[Ortus Nigenad has had a very interesting day. Given the extent to which he has sought to limit the number of interesting days he would be required to suffer throughout his life, that alone would be distressing. The particular contents of this interesting day, beginning as it did with awakening with too many (and far too boneless) limbs and culminating in the meeting of a certain august personage, has managed to be interesting in a novel way, which in Ortus' estimation is the worst possible way for anything to be interesting.
Perhaps some of this shone through his queasily mortified expression in the aftermath of his rescue, as one of the (excessively) kind strangers bundled him off the ship and onto land soon after disembarking, ushering him to the closest local drinking establishment and settling him at a long, splintering stretch of darkly stained wood with instructions to 'open a tab' directed at the apparent proprietor. It seems he is to await collection at some point in the near future, after incomprehensible affairs (some practical, others more rarefied) are dealt with on the ship by his betters.
This is how Ortus Nigenad, lately of the Ninth House, finds himself as a broad black-swathed slump in front of a glass of some brown frothing liquid that smells of yeast in a place much like the frontier bars described in many of his primary sources. He stares at it with baffled dark eyes, his fresh skull face paint and raised hood obscuring all but a thin sliver of brown skin at his throat, his hands hidden in his crossed sleeves laid over his rounded belly.]
Is...this beer?
[He asks the question tentatively, despite the ponderous depth of his voice, glancing apprehensively at the nearest individual.]
[typically viktor isn't a bar person. ok, that's not entirely true, he's hardly against the concept when he has a specific goal in mind but rarely is he in a position where a bar will help him achieve some goal. he could likely find cheaper, better liquor that isn't watered down in a bottle he can bring anywhere he likes, like his lab, for example. where it is quiet and people don't cause trouble.
but lately he'll admit to certain level of aimlessness in quiet moments, ones that sometimes see him at the shore, both to watch the ships and look for scrap along the beach. sometimes that aimless, drifting feeling does not go away with the sea air, and sometimes the trench is an overwhelming place that has that little voice inside go 'fuck it, why not.' in this case fuck it, why not stop at the dingy little bar on the way back? it might even be nostalgic, like the horrible little holes one could find in the undercity where it was so easy to vanish like another stain on the counter as you sat and nursed your drink.
he's trying a beer himself when ortus is brought in, glances over from idly tracing the ghosts of schematics with the condensation of his glass on the scarred bartop before him. the first thing he notices is the skull paint, which... is admittedly a lot to notice, the kind that forces a second look out of a passing glance. interesting. odd, but certainly there is odder. he was nearly eaten by a shadow of himself just the day before, things got weirder.]
Yes, on the cheap side but- [viktor offers a shrug with the answer, tapping his own glass to show hey, he drank some and he's still alive so... there's that going for it.] Sometimes cheap beer is preferable.
[Under usual circumstances, Ortus may have noticed that second look with the pained sensitivity of someone who very much prefers to not receive so much as a first look. Usual circumstances do not involve beer, or asking questions of a stranger who has the hollowed, gaunt look of a necromancer.]
It is?
[He peers at the glass, then glances at the stranger out of the corner of his eye. The man does seem to have survived his consumption of a drink that Ortus had always imagined to have a somewhat different odor than the effluvial one it possesses. He produces a hand with split knuckles from his sleeve and gingerly brings the glass to his lips.
Well. Ortus sets it back down with studious neutrality.]
I have been led to understand that beer is sometimes considered a reward for valor in battle, or the quenching of thirst incurred from labor. Would you describe this beer as 'typical' in its taste?
[ah, it's interesting to see someone try beer for the first time, or so it sounds. viktor wonders if he should warn the man beer doesn't really taste good persay, but it's subjective enough maybe the man will enjoy it regardless.
the neutrality tells a different story, though again, maybe the man is the stoic type. the question has viktor consider seriously for a moment, taking a sip of his own glass to double check before offering a nod.]
Hm, typical enough. Beer can vary dramatically in quality and I would say this is firmly a stronger, cheaper beer, very much the type preferred by the laborers you mentioned. I would hardly consider myself an expert in the matter but from my understanding it is less the flavor of beer that is the appealing aspect but the fact it is cheap, cold and alcoholic.
Oh, also awful for actually quenching thirst in a meaningful way. [a pause and he says,] I've always thought it tasted terrible, in truth.
[The man also sounds much like a necromancer, who tend to dominate the academic world, but he does not dare to assume. Indeed, assumptions have been thoroughly shocked out of him altogether, at least for the time being. He nods once at the explanation given, still eyeing the beverage.]
It is...potent. [He picks it up once more, staring into it as if it may provide further insight that way.] I have had worse.
[Though nothing ever so...energetic in his mouth, the buzzing of bubbles on his tongue faintly disconcerting. Still, it is not so foul as his still-sharp memory of leek wine, a thin and reeking brew that he half-suspected was at times sweetened with astringent paint cleanser.
But it is beer. He sips it again, and finds it no more palatable.]
[frankly being mistaken for a necromancer would amuse him and not particularly surprise him either, now that he's met palamedes. he'd also be much less surprised about the skull paint, as he's come to understand vaguely that bones seem to be a bit of a thing in that universe.
for now though he just nods along to that assessment, offers,] Where I am from they have liquors that taste more like if turpentine could rot. Truthfully this is very much a treat in comparison.
[he lifts his glass in a mock toast to those disgusting drinks in the undercity, another sip himself and a shake of the head as it goes down.]
Viktor- no family name, another oddity of my home. It is good to meet you- I hope it isn't rude to say you seem like you are having eh... a bit of a time at the moment. I hope the beer is at least a distraction.
[ She's been known to frequent this kind of shithole — the kind where the booze is barely potable and the smells are highly questionable. Andy blends in well with the questionable crowd, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke and throwing back the maybe-beer with the ease of a seasoned alcoholic.
The large, black-clad fellow had gotten a cursory glance from her when he first sat down, but she'd practiced her habit of minding her own damn business — at least until she caught that hesitant question. It earns a second look, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly towards her hairline, giving her a vaguely skeptical look. Finally, with a light huff of breath that's half-amused: ]
Barely. [ With a twinge of wryness: ] Not much of a drinker?
[Ortus has met very few people in his life who have varied from the mold of a religious penitent or devotee. He met a wider variety in his death, but none of them are who he finds himself thinking of when the woman beside him speaks. At the mere recollection of Aiglamene, his erstwhile and always disappointed teacher, his spine straightens neatly as his throat bobs in a reflexively nervous swallow. The woman at his side does not, he thinks, intend to be intimidating. It is simply a quality she possesses, the way another person might possess a particularly large hat.]
There have been few opportunities.
[And little interest on his part in pursuing them. The last time he drank he was a teenager, huddled alone in a disused access tunnel, and it had done nothing but add a splitting two day headache to his problems.]
But today has been unusual in several respects.
[He lifts the glass, and takes a measured, dubious sip, expression twisting only mildly at the eruption of sour, fermented bubbles on his tongue.]
I was a squid this morning.
[It's an explanation he's found useful several times already, and it seems to get most of what he means across.]
[ If she's aware of the effect that her presence has on present company, she doesn't show it. Maybe what she has is the innate gravitas of being several thousand years old, once worshipped as queen and goddess — or something simpler, just the natural severity of her face, all sharp eyes and that distinctly Grecian nose. Whatever the quality is, the woman doesn't wield it against the apparently inexperienced drinker sitting next to her. She only makes a quiet noise of vague amusement in response to his explanation, the corner of her mouth turning upward as she turns to look at him more properly. ]
You don't seem any worse off for it. [ She tips her now empty beer glass in his direction. ] So here's to that.
[ Andy had only washed up on the beach recently herself, though she doesn't feel pressed to relate out loud. Instead, watching him take that dubious sip, she offers dryly: ]
It'll take you a fucking age to get drunk if you keep this pace.
[Many things intimidate Ortus. He holds it against few of them, and certainly not against the dryly amenable woman offering him advice. He appreciates her quietness in this otherwise uncomfortably boisterous atmosphere.
(The dive bar's subdued drinkers would not register as 'boisterous' by any measure but that of a person raised in a holy mausoleum.)
Ortus tips his glass back at her hesitantly, uncertain if he has answered the gesture correctly.]
Here is to that.
[He looks into the golden liquid again pensively.]
I do not wish to become intoxicated. I doubt my Lady would appreciate any additional embarrassment on my part. But it seemed...fitting.
I am remiss. I have not introduced myself. Ortus Nigenad, of the Ninth, though I doubt that holds much meaning for you.
[ She's the sort that usually prefers drinking in solitude — to make a thoughtless activity of it, letting the bottom of a bottle kill time — but despite his conspicuous face paint and imposing stature, she finds the present company not at all intrusive. Tolerable, certainly, and maybe even a bit welcome. She gives his introduction more attention than she might have otherwise, perhaps even a little entertained with the formality. ]
It holds some now. [ Meaning, that is. Her wryness persists: ] Ortus Nigenad of the Ninth, who was recently a squid — and wanted to drink, but not enough to get drunk. A fucking paragon of restraint for the sake of his lady's honor.
[If a person has cause to be near the edge of Gaze and the dilapidated, looming house there, there is a chance they will come across Ortus fussing around the even more dilapidated shed at the edge of the property.
(Sleeping on God's hallowed couch had proved unbearable, at least partially because of the havoc it wrecked on his back.)
He is not, by any definition, a 'handy' man, but he is a diligent one. The debris that had filled the shed - a haphazard assortment of rusted tools, half-finished seeming projects, and rotted wooden planters - has been hauled outside and organized into piles for further consideration at another date. He has pinned heavy blackened canvas over the freshly cleaned windows, whose dim moonlit glow and view of the endless yawning sky had unnerved him as soon as their caked grime was scrubbed away. He has set up a modest, unyielding cot with sufficient blankets to stave off what he is informed is 'spring chill', though it lacks the bite of the Ninth's true cold.
The basics complete, Ortus can now turn to other, smaller projects. Dressed in his black robes with his face painted in a lesser elaboration of the Jawless Skull, Ortus labors under a thankfully dark daytime sky on marking the gaps in the shed wall with white chalk, looking solemnly and perplexedly at the crooked hang of the shed door, and sitting on a nearby stump holding a hammer as if he wished it might turn out to be something else.]
[Presumably, those last three labors are not taking place simultaneously — but whether they are or not, there's a tall, slender, pale shadow of a man lurking by the house's back door, adding the occasional waft of a more pungent smoke to whatever other fresh-air post-industrial pollutants (not to mention, of course, spring pollen) are cheerfully drifting through the air of Trench and waiting to fuck with people's lungs, and quite plainly watching Ortus at his labors.
His voice is polished, cultured, the sort of voice that sounds as though it ought to be raised to declaim poetry, or battle cries, or both — with no evident sign that the smoke has caused any damage to it, no less — and it's pitched to carry effortlessly across the yard, for all that it isn't raised.]
Works better when you're aiming at steel, rather than corpi unguii, if you're really looking to nail it.
[God must be so proud of this man who has spent ten thousand years playing Teacher's Pet.]
[With a sufficient lean, or perhaps a stick strapped to the chalk, Ortus might be capable of all three from where he sits on the slightly crooked stump. He is engaged in contemplation of the haft of the hammer when a voice calls out like the Drearburh bell itself, and his hand closes around it as he startles, straightening to attention in a way that Aiglamene would scoff to see.
He has not heard the voice before, too overcome by humility (and caution) to linger anywhere the man - the Saint - might be, but the face is that of the evidently benignly obnoxious Saint of Patience. He drops his gaze as soon as comprehension comes to him, respectfully averting his near-black eyes. Of course he was aware of the observer, but he would not have gotten as far as he did in life without the cultivation of practiced unnoticing.]
Thank you, most holy Saint. My knowledge of tools is, I admit, scant.
[ And it would appear that his knowledge of anatomically-inflected puns is, if anything, scanter; Augustine represses a sigh. ]
Hmmm, yes, well...
[ It would be a lie to say that he's lifting a hand to help; he's lifting a hand to... raise his cigarette to his lips, thereafter to take another drag from it while looking Very Thoughtful, and then tries again. What the hell does he even remember about Harrow's derelict false-Lyctoral-cavalier? ]
Perhaps your knowledge of scansion is more well-tooled?
[ C'mon, now, Ortus: this one is such an easy lob it's practically T-ball. ]
[A person would think that a man who spends as much time immersed in language as Ortus does would have an appreciation for wordplay, and they would be right to think it. The cleverness of the remark is not lost on him, nor the subtle joke of the inflections - but it is the source of it that cows him.]
I would venture so, Holy Finger.
[He has discovered a fascinating grey rock close by the Saint's feet, upon which he considers stumbling headfirst in pursuit of blessed unconsciousness.]
I have found it of meager use for this purpose. Is there some manner in which I may serve you, Saint Patience?
[He rather blasphemously hopes there is not. He would prefer, in this instance, to a thing toyed with, and not a thing of use.]
[By pure coincidence, the most direct path from Palamedes' unmarked bunker and the looming face of God's Own House includes passing through a copse of scraggly, haunted-looking trees, the dramatic emergence through which should only be fitting for scions of the Empire of the Nine Houses: dark, somewhat haunted, inexplicably not coming down the street like a normal person.
For Palamedes, it's just annoying, but not so much that he's going to go around and waste the extra few minutes. It is thus that he appears in view of God's Own House and Some Guy's Own Shed, ostensibly on a quest to walk into God's kitchen and see if literally anyone else is around who can lend him a spatula: yanking the hem of his gray cloak off an errant thorny bush, and with leaves in his hair.
So he's taken just fine to living in a place with real plants, one could say.
He comes to an ambling stop not when he sees Ortus - he gazes fairly overtly at the hulking shape of a man marking a shed as he starts his way across the property some 50 feet away - but rather, when the realization dawns, he veers back to the shed proper with a more businesslike step. The kitchen can wait.]
The other Ninth; I'd heard you were here. [three whole Ninths looked upon with his own eyes, amazing!!] I'm the Sixth Warden. What's this you're doing?
[Ortus took note of the passing stranger approaching the Emperor's defense, and then he took note of his long, gray silhouette, the slight reflective flashing about his face. By the time the young Master Warden pivots on his path, Ortus has taken the opportunity to school his features to placidity.
There is still a lingering mournfulness to his expression, but this is not atypical. What is atypical, and what he dolefully hopes the young man does not notice, is the flicker of inexplicable relief as he regards the whole and intact face of a stranger.]
Warden of the Sixth. [Ortus dips his head in a respectful nod.] Yes. I am Ortus Nigenad.
[It shouldn't come as a surprise that he's been mentioned, and yet: it remains difficult to picture circumstances in which he would be a topic of discussion.]
As for what I am doing...
[He looks at the chalk-marked shed, then at his white dusted sleeves, then back to the Warden with an even more wearily dolorous set to his skull-painted face.]
It seemed best to identify the areas of concerns before formulating a plan to address them.
[Luckily for Ortus, Palamedes' near-obsessive attention to detail does not make him a mind-reader; he can catch the briefest shade of some other emotion under the paint, but with absolutely no context about Ortus Nigenad other than he is Ninth (and he writes some manner of Long Works), it ends there.
Perhaps Ortus is merely relieved his visitor is not, like, some kind of weirdo. Like God or something. Never mind that thought, for now. Palamedes returns a brisk nod, tilting to one side to see better the, ah, adventure with the chalk Ortus is having.]
Palamedes, [he offers, belatedly, and then,] You've identified an alarming number of concerns. Have you considered replacing the whole thing?
[Not that he knows anything about architecture, but he can count chalk marks in a hurry, and wow. No offense.]
I think chalk might be sturdier than some of this wood, actually.
[Considering some other encounters Ortus has had lately, the relief that Palamedes is not any manner of sanctified soul or divine being (AKA, some kind of weirdo) is a very explicable one.]
That would require an even greater array of skills I do not possess.
[He says it mildly, with a trace of self derisive humour, as he sets aside the chalk and dusts his hands in puffs of minerals.]
It serves as shelter for the time being. I have found it bracing to imagine myself a vanguard on a shepherd planet, homesteading the land as it is surveyed. The occasional breezes and periodic creaking add, I think, to the effect. [A slight, deliberate pause, for effect.] Also, I do not have sufficient quantities of chalk for larger architectural work.
[Working for the majority of her life on an isolated estate crumbling under the weight of its hubris and haunted by uncountable ghosts—the familiarity, Sayo realizes, is probably why she always felt uncomfortable staying at the manse for more than a night—has left Sayo with some scattered knowledge in handy-ing. True, more specialized contractors were hired to do serious repairs, but sometimes the shed door just wouldn't open and she had to figure out what was wrong herself or else be yelled at by the madam.
Inhabiting a run-down warehouse slash martial arts dojo has only sharpened her talents, which is why's one of Ortus's friends that's qualified to actually help him in this instance. Such as properly instructing him on how to use a hammer rather than watching him sadly contemplate it while he mopes on a stump.
Wiping some sweat from her brow (a few months ago, this much exertion would've left Sayo lying on the ground panting, and despite her growing dissatisfaction with Johnny she quietly thanks her sensei), Sayo surveys the shack.]
Hm... the big problem is that it isn't rainproof. If you're going to be properly storing books in there, we need to find a way to make sure the roof doesn't leak. Water will spread through a space like that very quickly.
[Taking instruction from Sayo has proven more amenable than Ortus' past miserable endeavours in hands on education, but this has not protected him from splinters or the beginnings of new wear on his palm from use of the hammer. Still, progress has been made, and the novel aches in his shoulders at least fall along tolerable lines.
He is also sweating, as much from the unsettlingly warm air as the labor at hand, and his paint has smeared in several places, giving the impression that he has himself been left in the rain to melt.]
I do not think I care for rain. [Ortus says, after a period of silent contemplation (and discreet readjustment of his robes).] It is more of a nuisance than I anticipated. There is entirely too much damp on the whole.
[He heaves an impressive sigh, one that swells him on all sides before he deflates with a muttered:]
[Sayo can't help but be impressed by the incredible technique on display with Ortus's morose sigh. A full-body exhalation that articulated the exact degree of put-uponness and general depression that the sigh-er was experiencing without compromising on the drama of a full-body sigh took years of practice; Sayo had to begrudgingly admit that both Ortus's skill and experience greatly outweighed her own.
If Kanon still had eyes, he'd be wiping an ironic tear at the sigh's beauty.]
In my experience, rain is better left as a narrative device to enclose a circle rather than an actual phenomenon you have to weather. [God sprinting from the parlor to the chapel in the typhoon had been MISERABLE.] Although I'm curious what else you could be expecting besides water. I'm only familiar with the Ninth through what you've written in The Noniad, and the House's atmospheric conditions haven't yet come up in my reading.
[Ortus hesitates. As he often hesitates, even over the smallest of things, this is hardly worth noticing. With Sayo, however, Ortus suspects that it will be noted. The young woman's mind recalls a heretic trap that Ortus once read of in a battle report: an innocent seeming divot of earth with a ferocious clamping creature hidden at its base, ready to seize and hold anything that tumbled within its reach.
It's an admirable quality in a writer. It's a slightly unnerving one in a person, particularly one he seeks to keep secrets from.]
Necromancy, particularly that which concerns flesh, sometimes has...residues. Effluvia. [He may be honest in the general sense, if not his specific experience.] I have read several accounts of battle referring to 'rains of blood', and of course there is the literary device of 'rains of fire'.
Neither are typical of the Ninth. Our House's climate is controlled, lacking weather of any sort. The unpredictability of it is... [Another, slightly lighter sigh.] Unnerving. Does one ever become accustomed to it?
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deercountry2022-04-13 04:55 pm
OPEN
early april | darcmouth | nosedive bar
Perhaps some of this shone through his queasily mortified expression in the aftermath of his rescue, as one of the (excessively) kind strangers bundled him off the ship and onto land soon after disembarking, ushering him to the closest local drinking establishment and settling him at a long, splintering stretch of darkly stained wood with instructions to 'open a tab' directed at the apparent proprietor. It seems he is to await collection at some point in the near future, after incomprehensible affairs (some practical, others more rarefied) are dealt with on the ship by his betters.
This is how Ortus Nigenad, lately of the Ninth House, finds himself as a broad black-swathed slump in front of a glass of some brown frothing liquid that smells of yeast in a place much like the frontier bars described in many of his primary sources. He stares at it with baffled dark eyes, his fresh skull face paint and raised hood obscuring all but a thin sliver of brown skin at his throat, his hands hidden in his crossed sleeves laid over his rounded belly.]
Is...this beer?
[He asks the question tentatively, despite the ponderous depth of his voice, glancing apprehensively at the nearest individual.]
i hope this is ok!
but lately he'll admit to certain level of aimlessness in quiet moments, ones that sometimes see him at the shore, both to watch the ships and look for scrap along the beach. sometimes that aimless, drifting feeling does not go away with the sea air, and sometimes the trench is an overwhelming place that has that little voice inside go 'fuck it, why not.' in this case fuck it, why not stop at the dingy little bar on the way back? it might even be nostalgic, like the horrible little holes one could find in the undercity where it was so easy to vanish like another stain on the counter as you sat and nursed your drink.
he's trying a beer himself when ortus is brought in, glances over from idly tracing the ghosts of schematics with the condensation of his glass on the scarred bartop before him. the first thing he notices is the skull paint, which... is admittedly a lot to notice, the kind that forces a second look out of a passing glance. interesting. odd, but certainly there is odder. he was nearly eaten by a shadow of himself just the day before, things got weirder.]
Yes, on the cheap side but- [viktor offers a shrug with the answer, tapping his own glass to show hey, he drank some and he's still alive so... there's that going for it.] Sometimes cheap beer is preferable.
it's great! Viktor!
It is?
[He peers at the glass, then glances at the stranger out of the corner of his eye. The man does seem to have survived his consumption of a drink that Ortus had always imagined to have a somewhat different odor than the effluvial one it possesses. He produces a hand with split knuckles from his sleeve and gingerly brings the glass to his lips.
Well. Ortus sets it back down with studious neutrality.]
I have been led to understand that beer is sometimes considered a reward for valor in battle, or the quenching of thirst incurred from labor. Would you describe this beer as 'typical' in its taste?
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the neutrality tells a different story, though again, maybe the man is the stoic type. the question has viktor consider seriously for a moment, taking a sip of his own glass to double check before offering a nod.]
Hm, typical enough. Beer can vary dramatically in quality and I would say this is firmly a stronger, cheaper beer, very much the type preferred by the laborers you mentioned. I would hardly consider myself an expert in the matter but from my understanding it is less the flavor of beer that is the appealing aspect but the fact it is cheap, cold and alcoholic.
Oh, also awful for actually quenching thirst in a meaningful way. [a pause and he says,] I've always thought it tasted terrible, in truth.
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It is...potent. [He picks it up once more, staring into it as if it may provide further insight that way.] I have had worse.
[Though nothing ever so...energetic in his mouth, the buzzing of bubbles on his tongue faintly disconcerting. Still, it is not so foul as his still-sharp memory of leek wine, a thin and reeking brew that he half-suspected was at times sweetened with astringent paint cleanser.
But it is beer. He sips it again, and finds it no more palatable.]
My name is Ortus Nigenad. May I ask yours?
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for now though he just nods along to that assessment, offers,] Where I am from they have liquors that taste more like if turpentine could rot. Truthfully this is very much a treat in comparison.
[he lifts his glass in a mock toast to those disgusting drinks in the undercity, another sip himself and a shake of the head as it goes down.]
Viktor- no family name, another oddity of my home. It is good to meet you- I hope it isn't rude to say you seem like you are having eh... a bit of a time at the moment. I hope the beer is at least a distraction.
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The large, black-clad fellow had gotten a cursory glance from her when he first sat down, but she'd practiced her habit of minding her own damn business — at least until she caught that hesitant question. It earns a second look, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly towards her hairline, giving her a vaguely skeptical look. Finally, with a light huff of breath that's half-amused: ]
Barely. [ With a twinge of wryness: ] Not much of a drinker?
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There have been few opportunities.
[And little interest on his part in pursuing them. The last time he drank he was a teenager, huddled alone in a disused access tunnel, and it had done nothing but add a splitting two day headache to his problems.]
But today has been unusual in several respects.
[He lifts the glass, and takes a measured, dubious sip, expression twisting only mildly at the eruption of sour, fermented bubbles on his tongue.]
I was a squid this morning.
[It's an explanation he's found useful several times already, and it seems to get most of what he means across.]
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You don't seem any worse off for it. [ She tips her now empty beer glass in his direction. ] So here's to that.
[ Andy had only washed up on the beach recently herself, though she doesn't feel pressed to relate out loud. Instead, watching him take that dubious sip, she offers dryly: ]
It'll take you a fucking age to get drunk if you keep this pace.
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(The dive bar's subdued drinkers would not register as 'boisterous' by any measure but that of a person raised in a holy mausoleum.)
Ortus tips his glass back at her hesitantly, uncertain if he has answered the gesture correctly.]
Here is to that.
[He looks into the golden liquid again pensively.]
I do not wish to become intoxicated. I doubt my Lady would appreciate any additional embarrassment on my part. But it seemed...fitting.
I am remiss. I have not introduced myself. Ortus Nigenad, of the Ninth, though I doubt that holds much meaning for you.
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It holds some now. [ Meaning, that is. Her wryness persists: ] Ortus Nigenad of the Ninth, who was recently a squid — and wanted to drink, but not enough to get drunk. A fucking paragon of restraint for the sake of his lady's honor.
[ And in return, for enduring her teasing: ]
People call me Andy.
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so sorry for the delay, got sick - we can handwave/wrap soonish if you'd like?
hope you're feeling better!! we can leave it with this tag or whatever you're comfortable with!
mid-april | gaze: bone house | a shed of his own
(Sleeping on God's hallowed couch had proved unbearable, at least partially because of the havoc it wrecked on his back.)
He is not, by any definition, a 'handy' man, but he is a diligent one. The debris that had filled the shed - a haphazard assortment of rusted tools, half-finished seeming projects, and rotted wooden planters - has been hauled outside and organized into piles for further consideration at another date. He has pinned heavy blackened canvas over the freshly cleaned windows, whose dim moonlit glow and view of the endless yawning sky had unnerved him as soon as their caked grime was scrubbed away. He has set up a modest, unyielding cot with sufficient blankets to stave off what he is informed is 'spring chill', though it lacks the bite of the Ninth's true cold.
The basics complete, Ortus can now turn to other, smaller projects. Dressed in his black robes with his face painted in a lesser elaboration of the Jawless Skull, Ortus labors under a thankfully dark daytime sky on marking the gaps in the shed wall with white chalk, looking solemnly and perplexedly at the crooked hang of the shed door, and sitting on a nearby stump holding a hammer as if he wished it might turn out to be something else.]
sheds are very important, you know
His voice is polished, cultured, the sort of voice that sounds as though it ought to be raised to declaim poetry, or battle cries, or both — with no evident sign that the smoke has caused any damage to it, no less — and it's pitched to carry effortlessly across the yard, for all that it isn't raised.]
Works better when you're aiming at steel, rather than corpi unguii, if you're really looking to nail it.
[God must be so proud of this man who has spent ten thousand years playing Teacher's Pet.]
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He has not heard the voice before, too overcome by humility (and caution) to linger anywhere the man - the Saint - might be, but the face is that of the evidently benignly obnoxious Saint of Patience. He drops his gaze as soon as comprehension comes to him, respectfully averting his near-black eyes. Of course he was aware of the observer, but he would not have gotten as far as he did in life without the cultivation of practiced unnoticing.]
Thank you, most holy Saint. My knowledge of tools is, I admit, scant.
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Hmmm, yes, well...
[ It would be a lie to say that he's lifting a hand to help; he's lifting a hand to... raise his cigarette to his lips, thereafter to take another drag from it while looking Very Thoughtful, and then tries again. What the hell does he even remember about Harrow's derelict false-Lyctoral-cavalier? ]
Perhaps your knowledge of scansion is more well-tooled?
[ C'mon, now, Ortus: this one is such an easy lob it's practically T-ball. ]
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I would venture so, Holy Finger.
[He has discovered a fascinating grey rock close by the Saint's feet, upon which he considers stumbling headfirst in pursuit of blessed unconsciousness.]
I have found it of meager use for this purpose. Is there some manner in which I may serve you, Saint Patience?
[He rather blasphemously hopes there is not. He would prefer, in this instance, to a thing toyed with, and not a thing of use.]
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cw: sketchily sexual allusions (possibly ongoing for the rest of this thread)
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making a sharp left directly into ortus' business
For Palamedes, it's just annoying, but not so much that he's going to go around and waste the extra few minutes. It is thus that he appears in view of God's Own House and Some Guy's Own Shed, ostensibly on a quest to walk into God's kitchen and see if literally anyone else is around who can lend him a spatula: yanking the hem of his gray cloak off an errant thorny bush, and with leaves in his hair.
So he's taken just fine to living in a place with real plants, one could say.
He comes to an ambling stop not when he sees Ortus - he gazes fairly overtly at the hulking shape of a man marking a shed as he starts his way across the property some 50 feet away - but rather, when the realization dawns, he veers back to the shed proper with a more businesslike step. The kitchen can wait.]
The other Ninth; I'd heard you were here. [three whole Ninths looked upon with his own eyes, amazing!!] I'm the Sixth Warden. What's this you're doing?
[Boy, Ninth tastes are something else, huh.]
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There is still a lingering mournfulness to his expression, but this is not atypical. What is atypical, and what he dolefully hopes the young man does not notice, is the flicker of inexplicable relief as he regards the whole and intact face of a stranger.]
Warden of the Sixth. [Ortus dips his head in a respectful nod.] Yes. I am Ortus Nigenad.
[It shouldn't come as a surprise that he's been mentioned, and yet: it remains difficult to picture circumstances in which he would be a topic of discussion.]
As for what I am doing...
[He looks at the chalk-marked shed, then at his white dusted sleeves, then back to the Warden with an even more wearily dolorous set to his skull-painted face.]
It seemed best to identify the areas of concerns before formulating a plan to address them.
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Perhaps Ortus is merely relieved his visitor is not, like, some kind of weirdo. Like God or something. Never mind that thought, for now. Palamedes returns a brisk nod, tilting to one side to see better the, ah, adventure with the chalk Ortus is having.]
Palamedes, [he offers, belatedly, and then,] You've identified an alarming number of concerns. Have you considered replacing the whole thing?
[Not that he knows anything about architecture, but he can count chalk marks in a hurry, and wow. No offense.]
I think chalk might be sturdier than some of this wood, actually.
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That would require an even greater array of skills I do not possess.
[He says it mildly, with a trace of self derisive humour, as he sets aside the chalk and dusts his hands in puffs of minerals.]
It serves as shelter for the time being. I have found it bracing to imagine myself a vanguard on a shepherd planet, homesteading the land as it is surveyed. The occasional breezes and periodic creaking add, I think, to the effect. [A slight, deliberate pause, for effect.] Also, I do not have sufficient quantities of chalk for larger architectural work.
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Inhabiting a run-down warehouse slash martial arts dojo has only sharpened her talents, which is why's one of Ortus's friends that's qualified to actually help him in this instance. Such as properly instructing him on how to use a hammer rather than watching him sadly contemplate it while he mopes on a stump.
Wiping some sweat from her brow (a few months ago, this much exertion would've left Sayo lying on the ground panting, and despite her growing dissatisfaction with Johnny she quietly thanks her sensei), Sayo surveys the shack.]
Hm... the big problem is that it isn't rainproof. If you're going to be properly storing books in there, we need to find a way to make sure the roof doesn't leak. Water will spread through a space like that very quickly.
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He is also sweating, as much from the unsettlingly warm air as the labor at hand, and his paint has smeared in several places, giving the impression that he has himself been left in the rain to melt.]
I do not think I care for rain. [Ortus says, after a period of silent contemplation (and discreet readjustment of his robes).] It is more of a nuisance than I anticipated. There is entirely too much damp on the whole.
[He heaves an impressive sigh, one that swells him on all sides before he deflates with a muttered:]
At least it is only water.
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If Kanon still had eyes, he'd be wiping an ironic tear at the sigh's beauty.]
In my experience, rain is better left as a narrative device to enclose a circle rather than an actual phenomenon you have to weather. [God sprinting from the parlor to the chapel in the typhoon had been MISERABLE.] Although I'm curious what else you could be expecting besides water. I'm only familiar with the Ninth through what you've written in The Noniad, and the House's atmospheric conditions haven't yet come up in my reading.
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It's an admirable quality in a writer. It's a slightly unnerving one in a person, particularly one he seeks to keep secrets from.]
Necromancy, particularly that which concerns flesh, sometimes has...residues. Effluvia. [He may be honest in the general sense, if not his specific experience.] I have read several accounts of battle referring to 'rains of blood', and of course there is the literary device of 'rains of fire'.
Neither are typical of the Ninth. Our House's climate is controlled, lacking weather of any sort. The unpredictability of it is... [Another, slightly lighter sigh.] Unnerving. Does one ever become accustomed to it?
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