[ Maybe it's silly to admit that -- seeing as he was gone at her request, that it was her request that brought him back. But she had missed him from the moment she walked away from him in that grove. The lack of his presence haunted her as it never had before, and guilt twisted into the space he had left.
It was her fault he'd left, after all.
But here he is, standing before her, and pressing a kiss into her hand, and steadied by her touch and her words. It helps her to know that -- that he missed her, that he's kissing her. That he isn't upset with her, somehow. Which was a stupid worry anyway, but it's nice to have it debunked anyway. ]
Ah, yes. I'd be glad to have some help.
[ It's only when she turns to go back into the kitchen that she pulls away, slowly. It would be easier to not pull away. To stand there and hold each other and not talk. But if Beleth has learned anything in the time she's been granted, it's that things that are easy are rarely the wisest choice.
At the kitchen table, herbs are spread out, neatly organized by type, next to various containers, neatly labeled. Another mortar and pestle are fetched and set down next to hers. And then she sits, gesturing to the chair next to hers. ]
I've been told there are more efficient ways to grind herbs in Caldera, but this was how I was taught. So.
[ And Beleth, who breaks traditions at every turn, is still tied to them inextricably. ]
Efficiency for its own sake is overrated, [ says the immortal to the soon-to-be. The might-as-well-already-be, for all Solas would let anything, age or otherwise, happen to her. For all Felassan would, to the more limited scope of his power. ] What would we be saving time for?
[ So there will be no complaining from him about the work of it. He's done this before. But not with her, not to her particular preference for the smoothness of a paste or the fineness of a grain, so while he handles the pestle with confident familiarity, he'll be watching her for cues and showing her his progress now and then for direction rather than traipsing boldly ahead.
First, though, before he's begun grinding anything at all, he's only quiet for a moment. ]
I didn't understand where I was yet, and they were the only clan I knew well enough to fake, of late.
[ A minor misstep, in the scheme of it all. But Felassan so often tells straight-faced jokes for no one's amusement but his own, and he'd like her to know that isn't what he was doing, when he gave their name to a strange Dalish woman in a strange tavern. He wasn't being funny. He was just being a spy. ]
[ It's a foreign line of thinking to her -- one of many, she supposes, between her and her partners. It's foreign lines of thinking that lead to the two of them sitting here, with unspoken words woven between them like a blanket lain between the two. What's the point in saving time? When you have precious little of it, there's always a reason. So much innovation had come from trying to save time.
She'll have to ask, later, just what stirred innovation in Arlathan, if not saving time. ]
I suppose you're right. I like doing it this way, anyway.
[ And then, he starts the talk. And Beleth finds herself on the precarious balance that she had often felt with Solas. The desire to soothe and assure, to not inflict unpleasantness on the one that she loves. And knowing that she cannot. That some things can't be brushed off. ]
... It was never about obscuring your identity, when we first met. I understand why you did that. It was -- [ She pauses in her grinding, hands staring down at the powder, grip still tight. ] -- All the comments, all the jokes about the Dalish that you've made while you were here. I thought they were in... good faith.
To find out that you acted like that, while helping wipe out the clan that you had lived with -- did their deaths mean nothing to you? [ She turns to him then, purple eyes alight with a grave focus. ] Do you care that they died at all?
[ Felassan meets her gaze for the sake of not shying away for it, at first, out of much the same impulse that would make him stand steady instead of ducking away from an incoming slap. Not that she means to hurt him, of course. But he could flinch, anyway, at the look in her eyes — warmer and brighter than his or Solas's, and big enough to drift away into — if he were someone else.
Then he does look away, back at what he's doing. He's quiet for several seconds. It isn't stubbornness or reluctance. It's that he spends so much time looking outside of himself, toward other people's emotions and motives, or the mission, or the clouds and the trees, and only on special occasions contemplates the shadowed contents of his own heart. That's how being willing to die for Briala's dreams could sneak up on him, leaving him comfortably certain that he could kill her, too, until the moment he didn't.
So he genuinely needs a moment to decide: ]
Not the way you want me to.
[ She won't turn him away, he reminds himself. Or if she would, lying to her now to cover the cracks will only make it more likely, not less. ]
That's not because I found them frustrating. I did, but I had found the Dalish frustrating for seven hundred years, and I promise nearly all of them survived it. It was a pity, but there were bigger things to worry about. We were going to remake the world.
Now... I don't know. Maybe I could begin with them, but I couldn't stop with them.
[ Maybe that's cryptic. Or maybe the leader of an army will understand the impossibility of feeling the same sorrow for the tenth dead man as the first, or the hundredth as the tenth, or the thousandth as the hundredth, if one intends to ever feel anything but sorrow again. ]
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no subject
[ Maybe it's silly to admit that -- seeing as he was gone at her request, that it was her request that brought him back. But she had missed him from the moment she walked away from him in that grove. The lack of his presence haunted her as it never had before, and guilt twisted into the space he had left.
It was her fault he'd left, after all.
But here he is, standing before her, and pressing a kiss into her hand, and steadied by her touch and her words. It helps her to know that -- that he missed her, that he's kissing her. That he isn't upset with her, somehow. Which was a stupid worry anyway, but it's nice to have it debunked anyway. ]
Ah, yes. I'd be glad to have some help.
[ It's only when she turns to go back into the kitchen that she pulls away, slowly. It would be easier to not pull away. To stand there and hold each other and not talk. But if Beleth has learned anything in the time she's been granted, it's that things that are easy are rarely the wisest choice.
At the kitchen table, herbs are spread out, neatly organized by type, next to various containers, neatly labeled. Another mortar and pestle are fetched and set down next to hers. And then she sits, gesturing to the chair next to hers. ]
I've been told there are more efficient ways to grind herbs in Caldera, but this was how I was taught. So.
[ And Beleth, who breaks traditions at every turn, is still tied to them inextricably. ]
no subject
[ So there will be no complaining from him about the work of it. He's done this before. But not with her, not to her particular preference for the smoothness of a paste or the fineness of a grain, so while he handles the pestle with confident familiarity, he'll be watching her for cues and showing her his progress now and then for direction rather than traipsing boldly ahead.
First, though, before he's begun grinding anything at all, he's only quiet for a moment. ]
I didn't understand where I was yet, and they were the only clan I knew well enough to fake, of late.
[ A minor misstep, in the scheme of it all. But Felassan so often tells straight-faced jokes for no one's amusement but his own, and he'd like her to know that isn't what he was doing, when he gave their name to a strange Dalish woman in a strange tavern. He wasn't being funny. He was just being a spy. ]
I should have told you sooner.
no subject
She'll have to ask, later, just what stirred innovation in Arlathan, if not saving time. ]
I suppose you're right. I like doing it this way, anyway.
[ And then, he starts the talk. And Beleth finds herself on the precarious balance that she had often felt with Solas. The desire to soothe and assure, to not inflict unpleasantness on the one that she loves. And knowing that she cannot. That some things can't be brushed off. ]
... It was never about obscuring your identity, when we first met. I understand why you did that. It was -- [ She pauses in her grinding, hands staring down at the powder, grip still tight. ] -- All the comments, all the jokes about the Dalish that you've made while you were here. I thought they were in... good faith.
To find out that you acted like that, while helping wipe out the clan that you had lived with -- did their deaths mean nothing to you? [ She turns to him then, purple eyes alight with a grave focus. ] Do you care that they died at all?
no subject
Then he does look away, back at what he's doing. He's quiet for several seconds. It isn't stubbornness or reluctance. It's that he spends so much time looking outside of himself, toward other people's emotions and motives, or the mission, or the clouds and the trees, and only on special occasions contemplates the shadowed contents of his own heart. That's how being willing to die for Briala's dreams could sneak up on him, leaving him comfortably certain that he could kill her, too, until the moment he didn't.
So he genuinely needs a moment to decide: ]
Not the way you want me to.
[ She won't turn him away, he reminds himself. Or if she would, lying to her now to cover the cracks will only make it more likely, not less. ]
That's not because I found them frustrating. I did, but I had found the Dalish frustrating for seven hundred years, and I promise nearly all of them survived it. It was a pity, but there were bigger things to worry about. We were going to remake the world.
Now... I don't know. Maybe I could begin with them, but I couldn't stop with them.
[ Maybe that's cryptic. Or maybe the leader of an army will understand the impossibility of feeling the same sorrow for the tenth dead man as the first, or the hundredth as the tenth, or the thousandth as the hundredth, if one intends to ever feel anything but sorrow again. ]