WHO: Nicola + You WHAT: Fresh meat. And eventually old gross meat too. WHEN: Bloomingtide, pre-mod plot. WHERE: Kirkwall & the Gallows for now. NOTES: Putting open and closed things for all my dudes in here as I write them, so if you want to plan something with any of them, tap my shoulder about it.
Two weeks after his arrival, Nicola loses an argument with a well-dressed merchant at the docks. Their debate is held in quiet and rapid Antivan, gestures louder than the words, and reluctantly concluded by a handshake that transitions into a friendlier clasp of his hand to her collar. She's leapt back onto her nimble little ship before he remembers the letter in his pocket, and they have to each lean over the grey, kelpy water for him to hand it across.
She tucks it into her shirt, and then she's busy with ropes and commands, and he's left him with the subject of their disagreement: ten sizable crates, arranged in five stacks of two.
He could lift one of them alone. Maybe. But the rest would not necessarily be here when he came back for them.
He's weighing the relative costs of (a) nine lost crates of shitty table wine, (b) having to broadcast a request for help, and (c) shelling out his own money for some loitering dockhand's time, when he spots (d) a single semi-familiar face or uniform that might be waylaid with a beckoning hand.
gallows.
Whoever has volunteered or been volunteered to teach a newcomer how the eluvians work — and what an eluvian even is — welcome to the room where Riftwatch's Gallows eluvian is kept. Nicola has been quiet. He hasn't expressed any reluctance to learn. However, when the mirror lights up, dully reflective surface giving way to a shimmering glimpse of what's waiting beyond it, he doesn't jump, exactly, but he does go from a curious lean forward to a more alarmed slant back from the mirror.
"I see," he says.
He has seen one of these before. His aunt has one, inert and decorative in her drawing room between a mounted halla head and a gleaming restored mosaic. Should he warn her? He'll consider it.
He does not step bravely forward or volunteer to go first. He says, "In Sirone everyone thinks Riftwatch is enormous. They think there is no other way you could be everywhere and do everything that you do."
“Good thing we’re limited by our imaginations and not theirs, then,” Gwenaëlle says, standing beside the mirror, clearly weighing whether or not she should outright remind him that the next step is literally stepping, or take pity on him and say she’s going first, or just haul him through and see how that goes. “If we stopped to consider how impossible most of what we achieve actually ought to be more often than we do,”
Nicola is a quiet, serious addition to the Diplomacy offices; for his first few days he does little more than introduce himself, listen, and read, working to get up to speed. He could be mistaken for shy. After a debriefing meeting, however, as he passes Byerly and Benedict, there's nothing shy about the way he stops and looks at them — no polite hovering, waiting for an opportunity to interrupt their conversation, but with an apparent expectation they'll stop and pay attention to him.
"Señor Rutyer," he says. "Señor Artemaeus. Any relation to Aurelius Artemaeus?"
Benedict is mid-sentence, telling Byerly about some fussy thing or another that the latter may or may not actually care about, but he stops short when they're addressed. His smile locks into Personnel Officer mode, only to freeze oddly with the invocation of his father's name.
If there's one thing that has always been true of Benedict, since he first set foot on the Gallows and even before, it's that he is a singularly terrible liar. He at least has the presence of mind to not answer at all, but looks to Byerly with a familiar searching, wide-eyed look. help
Byerly knows full well that if this man is asking that question, he already knows the answer to that question. Antivans are rarely curious. They are, more typically, excessively well-informed.
Still - that’s Benedict’s father, right? Who gives a damn about the father? He’s a minuscule presence next to his wife.
“Me? I suppose if you went back far enough, you could find something. Rutyer sap can be found in most of Thedas’ noble trees.”
Byerly smiles brightly. He watches closely to see how this no-longer-so-meek newcomer reacts to a bit of nonsense.
Nicola would not admit it, and he would be cross to know anyone else might be able to see it, but there is some amusement at that, hidden in infinitesimal shifts around his eyes. Some part of him does think it's funny. Or some distant part of him is only susceptible to the influence of big, bright smiles.
But aside from that faint glimmer, he looks as stern as if he were back home waiting for a hungover cousin to finish pulling on his pants.
"Then it is even more convenient to find you here," he says. "Your," what, eyebrows raising and a deep breath accompanying the guess, "seventeenth cousin however many times removed was in business with my relatives for some time. Perhaps they will reach a new agreement now that Governor Levati is dead — "
Benedict looks from Byerly back to Nicola, silently working to piece together what exactly is going on here and, as one might predict, coming up short. It’s with genuine indignant surprise that he meets the latter’s eyes again, on the subject of some dead governor or another—- why would he have anything to do with that? Why would his father, for that matter?
“…sorry?” His inclination is to scoff, roll his eyes toward Byerly. Who’s this weirdo?
Governor Levati. A relation of this newcomer, he supposes - or maybe not. Would a Crow be so unsubtle as to take the name of the person they were taking revenge for? Surely Yseult would have been aware if there was no Nicola Levati in existence and she was bringing in someone under a false name. Though - well - she was rather busy of late…And an Antivan didn’t need to be a Crow to have a blood vendetta.
Byerly’s smile remains pleasant, though his hand drifts slowly towards the knife at his belt. Just in case the man decides to pass along someone-or-other’s regards.
“I hope you’re not laboring under the misapprehension that dear Artemaeus is some emissary of some bit of his family’s business.”
Lounging with the suspicion, maybe — offering to buy the possibility a drink so they could talk —
He glances between them. Dear Artemaeus. The repeated looks to Rutyer. Interesting. Nicola can play along with that well enough: he focuses on the older man and speaks to him as if he's Artemaeus's minder, since that seems to be more or less the case. He only belatedly glances down to notice Rutyer's hand's progress toward the knife, eyebrows quirking in surprise, so he's either not a Crow or very good at pretending not to be one.
"This" Riftwatch, "would be a strange business for him if he was."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
kirkwall (open)
Two weeks after his arrival, Nicola loses an argument with a well-dressed merchant at the docks. Their debate is held in quiet and rapid Antivan, gestures louder than the words, and reluctantly concluded by a handshake that transitions into a friendlier clasp of his hand to her collar. She's leapt back onto her nimble little ship before he remembers the letter in his pocket, and they have to each lean over the grey, kelpy water for him to hand it across.
She tucks it into her shirt, and then she's busy with ropes and commands, and he's left him with the subject of their disagreement: ten sizable crates, arranged in five stacks of two.
He could lift one of them alone. Maybe. But the rest would not necessarily be here when he came back for them.
He's weighing the relative costs of (a) nine lost crates of shitty table wine, (b) having to broadcast a request for help, and (c) shelling out his own money for some loitering dockhand's time, when he spots (d) a single semi-familiar face or uniform that might be waylaid with a beckoning hand.
gallows.
Whoever has volunteered or been volunteered to teach a newcomer how the eluvians work — and what an eluvian even is — welcome to the room where Riftwatch's Gallows eluvian is kept. Nicola has been quiet. He hasn't expressed any reluctance to learn. However, when the mirror lights up, dully reflective surface giving way to a shimmering glimpse of what's waiting beyond it, he doesn't jump, exactly, but he does go from a curious lean forward to a more alarmed slant back from the mirror.
"I see," he says.
He has seen one of these before. His aunt has one, inert and decorative in her drawing room between a mounted halla head and a gleaming restored mosaic. Should he warn her? He'll consider it.
He does not step bravely forward or volunteer to go first. He says, "In Sirone everyone thinks Riftwatch is enormous. They think there is no other way you could be everywhere and do everything that you do."
gallows.
more than none, less than they should,
“we’d get fuck all done, probably.”
diplomacy offices (benedict & byerly)
"Señor Rutyer," he says. "Señor Artemaeus. Any relation to Aurelius Artemaeus?"
no subject
If there's one thing that has always been true of Benedict, since he first set foot on the Gallows and even before, it's that he is a singularly terrible liar. He at least has the presence of mind to not answer at all, but looks to Byerly with a familiar searching, wide-eyed look. help
no subject
Still - that’s Benedict’s father, right? Who gives a damn about the father? He’s a minuscule presence next to his wife.
“Me? I suppose if you went back far enough, you could find something. Rutyer sap can be found in most of Thedas’ noble trees.”
Byerly smiles brightly. He watches closely to see how this no-longer-so-meek newcomer reacts to a bit of nonsense.
no subject
But aside from that faint glimmer, he looks as stern as if he were back home waiting for a hungover cousin to finish pulling on his pants.
"Then it is even more convenient to find you here," he says. "Your," what, eyebrows raising and a deep breath accompanying the guess, "seventeenth cousin however many times removed was in business with my relatives for some time. Perhaps they will reach a new agreement now that Governor Levati is dead — "
He looks back at wide-eyed Benedict.
" — coincidentally, I'm sure."
no subject
“…sorry?” His inclination is to scoff, roll his eyes toward Byerly. Who’s this weirdo?
no subject
Byerly’s smile remains pleasant, though his hand drifts slowly towards the knife at his belt. Just in case the man decides to pass along someone-or-other’s regards.
“I hope you’re not laboring under the misapprehension that dear Artemaeus is some emissary of some bit of his family’s business.”
no subject
Lounging with the suspicion, maybe — offering to buy the possibility a drink so they could talk —
He glances between them. Dear Artemaeus. The repeated looks to Rutyer. Interesting. Nicola can play along with that well enough: he focuses on the older man and speaks to him as if he's Artemaeus's minder, since that seems to be more or less the case. He only belatedly glances down to notice Rutyer's hand's progress toward the knife, eyebrows quirking in surprise, so he's either not a Crow or very good at pretending not to be one.
"This" Riftwatch, "would be a strange business for him if he was."