The HANGMAN'S PAPERS, Numb. 5

[cozen]

FORM: Printed, on paper of noticeably poorer quality than last time
SENDER: THE HANGMAN'S PAPERS
RECIPIENT: Everyone, via its appearance overnight in their pigeonholes in the dining hall
NOTES: Feel free to use this as a crystal/enchanted book catch-all post for anything your character wants to say or write in response! (Or make your own post. That's also fine.)

Numb. 5
THE HANGMAN'S PAPERS
Published for Riftwatch, in the Gallows of Kirkwall
Summer 9:50

---

CONTAINING,


NOTES FROM KIRKWALL, Ed.: A brief-as-possible update on the state of reconstruction in the city, including comments on the recent or expected reopenings of a handful of popular establishments that suffered extensive damage or fatalities, instructions for those who might wish to make a donation to Perky Perkins' family in light of his death, and the relaying of some brief words of gratitude for Riftwatch's assistance with the attack and subsequent clean-up from the locals, including the Guard Captain and new acting Viscount Tethras.


MONSIEUR FARNON'S EQUINE ADVICE, Siegfried Farnon: Siegfried's submission was clearly meant to be a notice of the services he offers, and that's included, but it represents about 15% of the piece. The remaining 85% ends up being an explainer about how horses react to stress and why it's important not to subject them to it more than absolutely necessary. It's accessible and reasonably interesting (assuming you care about horses), if presumably not what he started off planning to write about. The editor has rearranged this submission to make the notice of his services a coda rather than an introduction and to heavily imply this will be a regular feature in future editions.


IN THE FIRST PLACE, Anonymous. Ed. note: Answers will be posted to the bulletin board in one week.

ACROSS 4. Wilds 5. A mountain and a 'round' tower 8. Direction of coming 9. Restless waters 10. Bottomless ravine 13. The end of the world? 16. Everywhere, but no one's destination 17. Not Briala's 20. Graves' green

DOWN 1. Vints' drink 2. Dumat's domain 3. Stinking pools 6. Witches' marshes 7. Cartographer's dream 11. Broken ice 12. Whispering sands 14. Counted mounts 15. Damned rises 18. Untamed gorges 19. Where 1 Down watches

ARE YOU COMPATIBLE? A TEST OF YOUR CHEMISTRY!, La Moore: This quick, six-question quiz will help you determine whether or not you and somebody of your choosing are compatible. It is not restricted to people you are already in a romantic relationship with, or are pursuing romantically! You can test the bond between yourself and whomever you please. If you answer the questions truthfully, you will discover the true meaning of the time that you spend to-gether.

PLEASE NOTE: This quiz was made all in good fun and is not encouraging the quiz-taker toward anything in particular. But at the same time, if you do find that you and your companion have actually been madly in love with each other all along, please, celebrate it!

BEFORE YOU START: Sit quietly for a moment and hold a picture of your companion in your mind's eye. Think very hard about them. Rotate this mental image of them carefully. Examine it from all angles! After you have achieved this, you may proceed. Good luck!

Here is the quiz.

Question one: What do you think of your companion?

A. They are terrible and I loathe to share this organization with them (+0)
B. I hold them in tender regard (+2)
C. I am secretly in love with them! (+3)
D. They don't much cross my mind at all (+1)

Question two: How do you spend the bulk of your time together?

A. Getting to know each-other (+2)
B. Working closely at our desks (+1)
C. Doing work-related things, only speaking when necessary (+0)
D. Sharing food and fun conversation! (+3)

Question three: Do your political views match those of your companion?

A. Our political views are the same (+3)
B. Sometimes we have disagreements but we more or less agree on the same things (+2)
C. We have shouted at each-other over politics before and we will do it again! (+0)
D. Politics has never come up between us and I hope it never will (+1)

Question four: Have you ever shared laughter?

A. Our senses of humor are not similar (+1)
B. We share laughter commonly and it strengthens our bond! (+3)
C. What is there to laugh about? (+0)
D. Every so often we will giggle in unison (+2)

Question five: What will you get them for Satinalia?

A. I will ask them what they would like and then get that (+2)
B. I'll say happy Satinalia to them in passing. Or I will mean to, but forget (+0)
C. A small, forgettable token so as not to be rude (+1)
D. A meaningful and beautiful gift, obtained in advance (+3)

Question six: If you and your companion are friends, would you consider taking things a step further?

A. We are not friends (+0)
B. Yes and I dream of it! (+3)
C. I would end our friendship if they tried to pursue me (+1)
D. I am not trying to further things, but I would not say no if they ended up heading in that direction (+2)

RESULTS

0 – 3: MORTAL ENEMIES!

Oh no! You really don't like this person at all and maybe even hate them. That's okay; we can't be expected to get along with everybody in the world. Is there a particular reason you dislike them so strongly? Perhaps you should take a moment to sit and think about it very carefully and see if you can reach an understanding. If you can't: oh well. You tried!

4 – 8: STEADY ACQUAINTANCES!

Most people feel this way about their work colleagues. You work well in tandem but do not know each other very well outside of Riftwatch's context. It is perfectly fine to think of somebody this way but may I suggest: ask your companion some questions about themselves to get to know them better! You may find that you have things in common and it could be very fun.

9 – 14: WARM FRIENDS!

How lovely! You are friends, maybe even very good friends. You like each other and spend time to-gether. This is a very happy place to be with another person and I commend you for it but have you considered that you could be more? For fun, you could entertain it and see what happens. If you don't like the thought of it, you can stop right away and no harm is done.

15 – 18: ETERNAL LOVERS!

They have written books about the kind of love you experience! Congratulations! How lucky! Not only are you and your companion completely inseparable but you are the envy of your peers and everybody loves to hear about your shared feelings. You should talk about them more. It could make somebody's day!’

A CIPHER, Anonymous: 15-7-7-14-16-23-17

With instructions for submitting material for future publications.

Comments

(frozen comment) this space reserved

[cozen]

for the crossword answers later

action; quiz time; ota.

[cozen]

[ Bastien doesn't live in the Gallows; the Gallows' food is still free. And he was here to deposit the Papers into everyone's pigeonholes, anyway, so he might as well eat while he's here. And he might as well invite himself to sit with anyone. Or everyone, because time is fake and he can do that. ]

What do I think of my companion, [ in musing tones, while he considers whoever is across from him. ]

[elegiaque]

( glancing up from her meal, gwenaëlle arches an eyebrow: )

Steady on, ( mildly. )

[cozen]

[ Eternally useful advice. Bastien nods, ducks his head lower, and angles his paper to hide what he inks a little tick mark beside—which is ruined by saying, ] Secretly in love, [ in a whisper that's only one step above mouthing it.

Louder, ] It's the arguments and impropriety. I have a weakness.

We spend our time getting to know each other, and... Do our political views match.

[ He looks up to contemplate her again. ]

What happens after you kill the Empress?

[bouchonne]

Why’s there no option for blatantly in love?

[ Deeply miffed by this. ]

[elegiaque]

( lulled into a brief sense of safety by the startled way she laughs at secretly in love— she is not anticipating what happens after you kill the empress? and it does, immediately, sort of feel like a trap. it's been a weird, difficult few weeks. she's only recently discovered byerly feels very differently about her than she'd previously believed, and confronted with someone who loves him as much as she does (more, probably, but you know: in a different way) and is better at it it's hard not to feel a little bit paranoid,

that she's being led into saying something stupid and ignorant, that anything she says is going to be mocked or belittled or used as evidence against her, and that she'll only have herself to blame for it. she has only ever had herself to blame for being hurt by byerly; the rush of humiliated anger when cedric had spoken to her has already drained away to resigned acceptance that nothing's really changed. the smile fades into uncertainty, studying him in return as if she can divine from his face the sincerity of the question for this little quiz. how many spikes are in the pit if she walks forward.

but bastien hasn't actually ever been unkind to her. she hasn't felt stupid talking to him. and it's the sort of thing she knows interests him, and she doesn't entirely know how to answer that question except to take it seriously, so she starts slowly, feeling her way through a thing no one has actually asked her before: )

Well, ideally, in a scenario where I got that far, much more intelligent people than me who know a great deal more about the consequences of that action would have already thought about and planned for that. I wouldn't have got there by myself. The flippant answer, is, you know — either something terrible or nothing.

( hashtag just orlais things. )

The worry would be just another fucking meaningless civil war to replace her with, what, someone equally bad? If I had the shot and I didn't know anything but that I could kill her, I don't know what I'd do.

( because she wants to say: of course I wouldn't take it. but if she were there, in that moment, and she didn't know if she would get another chance, )

I mean, she burned my sisters to death and I want her to fucking pay for it, but if she'd died, and we had Gaspard? I read the pamphlets he put out. I don't know what it would look like. I always thought, you know, the deserters and the elves and the mages and us, here— wouldn't we be more powerful, together? If it wasn't just shooting that bitch off her throne, but people cooperated and she wasn't replaced by one of her equally dreadful fucking cousins a week later after half a dozen people have been put to death. I don't know. I worry about it. Everyone's so separate.

[cozen]

Big oversight by the writer,

[ agreeably semi-miffed, to match. ]

Maybe they— [ whose identity he will keep doggedly secret from Byerly solely because the entire situation is silly ] —are in desperate, silent, unrequited love and could not imagine any other way of doing it.

[cozen]

[ The justification for her hesitation would be a surprise to Bastien, every which way. But there are plenty of other reasonable justifications for him to slot in, like the fact that having this conversation in earshot of the wrong people in Orlais—or here, if someone brought a large enough captive-dragging sack—would end in him hanged and her. also hanged, probably? Would Marquise Briala insist on honorable beheadings for noble-born elfblooded traitors? ]

That is the problem.

[ He sets the pen down rather than marking an option prematurely. ]

A common enemy is much easier than a common vision of the future. And everything I read about it in Tony and Jude's worlds—about how they got to something a bit better—it was so frustrating. Baby steps and setbacks and infighting, and they did not have half the divisions we do.

And I'll admit it it's hard for me to work the mages into my dreams.

[elegiaque]

I don't know if you ever knew Alexander — Lord Luthor — but before we had met, he wrote about the essential importance of viewing our world as... Maker, I'm going to make a mess of this, ( with a little laugh, thin, a restlessness in her hands and the way she looks down at her meal as she tries to recall the words. the ideas had stuck with her, resonated with her, lingered in the way she has slowly learned to care about the things that she hadn't, really, when she'd first been reading his essays. she'd been fascinated, but it hadn't felt meaningful the way it does, now.

maybe they've nothing in common but oppression, but if they're all being oppressed by the same fucking things. do people see her vision. (they historically have not.) )

As ours, I guess? A citizen not of the Marches or Orlais or Ferelden but, people in a world who are going to be impacted by each other. And mages are in the world. If we can't imagine a world they exist in without fighting, we're never going to do anything else, and the people that serves are the people who won't have to fight. Wear ourselves out against each other. No one's killing the fucking Empress.

[bouchonne]

[ Shaking his head - ]

Well, they should certainly take the next step themselves. Distant pining is only satisfying in stories.

[allthatgleamsisgold]

[Having already torn into his breakfast, Vlast is picking away at a bowl of dried meat and nuts (he likes his protein okay) as he reads through the flier like it's caused him personal offense.

It hasn't. That's just his face.]

According to this, we're mortal enemies.

[Deadpan. Maybe his underdeveloped sense of humour has started to blossom, maybe he's just Like That.]

[cozen]

[ Bastien hums dubiously. ]

It is fun for a little while.

[ Thoughtfully, he puts a circle around B. Tender regard is more accurate than secrets. ]

And sometimes the next step is feeling humiliated and stupid.

[bouchonne]

True.

[ By’s lips turn up in a wry little smile. ]

How did your first crush turn out? Rejection, acceptance, or perpetual silence?

[ “First” specified to avoid brushing on Bastien’s great unrequited love. ]

[cozen]

[ Thanks bro-sband. ]

I don't know. All three? We held hands sometimes, and we didn't talk about it, and then he got taller and started talking to a girl. Then she was my first kiss. Not to hurt him or anything. Or maybe a little. I don't remember having a plan or any real thoughts—I couldn't have been more than ten or eleven. But I think it was more like I wanted to keep up and be part of it.

What about yours?

[altusimperius]

They are terrible, and I loathe to share this organization with them.

[Followed by a wry smile,]

somehow I doubt you're secretly in love with me.

[bouchonne]

Perpetual silence. Because I didn't even know it was a crush.

[ This could be sad, but there's a real unfeigned amusement in Byerly's manner. ]

Not too many lads kissing lads, where I came from. So I kept trying to figure out why it was I kept wanting to look at the boy. Surely there was something strange that was catching my attention. It took a few years - after I'd actually kissed my first lad - that it made sense.

[cozen]

[ He shakes his head faintly at the first—he never knew Lord Luthor, except maybe in passing in the halls—and then listens with a faint smile. ]

It's a good point. I don't disagree. It's the brass tacks that are difficult. Convince the serfs to work with the elves, that's a battle. Convince them to work with the mages without pissing themselves in fear, that is a bigger one. But I can see a path to that. I can see—this, you know, what we have done here? Mix everyone together for a common cause, you work with them, you put a face to those labels, you sleep together, everyone is a real person now.

But then once the Empress is dead, [ is, for him, less literal than for Gwenaëlle, ] you have to make other decisions. We can even imagine that those decisions aren't all about divisions and squabbling over who gets what. Everyone is there in good faith, trying to solve a problem together. A mage, an elf, and a serf. How does the one who can read, who has an education, who can move mountains—little ones—and hold off armies, whose absence the others would suffer from more than she would suffer from theirs. How does she not have the final say? How is her life not considered more valuable? And it isn't that I think she would be wrong or selfish. Everyone thinks the first ruler will be good for them. That is how she becomes the ruler.

I don't think it is impossible, [ to clarify, post-pessimism, ] but I don't know how to do it.

[cozen]

[ It could be sad. But even if it were sad it'd also be sweet. ]

A divine revelation.

[ And they've clearly answered the next question. He circles D. Sharing food and fun conversation, check. ]

Do you know where he is now?

[cozen]

Hey. I contain multitudes.

[ For the record. ]

—but you are an infant. [ He considers the other options. ] Does my regard feel tender to you?

[bouchonne]

None at all.

Do you know where your lad is? Or lass?

[cozen]

No. I'm sure I wouldn't recognize them now. But I hope they got married.

[ Next question: ]

Do our political views match? [ Scanning the possibilities. ] They must mean angry shouting, no? Not like the other night. That was only loud talking.

@ teren.

[exequy]

[ Moody assholes need entertainment, too. This is why Kostos is holding the tract in one hand while he eats porridge with the other, sitting on a rock in the ruined Gallows while his raven hops around nearby, and periodically glancing at Teren.

They're long glances. Evaluative glances. Making up his mind about his answers glances. ]

[doneisdone]

[She notices before she lets on, and it takes a little time for her to determine that this is the Acceptable Averesch-- but that doesn't excuse the looks he's giving her.

She finally meets his eyes after one too many, her own slightly narrowing. What.]

[exequy]

[ He nods. Not to her, exactly. To himself, already looking back down to add the correct number—zero—to his current running tally of two.

What is there to laugh about? indeed. ]

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ Here, his smile turns a little crooked. ]

I think we do not precisely match, no. Given that I am an oppressor of the honest man, and you are his champion.