[ He laughs, too, and if his answer is evasive, it's a very friendly-toned of evasion: ]
I think it is a blessing to be alive.
[ And perhaps it's only tangentially related, but he pauses before he takes another drink of his coffee—all curiosity, no skepticism or expectations for her answer— ]
Can you separate what you are from what you were taught? Put it on and take it off?
Mm. Or like being asked to forget how to walk. You can try to be bad at it and drag your feet and stumble around, or you can lie down and refuse. But that is deliberate. You can’t really forget.
[ He cuts a bite of pastry, then looks over his shoulder to locate the waiter, without any subtly. (Deliberate.) The fellow is watching them, of course—watching Alexandrie—and for a moment he seems eager to take Bastien’s look as an invitation to come check on them. But Bastien winks, rather than waving him over, and leaves him to blush and become suddenly busy arranging cups. ]
—music, you think? We should play? I think that is a fantastic idea. If the ladies cannot accompany us, they can sing or dance or lounge.
[ She laughs softly again at the display, and then nods. ]
It is the only thing I could think of that he loves and is proud of that casts no bitter shadows.
[ Or, if it does, she thinks it casts the least. ]
Does he play solo for anyone outside of taverns and dances? I should love dearly to play all of us together, but I think he deserves a chance to show off as well, no? If he wishes? Something besides jigs and lively waltzes.
[ It's awfully tender, that small smile. She looks down to attempt a minor reconstruction of the mess she'd made of her tart. ]
[ There’s a Byerly Rutyer Solo Performance stored on the crystal in Bastien’s pocket. A ballad in incomprehensible Antivan—gruesome, probably, if he could understand any of it, but still a bit of brightness for nights when wind assaults the walls and windows and there’s thunder in the distance.
But that was only the once, and not really what she means, so Bastien says, ]
He doesn’t, that I know of. If we made little programs, do you think he would be charmed or think we were silly? [ Poised with pastry ready to eat, he answers his own question. ] Both.
[ She gestures her agreement, and taps the fork lightly on her lower lip. ]
We shall ask the Ladies if they should like to present something, and make a little programme? If you print them, I shall illustrate them.
If they should like to they may, and then you shall play, and I shall play, and we shall have him play whatever he should like to play for us, and once we have embarrassed him entirely with our effusive praise, we shall all play something sprightly together. Then out to dinner to join one or two others you think meet there, and back afterwards to only ourselves for a nightcap?
[ The tilt of Alexandrie's head suggests that whom, precisely, "only ourselves" means is a separate question. ]
[ Bastien smiles through her plan, and continues smiling through her head tilt, and leaves the unspoken question unanswered for now. ]
We do not have to have a larger dinner. We can, if you think we should. I think there are people who would like to do something for him, and maybe it would be nice for him to see that.
But there are other ways to include them. We could send them up to him one at a time during the day with a message divided into pieces, or organize them to decorate a private page in the books for him. It would turn into winged phalluses, I’m sure, immediately. But he likes those, so...
[ Unanswered is answered enough in that it is not 'no'.
Well, answered enough for her. The stake she has in it is borrowed from the two of them. She shakes her head slightly. ]
I have little attachment to the idea of a larger dinner, but I do think it might perhaps be nice to change locations for a bit. I think there is something fine in becoming a little group and then venturing companionably out into the evening together.
[ A smile then, as she places her fork down so she can flutter little wings with her hands. ]
Who is it who draws those? We once had a merry little cooperative effort.
'Give to one all the happiness he would have if it were our choice, and to the other all the happiness he would have if it were his.'
[ Alexandrie smiles, small and soft, and tilts her head. ]
It was a different 'we', than 'you and I, his friends'. A different care for the 'he' who thinks himself deserving of his own ill thoughts than 'he, my friend'.
[ Hands settling in her lap, she lifts a shoulder. ]
I did not know, right away, but it stayed in me long enough that it sent me looking through my memories under a different lens.
[ Bastien winces, in a playful way, as if someone’s caught him sneaking somewhere he shouldn’t be but also won’t be in any real trouble over.
Beneath it, relief. That it’s only Alexandrie’s keen instincts. That it’s something he could have plausibly denied, if he’d been of a mind to, and something that begins and ends with her. Not what he’d worried it might have been—those reckless, indulgent minutes spent with his head on Byerly’s chest in the firelit dark of camp, spotted in the jungle and carried back to Alexandrie in Kirkwall along a chain of whispers that he’d now have to feel foolish and ineffective for failing to hear.
Still, ]
Mince alors, I am slipping. But I suppose it is fine, this once, since things have worked out as they have and you will not be breaking glasses or sending assassins.
[ There’s more he’d like to know, if he could know anything he liked. But even if it wouldn’t be needy and pathetic—has he said anything, eugh—he wouldn’t ask her, because if their positions were reversed he wouldn’t answer.
So instead he finishes his little coffee and settles forward in his chair, ready to share her crystal if she’s ready to use it. ]
You must not feel too poorly— perhaps you are not slipping; perhaps I am getting better.
[ Exaggeratedly batted eyelashes, her self-satisfaction every bit as playful as his wince.
But he is right. She is neither breaking glasses nor sending assassins, and so if it were anything it would be much as a sparring match between friends.
And he is right, too, that she wouldn't answer. Those thoughts are Byerly's to speak... and hers to unrelentingly stick Bastien in the back like an uncomfortable chair over until he gets up to find out for himself.
So instead, the crystal. A quick twist, and to it: ]
On— Lady Alexandrie de la Fontaine, [ pause, ] Lady Sonia Barra, Lady Sidony Venaras.
[ She looks at him, mirthfully aggrieved. ]
Really the sending crystals have a shameful disrespect for the bonds of marriage—
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
A box you find secreted beneath the floorboards by the last tenant of the room you rented, then, filled with their memories.
[ Her fork falls down, and she laughs quietly; the strawberries are not so good at holding as the chocolate.
Then: ]
Do you think it curse or blessing to have been so cultivated?
no subject
I think it is a blessing to be alive.
[ And perhaps it's only tangentially related, but he pauses before he takes another drink of his coffee—all curiosity, no skepticism or expectations for her answer— ]
Can you separate what you are from what you were taught? Put it on and take it off?
no subject
Some of it. Enough of it that it would be easy to be cocky enough to think I can.
[ She shrugs and turns her cup in its saucer with a finger. ]
But some of it is like breathing, no? It has to be.
no subject
[ He cuts a bite of pastry, then looks over his shoulder to locate the waiter, without any subtly. (Deliberate.) The fellow is watching them, of course—watching Alexandrie—and for a moment he seems eager to take Bastien’s look as an invitation to come check on them. But Bastien winks, rather than waving him over, and leaves him to blush and become suddenly busy arranging cups. ]
—music, you think? We should play? I think that is a fantastic idea. If the ladies cannot accompany us, they can sing or dance or lounge.
no subject
It is the only thing I could think of that he loves and is proud of that casts no bitter shadows.
[ Or, if it does, she thinks it casts the least. ]
Does he play solo for anyone outside of taverns and dances? I should love dearly to play all of us together, but I think he deserves a chance to show off as well, no? If he wishes? Something besides jigs and lively waltzes.
[ It's awfully tender, that small smile. She looks down to attempt a minor reconstruction of the mess she'd made of her tart. ]
And, selfishly, I should like to hear it.
no subject
But that was only the once, and not really what she means, so Bastien says, ]
He doesn’t, that I know of. If we made little programs, do you think he would be charmed or think we were silly? [ Poised with pastry ready to eat, he answers his own question. ] Both.
no subject
[ She gestures her agreement, and taps the fork lightly on her lower lip. ]
We shall ask the Ladies if they should like to present something, and make a little programme? If you print them, I shall illustrate them.
If they should like to they may, and then you shall play, and I shall play, and we shall have him play whatever he should like to play for us, and once we have embarrassed him entirely with our effusive praise, we shall all play something sprightly together. Then out to dinner to join one or two others you think meet there, and back afterwards to only ourselves for a nightcap?
[ The tilt of Alexandrie's head suggests that whom, precisely, "only ourselves" means is a separate question. ]
no subject
We do not have to have a larger dinner. We can, if you think we should. I think there are people who would like to do something for him, and maybe it would be nice for him to see that.
But there are other ways to include them. We could send them up to him one at a time during the day with a message divided into pieces, or organize them to decorate a private page in the books for him. It would turn into winged phalluses, I’m sure, immediately. But he likes those, so...
no subject
Well, answered enough for her. The stake she has in it is borrowed from the two of them. She shakes her head slightly. ]
I have little attachment to the idea of a larger dinner, but I do think it might perhaps be nice to change locations for a bit. I think there is something fine in becoming a little group and then venturing companionably out into the evening together.
[ A smile then, as she places her fork down so she can flutter little wings with her hands. ]
Who is it who draws those? We once had a merry little cooperative effort.
no subject
[ Including Alexandrie, apparently. Cute. ]
Going out would be nice. There are a lot of Fereldans here—maybe Lady Sonia knows of a place we could have a good Fereldan dinner.
no subject
[ Even if she looks lightly amused at having said “proper” as a modifier for “pork pie”. ]
Shall we call them, then?
no subject
May I ask you something first? [ Presumably yes, so there’s only a very short pause before he does. ] What gave me away?
[ Friendly, light curiosity, as if he hasn’t lost even a little sleep trying to figure it out. ]
no subject
[ Alexandrie smiles, small and soft, and tilts her head. ]
It was a different 'we', than 'you and I, his friends'. A different care for the 'he' who thinks himself deserving of his own ill thoughts than 'he, my friend'.
[ Hands settling in her lap, she lifts a shoulder. ]
I did not know, right away, but it stayed in me long enough that it sent me looking through my memories under a different lens.
no subject
Beneath it, relief. That it’s only Alexandrie’s keen instincts. That it’s something he could have plausibly denied, if he’d been of a mind to, and something that begins and ends with her. Not what he’d worried it might have been—those reckless, indulgent minutes spent with his head on Byerly’s chest in the firelit dark of camp, spotted in the jungle and carried back to Alexandrie in Kirkwall along a chain of whispers that he’d now have to feel foolish and ineffective for failing to hear.
Still, ]
Mince alors, I am slipping. But I suppose it is fine, this once, since things have worked out as they have and you will not be breaking glasses or sending assassins.
[ There’s more he’d like to know, if he could know anything he liked. But even if it wouldn’t be needy and pathetic—has he said anything, eugh—he wouldn’t ask her, because if their positions were reversed he wouldn’t answer.
So instead he finishes his little coffee and settles forward in his chair, ready to share her crystal if she’s ready to use it. ]
no subject
[ Exaggeratedly batted eyelashes, her self-satisfaction every bit as playful as his wince.
But he is right. She is neither breaking glasses nor sending assassins, and so if it were anything it would be much as a sparring match between friends.
And he is right, too, that she wouldn't answer. Those thoughts are Byerly's to speak... and hers to unrelentingly stick Bastien in the back like an uncomfortable chair over until he gets up to find out for himself.
So instead, the crystal. A quick twist, and to it: ]
On— Lady Alexandrie de la Fontaine, [ pause, ] Lady Sonia Barra, Lady Sidony Venaras.
[ She looks at him, mirthfully aggrieved. ]
Really the sending crystals have a shameful disrespect for the bonds of marriage—
( continued here )