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[ So maybe she's incorrigible.

Athessa catches up to Loxley some day, back in Kirkwall or about the Gallows, jogging until she can fall in stride beside him and very casually flash him a smile at the same moment she tries - and it is an attempt, never successful - to tuck her hair behind her ear. ]

I got somethin' for ya.

[ His voice is quite dry. ]

I have been informed in no uncertain terms that I am a fool if I don't give you another chance.

Edited 2020-02-15 14:44 (UTC)

[ It's day three of their week-long stakeout of the Merchants' Guild office, and right now Athessa is peering out the window at the building in question.

The same guard at the same time both days prior had started to leave, gotten halfway down the street, then hurried back to fetch his keys and actually lock the doors. That guard is the one she's watching now. ]

He's gonna forget his keys again. That'll be three days in a row.

[ In the same way that naps can be disorienting, getting enough sleep after months of the bare minimum can be kinda confusing for the first thirty seconds.

Which is why Athessa startles awake, looking around to try and see where she is--then shoving her mane of curls out of her face to actually be able to recognize her own room.

Oh, and Loxley is here, limbs still mostly entangled with hers.]

[ As luck would have it, they live on the same floor, and it requires barely any reconnaissance work at all for Bastien to catch up to Loxley in the corridor and fall into step with him one morning. ]

Monsieur. Do you mind if I walk with you?

[ He sounds friendly—he is friendly—but there is a small warning sign, in the form of a sheet of notes and a pen held together in one of his hands. ]

Yo.

Ain't seen you around in a minute.

[ in the wee hours of a rainy bloomingtide morning: ]

I'm sorry.

After several increasingly desperate engagements with gnoll maurauders in Jamayah, I stopped arguing for Rah-shak to stay with us. The city was overrun. We were surrounded.
She died fighting to ensure our escape.

Naj died aboard our airship while defending against a goblin ambush. I was unable to revive her.

Loxley?

Loxley's lodgings are small, but tidy, lit by a cluster of candles in a shallow bowl. In her previous visits, Derrica noticed how neatly he kept the room, along with the little decorations, the orderly way he'd lined up his boots by the door. It was the type of detail about him that stuck in her mind, that strike her as sweet.

It comes to mind now as she watches him move through the room. It stalls her halfway out of her coat, which was moments away from being left in a puddled heap on the floor, and redirects it to drape over the chair instead.

"The tavern is not so loud yet tonight," is a stray observation, as Derrica leans a hip against the edge of the table to begin the process of undoing her boot laces. Maybe they've picked a good night for this, when so much of Kirkwall is drinking at the tourney into the wee hours.

Derrica is still watching him, attention evenly split between the task at hand and Loxley himself.

Loxley?

Do you have plans this evening?

The first ferry into Kirkwall comes very early. Derrica knows this because there have been times in which she has waited for it, scuffing her feet on the dock, prepared to slip into the Gallows as if she had been there all night.

She not, however, taken the first ferry into Kirkwall. The city is very, very quiet, and the wind is bitingly cold even through the heavy weight of her cloak. A few Lowtown stalls are opening, and a trio of gangly teens are extinguishing torches in the greying dawn, but otherwise all is still.

It occurs to her that she hasn't planned this very well when she approaches the darkened tavern. But though the door is locked one window is cracked open, and she spills in over the ledge before taking the stairs two by two to rap on Loxley's door and hope he is at home.

Loxley? Will you be home tonight?

Hi.

[ He probably deserves more of a preamble than that, but no. ]

How are you at guarding bodies?

action; post-rift nonsense

crystal

action; sometime recent pre-crossroads, a thing from the jobs list

morning after - action;

action.

crystal; mid-guardian

book

crystal / return to kirkwall

post tourney celebration pt 2.