closed.

[adjurator]

WHO: Caius, Alais
WHAT: Coming up w a plan
WHEN: Unlike Abby I do not have these memorized
WHERE: The road to Kirkwall
NOTES: n/a

It's a dark and stormy night. It's at least dim and drizzly.

Water drums against soggy canvas. The cart drags, bumps — dislodges a new trickle of black mud down their backs. It could be worse, they could still be walking.

"We should tell them the truth." Wait for it. "I mean, shouldn't we?"

What do you think? Look at a game board, and your opponent ahead. Flatten: Forward becomes up, becomes North; the enemy. But that's being dramatic. With her knees pulled up to her chest, Alais doesn't look the enemy of much but good posture.

The rain is loud, the road louder. Their driver has the good sense (the last of their coins) not to overhear.

Comments

[sumptus]

There's nothing he can do to stop the mud dribbling down his spine, save hunch his cloak up to his ears in silent protest. The mud on his boots, though, he's taking the flat edge of a short stick to, half bent over gangly limbs and scraping. They've walked a long way; they might need not to look it.

"Which parts?"

—so, no.

how did this become six days

[adjurator]

She lifts a hand, examines the shape of light beneath —

Imagination only (they've been careful), the corona of it still burned into her mind's eye. Visible even in sleep.

"We're Tevene," Unpacking, "Can't fake that long. We're mages."

Can't conceive of faking that.

"We're across the border. Could be wrecked," She allows. They said — the people in the last town, the one where they paid the driver, and the grey clouds didn't so much gather as unfurl — they said that a ship ran aground. Imperial. "But we don't know who was involved. What they've,"

A pivot of pronoun: Riftwatch. She clarifies,

"What they've done about it." She withdraws her hand at last, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "It seems like the main thing left is timing."

A shard, while running. Not running for a shard.

[sumptus]

A nod, measured as he listens. They could not be mages. He could. Might be safer. But safest of all would've been turning heel when a sliver of green caught her, and he isn't doing that. Couldn't. His eyes shadow her hand, only a beat before they flick down again, plowing out a path where boot top meets sole.

"That'll be the important part." Why now. Apart from the obvious — too obvious to rely on.

"They're committed, right?" Riftwatch. Whatever authority figure they'll actually meet with. Not committed enough to join the invasion, but committed against Tevinter all the same. "Maybe they'll want to believe we started to agree with them. Did you hear about anything before, anything specific that made you question things?"

[adjurator]

"It's a war," — Is being difficult, is the churlish breed of impulse they'll need to break if they make this work. A pause. "Sorry."

It's a war, but some measures will always sting the consicence. Or the nose: the rank smear of Darkspawn, the cheap soap of Ethereus' robes at her door. Come South,

Hardly an invitation.

"There's a camp." There's a rumour of a camp, which means there's probably a camp. Someone at least thought about it. "Where they're keeping the anchors. I don't know where, but Orlais. Map the rifts, the veins, look for a patchy Veil — you could narrow it down."

"If we trade that," It seems worth trading. (It seems they don't have a lot to trade.) "It looks like self-interest. Could we make it look like we were trying to learn more? Like they found us out, when we were looking?"

[sumptus]

"We could narrow it down." Offhand. Do Southern mages even know what a patchy Veil looks like?

Ah. Eyes lifting, "Maybe that's enough."

"We were in Orlais. You were measuring the Veil. You have your kit, right? We have some notes--" Which maybe they'll be able to read, but honestly? "And if either of us was going to commit treason, we wouldn't be stupid enough to write it down."

[adjurator]

"Dear diary," She intones. "Today I decided to betray my country, and run away to the barbarian hordes."

Alais doesn't speak a moment, pats self-conscious at the case with their papers — hand wandering again in search of a task. She settles on a drenched kerchief, wrings it loose. Saturation becomes soggy.

"Caius," Her tone drops, becomes something a little older (younger); a little less certain. She passes him the cloth: Clean your stick. "You don't have to do this."

It's a choice already made. It's still a choice; she holds his eyes.

[sumptus]

Fingers pause outstretched. Pressure beneath fabric. If eyes are supposed to be windows to the soul, Caius's have always been boarded up tight; shutters closed, curtains drawn, no entry permitted. But it's been a year since he'd first sat down at the work station across from hers, less than that since he'd offered her half a day-old flatbread during an all-nighter, and maybe that's long enough to see through his defenses, or maybe it's long enough he's stopped trying so hard to raise them.

Fear is what he's not quite hiding from her now. Bare, familiar, fit to him like a second skin he's been wearing as long as she's known him, only now it's seeing light. He doesn't have to do this again — be afraid, leave behind the certainty of known titles and rising status and safe, shitty little flats he's spent half a life fighting to call his own. Start over, and for what?

(For her. For not having to be the kind of person who makes the other choice.)

"What, and let you write the book on that thing without me?" is what he says, drawing the cloth back like he hadn't just been holding it long enough he ought to consider marrying it. His smile is forced; the effort behind it is real enough. "I want the intro chapter at least."