[closed] from not knowing

[doneisdone]

WHO: Teren and Loghain
WHAT: traitorous old grumps being uncharacteristically cute
WHEN: sometime in late Haring
WHERE: a shitty pub in Lowtown (not the Hanged Man)
NOTES: ech. blech. gross!!

The day's work is done, at least as it can be with the snow still falling. Having been helping clear the alienage all day, Teren has sought warm refuge in a nearby dive, where she lounges by the window with a mug of hot mulled wine and and allows herself to be tired.
For someone so known for her brusque manner and busy nature, Teren looks uncharacteristically serene. Her eyes are glazed over, her thoughts lost in the gently falling snow.

Comments

[mactears]

His eyes do flick to her face, then, and something in his expression... grows closed off, though it doesn't harden. After a moment, he attempts another bare, closed-lipped smile and examines his wine again, but it's a vague thing. He isn't offended; it's something else.

"Perhaps next time," he allows a moment later. He looks up to her again, then tips his head slightly. "Assuming you'd be willing to try skating properly."

Is that a challenge or an overture?

[doneisdone]

Annoyed with herself for what essentially comes to Having A Feeling, Teren wrinkles her nose as she takes another drink, though her expression changes to a briefly curious one when Loghain addresses her again.
And then just as quickly it's... something else entirely, resembling irritated but without the bite, a suspicious shift in the color of Teren's face. No, he can't do that, she's not prepared for it--
"Hmp," she snorts, in the absence of anything intelligent to say. And she looks pointedly back at the window, mind racing and growing ever more agitated. what's wrong with her

[mactears]

He could be smiling, or it could be a trick of the light. Surely it's that!!

Loghain relents with another tip of his head, lifting his fingers from his wine goblet in concession. "If you change your mind," he tells her instead, but doesn't finish the thought aloud. He doubts he needs to. Instead, he sips from the goblet again and turns his attention back to the music coming from the drunken minstrel in the middle of the taproom.

[doneisdone]

Teren's eyes narrow and her gaze cuts to Loghain. She can tell he's playing a game, and might be winning, loathe as she is to admit it.
She finds herself staring longer than she normally would, eyeing his profile, scoping him out from behind her mug. If Loghain should meet her gaze, she averts it at once.

[mactears]

Loghain does--and she does. This time, he's the one who lets his eyes linger on her, admitting to himself some real appreciation for the harsh angles and lines of her face.

At last he says to her, "It's a constant guessing game, to me, whether you enjoy my company or not."

Should she look at him, it should be plainly clear from the relaxed state of his face, his posture, that he's mostly joking about that. It's more likely that he's just testing the waters for some mysterious reason.

[doneisdone]

She can feel him watching, and it redoubles the... whatever it is Teren's feeling. She does look at Loghain when he speaks, and is at an uncharacteristic loss for words, incredulous but also genuinely surprised.

"A game you're all too willing to play," she replies, with substantially less bite than one might expect. She shifts uncomfortably, glancing away and drinking from her mug again, grateful for how it covers at least some of her face.

[mactears]

That makes him chuckle some, though perhaps he wouldn't if he could tell how antsy the exchange makes Teren. "This must be why I haven't got any friends," he answers her dryly; yeah, that's definitely the only reason.

Maybe it's the wine. Maybe it's the terrible music. Regardless, there's a tell-tale warmth in his eyes when he looks at her, and this time he seems comfortable to let his gaze linger and not shift away.

"I always enjoy your company, Teren."

[doneisdone]

There's no mistaking now where this conversation is going, and Teren insists to herself that she's not all right with it. This won't go well, it never does. Keeping him at heel like Wren is one thing, but Loghain has already proven that won't be possible, just by virtue of being as stubborn as Teren is.
And... he's... sort of handsome. Maybe.

"Why," she asks guardedly, but quickly sighs and shakes her head, waving him off. "Don't answer that." Like really, she won't be able to stand listening to it. She's strangely flustered now, her feelings conflicted and actually showing for once. "...I... would advise against that."
It's not what Teren had anticipated saying, but that's what comes out, and she meets Loghain's gaze for it. To the untrained ear her tone is brusque, but there's an intangible pain in it as well.

[mactears]

His small smile does fade some, but the warmth remains. Loghain finishes off his wine in one gulp, then sets the mug down. "If it's what you prefer," he begins, "I'll not speak of it again."

A spell of quiet follows--or relative quiet, at any rate, considering the bustle of activity in the taproom. Loghain keeps regarding her, his gaze almost soft. "Is it?" he asks quietly, then gestures with a hand. "What you'd prefer, that is."

[doneisdone]

Teren watches him, caught off-guard. It's been so long; the warm smile and mischievous gleam of dark eyes, the touch gentle but firm, the one pocket in a tiresome existence in which she felt pretty and wanted. Trusted. Known.
All of it torn away when the timing was right, joyously returned so recently in a cruel excuse to stick her back with knives. Her spine twinges with the memory, how it hurt so much more than her body, how Alistair lay there so weak and still--

"I," Teren stammers, all her stubbornness having melted into something else entirely: it almost looks like grief. "...I don't know." She drops her gaze and forces it out at the falling snow again, her drink forgotten on the table.
"I need time."

[mactears]

"I need time."

"Of course," Loghain replies and doesn't push the subject further. He turns his empty mug in his grasp once or twice, letting himself hear the music and the conversation around them without listening to it. His eyes linger on Teren's profile a moment or two longer, then look away.

Then he picks up his mug and heaves himself to his feet with a grimace; old joints don't appreciate sitting for so long in one position anymore, Warden stamina or no. "I'll just return this to the barkeep," he tells Teren, lest she believe he's about to beat a sneaky retreat, but as he comes around her side of the table, he hesitates a moment before briefly laying his hand on her shoulder.

It's a wordless gesture, and a short-lived one, and he withdraws his hand again as he leaves the table and approaches the bar.

[doneisdone]

It's an unusual feeling, this: she finds that she doesn't want him to go, but is so rigid in her line of thinking and behavior that in a strange way she feels powerless to stop him. Why stop him? So she can fall over her own words and act a fool, so everyone present can see how weak and stupid she really is?

Startled back into reality by Loghain's hand on her shoulder, Teren glances up at him and manages a neutral expression with a nod of farewell. How kind of him, she catches herself thinking, before furrowing her brow and staring harder out the window.