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[dissolving]

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[bouchonne]

Did you get shit for it?

[ 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?

[dissolving]

[ a puff of breath. not amused, really, some greyer cousin. did he get shit? ]

'S not a secret, [ chantry's built on paperwork. ] But I prefer Cedric. Since the March.

[bouchonne]

Why was the March the start of it?

[ Why not earlier? ]

[dissolving]

Reckon you can work that one out.

[bouchonne]

Hardly. I'd expect that self-loathing to come far earlier.

[dissolving]

'M not ashamed of my family.

[bouchonne]

But you prefer just Cedric now. What was it about the March?

[dissolving]

What's it for fighting Tevinter sees me drop a Vint name?

[ 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) ]

[bouchonne]

[ An arched eyebrow. ]

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.

[dissolving]

[ the ashes of trevis are leagues away. a hard dot on a letter — ]

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. ]

[bouchonne]

[ 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. ]

[dissolving]

'M not ashamed of my family,

[ 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.

[bouchonne]

[ There's a sharpness in Byerly's manner, now - less unpleasant in its way than his prior oppressive drollness. A focus in his eye. ]

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. ]

[dissolving]

That gonna be a problem?

[ it's even, not mild. he moves down a line (drops a word) ]

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ 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.

[dissolving]

[ 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.

[ a tight gesture to the page. ]

[bouchonne]

[ A lift of his eyebrows. And then, finally, he sticks the cigarette between his lips and actually gets to work. As he does: ]

Did you keep it?

The hand, I mean.

[dissolving]

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. ]

[bouchonne]

The statue was on a roof? Ambitious.

[ 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. ]

[dissolving]

In the yard. Nearest foothold from th'edge.

[ 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. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly shrugs easily, and he answers easily. ]

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.

[dissolving]

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. ]

[bouchonne]

I like you quite a bit better when you're being waspish, you know. Instead of fawning.

[ He doesn't seem particularly offended by the implications. ]

You should stay like this.

[dissolving]

[ that he isn't byerly's servant, that it'd be perversely supplicative to give in to irritation,

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.

[bouchonne]

[ 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.