WHO: Athessa, Madi, Lucien, Skull, and YOU!! WHAT: catch-all WHEN: mostly Satinalia and later WHERE: Kirkwall and The Gallows NOTES: post-murderhaus h/c is gonna go here
If you pause the video you can pinpoint the exact moment that Athessa's heart rips in half.
"It feels silly to say I'm sorry," she murmurs. It's true, too. What do you say to someone who has just revealed that they've only known a life of servitude? "Or to wish things had been different. It's not like we can change it now. But...you deserved better than that. Still do."
Another sniffle. "So...you were raised, what...by a master?"
That leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, just saying it. Gross.
"I didn't," he says, but doesn't dwell on it. Things are the way they are. He can't mourn it; the existence of the very world, its structure and rubric, cannot be mourned.
"A merchant family found me and needed someone to entertain and care for their young children. I learned to read by attending their lessons, which gave me more value, when my contract was sold to a noble house. And from thereon I worked to make myself more and more valuable."
She won't pity him. She won't do that to him. But she will clench her fist into the edge of the jacket draped over them and seethe for the injustice of expecting a child to care for other children, and likely suffer for any mistakes. For the injustice of making someone feel like they're only worth what someone will pay for them, their only value that of a contract in some human's hand.
"An elven clerk whose contract can be bought? Yes. Those need only be paid in food and lodging." A vague gesture of the hand, and so on. "I kept studying in my spare time, learned more ways to be useful, and things went on from there."
It's so easy to skip over the part where, once, his master called him to his room, and Mhavos, full of fear, was actually relieved when the matter only pertained to learning how to kill. The memory sits deep in his mind, not forgotten, but largely dormant.
Athessa is quiet, mulling over what Mhavos is saying, feeling indignant on his behalf for something bygone. She doesn't know what to say, if she should say anything at all, so she simply takes in more rootsmoke and offers him the joint in turn.
Maybe he'll keep talking. That would be better than anything she might say, surely. She puffs out a couple of smoke rings, then breathes out the rest into the shapes, ruining them.
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"It feels silly to say I'm sorry," she murmurs. It's true, too. What do you say to someone who has just revealed that they've only known a life of servitude? "Or to wish things had been different. It's not like we can change it now. But...you deserved better than that. Still do."
Another sniffle. "So...you were raised, what...by a master?"
That leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, just saying it. Gross.
no subject
"A merchant family found me and needed someone to entertain and care for their young children. I learned to read by attending their lessons, which gave me more value, when my contract was sold to a noble house. And from thereon I worked to make myself more and more valuable."
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"Is a clerk that valuable to them?"
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It's so easy to skip over the part where, once, his master called him to his room, and Mhavos, full of fear, was actually relieved when the matter only pertained to learning how to kill. The memory sits deep in his mind, not forgotten, but largely dormant.
no subject
Maybe he'll keep talking. That would be better than anything she might say, surely. She puffs out a couple of smoke rings, then breathes out the rest into the shapes, ruining them.