[closed]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria, Cassius, Flint & Various
WHAT: Catch-all for fantasy August....which is just August
WHEN: August
WHERE: Kirkwall/The Surrounding Free Marches/misc
NOTES: Content warnings in subject lines; holler at me if you want a bespoke starter, otherwise feel free to drop me a start for whatever your heart desires.

Comments

WYSTERIA.

[heirring]

beth

[heirring]

It's a tricky prospect these days to slip out into the Free Marches. Even the roads of Wildervale, which seems like it ought to somehow be immune to the presence of marauding bands of Venatori, aren't completely reliable. At least once since crossing the border into the sleepy, predominantly pastoral march they'd had to steer their horses off the road and wait for a long time amidst copses of trees—patiently out of sight until strangers traveling in the opposite direction had passed lest they turn out to be some enemy in disguise.

"For I have been kidnapped quite enough for one lifetime, you see," Wysteria had explained in a sotto voce whisper behind the fruiting hedgerow of blackberry bushes, idly nibbling on the ripe berries until the coast was clear and they might proceed on their way.

Otherwise, it is an uneventful excursion to the V.A.N.E.. The arcane clocktower like device is comically out of place in the old abandoned farmhouse where it has been erected, and it takes only a cursory review of its records and the positioning of its fadeiation vane before they are off again—on foot this time, for the energy registered by the recent opening of a rift is far too close to bother with remounting the horses. Instead Wysteria leads the way, cheerfully crashing through various brambles and underbrush until they find themselves at a low stone wall bordering a large grazing field over which hangs the sickly green crackle of a rift. Wysteria produces the little spyglass from her belt.

She consults the otherworldly slash for a moment, says, "How odd," and then passes the glass to Beth. "It seems to be fairly inert presently, yes? I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to close it without too much trouble. But it is strange that it would be such a minor disturbance. The Vane's records reflected quite the spike of arcane energy."

[littlemissfutility]

"So have I," Beth had answered, and then spent the next hour failing to explain herself. (On the upside, she'd picked a little bagful of blackberries while they stood around, waiting for the other travelers to pass. She's started carrying little flour-sack-like bags, empty, in case of finding interesting things on the road. Most of the time, it's nothing this delicious - and some tired part of her is soothed by the knowledge of extra food.) It makes for slow traveling, hiding from everything on the road, but it's not so bad. They don't run into anything that actually knows to try and kill them.

The V.A.N.E. turns out to be kind of cool - all the technology is, here. She can imagine it existing at home, if any of them happened to know enough about making mechanical stuff work. (And if there was magic to bother measuring, of course.) So far, aside from hiding from possible Venatori, the whole thing feels like something out of a storybook, especially the stone-fenced fields; even with a war on, it feels safer than home by a long shot.

She takes the spyglass from Wysteria and squints through it, but the rift doesn't look that much more detailed. It's just slightly closer, slightly greener. "No demons. Should we just...go look?"

It feels like there should be some kind of protocol. It also feels like Wysteria probably would've spent the last five minutes telling her about it if there was.

[heirring]

Beside her, Wysteria drums her fingers on the top of the low stone wall.

"It's possible that when we near it, the rift will activate and demons will manifest. But I see no reason why we shouldn't take a closer look. Between the two of us, we ought to be able to knit it closed before anything truly terrible passes through."

How reassuring! Wysteria is already clambering up over the wall in her calf length skirts and field boots.

tony

[heirring]

There is a field in the foothills above Kirkwall which doubles for a fine enough shooting range. It had also been a perfectly adequate picnicking ground almost two years prior, though Maker forbid any suggestion that the location was selected for reasons of sentimentality. Besides, any such nonsense has faded considerably in light of the manual labor required to set up a few targets for practice. They'd borrowed three sparring dummies from the training yards, and the donkey in charge of pulling the wagon along had decided to be quite stubborn about plodding around the field to drop them at intervals. It had only stopped heeing and hawwing in complaint when it had been at last been unharnessed from the wagon and picketed with a long enough line for grazing on the stubby late summer grass.

Now, sweating in the heat and the sun and the humidity down range from the practice dummies, Wysteria is has wrestled the oil cloth covering from the great long gun. It is by no means a sleek weapon. it is however clearly lovingly made, a lovely masculine kind of beauty in the pale polished oak of the stock and all its dark iron fittings.

"—I have already begun the mocking up of a second iteration which will solve a great deal of the difficulties I noted in my field report. My concern is of course with the weight balance. I believe the spindle—here; that is what I've decided to name the enchanting element—requires additional insulation, and you will see now when you handle the thing how reasonably well balanced it is. The support crutch—here you are, Mister Stark—" she says, passing the long gun's accompany balancing fork up to him. "—Somewhat diminishes the necessity to keep the weapon entirely light in the hand, but balance. Now I should think that quite important."

Up comes the great gun, balanced upright on its stock butt plate so Wysteria might begin to load its heavy cast round.

"Which reminds me." Ting, ting; she jams the round down the long barrel with a few robust jams of the loading rod. "Do you suppose you will you be competing in the tournament, Mister Stark?"

[propulsion]

It's so sick that it's annoying. The gun, that is.

It's also hilariously gawky with its little supporting tripod situation and its size, but also just plainly rad, especially after two years of medieval aesthetic every way you turn. Tony sets up the fork, staking it into the summer-soft earth, folding out the limbs, a knee in the dirt. He squints towards where they'd set up the dummies—he really need to improve Fred's speed so he can haul him out for this kind of task, but all those stairs are a nightmare—through the same sunglasses that had come through the rift with him, not so far from here.

"I mean, do you go to Vegas and skip the magic show?" is his rhetorical answer, and before she can remind him that she does not know what Vegas is, he says, "Joust, and the other thing that's like tee-ball joust. I can't get stuck in medieval times and not joust."

[heirring]

"I've heard it's rather dangerous. But I suppose if something terrible were to happen, Riftwatch is now staffed well enough to oversee a substitute without much incident. Have you prepared a list of recommendations for the position?"

She smiles at him with all due beneficence—ha ha ha, she's very funny—as the shot clicks into place and retrieves the loading rod with a rasp of metal on metal.

With a great heave, Wysteria hauls the long gun up under her arm. It is not so heavy, but the dimensions are awkward when held parallel to the ground and so it is a relief to shift the stock into its appropriate place in the waiting balancing fork.

"I believe I will add a small block here to keep the arm from slipping too far forward in the fork," she remarks in the tone of making a note aloud, and then takes a half step back with her hands still supporting the stock. It's a clear offering. Would you like to take the first go?

(She's shot the thing a dozen times now; first is relative.)

[propulsion]

"You should probably just shut down the Division," Tony says, after a fleeting half-smile for her joke. Of course he has to come in with his own. "It'd be too sad to continue."

He stands in place as she sets up, not inclined to help when, you know, she's got this. It's August, which is the kind of fact he tries not to think about too closely. If he was on earth, he'd have shifted operations back to Malibu for the summer, and the weather would be perfect. Kirkwall has a way of ruining a good thing, too wet all the time, the sewers somehow even riper than usual, the way the ocean smells like dying marine life.

Being out here is nicer, at least. Pleasantly pastoral. He looks around all the rolling hills and the absence of power lines, planes in the sky, signage.

"You go ahead," he says, with a gallant hand gesture, focus drawn back to the offer. "I like to watch, and then do a better job. How's the recoil on this thing?"

[heirring]

She shifts back into place smoothly enough that perhaps it is, at least in part, the answer she'd been expecting.

"It is not not a factor, but I have fired worse for a smaller round." The long gun is set to her shoulder; the dial on its side os tuned; the runelock is ratcheted unceremoniously back. Click. "So long as you don't resist the force, there should be no issue."

Undoubtedly Tony has witnessed Wysteria's chaotic attempts with a bow. This is a different thing; there is something suspiciously like competence is how she squints along the length of the gun, lines up its sights and—

"Will Miss Smythe come to watch, do you suppose?" She lifts her face away and turns it back to him. "The tournament, I mean."

[propulsion]

He moves around, hands in pockets, watching her set up and line up. Internal notes append to observation as he focuses mainly on mechanism and her handling than carrying out a conversation, so when she says that, his expression is blank, a little like some corner of his brain has misfired and shut down.

Smooth recovery on a delay with, "Everyone's gonna come. It's a big whole deal, with these people." Of which Miss Smythe is clearly one. Of these people. Just a face in the crowd, obviously.

He adjusts his glasses. "Why, do you think she won't? Come to the tournament."

[heirring]

From behind the primed gun, her finger set on the trigger guard, Wysteria gives him a bald look of assessment.

"I suppose you would have to ask her to be certain of her intentions." She perks up by a degree. A spark glints somewhere in her canny blue eye. "Would you like me to ask her on your behalf?"

[propulsion]

There's a pause, and Wysteria will just have to guess at Tony narrowing his eyes at her behind the opaque lenses of his glasses. Like maybe there is something tempting about this offer if not for the fact it feels a little like sending a fox to fetch a chicken. (Wow, his metaphors are getting mega provincial, gotta watch that.)

"Cut you a deal—I worry about Miss Smythe's intentions, and you take your shot."

[heirring]

"Very well," is the prim reply as she reasserts the angle of the gun on its balancing fork. It is a relatively simple thing to realign the sights onto the practice dummy stationed far afield. "Though you may need to concern yourself with Enchanter Isaac's intentions well."

CRACK! The discharge of the gun is like the too-close percussive snap of lighting, flash and all. The shot itself clips the dummy with a pop of elelental fire, plowing past it to scour a flame licked channel into the sod beyond it.

"Oh—! Damn! That was entirely user error, I assure you."

[propulsion]

"...w—"

CRACK!

And Tony pivots to observe the damage, tipping his glasses off his face as he squints to spy the flicker of fire carving through countryside that wasn't asking for it. Her assurance feels right, familiar—better to be a bad shot than build a bad weapon. He hooks his glasses in his tunic collar as he moves on over, hands out like: may I?

"Smoothbore's gonna compromise the accuracy now matter how awesome you are," he says. "Rifling will make it a pain in the ass to reload but, A, it already is, and B, you'll get a lot more range and control. I could take Enchanter Isaac," is added in the same tone as his speculative once over of the gun.

Does this thing tip? Tony goes ahead and starts the Process that is reloading.

[heirring]

"By surprise, perhaps. Enchanter Isaac is an accomplished Circle mage, Mister Stark."

She assumes; has she actually witnessed Isaac doing much magic in the field? Certainly she has trudged along in similar rank and file with him. But surely a first hand account of the thing makes very little difference. All Thedas mages are meant to be at least a little dangerous, aren't they?

"It's much more economical to produce a smoothbore. But if Riftwatch were to formally fund such a modification—"

(She only corrects him on the order of operations for reloading twice, and it is only truly necessary the once.)

a knight's tale ost blaring in the background.

[heorte]

The last time they were in this particular clearing, the rift they'd been experimenting with had dropped out a despair demon, which had disrupted the entire day's proceedings.

But today, there's no rift, none of Wysteria and Tony's instruments, but instead: two horses, and a pair of lances, and a practice target that Ellis had lugged from the training yard, to the cart, and then set up in the center of the clearing for the express purpose of—

"Have either of you seen a joust before?" Ellis is asking, slightly winded from the positioning of the training dummy. Straightening, he dusts a scattering of dirt from the front of his tunic, turning back to Wysteria and Tony.

[propulsion]

"Sure. I've seen Excalibur."

Tony is on horseback, retuned from doing a few laps. The benefit of growing up obscenely wealthy: you innately know how to ride horses, play tennis, and race cars, so it's nice that one and a half of those things can translate.

"It's not to the death, right?" he queries, glancing to Wysteria to loop her in. "Or is that part optional."

[heirring]

Wysteria is standing beside Ellis' horse, one hand occupied with the reins and the other scratching between the animal's ears. In her skirts and field boots and somewhat absurdly deep brimmed hat, Wysteria clearly means to play a largely supervisory role (read: the provider of blistering commentary) during the day's excursions.

"I believe that part is optional, though no I have never seen the thing done myself. I believe we are usually expected to make do with maiming. Isn't that right?"

This question is not for Ellis; it's for his horse.

"Though I'm sure Mister Stark will do his best to avoid striking you."

[heorte]

"He'll have to strike me, or he won't gain any points," comes breezily, Ellis looking largely unconcerned with the prospect of being hit with a lance or potentially knocked off his horse. In the course of his approach, he stoops to lift his breast plate from the ground beside his pack.

But, just to be clear—

"Death and maiming will lose you favor with the crowd. It's not chivalrous," Ellis says, drawing up alongside Wysteria as he imparts this information. "And people like to think they're watching chivalrous competitors."

More or less.

Notably, no inquiry as to exactly what Excalibur might be. A particular tourney, perhaps?

[propulsion]

The armor is definitely the worst part about all this. It is hot and he has no means of any kind of internal cooling system (yet) to relieve it. He's only in a couple of pieces—the breastplate, namely, a pair of gauntlets, and the helmet will waiting for the last possible second, but still.

"You should probably teach me a killing blow, just in case," he says. "But I'll settle for me not, uh, getting shish kabobed in front of god and everyone. That's a kind of skewered meat," he adds, louder, at Wysteria.

[heirring]

"I know what a shish kabob is, Mister Stark, but thank you."

With a last scratch between the horse's ears, Wysteria smooths its forelock and draws her hand free. She shifts to remove herself from out of the way of Ellis' stirrup.

"Are there any other chivalric particulars we ought to be aware of before we begin?"

We.

[heorte]

In passing, Ellis' hand finds Wysteria's elbow, squeezes slightly before directing her further aside so he can swing up into the saddle.

"Only that you'll want to avoid hitting your opponent's horse at all costs," Ellis says, which is possibly common sense but Wysteria had asked. "I'll tell you exactly what would kill a man and lose you the match in a moment."

Settling himself, Ellis lets the reins settle at the pommel as he fastens the straps of his breastplate.

"Can you hand me up my helmet?" is for Wysteria, unrelated to chivalry or any other jousting business.

[propulsion]

"Oh," he says, for correction. "Okay." And yet 'hot dog' was a nonstarter. He sees how it is.

Tony's horse moves restlessly beneath him, ears and tail flicking. He blindly reaches back to skritch the horse on its butt rather than move to get helmeted up or take up the lance.

"Guessin' it's also unsporting to aim for the, uh," a glance to Wysteria, settling on, "shish kabob."

[heirring]

"Why on earth would—" She is halfway to passing the helmet up to Ellis. "Oh really, Mister Stark."

[heorte]

No outright laughter from Ellis, but humor twitches at his expression in spite of his best intentions.

"If you can manage to strike that target without hitting the horse, I think you'll take first place of the entire tourney," Ellis advises, extremely solemn contrast to Wysteria's disapproval.