[open]

[brittlest]

Who: Michael Ralston & Various
What: Catch-all for August
When: post-Horizon, but will probably use this space as I see fit throughout the month.
Where: Castle Thorne
Notes: Feel free to hit me up on discord or plurk if you want to plot something or want a ~*~bespoke~*~ starter. Prose or brackets are a-okay; I'll match your preference. See Ralston's optional opt-in info HERE.

THE CASTLE.

There is a man in Castle Thorne who walks with a cane and has made little effort to seek out anyone's company. By all accounts, he is easily missed and cuts a fairly unremarkable figure—he is neither particularly tall or short, nor especially good looking or plain. In fact if not for the tell-tale tunic and trousers and a penchant for haunting the guest quarters, he might be easily mistaken for some servant or native of the castle who is only as interested in these out-of-world travelers as he is employed to be.

And yet—

[A] Here he is, making use of the library available to Thorne's 'honored guests'; he has rooted his way to some back series of shelves, and is presently standing at the foot of a ladder clearly doing the mental math on scaling it to reach an upper series of books when movement at the end of the stack draws his attention. Ralston snaps his fingers at whoever has had the distinct misfortune to cross paths with him, saying,

"You. Step this way for just a moment."

[B] Or he is in some quiet courtyard available to Thorne's guests, sitting on some bench in the shadow of a high stone wall where the air of the day is most temperate. He has an orange in hand, and is peeling it slowly with every appearance of waiting for someone. Ralston's dark eyes search out any figure who happens to pass across the yard. If he happens to recognize them as either an ex-prisoner or someone who has demonstrated a particular talent for the little magic spells being taught by the Thornean mages, he will whistle to get their attention and motion for them to come closer. Worst comes to worst, he might flick a bit of orange peel in your direction to clarify the urgency of his demand for conversation.

[C] Or, rarest and strangest of all, Ralston might be found in some part of the castle where he shouldn't be. Perhaps it is a merely a rarely used back staircase, or a quiet corridor in some wing of the castle which guests have ostensibly been discouraged from visiting, or he is quietly letting himself into a room in which he has no business being.

WILDCARD.
[You know the drill. Feel free to hit me up on disco or plurk if you feel moved, but I can roll with pretty much anything.]

Comments

[sankt]

"It's not for his sake, it's for yours," he says, thinking in advance of how annoying it would be to have to drag Ralston out of the raven boy's seductive wood or, even worse, to end up wandering there along with him. He says this while looking at Ralston's shoes.

After a deliberate pause, he looks to the face of the man himself.

Then he says, "I'd really rather not."

[brittlest]

From the depths of his chair, Ralston reflects back a studiously unperturbed look. You'd really rather not what? isn't a question which requires asking.

"Lie back," he says to the man who has already settled himself quite firmly against the headboard. "It requires concentration, doesn't it?"

[sankt]

Oh, Ralston.

He responds with a sigh, and turns his gaze aside, as though in concession to this—whatever this is. Assertion of autonomy. Rebellious compulsion. This ongoing argument Ralston is always making against everything. He has been more than patient with it—permissive, even. Polluting his bed, though, with the shoes he wears outside? While gently wringing his hands, the Darkling takes a second to imagine the horror witnessing such a thing might provoke among his Grisha—Ivan would be enraged by it, bless him—and finds it faintly comforting.

And then he flicks his wrist and lifts the shadow beneath Ralston's chair to knock it on its back, and doesn't even watch it happen. Good-bye.

[brittlest]

He leans forward. It's the natural, most reflexive response—beating out any sound of dismay or snatching grasp after the chair's arms. The crack of the chair back impacting with the floor is loud, and in his ear there is a sharper more nauseating snap that has nothing to do with the clatter of the borrowed cane as it skitters away across the floor in imitation of a live snake until it finds some rug or furniture edge.

With a sharp cry, Ralston spills after it in apoplectic disarray.

He writhes there tangled in the geometry of the upended chair. Recoils from the ravenous pain that snarls through his shoulder, the heat of it so shocking and the change or altitude so shocking that he doesn't immediately realize why his face is wet or how exactly he might have contrived to strike it. And then he tastes the metal and it's incredible, isn't it? How freely a broken nose bleeds, hot and copper into his fingers and onto his clothes and the floor.

[sankt]

The initial calamity isn't worth observing. A chair tipping over is hardly catastrophic. Nonetheless, it sounds like Ralston is making a fuss, which doesn't surprise him at all—who knows how long the man been permitted to get away with his trifling bullshit, free of repercussions—so it's only when a new colour appears in the periphery of his attention that he turns his head to see it. His eyebrows drop in undisguised puzzlement.

"Are you bleeding?" When he comes back to the bed's edge, lowers his feet back to the floor, he does so without even the slightest urgency. "How in the world did you manage that?"

[brittlest]

He is indeed bleeding, the hand cupped over the lower half of his face painted grisly vermillion.

"Bastard," is spat back, spittle and red and fundamentally reflexive, from behind it. Only he can't both shield his face and twist off the hot bolt of pain jagging through his shoulder, and so with a scrabbling lack of grace Ralston abandons the attempt in favor of bleeding freely across edge of the rug so he might dredge himself free of the chair.

There's no grace in the arrangement. Half sitting, half lying, he holds his right arm tight against himself. Had he caught himself that way? Twisted as he fell after the impulse to catch himself? Ralston reaches after the cane where it's rolled to a stop, the red heat of fury and mortification and the sick nauseous feeling that comes with sudden pain burning in his face and the back of his neck and low in his belly.

[sankt]

How dramatic.

Were they in Ravka, Kirigan would remain seated there and watch him scrape himself off the floor, and perhaps chide him for bleeding on the rug—the urge is right there on his tongue—but this is neither his palace nor his rug. He must consider where he is, and how bad it would look if someone came to the door only to find it blocked off and this friendly little scene unfolding beyond the barricade. Observing Ralston's tender movements, how he carries himself, the state of his face, he concludes: bad.

So he rises. In a moment he'll drag that little table back to where it was previously, but first he walks to Ralston, stops just shy of the blood, and crouches down smoothly to equalize the level of their eyes.

"I don't know what this is," he says, one finger tugging the rest of his hand to vaguely indicate this, more as a concept than the physicality of it, "but I can see that it hurts, and that you hate that it hurts, so I believe it. I can also see you're repulsed by the idea that you might have to take any lesson from this. Even so, I hope you'll make the effort." The smoke of confidentiality leaves his voice, then, and it's back to business: "Now, I'll fetch a healer for you, yes?"

[brittlest]

He spits. Fuck you. And fuck your satisfaction.

"Yes," is snarled, Ralston's bloody lips curling back from the flash of enamel behind them. Wounded animals often show their teeth. He can feel the heat burning in his face, the taste of shame of frustration more sour at the teeth than any metallic blood tang. "Do that."

Get out of this room. Take that paternalistic and patronizing air with him.