faderift | (no subject)

WHO: Gannicus and whoever should encounter him
WHAT: A former slave walks into town
WHEN: Covering a span of a few days, as he settles in
WHERE: Here, there, a little bit everywhere. Cheap taverns, cheaper inns, ditches, also the pier and around the ferry
NOTES: I am down for keeping TDM threads or using them as starters, or starting over if that is what you prefer! I will also match format, if you're not down with brackets.

drinking, taverning, etc

[ This is a man who has spent time on the road.

It's clear from the way he moves, the fact that the cloak around his shoulders is battered and dirty, the way that the mud clings to his very high boots. His pack that he totes around is weathered but dry, treated with wax that surely was put there months ago.

To catch him at a tavern involves watching him drink, and perhaps watching him fumble with coins as though he's not entirely sure of their current value. However he's not a fool with his money, and anyone who tries to pickpocket him will find themselves suddenly gain a few broken fingers.

He fumbles a bit but he also settles, takes a drink of wine. Considers it. Raises his eyebrows. ]

Maker knows I've had worse.

[ He says that aloud to whoever is next to him. ]

Pier

[ It's very early in the morning and he's already there, but it's not particularly clear if he's waiting for the ferry or if he's just sitting and watching the water. He has both of his swords on his lap as he sits, cross-legged, looking vaguely ruffled, a bit like a cat who didn't expect to be forced to come out so early.

He looks up as someone approaches; he has his cloak wrapped around his shoulders like a shawl, but his hair is a wild mess around his head. ]

Do you know how to do a proper braid?

[ He raises his eyebrows, like it's an invitation. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( she laughs, bright and frank: )

I haven't the slightest idea, ( is an honest answer, in every shape of it; they're strangers, and her willingness to guess probably we don't have much in common has much less to do with him than it does to do with her.

caught out, though; willing to own that she'd just assumed he wouldn't, instead of offering that he might. so in that spirit: )

I write poetry. I like the theatre because it's a crowd of people but none of them are looking at you and you're allowed to tell them they're being fucking rude if they speak to you.

( very little about her on first impression suggests an inclination to hold back her thoughts as they cross her mind regardless of the context or situation that she's in. )

I like collecting things. Acquiring them and having them and using them. I suppose I do that in Kirkwall. Swimming and riding don't seem like Kirkwall particular entertainments, though, you sort of go out of the city for either of those. Hightown has a few tolerable galleries, but unless I'm allowed to take a sword I'm really not interested in their salons.

( studying the blade was made a bit more compelling accompanied by flint expecting her to keep up with an intellectual debate about literature at the same time. )

We all get dragged to tourneys every now and again, but I've lost the taste for them, personally.

( a thing she has no desire to examine or unpack, but probably if someone invents psychology in thedas she's about three theses at least. )

Lost the taste for violence, or for violence not inflicted by your person?

[He means by herself, in this case, not a separate person. It's the notion that she can't take her sword into galleries. If he's alarmed or surprised that a woman of her size can hold a sword (he's not) he doesn't show it. Instead he just wonders about what people do here, in a place with no arena, in a place with no slaves.

It all does, admittedly, sound excruciatingly boring.]

( head tilted, loosening curls from a style that looks like it was probably more impressive before she'd fallen asleep on half of it, she considers the question—

decides: )

For the sport of it.

( which isn't quite either of those, albeit closer to the second than the second. does she still like the archery tests because they never involved a moving target or because they remind her of iorveth? probably both. would provoking a barfight she doesn't participate in still excite her when tourney fights feel impersonal and dull? probably.

one of those is less likely to be an issue than the other, though. it's been a long time since she was in a position to toss her head and start some shit.

instead— )

And to what do your tastes run?

Wine.

Women.

[He gives a little shrug, unbothered.]

Both suit. I am unmoved by war or thoughts of great battle, save in arena.

[And all in all, he left that life behind, long ago, or so it feels. The arena was his home, more than the training sands, more than Melitta's arms. They were never his, anyway.]

Well, that's— good,

( sort of lilts almost into a question. it really only seems fair that people should occasionally say things to her that she finds bewildering, considering the relative frequency with which she just says things to people, )

I think it's fair to say anyone who'd answer war or great battle to what do you like to do for fun has something fundamentally and irretrievably fucked inside of them.

( probably not someone you'd want to be alone waiting for a ferry with, all things considered. )

[He just raises his eyebrows.]

You know not many Vintish men, then.

[They all seem obsessed with war, the ones who are truly from the country, as opposed to men more like him, who are taken there against their will.]

If you assume that to be true of everyone you meet here, you'll be right more often than not.

( what the average southerner knows about tevinter would fill a very short pamphlet illustrated with scary pictures. gwenaëlle has probably met more of them than most people she's met in her life have, and she could almost certainly count them on one hand. )

Most of the Inquisition still thinks every mage in Tevinter is a magister.

( the reason she doesn't is because altus pavus explaining otherwise was sort of memorable. she shrugs, smiles, crooked: )

I'm happy to take your word for it they're majority fucked, though. The vast majority I encounter are Venatori, so—

( you know, it's sort of a to the death kind of encounter. she doesn't count that as meeting. )

Edited 2024-02-07 06:52 (UTC)

They are a brutal lot.

[He says it with a shrug. He is a brutal man, but that is what they made him, and he's not ashamed of it.]

I do not know many of that lot. They do not oft frequent the diversions of sand and blood.

Pity.

( it'd be more useful if he did, but— probably less likely for him to have made it this far. )

That they did not spend time in arena?

[He asks that with a dripping measure of hesitation, because it would be weird.]

( matter of fact, )

That you're coming from north without that information. But that's an assumption, ( a fair concession, she thinks— ) I don't know enough about Tevinter to guess what else you might have valuable intelligence on. I assume you're here for something.

( a shrug: ) Just a shame it isn't the obvious. We could use it.