Inbox - Fade Rift

[nonvenomous]

Book/crystal/correspondence/action/whatever you desire.

Comments

[delphian]

( tsenka only knows two rifters; she'd tried holden as well, and got no answer.

tevinter would have been worse, if there'd been someone else there with her. not hope but leverage, in a less existential imprisonment. she grasps the point, regardless. thinks about that empty air over the crystal. )

Gone is usually gone in wartime.

( an agreement. )

The not always is a dangerous game, suppose.

[nonvenomous]

[ He’s quiet long enough that the conversation might have ended there. ]

We are endearing and useful but understood to be temporary.

[ His notes have devolved into an untidy scribble, blacking out a space along one margin. ]

Like pets.

[delphian]

( as new as tsenka is to understanding rifters to be anything in particular, that feels depressing if likely true— )

Aren't there a few married, here?

( which doesn't necessarily dispute his point, but in the context, maybe sort of fucked up. )

[nonvenomous]

Some of us are more endearing than others.

[ He’s caught himself and shifted into carefully tearing this ink-blotted page from the binding of his journal. ]

[delphian]

Mmm.

Well, I wouldn't rely on it being understood.

( intellectually agreed upon, perhaps. depressingly demonstrable. difficult to argue the point of. all true.

understood and factored into decision-making, that's something else. )

[nonvenomous]

Mm. [ Noncommittal, a non-sound, as he crumples the paper tight and slings it underhand into the hearth. ]

What other perspectives might I offer for you to dismiss?

[delphian]

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

Ah, shit, I'm bothering you.

[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.

[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???? )

[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.

[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.

[nonvenomous]

You'll get used to it.

[delphian]

It's freedom, that. The bigger world.

( terrifying and thrilling. )

You know Jone well, then?

[nonvenomous]

Well enough to trust her.

[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. )

[nonvenomous]

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

You ‘knew’ him?

[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.