O1 ♚ I'M IN NEED OF AN ANSWER

[slaveking]

WHO: Marcel Gerard & you
WHAT: A vampire chillin' in Thedas gets a log with both open and closed starter options. Running on rooftops, hanging at the tavern, murder practice, the usual.
WHEN: December
WHERE: Various throughout the fortress Skyhold
NOTES: Up to PG-13 for language, will note more in subject headers as they arise

See comments for starters!

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[slaveking]

Marcel's smile his wide and glittery, pleased to show off. For a moment, there seems to be some risk that he might fail to notice the Vashoth having restored himself to the upright, and bulling his way over again. However, in the last minute, Marcel turns his head around. A block is enough to absorb the worst of the other warrior's impact, although it sends him skidding backward a solid few feet. When he scrapes to a halt, he lets his arms fall, gesturing at the other man with exasperation. No real heat.

"Take five."

He gets a little bit of an insult in response, nothing that really cuts. Marcel shakes his head, dragging the back of his wrist across his mouth as he looks back at Sabine. He points at the load at her feet and asks a question that sounds idiotic in the context of the local technology and culture, but might be less so, eventually: "What's that for?"

[glandival]

Sabine tips her head to track what the Vashoth's wander off to take five, considering the sheer size and density of his kind against the human-shaped rifter and his human-proportions. Then back to Marcel, reminded of the mess at her feet, and she promptly ducks down to gather some of the sticks that have skittered away. They're skinny and pale, uniform in length and colour and straightness.

Selecting one, she waves it, tapping it once against her temple. "Arrows," she says, with only a raised eyebrow that judges the obviousness of her answer. They lack their heads and their feathers. "You use them to shoot things. Or maybe in your world, you just pick up your dinner and throw it at a tree?"

But her sass is mild, tidying, securing them back into their burlap. "Do you have a thing you are called? For what you are?"

[slaveking]

Pick up what and throw it at what. Marcel's eyes crinkle. Realistically speaking, vampires do have a terrible habit of chucking each other, people, and things about in fantastic displays of supernatural strength. He has been known to launch people from the ground floor onto balconies, very impressive, but obviously not what she's on about. "Dinner comes in paper wrappers, walked over to you by somebody in uniform," he says. "Hamburgers are my favorite." Hamburgers are extremely medium, but as long as he's faffing around, looking as if he's had it easy all his life, snobby and content, he might as well lay it on thick.

In more ways than one.

"I'm a witch."

It's a harmless lie and exceptionally important. He's descended, on the vampire side, from witchcraft. He reaches out toward her bundle then, to grasp one stick and examine it. Unless, you know, she slaps his intruding hand away. But perhaps she notices then, the lapis lazuli ring sitting on his fourth finger, the gemstone bright on braided silver. "We had an ancient people called Vikings, and their power runs through my veins. There's one other like me here-- a girl named Elena."

[glandival]

That sounds like an egregious waste of paper to Sabine, who squints at the idea of this particular conceit, but thankfully doesn't enquire further.

There's no hand slapping, anyway. The sticks themselves aren't valuable, even if he's holding several minutes worth of knife work, and painstakingly bending the curves out of it against her knee. Her smirk is more around her eyes than anywhere else as she watches him study it, and inevitably, her gaze settles on the ring. "I've never met a witch," she says, but there isn't really suspicion or doubt in her voice. Marcel hasn't chosen too badly, then.

"Is she from New Orleans too?" She goes to pluck the stick back into her keeping.

[slaveking]

Marcel watches her subtly enough, wary to catch the minor tics of emotion that might suggest that she's more suspicious of him now than she was before. It's too much to expect that she might be less suspicious now. He'll settle for an unchanged degree of suspicion. It stands to reason that Rifter magic can't be rated all that worse or more risky than regular Thedosian magic. He knows that isn't setting the bar real high, but still.

"Naw. She's from some town nobody's ever heard of."

He folds his arm, stretching out muscles that feel very slightly mangled from his terrifying opponent. "Are you about to kill dinner, make stuff to kill dinner with, or are you gonna hang out?" Marcel's smile widens and grows slightly lopsided. Smirky. His eyes venture around the big red halo of her hair, speculatively.

[glandival]

"'Hang out'?" she queries, sceptically, pushing sticks back amongst other sticks. "I am going to make these into arrows, oui, but they will be given to scouts and hunters, some of which will look after them and others will shatter them, lose them, and I will have to make more."

Eyeroll. Amateurs.

"It is boring work, but if you wish to toss more qunari around where I can see, it will make it go quicker." She smiles, all teeth, as if biting down.