[ And now the other thing, which has more or less curdled bitterly since her anger (this anger, anyway, she has more where it came from) has left her. And so, a halting attempt to explain; ]
I share a battle with de Chevin, you know. After the fires burned out in the stone walls of Halamshiral, and we had lost to a fight that became butchery, it was his voice that lifted: hail, Empress Celene. All of us remember that day, all who survived. I couldn't--
[ There is a reasonable explanation for this. It involves an unforgiving sun, and too few horses, and nearly a year without a solid night's rest, and the limits of even a large muscly Warden's endurance, and not being terribly subtle, honestly.
He hoists himself into the cart while it's still moving--slowly, so that's nothing impressive, and if it were he'd ruin it with the graceless collapse onto the floor of it, slumped back against crates with with his legs hanging out the back and his head level with Sabine's shoulder. ]
In Ferelden, [ he says, ] we have these things called clouds. Like that-- [ he points upward at a lonely wisp of white ] --but bigger. Shadier.
[ Sabine could almost nap like this, but attempts to try are interrupted when a wheel hits a stone or a dip in the dusty terrain, jostling her awake. By the time Alistair joins her, she's resigned for wakefulness, bored of the monotonous desert view and instead fidgeting with a length of skinny leather and unpainted wooden beads. They clack together as she threads them.
Her hands pause as he settles, and she obliges him to squint up at the sky. She makes a sound, thoughtful, enlightened. ]
In Orlais, [ she says, leaning in as if in conspiracy and pointing upwards in a different direction, at the brightest point of the sky ] we have the sun. You see it every day, instead of as a rumour. It is for warming, you know.
[ Alistair cants his head to give her his ear, when she talks, without looking at her. He is busy looking where she points: not directly into the sun, because he's not as stupid as he looks, but near enough that his flinch to shut his eyes is not entirely fake. ]
It's trying to kill me.
[ For the record, he has lived in Orlais off and on for ten years. A very slow murder.
He doesn't open his eyes again. It's quiet. The wheels are creaking and crunching over rocks, the horses snort, people nearby are talking, the wind is audible, but--it's quiet. ]
And I can't see how you haven't turned into a freckle.
[ She stretches her arms in front of her to inspect. There's a little colour that isn't just a sort of lobstery pink settled in her skin, but not much, as if any pigmentation were to be collected in little freckle deposits for a later time. ]
I will have new ones, [ she says, like she's resigned to it. ] Et toi.
[ She folds herself back up again, back to her fidgetty task of beads on a bracelet, picking out a simple enough pattern. They don't sell for the effort they take, but it's a good means of getting rid of pieces she doesn't have more inspired purposes for.
There's a suspicious glance sideways. Aware of his presence in a sense that transcends just a sort of semi-amusing shem shape nearby her. (Not the case in battles; they have fought within the same vicinity twice, now, and he had been, then, a point of reliability, movement with a sword, demon gore, a blindspot covered. But every other time.) She can smell him, for one thing, because everyone sort of stinks a little out here. Sweat collecting in clothes, and desert dust trapping itself in linen.
But it's not. Bad. Vaguely intimate in a way she doesn't associate with shems. Maybe a little bit Martel on the occasions he has bodily lifted her out of harms way, but he doesn't count -- and then there are Orlesian nobles, who mask their faces and also their bodies in acrid perfumes and smokes.
This close, she studies him. The gingery grain growing along his jaw. The easy relaxation that is settling in his face. She should probably draw something on it. ]
Yyyywell. The bag doesn't stretch. Some of the things inside the bag stretch. I took everything that looked like it might fit you, based on, ah, brief glimpses and wild speculation. [ And touching. ] Not too much speculation. Normal amounts of speculation for the circumstances, I'd say.
There are some that have can't touch this written on the— on them [ ??? okay rift ] so you know I'm being selfless.
I'm going to assume no news is good news and you've made it safely to Orlais, where you're remaining safe, because if I assume otherwise I might come after you and embarrass us both in front of all your friends. This letter is probably embarrassing enough. I wanted to wait a while longer and make sure I had something important to say, so I could look stoic and tough, but we're about to leave to Kirkwall and I don't know how reliable letters will be until we're settled, and also I am not stoic or tough, and furthermore I miss you.
I've been talking to Gwenaëlle. I hope you don't mind that I like her. I'll still bump her off a step for you if you'd like. But she told me what you did to her hair, and I like that even more. If I didn't already miss you then that story would have made me start—not that I'm wasting away here or anything. Too strapping to waste, first of all. I think about you a lot, but I like the thought of you, so it's all right.
Before you feel too objectified, here are things I've thought about: your chances of successfully kicking the ass of any particular person who's bothering me, which are usually high. Whether you and your Marquise are going to give any of the nobles nightmares. (I hope so.) Whether an arrowhead is worth saving for you. That you would like this song.* That the sunset is the same color as your hair and if I know what's good for me I'll never ever tell you that I thought so. How if you were here you could roll your eyes at me over whatever I'm being stupid about at the moment, though that thought is enough to make me stop being stupid, so who even needs you, really?
And some other things. You should probably feel a little objectified.
Alistair
[ * Crammed on the bottom of the sheet are lyrics to a Thedosian archer version of "Billy Taylor". ]
You can rest assured I am spending all my time in a little room with one window and a door with seven locks, all of which I check twice, on the hour. I do not even leave to go to the bathroom. I have a pot which I empty out of the window I mentioned. This is a falsehood but I have not seen a demon since I left the Inquisition so perhaps it amounts to the same.
I am sorry that you are talking to Gwenaëlle and also that you like her. Both of these things can lead to headaches, but you do not have to bump her off a stair. Especially if she inspires you to think of me. Whatever she said, I was not so bad as she says.
But I have not thought of you really! My bed is so cool without you there burning like a furnace, or rolling over onto my hair in the night. Now in the quiet moments (which are lengthy because I am always safely in this room) there aren't any crystals to dispense to me silly jokes. In times of danger (which are none because I am always safely in this room) I do not have to think about the loud-footed shem swinging around a big clumsy sword and slaying down Red Templars and Freemen and demons manfully before I can murder them all by myself. So that is good, for me.
Do not die in your line of duty before my travels take me to Kirkwall. You will miss out on the better places to buy a drink.
S.
[ and on the other side of the page; ]
But I did think of you another night. I took off my clothing and felt myself where you would feel me. I spilled hot wax on my thighs and thought of your mouth. There may be no room like I described it to be, but there is one I can think myself into, where you wait for me. Do you feel objectified?
I appreciate you trying to comfort me or to keep me from showing up and embarrassing you, whichever it is, but the thought of you locked up in a little room with one window is worse than the thought of you in constant mortal peril. Let's pretend instead you fought a dragon, but it only breathed water, and you've never been so clean in your life. The dead rose from Lake Celestine after their arms and legs had already rotted off, so they could only roll toward you on the ground. You've hired an assistant mage who not only can light your arrows on fire but can turn others' weapons into large loaves of bread, which taste a little irony but otherwise delicious, especially once your fiery arrows have toasted them.
Kirkwall is a lot like that. The statues came to life but were very pleased to see us. They kept trying to shake our hands. Charming things. Unfortunately their hands were so large they kept nearly grabbing our entire bodies instead, so we had to kill them, but not before I named one after Gaspard de Chalons. Maker rest them both.
Here I do have a room, by the way, except I'm allowed to leave it and there are two windows. There's a lot of space. I'm not sure what to do with it, since everything I'd really like to have in it is off in Orlais somewhere fighting water dragons and bread.
But it means there's some privacy, and that's nice. I've used it to read your letter twenty times and make as many attempts at writing something that might make you turn so red in front of everyone you know. Sadly, I've given up. I can't do it. You can take the man out of the Chantry, as they say, but you can never take the repression out of the man. My last try started with thighs and two sentences later was on to birds. (Feathers, you know. Birds have them.) I don't think you would turn red anyway. Shameless.
I won't die. I'll be here when you can be here. If that's never, I'll see you in Orlais. I'll tell you about the birds then.
Alistair
letter; sent shortly afterwards and ultimately delivered by the same runner.
I liked you the day I met you, you know. You curtsied like you'd put your foot in a hole and were trying not to fall. But I knew I loved you in Halamshiral, when you were standing on that table with that axe. It wasn't because I was struck with worry for you or anything like that. I was proud to be there with you. So you see I don't really want you safe all the time. I want you in the fire doing what you're meant to do, and I'd like to be what you come back to when you're done. Or if you happen to need a loud-footed shem swinging a big clumsy sword. Joking aside, I thought I should make sure you knew that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Voice - Night before he leaves for Antiva
I am away to Antiva in the morning but I felt it best to let you know I've ceased my association with Michel de Chevin.
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How long in Antiva?
[ --that other thing can keep, she's just checking. ]
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[ And now the other thing, which has more or less curdled bitterly since her anger (this anger, anyway, she has more where it came from) has left her. And so, a halting attempt to explain; ]
I share a battle with de Chevin, you know. After the fires burned out in the stone walls of Halamshiral, and we had lost to a fight that became butchery, it was his voice that lifted: hail, Empress Celene. All of us remember that day, all who survived. I couldn't--
[ She stops. ]
It is good, to not be associated.
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action.
He hoists himself into the cart while it's still moving--slowly, so that's nothing impressive, and if it were he'd ruin it with the graceless collapse onto the floor of it, slumped back against crates with with his legs hanging out the back and his head level with Sabine's shoulder. ]
In Ferelden, [ he says, ] we have these things called clouds. Like that-- [ he points upward at a lonely wisp of white ] --but bigger. Shadier.
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Her hands pause as he settles, and she obliges him to squint up at the sky. She makes a sound, thoughtful, enlightened. ]
In Orlais, [ she says, leaning in as if in conspiracy and pointing upwards in a different direction, at the brightest point of the sky ] we have the sun. You see it every day, instead of as a rumour. It is for warming, you know.
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It's trying to kill me.
[ For the record, he has lived in Orlais off and on for ten years. A very slow murder.
He doesn't open his eyes again. It's quiet. The wheels are creaking and crunching over rocks, the horses snort, people nearby are talking, the wind is audible, but--it's quiet. ]
And I can't see how you haven't turned into a freckle.
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I will have new ones, [ she says, like she's resigned to it. ] Et toi.
[ She folds herself back up again, back to her fidgetty task of beads on a bracelet, picking out a simple enough pattern. They don't sell for the effort they take, but it's a good means of getting rid of pieces she doesn't have more inspired purposes for.
There's a suspicious glance sideways. Aware of his presence in a sense that transcends just a sort of semi-amusing shem shape nearby her. (Not the case in battles; they have fought within the same vicinity twice, now, and he had been, then, a point of reliability, movement with a sword, demon gore, a blindspot covered. But every other time.) She can smell him, for one thing, because everyone sort of stinks a little out here. Sweat collecting in clothes, and desert dust trapping itself in linen.
But it's not. Bad. Vaguely intimate in a way she doesn't associate with shems. Maybe a little bit Martel on the occasions he has bodily lifted her out of harms way, but he doesn't count -- and then there are Orlesian nobles, who mask their faces and also their bodies in acrid perfumes and smokes.
This close, she studies him. The gingery grain growing along his jaw. The easy relaxation that is settling in his face. She should probably draw something on it. ]
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sending stone
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[ More dry than sharp. Curious. ]
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An alienage? Why?
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crystal.
[ Context is for suckers. ]
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Someone's asked me to punch her to see if it inspires her to make a shield out of hers.
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[ She squints at her sending crystal. ]
I have seen it used once that way. By accident.
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crystal, sometime when continuity doesn't matter.
Because one egg is un oeuf.
crystal!!!
Sabine. I have something for you.
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There are some that have can't touch this written on the— on them [ ??? okay rift ] so you know I'm being selfless.
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1/2.
2/2.
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letter.
I'm going to assume no news is good news and you've made it safely to Orlais, where you're remaining safe, because if I assume otherwise I might come after you and embarrass us both in front of all your friends. This letter is probably embarrassing enough. I wanted to wait a while longer and make sure I had something important to say, so I could look stoic and tough, but we're about to leave to Kirkwall and I don't know how reliable letters will be until we're settled, and also I am not stoic or tough, and furthermore I miss you.
I've been talking to Gwenaëlle. I hope you don't mind that I like her. I'll still bump her off a step for you if you'd like. But she told me what you did to her hair, and I like that even more. If I didn't already miss you then that story would have made me start—not that I'm wasting away here or anything. Too strapping to waste, first of all. I think about you a lot, but I like the thought of you, so it's all right.
Before you feel too objectified, here are things I've thought about: your chances of successfully kicking the ass of any particular person who's bothering me, which are usually high. Whether you and your Marquise are going to give any of the nobles nightmares. (I hope so.) Whether an arrowhead is worth saving for you. That you would like this song.* That the sunset is the same color as your hair and if I know what's good for me I'll never ever tell you that I thought so. How if you were here you could roll your eyes at me over whatever I'm being stupid about at the moment, though that thought is enough to make me stop being stupid, so who even needs you, really?
And some other things. You should probably feel a little objectified.
Alistair
[ * Crammed on the bottom of the sheet are lyrics to a Thedosian archer version of "Billy Taylor". ]
letter.
You can rest assured I am spending all my time in a little room with one window and a door with seven locks, all of which I check twice, on the hour. I do not even leave to go to the bathroom. I have a pot which I empty out of the window I mentioned. This is a falsehood but I have not seen a demon since I left the Inquisition so perhaps it amounts to the same.
I am sorry that you are talking to Gwenaëlle and also that you like her. Both of these things can lead to headaches, but you do not have to bump her off a stair. Especially if she inspires you to think of me. Whatever she said, I was not so bad as she says.
But I have not thought of you really! My bed is so cool without you there burning like a furnace, or rolling over onto my hair in the night. Now in the quiet moments (which are lengthy because I am always safely in this room) there aren't any crystals to dispense to me silly jokes. In times of danger (which are none because I am always safely in this room) I do not have to think about the loud-footed shem swinging around a big clumsy sword and slaying down Red Templars and Freemen and demons manfully before I can murder them all by myself. So that is good, for me.
Do not die in your line of duty before my travels take me to Kirkwall. You will miss out on the better places to buy a drink.
S.
[ and on the other side of the page; ]
But I did think of you another night. I took off my clothing and felt myself where you would feel me. I spilled hot wax on my thighs and thought of your mouth. There may be no room like I described it to be, but there is one I can think myself into, where you wait for me.
Do you feel objectified?
letter; dashed off quickly.
Alistair
letter; less quickly.
I appreciate you trying to comfort me or to keep me from showing up and embarrassing you, whichever it is, but the thought of you locked up in a little room with one window is worse than the thought of you in constant mortal peril. Let's pretend instead you fought a dragon, but it only breathed water, and you've never been so clean in your life. The dead rose from Lake Celestine after their arms and legs had already rotted off, so they could only roll toward you on the ground. You've hired an assistant mage who not only can light your arrows on fire but can turn others' weapons into large loaves of bread, which taste a little irony but otherwise delicious, especially once your fiery arrows have toasted them.
Kirkwall is a lot like that. The statues came to life but were very pleased to see us. They kept trying to shake our hands. Charming things. Unfortunately their hands were so large they kept nearly grabbing our entire bodies instead, so we had to kill them, but not before I named one after Gaspard de Chalons. Maker rest them both.
Here I do have a room, by the way, except I'm allowed to leave it and there are two windows. There's a lot of space. I'm not sure what to do with it, since everything I'd really like to have in it is off in Orlais somewhere fighting water dragons and bread.
But it means there's some privacy, and that's nice. I've used it to read your letter twenty times and make as many attempts at writing something that might make you turn so red in front of everyone you know. Sadly, I've given up. I can't do it. You can take the man out of the Chantry, as they say, but you can never take the repression out of the man. My last try started with thighs and two sentences later was on to birds. (Feathers, you know. Birds have them.) I don't think you would turn red anyway. Shameless.
I won't die. I'll be here when you can be here. If that's never, I'll see you in Orlais. I'll tell you about the birds then.
Alistair
letter; sent shortly afterwards and ultimately delivered by the same runner.
I liked you the day I met you, you know. You curtsied like you'd put your foot in a hole and were trying not to fall. But I knew I loved you in Halamshiral, when you were standing on that table with that axe. It wasn't because I was struck with worry for you or anything like that. I was proud to be there with you. So you see I don't really want you safe all the time. I want you in the fire doing what you're meant to do, and I'd like to be what you come back to when you're done. Or if you happen to need a loud-footed shem swinging a big clumsy sword. Joking aside, I thought I should make sure you knew that.
Alistair