OPEN

[acreage]

WHO: James Holden and YOU
WHAT: Catch-all
WHEN: Fantasy August + September
WHERE: The Gallows and Kirkwall, mainly
NOTES: N/A

Comments

ota

[acreage]

THE GALLOWS/KIRKWALL

By and large, upon their return to the Gallows, James Holden carries on in the same ways he always has. He can be found at his usual haunts: working with Research, at the stables grooming or returning from a ride on his horse, training with the blue-bladed sword he brought back from Orzammar.

When he's not, he can usually be found in Kirkwall: drawn, always, to the refugee settlements. He spends a lot of time with building the temporary shelters, though he can also be found helping pretty much anywhere an extra pair of hands is needed, up to and including, if asked, some impromptu babysitting.

One trying to catch him during some downtime might come to notice that he isn't, actually, taking any downtime.

FERRY

The downpour didn't come on out of nowhere, but there wasn't much warning before lightning started flashing and the rain began. Maybe they're on a late ferry back to the Gallows, without much protection to keep them from being soaked to the bone. He sighs, comments wryly,

"I've been meaning to get a new jacket."

Or maybe it's late enough for them to realize they've missed that late ferry, which is currently sailing off across the dark, choppy waters. In which case he'll frown, then say, "Any suggestions?"

He's familiar with inns in town, of course, but mostly on a name basis. He's never actually had to stay at one overnight before.

OBLIGATORY COFFEE PROMPT

You might run into him either in, or in the vicinity of, the kitchens at pretty much any time of day or night. His purpose there is readily apparent; he takes down a bag of coffee beans with him, brews himself a fresh batch of steaming coffee. If he happens to notice anyone else around, or he's greeted, he'll nod towards the hot liquid with,

"It's nearly done. Do you want some?"

LATE NIGHT

He's in the habit of leaving his door open, whenever he's awake and at his quarters. What this means, lately, is that anyone who wanders past his room at night — or early morning, or the time in between — isn't unlikely to notice his door ajar, lamplight seeping through the cracks. More likely than not, he's sitting with a book, though he'll look up at the interruption.

WILDCARD

[ feel free to dm me for a bespoke starter or just drop something here or on the post ]

coffee

[altusimperius]

"Yes," is the haggard response of the resident Vint, who stands holding two mugs and eyeing the pot.

"Is there enough for two?" One is, ostensibly, or Byerly.

[acreage]

There's enough for two and not much more — ready access to the kitchens and a lack of easy means to reheat means he's just kept making it fresh — but he doesn't hesitate before nodding. It's not like he doesn't have more coffee beans to grind; and God knows much of Riftwatch is burning the midnight oil right now.

As he starts pouring out coffee for the first cup, he murmurs a, "Careful." Benedict can see that it's hot, but warnings never hurt.

[altusimperius]

"Thanks."

Watching dully as Holden pours, Benedict struggles through the fog of his fatigue to be pleasant-- the man is doing him a favor, after all.

"You have assisted the war effort more than you could know," is what comes out, with a little smirk; the thing is, he means it.

it's time for coffee-drinking.

[justashotaway]

Laura comes back to the Gallows on the last ferry for the night, sweaty and with a bruise rising on her cheek. It's likely to fade out by this time tomorrow night, and with it, the memory of breaking up a fight outside a tavern.

The scent of coffee reaches her long before she's on the threshold of the kitchens, peering inside at Holden. "Yes, please. Is any dinner left?"

[acreage]

He

pauses.

"Are you hurt?"

[justashotaway]

"No," Laura answers, coming into the room. Dinner's long since been put away, but there's usually something edible in the cupboards. As she goes to look, she explains, "The bruise will be gone tomorrow."

how many threads can i trap u into let's see

[tender]

It is quite late when Derrica appears in the doorway. Outside, a thunderstorm is still raging, which likely explains her present appearance: sodden cloak, rain beading in her hair.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" is a little teasing, as she lowers the hood of her cloak.

i'm thriving

[acreage]

"I could ask you the same question."

He says and beckons her in, setting aside his reading material in favor of standing. There are a couple of chairs by a currently unused fireplace, and he moves to meet her there.

"Do you need a towel?"

She doesn't look terribly uncomfortable, but he'd rather check.

ferry.

[heorte]

Adjusting the strap of his satchel, Ellis spares one last look towards the ferry before turning towards Holden.

"We spend a little coin to get out of the rain," is his suggestion.

Maybe there's some specific complaint to be leveled at Kirkwall's guard arriving late to relieve him, and landing Ellis in the position of being stranded on the docks. But without any place to lodge it, the urge is quelled.

"Unless you're planning to swim it?"

A Joke.

[acreage]

"I'm not much of a swimmer."

Which is something he had cause to remember not so long ago, ha ha. Though at the time, rusty swimmer had proven to be significantly better than not one.

(He doesn't dwell on that.)

Instead, he turns, frowns faintly at what of Lowtown is visible in the gloom. His hair, open to the elements, is quickly flattening against his head. He shakes it, then says,

"If you have a favorite inn, now's the time to mention it."

Stables

[muckspout]

Holden is most likely occupied with grooming his horse when Edgard suddenly appears on the other side of the horse.

"Psst! Holden!"

He twitches a little, seemingly ready to hide behind? under? the horse.

"Know the Farrier? Is he here?"

ENTER KEY

[acreage]

Um.

"He isn't here right now," he says bemused, not yet stopping his work. "Why?"

closed.

[acreage]

"If I knew you'd be so good at this, I would've asked you to help earlier," is an admission, but one made with good humor.

They'd departed from the throng of people just beyond city limits maybe ten or so minutes ago. Lowtown bustles around them with increasing intensity the deeper they head back into Kirkwall, quickly overpowering the sounds of the refugee settlement by power of sheer volume. He's already considering how to put the things they'd been told to paper, key points to not forget. Not for the first time, he considers how effortless Monica makes this kind of work look; which is just a testament to how good she is at her job.

"Though," he adds, dry, "People are usually willing to talk even if you don't try to set them up."

[nonvenomous]

“I’m a cleric,” says Richard, as though this should be obvious and his skill a given. There’s been no notable change in his affect between his comfortable reassurance of refugees and his historically cool handling of the space debris at his side. Maybe it just hits different, once you’ve seen him engage in a treason or two.

Or witnessed him having a mental breakdown in the baths.

He adds: “I’m not sure what you mean,” to complete the gaslight halo around his turning to look Holden up and down after that second note, his fingers busied with rolling his sleeves against the heat.

[acreage]

"I don't know what that means," can't possibly come as a surprise. There's something about his exasperation that almost feels performative; like, ah yes, Silas is saying something strange again.

But maybe he isn't being fair. Because he has seen Silas be kind, just not...like this. And, probably, Holden is a lot better at getting on his nerves than a bunch of scared people in need. Which is both a comment on the fact that he knows Silas has a heart, and also that Silas makes no secret of how irritating he can be.

In this moment, though, he raises his eyebrows.

"Was there a particular reason you said that I'd keep in touch?" A beat, then, "Twice."

also closed.

[acreage]

The weather is cool and wet, heat not yet breaking through the cloud cover with a vengeance, and it'd be a lie to say Holden hasn't considered the matter of his coat. If they hadn't been hiding in a cavern too close to a major Venatori base for comfort, he'd assume it'd been left behind. As it is, he expects it lost somewhere in the hubbub of various people packing shit up in a hurry to get back to safety, or possibly slid off a griffon's back somewhere in the wilderness, or something like that. More pressing is the fact that he needs to purchase a new one, which is the main notion he has in mind as he boards the ferry this morning.

Well, one of three: that, picking up some food and drink from his favorite coffeeshop in Lowtown, and checking in on a blacksmith he's familiar with, to ask some questions.

Astarion isn't hard to pick out, even with the ferry somewhat crowded at this hour of morning. Holden moves to stand next to him, drawls not without humor, "Nice jacket."

[illithidnapped]

It's slung over the thinner, dark fabric of Astarion's newly picked up blouse: a loose thing, clinging more to his shoulders than the rest of him. Still, freshly escaped from his Lowtown apartment and in search of morning prey, the interruption takes him somewhat by surprise— eliciting a sort of jump from the pale elf before he turns on his heel to find—

Oh.

"Thank you," he purrs, smoothing a few fanned fingertips down across its front in a preening show of aproval. "It was given to me by a very close friend."

[acreage]

A breeze blows off the harbor as Holden takes a reflexive step back, saying a "Sorry" before anything else. He hadn't meant to startle the vampire, and it's possibly worrisome that he did.

Or maybe he's just worrying too much. Either or.

His smile a moment later, however, is very real. Given, huh. He could argue that it was a loan under pretty desperate circumstances. Or he could say,

"It suits you." And, because he's funny, "Your friend has good taste."

flint.

[acreage]

It's a funny thing, the tasks that have fallen onto his to-do list for later. He'd spoken to John of one — of many things, but about this in particular — matter of knives he'd bought from Orzammar. They'd served their purpose of building some goodwill and spending some coin amongst the dwarves, but he'd intended to give the bulk of them to the armory, to Scouting, and some part of him hadn't been willing to until they knew better what happened to Yseult. It wasn't until later that he'd been straightening up his collection of books and found his hands lighting on a copy of The Right of Order, felt the same superstition.

It's a funny thing, that they hardly speak often, but his thoughts kept glancing on the idea of Flint during the invasion. That saying about not noticing something or someone till it's gone, maybe; the Commander's presence had been such a given until it's not, and then impossible not to notice.

The knives are, by now, divided up between his personal possessions and the promised places to go. The book has stayed in his room; it's not such a pressing matter that it immediately comes to mind when he finds out of Flint's safe return.

(Truthfully — he thinks of John first. Every fear he'd spun for Holden in that balcony at Emlyn's, barriers that might have prevented Flint from seeing the Gallows again. He's grateful they could stay fears, and not reality.)

But there's an evening that comes sooner or later, the day hot and dry with a particular vengeance, where Holden knocks at the door of Flint's office, a familiar title in hand.

[katabasis]

The man who calls him into the office with a brisk 'Enter,' seems at first glance remarkably unaltered given the length of his absence and the no doubt lurid rumors which must have been circulated during it. Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult have been taken by the Venatori. They have been killed, or worse. Commander Flint, a known Tevene, has been an Imperium collaborator this whole time and has surrendered Yseult to his compatriots in exchange for—Money, land, status, the pleasure of serving his masters in the North? What are the usual reasons? Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult were captured and then went missing. They escaped and are returning. They escaped and have run away together. They were never captured in the first place; this has all been elaborate cover for some secret Riftwatch mission.

And so on.

Yet here is the man sitting in one of the chairs before the office's hearth. He is working by lamplight, the temperature too stifling warm to permit the working of the fireplace. With one foot up on a stool at the other leg balancing a sheaf of papers across his thigh, he looks for all the world as if he simply walked forward through time from some point six-ish weeks prior and found no remarkable thing between this point and that one to be troubled by.

Upon Holden's entrance, he sets his pencil aside on the little side table. There is an open bottle there, a cup with a finger of liquor in it. The papers all resemble work. His eye falls promptly to the book in Holden's possession and then floats back up: expectant.

"Well?"

Well, what do you want? Well, what did you think of it?

[acreage]

Well,

what was he expecting to find here? There's a brief moment where he asks himself if he really expected Flint to be any different from any other time they've spoken, in appearance or manner. The answer comes quickly enough: no, he didn't.

So he lets himself in, stops some short distance from where Flint sits by the dark hearth. He says first, wryly,

"I didn't want you thinking I was planning on stealing your books while you were gone."

Because obviously whether or not Holden had any intention of returning something of his was a primary concern, while he was missing. It surely kept him up at night, et cetera. Without any obvious place to set it down, and Flint's hands full, he only gestures with the book still in hand.

"It was a good read," he adds, and, "they all have been. Though you could've mentioned Adamos is dry as fuck."

ellie.

[acreage]

Elarra Dulac is purported to sell the most beautiful crystal grace blooms this far north of the Hinterlands, delicate yet hardy, and any cuttings that leave her hands are guaranteed to thrive in any but the most incompetent of hands. Three different merchants — and one old man who overheard them asking, who spoke at length about the relative merits of at least sixteen different herbs — had the same recommendation for this much-praised flower-seller, which is what has brought them to the city of Highever.

Well. That, and the Lord Bricius's refusal to even consider replacing his withered plant with anything less than an authentic Ferelden cutting of crystal grace.

The breeze is heavy with brine, with the clatter of wares and raised voices, an active seaport reminiscent of the markets at Kirkwall. The sun beats down from overhead, and Holden privately considers, as they search for this very specific woman, the difficulties of keeping a plant alive for the trip back. God forbid these flowers turn out to be too fragile for the journey, after they've come all this way.

"I'm hoping," he admits, "she's not going to say that she's out of flowers for the season, but we can always try her associate in Denerim — "

[notathreat]

It's far from the furthest Ellie's been from Kirkwall. She fell through the rift out in the Hinterlands, long enough for her ass to get sore riding back double on a dracolisk. But something about the heat always makes everything longer and grumpier. It's one thing that actually makes her miss Wyoming. It may be a howling wilderness in the winter but at least it wasn't stupid hot.

Ellie's stuffed her cloak into her bag, and is seriously considering taking off her gloves, anchor or no anchor.

"I mean we could," Ellie grumbles. "Or we could just get another and say we got it in Ferelden. How's that jerk gonna know the difference?"

[acreage]

The farthest he's been from Kirkwall, actually, was in a dream; and if they actually do, God forbid, have to venture as far as the Hinterlands to get some flowers — he'd have some opportunity to see how dreamscape compares to real landscape, consider (or more likely, compartmentalize) how he feels about that.

But right now, they're as far from any reminders of that nightmare as they can get. So his mind is on the blazing heat, regretting his own choice of gloves, and the question Ellie poses.

"We'd have the proof we went to Ferelden," he muses, glancing back at her. "Who'd come all the way here just to cover up buying a plant in Kirkwall?"

More saliently, who'd accuse them of that? Now, that'd just be paranoid.