open.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien & Others
WHAT: New job, music stuff, etc.
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: Feel free to hit me up @ circuitry if you want me to start something for you!

i. project jeshavis office

The office for Project Jeshavis hasn’t been entirely empty since Madame d’Asgard’s noble resignation, probably. The work didn’t stop for want of an organizer, and it’s still home to files and books and resources people might need.

But it’s now more occupied than before. During the first few days of the month Bastien can be found arranging piles of documents into slightly different piles, and then perhaps putting them back the way they were. Or struggling to pin twin maps of Orlais and Ferelden to the wall without leaving them crooked. Or—once the maps are up—standing in front of Ferelden and plucking out muscle-memorized snatches of melody on his lute while he stares at a bit of the map for a moment, then at the ceiling, then back at the map.

He’s learning the place names. It’s fine.

After those first few days, he starts asking Fereldans and Orlesians, or anyone with known connections there, or anyone with some other obvious potential contribution to the project’s goal to come by whenever they have a moment.

If anyone takes him up on it—or if anyone stops in just for the sake of it, that’s fine too—they’ll find the door open and him sitting against the edge of the desk rather than in the nearby chair. But he’ll stand up right away for anyone of rank or who he doesn’t know very well.

ii. musician hunt

Elsewhere in the Gallows, Bastien is on the lookout. Or the listenout, more accurately. Is someone strumming a mandolin in the courtyard? Playing an upright bass in the privacy of their own room? Mentioning, in the course of idle conversation with someone who is not him, their experience with the pianoforte?

Great. He’ll stop, he’ll wait politely for them to be finished, and he’ll knock on their door and wait outside if necessary, and then he’ll say, “Allô,” with the distinct air of a man who wants something.

Comments

[bouchonne]

If you'd like [ comes Byerly's obnoxiously cheerful voice from the entrance ] I can put pins in the good parts of Ferelden and different pins in the bad parts of Ferelden. Help you figure out which one's which. Eh?

[ He's grinning, leaning against the doorframe, as Bastien is hanging up those maps. ]

[cozen]

[ Without turning around quite yet, Bastien gives his dutiful Orlesian response: ]

You mean the bad parts and the worse parts.

[ He looks back over his shoulder, then, to see if Byerly looks as obnoxious as he sounds. He does. But handsome, too, of course, and there's some good humor and gladness-to-see-him under the false flat annoyance of Bastien's expression. Meanwhile, the long stretch of canvas he's trying to pin the map to—because I've just realized you can't pin things to stone walls—takes the opportunity to pop one of his pins out to skitter across the floor, and the map flops down over the hand he's using to brace it to tap him on the forehead with its corner.

Revenge, perhaps. ]

[bouchonne]

No.

[ Byerly half-collapses against the wall beside him, clutching his heart like he's been dealt a mortal blow. ]

Is this when it comes out? We thought he was kind and gentle and decent. But he was biding his time. All this while, he was, in fact...one of those Orlesians. Now that he's in power, he'll - Maker save us! - stop at nothing to...

[ Hm. ]

Why is it that those Orlesians act like that? Do you have any insight?

[cozen]

[ A smile cracks at the collapse, and it's interrupted only briefly by a nose-wrinkling wince at in power. ]

I think— [ inclining his head away from the map's assault and pushing it back up flat ] —no one likes to believe they are an oppressor. So as a people, you know, if we are to have an Empire, we need to believe we are doing Thedas a favor by taking its rabble into our arms.

And then some people are just assholes.

[ And as a footnote: ] Do see the pin?

[bouchonne]

[ Cheerfully: ]

Nope!

[ Because some people are just assholes.

But, wwwwell... By comes over and goes for the map, taking over the duty of holding it up. ]

You take a look. You have better eyes than I do.

[cozen]

I do not.

[ But he leaves Byerly with the map to look for it anyway. On his brisk turn around the room, he shuts the door, muttering half to himself in the meantime, ] Maybe I did when I was your age, but now I am so old, and you are so cruel—oh. Here. [ And a few seconds later he’s back with the pin and reaching up to stick it where it belongs, careful around Byerly’s fingers. ]

D’accord. Give me a tour. Denerim. [ He taps the city. ] I have been, but only for a couple of days. What I saw was very brown. Lively, though.

[bouchonne]

Mmhm. Aaaand...

[ He studies the map a moment, then gives a huh sound, like he's just realized something. With the map pinned in place, he steps back, saying - ]

That's it. That's the only place worth a damn.

[cozen]

[ Bastien huffs, incredulous and amused but still a little too put out about being assigned a desk and an office to laugh without putting some effort into it. He isn't inclined to do that, with Byerly—which is a compliment. ]

Monsieur le Patriote. Which reminds me, I have to ask you something. But first you have to tell me about one other place in Ferelden. You are in my office, so I am the boss.

[ Not how that works, but shh. ]

[bouchonne]

Of course, sir.

[ He flutters his eyelashes at The Boss. Then - ]

How about Amaranthine? Beautiful-sounding name, no? But there are few places as wracked by war and suffering.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's smile at the eyelashes doesn't disappear entirely, when it turns into war and suffering, but it does fade to a subdued shadow of a smile while he looks at the map. ]

What happened? Orlais, I assume, at some point.

[bouchonne]

Orlais, quite significantly so. The ruling Arl was a collaborator, and the focus of some amount of loyalist rage, and so they fought fiercely for the right to break that neck. More recently, Darkspawn happened, rather terribly. And all the while in between, it's lashed by storms from the Waking Sea, and its people are quite humorless.

[cozen]

Who could blame them. Invaders and collaborators and darkspawn—all of that is fine. But storms?

[ An overdone fake shiver of terror, while he’s still looking at the map. Amaranthine. He’ll remember it now. Add it to Denerim, lively and brown, and Dragonmount, presumably terrible, and Gwaren, which is not Gworn, and has no theater and no nubile bird-women. ]

Do you miss it? Denerim, at least?

[ That’s not what he needs to ask. Just a wonder. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He hums thoughtfully, examining the map. ]

A bit. I knew what I was about, in Denerim. It was comfortable.

[cozen]

Before you knew you were larger than the space that was carved for you.

[ Not quite a question, but he says it with the tempered tone of a suggestion rather than a proclamation. ]

Will you go back when the war ends, you think? If we survive it and win it and all of that.

[bouchonne]

If.

[ Big if. But, well... ]

It'll be rather difficult. Hard to seem a useless, drunken lout when you've - [ Y'know. Served as one of the leaders of an interdimensional fighting force. ] So I may have to go back to actually being a useless, drunken lout.

[cozen]

Ha.

[ Bastien sways sideways to knock Byerly with his shoulder, equally chiding and affectionate. ]

I would threaten to come after you and pester you out of it, but I don’t think you could do that if you tried. Not for long.

[bouchonne]

Don't you?

[ A lifted eyebrow. ]

I managed it decently enough when we knew each other back in the day, no?

[cozen]

Mmm, I would not say you were a drunken lout. More of an intoxicated degenerate. It’s a subtle but very important distinction. And I was a con artist and killer for hire, so—it is a good thing we are better than we were.

[bouchonne]

I don't know. Now we're bosses.

[ At least before they had the dignity of being nobodies. ]

What about you? Back to printing after all this?

[cozen]

[ Bastien gives a lip-inflating sigh. ]

Maybe, but—it was so boring, Byerly. Do you have any idea how long it takes to arrange those letters? Tray after tray. And then the pressing. And I am a terrible speller, especially in Orlesian.

[ He steps away from the map, finally, to sit against the edge of the desk. ]

Anyway, if you do keep working for the Crown, I will have to offer myself to the Empire. So we can thwart each other forever.

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ He rubs his chin, and tries to pretend as though this conversation isn't intensely anxiety-inducing. ]

Or we could trade. I'll serve the Empress, you the Queen.

[cozen]

Ooh, intriguing. That definitely has potential.

[ He smiles for a moment, on a drawn breath. Thinking about saying something he doesn't say. Maybe another time. For now, he twists to rifle around the desk's clutter. ]

What I wanted to ask you, actually, is whether Ferelden knows that some of us know that you are a spy.

[ Target acquired: his tin of rolled cigarettes, which he waves as bait. ]

[bouchonne]

Ah. Of course. Yes.

[ A slight hesitation before By takes the cigarettes. He doesn't meet Bastien's eyes. ]

I tell them everything.

[cozen]

Do you?

[ He leans sideways to try to put himself in the path of that averted gaze, because that won't do at all. ]

Dear Queen Anora. [ Imitation of Byerly's accent: terrible. Idea that he writes directly to the Queen: obviously ridiculous. ] Today we all discussed who we would fuck, marry, and kill. You will be pleased to know that you fared better than Empress Celene.

[bouchonne]

Hah.

[ That cheers By up a bit. But he admits: ]

There is something to be gleaned from that, though, isn't there. Dispositions. Who seems to get stirred up about the thought of kill. [ Which: ] Averesch, of course. Not that he needs a game to slobber over the prospect of spilled royal blood.