faderift | OPEN

She doesn’t need to lead him any further. He holds up a staying hand, sheepish and defiant in equal measure, and says, “I am—” (Here the hand descends to pat his stomach, which lost most of its recent excess the desert, but still certainly doesn’t have anything approaching visible abs hiding beneath his winter clothes.) “—horribly out of shape. It is possible that these stairs will kill me. And you had it handled! You were magnificent.”

Athessa scoffs, but it's more amused than disdainful.

"That either means that Yseult has assigned me the worst teacher on purpose, or that you're lying to avoid a punch in the arm."

So there. But also:

"But I was magnificent, thank you for noticing."

“Marvelous,” he says, Marcher-accented like before. “Grace incarnate. Please do not punch me.”

He’d gladly take a punch in the arm over her being furious or betrayed. He probably wouldn’t even try to dodge it. But if not being punched is also an option—

He says, “I was never much of a fighter, as bards go. I could show you some tricks, but you could probably show me more.” He mimes a one-two punch, despite how irrelevant that is to the fighting style at issue. “Maybe you could get me back in shape, hein? But I think Yseult was more concerned with, ah—discretion.”

She doesn't punch him. But she does deliver a poke to his stomach, because it's the principle of the thing, you see. But back to more serious matters.

"Discretion," She echoes. A sigh puffs out her cheeks, and she nods as the last of the stairs fall away behind them. It's hard not to feel a little frustrated alongside her crushing shame at being a disappointment. It's not like she isn't trying! It's just that any time she's discreet, nobody sees it.

"Guess she really was mad that I got caught."

Bastien lifts his message bundle as they pass the guard posted at the entrance, to prove they aren’t here to loiter. Normally he wouldn’t need to do even that, but normally he doesn’t have an elf along. He doesn’t stop, though, and the guard doesn’t ask them to.

“What actually happened?” he asks. “I did not ask her.”

Athessa affords the guard a cursory glance, just enough to gauge whether they have that I'm gonna teach that elf a lesson look about them. But they seem content enough to ignore her entirely so long as she's alongside Bastien.

"I was a moron and snatched a cigarette case from Leander's hand and threw it off the battlements into the Sea. Then Yseult questioned me about it after I lost the drinking competition and I guess she wasn't exactly chuffed about how easily I confessed."

Its the quick version, lacking crucial details like why she did it, what the original plan was, what she confessed to, and so on. But Bastien knows exactly how drunk she'd been at the competition. It's a thought that brings a shameful heat to Athessa's ears and cheeks. If her skin were just a touch darker, it might not be noticeable.

Alas.

He laughs—not at her or her blushing, but the same way he would at any charming and funny personal anecdote. One with a lot of holes in it, sure, but he'll worry about them later, if he needs to.

"That was an evening," he says, and lets that sit for a few seconds of walking before he asks, "Do you want me to teach you? She was not very specific. If you do not like it, we can take some walks and talk about planning and perception, and I will consider my obligation met. But you can sing, and you can fight, and I have strong suspicions that you are clever. I think you could do it. If you want to."

"Wait, do...what?" So much for her cleverness. She was too lost in thought, reliving Yseult's disappointment and all, to process whatever he said after laughing. After another moment of thought, this time about the context of the conversation, she makes a face.

"Be a bard?"

“Not as a profession, I hope,” he says. “Obviously I do not recommend it.”

Since he quit.

Obviously, she concedes with a tip of her head.

Just as obviously, at least to Athessa, there's no room for her to say no.

"I'll do it." Decisive. Definitive. The words of someone with something to prove. "I promised Yseult I'd take whatever training she provided seriously, and this is what she chose. Can't really say no, can I?"

She could. Maybe he should do more to underscore that—but she's an adult, twice as old as he had been, with better answers to questions like where will I go and what will I be if I leave, and anyway, it is not that bad. Not like he wants to put her through what the Crows do. Repeating too many times that she doesn't have to do it will only make it seem like it is more difficult than it is, or like he doubts her.

So he only shrugs, as if defeated in a pleasant philosophical way, we are all at the mercy of the universe, etc., and turns down a side road that means a longer walk to the Keep, but with a better view of the sea.

"D'accord," he says. "I think it will be fun. And Alexandrie d'Asgard might work with you, too, if you like. You are a woman—if you have not noticed—so your strength is in your legs. And your, ah, big beautiful eyes, of course."

She does a double take, blinking those big beautiful eyes first at him, and then at herself. For the effect, she pats herself down.

"I am?!" Maybe if she gained forty pounds, she'd have a figure, with boobs and hips and all, but she doesn't have forty extra pounds. She has a slim figure on a petite frame, currently covered in layers in an attempt to ward off the cold.

His smile, beneath his mustache and above his scarf, is very fond.

"I am sorry," he says. "I thought you knew."

"Everything makes so much sense now," She laughs, unreserved and grinning. "But yeah, legs, where my strength is. That's why my fighting is mostly jumping and kicking."

She laughs, and a tangle of worry—invisible, but there—unknots into cautious optimism. He’d thought she might be upset with him. And he doesn’t even mind when people are upset with him, usually. It’s surprising to be quite this relieved.

“It is very fun to watch,” he says, which is and is not a joke.

And that's the point of how ridiculous her fighting is. Distract your opponent with enough feats of agility and they won't even see the kick aimed at their head. Which, thinking on it, doesn't quite align with the concept of discretion.

"So I guess, since you brought them up together, Alexandrie would be teaching me... lady... stuff?"

“If you like,” he says. “I could try, but—”

He finishes that sentence with a face and vague gesture that, together, mean it would be fucking weird.

"—it'd be fucking weird." They're on the same page, there. "Not that your eyes aren't also big and beautiful."

“Merci,” Bastien says with prim agreeableness, though he personally would classify his eyes as dark and guileless, like a stupid dog’s.

Not in a bad way. It gets him out of all sorts of things.

“I could hand you over to her entirely,” he adds, “but there are other things you and I have more in common, I think. Playing from below the nobility instead of on their level—it is not more or less difficult, but it is different. And I have worked with elves before. But I have almost never worked in skirts, on the other hand, so she will have advice I cannot give.”

"I've never worked in skirts either," she mutters with a shrug. "You don't have to sell me on your qualifications. I trust you."

And she trusts Yseult's judgment, considering the whole it's my job to know when you're lying thing. Is that something she'll learn?

"Do you...really think I'm clever?" She's not fishing for a compliment, but genuinely asking because she'd never describe herself that way. She's the first to call herself stupid, after all.

"An orphaned elf without a community or a protector does not survive Thedas without being clever. Not for long."

A depressing sentence—but it's a compliment, so it's delivered like one, brisk and kind, not like a gloomy summation of elves' thousand years of oppression and Athessa's lifetime of loss.

"And personally, I think a good sense of humor is the first sign of intelligence," he adds, and confides aside: "I might be biased."

Her lips quirk into a smile at the confidance.

And then something stops her in her tracks. A realization of something she did. She stares at nothing for a moment before catching up with the few steps Bastien took, and though she clearly is trying to be casual, she still looks like someone who just saw a miniature dragon poke its head out of a purse.

"I think I called Flint an idiot. Accidentally."

"You think?"

"I got Benedict some paints and a book for Satinalia and Flint gave me guff about Benedict being a traitor and how I had to think about whether or not he was really an idiot or just playing a part. I said he was really an idiot, and when he asked how I could be sure..."

She cringes.

"I said takes one to know one."

He laughs, delighted. "I am sure he recovered."

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