Stone's Throw

[Diligence]

"Right, okay, let's get this heist started!" Dil claps his hands together, though the shape and scales make a rather lackluster sound. "This'll be easy, nothing will go wrong!"

[GamesMaster]

And, surprisingly, nothing does. Charon manages to pick open all the locks they need; Dil carries out a surprisingly heavy load of textbooks, and they make it back to where Joy is waiting. There's a couple large rucksacks, too, which help with carrying all the things. And they manage to sign on as the last couple of guards on a caravan heading for Nyra at first light -- one that even has wagons, not that they'll be using them, but they can stash their gear anyway. All in all, a good night. 

[Andreas Amell]

Screee. Screeeeeee. Chik-chik-chik-screeeee. Silence. A sigh. Sceeee. Screee-screee-chik.

"It's no use." With a deep sigh, a young catfolk man, nearly an adult in fact, tosses a well-used but finely made chisel onto a wooden table. "It's... it's just good." That verdict is pronounced with scorn and despair, heartfelt if inflated by youthful perspective. Grabbing a damp towel, he rubs at the smooth skin of his face, then his lightly furred hands, to rid them of the stone dust his work had produced. "There's naught else to do, it's complete. Done and finished, yet lacking. Again!"

Whirling away from the marble figure, a pixie dancing atop a flower covered bush, he glares around the room. A bust of the Lord Hand in fine grained basalt, a dizzying arrangement of obsidian that hints at the night sky but scattered into fractals, a might kraken in granite locked in combat with a greater sea serpent formed from malachite. A half dozen other projects, all finished and ready for display, all merely... good. Last, always last, his gaze settles on his first true carving, the first work he completed.

There are obvious signs of his inexperience to someone that knows about the craft or who simply looks closely enough. Two different spots, each smaller than a copper coin, were the definition of the pages looks blurred as he'd had to smooth down a mis-strike. The felt base, designed to protect both the carving and whatever it's placed is bunched in the left corner were he'd used just a little too much adhesive. The right page of the open book has a slight curve to it, mostly unnoticeable unless one kneels down to view it from the side. And yet... and yet it's the only thing he'd carved that he has even a hint of fondness for.

Sighing yet again, he runs a finger across the bottom of the stone pages, a half smile forming for just a few seconds. "My heart is an open book, please hold it gently." he murmurs, not needing to read the inscription, naturally. He'd based it on his second mom, Seli, the pages showing a carved illustration of a pair of cupped hands offering the reader an artistically rendered heart. "Why can't I recapture that spark?" he demands of the empty room. "Why must my muse forever dance away after offering but the merest taste of true passion?" Every time! Every time I find a new craft that offers promise, it's but an illusion.

[GamesMaster]

"Nerd," teases a voice from behind him. It's not one of his four bodyguards; they're patiently waiting at the entrances to the building, giving him supposed privacy to create his art. No, it's Sami, his cousin: a golden-skinned kid with bright purple hair and matching eyes, usually merry with some joke. Holding his hand is their cousin Addy, a dark-haired shy girl with silver eyes like the moon. Both of them had come along today, and both had ditched him as soon as they got here, heading off to another apartment in the building to... well, Dreas wasn't quite sure what they were doing, nor did he care to think too closely about it. They are cousins, after all, both to him and to each other. Surely they're reading books or playing board games or some such. 

"Leave him alone," says Addy in her quiet, soothing voice. "He can't help it."

"He can, too. Watch: I bet you ten gold he can talk totally normal for like three whole sentences." Sami turns to Dreas, expectantly. 

[Andreas Amell]

"Peasant," is the only response he gets. Waving him away, Andreas turns back to his tools. His useless, worthless, loyal tools. They tried their best. Failures all, yes, but they are not at fault. No, that blame lies within me and within this hollow farce of a world. Movements slow and solemn, he begins the near ritual of putting them away for the last time.

[GamesMaster]

"That's me," Sami says too brightly, which is a sign Dreas has pissed him off a little. Belatedly, Dreas remembers that Sami doesn't like insinuations or questions about his parentage, his past, or his heritage. Or the brand on his face. Or his magic. Or... just about anything personal, really. It's only been a few years since Sami came into their lives, thanks to Helene's never-ending fostering quest; Alydra pointed this one out to nem, and ne sent Varric on a roundabout chase hunting him down. 

"Come on, Addy, let's go do something fun."

"Like what?" she asks, hesitantly. 

"I dunno. It's Kato's day, there's gotta be something fun to do."

[Andreas Amell]

"Tch." Andreas sniffs haughtily. "I suppose you've not heard then?" he asks in a tone known the world over by siblings and cousins; he's realized he knows something that they don't and that it's something they'd want to know. And he's willing to share that something, but not without making them work for it, just a little. Leaning back on the workbench, he props his elbows on the edge and smiles at the pair, patiently waiting.

[GamesMaster]

Addy looks up at him through her hair. "No, what?" she asks. 

Sami smirks. "Probably some art showing or something else boring like that," he says, affecting a bored tone. 

[Andreas Amell]

"Art showing?" Dreas hums thoughtfully, head tilting to the side with almost theatrical deliberation. "I suppose it could be called such, though I for one would not. After all, proper art has permanence and weight to it. A storytelling festival, while entertaining I'm sure, is not truly art."

[GamesMaster]

Ha! got 'em, thinks Sami, but that's quickly discarded in favor of the new tidbit of news. "Storytelling festival? That sounds pretty boring."

Addy shakes her head. "I want to go. Katites tell the best stories."

"No way your mom lets you go," he points out. 

"So we'll sneak out." She shrugs. 

[Andreas Amell]

"We were not told we could not go," Andreas comments idly. 

[GamesMaster]

Sami frowns, going to the window and looking down, spotting their guard. Then he does something unusual: he looks up. "If we go to the roof, I think we could jump to the next building over, and there's sort of a catwalk from there to go a few further down."

[Andreas Amell]

"Jump..." Andreas stares a moment. "You want us to jump a ten foot gap between two four story buildings."

[GamesMaster]

"Are you a cat or not?" he asks, frowning. "They do it all the time. I'm sure we can manage. It's only ten feet."

[Andreas Amell]

"I'm an artiste from fur to soul," Andreas says haughtily, nose in the air. "I have no room in me for aught else." A pause. "Could we not construct a crude yet effective bridge of some sort? I still have a rather sizeable stack of wooden planks in my woodworking period."