It might pay for itself that way, or justify the research if someone thinks flight is too outlandish. Being certain we could outpace Tevinter ships could be worth a lot of resources, too.
[ He looks back at the diagram she's marking up with a mild-mannered sort of hunger. What a time to be alive. ]
As long as you don't let anyone stop you there. I want to fly.
[That makes her laugh, a sharp amused scoff of a noise, and she straightens from over the papers.]
I'll be sure to include that note in any proposal I submit to Provost Stark. I've no doubt he would hesitate to disappoint you personally.
[The pencil is tucked thoughtlessly behind her ear. It frees her hand up—she is not wearing the clamp ended prosthetic this afternoon, empty sleeve judiciously pinned up beneath the shoulder of her bodice—to begin shuffling the scattered papers back into something like order. Have they finished talking about Byerly Rutyer? It seems unlikely.]
He watches in silence for a moment, while his amusement over the idea of Provost Stark giving a damn about fulfilling Bastien's personal childish dreams slowly recedes. Then he sighs. ]
I'm not trying to find out what you think and report back to him. I'm reasonably confident I know what you think.
[ To elaborate would, he's aware, look awfully similar to trying to find out for certain, baiting her into confirmation or irritated correction. He doesn't. ]
But I put him up to it. [ More or less. ] The sobriety. And it's hard, and he's embarrassed by it, but he tried to be honest with you anyway, in front of everyone, and I realize the timing was bad for your purposes, but you put him on the spot, so it was tell you, or lie to you, or give it up, or agree but then back out—
[ An endless sentence. Tone still mild, pace still measured, but nonetheless a sign of his feelings coming untucked. He pauses to put them back into place. ]
If you find yourself with an opportunity to say something more encouraging to him in the future, I hope you take it. That is all.
[You ought to be honest with your friends no matter the inconvenience, she had more or less said to Byerly Rutyer not so long ago. She recalls it quite sharply then, and finds herself thoroughly annoyed with the version of herself who had been lying in an infirmary bed and in such a dreadful state of self pity and sentiment that she might conjure so absurdly a myopic claim.
Yes, fine. What a very decent theory. But that silly girl ought to have added some caveats like, 'But also it's fine to point out the inconvenience if it's very inconvenient.']
Yes, well. [Has the light, airy quality of a person trying to work out how to avoid a niggling point of guilt pressed against the skin.] Perhaps you may give me some secret signal from across the room on a day when Mister Rutyer is in a mood not to misconstrue the attempt as me making light of his efforts or the first step in some plot to wound him. I've never had much luck having a conversation of any length with the man over the subject of his own person. I'm afraid we're poorly matched conversationalists in that regard.
[ The credit for Bastien not banging upon the honesty drum with even greater force goes to Byerly, who did not mention this sickbed instruction, not even to whine she wanted me to be honest. ]
He does like to put up a fight, doesn't he.
[ Said with hideous fondness. ]
Pourquoi pas—
[ He points at her with both hands. They are not finger guns, because what is a pistol. It is a dual point. It is a remarkably unsecretive signal. ]
[So unsubtle that it warrants an eye roll, the fly on sticky paper thrash of a person objecting to being caught in the edge of Bastien's gooey affections or to being caught in proximity to some emotion far stupider than annoyance. Papers restored to something like order, her hand automatically drifts back to fetch the pencil from behind her ear as if to make a further scratch amidst her notes.]
See, there. All is resolved. And all it required was to afford me some credit [(the far stupider emotion is the rising sting of frustration pricking at the backs of her eyes, which she blinks back and instead makes a small mark on the schematic)] that I wouldn't purposefully chose to be beastly. So if that is all you wished to discuss, Monsieur—
[ Bastien wobbles his head side to side in more or less acquiescence. It is what he came to discuss, at least, and if he wishes for a thorough and illustrated lecture on theoretical magical aerodynamics, he should probably not interrupt her in the middle of her work day to insist on it.
He takes one step back, in recognition of the dismissal, but he's examining what he can see of her desk-turned face. ]
[I can imagine no reason why I wouldn't be, she might say in that airy and light tone she loves so much to use as a substitute for being ill tempered. It would be the simplest thing to offer him. Yes, she is perfectly well. Thank you for asking and now please go away.
It takes her a moment to work past that impulse.]
I'm frustrated, [she says instead, continuing to find places on the schematic which demand little marks.] But I would prefer not to quarrel, and I think if we were to discuss my feelings further that I'm likely to unjustly lose my temper. So please remember to convey my wish that we recruit a proper enchanter to Mister Rutyer. I will of course make a point of saying the same to Provost Stark.
[ Bastien nods, perhaps overeagerly, and takes another two steps. The second begins the turn toward the door. He has never made a habit of keeping himself where he's not wanted, except where money was involved. He has at times made a habit of frustrating people. But never as unintentional collateral damage of caring about something else entirely.
He stops there, half-turned. ]
I'm sorry. I would like to know about your feelings, though. I like you. Leaving you alone with some silent frustration—I would prefer to quarrel.
You can't let me fool you with, [ he gestures generally to his face, still pleasant as ever. ] I used to bully my partner until she threw knives at me. So— I'll go. I'm going. [ He is. More steps. ] But if you want to come tell me off when you are done working, or whenever you want, I think you should do it.
[If she notes the general gesture, it must be from the corner of her eye as she otherwise has turned all her attention focused singularly on the graphite's point.]
I will consider it once I've decided whether I'm being childish or not. Have a good afternoon.
Vous aussi, Madame, [ in parting. He’s going! He’s gone. And if she does decide she is being childish, she will—knowingly or not—enact some small measure of vengeance by leaving him to wonder forever what she might have said. ]
[Knowingly or not, she allows him to suffer in that state for a number of days without relief.
And then some afternoon, Wysteria appears in the Jeshavis office. She does not indulge in preamble, and instead promptly lays out a collection of cheap little gossip tracts solicited from various sources on his desk. They are from Kirkwall, and from various nearby Marcher cities, and one from Orlais is old enough that its shoddy paper has begun to split on the folded seams, all of which suggests Wysteria has been collecting them for some time or at least has made a habit of stuffing them into her pockets and then forgetting to throw them away.]
I would like to make one of these. How much would it cost?
[ A number of days is long enough for the agony of unknowing to have slipped into the background of his life, barely noticed, for the most part, when it is not drawn back into focus by e.g. her sudden appearance in his office with a collection of tracts. He examines her face for only a moment before he looks at what she's brought instead, flipping through two of the samples to gauge their length and the quality of their materials. The Orlesian one he lifts last and examines with a slower, more nostalgic eye.
Only one? he might have asked, had he not so recently been frustrating. ]
[Her face is very serious, possessing the sort of singular focus of a person who has spent a great deal of time thinking about something before resolving on a plan of assault. Her answer is similarly prepared:]
Sixty. The paper doesn't need to be good, particularly as I know we're short on it. In fact, it would be preferable if it were the sort of thing that fell apart and turned easily to pulp.
Also, how long would it take to set something of this length?
[ He hums, giving one another flip. One consequence of buying one's way into a trade at thirty instead of coming up as an apprentice, perhaps, is the inability to give immediate and instinctive answers to these things. Instead it is: twenty-eight hundred words in a workday means two hundred and eighty per hour, give or take, and this is how many pages, and that is how many words, and— ]
If it an emergency, I could do it in a day. Otherwise, working on it around this— [ he waves an apparently disinterested hand about at the assortment of annoying documents and depressing maps in the room ] —maybe five?
You would be looking at around [ reasonable static sound ] silver, for the paper and ink, and [ even more reasonable static sound ] for the labor, [ with a one-armed flex. ] Unless it is for something very noble or heart-wrenching.
[From— somewhere behind her ear or from the midst of her plaited hair, Wysteria draws forth a pen. She flicks one of the tracts closer to her so she may make notes of these sums and timetables and so on in the corner so as to commit them permanently to memory.]
Very good. I think I can afford that.
[It will be a pinch on Riftwatch's pay, she thinks, but should worse come to worse she will simply berate Val until he loans her the money. The pen is absentmindedly disappeared behind the ear or into her braid once more.]
I mean to solicit other authors to start. Maybe something amusing that no one will take very seriously but everyone will still read when it appears in with their mail. It won't be anonymous or tawdry like these exactly, but ought to be equally disposable. Something which may be taken in and then discarded without much effort.
I only ask that you be willing to keep who is paying for it a secret. From most everyone, anyway. I don't care if the Division Heads know.
[ Not all that long ago, Bastien had a fairly miserable and prolonged dream about how printing things without asking enough questions landed him in all sorts of trouble with elves and people who had the means to murder him without consequence. But more recently he has spent a good twenty or thirty minutes thinking hard about Wysteria's tone when she said all it required was to afford me some credit, among other things.
There is a pause, before he nods, but not a question. ]
D'accord. We have a deal.
[ He purses his lips, then unrolls them with a quiet pop. ]
If you end up with space to fill, after you have found your authors, I have been wanting to try it. Writing.
You're most welcome to any empty space. In fact, simply reserve yourself a parcel of the first tract straight off. That will give me less work to do when it comes to filling up the rest.
[The pamphlet she has made her note on is folded roughly in half and then stuffed unceremoniously into her pocket. The rest, seems to be the implication, he may hold on to for reference if he wishes. There is an air of momentum to all of it, and to the clip of her speaking. There. Decided. She doesn't intend to stay for long. She now has essayists to hunt down, after all.]
I don't have time to form a club and no one would join one anyway. That said, I think it would be to the general benefit to have some less official outlet for certain ideas and ambitions and so on. Maybe it will encourage everyone to volunteer some of their more guarded opinions. But also I'm well sick of being berated and patronized by this company every time I have something to say, and refuse to continue to make it easy to do so. At least this way if someone takes offense, they will have to put their damned back into making it known.
[ Bastien begins to smile, at the first part, but it's snuffed out so quickly it might have only been a twitch. His hands fold on his desk. He gave himself too much credit, it appears, believing he might be the direct source of her frustration rather than badly-timed salt in a preexisting wound. Who is going around cornering people at their desks to tell them they behaved badly toward her?
—perhaps Ellis. Perhaps Stark. Perhaps her husband. Or perhaps that's none of their styles, and perhaps she would be furious with them if they tried. He really doesn't know her very well at all, beyond some merry exchanges and the impression of a bright, genteel force of nature. ]
I would forgive much sharper language than that, Madame.
[ He shifts back in his seat, arms sliding so his folded hands transfer to his stomach. ]
I think it's a good idea. I'll be ready when you are. Do you know what you'd like to call it?
[That slices into some of her momentum. Standing there the other side of his desk (for if there is a chair opposite, she'd never gotten as far as sitting in it), Wysteria visibly pauses. She drops her attention to the wrinkled pamphlets laid on his desk as if there might be some ready answer already written there.]
Oh, I suppose it will need one. [How irritating—to have considered the idea so thoroughly and still be caught off guard by something so obvious.] I don't know. Call it something dreadful and ridiculous like The Hangman's Papers. If you have any suggestion, I'd hear it.
[ He laughs, quick and quiet but also genuine, from the throat. ]
We don't have to know now, but I like that. The Hangman's Papers, subject to change up to the date of printing if something else comes to you in a dream.
[ He lifts up one of the samples she left behind on his desk and tips it toward her in a little salute—one of parting, as she seems to be on her way out. Now it's clearly his professional responsibility to read all of this gossip, oh noooo. ]
Unless something else comes to me in a dream, [is repeated back with a brisk nod like agreement and maybe, just a little bit, the faintest flicker of pleasure. Very good. Conspiracy triumphantly conspired.]
Well. I suppose that's all then. Thank you and enjoy the day, Monsieur Bastien.
[This is a far less dour goodbye, albeit no less brief. With a swirl of skirts and a stamp of her hard soled shoes, Wysteria leaves him to his extremely trying professional responsibilities shortly thereafter.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ He looks back at the diagram she's marking up with a mild-mannered sort of hunger. What a time to be alive. ]
As long as you don't let anyone stop you there. I want to fly.
no subject
I'll be sure to include that note in any proposal I submit to Provost Stark. I've no doubt he would hesitate to disappoint you personally.
[The pencil is tucked thoughtlessly behind her ear. It frees her hand up—she is not wearing the clamp ended prosthetic this afternoon, empty sleeve judiciously pinned up beneath the shoulder of her bodice—to begin shuffling the scattered papers back into something like order. Have they finished talking about Byerly Rutyer? It seems unlikely.]
no subject
He watches in silence for a moment, while his amusement over the idea of Provost Stark giving a damn about fulfilling Bastien's personal childish dreams slowly recedes. Then he sighs. ]
I'm not trying to find out what you think and report back to him. I'm reasonably confident I know what you think.
[ To elaborate would, he's aware, look awfully similar to trying to find out for certain, baiting her into confirmation or irritated correction. He doesn't. ]
But I put him up to it. [ More or less. ] The sobriety. And it's hard, and he's embarrassed by it, but he tried to be honest with you anyway, in front of everyone, and I realize the timing was bad for your purposes, but you put him on the spot, so it was tell you, or lie to you, or give it up, or agree but then back out—
[ An endless sentence. Tone still mild, pace still measured, but nonetheless a sign of his feelings coming untucked. He pauses to put them back into place. ]
If you find yourself with an opportunity to say something more encouraging to him in the future, I hope you take it. That is all.
no subject
Yes, fine. What a very decent theory. But that silly girl ought to have added some caveats like, 'But also it's fine to point out the inconvenience if it's very inconvenient.']
Yes, well. [Has the light, airy quality of a person trying to work out how to avoid a niggling point of guilt pressed against the skin.] Perhaps you may give me some secret signal from across the room on a day when Mister Rutyer is in a mood not to misconstrue the attempt as me making light of his efforts or the first step in some plot to wound him. I've never had much luck having a conversation of any length with the man over the subject of his own person. I'm afraid we're poorly matched conversationalists in that regard.
[There. Take that, girl in the infirmary bed.]
no subject
He does like to put up a fight, doesn't he.
[ Said with hideous fondness. ]
Pourquoi pas—
[ He points at her with both hands. They are not finger guns, because what is a pistol. It is a dual point. It is a remarkably unsecretive signal. ]
no subject
See, there. All is resolved. And all it required was to afford me some credit [(the far stupider emotion is the rising sting of frustration pricking at the backs of her eyes, which she blinks back and instead makes a small mark on the schematic)] that I wouldn't purposefully chose to be beastly. So if that is all you wished to discuss, Monsieur—
no subject
He takes one step back, in recognition of the dismissal, but he's examining what he can see of her desk-turned face. ]
Are you alright?
no subject
It takes her a moment to work past that impulse.]
I'm frustrated, [she says instead, continuing to find places on the schematic which demand little marks.] But I would prefer not to quarrel, and I think if we were to discuss my feelings further that I'm likely to unjustly lose my temper. So please remember to convey my wish that we recruit a proper enchanter to Mister Rutyer. I will of course make a point of saying the same to Provost Stark.
no subject
He stops there, half-turned. ]
I'm sorry. I would like to know about your feelings, though. I like you. Leaving you alone with some silent frustration—I would prefer to quarrel.
You can't let me fool you with, [ he gestures generally to his face, still pleasant as ever. ] I used to bully my partner until she threw knives at me. So— I'll go. I'm going. [ He is. More steps. ] But if you want to come tell me off when you are done working, or whenever you want, I think you should do it.
no subject
I will consider it once I've decided whether I'm being childish or not. Have a good afternoon.
no subject
no subject
And then some afternoon, Wysteria appears in the Jeshavis office. She does not indulge in preamble, and instead promptly lays out a collection of cheap little gossip tracts solicited from various sources on his desk. They are from Kirkwall, and from various nearby Marcher cities, and one from Orlais is old enough that its shoddy paper has begun to split on the folded seams, all of which suggests Wysteria has been collecting them for some time or at least has made a habit of stuffing them into her pockets and then forgetting to throw them away.]
I would like to make one of these. How much would it cost?
no subject
Only one? he might have asked, had he not so recently been frustrating. ]
How many copies? Approximately.
no subject
Sixty. The paper doesn't need to be good, particularly as I know we're short on it. In fact, it would be preferable if it were the sort of thing that fell apart and turned easily to pulp.
Also, how long would it take to set something of this length?
no subject
If it an emergency, I could do it in a day. Otherwise, working on it around this— [ he waves an apparently disinterested hand about at the assortment of annoying documents and depressing maps in the room ] —maybe five?
You would be looking at around [ reasonable static sound ] silver, for the paper and ink, and [ even more reasonable static sound ] for the labor, [ with a one-armed flex. ] Unless it is for something very noble or heart-wrenching.
no subject
Very good. I think I can afford that.
[It will be a pinch on Riftwatch's pay, she thinks, but should worse come to worse she will simply berate Val until he loans her the money. The pen is absentmindedly disappeared behind the ear or into her braid once more.]
I mean to solicit other authors to start. Maybe something amusing that no one will take very seriously but everyone will still read when it appears in with their mail. It won't be anonymous or tawdry like these exactly, but ought to be equally disposable. Something which may be taken in and then discarded without much effort.
I only ask that you be willing to keep who is paying for it a secret. From most everyone, anyway. I don't care if the Division Heads know.
no subject
There is a pause, before he nods, but not a question. ]
D'accord. We have a deal.
[ He purses his lips, then unrolls them with a quiet pop. ]
If you end up with space to fill, after you have found your authors, I have been wanting to try it. Writing.
no subject
[The pamphlet she has made her note on is folded roughly in half and then stuffed unceremoniously into her pocket. The rest, seems to be the implication, he may hold on to for reference if he wishes. There is an air of momentum to all of it, and to the clip of her speaking. There. Decided. She doesn't intend to stay for long. She now has essayists to hunt down, after all.]
I don't have time to form a club and no one would join one anyway. That said, I think it would be to the general benefit to have some less official outlet for certain ideas and ambitions and so on. Maybe it will encourage everyone to volunteer some of their more guarded opinions. But also I'm well sick of being berated and patronized by this company every time I have something to say, and refuse to continue to make it easy to do so. At least this way if someone takes offense, they will have to put their damned back into making it known.
—If you'll forgive the sharp language.
no subject
—perhaps Ellis. Perhaps Stark. Perhaps her husband. Or perhaps that's none of their styles, and perhaps she would be furious with them if they tried. He really doesn't know her very well at all, beyond some merry exchanges and the impression of a bright, genteel force of nature. ]
I would forgive much sharper language than that, Madame.
[ He shifts back in his seat, arms sliding so his folded hands transfer to his stomach. ]
I think it's a good idea. I'll be ready when you are. Do you know what you'd like to call it?
no subject
Oh, I suppose it will need one. [How irritating—to have considered the idea so thoroughly and still be caught off guard by something so obvious.] I don't know. Call it something dreadful and ridiculous like The Hangman's Papers. If you have any suggestion, I'd hear it.
no subject
We don't have to know now, but I like that. The Hangman's Papers, subject to change up to the date of printing if something else comes to you in a dream.
[ He lifts up one of the samples she left behind on his desk and tips it toward her in a little salute—one of parting, as she seems to be on her way out. Now it's clearly his professional responsibility to read all of this gossip, oh noooo. ]
no subject
Well. I suppose that's all then. Thank you and enjoy the day, Monsieur Bastien.
[This is a far less dour goodbye, albeit no less brief. With a swirl of skirts and a stamp of her hard soled shoes, Wysteria leaves him to his extremely trying professional responsibilities shortly thereafter.]