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[cozen]

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[keenly]

That’s not a consideration he expected. Having to turn his thoughts inward, examining his own comfort, is somehow more uncomfortable than just staying in the room having a conversation. Yet, it feels like he’s been pushing aside his own well-being for so long, turning away the consideration of others, that sooner or later he has to either change or break again.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I’m all right for now. Usually it’s sleeping here that’s hardest. Some other day it might be better to be somewhere else.”

[cozen]

"Well I meant, ah," Bastien says, sitting up a little straighter, "if you and I left, right now. To talk somewhere else. I need to go into the city anyway, and we could give the ferryman a piece of this on the way. It is so good, it deserves to be shared."

[keenly]

“I know what you meant,” Colin says quietly, half-swallowing it with some concern to sounding rude.

“If you need to anyway,” he says, oddly relieved at the choice being made for him. “We can go.”

[cozen]

Bastien might have hesitated. It's not really an enthusiastic endorsement of the idea.

But he really would prefer to leave. He's been privately miserable for the last few days—for reasons he definitely won't be bringing up—and he doesn't quite have the energy reserves necessary for discussing this sort of thing at length, alone in his room, with someone he doesn't know well enough to relax around, staring at each other over sweets. It'll be easier in the open air, in sight of people going about their lives.

So they're going. He smiles with the casual gratitude of someone who's just had their errands made easier and stands up, first to fuss with the pastry and cut off the promised slice for the ferryman.

"It's good that you have your flat."

[keenly]

“It’s Lexie’s. She just doesn’t live there.” He quickly finishes up his slice of tarte and rinses his hands in whatever basin there is before opening the door for Bastien.

[cozen]

"Oh!" Bastien says, heading out with a grateful little semi-bow for the door opening, with tarte in one hand and the package he needs to deliver ashore in the other. "That's wonderful. I think I knew the two of you were friends, but I suppose I did not realize how close."

It's not the flat that makes him say so. Bastien's never called her Lexie in his life, not even when they were younger. Though Athessa calls her Lexie as well—so maybe that's just Bastien, being Orlesian about it.

[keenly]

It’s not just Bastien. Athessa is just that casual, and it took Colin about two years to be comfortable with calling her that in public, due entirely to her insistence on him treating her just like any other friend. Still, he blushes a bit at being called out.

“I didn’t mean to be improper.”

[cozen]

"I didn't think you had been," says Bastien, who didn't mean it as a rebuke at all. Just an observation. He matches Colin's pace—easy, when they're nearly of a height—on the way to the stairs. "The Veil being so thin here, is that something we could do something about, do you think?"

[keenly]

"You'd have to ask someone else." Colin looks slightly apologetic. "I was barely Harrowed when the Circles fell."

[cozen]

Bastien nods to himself, storing the question for later–it'd be diplomatic! Look, Provisional Viscount, at what good and helpful guests they are!—and moving on.

"Were you able to paint and bake in the Circle? Or are they things you have started more recently?"

[keenly]

"Painting, I started more recently. When I first arrived here, I met this elf named Cyril who started me drawing, then Lady Alexandrie taught me painting. My mother taught me how to cook, though. I was able to do that in the Circle, the Tranquil didn't really mind. Got me through some hard times."

[cozen]

He doesn't need to ask what the hard times were, at least. Not that he would either way. Tell me about your misery isn't generally how he goes about making friends, when that misery isn't handed to him in a letter.

"I would not have guessed you started so recently." Painting, obviously. "I asked Benedict Artemaeus to help me add some color to the dining hall—maybe you could help, too? If he wouldn't mind. I think he wants to do a mural, but we could hang up some things, too, so you could paint without having to be here for it."

[keenly]

"...I'd actually love that," Colin says with a shy smile. "Especially if it was a mural. It would be...reclaiming it. Even though I wasn't kept here, I'd be a Circle mage doing that."

[cozen]

"Great. I will talk to him and see what he thinks. But even if he already has everything planned and does not want to collaborate, it is a big room. I am sure there is space for both of you."

[keenly]

"Oh, we, um. Get along. We're friends. I'd take his lead anyway, he's the real artist. And we sometimes paint together already. So it's. We'll see."

[cozen]

"Ah, that is perfect, then."

Down the stairs, out into the daylight, to the extent Kirkwall's hazy skies can ever count as daylight. (They count. He's just a sky snob.)

"I'm glad he has friends. I know we are at war and he's been a bit of an idiot about it, but it must be hard to give up your people and family this way."

[keenly]

"It is." That much is plain to see. It's not far from here to the ferry. "I was there the night he thought he was going to be executed. They didn't tell him he wouldn't be until morning. I couldn't just...let him spend that time alone. Hardly anyone cares about him, and no one important likes that I care, even when it's my job. So I can't help but...just...want to make up for all the lack of caring he's always had, and not just here."

[cozen]

"That's very kind of you," Bastien says, and breaks to talk for a moment with the ferryman, who's been milling around.

Of course he's delighted to receive a snack—in a gruff old rower sort of way—and Bastien makes sure Colin gets all the credit he's due for it before they're settled in the rowboat.

"You are a healer, right? Did you choose it? Or is what you were best at so you—you know." A gesture meant to stand in for the concept of falling into a profession without much choice.

[keenly]

It takes Colin a second to understand.

"I ssssort of fell into it," he allows, "but now I'd choose it. Cooking's an art, it's how I express myself, it's how I show people I care, but healing's more sacred than that. It's like a calling. If I did it to the end of my days, my only regret would be that I didn't start sooner."

[cozen]

Bastien pauses smiling at the water beside the boat to smile more directly at Colin. Charming.

“Who was your first patient?”

[keenly]

Colin's face lights up. "A woman in Darktown with a baby being born arse-first. That baby is now two years old and the parents have gotten out of Darktown."

[cozen]

“Aw, you are still in touch?”

Maybe that isn’t uncommon. He doesn’t know.

[keenly]

"Not since they got out, no. But the baby would be two by now."

[cozen]

"Ah, well. That is very sweet. And good for them that you could help. Maybe when the baby is older, they will tell stories about you."

[keenly]

"How many stories do you know about whoever delivered you?" Colin asks skeptically.