[The prayer garden, while not so busy as the chapel, sees its greatest use around times of observance: dawn, dusk, the sun's apex. Less so the daylight hours in between, and less still in the dark. Occasionally, Leander comes at sundown to sit quietly by himself, content as a witness to any others in their observance. Tonight he comes in the dark.
The night wind coming off the sea, it barely reaches this little patch of green amid the stone—enough to move the leaves, to set thick flowers bobbing on their stems. A cooling sigh against the skin. It moves his shirt across his back, again and again, both balm and bother to the dull pain still lingering there. The blister he'd pierced, the jet of boiling fluid—more lymph than magma, to his good fortune. Less stone to harden on the flesh. It's already flaked off, but the skin is fresh and pink where it stuck, and so every brush of cloth or bunching of muscle comes with a twinge. This he bears in appreciative silence.
He is silent, too, while he watches the shape of another mage move through the garden. At first seated outside the sparse torchlight, he stirs when Marcus leaves his view, stealing just a few steps through the darkness to follow him with his eyes.]
[ Marcus's attendance to this garden have often had some utility to it. To sit and rest after returning from Kirkwall, before the climb up to his room, or a neutral location for a quiet talk without the public attention, the social obligation, that a shared dinner may have. Right now, he finds himself there because staring at the four walls of his room, or the ceiling, was enough to creep agitation beneath his skin. (He stays in the Templar tower, but it mirrors, too much, the one that had once been allocated to mages.)
So he is here, instead, and thinks: the prayer garden is really quite nice, even at night. It's good that nothing bad happened to it.
Not so reverent that he doesn't extract a cigarette box from his coat pocket. Leander, from behind, will see Marcus pause his wandering, duck his head in the likely familiar motion of someone setting the cigarette between their teeth, and then a flare of flame, dancing over his fingertips to light the end.
He's gotten lucky and bears no injuries, save for some minor blistering around his hands from wild spellwork. His clothes had been a little less lucky, holed in places from flying embers. ]
[Indeed, familiar, and noteworthy for its rarity compared to other vices. He sees the orange glow, and the first lung of smoke, and inhales deeply as though to scent it from here. Catches only the sea air, the bitterness of the leaf he's pinched apart. Rim of green under his thumbnail.]
Here to commune with the Maker?
[An outline, emerging from a gap in the foliage. The shadow resolves: only Leander, dressed down, mussed in the way that speaks of a recent bath—barefooted, too, his shoes left alongside the bench.]
[ When a second presence makes itself known, Marcus's look over is subtle, as if the bone deep instinct is to register his own notice in secret. And then he relaxes, some, eyes flicking down to bare feet on the dirt path and gritty pavement, just to note them, then back up again. ]
I've never known the Maker to be any great listener, [ he admits, ] in His holy absence.
[ He has cleaned up as well, some. His face and hands are clean, his hair brushed and carefully re-tied. Still a little dressed for the day, rather than retiring into the late evening. ]
I find the best listeners, often, are those who don't respond.
[Outside Nevarra, the dead don't tend to give advice.
Leander keeps to his own space, reducing the distance between himself and Marcus just enough to preserve the quiet. While he isn't smiling, neither does he appear unfriendly; this isn't a territorial emergence.]
Just thinking. Not of a mood to sleep. [Surely he needn't mention why.]
[ The burning tip of the cigarette flares brightly as he draws a smoke-filled breath through it, listening, then thinks to retrieve the box it had come from and offer it out between them. A gesture in kind, demonstrating that he doesn't feel intruded upon either.
Something in Leander's words grazes against a recent bruise, but not enough for it to show more than a passing silence. ]
No, [ Marcus agrees. ] But the dreaming could prove interesting.
[The box is accepted, its contents examined for familiarity (he's accustomed to northeastern strains, wrapped neatly in brown leaves), partaken and returned.]
You'll forgive me if I don't accept the compliment.
[He tilts his head just the same, lights from a spark, looks at the newborn cinder while he exhales his first cloud.]
We did what was needed. [A pause, an even look,] I do appreciate you being there.
[ These cigarettes seem to be a cheaper and more local imitation of such. A little harsh on the intake. Forgive him, he's on a budget still.
Marcus pockets the box, eyes hooding a little in acknowledgement of compliment, such as it was, declined. ]
Not only the killing, [ he says. Maybe not the killing at all, but sending the remnants of this man Felix on his way all seems bound up in the same. The violence of the ice mines, and the gentleness of a prayer afterwards. ]
[A plain enough admission, bare of emotion. Mildly delivered, all the same. It's a convenience, the similarity between repression and absence—even, or perhaps especially, when he doesn't care to examine which is being exercised.
(And the cigarette? Adequate. He's no connoisseur, only curious.)]
Come—let's walk a circuit or two. Try to work ourselves loose.
[A quiet night, good weather, and a chance to observe his company's reaction to the coming answer—how nice. Restorative. A gift.]
Kinloch Hold, [might be concerning enough of its own, if Marcus does some quick math,] then Nevarra City, and finally Dairsmuid. It's been a bit of a journey.
[ He's already done some of that math, mostly on his way downstairs from the room shared by Enchanter Julius and Madame de Cedoux. Marcus's reactions will always be low key, extremely well practiced at resting neutral face, but what little indications there are honest ones.
He knows a little of Kinloch Hold. He also knows a little of Dairsmuid, which earns a glance Leander's way. Makes sense. His kinship with Derrica has been plain to observe.
Maybe another time. He doesn't think Leander will flinch when he asks, plainly; ]
He does, though, take a little time to consider his answer. A few strides, another lungful pulled and blown, walking through his own smoke. An emotional exhibitionist might snatch at this chance to unload some trauma, but he has never been that.
This mage, Rowntree—he seems the type to be fluent in simplicity. The stoic is often interested in what remains undisclosed. The private ones, they love a secret.
With the ghost of a smile—glint of a hook in the dark—]
[ Certainly, Leander has Marcus's attention to whatever the answer might be, and after as they walk, perhaps with the expectation he might elaborate. It is, after all, a lot of how mages might speak to one another -- comparing horrors with those who did not share exactly them, but near enough to understand. ]
I would like to know about it, [ he prompts, mild manners as ever making direct ways of going about things a little softer than they look on paper. But he adds, too-- ] Or occupy our stroll with easier matters.
[ He flicks his fingers, lets ash dust away. ]
I've friends who suffered that place, is all. I'd like to understand it, after what happened today.
[Friends who suffered. Leander himself not counted among them, he expects, with no ill feeling about it. This unsubtle approach made quietly civilized—it pleases him.]
Why not ask them? [His glance, the way he turns his head, tips his chin just so, is a little subtler. Purely to see if it lands, whether he can see it landing. (He has no particular designs.)] I mean it as a question, truly. Will they not speak of it?
I've only asked you, [ Marcus says, after another sighed release of smoke. The prod within the question doesn't seem to jab anything very tender.
He is also now watching their path, content to ponder Leander's question -- it is meant, and so he thinks on his answer, content to lapse into some quiet to do so before he eventually says; ]
I don't want my asking to seem a matter of politics. I don't know what yours are, or if it matters to you, all that.
[As if that can be avoided. Everything is politics; everything is art. Leander strolls easily at Rowntree's side, accepting of any pause and likewise unhurried in his speech. An echo of their first assignment, then a pair of strangers walking companionably through the snow, this time well after the kill.]
If you wouldn't mind first indulging me—I'm curious what they say about it.
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the night after the abomination;
The night wind coming off the sea, it barely reaches this little patch of green amid the stone—enough to move the leaves, to set thick flowers bobbing on their stems. A cooling sigh against the skin. It moves his shirt across his back, again and again, both balm and bother to the dull pain still lingering there. The blister he'd pierced, the jet of boiling fluid—more lymph than magma, to his good fortune. Less stone to harden on the flesh. It's already flaked off, but the skin is fresh and pink where it stuck, and so every brush of cloth or bunching of muscle comes with a twinge. This he bears in appreciative silence.
He is silent, too, while he watches the shape of another mage move through the garden. At first seated outside the sparse torchlight, he stirs when Marcus leaves his view, stealing just a few steps through the darkness to follow him with his eyes.]
no subject
So he is here, instead, and thinks: the prayer garden is really quite nice, even at night. It's good that nothing bad happened to it.
Not so reverent that he doesn't extract a cigarette box from his coat pocket. Leander, from behind, will see Marcus pause his wandering, duck his head in the likely familiar motion of someone setting the cigarette between their teeth, and then a flare of flame, dancing over his fingertips to light the end.
He's gotten lucky and bears no injuries, save for some minor blistering around his hands from wild spellwork. His clothes had been a little less lucky, holed in places from flying embers. ]
no subject
Here to commune with the Maker?
[An outline, emerging from a gap in the foliage. The shadow resolves: only Leander, dressed down, mussed in the way that speaks of a recent bath—barefooted, too, his shoes left alongside the bench.]
Or only with yourself?
no subject
I've never known the Maker to be any great listener, [ he admits, ] in His holy absence.
[ He has cleaned up as well, some. His face and hands are clean, his hair brushed and carefully re-tied. Still a little dressed for the day, rather than retiring into the late evening. ]
Yourself?
no subject
[Outside Nevarra, the dead don't tend to give advice.
Leander keeps to his own space, reducing the distance between himself and Marcus just enough to preserve the quiet. While he isn't smiling, neither does he appear unfriendly; this isn't a territorial emergence.]
Just thinking. Not of a mood to sleep. [Surely he needn't mention why.]
no subject
Something in Leander's words grazes against a recent bruise, but not enough for it to show more than a passing silence. ]
No, [ Marcus agrees. ] But the dreaming could prove interesting.
[ Such as it ever is. ]
You did well, in finishing it.
no subject
You'll forgive me if I don't accept the compliment.
[He tilts his head just the same, lights from a spark, looks at the newborn cinder while he exhales his first cloud.]
We did what was needed. [A pause, an even look,] I do appreciate you being there.
no subject
Marcus pockets the box, eyes hooding a little in acknowledgement of compliment, such as it was, declined. ]
Not only the killing, [ he says. Maybe not the killing at all, but sending the remnants of this man Felix on his way all seems bound up in the same. The violence of the ice mines, and the gentleness of a prayer afterwards. ]
I'd never had to, before.
no subject
[A plain enough admission, bare of emotion. Mildly delivered, all the same. It's a convenience, the similarity between repression and absence—even, or perhaps especially, when he doesn't care to examine which is being exercised.
(And the cigarette? Adequate. He's no connoisseur, only curious.)]
Come—let's walk a circuit or two. Try to work ourselves loose.
no subject
[ --sighed out with smoke, and Marcus resumes the walk he'd paused, companionable stroll striking the same tempo as a lonely meander. ]
My Circle practiced discipline well. There were no such tragedies while I was there. Not so many made Tranquil, either.
[ Which did not prevent him from breaking it in half. But more to the point-- ]
Where did you come up?
no subject
Kinloch Hold, [might be concerning enough of its own, if Marcus does some quick math,] then Nevarra City, and finally Dairsmuid. It's been a bit of a journey.
no subject
He knows a little of Kinloch Hold. He also knows a little of Dairsmuid, which earns a glance Leander's way. Makes sense. His kinship with Derrica has been plain to observe.
Maybe another time. He doesn't think Leander will flinch when he asks, plainly; ]
Was it as bad as they say? In Kinloch Hold.
no subject
He does, though, take a little time to consider his answer. A few strides, another lungful pulled and blown, walking through his own smoke. An emotional exhibitionist might snatch at this chance to unload some trauma, but he has never been that.
This mage, Rowntree—he seems the type to be fluent in simplicity. The stoic is often interested in what remains undisclosed. The private ones, they love a secret.
With the ghost of a smile—glint of a hook in the dark—]
It was bad.
no subject
I would like to know about it, [ he prompts, mild manners as ever making direct ways of going about things a little softer than they look on paper. But he adds, too-- ] Or occupy our stroll with easier matters.
[ He flicks his fingers, lets ash dust away. ]
I've friends who suffered that place, is all. I'd like to understand it, after what happened today.
no subject
Why not ask them? [His glance, the way he turns his head, tips his chin just so, is a little subtler. Purely to see if it lands, whether he can see it landing. (He has no particular designs.)] I mean it as a question, truly. Will they not speak of it?
no subject
He is also now watching their path, content to ponder Leander's question -- it is meant, and so he thinks on his answer, content to lapse into some quiet to do so before he eventually says; ]
I don't want my asking to seem a matter of politics. I don't know what yours are, or if it matters to you, all that.
no subject
[As if that can be avoided. Everything is politics; everything is art. Leander strolls easily at Rowntree's side, accepting of any pause and likewise unhurried in his speech. An echo of their first assignment, then a pair of strangers walking companionably through the snow, this time well after the kill.]
If you wouldn't mind first indulging me—I'm curious what they say about it.