open. you believe what you want to believe.

[justashotaway]

WHO: Aenor Din'adhal, Laura Kint
WHAT: Catchall with open and some closed starters
WHEN: Immediately post-dream through the end of Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows and Kirkwall proper
NOTES: If you'd like me to write you up something particular, please PM justashotaway or dinadhal, PP , or disco dove#9906. Starters in comments.

Comments

[inkindled]

A grin jumps to his face first, and he squeezes her hand. There. She got it. And she brought it up, which means that it's all right, it could happen, and Matthias can feel his heart knocking very hard against his chest--but he collects himself, he marshals his face and tries to put on a look of pleasant consideration, like the thought is very new.

"If it becomes relevant," he repeats, "that's good to know, like. Phworr--" He breaks just as quickly as he'd put that on, blows a breath out, "you really asked Commander Flint, didn't you? You're brave, you know."

[justashotaway]

"I knew he would know," she answers, burying her smile, chin tucked against her throat. But Matthias is smiling, too, and they are agreed in all this, and he has promised never to use blood magic. So, careful, she squeezes his hand back, her gaze meeting his. "And he was very helpful."

To the best of his ability, at least, which apparently is only somewhat more detailed than what Laura knew before that point.

[inkindled]

"I reckon he was," Matthias agrees, "but him just looking at me turns me half to dust. Never mind if I were asking him about weddings and he were looking at me while I was asking it. You're brave."

It bears repeating. During his compliment, he's gone and said the word itself, hasn't he--wedding--and a quick nervous grin jumps on to his face which hasn't got anything to do with Commander Flint.

"Since you've asked, I reckon I don't have to. Lucky me."

[justashotaway]

It's hard to imagine being afraid of Commander Flint. He's serious, and he's rarely friendly, but he doesn't wish people in Riftwatch harm. For her, at least, that takes away the sting from his flat stare and terse comments.

But she does see much less of Flint than Matthias. Perhaps being around him is more difficult when one's Riftwatch career depends entirely on his opinion.

"He said," she adds, since her knowledge won't do Matthias any good unless she speaks it aloud, "someone who wished to be married should ask people to observe and come to him. There are other expectations for people with land or families. People pay each other before weddings occur. But that sounds...unnecessary."

[inkindled]

"Dowries," Matthias says, with a nod. He knows that much about weddings at least. "But we haven't got anything, so, yeah--unnecessary, I reckon."

We, in the context of weddings and dowries, has a great deal involved in it--a headiness that makes Matthias' stomach pitch a little. He weathers it by holding to Laura's hand, running his thumb over her knuckles again back the other way.

"Who would you ask? To, y'know. Observe. If that happened."

[justashotaway]

This is proof, the fact that he pulled the word dowries from the air, that Matthias knows more of marriages than Laura. But not a great deal more, which is something. She looks down at their hands again, thinking. Not only of some future event and who would witness it, but of this moment right now. Matthias touches her hands like they could never hurt him, and sometimes, it feels unbelievable.

"I'm unsure," she says, after a pause. But she does try a few names on for size. "Bastien. Mhavos. In the dream, Mrs. Fitcher disapproved."

[inkindled]

"Hang on," Matthias says, with a laugh, "we talked about this, didn't we? In the dream. I said Athessa--and, well, now Derrica, for certain, and Enchanter Leander--"

And both of those are a little fraught--Derrica would still be the one he would want to be there, if he were getting married (when?), but in the dream, she'd had it hard, harder than Matthias. Now her name is an easy one to give. And Enchanter Leander is gone, which is a worry calcifying into something greater, but Matthias pushes that away for now, too.

"Hang on," repeating himself, this time with a puzzled frown, "why did Mrs. Fitcher disapprove?"

[justashotaway]

"All of them," Laura agrees. Athessa and Derrica are friends, Leander is important to Matthias. Those are the considerations necessary. And six people isn't very many, few enough that it won't feel like being on display. A party after can have more people, all of Riftwatch for all she minds.

Her face falls at his question--or the equivalent to her face falling, at least, brows coming together a little, mouth drooping slightly at the corners. I should not have said anything about Fitcher, she thinks, because the last thing she wants is to repeat half-remembered comments from a dream.

"Fitcher...does not think that mages should marry." She can't think of a kinder way to put it, but surely it's better than she thinks you could become an abomination.

[inkindled]

Oh. So the obvious answer, is what Matthias thinks--though he thinks it after a first initial stab of hurt. He can't help that. You get comfortable, living in Riftwatch. You don't forget, that there are people that don't want you to marry, that wouldn't even want you to live outside a Circle, that don't trust you--you don't ever forget all of that, of course, but the intensity of it is a little less. Day in, day out, you can live a step away from knowing that.

The hurt is followed by a flash of anger. But that passes quickly. Old scars make a kind of armor. Matthias shrugs.

"What does she know, anyway. And that was in the dream besides, so. It hardly counts. But even if it did, she doesn't know. It doesn't matter if it's what we want, right?"

[justashotaway]

"Right," she agrees, because the words for why it counts are difficult to find. Mrs. Fitcher was one of the first people she met in Kirkwall; she explained the purpose of cards and never seemed to mind that their conversations were small, strange things, rarely carried by the sound of Laura's voice. She's a plain, smart woman, older than Laura ever imagined getting, and stately about it in a sensible kind of way.

But Matthias isn't wrong. It was in the dream, in a world that doesn't exist. The things they keep from it are up to them. Her mouth tilts down further, her free hand covering his again as if locking his fingers up between hers might keep him safe from others' unkindness. And she tries to brush off the thought the way he has. "Her opinion does not change mine. And she might not feel that way now."

Doubt creeps into that last statement. But it would be nice, if it were true.