driftfleet | mingle on the pathstone

[--oh, well, that is no fair.

while he usually works to ply that sort of attention from her, he isn't actually expecting it this time. it's a little more disarming than usual when he's not looking for it.

after taking a moment to get over the initial surprise, he can't help but sink into it even more gratefully than he normally would. because he is carrying around a lot of quiet tension, and this cuts right to it.

he grumbles under his breath and shuts his eyes, leaning against her hand like a needy cat.]

...I wouldn't call it trouble. My patterns are just a little... off.

[She knows it's probably low, cheating, to go immediately for what she knows will set him at ease, make him pliable and as close as he gets to sweet immediately, but it's better for them both this way. He'll be less likely to think about her problems, if he even did, if she's got him distracted this way. Her fingers rub just behind his ear, thumb stroking along his neck absently.]

Did something happen?

[Until she pries, of course. That stands a good chance of ruining her plan entirely.]

[--until she pries.

he's not quite so disarmed as to fall right into that trap. she definitely has him at an unfairly pacified point, but he still manages to open one eye and pin a look on her.

it's not a very sharp glance, with how docile he is at the moment, but there is enough directness to it to convey his wariness. it's almost a warning.]

[That's fair. She goes on petting him, nods to show she understands that's a line not to cross, and changes the subject.

They've both stepped on toes now, so she figures they're probably even.]

Maybe we just need a few good books to read to help us sleep better.

[Us, too. She's tossing him that admission as an apology.]

[he seems to be taking it as a balance as well, at least. the change of topic, the careful little apology, all smooth over jagged edges that nearly form. after a moment, he's placated and his eye shuts again.]

Oh, yes. Because that is something I've never thought to try.

[Once she's soothed him, her hand slips away in favor of wrapping around her cup of tea so she can take a sip. Solas hated tea. Cullen had liked it, but it might have been because she took the time to make it for him to ease his Lyrium withdrawal.

This was probably the wrong drink to make to ease her heartsickness.]

Maybe you never found the right book.

[the pang of sorrow, more than her hand pulling away, is what centers him again. the emotion is as tangible to him as water, lapping morosely against his nerves.]

...It's possible. Though, as much as I enjoy stories, it is the living and breathing sort that have always interested me more. I'd much rather spend my time investigating a person than a series of pages.

[and he likes the tea--one of only a few drinks he ever bothers with for more than appearance-sake. the leaves are dead; he can smell a million familiar things in the scent of earth and loam.

it's one treat that he doesn't take sweetened. instead, he casually wraps his fingers over the top of the mug and bleeds a little bit of energy into it. it further decays the brew, just a bit, until it's more like water found in a puddle than the carefully steeped essence of dried leaves.]

[There are things that Jove has purposefully not told anyone while she's been here, secrets that only a handful of people from Thedas will understand, and she's done it for a very particular reason. In Thedas, she's greeted with Your Worship and Herald and elven servants flee from her because they're terrified of what she is. There's so much that so many people don't know and for once, she's ready to let some of it slip.

Tek likes secrets, she knows, as much as he likes stories. She's tired and her walls are down, and for once she feels like sharing. The only question is, what's the right story for tonight?]

What genre interests you most?

The ones that want most to be told.

[which is slightly different than the ones that the storyteller feels like sharing. there are some things that people want to share, and some things that beg to be shared themselves, regardless of whether the person behind it feels comfortable with it or not. the topic of them hardly matters.]

[With history still being written, it's hard to say which part of what she's done fits that description best. She could start with the Well of Sorrows, the voices that flooded her head and shouted loudest while Solas was here for that brief time, but that's still something she's holding close to her chest, a secret for the Dalish and not something she really wants people having access too just yet. She's still not sure what to do with the information the Well has passed on to her, so Tek won't get that story yet.

Another floods her mind after that, and her lips purse. If she tells this one, it's yet another weakness she's let him see that she shouldn't, but what does it really change? Very little, in the long run, but it's still something else she's kept locked away from as many people as she can.

She lays her left hand on the table between them, palm up. If he thinks back he'll remember her thrusting that hand up to the sky and tearing open a portal to somewhere else, the shocks of green that had flooded from it and pulled his life force straight out of him. The mark is mostly dormant now, but there's a line of green across her palm that flickers to life before sputtering out with a soft crackle.]

I'm fairly certain this is killing me.

[ah, yes... that one.

that maligned hand has been bookmarked in his head for more reason than one. and this is partly because the news itself doesn't reveal itself as much of a secret to him as the fact that she knows does.

he has a particular affinity with terminal afflictions. he has been fairly certain about this one for a while.

he reaches to drag a finger along the line in her hand, like a lazy palmreader, just to double-check what he's sensed from it before.]

...It's certainly trying to.

[She doesn't pull her hand away, but she does glance up when he touches her hand, the mark, in that way. It's something she's allowed few people to do since she'd been saddled with it and that Tek would do it with no hesitation...

Well, it's not a surprise once the shock of it has passed. She'll let him go on tracing the line if he really wants to.]

You can tell that, can you?

[he doesn't linger for too long; he has tea to drink. so, she can have her hand back after a short moment.]

I wouldn't be able to give you a specific timeframe... but, yes.

[said as if it was some small, insignificant bit of trivia.]

[It's not something she's particularly worried about anymore. She's had more than a year to adjust to the idea, after all. Knowing for certain changes very little.]

When I left, I think the final battle was close. I don't expect I'll live much longer than that.

[A few months, at most, and yet as sad as she's been over all her friends leaving her, over her lover leaving, there's no spike in it at the admission.]

[and that, certainly, is what he finds most interesting of all. he even glances her way with curiosity.]

...And that's that?

I'm living on borrowed time at least three times over already. [That's right Tek you live with someone that's cheated death like, a shitton of times. Congrats.] Eventually luck runs out.

Of course it does. [and he's not all that surprised. those tend to be the sorts of people he gravitates toward.] But you don't seem all that bothered by the idea.

It's not new information. I've been the Inquisitor for nearly a year at home and a year here, and I was the Herald of Andraste before that. I've had a long time to be used to the idea of being a dead woman walking.

[And then she smiles, wry and not particularly happy, and looks towards him.]

Did you think recklessly sleeping with just anyone was only something I refused to do because I'm an elf?

[he matches the wry smile of course, but his eyebrows raise at the end of that. because the question does surprise him. he apparently hadn't considered that fact at all before now.]

...There's more to it than that, hmm?

[The immediate thing she'd like to say is "of course there is" but the most he gets is an unimpressed look. Because he should know better by now.]

It might surprise you to learn this, but I try to treat people with compassion. It seems cruel to me to let anyone get attached to someone they'll never have a future with.

[give him all the unimpressed looks you want, lady.]

So, what made him the exception?

[he really is curious, here... whether or not it's the sort of thing he has any right to ask about, especially right now.]

[She doesn't answer at first. She takes a moment to sip her tea, rubbing her hand against her forehead while she tries to sort what happened into a series of events that makes the most sense.]

There wasn't just one thing, I'm sure you're aware of that. We came from the same version of Thedas, so there was a year there of fighting together and having his support when most humans I knew at the time introduced themselves by trying to kill me.

When he arrived here, the first thing he did was try to kiss me because he came from a different time period. For him, we had already fallen in love in Thedas. I hadn't gotten to that point yet, so it was hard to reconcile the two. I was worried he had fallen in love with someone I wasn't yet, that he wanted something I might not be after everything I've experienced here.

[She trails off again, hand over her mouth. Little of that will matter to Tek beyond perhaps the added information, she doubts he'll care about the intricacies of Cullen's pain in being so close to someone he had gotten into the habit of kissing, holding, telling them he loved them, and being entirely unable to do that now.

Tek might not care, but Jove misses Cullen terribly and she can't help dwelling for a moment in those feelings.]

Eventually I realized it was foolish to keep holding him at arms length here when I had already accepted him at home. It was easier than I expected to fall in love once I allowed myself to do it.

[she's right in that he misses the details. even if he was standing right there to feel the other man's pain as a real, tangible thing, he would still fail to understand it to the roots.

he is interested, though. he listens quietly, as he does with every story shared with him. he understands the weight behind the whole tale, at the very least. and he runs the thought out to a conclusion once it's over.]

So, he doesn't truly lose you, in the end.

...No sooner than he would anyway, at least. If he returns home--or goes wherever it is we go after this place--you don't have to fear hurting him, like you might with someone else.

[it's only a comment; figuring out a puzzle.]

It makes sense.

Well, you're half right. I'll only break his heart when I die.

[There's a certain amount of guilt to that, to her tone and in the way her shoulders droop. She wishes it wasn't true, wishes she hadn't doomed Cullen to that future, but they both knew the risks. She has to believe he's strong enough to withstand losing her when the time comes.]

That comes with the territory of being mortal, lehess. You only have the luxury of advanced warning.

[and the look he glances over with is darkly genuine. he doesn't mean to tease at all with this.]

That is something many would have killed to have.

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