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[wythersake]

action, crystals, letters

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[thereneverwas]

[at the opening to Isaac's tent in the Gallows there is placed a cloth parcel containing an enormous dead centipede. pinned to it is a note that reads, in a bold and informal hand:]

cat brought me this. sorry

Barrow

[wythersake]

[wythersake]

crystals; bugging u here too

[portalling]

( Tit for tat, no wasting time with lead-up: )

Do you have much experience with the Tranquil?

[wythersake]

Not in some years,

[ there aren't terribly many of them left, and it'll do the world a spot of good if the rest die off before anyone gets an idea about it -

but they aren't that lucky, or he wouldn't be getting a call. ]

Why?

crystal

[undergrunn]

Hello. We've not spoken before, but-- is this Isaac?

[wythersake]

If someone's stolen my crystal, I'll be terribly upset.

action; office.

[aberratic]

[ sometime in the week after their conversation on the crystals, ness comes to the enchanter's office, a sheaf of loose papers and a pen and inkwell in hand. she peeks in the door, rather than enter outright. ]

Enchanter Isaac? Ness Tavane, here after that Circle history you offered. Is now a good time, or are you busy?

[wythersake]

[ He is not, as it happens, busy. The spy novel (billed as a true memoir of the author’s time as an antivan halconero, a still more rarified order of assassins) is too recently shut to qualify. ]

Mlle Tavane,

[ A sweeping gesture to the – four chairs, two desks. Atop this one rests a plain wooden globe, beside some smaller glass orb, marbles; a series of jars, empty, else full for paper scraps, another, the flapping wings of moths.

There’s something of the territorial for the rowdy sprawl of it. The other half of the room,

Presumably better-ordered. At any rate, the archivist is out. ]

Now strikes the perfect time.

crystal

[altusimperius]

Assuming you've seen the new posting,

[which nobody is thrilled about-- he had his own room for like a month before the attack, piss shit damn--]

I had wondered what manner of, um, friends in jars I should expect. [the last thing he wants to do is piss them off]

[wythersake]

None. I’ve traded you off to Vlast. The, mn, larger qunari.

[ he trusts benedict is acquainted. ]

Entreating him to trousers was an initial struggle, so your wardrobe ought to have room enough. I’ll be in F if required.

action jumpscare

[thereneverwas]

[It's early in the morning when a knock comes on Isaac's door (and Herian's and Siegfried's but)--

Barrow is standing on the other side of it, holding some manner of deceased nightmare invertebrate that is large enough to spill out of his dinner plate of a hand.]

This yours,

[he has the look about him of someone who woke up very suddenly and very unpleasantly.]

[wythersake]

[ Isaac is nocturnal by assignment and nature. Now, an hour shy of dawn, Barrow's caught him at shift-edge. He is habitually quiet about the business of undressing; has gotten so far as bare feet and trousers when a knock breaks the still air.

He is expecting a caller for Siegfried. The odds of a human emergency strike slim – someone would be screaming by now –

He is not expecting Barrow. It shows on his face: A moment's dull confusion, a fearful, reflexive step back. He catches himself at the threshold. Irritation: ]

No.

[ He shuts the door. ]

crystal.

[exequy]

[ Some evening or another, when he's too much on the clock to work out his boredom another way: ]

What happened with you and Ilias?

[wythersake]

[ with a tone that so carefully does not match the face he's making that it somehow comes back around to implying it again, ]

He left.

[ and isaac could elaborate on that, because it's one thing to think yourself over it and another to find that it alive and well and angry to see you — except that kostos fucking hates ilias, and he certainly hated hearing about this. so: ]

Took off one day, didn't write. Why?

action.

[cozen]

[ Sometimes work is waiting for a messenger at a particular intersection for three hundred hours (or twenty minutes, so far). ]

What got you out of the Circle? Good looks?

[ —could be smarmier, if it weren't delivered without so much as looking at Isaac, let alone winking or wiggling eyebrows. ]

[wythersake]

Wove a rope from my hair, and climbed out the window.

[ a theatric grimace: alas, the price of freedom. it's between pay day, and he's promised a touch too much to satinalia planning; so somewhere between twenty minutes and three hundred hours in he's clean out of tobacco. keeps fiddling with a fallen leaf instead. ]

But as I donned new name and extravagant disguise, I sensed a disturbance in the Fade. A baroness had come down with stomachache, and for mercy I turned about. Or perhaps we would have met — everyone in Montsimmard wanted to see your city.

[ a deliberate little possessive. ]

SECRET SATINA 9:50

[pathlit]

1. Name: Isaac
2. Likes: Tentacles, surprises, hags.
3. Dislikes: Wine, threats, knitwear.
4. Deepest secret: I’m not Orlesian, this has all been an elabourate ruse.

With a week's time, Jayce's gift set in Isaac's mailbox is: a pruning folding knife in a shallow S-curve shape. The hilt is made of hardwood. The blade is approximately 4-inches long. It is nestled in a leather sheath meant to be threaded on a belt. The leather is tooled with a simple design of tentacles extending from the pocket and curling toward the bottom. A torn piece of paper, folded and tucked beside the knife, reads: For harvesting. Happy Secret Satina/Satinalia.

immediately post sarrux.

[elegiaque]

It's Guilfoyle who comes to fetch him—

A brief conversation. He references the matter of her face, swollen and mottled with bruising, but that can't be the whole of it because Gwenaëlle Baudin has taken her shirt off and stitched her own wounds with someone holding a lamp for her in the infirmary and she is not, by habit, precious in that way. That he so firmly insists Isaac must come with him to La Souveraineté means something specific, and Felix (sometimes he is Felix; perhaps this moment is one of them) does not seem afraid in the right way for the more to be some concern that this head injury is proving slowly fatal.

Then again, Isaac knows already how little this man's face expresses.

He is shown all the way up to the bedroom that she shares with Strange, the uppermost floor of the boat and a room that occupies most of it; a curtain drawn across an alcove that must be where their bed is, not otherwise in evidence. It is an expansive space, doors closed to other sections, including the balcony, barring out the sea air. Her desk occupies a well-lit corner; keepsakes and curiosities live in velvet-lined, glass-fronted cases that make up one entire wall. Gwenaëlle herself is dwarfed by a thick velvet robe and looks, immediately, the worse for wear.

“If there is aught you need for your work,” Guilfoyle says, behind him, “only ask.”

The more the bruising has set in and the battle-adrenaline drained away, the more discomfort in trying to speak, so she doesn't immediately. Sets her jaw. Says, “Merci,” for coming.

[wythersake]

Isaac isn't back long. The morning finds him dozing by the fire, teapot in arms; still wearing sleep and yesterday's shirtsleeves when Felix knocks.

(He is Felix. There are privileges one forfeits for a cock in the mouth — others, that fear need assert. Certain servants arrive unannounced only to poor ends. A second location, a story that is mostly holes; it's a brief conversation. He's Felix.

So no one dies.)

Stairs creak. Rain drums the boards, and several flights up he's still dripping on the floor. Isaac stoops close, turns damp hands to her chin. The bag over his shoulder will see to most usual emergencies, but if that was all, they'd be ashore; and more than one eye in her head. Merci.

"Oh, don't speak," Cannot be the first or last time that Gwenaëlle Baudin been asked to shut up, "You'll make that worse. Chalk and board,"

To Guilfoyle. Doubtless, there's something else to write with in this enormous fucking desk, but he'd sooner she not dump an inkwell on them both. Once supplied,

"Tell me what's happened," She's long enough in the Infirmary to have some idea, fond enough it may distract. "And what you've taken. I'm going to look at you,"

Tipping her less swollen cheek. Strange will have seen to the routine questions, if she were dribbling fluid or blazing fever, there'd be no clawing him from her side. Still, he mislikes the cling of mystery about this, dreamlike under grey sky. As though at any moment now, he'll spy the edges of maze.

Crystal;

[allthatgleamsisgold]

I have a question about this ...current development.

sorry ive been slow as balls on our log tags, gestures at life

[wythersake]

The wet thing falling from the sky is called rain,

[ he's being a dick. but vlast will be used to that by now, and the overlap of questions between rifter and templar are thin. so: lyrium. he waits. ]

the book.

[ipseite]

Enchanter,

I wish to speak with you at your earliest convenience on a private (for myself) and professional (for yourself) matter of some significance. I will make myself available.

Mme de Cedoux

[wythersake]

[ if rifters can get pregnant he's going to — ]

action.

[footholds]

[ Isaac may be coming or may be going. Either way, Nicola is waiting with his back against the wall opposite his door, hands in his pockets and seemingly content without distractions in the meantime. ]

Enchanter?

[ There are four people with rooms to themselves at the moment. Two are Tevinter. One is a rifter. One is an Orlesian mage. He's beginning with what sounded most appealing on paper. But if it were settled, Nicola would already have a key from the quartermaster's office and have brought any of his belongings with him. ]

I am here to find out how you feel about sharing your room.

[wythersake]

How do you feel about centipedes?

[ Hypothetical — he keeps them in the office. Isaac's keys are to hand, but he lingers a pace back from the door, eyes on Nicola. It isn't subtle: Who the fuck are yous seldom are. ]

I don't believe we've been introduced.

[ But he's bathed recently, and there's no sign of an anchor; so he's ahead of some replacements. ]