open.

[tender]

WHO: Derrica + OTA
WHAT: Office Hours
WHEN: Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Drop in, door's open.

There is nothing technically wrong with the Project Haven conference room and office. They are orderly, without any tangible sign of the intentions of their former owner.

Still, Derrica has thrown open the single window in the office wide in spite of the cold. There is a small crate just beside the doorway between office and conference room, where Derrica has been pitching anything she finds questionable. (Chantry texts to be relocated to records or the chapel, small items that might be personal affects, or are simply not to her taste.) She's left the doors open behind her, the one leading into the conference room, the one leading into the corridor, and the one leading into the Forces and Diplomacy workspaces as well, as if to promote circulation to the highest degree possible.

What comes after the cleaning is something Derrica is still working out.

She's never had an office. She's yet to even sit down at her allotted desk in the Forces workroom. But here she is, and she make something of the space. It's expected, she's certain.

Her hands are full of Chantry hymnals when the sound of footsteps pulls her attention from them.

"Watch out for the box," is her first, immediate word of caution. It's only partly blocking the doorway, but just enough to be a hazard to the unsuspecting.

Welcome to Project Haven. Don't mind the momentary clutter.

Comments

[cozen]

"—might have been sent to us."

As likely as a lone wolf is an angry sect. A Chantry Mother with an agenda. Something not to do with the Chantry at all—Byerly floated the possibility that it was a false flag, meant to cause distrust of the Chantry or elves or both. And there is the matter of the Chantry spy—the spy giving information to the Chantry, if not of the Chantry themselves—who Marcus has been sniffing around for. Connected, maybe.

Anyway. A Fereldan Chantry Brother, if any of that's true. If someone sent him, it likely concerns both of their work.

He wiggles his fingers, to further invite the hymnals.

"Do you know anything?"

[tender]

It takes a moment to stir Derrica into action.

This is not an entirely new thought. Yes, she wondered. But hearing it from Bastien draws that suspicion back to her, gives it more weight now that he's spoken it aloud.

"I found something he'd left behind," Derrica admits. "I was going to give it to Yseult."

Only after she'd shown it to Commander Flint, maybe to Marcus. It doesn't strike her as particularly revealing, but—

"He'd been keeping track of us, when he wasn't writing sermons. Which of us was committing the worst sins against Andraste."

[cozen]

"Ah," Bastien says.

For a moment he takes that seriously, frowning, pulled back into that moment in the dining hall when it seemed someone (besides Gideon) might be hurt. Perhaps they should be glad that it was an open attack on all of them, rather than some subtle attempt at taking out a few particular enemies. That might have succeeded.

Then he faintly smiles, amusement bringing a glint back into his eyes.

"Who was winning?"

[tender]

"It depends. Do you see winning as which of us was the most pious, or the most sinful?"

Perspective is everything, after all.

"I don't know if it helps you either way."

It doesn't unravel the idea of that man being sent to monitor them, only that he had certainly been doing so.

And now that he's dead and gone, without leaving any clear answers, will they need to look sideways at any Chantry Brother or Sister who crosses their threshold from now on? (More so than Derrica might anyway, but who needs to keep track of that?)

[cozen]

The sinners are the winners, for the record. Always. It even rhymes. But Bastien lets the question be rhetorical, since they are talking about someone who tried to kill most of them, and helps himself to sitting crookedly in one of the office's chairs.

"Probably not," he says. "Maybe it was only a hobby. But there have always been people within the Chantry who have not cared for us, and they have all of their—" A circular, finger-wiggling gesture, evocative of a tangle. "—internal politics. The worst wounding I've ever had came from a Chantry Sister."

He loosely mimes stabbing something into his side, in case she doesn't know to take that literally.

"Maybe we start with the Chantry he came from? It should be in the records somewhere, from when he first came."

[tender]

Ha, ha.

It's not necessarily funny, but Derrica smiles. Breathes out a little laugh before she covers her face with her hands, presses her fingers to her cheeks.

"Yes, I think that's the best approach," is easy to say, even as Derrica considers the absurdity of being in charge, and of the delicate terrain she'll have to tread if they pursue this. "We could ask the Seneschal to find us that, if the Scoutmaster hasn't already gathered the records."

And that might be the end of it, except Derrica draws a breath, and presses on—

"You want us to do this together?"