[ Ilias is distracted. It's not his usual way-- they have not had so many lessons yet as to establish a norm, but he tends to be considerate of other people's time, and of Bastien's especially. (The intricacies of Orlesian court decorum are not his finest subject; an exchange of Nevarran pronunciation can only cover so many sins.) So he isn't late, nor inattentive precisely, but his polite smile comes with stress lines today, his pauses stretch a touch too long, and when things begin to wind down into a more conversational direction, he twists, ]
Do they not find it exhausting? To be forever circling the point. To never simply say what is in one's heart.
[ If Bastien notices the distraction, the only sign is that he’s a slower talker than normal, trying to keep a pace that even divided attention can match. But the question makes him pause entirely, for a moment, smiling in a thoughtful sort of way.
The easy answer is no people is a monolith. The pointed answer is what’s troubling you. Instead of either: ]
There was a poet in the Blessed Age—Lord Crépin Volant. He published forty-six sonnets. Beautiful, intricate things. They outlined the shape of the woman he was in love with in such careful detail, without ever naming her, that everyone knew it must be the Vicomtesse Mesmin. It could be no one else.
[ The impending tragedy is obvious. He pauses for a drink to let it loom. ]
But it was. It was the Lady Bonaventure, who had been keeping other suitors at bay and waiting for him to say something to her. When she was told of his sonnets for Mesmin, she married one of her other prospects within the fortnight.
Somehow he convinced someone to publish his next work—it was just her name, over and over again for fifty pages. It is probably the rarest book I have ever owned. His family destroyed as many as they could and found pressing responsibilities for him in the country.
Spoken like a man quite adept at it, all the same.
[ An answer outlined, clearer than one spoken. It softens the line of his brow in the telling. There had been a reason so circuitous a nature had once drawn him, and Bastien's now serves a pleasant reminder. ]
One sketches the shape of one's heart only in verse, then, or song, or flowers pressed into letters or books. And there is some exquisite joy in being known by another from so scant an offering. But at the risk of an incomplete understanding. Of never being known at all.
[ Of tragedy. ]
Or one chooses a love that speaks what it is. Is that truer, do you think?
[ Said with a smiling sort of skepticism, as if Ilias had just used some charming Nevarran idiom. He’s joking, a little, but not so much that he doesn’t really want elaboration. ]
Truer, [ he repeats with his own rolled R, as if it might be a new word for Bastien, he knows. ]
More real. Lady Bonaventure, for instance-- if her other suitor had been a man she'd known all her life. If he had long ago learned to crack open her ribcage and crawl inside -- and perhaps was not always kind there, nor she to him, but there was an honesty between them. A depth of intimacy, at least.
Might that not mean as much as Lord Volant's beautiful sonnets?
[ It isn't quite a question, and he doesn't wait for an answer. He finds cigarettes instead (rolled himself, but in advance) and plucks out one that's already half-gone and charred at one end before offering the tin toward Ilias. ]
Have you considered being less handsome? You might find you have fewer difficult choices.
[ He will take that light, and he will keep any commentary about Nevarra hiding its heartbreakers underground unspoken, because Circles are a touchy topic with the mages and Nevarra is currently on metaphorical fire and it altogether seems like needlessly dangerous ground for a joke. ]
I was blessed with a stupid heart. It can only hold one thought at a time. Frequently a foolish thought, but merci au Créateur, just the one.
[ He finds a scrap of unnecessary paper to serve as an ashtray and puts it on the table. ]
So—you have someone living in your ribcage, and someone writing you sonnets.
[ An incomplete metaphor, perhaps, but this feels indiscreet enough already. He takes a drag from his cigarette, gesturing with it as he continues, ]
Please understand, I don't wish to start gossip -- and I do not go around collecting hearts to break. I left him, the one in my ribs. I thought him dead.
[ At start gossip, Bastien waves a hand, dismissing an outlandish possibility. ]
You were moving on, [ he prompts to check his understanding, with some genuine empathy possibly mixed in with the compassion, ] and thought you had a new way forward?
Yes. [ said with something strangely tremulous and fragile pulling at the corner of his lips. It's hidden swiftly, in the duck and turn of a head, but not elegantly. Not skilled at hiding, only accustomed to it. ]
It sounds quite silly now, but I needed to know if I could. If I could feel anything, really. [ A flourish of the hand, anxious to wave away any more serious consideration of that statement. ] But I could, and I did.
Only he wasn't dead, and now we are here. Three hearts in a knot.
[ He's quiet for a few seconds, head shifting in time with unspoken thoughts, before he settles on: ]
Perhaps.
[ Very helpful. Very based on no actual experience. ]
I have never lost anyone to death. Only to life. Incompatibilities, arguments, other people. Problems that would still be lying in wait for us on a second attempt. But if something outside of us severed a thing that was otherwise good— [ That's what they're talking about here, right. ] —then maybe I would.
[ He tilts his head and smiles a little, prompting. ]
[ The funny sort of stillness in his eyes for a beat, there and gone again, says Yes, definitely, that's what they're talking about. What else could it be.
But it melts away easily at the return to his poet, lost in an uncomplicated smile. ]
I do. It is different-- he is very different, but also it is a newer sort of intimacy. Different fears, different potential.
[ His eyebrows do a sort of twist, like he hadn't considered-- And anyway, ]
It is not a fair thing to compare. Love is not-- [ well. ] Sometimes it is happy, yes, but just as often it is excruciating, and one does not balk from it just for that.
Well—no. [ Conceding, fairly lightly. ] Maybe not just for that. Sometimes you have to work through pain to reach something at the end of it. But there should be an end to it, no?
There was an end because I ended it. [ is how we're describing that event. ] I do not mean to say I did not have happy moments with him, the one in my ribs — some of the happiest in my life, only some of the hardest as well.
But that is the way of it, yes? To love and be loved, one must open one's heart, and what could be easier to wound than that?
[ Prettily put. It makes his smile a little wistful—which is to say, he allows it to make his smile a little wistful—even if put in plainer words it wouldn’t sound nearly so appealing. ]
I am sure some bruising is inevitable.
[ Again: that’s what they're talking about here, right? ]
What do you suppose love should look like? [ A genuine question, not a prelude to an answer of his own. ] Not the feeling. The act. On its own, when it is disentangled from lust and fear. What do you think it should inspire someone to do?
[ Ilias's brows knit, focus bleeding into memory — stars glimpsed through skylights; sunlight through a veil of pine and the season's last flowers; words sparking to life beneath both. Love. ]
To challenge one another, [ he decides, finally. ] To know and accept and protect the other, yes, but more than that, to help each other grow.
[ You know that if you had to, you would break it. (To give it a stronger shape.)
A bare touch sharper, ] In the ways one chooses, I mean to say; not in the ways anyone else might want.
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Do they not find it exhausting? To be forever circling the point. To never simply say what is in one's heart.
no subject
The easy answer is no people is a monolith. The pointed answer is what’s troubling you. Instead of either: ]
There was a poet in the Blessed Age—Lord Crépin Volant. He published forty-six sonnets. Beautiful, intricate things. They outlined the shape of the woman he was in love with in such careful detail, without ever naming her, that everyone knew it must be the Vicomtesse Mesmin. It could be no one else.
[ The impending tragedy is obvious. He pauses for a drink to let it loom. ]
But it was. It was the Lady Bonaventure, who had been keeping other suitors at bay and waiting for him to say something to her. When she was told of his sonnets for Mesmin, she married one of her other prospects within the fortnight.
Somehow he convinced someone to publish his next work—it was just her name, over and over again for fifty pages. It is probably the rarest book I have ever owned. His family destroyed as many as they could and found pressing responsibilities for him in the country.
—so yes. Sometimes they find it exhausting.
no subject
[ An answer outlined, clearer than one spoken. It softens the line of his brow in the telling. There had been a reason so circuitous a nature had once drawn him, and Bastien's now serves a pleasant reminder. ]
One sketches the shape of one's heart only in verse, then, or song, or flowers pressed into letters or books. And there is some exquisite joy in being known by another from so scant an offering. But at the risk of an incomplete understanding. Of never being known at all.
[ Of tragedy. ]
Or one chooses a love that speaks what it is. Is that truer, do you think?
no subject
[ Said with a smiling sort of skepticism, as if Ilias had just used some charming Nevarran idiom. He’s joking, a little, but not so much that he doesn’t really want elaboration. ]
no subject
More real. Lady Bonaventure, for instance-- if her other suitor had been a man she'd known all her life. If he had long ago learned to crack open her ribcage and crawl inside -- and perhaps was not always kind there, nor she to him, but there was an honesty between them. A depth of intimacy, at least.
Might that not mean as much as Lord Volant's beautiful sonnets?
no subject
[ A satisfied ah, to accompany a question coming further into focus, but then he leans in a bit, teasingly confiding: ]
I think you have put poor Volant at a disadvantage, Monsieur, if he must compete with someone who is already so intimate a companion.
no subject
[ If he were the type to recline dramatically onto a fainting couch, this might be the moment; his eyebrows do their best instead. ]
You are not wrong, it is not a fair thing to compare -- but what is there for it? If only neither choice had any bearing on the other.
no subject
[ It isn't quite a question, and he doesn't wait for an answer. He finds cigarettes instead (rolled himself, but in advance) and plucks out one that's already half-gone and charred at one end before offering the tin toward Ilias. ]
Have you considered being less handsome? You might find you have fewer difficult choices.
no subject
[ Maybe he'll go back to that, but he accepts a cigarette gratefully, offering a light in turn. ]
You are a fair sight more charming that I, have you never had to make such a choice?
no subject
[ He will take that light, and he will keep any commentary about Nevarra hiding its heartbreakers underground unspoken, because Circles are a touchy topic with the mages and Nevarra is currently on metaphorical fire and it altogether seems like needlessly dangerous ground for a joke. ]
I was blessed with a stupid heart. It can only hold one thought at a time. Frequently a foolish thought, but merci au Créateur, just the one.
[ He finds a scrap of unnecessary paper to serve as an ashtray and puts it on the table. ]
So—you have someone living in your ribcage, and someone writing you sonnets.
no subject
[ An incomplete metaphor, perhaps, but this feels indiscreet enough already. He takes a drag from his cigarette, gesturing with it as he continues, ]
Please understand, I don't wish to start gossip -- and I do not go around collecting hearts to break. I left him, the one in my ribs. I thought him dead.
no subject
You were moving on, [ he prompts to check his understanding, with some genuine empathy possibly mixed in with the compassion, ] and thought you had a new way forward?
no subject
It sounds quite silly now, but I needed to know if I could. If I could feel anything, really. [ A flourish of the hand, anxious to wave away any more serious consideration of that statement. ] But I could, and I did.
Only he wasn't dead, and now we are here. Three hearts in a knot.
no subject
Had it been a very long time?
no subject
[ His mouth flattens, Ah well, and he spares a glance up to Bastien, grateful for the offered ear. ]
Would you never go back? To someone you had loved and left behind.
no subject
Perhaps.
[ Very helpful. Very based on no actual experience. ]
I have never lost anyone to death. Only to life. Incompatibilities, arguments, other people. Problems that would still be lying in wait for us on a second attempt. But if something outside of us severed a thing that was otherwise good— [ That's what they're talking about here, right. ] —then maybe I would.
[ He tilts his head and smiles a little, prompting. ]
But you love your poet, too.
no subject
But it melts away easily at the return to his poet, lost in an uncomplicated smile. ]
I do. It is different-- he is very different, but also it is a newer sort of intimacy. Different fears, different potential.
no subject
The smile is sweet, though. ]
And neither one makes you happier than the other?
no subject
It is not a fair thing to compare. Love is not-- [ well. ] Sometimes it is happy, yes, but just as often it is excruciating, and one does not balk from it just for that.
no subject
no subject
But that is the way of it, yes? To love and be loved, one must open one's heart, and what could be easier to wound than that?
no subject
I am sure some bruising is inevitable.
[ Again: that’s what they're talking about here, right? ]
What do you suppose love should look like? [ A genuine question, not a prelude to an answer of his own. ] Not the feeling. The act. On its own, when it is disentangled from lust and fear. What do you think it should inspire someone to do?
no subject
To challenge one another, [ he decides, finally. ] To know and accept and protect the other, yes, but more than that, to help each other grow.
[ You know that if you had to, you would break it. (To give it a stronger shape.)
A bare touch sharper, ] In the ways one chooses, I mean to say; not in the ways anyone else might want.