[open]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria & YOU
WHAT: Anchor-related adventures and/or drama in fantasy September.
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Some anchor and rift-related peril; open stuff is in the comments, but may use this as a catch-all. If an open prompt doesn't suit you, feel free to wildcard me or hit me up and I can write something bespoke. Prose or brackets is a-okay.

Comments

[helpinghidinghaunting]

"Yes. Sometimes I don't stick. People forget."

Cole really doesn't mind her wanting to question him. It makes perfect sense, after all. But he's worried for her, knowing she is unwell, knowing she still won't take the water. It's still in his hands, freshly filled, but he's holding it closer to himself for the moment until perhaps she comes around.

"...I do not have one yet," he slowly rasps. "I am...trying to find where I can help the most." The latter half of her question, however, feels vague to him, and a lack of understanding furrows his brow.

"I've spoken to a lot of people? I don't know how many remember me."

[heirring]

"Name one. A member of Riftwatch. One who is not a division head," she is quick to clarify, for anyone in Kirkwall might know such a name. In truth, she reflects in that same split second, there are a great many people in Kirkwall who might name a great variety of other Riftwatch members as well. So she adds further, a little fumbling: "and describe them, if you would. So that I may know whether you are telling me the truth or not."

See? She is not being unreasonable.

[helpinghidinghaunting]

It takes Cole a moment to think about this - namely because he doesn't really know what Division Head even means. Scanning his memory, he picks someone who had seemed important at the time, or at least distinct -

"...There was a mage," he rasps, eyes flicking upward and to the left as if trying to look back into his past, "Who met me patrolling. Older, eyes and spirit like fire. Smoking. He gave me this."

Reaching into his pocket, he retrieves an unlit rolled cigarette he had been allowed to take, but had had no assistance lighting.

"He said his name was Marcus?"

[heirring]

The transformation in her bearing is quite instantaneous. All at once, the suspicion melts away; the somewhat rigid and off-put line of her shoulders eases and alters, and she turns by a half degree toward the waifish young man. Does she still look nebulously miserable? Yes, of course. As it turns out, modifying one's opinion of a person doesn't instantly cure all ills. But certainly she is all at once considerably less standoffish.

Marcus Rowntree, Wysteria assumes, wouldn't tolerate just any scoundrel.

"Oh! Yes of course! Enchanter Rowntree," cedes swiftly into— "I'm most pleased to make your acquaintance. Miss—er, Madame Wysteria de Foncé. And you are? You really must decide on a division quickly. There is some movement between them, so you shouldn't feel as if to take on one if to be forever bound to it should your skills reveal themselves to suit some other place better. But one must always jump with both feet into a new thing, I believe."

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Oh. Well, that was easy.

He tucks the cigarette back away, blinking rapidly as he tries to keep up with the heel turn the conversation has just taken. Rapid, reeling, rebounding. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, still holding the waterskin in one spindly, grimy hand.

"My name is Cole," he finally manages once he feels he has an opening. "Marcus told me...he mentioned Scouting, because of what I can do." A beat.

"But I didn't know I needed to jump anywhere. Where do I need to jump?"