[ ‘Here’ is atop a seldom-patrolled wall or a stubby tower over the courtyard at night, with enough of a breeze to draw whiffs of the stink through battlements down to the open yard below. Richard is seated with his back to the stone, stifling a smoky cough past the joint pinched in his fingers.
He stretches to offer it back out to her, hair mustache and all, without cracking so much as a smile in the dark. ]
No, no. The joke goes like this: [ he coaches, mildly, before furling out the smoke he’d held in and gathering himself. ] How do you get ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard?’
[ Deadpan at a glance, although he appreciates her humoring him. Surely the answer is obvious.
Dick rests back against the rampart, shoulders rolled and settled against the stone. A week or two out from their return from the jungle, he already looks healthier than he did after landing back at the Gallows. ]
I couldn’t tell you, [ Richard closes his eyes, breathing deep in cool air and against cooler stone. ] I’m not an expert in human etymology. I only know that they are ridiculous.
[ She puffs out some sad little discs of smoke because she still can't quite get the hang of smoke rings. They dissipate into the air too quickly to be impressive. ]
I think my name means humble arrow or something like that. Sulahnan is the place of song. Singing place?
[ She passes the joint back and shrugs one shoulder. It's not important. ]
[ Richard can confirm. He even repeats the rough translation back to her in the similarly elegant, if markedly less succinct, elvish tongue of Tassia.
At whatever sound she makes upon the next pass, he finally does open one eye to take it back from her. ]
One of my earliest rationalizations was that we might simply have been transported to a continent rendered previously unknown by an immortal storm that has prevented anyone from successfully traversing our oceans, [ he says, and raises the joint to his mouth. ] But your stars are all wrong.
[ The cherry glows orange, and he goes quiet while he holds the smoke in. ]
[ The cost of speech is a laddering cough, each step wheezing dry until it banks off the crud in his lungs. He still takes one more short puff before he holds it back out to her, the better to busy himself with uncapping a water flask he has handy. ]
[ The joint is accepted back into Athessa's care with a frown. Then, quite eloquently, she inquires after why Richard would find such a thing more a shame for Loxley than for himself. ]
[ No answer. Richard sits where he’s sat and drinks his water and thinks or doesn’t think. Even high as balls, he’s a tough read, and it’s dark besides. ]
[ Athessa looks out over the wall and into the middle distance at nothing in particular. She really would prefer it if Rifters were just from a different, uncharted part of Thedas. ]
I wouldn't have to miss you when the Fade takes you back.
[ Do elves on this plane have darkvision? He looks over at her, surprise in a more critical read that requires only a very slight turn of his head. There is some guarded reserve in the subtlety of it -- doubt, even, that takes time to stir away on its own after he’s stowed his flask. ]
[ This plane's equivalent to elf darkvision is the tapetum lucidum in elven eyes. It allows elves to see in the dark with the same proficiency as a cat, and is probably a factor in Athessa's colorblindness.
But most importantly it looks cool because it makes elf eyes shiny in low light. ]
Of course. Why wouldn't I worry about my friends vanishing?
[ Wuh-oh here comes character development: Athessa has never once thought that the risk of loss was too great to justify befriending Rifters, even after losing a few in just that manner. Yet she has her heart broken once by a girl she liked and she's suddenly allergic to feelings forever. What an uncomfortable realization to have right now. Better to file that away for later. ]
[ More silence -- more speculative, this time, as Richard examines the sliver of green light peeking up out of his sleeve. The sliver of his shard is buried low in the heel of his hand, barely visible until he draws the cuff back to better see. ]
I hadn’t really thought about it. [ Sounds like an admission, matter-of-fact. ] Beyond the inevitability.
It’s not very different than traveling the world, is it? [ The little black slip of a snake has taken the pried sleeve as an invitation, and wound her way along his life line to lace between his fingers. ] Move on often enough and you’re unlikely to see the same faces again.
[ The snake has hardly had time to settle when he reaches to coax her up under his collar instead, casual as slipping a cigarette behind his ear. Back out of sight. ]
I suppose my point is that there are many factors and few certainties involved in -- [ he has to pause to search for a word that makes sense and is at least passably inoffensive within his weed-logged brain: ] 'cultivating' a relationship with anything that has free will. That they can travel back doesn’t mean that they will. That they don’t travel back doesn’t mean that they can’t.
There's always risk, even discounting the unpredictability of the Fade.
No guarantee they won’t leave or die or betray your trust.
[ Where is the joint? He leans and stretches to reclaim it, ultimately finding it easier to roll over onto his back in the process. Wherever and however he winds up, he stays and settles to toke there. ]
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no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 07:26 pm (UTC)He stretches to offer it back out to her, hair mustache and all, without cracking so much as a smile in the dark. ]
No, no. The joke goes like this: [ he coaches, mildly, before furling out the smoke he’d held in and gathering himself. ] How do you get ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard?’
no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 08:23 pm (UTC)How do you get Dick from Richard?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 09:06 pm (UTC)[ Deadpan at a glance, although he appreciates her humoring him. Surely the answer is obvious.
Dick rests back against the rampart, shoulders rolled and settled against the stone. A week or two out from their return from the jungle, he already looks healthier than he did after landing back at the Gallows. ]
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Date: 2020-07-07 09:15 pm (UTC)But really, why are the short forms Rich and Dick, and not like...Chard or somethin'?
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Date: 2020-07-07 09:23 pm (UTC)[ More helpfully, he adds after a moment: ]
Some men are called ‘Rich.’
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Date: 2020-07-07 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 09:52 pm (UTC)[ He’s comfortable where he is, one brow arched without him opening the eye beneath it. ]
Would you consider yourself an expert in elven etymology?
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Date: 2020-07-07 10:02 pm (UTC)[ She puffs out some sad little discs of smoke because she still can't quite get the hang of smoke rings. They dissipate into the air too quickly to be impressive. ]
I think my name means humble arrow or something like that. Sulahnan is the place of song. Singing place?
[ She passes the joint back and shrugs one shoulder. It's not important. ]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-08 05:36 am (UTC)[ Richard can confirm. He even repeats the rough translation back to her in the similarly elegant, if markedly less succinct, elvish tongue of Tassia.
At whatever sound she makes upon the next pass, he finally does open one eye to take it back from her. ]
One of my earliest rationalizations was that we might simply have been transported to a continent rendered previously unknown by an immortal storm that has prevented anyone from successfully traversing our oceans, [ he says, and raises the joint to his mouth. ] But your stars are all wrong.
[ The cherry glows orange, and he goes quiet while he holds the smoke in. ]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-08 05:43 am (UTC)That's a shame.
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Date: 2020-07-08 06:10 am (UTC)[ The cost of speech is a laddering cough, each step wheezing dry until it banks off the crud in his lungs. He still takes one more short puff before he holds it back out to her, the better to busy himself with uncapping a water flask he has handy. ]
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Date: 2020-07-08 06:12 am (UTC)Huh?
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Date: 2020-07-08 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-08 06:35 am (UTC)I wouldn't have to miss you when the Fade takes you back.
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Date: 2020-07-08 08:03 am (UTC)Well we can be very charming.
[ Easy to see how they might be missed. ]
Is that something you worry about?
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Date: 2020-07-08 08:59 am (UTC)But most importantly it looks cool because it makes elf eyes shiny in low light. ]
Of course. Why wouldn't I worry about my friends vanishing?
[ Wuh-oh here comes character development: Athessa has never once thought that the risk of loss was too great to justify befriending Rifters, even after losing a few in just that manner. Yet she has her heart broken once by a girl she liked and she's suddenly allergic to feelings forever. What an uncomfortable realization to have right now. Better to file that away for later. ]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-08 11:52 pm (UTC)I hadn’t really thought about it. [ Sounds like an admission, matter-of-fact. ] Beyond the inevitability.
It’s not very different than traveling the world, is it? [ The little black slip of a snake has taken the pried sleeve as an invitation, and wound her way along his life line to lace between his fingers. ] Move on often enough and you’re unlikely to see the same faces again.
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Date: 2020-07-08 11:59 pm (UTC)'Cept with traveling, you can always travel back. Nobody's figured how to do that with rifts yet, so it's more like dying, innit? One-sided death.
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Date: 2020-07-09 12:08 am (UTC)You walk the Fade when you dream, don’t you?
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Date: 2020-07-09 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-09 03:32 am (UTC)[ The snake has hardly had time to settle when he reaches to coax her up under his collar instead, casual as slipping a cigarette behind his ear. Back out of sight. ]
I suppose my point is that there are many factors and few certainties involved in -- [ he has to pause to search for a word that makes sense and is at least passably inoffensive within his weed-logged brain: ] 'cultivating' a relationship with anything that has free will. That they can travel back doesn’t mean that they will. That they don’t travel back doesn’t mean that they can’t.
There's always risk, even discounting the unpredictability of the Fade.
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Date: 2020-07-09 03:48 am (UTC)Athessa blows out an appreciative breath that doesn't quite make it to being a whistle. ]
There's risk even when the Fade isn't involved. No guarantee that people will stay.
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Date: 2020-07-09 04:18 am (UTC)[ Where is the joint? He leans and stretches to reclaim it, ultimately finding it easier to roll over onto his back in the process. Wherever and however he winds up, he stays and settles to toke there. ]
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Date: 2020-07-09 04:33 am (UTC)Is it better to not get invested?
[ That's only the entirety of her reasoning for only having casual flings. ]
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Date: 2020-07-09 05:08 am (UTC)[ Dick sets the joint aside on the stone, where the ember can chew back through the paper or fade on its own, and chuckles low in his throat. ]
The real ones, anyway.
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