faderift | open and closed.

He is more familiar with the Gallows now than he was before. Before-before. Different memories begin to paper over older ones, and he sees more of it too, from new angles.

Guardwork affords him such opportunities. By day, he can be found at the Gallows docks, or posted at the ramparts over the gate, or even higher than that, now that they know to watch the skies. By night, he is in all these places too, but also walks quiet patrols through empty courtyards and hallways and thoroughfares, seemingly un-bored with these dark and quiet hours. He remembers when these routes were walked by men and women in armor that clanked, boots that scraped noisily over wood and stone. He is a quieter presence, nice shoes and a nice coat and a not-so-nice bladed staff lashed to his back.

Encountering others usually just elicits anything between a subtle nod through to blank acknowledgment (or even less), but he can be lured into a more meaningful interaction more easily when there's nothing else to do.

Training is another occupation: for himself and others. The early mornings are usually spent in the Gallows training yard, going through repetitive drills with a more simple wooden staff than his iron-boned battle weapon (which rests to the side, in case he wishes to practice with it), either on his own or with whoever wishes to join him. Occasionally this involves magic, leaving behind scorched divots in the earth, or shattered stone.

Sometimes he just watches, seated or leaning nearby. If there are mages on the field, he might be prone to offering unsolicited notes. If they are melee, there's no commentary, only observation. Whether it's welcome or not doesn't seem to matter.

He might approach a lone swordsman, if there happens to be one.

Leisure is normally a solo operation. Sitting by the fire in the dining hall and being slower to finish his ale than his dinner, reading or writing something in the gardens, tending to his horse and bringing him out to ride around the island.

Trips to Kirkwall are consistent enough that getting trapped on a ferry with him is all too possible, but for strangers, it's a safe bet that Marcus will be happy to endure the whole thing in a silence that is only awkward to you and not him.

Edited 2021-09-02 10:59 (UTC)

When last Cassius noted, if he noted, Marcus was by the far corner, with a mostly empty plate at his elbow and a cup in his hand, angling some pages to read by the lantern. He hadn't looked up.

It's some minutes since then that the scuff of boots of someone approaching signals that this is no longer the case. The dining hall is less bustling than it was when Cassius had first arrived, but there's still the murmur and chatter of conversation layering over a friendly kind of ambiance, and maybe this approach is friendly too. There is something distinctly sociable in the way Marcus sets down his cup on the other side of the table, and invites himself into sitting down.

He didn't think to refill a pitcher and bring that over too, or anything, but does greet Cassius by saying, "Evening," and with the pages he'd been reading stowed away, all his focus is forwards. And it is focus, a kind of squaring up of Cassius that is less cursory than momentarily passing through shared hallways and that.

The ramparts are still this night - or they were still, at least, with few interruptions to the dark and the quiet. It's a nice place to think, a nice place to listen, a nice place to breathe.

Cole is perched on top of one of the ramparts, high up, kicking his feet over the side. A little careless, perhaps, but he isn't afraid of heights. He's sure and solid where he sits, solitary and serene...or as serene as he gets, anyway. His tattered leathers and overlarge hat make his silhouette stand out, casting a strange shadow.

When he hears the mage coming, he freezes up, hurriedly letting his powers hide him once again.

But then a fragment of stone comes unstuck from his boot, and rattles to the ground below him, a beacon to his presence. He holds his breath and waits to see what manner of company he's going to have. Getting used to being seen again is difficult, and he needs to ease into it.

Marcus moves with slow intent, senses attuned to his surroundings and attention direct, but after enough time, his mind does wander a little. He might try to look and pick out the rooms in the towers where his companions are likely working late, still, or replay some scrap of conversation, or think to a reminder of a task left unfinished—and then a noise, in the silence.

And all that focus hones in to a sharp and deadly point in that direction. He pauses his patrol, and listens. At his back he carries a mage staff, and it's one that's clearly intended to do harm, iron, bladed sword shining at one end past his shoulder, but he doesn't reach for it. His expression only hardens, but doesn't shift.

He moves, quietly as he can—which is not very—to the edge of the rampart. He places a hand on the stone edge, a silver ring on one finger decorated with a glass gem, and he carefully leans over to look in an attempt to see what he can.

Edited (clarity) 2021-09-03 06:49 (UTC)

Focusing on keeping himself unseen, Cole stands very still, even as the mage comes close. It isn't that he's even doing anything wrong...well, not really. He imagines that Riftwatch would prefer for him to stay where he can be seen, be kept track of. Many people still don't trust him, after all. A spirit, let alone one who could come and go and affect minds?

He swallows hard, and lets out a shaky breath.

One that can be heard, right next to where Marcus is leaning.

He should have asked for some sort of description of who to look for, he thinks with a yawn as he looks around the training grounds. He doesn't really prefer early morning training, but he hasn't encountered Marcus otherwise so far so he is awake to make an attempt. Part of that includes wearing a simple shirt he'd been given upon arrival that is a faded blue color, as he had mentioned his preference for the color when they spoke before.

His eyes scan the training yard, squinting a bit in the morning sun when he happens to see someone with a staff on their person who, if he thought about it, looks perhaps the way he sounds. To be sure though, before he even takes the time to walk over and approach, he appears to cast a spell if Marcus is looking in his direction.

It is a decent opportunity to give it a try and see if he can use it, he thinks, so he does. He is still not particularly used to using the staff as a spell-casting focus so he can only hope that it works.

'Are you Marcus?' a familiar voice asks as if he were standing right next to him. 'If you speak out loud, I'll hear your answer - the spell will send it back to me. I wanted to try and--' And then the message cuts off before he finishes his sentence, and when he realizes that he's spoken over the word limit, the free hand not holding the basic staff he'd been given covers his face in embarrassment.

Marcus' posture immediately stiffens, drawing a step backwards from that sound. Light blue eyes catch what light there is to see by, gaze darting over the empty space, while one hand drifts backwards with the intention of putting it in range of taking a hold of his staff.

It isn't anything to do with latent hurts or psychic things when the breeze shifts, and Cole might detect a scent of smoke in the air, as some part of Marcus, whether consciously or not, draws a little power out of the Fade. Just to have.

But rather than use magic, he uses words. "Who's there?" he asks, Starkhaven lilt compressed into sharper syllables. Quiet, though.

The song of the Fade thrums in his ears when the power is pulled - it's familiar and terrifying all at once, home and hostility. Briefly, he considers running away, dropping and running, making the mage miss him....

But then there is speech instead of an attack.

Drawing a breath deep in, Cole lets it out slowly, gradually shimmering into view. He holds his hands up in a placating fashion, frown trembling, head shaking from side to side. His blades remain in their sheaths, zero intention to fight evident in his demeanor.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, widening his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Thump.

That's the sound of one end of the staff he's holding striking the packed earth to rest, and Marcus turns in place in an attempt to view whatever's speaking to him. But the direction that voice is coming from only shifts with him, and the hairs at the back of his neck prickle. It takes a further moment than that to actually replay the words back to himself and grasp their meaning, tension taking its time to wind taut through his shoulders.

When the message ends abruptly, he scans the area until a tall elf in a simple blue shirt comes into focus, and Marcus takes in a breath as if it might bring him more patience than was burned away just now. Remembering the instruction to speak in reply, he—

You know what? No.

He just beckons Allumin over, standing with a hand wrapped around a similarly basic mage staff balanced against the ground. Likely, this is the right person. His voice hadn't implied a young man, closer to forty than thirty, and there's individual strands of grey shot through his hair, bound back from his face. He is not extremely tall, clocking in some significant inches less than the rifter he's hailing, but solidly built, and seeming not to notice any disparities, here.

They have been small things, since the first incident with the misled abomination. A few delicate letters seemingly lost in transit, a few successfully delivered but since mislaid, a few times the Chantry's luck seemed too good and theirs too poor, and now a mage contact in Orlais drawn into a meeting with "Riftwatch" from which he never returned—as Marcus tells it.

Bastien has listened, crooked in his chair, caught at a quiet hour with his sleeves rolled and a few buttons and ties looser than they might have been if he'd expected company. The paper and pen he'd gotten out to take unnecessary notes (to look more attentive; to give him something to do with his hands if he got bored) have been left untouched after all.

"It could be someone outside of the Gallows," he proposes. Not because he believes it. For the sake of turning the stone.

Allumin is a bit worried when instead of receiving a reply via Sending he is waved over, but it is at least confirmation so he heads over towards him with light, moderately paced strides. He tries (futilely) to tell himself that it's fine, just be confident, no reason to be insecure or embarrassed because practice makes perfect after all.

He's still nervous. Especially after forgetting to count his words.

Don't bring it up, just move on, don't bring it up, just move o--

"Was there something wrong with the spell?" It's out of his mouth before he can stop himself, coming to a halt in front of the older mage. His hand shoots up to cover his mouth again as his face turns red. "Sorry - you don't have to answer that. Hello - good morning?"

It would be difficult to tell from a distance or maybe even from up close, but technically speaking (and Cassius does so love technicalities) he is working. The seasonal gossip rags out of Orlais and, not to be outdone, Cumberland are printed on cheap accordion folded paper which when laid flat extend to invade the table space of the seat to either side. While they may not appear to be vital Riftwatch business, rest assured that the contents are all very relevant to the Diplomacy division. And if for some reason they are not relevant to the Ambassador's interests, then there are certainly kernels here are there which are deeply compelling to Cassius'.

And really, is there such a remarkable difference between the two? They are all more or less fighting for the same thing, yes?

That is not a conscious thought he is having in this very moment. If it were, he might casually redact it with, Well, maybe not all of us the moment that Marcus Rowntree sits down across from him.

Instead, Cassius looks patiently up from his Marquis this and Vidames thats and thinks very little before saying, "Why, if it isn't the man himself. To what do I owe the pleasure, Senior Enchanter?"

Marcus' expression

doesn't really do anything, stoic by force of habit and difficult to read, and he is silent through the disjointed switch between query and greeting and question. Studying the rifter, undoubtedly. There's a jag of scarring down one side of his face that doesn't make him any friendlier.

But when he speaks, it's fairly patient as he says, "I don't know that spell, so I can't say if there was anything wrong with it. What I will say is you'll want to anticipate an averse response to it, in people of this land. Even other mages.

"Did you feel it fit to use magic on me, because I'm a mage? Or would you have done, even if I wasn't?"

There's trace discomfort in Marcus' manner, hands folded together and sitting back in his chair. It's likely not personal to Bastien, exactly, so much as some source of tension held the way one does when anticipating some sort of negative response to the thing you are saying, even of a minor kind. But he is regarding the other man quite seriously, occasionally flicking a glance to pages that have remained blank.

He decides, in a truly Herculean (whoever that is) demonstration of good faith, that it's a good sign, and not a bad sign.

"It could be," he grants. "But the Bloomingtide '46 letter made it all the way to Kirkwall before it disappeared." Imagine, if you will, a clerk wringing his hands and trying to decide if he should be sending for his manager while Marcus pulled down heavy tomes of dusty records from a shelf only reachable by climbing on a creaking ladder. "It was anticipated. And to hold a forged correspondence between the leadership and those outside of it, without us knowing, doesn't feel like a ruse that would hold on the outside."

Insistent, but measured. It'd be easy for the work he's managed to do between his real job to get dismissed for paranoia, for all that paranoia is a fairly kinetic force.

Edited 2021-09-05 12:30 (UTC)

There is a faintly confused flicker around the eyes for the flourish of that greeting, like not being wholly sure of what to make of it, before setting it aside. Yes. It's the man himself, then.

"Marcus," he supplies, reminds, "is fine."

He quests a look over the pages laid out on the table, noting them, neutral, then back to the other enchanter across from him. "I wished to know how you're finding your time here," he says. "Now that you've some seasons behind you."

Marcus sketches a step backwards as the young man appears. He notes those empty hands, that sign of supplication, but remains guarded, expression closed. A person who can hide invisibly in plain view and reappear could do all sorts of things, after all, even if it doesn't escape him that such a person would probably have done all sorts of things while invisible.

"Your name," he asks. "And your business in the Gallows."

Beyond a quiet awareness of how close his staff is to his hand, he is also thinking of his sending crystal slipped beneath his collar, but both things remain as they are. Curiousity lances through the once over he gives the youth in front of him.

With a flick of the fingers and a glint of the anchor light in his palm, the topmost pamphlet is folded over. Does he particularly care to hide the contents from his newly acquired company? Certainly not. If Marcus has some interest in the state of the Orlesian courts, and this only by approximation of what has become so tawdry that it warrants writing down, there is more printed on the reverse side. No, this is a show of benevolent good will more or less equal to—whatever this is.

"Maker, has it been that long already?" It has, and he has in fact been keenly aware of every day of it. "Well. I'm certain we must all have our complaints, but I will say that I've been pleasantly surprised by how ordinary all the work has been. Not at all like the hive of buzzing would-be scoundrels that certain rumors in Skyhold might have someone believe."

And then, more with the air of a confidant because why not we're being friends here, yes?: "I do miss the council. I'm surprised the mages here have organized no equivalent."

Once, in a dream, Derrica and Marcus came across each other in a stable.

However, this is not a dream. And there's no reason to think of it, beyond a passing flinch of a memory that fades quickly as she leads her mount through the main doors and down through the stalls.

"How is he doing?" she asks, as the chestnut mare she's leading nickers softly in Kevin's direction.

"Perhaps we ought."

Not an enthusiastic rush towards the prospect, so much as picking up the prospect and holding it up for mutual analysis. Marcus thinks of other instances of their mages banding together, or at least, the moments he's witnessed and participated in; training in the foothills, or thoughts shared and plans unspooled in the interior of a ship.

He picks up his cup to drink from, elbows resting against the edge of the table. "What function did it serve?"

The mage is still not attacking. That's good. He starts to hear his heart, now that his own isn't pounding in his ears. He licks his lips to wet them. They taste of ash. He swallows hard.

"Cole," he finally answers. "I am...I am here now. With Riftwatch. I'm here to help, to stop the hurt, the harm." He keeps his hands up, the fingers splayed wide as if trying to leave no shadow where any secrets could hide.

"I came out here to listen to the night, nothing else. I'm not used to being seen. I'm trying."

A peripheral blur, a whump and the splintering crackle of claws scrabbling wood marks the arrival of a sinewy black creature wriggling herself over the side of the ferry’s hull and onto its deck. The creature is a cat, long and lean and velvety sleek, with an arched nose and wide green eyes that goggle when she sprints the boat end to end to pivot alert at the prow. Frisky is the word.

Back on the pier she launched herself from, another lean figure has slowed from a brisk trot to an uncertain walk.

Richard Dickerson is tall and ginger and familiar, in the way coworkers who work on different floors in different departments can be. His eyes on Markus are clear with recognition over the high turn of his vest's collar, his beard tidily trimmed. A glance across the bay marks the approximate time via the sun’s hover over the horizon. He takes a cool step backwards before he turns to retrace his steps. Very smooth.

Maybe he’s forgotten something.

Oh, he has made a mistake and that is very clear.

Not with the spell at least, he can guess that it worked. No, this is a social mistake, a poor judgement call for which he has no reasonable excuse in the eyes of this land and its relationship with magic. It's hard to completely overcome how casually he has used magic before overnight - over many nights, actually.

"I thought..." Part of being better is owning the mistake instead of just running away, he tells himself, just say your piece and accept whatever happens.

"I thought that it would not be an issue, and I simply wanted to know if it would work here because it can be useful." He takes in a breath. "I can see now that I was mistaken."

"Alright."

This is not said with comprehension so much as acceptance, of his name, his business, and that's he trying. Marcus checks again those raised palms as if perhaps he could have missed an anchor-shard embedded there. There is none, so this Cole is no rifter. A lot of strangeness and sin can be dismissed, when it comes to rifters, and he's never seen a mage make himself disappear.

He lifts his own hand, not quite the same signal of surrender, but an open gesture to signal back that Cole should likewise be calm. "Cole," he says. "I'm Marcus.

"How were you able to do that? Go unseen. I've not met a mage of that talent."

"Aye," Marcus agrees, and then allows, "Well, it might be useful, if it works as you expect. When used with care, among those friendly to you."

Which, he thinks, could be a select group indeed, and he's not even sure he'd count himself among them. His own revulsion from even replying had been immediate and real, but that's not for this man to worry about so much as Marcus to consider it later. Some knot of tension is working its way to release from between his shoulder blades.

He turns the staff in his hands to hold in both, a neutral and relaxed crossways grasp. "There's a practice called blood magic, in this world," he says. "It's heretic, by any decent standard." And this word, 'heretic', falls neutral off Marcus' tongue, like it's more a fact of life than a moral sentiment. "And I'm not accusing you of doing it now, but when it comes to any magic that grasps at the minds and physical bodies of men, it would be easy to mistake it thus.

"But I would caution against the levelling of any kind of magic on people without their say so, no matter who they are. Does that all make sense, serah?"

"Hello. Marcus."

It steels Cole, the introduction, the motion that signifies that the mage isn't gearing up to attack. The ash is still heavy on his tongue, but if there will be no fight here, he is more than fine with that. He keeps his hands up, but lowers them a fraction. Relaxing, reticent, recoiling.

"I'm not a mage," he murmurs into the night air, expression uneasy. "I - I'm not. I'm just Cole. I don't...stay, in memories. Forgotten. Faded by the Fade."

open and closed.

open.

closed to cassius.

Guardwork

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training

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mild card, because we discussed it first.

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horse party.

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this might be a short scene: ferry

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