faderift | open + closed.

Without a research assistant to make an appointment with, the Lords of Fortune were forced to make an entrance.

And while any Lord of Fortune worth their fortune does know how to make a proper and striking entrance, given the circumstances, theirs was not a very grand entrance.

They are, after all, only three elves, in various states of swashbuckly and careworn. And this is only an office--rather small, as offices go, possibly disorganized (perhaps not disorganized by human standards; humans tend toward hoarding, in Fivera's very limited experience, which is often misconstrued as disorganization) (and this is a good thing, as it is a tendency that makes it so much easier to take what needs to be taken).

And their arrival to this particular office had a very long lead-up--ask for directions, make a few wrong turns, go up and down the stairs several times, find the right door, knock, and, well, enter. Its limited grandiosity might have been further spoiled by their very obvious clattering in the corridors and stairwells, at times so near to the research offices that the Provost might have been wise to their imminent arrival. Or perhaps he was not, but it is likely that he was. He seems a very quick man.

Now they are seated, pleasantries exchanged. This is Fivera, this is Xiomara, this is Evelyn, hello, hello, hello, Lords of Fortune, this is the Provost of Riftwatch, one of the Division Leaders, someone of importance, hello. On the floor there is a cup of old coffee which little Fabrizio--set down, free to wander, lucky boy--is now drinking from. Fivera keeps her eyes on him instead of the Provost, who, really, she finds too quick. Like a shivering rune or a spring snow or a bee that stings and is gone. She should not be thinking so much about bees, but she is.

Because no one ever taught her to be coy, she says, "We have an artifact."

Oblivious lucky Fabrizio keeps drinking. Being a small and well-bred dog, he is not very good at drinking, possessed of too small a jaw, too small a snout, and too curled a tongue. Coffee slops on his chest and his white fur is beginning to brown. Fivera's nose wrinkles.

"It is desired."

[lmk if anyone wants anything changed xoxo]

In the wake of the blizzard that had seen off the winter, Kirkwall is back to its standard of cold and wet. Everything feels a little uniformly grey, but at least there's no sleet or ice-filled winds to drive them indoors. The training yard needed some maintenance before it could be useable, but flagstone has been scraped and mud cleared.

Back to normal.

This corner of the training yard has been taken up by the sounds of the solid thumps of wooden staff connecting against other wooden staff, or sometimes human body. Marcus is not fully armored for battle, wearing instead a quilted gambeson and thick woolen sleeves that do something to take the edge off bruising. There has been, up until this point, a deliberate working back up to strength in the wake of the battle for Starkhaven, slower to bounce back than he would like.

It had been his better arm that the dracolisk had disabled, and it was explained to him that resting would return him to quicker overall health than not. Resting did not, however, assist in upkeep of training.

So he's a little slower.

And will likely lose this sparring round, out of breath as they circle, more defensive in tactic, until he thinks to strike out and try to clip his staff across Kostos' knuckles, favouring speed over force.

"By creepy Tevinters," Xiomara clarifies. In an hour a two, feeling like things are going to be alright, she'll be more buoyant. Right now her energy is jittery instead. One leg bounces rapidly. "They were going to pay us so much, but we decided—"

What they decided must remain a mystery, until someone else takes up this passed baton, because she is noticing little lucky Fabrizio and his coffee, and thinking about what something that gives palpitations to elf-sized hearts might do to dog-sized ones.

She leans down to steal it from him. For a moment she looks like she might drink it herself, but then she holds it out toward the Provost instead. Provost. Odd. She is not subtle about trying to check out his hands in the process.

"Hey, so,"

is his opener, less intrusive than the fact Tony goes to sit up on the edge of the table that Cosima is working at. In his hand is a slender scroll case, although it is only held incidentally rather than being brandished for her focus.

The space is currently empty of anyone else. The Research division is a small if not exactly tight knit unit, and the Gallows are large, so cornering Cosima on her own means that Tony doesn't necessarily have to go through the formalities of scheduling a meeting. He prefers a spontaneous ambush, when possible. Currently dressed for a day of work in brisk air, with only the dimmest shine of lyrium blue escaping his collar.

"I have a pitch. Two pitches, but I'll do 'em separate, because. I don't know how I wouldn't."

She glances up from a chart she's making (she never thought she'd be so nostalgic for Excel, to be honest), not ungrateful for a break. He knows well enough that left to her own devices she's not much for field work. As a result, it's not unusual for her to be taking advantage of the quiet while her colleagues are out, a cooling mug of tea from the kitchens serving in lieu of a paperweight. Her space is more full than cluttered, though, and there's enough room for him to perch without displacing anything.

Sitting back in her chair, she says, "Hit me. What's up?"

"Something I've been kicking around," he says. Tony has also brought his own cup along, charged with coffee that has definitely cooled down swiftly in drafty winter fortress rooms. Memo to self, invent the microwave.

He sips from it now, gestures. "Cross-cultural dialogue. I mean, we've been kind of parcelling out rifter-flavoured wisdom in little morsels over the years, and—look, it's my normal impulse to dazzle and amaze? But the objective is probably educating a pre-Enlightenment universe about biology and illness and disease, first, and other stuff after.

"And I don't mean in house," he adds. "Markham, Orlais, Antiva, somewhere with the kind of people who are more curious about reality than afraid of a little heresy, and would probably love to have their names attached to reverse-engineered scientific discovery."

"Ambitious, but there could be some big payoffs." She tucks one of her legs up, thinking about the idea. "I used to have an 'introduction to germ theory' packet since I explained it so many times, but I think it may have gotten left back at Skyhold years ago. But reaching out... If you think we could get someone in a policy-making position to actually pay attention, it could do some real good. One at a time has had sort of limited effect."

She's more thinking it through out loud than anything, verbally finding the edges of the concept. "I admit, I didn't think about the angle of getting someone to take credit for it." She has the brief, bleakly funny memory of Leekie suggesting she could make the cover of Scientific American, that sharp prick of danger accompanying it that had seemed so intense at the time. "But you're not wrong, people in Thedas are just as excited as people on Earth to look smart and cool without actually having to do the work of discovering something."

Tony makes a there you go agreeable gesture.

"You and Strange would make good, you know, experts," he says. "And you've got practice in with translation. Might need to buddy up with Diplomacy so we don't come in hot like raving lunatics, but if we get some names and venues, you up for it?"

"Yeah," she says, not hesitating but thoughtful. "Yeah, I'm game. Someone native on the diplomacy side could be helpful, and I should probably talk to Strange about an approach, we haven't done a ton of collaborating yet. He's an MD, right? Surgeon?" She feels briefly guilty that she hasn't already reached out more directly; there's not so many people in research, they all probably deserve more than a vague good morning even when their work isn't directly overlapping.

"Among other stuff."

Tony says, over a sip of coffee. That'll be fun for them, he's sure. He sets the coffee cup down, sets the scroll case aside, claps hands together once.

"Okay, that was pitch one. Here's pitch two, ready?" He opens his hands. "Help me."

A midnight snack adventure is not as fun in medieval times as it would be back home.

No gazing into the fridge, no tubs of dairy-free ice cream with deep veins of caramel to chase with a spoon, no sundry leftover Chinese to judgmentally sniff. These missing things are more keenly felt ever since their little Crossroads adventure and Tony tries not to think about it as he shuffles through the larder and kitchens attached to the dining hall.

He can be found arranging something of a charcuterie board, currently sawing a knife through some cured sausage, with a few other items procured and gathered on the scratched up kitchen table. He is dressed, rather than wearing the Thedosian equivalent of bunny slippers and terrycloth gown and hair rollers, but there is something of a rolled out of bed vibe that is stamped apparent upon him as he works. The coziest item he has, which is pretty damn cozy, is a luxurious fur coat wrapped around him against the chill.

There is also a bottle of wine, uncorked, and a cup just next to it.

And during the day, his office hours tend to be in the morning time, and one can observe that the reason being is the direction of the sun, which doesn't glare too brightly through the window. It instead fills in the office space nicely, a comfortable warm light to see by blanketing over the organised chaos of desk, work table, and

an iron golem that is standing directly in front of the door, inside his office, in such a way that an attempt at opening it will find you striking the stationery, unmoving figure after a few inches of leverage.

"Yeah?" he calls out, not looking up at the dull thump of wood against metal.

And then, on any rainy day—

"Hey, hold up," shouts Tony, from somewhere behind wherever you are.

And wherever you are is the main internal foyer that leads out into the courtyard and beyond, and with the absolute friggin downpour happening outside, presumably steeling yourself for a quick drenching, no matter the quality of your boots and coat. Tony is dressed for an outing himself, smart coat and vest and boots and gloves and scarf, and in his hand, what appears to be a walking stick wrapped in some form of canvas.

This item he hefts, and with a little fidgeting, the canvas blooms open into— look you know what an umbrella is, but maybe your character doesn't.

"Wanna hitch a ride?" is the offer, once he's slung it up over his head.

It would be easy to feel like perhaps the Captain of the Watch harbours some resentment for you, if you find yourself on guard duty on a night like tonight.

But every night is like this, silver sheets of rain coming down, lashing against unfeeling stone. It is silent, cold, lonely work, unless you manage to come by a friend out there to exchange some pleasantries. There are the occasional overhangs and sheltered spots where one can find a place to shelter, and Marcus takes up one such spot, back against the grey stone and a cigarette between his fingers.

If memory of the guard rotation serves you correctly, he had not, in fact, assigned himself a shift this evening. But here he is, dressed in layers of grey and dull green, a cloak with the hood flipped back off his head while out of the rain.

Up in the eyrie, Marcus regularly comes in to check in on Little White Monster, where only one of those words in her name is a falsehood. Her gravelly screech sounds fierce, cutting through the ambiance of scuffling feathers and contented growling, but it's only in impatient response to being fed dead rats, which Marcus takes out from the bucket by the tail, and flips into the air for her to catch.

At one stage, something goes awry. Grooming long white feathers with the wired brush catches somewhere, and she reacts, as large predatory animals sometimes may. She twists, fast, catching her beak up against his calf, just piercing fabric above where his boot ends.

He jerks backwards, and his stumble into a fall is only slightly controlled, catching himself backwards on his palms. More due to the seeming advantage in this sudden spark of conflict, Monster rounds on him, eyes bright and wings flaring, her shriek now piercing enough for the other griffons nearby to stir.

Reflexively, Marcus raises his hand, summoning a short gust of smoke and ash and ember, which does something to drive her back a step, but evoking a second shriek as she hackles and puffs up.

Hopefully he doesn't get eaten, because that would mess up my continuity.

And then the order comes through, and for the length of Drakonis, Marcus (along with some others) finds himself confined to Kirkwall. Which is an odd way of thinking about being barred from the Gallows, which was once a prison. His prison, even, for a time.

And Hightown is hardly very prison-like, and not wholly unfamiliar to him. Between duties, he slips out into it with the restless energy of a man who does not really find himself surrounded by friends, at present.

He'd thought to bring with him a few passable things, and so is dressed nicely, neatly, as he moves through Hightown. It rains just as well up here as it does down there, if with less mud in the streets, but he doesn't mind. Rain speckles his nice coat and sleeks through tied hair, and he is without his mage staff, and so almost fits in.

Nearly. There is still something about his manner that feels like intrusion. The scarring, maybe, or the open curiousity with which he looks at everything, or his willingness to walk through downpour without minding while most denizens dash through or keep to shelter.

Beyond roaming the streets, he enters stores, creating puddles of rainwater on fine flooring as he presides over wares, asks questions, unnerves merchants. The usual.

Abby is doing the equivalent of coming into the kitchen with headphones on after a run: humming to herself, towel drawn around the nape of her neck, hoping for something to eat before she saunters off in the general direction of the baths. When the nightmares come back in full force you have to double down on the tried and true methods: working out about it until you're so tired you fall asleep and dream comparatively less.

Nobody else is up this late, let alone doing things. The hum abruptly ceases as she registers the sound of a knife hitting wood. Tony's silhouette rushes at her when she turns the corner, still listening hard.

"Fuck-"

Whewf! Got her. She sighs, jittery, on the balls of her feet. "Sorry. You scared the crap out of me."

But don't mind her. She is here for bread.

Tony pivots in place without moving his feet, knife held loosely in hand, a long slender thing with a work-smooth wooden handle. His luxurious fur coat over his simpler linens and wools kind of bristles with the movement, and the light is low enough in here that a splash of lyrium glow is visible peeking up out of his collar.

"Oh hey," is easy, realigning his spine back to the table. "Don't be scared, I'm just making, uh. Circles."

And resumes the task, trying to get them thin, like they could be peeled out between pressed plastic. Beneath the bulk of fur coat, invisible tension draws up his spine, barely conscious to it.

Also on the table: a half-undone wrapping of cheese, a third of a bread loaf, a pot of something, all waiting to be charcuteried.

It gets a small smile from her. "Gonna have to be a little more specific on that one."

"Please help me," Tony elaborates.

Holds up his hands. Okay.

"I'm, uh, not dying, drowning? It's hard to. Listen, I've never had to do this before, because I've had people for this part too, so, I'm gonna start with saying there's a signing bonus, and also: help. I need an assistant. It's not a cool job, it's boring, but you know? I'm doing it, me, now, at the moment it's just me, with my calendar and notes and filing? And people will just walk into my office and make appointments with me and then I have to figure that out, and help me please."

There, that's the pitch.

[ 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. ]

"Oh, shit, right." She tucks up her other leg, so she's now perched on the chair with one knee bent up toward her chest and the other along the seat, parallel to the floor. It's clear that he's surprised her a bit more with the second proposition than the first one.

"Just to be clear, this is like ... in addition to what I'm already working on, right? Like, it's not my ego, we're all doing our parts even when they're not sexy, I helped muck out some stables when we first moved to Kirkwall," it would have been more fun with fewer bloodstains to scrub out, frankly, "but I don't feel like I'm best used only keeping track of your calendar." She doesn't sound offended. She's just trying to work through what help looks like.

"Additional, hence the bonus," Tony says, and that edge of desperation seems to withdraw.

Somewhat. Tentatively.

"My office time is mornings, so I'm thinking like a four mornings a week kind of schedule for report sifting and letters and stuff, you know, give or take emergency meetings, and subordinate to assignments, emergency research, whatever. Most people are pretty rude and dial me direct anyway, but you might still be fielding some stuff ad hoc. Otherwise, business as normal. And I'll fix the lattes, I'm picky."

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?

That gets the quiet laugh she assumes it was designed to elicit. "Shit, better than the last guy I TA-ed for." She folds her hands on her knee, truly thinking it over. "...yeah, OK. I know Flint has an assistant, it makes a lot of sense. And who knows, maybe I'll see something in a report that'll shake me out of this rut, I feel like half the time I'm just staring at lyrium samples and going in circles these days."

It's an exaggeration, but not one without a small foundation in the truth.

"As long as you think I'm the right fit."

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

I'm awake.

[ 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?

Not tonight.

[But also, fair enough.]

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

Regardless of whether or not Marcus was looking for someone to go easy on him and his freshly recovered wound, that's what he got. At first. More than half out of a desire to piss him off. The other half was a sore loser's desire to be able to claim a loss didn't mean anything. But Kostos' resolve in that venture has crumbled with every blow Marcus has managed to land, until now, sweating clammily in the padding he wishes he'd taken off, his knuckles clipped and stinging, it dissolves into nothing.

His face doesn't contort in fury; it's already set into clench-jawed and angry focus. But his answering strikes—a swipe, momentum carried around into a jab—aren't playing around.

open + closed.

elfbomb for Tony Stark @ research office

training yard. closed to kostos.

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workroom. closed to cosima.

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tonyspark. open to all.

marcus rowntree. open to all.

midnight snack

*adventure

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crystal. closed to julius and petrana.

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