[OPEN] IN LIVING MEMORY

[archademode]

WHO: Gabranth celebrates the coming year in his own brooding way, which is to say it isn't a celebration at all
WHAT: sad dog sits alone in the Gallows
WHEN: now
WHERE: various places within the Gallows
NOTES: I can't sleep so what's better than doing the thing I meant to do half a month ago, right

I: ON YOUR FEET

His body refuses him.

Or that is what Noah would attest if asked, unarmored aside from a high-collared thermal-knit shirt and pitch dark leathers, his half-trimmed blond hair tucked loose around the base of his neck and temples as he swings a pair of matching swords in indirect arcs, knocking the snow and frost from wooden targets. It alternates, his method, slipping back and forth between using the blunted edge of those blades and simply letting displaced air manage it for him, without flourish of any sort.

And still, he seems— beneath the stony set of his focused exterior— displeased (with his own efforts, perhaps) to exceptionally perceptive eyes.

The tightness in his brow wound down so thoroughly that it threatens to snap.

But he does not stop.

II: OUROBOROS

He is not a drinking man. That is to say, he is not a man given to drink, nor is he one to grieve. He does not grieve now, either, though he is mournful in a sense. For the friend he’d lost. For the one that he is certain still exists, yet here no longer.

Another face laid to rest amongst the ghosts of his past.

Another life outlived, in a strange, dissonant sense.

He sits along the edge of the gardens, face downturned into sullen shadow, a bottle of Orlesian liquor at his side, both open and untouched.

The place where he’d sat so very long ago and made the simple, single choice to drink beside a fellow fighter.

III: WILDCARD

[ooc: you know the drill, I'll match format without preference; make a combo of the two toplevels or roll with something different, just keep in mind he's still coming off the heels of a bad injury so he won't be leaving the Gallows just yet or wearing his full plate— whether or not your character would recognize him without his helmet is entirely up to you.

Also he's sad. And mean. What else is new.]

Comments

[bouchonne]

"A very avant-garde way of consuming liquor," Byerly says. His voice is light, his manner easy. At his heels sits Whiskey, looking at Gabranth with her liquid, warm eyes.

"Letting it evaporate. Do you breathe in the fumes? Is it that how it works?"

[archademode]

“I leave it as bait.” Comes the dour rumble in response, sliding dryly from Gabranth’s throat. A beat longer, and his attention twists slowly, taking in the (welcome, despite darkened appearances) sight of his friend with little fanfare.

“And I see what comes.”


That is a joke, Byerly.

[bouchonne]

"A fisher of men," Byerly says. "Blub, blub."

He lifts his hands to his neck to imitate the flapping of gills, then ambles - because Byerly cannot move in anything except an amble, except for when it's a saunter or a mince or a sashay - over to Gabranth. He folds his spindly form into a package so he can set himself down beside the fellow.

"Smells like spring's coming." He tilts his head back and takes an inhale. Whiskey - surely by coincidence - sniffs at the air at the exact same moment.

[archademode]

Gabranth, in turn, neither laughs nor adjusts his temperament in response— but he lowers his hand to Whiskey for the first time in a full year, leaving her room to close in if she cares to, all wrinkles and soft, well-soaked eyes.

“The bottle is yours if you care to claim it. Elsewise it will spoil.”

And what better to sit in memory’s place then the companion he still holds dear now.

[bouchonne]

"Kind man." But Byerly's hand stays still. He doesn't go to take that liquor.

Instead, he lays his hand atop Whiskey's well-loved back, even as she herself is far more interested in Gabranth's newly exposed hand. She sighs in absolute bliss as she tucks her nose under his fingers, clearly expecting her to scratch.

"Why open it if you have no intention to drink?"

[archademode]

A scratch she earns, scarred fingers scrubbing heavily behind droopy ears.

“Some believe offerings transcend the veil between worlds.”

He chooses not to clarify whether he strictly means the border between life and death, or, unembellished, the border between all worlds— as so many Rifters tend to express, himself included.

Compared to some, he’s done a poor job of assimilating into Thedosian culture.

But old people tend to be like that though.

“I thought it fair to take my chances.”

[bouchonne]

By hums in acknowledgment.

"And whom are you trying to reach?"

Whiskey gives a heavy, heaving sigh of pleasure.

[archademode]

“Erik.”

Erik, and the temptation is there to speak of him as he truly was: royalty. Prince and heir, sovereign to a kingdom not of this world— all due respect gifted.

But he’d sworn to keep his silence, and regardless of whether or not Erik is here, that oath is upheld.

“And Captain Holden.”

[bouchonne]

"Truly across words, then," he says, lifting his eyebrows. He does not, admittedly, feel any truly deep grief about their loss. He liked both of them, but - Rifters come and go. Very few of them stay for any great length of time. Attachment is a mistake.

"Any luck?"

III

[altusimperius]

It's between one of these times, when Gabranth is making his way to one location or another, that Benedict catches sight of him. He almost doesn't recognize him without the armor, but has seen his face enough times to clock it, and he's quick to swerve from where he himself is going to fall into step with Gabranth.

He doesn't say anything, perceptive enough to recognize the weight that hangs over his companion. But he'll walk by him, shoulder to shoulder, until he's told to go away.

[archademode]

He isn’t told to go away.

There is no seething fury, no agonizing pain. What gnaws at him is old— older than all the loss he has sustained since arriving in this world precisely one year ago— and he does know deeply how to weather its rushing assault. Or perhaps he is but numb to it, now. Blond hair still left long (though Jone’s attempt to trim it has left wisps of shorter spans here and there), face still shorn in distinct patterns.

He had wanted to be himself once more. Noah, not Basch. But severing the final ties to his brother still proved too great a task to surmount.

His heavy footsteps reach one of the outdoor terraces, and there he stops.

Benedict can stay.

tippytap

[altusimperius]

And stay Benedict does, coming to a pause when Gabranth does, and moving to lean against one of the railings so he can look at his face. Something is obviously wrong, or at least changed, but he doesn't ask immediately, waiting instead for Gabranth to speak if he wants to.

i.

[justashotaway]

It feels familiar, walking toward Gabranth and his pair of blades. Her footsteps are louder now, thanks to the snow that crunches underneath, but the shape of her movements remain the same: stealth refashioned into something approaching normalcy. (She's slightly taller, too, though still dwarfed by Gabranth.)

"I will fight you." Something about him smells wrong. Like himself - like metal and leather - but also off. Laura can't quite find the words for how. "Or we can fight the targets."

[archademode]

It feels familiar, seeing her approach.

For some time, he had wondered if she’d gone entirely, cutting ties without a word. It is not a disparaging thought (or a critical one), their allegiance to this place is tied to a cause, not Riftwatch itself— or so he believes it should be: to that end, forging a new path is, at times, a fair recourse.

But he stops when she nears, lifting a hand. Wiping it across his brow, forearm to knuckles in one steady slide.

“I would not trust myself to serve as ample challenge to you now. I have been too long away from these grounds, or from battle itself.”

He’s busted, is what he’s saying.

[justashotaway]

Her first instinct is to ask are you lying to me? Gabranth is a sturdy man, one whose dedication to his swords is self-evident. He's the last person in Riftwatch Laura would ever accuse of shirking in his training.

But accusing people of being untruthful is rarely a good way to encourage further conversation - a lesson all should be aware of.

"Why?" she asks instead.

[archademode]

"I was gravely injured during the battle for Val Chevin." He almost died, is what he means, and here, one year into his stay in Thedas, he has never felt so mortal. So deeply close to the precipice of his own persisting presence.

"Recovery took far longer than I had anticipated."

[justashotaway]

Her face is rarely expressive, and now is no exception - but there's a slight tug down in her mouth, brows drawing slightly more together.

"Then I will not fight you." Though she's started trying to speak as others speak, to hide her tendencies toward formality, it feels unnecessary around Gabranth. Nothing about him is informal; it makes his presence far more comfortable to her than one might expect. "But I could help you."

[archademode]

He is a proud creature at heart. Beyond reason, in so many ways. Yet close an ally as she’s proven herself to be, it cuts the bite from his demeanor— if only enough to flatten his tone when he asks, almost warily:

“…how?”

[justashotaway]

"I could help you practice." Laura had assumed it might be obvious. For the sake of it, though, she explains further. "You will need to fight people again. I am a person."

She hopes she is, at least.

[archademode]

“So you are.” Gabranth agrees without any particular inflection; it is neither praise nor idle promise, only the certainty of truth as he sees it, unembellished.

Whether she takes it as a comfort or not is entirely up to her.

He moves, then, setting aside both his swords (propping them against a nearby outcropping) before moving to sit for a few, tepid beats, watching her all the while.

“I accept, though such an endeavor can wait a small while longer. Tell me, where have you been?”

[justashotaway]

For the moment, she makes herself take the words only as a statement. Tonight, perhaps she'll silently go over the moment as she falls asleep. But while Gabranth is with her, she will speak with him.

"The Marches," she says, crouching beside him. It's not a full answer, she knows, so she adds, "I protected people while they rebuilt things. And I helped rebuild. And I looked for things for people."

She did six months of fetch quests.

iii - combo

[wythersake]

He does not, in fact, recognize the man without his helmet.

"Do you suppose it would make you more or less accurate?"

The liquor - presumably, that's what Isaac's lifting to inspect. His voice is pitched to be heard, but the grunt and clang of impact would serve excuse enough to shrug it aside. He peers into the neck of the bottle (untouched). May just walk off with the damn thing, if the stranger doesn't turn. There'll be ants at it soon.