open

[bouchonne]

WHO: Byerly and Kitty and thou or even you
WHAT: Open post!! open post
WHEN: The month of KINGSWAY
WHERE: EVERYWHERE but mostly in Kirkwall and in the Gallows
NOTES: Warning: chatterboxes

[ Starters in comments!! Feel free to tag in or start your own thread it's groovy ]

Comments

[bouchonne]

Mm.

[ At that, Byerly sits up and raises himself from the water. His smile doesn't falter for even a moment. He looks cheerful and casual. ]

My lady, shall we dry ourselves off?

[coquettish_trees]

That seems a proper course of action.

[ The timing is noted. Apart from that, being soaked entirely through, Alexandrie is fairly sure that such a thing will not occur until she is home—whether that means the Asgard estate or the apartments. She raises her hand, holding the previously waved handkerchief in it. ]

You may use this, if you like.

[ it is as entirely soaked as the rest of her. ]

[bouchonne]

How kind you are, my dearest.

[ He takes it from her with a small, seated bow - and then immediately starts using it to scrub at his armpits. ]

[coquettish_trees]

Bien sûr, mon cher.

[ She watches him with a sort of indulgent amusement for a bit, then pushes herself up to sitting, and with a slight struggle—with all her petticoats she is nearly too waterlogged to get up—to standing as well, although it is only to turn and sit on the ledge so that she can pull her skirts up far enough so they are out of the water, gather them, and make an attempt at squeezing as much liquid out of them as possible. It is only marginally effective, but water pours from the fabric under her hands in any case.

She chuckles. ]

Ah, now I am truly a ‘de la Fontaine.’

[bouchonne]

Ah -

[ He leans over, his brows knitted together. ]

Ma cherie, there's water in your shoes. [ duh. ] You can't walk home like this.

[coquettish_trees]

[ she looks down at her feet, which are still entirely submerged, and gasps in exaggerated shock, her gloveless hand flying to press to her chest. ]

Mon dieu, so there is. You are right, I shall never be able to return home again.

[ she delicately “wipes a tear” from her eye, and then squares her shoulders with a look of pained resolution. ]

I shall try bravely to acclimate to my new home. Perhaps I shall become a siren and lure those who stroll this garden to their watery fates.

[ a heartfelt sigh of deep remorse. ]

If only there were another way.

[bouchonne]

Indeed. If only there were a brave and handsome man who would carry you there.

[coquettish_trees]

A fine thought! Shall I call one?

[ she smiles guilelessly—although her eyes sparkle above—and pulls at the necklace her crystal is on so that it dangles like a question in the air. ]

[bouchonne]

Ah, just so. Give a shriek, and see if one comes running.

[coquettish_trees]

[ she hoists the crystal, and bids it send him a private message. ]

Byerly, a villain pulled me into a fountain in the memorial garden and I am far too soaked to walk home. I know we have not seen each other in so very many years, but as you are both terribly brave and terribly handsome, may I beseech you to come and carry me home?

[ she turns it off with a sigh, and then remarks: ]

I do hope he receives the message, I think I am catching a chill.

[bouchonne]

Dear me. I hope so as well. Hm.

[ He fishes his crystal from his pocket, and then says into it: ]

Alexandrie, my darling, drown the fucker.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She tosses her head back and laughs gaily as her crystal shortly thereafter glows with the message, ]

Such language! Ah, but I fear our exceptionally uncouth mutual friend is correct. [ with extreme solemnity and the peeling off of her other glove: ] Since you have made a sopping mess of me, it is only natural that I respond so.

[ "So" being threading her fingers delicately through his hair, sighing ardently, and then attempting to dunk him face first into the water. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He, of course, pantomimes great panic, eyes wide and arms flailing. He goes limp, allowing her to push him under, thrashing and making quite a fuss. At one point, he pushes his head back above the water and makes a grand, faux-panicked gasping noise. ]

Mercy - mercy, blub blub blub -

[coquettish_trees]

Oh, mon cher, If only there were such a thing on this terrible earth.

[ she sighs, and shakes her head, continuing her hold on him. Her press is so light as to be non-existent, but a passer-by might yet raise their eyebrows at the slight woman apparently handily drowning her companion. ]

[bouchonne]

Alas! Alas.

[ And he takes a deep, deep breath, and pushes himself back down under the water. He has the ability to hold his breath for a very long time (a skill developed by a youth spent by the water and an adulthood spent...well, doing things not decently spoken of). And so he lays back in the water, and resolves to hold his breath until she breaks - until she expresses some measure of fear. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ It's quite the scene, really. Gathering twilight, the sound of his splashing and flailing about fading to only the light sounds of the fountain's spray, the look of rather serene sorrow on her face. Somewhere, there is a man beginning to light the lanterns that hang in the streets of Hightown.

It is not overlong before she lets even her facetious hold go, instead flinging her hand across her forehead and bending backwards in dramatic faintness. ]

Maker forgive me, I cannot do it. He reminds me too much of a man I once knew.

[bouchonne]

[ He doesn't sit up. Instead, he stays laying there in the water, nothing but the odd stray bubble rising from his nose. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ For a moment she simply watches him float there bemusedly, and then, when he does not surface, reaches down into the water to pinch his nose in the idle hope of releasing a further bubble and then to gently wave his head back and forth by it.]

[bouchonne]

[ Which he just allows to happen. He's utterly boneless under the water, his eyes hooded. ]

i went to tevinter and all i got was this stupid ptsd

[coquettish_trees]

[ She was planning to stay amused and wait for him to sit up and berate her for her callousness, but then there's something about the way his head lolls on his neck in the water when she lets go, the way the movement is distorted by the shifting surface, that snatches her out of herself and leaves cold mindless horror in its place.

too-sudden steel, too red, too warm on her face, the curve her neck makes: too far, too forward, her body too loose to be a body, gone, just like that, gone, and the sound, the sound --

At some point, the part of Alexandrie that is still in the fountain shoots a hand out to fist hard in his shirt and haul upwards with the sort of force one can only access in extremity, all light playfulness replaced by wide pinprick-pupiled eyes staring hauntedly from a face suddenly white and drawn. ]

[bouchonne]

[ What is perhaps ironic is that, in that desperate attempt to save him, she actually does rather more damage. The jerk sends water shooting up his nose, and he chokes on it as he surfaces; coughing and spluttering to rid his throat of the water, he struggles to draw breath appropriately. He curls up so he's sitting upright and spits it up, gasping to catch a proper breath.

Once he does, though, he looks over, casting a narrow-eyed glance at her and her sudden panic. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ He splutters and she breathes like she is coming out of water, sudden and sharp. It will be another numb moment before she realizes her hand is still fastened white-knuckled in his shirtfront and another before she can figure out how to let go. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Who has done this to you? The Alexandrie Byerly had known before was not fearless, to be sure. But she did not ever show terror of this sort. They'd played games like this before, him motionless as though in death, pantomiming destruction of soul and body, and she'd done nothing worse than slapping him lightly on the shoulder. So who has given her this wound? This scar?

He suspects he knows. He suspects it's the selfsame entity that restored softness to her heart. The selfsame entity who is, according to rumor, a practitioner of blood magic. And isn't it funny, truly isn't it funny, how blood magic is (they say) capable of melting even the hardest of hearts? No, he doesn't think this is natural. He doesn't think it's any more natural than her newfound lovesick state.

But - he clears his throat. Smiles. Plants a soppy wet kiss on her cheek. Nothing more than that. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ There seems a conciliatory thread in there somewhere, in the quiet beneath the insouciant bravado of smiles and damp kisses that she barely registers over the aching clench in her jaw, that allows for the draining of her sudden tension rather than its violent expulsion. Even so, she pushes him weakly when he leans to kiss her and turns her face farther away. Covers her mouth for a moment with a visibly trembling hand. ]

What brought you here [ she says it with perhaps surprising evenness, and quietly, even though the closest souls are some thirty paces away and engaged in the retrieval of her supplies, ] I have seen it now, and I can no longer play so with such things.

[ Death has proven too real for cheap mirrors. ]

[bouchonne]

Is that so?

[ He lets her go, of course. He's never forced a kiss or a caress upon any woman, no matter what his rakish reputation might suggest. He'd cut off his hands before he'd touch her when it was unwelcome. Which - yes, well done, Byerly, you're not a complete villain - but her words seem to suggest some wicked intent of that sort. ]

And tell me - what brought me here?