[ No. Yseult is silent for a long moment, half-waiting for him to say something else, brush it off and roll back to the shallow, pleasant conversation of before. It might save her having to say this, at least for a little while longer. ]
If you can't do it-- if you want to leave, I'll understand. I want you to be happy, Darras, and if you can't be here.... I don't want you to just sit here, miserable, waiting for me to change my mind. It won't happen, and you'll just come to resent me and everything we had will sour in your memory. Go be happy.
[If he were stood in front of her, this might actually be more difficult. Because he would stop talking, at that; he would take her by the arms and pull her close, and let that stand for words. And maybe that's the trouble. They let a lot be said in action. Or he did, anyways, and does. For a man that loves to tell tales, he doesn't often use words. Not true ones, anyways. Not the ones that are raw.]
Couldn't. And I understand it better. I do. The way it fits together, the Inquisition and all. Only it's not mine the way it is yours. It never would have been. All the years I've been living and earning, earning everything that came to me. Where's that now?
[But where is it if the world bloody ends? He doesn't say it. Too large to say, to seem at all real. Nothing like the day to day, the in and the out of little problems that come one at a time, that make all the difference in Darras' world and in the world of so many others]
[ It is easier this way. Harder, too, not to be able to watch him as he speaks and see all the things he isn't saying. But she has never been as good at reading him as other men, no matter how hard she tries. Maybe the trick is to stop trying, and just listen. ]
You can use all of that, here. All your skills--fighting, thieving, tale-telling, charming people out of their own skins--the Inquisition needs that. There's work here that would suit you, and if you don't like earning a wage, don't think of it that way. [ She can't help herself, already flipping back from telling him to go to trying to persuade him to want to stay. ] Do you think there won't be songs and stories about the people who stopped Corypheus and the end of the world? Earn your place in them.
[ It still wouldn't be what she wants, not really; it's still a selfish reason. But if there's any hope of bringing him around and making him see, he has to stay. Any reason to buy in is better than none. ]
[ She's pressing but not hard, no force in her tone, just the question, part rhetorical, part encouraging, mostly fantasy. ]
It sounds like a story. Dashing pirate forced into the middle of a war he thinks doesn't concern him. At first he fakes interest for his own ends but in time he finds himself drawn in and surprises everyone by becoming an unlikely hero.
[ She wishes it back once it's said, silly and sentimental in the face of very real conflicts. It's too late not to own it, but she still sounds a little defensive, self-conscious when she says ]
[He doesn't quite laugh. Not because it is silly, what she's said; any time Yseult has indulged in storytelling, Darras has looked over at her with a surprised grin, pleased and proud and ready to encourage this indulgence. He's wearing the ghost of that grin now, alone in the tavern. He gives the crystal another idly spin on the tabletop.]
You'd believe it of a pirate or you'd believe it of me?
[There's half a city between them, streets and doors and walls. People. Obligations. Morality. Bigger than any cottage or cabin, nothing you can get your arms around, or close away by pulling the shutters.]
We'd do better apart. For now. Not--forever, you're-- [There's no word to follow that; Darras huffs a breath, like a dry laugh.] That's what you wanted, anyway. To do your work. What you're here to do.
[ In her work, it's an asset: the ability to flip a switch somewhere inside herself, an invaluable skill to be one thing one moment and something else entirely the next if that's what is required to survive. He pushes this moment away, rejects her faith, mistakes her demands, and just like that she shuts a door. Slams it, maybe. ]
Fine. I'll focus on my work, and you tell me when you've grown a conscience.
[What, is what he wants to say, he's doing what, how is this anything other than what they have been doing, what she said--they stay out of each other's ways, they work with the Inquisition--
It's the last bit that hits like a blow. They've been nasty to one another. It shouldn't come as a surprise, shouldn't feel like a wound. Perhaps it's the utter finality that she says it with.]
I just said, 'not forever', I said-- This is what you wanted, isn't it? You wanted me to stay out of your way so you can do-- what you want to do, you can help these people so, all right, that's what I've said I will do, and I didn't say I'm leaving or going to start--smuggling Venatori about, working counter to everything--
[ She curses so rarely it adds an extra harshness to her tone like poison on a blade. ]
How many times do I have to explain before you hear me? I don't want you to stay out of my way and let me get on with it while you hang about moping, I want you to care. I want you to look at what is happening in the world and care that thousands of people are dying, and want to at least try to help some of them not because you think it might win me back but because it's the right fucking thing to do.
When you do that, we can talk. Not before.
[ There is, alas, no tell-tale click or satisfying clang as one hangs up a crystal, but the faint background noise of her room cuts off suddenly as she closes the line. ]
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no subject
If you can't do it-- if you want to leave, I'll understand. I want you to be happy, Darras, and if you can't be here.... I don't want you to just sit here, miserable, waiting for me to change my mind. It won't happen, and you'll just come to resent me and everything we had will sour in your memory. Go be happy.
no subject
[If he were stood in front of her, this might actually be more difficult. Because he would stop talking, at that; he would take her by the arms and pull her close, and let that stand for words. And maybe that's the trouble. They let a lot be said in action. Or he did, anyways, and does. For a man that loves to tell tales, he doesn't often use words. Not true ones, anyways. Not the ones that are raw.]
Couldn't. And I understand it better. I do. The way it fits together, the Inquisition and all. Only it's not mine the way it is yours. It never would have been. All the years I've been living and earning, earning everything that came to me. Where's that now?
[But where is it if the world bloody ends? He doesn't say it. Too large to say, to seem at all real. Nothing like the day to day, the in and the out of little problems that come one at a time, that make all the difference in Darras' world and in the world of so many others]
no subject
You can use all of that, here. All your skills--fighting, thieving, tale-telling, charming people out of their own skins--the Inquisition needs that. There's work here that would suit you, and if you don't like earning a wage, don't think of it that way. [ She can't help herself, already flipping back from telling him to go to trying to persuade him to want to stay. ] Do you think there won't be songs and stories about the people who stopped Corypheus and the end of the world? Earn your place in them.
[ It still wouldn't be what she wants, not really; it's still a selfish reason. But if there's any hope of bringing him around and making him see, he has to stay. Any reason to buy in is better than none. ]
no subject
[Would he want it now, for a name? Could he answer that, if he asked it of himself?]
I don't know. I don't know about any of it.
no subject
[ She's pressing but not hard, no force in her tone, just the question, part rhetorical, part encouraging, mostly fantasy. ]
It sounds like a story. Dashing pirate forced into the middle of a war he thinks doesn't concern him. At first he fakes interest for his own ends but in time he finds himself drawn in and surprises everyone by becoming an unlikely hero.
[ She wishes it back once it's said, silly and sentimental in the face of very real conflicts. It's too late not to own it, but she still sounds a little defensive, self-conscious when she says ]
I'd believe it.
no subject
You'd believe it of a pirate or you'd believe it of me?
no subject
no subject
[There's half a city between them, streets and doors and walls. People. Obligations. Morality. Bigger than any cottage or cabin, nothing you can get your arms around, or close away by pulling the shutters.]
We'd do better apart. For now. Not--forever, you're-- [There's no word to follow that; Darras huffs a breath, like a dry laugh.] That's what you wanted, anyway. To do your work. What you're here to do.
no subject
[ In her work, it's an asset: the ability to flip a switch somewhere inside herself, an invaluable skill to be one thing one moment and something else entirely the next if that's what is required to survive. He pushes this moment away, rejects her faith, mistakes her demands, and just like that she shuts a door. Slams it, maybe. ]
Fine. I'll focus on my work, and you tell me when you've grown a conscience.
no subject
[What, is what he wants to say, he's doing what, how is this anything other than what they have been doing, what she said--they stay out of each other's ways, they work with the Inquisition--
It's the last bit that hits like a blow. They've been nasty to one another. It shouldn't come as a surprise, shouldn't feel like a wound. Perhaps it's the utter finality that she says it with.]
I just said, 'not forever', I said-- This is what you wanted, isn't it? You wanted me to stay out of your way so you can do-- what you want to do, you can help these people so, all right, that's what I've said I will do, and I didn't say I'm leaving or going to start--smuggling Venatori about, working counter to everything--
no subject
[ She curses so rarely it adds an extra harshness to her tone like poison on a blade. ]
How many times do I have to explain before you hear me? I don't want you to stay out of my way and let me get on with it while you hang about moping, I want you to care. I want you to look at what is happening in the world and care that thousands of people are dying, and want to at least try to help some of them not because you think it might win me back but because it's the right fucking thing to do.
When you do that, we can talk. Not before.
[ There is, alas, no tell-tale click or satisfying clang as one hangs up a crystal, but the faint background noise of her room cuts off suddenly as she closes the line. ]