catchall

[nonvenomous]

WHO: Richard Dickerson, friends, enemies, and neutral parties
WHAT: Closed starters, hmu if you want some Dick. Wildcards ok.
WHEN: Before Antiva, during Antiva, after Antiva.
WHERE: Thedas
NOTES: Long overdue for some CR building, ping me if you want to scheme out a reason for them to hang or hit me with a wildcard.

Comments

[kantikoy]

There's the sound of someone approaching, and then the quiet sound of something being moved away from the door and after a moment, it opens to Adrasteia frowning up at him softly, wrapped in soft, heavy robes with bare feet and long hair undone from it's daily braids. Her staff is by the door, but not in hand.

"Hello." She's still not sure if she should address him as 'Silas' or 'Richard', after his gift to her for Satinalia was signed with the former name. Something they probably should have spoken about by now, but. "Have you missed the ferry?"

Thot gets a gentle petting before she moves from the door. "Come in."

[nonvenomous]

“Sorry.”

Hello. Yes, he did miss the ferry. The line of his mouth crooks sidelong, self-reproach softened by relief for his having found her here at home.

Thot slides all silk and bones beneath her fingers, purring, pleased for the attention from bat-like ears to the cord of her tail. She doesn’t wait for an invitation either, happy to slip herself in around Adrasteia’s ankles as she goes.

Silas is more polite. He also smells worse, wine sharp on his breath, drying ale blotted across one pant leg. An errant trace of piss stings in there somewhere when he turns to close the door after himself, fumbling dimly (helpfully) after a lock before stepping aside to let Adrasteia rearrange her own door to her liking.

[kantikoy]

"Whatever for?"

The item that goes before the door is a small stepstool with a bell in the center beneath its platform. She's too short to reach the door's peephole on her tiptoes, and the use of an object before the door, especially one that sounds a slight alarm, means she sleeps a little easier.

This is Lowtown, after all.

"I would rather you come here than sleep rough in the street." She does wonder if the poor man ever isn't near to drinking or just finishing with it, though she supposes that announcement made with Wysteria he was probably sober for. She also supposes that's an unkind sort of thought.

[nonvenomous]

“Imposing.”

But he’s not so sorry that he didn’t turn up here, conscious choice acknowledged with a turn of his palms out open away from his sides. Tatty as he is, Lowtown streets are dangerous for a lone Rifter. And inns pull coin from his pockets that’d be better spent on maintaining his wardrobe.

So.

Here he is.

Staying put near the door, following her lead, proverbial hat in hand.

Thot, again, has no such compunctions and is already crawling her belly over some cushion or pillow or other piece of furniture she took a liking to the last time she was here.

“I never asked you why you decided to leave the Gallows.”

[kantikoy]

She smiles and shakes her head a little at his posturing. His answer. No, not imposing, not in her mind. She was awake and he is here, and that is fine.

Thot climbs onto one of the various heavily cushioned seats in the main room and Adrasteia leads Silas in that direction, where there is a fire merrily going along, a book open in one of the chairs, and tea on a small side table.

"Privacy." She makes her way toward the tea, reheating the teapot with a hand pressed flat against its side. "I'm... seeing someone, and I felt that the shared walls of the Gallows were not the best for that endeavor."

[nonvenomous]

“Mm,” says Silas, thoughtful acknowledgement as he follows behind. If he were sober, that’d be the end of it.

Thot has claimed a seat and he hooks her up into his arms to take it for himself as a matter of course, man and cat folded in together, her long legs draped slack across the crook of his elbow, eyes narrowed to contented slashes of green before the fire.

“Congratulations.”

The crook to his mouth returns once Silas has settled in, a shade more salacious this time. Something about the slant of it, sidelong. Congratulations on your too-noisy-for-the-Gallows-sex-life.

[kantikoy]

There's a denial on Adrasteia's lips — it wasn't about the sex so much as Adrasteia's concern that someone would see Sidony's frequent visitations to her room and come to the correct conclusions — but it wasn't not about that, so.

It dies there, and she blushes instead.

She could ask him a personal question, like 'do you have anyone here?' but she knows the man well enough now that she recognizes it would not necessarily be a comfortable conversation for him.

Instead she just pours him tea and hands him a cup.

"Thank you." A breath, as if she were to say something else, and then a little shake of her head.

[nonvenomous]

“Thank you.” For the tea, which he has to shift Thot over to reach out for. For tolerating him turning up in the middle of the night to rib her. For being patient and kind and -- perhaps presumptuously in advance -- for her discretion.

It’s all a lot of sentiment for one snake and he’s still deep enough in his cups to be caught up in an aimless muddle between them.

“Good tea,” he says. And, in lieu of elaborating on his permeating relief for what must qualify fully as a rescue at this hour and in his condition: “Were you going to say something?”

[kantikoy]

"Yes, I..." A soft frown, as she rethinks what she wished to say. Some sort of warning, perhaps, that Ellis would not likely become willing to initiate him into the Grey Wardens. She's not sure, anymore, if admitting that would be a good idea. Perhaps a thought best left for the morning's light, as opposed to now. "But I think it can wait, actually."

She gives a little shrug and pours herself more tea.

"I am curious, though: why do you still stay in the Gallows? For housing, I mean."

[nonvenomous]

A wary pinch at his brow marks some suspicion over the nature of whatever has gone unsaid, his capacity for insight less impaired than the rest of him. Bad news.

It’s easy to agree in this case that it should wait; he doesn’t press the issue. It’s late. He’s beat. Every part of him feels heavy against the seat he’s sunken into. The inkblot flop of his cat is palming biscuits wherever her cold beans can reach.

He breathes out, a great puff of air pressed out flat under his mustache and over the rim of his cup. This is what letting go looks like -- a physical dropping down to the question she’s asked in return.

“If there is another incursion I’d rather be in the Gallows in a position to assist than stranded across the bay.” Provided he isn’t locked up in the infirmary healing from whatever other drama. “It’s also safer there. For a Rifter.”

He sips by way of punctuation.