Open

[muckspout]

WHO: Edgard and YOU
WHAT: I'm doing the catch-all thing too
WHEN: Now-ish, post-Murderhaus and Satinalia
WHERE: Various places
NOTES: Open to all unless otherwise specified. Post-murderhaus stuff might have murdery discussions

All prompts in comments! Feel three to throw wildcards in here if you so desire. I love you.

Comments

[muckspout]

Edgard starts at Bastien picking up on this so quickly. He nods, shrugs, and pulls a face like he tastes something bad.

"I am guilty of this you accuse me of." He monotones into his cup as he drinks.

[cozen]

“Guilty!” Bastien echoes, what that what could you possibly mean sort of disbelief. “I would have gotten you something.”

[muckspout]

Edgard shakes his head like a dog and answers sharply. "No. This," He gestures to the empty bottles. "is all I get." He takes another drink and then belatedly realizes Bastien's kind intention and absentmindedly pats him on the shoulder.

[cozen]

Bastien accepts the pat while considering the bottles. Wine is a good gift—Edgard gave him wine for Satinalia, so even if it were a terrible gift, he wouldn’t say so. But drinking several bottles of it alone is not a great celebration.

“Not a birthday person?”

[muckspout]

"No." It's true. Even last year, he resisted it. Edgard thinks he was happy then.

"Makes me think too much." He takes another drink. "This makes me think less." Meaning the wine. Or at least it's supposed to.

[cozen]

“I think that is why wine was invented,” Bastien says. “For not thinking.”

He picks up an empty bottle and turns it mouth-down on his palm, moving his hand around to keep the bottle balanced.

“I am very curious now,” he confides, in an absent-minded sort of way, with most of his focus apparently on the bottle, “but it seems rude to make a man talk about something he’d prefer not to on his birthday.”

[muckspout]

Edgard watches the wine bottle balanced on Bastien's hand seemingly mesmerized.

He takes another drink, sets the drink down, and meets Bastien's eyes. (An unsteady thing after 2+ bottles of wine).

"Ask whatever you like." He says hand waving a hand lazily.

[cozen]

"Whatever I like," Bastien echoes back to him, more slowly and thoughtfully, still keeping the bottle balanced. "What a generous offer."

Maybe it would be a dangerous one, too, in other hands, but he starts small and—hopefully—benign.

"How old are you now?"

[muckspout]

Edgard pauses a moment. It's unclear if he's hesitating or doing the math in his head.

"Fourty-four." He says absently eyes on the bottle, still perfectly balanced. "How long can you keep it like that?"

It is interesting enough to him that he doesn't take another sip.

[cozen]

"Until I get bored," Bastien answers. "It isn't hard. I mean, it might be hard for you, right now, when you are the one who emptied the bottles. But you just, uh... watch the top instead of the bottom, and keep your hand under it."

Forty-four. That's a good number.

"Which of your forty-four years has been your favorite so far?"

[muckspout]

Edgard lets out a long low sigh. Have any of his years been his favorite? They all seem pointless now.

"I didn't mind being seven."

Seven is also a good number.

[cozen]

"Ouais? What were you doing when you were seven?"

[muckspout]

Edgard scoffs.

"It isn't so much what I was doing at seven, its just how much less I knew and how much happier I was for it. And there were less of us," He gestures with his cup. "children I mean, so I was less hungry then."

[cozen]

A nod, and Bastien swipes the wine bottle off his hand to set down. It leaves behind a little circle of wine on his palm where the last traces of wine ran down out of the mouth.

"You had a lot of siblings?" he asks first, considering the dot of red, then licks it off, very quickly, like he's worried someone might see him being impolite.

[muckspout]

Edgard grins widely as Bastien licks the wine off his hand. He saw that even if no one else did. The grin quickly flashes away.

"Yes. There were ten of us eventually. Too many, but strength in numbers." He shrugs.

[cozen]

Bastien makes a face at ten. Not quite shocked—ten isn't unheard of, there'd have been eight in his family if not for the ones that didn't live past early infancy—but impressed and interested.

"And what did you need the strength for, hm?"

[muckspout]

Edgard shakes his head and makes a waving motion with his hand.

"Something my Papa said sometimes. We mostly needed strength for farm work or taking care of our siblings or ourselves when my parents weren't around. Not always easy, but--simpler."

[cozen]

"It sounds nice," Bastien says. And it sort of does. A little. Maybe if he'd been raised on a farm he would have been happy to stay on one. "Are they still there? Your family."

[muckspout]

Edgard gives Bastien a look.

"No. Whole area was torched in the war." He shrugs. "That's Orlais for you."

[cozen]

"Oh. I am sorry to hear that."

That is Orlais. Val Royeaux wound up on fire, too, during the conscription riots.

"Were you there when it happened?"

[muckspout]

Edgard frowns. This is an older wound, not one he thinks on often. He had heard from another soldier, simply giving news and listing places, not realizing the casualness with which he had told Edgard he had no one left.

"No. No, I was gone by then."