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Not that one.

[ He toys with telling a salacious lie - got kicked out for a barfight, or in some public disgrace - but instead settles on a factual: ]

They water down their ale. There's a better one this way.

[ And with a tilt of his head, he leads a block on, to a fine establishment - well, fine-ish. It's less decorated and flashy than the one they'd passed back there, but it's far cleaner, rather quieter, and with fans stirring the air, ensuring that a breeze keeps the place fresh. By looks at the girl and guesses - ]

Wine?

That would be perfectly fine. --Oh, but a bottle of something less sweet if you don't mind. It's too warm for anything with much honey or plum.

[It is nice to be off her feet. She'd meant to see to the matter of new ones right off, but the matter of winding through Kirkwall's twisting, labyrinthine squares and streets had distracted her enough that only now is she regretting not being more direct. But the little tavern's chairs are more than adequate and the shadow of it tucked back from the direct sunlight is cool, if not the air. Give her an hour and she's confident she'll be fully recovered.

(A drink will help though.)]

[ He returns with a fine bottle - a crisp white from green grapes, something a bit fizzy on the tongue. He pours her a glass; immediately, it fogs with the chill. It looks quite enticing indeed. He pours himself an equal glass, and scoops it up, and takes the first drink. Just to assuage any nerves. ]

Now. You owe me.

[The hours she's spent dragging Byerly up and down innumerable staircases and through narrow side streets seems to have quieted her perfectly sensible paranoia somewhat. She isn't far behind him when it comes to sipping the wine.]

That's right. Though first it really must be said, Messere Rutyer - that I had my doubts about your qualifications as a guide to begin with. Nothing to do with your character of course and everything to do with the fact that you aren't from Kirkwall. But you've been very helpful actually, so thank you for that.

[Keep on like this and she'll be well on her way to having no regrets about having him fished out of the harbor. Not that he's pleasant company, but he's a very familiar kind and she's finding after the absolute inundation of newness recently that something she knows the workings of is a welcome distraction.]

What kind of story would you like to hear? A true one, I assume.

Not necessarily.

[ He smiles, and lifts the glass to her, and takes a very very small sip. He is masterful at nursing his drinks over very long periods of time. ]

Tell me one that's important to you.

[That gives her pause. Important to her? Not that it isn't a fair prompting or that there's any harm at all about talking about a place so very far away, but it's the sort of thing that should be easy to answer and instead is-- well, more difficult that it sounds. She taps her finger thoughtfully against the base of her glass.]

Well. [Tap, tap, tap. She'd really prefer not to be wearing these gloves.] --Well I wouldn't want to offend you in any way, Messere Rutyer. And the place I come from is very different from this one, you understand. And I've been told expressly to be very cautious about talking about certain things outside the Gallows.

But, if you can promise some discretion then I'll tell you something very interesting. And if you can't, which is understandable given everything else I've asked of you, then I'll tell you all about, I don't know, my cousin Bartie's wedding two summers ago or something. It's still being talked about. It was a disaster of course, which would come as no surprise if you knew either my cousin or the lady in question or the lady's brothers but you don't and so it might make for a good cautionary tale.

[She takes a healthy sip from her cup.] Or I suppose I could tell you about the church as it's very different from what you have here, but that's dull.

My lady.

[ He presses a hand to his chest, the soul of earnestness. (With his free hand, he pours her a bit more wine.) ]

I am the soul of discretion. I wouldn't confess a secret under torture.

[In that case-- she glances once more around the tavern and, satisfied that no one is either too close or listening very intently at the conversation in this particular corner, she leans closer across the table by some narrow degree and drops her voice just ever so slightly.]

Then the first thing you should know - for context only, of course - is that the place I come from has a very different version of what you call mages here. Never mind the question of what they're good for and who's dangerous to who, which I gather is a question on lots of people's minds lately, but the energy itself that they use here isn't at all the same as what's drawn on at home. They're like cousins themselves, I suppose. Similar in the nose and coloring? From what I've read, range of magicks here can be quite like what we have at home, but the methodology? Completely different.

[She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand - not important to go too deep down that particular rabbit hole when the only thing he needs to know is that the rules are different from whatever he expects to hear. That disclaimer is only meant to make the rest sounds reasonable.]

So once a long time ago in Kalvad -- oh, that's the name of the place where I'm from, by the way. Not the whole world, just the country. I'm from the middle lowlands myself. But again, not important-- [clearly if he's expecting a master storytelling, he's going to be sorely disappointed] Anyway. it once used to be that Talent was rare and powerful and the people with it were very great indeed. Talent being one's raw magickal ability, of course. And we call people with it magicians, not mages. Or well, specifically they're called [and here she says a short word in a markedly different language, just as clipped as in Common but alien nonetheless.] --but that's not really relevant either. I doubt anyone here speaks Kalvadan, so you won't need to know it at all. The point is that the number of mages was once rather small. Only a few hundred or so in the whole country and in the old days of the six kings there were even less. But now, since I've been alive at least, there are even more people with the skill.

There's a whole theory of magick as a reservoir from which everyone draws, there being only a finite amount of it. The more magicians-- er, mages--, the less there is to go around. What's completely stupid about this entire theory is the fact that no old magician's ability has gone sour just because a few hundred children can suddenly do charms and tricks, but you try pointing that out to a paranoid old man and see how far you get--

[She pauses here, reaching for her refilled glass and faltering as if for the first time in as many moments she's actually hearing what's been coming out of her mouth. She wilts very slightly.]

None of this is really a story, is it?

Fascinating nevertheless.

[ He smiles at her quite pleasantly. Say what you will about Byerly, but when he puts his mind to it, he's quite good at putting people at their ease. ]

Please do go on. Have you found yourself pointing that sort of thing out in the past?

[She's happy to pivot at the slightest direction. There was a story there she'd had thought to tell about-- well, it doesn't matter. Sitting in a room entire worlds away from the context makes it seem small and silly and strange and already she'd felt herself losing its threads or why it had been important. It's much easier to answer questions than to dredge up something that's important to her.

Her left hands drifts absently to her right, making as to twist a rings on her fingers that aren't there. Clearly an absent habit - or an absent slip anyway.]

Yes, actually. Frequently. It's a very changed world, Mister Rutyer, and a number of men and women who are used to the way things have always been done will do and say all kinds of things to be offended over it. The men especially, I find, though I'm sure that has no bearing in this place whatsoever of course.

[She'd hate to cast aspersions on her present company. Besides, he's not so old.]

On the contrary, my dear Miss Poppell. Men are the worst here as well. Never trust a single one of them, hidebound brutes that they are.

[ By his earnest expression, you'd think he doesn't even notice the irony of him saying this to her. ]

But by Andraste's voice, I think that if there were any possibility here of magic running dry, all of Thedas world would celebrate.

[At least he's being honest.]

I can believe it. You all have a very puzzling approach to the whole question of magick and its use and how to best train children with it and what good or bad it is. Do you mind? [--This as a precursor to her topping off her glass from the bottle. It really has been a long afternoon and the weather is postiviely sweltering. She might eat something soon as well, she thinks but-- well. There's time.]

Not that I can't see the logic. Or the reasoning, rather. If becoming a magician was as dangerous where I'm from as being a mage here seems to be, there might be stricter rules there too. --Do you know many, Mister Rutyer? Mages, I mean. Ones that haven't gone bad, I suppose, though I'd be very interested to hear about ones that have. I can't quite picture what I've read in books and I think I might be missing some cultural context.

[ Without so much as a blush: ]

I had a rather long-running affair with one in my younger days.

[ He, being a gentleman, waves her hand away and pours the wine for her. A lady ought never pour her own wine. (He pours heavily.) ]

Edited 2018-09-25 20:43 (UTC)

[(That's perfectly fine. She clearly has a taste for it.)

But nevermind any of that as Wysteria's eyeballs threaten very briefly to pop out of her skull. She doesn't blush, but all at once the woman before him has transformed from a gregarious but largely sensible young woman to shameless gossip. She gasps so loudly it probably strains something, then eagerly laces her fingers together and leans forward the better to catch every (hopefully) scandalous word.]

No! Tell me everything. What did your family say? What did her family say? Oh, I knew you were an absolute card from the moment I laid eyes on you. How could you?

Given that I have been dead to my family since I was but a teenager, and my paramour disowned at age ten, no one familial really said anything of note. Well, except my cousin Donna. She had some very useful suggestions regarding potential applications of magic in bed. Maker bless her creative mind.

[ A fond smile, and a sip of wine. Then: ] But tell me, dear girl - does it make me a card to fall for someone?

[ There's a bit of pleasure in deliberately withholding the information she's clearly the most interested in. And there's quite a lot of pleasure in her delight at the scandal. Perhaps the two of them can be friends after all. ]

[Ten minutes ago, she might have been appalled at the mention of anything in bed. But this is gossip and best of all gossip that has nothing at all to do with her, so he might say anything at all and it could pass over her as water from a duck's back.]

Falling for someone? Oh no, Mister Rutyer. I'm afraid my evaluation is based entirely on such a combination of things that there's almost nothing you could say to change my mind. Here, let me lay it out plainly for you. [Wysteria takes a last brief sip from her glass, then moves it clear so she might motion innumerating the evidence as if dealing out a hand of invisible cards.]

First of course there is the manner of our meeting which I'm sure you'll agree was irregular. Second, your eagerness to accompany a pretty young lady without a chaperone all over the city which may not be especially irregular here, but I guarantee I've committed murder if the news somehow travels back through the Fade and reaches my mother's ear. Third, while there is nothing at all wrong with falling for anyone, in combination with points one and two I can't help but wonder what's become of this poor young woman and her no doubt shattered heart and - evidently - virtue.

['In bed' indeed.]

Now the last point on its own could be nothing, but for the sake of completeness I should also mention the fourth exhibit. [Here she takes the bottle by the neck and lifts it from the table for emphasis.] You've not done nearly enough work on this.

[She sets the bottle down with a half full and thoroughly optimistic thunk.]

[ Byerly smiles, and smiles, and quite calmly corrects her: ]

Young man.

[It takes her just long enough to hear, to follow, that she gets as far as taking another swig of her drink.

She chokes on it.]

[ It's perhaps not incredibly well-advised, giving away that piece of information - after all, he doesn't exactly spread around the fact that he's had dalliances with men, not given the less-than-liberal attitude towards that sort of thing in parts of Thedas...But oh, it's worth it for that look on her face. Oh, he lives for this. ]

I'm flattered, by the way, that you think that someone would have a broken heart over me.

[ He pours himself a bit more wine, smiling serenely to himself. ]

And you know, Miss Poppell, there's more to a woman's virtue than whether or not she's let a man into her bed. I do hope that you haven't been convinced that your sole worth is your chastity. Such a dreadful lie.

[A hard swallow and coughing saves her from hearing much about hearts and Byerly's arguable aptitude for breaking them, much less responding. She instead runs the gamut from cardinal red to spirit pale, then back again and is still pink through to the tips of her ears when she's recovered enough to clear her throat and brush the choked tears from her eyes.

It'd been a near thing, aspirating the wine instead of spitting it everywhere. Gods, she can feel the burn in her sinuses--]

I don't-- what?

I said - [ He lifts his eyebrows at her, a picture of innocent good intention. ]

That women are, all too often, made to believe that virtue lies between their legs. A grotesque thing, in my opinion. After all, what sort of man is considered virtuous? One who's courageous and brutally murderous and heartlessly cruel on the battlefield. But, Miss Poppell, I'm here to tell you: you, as a woman, can also be brutally murderous and heartlessly cruel. You can have that sort of virtue, too. I believe in you.

[Two things happen both very quickly and very transparently. One moment she is staring at him as if uncomprehending, then the red in her face goes splotchy and incadescent in a spark of floundering temper. Her hand finds her glass. She throws its contents at him.]

[ It takes him a bit by surprise - he didn't think he said anything so completely outrageous - and so a bit gets (unpleasantly) into his right eye; he hadn't had time to close his eyes completely. It burns, but he resists the urge to squeeze his eyes closed or to blink it out. He resists, too, the urge to wipe his face off. Instead, calmly, he reaches over, takes the bottle, and refills her glass. ]

My word. You are offended by me not drinking it fast enough, aren't you?

[Had he done any of those sensible things, she might have found some opportunity to be horrified with herself.]

You-- [All poison. She reaches for the purse at her belt, gloved hands struggling at the tie for an instant before she gives up and whips a handkerchief from her sleeve.] --Have done me a great service this afternoon, Mister Rutyer. I'm very grateful for these hours you've spent showing me about the city and sharing a drink with me, but I couldn't bear to give you the wrong impression of me. You wanted a story from beyond the Fade and I daresay what a Kalvadan woman will and will not tolerate is one. As our agreement has been seen to then, I believe it's time I made my own way.

[All this time Wysteria has been unfolding the handkerchief in her lap under the edge of the table. She produces at once a handful of coins and a broad brimmed bonnet that could not conceivably have been on her person a moment ago. The coins she places on the table without puzzling over their value. The hat she puts on her head, resolutely tying its emerald green ribbon about her chin. The handkerchief is stuffed back up her sleeve as she gets quickly to her feet.]

Is your rage because I loved a man, or is it because I believe you have more to offer than what the world has expected of you?

[ Perhaps she'll storm off; perhaps she won't. He's curious to see whether sprinkling a few crumbs in front of her will get her to stay.

(Because - how curious - where did that hat come from? He's starting to develop a suspicion or two.) ]

You haven't learned a thing about mages.

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