Open | Words in my mouth

[keenly]

WHO: Colin + you
WHAT: Catch-all for February
WHEN: February/Guardian
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Starters available by request.

Clarke - Apothecary

Once the ghosts are gone and Colin is permitted back to work, he finds himself short of almost everything. He's come back from the garden with a fresh batch of winter herbs to dry and is hanging them in the closet when he hears the door open.

"Right with you!" he calls out, voice muffled by the wooden walls. A second later, he's walking out and shutting the closet door behind him, giving Clarke a searching look.

Cade

There is a knock at Cade's chamber door; upon opening, he will find Colin there, looking a little uneasy but smiling wanly and holding a box.

"You didn't pick this up," he says, offering the lyrium.

Julius

Colin arrives at Julius' work space with a box of cookies. He gives a little wave and sets the box before him. These are spicy, chewy things with bits of candied ginger. He heard how bad things got here, and it sounds like Julius could use a lot of delicious cookies.

Byerly - Lexie's apartment

"So." Colin shows Byerly in to where he has light refreshments set up--tea, anise seed cakes, and buttered bread. A small smile is on his face. "I had to learn your name from someone else, but at least I got it."

It's a light jab; there are no hard feelings here. He pours tea for his guest.

Lexie & Byerly - Lexie's apartment, a while after By arrives

Of course, it's too much to hope they could chat in private about things no one is supposed to know about. Colin asked the servants to take a break when By arrived, but didn't realize they hadn't stopped working after they left. It's not really an underestimation of them as much as of Alexandrie, who he has slowly come to realize has way more of a past than she will ever admit to him. Which is just.

Fine! It's fine. It's, it's fine. It's fine!

Myr - Delivery

A package is delivered to Myr's doorstep. It is full of sketches. The first is an abomination, not drawn in great detail except for the tattered remains of an apprentice's robe around its waist. There's page after page of hands, the same pair of hands in various positions--clenching, scratching, clawing, clinging to brick and mortar. There's an almost informative sketch of a fortified wall--two layers of stone sandwiching crumbling clay. A templar with a terrified face. The Great Doors, shut so tightly not even light can get through. Wide-open faces of screaming mages. Shallow-eyed corpses. A glimpse of a lake beyond broken brick. Dirt under fingernails, a pair of twisted legs learning to walk.

Wildcard

Comments

[keenly]

Concerned, unconvinced eyebrows knit. Colin gives the man a little nod. It's typical Julius, probably more so because he still sees Colin as his apprentice. It's not that he doesn't appreciate the idea behind it, but for the first time in a few months, Colin is fine. Colin has enough stretch in his mental state to be there for Julius, and it's what he wants to do. Julius has always been there for him. You've put on a brave face. Good. Now tell me how you're really doing.

[overharrowed]

The pause drags long enough that it might seem that Julius intends to simply wait it out. It would be like him, and he investigates the box for a moment or two as if the cookies are inherently very interesting.

"Three of us from Kinloch got caught in the library. I think they keyed off Inessa at first, since she was the only one of us who was actually there, but I saw the aftermath, so it was easy to reverse engineer. I'd even done it before, just not so... vividly." He breaks off a piece of one of the cookies, but doesn't eat it. He should just say it, but maybe he won't have to. After all, if you're looking for one trauma Kinloch Hold mages of a certain age all share, you don't have to reach very far to hit Uldred.

[keenly]

It doesn't need to be said. Colin isn't necessarily much for hugs, but Julius looks so much like he needs one that he thinks about moving in for one. Instead, he reaches out to pat him on the arm, still giving him a concerned look.

"I'm sorry. I think all of us understand what it's like to relive that when we least expect it. I'm here if you need to talk." A hesitation. "Or a hug. I can give hugs."

[overharrowed]

Julius laughs, not at Colin, but at the unexpectedness of the offer. It's clearly not unwelcome, though, as he rises to make the offered embrace a bit less awkward to arrange.

(He has the thought, briefly, that casual physical affection still feels odd, even if it's no longer exactly transgressive; he wonders if it will ever stop.)

The embrace doesn't linger, but Julius leaves a hand on Colin's shoulder for a moment as he draws back. "...you should hardly be comforting me, though. You had to live through it." Julius knows that his being elsewhere was pure chance, knows that there's no guarantee his being there would have made any difference to the outcomes. And yet.

[keenly]

Colin gives a squeeze before releasing Julius.

"It's how I know the kind of thing you saw, though. And heard. It's, um." His gaze flits away and goes blank before he looks back and gives a nod. "It's bad enough even when it's just echoes. And really, don't, don't think just because Inessa and I were there, it means this was nothing. Not least because demons have this way of getting in your head when they know what can really horrify you."

[overharrowed]

Julius smiles, thin, but not attempting to mask his distress so much as ruefully acknowledging it. "Yes, well. I wasn't inclined to ask Inessa which parts were accurate and which parts were things as I imagined based on the results. I don't suppose it actually matters, in this context."

Julius knows all too well who died and, often, what wounds they died of. None of that is new information.

"It could have been worse, too. The effect was even stronger for rifters, I don't know if you heard." And Julius had gotten the joy of experiencing that as well, though he was more concerned for the incident's effect on Petrana than the way the spirit had attempted to needle him incidentally.

[keenly]

"You're always, um." A gesture. "Softening? What you went through by saying other people had it worse. Don't think like that. Bad is bad. It's okay to let it be bad."

He sounds positively primitive in his own ears, like someone who barely has a grasp of language, but the truth is that emotion is far more complex than language. It's difficult to describe an idea he hasn't already heard someone else explain more eloquently.

[overharrowed]

"I'm your teacher. Or I was," he corrects himself. "I'm always going to be more comfortable with you leaning on me than than reverse."

But he is trying. For one thing, Colin is an adult now, and Julius does remember that (most of the time). For another, Colin knows more about him, now, than most people do. There comes a point when dodging seems unkind, and he doesn't want to do that to someone who trusts him. Or, at least, not to Colin in particular. He's earned a bit more honesty.

"But... we all learned how to cope. Softening, it's how I make things seem not so monumental. Even if only to myself. We've all got to put one foot in front of the other somehow, after all."

[keenly]

"That's true." Colin is a master of understatement himself, so there was a bit of hypocrisy there. "But if you find difficulty with that, it's a lot better to lean on a friend than hobble along lying to yourself."

He has tried both. Relied on the lies, for many years. Then he woke up two weeks ago, gasping and seeing things in the shadows, locked himself in a closet, and knew he was helpless to leave. The lies weren't strong enough for that. It was a friend who got him out of there, not himself. And as much as trusting someone seemed impossible a year ago, now he wouldn't trade it for anything. Julius deserves that.

[overharrowed]

Privately, Julius believes that self-deception is perhaps one of the most important skills Circle mages are encouraged to develop, but he avoids voicing the thought. It's unhelpful, in this context and perhaps generally.

"Of course Uldred was bad for those of us who weren't there. Not the same, but we still lost so much. Friends, of course, but... you get used to seeing the same people, day in and day out. Losing one here and there is just life, but this was something else again."

Between Uldred and then their losses to the Darkspawn, the tower had all but emptied that year. It is something Julius is inclined to think of, not infrequently, without the help of spirits.

"But. It isn't the only thing. I know it wasn't this way for everyone," for Colin, among others, "but Kinloch Hold was my home. Felt that way. I'd assumed it always would be, as recently as a few years ago. It's wretched that its worst day was the thing of it I was handed back."