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Ah, no.
He’d admitted the nature of their gods were very much like— [Oh. No. Wait. Not admitting his own troubles in the here and now. Nix that.
Instead, he turns that hesitation into a thoughtful sound. Some sign he’s instead fumbling for the right words.]
Like...I don’t know. A bit bonding, really. They’d sway by proximity alone: twist others into adhering to their will, their want, their ways, that sort of thing. Maybe a bit Darkspawnish, if you want to think of compulsion as a catchable burden.
It’s my own understanding that at the time, because of that, he might not have been entirely himself.
Definitely did do the murders, though, if I had to hazard a guess.
He’d admitted the nature of their gods were very much like— [Oh. No. Wait. Not admitting his own troubles in the here and now. Nix that.
Instead, he turns that hesitation into a thoughtful sound. Some sign he’s instead fumbling for the right words.]
Like...I don’t know. A bit bonding, really. They’d sway by proximity alone: twist others into adhering to their will, their want, their ways, that sort of thing. Maybe a bit Darkspawnish, if you want to think of compulsion as a catchable burden.
It’s my own understanding that at the time, because of that, he might not have been entirely himself.
Definitely did do the murders, though, if I had to hazard a guess.
He disputes the details— the circumstances— rather than the broader strokes.
The man was an emperor once, according to him.
It shows.
Expect contention over reasoning, the confidence to back it, and a touch of exhaustion, besides, given how long he’s been alive by his own admittance.
In other words, to me, he seems a little run down. Not remorseful, of course, only regretting that it all ever had to happen in the first place. Might have a hard time making a slap on the wrist sting, but it likely wouldn’t send him spiraling.
The man was an emperor once, according to him.
It shows.
Expect contention over reasoning, the confidence to back it, and a touch of exhaustion, besides, given how long he’s been alive by his own admittance.
In other words, to me, he seems a little run down. Not remorseful, of course, only regretting that it all ever had to happen in the first place. Might have a hard time making a slap on the wrist sting, but it likely wouldn’t send him spiraling.
I saved his life when he first arrived. He saved mine in the wastes.
I don’t think he’s ever forgotten it.
[A pause, featherlight. Thoughtful.]
So yes, I suppose he has grown quite fond of me.
[And then, to balance the scales:] But please don't mistake my powers of observation for anything more than what they are: this was, after all, the very definition of what I was designed for back home. It comes to me as simply as breathing, nothing more.
I don’t think he’s ever forgotten it.
[A pause, featherlight. Thoughtful.]
So yes, I suppose he has grown quite fond of me.
[And then, to balance the scales:] But please don't mistake my powers of observation for anything more than what they are: this was, after all, the very definition of what I was designed for back home. It comes to me as simply as breathing, nothing more.
For two hundred years, in fact, it was all that I did.
Reading people, understanding them, drawing them in close. My former master was specific about the sort of work he wanted done. The sort of people he wanted to...entertain, to put it one way. My job was to scurry along and fetch them, whoever and wherever they might be.
All teasing aside, there’s a reason why I settled here and not Diplomacy— despite the fact that Byerly Rutyer does make a very persuasive pitch.
Reading people, understanding them, drawing them in close. My former master was specific about the sort of work he wanted done. The sort of people he wanted to...entertain, to put it one way. My job was to scurry along and fetch them, whoever and wherever they might be.
All teasing aside, there’s a reason why I settled here and not Diplomacy— despite the fact that Byerly Rutyer does make a very persuasive pitch.
I'd like a sense of what's being discussed on the street, and in the households of the nobility, if possible. I can try to make some arrangements myself, but if you've the means already...
[ work smarter, not harder. ]
[ work smarter, not harder. ]
Don't feel mistrusted, [ is a great preface, obviously. It's delivered in Bastien's increasingly unassailable Marcher accent, while he's doing his less convincing, wobbly best to balance on the slackline contraption he hauled to the Gallows for Yseult a couple Satinalias back. Wherever that's been stashed.
He's good enough to lie while barely maintaining his balance, of course, but it would be harder. So it's fortunate that he isn't lying. ]
I wasn't trying to check your name. I mean—I always assumed it wasn't really Yseult, but that was fine.
He's good enough to lie while barely maintaining his balance, of course, but it would be harder. So it's fortunate that he isn't lying. ]
I wasn't trying to check your name. I mean—I always assumed it wasn't really Yseult, but that was fine.
[ She keeps it in a closet in the Scouting suite, and there is room enough to use it there with the map table and arm chairs pushed back to clear a space. She watches from one of them against the wall beside the hearth as Bastien wobbles, looking more focused for the moment on his footwork than his words. ]
I considered using another name here, but it didn't seem worth the trouble for that reason.
I considered using another name here, but it didn't seem worth the trouble for that reason.
Why don’t you-ou-ou—
[ The stuttering is intentional silliness, accompanying an unintentional buckle and hop. He loses the line altogether, but he lands on his feet. ]
Why don’t you use your family name? To make it a harder for any of us to find you if we want to have a drink after the war?
[ The stuttering is intentional silliness, accompanying an unintentional buckle and hop. He loses the line altogether, but he lands on his feet. ]
Why don’t you use your family name? To make it a harder for any of us to find you if we want to have a drink after the war?
[ Yseult waits, smiling, until the wobbling has reached its conclusion before she gets to her feet. Her turn. ]
That would be why [ she says, tucking her blouse into her trousers in warning that she is about to attempt some silliness of her own ] if I had one. I've thought about making one up. [ She finds her balance in the middle of the line as she speaks and then crouches to grip it with both hands outside her feet, slowly bringing one knee to her chest and then the other and jackknifing upwards into a handstand, legs kicking out in search of balance. She almost has it, for a moment, but bends too far and has to drop back onto her feet. ] But it would mean losing the high ground in my resistance to Rivain.
That would be why [ she says, tucking her blouse into her trousers in warning that she is about to attempt some silliness of her own ] if I had one. I've thought about making one up. [ She finds her balance in the middle of the line as she speaks and then crouches to grip it with both hands outside her feet, slowly bringing one knee to her chest and then the other and jackknifing upwards into a handstand, legs kicking out in search of balance. She almost has it, for a moment, but bends too far and has to drop back onto her feet. ] But it would mean losing the high ground in my resistance to Rivain.
[ His perplexity—if Yseult can even spare a glance at Bastien’s face to see it—could be for the unattainable ease with which she balances on the line. When he realizes where her legs are going, a grin and appreciative laugh flit over his face instead.
But then it’s back, the confusion. No jokes about Yseult Rivain, only a discomfited silence. Is she lying? Why would she, when she knows he’s checked? Or perhaps the ring is faulty. Perhaps both. She knows it’s faulty through some other means, and she knows she can use that to lie—
No. He does trust her. ]
The ring says you have one.
But then it’s back, the confusion. No jokes about Yseult Rivain, only a discomfited silence. Is she lying? Why would she, when she knows he’s checked? Or perhaps the ring is faulty. Perhaps both. She knows it’s faulty through some other means, and she knows she can use that to lie—
No. He does trust her. ]
The ring says you have one.
[ She does not immediately lose her balance and fall off the line, nothing so dramatic. But her head rises more sharply than it might, and she wobbles once, adjusting an arm and the lean on the balls of her feet to recapture her balance. In her muted way she looks as perplexed as he did a moment ago. ]
Are you going to say the ring has taken Darras's side?
Are you going to say the ring has taken Darras's side?
[ It would, though the look she gives him disagrees. But it wavers away quicker than it might another time, and she steps back to the floor, the ball of just one foot weighing down the line as if she's only stopped for a moment. ]
What did the ring say it was?
What did the ring say it was?
[ He hesitates, because if she doesn’t know—and if it’s true—it feels like there ought to be more. He ought to send her on a quest to find the ring on a pedestal in a mountaintop cavern and hear it for herself, while the motley assortment of new friends acquired on her journey waits outside. Or a hooded old woman should tell her in the street and mysteriously vanish, never to be seen again. He could have paid someone to do that, easy. She would think it was stupid, he’s sure, but it would have spared him revealing anyone’s family name for the first time while barefoot in an office on a quiet Monday evening.
Also, he’s afraid he’s going to mispronounce it.
When he stops hesitating, he says it carefully. ]
Alström.
Also, he’s afraid he’s going to mispronounce it.
When he stops hesitating, he says it carefully. ]
Alström.
[ It's not a name she's heard before. Yseult feels certain of that immediately. Still, she pauses a moment and swims back through memory, allowing a chance for some near-forgotten bit of mental debris to float to the surface. Alström. She tries to hear it in her mother's voice, but the timbre of it keeps slipping her grasp and all she hears is her own. Nothing comes. ]
Do you have the ring with you?
Do you have the ring with you?
[ No hesitation this time, though there's a part of him that wants to. Two parts, actually. The part that's concerned she'll turn the ring on him—though of course she has every right to, especially now, and he's a hypocrite, and really she must have guessed by now—and also the part that would be reluctant to give the ring up if she were to decide that was necessary.
But those parts don't get to do anything but watch while he undoes the top button of his vest, making enough room to reach the pockets sewn onto the inside. The ring is in a little burlap sack, held shut with a loop of twine that it dangles from on his finger when he lifts his hand. ]
People keep breaking into my room, [ as explanation. ]
But those parts don't get to do anything but watch while he undoes the top button of his vest, making enough room to reach the pockets sewn onto the inside. The ring is in a little burlap sack, held shut with a loop of twine that it dangles from on his finger when he lifts his hand. ]
People keep breaking into my room, [ as explanation. ]
The price for letting them think you're a simple printer. [ No one breaks into her rooms.
The comment can't quite disguise her tension as he brings the ring out, and she reaches to take its tiny pouch from his finger. She doesn't open it right away, thumb finding the center of the metal loop through the cloth, pressed into it like the divot in a worrystone. She nods, once, and turns on a bare heel to head back into the private half of the suite. Nothing in her manner invites him to follow.
(In the other room, she takes a seat at her dressing table, in front of the mirror they installed, one edge slightly warped. It's too late now to debate whether she wants to know this or not. She slides the ring from its bag and onto a finger, and looks into the glass. The name springs, somehow, into her mind. It doesn't sound like her voice or her mother's or anyone's, really. It doesn't sound at all. One moment she didn't know it, and the next she does. She waits, a minute, two, to see if anything else happens. She considers leaving it on when she goes back into the room--it would be only fair.)
She tosses the burlap bag to Bastien as she steps back into the office and turns to the sideboard to pour a glass of wine. ]
That thing will be useful one day.
The comment can't quite disguise her tension as he brings the ring out, and she reaches to take its tiny pouch from his finger. She doesn't open it right away, thumb finding the center of the metal loop through the cloth, pressed into it like the divot in a worrystone. She nods, once, and turns on a bare heel to head back into the private half of the suite. Nothing in her manner invites him to follow.
(In the other room, she takes a seat at her dressing table, in front of the mirror they installed, one edge slightly warped. It's too late now to debate whether she wants to know this or not. She slides the ring from its bag and onto a finger, and looks into the glass. The name springs, somehow, into her mind. It doesn't sound like her voice or her mother's or anyone's, really. It doesn't sound at all. One moment she didn't know it, and the next she does. She waits, a minute, two, to see if anything else happens. She considers leaving it on when she goes back into the room--it would be only fair.)
She tosses the burlap bag to Bastien as she steps back into the office and turns to the sideboard to pour a glass of wine. ]
That thing will be useful one day.
[ Bastien watches her, wondering—
But he delays asking. ]
Ellis asked me to hold it for him while he was gone.
[ He's still gone. Bastien doesn't say is gone because all of Ellis, including his absence, now feels in the past. He's almost certainly dead, Bastien would say. ]
I don't know if he knew what it was. He didn't say anything. He had it on a chain.
But he delays asking. ]
Ellis asked me to hold it for him while he was gone.
[ He's still gone. Bastien doesn't say is gone because all of Ellis, including his absence, now feels in the past. He's almost certainly dead, Bastien would say. ]
I don't know if he knew what it was. He didn't say anything. He had it on a chain.
[ Yseult hums acknowledgement. Who knows what Ellis knows. (Stark and Poppell, if anyone.) At least he has never struck her as a man inclined to share others' secrets if it can be avoided. Still, something she will have to find out, should he return.
She pours herself a glass of wine, drinks half, and then pours a second before refilling her own, on the assumption that Bastien is unlikely to refuse if only for politeness. She hands it to him on her way to a chair and takes a seat, one leg drawn up beneath her. ]
Ask it.
She pours herself a glass of wine, drinks half, and then pours a second before refilling her own, on the assumption that Bastien is unlikely to refuse if only for politeness. She hands it to him on her way to a chair and takes a seat, one leg drawn up beneath her. ]
Ask it.
[ Following his conversation with Tony—
The message comes very late. Long after dark. Hushed in spite of the hour, how few others are awake and even fewer inclined to scale as high along the ramparts and towers as Ellis has. ]
Scoutmaster, I need to speak with you. [ A brief pause, followed by the addition of: ] I will be able to use my crystal at this time tomorrow as well.
[ And he'll linger for five, ten more minutes, before summoning Thot down to him. ]
The message comes very late. Long after dark. Hushed in spite of the hour, how few others are awake and even fewer inclined to scale as high along the ramparts and towers as Ellis has. ]
Scoutmaster, I need to speak with you. [ A brief pause, followed by the addition of: ] I will be able to use my crystal at this time tomorrow as well.
[ And he'll linger for five, ten more minutes, before summoning Thot down to him. ]
Edited (notations abt timelines / backdating) 2022-01-08 08:20 (UTC)
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