INBOX

[illithidnapped]

VOICE | ACTION | TEXT

[current inbox]

Comments

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly sounds scandalized. ]

I never pay for my own drinks. You've seen my face, haven't you?

[illithidnapped]

You're free to scam, swindle and claim all you like with that lovely face of yours.

But if you want my company tonight, you'll still be paying for mine.

[He's not, after all, particularly in the mood for sport.]

[bouchonne]

[ And to think that he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart, to help this asshole. Never be a good person. ]

Very well. In that case, perhaps we might drink the wine I have in my office?

1/2

[illithidnapped]

[Let that be a lesson to you, Byerly. An important one, in fact.]

Fine. Better somewhere quiet than in a piss-soaked tavern.

2/2 | action

[illithidnapped]

[He arrives nearer to a full hour since they last spoke. Nothing in hand, nothing brought as a gift save for his own folded arms crossed tight over a loose, dark blouse— something that makes the rest of him stick out all the more obviously at night, worse than his former ruffles and gilded cuffs, now lost to the cursed bite of Tevinter magic.] Probably should've asked if it was good wine.

...or if it's poisoned, I suppose.

[bouchonne]

Maker's breath, what would be the joy in poisoning you?

[ Byerly's appearance is carefully calculated: he's his usual dapper self (beard and mustache trimmed, clothes carefully selected to set off his pretty eyes) but with certain elements relaxed to radiate an atmosphere of casual ease. His doublet is undone, and his cuffs unbuttoned. He's sitting back in his chair. His smile is wry. ]

If it's poisoned, I'll be just as surprised as you are. Red or white?

[illithidnapped]

[He could joke about the benefit of his own absence, but truth be told, he’s not in the mood. Instead, his expression sunken and sallow as a starved dog, he only makes his way to the nearest chair and sinks into it. One ankle folded across the other leg.]

Red, obviously.

[Obviously, he says, without bothering to go into why. Chasing it instead with something else that fits just as much.]

I didn’t come here to suffer, after all.

[bouchonne]

Don't be shy with your opinions, now.

[ He crosses to his liquor cabinet and grabs a bottle and uncorks it. Takes a swig - see, no poison - then brings it over with two glasses. ]

A Nevarran red. Full body, moderate tannins.

[illithidnapped]

I never am.

But that’s hardly a surprise.

[He waves a pale hand, clearly agreeing to the suggested offering, red eyes watching Byerly from the stretching shadows of the evening in that study.

Muted, is the word for it now. His mood.]

You didn’t say. Why you wanted to see me.

And please don’t go toying with my heart: I know yours is already taken— and not by your wife.

[Smitten with Adrasteia as she is. Unsubtle as Bastien had been across the network.

The pieces were right there.]

[bouchonne]

[ Ah. By's eyebrows lift very slightly. ]

I'm flattered by your attention.

[ Then, steadying his gaze: ]

Not to toy with your heart. No. I wanted to speak with you - to hear your fears, if you will speak on them, so that I might know them.

[illithidnapped]

My fears. [Astarion repeats, bitterness coating his tongue like bile.

He’s tamer now, yes. But even a snake nurses along its venom, even nestled sweetly across its own coils.]

What about yours.

[bouchonne]

You want to hear my fears?

[ A lone eyebrow now. ]

Truly? Or do you just want me to be uncomfortable?

[illithidnapped]

Maybe I expect a little pain in exchange for my own.

As a rule, I don't enjoy bleeding alone.

[And fear. Fear is a powerful thing.]

[bouchonne]

[ Fine. By lifts his glass, and coats his tongue with his wine, and offers: ]

I fear that I won't be able to keep your ilk safe. Nor any member of Riftwatch, to be fair, but the safety of Riftwatch at large falls more under the purview of Forces. Diplomacy is the one that will, in the end, safeguard the Rifters and the mages, and it is my fear that I will not be equal to the task of protecting you all.

[ His smile is dry and ironic. ]

Not exactly the most confidence-inspiring confession, eh? You likely want me to be massively self-assured.

[illithidnapped]

Surprising as it might be to hear, I'd be more concerned if you were self-assured. [He takes up his glass, only beginning the tentative process of nursing it along.] Confidence, pretty as it is, has a habit of leading its practitioners right off the nearest cliff.

But you might be equally surprised to know I don't expect you to keep me safe. I don't expect anyone else here to, for that matter.

So you can put that nagging little worry to bed, at least in part.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly gives a little shrug, like he's reluctantly agreeing to Astarion's assertions about self-assurance. Like his own "confession" wasn't calculated, as best he can calculate, to make the fellow calm down a little further. ]

You don't expect it. That doesn't mean you wouldn't like it, though, right?

[illithidnapped]

As much as I’d like your Maker to come waltzing down from on high and bestow me with sovereignty and wealth, yes. Absolutely.

[Bitterness isn't bite, in this instance; his hackles are raised even as he drinks (and appreciates, for that matter, a sufficiently smooth vintage), only it isn't Byerly he's snapping at. The man's simply party to it, rather than its intended target.]

But I make it a rule not to dabble in fantasy. Never does anyone any good.

Which, as you no doubt already grasp, is why I’m not keen on all this hypothetical-yet-not-so-hypothetical nonsense about Circles and mages and Rifters: I doubt I need to confess my own aversion to the possibility.

[He taps the edge of a fingertip against his glass, lip curling.] You've heard so much of it already.

[bouchonne]

I'm not fond of it, either. My concerns have generally focused on what's immediately before me. How to survive.

[ His smile is wry, his shrug light. ]

So perhaps my sight is short, and I should be worrying more about the future. But the fact is that we have dragons to fight at the mountain's peak before we worry about the bears in the valley below. And we don't even know if the dragons are going to eat the bears before we get to fighting.

[illithidnapped]

[Astarion's quiet for a moment, glass to his lips, one fang gnawing faintly at its edge.

He's thinking.]

...how old are you, darling?

[bouchonne]

[ That's - unexpected. ]

Thirty-seven.

[ He says that with a weariness that makes it clear that he expects this to be perceived as almost embarrassingly old. ]

[illithidnapped]

[Nonsense, that tone. How long do humans live anyway? One hundred and fifty years? Two hundred?]

So let's say I've kept you shut away in the darkest, deepest pit of a lightless catacomb for all those years. Just for fun.

Then imagine you've been freed for the first time. Just a taste of it, mind you, before some self-serving ass decides to waltz in and claim someone else wants to throw you in a different damned box.

Now multiply those years of yours by four and then some, and you'll know exactly what it is I fear.

[And why the bears and dragons could eat themselves alive, and he'd still have no peace. No trust.]

It doesn't matter if the option could vanish by then. That it exists at all is what'll keep me from sleep if I don't think of a way to avoid it entirely.

[bouchonne]

Were those your circumstances, then?

[ Byerly's voice is quiet as he plays with his wineglass. ]

Kept prisoner?

[illithidnapped]

...a slave. [There is a difference, after all.]

And my master was exceptionally cruel.

Corypheus would weep.

[His teeth click as his jaw sets. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth.

He smiles, and there’s nothing happy about it.]

Though in so many ways, I imagine they might be the best of friends were fate so overwhelmingly stupid as to bring them together.

[bouchonne]

[ Rifters are just dreams, of course. But that means that somewhere - somewhere, it's likely that there's some clever elf with a mordant wit in those circumstances, dreaming of freedom. And that yanks painfully at Byerly's heart. ]

One could go mad, thinking about how fucking miserable life is, to ensure that there are such evil men in every world.

[ His smile is bitter as well. ]

[illithidnapped]

[Mad indeed. Given how far his own sanity has probably slipped over the years, Astarion's inclined to agree.]

The gods play games while we live and die like trapped rats. Your Maker— if he isn’t long dead already, bones littering a blackened city— isn’t any different.

Better to rely on yourself than fate. Or life. Or anything else at all.