INBOX ;

[tadpoled]

“Ah, this is Tav. Kindly leave your message.”

voice ; text ; action;

Comments

in passing, at a meal

[extortionate]

"What's that say?"

Spoken through a mouthful of half-chewed bread. Lazar taps an eyebrow. Letters, obviously. Not any he knows.

perf!

[tadpoled]

“I’m sorry?” Tav replies, entirely unsure what’s been said to him as he chews on his stew, as well.

[extortionate]

He raises his voice, tries again.

(His mouth is not any clearer)

"Tattoo," Comes out something like tatghhu. "What's it say?"

[tadpoled]

If takes Tav a moment or two to comprehend the question, but he catches tatghhu and he raises his fingers to the ink on the side of his face. He has no memory if acquiring it, or even what language it may be in, but he’s lied about its origin before.

“The name of the elven god I serve,” Tav replies smoothly, “Corellon.”

[extortionate]

If you're to pretend at intelligence, you might parrot something of value, Schiele had once insisted. He'd worked it into a mnemonic on that first ruins job: MAD-EGS-JF.

The elvhen Creators. Mad eggs, the lot of them.

"Never heard a Corellon," Lazar swallows at last, taps the sun tattooed on his neck. "This one's for the Maker. Don't reckon he's an elf, but someone's bound to argue."

[tadpoled]

The Maker. He’s come across the name in several books on herbology. The Maker as a deity makes entirely more sense than what Tav initially expected.

“I doubt the Maker is an elf,” Tav replies, stirring his soup. “Don’t think anyone would be brave enough to call a god knife ear.”

[extortionate]

"Reckon you're right," He says, thinking of Mad Jeff's egg and all that's said of heathen gods, "They'd be more creative. You met the locals, then?"

[tadpoled]

“I have,” Tav replies with a smile. “Quite a few of them had an opinion about my ears.”

Tav doesn’t really mind all that much; he’s been called worse on the road.

[extortionate]

"You want a change, hang 'round the Alienage," Lazar prods a tooth, experimentally. Still loose, "They'll find plenty else t'comment on."

Probably. Disapproving grannies and heckling kids are the same, world over.

[tadpoled]

“I’ve heard of the Alienage,” Tav replies. “Primarily how unsafe it would be for me to visit. I would be a member of the Riftwatch one moment and a slave the next.”

[extortionate]

His forehead crinkles into the unsubtle shape of confusion. After a beat, he laughs -

"Who the fuck told you that?"

[tadpoled]

Now it’s Tav’s turn to look confused.

“Is it not true?” he asks, though judging by his conversation partner’s face, it very likely isn’t. “They don’t take elves off the street to subjugate?”

He’s almost sure he read something of the sort about Denerim alienages.

[extortionate]

"It's a neighborhood, mate," Lazar points with his fork. "Most you're gonna do is lose your purse."

Might cut it for himself, if there's a moment. This one fell off the apple cart hard.

[tadpoled]

A neighborhood. Perhaps he should simply toss that book out rather than return it to the library.

“A neighborhood?” Tav asks, doubt still apparent in his voice. “Well now I’d like to see it in person”

[extortionate]

There's a brief, ugly calculus that takes place - the odds that Tav'd follow him blindly into Darktown, against the chance he's got anything worth taking -

Eh. Bad investment.

"You got boots," Lazar yawns, rubs at his chin. "Find an elf 'round here if you want an escort."

[tadpoled]

Tav blows out a breath. It seems everyone is allergic to him these days. Or perhaps he’s once again said something he shouldn’t. (Sewing his lips shut or becoming a hermit are both sounding like better and better ideas by the day.)

“I do indeed have boots and legs to fill them,” Tav attempts diplomatically. “I’ll find an escort to the Alienage.”

Or, more likely, he’ll go alone, with only his shirt and shoes.

[extortionate]

"Right-o," Big fucking shem shows up, someone's gonna think they owe money. Worse - might remember that Lazar does. "You finishing that?"

He's already reaching for Tav's bacon.

[tadpoled]

“Go right ahead,” Tav pushes the remnants of his entire meal across the table to Lazar, his appetite gone.

He pauses, tapping his fingers on the table.

“Have you ever been outside of Kirkwall?” Tav asks, his brows furrowed and voice distant.

[extortionate]

"'M not from here," His mouth is full again, making rapid work of Tav's leftovers. A pause to swallow - "Been on the road since, shit. Fourteen?"

A kid, by Marcher measure, but Marchers are soft and he's always been tall. No one back West asked his age.

"Why, your feet getting itchy?"

[tadpoled]

“I’m used to being on the road with friends,” Tav admits quietly.

He feels he has neither here and the desire to at least feel the touch of nature grows the longer people whisper and call him mad. Leaning back in his chair, he does what Bastien would want him to do: consider his company before speaking next. Would Lazar run off to tell someone his is plan if he spilled it now?

“I suppose itchy feet is a way to put it,” Tav nods.

[extortionate]

An empathetic man might express how difficult a transition the Rifted face - absent of not only physical landmarks, but emotional -

Lazar is not an empathetic man.

"Hell," Fork scrapes against plate. "If you're so eager, I got a job for you."

He's been snap-to-ing orders since he turned back up here. No harm in outsourcing a thing or two.

[tadpoled]

“A job,” Tav replies, deeply skeptical if he’s even allowed jobs, but that’s not the point. His endgame is to get out of Kirkwall, one way or another. Maybe the Captain will be more forgiving if Tav tells him he’s got a job.

If he tells the Captain.

“What sort of job?” Tav asks.

[extortionate]

"Bird-catching," Lazar turns the fork over, digs a tine beneath nail. It's been weeks since putting out that bandit's eye, and he'd swear there's still gunk - "Merchant's wife sends out a raven every week, pays to keep it private."

The Hightown rookeries have integrity, which means the information costs more than he's willing to cough up. They'd only sell him right back to her.

"She's hiding it from her husband. Could be an affair, mundane shite."

Or she could be in contact with the Anderfels, the whole reason she's being watched. Either's useful. But both sound a pain in the ass to intercept - what's Lazar gonna do, shimmy up a fucking tree, hope for the best?

"Be easiest to nab the bird outside the city. I can get you a route, and a description. They all got little red bands."

[tadpoled]

Tav considers Lazar's proposal, but there's just one hitch that he needs to address.

"I need an escort to leave my cell," Tav replies quietly, gesturing with his head toward the two piratey looking men standing in the corner. "I doubt my friends would allow me to leave the Gallows without permission of the captain. I can talk to the birds, possibly get them to land closer-- I haven't tried to use my ability here-- but I can't go too far without someone watching me."

It's miserable and he hates it, but he's still trying to cope with it.

[extortionate]

Well that's news.

There's a famous portrait in Rialto - he's seen copies - the Maiden Calculating. A blonde woman sits in classical three-quarters, arranged against a neutral slate of grey. Her eyes seem almost to move with the viewer, in sympathy, or perhaps confusion. Its reproduction alongside mathematical formulae came into vogue for a period of time.

He thinks of her now, that anonymous sitter. Wonders if she'd look half so lost.

"Your cell,"

Lazar prompts. What the fuck, dude.