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]

“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."

[luaithre]

How drunk is something Marcus is likewise working to assess. It does not happen often enough for him to be a good judge of it, his focus easily caught sharp on details—a shout from across the street, a window banging open, and then Byerly's voice—in what feels like fog. He hedges back another step, stops. Has the Ambassador been this tall the whole time?

Huh.

Fishes a hand into a pocket, takes out a cigarette case, motions slow and careful. Stops to inspect the fresh split across a knuckle from that last hard blow, and shakes out his hand with irritation. Brings the case up to remove a cigarette with his teeth.

"What're you doing here?" he asks around it, accent all the thicker.

[bouchonne]

Is Marcus drunk enough to believe it was a coincidence? Probably not. That would strain even a drunkard's credulity. A pity; it would, after all, make things go a bit smoother if that were the story agreed-upon. A man helping his comrade out of a pinch, that's all.

Ah, well. "I go out into Lowtown at times. Looking to listen to what's going on. And I heard that a member of Riftwatch was breaking some noses at a tavern down the street."

He reaches his hand out, gesturing a request for a cigarette for himself. Seeing if there's some measure of comaraderie between them that will make that kindness possible.

[luaithre]

The cigarette case is gracelessly palmed into Byerly's hand, similar unfeeling force as when you get a dog to lowfive you. (The case is cheap brass, with a crudely designed flame scratched into it.) There's no calculation in it, no real hesitation save for however long it takes for the gears to turn over and Marcus to connect gesture to request. Instinct, maybe, more reward for truthtelling than his help back there.

And some element of: this may as well happen. "You helped," is a prompt. More active than simply looking to listen, or sating curiousity.

He lights his own cigarette with a summoned ribbon of flame between his fingers, and it licks a little wilder than intended, judging by the slight jerk back of his head. Ah, no harm done. Smoke, soon to follow.

[bouchonne]

"Why wouldn't I?" is Byerly's simple reply.

But perhaps the answer to that question comes when By lights his own cigarette. He pulls out a lighter box, strikes the flint, lights it by mechanical means. Takes a deep drag.

"Come on, Rowntree." He gestures with the glowing tip of the cigarette. "Let's get you to bed. It'll make sense in the morning."

[luaithre]

The answer to this first question is so apparent that Marcus doesn't speak to it, just gives a sharp exhale in a scoff, sending curls of smoke into the air.

Taking back the case, he focuses on the task of inserting it back into his coat pocket without missing, and on succeeding, there's a step half-wandered in the direction that Byerly gestures. And the next one swerves a little as he looks to him again, an unappreciative flicker across his expression as he says, "Don't," almost a warning.

He didn't spend nearly all his money on alcohol and then get the shit kicked out of him just to feel angry at something all over again, after all. "I'm not a child." Why is everyone so fucking patronising. Why is it everyone.

[bouchonne]

It’s such an odd thing to say. Of all the complaints to make, of all the resentments lurking in Rowntree’s heart - Byerly certainly wasn’t expecting that. Does Rowntree have some hidden anxieties over being seen as an adult? Does he chafe at the lack of respect he receives? Such an odd thought.

“Indeed not,” Byerly says. Well. It seems he’ll need to sweet-talk, instead of commanding him.

“Why were you picking fights, anyway?”

[luaithre]

Whatever it is that inspired his grousing, that specific articulation of it, it's shuttered up as Byerly relents, offering nothing further for Marcus to sink his teeth into. So he moves, restarting in the direction gestured, and more for the sake of movement in itself than the fabled inn that has a room with a bed.

"Is that how it seemed?" he asks.

[bouchonne]

"Aye." Byerly ambles beside Marcus easily, trying to radiate an air of sobriety to all involved. The vague drunken shuffle of the man beside Byerly may well be a lure to pickpockets - or to cutthroats. His alertness, Maker willing, will be a deterrent to the predators on the streets.

"Perhaps they started the attack, but you chose the tavern. I hope you didn't pick this one expecting clean floors and honest barmen - if so, you must have been sorely disappointed."

[luaithre]

The first time Marcus visited Kirkwall upon his recruitment was the first time he'd entered a big city since childhood. He had, immediately, become turned around in its winding streets (only to be led back to the docks by a very drunk Matthias, so some chickens appear to be coming back to roost here—), but hadn't minded being so. He has, since, adapted better.

But not quite, not right now. Pickpockets and cutthroats don't occur to him. He is better dressed than most others in the street. He does not watch his blind spots.

"I knew where I was," he mutters, flicking ash and ember aside.

Does he owe an explanation? From the silence that clamps back down after that one grudging admission, it appears he doesn't think so.

[bouchonne]

"So then," Byerly prompts. "I must conclude you were after a fight."

Drunk men are often chatty. It's why so much of Byerly's work involves - involved - alcohol. Some, though, are little more forthcoming when soused than with sober - Marcus is, it seems, of that sort. Ah, well.

"You handled yourself well enough," he lies.

[luaithre]

Drunk men are often chatty. That Marcus falls silent to Byerly's conclusion is still an answer, unable to come up with an explanation that counters it. Or unwilling.

Personally, he already feels he has said more than he'd have intended if sober.

There's a glance sidelong for this last comment, doubtful but willing to believe it while he has had enough alcohol to ignore the bruises forming beneath his clothes. Looking, too, for a qualifier. For a mage, maybe, lurking in some ironic twitch. Mages who can cook men in their armor but haven't had a lot of bar brawls in their lives.

"It wasn't your first," is instead pushed back across the way, returning his line of sight to the road. Avoiding a puddle, walking through the next.

[bouchonne]

“First in these precise circumstances,” is the instinctual evasion. A true statement, to be fair: he has never hauled a gang of brawlers off a shitfaced mage. A technical truth.

But: it has nothing of the spirit of honesty to it, and By ought to be setting an example of being spiritually honest. So. “People tend to take exception to me.”

[luaithre]

The smoke that escapes Marcus' next breath has a flutter to it, betraying a laugh. it's a rough sound. Underused.

"Before or after you open your mouth," he says, a lazy swipe but a swipe nonetheless, not looking to see how it lands.

[bouchonne]

It elicits no offense, it appears; Byerly simply ashes his cigarette and answers, "After." And, in a slightly-less-lazy swipe of his own, he adds, "I don't wear what people might take exception to pinned to my chest, nor do I carry it in my hand, you see."

Then, after a moment of consideration - perhaps to defuse any tension that might result - he amends, "Sometimes people do just dislike my face. But that happens less than you might think."

[luaithre]

There is no particular bristling of hackles from Marcus, but less out of a sense of self-control and more simply that if there is something objectionable in Byerly's remark, it doesn't appear to register as insult. He's never been a very satisfying repartee partner for this reason, among others. Why shouldn't you wear, or bear, that which creates exception?

"I'm sure you know better than me," Marcus says, still given to speaking quietly even in this stake, but his Starkhaven brogue all the muddier for it. "But not of what I think."

[bouchonne]

"No?" Byerly asks. His tone is lightly amused. "Do you like my face?"

[luaithre]

No articulate answer, at first, just a rush of smoke through his nose, a dismissive exhale. No.

It would be easy to sink into silence, trudge along in the Ambassador's wake until something changes—an inn appearing in the dark street, or for Rutyer to run out of his sense of amusement and vanish, or for Marcus to catch onto some errant other impulse and peel away. Any one of those seem equally likely.

Instead, he speaks up again. "What I think," is what the confusion was, circling around it. "Is you're the leader of our Diplomacy division. You choose your fights. Who dislikes you."

[bouchonne]

"Ha," is his response to that. His grin over at Marcus is crooked. "Surely not. If, nowadays, I have the power to pick one fight out of every ten, I'm in a good mood indeed."

He takes a drag off his cigarette. "There were Ambassadors before me. And some of them - including one of whom you're quite fond - did not leave the position in better standing than it had been in when they assumed the role. And even if that were not the case, well." I have people like you. "I find myself often making apologies for sins that weren't mine. This sin included."

His gesture takes in everything - the evening, the environment, the blood on Marcus' knuckles.

[luaithre]

Marcus takes that in. Offers no argument, remembering (a little as if in a dream) Byerly quelling the animosity in the tavern like a bucket of water thrown over a fire, of pulling him away. Of involving himself at all. A Riftwatch mage, making trouble. He hasn't yet determined what he thinks of it, but he doesn't like it.

But all of that in a flash, distracted in something else. Nettled at merely the mention of Madame de Cedoux, perhaps, but no, not quite that—

"Would you like to do it again," Marcus says, a spark of something, and he veers to a stop, a step ahead that sort of cuts Byerly off from the straight line of his movement. "Apologise for a sin that's not yours, if you've such obligation for it."

[bouchonne]

Byerly stops as well. His expression remains mild, his posture relaxed, but he’s also powerfully aware of the fear that surges through him at that maybe-a-threat. He takes stock of his surroundings and his resources: the one alley leading into a dead end, the other leading deeper into Lowtown; the magebane in his pocket, the knives hidden up his sleeve at at the small of his back. And he thinks back to the conversation with Benedict - Benedict saying that the mages saw Byerly, more than the others, as hostile to their cause…If Marcus drunkenly decides that a new Ambassador is needed, what happens?

I die. Almost certainly.

Well. That’s fine. That’s a potential problem, and one for a few minutes from now. So: “Sure,” Byerly says easily. “I’m good at eating shit. What do you want me to apologize for?”

[luaithre]

Mild, relaxed, easy. It would probably take more intuition (and more sobriety) for Marcus to meaningfully detect fear, to clock a darting glance as a stocktake of escape routes. But all the same, his focus now set on Byerly seems to know it, the way a hostile predator has an instinct for when something might bolt sooner than attack. Maybe not particular to the Ambassador, but a general expectation.

There is a twitch of what is almost a crooked smile at the corner of his mouth. Like he might have laughed at the funny thing Byerly had said, in another life. Marcus pauses over it, glances down at his cigarette. Flicks ash. Looks back up.

"You were friendly with Madame Fitcher," he says. Serious, as if daring Byerly to mean it when he instructs, "Apologise for her." An arm raises an inch at his side. Drops. "Someone ought."

And no one will.

[bouchonne]

Another sort of apology would have been easy. Sorry for the mages, sorry for the Circles, sorry for not having been born like you - Easy.

But. But Fitcher. Fitcher, whom he misses - Fitcher, whom he hates. With all her tangled, painful history which might have been a lie told to him to exploit his open heart - but which didn't feel like a lie. And if it wasn't a lie, then the agony of that life...Wood, once burned, ends up hardened, doesn't it? Becomes a weapon?

So how is he to apologize for her? To this man? Who did not understand her, all the complexities of her betrayal - Who was fucked over by her, sure. But who had never given her some part of his heart to shred. He thinks he is owed an apology?

But. Byerly's manner remains easy enough. He lifts his hands. And he says something that is, at least, true. Something that is owed. "I am sorry," he says, "that we did not see through Fitcher. It was a failure on our part."

He doubts that will be enough for pugnacious Rowntree.