Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Byerly
WHAT: Repairing friendship maybe??
WHEN: a few days after By's backfired apology (pre-Ghislain)
WHERE: Lowtown
NOTES: Drinking and drug use and probably violence, threadjacking negotiable

Lowtown taverns haven't been Athessa's regular haunts for a long while, probably because she tacitly conceded them to Derrica in favor of drifting along the battlements in clouds of smoke and visiting Hightown apartments where the food is arguably much better. But she's here now, leaning against the bar and trying valiantly to get the barkeep's attention. This isn't the one who passes her information for Riftwatch, just an unaffiliated one who has something against elves, or women, or short-arses, or all of the above.

So while she waits, she produces a blunt and lights it on someone else's match just after they light their own cigarette. It's surprising enough for the man that he stares, confused, until the flame burns down to his fingers and he drops the match and stomps it out when it hits the floor.

"Cheers," Athessa says, though he's already ignoring her again, just like the barkeep. She turns and leans her elbows on the bar, scanning the crowd for anyone pretty, handsome, pretty handsome, or pretty interesting.

Comments

[bouchonne]

With a laugh - "Well, I don't know about that. But it's versatile. If you have a fiddle, you can play for your supper. And if you've hocked that, you can sing for it. Maker have mercy on the days you're sick, of course, when your voice is rough and hoarse - but otherwise, it keeps you alive."

[sulahnan]

She hmms. "I never thought about singing to get by."

[bouchonne]

"Really? Not even once? Buskers aren't so uncommon."

[sulahnan]

"Really," She shrugs. It's not that buskers were uncommon. "It was easier to pickpocket once I understood that I needed money for things, because it didn't take talking to anyone."

[bouchonne]

"I wouldn't have taken you for someone shy," he says.

[sulahnan]

"I dunno if shy is the word for it, but I didn't speak to anyone in Kirkwall for at least a few months after wandering in from the woods. That didn't last long, of course, but. Well. It was scary, being in a completely new place where I didn't know anybody and everyone already had reason to dislike me," She says it calmly, matter-of-factly, the way someone talks about an old injury that only acts up during a storm.

[bouchonne]

"If only you'd come across me," he says with mock-guilelessness. "I like everyone."

[sulahnan]

A soft huff of breath. Anyway.

"Maybe I'll sing for you sometime, if you provide the music."

[bouchonne]

"Would I enjoy the experience?" he asks, still with that exquisite innocence.

[sulahnan]

"I would hope so," she says, "Otherwise I might start to doubt Bastien's praises."

[bouchonne]

A shrug. "He is always too kind."

[sulahnan]

This is straying dangerously close to hurt feelings territory, but she forges on, valiantly. "Guess you'll just have to judge for yourself, then."

[bouchonne]

He's quiet a moment, then smiles crookedly. "It's funny, tracing back the path of that little conversation between us. Just now. Don't you think? Isn't it funny?"

[sulahnan]

She looks at him with her own crooked sort-of smile that's more confusion than humor. "Funny how?"

[bouchonne]

He shrugs. A cigarette case is pulled from his pocket, and a cigarette - tobacco-based - is extracted from it.

"Oh, just that I all but invited you to ask about me, but we ended up talking about your voice." He lights it and takes a drag. "I suspect, my dear, that despite your protests to the contrary, you really mostly want to talk about yourself."

[sulahnan]

That goes beyond straying near to hurt feelings and catapults to the center of it, verified by a little snake of a voice hissing ssssselfissssshhhh as it coils around her throat. If his arm is still draped over her shoulders in the remnants of their little feeble-old-man pantomime, she removes it. If it's been dropped along the way, she considers stopping in her tracks. Considers turning to walk away. Considers asking why do you say things you know will hurt me? but thinks again, because wouldn't that just play into what he just said?

"Did you get better at Wicked Grace?" She asks instead.

[bouchonne]

He doesn't answer. Instead, he takes a drag off his cigarette, and blows the smoke into the air.

"There's nothing wrong with being self-centered," he says, "or self-obsessed. I'm both those things. Of all the shitty things about me, I think those things are relatively minor." Another drag. "What is shitty, my dear, is being those things and pretending you are not. You invited me to come to you for comfort, and when I sought comfort, tried to confide in you, you ended up just upset about your own life. And then Bastien ended up cross with me for bullying you. I felt deceived and villainous."

He flicks ash off the end of his cigarette. "Take this with a grain of salt, because I'm a piece of shit. But you cannot be a good friend until you understand yourself. You don't have to be perfect - you don't even have to be good. But you have to be honest."

[sulahnan]

"That's rich, coming from you." It's out, hanging bitter in the air before she can stop it, before she even realizes she's saying it, and once it's there it's not something she can take back. So she doesn't even try.

"You've made it impossible to believe anything you say and you think I'm the one being dishonest? I'd ask you to make a list of what is and isn't okay for me to say to you, but I wouldn't be able to trust it," Athessa balls her hands into fists at her sides and stops walking, shaking her head. "Were you just kidding when you said you didn't want to make me miserable? Or are you really so dense that you don't know when you're being hurtful?"

[bouchonne]

"I," he replies, his voice remaining casual, "am irreparably broken, for reasons I've laid out to you." He shrugs. It seems that her anger isn't remotely hurtful to him; if anything, he seems a bit less bitter upon hearing it.

"Me being shitty doesn't absolve you of your obligation to be good to good people. If anything, you witnessing me doing a thing should just show you that you shouldn't be doing that thing."

[sulahnan]

"Fuck you, Byerly. You're not imparting some deeply wise life lesson, you're just making excuses to keep wallowing in self pity."

She turns on her heel and marches in the opposite direction, away from the general ferry-ward trajectory they'd taken.

[bouchonne]

"Ah," he says, taking another drag, "again, she runs away when things become too uncomfortable. Such a habit. One might mistake it for cowardice."

[sulahnan]

"Ah," she says, imitating him even as she walks away, "again, he chooses cruelty. Such a habit. One might think him a liar who enjoys hurting people."

[bouchonne]

"Hold on." He calls after her. "Stop walking away. You think this is cruelty?"

[sulahnan]

She doesn't stop walking away.

"What else do you call it when you say intentionally hurtful things?" is spoken into the air in front of her rather than called back towards him. Torn between the urge to fight him and to run and hide, run and hide, run and hide.

Selfish. Coward.

[bouchonne]

Here, he does push off and start following her.

"Unfortunately, dear girl, this instance is missing a key component that would make this cruelty. Cruelty is inflicting pain out of sadism. Do you think I am acting from sadism?"