faderift | Write clear and hard about what hurts

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Write clear and hard about what hurts - Ernst H.

WHO: Athessa, Bastien
WHAT: Rescuing or retrieving an informant
WHEN: Post-Monster Mayhem
WHERE: Free Marches (Hasmal and the Silent Plains)
NOTES: Athessa and Bastien go on a sad field trip and have a great time.

“You know, I seem to recall having a conversation not too long ago,” Athessa is saying as she inspects the tear in her shirt. Luckily the blade that did the tearing caught only shirt, and not flesh with it. Barely even a scrape. The bandits can’t boast as much, unconscious or worse here on the side of the road to Tantervale. “About how looking for humans was a dangerous prospect.”

Technically speaking, they’re looking for an elf, but they seem to be finding the right sort of humans to enforce their little joke. Athessa is, at least, true to her word that she takes protecting Bastien very seriously.

The road from Kirkwall to Tantervale is a long one, and it’s looking to be just as sweltering as staying in the Gallows has been. Sweltering, tedious, treacherous, a veritable grab bag of unpleasant adjectives stacked like pancakes. But necessary all the same. Word is, an informant was making their escape from Tevinter and hit a snag. (The mission briefing was not brief, and Athessa is not a great reader and only skimmed it.) They didn’t make it to the rendezvous, so now it’s up to intrepid adventurers Athessa Sulahnan and Bastien Last Name to rescue...The Informant.

Look, nobody’s going to hire this particular elf for virtues such as reading or name remembering, anyway.

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Bastien could ask the bartender for information, but he doesn’t. Not yet. He orders the ale, makes some small talk during the pouring of it: charming place, and he heard it was the best drink for the price in this area, and has all of that fuss at the border been hurting business? He can wander back later to ask for real information, if they need it, but looking desperate for information often means looking willing to pay for it, and he would rather save their money to buy silence instead, if it comes to that. Silence is more expensive than information.

Anyway: he finds Athessa with a drink in either hand and slides one in front of her before he sits down.

“Perhaps we should have worn carnations,” he says, “or distinctive hats.”

Athessa pauses with the drink halfway to her mouth. "Oh. I thought you knew what the contact looked like," she says. She taps her finger on the side of the glass a few times before taking a sip and returning it to the table. "I guess whats-their-face will just have to rely on how much we look like the start of a joke."

How many mustachioed Orlesians and Vallaslin-less Dalish elves go wandering about together, after all?

"Or," Athessa sits forward, crossing her arms on the table top. Unintentionally, her body language seems more akin to someone very into the man across from her than someone suggesting sneaky snooping. "I could poke around, see what's upstairs."

He makes a helpless little gesture at the first part—he knows nothing! except race, age, gender, which may be enough—but then smiles, because they do look like the start of a joke. He's still smiling when Athessa leans forward, and he leans forward to match her, elbow on the table and chin in his hand, because perhaps it isn't the worst thing for the answer to what are an Orlesian and an elf doing here together to apparently be having a mildly scandalous romantic moment.

"If you think you can do it without attracting suspicion," he says, "though I do not know what you would expect to find there."

"Probably nothing," she says with a little shrug. "Rooms to let, most like. Maybe a secret meeting room where our contact is. Who can say?"

Worst case scenario is they get thrown out because of her snooping, or they actually have to pay for a room for a while. If she were playing lovestruck intentionally, she might consider paying for the room as means toward snooping because it'd work perfectly well with this impromptu cover.

“Who can say,” Bastien says, as if she’s just said something profound that requires further reflection.

Or something very cute, while he’s pretending to flirt—but not really pretending to think she’s cute, in a different sort of way.

“Alright, Fauvette,” he says. The hand he’s using to hold up his chin and casually smush the side of his face would serve well to obscure lip readers, if anyone were paying them any mind. No one is. But it’s a habit. “But if you take long enough for me to start worrying, I may make a scene.”

"That's a good way to make me take my time," she says, grinning.

But before she can push her chair back to stand, the front door to the tavern opens and a tall, slim man swans in. There's no other word for it, and wouldn't be worth mention if that very same man weren't crossing the room with long, purposeful strides.

"Ah! My dear friends I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, I'm sure you both have had quite a journey, such an ordeal," the man speaks fast and open, a performance if there ever was one. He claps a hand onto Bastien's shoulder and his other to his chest. "And what strength it must have taken for you to stand up to your family before your elopement!"

"Our--" Athessa tries to protest but this strange man talks over her, consolingly:

"Oh, never fear, you are quite safe here, and I won't tell anyone that you've absconded. Now, I have a room upstairs and can have a bottle sent up for us while we discuss your lodging and job prospects in our wonderful city, or travel arrangements if you're on your way further south."

Edited 2019-10-15 21:10 (UTC)

"Keep your voice down, Cuthbert," Bastien says without a missed beat.

He says it both with the shrinking-in of shoulders and nervous glance at the rest of the room that any self-respecting, self-contained man would exhibit when confronted in a public space by such a loud and embarrassing person, but also with the weary fondness and familiar endurance to indicate this loud, embarrassing person is an old friend he's actually very fond of.

The Cuthbert is revenge.

This is probably their contact, possibly a clever fake. Either way, going upstairs it is. Bastien takes a last drink before he stands and offers Athessa his hand—expression still mildly chagrined, for acting's sake, but with his back to the room's other occupants he pulls a yikes face, for hers.

Athessa is pulling her own yikes face by way of downing her ale in a few industrious gulps, much to Cuthbert's amusement.

"Oh, she'll fit in fine," he says, waving some signal to the barkeep and leading the way up the stairs. For the audience, his last line before they disappear into the room is "I really wish you wouldn't advertise my middle name quite so openly, I'm trying to maintain an image here..."

In the room, which is of course just a room to let in a pub, their new friend's attitude settles into something far less theatrical, but no less friendly. He ushers them in, and after the barkeep has delivered a bottle and received a discreetly palmed tip, he pours three drinks and raises his glass to them.

"Thank you for that delightful performance, friends. Haven't had the opportunity to entertain like that for quite some time. You're luckily not an unprecedented pair," The man gestures between Bastien and Athessa with his glass. "A surprising number of young fools from Tevinter are looking to legitimize their sordid affairs with slaves. You'd think there was a war on making them nervous or something."

"Mmm," Bastien hums, non-committal, as he peers into his glass, and then holds out a staying hand toward Athessa in case she's planning to drink hers. "Or something, yes."

He could be subtler about it than this. Or skip it altogether. There are only so many reasons someone would recognize them. But while one of those reasons is he's our contact, another is he's been trailing us from Kirkwall and this is a trap, and the role Bastien is playing—here, today, and also nearly every day of his life for the last five years—is one of a man who wouldn't know how to be very subtle about wondering whether or not he was about to be poisoned.

"You have not told us your name," he prompts. Overcaution, perhaps, but talking so much no one notices the information that's missing is a familiar tactic. He read the book, he wrote the sequel.

The tip of his head isn't unfriendly, though.

She's not going to drink the contents of the glass she was handed, and not merely because she's not so stupid as to accepts drinks from strange men in pubs. Her stomach is churning and full of ale and sure it went along nicely with the theatrics but it tasted foul and feels fouler. So she sets her drink down next to the bottle and leans against the wall next to the door just beyond their new friend's periphery, based on how he turns his head slightly when she does so.

He's probably thinking she's dividing his focus in case one of them needs to act, to get the drop on him, or to stop him from making a speedy exit. She's thinking she's that many steps closer to freedom in case she has to vomit.

"Have I not?" the man asks, genial, as if he's merely forgotten himself. "It's Waverly. Very nice to meet you, etc. and so on." He knocks back his drink, then picks up the glass Athessa abandoned and raises it briefly before downing it, too. "Which makes you Bastien, and you--my dear girl you look a bit green about the gills. Not that I can blame you, that swill you imbibed so hastily downstairs is tantamount to swamp water. But no matter, I am the one who knows who you are seeking and where they were last seen."

"That's, ah," Bastien says, for all appearances watching Athessa more than Waverly. "Good."

He refocuses, takes a polite but small drink of his wine now that it's probably not poisoned (but not definitely not poisoned, poisoning drinks with something one personally has immunity to is an elementary-level spy plan), and sets it down again to sit back and consider the man.

"If you tell us quickly, she might not throw up on your floor."

"Right you are," Waverly agrees readily. "Quite right. Now, the wayward informant you've been tasked with tracking down was originally slated to arrive in Hasmal a fortnight ago, then cross the border and find their way to the rendezvous point here in pleasant, charming Tantervale within three days' time. Obviously, that did not happen. You wouldn't be here if it had.

"I have it on good authority that they successfully crossed the Silent Plains, but they never reached Hasmal. What's more, there are some rather pernicious slavers operating out of Perivantium and Solas."

Athessa frowns. "What're the chances of these slavers knowing the informant at all?"

"Aha!" Waverly snaps his fingers and points at the elf. "Slim. Very slim. But it could be only a matter of time before they discover just how much their most recent catch is worth, and try to use them as a bargaining chip. We, of course, cannot let that happen."

“We are not taking Athessa into slavers’ territory,” Bastien says, immediately, even though he also immediately knows that is probably precisely what they’re going to do. But he doesn’t like it. The Imperium takes human slaves, too, of course, but it’s easier for a human to pretend to be someone with enough power it would be a bad idea.

Anyway, he won’t be that stubborn about it. He’s objecting because he has the luxury of pretending to be a man with qualms. Qualms he listens to. But between Waverly and Athessa, he’s pretty sure someone will insist on doing the correct thing instead of the safe thing. And he’s already taking a resigned second drink of the wine, like he’s lost an argument before one has started.

"Yyyyeeeesss, yes I can see why that would be concerning," Waverly scratches his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps I can find someone else, if she--"

"I'm going." Athessa cuts him off, stepping away from the wall she's leaning against to address them both. "We didn't come all this way for me to sit on my hands and let you do all the work."

Waverly inclines his head. "Now, before you act in haste, my dear, I feel I should make known that this isn't just a rag-tag bunch of bandits. Slavery in the Imperium is above-board and legal. There's a guild, and some of the outfits in these cities have been operating for nearly two decades. They have resources, manpower, and the law on their side, so this is not a decision to be taken lightly."

If anything, that seems to strengthen Athessa's resolve, rather than wither it.

"I'm not staying behind."

Bastien considers her a moment, more than anything searching for lingering green around her gills, before he says, “D’accord, fine,” with reluctance, “you are a better fighter than I am, anyway.”

That probably isn’t even a lie, even if he is much better than demonstrated thus far.

Back to Waverly. “Are you,” Bastien begins, and stops, and starts over with a vague Marcher accent. It isn’t perfect, but it gets better by the syllable, while he feels it out. “Are you coming with us or just giving us directions?” That didn’t sound right. “Di-rec-tions.”

Better.

Waverly lifts his hands, palms forward. "Just directions, I'm afraid. Even if they didn't know my face in Perivantium I have prior commitments here."

"What's the scope of operations for this slavery guild?"

"...Meaning?"

"Do they stick to Solas and Perivantium, do they cooperate city to city, do they cross the Tevinter border into Nevarra or the Free Marches?"

Waverly blinks, clearly processing each of the questions Athessa has just posed. His brows bob once, then furrow while he pours himself another drink. "I'll just address those in order shall I? They do not confine themselves to the cities, and they do cooperate betwixt them, though there is always room for petty rivalries and the like. As to the last...I don't have adequate intel to say whether or not they respect the national borders, but considering they don't respect individual autonomy I wouldn't put it past them to not care where their slaves are, for lack of a better word, harvested."

"Gross, but ok. So then we don't have a confined search radius for finding the informant?"

"Well, no, I didn't say that. We are fairly certain, for example, that they are north of the Minanter, west of the Green Dales, but no further west than the Imperial Highway through the Silent Plains."

Well, that narrows it down. Athessa doesn't say it, but everything in her body language is broadcasting it so loudly that she doesn't have to.

"My advice to you," Waverly continues, gesturing with his glass. "Is to go to Solas, find the Slaver's Guild there, and see what you can extract from their records. If they don't have anything on the books from the past fourteen days, there's a good chance you'll be able to narrow your search down to two areas: The Silent Plains themselves, or the area between Perivantium and The Hundred Pillars."

Bastien listens carefully to the information and to the shape of Athessa and Waverly’s vowels. (Now and then his mouth moves a little in concert with one of the words—simultaneously, or close enough, rather than shadowing behind them. It would be a neat party trick, if he ever did it out loud.) He’s only so good at accent mimicry, but it might be good enough to claim he’s from one of the farther-flung Free Marches cities, among Vints, rather than the country they’re currently invading.

Anyway, there will be time to work on it on the ride to Solas. He’ll make Athessa tell him stories.

Still playing Marcher, he says, “Ah, I love the Silent Plains,” which is not true. He somewhat-recently spent a very long time trying not to die of exposure there, fairly recently, and searching them for a single prisoner doesn’t sound like a good time. Hopefully it won’t come to that. “Do you know what Rinne looks like?”

Waverly clicks his tongue against his teeth and holds his hand flat to measure a height very close to Athessa's. "About yea high, olive skin, curly-wurly brown hair, green eyes, pointy ears..."

Then, seeing the flat stare he's receiving from the elf in the room, he ammends his description. "Yes, yes, when put like that it seems that she bears a remarkable resemblance to Athessa here, but rest assured, we're not dealing with a long-lost twin or a doppelganger. For example, her hair is bobbed at the shoulder."

--

"Do you think it's really a coincidence that Rinne and I apparently look similar, or did they have that in mind when they assigned us to this mission?" Athessa muses aloud, adjusting the scarf on her head for what seems like the fifty-millionth time since they passed Hasmal, heading north. They had to have a change of attire, not only for adequate protection from the weather in the Silent Plains, but also to better blend in.

For her part, Athessa has donned a headscarf and sandals, both of which she hates, a simple shirt with roomy sleeves, and trousers. Not the height of fashion, by any definition, but she looks less immediately elfy.

"They couldn't possibly have had it in mind," Bastien says—sounding, by now, almost completely like a Marcher, as long as he's allowed to be a Marcher who's on the tail end of recovering from a cold—"because the only way for that to be useful would be for us to do something incredibly stupid that puts you in danger."

Unwilling to undo any of the progress he's made in shedding his tan from the last time he was stuck wandering a desert, he's hiding beneath a hat. But he emerges from beneath the brim to give Athessa the look that this deserves.

"And we are not going to do anything incredibly stupid that puts you in danger."

Athessa returns his appropriate look with one of her own, the sort warranted by someone saying it's not allowed to rain when storm clouds are rolling in.

"We might not have a choice," It's not like she wants to play swapsies with a slave, but at this point they have no idea what circumstances will call for. "Anyway, I'm supposed to be protecting you, remember?"

"I will be much better protected if we do not do anything incredibly stupid that puts you in danger," Bastien points out in his most reasonable Marcher voice. "Furthermore—"

Important transition words for important facts. But he pulls the brim of his hat back down. Enough sun.

"—I am significantly older than you are, and therefore in charge."

"You're not that much older than me," she grumbles, though she does sound somewhat resigned about it. She doesn't want to be in charge, anyway.

"Fur-ther-more."

"Fur-ther-more," he mimics gamely.

He gets it right, with enough attention, but he'll probably backslide as soon as something distracts him from making the effort. Perhaps it would be better if he just stopped using any words containing Rs.

"You don't have a long-lost twin, do you?"

So far, so good.

Giving it some serious consideration, Athessa purses her lips.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. Unless she's a mage, and she was sent to a different clan to be apprenticed because our Keeper already had one," It's not actually a possibility, of course, but wouldn't that be somethin'? She gives it another moment's thought, then shakes her head. "Nah. It's probably just a cousin or something."

Another joke, but even a possibility in jest can lead to unpleasant what if scenarios.

"I've always assumed implying all elves had some family connection—"

Talking around the word related. It isn't too terribly convoluted. This might be the best plan he's ever had.

"—would be offensive."

But her clan disappeared. He remembers. He just isn't going to be the one to say it.

Write clear and hard about what hurts - Ernst H.

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