WHO: Athessa, Madi, and YOU WHAT: post-Dream catch-all WHEN: after part 2 of dream time WHERE: The Gallows/Kirkwall NOTES: tags will be slow, brain still bad
"Oh, I'm not—" She stops, realizing that she hadn't been about to answer what had actually been asked, and has to laugh at herself for it. "Sorry, I thought you said how about you, not how are you, must be some ice in my ears still. I'm...yeah, I'm fine."
Whether or not it feels true, she's set her mind on acting like it is. She grins, starting to unpack the herbs and roots so they can be sorted and prepared however they need to be.
"How about you?" It's only funny because it's silly, because it's what she misheard moments ago. "How long's it been since you took a break?"
"Perhaps we ought to purchase you a hat." Sidony lets her eyes drag over Athessa for a moment, drinking her in and trying to assess if she's well or hiding something. Tilting her head, she lets herself gaze, just for a moment, before she seems to come to some kind of conclusion and focus on sorting out the things she's been given.
Clearly she is spending too much time with Byerly. I'm fine - a mantra she is well acquainted with.
"Not that long," she says, without pausing to even think how many hours she's been hunched over her desk already. "There's still a great deal to do, I'm afraid, and if I don't do it then there's the risk it'll simply never get done, darling."
Sidony just offers a small smile. It hasn't gotten to the point that Byerly has come to force her to stop, so she'll take it - though she imagines he's rather busy these days.
"If you'd like. I'm simply organising the herbs and binding them before I begin to make the poultices and potions we need."
"Great. And now that you have help and the work will be done faster, you have time to take a break."
She grins, cheeky. Isn't her logic just so sound? Hasn't she made just a great argument for why Sidony really ought to take a break right now? Of course she has.
"Also, uh—" Athessa hesitates, about to reach for Sidony's face but deciding instead to tell the Lady Rutyer about that ink smudge by gesturing to her own cheek, approximately where the smudge is on Sidony.
"Breaks always seem unnecessary until after you take them," she says, taking the handkerchief.
The ink has been there long enough to dry, so after a few cursory swipes with the cloth, gently tipping Sidony's face for a better view of this most crucial work, Athessa still has to resort to licking her thumb to rub Sidony's face clean. And, just to make the gesture less mom-ish, she follows it up with a quick kiss in the same spot.
"There. Now," Athessa steps back from the desk and nods towards the door. "Come walk with me."
Anders who, if he were here, would be watching their interaction with wide, interested eyes. Even Sidony cannot help the smile that settles on her face at the kiss, nor the gentle touch to her cheek when Athessa leans back. She's tempted to stay where she is, but there's a sense of longing in her that makes her lean forward.
"A short walk, yes?" Pushing herself away, she begins to undo her apron. "Very well."
"Am I?" That's genuinely surprising to hear, as evidenced by the sudden elevation of Athessa's eyebrows. She was pretty close with Anders, before he left. Maybe she just never noticed how much he'd influenced her.
"Yeah, just a short turn about, ya know," She agrees. There isn't much on this floor; the infirmary, the apothecary, the chapel. "I can make us coffee if you wanna go down to the kitchen?"
While not immune to the charms of pretty dresses, Athessa would never look at Sidony and think: she should be better dressed. So long as she was comfortable, Sidony could wear a flour sack and Athessa would think she looked lovely.
"Only in very specific circumstances," she says, wry, and links arms with Sidony and starts to lead them both towards the hallway stairs. In the dream, the bad one, Athessa couldn't convince anyone of anything. She saw the same dismissive treatment from their companions — from Byerly, from Richard — as she does here and now in the waking world, despite five years of diligent work proving herself.
Odd, or maybe insulting, that Athessa should be taken more seriously in that other dream where nobody knew her.
Sidony wishes she had both the time and the funds for more dresses; she doesn't need them, being both a surgeon and a married woman, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to look as handsome as she possibly can. Looking at Athessa, up and down, she recognises why she might want to look prettier than most.
"Well, I am glad to be witness to your specific circumstance." Her smile is soft, a curling thing that takes over her face. They used to be far more false, once upon a time, but there's something natural and tender in her expression as she looks at Athessa.
"Nah, not really," she laughs, somehow oblivious to that tenderness, that look. Sure, she knows Sidony's looking, but she doesn't see the look look. Still, she leans in conspiratorially to say: "Sometimes I drag the coffee to where the people are."
"That seems sensible." Sidony hums, leaning close in return. "I can imagine all kinds of favours can be gathered in return for some coffee and a distraction."
She quirks a brow. Her expression is one of muted surprise, as if she hadn't realized that yeah, actually, she could be bribing people for favors. But.
"Sure, I mean. Of course. Favors. Or, ya know, you can give someone coffee for nothing but the reward of making them happy." Which is usually what she's doing, honestly. Her attempts at bribery are never so smooth.
"I suppose you and I grew up in worlds far different when it comes to favours." Sidony sighs, tilting her head to look forward and where they're walking.
Nothing came for free in Nevarra, but... She is doing her best to learn.
The trek down stairs is nothing remarkable; The Gallows may be cold but they're not prone to developing ice in any of the interior spaces, so Athessa and Sidony don't even have to unlink arms to descend to the level below. As they do, Athessa contemplates this recurring theme of transactional favors.
"It's not so much a difference in how we grew up, I think," Athessa says as they enter the kitchens and she sets about retrieving the various bits and bobs she needs to make coffee. Grinder, carafe, kettle.
"Obviously we grew up different, but—well, the world is how it is, and even Dalish use favors as currency, ya know?" Cups, coffee beans. "I guess it's just a matter of what you want. Cream and sugar?"
"I think it must be a little different from what I know," Sidony says gently, letting herself be lead and guided. "Nothing was done without favour or desire for some kind of promise in the future. I couldn't even breathe without someone keeping watch and demanding something of me. Even my mother was more like that than anything else."
Even her first relationship here - with Byerly - had been a transactional one. It's hard for her to slip out of that mindset, even as a doctor developing her craft.
"I do wish I had been broader in my studies, however," she hums, settling down. "But, yes. Cream and sugar both, please, just a little of each."
Athessa nods as she listens, paying attention to every little detail Sidony is willing to share about herself as if they're clues to a larger picture. More than anything else, Athessa trends more towards not needing to know much about someone's past to care for them; people are who they are now and if she likes who they are now, the details of how they became that seem less important. It's a viewpoint that suits people like Bastien well, but grates against Byerly's idea of what caring about someone else should look like.
"I just mean it's more a conscious decision than anything else," she says, fetching a small pot of cream and the little dish of sugar and placing them both on the heavy wooden table in the center of the kitchen. "I don't like debt to be intrinsic to my relationships."
"I'm not sure I ever did either," Sidony admits, voice quiet. "It was something so natural in Nevarra that I simply did not question it. Why would I, when I so often got whatever I wanted? People wished to please me and that meant I had power. It worked for me, as stifling as it was."
But she doesn't sound particularly happy about it. Her face scrunches, just a moment, before she sighs.
"Coming here made it better. I had always wished to learn about medicine for my own sake, to sate my curiosity. But speaking to others here, learning about it... I realised the benefit of it. To help, rather than just study, no matter how calloused my fingers get."
"Wait," Athessa pauses as she's measuring out coffee beans into the grinder, and looks over at Sidony with a curious expression. Halfway between a frown and a skeptical smile.
"You started wanting to help people after you started studying medicine?"
"Yes." She says it as though it's completely normal before she hesitates. Talking about these things isn't easy for her, but she tries to find some means of steeling her voice and not letting herself get lost in the feeling of it.
"When I was very young I wished to be a Mortalitasi. I was deadly curious about the body, about what they do, their magic, all of it. As I grew older it became apparent I was not blessed with magic, but... My brother was. So he became a Mortalitasi and I studied medicine under my sheets, hiding my learning from a mother who sought a political union above all else."
She sniffs, crossing her arms.
"It was only when I was permitted to practice my craft that I realised the benefit."
"What does being a Mortalitasi entail? Other than the ability to do magic," she asks. The coffee grinder isn't particularly loud, but it's a consistent scrape-scraping as she turns the crank. It accompanies her interested (and somewhat confused, still) expression as if the grinding is actually the sound of little cogs and gears in her mind turning over.
"Could you do what the Mortalitasi do without magic?"
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Whether or not it feels true, she's set her mind on acting like it is. She grins, starting to unpack the herbs and roots so they can be sorted and prepared however they need to be.
"How about you?" It's only funny because it's silly, because it's what she misheard moments ago. "How long's it been since you took a break?"
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Clearly she is spending too much time with Byerly. I'm fine - a mantra she is well acquainted with.
"Not that long," she says, without pausing to even think how many hours she's been hunched over her desk already. "There's still a great deal to do, I'm afraid, and if I don't do it then there's the risk it'll simply never get done, darling."
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"Is it anything I can help with? Maybe between the two of us we can get it done faster."
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"If you'd like. I'm simply organising the herbs and binding them before I begin to make the poultices and potions we need."
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She grins, cheeky. Isn't her logic just so sound? Hasn't she made just a great argument for why Sidony really ought to take a break right now? Of course she has.
"Also, uh—" Athessa hesitates, about to reach for Sidony's face but deciding instead to tell the Lady Rutyer about that ink smudge by gesturing to her own cheek, approximately where the smudge is on Sidony.
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It makes her laugh softly, shaking her head as she looks down at the work in front of her. There's more that she can do, at all times, but for now...
Frowning, she lifts her hand to touch her cheek before she realises with a soft laugh. Handing over a handkerchief, she leans close.
"Would you mind, dear?"
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The ink has been there long enough to dry, so after a few cursory swipes with the cloth, gently tipping Sidony's face for a better view of this most crucial work, Athessa still has to resort to licking her thumb to rub Sidony's face clean. And, just to make the gesture less mom-ish, she follows it up with a quick kiss in the same spot.
"There. Now," Athessa steps back from the desk and nods towards the door. "Come walk with me."
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Anders who, if he were here, would be watching their interaction with wide, interested eyes. Even Sidony cannot help the smile that settles on her face at the kiss, nor the gentle touch to her cheek when Athessa leans back. She's tempted to stay where she is, but there's a sense of longing in her that makes her lean forward.
"A short walk, yes?" Pushing herself away, she begins to undo her apron. "Very well."
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"Yeah, just a short turn about, ya know," She agrees. There isn't much on this floor; the infirmary, the apothecary, the chapel. "I can make us coffee if you wanna go down to the kitchen?"
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She's not wearing her prettiest dress and she somewhat regrets that now.
"That sounds lovely," she nods, offering her arm. "You're very convincing."
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"Only in very specific circumstances," she says, wry, and links arms with Sidony and starts to lead them both towards the hallway stairs. In the dream, the bad one, Athessa couldn't convince anyone of anything. She saw the same dismissive treatment from their companions — from Byerly, from Richard — as she does here and now in the waking world, despite five years of diligent work proving herself.
Odd, or maybe insulting, that Athessa should be taken more seriously in that other dream where nobody knew her.
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"Well, I am glad to be witness to your specific circumstance." Her smile is soft, a curling thing that takes over her face. They used to be far more false, once upon a time, but there's something natural and tender in her expression as she looks at Athessa.
Intimacy has truly ruined her.
"Do you often drag people away for coffees?"
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"Sure, I mean. Of course. Favors. Or, ya know, you can give someone coffee for nothing but the reward of making them happy." Which is usually what she's doing, honestly. Her attempts at bribery are never so smooth.
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Nothing came for free in Nevarra, but... She is doing her best to learn.
"Perhaps that is something I can learn."
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"It's not so much a difference in how we grew up, I think," Athessa says as they enter the kitchens and she sets about retrieving the various bits and bobs she needs to make coffee. Grinder, carafe, kettle.
"Obviously we grew up different, but—well, the world is how it is, and even Dalish use favors as currency, ya know?" Cups, coffee beans. "I guess it's just a matter of what you want. Cream and sugar?"
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Even her first relationship here - with Byerly - had been a transactional one. It's hard for her to slip out of that mindset, even as a doctor developing her craft.
"I do wish I had been broader in my studies, however," she hums, settling down. "But, yes. Cream and sugar both, please, just a little of each."
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"I just mean it's more a conscious decision than anything else," she says, fetching a small pot of cream and the little dish of sugar and placing them both on the heavy wooden table in the center of the kitchen. "I don't like debt to be intrinsic to my relationships."
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But she doesn't sound particularly happy about it. Her face scrunches, just a moment, before she sighs.
"Coming here made it better. I had always wished to learn about medicine for my own sake, to sate my curiosity. But speaking to others here, learning about it... I realised the benefit of it. To help, rather than just study, no matter how calloused my fingers get."
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"You started wanting to help people after you started studying medicine?"
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"When I was very young I wished to be a Mortalitasi. I was deadly curious about the body, about what they do, their magic, all of it. As I grew older it became apparent I was not blessed with magic, but... My brother was. So he became a Mortalitasi and I studied medicine under my sheets, hiding my learning from a mother who sought a political union above all else."
She sniffs, crossing her arms.
"It was only when I was permitted to practice my craft that I realised the benefit."
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"Could you do what the Mortalitasi do without magic?"