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

I. Eyrie

[sulahnan]

At first Athessa thinks that choked squawk was one of the griffons, barely affording it a thought, but when Colin squeaks, she ducks to look out from under Chawcey's neck and sees the tableau of affectionate griffin and terrified mage.

"I think Sunbeam likes you," she announces, ruffling Chawcey's feathers once more before stepping away, towards Colin. Or at least, starting to. Chawcey bumps his head against Athessa's back, making her stumble forward a step, and she huffs at him, only to have his massive head rest against her shoulder. "Quit it, ya nugget," she says, scratching under his chin and then shoving his head away. This time, Chawcey stays put.

"She's not gonna eat you, ya know."

pour moi

[coquettish_trees]

The lady turns, her hands full of the evergreen boughs she’s arranging, eyebrows curving upwards at the approach. Her look quickly turns to genuine concern as she takes in the storm on his face, the set of his body, and Alexandrie releases the greenery, making her her hands free to reach for his as she moves to meet him.

“What has happened, Colin?” His name, not her customary endearment; acknowledgement that this is something not yet to be smoothed or comforted.

[keenly]

"How do you know?" Sunbeam? This death machine is called Sunbeam? The griffon bumps her head against him again, this time closer to where he carries a satchel. By nuzzling, she manages to begin to open the flap.

"No, no," Colin says cautiously, drawing the satchel out of the way. Sunbeam follows it. What's in there that--

Colin follows a hunch and pulls out a bundle of fresh herbs. Sunbeam cannot have it soon enough and nearly gobbles it up straight away, but Colin holds it behind his back and raises a finger.

"Wait," he commands. To his surprise, the griffon obeys. He looks over at Athessa. "Catnip," he says with a small laugh. "Do you know if it's safe for them?"

[keenly]

He could break something. He'd like to break something. He won't break anything. Just to have the satisfaction of aggressing upon something, he lays hands on a stool and tips it over. It barely makes a sound when it hits the floor.

[coquettish_trees]

Done like a man who’s never before given rein to his temper. A man who needs what he has whole more than he needs it broken. Alexandrie, who has never had any such compunction, who has always needed shards more than glasses, stains more than cloth, pauses in her movement to wordlessly retrieve her half-empty wine glass from the table and offer it to him with a level look. Given his gesture of just previous, there’s little room for doubt as to what she means him to do with it.

It’s claret. It will look striking—beautiful and terrible and inexorable—wherever it lands, should he oblige them both.

tw: mentions of attempted suicide

[keenly]

Colin sees the claret and imagines throwing it in Byerly's face. But Byerly isn't here, and the more Colin stares at the wine, the closer a bad memory creeps. Finding the bottle, opening the bottle, dumping its contents in the glass of wine. The image of it has the glass flying from his hand into the fireplace, crystal shattering against the stone, wine consumed by flame in a hot flash that heats Colin's face. He smiles.

That was satisfying.

"Thank you," he sighs.

[sulahnan]

"Catnip?" She repeats, raising her eyebrows. Then her shoulders, in a shrug. "Probably, they're part cat, right?"

But then of course, the effect it has on cats...

"Maybe just a little bit, it might make her a bit more aggressive."

[coquettish_trees]

She’d wondered if he would, or if he would not. And, if he would, what his choice would be. Alexandrie picks the ground for short sharp flares of rage when she only needs the feeling of the throw, the sound of the shatter for emphasis. The wall when she is righteous in her anger, so she can see the devastation and make visible its aftermath, wave it like a flag.

The fireplace is her choice when some of it is for herself. When she needs to have it strike back at her, if only with the flare of heat. Perhaps it is so for Colin as well. Or perhaps he chose it simply for the extra element of destruction. Perhaps to save the staff the pains of cleaning up a spill. It hardly matters. The sigh that follows it loosens her shoulders as well, the height of the tension broken with the glass, and she offers her hand again. It’s empty this time, palm up and waiting for his.

[keenly]

He takes her hand, and with the contact, the tirade begins.

"I might have overreacted. The trouble is, when someone knows you need something, and they offer it in exchange for something else, but then it turns out they have no right to offer it and no way of guaranteeing you that you will get that thing you need, that's wrong. And in this situation, that thing I need is protection from the Chantry after the war is over, provided the world hasn't ended. I tried to kill myself because I thought I had no way of getting that. And then it's offered, but with a whole lot of strings attached.
Vested interest, he called it. Because I need something, I then belong to his cause?"

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie thins her lips in concentration while she follows the quick darting patter of Colin’s speech, her hand a still quiet presence in his as she waits to see if more will flood forth.

[keenly]

"You, and Byerly. When I needed justice in order to live, you rigged a trial for me, and I'm grateful. You did all the work, and all I did was stand in front of a blackhaller and await your pre-ordained verdict." He seems to run out of a thought then, or at least find that it isn't quite lining up with what's bothering him. It's close, but not quite the same road. His lips part, his gaze wanders, and after a moment, he breathes in.

"But manipulation, and vested interest. I can't help think that's how you treat an enemy, or at least a potential rival. But not a friend. And it's...I don't doubt Byerly really wants me to have the land. But I feel taunted. He says the land is mine, he waits for me to finish asking questions, and then he tells me the catch. If he'd just asked for my help, I'd have done it. But he gave me a glimpse of something I desperately need--hope--and then took it away. And I'm..."

He finds a chair and sits with a heavy sigh. "I have to look to other people to provide me with that. Hope. I can't make a place for myself in a world where I'm an apostate. And it's the most frightening thing of all, because I don't want to die. I don't want to go back to that place in my head. I know it's still there. And I know when I go there, I'm completely powerless. I need hope, and I can't make it for myself. So I see a little glimmer of it, a friend's spontaneous offer, and I think, 'I'm going to be all right.' And then it turns out he's just trying to get me to do something.

"He doesn't know what I did to myself, but it felt...exploitative. Because even though he doesn't know about that, he knows I don't have any choice but to do what he says because my life depends on it."

iii.

[cozen]

Bastien enters with a light knock on the door frame, with a reason for the visit wrapped in a handkerchief in his hand, and the sort of slight smile that indicates he hopes he isn’t being a nuisance and might easily be turned away if he is—but only for a moment. As soon as he has a good look at the room, his eyes light up, and he’s coming in without waiting to be invited.

“I did not know you could draw,” he says.

[coquettish_trees]

She listens, nodding slightly as he speaks, and when there is another pause she squeezes his hand and pulls at it lightly to guide him to sit with her in a pair of chairs nearby. A flicker of her eyes towards and brief arch of her brow at an attentive servant means there will be some tea joining them shortly, and then she returns her full attention to Colin, waiting to see if there is more forthcoming.

[keenly]

"I can't," Colin says with a chuckle, showing him. It's actually pretty good, but that's not what he thinks. "But I like it. It's soothing."

[keenly]

"I need him, I need this--" His eyes widen. "And...I'm afraid that if it doesn't work out, if we fail, or if his favored candidate isn't willing to fulfill Byerly's promises, I'm very much afraid I'll go back to that place. I'm afraid I'll try again."

That's the last of it. Finally, the root of the problem. This plot could be his salvation, or it could seal his fate. And that's chilling. He doesn't want to die. He never wanted to die. But he knows what he's capable of, and where his mind goes when he thinks death is his only form of protest.

[cozen]

“Arrête tes conneries,” Bastien says while leaning over to look. “It’s wonderful. I always wished I could draw—but not enough to put the time into learning, I suppose, so it is not fair of me to be too jealous.”

[coquettish_trees]

“So,” she says finally, with another reassuring press of her hand in his, “with this news about the appointments made by Divine Beatrix in response to your successful venture, your worry of Chantry reprisal is renewed. You spoke with Byerly about this, and in response he offered you the feeling of safety in the form of land that you might disappear to when this has finished, but did not reveal until after you had truly seized upon this offer with all hope that it was land he had no true right to promise.”

Which of course he didn’t. Byerly is long disinherited, although Colin has little enough reason to know that. But such a promise, and the mention of a favored candidate... it is time, then, for Dragonmount to change hands?

“But,” she continues, “he believes it assured should the candidate he favors succeed the Bannorn, and he wishes your help in influencing the succession now that you have been given a compelling reason to care for the outcome. And this has made you feel tricked and used and treated as gamepiece rather than friend, and the bite of it made infinitely more cruel because the hope he offered and then made you feel was contingent upon your cooperation is the one you need most desperately, and a place in which you have been wounded terribly before.”

Here is the tea.

“Do I have the lay of it?”

[keenly]

Colin dumps a significant amount of sugar into his tea before drinking. “That’s the lay of it,” he confirms. The anger is wearing off and he has realized he’s far more upset with himself than with Byerly, who did not deserve such treatment. Byerly didn’t try to kill him back in Bloomingtide, and isn’t going to kill him if they fail this endeavor. He can’t say the same about himself.

[coquettish_trees]

“Which presses more harshly now,” she asks, forgoing both sugar and cream in her tea in order to keep her attention to Colin uninterrupted, “your fears for the future in which the Chantry seeks you out, or the surprise and hurt of being treated so by a man you consider to be a friend?”

[keenly]

"The fear." He doesn't even have to think about it. "Of myself, as much as the Chantry."

[coquettish_trees]

“Will the latter be assuaged at all by a reminder that this new offer of land is not, in fact, your only recourse?” She holds the cup in her hands, the tea warming her fingers. “That you have had two other offers of protection, from both Lord Artemaeus and myself?”

[keenly]

A soft sigh.

"Lexie. Tevinter might not exist by the end of the war. Even if it does, Benedict will be unwelcome to return there, and who knows what you and your husband will have left? You're both on the wrong side, where they're concerned."

[coquettish_trees]

“Surely you cannot think my lord husband and I have but one set of plans,” Alexandrie raises her eyebrows and sips at the tea, more for emphasis than anything. “Even should the very worst come to pass; the House destroyed, my family suddenly repudiate me, the both of us wanted as traitors by whichever side should prevail, we are not without the skills required to survive such a thing.

“If we are, by some absurd twist of fate, penniless on the road, you should still be welcome. But we shall not be subjected to that, and neither shall you be.” It’s said with confidence. After all, she and Loki have already, quietly, begun preparation for the years to follow.

[keenly]

"Outside of Tevinter, I would be a liability," Colin reminds her. "Honestly, I have no doubts in your abilities, Lexie, but you would harbor two mages."

His gaze drops. "Although the Chantry isn't as good at catching mages as they told us, I guess."

[coquettish_trees]

“The Bannorn of Dragonmount is also outside Tevinter, mon cher,” she reminds gently. “There is, and has never been, anything truly and perfectly safe in this world. Not for any of us, although I grant it worse for mages in the South. Even so, no matter how secure and sure something may seem, there is always a set of ‘if’s and ‘but’s that strung together might topple it. This is why we must learn to make our own hope. So that, even knowing this, we still move forward, and believe that even with one hundred ‘if’s that go wrong, there is one that can be found that goes right, and that we will find it.” She puts down the cup to offer her hands to him again.

“But as you cannot yet produce hope for yourself, you may borrow my surety.” She straightens in her seat and summons all her formidable stubborn world-breaking will for him to see.

“Whatever transpires, you have friends. And as long as even one of us draws breath, you are not, and will not, be alone.”