(closedish openish) keep you like an oath

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair & Others
WHAT: Some sulking, some snark.
WHEN: Third week of Haring + bonus first week of Wintermarch.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: No open starters, but if you want something PM me or hit me up on Plurk! Or drop a starter of your own on me and I'll roll with it.

Comments

[ungovernable]

She had approached him with purpose, which means she's obliged to very quickly backstep not to slam face-first into his chest - and there is so much of it. True effort is involved. This salient fact is what clears the blank incomprehension with which she meets his astute observation; yes, she does remember these biceps, now that she takes a better look at them. And the man to whom they are attached, presently engaged in looking at her books as if they have personally affronted him.

(They are not her books. And if someone were to point that out, she would readily agree that she has no desire to take ownership of such a poor library. Still - it had been a slightly territorial prowl with which she approached.)

"And you very literate," she says, smiling, insinuating herself between him and the shelf as if he can't be entirely trusted with it. "You are making a mess of my inventory, however, so I must press my help on you."

As an alternative to her tiny fist. Stop moving things like a thing-mover-that-isn't-helpful.

[byblow]

Hopefully Benevenuta is more sober than Alistair is literate, or he'll have to be concerned about the frequency of her early day drinking. But he raises his hands in surrender and looks back at the shelf, which—yes. It's probably not in the same state in which he found it.

"I don't think there's any helping me," he says, because he cannot tell even a Northern mage that he's digging after blood magic. There's a degree of utilitarian tolerance for it among Wardens; their Joining is blood magic, their elaborate talking-darkspawn-magister prisons are locked with it. But people don't want to hear those parts of the stories. Mostly they want to hear the parts with griffons.

He steps back toward the shelf, half-turned to keep her at a conversational angle while he plucks one off the shelf.

"This one was—here?"

He slots it into approximately the correct place, but not the correct place. This may be intentional.

[ungovernable]

The look she gives him is very long, and spans the length of time it takes for her to lift the book from the shelf again and replace it where it ought to be. That she can do so as confidently while never breaking eye contact is probably some sort of mage thing.

(No, it's a 'leave the library more often, Benevenuta' thing.)

Very critically, "You are far less charming with your shirt on, Ser Alistair."

[byblow]

Alistair gets a look. It's the sort of look that also precedes a very bad joke, between the time it occurs to someone and the time they open their mouths to inflict it on their friends, and the sort of look that comes before a child does something they know they aren't allowed to but also don't expect to get into trouble for.

He looks down at the hem of his shirt.

But then he leaves it there. Ten years ago he would have done it; six months ago it would have been a strong maybe. But he's tired, and he's worried, and the song whispering in his head won't let him forget why long enough to set it aside.

He's still smiling, though. "And not even any smarter to compensate," he says, agreeable, and pulls another out-of-order book off the shelf. This one he returns to the right position. "The Maker dealt me a bad hand. Gave all the good cards to you, probably."

[ungovernable]

It would probably have been easier for her to get a handle on than his agreeable ease - but the renewed scrutiny has less of an edge as he sets the book where it belongs and her admittedly mild-in-the-first-place aggravation is eased. He is probably safer with her when she's slightly annoyed than when her head tilts in that particular way, all things being equal -

"Many of them," she concedes, not unwilling to play if he's going to stop messing up her orderly shelving. "Including research experience, though that one, I think, I acquired for myself. What are you looking for?"

The inevitable question.