Inbox - Fade Rift

[nonvenomous]

Book/crystal/correspondence/action/whatever you desire.

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[nonvenomous]

10% + 20% = 30%, which yields approximately ⅓ of a compulsion to go ahead and hook his thumb down into the lyrium hole.

With his thumb outstretched across the contour of the break, Richard watches Isaac watching him for a long moment, poised to read any trace of a further tell. Finding none, he looks back down into the glow hole, and holds the stave of it back out for its owner to retake.

“I’ve already volunteered for an assignment I need to be sane for.”

Or he absolutely would, pending further research and perhaps the arrangement of a neutral witness. Dick is nothing if not earnest in this weird, unspoken promise.

[wythersake]

"What, freelancing already?"

Because Riftwatch isn't — Oh, you know. Dick hands the branch back, and something shrugs out of Isaac's face, vanishes with the air's anticipation. Another time. Isaac rolls the staff between his hands.

"It still functions, more or less." More or less isn't good enough for the field. "But every so often, a spell will shake the binding loose."

In a Fade wind, some boughs bend. Others —

"I could see a Formari, but they'd like as not just tell me to chuck it."

[heirring]

Tragically, that look has even less effect in this context. She scoffs.

"Then you may have my guarantee, Mr. Dickerson. I am the very picture of discretion. But records must be kept, if only for our own benefit. Who can be expected to recall every little detail of a thing from months prior? I find it unlikely that this will be an abbreviated study."

[nonvenomous]

Wysteria scoffs and Richard sighs in tight aside to himself, thoroughly Tried.

“Please don’t use my name.”

Which might as well be real, so far as this plane is concerned. This will all be fine, Miss Poppell is ‘the very picture of discretion.’

“I will requisition paper,” he adds, because he might as well have a fallback explanation that will require other people to assist in covering for him if the seneschal becomes suspicious of his crimes. “For recordkeeping.” Not for a giant ant.

[heirring]

"Excellent. You may feel free to use my name as a reference on the form should you feel you require it."

From the long look she gives him, there can be no doubt what she thinks about this whole anonymous record keeping business. But to her (very limited) credit, she scribbles out a line in her notes, then caps the pen and tucks it back into— her hair, surely. The freshly written note is folded over and tucked into a pocket.

"Well then, Mr. Dickerson." She offers her hand out to shake. "I look forward to working with you."

[nonvenomous]

Technically, Richard hasn’t confessed to anything yet. It would cost him nothing to deny any capacity for help and excuse himself. But Isaac is handsome, and there’s nothing more pitiful than a caster without a focus.

“I was careless, in the jungle.”

He is decisive in saying so, no affection for being put in this position behind his eyes, which have gone a little tight at the corners.

“Your people subjugate magic users.”

How embarrassing. But doubtless, he’s preaching to the choir -- at current both of them look like they could use a nap.

“I can mend the shaft, but not the lyrium core. Direct contact is required.”

[nonvenomous]

“Thedas is a dangerous place for talented individuals.”

And Richard Dickerson has made a career of flying under the danger radar, insinstence cut clear blue in his eyes, unwilling to be ashamed about the added precaution. His eyes refocus momentarily to follow her pen over her ear.

…

He reaches out to grasp her hand, and takes the opportunity to get a good gauge on the state its in by the light of the lamp when he does so. Tilt, turn, and then a firm shake. No judgment.

He’s just curious.

“I could send the snake with you, if you like.”

A very kind and earnest offer, in parting.

crystal.

[heorte]

Have you ever built a chicken coop?

[nonvenomous]

[ ... ]

Literally or figuratively?

[heorte]

Literally.

[nonvenomous]

No, I have not ever built a chicken coop.

[nonvenomous]

Is everything alright?

[heorte]

Yes.

[ obviously ]

I need another set of hands, and I already have the lumbar. Do you have some time?

[nonvenomous]

[ ???

why does this keep happening ]

Where should I meet you?

[heorte]

Have you been to Wysteria's house in Hightown before?

[nonvenomous]

...I have.

[ confirmed for secret code. ]

I’m currently finishing a task at the Gallows, I’ll head to the dock shortly.

[heorte]

Good. Make sure you use the side entrance, not the front door.

Is the last message Richard gets. When he does arrive, providing he does not go through the front door and disturb the ghost, he can find Ellis in the back garden with an assortment of lumber, metal mesh, nails and various tools. Ellis himself is clearing away what looks to once have been a statue but is now just disjointed, weather-stained wooden limbs.

[nonvenomous]

So here is Richard, in his fine vest and with his fine satchel, facing down the materials needed to build a chicken coop, and the man who called him here to assist with the building. No one is tied up, or possessed, or bleeding. He looks uncertainly from a roll of wire mesh to Ellis.

There are faint undertones of betrayal for his own lack of understanding.

Who calls the man named Dick Dickerson to help with manual labor?

But he nods a greeting, shrugs the pack of his shoulder, and drops it aside. He loosens his collar and rolls his sleeves, wordlessly, save for a sigh. This is fine. Just two guys, building a thing like guys do.

“What was the statue?”

[heirring]

The hand in question is rather inkstained, neither so soft that it spends all day in a glove nor so hard that it does much work without one. On the back of her hand, between her thumb and forefinger is the slightest freckling of pale circular scars- some kind of burn, there now forever.

Her hand, shaking his, stops very abruptly but doesn't release him. Instead, her grip tightens. Wysteria's attention swivels toward the collar of his clothes where last that little glinting dark eye was seen staring.

"Would you really?"

[nonvenomous]

His own hand is worn more rough in the pad than his appearance would otherwise suggest it should be, with calluses thickest in the crook of his fingers, where a pen would sit. Dick lifts his chin a touch when she locks on -- not quite prepared for the intensity of her enthusiasm. Somehow. In spite of their interaction over the last several minutes.

She was, in his defense, wholly less enthusiastic about the snake in particular.

“Provided you will promise not to attempt to dissect or dispel her.”

Somehow this sounds more like a warning than one condition of an agreement.

“She understands trade. I can tell her to do as you ask, for a time.”

[heirring]

A brief war wages in Wysteria's face with such visibility that she must be an extremely poor poker player. She does not want to carry a snake in her clothes. She does not want to carry a snake at all. She would prefer, generally, not touch a snake or and to instead study a snake through a pane of very clear glass or perhaps for a distance of one or two feet.

And yet, it is not a snake. Not really. She is merely... snake-shaped.

Which Wysteria resolves is a very different thing altogether.

"I would like that very much. And of course would promise to do nothing of the sort. When will you need her returned?"

[nonvenomous]

There it is.

He watches her struggle the same way she’d watch a snake swallowing an especially large egg through a pane of glass, low key fascination for the effort involved. Maybe this will be therapeutic for her.

“I think I can survive without her for a week or two.”

They are still holding hands.

[heirring]

So they are, however she seems to have forgotten.

"Then I will see to her safety for as long as that, and return her to you in exactly the same state which she was received. You have my most solemn oath, Mr. Dickerson."

She sounds very certain. She is going to 'blechk' her way to the ferry with a snake in her possession.

[nonvenomous]

THE PACT IS SEALED.

“I trust you’ll take good care of her.”

Dick pumps his grip enough to remind her it’s there, and gives the order in a hissing abyssal dialect, delivered quietly in aside to his collar. It’d be easy to assume he speaks Snake. He technically does.

She spirals down the interior of his sleeve at a gliding clip, from around the shoulder to the elbow, and around the elbow to his wrist, until she’s ribboned out from beneath the cuff and across the bridge of their thumbs. She noses to scoop the spade of her head in under the lip of Wysteria’s sleeve as a matter of course -- that’s where snakes go -- and will immediately try to burrow the rest of herself in after it, if so allowed.

She’s Miss Poppell’s problem, as soon as Dickerson is sure she isn’t about to be catapulted across the room for overstepping.

He is still holding on.

Just in case.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/X_jkHXbA0k4/hqdefault.jpg

[heirring]

With the air of a slightly ill child being forced to down a measure of bitter tasting tonic (queasy look included), Wysteria's hand tightens to a vice grip on Richard's in place of flinching backwards. And while the cuff of her sleeve is trimmed rather close, the rest beyond it is of a perfectly welcoming dimension for the little serpent to worm her way into. In short order, the snake has disappeared from view entirely, presumably worked its way up Wysteria's arm and settled somewhere more comfortable.

She has only gone a few shades paler than chalk white in the process.

"Very good care, yes," she says absently. There's a snake on her but it's fine because it's not really a snake. "And if there is any particular thing she cares for - a sunny rock now and again, for example, I would be happy to indulge her."