WHO: Barrow, Fifi, Benedict? and you
WHAT: March catch-all
WHEN: whatever this month is called
WHERE: hither and thither
NOTES: slowly piecing this together, if you want a bespoke starter please yell at me in some form
[watch this space for open prompts I promise they'll happen]
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for Basterly
She lights up in an anxious smile at the sight of her approaching friend(s), watching them with a straight-backed, naturally balletic posture of anticipation.
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"La Vulpesse, la Vulpesse, listen now, we'll confess,
our dreams, they are haunted by you in your dress,
your leaps and your turns, your prowess and finesse,
look our way for one moment—we'll call that success."
There's harmonizing. There's choreography—the minor kind that can be performed while also walking steadily toward her. At the end, twin bows. Bastien looks up from his bow to smile at her and threaten, "Applause or we cry."
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He grins up at her from his bow, eyes sparkling. It’s clear that whatever is ahead of them, it’s going to be a good time.
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"Keep your voices down," she chides, grinning, "what good is a secret identity if everyone knows it?" Clearly her ire is limited, however, as she comes forward to meet both out of their bows with the appropriate number of greeting kisses to both cheeks.
"Will the whole trip involve singing? I haven't learned any songs for it."
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They'll need to go back out into the cold to reach the eluvian; it's stored in one of the smaller buildings with an entrance in the main entry courtyard, where guards can pull double duty keeping an eye on the front gate and the door and comings and goings can be monitored more easily than if it were tucked into a corner somewhere.
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"Have you been through very many times?" she asks, pivoting to the topic at hand as they make their way, "is there anything I should be worried about?"
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They're free now. He angles a smile up at By for that. He knows it wasn't all for him—the quitting—but it was enough for him for him to be grateful.
"Anyway—there is nothing to be worried about. Before we had to walk all over the place to reach the eluvians and we might run into things, but we've moved them all now, so they are close together and we can have a look around without needing to wander off very far. And even the things we would run into were usually more annoying than scary."
A short jaunt across the cold, windy courtyard, a borrowing of a key, and they're inside. The eluvian nearly reaches the ceiling of the storage room. It looks, for the moment, like a dingy, normal mirror.
Keeping the passphrase from Fifi is, on the one hand, absurd. On the other, they did share a dream once where she worked for the Dread Wolf. So Bastien takes the minimum precaution of asking her to cover her ears and asking Byerly to sing at the top of his lungs as Bastien unlocks it.
Wakened, it shines brighter, the light on its surface shifting like a swarm of silver fish just beneath the surface of shallow water. He steps out of the way to bow and gesture: ladies first.
Men close behind, though. Probably there aren't demons or Venatori lurking on the other side, but it's never impossible.
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It's with a wry smile that she covers her ears, dutifully pressing her palms into the openings to fully block out any sound and watching Byerly's still-audible-if-not-clearly performance. Her attention is quickly drawn, however, to the shift in the eluvian's surface, the smile twitching into an expression of rapt interest.
Given the go-ahead, she hesitates, then reaches to touch it; a little gasp as her hand passes through, and she looks back at Bastien, as if to ask if he's really sure she's allowed.
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“The only reason to delay is if you’re waiting on a path of roses to be laid out,” he says, “and while we’d be happy to provide, I think they’re not quite worthy of your perfect feet.” And, less floridly: “Go on.”
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The world changes in an instant, the Gallows giving way to open road and mist and mirrors. Fifi goes still, her face a mask of silent wonderment, only her head and eyes moving as she takes in the strangeness of the place like a prey animal surveying an open meadow.
"It's beautiful," she whispers to her companions, finally taking a delicate step forward, and another, until she stands beneath the nearest tree.
Lifting her hand to lightly stroke the underside of a small, low branch, she marvels at it.
"I've never seen leaves this color."
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If anyone else were here he'd endeavor not to seem to mind. But it's only Byerly and Fifi, so there's a little squinting wince to his otherwise pleased smile.
He can't see what she's seeing, with the leaves. Everything's muted and grey. But he's read the reports. He knew she'd see things they couldn't.
So, "What color?" isn't skeptical, purely inquisitive.
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Stepping away from the tree, she goes to the center of the walkway to simply look around, a hunch slowly looming in the back of her mind: it's not often she encounters something that's just for her, even if in this case it means people like her. With the Dalish experience being so foreign from her own, with such wildly different concerns and priorities, she hasn't had much occasion or reason to consider her own ancestry.
That may be what she's doing now, as she stands so still and simply looks.
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"This is an...elvish ability?" he asks. Discussions of the Crossroads, magic, all of that, never really stuck much in his head, but he does feel like he's encountered something along these lines.
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Fifi glances between Byerly and Bastien, quizzical.
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"Elves see it differently. And it's less—" He gestures. "—miserable."
Gesture completed, his hand snakes around Byerly's waist to cinch him in against Bastien's side, because it counterbalances the mild but persistent discomfort of existing here.
"It was made for you. Or it was made—not for us."
A bit of a chicken and egg situation, perhaps, but is this a natural consequence, the Crossroads designed for and by elves and everyone else lacking something necessary to see them properly? Or is there something in everyone else that's being guarded against, to put off trespassers?
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"All the kinder of you to bring me here," she remarks sincerely, and turns back to step toward them again, hands folded in front of her. "We can go back, if it troubles you so."
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