Gathering hair back into place, the muscle memory rake of fingers to sit it the way he prefers, Marcus ties it off with practiced efficiency. Less neatly than if he had a comb and a mirror and an inclination to be fussier about his appearance than he does currently, sweat half-dry beneath his clothing and still a little aware of where Flint's grip had, at various points, set the future ghosts of yellow bruises.
"Do you have a story for each one of yours," he asks, during, a tip of his chin down at Flint's hand, "or did you come by them all at once?"
A mild teasing, some small brushing against a more familiar register and rhythm than they would have indulged in before the mountains, or even after the mountains.
"I looted them," has a frank cut of shitheelery in it; the equivalent of a nip of teeth at a tender lip. Behind his whiskers, Flint's mouth slants in the direction of smug. "Some are worth money."
The last buckle on a gaiter is done up. The edge of the missed coverlet is flipped back to be certain nothing has strayed out of sight under the bed. And then there is no more benefit for the room, air thick and muggy even before the sweat of their exertions, to yield. It's possible that at this hour, the land breeze will finally be washing down through Kirkwall and carrying with something cool or at least the stir of the air with it as it hurries to meet the sea.
Might as well quit this place to take advantage of what little relief might be found from the heat while walking.
The sound Marcus makes to that is dismissive, where a neat bite back of a rejoinder would go if he were quicker towards a turn of phrase.
A couple of copper left on the bedside table, and their business, such as it is, is concluded.
The woman in front room doesn't look up at all at the sound of bootfalls, Marcus moving first down the stairs with characteristic heel-first heaviness, especially noisy on the wooden surfaces. Outside, the air is a relief, if only because it is moving around, even in this little cutthroat alley that first must move through. Maybe at the end of it, there is some obligate shuffle around a parting word they're meant to be partaking in.
That Marcus turns out of the alley and makes for the general direction of the Jackdaw without so much as a glance could be a deliberate avoidance of just that, if he'd thought of it at all.
There, at the end of the alley in the cooler touch of night air, Flint makes a similar turn as if by stepping out across the threshold of the lodging house has served to shelve any thought save for one related to the packet in his coat pocket or the business which awaits him down in various dockside public houses. There is no parting word, and he doesn't consider its absence much less think to mind it.
If, given a dozen strides, Flint so much as spares a glance back across his shoulder in the direction Rowntree had struck out in, then it's more or less entirely by happenstance. In short order, the night swallows both of them, and it will be some hours before freshening bruises make themselves known. In the intervening hours, they may be perfectly unaffected men.
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"Do you have a story for each one of yours," he asks, during, a tip of his chin down at Flint's hand, "or did you come by them all at once?"
A mild teasing, some small brushing against a more familiar register and rhythm than they would have indulged in before the mountains, or even after the mountains.
no subject
The last buckle on a gaiter is done up. The edge of the missed coverlet is flipped back to be certain nothing has strayed out of sight under the bed. And then there is no more benefit for the room, air thick and muggy even before the sweat of their exertions, to yield. It's possible that at this hour, the land breeze will finally be washing down through Kirkwall and carrying with something cool or at least the stir of the air with it as it hurries to meet the sea.
Might as well quit this place to take advantage of what little relief might be found from the heat while walking.
no subject
A couple of copper left on the bedside table, and their business, such as it is, is concluded.
The woman in front room doesn't look up at all at the sound of bootfalls, Marcus moving first down the stairs with characteristic heel-first heaviness, especially noisy on the wooden surfaces. Outside, the air is a relief, if only because it is moving around, even in this little cutthroat alley that first must move through. Maybe at the end of it, there is some obligate shuffle around a parting word they're meant to be partaking in.
That Marcus turns out of the alley and makes for the general direction of the Jackdaw without so much as a glance could be a deliberate avoidance of just that, if he'd thought of it at all.
🎀
If, given a dozen strides, Flint so much as spares a glance back across his shoulder in the direction Rowntree had struck out in, then it's more or less entirely by happenstance. In short order, the night swallows both of them, and it will be some hours before freshening bruises make themselves known. In the intervening hours, they may be perfectly unaffected men.