The Emerald Graves is filled with all kinds of tombs - burial mounds and crumbling fortresses a lovely decayed houses like this one ruined by plenty but most recently war. It's that one (and the weather) which chases him over the mess decked threshold and into the overgrown home. If there is any thought for some danger inside the old structure, he ignores it in favor ideas like warm and dry even as he leans on the roan mare's reins to coax her through the doors into the great foyer after him. She's loathe to stoop under the crumbling mantle of the entry, but eventually Marcoulf says enough sweet things that she jumps through the passage and lands with all four hooves on the rotting carpet. After he promptlyunbridles her, sets the door back in its frame to see that she doesn't wander back out into the sheeting rain, and turns his attention to the house stretching out around them.
It's dim and and dank, smelling strongly of green things and earth. Rain works its way through cracks in the lovely frescoed ceilings and moss climbs the grand stairs more easily than any human foot might. But most of all it is still, quiet as the dead, and after a moment's long listening he can't help but approve of it. Good. He'd rather not cross paths with any other soldier fleeing the collapsing war or scoundrel looking to slit the throats of those tired men that might be found in the road.
With a pat to the horse's side, he ranges off from the grand entranceway to the foremost room. He's in search of furniture - a chair or small table or anything that might easily be shattered and remade into firewood. Building a camp here can be no different from taking shelter from the rain in some roadside shed.
It's an excited, enthralling thought - as she hears the sound of a horse and rider downstairs. Hearing them move through the old walls, clicking and clanking of metal on damp eaten carpets. It must have been too long - she swears that dead and all, she could have just shivered in anticipation.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy - who would it be, who would it be? Her form shifts incorporeal, fade-thin, shifting through walls and floor as she searches for him. A shape that isn't there, sliding between stones no man could pass through were he still living and possessing of all limbs and good wit.
Happily, she possessed none of them anymore. Moving slowly, until she finds him and his horse - a pretty mare. Matching, weren't they? - oof, so red, did he mean to match his horse so well? A little warn, a little faded.
Oh, a soldier. Hard and hardy. How long would he last, then? Perhaps as long as his horse. Granted, the horses always knew her presence first, over men, animals always had better sense. So she moved towards it first. The chains and manacles on her wrists clanked, a heavy sound against the whisper of skirts. A floorboard aching out the sound of its soul that wasn't her, in all fairness, just wind creaking above them.
But she waited, letting the horse feel the presence before the man - watching it build with the pressure. Sliding closer and closer, up into vision from the side until she was close enough -
- and the horse let out a scream.
Katarina couldn't help it, she laughed, high and maybe a little mean. Before she realised she was doing it out loud, and her hand clapped over her mouth, quickly fading back into the wall before she could be caught.
There's furniture enough in the ancillary room to start a fire with, though the vine wrapped side table and rotted armchair seem the likeliest subjects for the work. He's only just begun to rip the greenery from the table, thinking to free it then snap free the intricately carved legs when the groaning of the old house is punctuated by the sharp, blood curdling shriek of the made in the anteroom.
It's such a horrible sound, followed still by laughter-- he's in the doorway in an instant, sword half drawn from it's sheath and a shout in his throat for whatever wild person has found their way into the house after them. Some mad thief on the road or a dalish elf finally making their move after tracking horse and rider through the Graves. But the room is empty, still save for the shaken animal.
A bare moment - he waits, listening, for the span of just a few seconds - and then Marcoulf slides the rapier home with a snap of metal and crosses to the made. He touches her nose ("Easy, easy"), runs his hand along her trembling neck and checks her all over for some wound. The laughter was the wind through the cracked roof; maybe she was spooked by some animal or stung by some insect... But even when he finds no mark on the mare, he can't shake the uneasiness the room inspires now. So he loops the reins back around her neck and speaks softly and gently, leading her from the foyer into the parlor beside it.
Better to keep her with him then, even if it's nothing but the wind.
Katarina falls back, as he went further in. He was coming closer now - towards her body. The severed skull and strewn limbs. All laid with flowers. Would he touch them sweetly?
But there was no point driving him there yet ( or away, more likely ). Pulled the tail of the horse, well, metaphorically speaking. But let us see about the man - his beast was already interesting. ( That this wasn't the way out of here for her, hardly mattered, utterly unrepentant to what she was, if he was going run, she needed to know before she made an appearance herself. ) She crept forward again, hovering the foot above ground, her face peeking out of the wall as he turned his back to lead on and she wafted out from her hiding place.
Not to go far, she wouldn't want to be a poor hostess and leave him all alone. Instead, she followed right behind him, hurrying that little as she went to catch up with him. No, no, he would have a constant companion in his stay, that would see to all his needs. Like she hadn't, not since Van Helsing had anyone -
- Her fingers lifted and reached out when he came to a stop in the smaller parlour. A ladies room, once the chairs here at least only rotted, not overgrown. Not to pull his hair, but to prickle on the back of his neck, just above his collar. Far kinder, far sweeter. Brushing across the inch of exposed skin between collar and hair.
There's a difference between sense and superstition. Sense says get out of the rain; sense says make a fire; sense says the prickle at the back of his neck is cobwebs on the air or his own uneasiness growing from the roan mare's. But sense in the Emerald Graves also says spirits live here, that dark things come crawling where the Fade is thin. And the Fade is narrow here. It's so all over Thedas since the Breach and who knows what lives in ruined houses like this one now. Only a fool would dismiss the possibility of being watched in the Dales.
But in a dusty old house like this one-- not that it stops him from turning toward the gentle prickle at the back of his neck even as he keeps one hand cinched around the reins around the anxious horse's head. Tak, tak, tak, says the rain, the air muggy and low from the wet.
He feels along the base of his hairline. Listens again. Then pats the horse high on her neck and says to her, "Your man is going strange in his age. He'll spook at the smallest thing."
Still he keeps hold of her through the looped reins and busies himself making quick work of the saddle's girth. "Besides, there's no mages to eat here," he tells her. "Unless you've been hiding something from me."
Huff, huff, huff, thinks Katarina. Who sulks almost a moment that she gets no more than muttering for her subtle push. Where was the jump? The sudden looking around? Honestly, he wasn't being the least bit entertaining to her.
It was the least he could, after all. She was dead and he still had a pulse, he could oblige by sending it a little bit racing.
Time for something a bit more then. She looks around the room. Once it had been modestly but respectably decorated. A painting hung here. A candelabra there. The soft light that ebbed from the ornate stone fireplace that now was just full of old twigs, a fallen down and long empty birds nest, a bramble bush that had lived and died between flagstones. He could use it if his only purpose was to hide from the cold and rain.
If he could pick it out from the other fallen in things in front of it. A table overturned and chairs piled in the way. She blew on the horse's ear as she moved past, thinking, ignoring the nervous sound - there was no reason she couldn't be helpful, she supposed. He did just seem to shelter, he hadn't gone for the silverware just yet. She faded through the mess in the way, fishing for a handful of stones that she took up in one hand.
The other she lifted, watching him still, to click her fingers, drawing his pretty mares face. Hoping he would follow the suddenness of her turn, and then - just in case in he didn't look any further: she threw the stones against the back wall of the fireplace, clattering to make a noise and roll back down again. Disturbing cobwebs and branches aside.
He does follow the line of the animal's head. She might be startled and jumpy, but those tall eyes and big velvet nose are likely more trustworthy than his own senses and he's known her to be a good lookout - a sensible kind of animal as far as horses can be. If something in the house has her looking, it may very well be in his best interets to look too.
The clatter of stones is more than enough to draw his attention. For a moment, Marcoulf's hand clenches closed on the reins about the mare's thought. He presses his knuckles against her, bracing as if ready for her to start again (the room is large enough that he could get out from underfoot, but he'd rather not trip over a rotten section of carpet or stray bit of weather ruined furniture--). But then he makes a small noise, unloops the reins and discards the bridle in a mildewed chair. He moves toward the sound, the tangle of brambles, the overgrown barricade of green is discarded furniture.
--And laughs. It's a rough and short and sounds like, 'You idiot' because where there's a fireplace - and indeed there is one hidden there -, there's likely to be all kinds of animals inside it. Plenty to spook a horse and dislodge grit.
"Don't be too pleased," he warns the mare as he sets to clearing the rubbish from infront of the hearth. "The chimney will be blocked."
She keeps herself still by the stone walls. Keeps her body pressed in close, as she watches. Nothing dare stirs here save for her, bitter in her loneliness, she protects these walls - or what is left of them.
Just perhaps not... against the animals that have come to roost.
"Oh - shoot."
The words are out of her mouth before she thinks about it and immediately her hand claps out of her mouth. He'll have heard that, she's spent too long teasing him for him to ignore it now. She presses harder against the stone, feeling herself flicker with the mistake. He will catch sight of what he now knows to look for.
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It's dim and and dank, smelling strongly of green things and earth. Rain works its way through cracks in the lovely frescoed ceilings and moss climbs the grand stairs more easily than any human foot might. But most of all it is still, quiet as the dead, and after a moment's long listening he can't help but approve of it. Good. He'd rather not cross paths with any other soldier fleeing the collapsing war or scoundrel looking to slit the throats of those tired men that might be found in the road.
With a pat to the horse's side, he ranges off from the grand entranceway to the foremost room. He's in search of furniture - a chair or small table or anything that might easily be shattered and remade into firewood. Building a camp here can be no different from taking shelter from the rain in some roadside shed.
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It's an excited, enthralling thought - as she hears the sound of a horse and rider downstairs. Hearing them move through the old walls, clicking and clanking of metal on damp eaten carpets. It must have been too long - she swears that dead and all, she could have just shivered in anticipation.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy - who would it be, who would it be? Her form shifts incorporeal, fade-thin, shifting through walls and floor as she searches for him. A shape that isn't there, sliding between stones no man could pass through were he still living and possessing of all limbs and good wit.
Happily, she possessed none of them anymore. Moving slowly, until she finds him and his horse - a pretty mare. Matching, weren't they? - oof, so red, did he mean to match his horse so well? A little warn, a little faded.
Oh, a soldier. Hard and hardy. How long would he last, then? Perhaps as long as his horse. Granted, the horses always knew her presence first, over men, animals always had better sense. So she moved towards it first. The chains and manacles on her wrists clanked, a heavy sound against the whisper of skirts. A floorboard aching out the sound of its soul that wasn't her, in all fairness, just wind creaking above them.
But she waited, letting the horse feel the presence before the man - watching it build with the pressure. Sliding closer and closer, up into vision from the side until she was close enough -
- and the horse let out a scream.
Katarina couldn't help it, she laughed, high and maybe a little mean. Before she realised she was doing it out loud, and her hand clapped over her mouth, quickly fading back into the wall before she could be caught.
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It's such a horrible sound, followed still by laughter-- he's in the doorway in an instant, sword half drawn from it's sheath and a shout in his throat for whatever wild person has found their way into the house after them. Some mad thief on the road or a dalish elf finally making their move after tracking horse and rider through the Graves. But the room is empty, still save for the shaken animal.
A bare moment - he waits, listening, for the span of just a few seconds - and then Marcoulf slides the rapier home with a snap of metal and crosses to the made. He touches her nose ("Easy, easy"), runs his hand along her trembling neck and checks her all over for some wound. The laughter was the wind through the cracked roof; maybe she was spooked by some animal or stung by some insect... But even when he finds no mark on the mare, he can't shake the uneasiness the room inspires now. So he loops the reins back around her neck and speaks softly and gently, leading her from the foyer into the parlor beside it.
Better to keep her with him then, even if it's nothing but the wind.
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But there was no point driving him there yet ( or away, more likely ). Pulled the tail of the horse, well, metaphorically speaking. But let us see about the man - his beast was already interesting. ( That this wasn't the way out of here for her, hardly mattered, utterly unrepentant to what she was, if he was going run, she needed to know before she made an appearance herself. ) She crept forward again, hovering the foot above ground, her face peeking out of the wall as he turned his back to lead on and she wafted out from her hiding place.
Not to go far, she wouldn't want to be a poor hostess and leave him all alone. Instead, she followed right behind him, hurrying that little as she went to catch up with him. No, no, he would have a constant companion in his stay, that would see to all his needs. Like she hadn't, not since Van Helsing had anyone -
- Her fingers lifted and reached out when he came to a stop in the smaller parlour. A ladies room, once the chairs here at least only rotted, not overgrown. Not to pull his hair, but to prickle on the back of his neck, just above his collar. Far kinder, far sweeter. Brushing across the inch of exposed skin between collar and hair.
no subject
But in a dusty old house like this one-- not that it stops him from turning toward the gentle prickle at the back of his neck even as he keeps one hand cinched around the reins around the anxious horse's head. Tak, tak, tak, says the rain, the air muggy and low from the wet.
He feels along the base of his hairline. Listens again. Then pats the horse high on her neck and says to her, "Your man is going strange in his age. He'll spook at the smallest thing."
Still he keeps hold of her through the looped reins and busies himself making quick work of the saddle's girth. "Besides, there's no mages to eat here," he tells her. "Unless you've been hiding something from me."
no subject
It was the least he could, after all. She was dead and he still had a pulse, he could oblige by sending it a little bit racing.
Time for something a bit more then. She looks around the room. Once it had been modestly but respectably decorated. A painting hung here. A candelabra there. The soft light that ebbed from the ornate stone fireplace that now was just full of old twigs, a fallen down and long empty birds nest, a bramble bush that had lived and died between flagstones. He could use it if his only purpose was to hide from the cold and rain.
If he could pick it out from the other fallen in things in front of it. A table overturned and chairs piled in the way. She blew on the horse's ear as she moved past, thinking, ignoring the nervous sound - there was no reason she couldn't be helpful, she supposed. He did just seem to shelter, he hadn't gone for the silverware just yet. She faded through the mess in the way, fishing for a handful of stones that she took up in one hand.
The other she lifted, watching him still, to click her fingers, drawing his pretty mares face. Hoping he would follow the suddenness of her turn, and then - just in case in he didn't look any further: she threw the stones against the back wall of the fireplace, clattering to make a noise and roll back down again. Disturbing cobwebs and branches aside.
Come, pretty soldier, a hearth for you.
no subject
The clatter of stones is more than enough to draw his attention. For a moment, Marcoulf's hand clenches closed on the reins about the mare's thought. He presses his knuckles against her, bracing as if ready for her to start again (the room is large enough that he could get out from underfoot, but he'd rather not trip over a rotten section of carpet or stray bit of weather ruined furniture--). But then he makes a small noise, unloops the reins and discards the bridle in a mildewed chair. He moves toward the sound, the tangle of brambles, the overgrown barricade of green is discarded furniture.
--And laughs. It's a rough and short and sounds like, 'You idiot' because where there's a fireplace - and indeed there is one hidden there -, there's likely to be all kinds of animals inside it. Plenty to spook a horse and dislodge grit.
"Don't be too pleased," he warns the mare as he sets to clearing the rubbish from infront of the hearth. "The chimney will be blocked."
no subject
Just perhaps not... against the animals that have come to roost.
"Oh - shoot."
The words are out of her mouth before she thinks about it and immediately her hand claps out of her mouth. He'll have heard that, she's spent too long teasing him for him to ignore it now. She presses harder against the stone, feeling herself flicker with the mistake. He will catch sight of what he now knows to look for.