open

[atonally]

WHO: Redvers & You
WHAT: Traditional "new arrival hanging around the Gallows" log
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Wildcards welcome. If you want prior CR with a Starkhaven Templar and don't want to wing it, hit me up via plurk or discord or pm.

I. WAITING FOR THE FERRY

The pain in his hand subsides by the time he reaches the docks. So what exactly is the point of going any further, is what he's contemplating, sitting on his heavy trunk (left crooked and in the way, where the cart-driver and a charitable passing dock worker helped him unload his things) and watching the dark waves. If this is close enough, he could stay in a tavern. See about the city guard in the meantime, if the Chantry won’t pay for lodging while he’s trapped here.

The ferry is occasionally visible in the distance, when the moons peek through the clouds. Headed for the Gallows now, and then it will come back. There’s plenty of time to leave. So Redvers contemplates it, and he thinks he’s very serious about it, but he doesn’t move until someone else comes to a stop on the same dock.

The look he gives whoever it is is wary interest, not unfriendly. His glowing hand is hidden in a glove; his unmistakable Templar armor is hidden in the chest he’s using as a bench. He’s dressed to travel in the cold.

“Someone told me people go over to that island sometimes and never come back,” he says, which is true—someone did tell him so.


II. IN THE GALLOWS, AROUND

Redvers doesn’t go join the city guard. He goes to the Gallows, talks to whoever he needs to talk to to be allowed to stay, and finds himself sleeping on a bunk bed for the first time since he took his vows.

His uniform comes out in the morning, but only so he can rearrange the contents of his chest for a longterm stay. The pieces left haphazard on the empty bed across from his are indistinct in bundles of oiled cloth, but the neatly folded red and white robes that go with the plate are a dead giveaway. So’s the lyrium kit and his careful use of it, sitting on the bed with the box open on his knee.

Otherwise—it isn’t that he’s hiding it. He’s tired, he’s dressed for being off duty, and he isn’t announcing himself by name and title when he enters a room. That’s all.

He wanders around the parts of the fortress a new, involuntary arrival is allowed to wander around: the courtyards, the dining hall, the baths. Eventually he’s standing at the edges of one of the training yards—just to watch, bent forward with his forearms on a wooden barrier while others shoot arrows at targets or try to non-fatally pummel one another with practice weapons.

If someone joins him (or looks at him long enough), he waves his glowing green hand less in greeting than demonstration.

"It had to be my sword arm."

Not that the anchor prevents holding a weapon. He'd have cut it off by now otherwise, is what he means.


III. WILDCARD

Comments

I

[muckspout]

"Maybe they fell in."

Edgard offers. He's a little wary of strangers who will just talk to him, but this one in particular with his armor makes him a little hesitant. But still--

"People die everywhere." He can't help, but argue just a little.

[atonally]

"Some places more often than others," Redvers says.

If it weren't so dark he might eye Edgard with a little more skepticism, but it's dark. In the very dim light, he could be reasonably clean. Or, like. Only a week's worth of dirty. So there's minimal eyeing, and his tone is more speculative than argumentative.

"You one of them?"

[muckspout]

Edgard frowns. Is that a threat? Who is this man who makes conversation with a stranger just to threaten them?

"Not yet. Don't think."

He shifts a little from side to side.

"'d ask if you were one of them too, but pretty sure a ghost couldn't wear that much armor."

They probably could, Edgard thinks to himself, but doesn't speak this aloud and instead folds his arms over his chest.

[atonally]

That wasn't what Redvers meant, but alright. This could very well be a vagrant. Maybe not altogether there in his head. Might as well be cooperative.

"Oh, I think ghosts can wear anything," he says. "They usually looks ghostly, though. Ghost armor. An abomination—" A possessed corpse. "—is what you would need to be worried about, in a solid set of plate like this."

[muckspout]

Edgard folds his arms over his chest. Another threat! He wants to step backward, the memory of the last time he encountered an abomination is fresh (though it was a while ago now), but he knows if he steps back he will look scared.

He steps forward and he's close, maybe a little too close, and looks Redvers in the eye. He takes a breath to keep his voice steady.

"What do you mean?" He says casually, tone low and deep.