open.

[luaithre]

WHO: Marcus Rowntree and you
WHAT: We don't talk about fight club, or poor coping mechanisms.
WHEN: Throughout fantasy-August
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: A series of open prompts regarding violences and also just normal drinking, and a place for closed stuff as you like!

There are a few incidents that take place after Marcus misses the ferry back to the Gallows (only the first time by accident).

He joins a card game, once, nearly barred from doing so when he arrives and sets down the mage staff by his seat. He hasn't a lot of coin on him, but without much thought, he undoes the clasps of his jewel-set cufflinks and drops them among the gold, and later, the silver pin that holds his tie. Maybe it's a miscalculation, on his part: being a mage, and a man who dresses as he does at this little low-stakes corner of Lowtown, gambling with people's working wages and his finery, but he ignores the slow building of resentment as he continues to drink and continues to win, until he has no more spare funds with which he can raise, or with which to buy more whiskey.

It only goes awry when he goes to buy himself out, a hand catching his sleeve as he rises. Accusations of cheating, perhaps with magic, who the fuck could know. There's a world where he finds a means of deescalation, but in this one, he simply shoves this man hard enough to upend the table. And falls on him, furious.

The most he wins is blood and bruises. Perhaps you're there to break it up, or later, when he leaves the tavern, hands empty.

The next few times there's a scrap, he starts it. It doesn't often take much. Just one civilian whose eye snags on him long enough to be asked if he has something he'd like to say, or a snarl in the direction of a body brushing too closely past him. Marcus is not a seasoned brawler (although you could make the argument that he's getting in some practice), and loses just as much as he succeeds, if success is what you could call hitting someone harder than they care to themselves.

Find him standing up over whatever poor random drunkard caught the brunt of a temper that had little to do with him, or Marcus sinking still when the next blow catches him across the temple, splitting his vision into double. Or in the midst of it, the grim tangle of blows in a tavern full of yelled encouragement.

Once, a fight that doesn't get far. The tangle of fists, elbows, and snarling is dispersed with the ill-advised summoning of smoke and embers, catching both Marcus and his attacker (his target) in a gust of magical but nevertheless firepit-filthy smog that has the latter shove away the former.

He is very efficiently ejected from the tavern, this time, when two barflies just fearless enough manage to get involved and shove him out into the street, and toss his staff out after him, which clatters loudly on the stone. You could find him at that very moment, off-balance and moving to collect it, or a few minutes later, throwing up his dinner in a side-alley, only just avoiding his boots.

Not every evening spent late ends in violence, however. Most of them, even. There's one little Lowtown den that tolerates his presence, where he sits at the edge of a bar and pushes silvers across it to keep a steady supply of ale flowing in his direction.

Comments

[bouchonne]

The thing is: Byerly doesn't care for Marcus. He has a fairly solid foundation for believing that Marcus doesn't care for him, either. And yet there are things that are far more important than liking, such as the universal rule that if you see some fellows you don't know beating up on a fellow you do know, you don't just let it happen.

And so: when Marcus is being set on by three fellows, and one of those fellows has gotten a hold of Marcus in order to hold his hands out of the way so his friend can sock him solidly in the stomach, Byerly comes up behind that man to grab his shoulders and bring his knee up into his balls.

Marcus is released at once. Not that the fight is over - but it's now two-on-two, because the man Byerly hit isn't getting up again any time soon.

[luaithre]

Three fellows is too many fellows.

The blind rush of adrenaline does not let up with sudden clarity, or anything, Marcus has had too much to drink for that, but there is something. A shift. Hands clasping, gripping, and then his next movement is a struggle, and it doesn't break that hold of him. Blackly bitter, an undercurrent of animal fright at what he knows bone-deep will come next when outnumbered, and then,

it does not happen, and he is freed with enough of a jolt that he staggers forwards. Into the man mid-wind up, who has to change course into a clumsy grapple. Marcus claws on stronger, nearly by chance, and hauls him aside hard enough that his opponent trips over his own ankle, catches himself painfully against the bar.

Marcus turns, seeing first someone now curled on the ground, groaning, and clapping eyes on Rutyer is enough of a surprise that he just sort of stands there stupidly for a second.

[bouchonne]

And Byerly's response to Marcus' stare is, simply, a little half-smile, a half-shrug: what are you going to do?

And then he turns his attention to the third man. It is perhaps a bit of a surprise, given Byerly's effete manner and elegance, that he's a scrapper. But he is. An elbow is slammed into a throat, and when Byerly's target staggers, thumbs are jammed into eyes. It's brutal and unforgiving - the product, no doubt, of many a bar fight of his own.

(It's not surprising to find that getting into a barroom brawl actually is considerably easier when you're sober. There's a lot, Byerly is finding, that's easier when you're sober.)

Marcus' opponent is bouncing back. He's hobbled and off-balance, though, because he turned his ankle when he was tripping. He tries to throw a punch at Marcus, trying to take advantage of the man's distraction.

[luaithre]

The lurch and loom in his periphery is enough to snag Marcus' attention, turning in time to see the wide swing. He jerks back away from it, only taking the barest scrape of the full brunt of it across the face, and then both hands latch onto the man's collar, his shoulder.

When most mages cast magic, it is usually an elegant thing, more dance than fight. There has always been an element of labour in his own casting, as if physically drawing power from the Fade with his hands and not just the ineffable quality that separates mages from not. The same is true of a brawl, the deliberate work of it, making up for a lack of skill with, well,

more hateful force than most are prepared for. His knee slams deep into this man's gut, his hand comes down on the back of his neck to keep him half-folded with a hard punch across the edge of upturned face he can see. Marcus almost follows the force of it himself but just keeps his balance as the man buckles to hands and knees.

Great. He kicks him hard enough to knock him down the rest of the way. The temptation to do it again flashes electric across his expression.

[bouchonne]

“All right - “

Byerly’s hand hooks on Marcus’ elbow. A little twinge of anxiety curls in his gut when he does - never surprise a mage has been one of those principles that’s kept him alive into his thirties - but Marcus’ posture makes him think that if he doesn’t intervene this man is going to lose an eye at least.

“Sorry for the damages,” Byerly sings out to the room in a thick Orlesian accent. “Please, write to the Duc d’Orsay for reparations.”

And then, if Marcus will allow it, he’ll draw him away, out into the street.

[luaithre]

No one is immediately set on fire when Byerly grabs Marcus' elbow, but he can feel a twitch of coiled strength as an embodied protest. A protest, though, that starts and stops, and he steps back from the downed man on his own volition by the time Orlesianly pronounced apologies are being sung out, breathing in a hard breath. Convincing himself that the fight is over.

And then, motion. It is the absence of a strong alternative that has Marcus cede to being drawn away further, drawn all the way out, and when the air is clearer to his senses and he feels gritty stone road under his feet instead of smooth wooden board—

A step away, an attempt at shaking free of any remaining grasp that by the time he thinks to do it, it may hardly be necessary.

[bouchonne]

Indeed it is. The corollary to don't startle a mage is when you're able to stop pissing a mage off, do so - and so Byerly's hand is on Marcus only enough to make sure he's steady on his feet. When he pulls away, By lets him go.

The man is drunk; that much is clear. But is he so drunk that he'll need to be seen to? Or can he take care of himself?

My life certainly would be easier if you'd caught a knife to the heart in that fight, you know, you son-of-a-bitch. You Maker-damned liability.

"There's a decent inn not so far from here," By says, sounding reasonably cheerful. "Should be fine for sleeping it off. Come - I'll get you a room."

[hornswoggle]

As John's habit is to frequent Lowtown's many drinking establishments for his own purposes after a day's work, he is inevitably made aware of Marcus' escapades. There is no prompting required, only the association that ties them.

One of those mages from Riftwatch, Mister Silver, finely dressed he was and making trouble at the gambling tables, perhaps you've heard—

Not necessarily something John needs involve himself with, but it is an occurrence that draws him inevitably into its orbit.

Which is why, at the end of a long evening, Marcus finds himself with company at the edge of the bar. John is not required to push a coin across the sticky surface before a drink is placed before him. It goes untouched, for the moment.

"You've been having a string of questionable luck," John says, by way of introduction. "I heard you knocked out one of Spiros' teeth a few nights ago."

[luaithre]

Marcus has heard that uneven gait unique to Silver enough times, now, that he processes the prospect of company before it has fully settled next to him. Has not yet decided how welcome he considers it, though, and doesn't shift very much out of his lean, hand spidered over his cup. There is mottled bruising decorating across the bony ridges of his knuckles, a recently healed over cut across the middle. Likely not from this evening.

"I don't know who that is," he says, lifting his tankard to drink from. John heard, is information he isn't too deep in his cups not to notice, if slightly on a delay.

Grimly satisfying. "Unless he owes me some winnings."

[hornswoggle]

"He'll be easy to mark, missing one of his front teeth."

Ha ha. (For everyone but Spiros.)

Does he own Marcus anything? Maybe, maybe not. The list of offended parties had been only conveyed to John in the loosest terms, without much clarity on the allotment of coin involved other than it had been a fair amount and worth objecting over.

The obvious question hangs in the space between them. John doesn't ask it. Not yet, anyway.

"Are you intending on taking the ferry back tonight?" is a different one, small talk while John considers his own cup, the cup in the glass and crack in the stem.

[luaithre]

There's no sense of satisfaction from Marcus at the news or the reminder of this disfigurement. Looks away, even, and then raises his cup to drink from it in a long determined pull. Not quite enough to finish, that welling sense of bitterness forcing him to set it back down.

And consider the question. Is he intending to take the ferry back tonight.

He thinks first of the ferry, the uneasy wobble of its journey across the black waters, only barely tolerable when he is sober. He thinks of the room awaiting him, the likely little flickers of, what, concern? In the expressions of those he lives with. Perhaps worse. Irritation, exasperation at his state. A shared glance.

He stops that train of thought before it can become even more maudlin, as he is currently not drinking alone. Plenty of time for that later.

"No," Marcus answers, now fishing his purse out of his pocket to check what coin he has. "I'll find a room somewhere."

[hornswoggle]

A beat of quiet. Just considering the answer, knowing that Marcus certainly has people waiting for him in the Gallows. And certainly needs no reminders of, so John instead offers—

"Can I make a suggestion?"

Difficult to say whether or not Marcus will be inclined to accept any input on the conclusion of his evening's activities.

[luaithre]

The click of coins in leather is not excessive, nor is it destitute. He is not quick to empty it of further funds for further drinking, curling his fingers back around it as Silver's question pulls his attention.

A shuttered blink, a nod of his head. Go on. Only faintly wary, when the suggestion comes with the request for his consent to it.

closed to petrana.

[luaithre]

There's an almost finished candle on the bedside table, which he lights by twisting the wick between his thumb and forefinger. The wooden floor is swept but not exactly clean, and he barely sees what he's doing as he gets his boots off, lets them drop wherever. Shucks away his coat. Fishes his crystal out of a pocket.

No telltale gleaming from the crystal of unheard messages. Good. Also bad.

He is not in his quarters in the Gallows, but a small room in an inn closest to the docks. There are two beds, and he sits on the edge of the one that bows the least, closing his eyes to the queasy spinning his vision is doing. The clash from earlier this evening sings aches across one side of his ribs, the corner of his mouth. Lucky. Lucky nothing's broken, stolen. Lucky no one had a knife on him. Lucky because he is being careless, or else he would not need to be.

Serious thought is given to dropping the crystal by the candle and rolling over to sleep, having already alerted someone on duty that he would be staying out. Instead, he summons someone familiar.

"Are you awake?"

[ipseite]

It is late enough that it wouldn't be unusual, even for Petrana, if she were— to have finally extinguished her candle and set aside her work and gone to bed, because even she has to sleep, eventually. It is not so late, however, that he's likely to be all that shocked by the distracted, quite alert—

“I am nearly done,”

which likely means she is not only awake but also still in her office, and not yet aware he is not waiting for her where she left him.

[luaithre]

If he were in the Gallows, he might alter his trajectory, return from the shift he must have been on to stop by her office, coax her away from pages that he thinks can wait. Or, if it's one of those evenings, bring with him a tray of hot tea, offer momentary conversation and a shared cigarette, before leaving her to it.

Sitting quietly, he turns the crystal over in his fingers, feeling and noting dully some regret before that sinks down too.

"It's late," Marcus says, and then instead of leaving it there, he adds, "The ferry's have stopped for the evening, so I've a room at the docks."

[ipseite]

The next response comes at a delay, then, the sound of her breathing — out — and considering her words before she says, ever so neutrally, “Oh?”

as if she requires more of an explanation, and cannot draw her own conclusions.

[luaithre]

"Aye."

And maybe that's the end of the conversation, or would be with most, but— "I had a few drinks and I lost track of the time. If you can tell Julius," because he'd rather not do this a second time, one of those quirks of their arrangement, and also, to clarify, "that I'll see you tomorrow."

[ipseite]

“I can do that,” she says, but it's audible, the way she's deciding whether or not she likes that. “I've business in Kirkwall on the morrow,” after a moment. “Shall we meet in the morning, then, and have breakfast?”

And he can tell her about his exciting evening.

Heyo better late than never

[overharrowed]

Julius is aware that some of his worry for Marcus isn't about Marcus at all. Some of it is about being ambushed by Templars, waking to find Marcus gone and Kevin hurt. It's about the knot is his chest that only loosened when Tsenka visited his dreams and said Marcus was alive, and that didn't completely let him go until he could see for himself that she'd been right. It's about the marks on Marcus's wrists when they found him.

It isn't reasonable to never let Marcus out of his sight. He's a grown man who can handle himself. Julius has told himself all this many times. But the impulse to keep close is still there.

Ironically, though, he isn't actually following Marcus this particular night. He'd consolidated a few errands in Kirkwall proper, the last of which brought him to Lowtown. He's frustrated now, as what he'd thought to be a lead turned out to be a dead end. A drink seems like a good idea, and he has time before the ferries stop. When he ducks inside the tavern, he's not particularly thinking of seeing anyone he knows at all.

and never late

[luaithre]

A grown man who can handle himself has lost sense of when the ferries stop.

There'd been a card game, one that did not end in bursts of violence, upended tables. Marcus seems to have more of a talent for attracting fights when he's winning, and tonight he'd held out long enough to lose more money than he'd planned, but not so much that he started shedding jewellery. It's been only cheap whiskey, then, cheap for its terrible taste but not for its potency.

It's late, he knows that, and he ought to get a room before long. So Marcus is rising from his seat at end of the bar, knocking the chair enough that it nearly tips over—or thinks it will, anyway, preventing it with a quick hand laid over it. He collects up his coat, in time for the barkeep to shout out in his direction that he still owes for his last drink.

"I don't," is quieter, but pitched enough to be heard, distinct Starkhaven vowel sounds (thicker, tonight), and characteristic roughness (rougher, too) doing the work to snare Julius' focus.

[overharrowed]

The motion of the chair catches his eye first, but the voice would have snagged his attention even without. He's moving to intercept him before he can have the thought that maybe such an interception won't be welcome. In turn, Julius is hard to miss; he's not in robes, but his staff is on his back and even without it he's a little taller and a bit cleaner than the average patron. Marcus will have a chance to see him coming, assuming he still has enough awareness of his surroundings to look.

[luaithre]

Marcus does, also, stand out some in this kind of establishment. Even his work clothes are formed of nice fabrics, modest flourish, coordinated colours even if this isn't difficult to do in greys and darker greys. His own staff is resting against the bar, somewhat comical with its sword edge and black iron. He had removed his necktie some time ago, and the edge of it trails out of a coat pocket.

His focus is still hazily pitched towards the barkeep as he slowly puts his coat back on, who is making an argument that he had neglected to pay for his last drink, spoken with the confidence of someone who certainly has ways of extracting coin out of a stubborn patron.

Marcus, currently, is doing the math on how much he objects, and the manner in which he might do so, a tense set in his shoulders only beginning to develop by the time the familiar shape and movement of Julius approaching him has him pivot. The look that splashes across his expression is—startled? A cousin to it. Not only of someone who didn't expect to see someone else, but perhaps had planned not to at all.

He also says, "Julius," not very intelligently.

[overharrowed]

"Yes," as if he'd made it a question. "I can buy your drink," to the bartender, "how much did you say he owed?"

It's not that he is blind to the fact that Marcus may be right; maybe he is being double charged, for all Julius knows. But he tends to think a generous tip, an apologetic smile and leaving is an excellent plan for avoiding trouble. Easier to sort out whatever's going on somewhere more private. (Julius does have the habit of taking charge, and sometimes it is more charming than other times, presumably.)

He'll work out what Marcus's expression on seeing him means later, too.

[luaithre]

It's disorienting, first, the rapid coiling tension of incoming conflict left to stand idly by and seize in on itself while the barkeep switches his focus. Marcus' expression shutters up, but not without tells; tension set in at the corners of his frown, a restless dropping of his eyeline to the edge of the bar as he collects up his staff in its holster, slings it over his shoulder.

It isn't much coin at all. Some cheap variant of whiskey, certainly not selected for its taste, if Julius is familiar with his liquors if not able to make a judgment as to its pricing.

The coins are handed over, the barkeep kind of grunts a thanks, and—

Movement, a creak of floorboard under boot heel, as Marcus is moving along behind Julius in a door-wards trajectory.