LEX LOCI (7/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:55:21 UTC
For Anders, taking care of it was synonymous with going outside to sniff nervously around. He hadn’t been serious when he’d offered to chase the interested party off through physical means, but if their current unwanted company was looking to attack, they’d have done so already.
No; Lirene’s instincts were usually spot-on. They had another lurker on their hands. Blowing their cover would be the best way to get them to leave-letting them know that they weren’t as sneaky as they imagined would shame them into trotting off, hopefully to tell their employer just how dreadful it was in Darktown’s free clinic. No unsung heroes there-certainly not wealthy ones-but rather an unparalleled collection of the down, the dirty and the destitute.
People so often made the mistake of imagining most Fereldans were stupid; no doubt it had something to do with the mud and the dogs again, but Lirene was the sort who did so love proving people wrong.
Anders was starting to love it, too, if only because Darktown offered few clear triumphs, and ‘feeling smarter than other people’ was one of them.
Outside the clinic, he was greeted with the usual gathering of foul-mouthed children on the landing by the stairs, one of them reciting a joyfully lewd rhyme about the viscount, and either a drunk or a possessed pile of rags was sleeping up against the clinic’s far wall. However, there was no sign of an elf, armored or otherwise.
Anders liked to think his powers of observation had improved since he’d come to Kirkwall. He knew what to look for now, and how to tell by the shiver down his spine when he was being watched. He recognized, implicitly, the glint of sunlight off burnished armor, the soft clank of greaves as someone knelt in the soil, the hiss of a sword being drawn from its scabbard: these were all sounds an apostate had to memorize, to recognize in an instant if he wished to maintain his life and his freedom.
Anders was quite fond of both.
Yet there was none of that in the immediate vicinity. Elves were small, but they were not invisible-last Anders had checked-and the ones who wore armor made just as much noise as everyone else. The longer Anders stood in front of the door, feeling like an idiot as the children stopped their play-time to stare at the funny man with the feathered shoulders, the more certain he became.
If there ever had been someone watching the clinic, they were long gone now.
‘Wonderful,’ Anders muttered. He reached up to douse the lamp over the door, just to be on the safe side. Now that they didn’t know what they were dealing with-now that there was yet another spy out there, one with motivations Anders had no current means of discerning-it made sense to close down for the day.
Karl didn’t like to take chances. He was serious about his other work, even more serious than he was about his precious clinic.
*
Karl was heading out of the back room when Anders returned inside, bearing the long metal lantern snuffer in one hand, the other tucked in a deep, empty pocket. Despite the serious matters they’d been discussing, both Karl and his associate were smiling.
‘Closing early?’ Malcolm asked, rubbing a hand over his graying beard. Anders had always found it peculiar that both Karl and his oldest friend had chosen to cultivate such similar facial hair. It made Anders feel like the odd man out-though not so much that he’d ever thought of growing one himself.
It was one thing to make that decision, to grow anything more assertive than simple stubble-it meant something, signified a definitive choice, and Anders wasn’t ready to be that person yet.
That person: an apostate in Darktown with gray streaks in his beard.
No; Lirene’s instincts were usually spot-on. They had another lurker on their hands. Blowing their cover would be the best way to get them to leave-letting them know that they weren’t as sneaky as they imagined would shame them into trotting off, hopefully to tell their employer just how dreadful it was in Darktown’s free clinic. No unsung heroes there-certainly not wealthy ones-but rather an unparalleled collection of the down, the dirty and the destitute.
People so often made the mistake of imagining most Fereldans were stupid; no doubt it had something to do with the mud and the dogs again, but Lirene was the sort who did so love proving people wrong.
Anders was starting to love it, too, if only because Darktown offered few clear triumphs, and ‘feeling smarter than other people’ was one of them.
Outside the clinic, he was greeted with the usual gathering of foul-mouthed children on the landing by the stairs, one of them reciting a joyfully lewd rhyme about the viscount, and either a drunk or a possessed pile of rags was sleeping up against the clinic’s far wall. However, there was no sign of an elf, armored or otherwise.
Anders liked to think his powers of observation had improved since he’d come to Kirkwall. He knew what to look for now, and how to tell by the shiver down his spine when he was being watched. He recognized, implicitly, the glint of sunlight off burnished armor, the soft clank of greaves as someone knelt in the soil, the hiss of a sword being drawn from its scabbard: these were all sounds an apostate had to memorize, to recognize in an instant if he wished to maintain his life and his freedom.
Anders was quite fond of both.
Yet there was none of that in the immediate vicinity. Elves were small, but they were not invisible-last Anders had checked-and the ones who wore armor made just as much noise as everyone else. The longer Anders stood in front of the door, feeling like an idiot as the children stopped their play-time to stare at the funny man with the feathered shoulders, the more certain he became.
If there ever had been someone watching the clinic, they were long gone now.
‘Wonderful,’ Anders muttered. He reached up to douse the lamp over the door, just to be on the safe side. Now that they didn’t know what they were dealing with-now that there was yet another spy out there, one with motivations Anders had no current means of discerning-it made sense to close down for the day.
Karl didn’t like to take chances. He was serious about his other work, even more serious than he was about his precious clinic.
*
Karl was heading out of the back room when Anders returned inside, bearing the long metal lantern snuffer in one hand, the other tucked in a deep, empty pocket. Despite the serious matters they’d been discussing, both Karl and his associate were smiling.
‘Closing early?’ Malcolm asked, rubbing a hand over his graying beard. Anders had always found it peculiar that both Karl and his oldest friend had chosen to cultivate such similar facial hair. It made Anders feel like the odd man out-though not so much that he’d ever thought of growing one himself.
It was one thing to make that decision, to grow anything more assertive than simple stubble-it meant something, signified a definitive choice, and Anders wasn’t ready to be that person yet.
That person: an apostate in Darktown with gray streaks in his beard.
There were far too many of those already.
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