[Tav is back in the infirmary after not resting much at all back in the Gallows. He's finding it harder and harder to sleep under lock and key. His guards follow him as he enters the infirmary and glances around to find both Cedric and Vanya.
Cedric first.
Tav's guards hang back as the elf approaches Cedric's bed with a soft smile.]
I'm Tav, not sure if you remember me. [He wouldn't blame him.] I'm here to check back in, see if you need any more of the-- [He wiggles his fingers and a hopefully familiar turquoise light dances between them.] magic touch, as it were.
Cedric peels the cloth from his eyes, squinting against the light. He sits upright, propped in a chair not far from Vanya’s cot. Meant to head out already, but something of the cool and dark sat so heavy on his brow, and -
Well, no one’s slept much, have they?
No, he doesn’t remember Tav. The past day is a lurch of hours. But he knows the name, the voice. ]
Barrow filled me in, [ Careful. He's watching the guards. Cedric's seen his share of mages too, but the Loyalists he knows own more freedom of movement. ] Reckon we all owe you our gratitude, Tav.
[ His expression gentles, but his palm presses out firm - no, no more magic, thank you. Bruises will fade, and the rough men in back remind his training: A spell is always an escalation.
[ This isn't his first sickbay. If the Gallows owns an advantage, it’s that no one’s dying in here - ten years on, and the smell of Declan’s clipped intestines has never quite left him. The sour air of his mother’s blankets.
There's no one dying in here. But he's lingered longer than he'd like. ]
A helmet, yesterday. [ A crinkled smile: He's joking. ] I'm well. Some things just take time.
[ Cedric stoops up, cracking stiff joints. Casually - or it might be, if he weren't maintaining direct eye contact with the one on the left, he calls - ]
[Some things do take time, Tav silently agrees. He’d been so caught up in the rush of trying to save Baldur’s Gate, destroying the Absolute, removing taspoles that sitting still seems impossible.
He pivots when Cedric addresses the NPCs guards, dressed in vaguely piratey uniforms.
[ Baeron and Kinnear. Alright. See if he can hang on to that much.
Cedric doesn't hold any authority here, but maybe he doesn't need it. Just matters they know they're being watched. Problems look a lot like people sometimes - he's got ideas on how a Tevene pirate might solve them.
[ Byerly saunters into the library a bit after noon (punctuality is not his strong suit). He looks dapper enough, and quite unconcerned by any of the previous drama, having extracted himself from his feelings a bit.
If Cedric is there as promised, he'll saunter over to his table. ]
[ summer's come to kirkwall. it's hot, and if that beats cold by a country mile, cedric's still sweating through his shirtsleeves. you'd think all the stones they lost would've improved tower airflow.
he's fussing by the time byerly arrives, distraction peeling a soggy flop of hair to shape; a bad job to cover the ruins of his ear. inkpot and pages are arranged, first draft sketched in chalk slate (with paper so dear): thanking the countess for her kind words on dear jeanne-marie, whose loss penfinnel hasn't deigned to acknowledge —
a nod, he nudges it across the table. ]
They get your street cleared up?
[ last time he was down their lane, the neighbours were rubble. ]
[ By pulls out tobacco and rolling papers, starts rolling himself a smoke. Obnoxiously, he does not seem to be sweating, but instead looks rather crisp. Just one of the annoying things about him. ]
We've come to the end of the grisly discoveries, hopefully.
[ There's a darkness that passes momentarily across his face. The houses beside theirs, on either side, had been crushed. They'd been occupied. ]
Funny, what passes for small talk nowadays.
the notes app corrects these to bastion and biyearly
[ a shit kind of luck, he’d told bastien. meant it. everyone wants to survive, no one wants to be a survivor. ]
It was good of you both t'stay.
[ plenty would've packed up already, run out on the lease; not dug a hand to help. cedric peels away from slate, damp fingers rubbing little white curls from dust. this isn’t really about a second pair of eyes — if he was worried for the letter, he’d ask gela to read it. benedict. even julius, whose tolerance cedric would rather save for the painful day he inevitably needs to impose on a mage.
but if byerly wants to talk, work's the price. ]
No one’s called us on th'fake Rifter yet. Might wanna amend a report somewhere, though. Something harmless. Old room records, maybe.
Yeah, [ blunt. it’s there, if you know what to look for, the sharp, storm-burnt stink of his sweat. ] Yeah, I use lyrium.
[ your type jabs with surgical precision. but it’s a new day. they've got a fresh start, and he owes rutyer the same understanding he wanted for the others: if you can't do that, dunno how you expect everyone else to,
so. cedric taps the slate. over here, thanks — ]
Thing is, we oughta loop folks in for what we change, and that becomes another way t’catch it.
Edited 2024-07-17 19:40 (UTC)
eviDENtly and it had nothing to do with my butterfingers
[ There's nothing visibly offensive in the way that Byerly speaks. He doesn't seem aggressive, nor cruel, nor solicitous, nor ironic. Just implacable. Just seeing how deep you need to dig to hit muscle. ]
[ the flick of an image: someone's grandmother shouts, and his ears ring; and herian rots from the head, cool as day.
another: bone fractures under fist, drawn back again. again. it felt good to break gautier's jaw. his nose. felt good to force his teeth in the dirt. for a moment, it even felt good when they pulled him off swinging —
it was a short moment. still tastes like shame. he's doing fine with the lyrium, and men who beat the shit out of their colleagues, they don't get to stay on it. ]
I doubt you met many Templars.
[ he smears a hand of sweat onto the back of his sleeve. better it not stain the page. ]
Mm. The war didn’t start with the March, after all. And even if it had - I truly can’t imagine why it is that the act of setting Tevinter’s fields aflame led you to disavow your name. It would be akin to beating the shit out of a dwarf and then throwing away your fine dwarven sword as a result. No logic.
[ That catches Byerly flat-footed. His physical reaction to it is subtle: eyes narrowing for just a split second as he tries to understand and fails. Then he returns to his prior drill serenity. ]
Elves? Not sure I follow, dear fellow.
[ And then the thought occurs to him, and he tilts his head, studying Cedric’s face. ]
[ repeated. impossible to divine where blood slopes for blood. takes after his father, the old joke, but it's his uncle's nose; his mother's high bones, grandfather's hair. stretched a little broad, set a little square.
perhaps, in some dismal southern castle, he'd spy another byerly.
cedric drops the stare, at last, to write. ink spots, spreads beyond the edge of a rune. ]
[ Far from it, it seems; Byerly almost immediately stops being so fucking weird. His slouch becomes more comfortable and less disrespectful; his jeering smile normalizes into an ordinary expression of attention.
Because: an eely man who has the background of a warrior but who aims to please, who dodges questions and says what he thinks someone wants to hear rather than what he believes - that's suspicious. Unless the people-pleasing is a way you've devised to avoid getting your teeth bashed in by people who don't like the thing you are. ]
I imagine it's nearly always a problem for you. So I imagine that, yes, it will be a problem going forward, as well. But not one I intend to exacerbate.
[ He tilts his head. ]
Is this a secret? "Not ashamed" can sometimes mean "not afraid of trouble," but not always.
[ a sluggish pulse in his chest: there's no true grace in telling someone you don’t mean to knife them. plenty like to hold it so. rutyer doesn't intend to exacerbate this, how fucking generous. ]
No. So if a secret's what you’re after, what's gonna make you feel big — then my favourite colour's blue, when I was sixteen I broke the hand off a statue, and I'd take it a kindness if you did the work you signed to.
Too busy figuring out how t'get back off the roof.
[ it's a decent draft, modeled after past letters — in places, a touch too closely, should the countess review her prior correspondence with riftwatch. this and that line could do with some rephrasing, and of course, by now the paper's a loss. ]
[ Byerly easily, fluidly, begins the rewrite - catching those little bits of cliched phrasing, smoothing over the rougher patches. He's very good at this. This was, after all, his life for some years. ]
[ revered mother renata had weak wrists. he wipes a bead of brackish sweat from hand, ink mingling for salt. attentive to the revisions: been near six months, but half that spent hauling stone, chatting up the guard. he's new to this. ]
This really what you wanna be doing?
[ there are four divisions, there are jobs beyond the walls. everyone does a bit of everything, these days; rutyer's got options. ]
You fucked off half the division yesterday. And it was pulling teeth getting you t'help with this little thing —
[ not the mark of greatness. rutyer's obviously capable, it's as obvious that he isn't trying. ]
— 'M not saying you can't do it. Just seems clear you don't care to.
[ no one's useless: research and scouting need scribes and connections, forces can teach anyone to pitch a tent, string a bow. there are other people rutyer could be. ]
[ He blows out a sigh through his nose, and then says with a crooked smile: ]
To be completely clear: you’re encouraging me to abandon the duties at which I am particularly effective, simply because I do not enjoy them, at a time when the little girl who lives down the lane from me is spending her every waking moment trying to look beneath every rock she can find in case Mama’s under there?
[ He gestures with his cigarette. ]
I don’t think I’m going to spend too long thinking it over. But Maker bless you for being so concerned about my happiness.
[ you’re encouraging me to abandon the duties at which I am particularly effective, simply because I do not enjoy them,
is its own, guilty pang. but rutyer didn't swear oaths. ]
'M concerned when it starts getting on everyone else.
[ cedric rolls a wrist, flexes the fingers about his anchor loose. gela's right; they've all been strained. jayce stood in the surf, thunderstruck for something cedric hasn't grasped the full shape of. vega's faint admission, it was very loud, ]
[ rutyer swore so many fucking oaths, it's really gross ]
I also am concerned when it starts getting on everyone else.
[ An arched eyebrow. Wasn't the crux of the original argument around whether or not people had the right to snap at newcomers due to the stress they were under? But it's neither here nor there; he shakes his head, not wanting to settle back into that previous unsatisfying argument. Wanting to move instead into a new, better one. ]
I presume you're asking if I've spoken to anyone about my feelings on them. To which the answer is: I have a beloved who lends me his one good ear, though at times I prefer to whisper into the deaf one. Much less embarrassing.
Though it was bloody hard to tell the difference between him and that demon. Doesn't exactly speak of someone who's ever going to be particularly knowable.
As you were saying all that to me - why continue to do the job if you despise it, all that - I wonder what was going through your head. I wonder if you were thinking about your own obligations.
[ a home. an education. a small fortune in room and board and training and lyrium. every horse he's ridden, sword he's swung. some day they'll pull the head from his shoulders, and it's the chantry who'll sew his lips and sleep him in a tomb.
we've been given so much, and, ]
More'n anything, 's given me purpose. Chance t'be a part of something greater.
[ He takes a moment to look over the page. Or - well. He takes a moment to look like he's looking it over, while he in fact thinks about something else altogether. ]
I was Chantry-educated, myself. Our family had nothing, so I'd make the trek down to the village to join the children of the freemen at their studies. I cannot say that I was a diligent student - you'll be shocked to hear it - but I owe to them the fact that I learned to read and write, and do basic sums. Skills that served me well enough when I struck out on my own.
[ our family had nothing, comes a surprise, not quite swallowed by the pinch of his brow. maybe it oughtn’t. plenty of money came through the monastery; impossible to imagine back then, that some kid delivered by carriage might lack.
but he's heard them talk on it, talk around it: the thorny shape of a familiar hunger. and now benedict, he supposes. byerly. ]
Learned child's a blessing, [ upon his parents, that verse goes. upon his parents and the maker, ] For anyone's got letters t'post.
[ cedric levels a glance. the joke's an exit ramp, if rutyer wants it. but after this elliptical interrogation, means something that he's given of his own. ]
[ That's a real laugh - not loud, not long, just an appreciative chuckle at a well-constructed joke.
But he doesn't take the exit ramp. Instead: ]
When I was about seventeen. Or a few days shy of it. I, in my infinite wisdom - and not a bit of reckless fury - decided that I could make my way in the world with nothing but an extra pair of socks and my patchy autumn coat and my fiddle. It was in Firstfall, but it was an unseasonably warm day, and in my ignorance it never even occurred to me, say, things might get colder tomorrow.
I spent the first night on the road sleeping under a bridge and woke up with numb fingers. Couldn't warm my hands all day, which interfered with my clever plan to trade music for a ride in a haycart towards Denerim. But my eyes still worked. And along came a merchant who had a stack of correspondence he'd picked up in town but no time to read it yet. And so I didn't earn my way as a fiddler, but instead a learned factotum.
[ pinch pulls to crinkle, along the side of his mouth. rueful for tomorrow. yeah, they both remember what it was to be clarisse, to be twenty. remember, too, being seventeen. stupid. brave. ]
You still play?
[ it might get colder tomorrow. but it could warm, too. gotta be bold to believe it: that a better day could be. ]
There are rumors that the former Ambassador and his companion don hats and shabby clothes and help provide the music for a bawdy Lowtown dance-hall. There are rumors it happens every Tuesday.
[ helluva disguise. why'd you leave? what kept you from turning back? what ever came of that reckless fury, save that the story points out. away from home. toward a warmer day.
cedric studies his expression, his own leveling slow; behind the remains of a smile. it’s nice to not fucking fight the guy for a minute. ]
[ What a question. It actually takes Byerly back a moment. How could you describe the experience of playing? He settles, finally, on: ]
It is like being a bell, and being lifted and struck.
[ There’s a sincerity in that. Here, at last: something that Byerly loves without embarrassment or reservation or shame. One lone place where the armor of irony and suspicion and deception reveals a little gap, showing a quick flash of the tender heart underneath. ]
There’s a reason that we sing the Chant. The Maker speaks in music, and it’s how we can best respond.
[ even in the bawdy dance-halls. something feels right in that, sounds true; out of rutyer's mouth, in his own heart. never had the head for art, or the throat to sing — but there's more than one way to raise a sound.
when we're called, i mean to have something to say,
it all tastes trite. over-observed; skittish of recent scrutiny. but the only way out is through. cedric reaches a hand across the table, squeezes an arm, brief. lets go again with a nod. ]
[ There's a brief, startled look at the physical contact. Not quite a flinch, but clear enough from the very slight way By braces that he's more accustomed to slaps than comradely grips. No surprise, of course, with a personality like that.
(Or maybe it's a little sadder. Runaway kids get kicked. Kids run away because they got kicked. And he doesn't flinch like that when he's got his armor fully on.)
It's a quick recovery. A smile, full of wry bravado. ]
I do know some men who get that feeling during swordplay, or out on the training ground. Do you ever feel it there? That sense of rightness?
[ byerly's recoil, the speed of that reverse, reminds of steel itself. stepping forward for the slash. into the boot. he'll mull over that later: all the ways folks bluff. the reasons they might.
kids get kicked. sometimes, they put themselves between. ]
Everyone likes t'be good at something, [ cedric admits. he is very good with a blade. ] But it's... dunno. Means nothing, without a use.
[ without an answer to give. there is a song that he knows how to find, a great din that presses everything else out. no room in it to be one person – selfish, small – no room to be anything at all. ]
We bashed around, y'know. Sticks and brooms. Don't remember it feeling right 'til there was a reason.
[ It could be mocking. In this corrupt age, after all, there are no real heroes, are there? The best of Thedas are beaten down, while the worst gather power. A cynic would jeer at anyone with noble ambitions.
But one thing that's not so bad about Byerly: he lets you know when he's mocking you. And this time, he isn't. There's nothing contemptuous or arch in the word heroism.
(There would be, if Cedric's beginnings were a bit less humble. But how can you jeer at someone who has the world spit ten thousand times in his eye, and still tries to see clearly?) ]
[ and there's an ego on cedric for the way he bristled yesterday. pride doesn't only come for mages.
i don't expect recognition, vanya'd said, and sure — but it would be a nice change. riftwatch is full of heroes, bursts at the seams for story; for the work that matters. work that gets remembered. that means anything true. at least, he'd thought that, coming here,
he's had other thoughts since: signed in street pyres and burning hair. his eyes cut aside. mouth twitches in faint reflex. the edge of defensive ease. ]
But we all got a bit t'do, and I've got a shit voice.
Only a narcissist thinks he can change the world. Probably why this place is filled with jackasses.
[ His gesture encompasses the Gallows, and also himself. And lingers on himself longer than it lingers on the room around him. He's not utterly unselfaware.
Then a little flourish of his pen on the document. He purses his lips down at it. ]
A full twenty minutes of work! Horrible. I'll need to rest for the remainder of the day.
[ He presses a hand to his chest as he vamps. But then, with a bit of sincerity shot through with wryness - ]
Sorry we never really had a proper conversation till now. I've been a bit, shall we say, solipsistic ever since I died last summer. Trying to get my head back in the game, at least a little.
[ he's wiping an inkspot from the table (onto a sleeve, they've seen worse) when it comes, dry and confessional. honest. there's a careful shape to cedric's assignment here, there's a blank spot in the questions he's asked, and files he's read. granitefell,
really ought to report it. all that holds him back some days: the certainty that someone must already know.
so he's stalling when he echoes, ]
When y'died last summer.
[ which is not, probably, the kindest way to answer. ]
(If somebody were to, say, be occupying the training grounds for whatever reason that afternoon they may notice Gela walking there at quite a pace with both hands on her hips, like she is going somewhere, or is on a quick and nervous mission.
She pauses near the fencing and squints at the back that's to her, calling out,) Cedric?
[ He’s rarely in plate. It’s a pain for the work they do now, so often by air, with thin numbers and improvisational tactics. There aren’t men at his shoulders, sweeping a street; advancing on a spell. It’s him, him and a few others at a time, and he’s had to adapt —
But some days you just want to wear out. A shield arcs high and down, smashes into the splintered edge of a dummy’s shoulder. He’s drawing back for another blow when he hears her. Oh. Oh, ]
Gela, [ Breathless. Cedric turns, hooks his helmet off and aside. The shield drops. His brow crinkles. ] Hey. Y’alright?
I — ('m fine, the response at the edge of her lips, an easy thing to say but now bit back. The formality of Cedric in his plate armor and shield, something she has not seen him wear in any battle, is a strange reassurance: they are both doing things they don't normally do, here, and it hasn't changed the way they greet each other.
Still, some habits are too hard to break so even though Gela does admit,) No, (then,) I don't know, (as if to soften it, she pushes on hard and purposeful, like striking out at a target.) You're — this is very impressive.
A bit, [ He admits, sheepish. She can probably guess when, even if he left things off with Rutyer, well. Privately. ] 'Round an hour.
[ His cheeks are hot. It isn’t only for the day. Always embarrassing to lose your cool, worse, that she's said just the thing he'd hope for. Impressive. He wants so badly to be. Cedric stoops to deposit shield and helm, then leans over the fence. Metal creaks. ]
Just been feeling all — [ His chin tips, mouth pulls into shrug. ] — You too?
[ For the meeting. For the dead and gone. For the stifling summer sun, and a war that’s dragged on, and did she ever hear back from that brother? A thousand little kicks in the gut. ]
(His chin tip and shrug makes her smile, briefly.) Yes. (That is a good way to put it. She has also been feeling all...
Gela leans back on her heels, still holding the fence, both arms extended. She did this in Cumberland as a child, on the fence outside of her family house. Does Cedric have memories like this of Nevarra? Hot days and cold nights, but being warm at home. Getting yelled at by the nearest parent for hanging off the fence, you'll break it, you'll break it. She hasn't asked him yet.)
That was a hard conversation. (Broached tentatively.) I'm worried I spoke out of turn.
[ He agrees. Easier now to do that. The older he gets, the better sense it makes, having kids run laps for a scuffle. Can’t be angry without the lungs. ]
Harder, maybe — when there’s a conflict, and can’t no one touch it direct. Makes disagreeing feel bigger than it is.
[ Killing each other with courtesy. Shouting might scare Benedict, but he still got run over at a pleasant volume. Cedric picks at a gauntlet, glances up to watch her swing. A memory, unbidden, of heat lifting stain; scraped knees marked in the sappy lift of colour. ]
(Gela nods, still stretched out. Slowly, she rocks back into place while Cedric picks at his gauntlet, her eyes going to the plate armour's dull shine — isn't it heavy to wear all of that and stand around in the heat? At least during his drills he was moving and not thinking about it — or so Gela presumes. She has only ever set foot in the yard at night, when nobody else is around to see her doing it.)
Most of it, (she admits. She has calmed down considerably from having initially said it but it has made more room for doubt.) I wasn't happy about what was being implied about Clarisse, but I—
Was it terrible? What I said to Byerly? Do you think he's angry with me?
[ A separate question from the rest. Yeah, he thinks, Byerly's probably angry; and that could spell trouble. Only here and now — he's pretty sure it won't. Man doesn't seem big on action. ]
And I'm glad you said it. Reckon Clarisse'd be, too. You came in with some good ideas, and you stood up for them. That's all.
[ hesitation. he's talked enough blind shit today, already hurt one friend for it. better to know what he's saying: ]
Maybe, (Gela concedes, and lets go of the fence to wring her hands nervously. She turns on the ball of her foot and takes a step away, then turns and comes back. She has always thought of Cedric as very reasonable person, calm and kind, and so she should believe him. It wasn't terrible. She was standing up for a friend.)
We aren't close. Outside of the job I haven't spoken with him much at all... (but I want him to like me sounds pathetic in her head, so she doesn't let it leave her mouth. And why does she want him to like her anyway, because she thinks that if he doesn't he'll have her sent away? He can't do that no more than anybody here could, really. She pauses for a moment, considering this.
Truthfully,) I'd prefer to get along with my colleagues. But I'm not going to sit around and listen to them be cruel about other people in Riftwatch for little reason.
[ The faint slant of a smile: Wonders how Clarisse'd take half the company protective of her. Cedric slouches his weight to the other hip. Cuirass bumps against wood, the corner scraping at the last of dry winter lichen. ]
Then you know you did the right thing. 'S just the difference between knowing and feeling. Just worth knowing, too,
[ Cedric considers, ]
Just worth knowing you were there in good faith. He wasn't. You and Benedict didn't agree, but reckon it didn't feel quite like this.
It was different, (she agrees, still fidgeting but with less fervor than before as she starts to calm down. Talking about it helps, it always does. Why does she forget this until after she's picked the skin around her nails, bitten the insides of her cheeks?) It — threw me off, that's all.
(It felt like an argument, something she tries to avoid, but she couldn't sit by and listen to him say those things about her friends. Gwënaelle, too, came under fire; it was uncomfortable.)
Thank you Cedric. (She smiles somewhat jerkily and gathers her hair behind her neck as if to tie it off, though she has nothing to hand.) I promise I didn't come here to find you and say all of this. I was walking, and you were — thought I'd come to see if you are alright, too. Are you?
Yeah, [ He fumbles at the gauntlet, works a tie free to pull mail and glove from sweaty palm, knuckles lined faint for pressure. Leather twists between fingertip, ] Just helps, y'know. Doing something with your hands.
[ I'm frustrated, He’s starting to say. Rutyer wants to come 'round tomorrow, and there's something on with him, and if he calls me dear again I won't be held liable,
and then
She’s pulling her hair up, and he’s shifting to match. Breath puffs, only half a laugh – holding the cord – ]
Here, [ Steel creaks, ruddy-gold with reflected heat. Sunset soon. It’s his bare hand that reaches for her, gentle in rough skin; old callus. ] Let me.
(Gela makes a noise in agreement, a little ascending hum in her throat and looks when the sun glints off his gauntlet, flashing a bit of orange light onto the post she was hanging off of moments before. When he offers and extends his hand she smiles properly, warmth a bloom in her chest. An unexpected kindness; she turns for him, so he can see what he's doing better.
From this angle, hair drawn back, the ear with a notch missing from it (the left one) is more plain.)
Thank you.
(This is throwing her off, too, albeit in a much nicer way.)
[ She turns, and he works the cord into place; metal bracing defter finger. A bang slips free, and his hand brushes neck. Warmth, skin for skin, and Cedric draws back. Slight. Apologetic. ]
Y'look, [ A breath in. Heady on tea and summer jasmine, and the leaf tangled stubborn into curl. She looks exactly how she always does. She looks, ] Beautiful.
[ It's the wrong time to say it. Always the wrong time, but worse now: Half-armored, a forceful thing, and behind him all the evidence of war. Of a frightful purpose. Gela doesn't often pass the yard, didn't fight; has never spied his sword bloody. His palms.
Unsafe.
But his hand is empty. But his face, throat are bared. But there's that notch in her ear; the scars that his eyes have traced time and again in silent question, and just now he is so tired of smallness. What's the point of a shield, if it only shelters you?
(That slight brush of fingers on her neck, she finds the skin being rougher than she thought it would be — they're working hands, ones that hold the shield up and bring the sword down — works a little shudder out of her, but she doesn't laugh. There's no nervousness; she isn't ticklish. She turns her head slightly but still can't see him, only sense the suggestion of him standing behind with hands together to gather her hair up so gently.
Sort of dreamlike.
Gela smiles.) Calling me beautiful, or doing my hair?
(Warm, easy teasing. She likes this part of it so much, the gentle flirting before anything really happens. It always feels familiar to her.) Both are very alright.
[ Something slips loose, smile melting into the space between them — Maker, there is so much space between them — the fence she'd swung upon improbably steady. A few feet of wood posts might make the Imperial Highway. Gazing between freckle, mole, freckle; he confesses, ]
Thank god. Needed to say that for weeks.
[ Stubby nails lift to the space where jaw meets throat, tucking a black strand behind ear. ]
Everyone oughta tell you all the time. Just shines out of you. Maybe that’s cheap, [ His hand pulls free, palm coming to rest between the crest of her shoulders. ] But it’s true.
Did you? (She wants to touch him now that he's said that but thinks of him in his plate, walled off save for his hands, his face. That's okay. It will be nice to take his hands, but only once he's finished stroking his thumb across her pulse, and it's not like she doesn't enjoy the meticulousness with which he makes sure every strand is drawn back into the collection at the nape of her neck.
Wisely,) The only reason I shouldn't be told so often is that I'll end up walking around like I own the place.
(But on a more sincere note, tone softening accordingly,) Thank you. (Been a while since Gela felt beautiful — or even at all desirable. They all saw her struggle through recovery for months; Clarisse even purportedly watched the demon melt its copy of Gela's face completely off, so—
His palm on her back steadies her body's sway.) Your hands are so warm, (she comments. From the exercise?) They're nice.
[ Half a laugh - for the joke, or the strange relief of it. Of being so near. ]
Yeah, since Remember to Pay.
[ Since she came back to herself. Maybe then. Maybe a little later. He's always had eyes, but: Another life, a stall at the market,
His hands are hot. Nice. They're so often cold, ache in the small hours of the night, and he knows why as surely as he doesn't need to think of it now. Cedric's chin tips, cants to meet her. It is,
A bad day to have chosen armor. He'd stand another hour to hold her like this, watching muscles splay; the drift of her balance in his. Kneel in the dirt if she’d let him, just to feel the tug of her knuckles. But there's an open yard. But there's the fence between them. But there's this fucking tasset, ]
D'you wanna get out of here?
[ There's a whole city beyond this little island. There's also a bath, which he sorely needs. ]
(A laugh tumbles out of Gela; at last she turns her cheek. He's got a little look about him, like he could laugh too, and she follows it, gazes up the line of his jaw where it's set, holding in all his thoughts.) Oh no. Really?
(That's embarrassing, and sort of lovely all in once. Maybe there's something more to a terrible joke. She comes in closer to the line drawn between them. There is sweat at his temple and his eyes are — well, it's difficult to say, because he's blocking the sun with his head and she can't tell their colour, but he's obviously looking at her and she likes the attention.
The offer, even more. She puts her palm to his chest and plate armor. She splays her fingers where it's hot.
God, their first meeting was when she caught him leaving food outside of her door again. He knew she wasn't making round trips to the dining hall. He wanted to know what she was really like—)
Yes. But you're not going to wear this, are you? (Tassets and shield, the helmet in the dirt. Hmm:) It looks difficult to remove alone.
[ A grin splits wide, crinkles the shadow about his eyes. ]
Goes better for two. Quicker, anyway. [ Can’t feel her hand on him, light as it is, but hard to think of anything else; the way she centers the swell of his chest. ] Wouldn’t mind taking our time.
[ Hand settles over hers, measuring the space where one finger swallows another. Pulse on pulse. Thumb on thumb, a thimble tracing circle into nail.
There's a small fortune in steel lying in the yard behind him. Wouldn't take but a moment to pull free and fetch. It'd be stupid, careless, to leave it. He’s feeling pretty stupid just now.
Cedric leans close. Wraps the second arm about her waist, and lifts – laughing – ]
(Gela hums something soft, a few notes up, down and up.) I have all afternoon, (in case that may be of interest. It isn't entirely true — there's always something to be doing — but when you're your own boss nobody keeps score besides yourself, and Cedric is looking at her like he's never seen something so lovely, fingertips in the spaces between her own, tapping out something rhythm or pulse she doesn't know. She likes it.
He leans in and her head tilts, following, a burst of laughter coming out of her when he instead lifts her up like it's nothing. Pulls her up over the fence.
She rakes that palm up, to his shoulder to push down on, help herself over.
Nothing catches on the wood. She had thought about the pockets on her skirt—)
I can take some of those things.
(What's lying on the ground behind, noticed from before, obviously, because she can't take her eyes off him now that they're close, hand on his shoulder — anchored on what Gela thinks is a pauldron? She knows little about armor, actually. But maybe today she'll learn.)
it's been a thousand years dot jpg, pls feel free to drop or handwave whatever as works 4 u
[ If they go now, the tent'll be empty. Her hand on his shoulder, that little bounce of pressure and release – he wants, at once, to know the weight of it on skin. The way muscle stretches under sleeve, the swirl of skirt and breeze,
His thigh brushes the space between hers, teeth grazing air before chin cants and lips press to jaw; light as the lap of tongue beneath.
It'll wait. There's always more war. Only so much this. ]
sorry I still want this thread even though I don't have a kissing icon
(She smiles into it in the same moment it takes his teeth to touch air because she can tell it's coming. Her hand on his shoulder tightens then releases, a pulse, and she drags it over metal without looking, searching for skin. The warmth of his neck. She fits her thumb in there near his jaw and tilts his head to bring his mouth over, up some. Not a stranger to knowing what she wants — more than a peck on the cheek.
Her hand doesn't move, as if unsure he'll stay there without direction.
His skin is sweaty from the training and he tastes a little of it, like he's been panting. Gela is dimly aware that he'll feel the scar on her upper lip, thick.
That's fine. He can feel it.)
im throwing half a draft i found before i write you a new thing at some point
[ A surprised little sound, pleased and eager and questing for the shape of her tongue. There's a hand on his neck, direction, and there's another in the small of her back, hitching into her. Motion dips between braced hand and hunger.
It's been a while. Necking it with some sad mercenary – well, you can live on bread and water. It's nothing for the taste of salt, a little sweetness between them; iron where he nips at a lip. (To wonder what must have once split it)
To draw up for air is, ]
Maker,
[ He isn't thinking about the Maker right now. There's only one thing on his mind: Written in hazy eyes and thumping pulse. ]
( there are ways she's been protected, and ways she hasn't; that she can offer what it haunts her not to have had, that's not nothing. )
Offered to share mine, though not in office hours, considering.
( it's rare for her to smoke tobacco and not, you know, elfroot. truly, a different vibe. )
I'd other— well, Loxley told me to get a second opinion on the morality of having every piece of paper in the fortress with 'Thranduil Baudin' written on it burned.
Imagine you're a six and a half foot tall rifter elf. All you fucking care about is elves. You're probably assuming the city elves you're seeing are half-elves, a thing that actually exists where you come from, because they look so diminished to you. You've never experienced racial oppression in your entire life. When your people marry, they are physiologically altered such that they can only ever do it once. And a complete stranger, some mouthy human bitch you've never seen in your life, says she's your second wife.
( does that not sound uniquely mental. it feels uniquely mental, as a thing to say. )
But there are people here who were both at our wedding and probably heard me throwing him out of my house on the crystals, the likelihood of it never coming up is—
Slim. I think. You know, how lucky do I want to count on being? I've got one eye.
( then again, maybe all the things she's survived mean she is super lucky? that lucky? )
It was a mess, and I didn't exactly cover myself in glory.
( and she's known since he arrived that she's going to have to address it, but it's so large a thing to address, besides how fucking enormous he is, )
He was among the first people I knew in Skyhold. Not much of his life, but a great deal of mine. The last conversation we had was...civil. Complicated. And then I don't even know when after he departed, exactly. I know I have to say something.
( hey you're a diplomat and not someone she's currently fucking, any ideas— )
[ he agrees. it takes a moment to pull the words out (half waiting for permission, to see she wants ideas and not shared misery,)
but he does. after a while, he does. ]
Beyond the elves, and the first wife, and the wedding, and the — however it ended, y'were close. For a long time. Plenty of small things in that. Normal ones, ones might even seem normal to him. Some breakfast together, some stupid joke he told. Sunrise you watched. Whenever it was when you looked over at him and thought: yeah, this 's good.
That's a kind thing to share. Hard one, maybe, when 's been gone. But making it a story makes it... separate. Someone else. Lets whatever it was then, be whatever 's gotta be now.
( ... it's pretty good advice. and it's a box of memories that she has tried to leave closed, but the further she'd got from her hurt and her anger, the more willing she's been to allow herself to see, maybe, that the end didn't ruin the rest.
she was unfair to him. maybe they were unfair to each other. but it was never all that. the betrayal she had felt, the way it had felt as if her whole world had come undone around her ears, that every good thing now was tainted— did it have to be? they had loved each other. and they had been friends. he had been one of her most important friends, once, before she imagined him being anything else. )
He was the first person who talked about my elfblood like it was a good thing.
(help the business surprises her into a slightly cynical laugh, but she says— )
After. After she was dead. She liked him a lot, but she— my lord had sent her to be my handmaiden. It looked like a punishment, a demotion. He thought he was doing something kind. We didn't even know how to talk to each other, but she sort of disapproved of how much time I spent with him. One thing, for her, you know, an elf to be friends with an elf.
I don't even remember if she ever said, directly, now. She thought he was, you know, presumptuous, I think.
( everyone has been so far much politer about her broaching the topic this way than she was when abby asked her if she speaks her mother tongue,
she is perhaps forced to admit it wasn't a totally wild way to come out the gate. )
I have a book I need to translate, so — I'm going to have to learn. I've already asked Orlov, but I thought I'd bother you and Gela, as well. It isn't urgent, or anything, but if you wouldn't mind...?
A more than fair recompense, ( whether he'd actually asked for it to be on her dime or not. come on. anyway, it's on grampa's dime. and: ) He could do with it. And he'll actually come if he thinks he's being helpful.
( tricking stoic men into doing things that are good for them 101. )
It's a collection of poetry in the authors' original Nevarran; I've read a few of them in Orlesian translation, but never in the original. And not all of the pieces, obviously.
I don't know how interesting that is to any of you, but I'm sure we can find something he'd take an interest in. ( maybe needlepoint is necessary to help stephen assess how well he's avoided cognitive decline by detoxing off lyrium, and it's actually prescriptive, )
[ someday, in the days following their encounter at the baths and ness' crystal address and all she's working on to become accustomed to thedas—someday in the aftermath of all that, cedric will return to his tent and find a small folded scrap of fabric pinned, along with a note, to the tent flap. the scrap of fabric, a match to the shift he so unceremoniously caught ness in that night if he looked closely at either, unfolds into a handkerchief. it may have been perfectly square when the fabric was cut, but the stitches around the edges aren't quite even, warping it somewhat, and the blue monogrammed c. c. in the lower left edge isn't the smoothest—these are the stitches of someone familiar with first principles of sewing and embroidery, but little practice in their finer applications. the note, by contrast, is written in a practiced, beautiful hand: ]
Mssr. Carsus,
I wanted to thank you for the kindness you showed me that night at the baths. It would have been all too easy for you to shower me with recriminations, to treat me with fear and distrust, and if you had it would have been deserved: It was irresponsible of me not to have said anything to anyone about my magic when I first became aware of it, I know that now and I knew that then. I was afraid and alone in a new world, and could not think of what else to do but hide, but that doesn't excuse my actions.
You did not treat me with the distrust I was due, though. You were kind, and you sat with me, and because of you I now begin to understand what I am capable of, and most importantly, how to keep the people around me safe from it. I cannot thank you enough for that. This token doesn't begin to approach the magnitude of that gift you gave me, but I offer it all the same, with my most sincere gratitude.
I hadn't met a templar before you, at least not one that I knew was a templar. If they're all like you, I'm glad they're here, just as I am glad you were there for me that night.
[ he turns the cloth overhand, examines the seams. stitches inexpert as his own mended elbows. there is a well of,
something, there, ill-named. easier to consider the sense of it: a dozen textures of memory, rough and soft and steady and thin. the picked gold wire of vestments. the thick stains of dye. the sweat-drenched pad between gauntlet, palm; gambeson, heart.
it's a few days before the letter is returned. his own doesn't flow so pretty, blocks of clear, efficient print: ]
Miss Tavane,
Thank you for the letter, and the kind words. Told you I was grateful for your trust, and I meant it; takes guts to face that.
Back when they taught us on spirits, it was like this: Spirits are one thing, simple. People are different – you can’t hold half a feeling. Can't be peaceful unless you've been angry, can't be sad unless you've seen joy. So it follows, right, that you can't be brave unless you've been scared.
You've been plenty brave.
Had an old lieutenant kept a marble, the kind kids play for. Used to roll it in her hand before battle. After. We were on a hill one day, when I caught her holding it to sky, squinting through the glass. She let me try, and it sent everything bubbling strange; blue. Said it gave her a different perspective. New way to see.
[ the other half. wrapped within page: a small thing, irregular; some fraction of green bottle salvaged from rocky shore. the sea glass frosts, semi-translucent. smooth under thumb. ]
Reckon you’ve had no shortage of new. Maybe, some day, that'll look more like home.
[ there's always something, and only so much to work with. he knows. ]
Thanks. If they took a company of mages — [ that's mostly what riftwatch is. ] — Well. I'll stick in the letter, anyway. Divine's got eyes further South than us. Maybe someone gets bored enough t'read it.
[ he does not sound like he much expects that. tired and distracted since the necropolis, and that hasn't changed, but loose with his tongue on the crystals. angry, then.]
Sure. Someone gets reassigned to a rock in th'sea, and folks near fifty plead retirement, and th'Grand Enchanter gives a speech on can't we just move forward, and then 's back to burning fields.
[ cynical. yeah. maybe he's earned a bit of that, lately. ]
[It's not like the guy who gave up on the Templar Order literal years ago is in a position to say it's not that bad.]
I don't imagine I have much to say you'll find useful just now, but I don't think ... [He stops, a pause presumably while he thinks of what to say instead of what he'd been about to.]
Edited (wow I should not be trusted with markup tonight) 2024-11-21 03:08 (UTC)
I don't want to presume to know what you feel. But if you feel betrayed at all, or as if you should have known not to hope for anything better, in this moment. I think it would speak well of you, rather than otherwise. To expect more of the Order.
[ there's a letter in his bag: hello, my name is cedric, and my mother was ostara. another, on the desk, ink-spotted where grammar slips. where something else does. he is trying to put it in place,
the bones of his hand flex clean. whole. nothing's changed, not really, but there's a letter in his bag and a hole in his story; and hard as he works, the shape won't hold. he is trying. the inn bustles, a jumble of noise all to say the crystal hasn't shut off. it's a while before he speaks, and when he does, the words are thick. a little hoarse: ]
You're welcome. But I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it. I know it may not seem ... I do understand that.
[They've so carefully explored the edges of why Vanya tendered his resignation, and he's aware of not wanting to make this conversation about himself. But on the other hand, it's a situation where he can't resist the instinct to extend a hand.]
[ He knows better than that. A little — at least, a little better than he did. He'd hate that, running. Staying perfectly safe.
Hadn't been thinking of this, during that last argument. Spent so long telling himself there's real templars, and the gone ones, that it shouldn't shock to hear command agree. Just that he never split the us from them. Just that it wasn't the Knight-Divine hauled his ass out of that smithy, stacked the pyres, stayed up talking until his head went still. Just that lately, nothing stays put.
The anchor gleams. Cedric swallows, ]
'M going by the Abbey. Get some questions asked. Maybe see Broward. [ It smuggles out of him: ] You hear of nothing like this before? Within the ranks.
[ Under the Order's protection. In the old days, there must have been a check. More Seekers, else that cunt Commander out of Ostwick, Hang-em-High. But he never stood a Circle so long as all that. What he knows is field justice: Quick. Messy.
Forgiven, often as not, on the next forward push. ]
Back when I was at Cumberland, I dismissed a lot of what I heard from outside Nevarra as exaggeration. Or perhaps cases where things were stretched too thin, oversight was insufficient. Since the war [not the current one against Corypheus] and seeing more of the world, I think ... Many people in the Order are individuals of good faith. But part of why I left is that I think the structure of it. What gets permitted. What gets promoted, even. There aren't built-in checks to stop a great deal of what I'd once thought were aberrations.
[Another short pause, as if he might stop there. Then:]
I still believe there are many genuinely good men and women in the Order. I never stopped believing that. But from what I've seen, there are also many, some high-ranking, who believe that anything done under the Order's banner is good by definition. And that can lead to dark places.
[ Why he left. Rings stupid now, and maybe it always has been; just easier to look at the part made sense: Vanya gave a damn for the right thing, and that wasn't. Simple. Stupid. Tongue wrestles the urge to continue, to race the facts, prove he can keep up. That he won't be left behind.
But he is trying, a little better, to listen. ]
There's things I reported. [ Had a hand in. ] Didn't go nowhere.
[ It's a question. He wasn't the only one to raise it, of the March. But that first war, the Inquisition. The Circles. Had Vanya? ]
You're far from the only person who assumed it was Antosha.
[It wasn't not Antosha, but not in the way most people had assumed. A man morally against Corypheus ran to the Venatori because he saw the mere possibility of life in a Circle as worse. It was one more thing on a pile of things, but it was there, still.]
I wrote a very censorious but scrupulously formal letter to Lord Seeker Lambert, when he dissolved the Accords. I'm certain he never saw it. But it is surely sitting in a file somewhere, now. [A short pause.] I didn't think of it at the time, but I do wonder if it was only bad luck that my unit was sent somewhere so dangerous I was the only survivor. But maybe that is the paranoia of hindsight.
[He hopes it was bad luck. The alternative is that his idealistic dissent got the blood of many Templars he'd known well on his hands, indirectly or otherwise.]
[ Paranoia, yeah, he fucking hopes. A step beyond the pale, past what he's willing to believe. But to sit with that thought, that guilt, ]
Would've been someone sent. Bad luck, or not. Would've been someone.
[ Another company. Maybe his own. The Rebellion is a shadow, stippled in points: First girl he killed. First time he might've died, first time a friend did. Then more of them. The Conclave, the Inquisition, and through it he never wrote a letter. Never stopped to ask much at all, not eighteen and a sword in his hand.
How many others did? How many, in that dead unit? ]
Dunno if no one wrote mine down. New Captain's not… well, he's Orlesian. But I worry, I mean. I wonder if this don't sign worse ahead. Telling folks we got a mandate, so we'll use it.
[ The only survivor. They don't talk about it much. Didn't, before, when any invocation felt it might bring the war back down on the Inquisition's head. The only survivor. Alone, save Antosha; and alone for that choice. ]
[Cedric is right, of course; if not his unit, someone else's. It does sting, knowing how much he still believed when it happened. If it did. But it's an old hurt; this isn't the first time he's had the thought, though it may be the first time he's articulated it.]
I think it's a sign of which way the wind is blowing, [quiet, off Cedric's last observation.] It could still change, though whether in direction or intensity remains to be seen. Either way, we've been fighting Corypheus a long time. Someone, at least, is starting to think it's past time to establish a new normal, I imagine.
[Corypheus will win or he will lose, eventually. But the longer Southern Thedas does without a functional Circle system, the more people potentially become accustomed to its absence. It's a political problem as much or more than a military one.]
[ That's where I'm going, he'd told Benedict. After.
But it's one thing to want the Circles restored. It's another, to know the blood that'll take. Self-organization hasn't worked. Reforms keep getting thrown back. Every year there's less room for a peaceful way out, for a world more like Cumberland; less like the Gallows. A generation of mages have only known this. The continent crawls with untrained apostates, folks primed to be sad and angry and frightened,
(If I'm being generous, Antosha. He was frightened.)
The creak of a chair. Fingers tent over eyes and nose. Where and how Riftwatch should fall into that new, ]
[It would probably land better if Vanya was sure it won't come to that. Still he exhales, not quite a laugh but a placeholder for where a laugh would go.]
Well. I don't think there's any need to jump ahead. But maybe it is worth thinking about how you'd react to some of the more likely next steps, when they come. Though I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that.
[This exhale is closer to a sigh than a laugh.]
If you stay. I sincerely hope the Order is worthy of you. I suppose that may sound ... I do mean it.
[ Not the first it's been said, and no easier to hear. He's run his whole life to be worthy of the Order, to be a piece of something greater. The grand design of child thieves. Mumbled, ]
'S my sword hand.
[ He's ambidextrous. And so that too could sound a joke, save that —
The next steps. He has thought about some, he has decided; one bright line above the noise: To take Riftwatch is to take him from the field. There are things that Cedric can't stomach. There are people he's done cutting down. ]
If you... Know you got yourself sorted, but I got ears. Can't say I'll understand any better. But I'd like t'try. I mean that, too. Not only for now.
If you'd like. I'd — not many people have asked who have the context.
[He doesn't mind explaining his position to sympathetic rifters, since they've started asking more recently; if he minded, he'd decline to. But it's different in a way that can't be fully measured.]
To the extent I'm sorted now, [debatable, in his own view] it didn't happen cleanly and it didn't happen fast. I've tried to do the right thing, but. You know.
[How easy it wasn't, sometimes, to identify "the right thing," nevermind actually doing it.]
[It's a good question. One he's not sure he's thought about in so many words.]
...I think there is good in the world that's worth protecting. Helping to grow, if I can. Even without the lyrium, I still have a pair of strong arms, a decent education. The willingness to stand between someone more vulnerable and a threat, when I can. I don't know that I know what's right, but I still believe it's worth trying to figure it out.
[A pause.]
Didn't mean to make a speech, but. I think those who would use power to oppress or abuse those without should be opposed. Corypheus and his followers are a clear-cut case and an imminent threat, so.
I asked for it. [ the speech. chews it over: ] Back in Skyhold, y'know, all felt clear-cut. Way forward did. Never figured we'd still be fighting him in nine-fifty.
That good you found — it feel the same way when you see it? Clear.
Sometimes. I think ... when you're in the Order, there's always an answer. The clarity of that is something I miss sometimes. Working on my own power, it's more—
[A pause while he considers.]
Sometimes it's just as clear. Laid out perfectly in front of me. And sometimes it's a mass of gray, and I just try to grab hold of the lightest shade I can because not choosing is also a choice. It doesn't always feel enough, but it's the best I have.
There's a point to having the answer, I mean. Clear or not. Choosing wasn't why I went after you. I dunno. 'S just, can't field an army on no orders. Seen how that goes.
[ the reds, the march, it all breaks down in the pitch of battle. ]
Don't expect you t'have the answer. But you been in charge of folks, before. They're never putting me in that.
I don't know if that was the right call, in the city. [In a tone that suggests he's thought about it since.] But not making a choice, they still would have died, and the attack on the Gallows could have been even worse than it was. Then again.
[An exhale, not quite a sigh.]
I gave back my rank and my insignia, but I can't give back years of training. For better or worse. I did used to lead, and when someone looks to me, even now, I have the impulse to give an answer.
[Would he still think any choice is better than no choice, if he hadn't been trained to make those battlefield calls? No way to know, now.]
[Even if it's wrong. It's a trap he knows well enough, and one he still sometimes falls into.]
I don't think being wrong is the end of the road, though, for what it's worth. It's only the end if you never ask another question again. Don't think you're in any danger of that, at least.
[ good excuse to stop checking, and rechecking, and triple-checking, and triple-rechecking their list of contacts. already drawn a line through rina mitrea. ]
[ it is occurring to her only now that this sounds... really weird, probably. oh no. ]
Messere Orlov has been teaching me Nevarran, and I wanted to do something kind for him in return, but he refuses to ask me for anything. I've decided to cook for him, in want of anything better to do, and I just wondered what he might like, what he might miss from home.
Flatbread, mostly. That's different. Lotta fish — but even rich folks, not all them eat meat. Uh. Spicier than Kirkwall. Stronger flavours. But reckon 's a kindness anyway, man's been eating out of a mess half his life.
[ she flushes, pleased, at the approbation, at understanding it, at cedric being the one giving it. oh, knots, what is her thing for nevarrans? ]
We can't call it a kindness til I've done it, I'm only a passable cook.
[ she probably won't fuck this up too bad. probably. ]
Fish, more spice, stronger flavours.... I can work with that, I think. Is there a... a meal that's usually reserved for special occasions? Something expensive, or seasonal? In Candlekeep we had boar on feast days, something like that?
The Abbey'd do cabbage rolls for Wintersend. Ferment the leaves and tuck it 'round mince to boil. But y'might have more luck asking Gela — me and Vanya, we came up pretty different.
[ it's a testament to how seriously she's taking this that the boar comment blows right past her. she'll laugh when it's had time to settle, give her a few seconds. ]
Cabbage rolls... Alright, I'll ask Gela next.
Oh, and—is there anything you miss, Cedric? If I'm going to be cooking anyway, I could—I'd like to make you something as well. As thanks for all you've done for me.
It's not a matter of owing, Cedric, it's a matter of appreciation. It's because you're a friend. You've done so many kind things for me, I'd like to do the same for you.
[ but fine, if you're not going to request something specific she'll just have to extrapolate from everything you've already told her. hmph!! ]
There's nothing much from Faerûn that we don't already have here, or that wouldn't require some ingredients that don't seem to exist in Thedas, but... Well, how do you feel about mushrooms?
[ just a bit too keen: the way folks get when you've caught them dozing. it's noon, and the desk's been embossing cedric's cheek nearly an hour. but a southern stranger knows his name, has used his title, and so — ]
Lend you the good one. Can I ask what 's about?
[ a glance down finds the shirt he's picked today. blue, and unpatched; and definitely not chantry-spun. shit. ]
It's a beautiful building, and nice when one needs solitude, [ what y'all need and are clearly not getting is the maker, ] I'll be waiting for you there. Thank you, Ser.
The chapel is, as predicted, empty when Cedric makes his way there, save for one man knelt in prayer at the feet of a statue of penitent Maferath. When he hears Cedric's footsteps, Connor cuts off his prayer to push to his feet, turning to face the templar with a... well, it's a kind of smile. Nervous, maybe, a little dour, but an attempt.
"Ser Carsus, I presume? Thank you for meeting me."
His own smile's easy. Mostly, it reaches his eyes.
"Cedric," Take it in: Young guy, tall guy — and something stretched from place. Mimicking an unfamiliar shape. Last year he must've looked the same (most days, he still feels it). "What's the trouble, Messere?"
Absent habit finds a taper, tipped from one to another to the dark row of candles. Been a long time since he'd teach the kids how to trim wicks, to keep wax from spilling to hand. All seemed so tedious back then, young and itching for the sword. Too small a world to settle for.
Been a long time. He offers the candle over, there's one more to light.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
infirmary
Cedric first.
Tav's guards hang back as the elf approaches Cedric's bed with a soft smile.]
I'm Tav, not sure if you remember me. [He wouldn't blame him.] I'm here to check back in, see if you need any more of the-- [He wiggles his fingers and a hopefully familiar turquoise light dances between them.] magic touch, as it were.
no subject
Cedric peels the cloth from his eyes, squinting against the light. He sits upright, propped in a chair not far from Vanya’s cot. Meant to head out already, but something of the cool and dark sat so heavy on his brow, and -
Well, no one’s slept much, have they?
No, he doesn’t remember Tav. The past day is a lurch of hours. But he knows the name, the voice. ]
Barrow filled me in, [ Careful. He's watching the guards. Cedric's seen his share of mages too, but the Loyalists he knows own more freedom of movement. ] Reckon we all owe you our gratitude, Tav.
[ His expression gentles, but his palm presses out firm - no, no more magic, thank you. Bruises will fade, and the rough men in back remind his training: A spell is always an escalation.
He likes the four of them better settled. ]
no subject
[And yet he’s almost grateful to be turned down. He’d just about passed out healing Barrow, Cedric, and Vanya.]
I suppose you must be feeling better then? Anything I can get you?
no subject
There's no one dying in here. But he's lingered longer than he'd like. ]
A helmet, yesterday. [ A crinkled smile: He's joking. ] I'm well. Some things just take time.
[ Cedric stoops up, cracking stiff joints. Casually - or it might be, if he weren't maintaining direct eye contact with the one on the left, he calls - ]
Don't think I caught your names, serahs,
[ To the guards. ]
no subject
He pivots when Cedric addresses the
NPCsguards, dressed in vaguely piratey uniforms.The one on the left,] Baeron, ser.
[And the right,] Kinnear.
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Cedric doesn't hold any authority here, but maybe he doesn't need it. Just matters they know they're being watched. Problems look a lot like people sometimes - he's got ideas on how a Tevene pirate might solve them.
He pauses at the door, turns to nod, ]
My thanks again, Tav. Catch you around.
[ Before disappearing into the blurry day. ]
action
If Cedric is there as promised, he'll saunter over to his table. ]
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he's fussing by the time byerly arrives, distraction peeling a soggy flop of hair to shape; a bad job to cover the ruins of his ear. inkpot and pages are arranged, first draft sketched in chalk slate (with paper so dear): thanking the countess for her kind words on dear jeanne-marie, whose loss penfinnel hasn't deigned to acknowledge —
a nod, he nudges it across the table. ]
They get your street cleared up?
[ last time he was down their lane, the neighbours were rubble. ]
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[ By pulls out tobacco and rolling papers, starts rolling himself a smoke. Obnoxiously, he does not seem to be sweating, but instead looks rather crisp. Just one of the annoying things about him. ]
We've come to the end of the grisly discoveries, hopefully.
[ There's a darkness that passes momentarily across his face. The houses beside theirs, on either side, had been crushed. They'd been occupied. ]
Funny, what passes for small talk nowadays.
the notes app corrects these to bastion and biyearly
It was good of you both t'stay.
[ plenty would've packed up already, run out on the lease; not dug a hand to help. cedric peels away from slate, damp fingers rubbing little white curls from dust. this isn’t really about a second pair of eyes — if he was worried for the letter, he’d ask gela to read it. benedict. even julius, whose tolerance cedric would rather save for the painful day he inevitably needs to impose on a mage.
but if byerly wants to talk, work's the price. ]
No one’s called us on th'fake Rifter yet. Might wanna amend a report somewhere, though. Something harmless. Old room records, maybe.
Lmao what the fuck dreamwidth
[ Byerly isn’t particularly interested in the work itself. Instead, his lovely dark eyes are fixed firmly on Cedric. ]
I’m curious, dear fellow - do you use lyrium? I know some of your type have thrown it aside, but others are still at it.
dw becomes a minimalist
[ your type jabs with surgical precision. but it’s a new day. they've got a fresh start, and he owes rutyer the same understanding he wanted for the others: if you can't do that, dunno how you expect everyone else to,
so. cedric taps the slate. over here, thanks — ]
Thing is, we oughta loop folks in for what we change, and that becomes another way t’catch it.
eviDENtly and it had nothing to do with my butterfingers
[ There's nothing visibly offensive in the way that Byerly speaks. He doesn't seem aggressive, nor cruel, nor solicitous, nor ironic. Just implacable. Just seeing how deep you need to dig to hit muscle. ]
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[ he knows what with, as well as he knows that it's not anyone's business. ]
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[ easy-peasy. ]
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[ A little curl of a smile now. A little bit of By's natural snakiness snowing through. ]
You ask a lot of questions, dear Cedric.
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[ he picks up the pen, a cheap reed; its end marked by the unmistakable press of teeth ]
And if you go take vows, we'll have it open. Otherwise,
[ a gesture. he knows the deal. ]
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[ An elegant finger presses against the surface of the table before him. ]
I did not sense much soul in it, shall we say.
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[ since asking what on earth byerly means by soul is only gonna lead in a fucking circle ]
Seems you had a rough day.
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You're not going to take offense at that?
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[ cedric admits. sets about unscrewing the ink, caught between the fingers of his off hand. it is shortly apparent that he doesn't have an off hand. ]
And if y'want to explain, I'm here. Otherwise, reckon we both got work to do.
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[ Byerly's tapered, elegant fingertip comes up to tap lightly against his forehead. ]
A most curious quality for a Templar.
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another: bone fractures under fist, drawn back again. again. it felt good to break gautier's jaw. his nose. felt good to force his teeth in the dirt. for a moment, it even felt good when they pulled him off swinging —
it was a short moment. still tastes like shame. he's doing fine with the lyrium, and men who beat the shit out of their colleagues, they don't get to stay on it. ]
I doubt you met many Templars.
[ he smears a hand of sweat onto the back of his sleeve. better it not stain the page. ]
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[ Byerly leans backwards, licking the cigarette to seal it shut. The action hides his smile, leaving nothing but his archly amused gaze. ]
A most curious quality for any honest man, then. Which is what you are, isn't it? Honest?
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[ so apparently there are limits. he dips the pen to begin. ]
Was it disagreeing with you what pissed you off, or caring why you were upset?
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[ The cigarette having been rolled, he now offers it to Cedric. ]
Tevinter, that name, isn't it? Carsus?
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'S Tevene. We left back in Blessed, no one's got dates.
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[ You fuckin square? Byerly lights the cigarette for himself and takes a drag. ]
I can't imagine the lads training to be mage-crushers were too charmed by so Northern a name. Or did you keep it a secret?
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'S not a secret, [ chantry's built on paperwork. ] But I prefer Cedric. Since the March.
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[ Why not earlier? ]
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[ slow, steady, in the faint tones of: you're not a fucking idiot. he's writing now. (this copy elides the doodles at slate-edge) ]
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Mm. The war didn’t start with the March, after all. And even if it had - I truly can’t imagine why it is that the act of setting Tevinter’s fields aflame led you to disavow your name. It would be akin to beating the shit out of a dwarf and then throwing away your fine dwarven sword as a result. No logic.
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Yeah, well. People don't run on reason. [ to echo their previous discussion ] And there's only so many reasons elves run South.
[ this time, when he looks up, it's pointed. mouth taut. he isn't the only one being examined, here. ]
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Elves? Not sure I follow, dear fellow.
[ And then the thought occurs to him, and he tilts his head, studying Cedric’s face. ]
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[ repeated. impossible to divine where blood slopes for blood. takes after his father, the old joke, but it's his uncle's nose; his mother's high bones, grandfather's hair. stretched a little broad, set a little square.
perhaps, in some dismal southern castle, he'd spy another byerly.
cedric drops the stare, at last, to write. ink spots, spreads beyond the edge of a rune. ]
And I'm not bringing them back there.
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Are you saying you're elf-blooded?
[ If he's wrong, he's probably going to get socked in the jaw. He braces himself for it. Templars have heavy fists, no doubt. ]
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[ it's even, not mild. he moves down a line (drops a word) ]
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[ Far from it, it seems; Byerly almost immediately stops being so fucking weird. His slouch becomes more comfortable and less disrespectful; his jeering smile normalizes into an ordinary expression of attention.
Because: an eely man who has the background of a warrior but who aims to please, who dodges questions and says what he thinks someone wants to hear rather than what he believes - that's suspicious. Unless the people-pleasing is a way you've devised to avoid getting your teeth bashed in by people who don't like the thing you are. ]
I imagine it's nearly always a problem for you. So I imagine that, yes, it will be a problem going forward, as well. But not one I intend to exacerbate.
[ He tilts his head. ]
Is this a secret? "Not ashamed" can sometimes mean "not afraid of trouble," but not always.
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No. So if a secret's what you’re after, what's gonna make you feel big — then my favourite colour's blue, when I was sixteen I broke the hand off a statue, and I'd take it a kindness if you did the work you signed to.
[ a tight gesture to the page. ]
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Did you keep it?
The hand, I mean.
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[ it's a decent draft, modeled after past letters — in places, a touch too closely, should the countess review her prior correspondence with riftwatch. this and that line could do with some rephrasing, and of course, by now the paper's a loss. ]
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[ Byerly easily, fluidly, begins the rewrite - catching those little bits of cliched phrasing, smoothing over the rougher patches. He's very good at this. This was, after all, his life for some years. ]
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[ revered mother renata had weak wrists. he wipes a bead of brackish sweat from hand, ink mingling for salt. attentive to the revisions: been near six months, but half that spent hauling stone, chatting up the guard. he's new to this. ]
This really what you wanna be doing?
[ there are four divisions, there are jobs beyond the walls. everyone does a bit of everything, these days; rutyer's got options. ]
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What else could I do? I'm a rather useless man.
[ No shame in that. It's practiced and light. ]
But I'm very good at this.
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[ not the mark of greatness. rutyer's obviously capable, it's as obvious that he isn't trying. ]
— 'M not saying you can't do it. Just seems clear you don't care to.
[ no one's useless: research and scouting need scribes and connections, forces can teach anyone to pitch a tent, string a bow. there are other people rutyer could be. ]
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[ He doesn't seem particularly offended by the implications. ]
You should stay like this.
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doesn't matter, rutyer changes the subject any time it flips to him. some conversations you can only have in parallel. ]
Think on it. That's all.
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To be completely clear: you’re encouraging me to abandon the duties at which I am particularly effective, simply because I do not enjoy them, at a time when the little girl who lives down the lane from me is spending her every waking moment trying to look beneath every rock she can find in case Mama’s under there?
[ He gestures with his cigarette. ]
I don’t think I’m going to spend too long thinking it over. But Maker bless you for being so concerned about my happiness.
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is its own, guilty pang. but rutyer didn't swear oaths. ]
'M concerned when it starts getting on everyone else.
[ cedric rolls a wrist, flexes the fingers about his anchor loose. gela's right; they've all been strained. jayce stood in the surf, thunderstruck for something cedric hasn't grasped the full shape of. vega's faint admission, it was very loud, ]
You talk to anyone? About the attacks.
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I also am concerned when it starts getting on everyone else.
[ An arched eyebrow. Wasn't the crux of the original argument around whether or not people had the right to snap at newcomers due to the stress they were under? But it's neither here nor there; he shakes his head, not wanting to settle back into that previous unsatisfying argument. Wanting to move instead into a new, better one. ]
I presume you're asking if I've spoken to anyone about my feelings on them. To which the answer is: I have a beloved who lends me his one good ear, though at times I prefer to whisper into the deaf one. Much less embarrassing.
Do you have anyone to speak to?
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[ patient. thoughtful. and as equipped as anyone here to discuss their particular relationship to death —
he lets the argument lie. by now, point's made or it's not. if rutyer cares to mend those fences, it's him's got to do it. he rubs a knuckle. ]
But we're not so close. Reckon that's easier, maybe. [ much less embarrassing ] Some shit you don't wanna drag home.
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[ By purses his lips in consideration of Vanya. ]
Though it was bloody hard to tell the difference between him and that demon. Doesn't exactly speak of someone who's ever going to be particularly knowable.
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Well, he's not gonna give you a reaction.
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[ the jerk of his chin: the gallows. a fucking horror show. ]
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How old are you, exactly?
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[ alright, so rutyer can do math, ]
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[ He considers Cedric a moment. ]
As you were saying all that to me - why continue to do the job if you despise it, all that - I wonder what was going through your head. I wonder if you were thinking about your own obligations.
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[ simple, unequivocal. he's gamed it out before. ]
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[ a home. an education. a small fortune in room and board and training and lyrium. every horse he's ridden, sword he's swung. some day they'll pull the head from his shoulders, and it's the chantry who'll sew his lips and sleep him in a tomb.
we've been given so much, and, ]
More'n anything, 's given me purpose. Chance t'be a part of something greater.
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Like the Exalted March.
[ His pen makes a little flourish as he signs the letter. ]
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[ he tracks the final swoop of pen; nods. sets to wiping slate, folding away the old draft. someone'll want it. nothing confidential on. ]
Can't no one do it alone.
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[ He takes a moment to look over the page. Or - well. He takes a moment to look like he's looking it over, while he in fact thinks about something else altogether. ]
I was Chantry-educated, myself. Our family had nothing, so I'd make the trek down to the village to join the children of the freemen at their studies. I cannot say that I was a diligent student - you'll be shocked to hear it - but I owe to them the fact that I learned to read and write, and do basic sums. Skills that served me well enough when I struck out on my own.
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but he's heard them talk on it, talk around it: the thorny shape of a familiar hunger. and now benedict, he supposes. byerly. ]
Learned child's a blessing, [ upon his parents, that verse goes. upon his parents and the maker, ] For anyone's got letters t'post.
[ cedric levels a glance. the joke's an exit ramp, if rutyer wants it. but after this elliptical interrogation, means something that he's given of his own. ]
When was that?
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[ That's a real laugh - not loud, not long, just an appreciative chuckle at a well-constructed joke.
But he doesn't take the exit ramp. Instead: ]
When I was about seventeen. Or a few days shy of it. I, in my infinite wisdom - and not a bit of reckless fury - decided that I could make my way in the world with nothing but an extra pair of socks and my patchy autumn coat and my fiddle. It was in Firstfall, but it was an unseasonably warm day, and in my ignorance it never even occurred to me, say, things might get colder tomorrow.
I spent the first night on the road sleeping under a bridge and woke up with numb fingers. Couldn't warm my hands all day, which interfered with my clever plan to trade music for a ride in a haycart towards Denerim. But my eyes still worked. And along came a merchant who had a stack of correspondence he'd picked up in town but no time to read it yet. And so I didn't earn my way as a fiddler, but instead a learned factotum.
[ He smiles wryly down at the pages before him. ]
Life does rhyme, at times.
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You still play?
[ it might get colder tomorrow. but it could warm, too. gotta be bold to believe it: that a better day could be. ]
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[ His own eyes crinkle with amusement. ]
Bizarre, no?
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[ Has he ever been there on a Tuesday? But no, it’s mostly dwarves. And accordion. ]
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I fear that the two of us might - hmm - stand out from the crowd there. That's a fine spot, though.
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[ helluva disguise. why'd you leave? what kept you from turning back? what ever came of that reckless fury, save that the story points out. away from home. toward a warmer day.
cedric studies his expression, his own leveling slow; behind the remains of a smile. it’s nice to not fucking fight the guy for a minute. ]
What’s it like? Playing.
[ never had the head for art. ]
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It is like being a bell, and being lifted and struck.
[ There’s a sincerity in that. Here, at last: something that Byerly loves without embarrassment or reservation or shame. One lone place where the armor of irony and suspicion and deception reveals a little gap, showing a quick flash of the tender heart underneath. ]
There’s a reason that we sing the Chant. The Maker speaks in music, and it’s how we can best respond.
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when we're called, i mean to have something to say,
it all tastes trite. over-observed; skittish of recent scrutiny. but the only way out is through. cedric reaches a hand across the table, squeezes an arm, brief. lets go again with a nod. ]
Hope one day t'hear it.
[ the way that byerly does. ]
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(Or maybe it's a little sadder. Runaway kids get kicked. Kids run away because they got kicked. And he doesn't flinch like that when he's got his armor fully on.)
It's a quick recovery. A smile, full of wry bravado. ]
I do know some men who get that feeling during swordplay, or out on the training ground. Do you ever feel it there? That sense of rightness?
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kids get kicked. sometimes, they put themselves between. ]
Everyone likes t'be good at something, [ cedric admits. he is very good with a blade. ] But it's... dunno. Means nothing, without a use.
[ without an answer to give. there is a song that he knows how to find, a great din that presses everything else out. no room in it to be one person – selfish, small – no room to be anything at all. ]
We bashed around, y'know. Sticks and brooms. Don't remember it feeling right 'til there was a reason.
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[ It could be mocking. In this corrupt age, after all, there are no real heroes, are there? The best of Thedas are beaten down, while the worst gather power. A cynic would jeer at anyone with noble ambitions.
But one thing that's not so bad about Byerly: he lets you know when he's mocking you. And this time, he isn't. There's nothing contemptuous or arch in the word heroism.
(There would be, if Cedric's beginnings were a bit less humble. But how can you jeer at someone who has the world spit ten thousand times in his eye, and still tries to see clearly?) ]
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[ and there's an ego on cedric for the way he bristled yesterday. pride doesn't only come for mages.
i don't expect recognition, vanya'd said, and sure — but it would be a nice change. riftwatch is full of heroes, bursts at the seams for story; for the work that matters. work that gets remembered. that means anything true. at least, he'd thought that, coming here,
he's had other thoughts since: signed in street pyres and burning hair. his eyes cut aside. mouth twitches in faint reflex. the edge of defensive ease. ]
But we all got a bit t'do, and I've got a shit voice.
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[ His gesture encompasses the Gallows, and also himself. And lingers on himself longer than it lingers on the room around him. He's not utterly unselfaware.
Then a little flourish of his pen on the document. He purses his lips down at it. ]
There. That doesn't look terrible.
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[ and a good change, that. his clear block letters were painfully militant for a social call. ]
Thanks. For sticking it out.
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[ He presses a hand to his chest as he vamps. But then, with a bit of sincerity shot through with wryness - ]
Sorry we never really had a proper conversation till now. I've been a bit, shall we say, solipsistic ever since I died last summer. Trying to get my head back in the game, at least a little.
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really ought to report it. all that holds him back some days: the certainty that someone must already know.
so he's stalling when he echoes, ]
When y'died last summer.
[ which is not, probably, the kindest way to answer. ]
Action, training grounds
She pauses near the fencing and squints at the back that's to her, calling out,) Cedric?
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But some days you just want to wear out. A shield arcs high and down, smashes into the splintered edge of a dummy’s shoulder. He’s drawing back for another blow when he hears her. Oh. Oh, ]
Gela, [ Breathless. Cedric turns, hooks his helmet off and aside. The shield drops. His brow crinkles. ] Hey. Y’alright?
[ She’s so seldom out here. ]
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Still, some habits are too hard to break so even though Gela does admit,) No, (then,) I don't know, (as if to soften it, she pushes on hard and purposeful, like striking out at a target.) You're — this is very impressive.
(The plate.)
Have you been out here a while?
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[ His cheeks are hot. It isn’t only for the day. Always embarrassing to lose your cool, worse, that she's said just the thing he'd hope for. Impressive. He wants so badly to be. Cedric stoops to deposit shield and helm, then leans over the fence. Metal creaks. ]
Just been feeling all — [ His chin tips, mouth pulls into shrug. ] — You too?
[ For the meeting. For the dead and gone. For the stifling summer sun, and a war that’s dragged on, and did she ever hear back from that brother? A thousand little kicks in the gut. ]
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Gela leans back on her heels, still holding the fence, both arms extended. She did this in Cumberland as a child, on the fence outside of her family house. Does Cedric have memories like this of Nevarra? Hot days and cold nights, but being warm at home. Getting yelled at by the nearest parent for hanging off the fence, you'll break it, you'll break it. She hasn't asked him yet.)
That was a hard conversation. (Broached tentatively.) I'm worried I spoke out of turn.
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[ He agrees. Easier now to do that. The older he gets, the better sense it makes, having kids run laps for a scuffle. Can’t be angry without the lungs. ]
Harder, maybe — when there’s a conflict, and can’t no one touch it direct. Makes disagreeing feel bigger than it is.
[ Killing each other with courtesy. Shouting might scare Benedict, but he still got run over at a pleasant volume. Cedric picks at a gauntlet, glances up to watch her swing. A memory, unbidden, of heat lifting stain; scraped knees marked in the sappy lift of colour. ]
What felt iffy?
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Most of it, (she admits. She has calmed down considerably from having initially said it but it has made more room for doubt.) I wasn't happy about what was being implied about Clarisse, but I—
Was it terrible? What I said to Byerly? Do you think he's angry with me?
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[ A separate question from the rest. Yeah, he thinks, Byerly's probably angry; and that could spell trouble. Only here and now — he's pretty sure it won't. Man doesn't seem big on action. ]
And I'm glad you said it. Reckon Clarisse'd be, too. You came in with some good ideas, and you stood up for them. That's all.
[ hesitation. he's talked enough blind shit today, already hurt one friend for it. better to know what he's saying: ]
What's Byerly mean t'you? You two close?
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We aren't close. Outside of the job I haven't spoken with him much at all... (but I want him to like me sounds pathetic in her head, so she doesn't let it leave her mouth. And why does she want him to like her anyway, because she thinks that if he doesn't he'll have her sent away? He can't do that no more than anybody here could, really. She pauses for a moment, considering this.
Truthfully,) I'd prefer to get along with my colleagues. But I'm not going to sit around and listen to them be cruel about other people in Riftwatch for little reason.
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Then you know you did the right thing. 'S just the difference between knowing and feeling. Just worth knowing, too,
[ Cedric considers, ]
Just worth knowing you were there in good faith. He wasn't. You and Benedict didn't agree, but reckon it didn't feel quite like this.
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(It felt like an argument, something she tries to avoid, but she couldn't sit by and listen to him say those things about her friends. Gwënaelle, too, came under fire; it was uncomfortable.)
Thank you Cedric. (She smiles somewhat jerkily and gathers her hair behind her neck as if to tie it off, though she has nothing to hand.) I promise I didn't come here to find you and say all of this. I was walking, and you were — thought I'd come to see if you are alright, too. Are you?
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[ I'm frustrated, He’s starting to say. Rutyer wants to come 'round tomorrow, and there's something on with him, and if he calls me dear again I won't be held liable,
and then
She’s pulling her hair up, and he’s shifting to match. Breath puffs, only half a laugh – holding the cord – ]
Here, [ Steel creaks, ruddy-gold with reflected heat. Sunset soon. It’s his bare hand that reaches for her, gentle in rough skin; old callus. ] Let me.
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From this angle, hair drawn back, the ear with a notch missing from it (the left one) is more plain.)
Thank you.
(This is throwing her off, too, albeit in a much nicer way.)
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Y'look, [ A breath in. Heady on tea and summer jasmine, and the leaf tangled stubborn into curl. She looks exactly how she always does. She looks, ] Beautiful.
[ It's the wrong time to say it. Always the wrong time, but worse now: Half-armored, a forceful thing, and behind him all the evidence of war. Of a frightful purpose. Gela doesn't often pass the yard, didn't fight; has never spied his sword bloody. His palms.
Unsafe.
But his hand is empty. But his face, throat are bared. But there's that notch in her ear; the scars that his eyes have traced time and again in silent question, and just now he is so tired of smallness. What's the point of a shield, if it only shelters you?
He reaches for the leaf. Soft, ]
Is that alright?
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Sort of dreamlike.
Gela smiles.) Calling me beautiful, or doing my hair?
(Warm, easy teasing. She likes this part of it so much, the gentle flirting before anything really happens. It always feels familiar to her.) Both are very alright.
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Thank god. Needed to say that for weeks.
[ Stubby nails lift to the space where jaw meets throat, tucking a black strand behind ear. ]
Everyone oughta tell you all the time. Just shines out of you. Maybe that’s cheap, [ His hand pulls free, palm coming to rest between the crest of her shoulders. ] But it’s true.
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Wisely,) The only reason I shouldn't be told so often is that I'll end up walking around like I own the place.
(But on a more sincere note, tone softening accordingly,) Thank you. (Been a while since Gela felt beautiful — or even at all desirable. They all saw her struggle through recovery for months; Clarisse even purportedly watched the demon melt its copy of Gela's face completely off, so—
His palm on her back steadies her body's sway.) Your hands are so warm, (she comments. From the exercise?) They're nice.
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Yeah, since Remember to Pay.
[ Since she came back to herself. Maybe then. Maybe a little later. He's always had eyes, but: Another life, a stall at the market,
His hands are hot. Nice. They're so often cold, ache in the small hours of the night, and he knows why as surely as he doesn't need to think of it now. Cedric's chin tips, cants to meet her. It is,
A bad day to have chosen armor. He'd stand another hour to hold her like this, watching muscles splay; the drift of her balance in his. Kneel in the dirt if she’d let him, just to feel the tug of her knuckles. But there's an open yard. But there's the fence between them. But there's this fucking tasset, ]
D'you wanna get out of here?
[ There's a whole city beyond this little island. There's also a bath, which he sorely needs. ]
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(That's embarrassing, and sort of lovely all in once. Maybe there's something more to a terrible joke. She comes in closer to the line drawn between them. There is sweat at his temple and his eyes are — well, it's difficult to say, because he's blocking the sun with his head and she can't tell their colour, but he's obviously looking at her and she likes the attention.
The offer, even more. She puts her palm to his chest and plate armor. She splays her fingers where it's hot.
God, their first meeting was when she caught him leaving food outside of her door again. He knew she wasn't making round trips to the dining hall. He wanted to know what she was really like—)
Yes. But you're not going to wear this, are you? (Tassets and shield, the helmet in the dirt. Hmm:) It looks difficult to remove alone.
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Goes better for two. Quicker, anyway. [ Can’t feel her hand on him, light as it is, but hard to think of anything else; the way she centers the swell of his chest. ] Wouldn’t mind taking our time.
[ Hand settles over hers, measuring the space where one finger swallows another. Pulse on pulse. Thumb on thumb, a thimble tracing circle into nail.
There's a small fortune in steel lying in the yard behind him. Wouldn't take but a moment to pull free and fetch. It'd be stupid, careless, to leave it. He’s feeling pretty stupid just now.
Cedric leans close. Wraps the second arm about her waist, and lifts – laughing – ]
Right then, let's go,
[ The fence isn't so tall. He can swing it. ]
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He leans in and her head tilts, following, a burst of laughter coming out of her when he instead lifts her up like it's nothing. Pulls her up over the fence.
She rakes that palm up, to his shoulder to push down on, help herself over.
Nothing catches on the wood. She had thought about the pockets on her skirt—)
I can take some of those things.
(What's lying on the ground behind, noticed from before, obviously, because she can't take her eyes off him now that they're close, hand on his shoulder — anchored on what Gela thinks is a pauldron? She knows little about armor, actually. But maybe today she'll learn.)
it's been a thousand years dot jpg, pls feel free to drop or handwave whatever as works 4 u
[ If they go now, the tent'll be empty. Her hand on his shoulder, that little bounce of pressure and release – he wants, at once, to know the weight of it on skin. The way muscle stretches under sleeve, the swirl of skirt and breeze,
His thigh brushes the space between hers, teeth grazing air before chin cants and lips press to jaw; light as the lap of tongue beneath.
It'll wait. There's always more war. Only so much this. ]
sorry I still want this thread even though I don't have a kissing icon
Her hand doesn't move, as if unsure he'll stay there without direction.
His skin is sweaty from the training and he tastes a little of it, like he's been panting. Gela is dimly aware that he'll feel the scar on her upper lip, thick.
That's fine. He can feel it.)
im throwing half a draft i found before i write you a new thing at some point
It's been a while. Necking it with some sad mercenary – well, you can live on bread and water. It's nothing for the taste of salt, a little sweetness between them; iron where he nips at a lip. (To wonder what must have once split it)
To draw up for air is, ]
Maker,
[ He isn't thinking about the Maker right now. There's only one thing on his mind: Written in hazy eyes and thumping pulse. ]
crystal.
What we talked about— don't mention it to Clarisse, ouais?
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Almost told you th'same. Figured you knew her better.
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I shouldn't have worried. Mm. I just don't want her to feel— oh, you know.
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[ she's twenty, and sad, and stuck with them all the same. doesn't need to worry for folks talking 'round her back. that maybe gwen didn't, either — ]
How you doing today? Try those fancy cigarettes?
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Offered to share mine, though not in office hours, considering.
( it's rare for her to smoke tobacco and not, you know, elfroot. truly, a different vibe. )
I'd other— well, Loxley told me to get a second opinion on the morality of having every piece of paper in the fortress with 'Thranduil Baudin' written on it burned.
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In that plan, y'ever talk about it, or just hope you didn't miss a page?
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It's going to sound completely fucking insane to him, if I say anything.
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Imagine you're a six and a half foot tall rifter elf. All you fucking care about is elves. You're probably assuming the city elves you're seeing are half-elves, a thing that actually exists where you come from, because they look so diminished to you. You've never experienced racial oppression in your entire life. When your people marry, they are physiologically altered such that they can only ever do it once. And a complete stranger, some mouthy human bitch you've never seen in your life, says she's your second wife.
( does that not sound uniquely mental. it feels uniquely mental, as a thing to say. )
But there are people here who were both at our wedding and probably heard me throwing him out of my house on the crystals, the likelihood of it never coming up is—
Slim. I think. You know, how lucky do I want to count on being? I've got one eye.
( then again, maybe all the things she's survived mean she is super lucky? that lucky? )
1/2
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Not— good.
( perhaps even bad. )
It was a mess, and I didn't exactly cover myself in glory.
( and she's known since he arrived that she's going to have to address it, but it's so large a thing to address, besides how fucking enormous he is, )
He was among the first people I knew in Skyhold. Not much of his life, but a great deal of mine. The last conversation we had was...civil. Complicated. And then I don't even know when after he departed, exactly. I know I have to say something.
( hey you're a diplomat and not someone she's currently fucking, any ideas— )
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[ he agrees. it takes a moment to pull the words out (half waiting for permission, to see she wants ideas and not shared misery,)
but he does. after a while, he does. ]
Beyond the elves, and the first wife, and the wedding, and the — however it ended, y'were close. For a long time. Plenty of small things in that. Normal ones, ones might even seem normal to him. Some breakfast together, some stupid joke he told. Sunrise you watched. Whenever it was when you looked over at him and thought: yeah, this 's good.
That's a kind thing to share. Hard one, maybe, when 's been gone. But making it a story makes it... separate. Someone else. Lets whatever it was then, be whatever 's gotta be now.
[ when they're both other people ]
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she was unfair to him. maybe they were unfair to each other. but it was never all that. the betrayal she had felt, the way it had felt as if her whole world had come undone around her ears, that every good thing now was tainted— did it have to be? they had loved each other. and they had been friends. he had been one of her most important friends, once, before she imagined him being anything else. )
He was the first person who talked about my elfblood like it was a good thing.
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[ but that's a whole different context. a different kind of elf (spirit, impression) ]
He learn before or after your Ma?
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After. After she was dead. She liked him a lot, but she— my lord had sent her to be my handmaiden. It looked like a punishment, a demotion. He thought he was doing something kind. We didn't even know how to talk to each other, but she sort of disapproved of how much time I spent with him. One thing, for her, you know, an elf to be friends with an elf.
I don't even remember if she ever said, directly, now. She thought he was, you know, presumptuous, I think.
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In both directions, if he figured her on the outs.
[ which had to be. you know. bizarre. ]
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( where brilliantly means, the opposite of that. )
—I appreciate you listening.
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( you know. again.
a delay. maybe she's just going to— )
You speak Nevarran, ouais?
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she is perhaps forced to admit it wasn't a totally wild way to come out the gate. )
I have a book I need to translate, so — I'm going to have to learn. I've already asked Orlov, but I thought I'd bother you and Gela, as well. It isn't urgent, or anything, but if you wouldn't mind...?
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but he's felt fraud enough this week, ]
How d'you feel about dinners now'n then? Wanna get Orlov out more.
[ (and alright, gela too) ]
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( tricking stoic men into doing things that are good for them 101. )
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[ another thirty years of that looks longer than ten ]
And I know he and Gela get on. Can rustle up cards or something. What's your book on?
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It's a collection of poetry in the authors' original Nevarran; I've read a few of them in Orlesian translation, but never in the original. And not all of the pieces, obviously.
I don't know how interesting that is to any of you, but I'm sure we can find something he'd take an interest in. ( maybe needlepoint is necessary to help stephen assess how well he's avoided cognitive decline by detoxing off lyrium, and it's actually prescriptive, )
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And I am gonna find us a ball for the griffons. Just gotta figure out how t’keep them from eating it.
[ clarisse’ll sign off, there’s a chance she could win. ]
action-ish.
[ someday, in the days following their encounter at the baths and ness' crystal address and all she's working on to become accustomed to thedas—someday in the aftermath of all that, cedric will return to his tent and find a small folded scrap of fabric pinned, along with a note, to the tent flap. the scrap of fabric, a match to the shift he so unceremoniously caught ness in that night if he looked closely at either, unfolds into a handkerchief. it may have been perfectly square when the fabric was cut, but the stitches around the edges aren't quite even, warping it somewhat, and the blue monogrammed c. c. in the lower left edge isn't the smoothest—these are the stitches of someone familiar with first principles of sewing and embroidery, but little practice in their finer applications. the note, by contrast, is written in a practiced, beautiful hand: ]
Mssr. Carsus,
I wanted to thank you for the kindness you showed me that night at the baths. It would have been all too easy for you to shower me with recriminations, to treat me with fear and distrust, and if you had it would have been deserved: It was irresponsible of me not to have said anything to anyone about my magic when I first became aware of it, I know that now and I knew that then. I was afraid and alone in a new world, and could not think of what else to do but hide, but that doesn't excuse my actions.
You did not treat me with the distrust I was due, though. You were kind, and you sat with me, and because of you I now begin to understand what I am capable of, and most importantly, how to keep the people around me safe from it. I cannot thank you enough for that. This token doesn't begin to approach the magnitude of that gift you gave me, but I offer it all the same, with my most sincere gratitude.
I hadn't met a templar before you, at least not one that I knew was a templar. If they're all like you, I'm glad they're here, just as I am glad you were there for me that night.
With deepest thanks,
Ennaris Tavane
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[ he turns the cloth overhand, examines the seams. stitches inexpert as his own mended elbows. there is a well of,
something, there, ill-named. easier to consider the sense of it: a dozen textures of memory, rough and soft and steady and thin. the picked gold wire of vestments. the thick stains of dye. the sweat-drenched pad between gauntlet, palm; gambeson, heart.
it's a few days before the letter is returned. his own doesn't flow so pretty, blocks of clear, efficient print: ]
Miss Tavane,
Thank you for the letter, and the kind words. Told you I was grateful for your trust, and I meant it; takes guts to face that.
Back when they taught us on spirits, it was like this: Spirits are one thing, simple. People are different – you can’t hold half a feeling. Can't be peaceful unless you've been angry, can't be sad unless you've seen joy. So it follows, right, that you can't be brave unless you've been scared.
You've been plenty brave.
Had an old lieutenant kept a marble, the kind kids play for. Used to roll it in her hand before battle. After. We were on a hill one day, when I caught her holding it to sky, squinting through the glass. She let me try, and it sent everything bubbling strange; blue. Said it gave her a different perspective. New way to see.
[ the other half. wrapped within page: a small thing, irregular; some fraction of green bottle salvaged from rocky shore. the sea glass frosts, semi-translucent. smooth under thumb. ]
Reckon you’ve had no shortage of new. Maybe, some day, that'll look more like home.
— Cedric
HO HO HO
from your Secret Satina, Benedict]
crystal;
I don't know if there's a plan, for pressing for the perpetrators who attacked Amsel. But if you need a sword, I'm happy to volunteer.
[It sure doesn't sound like checking how Cedric's doing, so it has that going for it.]
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[ there's always something, and only so much to work with. he knows. ]
Thanks. If they took a company of mages — [ that's mostly what riftwatch is. ] — Well. I'll stick in the letter, anyway. Divine's got eyes further South than us. Maybe someone gets bored enough t'read it.
[ he does not sound like he much expects that. tired and distracted since the necropolis, and that hasn't changed, but loose with his tongue on the crystals. angry, then.]
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[A pause.]
If it is someone going rogue, you're right that they can't walk it back directly. But we may see a countermove of some sort.
[And if it does come all the way from the top, as they both suspect, they... won't see that. Either way, a bit more information.]
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[ cynical. yeah. maybe he's earned a bit of that, lately. ]
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[It's not like the guy who gave up on the Templar Order literal years ago is in a position to say it's not that bad.]
I don't imagine I have much to say you'll find useful just now, but I don't think ... [He stops, a pause presumably while he thinks of what to say instead of what he'd been about to.]
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[ someone in the distance laughs, rattles a door. a muffled: sorry, wrong room — ]
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the bones of his hand flex clean. whole. nothing's changed, not really, but there's a letter in his bag and a hole in his story; and hard as he works, the shape won't hold. he is trying. the inn bustles, a jumble of noise all to say the crystal hasn't shut off. it's a while before he speaks, and when he does, the words are thick. a little hoarse: ]
Thank you.
[ and very small. ]
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[They've so carefully explored the edges of why Vanya tendered his resignation, and he's aware of not wanting to make this conversation about himself. But on the other hand, it's a situation where he can't resist the instinct to extend a hand.]
If you ever need an ear.
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[ He knows better than that. A little — at least, a little better than he did. He'd hate that, running. Staying perfectly safe.
Hadn't been thinking of this, during that last argument. Spent so long telling himself there's real templars, and the gone ones, that it shouldn't shock to hear command agree. Just that he never split the us from them. Just that it wasn't the Knight-Divine hauled his ass out of that smithy, stacked the pyres, stayed up talking until his head went still. Just that lately, nothing stays put.
The anchor gleams. Cedric swallows, ]
'M going by the Abbey. Get some questions asked. Maybe see Broward. [ It smuggles out of him: ] You hear of nothing like this before? Within the ranks.
[ Under the Order's protection. In the old days, there must have been a check. More Seekers, else that cunt Commander out of Ostwick, Hang-em-High. But he never stood a Circle so long as all that. What he knows is field justice: Quick. Messy.
Forgiven, often as not, on the next forward push. ]
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Back when I was at Cumberland, I dismissed a lot of what I heard from outside Nevarra as exaggeration. Or perhaps cases where things were stretched too thin, oversight was insufficient. Since the war [not the current one against Corypheus] and seeing more of the world, I think ... Many people in the Order are individuals of good faith. But part of why I left is that I think the structure of it. What gets permitted. What gets promoted, even. There aren't built-in checks to stop a great deal of what I'd once thought were aberrations.
[Another short pause, as if he might stop there. Then:]
I still believe there are many genuinely good men and women in the Order. I never stopped believing that. But from what I've seen, there are also many, some high-ranking, who believe that anything done under the Order's banner is good by definition. And that can lead to dark places.
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[ Why he left. Rings stupid now, and maybe it always has been; just easier to look at the part made sense: Vanya gave a damn for the right thing, and that wasn't. Simple. Stupid. Tongue wrestles the urge to continue, to race the facts, prove he can keep up. That he won't be left behind.
But he is trying, a little better, to listen. ]
There's things I reported. [ Had a hand in. ] Didn't go nowhere.
[ It's a question. He wasn't the only one to raise it, of the March. But that first war, the Inquisition. The Circles. Had Vanya? ]
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[It wasn't not Antosha, but not in the way most people had assumed. A man morally against Corypheus ran to the Venatori because he saw the mere possibility of life in a Circle as worse. It was one more thing on a pile of things, but it was there, still.]
I wrote a very censorious but scrupulously formal letter to Lord Seeker Lambert, when he dissolved the Accords. I'm certain he never saw it. But it is surely sitting in a file somewhere, now. [A short pause.] I didn't think of it at the time, but I do wonder if it was only bad luck that my unit was sent somewhere so dangerous I was the only survivor. But maybe that is the paranoia of hindsight.
[He hopes it was bad luck. The alternative is that his idealistic dissent got the blood of many Templars he'd known well on his hands, indirectly or otherwise.]
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[ Paranoia, yeah, he fucking hopes. A step beyond the pale, past what he's willing to believe. But to sit with that thought, that guilt, ]
Would've been someone sent. Bad luck, or not. Would've been someone.
[ Another company. Maybe his own. The Rebellion is a shadow, stippled in points: First girl he killed. First time he might've died, first time a friend did. Then more of them. The Conclave, the Inquisition, and through it he never wrote a letter. Never stopped to ask much at all, not eighteen and a sword in his hand.
How many others did? How many, in that dead unit? ]
Dunno if no one wrote mine down. New Captain's not… well, he's Orlesian. But I worry, I mean. I wonder if this don't sign worse ahead. Telling folks we got a mandate, so we'll use it.
[ The only survivor. They don't talk about it much. Didn't, before, when any invocation felt it might bring the war back down on the Inquisition's head. The only survivor. Alone, save Antosha; and alone for that choice. ]
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I think it's a sign of which way the wind is blowing, [quiet, off Cedric's last observation.] It could still change, though whether in direction or intensity remains to be seen. Either way, we've been fighting Corypheus a long time. Someone, at least, is starting to think it's past time to establish a new normal, I imagine.
[Corypheus will win or he will lose, eventually. But the longer Southern Thedas does without a functional Circle system, the more people potentially become accustomed to its absence. It's a political problem as much or more than a military one.]
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But it's one thing to want the Circles restored. It's another, to know the blood that'll take. Self-organization hasn't worked. Reforms keep getting thrown back. Every year there's less room for a peaceful way out, for a world more like Cumberland; less like the Gallows. A generation of mages have only known this. The continent crawls with untrained apostates, folks primed to be sad and angry and frightened,
(If I'm being generous, Antosha. He was frightened.)
The creak of a chair. Fingers tent over eyes and nose. Where and how Riftwatch should fall into that new, ]
Guess we'll know when they ask for amputations.
[ A bad joke. ]
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Well. I don't think there's any need to jump ahead. But maybe it is worth thinking about how you'd react to some of the more likely next steps, when they come. Though I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that.
[This exhale is closer to a sigh than a laugh.]
If you stay. I sincerely hope the Order is worthy of you. I suppose that may sound ... I do mean it.
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'S my sword hand.
[ He's ambidextrous. And so that too could sound a joke, save that —
The next steps. He has thought about some, he has decided; one bright line above the noise: To take Riftwatch is to take him from the field. There are things that Cedric can't stomach. There are people he's done cutting down. ]
If you... Know you got yourself sorted, but I got ears. Can't say I'll understand any better. But I'd like t'try. I mean that, too. Not only for now.
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[He doesn't mind explaining his position to sympathetic rifters, since they've started asking more recently; if he minded, he'd decline to. But it's different in a way that can't be fully measured.]
To the extent I'm sorted now, [debatable, in his own view] it didn't happen cleanly and it didn't happen fast. I've tried to do the right thing, but. You know.
[How easy it wasn't, sometimes, to identify "the right thing," nevermind actually doing it.]
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[ Hoped, when he came here, that much'd come easier. Always seems it should be, under someone's banner. Simple problems, hero stories. Kid shit. ]
What's been guiding that? What,
[ a gesture unseen. ]
What've you been holding it to?
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...I think there is good in the world that's worth protecting. Helping to grow, if I can. Even without the lyrium, I still have a pair of strong arms, a decent education. The willingness to stand between someone more vulnerable and a threat, when I can. I don't know that I know what's right, but I still believe it's worth trying to figure it out.
[A pause.]
Didn't mean to make a speech, but. I think those who would use power to oppress or abuse those without should be opposed. Corypheus and his followers are a clear-cut case and an imminent threat, so.
[Thus coming to Riftwatch, presumably.]
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That good you found — it feel the same way when you see it? Clear.
[ imminent. ]
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[A pause while he considers.]
Sometimes it's just as clear. Laid out perfectly in front of me. And sometimes it's a mass of gray, and I just try to grab hold of the lightest shade I can because not choosing is also a choice. It doesn't always feel enough, but it's the best I have.
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[ when he wasn't choosing. ]
There's a point to having the answer, I mean. Clear or not. Choosing wasn't why I went after you. I dunno. 'S just, can't field an army on no orders. Seen how that goes.
[ the reds, the march, it all breaks down in the pitch of battle. ]
Don't expect you t'have the answer. But you been in charge of folks, before. They're never putting me in that.
it's been 84 years
[An exhale, not quite a sigh.]
I gave back my rank and my insignia, but I can't give back years of training. For better or worse. I did used to lead, and when someone looks to me, even now, I have the impulse to give an answer.
[Would he still think any choice is better than no choice, if he hadn't been trained to make those battlefield calls? No way to know, now.]
588 dog years
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[Even if it's wrong. It's a trap he knows well enough, and one he still sometimes falls into.]
I don't think being wrong is the end of the road, though, for what it's worth. It's only the end if you never ask another question again. Don't think you're in any danger of that, at least.
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crystal; timey-wimey backdating
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[ good excuse to stop checking, and rechecking, and triple-checking, and triple-rechecking their list of contacts. already drawn a line through rina mitrea. ]
What's on?
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[ it is occurring to her only now that this sounds... really weird, probably. oh no. ]
Messere Orlov has been teaching me Nevarran, and I wanted to do something kind for him in return, but he refuses to ask me for anything. I've decided to cook for him, in want of anything better to do, and I just wondered what he might like, what he might miss from home.
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[ back to trade: ]
Flatbread, mostly. That's different. Lotta fish — but even rich folks, not all them eat meat. Uh. Spicier than Kirkwall. Stronger flavours. But reckon 's a kindness anyway, man's been eating out of a mess half his life.
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We can't call it a kindness til I've done it, I'm only a passable cook.
[ she probably won't fuck this up too bad. probably. ]
Fish, more spice, stronger flavours.... I can work with that, I think. Is there a... a meal that's usually reserved for special occasions? Something expensive, or seasonal? In Candlekeep we had boar on feast days, something like that?
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[ joking ]
The Abbey'd do cabbage rolls for Wintersend. Ferment the leaves and tuck it 'round mince to boil. But y'might have more luck asking Gela — me and Vanya, we came up pretty different.
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Cabbage rolls... Alright, I'll ask Gela next.
Oh, and—is there anything you miss, Cedric? If I'm going to be cooking anyway, I could—I'd like to make you something as well. As thanks for all you've done for me.
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[ some folks get recipes from dreams. straight from the fade? rarer chance, that. ]
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[ but fine, if you're not going to request something specific she'll just have to extrapolate from everything you've already told her. hmph!! ]
There's nothing much from Faerûn that we don't already have here, or that wouldn't require some ingredients that don't seem to exist in Thedas, but... Well, how do you feel about mushrooms?
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🎀
crystal; around the time connor arrived
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[ just a bit too keen: the way folks get when you've caught them dozing. it's noon, and the desk's been embossing cedric's cheek nearly an hour. but a southern stranger knows his name, has used his title, and so — ]
Lend you the good one. Can I ask what 's about?
[ a glance down finds the shirt he's picked today. blue, and unpatched; and definitely not chantry-spun. shit. ]
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[ what's a mediation officer, he's never heard of that. ]
Where should I meet you, Ser?
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that's unfair. just guilt by another name. besides, wouldn't no one send a brother to bawl him out. he's not that important. so: ]
Seen the chapel yet, Messere? Oughta be empty this time of day.
[ most times of day. cedric pulls his gambeson from the hook, whiffs the morning's sweat and puts it right back. shirtsleeves it is. ]
Be right along.
➛ action; chapel.
The chapel is, as predicted, empty when Cedric makes his way there, save for one man knelt in prayer at the feet of a statue of penitent Maferath. When he hears Cedric's footsteps, Connor cuts off his prayer to push to his feet, turning to face the templar with a... well, it's a kind of smile. Nervous, maybe, a little dour, but an attempt.
"Ser Carsus, I presume? Thank you for meeting me."
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"Cedric," Take it in: Young guy, tall guy — and something stretched from place. Mimicking an unfamiliar shape. Last year he must've looked the same (most days, he still feels it). "What's the trouble, Messere?"
Absent habit finds a taper, tipped from one to another to the dark row of candles. Been a long time since he'd teach the kids how to trim wicks, to keep wax from spilling to hand. All seemed so tedious back then, young and itching for the sword. Too small a world to settle for.
Been a long time. He offers the candle over, there's one more to light.