Well. That's nice. Like a rope tossed in to the bog of embarrassment. Matthias grabs at it, and tries not to feel too foolish for holding to niceties with such fervor. Can't be helped, sort of.
"Good," he says, and then, "thanks," and he does mean it. She could have gone in the other direction. Made him feel stupider, pressed harder, something; it's possible to be made to feel stupider. People have done it to him quite a bit. Mock that idiotic earnest brightness that he can't lose or dim.
And then, because he doesn't know what to do with that, or what to say next, to her, Matthias stands abruptly and tugs at his cloak, pulling it into place around him.
"I'm going to go piss," he announces, unnecessarily, "so--see you. I'll be back."
What Matthias actually does is climb, somewhat clumsily, to his feet, and stamp against the ground a bit, getting feeling back into his legs. The way he'd been sitting had cramped them up something nasty, put that pins-and-needles feeling in him.
Then he ducks off into the darkness and walks a few paces off, pulling his hood up so it will protect him from the rain, which is coming down quite steadily, if not all that hard. The damp roughspun of his cloak pulls heavy on his coatrack shoulders. The firelight is behind him, a little bright smudge in the darkness. It will be easy to find the way back, so Matthias allows himself to walk off a fair distance before he sits down beneath a tree, sink his arse into wet undergrowth and leaves. He puts his hands over his face, fingers pressed into his eyes, palms down by his mouth. Breathing in the gap between his hands, sucking in great lungfuls of air that both smells and tastes of wet, and rotten wood.
Just a minute of that. Then he pulls himself to his feet and turns back, following the way back to the firelight and Kitty, taking great care to make a load of noise so she knows he's coming. He sits down beside her again, shaking out his cloak.
"So what's your place like, where you're from? Your country, like." World. "Beside the bit about mages. Have you got, I dunno. Clocks? Cakes? Eyeglasses?"
Kitty had not been feeling so many emotions in that time when Matthias was gone. She had, rather, just been taking a moment to think about how Matthias was all right, all things considered, and how that was a rather nice surprise. He hadn't seemed very all right before - hadn't seemed much of anything, really - but he's actually rather clever, under all the loudness, and he means what he says. Surrounded as she is by cynics and jokers, it's nice to talk to someone who really believes. Even Nikos - the closest one she knows to someone like her - even he's embittered by it all. So Matthias is nice to talk to.
"Of course we've got all that. London's got everything," Kitty says with the singular confidence of someone who had only been in one place all her life. "More than that, even. We've got - stuff they haven't thought of, here in Thedas. Like carriages that don't need horses to drive them, and airplanes - that's flying machines bigger than dragons that you can ride inside of. Telephones, they're like sending crystals except that they're cheap, everyone's got one. Typewriters - that's like a personal printing press, sort of, so you can write up anything - and pens with replaceable cartridges, we don't need inkwells or anything, and lifts so we don't need to climb up all those bloody stairs, we can just ride up. And toilets. And running water, in lots of houses, at least. We've got it in ours. Hot running water. And electricity, and radiators, and..."
And, and, and. She's been talking far too long, she realizes. And so she cuts herself off, and flushes very faintly, and says, "Lots of stuff. Sorry. Did you fall down? You've got some leaves stuck on your backside."
A little flush comes into his ears, blessedly hidden by his hood. Matthias rocks himself forward into a crouch, so he can brush hastily at the leaves. Damn. But there's a lot to go over, in the long list that she's said. Running water--like a brook? Hot running water--that'd be a hot springs, surely. Electricity, that's a word he sort of knows--lighting, or the static that comes of rubbing your hands together when you've got wool mittens on, or even chewing mint in the dark and letting the sparks pop out of your mouth, a sort of lame game that Matthias has made much of--raddyators--
"Wouldn't catch me in a bloody flying machine," he says, as he sinks to sit back down again. "What's driving the carriage if there's no horses?"
"Magic," she answers simply. "It's all done by magic."
A fact which quells her enthusiasm. It's things she misses, all of that - being warm, really warm, even in the depths of winter, and not having to rely on the limited heat a fire puts off - but it's all made by unethical hands, isn't it? Better to be without it than to be given it at the cost of her own freedom and the freedom of others. Better to be here than there.
"Magic, driving carriages? I thought mages were tops, where you're from. So why're they going about wasting their magic on driving carriages when there's horses about that could just do it for them." Hang on. "There are horses, right?"
"There's horses, yeah," she responds with a shrug. "You see the cops riding 'em sometimes. That's how you know they're all right cops, 'cause horses won't stand being near one of the Night Police."
Not relevant information for Matthias; he's not a new recruit she's teaching the ways of the world. So: "It's not like a magician's got to be sitting in there constantly making it go. They have magicians - lower-level magicians, obviously, not the sort who'll get to be Prime Minister and all that - They have them working in factories, sitting in a nice cushy office, and soon as commoners have finished losing fingers or hands to the brutal machines that build the cars, the magicians wave their hands to make them go. And everyone says, Oh, yes, so-and-so built this car. And that name isn't a commoner's."
Second to the cause of the mages is the cause of poor people, who are constantly being trodden on and ignored. And Matthias would know, as he is those people. "So there's levels to it? I thought it was, you know. All mages being shit. Magicians," he corrects, "sorry. But it's a stupid word. Not that I s'ppose you care about it sounding stupid. And the Night Police, that's like--magicians who are guards, then?"
She shakes her head. "They're werewolves," she answers. "Specially bred and trained to be obedient to the magicians. They're supposed to bring in political dissidents, but - well - a lot of the time, they just - you know. Eat whoever it is they're after, instead." She stares glumly at her knees. "Not that that's a bad thing, really. It's kept us safe more than once, someone getting killed 'stead of taken to the Tower."
Then she looks up. That was maybe too much of a confession, but...As she'd decided earlier: Matthias is all right. And it's not like he doesn't know a thing or two about dodging the authorities, right? He's never discussed it with her directly, but it doesn't take a genius to know that he was part of the mage rebellion.
"But yeah - I mean, it's like Tevinter, right? There are some that are on top, and some below them scrabbling for an advantage. Doesn't make them good. Just different."
He pulls a little face at the thought of people getting eaten, with enough regularity to merit Kitty's a lot of the time. Disgusting. And unfair. Only from the context he can tell that the Tower must be some grim place, likely of torture--and he knows enough to know how someone dying is sometimes safer. And better for them as well, really, in the end. Poor souls.
"That's true. Yeah. About it being like Tevinter, I mean. Just seems different, but I reckon that's 'cause I don't know much about it. I don't know much about Tevinter, really," which he cops to with a bit of a grimace. "They're sort of mental. S' like Nevarra. Death and weirdies there. And Tevinter is just weirdies with slaves."
"It's - a bit more complicated than that," Kitty says, but then shakes her head. She'd noticed earlier how twitchy Matthias got; it's clear he's got a great big chip on his shoulder about seeming stupid, and she doesn't want to make him feel that way.
"Doesn't matter - Anyway. But yeah. I mean, all places are sort of like that, right? Free Marches, too. Just there it's the non-mages in power, keeping down people like you."
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no subject
"Good," he says, and then, "thanks," and he does mean it. She could have gone in the other direction. Made him feel stupider, pressed harder, something; it's possible to be made to feel stupider. People have done it to him quite a bit. Mock that idiotic earnest brightness that he can't lose or dim.
And then, because he doesn't know what to do with that, or what to say next, to her, Matthias stands abruptly and tugs at his cloak, pulling it into place around him.
"I'm going to go piss," he announces, unnecessarily, "so--see you. I'll be back."
no subject
Kitty pulls an involuntary face, because that was very sudden, and the word piss is very disgusting.
"All right. Erm - Sure."
What's she supposed to say? Good luck? She shakes her head, and tucks her hands in against her side, and shakes her head.
no subject
Then he ducks off into the darkness and walks a few paces off, pulling his hood up so it will protect him from the rain, which is coming down quite steadily, if not all that hard. The damp roughspun of his cloak pulls heavy on his coatrack shoulders. The firelight is behind him, a little bright smudge in the darkness. It will be easy to find the way back, so Matthias allows himself to walk off a fair distance before he sits down beneath a tree, sink his arse into wet undergrowth and leaves. He puts his hands over his face, fingers pressed into his eyes, palms down by his mouth. Breathing in the gap between his hands, sucking in great lungfuls of air that both smells and tastes of wet, and rotten wood.
Just a minute of that. Then he pulls himself to his feet and turns back, following the way back to the firelight and Kitty, taking great care to make a load of noise so she knows he's coming. He sits down beside her again, shaking out his cloak.
"So what's your place like, where you're from? Your country, like." World. "Beside the bit about mages. Have you got, I dunno. Clocks? Cakes? Eyeglasses?"
no subject
"Of course we've got all that. London's got everything," Kitty says with the singular confidence of someone who had only been in one place all her life. "More than that, even. We've got - stuff they haven't thought of, here in Thedas. Like carriages that don't need horses to drive them, and airplanes - that's flying machines bigger than dragons that you can ride inside of. Telephones, they're like sending crystals except that they're cheap, everyone's got one. Typewriters - that's like a personal printing press, sort of, so you can write up anything - and pens with replaceable cartridges, we don't need inkwells or anything, and lifts so we don't need to climb up all those bloody stairs, we can just ride up. And toilets. And running water, in lots of houses, at least. We've got it in ours. Hot running water. And electricity, and radiators, and..."
And, and, and. She's been talking far too long, she realizes. And so she cuts herself off, and flushes very faintly, and says, "Lots of stuff. Sorry. Did you fall down? You've got some leaves stuck on your backside."
no subject
A little flush comes into his ears, blessedly hidden by his hood. Matthias rocks himself forward into a crouch, so he can brush hastily at the leaves. Damn. But there's a lot to go over, in the long list that she's said. Running water--like a brook? Hot running water--that'd be a hot springs, surely. Electricity, that's a word he sort of knows--lighting, or the static that comes of rubbing your hands together when you've got wool mittens on, or even chewing mint in the dark and letting the sparks pop out of your mouth, a sort of lame game that Matthias has made much of--raddyators--
"Wouldn't catch me in a bloody flying machine," he says, as he sinks to sit back down again. "What's driving the carriage if there's no horses?"
no subject
A fact which quells her enthusiasm. It's things she misses, all of that - being warm, really warm, even in the depths of winter, and not having to rely on the limited heat a fire puts off - but it's all made by unethical hands, isn't it? Better to be without it than to be given it at the cost of her own freedom and the freedom of others. Better to be here than there.
no subject
"Magic, driving carriages? I thought mages were tops, where you're from. So why're they going about wasting their magic on driving carriages when there's horses about that could just do it for them." Hang on. "There are horses, right?"
no subject
Not relevant information for Matthias; he's not a new recruit she's teaching the ways of the world. So: "It's not like a magician's got to be sitting in there constantly making it go. They have magicians - lower-level magicians, obviously, not the sort who'll get to be Prime Minister and all that - They have them working in factories, sitting in a nice cushy office, and soon as commoners have finished losing fingers or hands to the brutal machines that build the cars, the magicians wave their hands to make them go. And everyone says, Oh, yes, so-and-so built this car. And that name isn't a commoner's."
no subject
Second to the cause of the mages is the cause of poor people, who are constantly being trodden on and ignored. And Matthias would know, as he is those people. "So there's levels to it? I thought it was, you know. All mages being shit. Magicians," he corrects, "sorry. But it's a stupid word. Not that I s'ppose you care about it sounding stupid. And the Night Police, that's like--magicians who are guards, then?"
no subject
Then she looks up. That was maybe too much of a confession, but...As she'd decided earlier: Matthias is all right. And it's not like he doesn't know a thing or two about dodging the authorities, right? He's never discussed it with her directly, but it doesn't take a genius to know that he was part of the mage rebellion.
"But yeah - I mean, it's like Tevinter, right? There are some that are on top, and some below them scrabbling for an advantage. Doesn't make them good. Just different."
no subject
"That's true. Yeah. About it being like Tevinter, I mean. Just seems different, but I reckon that's 'cause I don't know much about it. I don't know much about Tevinter, really," which he cops to with a bit of a grimace. "They're sort of mental. S' like Nevarra. Death and weirdies there. And Tevinter is just weirdies with slaves."
no subject
"Doesn't matter - Anyway. But yeah. I mean, all places are sort of like that, right? Free Marches, too. Just there it's the non-mages in power, keeping down people like you."