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

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[cozen]

[ Bastien laughs a little and squeezes the hand he’s holding. ]

Emerging into the world after a thousand years, with everything and everyone he knew gone… Maybe what he really needs is someone to understand him.

[bouchonne]

Poor thing!

[ He laughs back. ]

He's just lonely. He needs someone to tell him that his rippling abs are just so glorious.

[cozen]

Maybe we can find another one like him and make them fall in love.

[bouchonne]

Corypheus and Coryph-she-us.

[bouchonne]

Nevarran reds are particularly fine. Though -

[ He winks at her as he removes the cork from the bottle. ]

Don't tell anyone, because this is a truly crass opinion, but I actually rather like Fereldan wines. A patriot's weakness.

[cozen]

[ This laugh isn't little, and Bastien caps it off by bending down and kissing the top of Byerly's head. ]

Brilliant. I will write it down, and we can present it to the other division heads.

[ He won't and they can't. He wouldn't enjoy making Yseult that miserable. ]

[bouchonne]

The war will be won in an instant.

[ But - ]

Are you afraid of our sweet mages?

relentlessly doubling up.

[cozen]

[ They've left the opera house with plenty of time to make the last ferry to the Gallows, so they're not in any rush, carting their instruments through Lowtown. It's dark but not quiet; people are still out, refineries still churning smoke, a few taverns have their doors and windows open to let in the cooling air.

Bastien was in high spirits all evening, until one of the visiting singers told him where she was from after the performance. Now he's in medium spirits, which generally counts as his low. Smiling, looking at this and that and the stars, but subdued around the eyes. It'll pass.

But before it passes, he says during a lull, ] I think my family is in Kaiten.

[cozen]

[ He sobers up quickly enough. ]

Of course. I mean, not all of the time. But one bad mage could do so much more harm than one bad man with a knife, you know?

[ He sits up straight again. ]

And sometimes I am worried that they will hold the world hostage. Why wouldn't they? They are being asked to fight against the people who would give them more power.

[bouchonne]

[ By smiles at that, crookedly - grateful for Bastien's straight and blunt answer. ]

Yes. And the way they rumble amongst themselves - It really wouldn't be hard for them to lean on us. Make Riftwatch a new front of the mage rebellion.

[bouchonne]

[ Anything coming from Bastien that starts with my family is quite startling. By, though, swallows down his surprise, stays still in the manner that one would avoid jumping when a deer emerges from the woods.

Kaiten. He searches his mind to try to remember: Just how fucked is Kaiten? ]

Anything specific that makes you think that?

[ His voice is casual. ]

[cozen]

And if they have the rifters in their corner, they have nearly all the anchors among them. Even if we could win without their magic, we need those. I’m not sure the Chantry—

[ Templars? Whoever made that call; Bastien doesn’t know. ]

—thought that one through.

[cozen]

They aren’t in Val Royeaux, [ is casual in return. ] Kaiten is where they told the neighbors they were going. They’d talked about it before, too, but–

[ But Bastien, fourteen and cocky and skeptical of his deadbeat parents’ abilities to follow through on anything, hadn’t taken them seriously until they were gone.

He glances over at Byerly and smiles. He’s worried, but it’s not an emergency. Kaiten is likely to stay fine at least as long as Kirkwall does. It’s relatively small and unimportant, nestled in the mountains not all that far away. ]

They might not have made that far. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I just,

[ what? Wanted to say it out loud. Wanted Byerly to know what he was thinking about. ]

That’s where I’ve always thought they must be.

[bouchonne]

Mm.

[ By pulls a face that's half troubled, half irritated. ]

You heard Kostos Averesch the other day, I suspect? Hard not to, of course. He makes quite a lot of noise for a rather soft-spoken man.

[bouchonne]

[ When exactly did they leave Val Royeaux? Bastien's family didn't seem to be around while the two of them were running around causing havoc, but it's not as though that was information Bastien would have shared, either. By had assumed, if anything, that Bastien was some sort of orphan, or a runaway - not that his parents had left. And -

Where they told neighbors they were going. The only reasonable answer is that they didn't tell Bastien because Bastien was far away by then, that this had happened a year or two ago. That's the only acceptable circumstances under which Bastien would have heard it secondhand. But - when would he have had a chance to go back and talk to the neighbors, if this all was recent?

By smiles back, but the expression is just a little troubled. A bit of his uneasy thought breaking through. He corrects it a moment later, because his beloved clam will snap shut again if the waters seem troubled. ]

Should we pull them out? Kirkwall is likely safer in the long term.

it burrrrns it burrrnnns

[cozen]

I heard.

[ Bastard, adds his tone.

He didn’t say anything—not about Circles and the rifters, and not when the way some people spoke to Byerly had him narrowing his eyes at the crystal. He’s not the kind of protective that entails rushing in to defend an adult man who’s handling himself just fine. He’s the kind that entails remembering. ]

He seems like the sort of fellow who likes kicking ant piles.

hee hee hee suffer

[bouchonne]

[ By shrugs in agreement. ]

Which I don't blame him for. Or particularly dislike him for, to be quite honest. I've rather a lot of hive-dirt on my own feet.

[ He drapes an arm over Bastien's leg. ]

What was interesting was watching how the ants swarmed. Especially how they swarmed on me. Petrana de Ceydoux - This was before our time, but she was removed from being head of Diplomacy. I'd assumed she'd quit, but when she came in and primly instructed me on how to do diplomacy, which apparently consists solely of giggling and speaking sweetly - contain your surprise, I nearly jumped out of my skin learning there was but a single type of diplomacy that can be done, it's so much simpler than I thought - I looked up what led to her departure. Turns out she was the one who handed over information that led to the mages striking.

[ A tap on his knee - ]

Don't rat me out, now, handing over sensitive information to you.

[cozen]

[ Bastien notes the trouble, but it’s easily chalked up to the war, to the possibility that other Marcher cities might fall. ]

No, [ with an amused huff. ] No, they would all be grown by now. They probably have twenty children between them.

[ He’s never thought about that before. It’s hard to think about now—not painful, only difficult. If he tries to picture Eliya with a baby on her hip, her face is still a six year old’s. ]

And spouses, and in-laws, and work. [ Maybe they would still appreciate the invitation, to keep in their pockets in case things got worse, but then Bastien would have to, like, actually find them. Maybe talk to them. Terrifying.

He sways sideways to companionably jostle By with his shoulder. ]

No, we will just have to stop the war before it reaches that far. Should be easy.

[bouchonne]

No trouble at all.

[ All grown up by now. ]

How many of them were there?

[ An innocuous sort of question, he thinks. Testing the waters just a bit. ]

:’C

[cozen]

[ Bastien grins and echoes the tap with a knee bounce. ]

I will use it to start an Orlesian strike. No more work from us until we are allowed to paint the fortress sunrise orange.

[ It goes without saying, he assumes, that he would never rat Byerly out to anyone. ]

So she would have been on their side before the rifters were tied to them. I suppose that makes sense—selflessness, or guessing it was inevitable. Either way.

[cozen]

Four.

[ Excluding the infants who didn’t survive long enough to have names, or at least not names he remembers; excluding the possibility that his parents, still in their early 30s last he saw them, squeezed in a few more for good measure.

A sideways glance to check Byerly’s face again before he adds, ]

An older sister, two younger brothers, and then another sister. The littlest, she was like a fluffy kitten. Hair everywhere and tiny bones.

Do you and Nadine look very much alike?

[bouchonne]

Or she's a mage in her own right. Plenty of Rifters are.

[ A shrug. ]

Or she was fucking a mage.

[ A little more acid than is Byerly's wont lately. It's clear, despite his smile, that Petrana pissed him right the fuck off. ]

[bouchonne]

Nearly identical.

[ He answers easily, because it's Bastien, and because he wants to see if there's some reason for that question or if it's just the reflexive attempt to redirect attention away from himself. Even so, though, there's still a twinge of pain thinking on her. ]

Especially our eyes. But she had a sweet face. That was the main difference - she looked kind.

[ Question answered; By casts a glance over, then, a sort of well? ]

[cozen]

Have they been together that long?

[ Mild, and mostly rhetorical. Neither of them were here at the time of the negotiations to know who was and was not sleeping together. But the room Madame de Cedoux shares with the two enchanters is obvious enough now.

He lets go of By's hand, finally, but only to fuss with his hair instead. ]

I did find it strange how eager people seemed to be cross with you—I mean, you have to forgive people for thinking you might be trying to cause trouble sometimes when you aren't. You have made a reputation for yourself. But I wouldn't think don't panic, it's complicated, it might not happen would be so controversial.

[bouchonne]

I'm not sure, truthfully. I haven't charted her affairs.

[ Which might sound sarcastic, if it wasn't coming from Byerly, who actually does note down the romantic entanglements of important people. ]

And I rather felt the same. I do wish people would recognize when I'm being malicious. I'm really quite good at it. It's a point of pride for me that everyone knows when I'm trying to offend them - I don't do it by accident.