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

[niminypiminy]

[ And Linden - Well, he likes people who talk. Really honestly does. A little of it is calculated, yes - someone who chatters is someone who lets things slip - but more of it is just that he likes it. Likes having someone simply chatter away. It's a bright and friendly sort of sound. ]

Well enough.

[ And an encouraging little nod. ]

War wasn't boring?

[inkindled]

Good. If you need anything--

[He lifts his chin in a self-referential little nod.]

But you know how it is, though. With the war. Not boring, precisely, even in the quiet bits, 'cause you've always got to be a little worried in your, whatsit, [he waves at the side of his face,] periphery. Here--well, we're at war, but... I dunno. It's different.

[niminypiminy]

[ He tilts his head slightly. ]

Why do you think that is?

[inkindled]

'Cause--

[Matthias charges straight ahead into answering before realizing that he doesn't know how he plans to respond. He cuts himself off with a frown and--trying something somewhat new to him--thinks for a moment.]

'Cause... Well, freedom, is what it comes down to. I'm not only a mage, I'm in Riftwatch, and I'm a mage. And that's appreciated and valued in a way it's not always. I know in the war we were all mages, but we weren't hardly living. At least I wasn't. It was running from one place to the next and hiding between battles and sleeping on the ground, couldn't hardly breathe. Riftwatch is an organization, yeah, but there's--space, like, to live in and in the day as well. And I get paid--that helps as well. I never had as much coin as I do now in Riftwatch, not in the Circle or after and certainly not before. [You know, at nine years of age and all.] So that helps as well.

[He shrugs with a measure of self-consciousness.]

If that makes sense.

[niminypiminy]

It does.

[ Linden says nothing else, but his quiet is an inviting sort of quiet - he looks interested and engaged, his eyes remaining on Matthias, giving slight nods at appropriate times to indicate his agreement. It's not the sort of quiet that makes you feel embarrassed; it's the sort of quiet that leaves you room to expand on anything you want to. ]

[inkindled]

[And Matthias, in turn, gains confidence as he goes on. His shoulders drop, his manner becomes increasingly relaxed, and--at least by the time he finishes that first speech--his ears are only a little pink from being listened to.]

Only I do miss it sometimes, if I'm honest. The other way. Not--the Circles, 'course. Not the bit where we always thought we were going to die. But there's, politics, like, to being in Riftwatch. It's a load of people, a load of different people--Templars, even, sometimes--and you've got to work with 'em and listen to 'em--and sometimes Riftwatch isn't for us. It ends up being for someone else, or something else, and you've got to go along with that, at least in some way. Or, well. Leave, I s'ppose.