[double closed]

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Barrow, Benedict, and some incidental characters
WHAT: What They're Up To
WHEN: over the span of Wintermarch & Guardian
WHERE: Crestwood & TBA
NOTES: IC happenings from an OOC hiatus

[These are just vignettes schemed and written to entertain myself while managing a brand new human's onboarding-- not intended to be tagged, only to be read if you feel so inclined. More than ever, on account of getting not much sleep and being generally allergic to editing things I scribbled for fun, I apologize for my writing.]

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Barrow

[thereneverwas]

Sleet fell heavily on Crestwood, fog and the miserable temperature working together to produce a damp that permeated the wood and stone walls of every little farmhouse clustered in its hills. A wet, sucking sound announced the hoofbeats of a massive horse sinking deep into the muck of the road as it bore along its weighty cargo: a great hulking brute of a man, hooded and heavily cloaked against the wintry mess, an imposing warhammer strapped across his back for easy access.
Were there anyone out in the cold they may have given way for his approach, but as it was, the hamlet’s residents instead stood by their windows to watch him pass, hoes and pitchforks close at hand just in case he brought trouble with him.

He slowed to a stop just outside the Barrow farmstead, where he dismounted and looped the reins around one rickety gatepost. Going to the door, he made as though to knock, but was interrupted by the door swinging open of its own accord— or rather, under closer inspection, by the hand of a small, curly-headed child who looked up at him in guileless wonderment.
The moment lasted only a second or two, the visitor drawing in a breath to speak and immediately exhaling it again when the child’s mother swept them up into her arms, fixing him with a stare at first frightened and then, disbelieving.

“What are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly, gripping the child tightly, who continued to stare.
“Pru,” said the visitor, and, caught out, he pulled back his hood to offer a sheepish smile. “Sorry it’s… I’ve…”
While not entirely hostile, Pru’s gaze held suspicion, prepared for a trick. But she stepped aside to admit him nonetheless, giving way to the sight of two other, older children, looking on from the hearth in curiosity. Haltingly, he stepped in with her, suddenly very conscious of the mud on his boots and the rain dripping from his cloak.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he said absently, glancing about the familiar room, made unique to his sister and her family over their years of proprietorship. He was startled by a quick slap to his cheek, more surprising than painful, and chased immediately by a more tender touch coupled with the distressing sight of her dark eyes brimming with tears.
“Obie, you idiot,” she gasped, pausing to set down the toddler so she could wrap Barrow in a tight embrace; though rather shorter than her older brother, she was broad and strong and a formidable hugger.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her greying hair, clinging back with a tension wrought by decades of absence. Barrow had come home.

—————-

“You could’ve sent word.”

The statement was punctuated by the hearty plop of stew being ladled into Barrow’s bowl, which he gazed at longingly over the head of his nephew, who was sitting on his knee and hadn’t stopped staring since he came inside.
“Nobody’d come this far west,” Barrow hedged, “nobody who knew what was about, that is, what with Kinloch–”

“We assumed you were dead. Papa and I.”

Any continuing equivocations died on his lips at the sound of a tremor in his sister’s voice, her tough demeanor fleetingly betrayed by a glaze of moisture in her eyes. She ducked her head as she continued to dish stew out into the other bowls, which required significantly less focus than she was now giving it. Barrow watched her, then glanced furtively at the child in his lap, whose constant stare unsettled him almost as much as Prudence’s weakness.

“Well,” he said with a forced lightness, “...I’m not!” Perhaps he would be soon, if the night continued in this vein.

The table’s other occupants had largely fallen silent to allow their mother and uncle to chat, but one figure who sat at the head was silent in his own rite, a pleasant, vacant expression on his ancient face: Edmond Barrow, whose once robust and smiling features had given way to the crawl of age. He had been as large as his son once, but now sat stooped and frail, his curly hair whitened and his sharp eyes dim, gazing blithely at the center of the table with no more awareness of the goings-on than one might see in one of their cows.
Barrow looked everywhere but at his father, the very sight of whom sent a jolt of panic– and worse, guilt– through his guts. He had barely recognized the man, who certainly did not recognize him.

Finally serving herself, Prudence sat between the elder Barrow and her husband (a quiet and unassuming farmer who squeezed her arm in support before digging in), and fixed a gaze both exasperated and fond on their houseguest.

“Tell me about this Riftwatch,” she muttered in a low voice, pausing to look down at her food and take a bite before cutting her eyes back to him, “and then lie that you’ve missed me, you useless oaf.”
There was, this time at least, no lying to be done in either task.

Benedict [kills a guy]

[altusimperius]

The evening had begun auspiciously enough, with plenty of Antivan wine and the sort of food one orders to celebrate a day of successful subterfuge. It had been a fairly successful trip, if reliant on Benedict's bluffing to the less-informed Tevinter merchants that he was still very much his father's son and had taken an interest in his shipping business; nobody had called the bluff yet, and with his return to Kirkwall imminent, it was starting to look like he'd get away with it.

Unfortunately for Benedict, the only aspect of his reputation as well-known as his parentage was his proclivity for debauchery; it only took one timely and beautiful young man offering to share his meal for the trap to be sprung, and it wasn't long before they had both made their way back to his rooms.

What happened next would be a blur to his memory, but some details came clearly enough: he had had his back turned to pour more wine when a rustling behind him merited a look over his shoulder. A flash of steel, a gasp, a scream-- Benedict stood with shattered glass and pooled wine beneath him, his erstwhile assassin lying crumpled on the cobbles outside the window and five stories below.

A hasty call was made via crystal. A spectacular evening squandered, and only because one merchant caught wise.