exsecutus | inbox.

From:

N—

I hope this finds you well, or finds you at all. I hope that you aren't in prison, or that if you are in prison it's temporary and not a prelude to the gallows, and I also hope that you haven't thought I was dead. I tried to write once during the war, but I learned later that the messenger didn't make it out of Orlais.

I've joined the Inquisition now. It's a long way to Antiva City, but maybe while everyone is too distracted by this new war to decide what to do about us, I can visit. Even if you are in prison, this insignia gets me places.

I've sent a letter to Mother and Father, too, so you don't have to tell them anything, but if your friend is still hanging around, tell him I didn't say hello.

—K

From:

exequy

[ He hasn’t been avoiding Nikos, this past month. There has been wine. There have been cards. Between discarding Songs and trying to surreptitiously reacquire discarded Serpents, Kostos has commented on the weather at least once, which counts as talking.

And if that seems like its own kind of avoidance—wine, Wicked Grace, weather—well, it might be, but only as a cover for unseen and unheard but nonetheless determined readjustment to the idea of a brother as a living thing with toes and eyebrows instead of a story being written in irregular installments.

He’s nearly there. Close enough that. He asks, ]

Do Mother and Father know that you’re here?

[ It’s an important question. He’ll have to answer their letter eventually. He needs to know what to say.

It’s also cover, somewhat, for an attempt at the idle sleight-of-hand cheating that’s all but required in the game. He isn’t bad at it, for someone who learned playing against mages instead of Antivans. ]

From:

champions

Nikos, I beg you to tell me that you aren't in the Gallows and are no subject to this quarantine.

( She isn't worried. Except for how she is, but let's not point fingers. )

From:

champions

Someone I don't like has joined the Inquisition, but he gave me a scorpion. It's very pretty.

( so like, pros and cons??? )

From:

exequy

Do you think they would have cut off your head?

[ A nice disembodied question for a nice rainy evening. The voice asking it is quiet, and beyond it there's periodically a murmur of someone else's conversation. He's in the room the mages are sharing while they refuse to work, likewise refusing to work, but not fully capable of refusing to think about work, which presently means thinking about Caius Van Markham's severed neck and the forces his family his consolidating outside the capitol.

There would not have been forces consolidating for the Averesches. Perhaps that also means Nikos would not have been important enough for an axe. Hanging is kinder, anyway, in its way—easier to mummify. ]

From:

exequy

[ It's possible—

plausible

—that requests for favors made in the midst of unresolved arguments should be prefaced with some sort of apology, even a nonverbal one. Other people have those sheepish sort of half-smiles in their arsenals of endearing facial expressions, the ones that say let's put it all behind us without anyone having to talk about it. They're effective. They've even worked on Kostos. But he's never arranged his face in that particular way before, and he doesn't start now.

When Nikos comes back from wherever, doing whatever, in whatever state, Kostos is standing outside his door with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall so minimally that it barely counts, and glaring at a sentient little wisp of light. He remains glaring while his attention shifts down the corridor to his brother.

He is willing to lose this round of who will talk first, but only after first making a respectable showing. ]

From:

exequy

[ This is a very delayed response, but WHATEVER, they’ve all been busy. ]

Why is he here?

[ Proper nouns will cost a copper apiece, but there’s a bit of a tone there, on the pronoun. Almost italics. He. ]

From:

rathercommon

[ hey buddy. Without so much as a how d'you do, Kitty says - ]

You went back to Tevinter, right? To help the people who got captured. Right?

From:

champions

I have a bottle of port with your name on it.

( None of this is part of a villainous scheme. )

From:

exequy

Are we on speaking terms?

From:

champions

Nikos, you scoundrel.

From:

hornswoggle

I have a question, if you'll oblige me.

From:

exequy

[ Deposited on Nikos’ doorknob on Satinalia using its drawstrings is a tiny burlap bag containing a ring that’s pretty tasteful, dark metal with a thin visible strip of lyrium giving it away as enchanted in some way, and a note that says: ]

The man I won it from said it steadied his hands.

[ No he didn’t, and no it didn’t. It’s actually a ring that will shatter and heal its wearer back out of danger, though not completely, one time only, if they attempt to shuffle all the way off the mortal coil. But Kostos threw it at the stone walls a few times to make it look used, and steadier hands are subjective and psychosomatic enough that the lie might pass? Maybe?

Anyway, it’s one (1) free ticket for a dramatic death scene, minus death, someday. ]

From:

rathercommon

So tell me what you think about the election of the Divine.

From:

exequy

[ Nearly immediate: ]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

From:

sarcophage

[After some accidental detective work, and sounding like he's found some feline contentment in the meantime—if the tip of the cat's tail were still twitching—]

So—Nikos, is it? However did you come by that accent?

From:

exequy

[ Today’s tone is brusque with an undercurrent of confusion. ]

Aunt Contanze wrote to me. [ Him! ] She wants us to meet her to discuss a matter of urgency that she can’t write down.

[ From where he’s standing, obliviously, it feels equally likely to end in a surprise family reunion and a surprise Venatori infiltration of the Antivan oligarchy. ]

Do you know anything about it?

From:

murderbaby

[A small cough; someone clearing their throat, before-] Messire Averesch. This is, ah, Mhavos Dalat. We met... earlier. [He doesn't expect him to remember. He also isn't entirely sure which Averesch this is; he's not entirely sure there's a reasonable difference, given their interaction earlier.] Could I have a word?

From:

exequy

I should not have gone after you like that, in the garden.

[ That’s as close to an apology as he’ll likely be able to manage.

Actually, no. It’s too close. ]

I should have done it somewhere more private.

From:

wythersake

Was it your idea to have her arrested?

From:

hornswoggle

I know Max had some measure of faith in your ability to pass information under difficult circumstances, so I suppose I may as well ask if you'd do me a favor if I ever have a need.

[ a beat ]

This is John Silver, by the way.

From:

rathercommon

[ Kitty's voice is quiet, but earnest. ]

What's going on? You're in Nevarra, right?

From:

exequy

They would not move our dead without notifying—

[ Not him. Not Nikos. Their father, maybe? Their remaining, more distant relatives in Nevarra? ]

—someone.

[ Right? ]

From:

exequy

Do you think he is really our cousin?

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