contact part deux

[bouchonne]

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

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

With your colouring I should paint my lips a darker red if I am to leave it all over you, I think.

[ That look she’s wearing belongs more to leaving lip prints all over him than sitting sweetly on the corner of his desk. She’ll tuck it away too—for later, should he want it—and return to a lighter smile. ]

Say you have nothing else planned for the evening, and that I might have it all?

[ Little eyelash flutter: s’il te plaît? ]

[littlemissfutility]

Are you an Andrastian?

[altusimperius]

That's the goal.

[bouchonne]

I am.

[bouchonne]

[ Another shrug. Well, what else is there to say, then? ]

Anyway. I hope you don't die.

[altusimperius]

Oh, Byerly.

[A simpering smile cast his way,]

that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.

[littlemissfutility]

Did you convert?

[bouchonne]

Maker, no. I was born to it. Beyond born to it. My ancestors marched north with Andraste to lay siege to Tevinter, all those centuries ago.

[littlemissfutility]

You can trace your family that far back?

[bouchonne]

Oh, yes. The Rutyer family has deep roots indeed.

[littlemissfutility]

Wow. That's a lot to live up to.

[bouchonne]

Yes, I suspect all my cousins who are still giving it a go find quite a lot of stress in it. I myself stopped making an attempt - oh - thirty years ago? A far superior choice.

[littlemissfutility]

[ A pause. ]

You just...gave up?

[bouchonne]

[ With a laugh - ]

Is that so shocking? - I'm from a cadet branch of the family, so there's no real money to inherit, if that's the source of your surprise. I lost out on a few coppers at most. Perhaps a few old pelts we had stashed in the attic.

[archademode]

[What is he to say? 'I know better than you?' Here, in this world, where he’s so fresh in his footfalls and Byerly is not, between the two of them he can think well enough to know which of them makes the better advisor.

Yet his heart aches for it all the same.

His eyeline lowers, drawing away from tension into something thready and unreadable, lashes fitted over his eyes and maybe it is fortunate indeed that Byerly’s privileged enough to see his face, as it shows enough in tangent with that weary hum of a voice to promise his concession is not made lightly.]

Not in my experience.

[But few can say they’ve died for the guarantees of another, and fewer still can promise it would work again. He'd spent the whole of his breath and his luck on Lord Larsa already; Benedict might indeed fare poorer for it under similar circumstances. And so:]

But I’ve overstepped once more, it seems. You know the man better, and you’ve kept him in your shadow throughout, and I’ve no right to question either motive or means when the end result speaks for itself.

I disagree because I cannot help my own nature. I hope you’ll think no less of me for it.

[A pause, and then, righting his posture to harden back into its usual, iron-cast poise.]

I formally withdraw my protestation. Keep only my commendation for Lord Artemaeus’ work, and do with that knowledge what you will.

[Much as he knows Byerly dislikes the formality of lordship, he has to endure one last bow before that helmet is fitted in its rightful place.]

I bid you a fair evening, Byerly Rutyer.

...and thank you, for safeguarding him.

[bouchonne]

Hold on.

[ By lifts his hand, a gesture to bid him halt. His eyes are narrowed - not in disapproval, just in evaluation. ]

Argue with me.

[archademode]

[He's already turned to take his leave, one foot poised before the other, halting at an awkward spacing— before that helm tilts just slightly over the rise of his own shoulder.]

...what?


[???Byerly? ?

Is this a trap??]

[bouchonne]

I'm a fool. [ He says that easily and without shame. ]

So it's useful when an intelligent fellow with convictions argues with me. He can correct my lack of knowledge. So argue with me. If you have the truth of it, I'll learn.

[archademode]

[He’d anticipated spending the whole of his afternoon as sullen as spent ash. This— as so much of what Byerly seems to manage effortlessly— utterly displaces those designs. And for it he needs a moment longer to regain whatever mindset he’d lost.]

He wishes to change. It pulls at him like a thread laid bare.

[Benedict forgive him for speaking so plainly of his private pains.]

He lacks momentum, guidance, clarity— the means to understand where he falls short, and a deepset fear of that failure. It is a rot, that. It will not heal if he continues on as he does, for the man nearly shattered before me in confession this morning.

He will break, in time. This much I believe.

[bouchonne]

What makes you think he hasn't already broken?

[ By's head tilts to the side. ]

He betrayed us, then betrayed his country to rejoin us. If that pressure wouldn't grind a fine young bough into splinters, I don't know what would.

[archademode]

Consider the break unclean, if so.

For he did try. And he did succeed, however brief, in putting right his own missteps. [To feel guilt is one thing, after all. But to risk life and limb for those that matter, to want to make amends, and thus denied that opportunity to embrace the sting of that moment rather than burying it in indolence— these are hints of something worth grasping, he thinks.]

There was no need for him to fight that dragon, regardless of my own designs in bringing him. Fear froze him, urged him to flee for his own sake, and yet despite opportunity he chose action.

And do not think it was a matter of my influence, for before the battle we'd argued, and cut short our acquaintances.

[littlemissfutility]

--What's a cadet branch?

[bouchonne]

[ What a strange conversation they've gotten into. Well - ]

A non-inheriting line of the family. My grandfather passed the Bannorn onto the oldest brother of my father's generation, which was not my father, of course. So, dear père was given a manor house and a small allowance from the familial coffers. This sort of situation can sometimes be alleviated by finding a bride with a lovely dowry, but mère's wasn't, really. It's why you can't assume that a Fereldan with a fine name has any money to speak of, the way that you can assume that of, say, an Antivan.

[bouchonne]

[ Hm. ]

Unless the dragon took the form of an woman with an astonishing rear end who's draining the blood of her slaves to do magic, I don't know if that displays the sort of courage he's been lacking in the past.

[archademode]

[Well it’s not the description of the Magister he’d expected, but...filed away all the same.]

When one learns to walk, it is not by way of making running leaps.

More opportunities to prove his worth would likely strengthen his resolve. He would not lack for a safety net throughout, for all those who he's so won over.