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[cozen]

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[windyvoice]

I guess. [ She sighs, wildly aggrieved. ] Okay, no, I do know. Like I went to enough therapy to know that shit at least, I'm like self aware.

I just. Want him to know there's a difference between being an asshole sometimes and being a literal piece of shit, which he seems real convinced he is.

[cozen]

Mm. Ouais. I hate it too.

[ And he’ll get back on topic in a moment, because it’s an important topic, but first: ]

What is therapy?

[windyvoice]

Aside from being the thing literally all of us need? It's where you go and talk about the shit that's happened in your life with a professional and they help you like... Be less traumatized or whatever.

[cozen]

Oh. [ A moment to process the idea of the world where that’s an actual job. ] How?

[windyvoice]

Talking, mostly?

[cozen]

Hm.

[ Interesting. Sounds fake, but interesting. ]

Well... I think it is kind of you to want better for him. I do, too. And I think being treated like he’s a good person will have to sink in someday, even if telling him so won’t.

[cozen]

I would take the Marshes.

[ He wouldn’t. Or like, maybe now. Over the jungle. But not over Kirkwall. ]

The White Spire was beautiful from the outside, at least—but that is not where you were.

[cozen]

Ever more generous than expected or truly reasonable, Madame.

[ His bow is as small as her smile—something that could be sardonic, in another context, but here just a gesture of gratitude over the distance they’ve established. His eyes are warm. ]

Be safe.

[wythersake]

Montsimmard kept vines, [ flowering, climbing; never quite so high as to grasp. ] Lovely in spring. But I would not say that I knew the place.

Do you suppose that we know Kirkwall?

[coquettish_trees]

[ there’s something about that ”be safe” that makes her pause. She had tried to be. Safe. Safe and untouchable, invulnerable, and in the end that sort of safety—the one she had even now just retreated to—had bought her all the turmoil and grief and regret she had hoped to avoid in the first place.

And so she hesitates for a moment, and then pushes through to the full opposite of her instinctive withdrawal to fold him into a hug; a loose one first. An eminently escapable question. ]

what kind of a jerk only has one thread going at once

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly's voice, over the crystal, is rather too casual and pleasant. ]

My dear Bastien. A drink?

slackers!!

[cozen]

[ Courteously pretending it’s the right amount of casual and pleasant, ]

Sounds lovely. Where?

[bouchonne]

The Hanged Man? If you're as desperate as I am to get out of the Gallows for an evening.

[cozen]

I’m sure I’m not. They let me out so much more often than you. I am in Hightown as we speak. But after I drop this letter off I can walk that way and hold a table.

[bouchonne]

Ooh, in Hightown. I like Lowtown so much more - don't you?

[cozen]

Oh, infinitely. I cannot be up here for anything without feeling like I am working. And at least Lowtown as a reasonable excuse for everything being so grey.

[bouchonne]

And stinking, and vulgar. Agreed.

Get the first round? I'll get the second.

[cozen]

Deal. I will see you there.

[ With the drinks already ordered and the promised table defended from rowdy off-duty guardsmen and miners, as promised. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He comes in not late, not already drunk, not hung over, not stinking, well-shaven and well-dressed. On his best behavior, it seems. ]

Dear Bastien.

[ He claps Bastien on the upper arm before coming around to sit across from him. ]

How was Hightown?

[cozen]

Dull.

[ He doesn’t hide the quizzical quality to his look. Did they have important guests today? Is he about to be asked a favor?

He pushes Byerly his drink. ]

Oh, but: I am supposed to tell you that you are a good person and occasionally being an asshole does not make you a literal piece of shit.

—which is obvious, now that I am saying it. You cannot be the asshole and the shit, if we are being literal.

[bouchonne]

[ That - Catches him off-guard. And it lights a fire of worry in him. He stops with the glass halfway to his mouth, saying: ]

Who said that?

[cozen]

[ Bastien inclines his head a little. ]

Jenny Lou. She seems very fond of you.

[bouchonne]

[ His lips thin, but he finishes the motion of glass to mouth. Once he drinks, he says, gruffly: ]

She is a vulgar and graceless child.

[cozen]

That’s true. But I like her.

[ Maybe Byerly is possessed. That’s something that happens to non-mages in Kirkwall, sometimes, right? He heard. Because of the Veil. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He lets out a breath, and says, reluctantly: ]

I do as well. I just hope she's only saying these sorts of things to you.