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contact part deux
if this were modern times byerly would probably make you listen to total eclipse of the heart before you were able to leave a message
[ Bastien’s tickled grin at the seagulls cuts promptly short. ]
That was never a risk. Not ever.
[ A subdued sort of urgency, because they’re in the bright morning light, surrounded by people. If they were curled up alone somewhere he might be holding By by the face, to mandate eye contact. Here he only gives his hand an emphatic squeeze. ]
That has never been something I have worried about. I knew you better. I’ve known you better since we met.
That was never a risk. Not ever.
[ A subdued sort of urgency, because they’re in the bright morning light, surrounded by people. If they were curled up alone somewhere he might be holding By by the face, to mandate eye contact. Here he only gives his hand an emphatic squeeze. ]
That has never been something I have worried about. I knew you better. I’ve known you better since we met.
And became a bit of a beast.
[ But it's not an unfair point. He could have been a beast far more vicious than the one he became. ]
But...I am glad that you felt so - [ Well. ] That you came to feel that you could say yes. You are...the wealth of my life. The only thing I need to make kings envious.
[ But it's not an unfair point. He could have been a beast far more vicious than the one he became. ]
But...I am glad that you felt so - [ Well. ] That you came to feel that you could say yes. You are...the wealth of my life. The only thing I need to make kings envious.
[ More stubborn protests threaten to bubble up, more explanations for what it was he was deciding during that month’s delay, what it was he was afraid of before he decided on his yes. It was never that Byerly would be a beast.
But what By says next sweetly steals all the wind from those sails. At least for now. Bastien sighs, in a good way, and melts more heavily into Byerly’s arm and shoulder. ]
I love you.
[ He says it like thank you. Buzzing with happiness. And after a beat, ]
Do you know what else I have in common with wealth?
[ He doesn’t make By guess the punchline. ]
You leave me spent.
But what By says next sweetly steals all the wind from those sails. At least for now. Bastien sighs, in a good way, and melts more heavily into Byerly’s arm and shoulder. ]
I love you.
[ He says it like thank you. Buzzing with happiness. And after a beat, ]
Do you know what else I have in common with wealth?
[ He doesn’t make By guess the punchline. ]
You leave me spent.
[ That pulls him out of his sentimental little reverie - he laughs, a buoyant ha! ]
You filthy little minx.
[ He nuzzles the side of Bastien's neck. He's certainly never been bad at sweet nothings, but - Maker, Bastien turns him into a poet. How intolerable.
The seagulls, emboldened by the two of them being so utterly lost in one another, swoop down. The first one to arrive misses the mark, but the second one manages to make off with a whole bun all on its own. Byerly turns his face towards it, says with mingled delight and fury - ]
Little bastard! After I fed you -
You filthy little minx.
[ He nuzzles the side of Bastien's neck. He's certainly never been bad at sweet nothings, but - Maker, Bastien turns him into a poet. How intolerable.
The seagulls, emboldened by the two of them being so utterly lost in one another, swoop down. The first one to arrive misses the mark, but the second one manages to make off with a whole bun all on its own. Byerly turns his face towards it, says with mingled delight and fury - ]
Little bastard! After I fed you -
[ Bastien dissolves into snickering, even though he’s also pulling their crate-table closer and putting a few of the remaining rolls and pastries back into his basket. Not all of them. Just enough to know a few are safe. ]
Thieves. Now I have to like them. We should—
[ Adopt them, he was going to say, but the squawking kerfuffle being caused by the two seagulls and the big roll in the street attracts the attention of a dozen more. For the moment they’re all focused on the one scraggly gull and its prize, but— ]
Shit.
[ Bastien holds his arm over the others, fingers spread wide, like a shield. ]
We’re outnumbered.
Thieves. Now I have to like them. We should—
[ Adopt them, he was going to say, but the squawking kerfuffle being caused by the two seagulls and the big roll in the street attracts the attention of a dozen more. For the moment they’re all focused on the one scraggly gull and its prize, but— ]
Shit.
[ Bastien holds his arm over the others, fingers spread wide, like a shield. ]
We’re outnumbered.
[ Clutching back with as much drama and urgency as if they really were besieged by enemies: ]
I'm not leaving you.
[ He evaluates their positions and defenses with a few quick glances. ]
If you are done with your coffee— [ serious battle plan consideration ] —we can sacrifice a roll to distract them and make a run for it.
I'm not leaving you.
[ He evaluates their positions and defenses with a few quick glances. ]
If you are done with your coffee— [ serious battle plan consideration ] —we can sacrifice a roll to distract them and make a run for it.
The mixed berry?
[ What a loss. But less of a loss than the others, maybe, yes—he gives a shuddering nod and retrieves the picked-at mixed berry pastry from his basket. He cradles it. ]
We will remember your sacrifice, Mixed Berry.
[ He looks up at By with grim resolve while he tears it into pieces. The seagulls who have given up on wresting the stolen roll from the winners are hopping and fluttering closer. The street is teeming with people who will look at them like they've gone mad, but he finds he doesn't care even a little. ]
On three?
[ What a loss. But less of a loss than the others, maybe, yes—he gives a shuddering nod and retrieves the picked-at mixed berry pastry from his basket. He cradles it. ]
We will remember your sacrifice, Mixed Berry.
[ He looks up at By with grim resolve while he tears it into pieces. The seagulls who have given up on wresting the stolen roll from the winners are hopping and fluttering closer. The street is teeming with people who will look at them like they've gone mad, but he finds he doesn't care even a little. ]
On three?
On three.
[ Byerly grips Bastien's forearm and looks into his face with passionate, resigned intensity. It's all very Les bandits Cassidé et l'Enfant du Soleil Dansant, that classic play. ]
One...two - Augh -
[ The drama is ruined somewhat by the fact that an emboldened seagull has already swooped down and gone for that roll with a great flap of its wings. Byerly gives a rather seagullish squawk of alarm and waves his free arm while tugging Bastien down behind him. ]
[ Byerly grips Bastien's forearm and looks into his face with passionate, resigned intensity. It's all very Les bandits Cassidé et l'Enfant du Soleil Dansant, that classic play. ]
One...two - Augh -
[ The drama is ruined somewhat by the fact that an emboldened seagull has already swooped down and gone for that roll with a great flap of its wings. Byerly gives a rather seagullish squawk of alarm and waves his free arm while tugging Bastien down behind him. ]
[ It's the squawk that breaks him, all his somber drama giving way to peals of laughter while they make their way off the crates. The seagulls scream and scatter and swoop back in, trying to stay close to the food but far from the giants holding it at the same time. The crowd milling around Ye Olde Starrbuckes turns to look, all at once, with varied expressions of confusion and amusement and exhausted judgment.
Bastien turns on his heels to fling his handful of bread-bits in an arc behind them. The gulls descend. They aren't pursued at all, on their run down the street, but Bastien still pulls By sharply into a side alley and presses him against the wall to hide. Breathless and still grinning, despite some attempts around the eyebrows and in his voice to be serious and dramatic again: ]
Were we followed?
Bastien turns on his heels to fling his handful of bread-bits in an arc behind them. The gulls descend. They aren't pursued at all, on their run down the street, but Bastien still pulls By sharply into a side alley and presses him against the wall to hide. Breathless and still grinning, despite some attempts around the eyebrows and in his voice to be serious and dramatic again: ]
Were we followed?
[For a person very prone to interruption and swiftly and immediately expressing her opinions on any subject which arises, no matter how aggravating or impolite, Wysteria miraculously manages to maintain near-religious silence throughout this confession. And afterward, though aware of the impulse to directly correct him (she wasn't imagining anything; she was merely broadly curious), she manage to hold her tongue for the beat necessary to think better of it.
Maybe it feels like a very long silence.Like maybe a month long silence, were someone to acknowledge the timestamps on these tags. Maybe it's just enough time to begin to feel a prick of reservation for having said anything at all—]
It is very ordinary, [she says at last.] But I suppose ordinariness doesn't really matter to a little boy, and I can see why you wouldn't wish to think on it. Particularly as you're so far removed from it now.
Maybe it feels like a very long silence.
It is very ordinary, [she says at last.] But I suppose ordinariness doesn't really matter to a little boy, and I can see why you wouldn't wish to think on it. Particularly as you're so far removed from it now.
[ Was he holding his breath? He's not quite sure, in the wake of her response - he doesn't recall having done so - but he does feel in his lungs the faint ache of coming up for air after a bit too long underwater. ]
Would I were farther. Whenever I'm in Ferelden, or corresponding with our nobility, I can never just be Byerly, that rake and scoundrel. I must also be, son of the grotesque and pitiable. If I must be despised, I wish I could be despised merely for myself.
[ There. That sounded good. Wry and arch. Nothing of the strange twist that the phrase little boy leaves in his head. The urge to correct her and tell her that he'd never been anything of the sort. ]
So. Truth for truth.
Would I were farther. Whenever I'm in Ferelden, or corresponding with our nobility, I can never just be Byerly, that rake and scoundrel. I must also be, son of the grotesque and pitiable. If I must be despised, I wish I could be despised merely for myself.
[ There. That sounded good. Wry and arch. Nothing of the strange twist that the phrase little boy leaves in his head. The urge to correct her and tell her that he'd never been anything of the sort. ]
So. Truth for truth.
I don't see them -
[ Doing slightly better at maintaining a face of Dramatic Distress, though there's a sparkle in his eyes. He grips Bastien's shoulders and cranes his neck, trying to catch a glimpse out of the alley. ]
But they're cunning bastards. They could be lying in wait. We may need to find an alternate route.
[ Doing slightly better at maintaining a face of Dramatic Distress, though there's a sparkle in his eyes. He grips Bastien's shoulders and cranes his neck, trying to catch a glimpse out of the alley. ]
But they're cunning bastards. They could be lying in wait. We may need to find an alternate route.
[Truth for truth, he says and despite this she hesitates. But why shouldn't she? He's spoken the exact issue aloud himself. Byerly Rutyer may come from a dreadful house and mad father, and perhaps it's even true that those things shade everyone's estimation of him. But it's not him. Indeed, having laid the whole thing out, in a way makes him seem somehow more honest and reputable. Yes, of course a scoundrel and a rake with all the secretly delicate sensibilities like Byerly has would have such origins. And if he's a liar or if he has been playing games, then in a funny way it all manages to align very closely to the truth despite everything. Doesn't it?]
Well. [She says, like a placeholder as she mentally tries to work through exactly what she means to say and how she means to say it. Annoyingly though, no clear way forward magically reveals itself to her. So after a moment, she says again:] Well.
Well, I suppose the natural solution, Mister Rutyer, is to simply make yourself despised for being Riftwatch's Ambassador. That can't be very difficult. I believe we're unpopular with a great many people already. You need only be slightly more intolerable to the correct people and eventually the one reputation will win out over the other one. I believe that's how these things often go. Certainly that's how it usually goes in Kalvad, and I imagine gossip is one of those things which is fairly universal in its application.
Anyway, my truth is highly uninteresting. The reason no one would consider me a scholar in Kalvad is because I'm not one. I was only an apprentice magician—which is and isn't like a mage here, which you know a little of—to a highly unpopular fellow, and was considered far too old for the position besides. Most apprentices are children of ten or eleven and far more accomplished with their Talents. And if I told you what other people said on the matter, you might think it was very poor treatment indeed. But I assure you that it is all highly regular in that place. That's how one should expect to be treated in Kalvad if the impression one gives is being something of a waste of time.
That's all. So you see. It has no importance here whatsoever.
Well. [She says, like a placeholder as she mentally tries to work through exactly what she means to say and how she means to say it. Annoyingly though, no clear way forward magically reveals itself to her. So after a moment, she says again:] Well.
Well, I suppose the natural solution, Mister Rutyer, is to simply make yourself despised for being Riftwatch's Ambassador. That can't be very difficult. I believe we're unpopular with a great many people already. You need only be slightly more intolerable to the correct people and eventually the one reputation will win out over the other one. I believe that's how these things often go. Certainly that's how it usually goes in Kalvad, and I imagine gossip is one of those things which is fairly universal in its application.
Anyway, my truth is highly uninteresting. The reason no one would consider me a scholar in Kalvad is because I'm not one. I was only an apprentice magician—which is and isn't like a mage here, which you know a little of—to a highly unpopular fellow, and was considered far too old for the position besides. Most apprentices are children of ten or eleven and far more accomplished with their Talents. And if I told you what other people said on the matter, you might think it was very poor treatment indeed. But I assure you that it is all highly regular in that place. That's how one should expect to be treated in Kalvad if the impression one gives is being something of a waste of time.
That's all. So you see. It has no importance here whatsoever.
Oh. Well. [Again with that word as a placeholder for something else. What a terrible habit; maybe she picked it up from those long hours spent in Salvio's company in the Base Operations office.]
Not particularly common knowledge, no. But why, you knew this! All that time ago when we shared that carriage and we played Wicked Grace, and I cheated with the cards! You can't have possibly been under the impression that I was just some sort of—
[What? This is absurd. She's certain he'd guessed it.]
—Card sharker.
Not particularly common knowledge, no. But why, you knew this! All that time ago when we shared that carriage and we played Wicked Grace, and I cheated with the cards! You can't have possibly been under the impression that I was just some sort of—
[What? This is absurd. She's certain he'd guessed it.]
—Card sharker.
[ For a moment, he teeters on the edge between two reactions. The first is what most residents of Thedas feel when finding out that a longtime friend is a mage - that prickle of discomfort, of fear. That knowledge that all this time, when they thought they were safe, there was an abomination-in-waiting beside them.
The second is the reaction he's tried to force himself to have. To shut down that fear, to remember that he's been living with mages for years now and there's only been a single abomination and it's come from outside. That second reaction prevails: he denies the terror.
And so after a moment's hesitation, laughter comes bubbling up from him. ]
I absolutely did! Madame, I'm devastated. You've broken my heart! I thought you'd studied to become a cheat, and I was so proud of you for being one! - Though I suppose you still are, just by different mechanisms.
The second is the reaction he's tried to force himself to have. To shut down that fear, to remember that he's been living with mages for years now and there's only been a single abomination and it's come from outside. That second reaction prevails: he denies the terror.
And so after a moment's hesitation, laughter comes bubbling up from him. ]
I absolutely did! Madame, I'm devastated. You've broken my heart! I thought you'd studied to become a cheat, and I was so proud of you for being one! - Though I suppose you still are, just by different mechanisms.
You—! [Were this conversation occurring in person rather than over crystal, Byerly might be treated to the hot flush of Wysteria's fury and mortification, her mouth opening and closing a few times like a gasping fish before she manages to master herself.]
But all that business about how I should find myself friends lest I find myself at the mercy of the Chantry after the war— Are you being honest with me right now, Mister Rutyer? I tell you, I am going to be entirely and irrevocably cross with you if you've picked this is all things to lie over.
But all that business about how I should find myself friends lest I find myself at the mercy of the Chantry after the war— Are you being honest with me right now, Mister Rutyer? I tell you, I am going to be entirely and irrevocably cross with you if you've picked this is all things to lie over.
Because you're a Rifter!
[ He's still laughing, just a little. Not at her, just at what a mess this is, what a very silly miscommunication the whole thing has been. How typical a thing it is between them.
But it's not funny, and so he gets a hold of himself and tries to banish the amusement from his voice. ]
Apologies. It's a solemn matter. [ He takes a breath. ] Rifters' fates have been intertwined with mages'. That was my meaning only. Madame, you know I'm a bit of an idiot.
[ He's still laughing, just a little. Not at her, just at what a mess this is, what a very silly miscommunication the whole thing has been. How typical a thing it is between them.
But it's not funny, and so he gets a hold of himself and tries to banish the amusement from his voice. ]
Apologies. It's a solemn matter. [ He takes a breath. ] Rifters' fates have been intertwined with mages'. That was my meaning only. Madame, you know I'm a bit of an idiot.
[The strangled noise she makes is something between a disparaging scoff and a squawk of either pure embarrassment or unmitigated indignation. It's difficult to say exactly which, and to what degree it may be attributed to his laughter versus her own horror. Eventually, she manages to produce—]
Well! [Which is thoroughly outraged and also a sure sign she means to move rapidly onward lest she be forced to face her own part in any of this.] The point is that I'm not really a magician either, so in fact in every sense it has no bearing whatsoever. On anything at all.
[So! There!]
Well! [Which is thoroughly outraged and also a sure sign she means to move rapidly onward lest she be forced to face her own part in any of this.] The point is that I'm not really a magician either, so in fact in every sense it has no bearing whatsoever. On anything at all.
[So! There!]
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