[Closed] Tea and the Times

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Anders, Petrana
WHAT: Overworkers unite
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Petrana's office
NOTES: We'll see.

He knocks on the open door to her office, giving her the usual smile when he comes over with his teapot.

"I'd say we should stop meeting like this but I rather like meeting like this. Is now a good time for a tea break?" As much of a break they ever take. There's an overwhelming amount of work to always be done, sometimes to the point where it feels tangible. Which is why he comes over for tea, or part of why. The company is also welcome.

Comments

[ipseite]

As much as Petrana makes an effort to keep that open door policy - it's so much easier when it's for work. Still, the gestures made are kind and she does try (perhaps not as hard as she could-) to make space for them, and now to make space for this one: she glances down to the page in front of her, sighs.

“I suppose there's never a good time.”

So he might as well bring the tea.

[justice_is_blond]

He knows that sigh and the smile goes a little serious.

"There's always more to do?" Anders asks mildly as he comes in and sets things up. Taking breaks takes practice and effort, and it's still hard at that. That's part of why he comes here this often, and sometimes takes lunches with Nate, and so on. It's a habit that needs to be forged.

"I understand that. A great deal."

[ipseite]

Her smile is quick, and does not hold his seriousness as she closes what she was working on to be returned to shortly, joining him to take the tea.

“I am quite certain we all do,” she says, lightly. “Unless it is that one of my colleagues secrets somewhere in these Gallows a more adequate staff- and God knows the place is big enough they could.”

They aren't, but still- they have far more space than they fill, far more work than hands to do it.

[justice_is_blond]

"Sometimes it seems like our enemies are the only ones with sufficient staff." There's a beat as he pours the tea and before he tilts his head. "Or perhaps it's that they care about fewer people, and therefore have less work to do. It may stand to reason that if you're not too worried about an end result, possible solutions are more plentiful. Which would then lead into a possible reason as to why you're as heavily occupied as you tend to be."

She's come in and taken worries of a world not her own on her shoulders. On top of the weight of her own world, because her words have shown hers was not a easy path to walk either. It's the start of an opening, if she wants it.

[ipseite]

“I am hardly unique,” she says, taking her cup and smiling back at him; a clean, neat thing, practised many times over many different cups of tea, mirrored back to many different people. Careful, and collected - a woman taking great care with what is seen of her, and how.

“Under the circumstances, as you say, we can ill-afford idle hands. As demanding as it is, I sought it - I can hardly now complain too much is asked of me. And it will serve, when all is said and done. I look to the future.”

She presumes she needn't spell it out for him - especially when even here they might be overheard - but: sympathetic to the mage rebellion, experienced in wartime leadership and tactics, charming and effective. Highly placed in an international organisation with diplomatic access.

She'll know where the money went and who buried the bodies; she will have lists of names and favors owed.

[justice_is_blond]

"I believe you've a clear view," he says simply. Anders is not good at subtlety, but he can pick up on a few things and attempt to make clear he understands. But her point of view isn't what he's really aiming at right now.

"I also believe you are unique. That's a large part of the reason I come up here." There's no mask on his face because he's little to hide. Plenty to lose, still, but everything he is and has done is basically out there already. "You're intelligent and compassionate in a world that often seems lacking either. ...And a mage, I'll grant that nearly always gives someone a leg up in my estimation, but beyond that you're someone I'd started to get to know, and I'd like to get to know further. Perhaps while helping you breathe a little, because I've been down the road of taking too much on before."

And may well be again, but at least he has Nate helping him find balance. She may have others who are helping her there. It doesn't hurt to offer, though.

[ipseite]

It takes her a moment to order her thoughts; the small smile she does it behind isn't false, exactly, but it isn't the whole picture. It will be a long time until the whole picture is something she has the ease to examine.

“Thank you,” she says, meaning it, pressing her hands over his for a moment. Sincere, if -

Well.

“What I've taken on - it must be done, I'd not dream of complaining. It is my choice to do so and I do it gladly.”

And therein lies the crux of it, really:

the burden is easier than what lies underneath it. Petrana can no more unburden herself than she can cut open her heart and let it bleed; one is the same as the other. If she slows, if she stops, perhaps she'll never start again-

If she's alone, it's nothing new.

[justice_is_blond]

"It truly must be done."

That's probably one of the easiest things to agree with he's come across in his life. The Inquisition needs to succeed in taking down Corypheus, and she's taken on important work here.

But the thing about important work is that there is always more and the importance has an almost tangible weight that can drag you down.

He stirs his tea, looking into it before looking back up at her.

"But it can't be all done at once, and the more you focus on it, the larger the task feels. It's not even small to begin with. I'd like to help." The serious expression turns wry after a second. "Not... with the particular task at hand, of course. We've established I'm shit at diplomacy. I'd like to help you. Support you. Be there."

There is no need to point out that she's a rifter without family ties here. That sort of a thing never really leaves one's awareness, and he's been in a similar place - the outsider with no family and no shoulders. Even with Hawke nearby there'd been no one there for all of his first time in Kirkwall.

[ipseite]

“I understand,” she says, quietly; she understood what he meant, and for a few moments that's all she says, because what else can she? That she's terribly grateful but it'd be nice if he'd just let her choke on it in peace the way she has been?

It can't last, she knows that, but God; the alternative. Something like screaming claws at her throat and it is the empty place where her child was and it is the heavy weight of Marius's ring upon her hand and it is her stomach twisting, guilty, every time someone speaks of homes to go to.

She had no family ties before Thedas, just a chain about her waist-

“It is so kind of you. To think of me.” Her lips press together for a moment, and she offers, “You are here for me.”

Can this not be enough?

(She knows it isn't.)

[justice_is_blond]

Kind. It's a polite word, a nice word, and he understands it. The question is what is kind after this point? Is it staying neutral and keeping the conversation safe? Surface?

With some, yes. Those who have plenty of people around them, who are not constantly surrounding themselves with work. They likely take the time and opportunity to lean on those around. He doesn't think she does and the way she'd so lightly spoken of loss a few weeks before, mixing it into the conversation, reinforces that thought.

After a sip of his tea he sets the cup to the side and offers out his hands, palm-up.

"I am," he says quietly. "You spoke of something not too long ago and I wasn't sure if you needed to speak more on the topic, or you hoped I would forget it by the time an opening rolled around that wasn't quite as chaotic and charged."

He'd done both before, let something slip that he wanted someone to care about, and let something slip that he hadn't meant to reveal. There are even a couple of things he's never told anyone. It's never been the right time.

[ipseite]

It means a great deal to her that he asks - that he cares.

She allows that feeling to sit for a moment, if only a moment, her own hands closed firmly around her teacup, conscious of the press of her wedding ring between flesh and porcelain. What had she hoped, then, as she had spoken? God, how to even know. Too many things happening, too much to juggle, so much bubbled close to the surface where it didn't belong. Where it does no one any good.

“One day,” is all she says.

Not today.