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"The Venatori knew what myself and Mister Stark dreamed they knew. In reality, they know nothing of the sort. Indeed, I am led to believe that very few people do."

Which is altogether another conversation. One she decides she doesn't particularly care to have, and so breezes beyond it without much hesitation.

"While it's certainly possible that over the course of our work, that evaluation may shift, I see no reason to cross that bridge prematurely. Why, we have hardly begun to build it, Mister Dickerson. Now, the thinning of the Veil where we might open this rift is close but I would hesitate to travel down there without at least a little preparation. And once we arrive--what is the process? Roughly how long does the summoning take? I believe it will be necessary to keep the rift open during it, which may necessitate the company of armed companions or arcane protections for you and I. Or both, I suppose. Though my preference is for the smallest party possible. People who are solid, who will not be troubled overmuch by strange magic performed by Rifters."

He hasn’t finished the thought, and it seems increasingly likely to stay unfinished, resolve pushed and pulled in the tidal sweep of Wysteria’s determination like a dead eel, pale and soft and losing pieces of itself on the sand. Richard is quiet for a while longer while he watches it slip away, rotten through his fingers.

If it’s only important to him, it isn’t important.

“An hour.” His voice pinches raw in his throat, and he clears it to frown back down to the paper with scholarly intent. Serious, in spite of the odd slurred word wobbling his arcane authority. “It’s a ritual. I already have the materials.”

Finer details like armed companions pass him by as a logical progression, in the moment. Whatever she thinks is best.

“I won’t be able to assist while I’m concentrating.”

"An hour." She blanches, some of the color draining from her face.

"That is a very long time to be in the presence of an active rift, Mister Dickerson. But no matter. I will gather some materials of my own, and see to it that we are adequately protected while you perform your ritual. Tell me," Suggests no change in tack whatsoever. However-- "Would you prefer it if I were upset with you?"

She has been practicing her archery at Ellis' behest. Maybe that explains the ruthless shot.

He is muddled in thought when the bolt finds him, thumping him back into the cold light of harsher consideration. In a way, the lack of balance is easier to manage in this state — too loose for whiplash to catch.

“I’d prefer you made an informed decision.”

But that isn’t entirely true. There are plenty of aspects he’d prefer to gloss over in perpetuity. They come drifting along into bleary focus as soon as the words have left him.

“We could take a graded approach.”

To science. Or to honesty.

"Very well. And under these circumstances, what do you imagine that framework to look like?"

These are merciless questions in his condition, even she knows. It would be difficult not to be aware of it, given the bleary eyed look in Dickerson's face and the distinct stench roiling off his person. But it's rare for a person to be in a position where they might feel some obligation to her, and she can hardly be blamed for using the leverage of this to pry a few concessions out of him.

It is only right.

“It has occurred to me that you might not be interested in understanding the motivation behind your attempted murder.”

He closes his eyes as he says so, very late acknowledgement of failed empathy.

“We can move on if you prefer.”

Is Move on in the Kalvadan vernacular?

"Is it not merely as simple as the fact that according to the dream, Mister Stark and I had supplied the Venatori with means quite capable of supressing a great deal of the resistance effort against them? I have difficulty believing that it was a personal matter. Though I suppose if you harbor some secret dislike for me or what we might accomplish together, now is the time to say so Mister Dickerson. I will even promise to hold it against you, if you prefer."

“It wasn’t personal.”

But an unconscious tick up at one eyebrow doesn’t discount the possibility, for all that this must be the first time he’s considered it.

“If they had rescued you successfully, the Venatori would have pursued you relentlessly back to what remained of the resistance and sundered it.”

For the first time since they began speaking, something narrows a little in Wysteria's expression in response to that. It is a little like asking someone where they've hidden something and seeing their eye dart uneasily in the correct direction. She is quiet for a full half beat as her pulse jumps unexpectedly high in her throat, then—

She tucks that away. Smooths it over. She manages to be quite matter of fact when she says,

"See then. Perfectly reasonable. Indeed, you were not incorrect for the Venatori did attempt to follow us after Mister Stark and I had made our escape. So I can hardly fault your logic, much as I prefer our alternative."

He tries to watch her, but his eyes are small in his head as the minutes have worn on, watery and weary and a little bit dumb. The paper between his fingers droops under the weight of fresh ink.

“I was reared to be disposable.”

Perspective tossed down out of the aether is what it is, matter-of-fact and miserable.

“I understand that humans have a more nuanced relationship with perseverance.”

...is a much nastier way of saying ‘I can hardly fault your logic,’ but he finally seems satisfied that they are on the same page.

Human, she very much is. Indeed, the cock of her head is vaguely predatory. Miss Wysteria Poppell almost certainly knows nothing of the use of knives outside of certain scientific applications, but there is something like the air of trading a blade from one hand to another in:

"Are you not human, Mister Dickerson?"

Something of that fresh edge catches enough to cut him free of his forward lean. He flourishes his free hand open as he settles back into an uncharacteristic slouch, et voila, dry at his own expense.

“I am now.” Not by choice.

He still has the paper; it flutters with the sheer force of world-weariness in his sigh.

For a moment, she studies him there all slouched in the chair. Then, very primly indeed:

"You should have said so in your survey answers."

“Yes, I know you would have liked me to write down my every secret for you and your friends to peruse over ‘lemonade.’”

He could inflect more nastiness than he does. His disapproval is mild as is, limited to a hooded glance before he looks down to begin the process of carefully folding over her note. No take backs.

Nonetheless, that of all things earns a scoff and an eyeroll so fierce that it's possible Wysteria gets a brief glance at the interior of her own skull.

"Honestly. If this is how you're going to thank me for inviting you onto a daring expedition, I shall think very carefully about whether I will include you when it comes to staff whatever follows it, Mister Dickerson. I have a very low capacity for dedicated sullenness, sir."

It's all petulance and no real heat and, with a cluck of the tongue, Wysteria begins to gather the papers surrounding her so she might stuff them back into the open drawer at her side.

"Though perhaps that is your aim. If you do not wish to be included in this or any scholarship, you may just say so. I have no desire whatsoever to force you to do something against your preferences."

He flinches in slow-motion, brows bunched in over the harder carve of his frown. The crease he manages in her map is very fine, careful down the midline and then over once more only for him to push it thickly away behind his lapel, where it is bound to rumple in some unseen pocket.

He doesn’t say that he does not wish to be included. He doesn’t say anything else either, watching papers being vacuumed up off the floor into the orbit of her bustle.

Yes, she thought as much. And rather than press the point, Wysteria simply allows him to slouch there as she organizes and tucks away the strewn series of studies and field notes and her own carefully crafted collected of documentation either into their rightful places or into the leather folio she caries about with her for her own reference.

It is only once the bulk of the papers have been put away that her attention sweeps back around. From where she is still on the floor, not quite having bothered to get her feet under her yet, Wysteria extends a hand to him.

"Help me up if you would, Mister Dickerson."

To help her up he has to stand, and to stand he has to break the seal of this very indulgent slouch. It takes a sharp hiss of breath and a resentful rankle, joints popped behind his shoulders and in one knee as he rises, a felled pine tree reversing upright with an old dog’s reluctance. He has a hard night’s sleep waiting for him somewhere.

Once he’s up, just a touch of sway to his shoulders, he offers his right hand out with fingers splayed. Either awaiting further instruction, or content to improvise once she’s grabbed on.

Barely there, a little black tongue threads mlem mlem across bony tendon from the shadow of his cuff.

Edited 2021-03-22 05:12 (UTC)

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