[ Even with her tone as it is, the words make him smile, a crooked little twist that lasts until he's taken the bottle and a drink. That does sound like her. Like something she would do in Kirkwall after making him search for only an hour, instead of half the continent away after weeks and months.
He doesn't notice if the wine is good or not. ]
Yseult wanted her to learn impulse control. [ He offers the bottle back. ] The rest of it was... That was all she asked. Teach her to think before she acts and speaks.
[ And it's the one thing he's sure he, at least, did the worst at, setting it aside for daggers and music and spy games in the city, because the only ways he knew how to teach her to ignore her feelings would have required cutting into them. ]
[ First he thinks, so it isn't a nod only because she is begging for one. He thinks about the difference between a child told the fire is hot and a child who touches the flame—and himself and perhaps Alexandrie, children with their hands held over it until they learn to converse merrily despite the heat—so it is a nod because he believes it. ]
She was ready to go, Alexandrie. She wanted to go. And if I had thought it was too soon, I would have— [ Stopped it is perhaps overstating his stubbornness and his ability to boss either of them around. ] —I would have asked you if you were sure.
[ He holds his hand up, arm crooked. A gesture ambiguous enough, by design so well-practiced on heartbroken women above his station that it's thoughtless now, to be taken with equal ease as an offer of his hand for her hand, or his arm for her arm, or his shoulder for her head. ]
[ It will be the last— a slow movement to shelter under the lifted wing, a lift of her own arm to lay her palm lightly at the back of his shoulder— because for all the time she has spent standing by herself Alexandrie has always hated to be alone.
She forgets so often, still, that there is such a thing as 'together'. ]
I hate that I do not know if we should search for her. If she needs finding, needs aid, or if by sending it we might compromise her. That we cannot know if we should act, or wait, or grieve.
[ The option she chooses is not quite a surprise, but it isn't the one he would have put money on—which is his foolishness, perhaps. After a moment his arm shifts and settles, from delicate pose to warm drape. Like they are ten years younger, drinking in the stern of a borrowed gondola while Byerly puts on a one-man show in the bow.
Or like they are now. Like she is someone who might come and hug him goodbye before sailing for Antiva. ]
Me, too. I don't...
[ He's lost people this way before. A creeping silence, nothing to burn—no, bury. The Dalish bury their dead. But she isn't— ]
Has your husband ever worried you like this?
[ An innocent reach for hope. Tell him how it worked out fine. ]
[ Alexandrie does not hide it when she startles; doesn't make excuse for the small hunch of her shoulders by brushing away a 'bug' or turning it into a shiver at the wind.
Perhaps it is because through the conscious exercise of her honesty she is becoming too slow, or too uncareful, or because she is trying to trust. Perhaps it is because she has been carrying the yawning emptiness of her secret for such a long time and she is weary and wants it to be found.
She still papers it over with something else. ]
I thought him dead once. Almost precisely two years ago, now. I would not believe it because I knew I could not survive such a thing. Lord Thor let me keep vigil as if I had been wife, even though it was over nothing but memory and artifact, and in the morning I went to the public memorial like a dead thing myself, wearing a wedding gown that I thought would never see its true use.
[ A sidelong look, a little smile that does not match the paleness of her cheeks. ]
[ That crush of reuniting lovers and friends, on their return from the desert, had made him feel as lonely as he’d ever felt in his life—but it was a long time ago. So long ago he is sure it wouldn’t happen the same way now, and so long ago that it wasn’t what he meant when he asked. So long ago he wouldn’t expect the memory of it to curl her shoulders that way.
Still, it’s the hope he wanted. His gaze is distant and thoughtful, but he smiles at his faraway point, and he doesn’t press his thumb against the thin, bruising skin of her thoughts to try splitting them open. He thinks about how long it has been since he’s seen her husband stalking through the Gallows, how long since he’s heard any complaints about his existence among the Hightown gossips, thinks about Athessa, thinks about the day Alexandrie laughed off his questions about her time as a bard and the day she told him about watching her husband read.
So he slips a hidden thought of his own into her hand. Not for trade. For safekeeping. ]
My little sister would be her… is Athessa's age, I hope. Somewhere.
[ When he was a young cellist in Val Royeaux, if anyone asked, he'd sprouted up without tending or origin, like a weed between the cobblestones in the city. No parents. No siblings. No little girl, with sharp bones like an underfed kitten, who held onto his ankle and dragged behind him halfway to the door the last time he walked out of it. ]
[ She wants to acknowledge it, the little piece of offered truth, the way the thread of a little sister appears in the embroidery pattern of what she knows about Bastien and fills in some of the spaces, changes Athessa's context, shifts the meaning of this disappearance to something more than a teacher's fear for a student or a fear for a friend. And so she makes herself still, and presses his shoulder with her fingers for a time in silence.
Then, looking out at the horizon again— ]
Is it more lonely, do you think, to have no-one to love or to love and not know where they are?
[ A question, and also another more present answer to his question. ]
[ Bastien inhales slowly, as sure as he wants to be. It isn't his place to tell Byerly; it would be a betrayal to tell Yseult. But, for varying mixtures of personal and professional reasons, he tries not to lie to either of them. So better to only suspect, however strongly. Better to be able to say she hasn't said anything to me, which is slightly different from she hasn't told me. ]
I think— [ His arm tightens when the wind picks up again, like she might need his help not to flutter away. ] I think it is lonelier not to have anyone. But I think it might hurt less. You know how you stop noticing, after a time, if you are very hungry or very cold? It will kill you eventually, but it doesn't hurt anymore.
[ Maybe she doesn't know. In Val Royeaux, before, he would have been certain she didn't. Now it seems possible. ]
When you can smell the food or feel a bit of warmth, but you can't have it, that is when it hurts again. When you start to shake. I think it is like that.
[ The tightened arm around her shoulders to secure her, the way he offers his understanding in the palm of his hand with eyes averted so as to not put the wildness of her to flight— these things would make Alexandrie break into tears if she could, but she cannot. She has strayed close enough to asking him to guard a secret he has no stake in as it is, and she is afraid that if she begins to weep she will never stop.
And so the howls stay in her chest— the he is not here and he has not been here in so long packed neatly next to I do not know where he is and I do not know if he lives, all arrayed above I am alone, alone, alone, and no-one can know— and she remains upright, as if her world still contains the axis on which it turns, using only the memory of what it had felt like to be held with such certainty that there was no room for fear. Still, her nod is slow and careful as if moving too fast will make her spill whatever she holds. ]
It is left to us to trust, I think. In what she knows, in her cleverness and ingenuity.
[ Athessa, although Loki is in the shadow of the words. ]
We must believe she will come back when she is finished with whatever it is she does, and with a fine story for us.
[ He tries believing it, by force of will. An opportunity to protect the world, or perhaps only a grand adventure, appearing out of the alleys in Val Royeaux, too great to turn from, and Athessa is on horseback in one of the ancient forests where she felt more at home, full of purpose and singing to the trees.
For a moment he wonders what they thought, his brothers and sisters. If they imagined him walking away into something bright, if they imagined him devoured by the city. (It was both; a sunlit gullet.) Or if they didn't imagine anything. If he slipped out of their sight and minds at the same time, like dozens of others after them—like Alexandrie and Byerly, once—and maybe like Athessa now.
But he would rather be forgettable than her be hurt. So until he knows better, she is in the forest.
He slips loose of feeling sorry for himself. Thinks instead through a handful of unsatisfactory explanations for a husband failing to write to his wife for long enough to make Alexandrie so still. ]
We were waylaid by bandits once—Athessa and I. I was still pretending, you know, not to know one end of a dagger from the other, but she handled them all herself, like it was nothing.
[ Loki is in the shadow of that, too. Bastien never saw him fight, but he's made three different people recount the Grand Tourney for him. ]
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no subject
He doesn't notice if the wine is good or not. ]
Yseult wanted her to learn impulse control. [ He offers the bottle back. ] The rest of it was... That was all she asked. Teach her to think before she acts and speaks.
[ And it's the one thing he's sure he, at least, did the worst at, setting it aside for daggers and music and spy games in the city, because the only ways he knew how to teach her to ignore her feelings would have required cutting into them. ]
no subject
You must give them opportunities to learn for themselves that they must.
[ Now she looks at him, her eyes pale and clear and fragile in their uncertainty. In the way they beg for confirmation. ]
no subject
She was ready to go, Alexandrie. She wanted to go. And if I had thought it was too soon, I would have— [ Stopped it is perhaps overstating his stubbornness and his ability to boss either of them around. ] —I would have asked you if you were sure.
[ He holds his hand up, arm crooked. A gesture ambiguous enough, by design so well-practiced on heartbroken women above his station that it's thoughtless now, to be taken with equal ease as an offer of his hand for her hand, or his arm for her arm, or his shoulder for her head. ]
no subject
She forgets so often, still, that there is such a thing as 'together'. ]
I hate that I do not know if we should search for her. If she needs finding, needs aid, or if by sending it we might compromise her. That we cannot know if we should act, or wait, or grieve.
8]
Or like they are now. Like she is someone who might come and hug him goodbye before sailing for Antiva. ]
Me, too. I don't...
[ He's lost people this way before. A creeping silence, nothing to burn—no, bury. The Dalish bury their dead. But she isn't— ]
Has your husband ever worried you like this?
[ An innocent reach for hope. Tell him how it worked out fine. ]
no subject
Perhaps it is because through the conscious exercise of her honesty she is becoming too slow, or too uncareful, or because she is trying to trust. Perhaps it is because she has been carrying the yawning emptiness of her secret for such a long time and she is weary and wants it to be found.
She still papers it over with something else. ]
I thought him dead once. Almost precisely two years ago, now. I would not believe it because I knew I could not survive such a thing. Lord Thor let me keep vigil as if I had been wife, even though it was over nothing but memory and artifact, and in the morning I went to the public memorial like a dead thing myself, wearing a wedding gown that I thought would never see its true use.
[ A sidelong look, a little smile that does not match the paleness of her cheeks. ]
And then I wore it again to be married.
It was also your memorial, yes? And here you are.
no subject
Still, it’s the hope he wanted. His gaze is distant and thoughtful, but he smiles at his faraway point, and he doesn’t press his thumb against the thin, bruising skin of her thoughts to try splitting them open. He thinks about how long it has been since he’s seen her husband stalking through the Gallows, how long since he’s heard any complaints about his existence among the Hightown gossips, thinks about Athessa, thinks about the day Alexandrie laughed off his questions about her time as a bard and the day she told him about watching her husband read.
So he slips a hidden thought of his own into her hand. Not for trade. For safekeeping. ]
My little sister would be her… is Athessa's age, I hope. Somewhere.
[ When he was a young cellist in Val Royeaux, if anyone asked, he'd sprouted up without tending or origin, like a weed between the cobblestones in the city. No parents. No siblings. No little girl, with sharp bones like an underfed kitten, who held onto his ankle and dragged behind him halfway to the door the last time he walked out of it. ]
So are you, but that is stranger to think about.
no subject
Then, looking out at the horizon again— ]
Is it more lonely, do you think, to have no-one to love or to love and not know where they are?
[ A question, and also another more present answer to his question. ]
no subject
I think— [ His arm tightens when the wind picks up again, like she might need his help not to flutter away. ] I think it is lonelier not to have anyone. But I think it might hurt less. You know how you stop noticing, after a time, if you are very hungry or very cold? It will kill you eventually, but it doesn't hurt anymore.
[ Maybe she doesn't know. In Val Royeaux, before, he would have been certain she didn't. Now it seems possible. ]
When you can smell the food or feel a bit of warmth, but you can't have it, that is when it hurts again. When you start to shake. I think it is like that.
no subject
And so the howls stay in her chest— the he is not here and he has not been here in so long packed neatly next to I do not know where he is and I do not know if he lives, all arrayed above I am alone, alone, alone, and no-one can know— and she remains upright, as if her world still contains the axis on which it turns, using only the memory of what it had felt like to be held with such certainty that there was no room for fear. Still, her nod is slow and careful as if moving too fast will make her spill whatever she holds. ]
It is left to us to trust, I think. In what she knows, in her cleverness and ingenuity.
[ Athessa, although Loki is in the shadow of the words. ]
We must believe she will come back when she is finished with whatever it is she does, and with a fine story for us.
no subject
[ He tries believing it, by force of will. An opportunity to protect the world, or perhaps only a grand adventure, appearing out of the alleys in Val Royeaux, too great to turn from, and Athessa is on horseback in one of the ancient forests where she felt more at home, full of purpose and singing to the trees.
For a moment he wonders what they thought, his brothers and sisters. If they imagined him walking away into something bright, if they imagined him devoured by the city. (It was both; a sunlit gullet.) Or if they didn't imagine anything. If he slipped out of their sight and minds at the same time, like dozens of others after them—like Alexandrie and Byerly, once—and maybe like Athessa now.
But he would rather be forgettable than her be hurt. So until he knows better, she is in the forest.
He slips loose of feeling sorry for himself. Thinks instead through a handful of unsatisfactory explanations for a husband failing to write to his wife for long enough to make Alexandrie so still. ]
We were waylaid by bandits once—Athessa and I. I was still pretending, you know, not to know one end of a dagger from the other, but she handled them all herself, like it was nothing.
[ Loki is in the shadow of that, too. Bastien never saw him fight, but he's made three different people recount the Grand Tourney for him. ]