open, catch-all

[bouchonne]

WHO: Byerly Rutyer and Linden Doesntgetalastname
WHAT: Just a general catch-all
WHEN: This month, last month, next month, as you wish
WHERE: The Gallows and Lowtown
NOTES: Everything open! Reach out to me if you want something special and closed!

Starters in comments!

Comments

[bouchonne]

What brings you to Lowtown, perhaps?

[ It's a gentle suggestion. Practically an invitation for her to wrinkle her nose and decline to answer. ]

No two people have precisely the same reasons. The answer often says much about the respondent.

[delphian]

( she does not wrinkle her nose, nor decline to answer; she lifts a hand and points, sort of vaguely, toward somewhere between the door and the wall— )

I live here.

( she didn't miss all the extremely public displays of affection, so she is presumably not expecting him to bite when she quirks her eyebrows and the corner of her mouth, ) Happy to show you, if you like. Seneschal recommended to me some fascinating interior decorating.

( he asked her back to his bedroom to show her some art and they fucked is what happened. )

[bouchonne]

I wouldn't mind seeing it.

[ - which is not biting, per se. It appears to be a genuinely curious response to her offer, as though he missed the suggestiveness of the invitation. ]

The Seneschal has excellent taste.

[delphian]

He certainly does.

( and he's a shockingly good lay, which would probably be more annoying if tsenka had a different outlook on political differences between mages. or if she found his personality more irritating, instead of sort of entertaining to watch happen.

possibly the fact cassius black's personality isn't a deterrent to her explains a lot about how primed she is to apparently get along fine with byerly rutyer. )

Well, you know what the pay is, I've nothing so fancy as his like. But Lowtown is as good a place as any to be.

( and better by far than the gallows. )

[bouchonne]

Is it?

[ His smile crinkles the fine lines around his eyes. ]

I can think of a few that are finer, at least by reputation. More flowers and greenery, more light...

[delphian]

And if you should like to pay for me to live in any one of them, I would not decline,

( with aplomb. )

[bouchonne]

Well, it's not my fault you decided to join Scouting.

[ As if everyone doesn't get paid basically the same. ]

[delphian]

Ah, well, then.

( a philosophical tip of her pipe— )

There's worse places to have landed.

[bouchonne]

Worse places than Lowtown, or worse places than Scouting?

[delphian]

Certainly,

( in an agreeable sort of way.

her glass is not much less empty than it was upon his sitting down; a taste of it here and there (unobjectionably drinkable), but more occupied with the little circles of smoke she can send up to the ceiling. it's nothing headier than tobacco. )

[bouchonne]

Many mages end up in Forces instead.

[ Another lift of the cup to his lips. He barely wets them. His progress through the liquor is agonizingly slow. ]

[delphian]

Makes sense, ( she allows, without seeming to give it much thought for herself beyond that easy agreement. ) My brother did—your Captain of the Guard.

( ah, marcus rowntree, with whom she shares an accent if not surname nor species. )

Suits him, I expect.

[bouchonne]

[ An arched eyebrow. A little dryly: ]

Brother.

[ "I don't see the resemblance" goes unsaid. ]

[delphian]

Aye.

( byerly is by no means the first person to challenge that assessment; tsenka shrugs. )

Is that very strange to you as grow up outside, to love the people you're close to?

[bouchonne]

[ The eyebrow raises a scant millimeter further. He paraphrases her question - ]

Do I love the people around me?

[ Which seems, to him, tautological; if he is close, there is love. But: ]

You'll forgive me. The term brother typically implies that there is shared blood between two people.

[delphian]

Or that they were raised together, ( easily, ) as brothers and sisters are.

[bouchonne]

[ Noble Byerly, who as a child sat learning genealogies by heart, has, of course, a rather less flexible definition of the term. ]

Foster is most typically appended to the title, in that case.

[ But: ]

So you are from his Circle, then?

[delphian]

( another shrug; the parts of what he says that don't interest her sliding off like water, curiosities of how another person sees the world without being anything she feels the need to adopt for herself. )

Together our whole lives. Besides the bit where everyone thought me dead.

[bouchonne]

And why did they think that?

[delphian]

( tsenka holds up her wrists— )

Do you not know, or do you want to hear it as I tell it?

[bouchonne]

I don't know.

[ A truth? A lie? Hard to tell with Byerly. ]

[delphian]

( her laugh is bright— )

Well, it's probably written down someplace, I bet you can give yourself permission to read it.

( not in terribly great detail, but about the same broad strokes tsenka would summarize it in. he's likable, this one, and she likes him fine, but stripping naked her recent traumas—

at minimum, he'd have to buy better drink. )

What brought you to Riftwatch?

[bouchonne]

[ He tips his head slightly to the side in acknowledgment of her refusal. If, indeed, it was a lie, and he knows, the lie was surely for that purpose - to give her the ability to feel as though she's not in the presence of someone who knows to pity her. And who knows? He's a busy man. Maybe it was true. ]

Would you like an exciting lie, or would you like the truth?

[delphian]

( it is, on first impression, difficult to imagine byerly pitying anyone, particularly.

but she lifts her fingers from the edge of her pipe, an elegant sort of gesture, habitual, )

Whatever you like.

[bouchonne]

[ So he shrugs in response. ]

The Venatori aren't a threat only in the North. Even beyond the Frostbacks, there is concern.