Alright, Fell, [ we're not getting anywhere with the glitches, so he's just gonna have to deal with being slow for a bit, ] why are you ▒▒king about m▒▒▒eard?
Hello, Felassan, I hope you're having.... as good of a day as one can, here. I was wondering, based off something somebody said to me, if you recently asked another elf how old they were? And then they proceeded to bite your ear off about it?
Figuratively.
[ Or maybe literally! Who knows with these people. ]
I know some nobles can get nervy if you acknowledge their aging -- I thought that odd in itself, hahrens are always so respected... [ Any Dalish living to elder years are to be admired. ] But he seemed too young to be worrying about if he's getting gray hairs or a fine line or two.
Odd, if it was just acknowledging age as a thing that exists that set him off for you. I wonder why.
Why that bothered him so much, I can't say. It would have been simpler to lie. Maybe things are different where he is from, though. Maybe before or after they are a certain age it is encouraged to hunt people for sport.
That's... a morbid idea, but I suppose it's foolish to discount anything that could take place in another world, at this point. It's clearly something to him, at least. Maybe I should have been more... gentle to him? But I fear I... rather told him off, in turn. He'd been quite rude about it, and insulted both of us.
[ Felassan may be a strange Dalish, with strange connections to Solas, mysterious and hard to read at times... but he's kin, and besides that, she likes him. ]
Most people who were in the position to know as much would say that Beleth had a decent amount of restraint and willpower. But most of them would have to admit that even a person, pushed far enough, can let that slip. There is only so much of being blatantly, constantly miserable, that a person can take, before they accept the offer of drinks from someone who can afford something halfway decent. Before they put up with wandering hands, for the sake of managing to feel just a little better, for just a little bit. As long as they kept nodding to the bartender.
She may be foolish enough to allow herself into this position, but she is not foolish enough to stay in it for longer than necessary. When an open palm on her thigh turns to pinching, when the man's eyes start to look a little too pleased with himself -- Beleth recognizes the look of a hunter who has their prey in their sights -- and when Beleth starts to feel her senses turn for the worse, she acts. One CORD call, a request to run to the bathroom and 'clean up', and then she's gone in the wind.
Or to be more precise, gone with the assistance of one (1) Felassan. He's got a sturdy grip on her, which is good, because her own grip is not. She's not blackout drunk, far from it, but she's a step beyond pleasantly buzzed, and Felassan's broad back makes a good pillow.
"Have you ever made a stupid mistake that you knew was stupid while you were making it?" She asks, eyes closed. The city is too bright, too vibrant and moving. Her stupid room may be nothing more than a glamorous coffin, but at least she can dim the lights. "Creators -- Maker -- fuck it. Ugh."
With sage gravitas befitting a man of his age, Felassan agrees, “Fuck it.”
The Night Spire is alive at this hour — but alive like one of Ghilan’nain’s writhing chimeras is alive. There is no way around the river of inebriated and joy-drugged bodies in the corridors. Only through them, shouldering determinedly past the bold hands of people who recognize them, or at least their ears, and want to touch another world.
Outside, a storm is raging, so they’re headed down to the underground. Felassan took it to come fetch her, so he knows it’s quieter than this. Only a matter of reaching it.
In the meantime: “I do think at that point you have to call it a stupid choice,” he says — good-natured philosophizing, not a lecture — and turns his head to catch a narrow glimpse of hers. Her hair, at least. “But I have made those, yes. Maybe the upside of not being a mage is that yours are less likely to end with you on fire.”
"Less likely," Beleth agrees, "But not impossible. You'd be surprised by the amount of bad decisions one person can fit into a few decades." She feels better, with the solidness of Felassan to ground her, but her mood is not calm enough to allow more than the most general of brushing against. The first time someone reaches to touch Felassan, his hands occupied with her, she strikes, the meat of her palm connects to the person's elbow, and the hand is withdrawn, amid the laughter of the observers.
It is the type of strike generally taught to someone who expects to be fighting people stronger and taller than her. Which is... most people, for Beleth. No need to try punching and just bruise your knuckles on a Venatori.
"I'm so sick of this place." She informs Felassan, in the firm tones of someone revealing something a little more interesting than disliking her prison sentence in Torture City. "Maybe that's why the weather is so awful. It knows this place should be a smoldering wreck." The side of her head rests against Felassan's back, as she turns to observe the storm raging through the windows. "The natural order trying to fix things."
Felassan does not turn his head to smile at her for that deft strike. The path ahead through the crowd needs too much of his attention. But his eyes do crinkle, out of view, even as they press through a tight knot of people pressed too close to avoid everyone being brushed against. The most anyone can hope for is to not be groped.
"If you believe in such a thing," he says.
Natural order. A way a world ought to be, a resting point it will fight to return to, the unsustainable fragility of anything that defies it.
On the rare occasion Felassan needed to tell any of the mortal agents he collected here and there what they were really working toward, over the last couple thousand of years, that was part of the recruiting pitch. The world is not meant to be this way. Don't you feel it?
With their scrap of understanding of what had been lost, the Dalish were often more receptive than most.
He finds a break in the crowd, a side corridor empty save for a scattering of couples or throuples quite distracted by fucking against the wall. He has no sense of direction in these places, not really, but he remembers the way he came.
Beleth tries to make herself smaller as they are folded into the crowd, two parsnips tossed into a broiling stew, with nearly as much say over where they go. Not everyone can get a smack to the elbow, but most people seem to be too busy with their own foray into the city to pay attention to them.
It's only once they're out of the full press of the crowd that Beleth feels somewhat relaxed -- she'd really prefer not to have to hear the grunts and noises of flesh slapping together, but at this point, it's cicadas in the summer. You simply learn to ignore it, or it will drive you insane.
She misses cicadas.
"People need to believe in something." Without any peeks to the outside, she closes her eyes and lets them rest from the constant overstimulation. "They have to. Something to live for, something to die for. It doesn't have to be gods. It just has to mean something." She sighs, shaking her head against his back. Does she have that?
"I'd like to believe that things work out the way they're supposed to. That there's a greater plan, like... like a recipe, and all the pains and the heartache is just me being prepared for the recipe. Like a carrot getting chopped up so it can be sauteed. Maybe that would make the chopping hurt less." This, of course, doesn't answer Felassan's question, at least definitively, but Beleth offers no further explanations.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ROUTING: COMPLETE
initiating...initiating...initiating...
SET: smooches_OK INITIATE: CORD_override [TRUE]
ACTION1: align proximity([KATE BISHOP], [FELASSAN])
ACTION2: initiate contact.protocol("lips")
ACTION3: maintain_state("kiss_sync")
ACTION3_q: duration=3 minutes
ACTION4: CORD_override [FALSE] when canoodle parity achieved
STATUS: pending(execution of smooches)
voice.
[ Despite knowing her for like five minutes: he thought she was better than smooches. ]
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What?
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Not to him though. Reading off the obnoxious flashing message he literally can't look away from, he recites, ]
Stat▒▒ ▒▒ending execution of ▒▒ooches.
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Ah. Sorry, if I heard you right that's not really from me it's a virus that's going around the network.
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[ He's at least partially following. ]
Will it stop?
𝙸𝙽𝙸𝚃𝙸𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙲𝚈𝙱𝙴𝚁𝙼𝙾𝙽𝙾...
ROUTING: COMPLETE
initiating...initiating...initiating...
SET: smooches_OK INITIATE: CORD_override [TRUE]
ACTION1: align proximity([verso dessendre], [felassan])
ACTION2: initiate contact.protocol("lips")
ACTION3: maintain_state("kiss_sync")
ACTION3_q: duration=9 minutes
ACTION4: CORD_override [FALSE] when canoodle parity achieved
STATUS: pending(execution of smooches)
voice.
[ Obviously. Or it should be obvious. The virus makes it possible he's wrong. ]
You have a bea▒▒, don't you?
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▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒.
[ Critical failure.
He's just gonna have to deal with being slow. ]
I have ne▒▒r kissed anyone wi▒▒ ▒ beard.
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audio » text;
» action
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third time’s the charm
ROUTING: [BENEDICT ARTEMAEUS] → [FELASSAN] [DELIVERED]
ROUTING: COMPLETE
initiating...initiating...initiating...
SET: smooches_OK INITIATE: CORD_override [TRUE]
ACTION1: align proximity([benedict artemaeus], [felassan])
ACTION2: initiate contact.protocol("lips")
ACTION3: maintain_state("kiss_sync")
ACTION3_q: duration= 8 minutes
ACTION4: CORD_override [FALSE] when canoodle parity achieved
STATUS: pending(execution of smooches)
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[audio]
Figuratively.
[ Or maybe literally! Who knows with these people. ]
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Odd, if it was just acknowledging age as a thing that exists that set him off for you. I wonder why.
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Why that bothered him so much, I can't say. It would have been simpler to lie. Maybe things are different where he is from, though. Maybe before or after they are a certain age it is encouraged to hunt people for sport.
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[ Felassan may be a strange Dalish, with strange connections to Solas, mysterious and hard to read at times... but he's kin, and besides that, she likes him. ]
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[ He's insulted, preemptively. Can you hear how insulted he is. ]
How badly?
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[action!]
She may be foolish enough to allow herself into this position, but she is not foolish enough to stay in it for longer than necessary. When an open palm on her thigh turns to pinching, when the man's eyes start to look a little too pleased with himself -- Beleth recognizes the look of a hunter who has their prey in their sights -- and when Beleth starts to feel her senses turn for the worse, she acts. One CORD call, a request to run to the bathroom and 'clean up', and then she's gone in the wind.
Or to be more precise, gone with the assistance of one (1) Felassan. He's got a sturdy grip on her, which is good, because her own grip is not. She's not blackout drunk, far from it, but she's a step beyond pleasantly buzzed, and Felassan's broad back makes a good pillow.
"Have you ever made a stupid mistake that you knew was stupid while you were making it?" She asks, eyes closed. The city is too bright, too vibrant and moving. Her stupid room may be nothing more than a glamorous coffin, but at least she can dim the lights. "Creators -- Maker -- fuck it. Ugh."
no subject
The Night Spire is alive at this hour — but alive like one of Ghilan’nain’s writhing chimeras is alive. There is no way around the river of inebriated and joy-drugged bodies in the corridors. Only through them, shouldering determinedly past the bold hands of people who recognize them, or at least their ears, and want to touch another world.
Outside, a storm is raging, so they’re headed down to the underground. Felassan took it to come fetch her, so he knows it’s quieter than this. Only a matter of reaching it.
In the meantime: “I do think at that point you have to call it a stupid choice,” he says — good-natured philosophizing, not a lecture — and turns his head to catch a narrow glimpse of hers. Her hair, at least. “But I have made those, yes. Maybe the upside of not being a mage is that yours are less likely to end with you on fire.”
no subject
It is the type of strike generally taught to someone who expects to be fighting people stronger and taller than her. Which is... most people, for Beleth. No need to try punching and just bruise your knuckles on a Venatori.
"I'm so sick of this place." She informs Felassan, in the firm tones of someone revealing something a little more interesting than disliking her prison sentence in Torture City. "Maybe that's why the weather is so awful. It knows this place should be a smoldering wreck." The side of her head rests against Felassan's back, as she turns to observe the storm raging through the windows. "The natural order trying to fix things."
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"If you believe in such a thing," he says.
Natural order. A way a world ought to be, a resting point it will fight to return to, the unsustainable fragility of anything that defies it.
On the rare occasion Felassan needed to tell any of the mortal agents he collected here and there what they were really working toward, over the last couple thousand of years, that was part of the recruiting pitch. The world is not meant to be this way. Don't you feel it?
With their scrap of understanding of what had been lost, the Dalish were often more receptive than most.
He finds a break in the crowd, a side corridor empty save for a scattering of couples or throuples quite distracted by fucking against the wall. He has no sense of direction in these places, not really, but he remembers the way he came.
"Do you?"
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It's only once they're out of the full press of the crowd that Beleth feels somewhat relaxed -- she'd really prefer not to have to hear the grunts and noises of flesh slapping together, but at this point, it's cicadas in the summer. You simply learn to ignore it, or it will drive you insane.
She misses cicadas.
"People need to believe in something." Without any peeks to the outside, she closes her eyes and lets them rest from the constant overstimulation. "They have to. Something to live for, something to die for. It doesn't have to be gods. It just has to mean something." She sighs, shaking her head against his back. Does she have that?
"I'd like to believe that things work out the way they're supposed to. That there's a greater plan, like... like a recipe, and all the pains and the heartache is just me being prepared for the recipe. Like a carrot getting chopped up so it can be sauteed. Maybe that would make the chopping hurt less." This, of course, doesn't answer Felassan's question, at least definitively, but Beleth offers no further explanations.
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