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

[bouchonne]

Byerly smiles, the expression carefully calculated to be the precise degree of wryness. That mistake - that slip of the tongue - was clearly intentional; he's not certain what Lexie thinks she heard, but it would not be ideal if she was eavesdropping long enough to hear the word spy uttered. So.

The key, then, is to distract her.

"If I was unwelcome in your home, Alexandrie," he says, in the precise tones one would expect of an ex-lover discovering that let's still be friends was not in fact genuinely meant at all, "you ought to have simply said so."

[coquettish_trees]

Unfortunately, trying to distract Alexandrie after she has already seized upon something is like trying to distract a hawk that is already bound in its kill. It knows it for a ruse meant to take away what it has won, and is only induced to sink its talons in further.

Byerly's is a hand she would have come to, before. Would have tamely allowed the swap of catch for offered tidbit, feeling assured that they were on the same side. Not so, now. Now she lets her eyes flash, her shoulders rise tensely for him to see before she smooths them down: an angry fluff of feathers. Then, of a purpose, she takes the offered swap as a gauge: how clever does he think her? How clever does he believe himself? Can she fool him, still, or will he sniff out her ruse and make only play of confidence that he has succeeded?

So she clenches her jaw, releases it, and lets it slowly clench again as if she is unaware it is doing so. "Ah, non, have you been made to feel unwelcome?" Alexandrie asks, all false solicitousness.

This is no play, no pups tussling to test their teeth. This is in earnest.

(And it is easier, somehow, to believe you don't love someone when they look directly into your eyes and draw steel.)

[keenly]

She's clenching her jaw. He's referring to being unwelcome. This is looking increasingly like Drama. Colin, being deathly allergic to it, and already having a spinning head from looking back and forth between them, steps toward the door.

"I'd better get to the preserves shop before they close," he says, not too loudly because she might pull him back into this.

[bouchonne]

And to this, Byerly answers with a wry, "Indeed - preserve yourself." And then he winks at Colin, bows to Alexandrie, and turns to go.

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie's lips thin to see that wink, immediately eyeing Colin in her peripherals to check his reaction even as she's nodding stiffly at Byerly's bow.

[keenly]

Colin tries to suppress the little smile at the wink, the little blush that touches his cheeks, but all he can do is look away and bite down on his lips. Very subtle.

[bouchonne]

And By is a model of unconcern as he makes his way to the door and, cheerily, strolls out. But he does call over his shoulder - "Come, then, Colin. I'll walk you to the market. It's on the way to where I'm going."

[coquettish_trees]

She supposes nearly everywhere is on the way to the Void.

"Oh! How kind." Alexandrie does look a little disappointedly at Colin, then, "I suppose we may have our excursion later then, if you prefer it so."

[keenly]

This is the opposite of what he wanted, guys. Like, the exact opposite. He might have gone with Byerly, but now it's just weird. Now, he's standing directly between two strong-willed and highborn people, being asked to choose between them over a jar of preserves. And for some reason, and he's just guessing, he has the distinct feeling that each of them wants him alone so that they can complain about the other.

"I'm going alone," he clarifies, looking at each of them before reaching for his coat.

[bouchonne]

And Byerly answers with a shrug - carefully indifferent. "As you will," he says. "Don't get robbed, dear boy." And then he slips out, and closes the door behind him.

[keenly]

Colin doesn't get robbed, but he does take a long, brisk walk around Hightown. He spends more time than necessary at the market because he just does not want to face Alexandrie until she has calmed down. Also, that's what markets are for. He finds himself distracted by pretty things, by colorful things, by tasty things. He winds up coming home with a few jars of preserves--not because he needed them, but because all that talk of them brought on a craving.

When he returns, it's nearly dark. Hopefully Lexie has calmed down by now. He spots her and gives a cheerful wave.

[coquettish_trees]

With the end of a glass of wine dangling in one hand, and looking a bit paler than usual, Alexandrie does not wave cheerfully back.

"Which did you pick?" She asks quietly.

[keenly]

"Silverberry." A little shrug and a smile as he takes the jars out to set on a table. "Which is red, by the by, not silver. I also got apricot and lemon. They'd serve beautifully on palmiers. The silverberry'd be a bit too runny, but it could bake into a tart."

[coquettish_trees]

"You bake so well, mon cher," she replies. "Can that not be what you continue to do? Make little tarts? Heal the ill, the hurt? Surely that serves the Inquisition as well as anything else you might do for them."

[keenly]

And there it is. Colin resists the urge to grind his teeth or throw something. A moment of rage and frustration passes; he reminds himself that she is only worried and protective. How many years did he want someone like that in his life? He lets out a long, slow breath, takes one of her glasses, and comes to sit beside her. Wine is poured. He doesn't drink yet.

"It does serve the Inquisition," he sighs. "Just not in the way they need me to serve."

[coquettish_trees]

She lets him refill her glass with no comment, and looks into it.

"You do enough," she says, stubbornly holding to the idea, "We have fewer healers than are needed, surely she knows that." Who 'she' is is left ambiguous. It could be several. Alexandrie will let him choose between them.

[keenly]

"We also have fewer spies than are needed." Colin sips his wine, then sets it aside and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "And I'm pretty low-level, you know. Day-to-day work is still herbs and other herbs. But now and then, I'll be sent somewhere to disappear into a household and listen closely. I have definitely survived worse."

Assuming her worries are for his survival. He can't imagine what else she'd worry about.

[coquettish_trees]

The arm around her shoulders will reveal the tense stiffness in them.

"So it begins. You learn only to listen, only to watch, then to speak, then to stand, to smile or not, to blush or not, then to become whatever may be needed. Then to do whatever may be needed. And then, as the years of the war wear on, you learn to see the fabric of it, and where the knots of lies are, and how to collect them and how to tie them and while you nurture those parts of yourself the others die. Earnestness, honesty. Compassion. Softness. Love."

She takes a rather extensive drink from the refilled glass.

"And your instructor, if they are good, will let them wither. Encourage them to. And then one day you will wake up and look in the mirror and find yourself unrecognizable. Or, if you are lucky," she looks at her glass, at her hands, "you will not notice at all."

tw: reference to sexual abuse

[keenly]

It's not the most comfortable thing to hear, naturally. But if there's one thing Compassion has taught him, it's that it's not usually about him. When she is done, he gently reaches for her glass to pluck it away and set it aside. Then, he wraps both arms around her and leans them both back against the back of the chaise. After a good long hug, he pulls back enough to look her in the eye. His face is very serious.

"Lexie," he says gently--and could not have imagined, at one point, that he could ever refer to someone of her station so informally. "When I was sixteen, a templar decided he had to either fuck me or kill me, and he did one while endlessly threatening the other. To get him to stop, I stole another mage's contraband lyrium business by turning him in, and used the lyrium to bribe the other templars to protect me. If anyone caught on, I'd be Tranquil or dead. And you think this is going to break me?"

[coquettish_trees]

Even having let him pull her into his arms, Alexandrie is still taut as a bowstring.

"Yes." It's quiet, a bare whisper, and she looks away. "Survival is different than gain. If I had meant only to protect myself—" but power was protection, and she had gone further than paralyzing terror had taken her. "—and when it is not for yourself, when you no-longer choose how far it is you go..."

She doesn't trust them to wield him like that. Not any of them. Not Ashara, and not Byerly—as much as that stung. And the worst wound of all of them, one day she would no longer trust him. The very fact that her instinct is now to relax the muscles of her face so her lips won't tremble at it is enough to make the simple exercise nearly impossible. Perhaps, for a little longer, she can let herself sound as wretched as she feels.

"Say you will not. Let it fall on someone who has already withered themselves so." It is the wine, perhaps. Or perhaps it is simply aiding and abetting her natural inclination towards catastrophizing. "I should rather cut and dye my hair and trade myself to her service than see you made to pick up such a thing again."

She sounds desolate. "I wish you happy."

[keenly]

What Colin hears is I wish to be happy. This isn't really about him, after all. He sighs.

"If I don't cooperate with her, she could tell the other division heads that I was trading in illegal lyrium on their property less than a year ago. Which she knows because I was sold to the Carta by my runner, and because she knows this, I'm pretty sure she'll never trust me with anything remotely like you're talking about. I'm not becoming a bard, Lexie. I'm never going to become a bard. I'm just following orders."

[coquettish_trees]

"She will not tell them such a thing. They will know that she knew and said nothing in order to have a hand on you, and will wonder what else she has had her fingers in without their knowledge."

Perhaps he would keep himself. Perhaps, if he cared at all for the person he was, he would not try as hard to eradicate himself as she had the weak foolish thing who'd let herself be so shattered, but it does nothing to calm the little fearful bird crushing itself to death against the inside of her chest over the memories of picking herself so carefully apart fiber by fiber, reweaving that weak foolish girl into a perfect shining heartless monster. Of what had happened when she'd briefly faltered at being even that.

Not for the first time, she wishes it all gone. To have had less luck at Ghislain. Alexandrie is tired. So tired, and still gripping the pieces of what she'd shattered hard enough to cut her palms to the bone and all the keening of her grief of it will never come to anything, and the cycle of it will continue.

She is quiet for a very long time.

Then "Fine." And only that.

[keenly]

He wraps his arms around her again, tucking his head over her shoulder. He doesn't know why she has this image of him as this pure, sweet innocent, why she has bound up in him all her regrets about her own life. One hand rubs her back gently.

"I know who I am, yeah? I know this is dangerous. But I promise you, the path most likely to lead me where you fear isn't this one. And you'll be here for me. I can't tell you any specifics, obviously, but you'll know when I'm struggling. You'll be able to see that even if I can't tell you. So even if I'm led astray, you'll be right there to guide me back."

[coquettish_trees]

But all she says is "Meet with him somewhere else."

This is all too much, but that is more than too much.

"Not here. Never here."

[keenly]

Colin doesn't pretend to understand. He doesn't really want to know, either.

"Okay," he agrees quietly.