faderift | [ CLOSED ] Midnight Rendezvous

It was easy, perhaps a little too easy, to slip back into Skyhold undetected. You could see threats coming for miles, but it wasn't exactly fortified, there were plenty of places to slide into undetected. There was also the front door with the rifters and the refugees. Michel had left the traceable evidence of himself back in the Emprise, so Charlemagne and Chéri had to stay behind. Along with armor and most weapons, this was going to be brief after all, he simply needed a hood.

Michel did not knock on the door, if there was a child then at this hour he was bound to be asleep. What he did have was something more discreet, a torch, the light would filter in through the cracks under the door and around the edges. It would mover the shadows in the room. Subtle but detectable, it also cast shadows across the Chevalier who kept himself well hooded and the hallway was quiet and dark. He would douse the torch and be out of here in short order.

It took a moment for the flickering light to catch Zevran's eye- and when it does? He pulls the chest out from under his bed and props the door open, stepping outside to have this conversation in the hall. Or. That was his intent to start, at least. "...Michel."

Not Soleil, not Bello. He was a man made weary and wary, torn between the game they'd had and the threads of true sentiment that might rest just below.

"I will take it," Michel did not respond to his name, his voice was enough to recognize him by, it was an unnecessary acknowledgement. He was non grata, by now he had to be, and it wasn't an unfamiliar place to be. Regardless there was no wish to linger no longer than he needed to, not when there was quite possibly a sentiment of murder thick in the air. It wasn't too different from Orlais, honestly.

"It is as you sent, less ten sovereigns to pay for the envoy's silence." They could be done, like this. He could leave it and let this end, whatever this had been. "...Are they truly calling for your blood, those Chevalier? Yours and yours alone?"

"Silence is a tradable good, it's the reason I dispatched the envoy," he couldn't very well allow him to live, could he? That was neither here nor there and he was quite ready to leave with the chest under his arm until the question came, "it's a relief I expect, I'm an easier target. They can charge me of things that they cannot charge you of if they look hard enough...they are looking hard."

"And were they, themselves, to suffer unfortunate accidents? The fault was mine. There is no reason for you to hang for my arrogance and negligence. I ought to have killed them instead of toying with them." Their blood already was on his hands. He could spare a few weeks in Val Royeaux to see them dead. It is the least he owes the man that came to save him. "Sooner would be better than later, as you've truths you wish to remain hidden."

"Those truths are unraveling faster than you could make the journey, besides, it is not worth the trouble," if there was a child to protect in all of this, should anything go wrong with that plan, Michel didn't want to be blamed for that as well, "I walked into that room with you, I made a personal statement, I thought it was good...it was good. People are thinking now...thinking hurts their little heads...they don't want to think."

"If they are digging to undermine you, they may try the same with me. I do not have so great a secret to keep as you but I find..." He glanced back to the door from whence he came. "I have things I would like to protect. Besides. They were to throw themselves from the battlements, were they not? Death before dishonor."

"Digging around for your secrets? They would have to step out of their circle into yours. It is safer for them to challenge me in Val Royeaux than to challenge you in the Inquisition. I suppose they think that by digging up anything they can on me, they can hurt you. The egg is on their face, but they will never know it," and that would be a reasonable tactic, and it would perhaps grant them some sense of satisfaction regardless. It would certainly keep Zevran safe, "dishonor...has broad definitions. Attacking you? That's sport...sometimes the wolf kills the sheep, not because it is hungry, but for play. They do not bat an eye in Orlais, though perhaps the Empress would have had them punished to keep some measure of faith with the Inquisition."

"You think they would know better than to pick a fight such as this with an Assassin." THE Assassin, at that. Whether it would hold Michel's secret or not- he would find them. He would kill them. And none would be the wiser save perhaps Michel. "You fear they will find you, seize this gold, and hang you. That is why you sent it."

"Assassins are as commonplace as flatware. I was attacked by half a dozen sent by Gaspard, they would think nothing of it," unless their bodies were found, then there would be plenty of speculation. There would be speculation if their bodies weren't found, "I have no family, no friends, no legacy, and very little to lose. What I did have I didn't want them knowing about, finding, or getting their hands on. I have plenty of abasement to look forward to."

"Orlesian assassins are terrible at their job." Apparently. "This makes me want to leave their broken bodies a message to future fools more, not less."

He was trying to be responsible in this. Trying and failing. "You could, perhaps, remain with the Inquisition. There is no reason to endure their politicking, you owe them nothing. You owe yourself a better life than they have given you, yes?"

"You have plenty to keep yourself occupied with at the moment, you do not have to do this," Michel laid the chest at his feet, he had not expected such a conversation and even for him the weight was burdensome.

"I admit, I am hasty and impetuous...but not entirely unconscious of things. I am as welcome in both places at the moment, I'm certain of it, I would not have come like this if I knew otherwise. Those you know would probably kill me if given half a moment, how is that any different...?" It is Skyhold and people talk, and the way things ended in their last conversation he was sure the venom was taking hold beyond the both of them, "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be flippant with you."

"Have to? No. Want to? Yes. It would...bother me, for you to hang. Especially if I did nothing to prevent it." How deeply or how much- he could not put words to. But he would be bothered none the less.

Complications. So many complications.

"I reacted poorly, earlier. You were doing as you often do, what you thought best- but you did so without speaking to me. It is a kind gesture and you mean well but- there are implications in this. There is a weight to the coin more than I think you know. Pel- she also means well but can be quite intense in her defense when she feels someone has been wronged- I did little to dissuade her of that. Anders I know does not care for you but he tends to be particularly sore at anyone he feels does not give Mage Rights due consideration." That was where they stood. "It is...complicated. Doubly so now hat I've a son."

"Guilt?" It would feel like spit on Michel's cheek if he were to admit as much and that had Michel sliding back into the shadows for their comfort.

"I was afraid of speaking to you, fear is a weak emotion and I despise it, which says something about me I suppose. My intention wasn't to hurt you, it wasn't to box you in, or obligate you. As for Madame Pel, I feel her anger at me is misplaced," Michel had kept his word in that he did not mention her name in this, but he was also part of a mechanism, a manipulation. She could make the infant clothing herself, there was no need to involve him and lie in the process if she was trying to keep her own promises. She shared in his guilt.

"And Anders is...a house on fire unto himself," Michel would never understand why his house was the most important and worthy of being put out when there were others burning as well. They all had to be put out...and then there was the way he spoke of Zevran when they last talked. There might have been blood, but Michel was determined not to rise to the occasion. Regardless, it wasn't their opinion that meant something, but that was then and this is now, "and I am a complication."

"I have stood idly by while someone I was once close to found themselves at the brink, and did nothing. They died, and I did nothing." Whatever it was between he and Michel- it was not what was between him and Rinna. It was too small, too frightening, too fragile from both of them. But it would needle at him like a splinter under the skin gone septic were he to stand by a second time and allow it to happen again. "There is nothing weak in fear. It shows a sense of self preservation."

You fear the bear, so you flee from it. You fear this intangible thing- so you do not engage. Zevran understood that quite well.

"She is dalish and he is a mage. It is a part of their nature to be angry. Whether or not it finds itself misplaced..." He waves a vague hand. "I am neither and have no room to speak there, truly. But you- frightened me, with the chest. The implications. The idea that more might know than I was ready to have know. That it is you? eases my mind somewhat. That it was an accident- a little more. We are both of us complications to one another, aren't we?"

"That was not a dream," Michel took a moment to contemplate the evening that Zevran had been ill, the dreams were strange, but there were other things that he banished from his mind as quickly as they came to him. Zevran was clear when he said that he wanted none of Michel, so this scenario and that scenario, it was not the same, "the two things are not connected, you were close to her."

"And fake emotions appear real, fear, we're scared of everything...scared of what you think of me...afraid of telling you...and testing the waters burned. I had to get away...that is weak," and it had been a struggle for him, for as long as he could remember. He could walk up to the bear and look it dead in the eye, he could stare right at the noose and not even quiver, but there were other things...fears. Things that were a part of him that should be despised.

"Anders is complicated..." Anders irritated him yes, but he toed the line in objectifying Zevran just to take a jab at him. He could spit needles at Michel all day, but was this something you did to a friend? Michel did not have many, but he figured there was a line...not that he would mention it, "I have always had an unusual dichotomy with the Dalish, and plenty of scars to prove it. Though any who wish to kill me must stand in line behind Mihris." Michel laughed softly, but there was no real humor to it, "my intention wasn't to scare you, they were good intentions...I want to think, but all good intentions pave the way to damnation. We live in a world that tells us we are complications to one another, like a snake and a mongoose. I came to that conclusion after my mother died and I realized I wasn't as wanted by those that I thought were my people as she made me feel. That illusion was as good as the one you showed me."

"...No, no it was not." He did not truly wish to elaborate upon it here and now but- ht may bear discussing. "And from that I learned to not be so close. To be wary. From the one that killed her I learned to avoid human men."

Nobles came from contracts and those, well. He always knew better. To be perfectly frank until Alistair he'd never known someone elf-blooded, and even then? He'd thought the man human.

Michel is the first half-blooded anything he had ever taken to bed. It rose questions he did not often consider. "I am...accustomed to being that. An illusion, a pleasing diversion, a fantastic dream. Sentiment grounded in real feelings- those are more rare, more frightening. Every time a man of a certain station has said he loved me, he meant he loved my flesh, loved to possess me. We are not- I do not know what we are, but we are not nothing. I sad that in anger. To hurt you, in my fear."

"I try to see myself as I might be seen in Orlais...it's easier when you are Orlesian I think. A new race, a new gender. My blood is dirty in Orlais so I am lawfully not afforded the priviledges I had on a technicality...this blood is equally dirty in the alienage for all that it represents, a breeding out of the elven. I am not sure why my mother kept me...she might have lived a longer life if she hadn't overlooked my numerous errors. And neutralizing the position of Champion, normally reserved for a woman...it was Gaspard who referred to me as Aveline...I can only imagine how perplexing it was," Michel inclined his, still hooded gaze a bit, staring at a fixed point elsewhere, perplexing for other men to see him in such a role. Part of him wanted to defy as much as he wanted to deny the things that he was or the boundaries of what he could be.

"Dreams are fleeting, you were not fleeting...I suppose it is the same as the unstrung feelings you have that mine could be real," that Michel had found himself in Zevran's arms as often as he had was probably that same, panic enducing situation. Letting anyone closer to him than a passing one night stand was outside of his realm of expertise, "the things I loved were different...difficult to explain...not being able to explain it is the point I suppose."

"...Orlesians do love to complicate things that even ought to be simple. You are...something new. Someone new. And you have done everything you can to meet impossible expectations." While hiding everything of himself. How could a man live like that for so long without snapping? Without losing what it was that makes him himself? Mask upon mask- even Zevran had a few places where he might honestly be himself.

It occurred, then, that perhaps that place for Michel had been him- and he felt a twinge of regret.

"Perhaps- I know you've no desire to remain. I know you gave your word you wouldn't and you broke it at my demand." What that meant- he did not wish to look at to closely, but he id all the same, for it was uncomfortable. The power Michel gave him over his person, over his honor. It was not somewhere he wished to be so easily. And yet it was given. "But...I would not spit on what we had. It was not, all of it, a dream. Perhaps..."

And here he might be mad, here he might be overstepping whatever truce they've made- but he wished to reach out- but did not. For touching and losing oneself in touch was how they came to this place. "Perhaps we might start over? Honestly. Equally. Me without my masks, you without your fears. For I have given you much to fear, haven't I?"

"It's a cunning Game they play in Orlais..." Michel was never fond of it, but it often complicated matters, you did not play, you died or you lost everything. Or both. For Michel, life after the death of his mother was walking on a tightrope, you couldn't drop your guard, you could not relax. If you did there were consequences. Up to this point Michel had been surviving and the truth of it was, he couldn't claim to be in his right mind, not all the time. On most days he appeared to be the fine plateware, taken out for only special occasions, but more often he felt like an old mug.

And then there was Zevran, for whatever reason Michel had lost his footing on the rope. Perhaps it was because the man didn't seem to care what he was and it was refreshing up to the point where the truth was that what you were was the only thing that mattered. It was bitter to swallow that.

"Going back on my word feels dirty...but you demanded to see me..." and there was that strong temptation to act on the Chevalier's code at times, but keeping his word had also meant betrayal in his experiences. How did one live up to such an impossible standard as honor and what would be honorable? Michel wasn't quite so certain anymore, "please...I...I've been letting the scales fall from my eyes..."

And he wasn't certain he could handle being told that even a moment of it might have been real. The idea of it hurt, somewhere in the vicinity of his chest.

After a moment of contemplating he drew back his hood, honest conversation was difficult when one kept their face hooded, but he certainly didn't resemble the man that had left here. Bearded, wind chafed skin, burnt from his time in the Western Approach, "what I feel...what I felt," he amended, "was the only thing I feared...I can start over with you, if you wish, but I cannot start over with this place."

He looked around Skyhold.

"You can understand the difficulty in that...if I speak to you others will want to know why, what my angle is, what agenda I have, will I hurt you..."

"Cruel, more like. I would very much like to say 'ah, in Antiva we are more honest about our backstabbing and assassinations-' but that is only true in so much that there are no literal masks involved." Zevran himself had never been a player- but an instrument? That was a role he'd filled many a time. A swift and certain end to those unable to buy their way out of the noose. Perhaps it was that mentality as much as everything else that set him off balance with Michel-

But no. He could think back to the one moment that made his vision of the man before him shift and leave sense behind. A loaf of bread, kindly given. Without expectation or reservation- simply offered because Michel wished to do so. So simple, so plain a thing that weighed all the more knowing what he now knew of the man. The knight. The lie. The jagged edges hidden beneath that serene veneer.

No masks, he'd said, and thus he grimaces at the request. Not all a dream, but a truth unwanted. He can be that, if Michel needed it of him, and he set those thoughts aside. As confounding as Michel had been to him, as wary as his experiences made him- the injured party was plain.

He had no right to mourn the past tense of 'felt', as certain as he had been that Michel could not possibly feel what he'd claimed. He'd offered shreds of himself, layers under the masks, but not enough to warrant that devotion. Whether or not starting again finds them where they were before, he could not say. He could say this was terribly unwise and that likely one of them would be bleeding at the end- but at least it was his turn. Michel had been cut enough.

"When the truth of the matter is that I have only ever been the one to hurt you-" He'd laugh, but it was not funny. Zevran's lips twisted, wry and bitter. "That is fair. I will not be able to travel for some time- my son is too young to travel comfortably and I would rather not leave him for long stretches of time as of yet aside from the earlier offer of murder. That was...less of an offer and more of a statement of intent. But...we could speak over the stones, yes? And meet, in time, outside of the hold. Less scrutiny and bothering for you-"

Ah, well. "That is..."

He swallowed, combing his hair out of his face, peering up into Michel's weathered and weary eyes. "That is...if you wish it. I forced your hand in coming here. I'll not do so again if I can help it."

Cruel was a good description of Thedas and he suspected that there wasn't a country that he knew of that wasn't. If there was, he might just want to see it for himself, as it stood Michel had played the game. Everyone who played was played in return, he never enjoyed it, not a moment.

But he was not a man to look into the past and ponder over it all that much, one couldn't do anything for it, they could only strive to do better. That's why he stived to crush these feelings, he thought he could, he thought he could keep it all platonic and that would enable him to stay next to Zevran's side.

Then their came the noise inside of his head, all of those unspoken things wanting to rip their way out of him. It wasn't like the secret he'd been trying to keep, this had a hold on the Chevalier that Michel had no idea how to contain and so it slid through his hands, as did everything else. He could only try to improve on it and do better, at first that meant leaving, but he was called back. Now he had that look on his face.

I was nearly the look he had that time before the loft, but now they were both a little wiser for it.

"We both delivered wounds to one another..." and much as he would have liked to, much as he might have spoken in the past tense, his feelings were still very real and present. It was something you could curb, for whatever they were trying to do, but shutting these things off? How does that happen? And because he could hardly endure that look Michel couldn't stop himself from reaching out and touching the other man, his fingers carefully brushing his hair back, weeping it over the tips of his ears and out of his face, "...there's nothing you can do that would make me feel resentful or treat you unfeelingly..."

And the idea of talking to him, but not seeing Zevran was, also, not an easy thing for Michel, even as it was suggested.

"I want whatever makes you comfortable...I can endure anything else," true, it would be unpleasant, but discomfort never stopped him before.

"And I would rather not take advantage of such kindness." Is it kindness? To him, perhaps, it is. To anyone else it would be an expectation. A right of association but Zevran has never been quite so gifted with the world's regard to expect such a thing. A boot to the ribs is just as likely as an apology- if not more so. This is all...terribly outside his depth.

In far over his head and there are things- reflexes to make himself smaller, to turn and press a kiss to Michel's palm- but those are masks. He stands here bare of them, weary and confused but wanting to offer some contact. Some sign he means this.

He reached up to curl his fingers in Michel's and tug his hand down. Not to shake, not to remove. Simply to hold. "You've as much a right to the hold as I- and truly? I will not be here much longer. As soon as the Guild House is finished in the Valley I will be moving there instead."

That had been the plan before Lucci but now? Now it is still the plan, but adjustments must be made to keep the child safe. "I suspect it will only be a month or two longer in the making before it is complete. Whatever you or your honor deems appropriate? That is what we shall do. I am, as you well know, quite flexible."

"You haven't taken advantage of me," at least Michael thinks so, he couldn't remember giving anything he did not want to give and perhaps more than he should have. Not that he wanted to think about it too hard, not that he wanted to think about much aside from the fingers threading through his own and the dull ache that left him with the urge to sweep Zevran's weary body up and put him to bed. That had not escaped his notice.

"Guild House?" Michel was curious, coming out of his own spell as soon as Zevran confessed he wouldn't be remaining within the walls of Skyhold. Whether he had a right to the hold or not wasn't exactly on his mind, he'd made a promise, and it was certainly as welcome here as it was in the courts of Val Royeaux, "you've been busy...is this a specific guild that you are creating?"

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