player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

[cozen]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.

This is a timeline where, some mild chaos aside, things for the last month have carried on as normal. Riftwatch hasn't lost anyone at all. There were no funerals. The work continued. The late afternoon of August 15 may find people at their desks, in the midst of meetings or debriefs, in the library, in the sparring yard. Or maybe afield, seeing to errands or meetings or missions somewhere else in Thedas. Maybe, if they are particularly unlucky, they are deep in conversation with an ally or embroiled in combat with an enemy agent at the precise moment when the magical connection between two realities closes and the diverging timelines snap together into one existence.

At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.

For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.

For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.

Comments

[bouchonne]

"Yes."

He's right. He is right. A few minutes ago, Riftwatch had been obliterated, and Byerly had been cut loose from its yoke. How long had the battle at Granitefell lasted? How long had he had to process that it was all over, and that they had lost? It doesn't matter; it's moot now. Riftwatch is once again a thing that needs defending.

It takes visible effort, calming himself. But it doesn't take a lot of visible effort. His fingers twist in the cloth of Bastien's sleeve, gripping him for strength. He takes a few breaths. The tears dry up; the moisture is blinked away. He fishes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes away snot. Fingers fluff and tousle his hair artfully, and a thumb runs over his eyebrows to settle any stray hairs. And as he does, his brow smooths out, and his jaw relaxes, and his habitual expression of light irony settles back into place. And then, finally, he folds the handkerchief into an even square and tucks it away again.

It's not a flawless simulacrum of the Ambassador coming away from a dull-but-successful meeting on a hot Hightown afternoon, but it'll stand up to light scrutiny.

"Well," he says, just a little breathier than it would be otherwise, "shall we?"

[cozen]

Watching Byerly reminds Bastien of watching Alexandrie arrange herself. Her end results were always a little more polished, perhaps, but a similar piece-by-piece erasure of emotion. They are made the same, he thinks, her and Byerly. Unruly hearts tethered and bucking. And he is something different.

He wrote to her. And to Byerly’s wife. And to Byerly’s sister. Only a week ago, and even three weeks out from the loss the best he could manage was a few sentences for each of them, a simple statement and simpler apologies, a post-script note that he had everything of Byerly’s that he could carry and if they wanted any particular belonging they could let him know. Maybe the messages didn’t reach them before the world became one where the messages never existed. Maybe, even if they did, they won’t remember receiving them now. Maybe there won’t be any tear-stained replies or impulsive visits to Kirkwall.

And their friends here—who came closer to giving Bastien what he needed than anyone, without their own losses to mourn, tipping their glasses and telling him stories he already knew about the time Byerly did this or said that, missing him too, rude jokes and all, and only ruining it a little bit with eagerness for gory details or promises Bastien would be alright or, in Franz’ case, a friendly drunken I’m sorry kiss on the corner of the mouth that lingered long enough to become an invitation to borrow some comfort—

They will have to figure out who knows what later. Bastien nods, stands, and offers Byerly his arm for the walk.

Once they are out in the open again, making steady progress toward the stairs, he says, “A Chantry Brother traveling between abbeys lost his way in the forest,” and stops there, tone prompting, waiting for another sentence from Byerly. A distraction for the way down.

[bouchonne]

As they go, Byerly affects a tiny limp. Something that will imply to passers-by, ah, yes, he must have turned his ankle; that's why he's leaning on his companion's arm like that. Because he knows he's going to have trouble letting go of his beloved, even as they're descending the grand stairs to the ferry, even if someone else is coming up and they end up running the risk of crowding that poor fool off the edge. And so there ought to be a reason for that ostentatious clinginess.

A Chantry Brother lost his way in the forest. He came upon a burning village -

"As he wandered, searching for a familiar tree or rock or stream, he heard a voice call out to him."

[cozen]

“The voice—“

of a lost love

of a dead friend

“—was creaking and ancient, familiar in a way he couldn’t place right away. And it said,” as they have to pause a moment at the entrance to the staircase to let someone wrestling with a full cart of goods, oblivious to any recent miracles, pass through first, “you still owe me five royals.”

[bouchonne]

When Byerly laughs, it comes out like the laugh of someone with a broken rib, or who's suffering from a bad cough.

"'Who's there?' said the Brother, looking around wildly. And then there, emerging from the mists, was a skeleton, its eyes trained on the Brother." Byerly looks down at a few scattered flowers that have fallen from the cart ahead of them. "Single eye. It had a glass eye in life that stuck around after its flesh eye rotted."

[cozen]

Byerly’s laugh, however precariously close to wounded it sounds, makes Bastien smile. He’s still smiling when they reach the addition of the glass eye, so it only has to widen in appreciation instead of starting over from nothing.

“The Brother knew that green glass eye, because he had been there when the original one was lost—before he was a Brother at all. When he was called Malden Two-Toes, and he was one of the fiercest pirates of the Storm Coast.”

He offers more support as they step around the cart on the stairs, playing along with Byerly’s favored ankle without needing to think about it at all.

[bouchonne]

“Ooh,” says Byerly, in unforced and unfeigned appreciation for this twist. He loves a man with a secret past nearly as much in story as in life.

“You may be wondering why ‘Two-Toes.’ It was not, in fact, because the pirate-turned holy man had two toes himself. No; in his wickedness, he had left his victims with only two toes, so that they could not chase after him.”

It’s easier, moment by moment, as the story takes over and the battleground recedes.

[altusimperius]

A voice comes over the crystal, hopeful and uncertain: "Byerly?" Are you here, is the unasked question.

[cozen]

Without this intervention, it’s likely that Brother Two-Toes would have a tragic backstory and a star-crossed lover by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs.

With it, Bastien face freezes a moment, mouth smiling and half-open in preparation to take his turn.

“Hello, Benedict,” he says instead, mostly as a good-mannered warning that he is not having a private conversation. He sounds perfectly polite. Too perfectly polite—not icy, never, the same way a summer day is never really icy. But maybe sometimes it’s still a little cooler than it ought to be, for summer.

[bouchonne]

The unexpected disrupts Byerly's fragile calm. The voice - familiar, in its own strange way beloved, and sounding utterly unlike how it normally sounds - brings him back to the present moment, the present unnaturalness.

"Ah," By says, and grips at Bastien's arm harder. And he forces himself to sound normal - normal - sound normal - when he answers, "Yes, Artemaeus. Did you - have something you needed?"

His fingers come up to hook around the crystal, extricating it from where it hangs on a pendant, tucked under his shirt. He toys with it.

[altusimperius]

“Bastien,” comes the prim, hesitant response of around the same temperature— oh, you’re here too— but it doesn’t deter him from his initial reasoning.

“It’s true then,” Benedict continues, wonderment in his voice, “it worked. It’s you.” He’s not tearing up, YOU’RE tearing up, etc.

[cozen]

Bastien glances up at By’s face, as his grip tightens, to gauge the likelihood they’ll make it to Lowtown without any further breakdowns. Even odds, he’d say, but dwindling.

So it’s protectiveness of their calm progress that makes him take Byerly’s crystal-holding hand and pull it closer to his own face. That, and a distant gurgle of jealousy. For the privilege of getting emotional. For the ability to tear up. For the damn letter.

“We’re on our way to the Gallows. We’re on the stairs,” he says, quiet and still pleasant, and then adds, deliberately insulting in its obviousness, as wheels clatter down one long step at a time and the trickle of pedestrians stomp and chatter past in the background, “in public.”

He is, mercifully, too Orlesian as to go so far as to say don’t say anything stupid outright.

[bouchonne]

Oh, Maker. Why is there such emotion in the boy's voice? Byerly looks, for a moment, openly stricken, openly helpless, before he steels himself as best he can. (His best is not very good. His expression is all right, but there's a little tremble in his hand, palpable to Bastien.)

"You're - doing all right then, lad?" By asks, his voice gruff and awkward.

[altusimperius]

In public, Bastien says, and it rankles appropriately; Benedict's eyeroll is practically audible, but he keeps any commentary to himself. Oh, so it is going to be like that.

"Yes, better-- better than ever," he replies to Byerly, getting back on track, "I'm coming back to the Gallows now." You don't need to know where he was, or what he was doing. It's fine.

[cozen]

Behind Bastien’s smoothly unconcerned expression, his teeth grit—but hopefully this doesn’t mean they’ll wind up on the same ferry trip. But a moment later that feels like such a stupid thing to worry about. By’s hand is trembling; Bastien squeezes it for a moment before letting it go, tentatively trusting Benedict and Byerly not to ruin all his efforts to keep from drawing too much attention.

[bouchonne]

Byerly does not notice the tension between the two of them. He hardly notices his own feet at the moment. Every last ounce of concentration is spent on keeping his voice light.

“Then perhaps we’ll see you on the ferry,” he says, echoing Bastien’s worry. “Coming in from Kirkwall proper, I presume. Spending time shopping, perhaps?”

[altusimperius]

"I am," Benedict replies just as lightly, choosing not to answer the question-- the less he dwells on that incident, the better.

"If not, I'll see you back at the office." A pause. "How are you, um... feeling?" Josias was decidedly Not Great.

[cozen]

Slightly too well-mannered to cut in and answer on Byerly’s behalf, Bastien keeps his mouth shut. Which is just as well, because at that moment they pass Franz and Percy going up to Hightown, and the facial expressions and gestures and quickly murmured words required to convey without stopping or slowing down at all that he and Byerly are in a hurry, and Byerly is in some minor way injured or ill but it’s nothing to worry about, and they’ll talk later—all of that requires most of his focus, for a few seconds, as well as a carefree little smile that stays stuck on his face for several steps down after the men have gone on their way. Just in case.

[bouchonne]

Franz and Percy. Maker. Seeing them is so utterly surreal. They belong to another life entirely. Thank the Maker that Bastien is so quick-witted and engages them so perfectly; By wouldn’t be capable of doing anything more than what he does (smiling and giving a little what-can-you-do wave).

“Quite well,” says Byerly into the crystal, “quite well indeed,” and then, “twisted my ankle a bit, is all. Let’s - talk later? Perhaps? Back at the office. On the ferry. Somewhere.”

[altusimperius]

"Right," spoken pleasantly enough, "whichever happens first."

[cozen]

“The office,” Bastien says—like Benedict shouldn’t wait for them. Like they won’t wait for him. Like he can, by snippy pronouncement, prevent them arriving close enough in time to wind up on the boat together.

But of course he can’t. Of course when they approach the docks, Benedict’s standing there, and the ferryman is–excruciatingly—only halfway through his journey back from dropping someone else off at the Gallows

Brother Two-Toes has been discarded, since Benedict’s interruption. Perhaps forever. Bastien’s been quiet, occasionally nudging By with his shoulder or pointing toward interesting things on the street. A man in an alley trying to hide the fact that he’s missing his pants, whispering urgently up toward the window for someone to drop them for him; seagulls harassing a rat. Normal things that are not dying or coming back from death.

He doesn’t point out Benedict. He only sighs a little, relatively subtly, and loosens the bend of his supporting arm in case By would like to pull free of it in the course of this reunion.

[bouchonne]

Benedict. He doesn't look quite so strangely normal as Fritz and Percy, but - still strange. Still normal. In some way, By feels incredulous that the boy is here - that he's not in Gwaren, where Byerly had told him to flee if things went poorly. He thinks for a moment that he's glad that it means that things didn't go poorly, except that's not what that means at all; perhaps he was halfway to Ferelden when things reset themselves. Perhaps.

Did I do enough for you? Were you safe?

By doesn't go to Benedict. Instead, he gestures the boy over to join him and Bastien. Because there's no chance for a joyous reunion until they get their stories straight and agree upon -

"The ferryman." It's a moment of quiet they have, here on the dock, but they'll soon be joined by someone else. "Do we think he...knows?" Or do they need to keep up the facade of normalcy on the boat back.

[altusimperius]

Benedict is looking out at the water in a moment of rare contemplative serenity, and remains thus until he hears the approach of shuffling footsteps and looks behind him in time to see Byerly's gesture. He spares a glance for Bastien, but is reserved toward him, chin tipped up and gaze untrusting. Look who stuck around.
His demeanor becomes far friendlier as he approaches, relief writ on his face at the sight of Byerly along with something else, a far more complex emotion that he doesn't have a name for. It's impossible. This is impossible.

[cozen]

To Byerly's question, Bastien gives his head a little shake that means I don't know, eyes trained on the ferryman out in the water as he graduates from beetle-sized to mouse-sized in the distance. Is that the steady rowing of a man whose world has been rocked, or the steady rowing of a man who is determinedly doing something that makes sense when nothing else does?

"He is used to us being strange," he says under his breath to By, ignoring Benedict's approach altogether for the time being. "Maybe no details?"

He leans sideways a few degrees, pressing his shoulder against Byerly's. Bolstering, he hopes—and grateful, for the concern about maintaining secrecy and appearances. For Byerly powering through whatever he must be feeling to be concerned about it.

And now he acknowledges Benedict, to the extent a placid, bland glance counts as acknowledgment.

[bouchonne]

No details. All right. He can do that. Just - just a little further, and then he can collapse. A little further, a single boat ride, and then a few steps to be out of sight of the water, and then he can - do whatever it is he needs to do to stop himself from feeling like he's drowning.

"Artemaeus," Byerly says. His eyes fall on Benedict's face, and then flick away at once. That strange expression will break him if he lingers on it too long. None of that, he decides. "Good to see you well. Your shopping was - " He stops in the midst of extending his hand in greeting. "Ah, your parcels...?"