faderift | open + closed;

Entry tags:

open + closed;

WHO: Viktor + Abby + Bastien + Edgard + Ellis + Mobius + Richard + Stephen + Tony
WHAT: catch-all for November
WHEN: now, kind of, but also whenever
WHERE: around the Gallows, particularly the library and Research division workroom
NOTES: Open to all/any, wildcards and tweaks welcome. Will match tag format. Content warning for terminal illness in some threads; will avoid on request. Also!! Hit me up if you want to share a job.

Nighttime cracks an eye to gloaming dawn, to a fog moving at a steady crawl between the Gallows and Kirkwall proper, like it's a huge vessel passing by, like it's going somewhere. Fleeing the sun, maybe. A futile effort.

Viktor likewise cracks an eye, two eyes, squints through a fog receding. He raises his head, wipes his mouth, drags a little reading glass on a chain into the gutter and shuts the book around it. On Astrariums, the cover says. Has he ever put his head down 'just to rest' and not ended up warping at least one page with biological humidity?

Since no one's kicked him out of it—or at least had any success to date, should they have tried—this single side room on the lowest floor of the library has fully evolved into a combination office and living space. From it Viktor emerges with crazy hair and an armful of other books, squinting and snuffling and stiff, taps over to the return cart stationed nearby, and adds them to his prior deposits. He then leaves with the cart; his crutch, leaned out of the way, stays behind.

From there he moves slowly between aisles, stopping here and there to slide a book into place, or to leave it out conspicuously so someone who climbs ladders can put it back where it lives. Once in a while he'll pause with a hand on the shelf to yield to a coughing fit, or else to wait for some other silent thing to pass, before moving on.

No one asks him to do this, he just does it.

Other times, he may be found on any library floor, or back in his ('his') little side room, either busy at the table, or asleep on the settee. (Or asleep at the table. Again.) The door is often open, sometimes left unlatched and open a crack.

On rare occasions he may be found on the library's stone balcony, either sitting alone on a bench (also stone), or leaning on the balustrade (is anything not made of stone here) to look out over the sea, nursing some private melancholy.

Later, when the tower begins to sound like it's waking up, Viktor makes the climb to the seventh floor and assumes his spot in the Research workroom. Settles his bony backside on the stool. Spins a dry pen around his thumb while he thinks.

It looks like he's pondering some deep mystery; what he's thinking, really, is that it's annoying that no one exists here who can check his work on this page or the pages beneath it. (Annoying, upsetting, a constant low ache.) No one needs to check that half of his work. It's fine. He knows it's fine. Still—

Should any be present, he might ask of someone he knows has worked with local runes,

"Can I run something past you?"

Or, of a rifter, or else anyone he's hardly spoken to,

"How well versed are you in the native runic system?"

Or it's any other day and he's just toiling away in here like anyone else might be. Coworkers will have found he tends to respond at least lukewarmly to working chatter, and that if he doesn't want to be interrupted, they won't have to guess—they'll know.

The sound of coughing follows him everywhere: a herald of his arrival, a sign of his otherwise quiet presence, a dry barking down the hall.

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The interruption comes in the form of a massive dog, sleekly muscled, spackled with scarring, who has strolled into Research offices to give it a brisk inspection, sniffing after the obvious culprit.

But seeing as the Provost is not in attendance, Raudh's snuffling circles round to Viktor's calves. A low snorting huff of breath warms the ankles, before the mabari's great squared head lifts to swing towards the door, where booted footfalls have come echoing up from the stairwell.

Hard to say if these footfalls are attached meaningfully to the beast at Viktor's feet, or simply someone passing by. Anyone's guess, surely.

Prelude to The Interruption is the sound of claws on stone; when the massive, square-headed dog comes trotting in on a mission, Viktor's already looking, paused with a polishing rag in one hand and a brass-ringed lens in the other. He's leaning to see where it's gone when workstations obstruct the view, listening, looking here and there. He's lifting his elbows when that snuffling wet nose reaches his legs, turning his knee in,

turning his attention back to the door more in less in unison with the dog.

They may even be wearing similar expressions.

Yes, there is some similarity in the pair of expressions that meet Ellis when he appears in the doorway.

A beat of quiet follows as Ellis observes them both; Viktor, who he has not seen since the temple. The glint of metal in his hand. Ruadh at his feet.

Ellis whistles softly, and Ruadh's snuffling ceases as he goes trotting back to Ellis' side.

"Is the Provost in?" isn't much of a greeting. Presumably Ruadh has managed that for them.

When Ellis appears in the doorway, Viktor's posture eases back toward a slouch; his arms ratchet down once, hesitantly, then return his knobby wrists to the bench; his eyebrows relax. After following the dog back to master's feet, legs, up to his face, his eyes drop to the rag. It isn't dismissive.

He shakes his head.

"Stepped out for the afternoon."

The rag opens a soft puppet mouth between fingers and thumb, closes over the lens, works at it slowly.

"If you have a message for him, I can take it."

"No," Ellis demurs. Ruadh weaves a circle around Ellis, butts a head into his hip before turning his attention back to Viktor speculatively.

"I'll try again in the evening. It's nothing urgent."

And it's a safe bet he'll find Tony working at some odd hour. Even with the nightmares evening out, Ellis isn't always eager to attempt weathering them. Dropping in on Tony is one of the more constructive ways to spend the time.

But this leaves him somewhat at loose ends. He weaves a meandering loop through the workbenches, considering whether or not to engage Viktor further.

It could end in silence, the pair of them simply existing together in this room for a while, each of them drifting somewhere between companionable and awkward with no clue as to where exactly the other is situated, until that time dwindles down to a natural departure... and it may, yet.

Viktor's studious attention on his project breaks for the shape moving vaguely in its periphery, raises a sideways look just shy of straining to watch without turning his head. His eye moves under the ledge of his brow, follows Ellis for three or four of his strides, drops again. He should say something, and nothing is coalescing against the oppressive memory of that stone chamber.

The goggles sitting on the bench before him, the ones he's disassembled into component parts, neatly arranged, they once belonged to Stark. Still do, maybe, in the eyes of anyone familiar—he hasn't drawn any attention to their gifting. (Who would he tell?)

They are. Familiar.

Enough so that they give Ellis pause. Ruadh has ranged forward to return to his earlier inspect, is snuffling at the hem of a pant leg as Ellis lifts a lens between careful fingers.

If he is thinking of that closed, oppressive chamber, it does not show on Ellis' face.

The lift of his eyebrows invites explanation. It's not an accusation, only mild curiosity. He is not yet worried for what appears to him as Tony's property.

At first sidelong for the closing distance, Viktor's attention makes a quiet snap, as though magnetized, to the hand encroaching on his work. His eyes track the lens, the fingers around it, until they pause... then lift to the face above, pushing his own eyebrows to an angle and sketching in creases of curiosity or concern.

Cryptic facial semaphore thus exchanged, he leans to relax the angle between the two of them—just a few more inches of space.

"They're interchangeable. The lenses."

Special thanks to the dog for chuffing around down there so his voice doesn't sound so loud in this otherwise silent room.

"I was thinking of adding a hinged loupe, for, eh..." This little gesture he's doing with his finger, near his temple, is meant to indicate flipping a lens down into position. "For adjustable magnification."

Edited (lens not wolf) 2022-12-05 20:17 (UTC)

There are limitations to Ellis' grasp on technical lingo. The bits and pieces he's picked up from Tony and Wysteria can get him so far, but if Viktor progresses past a point Ellis will quickly be out of his depth here.

But adjustable magnification is comfortably within his limitations, for the moment.

Ellis turns the lens over again in his fingers. Considers the proposal. Nods.

"Does your work require it?"

Or is it the sort of development that work tends to follow after?

"Since much of my current work is theoretical, not yet, but it's the kind of thing you miss when you do need it."

He's still holding a lens, and the polishing cloth around it, and these he sets down together. While the rest of the components are in a tidy knolling grid, arranged by similarity of size and function, this lens is relegated to the outside—he isn't finished with it yet.

"The Provost gave them to me," he says, without any excess of pride. Like pivoting his toe toward the matter of their shared experience, it's just as easily ignored as it would be to follow. "He left his fingerprints all over it... so to speak. So I'm adding my own."

Not removing, nor replacing, but building upon. The provenance of a tool is as worthy as its function.

"I see."

So that is something, the gifting of this item to Viktor. Ellis weighs it for a long, quiet moment, before setting down the part in his hand.

Ruadh has set himself down onto the floor beneath Viktor's worktable.

"He is generous," Ellis settles on, for lack of anything useful to contribute. He has no theory to impart, no particular advice as to fingerprints that might be added. "They'll suit you."

Maybe a glancing judgement as to incoming work, theoretical or otherwise.

As if that comment lands on a switch, Viktor's gaze drops at once back to the spread of components.

"Yes, well... more importantly, they'll suit the work." One of his long, pale hands finds a piece of brass, not yet polished, and fidgets with it on the cloth surface. In a moment, a gently lilting concession: "Though I don't doubt he gave the style some consideration."

Since he's, you know. Met Tony.

"Aye."

Ruadh has new leather rigging that would demonstrate that tendency, as does Ellis' knife, the enchanted shield.

"We needn't intrude on you," has the ring of apology, even if it only prompts a moment's considering pause from the inspection of Ruadh's snout. When no immediate action follows it, the snuffling continues along Viktor's book. "On the work."

They occupy some strange space, don't they? Strangers, who know too much of each other.

This may certainly be an unwelcome intrusion. Ellis suspects as much.

It isn't precisely unwelcome, but the way out is nonetheless attractive; Viktor was busy and would like to return to being so. They've hardly said anything to one another, so it isn't like they're cutting a visit too short. Unannounced visits ought to be short, anyway, in his opinion.

All the same, he abandons his fidgeting to let his hand hang down alongside the stool, turns his wrist out, opens his fingers: hello.

"It's fine," he says, while looking down at Ruadh, and he says this only because he expects to be getting back to work shortly. "A known hazard of choosing to occupy the workroom: anyone might show up at any time."

Is this an invitation?

Ruadh certainly takes it as such. Snuffling snout lifts from Viktor's boot to the proffered fingers. The lap of his tongue is light, before the beast butts his great square head against Viktor's knuckles.

In turn, Ellis draws a step closer to the opposite edge of the table. Doesn't touch anything laid out before him, but sweeps his eyes over it all the same before turning his attention to Viktor and Ruadh.

"I don't make a habit of it."

A little bit of apology.

"How are you finding it? The work here?"

It reminds him of Jude, he realizes, as he rubs between Ruadh's ears, curling his fingers in and out like a spider skating on blunt nails. Strange dissonance of thought. No, he's positive this dog is, in fact, only a dog.

"Also fine," is where he'd leave this answer were he in a worse mood. That it brings a little forgiveness along in its echo isn't accidental; his being here isn't anyone's fault. "It's... different, in some ways, and surprisingly similar in others. It's—"

Frustrating. Meaningless. A barren counterfeit of his own work, void of any investment or satisfaction, and he's considered flipping his workstation and screaming about it more than once just today. His reasons for not doing so: he'd have to clean it up, he'd probably hurt himself trying to lift the bench, and it isn't the goggles' fault either.

"Everyone's been very welcoming."

Edited 2022-12-11 04:26 (UTC)

Ruadh isn't only a dog, he's a mabari—

Is what Ellis would say, if given opportunity.

Presently, however, Ellis is only settling fingers delicately at the edge of the bench. His inspection of the lens aside, habit dictates touching nothing in a workspace unless invited.

"What is similar?" he asks, quiet curiosity condensed into the simple query. Rifters speak so often of things that at different, or missing. Never of things that might be the same.

"The runic system, its role in enchantment. That lyrium makes it possible. Lyrium itself, actually."

Viktor gently grasps an ear, works at the loose skin behind it. If mabari are anything like the mere dogs he's met, he reckons this will go over well—and it gives him something to do while they talk. He's never more comfortable than when his hands are somehow occupied.

"It shares a number of properties with the stones we had at home. That includes the colour, which I found striking, initially. Blue," he adds. "Only blue. If there were any variants, we hadn't discovered them."

He's still waiting for the past tense to stop being so acutely painful, and hoping it doesn't show in the meantime—or that if it does, it might be attributed to discomfort brought about by any of his visible infirmities.

Why wouldn't it be painful, speaking of a home that is so far removed from him? Ellis doesn't question the possibility of homesickness. Viktor has not been here so long, and Ellis is prying after something he must miss.

And he is also aware he is not quite the best conversational partner for this. Wysteria and Tony would be, but here is Ellis, the only person at hand to try and get a hand around the topic of enchantment and magical properties and lyrium.

"The Provost will find it interesting," is what Ellis offers, honest. "I know little of runes, other than what they've explained to me."

And enough of lyrium to disapprove of experimenting with it, but that's neither here nor there.

Yes. Precisely neither here nor there. Completely irrelevant to anyone involved in this conversation.

"Eh, they're not so complicated. If you've learned to read and write, you're already familiar with the concept. We combine symbols, letters, to communicate ideas, yes? And those combinations are specific—certain sequences of letters carry a certain meaning. It's much the same with runes. In forming an operative sequence, you're essentially spelling... well. Spelling a spell."

Hearing himself speak that phrase aloud—it snatches his belly, pushes a soft laugh out of him, all breath through the nose.

"Stupid," he says, quiet. Fond. "Anyway. You didn't come here for a lesson."

He pats Ruadh's shoulder, then sits himself up in a momentary stretch, teasing better posture before immediately slipping back into the slouch.

An aggrieved sigh from the abandoned mabari, who remains sat, expectant, at Viktor's knee.

"I've no magic," Ellis tells him. "But it's not uninteresting to hear you describe it."

And he is not wholly without reference. He's had years, listening to Wysteria and to Tony. It's left more of a mark than even Ellis realizes.

"Is that what you intend with your work? To write magic?"

"To translate. The runes here are different than," than the ones he chose to keep, which the knot in his belly has been persistently reminding him since then, "than those I worked with at home, visually, but there are functional similarities. He did find it interesting... the Provost. He's encouraged me to compare the systems and find out if the... if the magic here will recognize a foreign symbol as a, a guideline for its behaviour."

He seems satisfied with his own simplification of the idea. More or less.

"So that's what I'm doing. Not— now, obviously, this is just," his vague gesture says, you know, it's whatever.

It satisfies Ellis, for the moment. At first blush, it seems unlikely to be the kind of work that leads to dosing rifters with lyrium, or creating rapid-spreading grease fires.

A nod. Alright, yes. He understands.

A second nod for the work in front of him. Yes, whatever.

"I see."

Ruadh's great block head has settled at Viktor's knee.

"Have you started yet?"

The runes. Not the goggles.

"Oh, yes. I got started soon after we discussed it."

That same evening, in fact, through the night—including a token effort at rest, as if it had any chance against the interminable churning of his mind—and into the day following, until he came up against a wall of post-breakfast carb fatigue, lay down 'for a second' and finally passed out with an open book on his face.

"Experimentation is right around the corner. I've already fabricated the test items to the extent that I could on my own—I'm just waiting for a particular artisan's schedule to open up. Of those willing to produce experimental enchantments, I'm told her work is least likely to explode."

Inevitably, without much thought behind it, the idle kneading of his fingertips resumes where it left off. Water runs downhill, hand returns to dog: it's the law.

Experimentation sparkles a slight prickle of wariness. Perhaps unjust. He knows very little of Viktor, hardly enough to judge what sort of attitude he brings to his work. Is it fair, to set Viktor so immediately alongside near every scientist Ellis has known?

"Who is the artisan?" is what he asks instead.

Would Ellis know the name? Maybe, maybe not. He has been in Kirkwall for some time, has heard Wysteria speak at great length on the merits and flaws of most practicing artisans in the city. Maybe he can be of use.

Ruadh is content, regardless. Ellis could leave him here, if this conversation winds to a close and Ellis is let without reason to linger.

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grindset - 2023-01-21 06:05 (UTC) - Expand

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open + closed;

workroom.

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