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[cozen]

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[hassaran]

"Does it matter?" She shrugs, after a pause just long enough to make clear that she sees this blatant deflection. "A pirate is a pirate, and love is bullshit." But she adds after a drink: "Not any of the Tevinters."

[cozen]

"Then it is not as bad as it could be."

Fuck Tevinter.

And perhaps left to his own devices he'll figure it out, eventually, with the clues that he has, but there are so many pirates, at the moment attempting to catalog them seems like a waste of time, and one that would require him to be quiet long enough for Yseult to know he was trying to work through the problem in his head. Seems rude.

"But if you tell me which one, I can tell you he is not handsome enough to be worth the trouble," he adds. "If I said so now you would know I was only saying so."

[hassaran]

Yseult hums in response, thoughtful, skeptical. He is handsome enough, unfortunately. But she comes to the same conclusion Bastien already has.

"His name is Darras. He goes by Darras Rivain, captain of the Fancy."

[cozen]

"Ah."

We've met, says that ah, quite clearly.

"I see. In that case, I have some bad news for you."

[hassaran]

"I know," she says, exaggerated, almost a sigh, as if she is well aware of the bad news and how very bad it is.

She lifts both hands, helpless, and then shakes her head. "Forget it. There's nothing to be done. Eventually he will either change or he'll leave."

She drinks, and then nudges the subject, if not entirely changing it. "You've met?"

[cozen]

"Briefly," Bastien says, "when the spirits—spirited. He loaned me a knife."

[hassaran]

"Mmm." Musing, not thrilled. "He was not exactly himself, then. Bad memories. He's usually more--" it takes her a professionally-unacceptable length of time to choose a word, "Charming."

[cozen]

"It was a bad day," he says, agreeably. No intention to hold anyone accountable for anything they did or said that day, here. "And he was very charitable. You know, with his knives."

[hassaran]

She laughs, a little, quick. "That's something." After a quiet minute, playing with her cup, leaning her jaw on her fist, she asks, "How did you decide to retire?"

[cozen]

He straightens up, already lit up with pleasure at the opportunity, and opens his mouth to tell her a story. One where he was waiting behind a door to catch and strangle a man, but he could hear him playing with his daughter and felt the weight of his decisions pressing down until he snapped, all at once, and left his mask and his knives behind on the floor when he ran; one that isn’t true, but might be satisfying.

And then he catches himself, about to ruin Honesty Hour like a tool, and closes his mouth, and deflates just a little while he takes a drink.

“I was tired,” he says. “I wasn’t going to climb any higher. I could afford it. My partner—Ines, you met her—we’d spent all day arguing about slant rhyme, and she was being insufferable.” Jenin was there, too, but that’s not just his bit of honesty to dispense. “It was horribly hot, and the masks make it worse.”

[hassaran]

"It took a full month for my skin to recover from those two weeks in a mask in summer," Yseult recalls darkly. "They ought to make the job easier but I would have quit years ago."

She's joking, kind of, but lets it fade into a more serious silence, considering his honest answer. "And now? If it weren't for the invasion, would you have come back to it? Or were you happy for an excuse?"