faderift | open.

Entry tags:

open.

WHO: Marcus Rowntree and other people hopefully
WHAT: A catch all for this guy: training, work meetings, and card games.
WHEN: Backdated Bloomingtide/present day Justinian mishmash
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Open prompts under the cut, also a catch all in the comments.

There is some dark little slice of time where very few people actually see Marcus around the place, even in this, the immediate wake of the attack against the Gallows, with so much to do. Returning from the front with bad news, a quiet and blank presence in between the necessary places he has to go—to eat, to work, to move to and from the tent situation he shares with his partners, and then, also, long periods of time in which no one sees him at all.

It's normal to grieve. It just doesn't need company.

Then, one day, he posts up in the training courtyard. The late springtime warmth is hostile to the quilted protective layers one must wear for sparring, but he equips himself anyway in layers of warm brown and grey, hands in gloves and sweating already at the hairline. It is most common to find him wielding a staff, both non-magical dead wood and the kind with a core of lyrium running through it, but occasionally, he takes up one of the blunted swords available and seeks a partner. He is not without skill after all these years, although it's likely obvious he won't be bringing one to the battlefield anytime soon.

Find him roaming around to find someone to spar with or simply going through casting motions in silence (and he might strip down to breathable layers, if so). If you are a mage, he might give unasked for advice or criticism for your form. And maybe even if you're not a mage.

There's an announcement. The Provost makes it and Marcus sees no reason to make a show of chiming in. Those who care to are able to find him in the vacated office of one James Flint, the private quarters locked shut, the assistant's area barren, and a series of scrolls and books spread out on the desk that Marcus hovers near as he reads and tries to make sense of it all. It's easier to think on his feet and move between it and other filing units. If there is some small part of him that is not quite at ease with simply sitting at the chair allocated to the desk—

He gets over it by the time he has suggested that Forces members make a time to speak to him. By now, too, the air has taken on the taint of cigarette smoke. There's a horse painting on one of the shelves. May as well make the most of things.

For a less formal setting, Marcus makes a semi-frequent appearance at the Loose Noose, certainly always prepared to pay and steal glances at those who might decide not to. He might be found behind the bar, inspecting the meagre collection of liquors there, or nursing a tankard of ale by a window, writing something on loose sheets of paper in the natural light of a late afternoon, or maybe staring into space and doing nothing at all between remembering to take a drink.

And a little thing like the collapsing of the Gallows and the death of a sibling doesn't mean that card games and their allocated Thursday evenings have been completely left to the wayside. He is present every other session, both in the Loose Noose, bringing over some bottles of wine and beer to the larger of the tables inside, or ducking into the chosen tavern on a rainy, early summer night, a coin purse in his pocket that he's set to make heavier.

He is not much of a chatterer during a round of cards, but after a few drinks and perhaps a profitable outcome, he might be what passes as friendly.

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Contributing to the cigarette smoke is one ex-Ser Barrow, who also brought up a box of Hightown-procured tea biscuits as, perhaps, a peace offering while he and the new Forces head parse through the piles of yet-to-be-filed correspondence.

He knows better than to try and make much conversation, but does periodically glance over to Marcus as if to gauge his mood.

The office was left in decent order. The real gutting that took place was Flint's personal bookshelves, now bare in the private quarters hidden behind a firmly closed door, but much has been left intact—even a painting of the man's ship that Marcus has, at this stage, neglected to think about doing anything with.

But the workload is all here, for better or for worse. Since Matthias' leaving the company, for worse has likely won out.

And Barrow is being quiet and diligent which is how Marcus prefers just about anyone, his own head down as he occasionally lingers on a page, slower with his letters than a Circle-educated mage ought to be. He doesn't check in at any time to gauge the other man's mood, in turn, but during one change over, he catches his eye.

His expression flickers, a question: what?

A good-natured, perhaps commiserating little shrug, and Barrow averts his eyes again—- just checking—- and plucks another biscuit from the plate to chew it thoughtfully.

He leafs through and sorts a few more documents, then pauses strangely, concluding with a low and sardonic chuckle as he sets the document aside… then thinks better of it and, casually as anything, crumples it to discard.

Nothing, then. Marcus returns to his work. The chuckle draws some focus, expecting some pronouncement of what's been found—just a tilt of Marcus' head without looking up.

Then nothing, and the sound of crinkling paper, and his glance up is sharp.

No what's that? or what's wrong?, just a quick assessment and a held out hand, along with, "Give that here."

“Hm?” Barrow grunts pleasantly, having already returned to the pile.

"The page you discarded," Marcus says, an unyielding kind of immediacy even as the sharpness of his focus dulls, some. Hand still held out.

With a drawn-out little sigh through his nose, Barrow braces himself and hands over the offending document.

“It’s nonsense,” he mutters, trying to force a smile that will disguise his unease at the current situation.

Edited (fifth time's the charm) 2024-06-24 02:15 (UTC)

The document is taken and immediately turned to evaluate, raised hackles lowering a fraction as Marcus scans the page. Confusion dipping his brow as he silently reads—slowly, but patiently, deciding to trust that Barrow won't start stealing any more of his inherited mail while his eyes are down.

A moment later, some easing out the creases in the page between his fingertips—

"Did you have a preference," comes out dry, "between hard labour or public flogging?"

As realization slowly dawns, the smile becomes more genuine, and Barrow struggles to contain the chuckle that rumbles forth from deep in his chest.

“Well, seems the hard labor’s already sorted,” he muses, running his hand over his chin—- he’s been attending the Gallows rubble with the best of them—- “but I’m happy to call it even if you are.”

Now if there was a pretty woman and some leather involved in the second option, he might consider it,

Several hands deep into a conversation that's mostly been about their respective luck of the draw, at the end of a lull, Bastien glances up from his hand (dismal) to do a status check on Marcus' face (somewhat less so). Personal questions never feel like a safe bet with him. Not quite. But the room is quiet, nearly empty, the only other occupants occupied with a game that didn't have space for them. Rain's pattering outside the Loose Noose's unshuttered windows, and Bastien's rolled up sleeves are as disheveled as he voluntarily gets in this company, and there won't be a better time—

"Can I ask," he says, tentative in the way that means it isn't merely a formality or figure of speech, "what made her your sister? I assumed it wasn't blood."

Prematurely, maybe. Not impossible for half siblings to look as dissimilar as Marcus and Tsenka do. Did.

A similar amount of disheveled, a coat abandoned to the back of his chair and a necktie removed and stuffed into one of the pockets, Marcus' slouch in his chair is about as relaxed as anyone will catch him. A few ales put away, enough decent hands of cards traded back and forth, and beside them, a fine dusting of ash that'll be caught up the next time someone drags a broom across the floorboards.

Bastien's question doesn't interrupt Marcus' quiet assessment of his hand, or the journey of a half-finished cigarette to his mouth. He keeps the latter thing between his teeth as he comes to a decision, selecting a card and turning it face down on the table. Discarded.

"It wasn't," he agrees, taking the cigarette back into hand. A glance up, across, back down. "We decided."

A short answer, maybe. Except when he asks, "Do you have siblings?" it doesn't sound like a deflection. A trade.

Bastien doesn't look up from his cards, but his expression shifts: not quite a smile, but still fondness, restrained by the somber broader context of the question as much as by the complexity of his particular situation, summarized as, "A few. Somewhere."

A paltry offer, if they're trading. Less than he'd like back. So while he considers his next play, thumb roving over cards to keep his place as his plans shift, he goes on:

"And it is the way of speaking among the Bards sometimes, you know—my brothers and sisters. But usually it's only a pretty phrase. We kill each other too often to mean it. Or sleep together," in the drifting tone of a meandering thought followed without much amusement. It isn't a joke. He doesn't glance up to wink about it; he lays down a card. "That is probably more disqualifying than the killing. Of the ones I came up with, though, there was one. If any of them was really a sister to me, it was her. It is her. We're fighting lately, but siblings fight, right?"

It isn't a joke and Marcus doesn't laugh at it, or frown or flinch—a lack of outward response, here, scans better as understanding. Fidgeting with his cards with the edge of his thumbnail, and there's a twinge of something, a smile nearly, at this last comment.

"Aye."

A sip of ale, first, lounging back into his chair once the cup is put down. "I had brothers and a sister before the Circle. I don't remember much about that time, about them, but I remember that we fought often and freely. A noisy house.

"The Circle, after—they were quiet. Obedient, polite. I was difficult, an odd one out of them. And then Tsenka came in after me, and she was a demon."

A quiet explanation, but textured with cigarettes and fondness.

"Enough like home to be different from the others."

"That is not impossible to imagine," with what Bastien knew of Tsenka—which was never much. But enough to imagine a girl with a boisterous, rebellious streak, mismatched against the halls of penitent, restrained study he understands the Circles to have been, even if that study involved fireballs and lightning storms.

He wonders what Marcus was like. What difficult meant, then. His restrained intensity is more difficult to picture miniaturized. Maybe he'll ask outright sometime.

"How much trouble could a young mage get away with causing? Was there any tolerance of mischief, or—"

His answer is, first, a quietly gravelly sound that stands in for a yes and no, working on his cigarette.

"No Circle is like the other," is a reflexive qualification, whether he expects Bastien might know that or not, by now. "Ours was strict, but it could depend on who was watching. I think," and he pauses, some internal sifting around. "I'm sure other children were cleverer about it than we were, mischief without being caught. But we got each other in trouble plenty. Me more than Tsenka. She was shameless about throwing about the blame."

Because they are talking about Tsenka, still, and oddly, it doesn't hurt nearly as much to talk about a past life within stone walls than it might be. Like all of that had died once already.

Not no hurt. The next breath out, thick with smoke, is heavier. "I didn't mind. It was good to have, you know," and the sentence ends there, like he's already expended the energy needed to find the correct descriptor.

"Yeah," Bastien says, quiet smile aimed at his cards rather than directly at Marcus' face. Good to have had; terrible to have lost. His smile dips, but he doesn't voice condolences again. "I didn't know her well, but she seemed—"

A gesture with his fanned cards, careless enough to give a glimpse of the cards. (If the stakes were higher he'd never.)

"Bright." As an afterthought, he plays one of those cards as well. "Not clever—I mean, clever too, I'm sure. But bright like light. Some people have a glow."

Vlast's quarantine has been done with for little more than a fortnight, and while he's uncertain where he stands with Riftwatch, he thinks it's rather time he settled that particular matter.

He's not a member of Forces yet, not officially, but it seems the place he'd be of most use if Benedict and Isaac are correct.

Vlast knocks on the door and waits. He managed to pick up that bit of etiquette rather quickly after he'd barged in on some poor agent in the lavatory and got a chamber pot flung at his head for the trouble.

A few seconds pass, enough that Vlast might be tempted to conclude that the office is empty or that he ought try the door anyway—

"Enter."

—but then a brisk directive, and he will find that the door is unlocked.

There is a touch of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, one currently lit and resting in a crystal ashtray on the desk. Behind the desk, Marcus is currently winding the fine silver chain around a recognisable Riftwatch sending crystral, its blue light dimming against his palm, the sign of a recently ended conversation.

When Vlast appears and not someone more immediately recognisable to him, Marcus' focus catches, sharpens, assesses in a brisk look up and down. There is no chair waiting for a guest on the other side of his desk, but he gestures the qunari into the room anyway.

The lingering silence almost sees Vlast turn away from the door to return another day, but the curt 'enter' has him pivoting from a half turn.

Smoke is not an unfamiliar scent for a former dragon, but there's an acrid, herbal aftertaste to the smell he's not familiar with, and, almost instinctively, his eyes fall on the faint, fading glow of the sending crystal, following the trickle of magic before it fades.

The absence of a chair is no issue. Vlast really hasn't figured them out and fluctuates between his rigid, almost regal, straightbacked posture, or throwing himself in a lazy sprawl over some horizontal surface, preferably in the sun. Chairs, he has found, are conductive to neither.

He studies the human in turn, a curious tilt to his head, but very little flicker of an expression on his stern and humourless face.

"You are Marcus Rowntree?"

"Aye."

Although he'll likely have been seen out amongst the rubble of the Gallows, dressed for labour, today Marcus is dressed for a day of paperwork, neat and tidy in tailored linens, tied hair, a glint of silver from the couple of rings decorating his fingers. The lightning-shaped drag of scarring down the side of his face does its part in indicating to Vlast why he might find Marcus in particular in the office of the Forces division head.

"I don't know that I caught your name," doesn't sound apologetic, only factual. "But you came in through a rift?"

Vlast notes the scar with a touch of approval. He hasn't really gotten the hang of clothes beyond the very basics of what to put where, and which items cannot be forgone unless he wants small but heavy objects flung at him.

The purpose of Marcus's attire, what it is meant to convey, is lost on him.

The rings are nice though.

"You are correct. I am called Vlast."

And he gets right to the point.

"I was told Forces would probably be the best fit for me."

She knocks lightly on the door frame, more or less a request for permission. Cosima's been reorganizing her own office after the attack, but at least she'd been a good deal of the way through. She doesn't envy Rowntree taking over from Flint, having just done the same with Tony.

"Hey. Not urgent if you're busy, but I thought I'd drop by in a informal capacity. You know, before the next crisis that fully slams into us from behind." It's rueful but it would only be a joke if it weren't true. Her own plate has been overfull for month, but "talking to another division head" feels like it's worth taking a short break for.

The desk currently has the look of a landing place for loose bits and pieces rather than an organised station of work, and the way Marcus is standing behind it rather than seated also suggests some amount of organising and filing as opposed to the business of running a division directly. He must have been at it for a little while, with no lit cigarette anywhere but the scent of smoke lingering, and his coat draped over the chair and his sleeves rolled to beneath his elbows.

He is in the process of unbuckling a scroll case when Cosima appears, drawing his focus and hands slowing but not stopping. Nods in acknowledgment of that logic, loosens the catch, and carefully shakes the contents out onto the desk.

"I'm not busy. Come in."

She does, finding a light perch on the arm rather than the seat of a chair. "You've got my sympathy, I've done the sorting through the office thing recently enough." She realizes how rarely she'd been in this office when it was Flint's. It's not surprising, really; her work occasionally overlaps with Diplomacy, and sometimes even Scouting, but other than Div Head meetings, the only thing she'd ever really consistently needed from Forces was protection if she had to send people somewhere dangerous.

Instead of lingering on that, she says, "I wanted to just say thanks, for taking the job. The circumstances are kind of wild, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciates you stepping up. And, um, if there's anything you need while you're getting started." She's not sure what she has to offer besides marginally more experience heading a division, and even that doesn't feel like much, but the metaphorical extended hand is frank and genuine all the same.

The scroll case is set aside as Marcus starts sifting through the pages. From where Cosima is perched, she can see several maps of differing quality, detail, and age. Once he sees what he has, Marcus' handling of them is more careful, pausing over each one to get a sense of what he's looking at, and then carefully placing each aside.

Cosima would be within her rights to feel ignored when he doesn't look up throughout her speaking, until he waits for he to be done and says, "Why did you take it?"

A glance up, then. "Besides necessity."

"I mean, necessity was in there." She considers him for a moment, maybe trying to gauge why he's asking. "There was some momentum to it, since I was already Tony's assistant. But I guess also ... I believe in what we're doing here. Riftwatch. And it's been important to me for years that rifters don't think of themselves as some other class of people just killing time until they vanish, you know?"

While she often talks with her hands, for this answer, she's relatively still. Thoughtful.

"We don't have that problem as much as we did years ago, but it doesn't never come up. And I think it's important. To show that I'm just as willing to give as much as I can to the cause as anyone else who is here. Both inside and outside the org." She shrugs. "If the best way I can help is coordinating the division, I'll do that. If sometime in the future, it makes sense to hand it off to someone else, I'll do that too."

A sigh, as she absently rubs her knee, not quite nervous energy but a bit of restlessness. "My personal knowledge set is really different than our last two provosts, but I think the main thing is zooming out and looking at all the projects we have going. Seeing what to prioritize, what may need to coordinate with the other divisions. Anyone organized enough who cares could do it. But not everyone is willing to." And she is, so she's here. It's maybe not the best answer, but it's the truth.

It’s not his own staff (a branch blackened with years). Reclaimed from the fallen Venatori, and strange for its weight: Metal-shod, blade fixed to the end in every imitation of a glaive. Lyrium hums.

Isaac prods the tip, frowning over a drop of blood; rippled skin. How you're meant to keep from putting your own eye out -

"How did you even begin at this?" When he can guess just fine. "Taking up the spear."

Every member of Forces is making time to speak, alright, then he’s made time to watch; sidelong, here where Marcus owns the advantage. The man’s never been particularly expressive, and Isaac’s never been particularly sympathetic. It still bears examination.

The staff in Marcus' hands has a similar weightiness—the blunted metal-capped end doesn't quite balance evenly with the last third of the weapon, a sword-like attachment wrought in black iron, where runes glow faint fire-orange even when being idly held. The wood is polished and near-black as well, and scuffed undyed cording that's been replaced time and time again where his hands are used to going.

On a swooping motion, the uneven weight is accounted for, used, caught at the apex of momentum and brought around again. A strike and guard that brings magic with it, a small curl of smoke, a flicker of the Veil at the point.

"I used it for casting, first," Marcus says, "and finishing off the work with the blade. It expends less energy, if you're already close."

And Templars have a habit of closing the distance. He doesn't quite shrug, moving to find a spot several paces from Isaac. "Form and technique came after the war. Starkhaven wasn't in the habit of raising soldiers." He dips the end of his blade into the dirt, sketching out an X, before stepping back.

"Swing and hit that."

"Mn," Raising soldiers. The city spent them, in that final stand, "Ghislain rationed our razors."

The Infirmary had knives, and a daily count of the knives, and no one would have loved him stringing one to a stick - a preference perhaps justified by the uncontrolled arc he cuts, staff and blade crashing slippery from palms to dirt.

Off-mark. Isaac stoops to collect, huffing with effort. Nothing for it save practice,

"You know, I haven't cast with a staff in years. Not regularly." A shortcut to flame, and little else; light enough to toss for the work does best by hand. "It's always a sign something’s gone to shit."

He hefts to swing again.

The grunt in response to this first thing is sympathetic. No need for elaboration.

His attention is instead trained on watching Isaac and what he's doing, moving around to stand in front—a safe distance, still, save for where he goes to offer out the blunt end of his own staff as a target, now waist high rather than against the ground.

"I doubt the old magisters raised their cities without one," Marcus says. "It's the south that sees bigger casting as a violent thing only."

When Isaac swings, he doesn't dodge it, only letting his staff get batted aside under the force.

"Again," as he resets. "Accuracy, not force."

What would you build with it? He’s had his city, after a fashion, but it’s been years since that little dream. Things change. People do. This time when Isaac brings it around, it’s slow — much too slow, but measured for it. Metal pings against end.

"Less violence, I suppose," He chews on it. "Than frankness. Or, mn, that’s not quite it."

Again:

"À découvert." Vulnerability needn’t ask blood. Enough, sometimes, to be identifiable. An other, an outsider; interesting, and fleeting as any interest. "They're symbols much as any."

Edited 2024-06-27 11:29 (UTC)

Gwenaëlle's arrival to the Forces office is preceded by Hardie's arrival in the Forces office, nosing and then shouldering through the door that's ajar, beginning with a confident bound that is brought up short by a not-unfamiliar face but the wrong one, in an unexpected place. Behind him, she is resignedly apologetic:

“Flint used to give him treats. You don't have to, it was just bribery so he wouldn't go for his bollocks every time we went a round. I was about to start sorting out the office, and I thought if you had time, I might check if there's anything you had that you'd like me to focus on first.”

Anything he'd been doing that he's now not to have time for, with everything that Flint was doing, before him. Hardie, who didn't hear that you don't have to, stops beside the desk and presents Marcus with a look of soulful longing as if he definitely misses Flint specifically and isn't just checking to see if the new guy also has treats.

It's very respectful gazing. He doesn't actually encroach into Marcus's space at all.

The dog, momentarily, gets more attention than Gwenaëlle—a nod along with mention of sorting the office, but otherwise, Marcus is turning his chair enough to make a little more room, bending forwards in his seat. A palm out to Hardie in offering—no treats, just some interesting scents, like that of another dog—to indicate that his space is available for encroaching.

If this is enticement enough, Hardie gets a head scratch, down the chest and around the ears. If not—well, he'll continue trying for a little longer.

Anyway—

"This month's guard rotation is settled—accounting for my exclusion, and the new ones. What hasn't been accounted for is the physical state of the Gallows at present."

Gwenaëlle briefly considers saying something like the comically vulnerable tents, you mean, and checks it; decides she hasn't quite earned quite that degree of casual ease with him just yet. Maybe if they were smoking elfroot out the back of a party neither of them really wanted to be at, but not in his office, when she has only lately taken over the old one.

Instead: “It's a bit haphazard, but I've drawn up a rough map of where everyone is and made some notes of those I know aren't currently improvising amongst the rubble,” she says, watching tolerantly as Hardie wins him over substantially faster than she expects to.

Hardie, set at ease by his mistress's apparent comfort with the burning mage where he expects a salty provider of treats, is willing enough to be enticed; he has all the personability in this duo.

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open.

office

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card game!

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office

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office

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yard sard;

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the office.

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