WHO: Bastien & Kostos + Various WHAT: A catch-all WHEN: Harvestmere 9:47 WHERE: Mostly Kirkwall probably! NOTES: No open things but I will be delighted to plan & start things for you if you hit me up.
Scene one: the Diplomacy offices, not too early—rapidly approaching lunchtime, in fact—but early enough that Monsieur le noctambule is presumably still asleep and definitely not in his office. But Benedict is in his, and now Bastien is there, too, with mail in one hand and a small plate of nothing but bacon and sausage in the other. He sets both on the edge of Benedict's desk.
"For him," he says, with a head tip toward the room that will eventually have Byerly in it, "but if you eat some of the bacon, no one will ever know."
A little roll of his eyes and a smirk, and Benedict takes the plate to relay it inside; he'll just knock on the inner door, and it's Byerly's funeral if the food's cold when he comes out.
"He'll know somehow," he remarks to Bastien over his shoulder, "a hedonist and his pleasures aren't easily parted."
A deep mock-gasp, and Benedict presses a hand to his chest as though in affront. It quickly goes away, however, as he nods with a smirk and turns to go into the office.
Setting the plate on the desk, he knocks on Byerly's door.
Whether Byerly comes to the door or not, and whether he notices the missing bacon or not—these are mysteries Bastien is willing not to know the answer to, straight away. He's gone before Benedict comes back to his own desk, bacon dangling from his mouth and slowly crunching inward on the stairs, like two crispy noodles being slurped in slow motion.
But he's back an hour and a half later, now with a report in his hand. This one is for Byerly—who'd better be awake by now—but he stops at Benedict's desk first and whispers.
However they're informed which desk is theirs—a seating chart? little name plates? we did not think this through—
However it happens, Kostos is there first. He brought a box with him: a couple of books, old notes, the supplies he previously used to do his work while hiding in his room, a few animal skulls decorated in the Nevarran style to set in the corner and hopefully make the Southerners keep a wide berth. He's still holding the box and standing in front of his desk when one of the others arrives.
Mado isn't adept at reading or writing, and likely never will be, but he at least has come to recognize his own name; it's for this reason that he's able to find his desk, at which he smiles fondly moments before Kostos speaks to him.
He looks up at his cousin with an open, cheerful smile, like a breaker against an angry tide. "I like your friends, cugino," he says quietly, nodding to the skulls.
Three hours prior, Nikos Averesch--fresh off a ship and fresher off the ferry, sun-dark and a little thicker than he had been when last in the Gallows--had approached the common notice board and read the bulletin announcing this new feature. Two and half hours prior, Nikos had grudgingly dragged himself to find his desk assignment, and, when reading the nameplates of his desk neighbors, had considered throwing himself from the walls of the Gallows to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Or eaten by sharks, or, preferably, dashed to pieces and then said pieces would be eaten by sharks.
He had settled instead for fetching a saw and sawing the leg of one of the chairs right up near the seat so that it would be very weak and would collapse under any weight put upon it. And for the other, he had shoved a small stint of wood under one of the desk legs which would cause its legs to be unbalanced and the desk itself to be perilously wobbly.
So upon this hour, when Nikos enters the room and comes along to find his brother and his cousin in a one-sided standoff--well, he still does not look precisely happy. He does look neutral, which in of itself ought to be worrying.
"Maybe you both move."
Just a suggestion. That it will make Kostos dig his heels in and not move, and sit at his trapped desk, well, that won't exactly be Nikos' fault.
Kostos—who before Nikos' timely interruption had spent several seconds simply staring at Mado at a sullen loss for words—is quick to round that expression on his brother instead. His brother is less baffling.
"Maybe you fuck back off," he says, and, oblivious to his own predictability, sets his box of belongings on top of the desk with an air of finality. Any wobbling that may occur in the process is lost beneath the sound and movement of the wooden crate hitting the surface. "And take him with you. You can be agents in Antiva together. It will be adorable."
For his part, Mado's smile remains steadfastly printed onto his face, even if the little bit of tension around his eyes betrays that perhaps not all is as well as he wants it to be.
With trepidation, he gently opines: "we are all sensible grown people, yes? It could be nice, if--"
Then he pulls his chair out to sit in it, and instead watches as it collapses before him. The smile dies.
Bastien doesn't figure it out, straight away. The ring Ellis entrusts him with is small. On most people it would be a pinkie ring, and Bastien has fairly big hands. Squeezing it on and maybe never getting it back off is low on his list of things to try doing with it, beneath spinning it on its chain like a rapid windmill (what’s a propeller?) or spinning it on a table like a top or trying to swing it around into his pocket or—
Et cetera.
It takes a while.
But eventually, one morning when he’s pinned to his bed by Byerly’s head on his arm and the ring on his nightstand is the most interesting thing Bastien can reach without waking him up, he lets it drop over the end of his pinkie. It's stopped by the first knuckle—he could wobble it over, but it wouldn't make it past the second—and resting there, it begins whispering. Then not even the fact that Byerly sleeps like a precious baby angel-octopus hybrid is enough to save him from being shaken awake and enlisted in ring experiments.
Some days of more organized efforts later, in the evening hours when it's quiet but not silent, Bastien drags Byerly along (not literally) to the Scouting office, ring in a little bag in his pocket and a list of names in hand. To avoid theft or snooping, the list only has the names people are known by, for making sure none of them are overlooked; the names the ring whispered are currently stored only in memory. But his memory is good.
"Early Satinalia gift," he announces, while he ushers Byerly in ahead of him and shuts the door behind them both, which perhaps incorrectly implies that Byerly is the gift.
Yseult is alone when they arrive—maybe they pass Darras in the hall, depending which way they come round from the stairs—and for once seems caught slightly off guard, at least by her standards. She is not at her desk but just stepping back into the office half of the suite when they enter (door shut behind), and is quick to twitch the collar of her blouse straight and into its proper fold once again.
"Come in," she says anyway, gesturing them toward the more sociable arrangement of chairs and sofa near the hearth, though a slight skeptical squint remains at the possibility that Byerly is meant to be the gift. Once they've moved past her there's a discreet and unnecessary touch at her hair, unbraided but neat enough, as she moves to the side board. There is a bottle of wine already open there that she collects, along with two clean glasses and her own, and carries over to join them. "What is this about?"
"It's magic," By sings. His grin is broad, shameless, and delighted. For two reasons: first, this gift, and second, because Yseult was absolutely just getting busy with Darras, which By fully intends to giggle about with Bastien later.
"But unlike most magic," he continues, "this is fun. No demonic possessions or anything. Well, maybe." By turns and prods Bastien's cheek. "You're not a desire demon in disguise, are you?"
Bastien gives his eyebrows a contemplative maybe I am raise, while his head bobbles under the cheek-prodding, then grins at Yseult. Good for her. But there's nothing knowing about his grin, nothing salacious. If anything there's a touch of apology, for assuming that at this hour she'd be at her desk with nothing more exciting to do than this.
"We cannot rule out the possibility there is a demon in the ring—it's a magic ring," he says, handing her the list of names on his way to one of the chairs by the hearth. "Maybe one of the mages can check. But if it is a demon, it seems to have one job, and that is telling you what a person's real name is."
Yseult takes her time pouring wine into all three glasses as this little comedy double-act proceeds, then sits back with hers, smoothing her skirt over a knee and reading this list of names she already knows. They'll have to forgive her if she's slightly slow in catching up.
"These are people a magic ring tells you are using false names?"
In the space of a day, Derrica might reconsider. There is time enough to think twice about what she's agreed to, and who would blame her? She has offered up enough of herself in the past day.
But Marcus had thought there some possibility that Bastien would understand. It's the kind of assessment that carries weight; Derrica knows how rare it is for Marcus to apply such confidence to anyone.
And so she is where she'd said she be, tucked into a quiet corner, easily seen from the doorway. There are a pair of cups on the table, one full and one empty. She tips her head up, a slight smile in greeting as Bastien enters.
"Hello," she offers, a very reserved greeting. "I hope I'm not taking you from something else you'd rather be doing."
It might not be entirely true. He left a good book tented open on the arm of his chair, back in the Gallows. He passed a dockhand acquaintance, not far from the ferry, who invited him to join a card game. One of the taverns down the street had its door open and a particularly lively tune, accompanied by the voices of most of the occupants, spilling out.
But he's content enough to be here instead. He smiles at her, and catches peripheral sight of a waving hand—another acquaintance, on the other side of the room, to whom he waves back quickly enough for the gesture to feel like a hello and not today at once. Then Derrica and the cups have his full attention.
Those were the terms, even though Derrica finds she isn't so concerned with drinks or bargains or anything else. She hooks her cup by the handle and lifts her to swig the entirety of the contents in one smooth motion.
Only the smallest of flourishes when she sets it back to onto the table. An empty cup. Under different circumstances, it might be cause for a little gloating, or a bit of teasing, but this isn't really that kind of occasion.
"Whatever you like," she says, in anticipation of the question, as she rests her chin on one palm. "I don't really know what you prefer."
"Usually I drink wine," he says, scooping up the cups, "but you drink—whiskey?"
It's ninety percent rhetorical, not a wild guess. She said so over the crystals during the pin hunt. So unless she contradicts him, he's gone and back again within a few minutes, with two full cups in hand. Whiskey in both, for the sake of being companionable.
"I am kind of a lightweight," he confesses while he takes his seat. He will not be knocking this back in one go. Fortunately it's decent enough to sip. "And I didn't mean to ask you something difficult—why you came here. We can talk about something else, if you want."
No, Derrica doesn't mean to throw this drink back all at once either. She takes a sip, slow and careful, giving her attention to the taste instead of Bastien while she thinks of what to say.
"Do you really want to know?" seems like a fair question.
Maybe her suspicion is unfair. She has never had the sense that Bastien is a bad person, and it is only that he is—
Not a mage. A man who will never be constricted in the same way as she is. A man who stands very close to someone she does not and cannot trust.
So she needs to hear again: is he truly interested in what he's asking after?
The bolt turns, near silent, the door cracks open, lamplight paints a wedge of the landing sunset orange.
Dick doesn’t have to look out to see who’s there -- the crystal he’s wedged in his ear is an open line for prompt and confirmation. She's asleep, he’d said, upon resuming contact. How quickly can you get here? Now he steps back and is replaced by the eager push of a tall blonde with a long snoot, bright eyes and slender jaws a-grin to greet Bastien with a breathy whoof.
”Riabald,” at a warning lilt from behind the door is all it takes to quiet him.
He’s well-behaved even in his excitement, if difficult to maneuver around -- tapping claws, the horsey whisk of his tail whipping a small table and its shared glasses, a (mostly) empty bottle of wine.
Nastasia’s apartment is as narrow as her hound and kept as if she doesn’t often entertain guests, bookshelves and sitting furniture and end tables littered with marked books and notes and candles for reading them. The lamp Richard has lit is his own, planted down on a shelf near the entry. He’s barefoot in a woman’s silk robe, black and white and gold over his braies, and he smells about the way he looks like he should in the raw haze of his pre-walk-of-shame exhaustion.
The magnificently shampooed and dancing welcome of Riabald really puts him to shame.
Edited (its late and i dont know how to punctuate anymore) 2021-10-15 06:57 (UTC)
"Riabald," Bastien echoes in a whisper as he slips through the door. His tone is all delight, even while he has to do a one-legged tip-and-reach to keep one of the glasses from toppling. "Comment vas-tu, mon beau garçon?"
They haven't met yet, directly, but they have in common that they have never met a stranger.
He's dressed not to draw a second glance from a Tevinter (they love their dark colors here), with a hat to innocently obscure his face under the enchanted streetlights. He sets it aside with one hand, pets the dog with the other. When he gives Richard his attention, Bastien's pulling gently on one of Riabald's silky ear. There is silent space in the once-over he gives that might have contained a comment—something about nice times, or a good job, or the crossover of business and pleasure—if he were someone else. Someone who'd taken fewer people to bed for work himself.
”Ça va bien,” Richard murmurs to himself, one hand flattened to shut the door (click) at Bastien’s back. He leaves it unlocked, a glance for the caught glass, late approval.
Riabald’s tippy taps notwithstanding, the quiet is roaring at this late hour, with only the sounds of the city through the walls to slink against. The muted creak and rattle of a shutter closed against the wind provides a threshold for acceptable clamor.
“Where doesn’t she?”
Between the candles and the paper kindling bound on every shelf and surface, the place is a death trap. The small pony glued to Bastien’s side has further seen to it that some of Natasia’s papers are on the floor.
“There is a desk that looks promising.” There is a warning wariness to his saying so. It’s not in this room.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/1SzLZCjNXJzoy97P35/giphy.gif (you can so so righteously ignore this)
So warned, Bastien looks only more chipper. Creeping through other people's things in the dark—he is a fish returned to the sea. He picks up his hat again. Never anything more than a step and reach away, when escaping through a window is a reasonably likely outcome.
"Lead the way, mon autre beau garçon," he whispers with apologetic emphasis, as if that was his impolite oversight before, as he squeezes in one last scratch under Riabald's chin. The particular place that will make this particular dog be still and shut his eyes in overwhelmed ecstasy might come in handy, if they need a moment of particular silence. But the chin's not it. Maybe Richard knows.
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diplomacy offices, for benedict.
"For him," he says, with a head tip toward the room that will eventually have Byerly in it, "but if you eat some of the bacon, no one will ever know."
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"He'll know somehow," he remarks to Bastien over his shoulder, "a hedonist and his pleasures aren't easily parted."
Speaking from experience, of course.
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Setting the plate on the desk, he knocks on Byerly's door.
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But he's back an hour and a half later, now with a report in his hand. This one is for Byerly—who'd better be awake by now—but he stops at Benedict's desk first and whispers.
"Did he notice?"
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"You'd think someone cut holes in his socks," Benedict murmurs in a tone low enough that Byerly hopefully can't hear it from the next room.
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scouting work room, for nikos and mado.
However it happens, Kostos is there first. He brought a box with him: a couple of books, old notes, the supplies he previously used to do his work while hiding in his room, a few animal skulls decorated in the Nevarran style to set in the corner and hopefully make the Southerners keep a wide berth. He's still holding the box and standing in front of his desk when one of the others arrives.
"One of us has to move," he says.
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He looks up at his cousin with an open, cheerful smile, like a breaker against an angry tide.
"I like your friends, cugino," he says quietly, nodding to the skulls.
i hope this is ok but also how would it not be ok
He had settled instead for fetching a saw and sawing the leg of one of the chairs right up near the seat so that it would be very weak and would collapse under any weight put upon it. And for the other, he had shoved a small stint of wood under one of the desk legs which would cause its legs to be unbalanced and the desk itself to be perilously wobbly.
So upon this hour, when Nikos enters the room and comes along to find his brother and his cousin in a one-sided standoff--well, he still does not look precisely happy. He does look neutral, which in of itself ought to be worrying.
"Maybe you both move."
Just a suggestion. That it will make Kostos dig his heels in and not move, and sit at his trapped desk, well, that won't exactly be Nikos' fault.
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"Maybe you fuck back off," he says, and, oblivious to his own predictability, sets his box of belongings on top of the desk with an air of finality. Any wobbling that may occur in the process is lost beneath the sound and movement of the wooden crate hitting the surface. "And take him with you. You can be agents in Antiva together. It will be adorable."
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With trepidation, he gently opines: "we are all sensible grown people, yes? It could be nice, if--"
Then he pulls his chair out to sit in it, and instead watches as it collapses before him. The smile dies.
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scouting office, for yseult and byerly.
Et cetera.
It takes a while.
But eventually, one morning when he’s pinned to his bed by Byerly’s head on his arm and the ring on his nightstand is the most interesting thing Bastien can reach without waking him up, he lets it drop over the end of his pinkie. It's stopped by the first knuckle—he could wobble it over, but it wouldn't make it past the second—and resting there, it begins whispering. Then not even the fact that Byerly sleeps like a precious baby angel-octopus hybrid is enough to save him from being shaken awake and enlisted in ring experiments.
Some days of more organized efforts later, in the evening hours when it's quiet but not silent, Bastien drags Byerly along (not literally) to the Scouting office, ring in a little bag in his pocket and a list of names in hand. To avoid theft or snooping, the list only has the names people are known by, for making sure none of them are overlooked; the names the ring whispered are currently stored only in memory. But his memory is good.
"Early Satinalia gift," he announces, while he ushers Byerly in ahead of him and shuts the door behind them both, which perhaps incorrectly implies that Byerly is the gift.
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"Come in," she says anyway, gesturing them toward the more sociable arrangement of chairs and sofa near the hearth, though a slight skeptical squint remains at the possibility that Byerly is meant to be the gift. Once they've moved past her there's a discreet and unnecessary touch at her hair, unbraided but neat enough, as she moves to the side board. There is a bottle of wine already open there that she collects, along with two clean glasses and her own, and carries over to join them. "What is this about?"
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"But unlike most magic," he continues, "this is fun. No demonic possessions or anything. Well, maybe." By turns and prods Bastien's cheek. "You're not a desire demon in disguise, are you?"
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"We cannot rule out the possibility there is a demon in the ring—it's a magic ring," he says, handing her the list of names on his way to one of the chairs by the hearth. "Maybe one of the mages can check. But if it is a demon, it seems to have one job, and that is telling you what a person's real name is."
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"These are people a magic ring tells you are using false names?"
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set tag orders are for chumps
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crashlands.
But Marcus had thought there some possibility that Bastien would understand. It's the kind of assessment that carries weight; Derrica knows how rare it is for Marcus to apply such confidence to anyone.
And so she is where she'd said she be, tucked into a quiet corner, easily seen from the doorway. There are a pair of cups on the table, one full and one empty. She tips her head up, a slight smile in greeting as Bastien enters.
"Hello," she offers, a very reserved greeting. "I hope I'm not taking you from something else you'd rather be doing."
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It might not be entirely true. He left a good book tented open on the arm of his chair, back in the Gallows. He passed a dockhand acquaintance, not far from the ferry, who invited him to join a card game. One of the taverns down the street had its door open and a particularly lively tune, accompanied by the voices of most of the occupants, spilling out.
But he's content enough to be here instead. He smiles at her, and catches peripheral sight of a waving hand—another acquaintance, on the other side of the room, to whom he waves back quickly enough for the gesture to feel like a hello and not today at once. Then Derrica and the cups have his full attention.
"I am supposed to buy you a drink first, no?"
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Only the smallest of flourishes when she sets it back to onto the table. An empty cup. Under different circumstances, it might be cause for a little gloating, or a bit of teasing, but this isn't really that kind of occasion.
"Whatever you like," she says, in anticipation of the question, as she rests her chin on one palm. "I don't really know what you prefer."
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It's ninety percent rhetorical, not a wild guess. She said so over the crystals during the pin hunt. So unless she contradicts him, he's gone and back again within a few minutes, with two full cups in hand. Whiskey in both, for the sake of being companionable.
"I am kind of a lightweight," he confesses while he takes his seat. He will not be knocking this back in one go. Fortunately it's decent enough to sip. "And I didn't mean to ask you something difficult—why you came here. We can talk about something else, if you want."
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"Do you really want to know?" seems like a fair question.
Maybe her suspicion is unfair. She has never had the sense that Bastien is a bad person, and it is only that he is—
Not a mage. A man who will never be constricted in the same way as she is. A man who stands very close to someone she does not and cannot trust.
So she needs to hear again: is he truly interested in what he's asking after?
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crashing your catch all straight to minrathous
Dick doesn’t have to look out to see who’s there -- the crystal he’s wedged in his ear is an open line for prompt and confirmation. She's asleep, he’d said, upon resuming contact. How quickly can you get here? Now he steps back and is replaced by the eager push of a tall blonde with a long snoot, bright eyes and slender jaws a-grin to greet Bastien with a breathy whoof.
”Riabald,” at a warning lilt from behind the door is all it takes to quiet him.
He’s well-behaved even in his excitement, if difficult to maneuver around -- tapping claws, the horsey whisk of his tail whipping a small table and its shared glasses, a (mostly) empty bottle of wine.
Nastasia’s apartment is as narrow as her hound and kept as if she doesn’t often entertain guests, bookshelves and sitting furniture and end tables littered with marked books and notes and candles for reading them. The lamp Richard has lit is his own, planted down on a shelf near the entry. He’s barefoot in a woman’s silk robe, black and white and gold over his braies, and he smells about the way he looks like he should in the raw haze of his pre-walk-of-shame exhaustion.
The magnificently shampooed and dancing welcome of Riabald really puts him to shame.
je suis ici et desolee
They haven't met yet, directly, but they have in common that they have never met a stranger.
He's dressed not to draw a second glance from a Tevinter (they love their dark colors here), with a hat to innocently obscure his face under the enchanted streetlights. He sets it aside with one hand, pets the dog with the other. When he gives Richard his attention, Bastien's pulling gently on one of Riabald's silky ear. There is silent space in the once-over he gives that might have contained a comment—something about nice times, or a good job, or the crossover of business and pleasure—if he were someone else. Someone who'd taken fewer people to bed for work himself.
Instead: "Where does she keep her papers?"
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Riabald’s tippy taps notwithstanding, the quiet is roaring at this late hour, with only the sounds of the city through the walls to slink against. The muted creak and rattle of a shutter closed against the wind provides a threshold for acceptable clamor.
“Where doesn’t she?”
Between the candles and the paper kindling bound on every shelf and surface, the place is a death trap. The small pony glued to Bastien’s side has further seen to it that some of Natasia’s papers are on the floor.
“There is a desk that looks promising.” There is a warning wariness to his saying so. It’s not in this room.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/1SzLZCjNXJzoy97P35/giphy.gif (you can so so righteously ignore this)
So warned, Bastien looks only more chipper. Creeping through other people's things in the dark—he is a fish returned to the sea. He picks up his hat again. Never anything more than a step and reach away, when escaping through a window is a reasonably likely outcome.
"Lead the way, mon autre beau garçon," he whispers with apologetic emphasis, as if that was his impolite oversight before, as he squeezes in one last scratch under Riabald's chin. The particular place that will make this particular dog be still and shut his eyes in overwhelmed ecstasy might come in handy, if they need a moment of particular silence. But the chin's not it. Maybe Richard knows.