The two of them being new to Scouting, they’re assigned some of the dull, seemingly-straightforward work. They’ve been sent to a small village northwest of Wildervale; unremarkable in every way, except that it sits just outside the contested territory, straddling the border between the Free Marches and imperial occupation. And the Marches, after all, are invested in not losing further ground than they already have.
So when there were rumours of Tevene soldiers in the area, nosing further south, and a village writing asking for assistance to punt them back where they came from, two scouts are sent to assess the shape of the problem first. Find out if it’s just reconnaissance, or a real push from the army and worth summoning reinforcements from Forces… or perhaps just local bogeymen, children’s stories run amok.
After gathering townspeople gossip (“I saw them by the old mill”, “No, there were Vints across the river, I was sure of it, in the thickest part of the forest”), the two women have been tromping around in the woods trying to find them. Astrid is cheerfully at home in the wilderness, and over the course of their journey, keeps shooting curious looks at the other woman’s longbow. It’s a gorgeous thing and she’s eventually going to lose the internal battle and just ask to hold it. Hers, strapped to her back, is its exact inverse: ugly-looking but sturdy, powerful.
They’ve been suffering long hours of damp hiking through the forest, one soggy morning camping, staring at potential tracks and trampled bushes and trying to make sense of it. And it had almost seemed worth giving up on and turning back, until one day they finally came across an abandoned camp: the small group of soldiers, evidently, haven’t been working too hard on hiding their passage.
Sifting through the debris, Astrid finds a square-shaped imperial tesserae coin. She scrutinises the unfamiliar piece of metal, then eventually tosses it in Vega’s direction.
“So, is this like, a problem for you,” she starts, just ripping loose the question she’s been wanting to ask, “going against your own people?”
At first the hike is fun and interesting, in a quaint way. Vega amuses herself by pretending they are completing a great pilgrimage together, maybe going to Denerim to touch the Birth Rock, something she has imagined herself doing many times before. By the third or fourth hour she's tiring, wondering aloud why they couldn't bring horses with them, or have ridden on the griffons to some place roughly nearby—that seems like the smarter move, doesn't it—but Astrid won't indulge her.
So they hike. It is damp. It isn't very warm. There are bugs everywhere, and Vega is starting to hate this stupid, miserable forest, its dead ends and places that all look the same. She hasn't said anything since the morning but she's clearly stewing away, cheeks flushed with exertion, eyes sometimes watering (she wipes them on the back of her arm when she thinks Astrid isn't looking).
This is a job, after all, and she said that she'd do it. It has to be done well. The Scoutmaster definitely already hates her, so she needs to deliver. There is a great swell of unfairness stuck in her throat, a big, terrible lump.
Finding the abandoned camp should be a relief but Vega's expression doesn't shift. She sniffs wetly and wipes her palms off on her trousers with great distaste.
(Does Astrid even sweat? She looks so at ease, like she does this every day. In fact, considering her appearance, she probably does.)
Clearing her throat Vega says petulantly, "If it were a problem, I wouldn't be here."
But this is hardly mission-relevant. She is carefully circling in the camp, craning her neck to look for prints in the dirt. "How are we supposed to find them from here? I doubt they'll come back." For one, they left little more than rubbish behind.
“But it looks like they left in a hurry. They’ve not even doused the fire properly.” Astrid’s poking around in the remains of their campfire, hunkered down beside it: it’s dead by now, but there’s the faintest lingering heat in the embers. An abandoned tin cup for drinking water. Some half-eaten food trodden into the dirt.
Sitting on her heels, watching Vega prowl around the edges of the camp, she scrutinises the ground and then points: there’s some wetter earth from where a bucket been carelessly knocked over, more drinking water spilled. Faint bootprints, leading westward. It feels like a fishing line going taut, their quarry hauling them in that direction.
The Vints were, technically, in enemy territory. Why hadn’t they fully broken down their camp? What took them away in such a rush?
“Thataway. They can’t be that far off.” She sizes up Vega critically, then, “You’re gonna have to stop stepping on all the twigs, Vee, they’ll hear us coming for a mile.”
"I was about to say that," mutters Vega half-heartedly, toeing at the fire remnants with her arms folded tightly across herself. She isn't doing a very good job at scouting. But Astrid, skirting around the campsite on light, efficient feet, is doing all of the work for them both so perhaps she shouldn't bother. There isn't anybody around to show off in front of, why is she trying so hard?
She feels righteous when she sees, in that same direction, branches broken off of a tree. Somebody barged through them, carving themselves a path.
Before she can point them out, she feels a prickle of irritation and embarrassment both steal over her; her ears go red and she blinks, her eyes wide. She says, clipped, "We are in a forest. The ground is mostly twigs, so I don't know what you want me to do about that —
It’s only two syllables, it’s not like Vega needs to cut that down even more,
but Astrid takes that in bemused stride, a woman who habitually shortens names out of automatic comradely chumminess, whether wanted or no. She straightens back to her full height and rejoins Vega again, cheerfully heedless of any knives seething in the other woman’s tone.
“I didn’t hear your voice in that crystal chatter the other day, the one about nicknames or codenames. If you had to pick one, what would you pick?”
"No." And this is a catch-all no, applicable to every question.
But Vega is aware that she sounds stubborn and childish saying it and folds her arms across her chest self-consciously, disrupting the smooth sling of her bow across her body. She lifts up her chin, gesturing with her head. She holds her breath for five before she speaks.
Calmly, "We're not here to play question games, Astrid Runasdotten, we're here to work."
And we are going this way, in the same direction as that nod. Vega is starting to walk. She says over her shoulder, "If we don't make haste, we will lose them. I'm sure you would enjoy tracking them down again and following their footprints all over the forest, but I have other things I could be doing."
“Like what?” —is another question well-suited for a question game, asked with still completely undaunted cheerfulness. But Astrid falls in line behind the other woman, and they make good progress through the woods following this last portion of the trail.
And it doesn’t take too long before those tracks lead them to… a quaint cottage nestled away in a deep part of the woods, off the beaten path. Its shutters are oddly closed despite the daytime, but the roof is recently-thatched, as if some strapping soldier had perhaps climbed up on a ladder to mend it recently. There’s even a thread of smoke merrily wending its way from a chimney. There are flowerboxes affixed to the fence outside, now sitting dead waiting for spring.
When Vega comes to a halt, Astrid collides with her before coming to a stop. Then she leans up on tiptoe to scrutinise the cottage over the other woman’s shoulder.
“Hm,” she says. She’s staring at that chimney. The building’s small. Only big enough for one person to live, really. But the tracks clearly lead right to its front door.
“They can’t all still be in there. There’s no room.”
In giving her no deadline, Marcus has both provided room to breathe and made it completely impossible to concentrate on anything else other than the telling, which must happen, soon! It needs to happen before she loses her nerve. He'll ask her to leave otherwise and Gela won't fight it, she'll go, but be miserable. She caps the time firmly at a week.
And three days later, is standing outside of the Provost's office, trying once again to quell her nerves before she knocks. ... Aren't things like this supposed to get easier the more you do them?
Holding her breath, she raps her knuckles on the wood and waits.
"Come in." Her door was, in reality, only closed because she was quietly playing music. She reaches out to tap the rectangle it's coming from as Gela opens the door, and it fades to nothing. There's a flicker of a smile as she sees who it is, though it fades immediately as she registers Gela's demeanor.
Cosima's been in the office long enough that it no longer looks to be in transition, though she keeps the former provosts' files close at hand. While the desk is covered in papers and books, the chairs across from her aren't, and Cosima gestures at one.
"Hey. Take a seat. What can I do for you?" She hopes, briefly, that she can help with whatever it is. She likes Gela, and there's also been a crop of particularly thorny problems recently. A solid win would be nice, if not the most likely thing.
She does not smile back, the biggest indication of her current mood. She's always got along well with Cosima in the past but it's too difficult to reach out for that easy, smiling calm she typically wears, not when she's trying to stick to a script.
Yes, of course she practiced in the mirror before coming here. Did it help? Well—
She sits, and tucks in her skirts for longer than is strictly necessary, avoiding eye contact. Marcus did not instruct her to obtain a certain response from the Provost, only that Gela should make her aware of the circumstances, so it stands to reason that either way she is making good on her word. All she has to do is say it.
"Mister Rowantree asked me to speak with you," she starts, rattling off her words like a child in trouble, "About my personal situation, which I have not been entirely honest about. If I am to remain here."
It's safe to say Cosima hadn't expected this, and her forehead wrinkles in surprised concern. "OK, sure. Do you want me to close the door again, so we can have some privacy?" She's already half getting up to do so. The gravity of situation is perfectly clear, even if she hasn't the least idea what this could be about.
"Yes please," Gela says meekly, and sinks lower into her chair.
She does have to admit that Cosima is less intimidating than Marcus Rowntree on the whole, despite how equally sympathetic they are. She sighs, gustily. She looks very tired, face paler than usual and dark circles more pronounced underneath of her eyes. If this could all be over—if everything could resolve itself, well, she could relax. Until then, it feels impossible.
Cosima shuts the door gently and then returns to her chair. She considers Gela's face with increased attention, as if trying to guess at where this could be going. Perhaps it's her own experience that makes her jump to "serious illness" as a first suspicion, but she can't imagine why Rowntree would have been issuing orders about it.
"OK. Tell me about your situation then," is quietly encouraging.
If you've signed up to help out in the infirmary 'whenever' you can hardly tell the head healer "pick literally anybody else, I gossiped about your sex life the night before", can you. Such is Abby's plight but she arrives dutifully, only a little late. A lot awkward.
(She thought about messaging Gwen just to say something along the lines of omg, but heroically resisted.)
Putting her head around the door she announces herself.
“Hi, hello, come in,” Strange sounds distracted, busy, everything has been so goddamn busy lately, and therefore he needed the help. He waves Abby in. On the stone floor of the infirmary, out of way of any beds and relatively close to the door, is a sackcloth covered by a messy scattering of earth and roots and soil, some elfroot ripped out of the garden outside. There’s some kind of chemistry kit sitting ready on the table, and he’s working on lighting the burner beneath it.
“The new guy can grow plants really fast, so we find ourselves with an unexpected influx of elfroot, thank god. We need to grind down the roots and distil them into a concentrate, for potions. Do you have time to chip in?”
Honed in on the work as he is, he’s blissfully ignorant about any weird vibes from Abby. (So far.)
"What the hell," Abby says underneath his greeting, crouching beside the sackcloth and sniffing at it. Dirt's kinda the last thing you want in the infirmary. Might have to stay over here by the door while she sorts it out, so she doesn't track the muck all over the place.
She sighs. "Yeah, I got time."
First things first: a basket for the elfroot, water to get the wetter soil off. Glancing up, crouched as she is, she's at the right height to look Strange right at the belt line and she looks away again so fast it takes a moment to realise she's now talking to the door when she asks, "What do you mean he can grow plants really fast?"
“The new rifter, Tav. Just what it says on the tin. But it’s impressive: he can take elfroot from a seedling to a fully-grown plant in mere minutes. I’ve given him responsibility over the herb garden, but told him not to overdo it. I’m assuming the soil still needs time to recover and can’t, y’know, churn them out endlessly.”
There’s a familiar kind of absentminded busywork to the way he moves around the infirmary, knowing where everything is, at home and chatty in his surroundings. It’s been a process over the last few months, getting more accustomed to working with and around Abby, although today she seems terse…r.
Strange has come even closer and materialised in front of her, setting a mortar and pestle on a nearby bed. “At least this way we’ll have more potions for a while.” Then he looks at her staring at the door, following her gaze to nothing, and his brow crinkles. “—You good? You have somewhere to be?”
"No," Abby says quickly, taking up the bag so that she doesn't have to crouch down and be near it — it can go on this table over here, the one with very little already on it. Strange has put a mortar and pestle on the nearest bed for her; for now she picks through the contents of the sackcloth and sifts dirt through the spaces between fingers, starting to make a pile. At least the work is easy, methodical.
Her and Strange, they don't talk much. They've even had some pretty awkward conversations before this point and today she has Gwen's little happy voice stuck in her head, reminding her of unhelpful snippets from last night's conversation.
She clears her throat. Hopefully it's not weird to say, "How've you been?"
It instantly felt a little weird. He shoots her another questioning look.
But it could just as well be his own slight awkwardness around the younger set of Riftwatch, the way he doesn’t entirely know how to carry a conversation with Abby or Clarisse when there isn’t an emergency at hand — it had in fact felt easier in Seattle — and so Strange concludes she’s just trying to be friendly. He moves back to the row of glass bottles, prepping some of the other ingredients which will need to join the elfroot for brewing the potions.
“Good,” he says, after a pause. “I’ve been… really good, actually.” There’s a faint smile on his face, an annoyingly besotted glow she’ll know the cause of, although he tries to pivot a second later: “But, well, busy. This month’s already hit the ground running work-wise. On the bright side, I think Jayce made some friends in Halamshiral, so Research ought to have a better budget this year, we might be able to get some of our new initiatives through.”
They are in the dining hall, there for food, waiting in line together and Vega has noticed—well, it's impossible to not notice, nor to comment, despite not knowing the name of the woman standing in front of her in the line at all. To be fair, she has been asked to remember many names since she got here (and has not bothered with a fair few based on first impressions alone), but she is sure that they haven't met before now.
So it should be entirely fine for Vega to say, curiously, "What's happened to you?"
Stood there in line, Wysteria's attention appears to be more or less consumed by a small piece of paper she is carrying in—as Vega has so pointedly noticed—her one hand. The script on the page is very miniscule and is written in both directions, likely for the sake of using as little paper as humanly possible, and she is presently being forced to turn the page this way and that way and then squint very hard to make out the chickenscratch of a particular Ansburg College professor. The next letter she writes to Messere Brown, she thinks, will need to include a scolding as to the quality of his penmanship. For gods' sakes, this is practically illegible—
"What?"
Her head turns abruptly round. The young woman behind her has said something direct enough to penetrate the fixture of her attention. Squinting between her and the note, Wysteria mentally rifles between northern Marcher gossip and—oh. That's what she'd said.
"Lady Vega Arany of Vyrantium," is the swift response, attention darting very briefly to the piece of paper in Wysteria's hand, before returning to her arm (or lack thereof), "I only just arrived here from Tevinter."
It barely needs saying, when her accent is that thick, but she is being polite. That her initial question may not have been hasn't registered with her at all.
Now, she is waiting expectantly to be told the answer to it, hands brought together in front of her.
Vyrantium? What on earth is some lady doing here all the way from there? Wysteria's attention passes briefly beyond Lady Arany to the room about them as if she might identify some obvious motivation here in the dining hall with them. It can hardly be simply that they are fighting a just and righteous cause against an ancient darks pawn scourge. Presumably, they have already got their hands on all those principled Tevene citizens drawn under the banner for that. —Or the Inquisition did?
Oh, that makes some degree of sense, she thinks. Wysteria's attention reverts faithfully back to Vega, this time in search of identifying the anchor shard she must have. Otherwise there is little to compel someone here from the Inquisition. That her search is rewarded with confirmation is only reasonable.
The confusion in Wysteria's attitude slackens visibly.
"Oh," she says, folding the note absently. Goodbye, Messere Brown's poorly penned letter. "Yes of course. You will have been with the company in the Silent Plains, I imagine." Reasonable. Anyway. "The limb was amputated."
Waiting expectantly, the pleasant sort of half-smile on her face slips when Wysteria's attention slides off of her and skirts the room. She has to resist the urge to follow her gaze and see what she is looking at. Her cheeks redden and she stands up even straighter, arms suddenly rigid, folding across her chest. What, did she say something ridiculous? How could she have?
Clearing her throat, she notices Wysteria looking at the backs of her hands, which she has just tucked into her arms; she shows her what she is undoubtedly looking for, the neat seam on her palm, the mark that makes her special and one of them at the same time.
It's even more annoying to not know what the 'Silent Plains' refers to.
She opens her mouth hotly to argue this, but is cut short (ha) by Wysteria's sudden answer.
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vega » the woods are lovely, dark and deep.
So when there were rumours of Tevene soldiers in the area, nosing further south, and a village writing asking for assistance to punt them back where they came from, two scouts are sent to assess the shape of the problem first. Find out if it’s just reconnaissance, or a real push from the army and worth summoning reinforcements from Forces… or perhaps just local bogeymen, children’s stories run amok.
After gathering townspeople gossip (“I saw them by the old mill”, “No, there were Vints across the river, I was sure of it, in the thickest part of the forest”), the two women have been tromping around in the woods trying to find them. Astrid is cheerfully at home in the wilderness, and over the course of their journey, keeps shooting curious looks at the other woman’s longbow. It’s a gorgeous thing and she’s eventually going to lose the internal battle and just ask to hold it. Hers, strapped to her back, is its exact inverse: ugly-looking but sturdy, powerful.
They’ve been suffering long hours of damp hiking through the forest, one soggy morning camping, staring at potential tracks and trampled bushes and trying to make sense of it. And it had almost seemed worth giving up on and turning back, until one day they finally came across an abandoned camp: the small group of soldiers, evidently, haven’t been working too hard on hiding their passage.
Sifting through the debris, Astrid finds a square-shaped imperial tesserae coin. She scrutinises the unfamiliar piece of metal, then eventually tosses it in Vega’s direction.
“So, is this like, a problem for you,” she starts, just ripping loose the question she’s been wanting to ask, “going against your own people?”
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So they hike. It is damp. It isn't very warm. There are bugs everywhere, and Vega is starting to hate this stupid, miserable forest, its dead ends and places that all look the same. She hasn't said anything since the morning but she's clearly stewing away, cheeks flushed with exertion, eyes sometimes watering (she wipes them on the back of her arm when she thinks Astrid isn't looking).
This is a job, after all, and she said that she'd do it. It has to be done well. The Scoutmaster definitely already hates her, so she needs to deliver. There is a great swell of unfairness stuck in her throat, a big, terrible lump.
Finding the abandoned camp should be a relief but Vega's expression doesn't shift. She sniffs wetly and wipes her palms off on her trousers with great distaste.
(Does Astrid even sweat? She looks so at ease, like she does this every day. In fact, considering her appearance, she probably does.)
Clearing her throat Vega says petulantly, "If it were a problem, I wouldn't be here."
But this is hardly mission-relevant. She is carefully circling in the camp, craning her neck to look for prints in the dirt. "How are we supposed to find them from here? I doubt they'll come back." For one, they left little more than rubbish behind.
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Sitting on her heels, watching Vega prowl around the edges of the camp, she scrutinises the ground and then points: there’s some wetter earth from where a bucket been carelessly knocked over, more drinking water spilled. Faint bootprints, leading westward. It feels like a fishing line going taut, their quarry hauling them in that direction.
The Vints were, technically, in enemy territory. Why hadn’t they fully broken down their camp? What took them away in such a rush?
“Thataway. They can’t be that far off.” She sizes up Vega critically, then, “You’re gonna have to stop stepping on all the twigs, Vee, they’ll hear us coming for a mile.”
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She feels righteous when she sees, in that same direction, branches broken off of a tree. Somebody barged through them, carving themselves a path.
Before she can point them out, she feels a prickle of irritation and embarrassment both steal over her; her ears go red and she blinks, her eyes wide. She says, clipped, "We are in a forest. The ground is mostly twigs, so I don't know what you want me to do about that —
"And it's Vega."
Not Vee. Never Vee!
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It’s only two syllables, it’s not like Vega needs to cut that down even more,
but Astrid takes that in bemused stride, a woman who habitually shortens names out of automatic comradely chumminess, whether wanted or no. She straightens back to her full height and rejoins Vega again, cheerfully heedless of any knives seething in the other woman’s tone.
“I didn’t hear your voice in that crystal chatter the other day, the one about nicknames or codenames. If you had to pick one, what would you pick?”
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But Vega is aware that she sounds stubborn and childish saying it and folds her arms across her chest self-consciously, disrupting the smooth sling of her bow across her body. She lifts up her chin, gesturing with her head. She holds her breath for five before she speaks.
Calmly, "We're not here to play question games, Astrid Runasdotten, we're here to work."
And we are going this way, in the same direction as that nod. Vega is starting to walk. She says over her shoulder, "If we don't make haste, we will lose them. I'm sure you would enjoy tracking them down again and following their footprints all over the forest, but I have other things I could be doing."
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And it doesn’t take too long before those tracks lead them to… a quaint cottage nestled away in a deep part of the woods, off the beaten path. Its shutters are oddly closed despite the daytime, but the roof is recently-thatched, as if some strapping soldier had perhaps climbed up on a ladder to mend it recently. There’s even a thread of smoke merrily wending its way from a chimney. There are flowerboxes affixed to the fence outside, now sitting dead waiting for spring.
When Vega comes to a halt, Astrid collides with her before coming to a stop. Then she leans up on tiptoe to scrutinise the cottage over the other woman’s shoulder.
“Hm,” she says. She’s staring at that chimney. The building’s small. Only big enough for one person to live, really. But the tracks clearly lead right to its front door.
“They can’t all still be in there. There’s no room.”
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Closed, Cosima (backdated)
In giving her no deadline, Marcus has both provided room to breathe and made it completely impossible to concentrate on anything else other than the telling, which must happen, soon! It needs to happen before she loses her nerve. He'll ask her to leave otherwise and Gela won't fight it, she'll go, but be miserable. She caps the time firmly at a week.
And three days later, is standing outside of the Provost's office, trying once again to quell her nerves before she knocks. ... Aren't things like this supposed to get easier the more you do them?
Holding her breath, she raps her knuckles on the wood and waits.
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Cosima's been in the office long enough that it no longer looks to be in transition, though she keeps the former provosts' files close at hand. While the desk is covered in papers and books, the chairs across from her aren't, and Cosima gestures at one.
"Hey. Take a seat. What can I do for you?" She hopes, briefly, that she can help with whatever it is. She likes Gela, and there's also been a crop of particularly thorny problems recently. A solid win would be nice, if not the most likely thing.
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Yes, of course she practiced in the mirror before coming here. Did it help? Well—
She sits, and tucks in her skirts for longer than is strictly necessary, avoiding eye contact. Marcus did not instruct her to obtain a certain response from the Provost, only that Gela should make her aware of the circumstances, so it stands to reason that either way she is making good on her word. All she has to do is say it.
"Mister Rowantree asked me to speak with you," she starts, rattling off her words like a child in trouble, "About my personal situation, which I have not been entirely honest about. If I am to remain here."
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She does have to admit that Cosima is less intimidating than Marcus Rowntree on the whole, despite how equally sympathetic they are. She sighs, gustily. She looks very tired, face paler than usual and dark circles more pronounced underneath of her eyes. If this could all be over—if everything could resolve itself, well, she could relax. Until then, it feels impossible.
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"OK. Tell me about your situation then," is quietly encouraging.
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skids in late
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places bow
Closed, for Strange
(She thought about messaging Gwen just to say something along the lines of omg, but heroically resisted.)
Putting her head around the door she announces herself.
"You... called?"
Hi.
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“The new guy can grow plants really fast, so we find ourselves with an unexpected influx of elfroot, thank god. We need to grind down the roots and distil them into a concentrate, for potions. Do you have time to chip in?”
Honed in on the work as he is, he’s blissfully ignorant about any weird vibes from Abby. (So far.)
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She sighs. "Yeah, I got time."
First things first: a basket for the elfroot, water to get the wetter soil off. Glancing up, crouched as she is, she's at the right height to look Strange right at the belt line and she looks away again so fast it takes a moment to realise she's now talking to the door when she asks, "What do you mean he can grow plants really fast?"
Christ.
wheezes
There’s a familiar kind of absentminded busywork to the way he moves around the infirmary, knowing where everything is, at home and chatty in his surroundings. It’s been a process over the last few months, getting more accustomed to working with and around Abby, although today she seems terse…r.
Strange has come even closer and materialised in front of her, setting a mortar and pestle on a nearby bed. “At least this way we’ll have more potions for a while.” Then he looks at her staring at the door, following her gaze to nothing, and his brow crinkles. “—You good? You have somewhere to be?”
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Her and Strange, they don't talk much. They've even had some pretty awkward conversations before this point and today she has Gwen's little happy voice stuck in her head, reminding her of unhelpful snippets from last night's conversation.
She clears her throat. Hopefully it's not weird to say, "How've you been?"
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But it could just as well be his own slight awkwardness around the younger set of Riftwatch, the way he doesn’t entirely know how to carry a conversation with Abby or Clarisse when there isn’t an emergency at hand — it had in fact felt easier in Seattle — and so Strange concludes she’s just trying to be friendly. He moves back to the row of glass bottles, prepping some of the other ingredients which will need to join the elfroot for brewing the potions.
“Good,” he says, after a pause. “I’ve been… really good, actually.” There’s a faint smile on his face, an annoyingly besotted glow she’ll know the cause of, although he tries to pivot a second later: “But, well, busy. This month’s already hit the ground running work-wise. On the bright side, I think Jayce made some friends in Halamshiral, so Research ought to have a better budget this year, we might be able to get some of our new initiatives through.”
The budget is not why he’s so pleased, but—
“How, uh, how about you?”
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For Wysteria
So it should be entirely fine for Vega to say, curiously, "What's happened to you?"
Right?
puts thumb over timestamp
"What?"
Her head turns abruptly round. The young woman behind her has said something direct enough to penetrate the fixture of her attention. Squinting between her and the note, Wysteria mentally rifles between northern Marcher gossip and—oh. That's what she'd said.
"Sorry, who are you?"
Probably also a fine question to ask.
me as well
It barely needs saying, when her accent is that thick, but she is being polite. That her initial question may not have been hasn't registered with her at all.
Now, she is waiting expectantly to be told the answer to it, hands brought together in front of her.
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Oh, that makes some degree of sense, she thinks. Wysteria's attention reverts faithfully back to Vega, this time in search of identifying the anchor shard she must have. Otherwise there is little to compel someone here from the Inquisition. That her search is rewarded with confirmation is only reasonable.
The confusion in Wysteria's attitude slackens visibly.
"Oh," she says, folding the note absently. Goodbye, Messere Brown's poorly penned letter. "Yes of course. You will have been with the company in the Silent Plains, I imagine." Reasonable. Anyway. "The limb was amputated."
Obviously.
no subject
Clearing her throat, she notices Wysteria looking at the backs of her hands, which she has just tucked into her arms; she shows her what she is undoubtedly looking for, the neat seam on her palm, the mark that makes her special and one of them at the same time.
It's even more annoying to not know what the 'Silent Plains' refers to.
She opens her mouth hotly to argue this, but is cut short (ha) by Wysteria's sudden answer.
"Oh."
Yes, obviously. Vega puffs her cheeks out. "Why?"
no subject