Open | Life is just a troubled sea

[keenly]

WHO: Colin + You
WHAT: Open post for Haring
WHEN: Throughout the month
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: If you would like a starter, let me know.

I. Eyrie

No one here has yet been eaten by a griffon, but there's a first time for everything.

They're big. They're all so, so big, and they look hungry, and one of them is literally drooling. Fortunately, most of them are ignoring the normal-sized healer as he creeps about two feet into the eyrie, then stands there frozen. Is this a bad idea? This is a bad idea. Animals can smell fear, and these animals have sharp claws and sharp beaks and sharp talons. Thing is, these animals could mean life or death to a wounded ally. Moreover, he's learned a thing or two about himself from these bizarre dreams, and the most important of those things is that he's not as normal and boring as he has striven to be all his life. His instinct to hide from all things remotely heroic isn't as important as his curiosity, and when faced with both fear and wonder, he's going to try to act on the wonder.

That is, until one large, glossy, black griffon comes up behind him and nudges his elbow gently, at which point he chokes on a squawk and stumbles away from it. It follows. He bumps into another griffon, which makes an annoyed sound. Eventually he remembers to stand still. The black griffon approaches him and gives his shoulder a tiny headbutt. Colin turns positively grey. It gives his hand the gentlest of nips and Colin squeaks, backing away again.

II. Closed to Alexandrie

The doorman doesn't even have time to announce Lexie's guest before Colin is storming up to her. She has never seen him this angry, not even during their recent fight.

"You won't believe the conversation I just had," he snarls at the same time as the doorman stammers "A-apothecary Colin, my lady."

III. Obligatory workplace setting prompt

It's the apothecary. Maybe Colin is bottling potions and tinctures. Maybe he is sweeping. Maybe he is compounding various herbs. Maybe he is cooking lunch over the fireplace. Maybe he has run out of things to do and is sketching in a book. Come bother him.

IV. Wildcard

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

“A fine idea,” she approves, “If you like, we might have a standing time for tea, or lunch. We might even go to the theatre sometime, should you wish such a thing.” It occurs to her she doesn’t actually know whether or not he would. Ah well, no time like the present to find out.

“But! Although I know myself to be a brilliant and immensely enjoyable companion, I should hardly wish to monopolize your time.”

[keenly]

"I like that idea," Colin says with a smile. It's a relief for her to suggest these things. "I've never been to the theatre. I've a feeling I'd like it."

His thumb runs over her knuckles affectionately before he releases her hands and sits back in his chair with a sigh.

"Now I have to make a cake."

[coquettish_trees]

“Fill it with bourbon,” Alexandrie suggests, her lips pursing slightly in a little mischievous smile before she lifts her tea again.

[keenly]

A small chuckle. "I was thinking rum. Rum spice. Something nice and dense. And I'll need to make marzipan. I like how you know exactly what it's for without being told."

[coquettish_trees]

She lifts a shoulder and sips her tea innocently through the little smile. “Baking only makes you sigh when it is a peace offering, and unless I am much mistaken there is only one of those that might needs be made.”

[keenly]

"I sigh because I'd rather not do the thing that I have to apologize for. And ruining a good bake with all that remorse. Baking should be a happy thing."

[coquettish_trees]

“So make it happy, mon chou. Are not hopes for repairs and better understandings between friends occasion for at least small happiness?

“Or, if you cannot make it happy, make it in the shape of something terribly complicated to distract yourself.” A sip of tea, for punctuation. “Or terribly silly.” Another. “Or both.”

[keenly]

"I was thinking thoughtful and creative?" Colin pours himself another cup of tea. "But anyway. I just hope I don't ruin it further."

[coquettish_trees]

How often has she hoped just that: to not ruin it further? How often has she done so, despite that hope?

“I think you shall find Monsieur Rutyer to be more accustomed to ruin than perhaps he ought to be,” she murmurs to the teacup before returning her gaze to Colin. “Do what you think best, cher; with cake and apology both.” Alexandrie raises her eyebrows and gives him the very gentlest look of reproof. “Perhaps you do not think so, but I believe your best thoughts to be very fine indeed.”

[keenly]

Colin beams at her. He has a pretty decent feeling about this now.

The next evening, there's a frantic knock at the door. The doorman lets him in and again he seeks out Lexie heedlessly, but this time, he has clearly been crying.

[coquettish_trees]

This time—if the bare feet, the soft smudged line of her lips, the mussed hair pulled over her shoulder in a quick knot around itself, and the dressing gown she is finishing tying shut as she appears have anything to say of it—she has clearly been doing something other than arranging greenery.

The languid bemused curiosity on her face sharpens quickly to concern. “Ah, non. Qu'est qui s'est passé?”

[keenly]

Colin sits down hard in a chair and leans forward to bury his face in his hands.

"I think I lost a friend," he says hoarsely. "I don't think he'll ever talk to me again."

[coquettish_trees]

He will feel slender fingers in his hair, combing through it slowly. Her other hand pulls with a gentle insistence to lean his head against her midsection, the already warming heavy silk of the robe that covers it. This close, the smell of her perfume—the one he makes her—is unavoidable, although for the moment it’s changed; mingled with the darker scent that follows her husband.

“What went so wrong?” she asks after a few long breaths, her voice half vibration through her body.

[keenly]

After all that's happened tonight, he's not sure he can bear her kindness, but he allows it to avoid further confrontation. His voice thickens.

"I told him what I did." A vague statement, but there's only one thing he has done recently that has caused the kind of shame that is in his voice right now.

[coquettish_trees]

Ah.

There are a number of things she might say, but they are none of them of use now, so she only releases a breath on a hum of acknowledgement, continues the slow card of fingers through hair, lightens the pressure of her other hand. It is still there, but he is freer now to choose whether to stay where she has pulled him or escape her if he wishes.

[keenly]

He slides downward to rest his head in her lap, a tear trickling toward his temple.

"Why did I do it?" he breathes. "I hurt people, you most of all. And I've barely been able to face it, but I've hurt myself. I have to live with what I did every day, knowing I'm more of a threat to myself than anything else in the world right now. I don't want to die."

[coquettish_trees]

“I am pleased to hear so,” she says, adjusting herself so that her thighs make for a better cradle.

After a long pause, she takes a moment to stroke his cheek with the backs of her bare fingers before returning to his hair. “I remember when the world was only noise and pain,” she muses. “When I could see no future worth the having.

“It was not that I wished to die, but I did not wish to live. There is a difference, I think.”

[keenly]

It's several moments before he responds in any way, while he lies in her lap as his feelings empty into her soothing touch. When everything is purged, he sighs and sits up, looking glum but calm.

"That's...pretty much it. There was no hope in living. I saw it as a strategic exit. It's so easy, in the moment, to feel like you're thinking clearly when you're not."

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie hums soft agreement as she releases him.

"But now," she replies, "should you feel so again you shall recognize it, no?"

[keenly]

"I do recognize it. Whenever I've started to think that way ever since, I've gone to a friend. I sort of thought Byerly could have been one of those I could go to, for a distraction. I guess I was wrong."

[coquettish_trees]

"May I ask what happened?" she asks carefully, before readjusting to tuck her bare feet beneath her and amending it. "You need not say anything, if you do not wish to revisit it yet. We might play at cards instead."

[keenly]

A sigh. "I tried to explain what I'd actually been upset about, so he'd know he didn't do anything wrong. And when it seemed to make him angrier, I doubled down on it. I thought he was upset because it seemed like I was threatening to try something again if, I don't know, if he didn't let me help him, or something. But it turned out he was angry I tried to kill myself. I hadn't realized he cared so much. But I don't think he wants anything to do with me now he thinks I've given up. I suppose I can see it. Why be friends with someone who might be gone any day?"

[coquettish_trees]

“Misericordieux Andraste, is this what I sound like?” It is all gentle amusement, gentler reproof. “Enough of that, you shall not be ‘gone any day’.” Alexandrie reaches out and flicks his leg with a finger. “At least, not with more immediacy than any of us; we might the both of us be run down by a carriage tomorrow.” She abandons her teasing quickly, though. “Even if you were to be, I should cherish all the moments of our friendship that are made available to me. You are not less worth loving for the risks of your fears and pains.”

A second set of thoughts run beneath the soft affection she makes visible, private as the deeper currents of the ocean on a placid day. She has very rarely seen Byerly truly angry, not without the presence of some greater cruelty. What is this, to him, that it sparked this hot? This real?

[keenly]

"Well, that must be how he sees it. Not that I've been very good at guessing his mind up to now." He shakes his head gently. "He doesn't even want me to help him with what he asked for."

[coquettish_trees]

“Let him work himself out, cher,” she reaches again for Colin’s leg, but this time it is to rest her hand on it and smooth at it with her thumb. “Anger is so rarely about what sparks it.”