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
[ Athessa doesn't have enough Orlesian to parse the full sentence, catching only a few words. Enough, lost, others.
She sighs. ]
We ran into some trouble on the road back from Ostwick after a routine rift job. Found a guy who'd been quietly killing...people. And he must've thought we were there to apprehend him because he turned on us in the night. We were put through the ringer but we're all alive and the murderous innkeeper isn't.
[ That's as succinct as she can make it without hinting at any of the horrors they'd had to face. ]
The details will be in the report. Is that enough? I'm not trying to hide anything from you; I just don't much fancy talking about it or being fussed over.
[ But Alexandrie isn't looking at him, she's looking at Athessa with focused intensity, her hand tensing for a moment before it releases with her next out-breath.
Athessa has seen a great deal in her life. Alexandrie has seen her cut throats with nearly casual familiarity, and yet there had been a hitch in her speech. Killing... people.
And what cause to think there should be fuss made, if it is a simple dislocation. There's more. It's more than murder. Killing quietly while maintaining a place in the community convenient for obtaining victims none will miss suggests the reason is a taste for it. No-one with a taste for killing for killing's sake that cannot be sated is not cruel. Does not, perhaps, develop better games over time. How many had gone? Surely the man couldn't have taken them all quietly one by one, which means drugs, and— ]
He didn't. [ A confident assertion, that. Perhaps Medrod had such inclinations, but there wasn't a single moment in those mirrored halls when her mind turned to Devigny.
Glossing over Byerly's apparent lack of self awareness wrt fussing, his question is addressed next, with only minor fidgeting with the cards dealt. Please can we just play the game?? ]
It means — [ A brief pause to frustratedly search for the words. ] — Well, whaddya think it means, By? A lot of us nearly died but we didn't.
[ The rest of her body relaxes to hear both the denial and its confidence. There's still some dark blood waiting, surely, but there are some things...
Byerly is still tense though, and there are different scars he bears. More than enough to pull up through the ground and imagine onto a friend, without any other truths to use. ]
If less fussing is your hope, cherie, I should perhaps endeavor to speak of it if you can. If we [ read: Byerly, ] cannot fret over true things, we shall only end up inventing our own horrors to fret about.
[ She lifts a shoulder and smiles, small and apologetic. ]
It is terrible, sometimes, is it not? To be cared for.
she just came out to have a good time and honestly is feeling so attacked right now???
[ Athessa looks from Lexie, to Byerly, and back. Chekov's Bard Lesson: Everyone is only on their own side. ]
We got tortured.
[ She says it matter-of-factly, angry over the loss of any hope of normalcy tonight. ]
That's what happened. We woke up separated and bound in torture devices and had to deal with it or die.
[ There it is. Are you happy now? Athessa nods to herself. ]
I was on a rack and it dislocated my shoulder when Barrow tried to cut me loose. He'd been in an iron maiden. Should I keep going, or can we play cards now?
[ Byerly is very, very still. There's white at his fingertips where he's digging them into the tabletop. He doesn't blink and doesn't speak.
Instead, after a long moment, he flicks his eyes over to Alexandrie. He needs her to speak first, needs her to take a turn, because if he opens his mouth or even moves he may tear something to pieces. Perhaps himself. ]
[ Having prepared for just this conclusion a minute ago, done her tensing then, Alexandrie takes it smoothly, poised as marble. She nods slowly, hopes that the movement and her continued gaze will keep attention off the way she slides Byerly's hand, in hers, from its rest atop the table to out of sight below where she can tighten her grip to something just shy of vicious. Whether he thinks it her need or not, it is an invitation to the same, a path of some small release outside of himself.
When she speaks, it's with the acceptance and entreaty of the rightly chastised: ]
I hope your desire to continue the game means you forgive us our prying for the moment?
Like I said, [ she moves to stand, setting her cards down in a stack near her pillars of buttons. ] It'll all be in the report.
[ Meaning it's hardly prying, if it's going to be known later anyway. Athessa walks to the nearby liquor cabinet to try and find something inoffensive to drink. ]
I'd just like a night, one night, to pretend like it didn't happen and nothing hurts and everything is normal.
[ She grabs what looks like a bottle of mead and brings it back over and sets it on the table. ]
[ His breathing is light and shallow, and his eyes look sunken. His fingers dig into Alexandrie's hand, hard enough to hurt. He looks near to shaking, or near to being sick.
Instead, finally, he grinds out: ]
All right.
[ Even if just saying that was a clear struggle. Normalcy is probably far, far beyond what's possible - but he will endeavor to try. ]
[ To her credit, or perhaps to Emile's, the only outward outward show she makes of Byerly's crushing grip is a brief twitch of her brow and a quick soft breath drawn through her nose when he closes it.
The continued pressure, the grit of his sound... for all his training to dissemble, she thinks him too fine a heart to leap to laughter when the taste of a woman's pain still hangs in the air. They cannot play quite yet, not as Athessa wishes—and as Alexandrie had wished to grant. And so she rises with a rustle of skirts. ]
Cherie, do you mind finishing the shuffle and deal? While I find the fire delightful, it is quite warm, and as we are between games I should like to advantage the opportunity to take some air. Only a moment.
[ She, at least, has smoothed herself to a small smile which spreads a little wider when she looks at the cards. ]
[ Lexie might be smiling, but Athessa can tell there's tension behind it. And Byerly is just a coil of tension about to snap. ]
Sure.
[ Can't stack the deck if you don't know how. She takes the cork out of the mead bottle with her teeth and spits it out like a cool kid, then drinks from the bottle. No glasses necessary.
Setting it back down, she starts collecting the cards to shuffle them. ]
[ He nods stiffly, and rises along with her. His knee bumps the chair; it rocks a moment, then settles back down without tipping over. A muscle jumps in his jaw. A snap of a bow to Athessa, and then he turns to move from the room, offering his arm to Alexandrie as he goes. ]
[ Alexandrie settles her hand in the crook of the offered arm, fingers light and loose against the tension there, and follows, trusting that having been given the opportunity he will walk wherever it is he needs to. ]
[ They don't go far. Into the hallway, around a corner, far enough that their voices won't carry - and then Byerly tears away from Alexandrie, turning towards the wall and pressing his fist against it fiercely. He doesn't strike the stone - he has enough self-control yet to not make that mistake; but he does press hard enough that the pebbled surface bites harshly into his skin.
[ It’s soft. She shakes her head slowly, watching him with sober careful eyes. Tensed, ready to leap upon him should a thought burst to the surface while he speaks that breaks that self control.
(She remembers blood on the walls, torn hands. The men she loves will hurt themselves, but not her— so she is ready, always ready, to get in the way.) ]
[ Still soft. She waits a moment longer before stepping to touch his arm as she might touch any restive thing: light fingertips first, then, if he doesn't twitch away, a surer press with her palm. Something grounding, something solid that loves. ]
They were taken unawares at an otherwise unremarkable inn, mon coeur. It could have occurred on any mission requiring travel of more than a day.
[ He cannot believe that, not truly; it is fear speaking. Fear of those you care for being outside the reach of your arms, the helplessness and catastrophization of waiting. Since he'd not shrugged it off, she raises the hand to cup his cheek. Her gaze holds something fierce as well, although its mate is entreaty rather than desperation. ]
[ There are so many things that it could be. Too many. These missions, the fighting of the war. Loving things that can break, rising in the morning. Everything. Anything at all.
It is late enough and the hallway still enough that she can step to him and lay her head against his chest, closing her own eyes as the hand not on his cheek curves to rest at his back. Her skirts crowd their ankles.
She will not stay long, now. Later she will kiss his temple like a feather and try to help weave meaning on the loom of their twined fingers if there is still a space that aches and wants for covering, but now... there is someone waiting for their return.
[ He crushes her to him, pulling her in tight. Byerly is not, it should be noted, a good hugger. He's too bony and too tall, to begin with, and the issues are compounded by the fact that his hugging is always either too casual and jovial, or too tight and desperate.
So this is likely dreadfully uncomfortable for Alexandrie: pressed hard against a rocky cliffside, roped against it by the ill-shaped shackles of his lean arms. Her neck is compressed by the face pressed hard into the top of her head, head likely twisted to the side. If she doesn't start to ache within moments, it's a miracle worthy of the Maker.
But it's desperate. It's terrified. We were tortured was worse than what his mind leapt to, and he doesn't know what to do with that - with her suffering, with the fact that there are evils out there that he can't anticipate. Because having an anxious, paranoid mind means, most of the time, that whatever happens, it's not as bad as you feared: having something that's worse shakes him. ]
All right.
[ He finally gets enough of the smell of her hair to steady him. He finally lifts his head up. His eyes are wet, but he hasn't cried, so at least he's not totally lost it. ]
[ Alexandrie is no waifish thing, and while indeed the sharpness of him digs into her, her softness means it does not grate. The desperation of his clinging is something she can meet and hold, and she does, fiercely, even as the hard press of his head against hers begins to ache where they meet, and in her neck. Begins to strain her shoulder in a way she can’t move to relieve.
That she refuses to relieve, because with all that he has lived and seen Byerly still trembles at the cruelties of the world, and makes her chest ache to hold the love she bears him. Makes her want to mantle wings over him and scream challenge to anything that dares come near to that precious part of him that can be hurt like this.
She will release when he does. Push to her toes and pull gently at his head to press her cheek against his for a moment when he apologizes— forgiven— then sighs as she lowers again, lets fall her hands.]
Shall we go and all pretend together by the fire that life is cards, and friends, and mead, and laughter?
That the greatest worry is I will win back the buttons I hate that Marie is stubbornly intent on using in a gown?
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She sighs. ]
We ran into some trouble on the road back from Ostwick after a routine rift job. Found a guy who'd been quietly killing...people. And he must've thought we were there to apprehend him because he turned on us in the night. We were put through the ringer but we're all alive and the murderous innkeeper isn't.
[ That's as succinct as she can make it without hinting at any of the horrors they'd had to face. ]
The details will be in the report. Is that enough? I'm not trying to hide anything from you; I just don't much fancy talking about it or being fussed over.
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[ He says that with all apparent sincerity. Self-awareness is a skill not all people possess. ]
What does that mean, put through the ringer? [ His eyes turn to Lexie, now, a tiny twitch of his head asking her, Do you know? ]
cw: implication of rape
Athessa has seen a great deal in her life. Alexandrie has seen her cut throats with nearly casual familiarity, and yet there had been a hitch in her speech. Killing... people.
And what cause to think there should be fuss made, if it is a simple dislocation. There's more. It's more than murder. Killing quietly while maintaining a place in the community convenient for obtaining victims none will miss suggests the reason is a taste for it. No-one with a taste for killing for killing's sake that cannot be sated is not cruel. Does not, perhaps, develop better games over time. How many had gone? Surely the man couldn't have taken them all quietly one by one, which means drugs, and— ]
Say he did not.
[ It is a woman's look to a woman. ]
cont. cw: implication of rape just in case
Glossing over Byerly's apparent lack of self awareness wrt fussing, his question is addressed next, with only minor fidgeting with the cards dealt. Please can we just play the game?? ]
It means — [ A brief pause to frustratedly search for the words. ] — Well, whaddya think it means, By? A lot of us nearly died but we didn't.
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[ The cards bend slightly under the press of his fingers. ]
So, what, he fought you? All of you, together?
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Byerly is still tense though, and there are different scars he bears. More than enough to pull up through the ground and imagine onto a friend, without any other truths to use. ]
If less fussing is your hope, cherie, I should perhaps endeavor to speak of it if you can. If we [ read: Byerly, ] cannot fret over true things, we shall only end up inventing our own horrors to fret about.
[ She lifts a shoulder and smiles, small and apologetic. ]
It is terrible, sometimes, is it not? To be cared for.
she just came out to have a good time and honestly is feeling so attacked right now???
We got tortured.
[ She says it matter-of-factly, angry over the loss of any hope of normalcy tonight. ]
That's what happened. We woke up separated and bound in torture devices and had to deal with it or die.
[ There it is. Are you happy now? Athessa nods to herself. ]
I was on a rack and it dislocated my shoulder when Barrow tried to cut me loose. He'd been in an iron maiden. Should I keep going, or can we play cards now?
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Instead, after a long moment, he flicks his eyes over to Alexandrie. He needs her to speak first, needs her to take a turn, because if he opens his mouth or even moves he may tear something to pieces. Perhaps himself. ]
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When she speaks, it's with the acceptance and entreaty of the rightly chastised: ]
I hope your desire to continue the game means you forgive us our prying for the moment?
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[ Meaning it's hardly prying, if it's going to be known later anyway. Athessa walks to the nearby liquor cabinet to try and find something inoffensive to drink. ]
I'd just like a night, one night, to pretend like it didn't happen and nothing hurts and everything is normal.
[ She grabs what looks like a bottle of mead and brings it back over and sets it on the table. ]
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Instead, finally, he grinds out: ]
All right.
[ Even if just saying that was a clear struggle. Normalcy is probably far, far beyond what's possible - but he will endeavor to try. ]
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The continued pressure, the grit of his sound... for all his training to dissemble, she thinks him too fine a heart to leap to laughter when the taste of a woman's pain still hangs in the air. They cannot play quite yet, not as Athessa wishes—and as Alexandrie had wished to grant. And so she rises with a rustle of skirts. ]
Cherie, do you mind finishing the shuffle and deal? While I find the fire delightful, it is quite warm, and as we are between games I should like to advantage the opportunity to take some air. Only a moment.
[ She, at least, has smoothed herself to a small smile which spreads a little wider when she looks at the cards. ]
Do not stack the deck too much, mm?
[ And to Byerly: ]
Will you escort me, my lord?
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Sure.
[ Can't stack the deck if you don't know how. She takes the cork out of the mead bottle with her teeth and spits it out like a cool kid, then drinks from the bottle. No glasses necessary.
Setting it back down, she starts collecting the cards to shuffle them. ]
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Lowly: ]
You didn't know about this either. Did you.
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[ It’s soft. She shakes her head slowly, watching him with sober careful eyes. Tensed, ready to leap upon him should a thought burst to the surface while he speaks that breaks that self control.
(She remembers blood on the walls, torn hands. The men she loves will hurt themselves, but not her— so she is ready, always ready, to get in the way.) ]
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We should speak, perhaps, with the Scoutmaster. It seems she should not be sent on missions like this any longer.
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[ Still soft. She waits a moment longer before stepping to touch his arm as she might touch any restive thing: light fingertips first, then, if he doesn't twitch away, a surer press with her palm. Something grounding, something solid that loves. ]
They were taken unawares at an otherwise unremarkable inn, mon coeur. It could have occurred on any mission requiring travel of more than a day.
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[ He looks at her. There's something fierce in his eyes, true enough, but his desperation is also plain. ]
You would have seen through his intentions. Bastien would have.
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[ He cannot believe that, not truly; it is fear speaking. Fear of those you care for being outside the reach of your arms, the helplessness and catastrophization of waiting. Since he'd not shrugged it off, she raises the hand to cup his cheek. Her gaze holds something fierce as well, although its mate is entreaty rather than desperation. ]
It is not fair. None of this is.
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What is even the point of it?
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It is late enough and the hallway still enough that she can step to him and lay her head against his chest, closing her own eyes as the hand not on his cheek curves to rest at his back. Her skirts crowd their ankles.
She will not stay long, now. Later she will kiss his temple like a feather and try to help weave meaning on the loom of their twined fingers if there is still a space that aches and wants for covering, but now... there is someone waiting for their return.
It will be long enough to have it mean I know. ]
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So this is likely dreadfully uncomfortable for Alexandrie: pressed hard against a rocky cliffside, roped against it by the ill-shaped shackles of his lean arms. Her neck is compressed by the face pressed hard into the top of her head, head likely twisted to the side. If she doesn't start to ache within moments, it's a miracle worthy of the Maker.
But it's desperate. It's terrified. We were tortured was worse than what his mind leapt to, and he doesn't know what to do with that - with her suffering, with the fact that there are evils out there that he can't anticipate. Because having an anxious, paranoid mind means, most of the time, that whatever happens, it's not as bad as you feared: having something that's worse shakes him. ]
All right.
[ He finally gets enough of the smell of her hair to steady him. He finally lifts his head up. His eyes are wet, but he hasn't cried, so at least he's not totally lost it. ]
I am sorry.
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That she refuses to relieve, because with all that he has lived and seen Byerly still trembles at the cruelties of the world, and makes her chest ache to hold the love she bears him. Makes her want to mantle wings over him and scream challenge to anything that dares come near to that precious part of him that can be hurt like this.
She will release when he does. Push to her toes and pull gently at his head to press her cheek against his for a moment when he apologizes— forgiven— then sighs as she lowers again, lets fall her hands.]
Shall we go and all pretend together by the fire that life is cards, and friends, and mead, and laughter?
That the greatest worry is I will win back the buttons I hate that Marie is stubbornly intent on using in a gown?
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