faderift | [ OPEN ] Heart's on fire

Entry tags:

[ OPEN ] Heart's on fire

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Zevran Aranai's School for Rogues Who Can't Sneak Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too.
WHEN: Wintermarch, all month
WHERE: Skyhold: Courtyard, Stables, Rookery, Battlements, etc
NOTES: Sass, Stealth, and Violence

He had mulled over the notion for a few weeks now; watching the soldiers take themselves to task, the warriors practicing as best they could; the mages training in their spells and thought- aside from combat (and even then there were tricks soldiers did not always think to teach) how was a rascal, a scoundrel, a rogue to learn more tricks? A well trained operation of any sort had well trained members of all sorts; the bruisers, the wizards, the rogues. Perhaps it was high time someone did something for the sneakier sorts.

[ Courtyard ]

Every lesson starts the same- a quick lap around the courtyard as fast as possible, vaulting over people and structures, running along the wall, making use of all the same skills that kept him alive all those years in Antiva City. For those that did not know them? The tricks came as a brief primer after the lap was finished- even a brief demonstration is offered. Afterward he runs them through a few training locks set into empty chests, some of the them wound with ringing alarms for the sake of practice. Trip the wrong tumbler? Off goes the alarm. After that it's stealth and pickpocketing. Sneaking about through a field of tripwires connected to more ringing bells and powder packets, a veritable labyrinth. Any bells go off, any powder on your person? You go through again. One of the training dummies has been re-purposed with bells and pouches on it- each pouch has a bell attached. They're timed and told to get as many as possible without ringing any bells. Ring a bell? Run a lap.

[ Stables ]

Here there is room enough for him to demonstrate proper trap production and dismantling. Every wound spring, every steel mechanism. They start with the basic bladed traps- though none of the blades are sharpened and none of the powder explosions hold more than dye. Once they've made traps that are...decent or satisfactory, Zevran walks them through detection and dismantling. Some of the practice traps have trick springs and triggers- if set off they'll be dusted with powder instead of losing their fingers. Later he goes through a list of common poisons and venoms to create and how to build up a tolerance for them. He does not provide them with samples this early on.

[ Battlements ]

Rappelling and dueling and improvisational combat and you! Here Zevran shows them how to climb, how to fall, how to make their own ropes when they've none of their own, how to throw a rappel to make it stay, how to haul it down, and how to dual wield on uneven ground. Demonstrations with Isabela and sparring with whoever wishes to take their turn happens throughout the day as requested; Zevran also covers grappling, breaking holds, and how to fight dirty. An honorable rogue is a dead rogue after all.

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Between winding one trap and the next Zevran walked about those attempting to replicate the design. For the most part they had the gist of it, learning the broad strokes. Now and then the strange nature of teaching adults what they should have known as children struck him- for there was no reason for them to know. They were not Crows. He was no Master forming a cell. Divorcing himself from that mentality was difficult- considering it was what was expected of him when he'd left for Fereldan; considering what position he would have now had he not failed.

Perhaps he might have had his run of several cells before Taliesin ever earned his first but- that was not what life had in store for him. Some of the weight in his shoulders, the burden of doing well, of not being the same as the man that shaped him- of doing this right? Felt as though it might crush him. Taking a moment to tease someone, to be more himself would ease the load.

How fortunate Michel chose to mind his horse at roughly the same time. Zevran ordered a brief respite from the work and walked about to the stall where Michel lingered, leaning against the doorframe. "Enjoying the lessons, Soleil?"

It might have been Michel's imagination, but as a man who was equally gifted at burying who he really was deep down, had been instructed in the ways of doing so at a very young age...he was sensitive to it in others. Zevran was an assassin so, naturally, he was used to maintaining a secretive side of himself, but Michel always had the impression that there was something too it that carried more weight than that. He never commented on it, never broached the subject, not that their physical encounters ever gave them much to talk about outside of...well...physical encounters. Perhaps everything was inference on his part.

"Oh? I am almost certain I have no idea what you are talking about, Monsieur," Michel could have made his face as passive as the undisturbed surface of a lake, he also could have spun a more convincing lie, but he wasn't trying to. Not if the stallion, who made it a point to nudge his face for want of the brush, could call him on it. Canting his head a bit he turned one of his rare smiles on Zevran which suggested otherwise.

"And I am the Queen of Antiva." Zevran snorted a soft laugh, coming up alongside the horse to stroke it's neck. He had not expected Michel to be interested in the lessons- in him? Certainly. They've made their mutual interest plain and the distinct lack of a gaming angle gave Zevran a little more room to breathe. There was no ploy that he could see in his interactions with Michel; training up a Chevalier solely for the purpose of trapping him? The Crows would never.

And even with the ruin to Michel's name it was unlikely he would allow himself to be bought.

It wasn't practical.

"If you want a more personal demonstration, I am certain I could provide you with a hands on lesson."

"In the presence of royalty this entire time?" Michel did not seem the sort to make jokes or engage in this sort of idle behavior, simply because he wasn't often exposed to it. He was not immune to it either, so he put on his best, scandalized Orlesian front which, he was certain, fooled no one, "I've been ill dressed on every occasion, I should hang my head in shame. Ill prepared for such beauty as well, I had no idea the Queen of Antiva was so attractive...and so solid..."

Now that he had done his flattering for the day, Michel made room for Zevran to come along beside him so that he could lavish the horse with attention. Not that he seemed to mind it much. As for taking an interest in Zevran's lessons? Michel was a perfectionist, harder on himself than anyone else could ever be, so if there was something to learn then it was important to do so.

"Well, your Radiance, I would not wish to distract you...but I would be honored."

Zevran crackled a low, warm laugh- surprised somewhat by the twist of humor but not so much that he could not respond in kind. "Well I come from a long line of handsome Queens."

He leaned just enough to bump his shoulder against Michel, peering up at him from under his lashes. Mages he could teach given time, light hands and quick wits are something of a requirement- but Warriors? It was a completely different discipline than those they used. Why Michel chose to linger beyond simply watching Zevran's very fine self, he could not say. "And yet here I stand, thoroughly distracted. Where should we start, mm? The stealth, the traps, or the lock picking?"

"They teach us the fighting tactics of duelists from Antiva and Rivain, but I'm beginning to think it is more prudent that we travel further north-east," if he could endure the warmer weather, he'd been in the harshest regions of The Dales for so long he wasn't entirely certain about the more balmy climes. An ocean might be nice though, Orlais had the Waking Sea, but he'd never been further east than Halamshiral and Val Chevin to really see it...until recently.

Fortunately Chevalier were...flexible dancing partners when it came to the warrior class, they weren't as rigid as Templars and were often made to train using a variety of tactics. He remembered how grueling the training had been, climbing trees fully armored, dueling one another, with pells spinning around them fully bladed. The one thing a Chevalier was not proficient in was dishonor--opportunism was one thing, exploiting an opponent while facing them in a fight...defects, weaknesses, they were not above this. Such things as stabbing an opponent in the back, torture, and certain acts of foul play were not permitted by those who strictly adhered. One might even kill a friend to protect a foe in the face of dishonor. So there were certainly limitations to what Michel could be taught...but why he lingered? "I will have to become very familiar with your traps, so let's make sure I have the right of it, shall we?"

"I can show you how to set them- and how to disarm them." Of course it was only for the traps and nothing else. The idea he might have the Chevalier wrapped around his finger- while entertaining- was laughable. Oh it would be great fun were it true and he could likely find a way to turn it to his advantage but- Michel was not quite so easily enthralled as all that when he was dressed and talking shop.

Though...

It did leave Zevran curious enough to test the theory. He was in his leathers and there was reason enough by now to associate the Antivan gloves and trousers with their more carnal meetings. Perhaps he might make Michel blush- or stumble. Testing it would be a spot of fun in an otherwise tedious day. As though he had a right to it, Zevran looped an arm around Michel's waist and leaned, cheek tipped against his shoulder, eyes half lidded and warm. "It is a highly intricate process, the lesson will require quite a bit of hands on instruction."

Michel nodded, he had a certain level of knowledge when it came to traps, but more never hurt, more of anything wouldn't hurt, at least when it came to this sort of knowledge. As for whether or not he'd become wrapped by Zevran? Well he was certainly confused by him, intrigued, genuinely interested in what he had to teach. The goal was to leave this place before finding himself in that particular position finding it more comfortable that his closest and most meaningful companionship be with horses.

And as he glanced down at Zevran, now plastered to his side, there was a striking urge to touch him again, to pick him up and bundle him close, to take in the scent of that Antivan leather and let it transform the vague tingling sensations he felt under his armor into something more inflaming. It was a passing desire that he crushed with a single-mindedness. He did guide their way to the traps with Zevran attached to him, but afterwards he disengaged as gently and as subtly as he could without it appearing as if he was trying to do so, "alright then...I know a little something about this, but I suppose it's best to start with fundamentals. I'm a blank slate Monsieur."

Ah, so when business is at hand he can think beyond his desires. Interesting- and not entirely unexpected. Zevran tucked this away as he moved to arrange the most basic of traps, the springs, the wires, the blades. It was a simple enough thing with all of it's parts, spartan and simple. All of it boiled down to tension and being able to wind it properly.

Otherwise the trap would snap back upon itself or not snap shot hard enough at all.

"This is the bare bones of most any trap. Everything builds from this, the spring, the blade, the trigger. You have seen enough to have an idea as to what shall go where, but indulge me. How would you arrange them for a simple claw trap?" The blades were blunted and the springs weak to prevent the loss of fingers- but it could be a daunting task for anyone not suited to it.

Michel was not unfamiliar with trap making, though his were never this sophisticated and typically he could buy them, but knowing how to make them and more importantly the mechanics was a useful tool to carry around in one's arsenal. So when asked how he would arrange the items laid out in front of him to construct a claw trap the Chevalier set about the task, finding practical learning to be an effective tool. He didn't have the same deft and clever hands as one suited to this sort of task might have, but he had the mechanical mind for it and more importantly he had the intense drive to excel at tasks given to him. His arrangement was done in the methodical way of a warrior, which perhaps, wasn't the most effective method, but achieved the same ends. It showed that he wasn't simply listening to Zevran when he spoke, but he heard what he said when he was giving his lessons and he could apply it...if in his own way.

Well...it was a claw trap anyway, with painstaking devotion to detail, and perhaps the Chevalier thought about it more than he needed to, but that was neither here nor there, for now. He simply withdrew once he was finished so that Zevran could appraise it how he would and any flaws would find Michel devoting hours of his life to perfecting it regardless of whether or not he had the skill sets needed.

Zevran stood back, arms crossed, eyes following every motion of Michel's hands. He cannot read minds but he can follow and extrapolate from the basic logic of most groups well enough to keep himself alive in a fight; but Chevaliers weren't often targets of the Crows. His pool to pull from was fairly low and currently Michel made up the bulk of it in Skyhold. They were not exactly swimming in him and his fellows.

But it was enough for him to grasp the logic behind the choices he made and to know that stepping in to correct him wouldn't earn him scorn. That was enough.

Step in to correct Zevran did- but on a few minute details. Where the spring might be wound, how to up the sensitivity of the trigger. "Not bad for a first attempt. I shall assemble one like this, slowly, so you might follow along with this."

It was very likely that Michel would be one of the very few Chevalier Zevran would ever encounter unless he went to Orlais personally and...at the moment...he would not recommend it. Perhaps there would come a time when Orlesian nobles would truly see the plight of the Alienages and elves would earn their rightful place within Orlais as people of the country. For the time being this was not the case and most Chevalier were not like Michel...in fact Michel was either a poor example or a better example than most. One thing that was certain among most Chevalier was that there existed a strict code of honor and so Zevran was right to feel that the warrior would not scorn him for critiquing him...it was constructive...it could save his life. He would be a fool to ignore wisdom from someone who was an authority in a matter that he was not.

"I would be honored..." Michel slid to the side a bit making room for Zevran to slide in and sit next to him if that was what he wished so that they could work side by side. All the better to observe and follow along, working through the process along the way. Like this he too saw a different side to Zevran that went beyond playful innuendos and sexual overtures. He was patient, passionate about what he did and he did it well, he had a peculiar cleverness.

Zevran took out the parts he would need to do so, arranging them as he had for Michel's parts. He gave the man a look, a faint smirk and nod before he began to put it together. The base, the frame, the spring yet wound, the wire and plate for the trigger, the blades. Slowly and methodologically, little by little the trap came into shape. It took careful hands not to cut oneself on the wire and deft fingers not to overwind the spring, but he was certain Michel might manage it well enough.

More than simply show him, he spoke, covering each step, the hows, the whys. The care needed to avoid injury and a few possible variations once one knew the basic configuration well enough.

When time came to wind the spring he looked over to Michel's work, brow quirked. "Ready?"

No one could say that a warrior did not possess a keen aptitude for learning and Michel was a very eager student. He wouldn't have been allowed at the Empresses side if he had been a fool and certainly she would not allow anyone within arms reach of her who lacked a desire for learning. She loved the University and sought to make the school open to all eager minds, not simply prestigious ones. So he paid attention to Zevran with a fixed and singular interest in learning, listening to his explanations, but more than listening he was hearing what the assassin was saying while following his fingers with his eyes. He made any adjustments he thought might work best as he followed along, clearly the hands of a warrior at work, but fine motor skills made up for whatever he lacked.

When Zevran glance his way once again, Michel prepared himself and simply nodded that he was ready.

"Very good. I do not think you will lose any fingers with this." Teasing, harmless and toothless even as he smirked to show he mans no offense. "You wind the spring here thusly. For this set up? Ten turns will have it primed. Eleven if you wish it sensitive. Twelve if you want it to snap at a breeze. More than that will break the mechanism."

He wound as he spoke, the ten counted in the back of his head while he watched Michel wind his. Multitasking was a skill all Assassins learn and learn well if they wish to live; they must mind the guard rotation, the path into the room and out, the means of killing, the location of pray, all while appearing invisible or not at all.

"I should hope not, I've grown attached to my fingers. Holding a sword would be infinitely more complex without them and I've been told they are my finest feature," not impossible, fingers were simply convenient for such things. Fortunately Michel's ability to jest, in spite of his typically serious nature, made it quite clear that he took no offense. Still, he's right back to studious as he watched and parroted the task listening closely as Zevran explained the varying levels of sensitivity to him. He could see why one might want it sensitive enough to snap on contact, but not so much so that it would at the drop of a coin.

He could certainly appreciate Zevran's ability to multitask, teaching while demonstrating, talking while observing. Chevaliers had their own way, but most of it required hand-eye-foot coordination and always minding your surroundings. Though thinking a few steps ahead while doing all of these things was a bonus as well. There might have been certain differences between the two of them, but he was fairly certain Zevran could easily pick up on certain Chevalier tactics if he had a mind for it.

"Mmm. In my opinion that is a tie between your eyes, your mouth, and your voice when you are at your most desperate- though perhaps more than all of that..." Zevran finished winding his own trap, minding how Michel wound his and completed the task before he reached out to catch the chevalier's jaw in his gloved palm, thumb swiping gently across the skin just under his lip. Zevran was terribly, intimately aware with how he had begun none too subtly conditioning Michel to react to the texture and scent of Antivan leather in all it's sensual glory.

And he was none too subtly taking advantage of that without shame or intent to stop- at least for now. Teasing both of them with a single touch, his hand dragging down to rest at the base of his throat, fingers pressing lightly against his collar. "Right...here. When your head is thrown back and your eyes closed, the whole of you flushed pink with desire.

The one thing Michel found difficult to push down, even on his best days, was his physiological response to certain stimulation. He could force his body to remain still, arrange his face into something smooth and impervious, but he could not control the heat that crept along his neck, and the light sensation of pins and needles that danced down the line of his back. He wasn't at all certain when he became fully aware of it, he knew that he enjoyed the leather, the smells, the feel, it's softness, texture...it was the training that had gone unnoticed until recently. That he was pairing this with Zevran and everything about the assassin only made the fascination and the conditioning all the more potent, he wasn't aware that he had fallen under such a command.

The Chevalier could almost feel the madness of it, he knew that's what it was, that he was chasing something he should not as a knight. That his own fiction could be detrimental to the both of them if he allowed himself much more of this, and for a moment he leaned in and pressed his forehead against Zevran's, eyes closed as he lost himself in some kind of contemplation. It was a brief moment and then he withdrew, reaching up to cover the assassin's leather clad hand with his own, fingers mapping their way along concealed digits, "I am not...what you think I am..."

There it was. The flush, the shiver, the sigh. A hook that had been baited well caught- it was almost textbook- as far as Crows had such things. He'd laid the groundwork when they'd stumbled into this fascination together, pressed the issue, and now? He was willing to bet perhaps two, maybe three more rounds in bed he could have Michel shivering into a full state of arousal with a touch of a glove in the right place with the proper amount of pressure. He hadn't had anyone or anything quite like this in over a decade- let alone something he would get to keep as long as Michel was willing to be kept.

Every other recipient of this honey'd trap and trick found their bliss and heart on the end of Zevran's knife.

But what was going through his head? Zevran leaned in to the touch, breathing against Michel's mouth without closing the distance, face calm and voice almost gentle. "I think you are handsome."

He turned that hand around to drop a kiss to his palm, his wrist. "I think you are fascinating. I think you are a marvelous partner in bed. What more matters?"

Zevran didn't need to bridge the distance at that point, Michel wound an arm around the assassin's shoulder and reeled him in for a bracing kiss. By now he knew Zevran's mouth as he knew his own, granted his tongue wasn't as talented and his lips weren't as soft and pliable, but it felt familiar to him now. He should have been more concerned about timing, about the place, about the simple fact that they were only within arms reach of some rather nasty traps--he was careful to lean away from them. Perhaps the Inquisition had more than its fair share of those who were neutral and accepting of certain deviances, but Zevran had been the first to present himself as accepting of Michel without caring who he was. He had never known that, he came from Orlais, differences were very clear, and there was always the crisis of not having a blatant identity. Everything behind Michel's carefully crafted serenity spoke of his own crisis of identity.

"My attachment to you would matter...you're probably aware of a great many things, but are you aware of this?" He murmured finally withdrawing. It had to be obvious on some level that Zevran's conditioning did more than just inspire certain behaviors, "...how can I defend that...would matter. The way you break down and confuse every single impulse that I have...should any of this be on you? It's selfish, I'm selfish...and I can't remember ever feeling selfish..."

Eager. Ever and always eager, ever firm, ever primed for the proper direction; as wound as any of the traps they had assembled and any Crow braced for the kill. Zevran sighed into Michel's mouth, fingers curling in the hair at the nape of his neck to tangle and hold him there for a little longer. Just enough for another slick taste, another flick ad curl of the tongue that was as sultry as it was practiced. His education in the Crows had been quite thorough. Mastery came from a genuine enjoyment of the art.

"I think, perhaps, you are misinterpreting what it is we share." He smoothed his hand along Michel's jaw again, eyes warm and not entirely unkind- but in the back there was that wary calculation. That knowledge that it would take little for any man to attempt more than they are due. "I have no claim to you- nor do you have one on me aside from the time we share with one another. Something such as this requires no defense. Everyone knows what it is one finds in my company."

The lift and fall of his shoulders was a graceful, nonchalant thing. He was known for his lovers, for his deviances. "A life spent in service with no room to simply take your own pleasures when they are offered? Nowhere to set the weight aside and be something other than the tool you were trained to be? Is no life at all. While you are with me? Be selfish. When you are elsewhere? be noble."

"It is very likely that I am misinterpreting...but I suppose the reason for that is because it is more complex on my part. Being a chevalier plays into it certainly...but beyond that I've always been confused about a great many things...a lot of that is tangled up in our interactions," Michel's eyes drifted to a single point on a nearby wall, it wasn't anything interesting in particular that caught his eyes, he was simply lost in contemplation, "perhaps...when I say defend, I mean to defend you from my misinterpretation...I understand your parameters...but I am also feeling a shift...a change in myself and that inspires feelings. Things that I know are best left unexplored, it makes you impervious, it keeps all of those forts you build around yourself firmly in place. Right now it's a small thing--infatuation, curiosity, confusion...and a great many things that I do not understand and keep at arms length. What is it gets tangled up with the devotion and the purpose part of myself..."

After a moment or so more with the wall, Michel brought his gaze back to Zevran.

"Selfish would be encroaching on those parameters that I am well aware of...what little I know of you, this much I am absolutely certain of."

"You...wish for more?" Further intimacy, emotional vulnerability? A deeper connection beyond the leather and silk and oil and sex? That was something he could not offer anyone easily, let alone offer someone of Michel's standing as a rule. Not only would it defeat the purpose of their interactions entirely- he had been used and twisted about by men like Michel far too often in the past to open himself up to further games.

As an Orlesian, Michel ought to understand Zevran's reluctance well enough.

Then again perhaps that was the root of his concerns.

Without moving away Zevran let his hands fall to rest lightly on Michel's hips, voice carefully neutral. "If continuing would only provide complications..."

It would be better to not.

"Not presently, but everything we've done until now is entirely new to me...I feel different..." and he had no idea how these little changes would effect him given enough time. Michel was a man who required devotion to something, after Empress Celene he had been lost, until he decided that Imshael was his new purpose, and after that would it be the Inquisition? How often would the two be exposed to one another? How would Zevran fit into his model of devotion if he changed that much? And 'roud and 'round such thoughts went.

As an Orlesian, as a Chevalier, as a man with dual identities Michel understood very much where that could be problematic for Zevran, but he didn't want to leave the other thinking that it was him in any way. This was all on the knight.

"You wouldn't be the complication, bel homme..." Michel cast his eyes carefully about making sure they were alone or that anyone in the area might be otherwise engaged in something else before dropping his voice and his head, "...I said I am not what you think. For starters...I would not know Val Chevin from a hole in the ground, I could point it out on a map and describe things from what I have memorized in books. I could detail everything there is to know about the de Chevin family line, but I was born in the alienage in Val Royeaux."

"...Is that so terrible a thing?" To be different. To feel different- adapt and change and move forward. He never understood the stoic determination to remain the same- to reach a point and adapt no longer. Such stillness and static nature would see any Crow, any noble even, dead in short order in Antiva. But the almost militaristic determination to maintain the status quo even should the players change baffled him none the less.

Of course he was ever one to change the rules as they suited him.

But then this. The compliment, the endearment that warmed him slightly. Of course he was beautiful, of course Michel found him fine. He would be a fool to not.

What came after, however. "...You are elf blooded?"

The sweetness, the angle to his face- not so strange for any human, no, but it lent that beauty most humans found in elves to him without the overt, damning features.

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