WHO: Bastien + YOU?, Redvers + Marcus WHAT: Two problems and counting WHEN: Haring 9:48 WHERE: Kirkwall NOTES: This will have other things in it eventually probably. Hit me @ circuitry if you need me or want to plan something specific!
His balance is fine; he proves it silently, hopping on one foot for a few paces, carrying By’s hand up and down along the way, with neither stumble nor wobble.
“I suppose it isn’t an injury exactly,” he says. “And more’s the pity. I could have made you carry me everywhere.”
As if he’d ever ask that of Byerly’s skinny arms.
Really, the worst of it is a new discomfort in crowds. The added strain of following overlapping jokes at a table full of quick-talking friends. His half-paranoid awareness of everything around him making him constantly try to parse the sounds behind and around him, without being able to place them. He loves a buzzing swarm of people too much to avoid it—but since Arlathan he’s been quieter during evenings out, and afterwards more frayed. There might even come a day he’s short-tempered about it.
But he’s not going to complain. Not about that, not right now.
“I heard him coming, but I couldn’t tell what direction. Otherwise I wouldn’t have let him hit me so hard.” Bastien thinks he might still prefer his confusion and bloodied nose to having so much color leeched out of the world. It is lucky that he’s all black and white and tan, but, “Alexandrie will look different. But the twilight thing? That makes it sound romantic. I hope you use that when you tell her, if you haven’t already.”
"She's already sent me a few charcoals," By says, confirmation on his reporting of his misfortune. "I hope to become her new muse. Starting a new phase in the output of la Artiste."
By smiles slightly over at Bastien. It is easier, now, a bit; By misses Alexandrie desperately, but he thinks there's less strife between him and Bastien because of the distance. It's sadder but simpler with only two.
A moment of quiet. "Obviously you spend little time on the battlefield," he says. And then, not an overt request, but a silent one - "Perhaps this means that you shouldn't spend any time out there at all."
Bastien answers By’s slight smile with a full one. La Artiste, and a worthy muse—and he would never volunteer to admit he’s happier this way, but of course he is. Freely greedy with By’s evenings, no negotiating or maneuvering around anyone else. Sharing a heart is easier than sharing time. Hearts are infinite. But if she comes back—when she comes back, or when they’re free of the war and their lives converge again, or when By’s going off to have a romantic rendezvous and Bastien’s going to luxuriate in some city with good bookshops—then he’ll have a new calm and magnanimity about it all, too, in place of the prior quietly anxious martyrdom. Regardless of what he thinks she thinks of him. It doesn’t matter. Thanks, truth soup.
As for the second thing—
He hums.
“The battlefield,” he echoes. “The real one, with the soldiers and everything? I don’t know. That might be my only chance to ever see an elephant or an ogre.”
"You've seen ogres aplenty," By returns wryly. "You can hardly get away from them, in fact."
But, quips aside - "But - the other sorts of battlefields, too. The ones that consist of - dark houses, or nighttime alleyways, or shots placed from hiding. The Bard's battleground." He caresses Bastien's knuckles. "Those might not be safe for you, either."
An automatic rejoinder, still smiling. But the smile is fading. It's a fair point. Even before today. On the days he's enlisted various members of Riftwatch's Most Muscular to have a go at him, the number of bruises he's brought to bed afterwards hasn't been decreasing as steadily as he'd hoped.
"Even with one ear, even not even being in her division, I'm the best Yseult has," is what he's saying, though.
That might not be true anymore. And Byerly asks him for so little, so rarely. There's already a gnawing part of him that wants to agree on that basis alone.
But on the other hand: an adventurous streak. The dream of dark houses and nighttime alleys with Byerly, someday, for fun or for justice. And pride.
"Yseult doesn't have a claim on you," By replies. Which is not actually true; after all, friendship and the loyalty of comrades isn't nothing. So Byerly amends, "Not like I do. She can find substitutes for your skill, but there's no one who can replace you for me."
(And, honestly, it probably isn't true. Byerly has seen Ellie and her magical powers of unerring marksmanship. But he'll keep that thought to himself; he's already challenging Bastien's pride enough as it is.)
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“I suppose it isn’t an injury exactly,” he says. “And more’s the pity. I could have made you carry me everywhere.”
As if he’d ever ask that of Byerly’s skinny arms.
Really, the worst of it is a new discomfort in crowds. The added strain of following overlapping jokes at a table full of quick-talking friends. His half-paranoid awareness of everything around him making him constantly try to parse the sounds behind and around him, without being able to place them. He loves a buzzing swarm of people too much to avoid it—but since Arlathan he’s been quieter during evenings out, and afterwards more frayed. There might even come a day he’s short-tempered about it.
But he’s not going to complain. Not about that, not right now.
“I heard him coming, but I couldn’t tell what direction. Otherwise I wouldn’t have let him hit me so hard.” Bastien thinks he might still prefer his confusion and bloodied nose to having so much color leeched out of the world. It is lucky that he’s all black and white and tan, but, “Alexandrie will look different. But the twilight thing? That makes it sound romantic. I hope you use that when you tell her, if you haven’t already.”
no subject
By smiles slightly over at Bastien. It is easier, now, a bit; By misses Alexandrie desperately, but he thinks there's less strife between him and Bastien because of the distance. It's sadder but simpler with only two.
A moment of quiet. "Obviously you spend little time on the battlefield," he says. And then, not an overt request, but a silent one - "Perhaps this means that you shouldn't spend any time out there at all."
no subject
As for the second thing—
He hums.
“The battlefield,” he echoes. “The real one, with the soldiers and everything? I don’t know. That might be my only chance to ever see an elephant or an ogre.”
no subject
But, quips aside - "But - the other sorts of battlefields, too. The ones that consist of - dark houses, or nighttime alleyways, or shots placed from hiding. The Bard's battleground." He caresses Bastien's knuckles. "Those might not be safe for you, either."
no subject
An automatic rejoinder, still smiling. But the smile is fading. It's a fair point. Even before today. On the days he's enlisted various members of Riftwatch's Most Muscular to have a go at him, the number of bruises he's brought to bed afterwards hasn't been decreasing as steadily as he'd hoped.
"Even with one ear, even not even being in her division, I'm the best Yseult has," is what he's saying, though.
That might not be true anymore. And Byerly asks him for so little, so rarely. There's already a gnawing part of him that wants to agree on that basis alone.
But on the other hand: an adventurous streak. The dream of dark houses and nighttime alleys with Byerly, someday, for fun or for justice. And pride.
no subject
(And, honestly, it probably isn't true. Byerly has seen Ellie and her magical powers of unerring marksmanship. But he'll keep that thought to himself; he's already challenging Bastien's pride enough as it is.)
no subject
But: "Would you quit?"