"It could be more complicated." Could be. Salvio winces again at his own limp assessment, and Cenric snorts again. The former seneschal actually smells--faintly, but perceptibly. Something musty, like the back of a box or a drawer no one has opened in a long time. "I mean, a memory seems... reasonable. Um, spirits of... Well. If you have spirits, where you are from--I don't recall if you have said--or if you have said how they operate. But I think these might not follow, directly, but manifest themselves... elsewhere? Unexpectedly. That seems to be what, uh, what we can expect. To prepare you for a visit again from this--memory."
Though it is strange to think of him as a memory, even to Salvio, when the figure appears so clear and defined. Deaf, yes, but still present. Tessa stands and turns her back on him, and the figure's eyes do not seem even to track her, as if he is somewhere else entirely. A scene played out in a dream, played again with the Gallows as his stage. Did this happen to her, a room like this and a person like this? It is hard to say. How well he knows Tessa has been entirely at her admission, information based on what she has told him and what she has held back. It is not in Salvio to pry, to inquire, to press on points of conversation or circle back to a previous thought. Tessa is; Salvio is. They exist in the Inquisition, together. For all his faults, Salvio is not one to dwell on the past, but confronted now with Tessa's, he thinks perhaps he should have asked her more.
"Um." Fortunately she offers a new tack, and Salvio looks around again at Cenric, who is regarding them both with a flatly unimpressed gaze. "I do not know him. Er, not-- Well, I have read his notes. On paper."
"Meticulous notes," Cenric drawls. "Better organized than any before me and any who have come since. Especially this current administration's notes. And you can try another insulting name, if you like. I have heard them all. They bother me little."
Salvio smiles, quick and a little pained. "Uh. Yes. Well-- He's following me. And--the others."
no subject
Though it is strange to think of him as a memory, even to Salvio, when the figure appears so clear and defined. Deaf, yes, but still present. Tessa stands and turns her back on him, and the figure's eyes do not seem even to track her, as if he is somewhere else entirely. A scene played out in a dream, played again with the Gallows as his stage. Did this happen to her, a room like this and a person like this? It is hard to say. How well he knows Tessa has been entirely at her admission, information based on what she has told him and what she has held back. It is not in Salvio to pry, to inquire, to press on points of conversation or circle back to a previous thought. Tessa is; Salvio is. They exist in the Inquisition, together. For all his faults, Salvio is not one to dwell on the past, but confronted now with Tessa's, he thinks perhaps he should have asked her more.
"Um." Fortunately she offers a new tack, and Salvio looks around again at Cenric, who is regarding them both with a flatly unimpressed gaze. "I do not know him. Er, not-- Well, I have read his notes. On paper."
"Meticulous notes," Cenric drawls. "Better organized than any before me and any who have come since. Especially this current administration's notes. And you can try another insulting name, if you like. I have heard them all. They bother me little."
Salvio smiles, quick and a little pained. "Uh. Yes. Well-- He's following me. And--the others."