open.

[luaithre]

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.

Comments

card game!

[cozen]

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.

[luaithre]

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.

[cozen]

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?"

[luaithre]

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."

[cozen]

"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—"

[luaithre]

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.

[cozen]

"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."