faderift | the first time I made mincemeat of the standard propositions establishing a so-called moral science

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the first time I made mincemeat of the standard propositions establishing a so-called moral science

WHO: Byerly Rutyer and Wysteria Poppell
WHAT: She's stuck with him for 3 hours
WHEN: Whenever
WHERE: On the road
NOTES: He's a smutmonger??

[ It's not a terrible trip from Kirkwall to Greencliff. Thirty miles along the coast, and a journey decently worth taking: Greencliff is a striking city, with a high copper content in the mineral cliffs giving them a curious greenish tint. Not particularly built-up, not a center of commerce or of war, but quite nice nevertheless. There are a multiple trips by commercial carriage out there per day. So, logically, the odds of running into someone you don't want to run into are relatively small.

Thank the Maker Wysteria isn't a betting woman, because it's clear enough her luck today is rotten.

Because not only does she end up in a carriage with Byerly, Byerly was running late. So that means that it's when she's well and truly settled, and when the wagon is but a few breaths from departing, that he scrambles in. The door closes behind him as he pants, clearly come off a sprint for it; the driver gives a cry; the horses lurch into motion; there's no time for her to escape.

Perhaps a stroke of good luck for the girl, though. By, for once, is so genuinely overcome with the aftereffects of drink that he doesn't even take the time to investigate his surroundings. Instead, he flops over the bench, and throws his arm across his eyes, and groans, all without ever having seen her. ]

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What, dear girl, you think they're fighting their way through the thick of it because they're desperate to meet me? I suppose it's not impossible.

[ His hand is mediocre. And he doesn't bother to cheat it better. Frankly, with her twitching and tapping, there's no way he can pull a better hand. ]

No, that's not-- oh, here's the Angel.

[She lays it and her hand promptly out. There's really no pleasure in it, is there?]

I'm afraid I may have you beat again.

So you have.

[ He lays out his own hand. He doesn't look at her cards, or at his: instead, he just meets her eyes, and smiles a small and knowing smile. Yes, he can't beat her in cards. But - a fussy child like her - he can let her twist herself up into knots. ]

[She hesitates. There is something keen in the man's face that doesn't agree with her.]

Would you care to play another hand, or have I beaten the spirit from you?

Oh, I'm perfectly willing.

[ He takes up the cards and begins shuffling them once more. ]

[She lets him shuffle. How many games can she rig like this? It's difficult to say. It's a simple thing to re-order the cards, to slide them back and forth in this way, and she can't yet feel the limit of her resources, but these things build on themselves and she'd rather not have a headache tomorrow for the trouble of staying out ahead of him for an hour's worth of cards. Can she do this twice more? Three time, maybe. It isn't until Byerly reaches the point of dealing that it occurs to her that he owes her something--]

Whatever happened to your friend? The mage, I mean.

[ That's...an unexpected question. He'd intended to tweak her, to mock her, for her focus on winning instead of pursuing the true value of the game. But -

He fiddles with his cards a moment. Then replies: ]

Perhaps dead. Perhaps not. It's hard to know.

Oh.

[She holds her cards for a moment, then quietly begins to rearrange them in her hand. It's easier to swap them out this way - a good excuse to touch the edges of the card as she resorts the order she's folding them in.]

On account of the war? The one that came before this one, I mean. The Mage Rebellion.

[ A breath; he braces himself. Then he turns a smile on her, lifts his eyebrows, adopts an air of droll humor. ]

The very same. One always hopes, of course, that it's simply that they've managed to slip away from it all. That they've found a little hut in the woods to be a hermit forevermore.

[ One hopes. But one does not, necessarily, believe. ]

[As with the prior hands, the effort of the game-- of winning it-- consunes a not insignificant portion of her attention. She catches the lift of his eyebrows, the idle turn of his tone, but little else.]

With everything going on in the world, I imagine that might be very appealing. To live somewhere so secluded for a time. Were they-- he, rather-- in the rebellion directly?

Who's to say?

[ A lift of a single shoulder. He draws a card, rearranges his hand. ]

I'd not spoken to him for years before the war. By the time I thought to check in on him, he'd already vanished. No one quite sure what had happened. Some said he'd set off traveling to Redcliffe, some said he'd arrived; some said he'd died in battle; some said he'd tried to oppose the rebel forces; who knows? That is, simply, war. A perpetual state of not knowing.

Especially here, I think. At home, we usually know where people go and how they do their fighting and where they end up. There are lists kept. But of course, that's all been interrupted here. It can see how it would make the whole question-- well, multiply, I suppose.

[She draws a card. Oh, this one suits actually...]

I'm sorry to hear you've lost touch with him. [She glances in his direction and gives Byerly a swift, narrow smile. This is all politeness.] My luck for the arrival of some good news when this is all over.

[ The smile he offers her in return is flat and joyless. There's a sharp note in his voice when he replies: ]

What a kind and heartfelt sentiment, Miss Poppell. I don't think I'll ever forget kindness like that.

[A pause. She focuses very intently on rearranging the cards in her hand (not to change them - no, the hand is good enough -, just to avoid meeting his eye for a moment.]

Of course. Happily given.

[ He smiles a moment, and then a moment more, and then a moment more. Then, bluntly, he asks: ]

Do you know what they do to apostates in some parts of Thedas?

[She can feel that look on his face as surely as she does the cards in her hand. But she soldiers on, drawing another card from the deck. Lightly, doing her level best to leaven the atmosphere:]

I've done my reading. I believe it used to be that Templars captured and executed them. Or turned them into Tranquil. Though what's being done with any apostates now given the condition of the Templar Order, I couldn't say.

[And somehow she doubts he's talking about the things she might find in a book. Bestial things happen to people sometimes. Everyone knows this.]

How bold you are, then.

[ And he lowers his eyes, significantly, to her cards, then lifts them to her face again. ]

[All at once, she goes very quiet and still indeed. Then, rallying with some tremendous amount of cheer, Wysterja flashes him a wide smile and laughs with purposeful volume.]

Come now, Mr Rutyer. I was of course speaking in reference to outside the Inquisition.

[She clears her throat. Draws another card.]

Were you?

[ He lowers insouciant eyelashes and asks her - ]

What do you think the Inquisition is, dear mademoiselle?

Well. [She falters as she slots her newly drawn card into place.] An independent consortium, if you will. Allied against Corypheus and his Venatori with the intent to-- oh, you know as well as I do what the Inquisition is. Don't be absurd. The point is they're not exactly chopping off apostate heads in the Gallows courtyard, now are they?

[With a series of aggressive discards, Wysteria brings a selection of new cards into her hand.]

At the moment - [ Emphasis on "moment" - ] Apostates are rather useful.

Then they will have to continue to be so, I suppose. [Here, at last, her tone is becoming clipped and sharp. All her focus has turned to the cards in her hand; she hardly looks at him.]

Besides, I can't imagine that were the Inquisition to suddenly decide otherwise that it would be happily received by any of the mages fighting in the name for the rest of you. It hardly seems worth the effort to go murdering anyone after all the effort involved with keeping one another alive. And honestly, if you're all so determined to kill each other, then what are we even doing here? Well what are you doing here. I don't have much choice in the matter.

[Another discard. Another draw. Where in the devil's name is that Angel?]

[ In his hand. He draws the Angel, and he holds it. ]

If you think that, dear girl, then you know nothing of Thedas. You know nothing of people. If we destroy the Venatori and Corypheus' forces, then bravo us. Peace will come. It may even last a full year. But then, soon as the memory of his threat fades, we'll all be turning on each other again. Mages against templars, elves against humans, Orlais against Ferelden. Us against you. You're young, but surely not so young that you don't know that.

[It isn't until the last that she visibly bristles, all the halting half-stopped irritation refining into a flash of temper that turns her face so hot it might warm the narrow confines of the carriage. Her jaw sets very hard. Her eyes remain pinned to her hand of cards. And then, abruptly, it's all smoothed away under some colder, iron veneer with such resoluteness that the words themselves must be a sort of incantation - the key to a well-versed habit which she now falls into without second thought.]

I never would have taken you for such a pessimist, Mr Rutyer.

Really.

[ His smile is sardonic. There's a bite in his voice. He's not even looking at the cards. ]

You think a man drinks like I do because he's happy with the state of the world?

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