faderift | Sometimes I Feel Like My Brain Turns To Leaves [OPEN + CLOSED]

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Sometimes I Feel Like My Brain Turns To Leaves [OPEN + CLOSED]

Sometimes I Feel Like My Brain Turns To Leaves

WHO: Julius
WHAT: Catch-all
WHEN: mid-Solace through mid-August, give or take
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Besides the open starter, feel free to reach out if you'd like something bespoke or have a wildcard idea that doesn’t fit (or if I was supposed to give you something bespoke and fully forgot because it took me so long to write this post, heyo).

open

It is long enough past the attack on the Gallows that Julius has resumed something like his normal schedule again, including regular office hours, eating meals at typical mealtimes (mostly), and attending regular meetings with the Division Heads with lists of the supplies, personnel and other resources they didn’t have and needed. (If they fill the Quartermaster position, will Julius delegate this last one? Apply and find out.)

He mostly works with his door open, accessible if he’s needed, and has regular check-in with those whose jobs he supervises. But his main focus in the aftermath of the attack has been shoring up goodwill for Riftwatch and parlaying that goodwill into resources. Cash is great, though supplies won’t be turned away. Anyone with ideas for furthering these aims is especially welcome to drop by his office. Maybe without even knocking; he'd love some potential good news.

for marcus and petrana (slightly backdated)

They’d been able to retrieve many of their truly precious belongings, which given the state of the Gallows was more than Julius had initially expected. But as work continues on the remaining residential tower, it has become increasingly clear Riftwatch’s staff will all be in incredibly close quarters going forward. Marcus’s temporary (“temporary”) new position came with some housing of its own, of course, but the question remains. Julius isn’t sure he has an answer, but it’s on his mind one afternoon when he starts looking for his partners, not urgently but with the idea of starting a conversation that is becoming less theoretical by the day. He tries Petrana's office first, mainly because it's the place to check that doesn't involve changing floors.

for clarisse

Of course he’d spoken to Clarisse when she was first appointed as Griffon Keeper, but Julius is sensitive enough to know that the way she’d received that promotion remained something of a healing wound. He gives it some space in consequence. Still, now that she’s settled in enough to start voluntarily increasing her record-keeping duties, Julius feels assured he can make her part of his regular rounds.

He generally checks the eyrie before the Griffon Keeper's office, which hasn't changed with the occupant of the post. He’s happy enough to catch Clarisse either place, but given the current state of the eyrie, he approaches with reasonable caution. It would be extremely undignified to put his foot through a weakened board and seriously hurt himself, and he can't shake the sense that none of the griffons especially care for his presence there.

for benedict

It’s probably inevitable that things are strange with Benedict for some time after his rescue from the demons. Julius has said — and meant — that he doesn’t hold the younger man responsible for the actions of a demon wearing his face. To the extent that the incident has led to any extra caution on Julius’s part at all, it’s not specific to his interactions with Benedict. (It wasn’t even the first time he was poisoned in Riftwatch’s service, which is almost bleakly funny, though he suspects Benedict wouldn’t find it especially amusing.)

Still, even if he’s careful of the feelings of those around him by habit, there’s plenty of work to be done. When he shows up for their scheduled meeting, it certainly isn’t with any shortage of topics to discuss on his list. And if he hopes that the more he acts as if everything is normal, the more it will feel that way, well … it doesn’t undercut that the very normal pile of work is real and needs attention.

“So. Should we begin with the easy part or the hard part of the list this time?”

for stephen

In fairness, the practical side of his meetings with Stephen as head healer are usually fairly brief; an update on what they’d out of, a check in about any concerning upticks of illness or other things he should bring to the Division Heads. Because they’re so brief, it has become easy to tuck them at the beginning or end of a much more interesting standing appointment.

He wouldn’t call it teaching, exactly; he’s taught many apprentices over the years, and enjoys teaching very much. But working with Stephen feels, more often, like an act of translation. The way he thinks of magic, on an instinctual level, is so fascinatingly different from Julius’s experience that when Julius begins an explanation, it is less an instruction than an opening bid. They do make progress, certainly, but it feels collaborative in a way he’d seldom been able to enjoy.

“Right, so. Back to glyphs today, or do you want to take a break and start on something new?” Sometimes they’re in an office; today they’re in the training yard. Glyphs can be easier to work with in an open space, but it’s also nice to be outside on the rare day that isn’t oppressive this time of year.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Already seated in the communal meeting room, Benedict glances up from whatever he's writing-- or sketching, by the looks of it-- before setting it aside and shifting his weight forward to fold his hands attentively over his lap.

Similarly, he's avoided the topic; what is there to say, anyway, when he wasn't even there? Sorry we both got fucked over by the same demon? Ah, well,

"Let's... work our way up in difficulty," he decides, with a slightly apologetic smile, "I'm still waking up."

"Right. Works for me." He settles in across from Benedict, shuffling a few papers to reorder them. "Well. First is most straightforward and probably most direct; we've had a few new native recruits and a couple of rifters in the past couple of months. Have you had a chance to get a feel for any of them so far? How they're settling in?"

It's a fairly normal question for Julius to lead with, and probably not a surprise. He and Benedict have had to do some backtracking previously to cover the time real Benedict was absently. Now, though, he knows of at least Ness and Abella recently through the rifts. Herian hasn't been back so long, either, and Caius is also a relatively new face.

"Decently, it would seem, after a few hiccups," Benedict answers cheerfully, "Abella seems to have made her way all right and we have little to fear from Ness-- she's from a world similar to Tav's, I think, if not the same one."

He leans over the coffee table in front of him, where he leafs through the dossiers of the newest arrivals.

"Caius I helped acquire and roomed with, briefly. Herian,"

His voice dies. He stares at her page a little longer, with an air of trepidation; it's not the first time he's seen it, but the task of checking in with her has proven too daunting.

"There is Herian," Julius says, quieter. "Complicated for everyone, especially those who knew her before. I'm aware she's finding things to do with Strange, which seems like a reasonable fit for now." He's had the thought that someone should check in with the provost about it, and also the thought that he himself doesn't trust himself to stay calm through such a conversation.

"I think the challenge with her personally, rather than the situation around her return, will be finding a long-term division placement. As a Knight-Enchanter, I assume she still has skills that would make her useful in Forces. But it's also ... finding a division for someone who can express no preference will be necessarily difficult." He can understand, on a variety of levels, Benedict's hesitation.

“Back to paralysis glyphs,” Stephen says, dogged and stubborn, the sort of personality that would throw itself against a wall over and over and over until he finally breaks through. He hates to leave a chapter unfinished, a book still open, a concept not yet grasped.

At the start of all this renewed study, he had approached Petrana first. Had vaguely hoped there was some secret trick for rifters adapting their abilities to Thedas: a particular twist to pulling on the Fade, some sideways slant to summoning their magic, some shortcut to make it come more easily, some shared arcane DNA. She’d politely deflected him to her partners instead, and so it had been an easy enough decision to tap Julius for it, and turn their theoretical discussions to the practical. It had been time to learn from the locals.

Which is how they’re here, today. Dressed in lighter clothes for summer, pacing around a space carved out on the training yard where they won’t set anything on fire. Stephen’s even started borrowing a staff, using it as a conduit, and he starts the painstaking process anew of drawing shapes into the stone ground in trailing magical energy.

“I always found this one of the most promising avenues,” he says. Thinking aloud, but it’s also why he started here: with glyphs. The commonalities. Magic resists you less when you are closer to it— closer to what it is possible for a mage here.

“You saw what my magic looked like back in New York: orange sigils appearing in the air. A single miscalculated rune could fuck up the whole spell. So the foundation here seems similar enough.”

Unfortunately for Julius, Clarisse doesn't spend a ton of time in her office. She's in there when she has to be, of course, or during the occasion when she wants time alone, but she can't spend more than an hour or so in there without getting restless.

She's in the eyrie right now, doing her daily lookover of the griffons. They are pretty self-sufficient in most areas, so she's mostly just checking for injuries or anything else being obviously wrong. And providing snacks, of course. Can't show up in the eyrie without snacks.

Julius appears to have, and several of the griffons are staring at him with dissatisfied expressions as he picks his way over the uneven flooring toward her. Clarisse normally wouldn't be in a rush to help (nothing personal, it's just funny to her) but, well, he is her boss. So she decides to meet him halfway, brushing an errant piece of straw out of her hair as she walks.

"Hey." She brushes some dust off the front of her shirt before she approaches. "What can I help you with?"

There are many levels to Benedict's hesitation, but he seems thankful to Julius for putting some of them into words, nodding lightly along with him. It's only after he's given room to speak again that he falters, opening his mouth and closing it at least twice before he admits,

"I've never met a Tranquil before." He purses his lips closed after the fact, lacing his fingers together a little too tightly.

"Is she in pain? Do you know?"

Julius looks surprised, though it's muted and brief; a second of reflection and the admission makes sense. (A Circle mage's surprise that someone might never have encountered a Tranquil is, perhaps, forgivable.)

"A complicated question, I think," he says, quieter, after a moment. "How much of pain is a signal from your body, and how much is distress that signal causes? Strange or the provost might have a better answer than I do. As far as I know, the former is still something Tranquil experience, the latter not. I suppose I could have asked Casimir Lyov, once, but I was never bold enough." And now that chance had been forever lost, at least for Casimir in particular.

"I think for now, it is best to assume that her intellect is as sharp as it ever was, but that we cannot trust her to value her own distress or discomfort in evaluating a task or a situation. That said, I don't expect you personally to manage that on your own. Strange is managing her care as well as her chores, thus far; he may be able to weigh in. And the Division heads have enough knowledge of Herian as she was before Tranquility to make some educated guesses as well, if you seek their input."

It's been clear that Julius enjoys teaching, but equally so that he'd never had an adult pupil before. Stephen has likely noticed him adjusting his approach on the fly, learning what sort of examples work best to someone without a Thedosian framework internalize the way Circle apprentices all did. It is easy enough to tell when something goes more easily than Julius expected to; a bit harder to clock when something is more difficult than he expected, other than the lack of an immediate next step ready to hand.

Paralysis glyphs seem to fall somewhere in between. At least it was clear that Stephen's frustration isn't echoed in Julius, who simply nods when the other man opts for yet another try at the spell he hasn't mastered.

"It does. You may, in fact, have more of a feel for it than most native mages, once you work out how to translate. Glyphs have always been something of an exception to the more standard ways of working magic. A bit more cerebral, in some ways." He smiles a bit, almost to himself. "I was criticized sometimes, as a younger man, for my interest in the theoretical underpinnings and not just execution. In a different life, perhaps I'd have been a scholar."

A small shrug. Instead of dwelling on that, he casts the spell, slower than he needs to, to let Stephen observe once again. The concentric circles bloom outward, the four arms almost like flower petals as they blaze on the ground of the training yard. "It's not so intricate, as some of the things I saw you do in New York. But it can be a trick to ... The eye wants to see it as a collection of parts. The circles and the lines. But you have to learn to hold the entire thing in your mind as one connected shape. Even the negative spaces are part of it, if that makes sense."

"Nothing urgent today." He makes sure of his footing once he's close enough to hold a reasonable conversation. "I don't mean to interrupt, if it's anything urgent. But now that you've settled into the position a bit, I think it makes sense to meet regularly. That way you can let me know if there's anything that's an especially high priority, for instance. I can give you a warning of any shortages I know are heading your way. That sort of thing."

His job is more than covering the vacant quartermaster position, but in the aftermath of the attack, that's a fair proportion of his day. Any feeling as if the griffons blame him for a lack of apples more broadly is certainly paranoia. (Except, perhaps, Little White Monster, whose reproachful glance feels pointed.)

Moving into the Forces quarters hasn't been fraught, precisely, just —

a strange thing, a little, sometimes, with the history that they have been slowly grinding into the Gallows. Barely anything in the scheme of things, all the time that these walls have stood (and all the things that have been done to them), and that feels a lesson, somehow. How many moments in history had felt like nothing and lingered? Rippling outward. How swiftly things change. How quickly the Gallows had become synonymous with Riftwatch, its bloody history not forgotten, but...

Iskender, Coupe, Flint, Rowntree.

What was this office, before it was hers and Silver's, hers and Bastien's?

“Darling,” she says, warmly, when the door opens. It's only her, but the office has a different feel now it's shared again.

Fuck.

Clasping and unclasping his hands, Benedict listens and nods, taking little ease from the conversation. It's all so alien, and more than that, so evil; to think that this is a common enough practice to have its own Rite in the Southern Circles is chilling, to say the least.

"Understood," he concludes quietly, and, forcing his hands apart, picks up his notes again to jot something down, undoubtedly about Herian.

"Oh, okay." Reasonable. Clarisse has never had a real job, back home, but she assumes this is what having a manager is like.

"To be honest, I'm not sure if Ellie was working on anything specific," she admits. If she was, she hadn't said anything to Clarisse about it. "If she had plans I think they were mostly in her head. I don't think she really used the office much." Speaking of, "Would it be better to meet there next time?"

Because this place is still kind of a disaster. Less of one than it has been, but not the greatest spot to be holding a meeting.

He greeted her, as he often did, with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. (Sometimes not the cheek, in fairness, but he's as aware as she is that her office is a slightly more public place than it used to be.) "Nothing urgent, but I wanted to see what you thought about something, if you have a moment. Not related to work, so it can wait if it needs to." But then again, they both know that if they wait for a moment neither of them is working, it could be quite some time.

"It speaks well of you that you find it unsettling, you know," Julius says quietly, after a moment. He's not sure that he and Benedict have the sort of relationship where such an observation is entirely welcome; on the other hand, he can't help but feel some compassion for such a clear recognition of Tranquility's fundamental wrongness, especially when forced on someone without at least the appearance of consent.

(Given the state Herian had arrived in, impossible not to picture the struggle that preceded what was done to her. Julius remembers how much prowess she had on the battlefield.)

"She was sent here as a message to Riftwatch. And she is that, but maybe not fully the one that was intended."

"It's as you prefer," seems to be honest, for all he does have a meet in an office vibe. "As you say, Ellie didn't use it much, so I usually found her up here. But with the damage it's sustained, if you find it temporarily more useful to meet elsewhere, I'm at your disposal."

He pauses, then feels compelled to clarify: "I generally see my role as ... I'm less supervising those of you who report to me than I'm gathering a summary I can take to the Division heads. Yes, sometimes resources are going to be a zero sum game, that's unavoidable. But the main reason I want to meet with you is to see what you need, not to lean over your shoulder while you make decisions. I certainly don't know more than you about the griffons, for what it's worth." He's been on them, but as a passenger only, and he hardly think that qualifies him.

Stephen is watching so intently that he actually forgets to respond. Belatedly, realising that Julius has finished talking, he finally says, “It does.”

Their mutual interest in the theoretical underpinnings is part of what makes their approaches so compatible. As eager as Stephen is to get to the action, he also always wants to understand how and why things tick the way they do; he wants to see the building blocks beneath it all. Negative space. Pieces of a whole. An act of translation. Stephen’s horrid at languages (Petrana de Cedoux he is not), but he remembers patterns, shapes, a photographic memory searing them into vivid recollection: it had helped him when he was first learning magic.

He holds the pieces in his mind’s eye, his gaze faraway and looking inward to his memory. The trick, too, is to draw it in seamless motion without faltering. He takes another stab at it, starting to reproduce what Julius had drawn.

“I used to think that I had an unfair disadvantage,” he talks while he works, “because, y’know, the hand tremors. How the hell was I supposed to draw these complex infinitesimal runes when I can’t even sign my own name. But then I saw a man without an arm cast them perfectly, so I learned it’s about intent—”

The colours spark, coalescing, branding into the ground.

"I'll admit, I'd never thought so much about doing magic with a staff before I met rifter mages. It seems like a great deal of pressure to put on your hands, in some ways." It's not exactly that, of course; the way Stephen uses his hands and the way Julius learned to use a staff have commonalities, but it's not a simple one to one correlation. Still, instead of lingering on the point:

"That's better," of the glyph. "You can see ... it's brighter in some places than others, but you're getting it more even as you practice. You want it to all be the same, not because the light matters, but because the light shows you you've gotten the spell right." An effect, not a cause.

He smiles, briefly. "If it helps, I remember one particular student's reaction when I tried to explain that the glyph extends beyond the visible boundaries. I'll take your interest in the underpinnings of it over a why can't it just work approach any day." At least the story was fondly told. He hadn't begrudged the student their frustration, it seems, even if it reflected a type of pragmatism Julius doesn't share.

“I welcome the diversion,” she says, her hand at his elbow as he leans down to her, turning her cheek a little so she can press a brief kiss to his mouth in answer. “Sit with me,” on a chair or on the edge of her desk, she doesn't mind a touch of informality from Julius, “tell me.”

A moment neither of them is working sounds like a dream someone had, five years ago; for now, she is content that they — and Marcus — have always worked so well together, professionally as much as personally.

(Probably slightly more. She is less frustrating, professionally.)

By the twitch of his brow and a glance up at Julius, it's apparent Benedict is at least slightly reassured by Julius' observation, but there's still so much about the situation that he can't-- or doesn't want to-- wrap his head around.

"The intended one being," he guesses, "watch out, or the rest of us will be dealt with similarly?" It begs the question of what the actual message is, if not that.

He takes the edge of the desk, choosing informality over distance. "I've been thinking, as the rebuilding comes on. It's not that I'm not grateful Marcus's position comes with a bit of private space, but ... What would think about a place in town. Obviously not for all the time, we'll all of us have work keeping us here overnight now and then. And I know it will be an additional expense."

There's no illusions, at least in private, about who has the strongest hand in organizing their collective finances.

"But I suppose I'd rather felt." A pause. "I think I had gotten accustomed, to a bit more space." Quieter, as it's not something without some complicated baggage tied into it. He's well enough; this isn't how he'd raise the topic, if he weren't. But that doesn't make it simple.

"Whatever else, certainly that. I don't remember the timeline; did you know Amsel at all, when she was here with us in Kirkwall?" It's not a change of subject. He needs the reminder, though, to know how much to contextualize.

(He'd done the math on how long it had been since she'd taken off for assignments in far-flung parts of Thedas when she first arrived. He imagines the Provost would know, if anyone would be bold enough to ask her.)

"Not closely," if at all, Benedict realizes-- he recalls her being around, but not that they ever spoke.

"Wasn't she a Knight-Enchanter?" spoken almost furtively: a Loyalist, he means, and someone who was ostensibly fine enough with the Circles to gain a high ranking within them.

“Our room meant for three or four,” she allows; or three, but not three sharing the space the way that they had. Though she's taking her time with the thought, it's apparent enough in the thoughtful warmth of her look up to him that she's taken with it, too; she rests a hand lightly on his knee, fond—

“The expense would not be unmanageable,” she allows, after a moment. “Between the three of us, if we feel it should be merited. It would require some adjustment, but...” A tilt of that hand. “Well. Some of that, we spend on accommodation when we linger in the city regardless.”

It actually might be cheaper than their occasional stay in Hightown. Once they have options, she can be surer of the math...

She realises that she is, already, thinking of when.

“Shall we invade that private space and see what he thinks, too?”

"She was, which makes a very particular kind of point." An obedient mage is still a mage, maybe, or If we'll do this to her, imagine what we'll do to the rest of you.

"She also used to be the head of Diplomacy, at one time. The outward face of the organization. They may have been seizing an opportunity, but it's hard to think their choice of target was idle, under the circumstances."

It makes him smile. "Well, now that you've assured me it isn't financially irresponsible, I think we should." He rises and offers her a hand, not because she needs it but because he'd like to tuck her close. The small motions of affection that they'd once both hesitated over, especially where others could see, are no less precious to him for having taken practice.

"It would also allow us to host, now and then, if there are those in Hightown we think worth inviting. In a way less complicated than bringing them over here." A home rather than rooms in, effectively, a garrison.

A wince, and Benedict hunches his shoulders, letting the implication settle over him.

"...we ought to do something," he remarks, in a low, off-the-record sort of tone, "if rogue Templars pose this much of a threat. To us, to our organization."

"Yes, I think so." Quiet, a bit opaque but not unsympathetic. "I suspect they'll get bolder if left unanswered. I would hope it is seen as an attack on Riftwatch as an organization, and not just its mages."

He doesn't elaborate on how founded or idle that hope is at present, however. Instead, he says, "As much as I share your disgust for what was done to her, I would say ... be mindful of treating her as a person, not a walking cautionary tale. I know it can be unsettling, but in the end, she's still there. They didn't kill her. With Tranquil, it can be hard to look past what was done, especially if you've not known them before, but practice." It's advice, not an order; this technically falls outside the scope of Benedict's role. But it's something Julius clearly feels strongly about, for all he speaks quietly.

"They're nearly inextricable by now, I would hope," Benedict murmurs, but it's not uncommon for little details to surface and cause doubt on the matter: the mages may be an indispensable part of Riftwatch, but they're still mages.

"I-- yes. Of course." He shakes his head, straightening slightly, preening his hair back out of his face; if nothing else, his years here have taught him how to treat people.
It seems like a reasonable end to the conversation, but before he can let it go completely, Benedict feels compelled to ask:

"--and people would-- do this to themselves on purpose? Request it?"

Standing there, now leaning against his staff, Stephen sizes up the glyph and the relative brightness along its edges and curves and shapes. It’s not any readable language, but neither had been the runes back home. He’s good at this part.

He suspects that you could trace these lines with perfect mathematical precision and still not activate the glyph properly; so much of Thedosian magic is sheer raw willpower and thus uniting that with the craft. He has been getting better, but it’s taking time and practice.

Again. Again.

At least this is a more laidback method, at their own time and their own pace, with no particular rush. He’s not downing lyrium potions and sleep-deprived and working himself to the bone, back when he’d dug his fingers into magic and made time obey his will. Which, speaking of…

“Once I get this next one working, you should step on it. I want to see it in effect,” he says. “And then, I’ll trade: I’d like you to cast a Time Spiral on me. I built on it as a foundation last year, but being able to feel it from the inside,” he wrinkles his nose in accidental distaste, phrasing, “will be helpful, I suspect.”

Needful or otherwise, certainly it is appropriate to offer a lady a hand—

and she is warmly pleased to be drawn in close, the way they both might have balked at before, ahead of an admittedly short walk through mostly the halls of offices. Marcus, hopefully at the other end of that walk, may take his lion's share of the credit for this softening between them. To think: a brisk romantic.

“Well, perhaps,” is only a little dampening on that idea, contemplative, “though there is a space between not financially irresponsible and adequate to entertain, depending on the acquaintances and their particular worth.”

Hightown contacts have Hightown expectations; they are simply not bringing home Hightown money. Even still, the idea isn't without merit, and she allows it to percolate as they make their way to the Forces office and quarters, considering it from all angles. Hightown is not exactly ignorant of their means or circumstances, however effectively they move there; there may be those worth cultivating more intimately. A delicate balance to strike.

The door is open when they get there, about half a foot of space. Something of a habit for his former office, a signal that he was available, and now is no different—they can find him in the midst of reading reports, taking notation, and visibly glad to see the pair of them that they might distract him.

Some minor decision not to immediately rise from his seat at the heavy-set desk, but does put his pen aside, sit back a little further in his chair.

"Hello," a greeting. "Passing through?" The door to their private quarters is, in contrast to the front entry, closed tightly, but unlocked.

"Here to interrupt you, actually. Assuming whatever you're working on can be laid aside for a few moments." It's light, but on the other hand, it's not as if such work doesn't exist.

Still, assuming he's not discouraged, he ushers Petrana in to settle in her seat of choice. As for Julius, he half sits, half leans on the edge of the desk, careful not to actually displace anything on top of it. "I've had a thought, and Petra thinks it's at least worth raising to you, so we didn't want to go any farther with it before it was all three of us."

"I suppose so," is more to the second one than the first; he trusts Stephen, and stepping into a paralysis glyph is not especially unpleasant unless it's immediately followed by someone attacking you.

"Did you learn a lot of spells by feeling their effects, at your monastery? I admit, it's not a technique I personally used much, but I'm not sure if that's a difference in how our magic actually works or merely temperament." It's said warmly enough that it's clear he's not judging Stephen for his eagerness to test a spell by having it cast on him. On the other hand, it does seem like the sort of way Stephen specifically might prefer to learn.

"Sometimes." Julius's expression is grave and muted. "Students who were afraid of failing their Harrowing sometimes looked at it compared to 'possessed by a demon' or 'executed by a Templar' and choose Tranquility as the least bad of the three options. That happened at Kinloch Hold." A pause where it seems like he might elaborate, but he opts not to.

Instead, he adds, "And, I understand, there were cases before the war where after the fact people claimed the Tranquil chose it to put a pretty face on an ugly thing. Or, I suspect, cases in between where the appearance of choice remained but pressure was exerted beneath. It is a powerful thing, to have people you trust tell you that you could become a monster."

“Julius proposes,” she takes up the thought, lowering herself into the chair opposite Marcus's desk in deference to the fact that the office door is still ajar, “the benefits that we might have of renting a place of our own, apart from the Gallows. Somewhere in Kirkwall proper.”

Probably no where terribly fine, but she's relatively certain between the three of them they could afford somewhere comfortable enough. Somewhere they might enjoy the reprieve from their entire lives revolving around this space, for a time.

That pause is felt, and hangs between them as Benedict considers its implications; and as Julius speaks again, his words seem to seep into Benedict's very blood as it chills from heart to fingertips. He knows with a certain instinctive certainty that, had he arrived in the south earlier, he would have been in the position to make that decision: he's already lost to a demon once, hasn't he?

"I missed," he says quietly, anxiously, "I missed my Harrowing. I was here." It got lost in the churn of Atticus' capture, his betrayal, the clumsy picking up of pieces that dragged on into months and years.

"Inconvenient," he scoffs, in what he's trying to make a laugh, but there's a total absence of warmth in his face.

“Oh boy, did I.” Stephen sounds just as warm; there’s an odd sort of nostalgic fondness as he thinks back on his hands-on training. “I can’t remember if I mentioned— the very first bit of magic I ever experienced was my teacher blasting my consciousness out of my body and sending it reeling through the cosmos. I eventually grew to be able to do the same thing, like yanking people’s spirits out of their physical forms. And then all my combat training thereafter, my trainer, Mordo, liked to put me through my paces by setting me on the receiving end of everything.”

Even now, even after all that had happened, there’s regret seeped into his voice as he remembers the man. The way their paths had so drastically, violently diverged.

He presses on.

“Humiliating when you got it wrong, of course, but you still learn and you get back up. For all that I appreciate the theoretical foundation, some of it’s also— you get a muscle-memory for it. You can study an endless number of diagrams to know where the organs are in the body, but it’s never quite the same as making the first incision yourself. And then doing it often enough that your hand remembers and knows where to cut. Once you know what it’s meant to feel like.”

Barring being trapped in a meeting room with his colleagues or the Venatori actively laying yet another siege against the Gallows, work will never occupy Marcus' focus so much that he can't entertain either of them. Cute that they ask, anyway, and he gives a flex of a hand to wave away the notion, pen set aside.

All that, and it's a coin toss as to whether they would decide to bring a work matter to him anyway.

But they do not. A glance from Julius trails to Petrana as the topic is handed off, Marcus listing back in his chair. Alright, not a marriage proposal yet. Eventually it will be, he's sure, and pitched exactly like this.

"The benefits," he echoes, "such as, less likely to become rubble."

He can think of more.

"Among others," he agrees with a small smile. "Obviously, our duties will probably keep all of us overnight in the Gallows sometimes. But a bit of privacy when we like it wouldn't go amiss. More space, for all I'm not unappreciative of what we have now. And it's not as if none of us ever spend the night in Kirkwall proper; this would give us a space more secure and permanent than an inn."

Petrana had taken the suggestion well and he's hopeful that Marcus will too. It will undeniably constrain their pooled resources, but the more Julius has let himself think of the idea, the more attractive it seems.

Julius considers him for a moment, his look quietly evaluating. After that pause, he says, "I was at Kinloch Hold when Uldred rebelled. I will be the last person to claim that mages needn't worry about possession at all. But the longer I've been outside of the Circle, the more I think that there must be a more productive way to safeguard against the possibility. I had more than one apprentice terrified of their Harrowing, and full of fear is demonstrably a terrible way to face down anything you might encounter in the Fade."

A beat.

"I think you've faced a variety of tests of your character, by now, even if none of them were a formal Harrowing."

"It's still strange to me, sometimes, the way you describe your training." Without the undercurrent of fear, he doesn't say but clearly means. "I must seem frustratingly cautious to you, sometimes."

He exhales, as if shaking off a mental cloud, and adds, "I understand what you mean about 'muscle memory,' though. There are spells I've done so much that I don't consciously think about them, for the most part. I can feel if it's going right because I've felt it so often before. Glyphs, especially, for what it's worth. There's ... it's something like a click when the parts of something mechanical align."

A tangible relief passes over Benedict as a sigh escapes his nose, his eyes all but shimmering at Julius as his face relaxes. This is, needless to say, a reassuring assessment.

He nods, and, catching his own reaction, straightens a bit. Tosses his hair; pretends he never doubted, but can't sell it.

"I'm glad you think so."

“Exactly,” Stephen says, warming to that shared image, the rightness of it. “It’s— precise, which the way I tend to work with magic to begin with. Some of it is heart and soul and spirit, yes, but much of it was also brute memorisation and specific application of runes in a specific order. This is similar. Like how you can play a song on the piano by memory, pressing the keys in the same order, and the end result is a beautiful song.”

Or, used to be able to play the piano.

He closes the paralysis glyph and pinches it off, the magic flaring, ready for Julius to step in. He considers, and adds: “Besides. You’re cautious for good reason. It’s not how I did it, personally, but one could say that I’m far too reckless.” No, he’s definitely too reckless. “There’s a time and a place for either.”

Though Petrana tips her hand noncommittally at less likely to become rubble — at best, 60-40 — she says, “I admit, I am not unmoved by the notion of a place our own, even so modest as we would be obliged to.”

(Even, she says, but it seems the thoughtless words of habit and not a meaningful critique. It'd hardly be the most modest place to which any of them have laid claim, after all.)

“And,” brightening, “you are so fond of decorating.”

Himself. Them. Petrana's assumption that it would extend to a living space they had more control over than one room here or there may or may not be misguided, but she seems taken with it for a moment.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Sometimes I Feel Like My Brain Turns To Leaves [OPEN + CLOSED]

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+ marcus.

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this clicking in my head when certain things line up when like is put with like and there is order

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