faderift | A bottle of white, a bottle of red

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A bottle of white, a bottle of red

WHO: Open to anyone that wants wine and warmth and a little company.
WHAT: Wine and no whining.
WHEN: After the mage meeting wraps up.
WHERE: Close to the healing tents, specifically the Orlesian section.
NOTES: There will be wine, drinking, unwinding, and nibbles.

The meeting had been stressful for just about everyone involved. Tempers had flared, opinions made known, a few rounds of confetti and arguing before some manner of accord. Whether it would last or however long it might? No one could truly say. In the interest of being quite done with the stress and headaches such debate brought on the Orlesian healing tents clearing out the potions, bandages, and poultices in favor of what cushions and braziers they had on hand for light and for heat. The space was open, warm, and inviting with an odd assortment of tin mugs or clay glasses set around flat side tables propped up with stones to keep them from wobbling and tipping the whole mass onto the ground. There are some dried fruits and hard cheeses, dried meat and hard crusted bread- whatever scraps they could scavenge or spare and a few bottles of wine or brandy. Across the entrance to the tents there was a sign:

Bring a bottle or food to share for entry.

Tacked below was a list of rules:

Everyone is welcome, don't make a fuss
Don't hog the wine
Don't hog the food
Don't fight or argue
If you finish a bottle open a new one, don't recork it for someone else to find
Clean up after yourselves

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Bruce freezes at the touch, every part of him going deathly still from the suddenness of this human contact. It's definitely the last thing he had expected and it shows in just about everything in how he responds. How could she still do that, despite being able to see it? To see the monster that he truly is?

He cautiously looks up and stares at the strange girl, and in that one moment the mask slips, his eyes showing the pain that he constantly tries to hide from the rest of the world. The pain of forever being remembered as what he is rather than who he is. Of being the monster he never wanted to be and having to live with it no matter what.

"How..." he starts, wanting to ask, to know, but he can't quite bring himself to do it. There's too many raw emotions swirling inside him right now.

And that, she does understand. Everything bubbling and roiling until the words won't come, choked in your throat while you try to make sense of it all. Simon had always managed to soothe those moments, in his way. Perhaps it would help now.

So she does what he would have for her, and moves closer. Her thin arms wind around Bruce while he stands there, gripped by that immeasurable pain, and hugs him gently. As coping methods go, it's probably a healthier option than the wine.

Less likely to cause vomiting, as well.

Bruce didn't drink anyway so wine wasn't going to be an issue at all, but suddenly with her moving in like this--it was all so sudden.

For a moment his mind flashes back to a life so long ago, where things had been so different, a time where everything was still so full of hope. Where he once had gestures like these everyday until everything broke apart around him.

He forces himself to take in a breath and center himself, to keep himself in control, trying to stop the trembling of his hands as he slowly slides his own arms around her, shakily returning the gesture.

For a moment, it seems as though she's made it worse. But it gets worse before it gets better, Simon had said that once before. And if things were at their worst now...

They weren't. Not for Bruce. Something pressed at the seems inside, burned and festered and wouldn't let go, not unlike the spirits that had pressed in at the scenes of carnage in Redcliffe. It would never truly be safe. But at the very least he didn't have to be alone, or caged, or any number of other fates one might deem worthy of a monster.

Finally she tips her head up to look at him, curious as to the hug's effects. Her brow wrinkles faintly.

"We can be monsters together."

He pulls away when she looks up at him, taking one small step back so that there was space between them. He had... she would be safer, to not be this close to him.

The words, though. The words. He shouldn't feel thankful for hearing something like that but the small selfish part of him does and he hates himself a little for that. It shouldn't feel comforting to hear words like that.

"You're..." he tries again, attempting to find the right words and voice them out without the others hearing it. "How do you... know?"

She pauses, tipping her head quietly to one side. "Listening," she murmurs, after a moment. "They're close, sometimes closer, and when they come through you see their fingerprints on everything they touch."

Focus sharpens her gaze again after a moment, fixing on Bruce in his confusion once more. "You glow. Carrying a piece of it with you. It has a song and I can hear it. I hear them all, but you're so much louder."

The words take a while for Bruce to process them, but with his own knowledge and experience it eventually clicks onto him. Coming through--the Fade. Spirits.

Demons.

Unconsciously he rests a hand above his chest, feeling the way his heart was beating, a little faster than normal, and he forces himself to take another breath again. Control. He needed to maintain control. He tries to think, to put the pieces together instead so that his mind goes to this mystery rather than the fear that gnaws at him.

"You--see them? The..." He can't quite bring himself to finish that question, but the girl can probably figure it out anyway. Spirits. Demons. Whatever it was from the other side of the Fade, where no human was ever meant to understand or touch upon. He was the result of that attempt to be something people were never meant to be.

She nods, fingers curling into her palms and out again, a reminder to stay present. This was important, he needed this. Focus.

"It started in dreams. They came and spoke. Some even played with me. Some wanted more. Wanted to be like you. Needles in the belly, so hungry, starving for power, for fresh air and clay to mold like..."

And there it went again. Frustrated, she wrinkled her nose, shook her head.

"Then I went far away. Now things are...harder. But I see more of them. Hear them even when waking. But it's all gone fuzzy. Hard to differentiate."

Spirits and demons in the Fade, talking to her through dreams? That could only be a dreamer. This girl was a dreamer? That would--explain quite a bit, possibly. He couldn't be entirely sure. Dreamers were so rare that Bruce could never really get much information on them at all, if there were actually any in the first place.

At least some things were clicking now, but in a way it only brought more questions than answers - and that irony of that wasn't lost on Bruce. Probably the only other time this happened to him was when he was finding answers about himself after the incident.

He gave a slow nod to her words, again trying to swallow the hard lump in his throat. "So you... see spirits. Demons. Anything that comes from the Fade." A pause, and his expressions twists into one that's part pain, part sympathy. "I'm sorry. It must be hard."

"There's a lot to sort through."

She gives a little sigh, her thin shoulders dropping. "It doesn't stop. Bleeds through and the patterns don't make sense, muddling like too much paint," she attempts after a moment, face scrunching as she tries to fit a fitting way to explain it. Not always the easiest task, and skirting around why she's like this now almost entirely.

But Tevinter isn't a place she likes discussing on the best of days.

Bruce gives a small nod to her words - really, it was hard to not sympathize with her. He could all too easily relate to her plight, even if his circumstances were far different from hers.

"You don't have to talk about it," he assured her quickly. Maker knew how Bruce never talked about his own problems as well, so its not like he's the best example of dealing with issues like these. But really, who could? Anybody else in their positions were either dead or had already lost their minds.

"...but I understand."

And that was the important part, the part she'd been struggling towards in all of this. Her brow knits delicately.

"What its like being dangerous."

And maybe the dangerous sorts should stick together. If only to be able to stop themselves if anything goes wrong.

Being dangerous comes in many forms, and even for both of them it was different. Vastly different, but it didn't matter to anybody else. They were still always going to be regarded as dangerous no matter what.

Bruce turns his gaze away from her, silent for a moment, unable to really say anything that was appropriate for this. How could he? When he already knew how useless words were for him, and it would be the same for her. No amount of pretty words would help the situation they were in.

Maybe words couldn't help. Maybe tomorrow wouldn't be any better than today. What mattered in the end was not feeling alone.

She remembered being alone, caged, certain she'd never see the outside world again, that her body would collapse on itself or a demon would take her over, and those were the more merciful options. Her teeth needle her lower lip.

"You don't want to hurt. You want to help. Simon did, too."

Help, yes. Bruce always wanted to help - that's what he had been trying to do for so long, even before any of this. Even what happened to him was because he wanted to help, even though that 'help' then was perhaps not the best. But it was still help, even in that sense.

But now helping seemed like an impossible thing to do, even though Bruce knew he was technically doing it everyday now. Now it just felt like whatever he tried to do was never going to be enough.

He gave her a mildly confused look, mostly at the last part of her words since the name had more or less come from nowhere. "Simon? Is he a friend of yours?"

"My brother. He's with the healers."

She glances towards those tents, as though expecting him to appear at his mere mention, but he doesn't. He's busy, she knows, and she's close enough to the tents that he needn't worry just yet.

"He tries to make it stop. He wants to help too. Only so much he can do. Limited resources," she adds, biting the corner of her lip. "We're small people. It's to be expected."

Bruce frowns a little at this point - he certainly doesn't remember a Simon in the healers, but then again Bruce doesn't exactly go out of his way to interact with his fellow peers. After all he came to Skyhold to do a job, not to make relationships. In fact relationships should be the last thing for him; its not as if he could actually be here forever. Only for as long as he's able to.

Never mind the fact that this is the only other time he's stayed in one place for so long barring his life in the Circle, and one other incident.

"He simply wants to help." And in a way, Bruce can relate - it was hard to blame this Simon for wanting to help, especially when they were siblings. Was it not natural for that to happen? "And even though there's only so much he can do, I think its the attempt that counts." Being small... it wasn't a bad thing either. It was much, much better than being big, at least. Far better.

"You say that when you're the one being poked at," she replied, one eyebrow lifting. Simon was indeed trying his best. She knew that. She also knew the attempts were sometimes as bad, if not worse, than simply being able to see and hear more than was natural.

And nothing made the thoughts in her head string together like they should. That might be the case forever, so far as they knew. A frustrating prospect for everyone.

"I think its important to remember that." Never mind the fact that Bruce himself took things differently, and never mind the fact that Bruce didn't let people help him - not because he didn't want them to, but because there was nothing anybody could do to help. Not somebody like him.

It's hypocritical of him, he knows, but it doesn't matter. Nothing about him has never mattered, not since long ago.

"He does it because he cares. And he listens to you, I'm sure. As long as you talk to him I'm sure he will listen to what you want." And that he would respect her wishes as well. Perhaps he's assuming too much, but Bruce wants to believe that, at the very least.

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A bottle of white, a bottle of red

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