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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[bouchonne]

"Athessa doesn't need an appointment," By confirms. "And please, dearest Benedict, be a little less terrible a gatekeeper, won't you?"

[sulahnan]

"Yeah, Ben," she says, trying to reign in her smugness, just a little. It doesn't work very well. "You call this security?"

Nevermind that security isn't Benedict's job at all.

[altusimperius]

They both receive a sardonic look in reply. Please, he has better things to do than keep Byerly's personal friends from him.

[bouchonne]

"I think he's judging us," Byerly murmurs.

[sulahnan]

"Oh, undoubtedly, just look at that face," she agrees, gesturing towards Bene. "Steeped in dubious...ness. Dubiosity?"

[bouchonne]

"Doubt?" he suggests. Then, making direct eye contact with Benedict, he says, "Not that he has any right to condemn."

[sulahnan]

She shrugs, the suggestion as good as any. Byerly may be in the middle of insinuating something, but Athessa is back to the reason she's here in the first place.

"Do you want glasses for this—" She holds her palm over the top of the bottle of mead and tips it on its base. "—or no?"

Maybe he doesn't want to drink yet. Maybe he's being responsible and won't drink so long as he's working (hah), but them again, that's why she bothered to close the door. He may need it, with the conversation that's in store.

[bouchonne]

Well, he wasn't planning to drink, but now that she's calling attention to it, he does have a thirst. So -

"Sure. It's a bit early in the day to take slugs directly from the bottle." And so he stands and goes, and retrieves one glass - and then a second, holding it up to her as an offering.

[sulahnan]

"It's a bit strong for that, too," she says. The mead is homebrewed, one of the better batches she and Vanadi cooked up in an attempt to recreate a family recipe. Sweet, tart, a little floral on the nose.

Athessa accepts the glass, setting it on the desk so she might pull her usual chair a bit closer. It's almost conspiratorial, eliminating the distance that sits between the division head and his audience, but mostly it's so Athessa can lean her elbows on the desk and see the words written on that report.

[bouchonne]

He doesn't read too far. Instead, his eyes fall on the page long enough to understand exactly what this is; and then he looks up and meets her eyes. Traces of merriment are gone, leaving nothing but a rare glimpse of Byerly in his raw state: tired, sad.

"What do you wish of this, Athessa?" he asks bluntly. To discuss the details? To provide some explanation? Does she want him to show his anxieties, or does she want him to suppress them? He's had warning enough with all of this that he's been able to marshal his emotional resources, but he still needs a strategy.

[sulahnan]

Tired, sad, they have that in common in spades. Athessa gives a slight shrug, but it's not a dismissal. It just isn't about what she wishes, in this moment.

"If you have questions about it, I'll answer 'em. Go into detail where Mhav was kind enough to gloss over stuff, if you want. That's all."

[altusimperius]

Sensing the tension in the room and their voices, Benedict casts a surreptitious glance at them out of the corner of his eye, still industrious for the most part.

[bouchonne]

"You did not seem overeager to answer my questions earlier - " An understatement if ever there was one. "What changed?"

[sulahnan]

"Time passed."

It really is as simple as that. Right now her shoulder doesn't ache, she isn't in a sling, her mind isn't replaying every horrible sight every time she closes her eyes. She's had time enough for the experience to become nothing more than an unfortunate thing that she survived.

"Like I told you then, I just wanted to be able to pretend it hadn't happened for a bit. Now... I can acknowledge what happened without having to feel it."

[bouchonne]

He lets out a little sigh. He doesn't look fully convinced, but he offers a slight shrug nevertheless, and doesn't argue.

"Well," he says, "I do not particularly anticipate having more questions. From what I know of the thing, it was a miserable occurrence, but one without deeper diplomatic implications."

[sulahnan]

She resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"Ambassador Rutyer might not have more questions, and the diplomacy division may only need to send a letter or two or make note that a Dalish clan might owe us a favor, but if unlikely-friend Byerly has questions, he can ask and expect an answer. Plus homemade rowan mead and elfroot in case he suffers disquietude because of it all."

As if to show how much she's made up her mind, she sits back in the chair and draws up one knee to sit more bisexually comfortably.

[bouchonne]

By looks away. He's self-conscious due to Benedict's presence in the room. Athessa, after all, is well accustomed to seeing him disquieted and unhappy. But it's not a look he shows often to his little attache.

"Is there - something you wish to speak about on the matter?"

[altusimperius]

Benedict pointedly focuses on his work, even trying to block the conversation out-- he'd have thought himself more inclined to listen to gossip and secrets, but this is just uncomfortable.

Glancing at the coffee pot, he considers making an excuse to go refill it.

[sulahnan]

It takes a moment for Athessa to settle on a course of action. She could press, be the brat that they all know she's fully capable of being, and risk grinding some sensitive portion of Byerly's friendship into dust. She could stand and return to her own business, leaving Byerly with the open offer and gifts if he should change his mind.

But she's tried those tactics before and they didn't yield the best results, now did they?

"Ben," she calls, leaning to look past the back of her chair at the walnut known as Byerly's assistant.

"Give us the room, please."

[bouchonne]

And Byerly opens his mouth - but then shrugs, and doesn't countermand the order.

[altusimperius]

All too eager to comply with what gives him an easy out, Benedict gathers up his documents, quill and ink, and takes his leave with the barest of backward glances. Seeya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

[sulahnan]

Athessa waits until the door closes behind Benedict to return her attention to Byerly, a smigeon of her ease slipping out of place to reveal a bit of trepidation in the cant of her brow. With Bene there, oddly enough, she would have been able to hide that.

Instead, Byerly has to see and hear her hesitation before she has anything even remotely resembling the right words for what she wants.

"Are you angry with me? About what happened?"

[bouchonne]

"What?"

Of the questions he was expecting, that certainly was not among them. It's rare that his real emotions show in his face - he's quite expressive as long as he's camouflaging all his feelings - but this one does startle him enough to show.

"No. Why would I be angry?"

[sulahnan]

"Cos when you're angry with me you tend to clam up," she says, hunching her shoulders in something like a shrug but also something of a demonstration of clamming up. "You shut up, shut down, and there's no talking to you about anything until someone — me — starts throwing shit."

She, clearly, is not about to start throwing shit right now.

[bouchonne]

"When I get angry, I get revenge," he mutters, and then amends, "or something like it." Which is not entirely true, he must acknowledge - there are, after all, different types of anger, not all of which are the sorts that lead to vengeance - and maybe in the past, he has been angry with her. Yes. Just -

"What do you think you'd have done to make me angry, precisely?"