open + closed.

[propulsion]

WHO: Tony Stark, Loxley, Marcus Rowntree, Florent Vascarelle
WHAT: Various activities!
WHEN: Throughout Guardian and Drakonis
WHERE: All around. Training spaces, griffon eyrie, late night kitchen, Kirkwall streets, and so on.
NOTES: Open prompts for all four in comment headers below, also a place for me to just stash some closed stuff. If you want to RP with me any which way, hit me up here or in plork.

Comments

crystal. closed to julius and petrana.

[luaithre]

[ It is late, when Julius' crystal glows.

Very late, to the point that even they will be asleep. Marcus' voice is familiar in the way that he is, of course, familiar, but also for the distinct quality of sleep-roughness. ]

Are you awake? Hopefully not.

[ He will wait long enough to see if he's answered, before turning this into a message for the morning. Content to reach over and take up his glass of wine he's poured himself. ]

[overharrowed]

Yes.

[The answer is prompt, though quiet enough that Petrana might not be. While soft, Julius's voice doesn't suggest Marcus's message woke him, at least, absent the transitional fuzziness he tends to when coming out of sleep.]

Why are you awake?

[ipseite]

( quietly, through julius's crystal and at a slight distance, )

I'm awake.

[luaithre]

[ Somewhere else, Marcus sits at a lean, shoulder to headboard and crystal dangling off its chain between the fingers that hold his wineglass. A creak of wood, just barely heard, a twinge of affection for Petrana's voice heard as well. ]

Dreams, [ is so normal, now, that he has no shame for just saying it simply, even if this time it moved him to contact them. ] Were you both working?

[overharrowed]

Not tonight.

[But also, fair enough.]

I had trouble settling down though. [The sound of him shifting, slightly, to turn to Petrana.] You too?

[ipseite]

Mmmm.

( since he's turning, she doesn't bother getting out her own crystal; rolls over, half across julius, so she can more easily reach his. )

I was dreaming. I didn't care for it.

[luaithre]

[ The dual twinges of being envious of the coziness he can detect over the line while also glad to hear them both. The latter eclipses the former, warming to the sound of Petrana's voice coming through clearer. ]

I didn't relish the idea of diving back in. But I'd found some red in the cellar, so. It'll happen eventually.

[ Hopefully it isn't cursed. ]

[overharrowed]

I think we could all do without them dreams. It's been what, a year?

[He's on the edge of making it a problem to solve, even at this time of night.]

[ipseite]

( there is a faint sigh from petrana at the prospect of julius working himself up to solving a problem at this time of night, and she only briefly considers putting the pillow over his head and then leaning on it to go back to sleep. )

Well, that's as may be, but I would be vexed were you sleeping too well without us.

[luaithre]

I never sleep very well without you,

[ is a bit of a line. He sleeps fine, mostly, but still: lonelier in those moments prior to the exhaustion of whatever was giving purpose to his absence setting in.

Here, though, he's not on the road, and he is restless. ]

So talk to me, a while.

[overharrowed]

[The sigh achieves its aim, at least in Julius tucking away the urge to troubleshoot until it's light outside. His tone is a little warmer as he takes up the thread.]

I don't mind obliging you. Is there anything in particular you'd like to hear about? I was in meetings most of the day, but I can't say any of them were especially groundbreaking.

[ipseite]

Now, that may return me to sleep—

[luaithre]

Hm,

[ is a decline. No thank you. But, ]

What did you dream?

[ Here, again, the 'you' sort of stands in for both of them. Difficult to convey over a crystal, but they've had some practices, managing the syntaxial and grammatical oddness of their configuration. ]

[overharrowed]

[If he's being perfectly honest, he'd rather talk about the boring meetings. Still:]

I rotate between a few similar ones, mostly. Darkspawn-heavy tonight.

[He may or may not leave it there, but there is certainly a pause.]

[ipseite]

I dreamed of my family, a little.

( that she says it in much the same tone as julius uses for darkspawn, )

[luaithre]

[ They could speak of anything else. There is a vast spectrum of conversational topics between work meetings and the deepest of fears conjured by a sleeping mind, when it's at its most vulnerable. But also—

It's been months and months of this. This is the thread he wishes to pick at.

Rather than immediately jump into sharing, he asks, ]

A thing that happened or something else?

[overharrowed]

[He glances at Petrana, but he does answer:]

More or less as it happened. I suspect ... well, it's only a theory. But I suspect that spirits know I've been trained to be on guard against fantasies trying to exploit me, and think I'm more inclined to be vulnerable to memory than something built from whole cloth.

[Thedosian mage inside baseball, maybe, but if not for this audience then who?]

[ipseite]

( it makes sense— clever, a clever approach to deal with a mage. a mage like julius, especially, watchful as he is. ascetic, almost, in his strange way; she hadn't seen it at first, when she knew him first, splitting grievances and bottles of wine.

he is cautious of pleasure for someone so generous with it. )

I am fresher to it, perhaps. Mine was not a memory.