| Spitballs Off the Parapet |
| Summary: | Jarod and Josse engage in acts of juvenile delinquency while talking - briefly - of their mothers and - in more detail - of the continuing question of 'Rowan' Nayland. |
| Date: | 03/09/2011 |
| Related Logs: | Better Use; most Jarod/Rowan logs since I'm Just a Girl |
| Players: |
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| Roof Terrace — Four Eagles Tower |
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| A high roof with lots of things below to aim at. |
| Sat Sep 03, 288 |
Sunset. Jarod often finds himself up on the terrace at this hour, to watch the colors the end of the day makes in the clouds above. Muted purples and pinks today. The sea can be heard crashing against the Cape of Eagles in the distance and it is, all in all, one of the fairer places in the castle to waste one's time.
The half-Terrick wasn't the only one with that idea, apparently. Josse's full gray robes blend in a little better than Jarod's clothing with the stone surrounding them, and the septon's shoes make little noise. He's got a small basket with him rather than his usual heavy burlap bag o' medicines, making his way towards the parapet wall.
Jarod is, indeed, dressed not to blend with the stone. He's in blue today, a dark navy shade, though there are still embellishments of green leaves sewn on the collar and cuffs. He doesn't immediately notice Josse's approach, leaning on the parapet, focus absorbed in the view sprawling below and the colors of the sky.
Josse doesn't immediately notice Jarod either, halfway past where the knight is standing before his steps slow. He turns back around and closes the distance with slower steps, coming up to the wall about two feet from Jarod's post. The basket's set down and he leans over to rummage in it.
Jarod does notice the approach of someone when Josse's close, and he turns his head. Offering the septon an easy grin. "It's nice up here this time of day," he says simply. "Used to come up here a lot when I was a boy. Play stupid games with my brothers. Or just…come up here and sit, when nobody else was around. It's quiet, except you can always here the waves and the ravens from the rookery. Which I guess isn't entirely quiet but…those aren't the sort of sounds that make it hard to think, y'know? Does that make sense at all?"
Josse makes a quiet 'ahh' sound as he straightens up, his back making a prematurely old cracking sound. His hands are cupped around something small, which is jostled from palm to palm. "More sense than most things I hear in a day. When I was little I used to think it'd be nice to live on a raft just beyond the breakers. Nothing but the sounds of water and seagulls and rain." He smiles a little, looking over at Jarod with an arched brow. "Lucky you noticed me. You were about to get one of these right to the face." He lifts a hand to show Jarod the little dull brownish ball in his hand, which by its squishiness might just be full of water.
"You know it's funny," Jarod says, as if the notion just suddenly took him. "I don't mean funny like a joke, I mean…well, you know what I mean. How we both grew up in these parts, but we didn't know each other until we were men, and away from the Roost." The mud ball makes him laugh. "Try it, Jos. You know I'm not above hitting a holy man. The Warrior's one of the Seven, after all, and He approves of those who can take a punch."
The ball isn't so much mud as some kind of animal skin, tied off and filled with something sloshy. There are a small pile of them in that basket of his. Josse smirks and hands toss the ball back and forth, back and forth. "Intersecting paths are like that. Strange how far apart they can start out. How I grew up is…not as you did. I'm not sure two lives could be more opposite." He tosses the ball up in the air and catches it, drops of water sprinkling the ground. "Think you could dodge this, do you?"
"Never figured it was. Finest in fake lordling accommodations, had I. I wonder sometimes how I'd have been done by if my mother had lived." That's a rarity. Jarod rarely mentions his 'other side' of kinship, to the point where it sometimes seems he thinks he sprang from the ground of Four Eagles Tower. Or prefers to think it. "Would've still known my father and brothers and sister I suppose, though likely not been raised with them. Or maybe not even known them too well, if she went down to Fairmarket with my Grandfather Bevins. No way to know, I suppose." Wistful thoughts from Ser Rivers, but he's happy to put them aside. He laughs. "Give it a go, Septon. You throw like a girl."
Not so quick to discuss mothers is the septon, who glances away at it seems the conversation might go there. The eye contact comes back by the end, along with a proud lofting of his left middle finger. "A toast then, to who you did turn out to be, eh?" Without warning the water 'balloon' goes sailing straight for the knight.
<FS3> Opposed Roll — Josse=Marksmanship Vs Jarod=Reactive
< Josse: Success Jarod: Success
< Net Result: DRAW
Jarod is quick, though not enough to dodge. So he catches it instead. It makes a rather gross 'splat' in his big hands, but he doesn't seem to mind. He laughs, and turns to hurl it over the parapet. "Aye. It's just on my mind lately. Not in a sad way. Hard to be sad about something you don't remember, y'know? I was just talking with my lord father the other night, and he said…he said she'd be proud of me." He beams as he says it. Though his green eyes are, actually, a touch sad.
Josse pfts as Jarod catches the earnest pelting. He leans over and grabs another one of the rather slimy balloons, his attention likewise going over the parapet to scan for new targets. "Well. You know sometimes I think the things we can't know for sure are worse than the ones we can. I mean, I don't…" His speech gains a strangely self-conscious stop-and-start. "…remember, either. Much. But it's still just—." He gives a stilted shrug, leaning over the wall slightly to see down better. "Anyway. His Lordship would be best to know, wouldn't he?"
"I figure he would, aye. He answers my questions when I ask them." The way Jarod says it suggests he rarely, if ever, asks. "He told me enough for me to know what I was when I was a boy. When I got older…" He shrugs. "…I didn't terribly want to ask more. The way I figure, any story of what was between my lord father and my common mother isn't going to be a happy one, is it? Just something that'd seem shameful on them both. And my lord father's a good man. And she was a good, respectable woman. He wouldn't have acknowledged me if she wasn't. That's all I need to know. That's all that matters." He says it firmly.
"I agree," Josse says, and he sounds like he does indeed. "There are more answers in circumstance than there are in so many words, that's for sure." He flicks a few drops of water off his hand and into the breeze. "He didn't lie to you. That's more than many people can hope for of their fathers."
"Aye. I am nothing if not a lucky bastard, Jos." As usual, the way Jarod says that is actually not glib. "Anyhow, what brings you up here tonight? Apart from a want to throw things at me, that is."
"You were just convenient," Josse says, smirking a touch. "I'd just got these off a harried mother who'd confiscated them from her son and asked me to put them where temptation wouldn't find the poor boy again." He looks at Jarod, shrugging mildly. "I'm just doing my duty." Which seems to involve a particular tree right now, his arm drawing back to snap a balloon down at it — the skin smacks a wall on the way and bursts, raining water into the heads of two servants far below who promptly look around, bewildered. "Oops."
Jarod laughs, holding out a hand. "Give me another one of those. I bet you a skin of good wine from the kitchens against that cheap piss you drink that I can get hit squarer than you." He grins that big, boyish grin of his. "I'm nothing if not convenient, Jos. I'm told it's one of my better qualities."
"I don't gamble." Josse gives an exaggerated sniff of septonly disdain. "Or rather moreso I couldn't afford that bet." He smirks, tossing a balloon over to Jarod. "I'll stake you a favor, though. Hit the tree and I'll owe you whatever you want. Miss and you'll owe me."
<FS3> Jarod rolls Marksmanship: Success.
"Fair enough," Jarod says, drawing his arm back and pitching - hard - toward the tree below. And he does hit it. It's not particularly square, winging a branch rather than striking the trunk solidly, but he seems to feel it counts. "Ha!" He throws back his head and laughs in triumph. "Trouble is, I'm not sure what I want. But I figure I'll need a favor later. So you'll owe me, aye?"
"And to think I was almost out some wine," Josse remarks with a snort. "Thank the Seven I guard my priorities." He pulls up a new balloon to jostle around, five left sitting in the basket now. "Aye, I owe you. And I've a feeling I'll owe more than one before that pile's done." Water drips down his wrist, disappearing into his sleeve. "Though speaking of digging oneself into holes, I did mean to to talk with you about Rowan at some point."
Jarod sighs heavily. "Sweet Seven, Rowan." It's vaguely exasperated, though there's no real ill-feeling in it. "What about him, Jos?" He plucks another balloon out of the basket, though no talk of betting this time. He just seems to feel it prudent to get something in hand to throw.
"Well. Given that every other conversation that I have these days seems to be about him," Josse's voice is fairly dry there. "And you've asked me to speak to him yourself. I suppose I wanted some insight from someone who isn't me. More insight, anyway…you started the other day but I've the sense there might be more to be said."
<FS3> Jarod rolls Marksmanship: Good Success.
Jarod does some more balloon-pitching. This one's a prettier throw, and it strikes the trunk with a satisfying splatter. The knight nods to himself. "There we are." Though he takes a moment to chew on the matter of Rowan. "I don't know how he managed to keep his secret for four years, Jos, and he's of late gotten very *bad* at it. He's acting stupid in situations where he can't really afford to, which I think you know, and I sometimes think he's eager *not* to keep what he is to himself. If it comes out before Lord Ser Anton and Ser Gedeon are ready to handle it in a way that gives him some future away from the Naylands - in some manner - it's going to be very bad for him. You know it, I know it, he doesn't seem to care to listen to me about what shit he's doing to be in when everyone knows what he's done, so maybe you can tell him better than I can. He seem less eager to turn everything into an argument with you, at least, though I think we've managed to settle some things between us these last days. Though I don't know. Who in seven hells knows?"
Josse hangs onto his own balloon for now, rolling it from palm to palm. "I don't…quite understand what's happened these last few months either," he admits, after a long silence. "Since I've gotten back it's like the humility he used to have about the situation is completely gone. Instead of appreciating help he takes it for granted. It's going to be a terrible lesson to learn if he keeps going like this, and I'm not sure there's a way to make him see that. Which I wouldn't be so invested in talking to him about if it were only him that would suffer…some lessons just have to be done the hard way. But it isn't only him."
<FS3> Jarod rolls Marksmanship: Failure.
"He's very lucky Jace didn't feel obligated to tell our lord father. He admits he would've was Rowan still in my service as a squire, and he'd not have been wrong." Jarod shrugs. "It'll be what it is. I'm not unprepared for it. The Valentins have said they'll take what comes, but they aren't prepared for it now. They figured they'd have more time, that Rowan would perhaps do something to prove his mettle before…what comes, comes. He hasn't really, Jos. He made a decent showing in the squire's melee at Stonebridge, but that's just play war, and play war among boys, at that. Nothing will come of him being found out now save him being trussed up and carted back to the Mire to be married off to whatever old, awful lord his father thinks is suitable punishment." An idea which, clearly, bothers Ser Rivers very much, as it requires another balloon to hurl. This one flies nowhere near the tree, splatting against the wall. He grimaces.
"I know he hasn't really," Josse wrinkles his nose as Jarod's balloon misses the target. "And perhaps it's my fault, Jarod. When I found out that Gedeon knew, I pushed Rowan to tell you and let the chips fall. The situation was risky and getting more and more wrong, and…" He shakes his head, thinning his lips. "Looking back perhaps I should have let him go on, prove himself under you and maybe there wouldn't be this damned mess. I'm sorry about that Jarod, I really am."
"If she was going to keep up that Rose Rivers nonsense, best I figured it out then than later, while there was someone around who could…take her on. It's probably gone better and easier with me now than it would've at any other time, all things considered." And yet, Jarod still sounds decidedly bummed about the whole affair. "It's not your fault. And this way…this way the disgrace will fall harder on the Valentins than me and the Terricks, as I can honestly say I knew precisely shit about her real self while she served me. I'll look like an idiot but…well…" He shrugs and smirks. "…who's going to have trouble believing I'm not that stupid, really? And for that…I'm grateful, as it means I don't have to pick between unmasking her and keeping her secret at the expense of my lord father and the Terrick reputation." He frowns, and doesn't really make a firm statement on where he'd land if he had to make said choice.
<FS3> Josse rolls Marksmanship: Good Success.
"Aye," Josse replies, though there's a lack of heart in the agreement. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." This is apparently where the septon gets to expend some energy, with windup and pitch at the target Jarod had missed earlier. The crystalline explosion of water from the tree trunk shimmers in the late afternoon light. "Hah. Now that would've made a betting man of me."
