open + closed;

[grindset]

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.

Comments

[armd]

"I'm not going to drop you," she replies patiently, frowning to herself- what does she look like, an asshole?

(Maybe...)

Either way Viktor has plenty of time to make his descent. Abby doesn't have a problem lowering him slowly until he's able to get his braced leg onto the ground for some semblance of balance. Of course, he's free to put a hand on her shoulder too to better situate himself first. It's no bother. Besides, he can repay her in kind by answering some potentially invasive questions Abby has gathered up since she came face to face with his braced leg.

"Did you build that thing yourself?" She has gathered that yes, he did. But she wants him to talk about it so she is casting out bait.

[grindset]

Were he inclined to touch her or anyone else with his hands, he would; he isn't, and so does not. The shelves will do. He does mistakenly hook the tops of a few thick spines with his fingers, and so nearly dumps them on Abby's head, but a spark of good reflex pushes them back in before they fall, and he wipes the yikes from his face completely before it reenters her eyeline.

Both feet steady, brushing the dust from his hands, he offers in reply a semi-blank look that lasts only as long as it takes his attention to rejoin them on the floor. His hand, then, rejoins the cart.

Off a glance down, "Eh, yes, I did. This is the third iteration."

[armd]

They have almost completed shelving the full cart, now. There is little reason for her to remain here other than to bug him with questions, which Viktor doesn't seem to mind anyways, because he continues to answer them very patiently.

"Do you add little improvements every time," Abby says, her eyes brightening, a warning sign for fast approaching bad humour, "Cup-holders? Does it clean itself?"

[grindset]

That nets Abby an instant of flickering surprise, then a glimpse of his smile as he turns it away, the rest of him following. The restrained urge to laugh pushes a longer breath through his nose. This isn't some heh or a wry huff—those are no less authentic than anything else he does, but their topics were an arm's length away. This one lands closer, stirs up vestigial reflex. (He was a shy child. Quiet.)

"Maybe next version," he says, and leans into pushing the cart. "After the headlamps."