faderift | AFTERMATHEMATICS

They're more comforting words than Vanadi figures he deserves -- though he certainly does need them, so he's not likely to turn them away. He nods faintly, moving on with a faint smile. And as they step into the kitchen, Vanadi pushes back his shoulders and resolves to leave not just the courtyard behind him.

"The other dream, though," he says, tone gone thoughtful. "I left you to find a way to stay here, yes? I had been meaning to look into that. I sincerely hope it won't be quite so dramatic in actuality."

She has to laugh, a short staccato burst of commiseration and hysteria. Yeah she should fuckin' hope it wouldn't be that dramatic.

"Seriously, like for one thing I could just, I dunno," she shrugs, moving only so far from him as she needs to in order to start making coffee. "Go with you or something. Clearly. But..."

There's the matter of weighing the pros and cons. And, unfortunately, remembering a time long past with an axe and a shard-arm.

"Maybe don't sell yourself to the Venatori to pursue that?"

Vanadi drops to a lean against the counter nearest to Athessa, both arms folding over his chest. His laugh his smaller and brief, dry.

"Honestly," he says with a huff, "What did I think I was doing, leaving you behind? I'm shocked I managed it with any success. Very unrealistic, if you ask me."

Though -- it had been a different him. That was a more stable and steady version of himself, without all the fear he holds about himself as tightly as his usual cloak. He brushes the memory of it away, which is cruelly far from his reach.

"Do you know of any successes with that, though? Or know of anyone else who might?"

"Yeah, super unrealistic, which is just more proof that it was a spirit fucking with us all," she points out, starting to grind the beans.

"I don't know of any successes, no, but uh...the person to ask about that stuff..."

She pauses, grimacing slightly. "...is probably Wysteria."

"Ah, yes." An obvious answer, isn't it? Even know, he apparently knows enough about her to have pinned that role on her in the dream. He considers the matter thoughtfully, with less grimacing. Her role in it all hadn't been so bad; the suffering he'd undergone wasn't the point of that sequence, and hadn't lingered after waking.

"Well, I expect she'll have a different answer than get a couple of tattoos. Relievingly, honestly. They didn't at all match me."

She hums quietly. Coffee beans into the carafe, kettle onto the grate in the hearth.

"I didn't think they were that bad, actually. I mean, that you suffered for them was, of course, but they looked fine."

Between the Dalish thing and the decade spent in Rivain thing, Athessa is a little biased in this area.

There's a curl in his lip as he starts, "Please, I would never consider a..." Which is as far as he gets before he quite suddenly recalls that his main objection to tattoos no longer applies to him. He blinks, the look fading out into a startled blank.

Athessa watches that shift in expression, muted surprise and confusion raising her brows. It's merely coincidental and not pointed that when she reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear, her sleeve slips back to show her own tattoo.

"You'd never consider a—?"

"A tattoo," he finishes, sounding a little distant. "Or at least, that was the case in Rune. It would have been a faded mess of nothing after not even a quarter of my life. But of course I suppose that isn't the case anymore."

Does that mean tattoos are back on the table again? Maybe. Not any time soon.

It does make sense to assume that with all the changes he went through just to arrive in Thedas as he is, a shortened lifespan would be among them, but then again...what if it didn't?

That's not something Athessa wants to indulge in imagining right now.

"Well, I know a good artist if you ever decide you want that."

It's a strange thought. He eyes Athessa, attention lingering on the flower at her wrist.

"I'm sure I wouldn't know what sort of designs to even begin thinking about." It sounds like a dismissal, but isn't meant as one. To soften it, he nods to her flower. "Is there meaning to yours?"

Athessa nods, rolling her sleeve so she can hold her hand out for him.

"Forget-me-nots," she says. "To remind me of where I started, and how far from there right here and right now is."

It's a bit more complicated than that, but she's never truly had the words for it all. She turns her wrist over and traces the lines with her fingertips. The stems of the forget-me-nots aren't linked to form a complete circle, but off-set and left open.

"And that I'll never belong to anyone but myself."

He reaches when she offers, fingers curling gently around her wrist as he lifts it somewhat higher for inspection. It is a lovely design, he's thought so before; he's not certain why he'd never before thought to ask for its meaning. But he nods, his fingers tracing the line after hers -- more out of fondness for touching her skin than any particularly marvel at lines he's seen before.

"That's quite the story they have," he murmurs, and considers that he has no such reminders to want to keep alive in himself. It seems best kept to himself.

"It was also kinda a way to prove myself," she says even as she's nodding that yeah, it is quite a story behind a bit of ink. "Since I never got my vallaslin."

He releases her wrist, and the same hand lifts to brush a twist of hair from her forehead, about where he's seen those Dalish tattoos on the few he spots in the city. "What would it have looked like, if you had?"

"I don't really know."

She in turn brushes his hair back from his face to kiss his forehead, and draws some kind of winding pattern starting between his brows and arching up to his temples.

"Probably something that looks like antlers, or vines. I had ideas of which one I'd wanted, 'course, but ultimately it'd be up to the Keeper. Which one, and whether or not you were ready for it."

He ducks his head to accept that kiss, those tracing fingers, but his eyes are on Athessa's face. It's strange to imagine such a design on her -- he's never put much thought to it before.

"What would a Keeper base that sort of thing on?" He'd ask what a Keeper is too, but -- that one's sort of self explanatory, he supposes.

She's tried to imagine it herself more than a few times, standing in front of her own reflection and visualizing what it might look like. She's even tried to draw one on, before, with minimal success.

"Mostly it'd be about the role you fill in the clan, I think, but a little bit of it is also how you conduct yourself," Her fingers transition from tracing his skin to slipping into his hair, brushing it back a few times just to enjoy the feel of it. Silky and fine. "I used to want the vallaslin of Mythal, the protector. But I was also terrified of not being worthy of it."

He closes his eyes as her fingers move, dipping his head into the touch appreciatively. More soothing balm on the still-jumpy wreck of his mind, whether she knows it or not.

"I can't speak to what you may have earned yourself, had things been different," he murmurs, "But I should say something like that would well suit the you that I've come to know."

Athessa smiles, trying and failing to curb it a little bit, but it's one of those smiles that will not be denied. She brushes through his hair a few more times, grazing short nails across his scalp and she kisses his forehead again. Rests her cheek there, briefly.

"Thank you." It's a simple thing to say, probably nothing he had to really think over before saying, but it's something that hits just right to make her feel good. Especially after a dream where she was deemed unfit to raise her own child.

She leans to look at the kettle on the hearth, hearing it boil, and goes to fetch a towel so she can take it off the heat without burning her hand. From there it's the simple matter of pouring the water and letting the coffee steep.

An arm has snuck its way around Athessa's waist, but he releases her easily when she moves for the kettle. Then he only watches her, comforted just by the sight of such simple, mundane tasks under her hands. And isn't she always that -- a comfort, a protection?

He drops back into his comfortable lean against the counter, and holds out a hand for hers as she returns.

"Athessa," he says, tone gone pensive, "You would tell me if there were more I could do for you, yes? If there were any more I could give?"

She takes his hand and leans beside him, tipping her head curiously. "Huh? Like what?"

What more could she possibly ask?

He pauses, frowning, searching for an answer to this -- and is forced to concede a shake of his head.

"I'm not sure," he says, tone still low, as his fingers close around hers. These are more new ideas to him, he doesn't have the grasp on them that he wishes he did. "If I knew, I suppose I'd be doing it already. It feels as though I'm always the one taking from you, though -- you're always giving. I'd like to give back, is all."

"I wouldn't want you to give me anything if it was out of obligation," she says, gaze drifting from his face to look elsewhere, to sort out her thoughts on the matter. After a moment, she continues: "I don't like the idea of anyone feeling like they owe it to me to feel or act one way or another. If I didn't give of myself, I think...I think I might not be able to contain whatever it is and I'd burst."

That gets a quick laugh, and Vanadi nods faintly. "I'd believe that," he says, and finds that the thought of an ungiving Athessa is — foreign. An entirely different person. He shakes it off.

"In any case, it wouldn't be a sense of obligation. I've never felt beholden to one of those in my life," he says, and for a moment there's a younger, haughtier version of himself in the tone. It fades again quickly. "It would be — love, you know, something along those lines. I want to give more to you."

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