[open & closed]

[quaestionespatris]

WHO: Tavi "Rutyer", Byerly Rutyer, and you! yes, even you!
WHAT: various open and closed starters for this guy, who definitely isn't an Altus mage! definitely probably.
WHEN: the very end of last month throughout the current month.
WHERE: the Gallows, unless otherwise specified.
NOTES: none currently, will update as needed.

i. settling in (closed to Byerly)

The guest quarters--or wherever it is that Byerly has decided to stash him while he conducts his clandestine investigation into his father's whereabouts--isn't much to write home about, but given Tavi has been alternating between sleeping rough and in stables or garden shacks care of the very meagre good will of strangers for the last few days, he is not about to complain. The bed is clean, and it looks like he has a secure enough space to stash his few belongings; in short, it could be much worse.

He hovers by the bed, twisting the worn old shoulder strap of his satchel between his fingers, then turns to look back at Byerly with that gleam of genuine gratitude shining in his eyes. "I really can't thank you enough," he tells him, not for the first time, and tries to still his fidgeting fingers. "I really ought to do something to repay you--or just, something to make myself useful while I'm here."

ii. exploring (open to all)

Tavi has had his fill of Kirkwall after his misadventure in Lowtown, and if the sideways glances he keeps catching from other members of Riftwatch are anything to judge by, he's going to have to work on his cover if he actually expects to fool people in the Gallows into thinking he is who he says he is, too. He stands out not quite like a sore thumb, but even after his years spent in Hunter Fell, there's no mistaking that accent for anything other than Tevene. And a posh one at that.

He tries his best to make up for it; if you encounter him in the library while trying to fetch a book down from a particularly high shelf, he's quite eager to pull up a stepping stool and climb up to fetch it down for you. Are you juggling an armful of boxes, books, or paperwork while simultaneously trying to nudge a closed door open with your foot? Suddenly there's a very earnest, smiling young man holding the door open for you and offering to help carry your burden to wherever it is you're going. Also, if you're a particularly sporty gentleman inclined towards taking your shirt off while exercising or going through sword forms on the training grounds, it is entirely possible that he ends up forgetting what he was doing, and trips over his own feet while admiring your shredded physique technique, of course.

iii. wildcard

[ooc: if none of these work for you or you'd like to hash out something specific, please hmu @ ragweed! actually even if these do work for you, still hmu on plurk c:]

Comments

[bouchonne]

This is a far more interesting topic than talk of gratitude and debts and all that rot, in Byerly's humble opinion. He tilts his head to the side and examines the lad with new engagement.

"Well," he says, "there are different avenues we can take depending on - hm - what exactly you want to get out of this. Is your goal to preserve your father's liberty, or do you mind if he ends up in Southern clutches once again?"

[quaestionespatris]

"Riftwatch can hang him for all I care," he says bitterly, but also unthinkingly, and it's clear almost the moment the harsh words leave his mouth that he doesn't mean them. A second later Tavi breathes out sharply past his nose, closes his eyes, and gives his head a taut little shake. "No, I don't want that. I don't," he insists and looks to Byerly again as though afraid his impulsive vitriol will alienate the only support system he's managed to gain for himself since leaving Hunter Fell.

He hesitates, then turns and rummages through his satchel to pull out a sheaf of parchment bound together with twine. He studies them fixedly for a moment. "I just need him to sign these. Then... well, then I suppose he and I never have to see each other again." An arrangement that seems to have suited Atticus Vedici just fine, up until now.

[bouchonne]

Byerly's shrug in response to that vitriol is utterly unjudgmental, and rather supportive as a result. It certainly doesn't sound as though the man has earned any loyalty. And if Tavi doesn't care what happens to the elder Vedici, then that makes things all the easier.

"What are they?" he asks, nodding to the parchment. Documents signing over the estate, perhaps?

[quaestionespatris]

He holds the papers as though they're as priceless to him as an Andrastian reliquary, and maybe they are. "Divorce papers," he says quietly and risks a look back at Byerly again. "For my mother. So she can remarry."

There's another set of papers, too, which he still holds carefully, but they seem less precious to him. "And these are abdication papers giving up his seat in the Magisterium to me. I can't reclaim any of the estate or what's in the bank without it."

[bouchonne]

It occurs to Byerly that the man's death would accomplish both of these goals, if he's not mistaken. A widow can remarry, and an heir can inherit. But discussion of that path might come later.

Especially since there's a more interesting topic. "You'd also claim his seat, wouldn't you?"

[quaestionespatris]

"Well, yes," Tavi says and makes a vague gesture with the papers, like that assumption was understood, and not something he's thought about much as a result. "Not that there would be much point in my putting in an appearance in the Imperial Senate while Amladaris is Archon but--one day, I hope."

[bouchonne]

It's an interesting thought. A potential ally in the North. And yet Byerly also can't help but feel unease when even considering it, because sending the lad into the Senate feels a bit like tossing a lamb into a sea of sharks. Even if by some miracle the predators weren't hungry that day, he'd still probably drown.

Nevertheless, that incentive will no doubt be enough for Yseult to help him. And so Byerly calls down - "Bastien, love, might I get your advice?"

[quaestionespatris]

His spike of anxiety is almost palpable. "Advice about what?" he whispers, already large eyes going wide as a set of china blue saucers.

[cozen]

Bastien—who downstairs had acknowledged their apparently-overnight guest with a friendly nod and immediate return to his correspondence, full of faith Byerly was up to all good—has not been eavesdropping. Much.

But for a summons, he moves up the narrow staircase. Close enough to also hear Octavius’ question, as well as the tone in which it is asked, the latter curbing any impulse to joke about methods for hiding bodies. Instead he comes to stand beside Byerly, peeking into the room to smile at the saucer-eyed young man, quiet and extremely harmless.

[bouchonne]

"Bastien," says Byerly, "the Scoutmaster will help us find this young man's father, right? His father is Atticus Vedici."

Byerly says that as simply as he'd say, his father is a minor merchant in Antiva, because it is (in his humble opinion) quite hilarious. Not that he should be having fun at the poor lad's expense - he looks about to swoon - but a man needs to entertain himself.

(This won't be fully shocking to Bastien, either. Upon coming into the house, Byerly had sent a bit of Bard-sign his way, indicating Tevinter and also give him some distance. And it's not like a person could miss the aristocratic arch in the boy's voice. Even if the specific magister/war criminal Tavi is related to might be a surprise, it's not surprising that he's related to one of them.)

[quaestionespatris]

White-faced from terror at being identified so swiftly, Tavi wordlessly sinks down onto the edge of the little bed, hands and papers dropping into his lap. He looks from Byerly to Bastien, then back again, as though waiting for this betrayal to result in his being marched to the literal gallows, rather than just the figurative one.

[cozen]

"Atticus Vedici," Bastien repeats, with interest as mild as if Byerly had said his father is a minor merchant in Antiva, exactly.

He knows his role in this bit. It also requires leaning back against the wall opposite the bedroom door, shoulders slouchy and hands in his pockets, and giving the young man a sympathetic, quizzical look. Don't faint now.

"Did we misplace him?"

[bouchonne]

"We didn't," Byerly says, and his sigh expresses eloquently that sentiment, it's so hard to find good help these days. "The Inquisition did."

[quaestionespatris]

This is not the type of bit Tavi ever witnessed among his relatives in Tevinter, or even among the Prelate's friends and relatives in Nevarra. Still frightened, but with growing bemusement, Tavi's eyes continue to dart between Bastien and Byerly while he struggles to come up with something to say. Then Byerly says that and does the hard work for him. His eyebrows immediately skyrocket to his hairline.

"They lost him?"

(It is far more likely, in his opinion, that Atticus found a way to slip his leash. He's good at that, finding ways to extricate himself from any obligations to others that get in the way of his own ambitions.)

[cozen]

"Ah," Bastien says to Byerly. To Octavius, "They have so many people these days. I am sure it is very difficult to keep track of where they have put them all. But we are good at finding people, Scoutmaster permitting."

Without lifting from the wall, he leans a little closer to Byerly. Of course that earlier love has given them away—not to mention any explanations Byerly might have given on the walk over, or the fact that the shape and size and number of doors in the little house only allow for one other bedroom—but the lean, alone, would not. It's companionable and conspiratorial, that's all.

His whisper isn't quiet enough to really intend any secrecy.

"That's the one Benedict first came here with, right?"

[bouchonne]

“That’s right,” Byerly stage-whispers back. And then, in a normal tone of voice, “It was before my time. And I have seniority over him,” By says to Tavi, pointing to Bastien. “That’s why he has to do everything I tell him to.”

(Ridiculous comedy bits seem to have had some good effect on Tavi, helping him relax, so Byerly is leaning into it.)

“But, when you mention it, that actually rather does make you my cousin, dear Octavius. Since Benedict is essentially my ward - “ This is a joke, the term used with thorough irony - “his teacher’s son is some sort of relative to me, eh?”

[quaestionespatris]

If there is just the barest hint of melancholic envy in Tavi's eyes as he looks between these two men, appreciating their casual intimacy and this space they have been able to create for themselves, well, surely he can be forgiven for it.

It's short-lived, anyway, because he can't stop the startled, incredulous laugh that comes out of him at that. "Your ward," he repeats frankly. "I bet Magister Artemaeus would just love to hear that."

But let's get back to this Scoutmaster business. Tavi looks uncertainly to Bastien again. "Won't this Scoutmaster be worried I'm a spy, or something?"

[cozen]

Bastien answers Byerly's assertion that he is the boss with a shruggy, head-wobbling, duck-lipped sort of full-body expression that, fairly universally, means it's true enough at its bottom line that he's choosing not to argue with the details and, anyway, it hardly matters.

And then it becomes a shame that he's expended this once-a-day sort of response on Byerly's joke, because it'd serve just as well as an answer to Octavius' real question.

Instead, "She worries we are all spies," with a fond little smile. "That is her job."

[bouchonne]

Byerly exchanges a look of private amusement with Bastien. After all, she'd be quite correct in her suspicions when it came to the majority of the members of this conversation.

"Honestly, it's a pity you're not one," Byerly says. "The only ones she actually halfway trusts are spies, and that's because they've made their dishonesty clear. With everyone else, she's waiting for their perfidy."

A shrug. "Besides, you'd make possibly the worst spy I've ever met, unless you're actually the best one I've ever met." (Byerly has not, after all, ruled out the possibility that young Octavius is actually a masterful actor who's posing as a naif. He's met a decent few spies like that.)

[quaestionespatris]

Tavi possesses temerity enough to look only momentarily offended, before his eyebrows bounce once in a self-deprecating 'fair enough, I suppose' sort of expression. He quashes down the twinge of real embarrassment to be dealt with later, when he's alone and can feel properly sorry for himself as only a twenty-five year old can manage.

"Can I do something to win her trust?" he asks instead of dwelling on his many (many) inadequacies when it comes to espionage. He makes a helpless sort of gesture with both hands, which are still holding the papers, he realizes belatedly, and so goes to stow them away in his satchel. "Make her--I don't know, assurances of some sort? They're useless now, of course, but once I reclaim my seat I'll have, you know." He looks between them, almost apologetic. It's gauche, he knows, but: "Money. Quite a lot of it."

[cozen]

"We do love money," Bastien says, "but for the Scoutmaster, I think honesty is the best currency. Bribery is inherently suspicious."

They're not entirely helpless, when it comes to checking out people's stories, especially prominent people who are from places instead of wandering urchins. They have contacts and the means to travel. They don't always have the time or resources to waste making sure everyone is who they say they are—but a Vint is probably worth it.

His companionable lean in Byerly's direction gets a little more leany, until his shoulder is nudging into the taller man's bicep.

[bouchonne]

"The promise of a sympathetic seat in the Magisterium might be a bit better than honesty, still," says Byerly. He leans back in Bastien's direction, meeting bicep-to-shoulder, casually affectionate.

"What do you say, lad? Feel okay coming clean to the Scoutmaster?" Then, to Bastien - "Not to Flint, obviously."

[quaestionespatris]

"I suppose," Tavi hedges uncertainly, and manages to stop himself at the last moment before betraying his nerves by chewing on a thumbnail. He pointedly laces his fingers together instead, dropping them into his lap. "Yes, all right, I'll tell her--" a little shrug of his shoulders, before he looks trustingly up to Byerly again, "--whatever you think I should tell her."

A beat, then, with restrained alarm, "Who's Flint?" Should he be worried about Flint?

[cozen]

"Who's Flint? The Cannibal Captain? Scourge of the northern seas?"

If he meant to make fun of Octavius, he would moderate a little more. Pull his level of shock back into something a touch subtler. But this is a joke he intends for the young man to be in on, not the butt of.

He lolls his head to look up at Byerly.

"Maybe he is not as fearsome as he's led us to believe."

[bouchonne]

"Imagine," says Byerly, his playfulness easy and open, "if all this time, he's just been a particularly effective actor, at the head of a comedy troupe, who managed to steal a boat." And then he purses his lips. "That would make an excellent farce, actually. We should write it down."

Then, more directly to Octavius - "He's the head of our forces division. No love lost towards Tevinters, to say the least."