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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[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?"

[sulahnan]

"I dunno. But you clammed up when you saw my arm was in a sling. And when I got this—" She traces the scar on her cheek with her thumb.

[bouchonne]

His lips tighten, and his eyes turn away.

"Well, I'm not angry."

[sulahnan]

"You're doing it again."

At least his assurances that he's not angry are some small comfort, if not enough to take away the sense that she's done something wrong. But what? It's not like she purposefully gets hurt. It's not like she tries to get hurt. And she survived every scrap she's gotten into so far, so...

(Maybe there is something to her getting hurt being the only excuse she has to see a certain healer, but in this instance it doesn't apply. Colin's the one who healed her shoulder.)

[bouchonne]

"I'm not doing anything."

If anything, her pressing is winding him up even more. The signs of his discomfort become more and more obvious with each moment.

"I'm not angry. Anger would be an idiotic reaction to your situation."

[sulahnan]

He is doing something. He's doing a bang-up impression of a stone wall.

"Then what is this? This whole...I'm gonna make my mouth a flat line and stop engaging thing? You're making me feel like I've done something wrong."

[bouchonne]

There's a tiny twitch in his cheek, like a single muscle gaining sentience and rising up in rebellion.

"Have you done something wrong?"

[sulahnan]

"Plenty," she insists with the insistence of one insisting the opposite. "But none of it anything you'd disapprove of!"

And, needing an example, she points at the bottle of mead. It explains everything to her, and nothing to him, as he doesn't know its provenance.

[bouchonne]

His brows draw down. He looks to the bottle, then back up at Athessa, and spreads his hands in a gesture that says what, I don't get it.

[sulahnan]

Ah. Right. That actually didn't explain anything at all, did it? Like a withering plant her pointing finger curls until her hand is in a loose fist and she taps the heel of it on her knee.

"...Well. I hardly own a distillery, do I? So how else would I make mead if not...ya know. Via a little wrongness?"

[bouchonne]

Ah. She made this? Well, it's of decent enough quality for that.

"There's no sin in brewing. If there were, then every farmer in Thedas would be accursed."

[sulahnan]

Rather bluntly: "I broke into Wysteria's house to make it."