faderift | OPEN

He wanted her head clear, so they’re out, currently on the endless sweep of stairs up the cliffside to Hightown with a bundle of messages to hand off to a Chantry representative and a short shopping list. It’s early. Cold. The wind is sharp, and the people nearest to them on the stairs won’t be able to hear them over it.

Not that he would worry too much if they did. But it’s habit to notice.

It’s been Les Chats most of the walk so far, but halfway up the steps, the topic exhausts itself, at least for now, and after a short lull Bastien asks, “Is Yseult cross with you?”

Her shrug acts as a vehicle for her to burrow deeper into her scarf, arms already crossed tightly over her middle to protect from the cold and self-soothe.

"That's a word for it. I'd say disappointed," Which, of course, is worse.

Of course it is worse. He winces in sympathy, sucking air through his teeth, and offers, like a balm: “She thinks you have potential, though. She asked me to work with you.”

Athessa squints at him dubiously. Yseult said she'd arrange for training, so it isn't the subject of being worked with that's suspicious.

"Not more etiquette lessons, I guess?"

“Manners are a weapon, when you apply them correctly,” Bastien says, words clipped and fake-offended in a way that’s more teasing than convincing, “just like everything else. But no, that is not what she meant.”

There’s a bit of frozen something—vomit, maybe, from someone’s journey home after a late night in Lowtown—on one of the stairs. He steps neatly around it.

“Do you know much about Orlesian bards?”

"Assassins of body and character," she says, clearly something she heard or read somewhere, not her own assessment. "So not really. Just the same old stories anyone else would know."

She also steps around the frozen whatever-it-is, on the opposite side. She's not entirely barefoot today, just bare-toed. Shoes are still a loathsome mystery so she's settled for toe-less socks.

"Is this the part where you tell me you are one?"

“Oui,” Bastien says, and watches her sidelong. “Am I very obvious?”

That's the unfortunate part: he's not obvious. That, paired with the memory of the dream neither of them have spoken about, tastes a lot like dread.

"Not at all," Athessa says, shaking her head. "Except the Orlesian part. That's obvious. And the part where you knocked me over the head, tied me up, and almost handed me over to be tortured or killed by the enemy, but other than that..."

It's said quickly and without malice, just a statement of the clues that make this an unsurprising revelation, but it's hard to hide the uncertainty of whether or not the Bastien in that dream is the same as the one beside her when she returns his sidelong glance.

“Ah,” Bastien says, and he has the courtesy to look more serious, if not exactly chastened. He’d gotten wind of these things being odd and communal already, but he’d been hoping his were just normal dreams that no one else would recall.

Oh well.

“I did not actually do any of those things,” he says, probably unnecessarily. “I think I was—we were dreaming about what might have happened if I had not quit the Game when I did. Because I did. Years ago.”

"Colin thinks a spirit might be behind them," she says. "Trying to make us appreciate what we've got or some shite like that."

She has her opinions on that, but wanting to strangle whatever spirit forced her to relive her trauma in vivid detail is neither here nor there.

"Anyway, as long as you are actually my friend and not secretly planning to betray me and break my poor little heart, it doesn't matter what happened in fucked up dream-land. Although..."

Colin, noted. Spirit, noted. Her tone, noted.

He’s ready with reassurances. No such plans! But she trails off, and he looks at her while more stairs pass underfoot, his eyebrows raised but otherwise patient. Watchful. Canny in a way that’s usually more obscured, if not completely invisible, beneath careless cheer and joie de vivre and an preternatural ability to lose things in his own pockets—not that any of that is a lie, exactly. Just a partial truth.

Anyway. He smiles a little, with one side of his mouth. “Although?”

"Does being a bard mean you know how to fight?" Leading questions. She knows it does, has pieced that together by now, but she wants to get as close to an admission as she can.

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.

With Eshal gone, Athessa has become an infrequent visitor to the Diplomacy office. In part because it's hardly ever where she needs to be, but also because no matter what she does or doesn't do, says or doesn't say, it seems like Byerly is cross with her. Or trying his damnedest to make her cross with him.

But she's not avoiding him, which she makes clear now by purposefully marching into the office, making sure that nobody else is here to chew Byerly's ear about something, and closes the door behind her. Barely before the door shuts, she's speaking:

"What exactly is your problem with me?" It's more a demand than a question, but why split hairs? She crosses the office to stand before him. "One minute I think I understand how to talk to you, the next it seems like you're just trying to piss me off, or just completely cold like I did something to piss you off, 'cept I dunno what it is, so I can't fix it!"

It's not the best choice he's ever made. Certainly not the most adult choice ever. Certainly quite unkind. But when she storms into his office - apropos of nothing, as far as he can tell - ready for a fight, snarling at him, he cannot help himself. He looks at her, and frowns, as if puzzled, and says -

"It's...Alyssa, right?"

And he squints, as if trying to place her face. (It's easier than having to answer her questions.)

There's a bottle, because of course there is, sitting to her left on Byerly's desk. She stares him down, and for a moment it might seem like she's not going to rise to his bait, but then she starts to nudge that bottle steadily closer and closer to the edge.

"As much as your name's Byron." And then the bottle falls.

He stares her down, mouth crooked downwards. But he doesn't shout, or get visibly angry. There's just annoyance.

"Someone else will have to clean that up," he says tartly. "I'm head of Diplomacy. I have servants." By the tone of his voice, this is something of a novelty, enough that it deserves a hint of mockery. "So you're just being cruel to them."

Her eyes narrow briefly at the way he says servants.

"You also have one less bottle of wine," she counters, despite the creep of guilt in the pit of her stomach.

"Whatever shall I do?" he asks, looking utterly unbothered. "I may perish." Then, shaking his head - "Maker, you're like a little cat."

"And you're--" she starts to say before she can stop herself. She clenches her jaw too late, and it results in just looking like she's so frustrated that she can't find the right words to use. Which, let's face it, is kinda true. She snarls something unintelligible, possibly in elvish but who can say, and fwumps into the seat across from the desk.

"You're impossible."

OPEN

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Why Are You Like This - Closed to Byerly

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