Who, he doesn't say, only because he has set a cigarillo between his lips and made to light it off the Riftwatch pocket lighter. By the time he has nipped the ember into burning, sense has caught up to knee-jerk response.
Enough to give a deprecating sniff as he slips the case back into his coat.
"There's no deal." Which is the problem. "Apparently it would be bad for Riftwatch's reputation to send her packing back to a Seleny gallows with an anchor in her hand. So there goes my fee."
He takes a long pull on the cigarillo, exhaling a cloud of nutty smelling smoke as they track along. If he is keeping a careful eye on their surroundings while they go, he doesn't look it.
"I wrote the fucker who sent me tracking after her, but I doubt he'll pay for the damage." A gesture of his right hand. He's wearing a dark shirt glove on it—a mismatch to the wide cuffed longer glove on his left—, but presumably his anchor shard is glowing under it.
Abby's eyes go to the glove once the smoke passes her by. She scoffs. "What, did you chase each other into a rift?"
She's spoken to Lia once, not enough to get an interesting backstory out of her (only that she's a real flirt and dislikes the sight of a plain, stone wall). Her current impression of Desidério is not dissimilar: a flirt who likes a smart, snappy conversation, smoking; writing to his mother.
Testing him, Abby says, "Surely the money doesn't bother you. You'll get paid here."
He'd written straight away to Seleny upon his arrival in the Gallows—'Lady Fonteyn, I'm sure you'll be as pleased as I am to learn that you'll finally be rid of me. As a show of gratitude, expedite x sum to my current residence. I would appreciate good terms for it. P.S. I'd like to keep up the little apartment; please mind the lease for me, should I unexpectedly be able to effect my return. Sincerely, D', being more or less the gist of the thing wrapped to the leg of a raven—, but that hardly changes the point of the thing. Riftwatch's pay is—
Fine.
He takes a brisk huff off the cigarillo, then continues, "This Exalted March and demons falling out of the sky business is none of mine."
"Neither," Abby says patiently. Sometimes she has to try really hard to keep the sound of um, duh, out of her voice. "But I live here now, so it has to be."
She can see it from his perspective though. He had a entire life before here, lived elsewhere and made his money terrorising widows, which was fun for him, and then he had to drop everything to pick up this cause. Suddenly, he had to care about demons falling out of the sky.
Relenting, she adds, "We're good people, despite what you've heard about us. It's hard at first, but it gets easier."
"I don't doubt that you're good people. But you're also people who stick your nose into Venatori business, and that's all a bit prickly for my taste. And the Gallows—" he blows out his cheeks, and gives her a sidelong look. It's not exactly the world's most pleasant place to live, is it?
Which really makes the point he's boiling down to—
"I get along with Seleny. We're old friends. And that two bit thief has got between me and it unless I'm keen to, whack,"—a hacking gesture at his wrist—"Part with something else. It's reasonable to be, mm, irritated with her."
"Yeah," Abby admits, "I get it. I was pretty pissed off when I first got here. Kept trying to figure out how to get back." And then she didn't want to take no for an answer, and then she sulked around complaining about how unfair it all was. She grimaces in memory of it.
She doesn't have much else to say about the state of the Gallows themselves, not when they're leagues better than anything she had at home, bar the lack of electricity. Honestly, she can't be bothered getting into it right off the bat. Let somebody have a totally normal opinion of her for a while before she drops the whole so-I-came-here-from-an-apocalypse reveal.
"... Would you actually consider chopping off your hand?"
His eyebrows do a thing on his face—first furrowing and then quirkjng upward toward the neighboring hairline of dark curls—over the possibility of chopping his right hand off. Wouldn't that be nice? Shame about—
"No, I'm attached to it," He says around the cigarillo while working the fingers in question opened and closed for emphasis. "So you can stop swearing your demon oaths at me."
Dear Momma, You'll be gratified to hear that I went to Riftwatch and that all the spirits there said naughty words, he will not actually write in a letter, on account of not caring to have a Chantry inquiry to muddle through on top of everything else. And if there were one woman in the world who might see it done—
"It's not swearing," she says, unable to help laughter getting in underneath the reply. Locals are so funny. "You'd know if it was swearing."
Would sound a whole lot meaner. And it seems fair to add, "You're just like me." She holds up her gloved hand. "Technically they're you're demon oaths too.
"If it helps, I'm not about to chop any part of myself off to get rid of it either, so." Even if that meant going home. Would be a real smart move, to toss her dominant hand and immediately be sent back there.
"Point of order," he quibbles right back as they traipse along. Probably, this keenness to wheedle and negotiate is somewhat the people of Seleny find endearing. Or deeply annoying. Who can say?
It helps, maybe, that he sounds like he's at least halfway joking when he says: "They're not my demon oaths, because unlike you I'm not a demon." Say it louder for the random passersby, Desidério. "Magic gash in the hand? I'll grant we have that much in common. But the rest?" He gives her a once over and sucks a doubtful note through his teeth.
Abby makes a mental note to say the term 'magic gash' unprompted to Gwenaëlle at some point in the future. Then, misunderstanding his point, she huffs. "Really? You're gonna go for 'you're a woman, I'm a man'? You can be more creative than that. You don't have to admit you're actually a demon if you lose, either."
So give her something to work with.
She prompts, "We've both cracked other people's kneecaps before."
"No, no." A wag of the finger, less scolding and more just habitual punctuation. The man talks with his hands. "You fell out of the sky. I came from my mother's—"
Somewhere nearby, a dog barks loudly.
"But I'll give you the kneecaps." Wait, will he? He files back through the rough slew of questions pressed and answered. Squints. Gives her a look to confirm— "Cultist kneecaps?" Right?
She shrugs. "Any kneecaps." That's the secret—but he's a dagger-for-hire-type, right, so it's something he'll understand.
Arguing with him is actually quite fun. Abby's enjoying herself and she's long-since forgotten to start playing good tour guide, pointing things out to him in passing. Hands deep in her pockets she says, "We have mothers in the sky, you know."
'Any kneecaps' prompts a certain off the cuff approving head tilt and flex of eyebrows. Yeah, he gets it. He might get it more if the full reply was 'Any kneecaps I'm getting paid to break,' but what is he, particular? No. No Amanza for four generations has survived well by being choosy.
"Allegedly. You can't show me one."
To say that he's made a career of being fun to argue with wouldn't, strictly, be an understatement. It probably helps that in this instance, he is blatantly less than serious as they wind along various narrow streets and traipse up two to five stairs at a time. Or maybe it's just hard to take a man seriously who springs along like an aggressive little dog, cigarillo bobbing between his lips and the buckle of his sword belt clinking companionably against some rivet at his hip.
"You," rifters, "Could say anything about anything and everyone would just have to take your word for it. That's some opportunity for bullshit, if you ask me."
"I think," Abby replies dryly, nudging into him to make him go left at the top of the flight of stairs that they're currently working on, "You underestimate how much people take my word for it."
It isn't actually fun to bullshit people who don't understand the bullshit you're trying to sell to them either, which can be an issue with people from Thedas. The flow of the joke gets ruined when you have to stop and explain parts of it, et cetera.
She points at him now.
"You just told me that moms from my world aren't real until I can show you one." Case in point??
"That's different," he says as he's nudged left. A deep drag on the bobbing cigarillo circles back with a heavy exhale of woody smelling smoke. "On account of mine being very sharp."
These rifters may have it in them to hoodwink the rest of Thedas, but he's built different.'
(Ha ha ha; this, says some punctuation of his dark eyebrows, is a good joke.)
"Jesus," she mutters, grimacing at the thought of the CBI outbreak spilling out like that into other places, moulding over the entirety of existence bit by bit. Abby doesn't doubt that it would fucking try it out of sheer, weaponised aggression.
New nightmare unlocked? Thank you, Desidério Amanza.
She scoffs. "No. Kinda think I deserve to be retired from fighting darkspawn."
And yet, if they dared to pop up again, she'd go out there with everybody else and do something about it. Abby knows this. She adds, "Couple years back the entire Gallows got attacked by walking skeletons. Ever popped knees like that? S'kinda satisfying."
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Enough to give a deprecating sniff as he slips the case back into his coat.
"There's no deal." Which is the problem. "Apparently it would be bad for Riftwatch's reputation to send her packing back to a Seleny gallows with an anchor in her hand. So there goes my fee."
He takes a long pull on the cigarillo, exhaling a cloud of nutty smelling smoke as they track along. If he is keeping a careful eye on their surroundings while they go, he doesn't look it.
"I wrote the fucker who sent me tracking after her, but I doubt he'll pay for the damage." A gesture of his right hand. He's wearing a dark shirt glove on it—a mismatch to the wide cuffed longer glove on his left—, but presumably his anchor shard is glowing under it.
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She's spoken to Lia once, not enough to get an interesting backstory out of her (only that she's a real flirt and dislikes the sight of a plain, stone wall). Her current impression of Desidério is not dissimilar: a flirt who likes a smart, snappy conversation, smoking; writing to his mother.
Testing him, Abby says, "Surely the money doesn't bother you. You'll get paid here."
It must be something else.
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He'd written straight away to Seleny upon his arrival in the Gallows—'Lady Fonteyn, I'm sure you'll be as pleased as I am to learn that you'll finally be rid of me. As a show of gratitude, expedite x sum to my current residence. I would appreciate good terms for it. P.S. I'd like to keep up the little apartment; please mind the lease for me, should I unexpectedly be able to effect my return. Sincerely, D', being more or less the gist of the thing wrapped to the leg of a raven—, but that hardly changes the point of the thing. Riftwatch's pay is—
Fine.
He takes a brisk huff off the cigarillo, then continues, "This Exalted March and demons falling out of the sky business is none of mine."
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She can see it from his perspective though. He had a entire life before here, lived elsewhere and made his money terrorising widows, which was fun for him, and then he had to drop everything to pick up this cause. Suddenly, he had to care about demons falling out of the sky.
Relenting, she adds, "We're good people, despite what you've heard about us. It's hard at first, but it gets easier."
Could always be worse, as trite as that seems.
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Which really makes the point he's boiling down to—
"I get along with Seleny. We're old friends. And that two bit thief has got between me and it unless I'm keen to, whack,"—a hacking gesture at his wrist—"Part with something else. It's reasonable to be, mm, irritated with her."
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She doesn't have much else to say about the state of the Gallows themselves, not when they're leagues better than anything she had at home, bar the lack of electricity. Honestly, she can't be bothered getting into it right off the bat. Let somebody have a totally normal opinion of her for a while before she drops the whole so-I-came-here-from-an-apocalypse reveal.
"... Would you actually consider chopping off your hand?"
Snort. "Dude."
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"No, I'm attached to it," He says around the cigarillo while working the fingers in question opened and closed for emphasis. "So you can stop swearing your demon oaths at me."
Dear Momma, You'll be gratified to hear that I went to Riftwatch and that all the spirits there said naughty words, he will not actually write in a letter, on account of not caring to have a Chantry inquiry to muddle through on top of everything else. And if there were one woman in the world who might see it done—
Well. Best not to risk it.
Also, it's a joke.
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Would sound a whole lot meaner. And it seems fair to add, "You're just like me." She holds up her gloved hand. "Technically they're you're demon oaths too.
"If it helps, I'm not about to chop any part of myself off to get rid of it either, so." Even if that meant going home. Would be a real smart move, to toss her dominant hand and immediately be sent back there.
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It helps, maybe, that he sounds like he's at least halfway joking when he says: "They're not my demon oaths, because unlike you I'm not a demon." Say it louder for the random passersby, Desidério. "Magic gash in the hand? I'll grant we have that much in common. But the rest?" He gives her a once over and sucks a doubtful note through his teeth.
She's taller, for starters.
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So give her something to work with.
She prompts, "We've both cracked other people's kneecaps before."
Point of similarity. Not so hard.
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Somewhere nearby, a dog barks loudly.
"But I'll give you the kneecaps." Wait, will he? He files back through the rough slew of questions pressed and answered. Squints. Gives her a look to confirm— "Cultist kneecaps?" Right?
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Arguing with him is actually quite fun. Abby's enjoying herself and she's long-since forgotten to start playing good tour guide, pointing things out to him in passing. Hands deep in her pockets she says, "We have mothers in the sky, you know."
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"Allegedly. You can't show me one."
To say that he's made a career of being fun to argue with wouldn't, strictly, be an understatement. It probably helps that in this instance, he is blatantly less than serious as they wind along various narrow streets and traipse up two to five stairs at a time. Or maybe it's just hard to take a man seriously who springs along like an aggressive little dog, cigarillo bobbing between his lips and the buckle of his sword belt clinking companionably against some rivet at his hip.
"You," rifters, "Could say anything about anything and everyone would just have to take your word for it. That's some opportunity for bullshit, if you ask me."
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It isn't actually fun to bullshit people who don't understand the bullshit you're trying to sell to them either, which can be an issue with people from Thedas. The flow of the joke gets ruined when you have to stop and explain parts of it, et cetera.
She points at him now.
"You just told me that moms from my world aren't real until I can show you one." Case in point??
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These rifters may have it in them to hoodwink the rest of Thedas, but he's built different.'
(Ha ha ha; this, says some punctuation of his dark eyebrows, is a good joke.)
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Yet he believed that she fell from the sky in the first place, which Abby would argue is one of the harder parts of the sell. Anyway.
"So what if I told you that I came here from my world's version of a Blight? Bullshit or real?"
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Desidério Amanza, ladies and gentleman. An optomist.
"Also, you're built like you've been fighting darkspawn all day. Has the Warden tried to recruit you yet? I hear Riftwatch has one."
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New nightmare unlocked? Thank you, Desidério Amanza.
She scoffs. "No. Kinda think I deserve to be retired from fighting darkspawn."
And yet, if they dared to pop up again, she'd go out there with everybody else and do something about it. Abby knows this. She adds, "Couple years back the entire Gallows got attacked by walking skeletons. Ever popped knees like that? S'kinda satisfying."