faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

Entry tags:

MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

WHO: Everyone (more or less)
WHAT: A trip to Rialto, in pursuit of convincing Antiva to give up its famed neutrality, just this once, pleaaaase.
WHEN: Cloudreach/Bloomingtide 9:48
WHERE: Rialto, Antiva
NOTES: OOC post here. Remember to use warnings in your subject lines for gore, sexual content, or anything else people might not expect to find while casually reading this log on a work computer.

YOUR DESTINATION

Rialto is Antiva's second city in importance and in population, but in many ways it is first in sheer Antivanness. When foreigners imagine Antiva, they often conjure images of graceful bridges arching over turquoise canals, lovers on a romantic gondola ride serenaded by a soprano's aria, fiery young men in vibrant leathers dueling for the honor of their houses in the piazza while down at the docks pirates share tales over bowls of seafood pasta. All of this is to be found in Rialto. While Antiva City is a teeming, bustling center of world commerce, with all the clamor and diversity that creates, Rialto is popular more with the city's uppermost classes than its vast mercantile middle, particularly the old aristocracy who prefer Rialto for its relative peace and its proximity to King Fulgeno's favorite residence. This is not to suggest that Rialto is a Hightown without any Low—like all major cities, for every palazzo-lined canal where the wealthy rest are ten more waterways packed with delivery boats and shops and taverns of every degree and description, from the broad spans edged with rows of fashionable tailors and jewelers to narrow, winding alleys of water overhung by leaning buildings of smoke-stained stucco. The docks, though neither as large nor as busy as the capital's or Kirkwall's, are still large and busy by any other measure, packed with merchants and sailors and fishermen, along with some who—uniquely common in Antiva, a kingdom founded by pirates—skirt the line between honest seamen and buccaneers.

Antivans will argue it's always a good time to visit their country, but everyone else agrees that spring is the ideal. The weather is consistently mild and pleasant, warmer than Kirkwall but without yet edging into the heat of summer the way it is in Tevinter to the north. In the city's parks and piazzas, flowers and shrubby add a few splashes of greenery and warm breezes send occasional showers of petals down from the cherry and citrus trees just finishing their blooms. Climbing flowers and arbors of grapevines are common adornments.

For the king's birthday celebration the city's elegant pale stone buildings are all decorated, with public buildings and bridges hung with bunting in the crown's favored purple and banners depicting the arms of Antiva and the royal house Campagna: a golden ship, sails unfurled, beneath a crown, the shield supported by a seahorse on one side and a stallion on the other. Along the grand canals every palazzo is bedecked in some combination of the occupant's colors and the kingdom's purple, and the theme continues throughout the city, every district finding some means to demonstrate its festive mood. The effect is only slightly diminished by the few areas where graffiti conflicts with the decorations, and Riftwatch, at least, will be pleased to see it mostly takes the form of anti-Tevinter sentiment, ranging from a scrawled FUCK THE VINTS to a few choice quotes from certain popular pamphlets and puppet plays, to a large and surprisingly skillful mural of a dragon and a caricatured merchant prince sitting together on a heap of gold playing with toy ships and dolls while behind them a fire rages.

The king's birthday is always an extravagant occasion, even more so when he hits any age ending in a 0 or a 5, as he is this year. A full week of revelry has been decreed, with each day marked by pageants and parades and games of all sorts, and every night new and fabulous parties in his honor hosted by various houses, guilds, and societies. Knowing the king's love of masquerades, many of these balls are masked, with themes ranging from House Campagna's most celebrated ancestors, to sea creatures, to all gold everything. (While fancy dress is of course always encouraged, many will simply attend in their best finery, with the intention of visiting multiple parties in the same night.) The city is lit with lanterns, torches, and even the occasional bonfire, as the bacchanal spills into the canals and piazzas each evening and continues long into the night.

YOUR MISSION

Riftwatch arrives on this scene by ship, which garners a few approval points from the merchants and pirate-descendants populating the city. The ship remains anchored in the harbor for the duration of their stay, reachable by tender and doubling as a temporary home for the selection of griffons who have accompanied them north.

Griffon riders will make the trip back and forth from the ship most often, as they'll be assigned to shifts that keep one or two of them in the air at all times, day or night. The outward justification for this is to entertain the Antivans below them; they're encouraged to fill some of the time with acrobatics over busy squares or particular parties, at times with banners and streamers to trail behind their mounts. Those with griffons who don't startle easily might be entrusted with a few fireworks to set off from the air. But the real purpose is surveillance, of course, and to serve as emergency back-up or ambulance for anyone who finds themselves caught in a tight spot and calls for help. Riders will be equipped with vials of antidotes to some common poisons, and particularly at night, anyone with healing magic or medical skills might be asked to ride along.

Meanwhile, down on the ground, a steady stream of influential merchants and socialites will want an interesting Riftwatcher or three at their dinners and private parties, each presenting an opportunity to impress upon influential people the importance of the war. These gatherings will range from stiff, formal affairs to wild bacchanals, depending on the host. Of note: a moonlit evening with a chamber quartet on Antonio Luppi's pleasure yacht, famously large enough to have a croquet pitch on the upper deck, a days-long Wicked Grace tournament with rising stakes where Marco "il Calabrone" Molinari defies anyone to beat him, and a race through the canals on gondalas owned by Antiva's who's-who. There are no rules, so finding ways–even magical or new-technological ways–to improve the odds of the more invested racers may win some favor, and a number of competitors are eager to see if Riftwatch has some arcane way to give them an edge.

Outside the city gates, on a grassy cliffside that overlooks the Amaranthine Ocean, there's a faire for the workers and peasantry. There's dancing, a series of field games (tug of war, footraces, horseshoes, wrestling, hammer throwing, blindfolded stick-dueling, mob football, and whatever the heck wallop is), a bonfire each evening, and young people goading one another into cliff diving and climbing back up, sopping wet, using stairs and handholds carved into the cliffside. While no single one of the participants is as influential as the better-heeled set hosting gathering elsewhere, it's still good politics to put in an appearance, play some games, and dispel any lingering perception of Riftwatch as a weird heretical sect or pack of wild demons.

They'll find similar opportunities scattered throughout the streets of Rialto: full tables at taverns who might listen raptly to their accounts of the war further south, minstrels and players who might be persuaded to change their tunes to whip up sympathy or anger for Corypheus' targets, and lower-level independent tradesman who might be persuaded to stop doing business with Tevinter or push for such an agreement within their guilds.

Riftwatchers who are especially active in outreach in these working-class quarters may find themselves approached quietly by representatives of I Figli Della Brace, an underground network of agitators that sprung up in the wake of Riftwatch's prior propaganda efforts and has been wreaking minor havoc by destroying Tevinter goods, carrying on the tradition of vandalism, and hassling those who do the most business with Tevinter and the Anderfels. They're loosely helmed by Vieri Fontana, who already trusts a few members of Riftwatch, and in exchange for Riftwatch's assistance with a few sneaky favors and quick but rowdy demonstrations of disobedience, they'll promise a strong showing of angry common folk outside the palace when it's most needed.

And through all of this, Riftwatch members will need to be looking over their shoulders, watching their drinks, avoiding dark alleys, keeping an eye out for snipers on rooftops, and staying wary of alluring strangers, because an untold number of Antivan Crows are out for their lives and/or anchors.

The purpose of all of this hobnobbing and sneaking around and dodging of murder attempts awaits at the end of Riftwatch's stay: King Fulgeno the Merry and all of the Merchant Princes have agreed to give a contingent of Riftwatch diplomats a moment, the day after the king's largest birthday feast, to plead their case against continuing to trade with Tevinter and the Anderfels. Winning them over would strike a significant blow to the enemy, already cut off from trade with much of the rest of Thedas, and bring Antiva that much closer to actively assisting with the war effort.

Should this meeting involve the support of a few more Merchant Princes, the dramatic unmasking of a traitor among the Princes and a conspiracy among the Crows, and shouts of support from people in the street echoing in through the windows, there's a good chance they'll pull it off.

YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS

The canal-side palazzo where Riftwatch is residing during its visit is the summer property of Merchant Prince Amancio Vivas. Unlike some questionable accommodations provided to Riftwatch in the past, Palazzo Vivas is roomy and lavish, brimming with expensive decor and labelled artifacts and comfortable seating. Anyone needing space to work or plan will find multiple nooks and tables in the library, and Riftwatch has collectively commandeered a secondary dining room (there are several) for meetings.

For those needing a break from work, actually, Palazzo Vivas is well-stocked with books and all of the necessary equipment for parlor games, plus an echoing ballroom equipped with a pianoforte. There's a cabinet of decent wine and spirits available, or a locked cellar full of the very good stuff for the particularly enterprising. The palazzo encircles a central courtyard garden with enough tall hedges and trees that someone might disappear into it. Currently it's in full bloom, including some rare night-bloomers, and at all hours bustling with some combination of insects, birds, and bats. Also featured: two small fountains and a canal-fed wading pool.

The beds, unlike most of the Gallows', involve feathers rather than straw. The sheets are soft. Everything smells like lavender. Everyone can have a bed if they're willing to share with at least one other person; those who are unwilling will find themselves on the floor or a settee.

Everyone will be asked to take on some additional tasks in the palazzo. Most important is guard duty, including some overnight patrols to make sure there are no intruders or disturbances. But as only a skeleton staff is present in the palace, idle Riftwatchers might be sent out to Rialto's bustling markets for food and supplies and/or pressed into making vats of porridge, pasta, or seafood stew to keep everyone else fed while the single cook is attending festivities elsewhere.

YOUR LEISURE

Between assignments, Riftwatch members may find moments–or even several consecutive hours!--to enjoy Rialto. Cautiously, on account of the assassins. But still. In addition to partaking in the merriment, entertainment, and games purely for fun, there are street performances to watch, gondolas to hire for leisurely floats, markets and shops stuffed with goods from throughout Thedas, bath houses, and, only a short hike or shorter griffon ride away from the city, a pristine white sand beach on a calm cove, littered with sea shells, without a single decomposing shipwreck in sight. It's not something they're going to find in Kirkwall, so no one can be blamed for wanting a peek.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Either way—

Petrana doesn't catch precisely what's happened as it happens, but it isn't so difficult to decipher from Julius's actions, especially not when she's already on such alert for these specific threats. She thinks, briefly, that Yseult had better understood than she had how useful it might be to advise someone on that alertness; how easy it might have been to have only been puzzled by his behaviour, if the context were less familiar. She hadn't entirely seen the use of what had seemed to her, at that distance, as good as telling someone, well, be careful—

It is not how she might have chosen to have her blind spots revealed to her, but in her experience no one gets to choose those things. She circulates the party a little longer, carrying her glass but not drinking from it, making idle conversation with the Mayor and commiserating with him on how tiresomely difficult it remains to get good help. A corked bottle, no less!

Dreadful.

At the earliest opportunity, she begs off with a laugh — that she must see to her companion, perhaps he has got turned around? — and waits until she is out of sight to gather her skirts up in her hands and hurry to him, producing her crystal from within the bodice of her gown and hissing into it, “Marcus, how quickly can you get to us?” on the not unfounded assumption that he won't have forgotten where she told him earlier they were going.

It won't be his job to speak to fine people and massage conversations towards their favour and sit at dinner parties for however many hours, and, thank the Maker. Marcus does not feel as though he is missing out, particularly not while he occupies his current posting that affords him a glittering view of Rialto. And it does glitter, in a way distinct from Kirkwall, and the springtime weather is mild in a way the ragged edges of the Free Marches are not.

When his crystal glows, he is swift but calm to activate it, muted at the prospect of a peaceful moment being interrupted by duty. Then, he moves, ranging back from rooftop edge towards where Monster is stretched on her belly. At the clip of his pace, she automatically gets to her feet, shaking her wings open.

"Ten minutes, or less than."

He lets the crystal hang off its chain as he steps into a stirrup and mounts his ride.

It doesn't take her much longer than that exchange to find Julius, still on his feet but a bit worryingly gray, even when allowing for the dim evening light. "Oh good," he says, clearly relieved to see her well. "I thought they might have a second gambit ready, but I couldn't figure out a way to go back in without undoing the advantages of my original exit." If he'd wanted everyone aware of an assassination attempt, he could have just knocked the wine to the floor and been done with it.

He's leaning on his staff, but straightens as she gets closer and says, "I was going to go back, but I couldn't decide whether I needed to hire a coach or if I could make it on foot." That he didn't think to call for aerial help could be the poison or could be that Julius just didn't correctly label this "an emergency" in his mind; as well as she knows him, the odds are about 50-50.

It's not that she doesn't want to scold him for those terrible odds, but that she would prefer to do it when he looks less as if the force of her annoyance might tip him over—

“Marcus is in the air,” she says, steadying him with her hands at his waist, “he'll be minutes only. I've made our excuses and apologies, and not panicked anyone. You did beautifully.” Which is true and merits saying, entirely apart from his vexatious ability to present his recklessness with himself so wonderfully reasonably. “How do you feel?”

There's relief in knowing Marcus is the one coming for them. (It will be much later he'll have the extra energy to wonder whether Marcus will tried to get him pulled from fieldwork duties somehow if he finds himself a mess enough times.) For now, he can focus on her question.

"I've been casting heal on myself occasionally, which I think is slowing whatever its up to. I admit, I'm not an expert, but it seems to be working." Granted, he can't do it indefinitely, but for the present. "I feel a bit nauseated, a little shaky, but so far on a level with a bad hangover." It was certainly going to get worse before it got better. He does add, "I thought about calling a spell wisp but I thought it might get some unwanted attention, I didn't think it had gotten that desperate yet."

“Why I have saddled myself with two men as like as not to attempt to walk off an attempt on their lives, I will never know,”

is absolutely not true. Petrana could know the answer to that very easily, with a good hard look at herself in the mirror, and for presumably obvious she chooses not to. Why tell yourself about yourself when you can do absolutely anything else.

Only when she's assured herself that he isn't likely to fall if she lets go, she rifles about in the hidden pockets of her skirts until she can find the vials of poison antidotes that they had been exhorted to carry, mentally running through a checklist of the commonplace poisons they had anticipated encountering. Cross-referencing that checklist with the symptoms he reports, and that which she can observe, and finally:

“All of this,” she instructs, opening the vial and pressing it into his hand so he can still feel like a big man who can drink his own antidote without assistance. “Now, please.”

It's probably a sign of how shaken he is that he doesn't argue, taking it and getting it down at a swallow. It tastes vile, which he half suspects is by design as an encouragement not to get poisoned again in the future.

"I should learn slight of hand. I probably could have gotten away with not drinking it at all." Or not; presumably the Crow would have been good enough to notice even if Ghio didn't. Still, perhaps not a bad skill to learn. "So you think I should have gone for the spell wisp?" he added, a weak joke off her earlier comment while his guts contract in a distracting manner.

It takes some practice not to immediately feel a kind of prey-drive response to the sounds of big wings and the shadow they create flying overhead, but Riftwatch has the advantage of being well-used to it. A few locals further down the street startle and step away before Marcus pulls Monster up with a loud flap of feathers, wheel around until he can spy two familiar figures in the shadows.

There's little in the way of subtlety when a giant-cat bird first lands on the rooftop overhang, then springs down, wings flaring to slow its fall before landing on four rough feet, paws and talons and nasty claws all round. It is not the most graceful show of it, as if the griffon were translating her rider's urgency in her own impatience.

Dressed in simple layers of leather, staff lashed alongside the saddle, Marcus doesn't dismount but stands some in his stirrups.

"What happened?" he asks, already reaching out a hand to whomever it is that needs the extraction most urgently. Not that he intends to leave either behind.

Edited 2022-05-02 01:32 (UTC)

Most urgently is clear: Petrana trades places with Julius, turning them together and pushing him ahead of her towards Marcus's reaching hand as she explains around his shoulder (over might be a stretch), “Julius took a poison meant for me — I've given him the likeliest antidote and he's been healing himself, but we had best return him to the palazzo.”

And keep an eye on him, in case the antidote doesn't serve and they need to send for a healer more urgently.

Doubtful of the space on the griffon and mindful of previous dire warnings about her skirts, she adds, “You go, and I can find another way. I will meet you there.”

Let's see how that lands.

"You're not allowed to travel alone, it breaks protocol," Julius says, instantly. He's let her guide him toward Marcus, though he reaches back to catch her hand. "Also, I doubt the Crow sent for you just shrugged their shoulders and went home for the night; you were the immediate target."

He glances at Marcus, looking for an ally. "We can all manage, surely." He's definitely see three on a griffon before. He's reasonably sure. (And he's aggressively not thinking of his first-ever griffon ride, hauled aboard by Melys in the middle of the night, urgent for other reasons than the current ones.)

Marcus is busy enacting the foregone conclusion that all three of them are leaving by griffon, taking Julius by the arm and pulling him up onto Monster's back. In front, as well, in case the poison in his bloodstream sends him into unconsciousness with no easy way to stay in the saddle. Fortunately, these beasts are even more generously proportioned than Kevin.

He takes a moment to run a strip of leather out of some buckle, an extra tether like the one affixed to his belt. It isn't for Julius, however, but held when he reaches down to help Petrana up behind him.

"She can take the three of us," he assures—or rather, his words do the work of assuring, while his tone conveys blunt-edged urgency. "Come on."

If she hesitates, it's only briefly; of course she could not travel alone, but there would be time between the two of them leaving and anyone else able to peel away and come for her, and she knows well what can happen in an all too short space of time. She is confident in her own ability to improvise an escape, if need be, but it would be—

likely less discreet. Wasteful, when Julius had extricated them from this with all the deftness of a lead dancer. She grasps Marcus's wrist and holds her skirts with her free hand, clambering up with less grace than she might like to be fixed in place behind him, reaching forward to grasp at Julius's coat, an arm around Marcus's middle to do it.

“Very well,” she assents, unnecessarily. “Don't fuss on my account, Julius, let the antidote do its work.”

Julius is fairly certain he is going to empty the contents of his stomach at least once between now and reaching the palazzo; his main hope is not getting it on Monster or any of the passengers she's carrying. In the meantime, he's holding on well enough.

"Fussing seems unkind, someone did just try to kill you," he says, without really expecting a response. "I'm ready," to Marcus, is less because he truly believes that Marcus is waiting for him to say it and more so he can pretend later Marcus wouldn't have just taken off without making sure he was prepared. He doesn't hate flying, but he does it seldom enough it hardly feels habitual.

The tether is looped backwards, circling Petrana, something that will protect her from a hard swerve if her grip loosens but won't do much if they're shot out of the sky. Still, it's something Marcus can hold onto in the same grip of the reins, Julius already half-held thanks to positioning. These are the logistical things his brain is ticking over while the people he loves gently snip at each other about how they were targeted for assassination, which is a stressful sort of background noise to think through.

"Alright," he says, more to himself than to Julius, and then kicks a heel to get Monster going.

She lets out a low whine of complaint—no griffon has a good time taking off from the ground, even less so at night, or while so burdened. But she does as asked, launching into a sudden bound that she springs back up from and into the air, a lurch following the powerful beat of her wings that begins a truly agonising ascent into the sky for virtue of how labourious it clearly is.

He has his own questions and comments, but with the single-mindedness of wanting to speak them only once they're back at the palazzo and while no one is actively poisoned.

As they launch into the air — it is thrilling, and when she is absolutely assured of Julius's safe recovery she will probably think back on this moment and think to tease Marcus at how cleverly she found an exception to his firm rule about griffons and skirts — Petrana says, “Many have tried, and yet, I live.”

Better and worse have threatened her—

and nearly all of them have failed.

Nearly,

there is a terrible moment, in the thrilling rush of adrenaline, where the ground disappears from beneath her and for a moment she feels weightless, as if she is going to rush back down and meet it, and she has really been doing very well with stairs but this is the first time that she has truly experienced a height—

She closes her eyes. Takes in a breath, and the colder air higher up pushes the tears away from her skin, and she thinks: what an excellent way to rid herself of so tiresome an anxiety. She lives, she lives, she lives. She might wear trousers, only to do this a hundred times until it never feels like this again.

"Yes, you're both very durable, and I need to stop stepping in the way of poisoners and axes," he grumbles. It has more than an hint of whistling in the dark to it, a bit more strained than a joke. He's not entirely sure if it's the poison, the antidote, or both making his stomach feel like it's being kneaded by a giant, invisible fist. Either way, being launched into the air hardly helped the situation, for all he's grateful enough for the rescue.

He is, at least, determined to stay conscious. It's probably good for the antidote's action. More realistically, the alternative seems deeply humiliating. To that end, he lapses into silence, his grip on the saddle a bit tighter than strictly necessary.

There's no response out of Marcus—not verbally, anyway. His hand moves, curls around Julius' elbow, silent assurance of some kind, and oblivious to the silent mustering happening behind him.

Flying this fast and this high is cold, the wind rush of it tearing at Petrana's skirts in brutally distinct and memorable fashion. In spite of the stillness of cool evening air, Monster works at gaining her altitude so she can then glide the last leg of the journey. Smoother, now, a soaring descent towards the courtyard of the Palazzo Vivas.

The landing is graceful, the griffon well trained to absorb the shock of it in her powerful legs. Marcus loosens the tether so Petrana can disembark, slipping down after her and insisting one of Julius' arms over his shoulders.

For a moment when they land Petrana dithers, wanting to assist and aware that the various height discrepancies will likely make any efforts on her part more trouble than they're worth— finally she sets herself instead to the task of leading them through the unfamiliar corridors to the room they've been given, sending Marcus and Julius the last stretch as she promises to be only a moment, for a healer.

She's only a moment; so is their healer, concluding that there's not much to do for Julius now that the antidote hasn't done already, besides give him water and be ready with a large bowl if his stomach should turn. That it's good if it does, but not to encourage it if it isn't happening naturally.

Her fingers itch to take notes, but it isn't as if she really needs to. Writing it down has no purpose except pretending that she's in control of it.

“Poison is a coward's weapon,” she grumbles, hitching her skirts in her fists and sitting on the edge of the bed.

"If someone had just tried to stab you, you could have dealt with it yourself and then no one else would have had the chance to look heroic at all," he says, a bit faintly but less shaken than he was before the healer looked him over. (He has had the private thought that if he'd only known it would be helpful to empty his stomach, he could have obliged in the air.)

For now, he's resting as comfortably as can be expected. It will be a bad few hours, almost certainly, but he can manage that.

"Instead," he adds, "you get yet another chance to hover over my recovery bed, something I know both of you actively enjoy." He catches Petrana's hand, but his glance slides over to Marcus, both to make sure he's near and to express unspoken gratitude. Less shaken isn't unshaken.

"I don't hover," is dryly delivered, because if he's to keep up with either of them, he must occasionally banter back.

Marcus seats himself, presently, near the end of Julius' bed, which is to his credit less hovery than the last time this configuration was endured. More relaxed by some measure for virtue of their being in some private quarters, now, and their better third present. Still, worry still strung through his posture, but it is mostly kept on lock, private, quiet. There's really nothing else to do for it.

"Perhaps the next time, you might get into trouble where I can act a little faster."

Deciding upon it being probably unhelpful for anyone to debate how successfully she might have fended off a blade—probably, Julius would still have had to step in, only with significantly less subtlety—Petrana instead tangled her fingers with Julius's and suggested, “The downside of being so obliged to divide and conquer.”

Or build alliances, or at least encourage against the wrong ones, but she is so prone to the language of conquest when her guard is down.

Probably not anything to worry about.

“Perhaps we might see about a bath.”

"Yes, alright," is truly more because he sympathizes with Petrana's need for something to do than because he feels enthusiastic about the prospect one way or another. (It probably won't be unpleasant, but it will require getting up, so he's rather breaking even.) Still, he gently squeezes her hand where she's caught his.

"If I call it something other than hovering, will it not scare you off?" he adds, to Marcus. "I didn't meant to criticize, I'm only. It feels a bit." He hesitates, unsure whether or not to voice the thought, and finally landing in favor. "It feels a bit as if I'm making bad decisions, that I end up laid out so much more. And I know it's not that, exactly, it just." He feels embarrassed, is the thing he can't quite get at; that he didn't think of a neater solution than lightly poisoning himself this time, that he didn't get the shield up quickly enough last time. That he hadn't handled things in a way that didn't put his lovers to any trouble or worry.

It's cosy, here on the bed, but rather than divest Julius the use of both his hands, he places his comfortably on his thigh, a thing Marcus does as the other man speaks, a subtle sigh leaving him. "There isn't any scaring me off," he says, "whatever you call it."

The rest is a little trickier. Julius is far too clever to be soothed by simple platitude, even if Marcus was any good at platitude, and he glances to Petrana. She has a good thought, in a change of scenery and activity, but the conversation feels as though it needs to be put to bed before they leave this one.

"You're alive," he says, settling on it. "And the risk is worthy."

Petrana softens, the shape of the expression agreement with Marcus before she even speaks, and they can both feel the slight shift of the mattress where she had been about to rise and then doesn't, immediately,

“It was exceptionally well done, Julius, I won't have you say otherwise. It is vexatious that you should be obliged to act, not that you act when you must. You would not be yourself if you did not, and I love you. For the fact that you will and do, as much as any other thing about you. If you were not handsome, you would still be clever and brave,”

a pause follows, and it is a determined effort to lighten what she thinks might otherwise embarrass him: “which is not to say that I don't appreciate, very much, that you are handsome. You both.”

The reassurance on both fronts eases him, some, for all he'll later feel a bit embarrassed that he needed it. "You like us framing you," he says, quiet and fond.

"I suppose there's no use apologizing when it wasn't really even a choice. I saw you were in danger and I intervened, just as you," Marcus, "came the moment we needed you. It's only that I'd like to land on my feet a little more often after being clever and courageous, I suppose."

(no subject)

luaithre - 2022-05-28 05:58 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ipseite - 2022-05-29 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only