with a nod to the assortment of paperwork she'd brought in tow. The deck of cards is shifted farther to his side of the table so that he might easily fetch them back. "Enjoy the company of your cats, dear."