Just when I think I find the trick

[keenly]

WHO: Colin + you
WHAT: Recent events catch up to him. In the worst way.
WHEN: Present, early morning.
WHERE: The apothecary in the Gallows.
NOTES: Warning: PTSD. Like, a lot of it. No holds barred. Specific triggers will include claustrophobia, agoraphobia, sleeping panic attacks, emotional flashbacks, mostly battle- and Uldred-related but may include mentions of past sexual abuse because ultimately it isn't divided into little boxes. Since it's a public space, it's not closed to existing CR or anything, but strangers may find this a lot to take on.

Of all his dreams, none are worse than the ones where he is found.

He snaps awake in the morning, shaking, sheets cold and drenched in sweat. His eyes look up and shadows shape into shades, folds of cloth into demons.

Not again not again not again not again--

He can't do this here. Audra isn't in the room at the moment but she can be, she can come back at any time and he can't be seen, he can't be found again even by someone who never hurt him, can't can't can't can't cant.

Colin races down the hallway like a flash, barefoot and unkempt, the world overexposed around him. The only things he can really focus on are things he needs to run away from. The apothecary door slams open--the store is not open yet, it is too early, but despite being a technically public place it is unlikely to be populated and there is a closet that locks and he needs dark and quiet and private. The closet door hits the wall as he flings it open and slips inside, slamming it behind him and locking it before collapsing on the floor and wailing into his hands.

He hates it, hates how loud and impossible this is, hates that it seizes on him and possesses like a demon, hates that he isn't strong enough to lock it in his body and needs a closet to contain it. With the muffled cries, he strikes his face repeatedly with one hand, stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

But at least in this small, dark space, he is safe. He is hidden. He can't be reached by the shapes that warp around him in the light. But he is also trapped. The walls are too close, the darkness is closer, and if he opens the door, he leaves himself exposed. There is nowhere left to go. If that lock opens, he will die.

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

The door will push, but only a little. The amount it might if someone were to be sinking down to lean against it on the other side.

"Do not be."

It comes through the door, slightly muffled by the wood. Silence for a time. Alexandrie pulls off her gloves, finger by finger, drawing them off and folding them with slow exactitude in her lap.

"Shall I tell you a story?"

[keenly]

Lexie might hear the slide of a hand flattened against the door. He can’t do this, can’t open for her, but he longs not to be alone. Somehow, even though he can’t function enough even to open a door, she is still here. He waits for her to continue, breathing hard, feeling like he is suffocating. This will pass. It always passes. Maybe she can get him through it.

[coquettish_trees]

He doesn't say no, and there's the sound of movement against the other side of the door—his turning into it, perhaps? Alexandrie does the same, resettling herself so she can lean more comfortably, cloth rustling as she does the unconscious work of spreading her skirts nicely around herself.

"It is said that in a kingdom far across the Amaranthine Ocean, there was a Queen who was delivered of a son—"

It is a small story, one she had begged often from her nurse when she was young and beginning to pass time in embroidery. She tells him, through the door, of a prince born ugly and misshapen whose birth was attended by a Spirit of Wisdom who assured the Queen that he should have more than wit enough to make up for it, and the ability to bestow good sense upon whoever he loved best besides. Of another Queen, a few years later, who had a daughter whose birth was attended by the same Spirit, who told the Queen that though her daughter would be very beautiful but very foolish.

"One can well make ones way in the world on wit alone, but it is terribly dangerous to be beautiful and empty-headed. Their mother begged the Spirit of Wisdom to grant her daughter even a sprinkle of sense, but the Spirit sorrowfully said her nay. 'Although,' the Spirit said, 'in recompense, she shall have the ability to make lovely the person who should best please her.'"

It is said in the knowing way that tellers of tales can often have. You can see where this is going.

[keenly]

The sounds coming from inside the closet begin to abate. With the meter of her words, Colin finds a breathing rhythm. If he breathes when she breathes, he doesn't hyperventilate. It's a struggle, but the story gives him something to focus on besides the shame and fear. The words are beautiful, and he is reminded of when he was a child and his parents told him stories. His mind begins to respond now as it did then, winding down and honing in on the sound of her voice.

[coquettish_trees]

It winds along from there. The daughter grows and becomes more and more beautiful by the year, the tale of it spreading, followed by further tales of her witlessness.

"At every ball she is surrounded by admirers who flock to witness the perfection of her form, the porcelain of her skin, the glossy shine of her hair, the jewel-like glimmer of her eyes. But at every ball, she is soon abandoned by all that had come to the company of others not so dull, not so slow, not so clumsy."

Even her mother the Queen upbraids her for it, irritated to distraction by every speck of proof that the Spirit spoke true. One day it is too much for her, and she flees to the forest to weep alone, wishing in the depths of her soul that she could trade away her beauty for even half as much sense. It is there, of course, that she meets the misshapen prince from the neighboring kingdom who had heard tell of her incomparable loveliness and had come to see it for himself. He is overjoyed to meet her here where he may speak with her a bit alone, but is surprised and sad to see her weeping.

"'How is it that you are so sorrowful, my lady,' he asked of her, 'when you possess such an exquisite beauty that eclipses all other things that nature has within it? Such a treasure must mean that nothing could possibly much afflict you.'" Alexandrie, caught in the familiar rhythms of the story, is doing voices. Low and round and cheerful for the prince, and high and wispy for the princess. "Ah, but she only wept all the harder at the reminder of what cost that beauty carried, crying, 'I had rather be as ugly as you are and have sense than to appear as I do and be as stupid as I am!' 'Ah, but my lady,' the prince replied, 'there is nothing that shows more good sense than to believe one has none; it is the nature of wit that the more people have of it, the more they believe they are lacking. But if that is all that troubles you, I rejoice that I may put an end to it forthwith.'"

The princess's curiosity is piqued, and she asks how, to which he tells her of the power he had been given at his birth. He offers it to her, provided she will agree to marry him. She hesitates, and he amends his proposal: he will grant her cleverness now, and she will have an entire year to consider it before they marry. She agrees.

"Feeling suddenly bolstered, the princess struck up such a conversation with the prince as she had never had before, and they spoke on many things for many fine hours. When at length she returned to the palace, it was a great shock to all, for she now was as sparkling and sensible in conversation as she had been dull and witless before. Both the court and her parents were overjoyed at this, and news of the miraculous change in her spread across all the kingdoms. All the young princes strove to gain her favor, and all asked for her hand, but although she kindly heard all their suits, she found that none of them had sense enough to be the equal she desired."

Eventually, however, a suitor who is powerful, rich, witty, and handsome comes to call upon her. Her father, perceiving her interest, tells her that she shall have the power to choose as she likes. She, wishing to think on it, goes for a walk in the same wood where a year ago she had met the misformed prince. At length, she comes to a clearing full of hustle and bustle and preparations for a great feast. She asks who it is for, and the cheerful help inform her that it is for the very same prince, who is to be married the next day.

"Suddenly the recollection of her promise comes full upon her, her having forgotten about it in her very busy year of thinking of so many things. The prince came to her then, and said 'See, my lady, I am exacting in keeping my word! I doubted not in the least that you would come here now to keep yours as well.' 'I confess,' she replied, 'that I have not yet come to such a decision, and I believe that I may never arrive at the one which you desire of me.' The prince was astonished, and said as much, to which she replied, 'If I spoke now with a simple man, I must grant that I should find myself at a loss, for a simple man might say to me that in the end I gave my word and therefore must marry him. But, since you are the one man in the world I know to be master of the greatest sense and judgement, I think perhaps you shall hear reason.'"

The princess prevails upon him to understand that she made her choice when she was witless, and struggled with it even then. How can he expect her to make a simple choice now when she is clever and has so many more things to consider. He rejoins that if she would accept the argument of a foolish man that she could not breach her word, why should he suffer unhappily for being clever enough to understand the minutiae of her thought? After all, why should the witty suffer more for their wealth of mind? Had she not suffered from the lack of it and thought it would bring her happiness?

"'Tell me,' he says, finally, 'if you were to put aside my ugliness and deformity, is there anything in me that would displease you? Are you dissatisfied with my birth, my wit, my humor, or my manner and respect towards you?' 'Why, not at all,' she answered, finding it to be true, 'I love and respect you in all that you mention.' It is then that she came to the memory of being told that the Spirit of Wisdom who attended her birth had given her the power to grant loveliness to whomever she should love best. And so she wished hard within her heart and did, and no sooner had she thought so but that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen."

Alexandrie pauses for a moment, smiling softly at the gloves folded in her lap, and tilts her head back against the door. She had ever been fond of the ending, and it's obvious in her voice when she tells it.

"Some believe the charms the Spirit granted each to have brought them together. But others, who are wise, know that Spirits may talk in round-about ways sometimes, and believe that it was the great power of love which worked the change. They say that the prince, being of good character and seeing what was good in her, named her witty because he listened to her and found her so. That she gained her cleverness through confidence of it to have been treated so instead of being maligned by the rest of the world. They say likewise that the princess, having made reflection on his perseverance and all the good qualities of his mind and character, saw him suddenly with the love and kindness that changes all faults to charm, and that seeing such in the eyes and manner of his beloved, he carried himself ever after in a way that all peoples could not help but think him as handsome as she. And so, thus transformed, they were married the very next day. For her father had promised her her choice,"

She smiles.

"and she was far too clever to waste the feast."

[keenly]

Ordinarily, Colin might smile or chuckle at parts of the story. No such thing happens now, but the silence and stillness speaks just as loudly. There is a deafening quiet for a moment after the story finishes; it sets against his ears like muffs, and all he can hear is his own breathing, finally at a normal speed. To call him comforted might be going too far, but he is calmer, past the worst part of this horror show. The torrential storm is now an overcast sky and puddles of rain, and the wind is died down.

Weary, he reaches up and unlocks the closet door, using the handle to haul himself to his feet and open it. He looks a mess, as can be expected, blotchy skin and red, swollen eyes and mouth, hair disheveled and wearing only a nightshirt and leggings. And he's not looking at her--not out of fear, as he once avoided her gaze, but out of pure shame that reads raw on his face.

[coquettish_trees]

The door opens behind her back and Alexandrie re-balances, rolls up to her knees so she can rise smoothly, depositing her gloves on a crate nearby.

He looks awful, but not like he'll run if she touches him. And so she does, hoping that all the hours they had spent lying together on lounges and curled around each other in beds will mean that the feel of the soft circle of her arms around him, one hand shifting to gently press at the back of his head to guide it to her shoulder, the brush of the curls that fall artfully from the upsweep of her hair against his cheek, the smell of her perfume— that these will be things that are known, and known well. A comfort.

"Te voilà," she says quietly, answering her own initial query.

[keenly]

He stiffens at first, then melts into the embrace. For an instant, for the first time in many, many years, he feels safe. Like all the terrible things at arm's length can't touch him for now. It won't last, but it doesn't have to. Just to feel it for a fleeting moment after so long is worth what just happened. Then it's gone, but the embrace doesn't end. New tears dampen her shoulder, brown eyes blinking them down his cheeks.

"I'm so, so stupid."

[coquettish_trees]

"Ah, mon cher, is my tale so soon forgotten?" She asks. It is gentle, not in the least recriminating, as she inclines her head slightly so that it touches his and repeats herself, albeit not in the tones she'd given to the prince, "'There is nothing that shows more good sense than to believe one has none.'"

But there is truth and there is truth and there is truth. How many lies had she made real, how many realities had she made lie? It almost hardly matters what is and is not so. "But since you feel so now," she continues, in allowance to this, "may I ask what has caused it? Or would you prefer instead to simply sit a while. I shall make a sign for the door, and if anyone is made cross by it they may be cross with me."

[keenly]

Brown locks obscure his face as his back hunches further, his cheek sliding down the slope of her shoulder. How can this not make her uncomfortable? Why didn’t she walk away and let him come down on his own? It would be easier for her and allow him the illusion of dignity, which is the best he can hope for. His head shakes, trying to knock the chaotic ramblings of his mind into a linear path she would be able to follow. How can he explain what has never made sense, knowing she will answer with calm logic, a remedy used upon a disease he knows it does not cure?

Bowing, boxed in by his own hair, he feels like he’s smothering in the heat of his own breath. He comes up for air, scrubbing at his face with a sleeve. His voice trembles as he speaks.

“It’s been like this for so, so long. Since I was a kid in the Circle. It started when I was twelve and it got worse with the, the, but then it was better for a while and now it’s happening again, like I’m in the Circle again. And I can’t make it stop. I can’t, I can’t get over it like a normal person. Other people went through the same, when Uldred rebelled, Inessa and Julius and Audra, and they’ve not started hiding again since the battle. They’re smarter and stronger than I am, and I’m still...behind them. Hiding from the same monsters as before. And they’re not even here, not even the ones we fought in Ghislain.”

His voice thickens, expression crumpling. “The only monsters here are in my head. They’re not even real, and I’m too stupid to block them out.”

[coquettish_trees]

"Ever since Minrathous," she says, after a moment, "sometimes when I am scared, I cannot breathe. Sometimes I cannot see, or hear, or keep my feet. It does not have to be about fighting. Very often, it is not. It could be nothing, to someone else, but I am left sweating and gasping." She turns her head to kiss the top of his. "I was trained by a Bard, for more than a decade, to control everything. My face, my body, my breath. The beat of my heart, even."

Her head shakes back and forth slowly against his. "When it comes upon me I can do nothing. There are those who lost more than I, have more cause for such a thing than I, and I have not seen them seized in such a way." She lifts her shoulders slightly, lets them fall again, a small sad smile on her lips. "If you are weak, so am I. If you are stupid, so am I. If you believe it cruel of me to be so unfair to myself, well and so. If I am cruel and unfair to myself, so are you to yourself. But weak, stupid, and cruel as the two of us may be, we are not alone in it."

[keenly]

The tone and sound of her voice, lovely and clear, could not have produced such awful syllables in his imagination before now. Now, there is such dissonance between the sound and the sounds that he is startled, tears stopping as puffy eyes look at her in wonder. Her kiss becomes a blessing, a gift of strength from another who is like him. She says they are not alone, and a light comes on in his eyes. Finally, he gives a watery, but genuine smile. The storm is calmed.

Wordlessly, he pulls her into an embrace. Not needy and desperate like before, but strong, a show of solidarity.

“I love you,” he says quietly, in a way that isn’t spoken between lovers.

[coquettish_trees]

Needy and desperate she could handle; then it was him needing her, and she being strong. A pillar, with the measure of control that is given to such things. But his arms change, and his stance, and suddenly it is him holding her. At another time Alexandrie could have held him in return, but he tells her he loves her, and despite the utter difference in the feel of it all the temptation to fall apart again is staggering.

She had not been accustomed to being held or loved, nevermind letting herself be in any true way, and the sudden absence of both had left her furiously wishing she had never known what it was at all. What should have been warm and intimate instead lances into her like a splinter of glass; she holds on to him in any case, squeezing once before pulling back.

"And I you," she replies, with a soft fond smile more placid by far than she feels. "Shall we make a sign for the door and walk to your rooms together? Far be it from me to dictate your choices in fashion," a more genuine smile for the shared sidelong joke of that, since of course that very predilection of hers had been responsible for their meeting, "but I think given the weather you should perhaps be more comfortable with a proper pair of socks."

[keenly]

Colin nods tiredly, then spaces out for a few seconds before turning to walk with her out of the room and toward the stairs. He suddenly speaks.

“I want to cook something. Or bake something. Probably bake something. Do you want to help?”

[coquettish_trees]

"Mais oui, cher. Nothing would please me more." Alexandrie replies, reaching to rest her hand with practiced ease at the crook of his elbow as if the disheveled and tearstained mage were escorting her to the ballroom floor at Halamshiral rather than returning to his room for socks after such a morning as he had had.

"Although I cannot guarantee equal pleasure shall be visited upon you," she says, one eyebrow lofting gently over a small amused smile. "Despite my very fond familiarity with their consumption, I have never had cause to learn anything about the creation of pastries."

[keenly]

She won't be learning about pastries now, either. For now, they will be starting with a very simple, basic loaf of bread. A staple, and something Colin finds deeply comforting to make and eat. Something about being able to provide something basic and great. And it's doubtful even Lexie can screw it up. Colin explains the basics--the ingredients, and what they do, apparently, because Lexie needs to be brought up to speed on what he means when he mentions "not killing the yeast." And then they're off. He measures out the ingredients and lets her mix them together. It's easier that way, so he doesn't confuse her with "I put water in until it looks right." He learned to cook without fancy exact measuring implements, so that's how he cooks.

And while his hands are busy, he can talk. He can never really vent his thoughts when he and a person have nothing but air between them, and nothing to look at but each other.

"Did they...hear, the people like you, what went on in Circles? Not the rebellion, but the rest of it. I never had anyone to ask, I guess. What important people thought happened in those places."

[coquettish_trees]

It is, she finds, a bit like mixing paints. If most of the paints looked the same. Alexandrie imagines that just as she can tell the difference between true white, eggshell, chalk, and ivory, Colin can tell the difference between all the things he gives her to mix together.

Yeast is... well. The idea of something living going into bread is disconcerting, and her face says as much.

She wipes her hands gently on a cloth, attempting out of habit to keep the apron he'd lent her as pristine as she might any other article of clothing she wears, and thinks about his question.

"No. Or at least, I did not. I imagine the Empress and her advisers may have, especially Madame de Fer. Her witch," said casually, "although I know not if such a woman was overmuch concerned with the fates of the mages in Circles. Our spheres hardly overlapped." She pours the water, sinks her fingers into the dough with some trepidation, although the sensation is quickly an appealing one. She giggles quietly at the stickiness of it, stretches it simply because she can, and wiggles her fingers at him.

"But no. Until I became fond of—" Loki. "—you, I had no cause to think on mages at all. I had no family in the Circles to care for the fate of, nor were there any within the ranks of the peerage to consider." Alexandrie lifts her shoulders slightly with a light look of apology, sprinkles the flour over the dough as directed. "I suppose if I had been asked, my first thought should have been puzzlement as to the question, and my second... I should have said study. Of magic, of the casting of it, of the history. Mages of the past, perhaps. How to be responsible with the double-edged gift of the Maker. I would have thought the Templar there for protection of both mages from the less pleasant populace and the populace from the less pleasant mages, and thought nothing of what sort of environment that might produce. They were a thing entirely apart."

[keenly]

It's what he figured, and yet he doesn't find himself especially angered by it. Tired, maybe. He thinks it's typical, exactly what the Chantry would want, and he should have expected nothing more.

"I'm impressed you were told it's a gift," he says casually. "We were told it's a curse. Sort of like darkspawn, I suppose. A sign of the Maker's judgment. A lot of people I knew wished the Maker would forgive them for...whatever it was they did to earn it. And the Templars..."

He starts to rotate the dough into a ball before setting it on the floured table and kneading it a couple of times.

"Watch me while I do this. See? We've got to do this for as long as it takes for the dough to get quite stretchy without breaking."

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie copies the motion awkwardly, but settles into its repetitive nature soon enough. "No-one told me anything, save that what cast you out of the ranks of the nobility in the South gained you entry in the North. I suppose it is a curse, here. But not in and of itself, I think. It seems to me it is made so." And in the Imperium, made a blessing.

"Do you think you would have been happier," she asks after a short pause, "were you born in Tevinter?"

The Imperium is hardly avoidable in a conversation on magic. What she'd learned from Loki was near all of what she knew, and watching him cast so freely had been like watching a bird fly. She'd told Thor near as much. That she had never thought of what a panther might be outside of a menagerie until she'd seen one wild. It had made her hate the cage. Even now, even after being quite literally burned by flame pulled from the Fade and made real, the idea that mages were born and pinioned and taught to hate their wings... that those born without them were taught the same...

A slight absent flicker of his fingers for candles while he read, an unnecessarily grand gesture entirely for her delight to set the hearth ablaze. Blankets pulled around them when they lay curled together, far too exhausted to fetch them. Waking up giggling helplessly with the flickering tickle of a forked tongue on her nose.

Alexandrie releases the dough of a sudden to turn and place her hands hard on the counter behind her. Stares determinedly at the splay of her flour-dusted fingers on it and pretends not to notice the uneven wet circle that appears alongside them. She sniffs decisively, then turns back and resumes the work she'd left with a small apologetic smile.

"Forgive me. You were saying?"

[keenly]

Colin winces slightly, feeling a bit awkward. The class issue is a whole other conversation, but he tries to hit the basics quickly.

"I'd still be the poor son of poor parents," he says gently. "Even if they'd risen me to a noble rank--which wouldn't be the case, nobles don't like adding to their competition--I'd be so ill-prepared for all of that, I doubt I'd make it very long. I might be treated as badly up there as I was in the Circle. Despite promises."

He turns back to the bread, taking it from her hands and working it again, showing her the right way.

"I was told the Circle was an equalizer, that I'd be the same as the children of nobles and I would never worry again about all of that. I was also told how everything would be clean, that I would have three meals a day and a bathtub and a lice comb, which I found to be completely insulting--is that what people really think we live like? We were poor, but we were clean, and my parents worked hard and brought in enough food, as far as I knew. Some people are much poorer than we were. That we all lived in one room, that wasn't anything. I certainly didn't know I was poor. But I, I meant to talk about the Circle.

"It wasn't what I'd been led to believe. This crystal palace, it was just a cold old tower. Noble mages were treated better, though everyone denied it. Everyone also said the Templars protect us as well as the people--first time I heard I wasn't a person--but I never saw any of that. And there were a lot of chances for me to see it."

He passes the loaf back to her.

"I'd...I'd been there a year, and we started hearing screaming upstairs. Apprentices are kept on the lower levels, see. Some ran toward the stairs to see what happened, and I never saw them again. After a while, some Templars came down the stairs and started running for the Great Doors. They're, they're those doors you see at the lowest level, they're designed to shut tight, and they're armored so nothing can get through. Someone was shouting that there were abominations. The Templars, they retreated through the doors, and they shut them."

The last two words have a different sound to the rest, a wobble and a groan. Colin is clearly getting upset again, and quickly. He leans back against the table, hands clutching the edge.

[coquettish_trees]

To work hard for food so that one could live another day in which one would then work hard for food and on and on and then pass the same to ones children as inheritance is enough to crease Alexandrie's forehead with distress—at least until she notices and smooths the expression. It will come back, as he speaks, until her mouth falls open to hear the last of his words.

The breath is in her lungs, ready to rip from her in anger that the one thing, the one thing the Templar were meant to do, and they fled from it and left their charges to deal with... with that.

(She can still hear it. She'll always hear it.)

But she keeps it pressed inside her until she can let it slowly deflate through her nose. What use now, the tight energy of her anger? Instead, she places her hand over one of his, tries to encourage it away from its grip on the table so she can hold it between her own.

[keenly]

Two. Two things the Templars are meant to do, and they only seemed concerned with the one--protecting everyone besides mages. Not that Colin is exactly an unbiased source. As it is, he's describing a memory rather than telling a story. He can't say what happened on the other side of those doors, or what happened upstairs beforehand, beyond what he'd been told after the fact. But describing the memory means reliving it, and that is the worst part of this. He has never done this before, not in detail, and never had to. Maybe people like Inessa have had it a little easier because of pure denial; they never tried to narrate this horror that happened. A number of children like her were protected by Wynne, Petra, and Kinnon. Colin had been stupid enough to let his legs make his decisions for him.

At the touch of her hand, he starts to breathe, gripping back like a vise and prying his eyes open to peek at the reality he has around him now. He is not there. Whatever his brain tells him, he is not there. He blinks, breathes deep, forges on.

"I hid in a wall. I just knew, I knew no one was going to save me, so I hid. I think it was...it was days or weeks before it was over. They told me when my fever broke that they found me still in the wall, fighting and screaming when they tried to take me out."

[coquettish_trees]

It's not the same in the slightest, but she remembers what it felt like to be in a hostile place with no-one but herself, betrayed by those she'd thought to care for her. Can imagine what it might have been, had she gone back to court without Emile. Can imagine what it might have been had she not been to lunch with the Asgards when Corypheus attacked.

But for days? For weeks? In constant terror with the sounds of it, any of them the last before whatever it was found you?

"How awful," she says with quiet gravity, presses his hand more tightly. His grip has begun to hurt, but it hardly matters.

[keenly]

He rests his cheek against her head, a tear rolling into her hair. The tightness in his chest is easing. Saying these things, taking the memories out of his head and spinning them into the story of his life, it's making something shift. He's not sure if it's a good shift or a bad one, or how long it will last, but for the moment, he feels a little calmer.

"When they retook the tower, they patched up the wall I'd hid in. Just as well. I couldn't hide in it again. Anyway, by the time a Templar started...targeting me, I was too tall to hide very well. I knew no one would save me then, either. So I started bribing the other Templars to protect me from him. First thing in the Circle I was good at, was getting myself out of trouble."

He glances down at her with a little smile, albeit a damp one.

"I'm sorry I hid. I'm just...scared of people, really. And wide spaces can always hold another person. A closet really can't."

[coquettish_trees]

"Do you fear still?" She asks, reaching up with the hand that isn't fully entangled with his to smooth an errant bit of hair away from his face. Smiles a little despite the weight of her words to see the trace of flour she leaves. "That no-one will come for you? Or that someone you do not wish to will?"

[keenly]

He lifts his head to nod, a flour-covered finger quietly wiping at a tear and leaving a white streak on his cheek.

"Yes. Mostly the first. Even beyond reason. I mean I...got in trouble again, recently, and people came to rescue me. And in battle, when I was wounded, you were there. Shouldn't that have healed it? Instead, I feel raw. Like the wound's been ripped open again."

He glances away.

"Maybe I don't want to be rescued. I want...I want that kid in the wall to be rescued. He's still there, and no one can do anything about it."

[coquettish_trees]

"But he is not," says Alexandrie, holding his chin between her thumb and forefinger and looking at him intently before pulling gently to tilt his head down and raising to her toes so she can kiss his forehead. "He came out, and grew up, and became a man who bakes bread and heals others and looks fine in green velvet. He survived, mon cher. More than that. He thrived."

[keenly]

"Then..." He's blinking tears away again, gently taking her hand to loosen her grip so he doesn't have to look at her. "Then why doesn't it feel different? Why is my head still in there? And don't say it's because I survived so much, because feeling sorry for myself hasn't done anything for me."

[coquettish_trees]

She lets him move her hand and look away. Sighs quietly and dusts her hand on the apron.

"I shall tell you whenever it is I know the answer if you promise to do the same if you discover the reason first. It may be that the both of us shall wake in terror sometimes when we are old and grey." Should they all live that long. "It may be that even though he grew to become old and grey, the boy shall always be in the wall." She squeezes his hand gently.

"But you have told me where he is, and I promise to always come looking for him."

[keenly]

He can't help it; a little chuckle whuffs out of him, as well as a little smile. His eyes are damp, but he finally looks somewhat cheered up. He goes in for a hug, giving her a loving squeeze to thank her for what she has said.

"I'll try to let you know when I need you," he agrees. "Maybe a code word over the crystals or something, with my location. You can do the same with me. Though it could be a bit tricky, with the ferry not running after midnight."

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie purses her lips slightly.

"Must you persist in living in the Gallows?" she asks, a playful chiding that must have immediately reminded her of something. She squeezes him and then leans back, taking him by the shoulders excitedly. "Mon Créateur! Geneviève has received the summons she has waited for all her life, to join the personal guard of the Empress, and though I of course deeply mourn us being parted again... well!" She smiles brightly. "I shall then have a room, and you must come and stay in it."

[keenly]

Colin hesitates. His expression wavers between smiling and staring in horror. Him, living in Hightown? Near the best markets? Away from this horrorscape of a Circle? In a nicer bed than he has ever seen? Surrounded by judgy nobles and their judgy looks and...

You know, he can live with judgy people. He might, might, have more in common with them than he thinks. He knows how to foil cutpurses. And this isn't Orlais, or even Ferelden. It's possible to rise above one's station here, though maybe not for a mage. But if it's possible for a common person to rise up to, say, Champion of Kirkwall, it must be possible for him to live peacefully in Hightown with a good friend, far from the Great Doors of the Gallows.

His gaze, which ticked away at the suggestion, goes back to her, and his face decides to smile.

"I'd really like that."

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie doesn't make a habit of being worried she's overstepped, but the feeling visits her briefly as Colin looks away, his face going through a rapidly shifting spectrum of emotion in reaction to her invitation.

But he smiles, and she smiles, and he agrees, and she claps her hands together lightly.

"Très bien! I shall inform you with alacrity once the space becomes available and we," by which of course she means her household staff, "shall move you in directly."