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]

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.

[bouchonne]

[ For a moment, he teeters on the edge between two reactions. The first is what most residents of Thedas feel when finding out that a longtime friend is a mage - that prickle of discomfort, of fear. That knowledge that all this time, when they thought they were safe, there was an abomination-in-waiting beside them.

The second is the reaction he's tried to force himself to have. To shut down that fear, to remember that he's been living with mages for years now and there's only been a single abomination and it's come from outside. That second reaction prevails: he denies the terror.

And so after a moment's hesitation, laughter comes bubbling up from him. ]

I absolutely did! Madame, I'm devastated. You've broken my heart! I thought you'd studied to become a cheat, and I was so proud of you for being one! - Though I suppose you still are, just by different mechanisms.

[heirring]

You—! [Were this conversation occurring in person rather than over crystal, Byerly might be treated to the hot flush of Wysteria's fury and mortification, her mouth opening and closing a few times like a gasping fish before she manages to master herself.]

But all that business about how I should find myself friends lest I find myself at the mercy of the Chantry after the war— Are you being honest with me right now, Mister Rutyer? I tell you, I am going to be entirely and irrevocably cross with you if you've picked this is all things to lie over.

[bouchonne]

Because you're a Rifter!

[ He's still laughing, just a little. Not at her, just at what a mess this is, what a very silly miscommunication the whole thing has been. How typical a thing it is between them.

But it's not funny, and so he gets a hold of himself and tries to banish the amusement from his voice. ]

Apologies. It's a solemn matter. [ He takes a breath. ] Rifters' fates have been intertwined with mages'. That was my meaning only. Madame, you know I'm a bit of an idiot.

[heirring]

[The strangled noise she makes is something between a disparaging scoff and a squawk of either pure embarrassment or unmitigated indignation. It's difficult to say exactly which, and to what degree it may be attributed to his laughter versus her own horror. Eventually, she manages to produce—]

Well! [Which is thoroughly outraged and also a sure sign she means to move rapidly onward lest she be forced to face her own part in any of this.] The point is that I'm not really a magician either, so in fact in every sense it has no bearing whatsoever. On anything at all.

[So! There!]

[bouchonne]

Yes -

[ He clears his throat. Once he's gathered himself, he offers a perfectly sincere: ]

Well, you have my sympathies. - Have you spoken with Bastien about any of this?

[heirring]

[Here he truly has lost her.]

Why on earth would I say anything to Monsieur Bastien about it?

[bouchonne]

Well, because he's quite good at listening, to begin with.

[ That is a voice that is, briefly, absolutely thrumming with adoration. ]

And because he has many of the same sorts of frustrations. Freemen - commoners - are treated like they're below notice in many places, but especially in Orlais. So he had to grow up with utter disdain, despite his very real and very remarkable talents. Much as you did.

[heirring]

Oh, [is blurted out directly, despite having only just recovered her foot from her mouth.] I'm not common. My mother is a Lady, and I'm her only child.

[bouchonne]

I know.

[ He might not be able to smell a mage, but he can certainly smell nobility. ]

But it's much the same sort of thing. Bastien's birth, much like your...I presume you were late-apprenticed, and to a master of lesser renown, because someone mismanaged their social connections? Didn't exploit them properly? Or was some other misfortune involved? - Regardless, you're both undervalued because people have paid attention to circumstances instead of talents.

[heirring]

No, it's— Well, I suppose there is some similarity. Only, I chose it. I wasn't meant to have been apprenticed at all, you see. I picked it.

[Not the assignment, or how dreadful her company had been maybe. But still. They're circumstances which she herself designed.]

It's not like an ordinary apprenticeship or even like the Circles here, and Kalvad is very different from Orlais— It would be dishonest, [she resolves, as if it's only just occurred to her given how closely they've hewn to the subject] To pretend otherwise only for the sake of talking about it.

[Abruptly, and more honestly still:]

I don't wish to talk about it.

[bouchonne]

I understand.

[ And he does. ]

But speaking about it with me is a very different experience from speaking about it with Bastien, you know. I'll make a mess of it, but Bastien will make you feel better. Always.

[heirring]

I don't feel poorly about it. I don't wish to discuss it because it's not important.

[And she does, in a sense, sound like she's telling the truth. What difference does any of it make? It was years ago now, and will never touch her here.]

You won't tell anyone, will you? About mine knowing just a bit of magic. It wasn't on the list that was made of all the Rifters who did and Val mustn't know. I mean, he wouldn't even if you did because he doesn't know anything about anyone in Riftwatch. He hardly knows who you are, and only because I made fun of him for it. And there are other people as well who shouldn't know either, of course.

[bouchonne]

I -

[ He becomes immediately distracted. ]

He doesn't know who I am?

[heirring]

He does now.

Or at the very least, he knows someone named Byerly Rutyer is Riftwatch's Ambassador. I've no idea if he would identify you as that person.

[bouchonne]

That's -

[ Byerly actually sounds kind of mad about it. ]

Fine.

[ It's not fine. ]

No Riftwatch member will hear of this.

[heirring]

Not even Monsieur Bastien?

[bouchonne]

[ A heavy sigh. This is painful, but: ]

I'll lie, but I won't break promises. You'll notice I didn't even insult your lord husband after what you just told me, eh?

[ let's gloss over the fact that calling him your lord husband comes dangerously close to an insult. ]

[heirring]

[If she notices, it hardly tells in how she sounds. Though the semantics do spur her next question:]

What of people outside of Riftwatch?

[bouchonne]

[ Ah. Yes. ]

Who would I tell?

[ Great answer. ]

[heirring]

I don't know. That's precisely why I ask.

[bouchonne]

[ It seems Byerly has been - well - trapped by someone who does not even know she's done it. So. ]

May I have your oath of silence for something I am about to tell you?

[heirring]

[Look at them—full of concessions and agreements and truth today. This too without seeming to bat an eyelash.]

All right, you have it.

[bouchonne]

[ A puff of breath, audible between his lips. This is going to sound...bad. Maker, this could be absolutely disastrous. ]

I've sworn an oath of service to Ferelden, such that I must give to them certain pieces of information I've discovered. This is one of those pieces of information I'm honor-bound to tell them. [ Making excuses: ] But it will not be of any great interest to them; they have no great love for the Chantry, nor any mistrust of Rifters. It will be as nothing.

[heirring]

[Not all that long ago, this particular information may have been met with little more than disbelief. What does she care who does or doesn't know her association with the arcane arts? Far more ridiculous that Byerly Rutyer could be an informant.

But working in close association with certain suspicious parties eventually inspires caution in even the most incautious people. And she has been spending a great deal of time with Richard Dickerson, and much as she might pretend otherwise Wysteria knows a thing or two about the man she's speaking with at present.

So, cue the aural equivalent of squinting and the bristling of hackles. Like how a small terrier might show its teeth—]

You're lying to me. No one asks to be told things they don't think are important.