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[cozen]

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[bouchonne]

[ A wave of his hand dismisses that last part. It can go unsaid; By knows that Bastien has his priorities sorted. Survival first; reform later. ]

The Landsmeet isn't the worst system. Though it's corrupt, and dominated by those of certain bloodlines.

[cozen]

Bloodlines.

[ A teasing, snobby sniff of derision, before he sticks his jammy finger in his mouth. He’s so interested in the conversation that he doesn’t try to make sucking it clean even a little alluring. ]

It does seem better. But Ferelden has had the Landsmeet for longer than it’s been a country, hasn’t it? [ Facts from listening to 2 a.m. political arguments in various taverns. That one might even have come from Byerly. ] How do you convince someone who already has unchecked power that they need it checked after all? Pamphlets?

[bouchonne]

Maker, no. Too many of them can't read.

[ Not a joke at their expense, or elitism, or anything of the sort - a simple statement of fact. In some parts of the South, the peasantry is more literate than the nobles with their hired scribes and footmen. ]

I don't know there is a way to convince them. Sometimes I wonder if Nikos Averesch might know the only real path to reform. [ Then - ] Or was it Kostos? I can never remember which one's the mage and which one's the rebel.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[cozen]

The rebel is the one with the handsome lover—so Nikos, because Kostos and Caspar would have sounded too precious, [ says Bastien, to Byerly, ] and we would have had to kill one of them to make it stop. That is how I remember.

[bouchonne]

Ha!

[ He taps his nose in a cleverly done gesture. ]

Now I'll never confuse them again. Unless, of course, I see them in person, in which case I shall be utterly confounded by their identical scowls.

[cozen]

[ Bastien laughs, then shakes his head. ]

Maker. Having a twin would be terrible.

[ —is a topic for later. For the present: ]

I don't know if he was right. Maybe he is now— [ with his mysterious shady revolutionary activities; who knows ] —but before, I mean. In Nevarra. You kill a king, you get another. It is like clipping the highest leaf off of a weed.

[bouchonne]

Mmhm.

[ Byerly leans forward to nibble gently on one jammy fingertip. Partly because it's delicious, and partly just to give himself a bit of time to think. Bastien has thought about this. ]

And kings don't deserve to die just for being kings, either. Many of them are just people of ordinary talent trying their best.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles wide at the nibbling, and keeps smiling because he’s having fun; this isn’t a debate that makes his blood run hot. Not so far, anyway. ]

Mmhm. So are many men across from you on the battlefield.

[bouchonne]

Yes. But those men are trying to kill me.

[ His gaze on Bastien is curious. Monitoring him to see if that smile is hiding hurt. ]

[cozen]

[ The curiosity makes his smile smaller, but only out of shyness—a tiny little dab of it—in the face of scrutiny. No sadness. ]

If we all laid down our swords and accepted their rule, [ pause for sucking another finger swiftly clean, ] I’m sure they would stop.

[bouchonne]

[ He tips his head slightly to the side. ]

Not Corypheus. Or any other true tyrants.

[cozen]

I don’t know.

[ More direct than the hedging question he might have posed to someone he was inclined to hide his own opinions with. He shifts and stretches to put his legs in Byerly’s lap. ]

Tyrants are not all sadists. I think most of them would settle down if everyone was obedient and never threatened them.

[bouchonne]

Hmm.

[ By accepts those legs and rubs them gently, massaging all the sources of tension he might find there. ]

I think part of what makes a tyrant is always needing to see a threat.

[cozen]

[ Bastien nods in a wobbly, considering way, and for a few seconds he's quiet. Some of those seconds are to think about what By's said. The others are to bask in being cared for, and in being so utterly certain that he'll still be cared for just as much even if they have found something they might not agree on. ]

You know I would still love you if you became the Empress' own bodyguard, [ he says, in case that certainty isn't mutual, as he nudges one of his slightly-achy knees into the path of By's hands. ] And I think you are probably right about tyrants.

But the king who has sent the men to kill you—maybe he is not a tyrant. Maybe he’s good to his own people and thinks yours are barbarians who need to be rescued from their backwards ways through his fatherly subjugation. [ A little eyebrow raise says he knows that's a low blow argument to make at a Fereldan, and he is sorry but not very sorry. ] Maybe he has an earnest disagreement with someone about whether or not their land is his. Whether they owe him taxes.

If all the harm in the world was only done through sadism or paranoia, there would be much less of it.

[bouchonne]

[ By flutters his eyelashes at Bastien in confirmation that he has no great fear about this conversation, and that Bastien could say just about anything without causing By the least bit of hurt. Byerly has always, after all, had the privilege of not really needing to worry about politics - has always been one of the few who would not really be affected by any decision in the Landsmeet, as neither a recipient of or a provider of tax income, as someone neither possessed of or desirous of power. He listened for the moments when malcontentment became danger; he tried to keep the queen alive; that was about the extent of his political leanings. ]

All that is true enough. [ He agrees easily. The low blow, it seems, landed soundly. ] But none of those sound like sins great enough that a man ought to lose his life. And even if they were, why does a sour-faced Nevarran lush get to appoint himself judge and executioner?

[cozen]

[ Sour-faced Nevarran lush gets a twitch of a smile, but— ]

Why does an inbred idiot who needs someone to wipe his chin— [ hypothetically; there hasn’t been one that bad in an age or two ] —get to decide a thousand men should march and die for him?

[bouchonne]

The same reason I'm head of Diplomacy. At some point, someone has to be in charge. And people love it if that someone is at least a bit inbred.

[cozen]

You are head of Diplomacy because you are good for it. [ He wiggles his knee. ] If you weren’t, and you refused to step down, someone would do something.

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ That's not untrue. And if By really saw himself as incompetent, extraordinarily incompetent rather than the garden-variety incompetent he is, then there's no way he'd ever scrabble to hold onto the position.

By traces a circle around Bastien's kneecap. ]

But who's to decide who's good or not?

[cozen]

[ Lounging smugly: ] Me.

[ But he follows it quickly with a shrug. ]

No. Maybe it is impossible. Anything someone does is good for some people and bad for others. The loser of any dispute can decide the judge is unfair. I know that. So one man, alone, alright, maybe he does not have the right to kill a ruler, or anyone else.

But I think— [ an inarticulate gesture, during his pause, for the rare time he has not decided what to say before he says it ] —there is nothing inherently legitimate about it. About government. Just because it happened more slowly to the Ciriane than the Alamarri— [ never mind that he is, himself, technically Planasene ] —and we have found ourselves part of the Orlesian Empire over ages instead of overnight, if we are being crushed beneath it and decide we are done with it, I don’t think we have any less right than Ferelden to rebel.

If a lone Fereldan man had taken it upon himself to kill King Megrhen, during all of that, or Emperor Reville—you would not see him a hero now?

[bouchonne]

We would.

[ Then, he considers, and amends - not to be more accurate, but to confirm just how right Bastien is: ]

I would.

[ Well. ]

Depending, of course, upon the full history. The way they told the stories.

[cozen]

[ Bastien laughs a little. ]

That’s true. Maybe it would have doomed your rebellion, actually, if either of them had been replaced by someone more sane or competent.

[bouchonne]

Hah.

[ He grins. ]

May we all be blessed by incompetent enemies. - But not just that, either. For example, let's say it had been one of the Banns of Dane who'd done it. I'm sure I, a Rutyer, would have been raised to believe that so-called hero a fool.

[cozen]

Maybe raised that way, but that doesn’t mean you would have believed it, Monsieur le mouton noir.

[ Warmly. Byerly doesn’t believe all sorts of things he must have been raised to believe, and Bastien’s grateful for every one of them. ]

But hypothetically. For other people. That’s true.

[bouchonne]

[ A wry smile. ]

So maybe it is you who decides, conteur.