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From:

delphian

( the sound of some aborted statement; a delay. )

Ah, shit, I'm bothering you.

From:

nonvenomous

I’m just tired. [ There’s little delay on Dick’s end as he resumes writing, and even less inflection. He’s a difficult read face to face, never mind voice alone. ]

Jone is astute about the goings on here. Trust her judgment over mine.

Edited Date: 2022-02-13 09:03 am (UTC)

From:

delphian

( tsenka is used to the type, only she's also used to having known the type for long enough that difficulty ought not apply to her—

which this is not. and her efforts to speed-run socially adapting to large groups of strangers have been mixed, at best. so, )

I'm having a go at befriending you. You don't have to rate my chances this exact minute. I might prefer you didn't.

( joke???? good???? )

From:

nonvenomous

I won't tell anyone.

[ That she is trying to befriend him, or that she is not doing a very good job of it. He doesn't specify, the scratching of his pen too faint to carry over the crystal airwaves. ]

I prefer to discuss other peoples' business.

From:

delphian

( it is a lot easier when you've just grown up with everyone you're friends with. for a start, they tend to be more forgiving—or at least tolerant—of your particular idiosyncrasies.

with any luck, at least. probably not a guarantee, broadly. )

I'm not used to not knowing it all, now. It's strange.

From:

tender

She might have laughed, had Richard tacked on that observation. As it stands—

"Don't say that."

Especially now. The sudden fear that Richard might fade away right before her eyes too catches at her isn't necessarily plausible, but it can't be dismissed.

But she doesn't know what to say next. Slowing, she puts her hands over her face briefly, heels pressing against her eyes to stymie the tears.

From:

nonvenomous

Because it’s true? Apology softens doubt in the furrow of his brow.

“Alright.”

There’s a disconnect to the way he watches her fret, another chewed up baby bird left on his stoop by the Gallows, or Thedas, or the more general circle of suffering that comprises mortal existence. Sometimes the kind thing is to stomp on them. It’s just that his feet are as heavy as the rest of him, reluctant to strike out.

“I only mean that we were pulled here to help.”

He still has the cloak, and steps to offer it out to her, knuckles bone white in the fur.

“And we know that he was hellbent on helping.”

From:

nonvenomous

You'll get used to it.

From:

delphian

It's freedom, that. The bigger world.

( terrifying and thrilling. )

You know Jone well, then?

From:

nonvenomous

Well enough to trust her.

From:

delphian

I knew her brother. He'd have said the same, I think.

( give or take a vociferous argument on the exact subject,

tsenka's not sure her business falls into the other people's that richard is interested in talking about, so she's more of a mind to linger on the bones of it than cop to how many times she'd rolled her eyes at the same sentiment from bede. especially now she's pretty sure they're right, and she was wrong. )

From:

nonvenomous

[ That piques his interest, trace suspicion in a pause. ]

You ‘knew’ him?

From:

delphian

He was transferred to Starkhaven, I think after the Blight. A few years my junior, I'd say, we didn't all that much cross paths, but during the war—

( it's a telling pause, to anyone particularly experienced in deciphering silences. )

We were us, a while. I've no reason to think he's not still looking for her, somewhere.

From:

tender

This, of all things, breaks Derrica's tentative composure.

We know that he was hellbent on helping.

This is a true thing. They'd argued about it. Maybe Holden had argued about it with Richard too, after what had happened in the medical tent. It's what he'd even been doing moments ago. His hands had been so gentle in her hair and they hadn't been talking about his tendency to make himself a shield against whatever danger rose up against them, they'd been talking about stars while he plaited her hair because she couldn't do it for herself.

The cloak smells of smoke. She puts her face into it anyway to hide her tears. This likely isn't what Richard had meant her to do with it, but.

Well.

Her shoulders shake slightly with the effort of trying to stem the tide of emotion. It's distantly mortifying, but there's nothing to be done for it now, unless she flees back to her room to do all of this behind a closed door.

From:

nonvenomous

No.

That isn’t what he meant for her to do with it.

Gauging the collapse as she begins to crumple, he holds the puff of a tight, private sigh until she’s hidden her face.

Everything in this room smells like smoke, skunkier than tobacco. Heady. It’ll take heat from the hearth to really bring it up out of wood and cloth, leather and paper. In the meanwhile there’s the cloak -- and mustier still, Richard Dickerson closing her up into a hug.

It’s a more comfortable gesture for him than one might suppose.

He has spent most of his life among humans.

From:

tender

Paradoxically, humiliatingly, she cries harder for it. It's quiet, further muffled by both the cloak and Richard's chest.

If she's surprised by Richard choosing to do this at all, she won't be able to consider it until later. In the moment, it is a much needed sort of comfort.

It is, by all accounts, brief. Derrica burns through the worst of it quickly, or fights herself back to something in the vicinity of composure speedily. She doesn't pull away though, as the tears ebb.

"I'm sorry," is muffled too.

Sorry for crying on him, sorry for bringing him this news, sorry for barging into his room. There's a lot of contrition to go around.

From:

heirring

Is he? I've found him to be a perfectly agreeable gentleman.

[🥁.]

But good. Then perhaps we may at least rely on him as a foundation on which to build should no other Templar-adjacent sort of person be willing to volunteer. Good. [A small sound. Perhaps somewhere, Wysteria has cheerfully struck her remaining hand on her knee or a tabletop.] I think this is a very fine plan, Mister Dickerson. Well done.

From:

nonvenomous

“It’s alright.”

Normal, natural. He’s warm and quiet and his hold on her is firm. The door is still tilted open, but there’s no rustling in the hall outside, no shuffling of footsteps down the nearby stairwell to threaten their privacy.

He’d encouraged Holden to invest in native relationships to buffer him from further heartbreak.

And here they are.

From:

nonvenomous

Yes. [ A fine plan. His pauses are now occupied by speculation over who among them is likeliest to opt into addiction, the potential for nullifying aspects of their own Fade-fueled existence, and so on. ] Very scholarly.

From:

tender

"He asked me to look after his things," Derrica says, into Richard's shirt. "After Val de Foncé brought up that Rifters should get their affairs in order."

This is not Val's fault, but there is some misplaced anger in her voice for him anyway. As if raising the topic had disturbed the universe in some minor way, just enough to pull Holden away from them.

"I didn't think it was necessary."

Even Derrica knows that the truth is more: I hadn't wanted to think of it.

From:

nonvenomous

She’s ill-positioned to see the tilt of his brows that marks him making note of his narrow window to get in there and pilfer before she’s had the presence of mind to take inventory. Thanks, Val. And Holden, for that matter.

“He thought highly of you.”

An elephant threatens to crowd into the room with them in the pause before he anchors away from it with a well-timed pat. His voice is even. Quiet. Assurance without ire.

It isn’t as if he was wrong.