faderift | (no subject)

"I know." No letters, no reports. It's a slacking of discipline on her part, brought on by so many long days in the field. When she had thought of it, she'd been too tired to contemplate finding parchment and ink. When she hadn't, she'd been tireder yet. Something warm and unpleasant slinks through her belly now at the thought, a sensation she's learned to call guilt. She'll have to apologize to Flint, provide a much longer report accounting for her activities, and to Matthias -

But somehow, Matthias is only happy she's returned. When he draws back, it's to look at her with a kind of affectionate intensity that she returns wholly. Seeing his face - all the fine details that fade in memory, the way his smile beams out of every speck of him, not just his mouth - soothes some of the guilt. Some people can hide how they feel; Matthias isn't one of them. Right down to the scent of him, she thinks, he's pleased to see her.

When he pulls her back close, her arms tightening around him, she adds, "I'm sorry."

Because she is, and because next time, I'll write - is neither something she wants to think about nor (probably) the truth.

"Nah." Dismissive, cheerful. Matthias wraps his arms even more tightly around Laura, further reinforcement. "I didn't mean you ought to be sorry, don't be sorry--it was a surprise, that's all. I like surprises. Only I haven't got anything for you as a welcome home gift, or anything, and I didn't plan anything--but I'm not unhappy to see you, I'm really happy--"

Which, yeah, obviously he's happy, so obviously it might seem stupid to have said it aloud, but the words come spilling out and there wouldn't be anything Matthias could do to shut himself up even if he wanted to. He twists his face and presses a kiss to the side of Laura's face--or her ear, maybe, or the place just above her ear, he's not paying too close attention in his excitement.

Laura smiles, the kiss landing along her hairline - her temple, her ear, the side of her face, all at once. Turning her head, she tries for a kiss of her own, landing at the corner of his mouth. (More things she's missed, and missed more than she could have known until this moment: being able to kiss Matthias whenever she liked.)

"I didn't bring you anything," she informs him, and this is something like a joke. At the very least, it's not earnest. "So neither of us planned."

One hand loosens from where she's holding tight to him, snaking up between them so she can touch his cheek and tilt his head. And this time, she kisses him squarely.

The kiss at the corner of his mouth feels as if it pins his smile into place. He's caught laughing at her remark when she kisses him again, more properly, and then it all feels very real. When Matthias has dreamed of kissing Laura, it's only felt like a shadow nothing like this at all. He hasn't got her keen nose but stood close to her, with her hand on his face and her hair fallen around them--well, that's real, and so is the pressure of her mouth on his, and the feeling that it all stirs deep down in him.

He's nearly dizzy when they break apart, and his smile has gone to a grin that he knows is goonish--he can feel it--but he can't help that, either. He wants very badly to kiss her again and he wants just as badly to stand across from her and go on looking at her.

"You're really here." Like it's a revelation. "You're really back. For good? Not that it's got to be for good or it's worth nothing, I only mean-- You're not leaving, like--tomorrow, or in the next fortnight? You're staying?"

"I'm staying." Even if she weren't, she'd want to say so. Days spent working with Matthias, nights spent falling asleep beside him - only to wake in the morning and kiss him like that? Duty isn't nearly as tempting.

Her smile isn't as broad - it never is - but it's unquestionably there, lips curving up and eyes softening. Her hand's resting splayed over his neck now, and she can nearly feel his pulse under it. (Or maybe it's hers, beating just a little too fast.) "I never want to leave again."

Until it's necessary. Until she's asked to, and she knows that someone has to. But if she can help it? Never.

Staying. The word sings in Matthias. His grin grows even larger--though that hardly seems possible--and he grabs onto Laura and pulls her in for another kiss, firm and strong and likely a little sloppy as well--but he means it like a seal to that declaration. She's staying. They can go back to the way they were. Life will have color again, proper color.

Seizing her the way he'd done meant that he'd stepped a bit closer, and kicked--well, something--but that hadn't registered at first. Now as he breaks away again to give her yet another grin, Matthias looks down and sees that it was her bag which is laying there.

"Is that yours? Did you come straight here?"

I will not help the Marchers again, she imagines telling Flint, because Matthias wants to kiss me. Except even in her imagination, she can't actually picture Flint in the chair behind his desk, listening to her say anything about her relationship with his assistant. And as soon as Matthias' lips actually touch hers, she doesn't think about Flint at all. She's even forgotten that she came in carrying anything.

"Yes." Her expression goes self-conscious as she glances down at the weathered bag at her feet. Still smiling, just a new, slightly embarrassed sort of awareness to it. "I wanted to see you, not our room."

And she's still not particularly interested in taking luggage up so many flights of stairs - not when the alternative is having Matthias within arm's reach. With one foot, she nudges her pack out of the doorway. It's no longer of any relevance.

Instead, she asks, "Is the work you're doing important?"

It feels an honor, like. He's most important over everything. That stands to reason, yeah--if it were Matthias coming back to the Gallows after being away for ages and ages, the first thing he would do would be to track down Laura and kiss her--but that doesn't make it mean any less to him now. His whole life he's wanted to be the favorite, someone first thought of and first sought. And he never was until now. People might have liked him all right, even been fond of him, but that's not the same as this. His ears go a little pink just thinking of it.

"What? Oh--" He looks back over his shoulder at his abandoned desk. It's a good excuse to try to collect himself a bit as well, suck in a breath. "No. I mean, yeah, I s'ppose it's important to Riftwatch, but it's only copying over reports that I dunno anyone actually reads. Think they use 'em to stuff mattresses if I'm honest. You haven't got to go anywhere now, have you? I mean, maybe to take your bag up, but after that--only I can skive off if you like. The Commander's not around and I've seen maybe three people, so no one'll be likely to be stopping by for a chat."

"Skive off," Laura agrees, in a Marcher accent to match his own. It's impossible to find words for how much she's missed him - for her, it's impossible to feel it entirely. It fills every space, nameless and overwhelming, a sensation of we are both here and we are both pleased with that.

(The one thing that had ever felt similar was the discovery, years past, that she had a mother and a name. But standing here, with Matthias in her arms, lacks the grief of hearing I love you only in her mother's dying breaths.)

"We could go to the parapets," she offers, after a moment, in her own affect. "Or stay here. But if Flint will not miss you - my report can wait."

He laughs at her accent, pleased to hear it again. Funny how there's things you miss of people that you forget to miss until you hear or see them again--and then it's like, right, you used to have this all the time and then you didn't, and isn't it nice that it's here once again. In fact he's so pleased it's nearly like feeling drunk--so much so that when Laura suggests the parapets, Matthias nearly involuntarily says yes! to that, and he's away to his desk so that he can tuck away the parchment he was working on, lest prying eyes read it while he's away--

"I'll put a sign out. The Commander won't be back, no way he'll see it--we'll go to the parapets. You've got to tell me everything you've seen while you've been away, everything you've done--"

Hastily, he grabs a blank bit of paper and scribbles something onto it--This Office Will Be Opened In One Hour--and nips the quill back into its rest, screws the top of the inkwell back on.

"And I'll tell you everything I've seen and done, only it's not been much--or it has, in some ways--but it hasn't--not the same to what you'll have to say, I'm sure, you're bound to have a squillion things to tell--"

At the moment, Laura could stand here and watch him do his work for the rest of the day, and she thinks she'd be content. Partly for the fact that she'd be observing Matthias, partly because the Forces office feels remarkably calm to her. The last several months have been filled with the drudgery of rebuilding, interrupted by chaos. The promise of danger meant that even quiet moments were spiked with dread.

(Some of the Marchers she encountered had grown numb to it. Others had startled at any out-of-place noise. Fear had drifted like a fog through every village she'd stopped at.)

"I have some." A squillion might be possible, but some, she's not sure he'll enjoy hearing about. With one foot, she nudges her bag up against the wall, out of the doorway. No one will take it, if no one is in here - and if someone tries, she'll sniff them out. "And I wish to hear the things you have done, too."

"Oh, y'know--" He pulls a face as he crosses back to her. "It's been the usual around here. Drills and training and practice and paperwork and everyone gobbing about nothing on the crystals--battles--spirits in a tower trying to confuse us--"

There's a little sting to that one that Matthias puts off feeling. Instead he goes to take Laura's hand. That helps, a good grounding distraction.

"I ate a crab. Never had one before. It was all right. I'm trying to learn a bit of lightning, think it'd be dead useful. That's all for me, really."

She's ready to say that the usual sounds very nice. And then, she's ready to ask about the spirits - but he blazes onward in a way that seems to say this, I don't want to talk about, so she leaves it alone, her hand holding his firmly as they leave the office.

"I would like to see the lightning," seems to her the better comment. Through all of her months away, she'd missed Matthias, but there were times when she'd missed his magic more than she'd ever thought possible. (Most often when she couldn't convince her kindling to catch fire.) She'd found herself thinking more than once of the dream that Riftwatch had shared a year ago. What lingered after - and does still, when she recalls it - are memories of rage and fear, horror at seeing Matthias turning a man's will inside out.

But what had seemed most important, retreading those memories, were the ways his real magic differed. Useful, grounded in the facts of the world - that fire exists, that lightning can strike. The magic he relies on most has a nature she can understand. As they find the stairs to the battlements, she adds, "And to eat a crab."

"We," he announces, grandly, "will do both."

It isn't easy to climb stairs hand in hand, especially the narrower stairs up to the battlements, but Matthias takes Laura's hand all the same. At least for the first part of the stairs, where they're a bit wider. The novelty of being able to fold his fingers around hers is too great a chance to miss out on even for a moment.

"Not at the same time, 'course. Crab is soft--I bet you'll like it. They can do it with spices, makes your nose run, but it's good. Well, it does me. You'll probably be just fine, seeing as you're made of stronger stuff. The lightning I can show you in the training yard. Or maybe even when we're up here, if there's a good target far enough away. It's so different--not like fire. Or maybe that's just 'cause I don't know it so well yet. Fire always feels like a friend, y'know?"

Here the stairs get narrower and Matthias releases Laura's hand--but not before he gives it a squeeze, like a promise.

"Oh--you haven't seen Biter yet, have you!"

Edited (lmao dammit) 2022-03-07 00:55 (UTC)

Matthias talks, and Laura listens. It's a comfortable thing, a piece of their relationship that she takes for granted when she's near him: he'll fill the silences, and she'll contribute when and if she cares to. Here, it doesn't seem all that necessary. Hearing the words, entwining her fingers with his, and nodding at all of it seems enough.

She's inclined to keep hold of him right up to the top of the tower, but it would be inconvenient around the tight curves of the stairs. So she squeezes back, and they go along up.

"No." There's a touch of bemusement in the word; while seeing their cat is something she's looking forward to, it didn't seem as important as Matthias. "Is she well?"

"She's huge!" His tone ought to convey well enough that this is a good thing, but lest there be any mistake, he hurries to qualify-- "And brilliant, just massive as well. Long. I stood her up on her back legs the other day just to see and she comes nearly to the windowsill. I thought cats stays titchy, I didn't know they grew so much. I've seen dogs smaller'n she is now. It was dead brilliant in winter, though--she was like a heated rock at the bottom of the bed. Her teeth have grown along with her so when she bites she bites, but if you're sweet to her she doesn't. She doesn't bite me."

That bit he says with the real pride it deserves. It's always good to be the favorite. It's even better to be the favorite of a thing that might take your hand off.

This does sound like a good thing. An enormous, colorful cat who keeps the bed warm and mostly elects not to cause harm. She realizes, as he finishes, that she's smiling.

"We can look for her on the way down." She frequently goes off to do whatever it is cats do during the day - or did, at least, when Laura was last in the Gallows - but it seems nearly as possible that they'll find her napping with her tail tucked over her nose. She does, after all, sleep a great deal. "So I can see her on her hind legs."

Some part of her likes the idea of retiring to their room early and staying there until hunger drives them out again - but Matthias will need to return to his desk in an hour. A short visit with Biter will be an acceptable compromise. "She must be a strong hunter by now, if she grew that large."

"She's a brilliant hunter."

Matthias is not thinking of his desk at all. And, if he were asked by anyone (anyone who is not Commander Flint), would insist that he clearly is no longer able to be held to the constraint of time. What is an hour, after all? Made up, innit? So why expect him to obey? There is nothing like being reunited with your girlfriend to turn you into a philosopher.

(And, if Commander Flint were to come round the corner, there would be nothing like that to return him to the world of order and reason. But Commander Flint won't be coming round the corner. He's, you know, elsewhere, somewhere. Not for Matthias to speculate.)

He gives Laura a grin as the reach the top of the stairs. No more thinking of Flint. "Seriously. I'd be surprised if there are any rats left in the Gallows, that's how good she is. She reminds me of you. Not 'cause you're a hunter, just--'cause."

"Because I can smell rats," she offers. As soon as there's room for them to stand side by side, she reaches again for Matthias' hand.

There's a sharp breeze, so far up, and the scent of saltwater helps to cut the stench of Kirkwall and its harbor. After so many places that smelled like ash and dried blood, Kirkwall hasn't been so bad - but she still prefers the scent of the sea. Some hesitance finds her voice as she tells him, "I went to Tantervale. But we do not have to talk about it - I also went other places."

He hadn't wanted to go, and she no longer feels any need to return, either. And that's what really needs to be said - I will not make you go back, and I will not ask about it again - but the last time they spoke of it, she had pressed. This time, she wants to bring it up only as much as Matthias wants. He's always shown her gentleness; she needs to do the same.

The breeze pulls at his hair, and at Laura's. The smell of the saltwater is brisk and good--a little cold, which helps Matthias in this moment. Laura's hand is warm in his, or else his hand is warm in hers. Or maybe they're warming one another. He likes that thought best. Isn't that sort of what it is, to have a girlfriend? That you're two halves and you balance one another.

Tantervale. Even hearing it makes him a little dizzy. It's stupid. He grips at her hand--or maybe she's gripping at his. Does it matter?

"We can talk about it," he says. "It's shit, isn't it."

"Yes." He was right about Tantervale. She'd doubted him, at least a little, but it had been a small place compared to Kirkwall. Muddy wheel ruts, crying children, lives lived at ground level at all times. And here they are, at the top of the world, her hair only just managing not to blow into Matthias' face. "And the siege did not help."

For a moment or two, she tries to think of something else to say. And then she remembers another conversation, more recent than her attempt to pry Matthias' childhood home out of him. Laura. Hand in hand with not letting anyone else tell you how to live is that you don't get to tell other people how to live.

So she doesn't say anything, for the moment. Matthias will tell her what he wants to, and he will ask what he wants to know.

"Good," Matthias says. Cruel and unfair. He rocks forward so that he can see just over the half-wall, down the side of the Gallows, down, way down, to the iron-colored water. Even in pleasant weather it looks grim and dark. There was a mage at the Tantervale Circle called Gerardo--from Antiva, and he'd tell you that water changes colors because of the sand or the dirt or muck that's under it--that it's nothing to do with the color of the water because water hasn't got any color. Kirkwall water has got a color, Matthias would tell him now, if he knew where Gerardo was.

"It wasn't their fault," he says, after a moment. "The people in Tantervale. Most of 'em what were there when I was in the Circle are likely dead, anyways--even before the siege--but even if they were still there-ordinary people, what happened to live in Tantervale because their parents lived in Tantervale when they were born--they didn't do anything. To me. I'm not stupid. But what did any of 'em ever do for us that were in the Circle? But then I think, what could they have done, really?"

He scowls down at the ocean. His opinion on this is beginning to expand a little, like stepping back from a large tapestry and seeing all the bits of it connected, not just the bit that you were nose-to-nose with.

"But I hate it. All of it. The city and the people and the streets and the buildings and the walls and all of it. None of it was ever good to me. I hope it collapses and never comes back. It's the worst place I've ever been and I don't want it even to exist any longer."

Laura listens. The world of Matthias' youth - neither of them have ever been young when they've known each other, naturally - always sounds alien to her. Crowded with people, with possibilities she'd never thought to imagine...and yet nearly as confined and cruel as everything she'd known as a girl. He'd been unhappy there, and she'd wanted to see why. Now that she's been, the impulse feels thoughtless.

He watches the water, and she watches him. And when he says no more, she squeezes his hand. "I'm sorry."

For all the ways his home hurt him. For suggesting he go back. For the fact that, as they speak, bits and pieces of it have been rebuilt, in places where it might have stayed razed to the ground. "Even if they could not have helped you, they should have tried. We will do better than they did."

We will help people.

The water is very far away but Matthias holds to her hand as if he were in it, about to go under. His grip is too hard. She won't mind. She understands. They're different, the both of them, they came from different places, suffered different things, but he can trust Laura to understand in a way that someone else might not be able to. There are things about her that he doesn't know; there are things about Matthias that she doesn't know, despite how much he talks. They can know without really knowing. A shorthand, the way you make a secret language with your friends, but deeper even than that.

"We will. I want to. Not 'cause of what happened, we can't do anything about that--but it can not happen again. We can do that. Or we should, but-- They don't always understand it. People, I mean. 'Cause you think it's okay, right?" He looks over at her, jaw set. "What I said? That I want Tantervale destroyed? You understand that. But people don't, always. They'll tell you to be kinder and they tell you that you've got to be thinking of other people when no one was ever thinking of you, not once--and I do think about other people! 'Cause it's like you said, we'll do better, we'll help people--but I can still be angry, can't I?"

"You can still be angry." His anger comes through in his clenching hand and the hardness in his expression, as much as in his words. It's familiar, and Laura thinks it just. "They put you in a cage."

Matthias had been a boy. He'd done nothing to justify being locked away. For all she doesn't trust mages - for all she can see the purpose of keeping them from hurting others - nearly two years lived among them has introduced her to people who have caused harm to none. They have wanted safety and happiness, and they have not smelled cruel.

"If Cumberland disappeared," she adds, haltingly, looking down at the smooth old stones of the battlements, "I would not mourn. I would want to know everyone who...who hurt me...that they died with it. I am tired of killing people, but I don't think they should be alive."

Laura looks down; Matthias looks over at her. He holds tight to her hand. Her claws could split through his fingers if she wanted them to, but she doesn't, wouldn't. She's tired of killing people, even those that shouldn't be alive. People who did terrible things to her, people who let other people do terrible things to her.

"Sometimes I think," he starts, before he stops with a frown. If he can't say this to Laura, who might he say it to? "Sometimes I think Riftwatch doesn't do enough. To-- To help people, I s'ppose. It does, right--we do, actually, help--but-- We could do more, I think. Or at least we could try harder and really help. I met this mage, he's called Linden, he's all right--he's the one that put me on to lightning--and he asked what I think of Riftwatch, and I've been thinking about that a great deal. I like that it stands for something. I don't like how slow it is. I know you've got to be, sometimes, I'm not stupid, but--if we weren't, if we did that--actually did things to, I dunno, save people--decisively, like-- Sometimes I think I ought to just go off and do that on my own. Even if I'd not get very far."

Edited 2022-04-07 03:02 (UTC)

There is a pause.

"Do you want to leave Riftwatch?" She asks the way normal people touch bruises - barely touching, wary of pain. Which answer would hurt, though, no or yes? Laura's not sure. She did things while she was away, in the ways Matthias means, but they had all been small things. Riftwatch can make greater changes, if one waits - but one must wait.

Linden's name sounds familiar. Her memory dredges up a conversation in which a voice had decided her voice was human before she'd said so. But the question of Riftwatch is what's foremost in her mind right now.

Matthias holds his breath for about twenty seconds, then lets it all out in a great exhale.

"Not yet," he says. "'Least I don't think so. I think--for me--there's still things I can do by being here. And I like it most days. It's better'n I had. But I've learnt a great deal as well. I feel like I was a right idiot when I came in--not that I'm so much cleverer now--but I've learnt things from being with Riftwatch. And I think, before anything else, we've got to see to Corypheus, haven't we? As long as that stays what we're doing, really doing, well, that's good work on its own. I think that's what I think--right now, anyways. Could change my mind."

He squeezes at her hand again.

"What about you?"

"Riftwatch has helped us," Laura says, after some thought - standing silently beside Matthias, looking at the sea, feeling the weight of his hand in hers. This, perhaps more than anything else, she's missed. For all his chattering, Matthias will wait for her to find the words she wants to say, when it takes time for her to gather them. Talking with him comes without expectations, beyond that they both enjoy the conversation. "I dislike the idea of leaving when others still need our aid."

Her eyes cut up to Matthias', head hardly tilting. "But when I am away, I decide what to, and how to do it. I think...I think someday I will tire of taking orders. Do you think you'll tire of working for Commander Flint?"