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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[heirring]

On account of it— Well on account of how it doesn't really matter, does it?

[bouchonne]

Doesn’t it?

[heirring]

I can't see how.

[bouchonne]

Presumably it matters in some way to you, does it not?

[heirring]

Why should it matter to me? I'll never go back there, and nothing about it will ever figure for much here in Thedas. It's all rather irrelevant, Mister Rutyer.

[bouchonne]

Hm. I shall never return to the house I was raised in, but I still shudder when I smell a scent that reminds me of the place. Iron never forgets the anvil.

[heirring]

How poetic.

[bouchonne]

Oh, I probably stole that line from a ballad. Do you fear my censure in some way? You have already more than proven yourself here, so the only consequence to sharing a tale of how abominably you were used back there is, I wager, that I will curse at them.

[heirring]

I wasn't abominably used. [She's very swift to say so, and there is something in her tenor that's quite firm.] How it all works there is just complicated, and so makes for a very dull story to anyone who isn't familiar with the little details. And there are things in Kalvad that are entirely different from what they might sound like in Thedas, and they would give off a poor impression.

[bouchonne]

Of Kalvad?

[heirring]

[Of her.]

Yes, that's right.

[bouchonne]

[ A hum. ]

And just to make absolutely sure, Madame - You are being truthful with me? As I endeavor to be truthful to you?

[heirring]

Why do you dislike to be reminded of the place where you grew up?

[Duck and roll.]

[bouchonne]

Maker, with your graceful turns of conversation, it's a pity you're not in my division.

[heirring]

Well I think you ought to be grateful that no one will hold you responsible for me.

[bouchonne]

[ As if all the division heads aren't held responsible for their errant charges. Not that Wysteria is the worst of them, all things considered. ]

Are you actually curious, dear Madame de Foncé, or are you asking merely because you want me to stumble?

[heirring]

Clearly 'both' is the answer.

[See? Honesty. And you're most welcome for it.]

[bouchonne]

Hm. Then I will trade you my answer for yours.

[heirring]

Very well.

[bouchonne]

[ There's a moment's hesitation - only a moment - as he fights the urge to...Well, to lie. To lie in a glossy, easy way, to laugh and report on the whole sordid story like it's an amusing anecdote rather than a mire of misery. To do what he's always done. But in the end, what brings him to his blunt honesty is not, perhaps, his pledge to not lie to her; rather, it's his awareness that she won't share any sensitive secrets until he's abased himself. That's how secrets work - why he was always such a successful spy. You don't worry about your dignity around a man devoid of the stuff.

So. ]

My father was the fifth son of his generation, and unsuited due to both temperament and talent to either religious service or the military. So he was given a threadbare inheritance - an old estate on a rocky beach. The only prosperous souls in our holdings were the smugglers, and smugglers, of course, pay no taxes. So. The way out of such genteel poverty would be to make a favorable match, but my father also had no charm. And so my mother came with next to no dowry at all, and our fate was set.

This is not, of course, to imply that poor families cannot be happy. Many who are without money are rich in love. But our coffers were bare there, as well - as you'll likely be unsurprised to hear. You're well aware how irksome I am when I am but a mere acquaintance; imagine how irksome it would be to have me as your son and heir. Combine that with the Rutyer family's curse of madness, which bit at my father - led him to the most peculiar obsessions, an odd desire to accumulate the strangest things and pile them up in great rotting heaps - Well. The stench alone would have driven an even-tempered and cheerful lad into melancholic fits.

[ His shrug is nearly audible. ]

I imagine you were likely hoping for something more interesting - I fear it's all dreadfully ordinary.

[heirring]

[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.

[bouchonne]

[ 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.

[heirring]

[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.

[bouchonne]

[ Hold up. ]

Forgive me, please, Madame. But - I feel a fool, as you've said it so matter-of-factly - Is it a matter of general knowledge that you have magical ability?

[heirring]

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.