open. “Please tell a story about a girl who gets away.”

[delphian]

WHO: Tsenka Abendroth + YOU?
WHAT: Tsenka takes a bath. A lot.
WHEN: After the skeleton wars.
WHERE: The heated baths in the former Templar tower.
NOTES: Nudity, discussion of trauma, the uzh.

Against all of the odds stacked heavily out of her favour, Tsenka Abendroth is alive. She has survived her first, unlikely rescue; she has endured time in the infirmary, ensuring that having made it to the Gallows she wouldn't simply collapse with all of the foundations of her taken away. She has survived, again, the attack on the Gallows itself by what Riftwatch left behind in Nevarra City—it feels like a thread pulling tight, somehow, her Nevarran name buying her freedom and the Nevarran dead coming to take it away from her again—

she is alive. She is with Riftwatch because she has chosen to be, and not for any other reason. If she decided the choice didn't suit her any longer, she could leave. She has been released from the infirmary under her own power, and she can choose any unused room she wishes,

but right now, she has decided to choose the baths. Tsenka is not, typically, given to overindulgence in luxurious hygiene, but it's been actual years since she's had the leisure to do or not do at her own inclination. Bathing, during captivity, had been...nonexistent, if one were not to stretch the definition to include the occasional bucket of cold water thrown on her if she seemed like she might be sleeping easy. There had certainly not been any soap involved. At liberty to do as she pleases until she can commit to doing something useful to anyone else, it pleases her to set up camp in a corner of the heated baths with a clean robe and towels, a platter of food she'd gathered from mealtimes and the occasional application of large, sad eyes. A bottle of cheap wine, easier to drink from directly with hot, wet hands than fuss about with cups or glasses—some incense that she'd found, and had set up to burn where the ash would fall directly into the water, making it much easier to clean up after.

A few books, though she hasn't figured out the best way to read them without getting them wet, yet. Her crystal. Scissors, because even wet it's obvious that about half her hair is a good several inches different from the rest.

She will be here for some time.

Comments

[overharrowed]

He'd been so focused on his question that the tone of her response takes him off guard. It translates merely into him raising his eyebrows and considering a moment. But he does want know.

(He has the brief thought that he is sure Petrana would understand leaning on a perceived attraction for information, but he isn't sure where Marcus stands on it: a conversation they should probably have later.)

Still, for now, he takes her invitation. "It wasn't a line, for what it's worth. You really do look familiar, but I can't quite place it."

[delphian]

Uncorking her wine bottle again with her teeth, she takes a drink before offering it to him—

“There's still time, should you like to try one.” A line, she means, perfectly aware of what about her must have drawn his attention but equally willing to see if she can hold it with something else, while she's here. Getting into the water isn't demurring, after all. And some people like to be flirted with, a bit.

She leans back against the solid stone behind her. Says, “My name is Tsenka,” as if she thinks that might be what he recognizes.

[overharrowed]

He looks, perhaps unexpectedly, started. "...not Marcus's Tsenka?" That wouldn't be how he'd know her face, even if it were true. But it certainly shifts the interaction in an unanticipated direction.

(He can't help the brief, rueful thought that the last time he'd met some of Marcus's family, at least he'd been fully dressed.)

[delphian]

On the one hand,

it's not as if it's news to her that Marcus is in the Gallows, that he's part of Riftwatch. Captain of the Guard and all. And this man is a mage, so it naturally follows that they'd be acquainted, but even still, she's caught momentarily off-guard.

“You'll find he's my Marcus,” she says, milder. “Friend of yours, is he?”

The joke is that Marcus is a friend to all mages.

[overharrowed]

The mental math here is rapid. The Gallows are small, and he'll look a fool if he's too delicate about it. On the other hand, Julius has been approaching the conversation one way, and that way absolutely will not suit now, and it's not clear how much to salvage without seeming careless.

But all that is internal. Outwardly, his smile is just a touch wry. "We're close," he settles on. "He's mentioned you, although that's hardly why I'd know your face." Modified honesty seems like the play.

[delphian]

Close, is it.

Her eyebrows, having risen, remain there.

“I haven't been in a position to meet anyone,” she says, considering how close close might be and whether or not she might (at some point, but not now) be inclined to admit exactly what it is that's tugging at Julius's memory. “For several years. If you've met Marcus only here, you've not seen me anywhere else.”

On a technicality, it isn't even a lie. He was here when he saw her.

[overharrowed]

It makes him frown, though he's clearly puzzled rather than displeased. "Forgive me, then, in mistaking. I didn't wish to ... my name is Julius," he settles on, after a moment. "I hope you've been settling in well. It's usually not this ..." full of undead? "unsettled, at lease not in this way."

[delphian]

Probably, she thinks, the sort of mage who dreams the way that Julius had dreamed—probably that is the sort of man accustomed to watching faces grow and change. To recognize them in what they used to be. It's an interesting thought; not everyone might. The little girl she had been in the dream had been close to her, but not precise...human, always a safe disguise. The mouth had been different. The angle of her nose.

But the eyes were the same.

“I was in the infirmary,” she says, “'til after.”

She presumes after what doesn't need clarification.

[overharrowed]

"Probably best," he allows her, of her location at the time. "I hope you're well, now, or at least improved." The wishes are sincerely meant, but they're also clearly a tactic to buy himself a little time to think.

[delphian]

“Well enough.” And aren't they all?

It's not as if not being well is of much use to anyone. And she's no rifter, no anchor-shard; Riftwatch is no charity to anyone besides the like. She will have to pull her weight and earn her place soon enough, and all told the sooner the better. Well enough will do, as it did before.

Marcus said this is the place. So it's the place.

“You. You've been here long, then?”

[overharrowed]

He nods. "Four years here in Kirkwall, with the Inquisition in Skyhold a bit less than a year before that. I suppose the accent rather gives away Kinloch Hold, before the war."

He supposes there's no way she would necessarily know him for a mage, other than it's hard for him to imagine many nonmages close to Marcus, as such. It's not a great leap.

"...wars," he corrects, after half a moment. "There were a few of us from Kinloch here, once, but as far as I know they others have all departed Riftwatch, so now I'm the sole representative."

[delphian]

Close means mage, certainly; maybe there's some world where it doesn't, and she's surprised, but since Julius is a mage it isn't going to be this one. Kinloch Hold. A veteran of all manner of things, then, sitting opposite her holding his good manners in his lap.

Pretty, self-effacing, capable enough to still be alive. It isn't a bad impression of someone confident in her brother's regard. She is half minded to press the issue of how close, exactly, but tucks it behind her ear for later — she can press Marcus, directly, when he comes to cut her hair.

“Well, we can all leave if we wish to,” a thoughtless echo of a conversation that they've already had, “except the feral heralds, I suppose.” The rhyme pleases her.

[overharrowed]

He considers and discards the idea of asking whether she'd coined that; it's fairly obvious.

"Those who caught an anchor shard, yes. And the rifters. It's a different situation - two difference ones, really. But for the rest of us ... no one's being held here. Even if one is committed to opposing Corypheus, there are other options." He sighed, just barely, and added, "It's been suggested that Riftwatch offers too much order for some, too much chaos for others."

[delphian]

Tsenka gives that the weight of consideration it seems due to her, and then:

“And which is it for you, then?”

He seems like he likes things in their right place. The sort of fellow who dresses to the same side every day.

[overharrowed]

"Well. Not too much of either, or I'd not still be here," he says, with a faint smile. "But to your point: I think Corypheus is worth opposing, and I think I can do the most good with Riftwatch. I burned some bridges with the Inquisition, for one. And I certainly am not arrogant enough to think I'll do much good operating on my own, even if I didn't have colleagues I cared about here."