Post #2392785 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

Lucien frowned at the plant currently sitting on his end table, crossing his arms and staring at it for a moment as though by doing so he could will it back to healthy vitality. He’d found the embrium on a recent foray to the Wounded Coast, half-overturned and a little bit trampled. With nothing else to do, particularly, at the time, he’d uprooted it the rest of the way as gently as he could and taken it back to his house, where it now sat in a pot, surrounded by soil, and looking every bit as wilted as it had two weeks ago. At least he hadn’t killed it outright, he supposed, but it probably wouldn’t last much longer at this rate, and he didn’t desire to kill it from neglect. He’d thought plants should be relatively simple: a little water, a little sunshine, and it would be right as rain in no time. His mother had gardened, actually, and been quite good at it—apparently, it was a talent learned rather than inherited.

Sighing slightly, he shook his head and picked up the small vessel, carefully supporting the weak stalk so that the slightly-wilted flower wouldn’t cause it to break. He’d seen the garden in front of Nostariel’s clinic, and she’d informed him that the person mostly responsible for the copious flowers and herbs in it was Aurora. As things stood, he knew where to find the mage, and so it was perhaps time to ask a favor.

He might have looked a little silly: a very large, very armored man carrying a potted flower through the streets of Lowtown as though it were something quite a bit more precious than a half-dead embrium, and indeed, more than one guard gave him looks of confusion or even suspicion. This, however, had been happening with some frequency of late, and he wasn’t sure why. Usually, they would squint at him a little, shake their heads, and move away, but occasionally, one tried very unsuccessfully to get surreptitiously closer to him, until he very politely asked if there was something he could do to help them. That usually ended with a negation, and the guard would walk off. It was certainly odd, but then, Lucien was rather accustomed to scrutiny. He’d thought he escaped it for the most part when he came here, but perhaps it was returning for some reason. He knew not why, but didn’t let it trouble him overmuch.

Silly or not, he eventually reached the door of the small one, raising his hand to knock, then stepping back a little so as not to crowd the doorway just by dent of his size. There was a pleasant little flower-box on the windowsill, and all of those looked much healthier than his, so he took himself to be in the right place.

Aurora had been sitting in her tiny two room... well, house would be overstating what she lived in. Hovel was the better word for what she lived in. Not that she minded it all. It was less to clean, and certainly harder to find by those who wished to find her. Surely she could have been worse off, not living in a house for one, living in the Circle for the second. Besides, it was here, and she had made it her own-- with the help of Amalia, though. She didn't supply the single rose on her nightstand, that had been Aurora. However, the reinforced doors, the hidden locks, and the escape route built into her wardrobe and out of her back wall had been. She would like to see the Templars try to catch her.

Such a small house left her bereft of things to do. There were only so many ways you could rearrange funiture until that became tiresome. So it was with a bored countenance she sat on her bed, crosslegged, and deep in meditation. Even after so many years, she still disliked meditation. Aurora was more of a girl of action than one of thought-- though Amalia had insisted that she do it nonetheless early in her tenure, and by now it had become a tolerated routine of hers. Any moment she found herself doing nothing, she'd dip into those thoughts and reaffirm her beliefs, playing out arguments against herself, and generally keeping her mind in motion though her body might not be. The mind was just as much of a muscle as the ones in her arms, and it needed its exercise as well.

The knock at her door came as a surprise. No one ever visited her, and few knew where she lived. She could count the people that did on both hands-- and maybe a foot if she was generous. Aurora opened her eyes and stared at the door, tilting her head in anticipation. No shouts or demands told her that it the person on the otherside weren't Templars-- not that she expected any. She'd be a fool to completely disregard their existence after all. Figuring she kept the person waiting long enough, she swung her feet off of her bed and strode first to the window, and then quickened to the door. A couple of locks later, she swung it wide and beheld the sight of Lucien looming above her door. Looming might have been farfetched, but the man couldn't have had more than a couple of inches clearance.

"Lucien! What brings you my way?" She asked, though she'd be remiss if she didn't admit that the company was welcome.

Lucien smiled, a tad sheepishly, as he was aware that his unannounced presence may be a bit of an inconvenience. It didn’t seem so, at present, but he still probably should have asked beforehand. “Good afternoon, Aurora. I, well…” he held out the wilting embrium in his hands as though it explained everything, then shook his head. “I found this on the Wounded Coast. Dying, you understand. I’d heard they had medicinal properties of some kind, and I didn’t just want to let it die, but… I am no gardener by any stretch. Nostariel may have mentioned that you, on the other hand, are quite gifted with plants. I was hoping to ask a favor of you.”

It was a little bit difficult to admit that he’d saved the thing out of sentiment, because he was not, generally, a particularly sentimental fellow. Of course, he wasn’t one of those that felt that men shouldn’t allow their emotions any weight at all, he just… well, saving dying flowers because you feel sorry for them is not something that you tell people you do if you want them to take you seriously. He could practically see his father dragging a hand down his face in the back of his mind. Then again, maybe this was just that part of him that his mother had always tried to nurture.

“If there’s anything you could do, I would appreciate it.”

Her eyes fell to the plant in his hands, and she gave it a quick once over as Lucien was speaking. "It's an embrium. They're supposed to be quite beautiful," Supposed to be, anyway. This one looked to be on its last legs, and even Aurora didn't know if she could revive it. Far be it for her to turn down the challenge, and to turn down a friend at that. She nodded and swung her door wide, "Come in, I'll see what I can do." With the mountainous presence of Lucien in her home, the hovel seemed to halve in size. Aurora skittered around Lucien and found a chair for him to sit in (perhaps the lone chair she owned) and pulled it up across from her bed, if he chose to sit down.

"I suppose we'll run through the list. What shape was it in when you found it, where, what kind of soil are you using, how much are you watering it, is it in the sun, all that, you know?" she said, counting off the items with her fingers. Once she ran through it, she dropped her hands and sat on her bed, prosing another, unaffiliated question. "And what made you bring it to me? You could have easily gotten another flower from a florist in High Town," she asked, somewhat curious. He didn't seem like the man who'd take home stray flowers.

That was… a lot of questions. Lucien blinked, settling carefully into the chair his host had so graciously provided, and gave the matter some thought. “When I found it, it was overturned. I suppose about half the roots had been torn out, though I honestly couldn’t tell you if that was the fault of my altercation or a previous one.” He hadn’t had much time to observe the surroundings before the bandits set upon him. He supposed it was actually sort of a good thing that he just seemed to trigger every ambush about—it saved him the difficult task of finding people who did not desire to be found. “’Twas on the Wounded Coast, further back from the ocean, along one of the pathways.” He hadn’t supposed the soil would matter much; dirt was dirt, wasn’t it? Though… his home did smell different from, say, Ferelden. Maybe there was more to it than he thought.

“I took some of the soil from near the spot, but the rest I picked up on a job near Sundermont the other day. I water it once a day, though… I did forget once,” he admitted with a small frown. “I thought a little extra the next day would make up for it, but apparently not. It’s in my house, so it gets full sun for… half the day?” He was pretty sure that covered everything she’d asked, though he’d not have thought there were so many factors to be considered for one simple plant. It was probably quite fortunate that he’d come here. He might know absolutely nothing about horticulture, but he was willing to learn.

The following question struck him a bit oddly. Why was he trying to fix it instead of purchasing something else? He would have thought that much was obvious. “I… don’t conventionally discard things just because they require work,” he pointed out. “When one tears a hole in a shirt, does one buy a new one or make a simple repair? When I removed this plant from its environment, I decided I would do my best to return it to vitality. Certainly, it’s not so important as a person or a hound or what-have-you, but it deserves at least as much effort as I’m willing to put into my equipment, don’t you think?”

Aurora nodded along with Lucien and when he came stop, she spoke again, "True, true. I just didn't imagine you much of a gardener, Lucien." She then stood again and went to the flower on Lucien's knee to examine it again, this time more closely. She gently examined its leaves, its blooms, the roots, and even the dirt it was in. Feeling satified with her inspection, she took a step back and began to count off the issues. "Well first of all, being knocked around is hardly good for it, but there's nothing you could do about that." She said sighing. Imagining a battle being fought over top the pretty flower hurt her in the soul.

She raised her eyebrow at the next piece of information and then nodded, "Thought as much. The soil you're using is all wrong. In fact, soil is wrong," She explained. "See, it's a member of the Orchid family-- specifically an epiphytes. It can't grow in the dirt from Sundermount. It has to attach to something in order to grow properly. I suggest placing it on a platform made out of cork and then covering it with sand," she finished, moving on to the next subject.

"As for watering, well, once everyday is overdoing it. The embrium needs watering every five to twelve days-- however, you have to make sure that the plant is evenly moist and not outright wet, else you'll drown the poor thing. You also need to fertilize it every month or so. Otherwise, the sun should be fine, though you should open a window every now and then to allow the air to circulate," she said, winding the planting spiel down. Once done, she meandered over to her bed and took another seat. Now that the technicalities were out of the way, she could talk about the plant itself.

"Did you know..." She began, like all good trivia facts do, "That the embrium cured an Orlesian princess?" she asked. While it wasn't a princess officially, merely a daughter of a Lord, princess sounded so much better in a story setting.

Well. He’d known he was doing something wrong, but he hadn’t really expected that he was doing everything wrong. “You didn’t imagine incorrectly, it seems,” he pointed out, nodding along with the directions. It all sounded entirely possible, even for someone as completely incompetent at this endeavor as he was. Actually, he was rather looking forward to the attempt. Gaining new skills was something Lucien considered to be entirely worthwhile, and it would seem that he’d get a few from something as innocuous as attempting to keep this plant alive.

“That was something I’d heard, yes,” he replied with a smile. “Though if you attempted to call her a princess on Orlais, you would offend a good two-thirds of the nobility. They don’t use any titles other than Lord, Lady, Empress, and the currently-unused Emperor. It… well, it was supposed to keep the infighting down to a manageable level, but I daresay anyone with a lick of sense would still consider it excess.”

He paused a moment, and then exhaled a sigh from his nose. “I suppose you… heard, then, what the demon said to me? I’m sorry if it seems like I was keeping something from you—please understand that I have ever considered it less important than what people do know of me.” Honestly, he would have been just as content if it remained a secret for good, but fate seemed to be conspiring against him in this regard.

"Lucien, I'm a runaway mage, I don't get to judge others for keeping secrets." Aurora stated plainly. "Though 'Future Emperor of Orlais' wasn't something I admit to expecting," she added using air quotes. "Almost makes mine seem pitiful in comparison." She said with a cheery smile. Royalty or not, Lucien was still Lucien, and no amount of titles would change that. He was his own person, and if he chose the life of a Lowtown mercenary over that, then what right did a mage playing at normality have to say against it. Then her smile turned into a frown. She felt a bit guilty about accidently overhearing something that wasn't meant for her ears. If Lucien wanted her to know, then he would have been the one to told her.

“Not pitiful at all,” he countered. “I earned my exile by my own folly. Yours was thrust upon you as a result of no choice you made. It is true that there are those that would prefer me dead, but for all I am remaining undetected, at least I am not hiding from a group of people specifically trained to find and neutralize me.” Though, honestly, he wondered for how much longer that would be the case. He knew that his anonymity here was a gift, but it was not without an expiration date. He just didn’t know when that would be. Until then, he was considerably safer than she was. At least nobody would think less of him for using what skills he had to protect himself. As some saw it, Aurora’s skills were her very problem. He would argue that he could kill people just as simply as she could. People walked around with deadly weapons all the time—hers just couldn’t be taken away from her.

Well… not without extreme measures. Rilien’s face appeared in his mind, and he frowned. No, he did not desire that for anyone else. Then again, he could hardly claim to be an expert on such matters. “And either way, neither of us is allowed to see our families or our homelands. Seems very similar to me, if it does not offend you to say so.”

"Mine is a personal exile," she stated, lively mood twisted downward. "I'm lucky, I suppose, that if the people who were hunting me, found me, wouldn't kill me. Nor would they Tranquil me, either. I passed my Harrowing, and the Antivan Circle does not tranquil its mages who do. No, they would just shove me back into the cage." she stated plainly before shrugging. "I don't return home for fear of what I'll bring them," she said before shaking her head.

She stood up and went to her window, leaning on the side and looking out. It was nearing sundown, but the tall buildings obscured it. Again, Aurora sighed. What she wouldn't give to see that sunset one more time. To be back on the Antivan coast and just watch the waves crash against the shore. That brought a thought on, and one she chewed on for a little bit before she spoke. "I told you that Aurora was an alias, right? I never told you my real name? Aren't you a little bit curious?" She asked.

Lucien tilted his head to one side, regarding the mage with a mild expression. “I do recall speaking something of names before,” he began by way of reply. “The ones we give ourselves are just as important as those bestowed upon us. If you wish to be Aurora Rose to me, then that it what you shall be.” He smiled slightly, then shrugged. “If you wish to be something else, you need only say so. I have been told I am rather good at keeping secrets.” He certainly wouldn’t divulge them—his sense of honor would not allow that.

"You know, a little curiosity never hurt anyone," she said laughing. Aurora Rose was just an alias, a mage who ran away from a Circle, and then learned self-restraint under a Qunari Ben-Hassrath. Aurora wasn't the same person she was ten years ago. Back then she was just a little girl who had a little bit of magic power. Never did she think that her life would turn this way. She was now leaning against the wall and shrugged as well. "As am I, you know? I have to be, considering everything. If the future Emperor of Orlais wishes to stay anonymous, then his identity is safe with me. However, I feel guilty about knowing who you really are, and you not knowing me." She said, teasing him to show a little bit of that curiosity.

Lucien chuckled. “I wish you wouldn't call me that. It sounds so... stifling. Besides, I doubt it's even true anymore." He shrugged then. “I'm a human being, Aurora, just a man like any other. Of course I'm a bit curious. But I do not want you to tell me because you feel you must. These things shouldn't work like that. Your secret is yours to keep or dispense as you see fit, and I've no wish to pry it from you."

Aurora sighed and then shook her head, "You really aren't any fun, you know that?" Teasing him didn't work how she imagined it to, and now it felt like she was pulling something out of him, instead of him trying to pull the information out of her. However, she supposed that was as good as she was going to get. And now after attempting to tease Lucien with it, she had only managed to get herself worked up over it. She frowned one last time and then shrugged, "Fine. Fine, if you really want to know, then it's..." She paused and then approached closer to Lucien, and whispered into his ear.

Lucien had to admit that he wasn't quite sure this level of cloak-and-dagger was necessary, but it was her secret, and if she was more comfortable relaying it sotto voce, he wasn't going to say anything against it. “'Tis a lovely name," he said with a nod, “and so very Antivan." There was a note of humor to the observation. “Of course, I expect that's part of the reason you had to change it at all." A bit sad, that she'd had to give up that small acknowledgement of her roots, along with her accent. He still kept a bit of his, and of course, a name hardly got more Orlesian than the one he kept. Perhaps one day, she would be able to take it up again, if she so desired. Then again, maybe she would simply find that she'd done what he always hoped to: grown into the one she had.

"Io sono Antivan, è da aspettarselo," she deadpanned with a grin. It was odd feeling Antivan pass by her lips again, though not unwelcome. It turns out that it's very difficult to forget your first tongue. She... missed it.

Snippet #2392785

located in Kirkwall, a part of The City of Chains, one of the many universes on RPG.

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