driftfleet | mingle on the pathstone

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.

[There's a rush of affection for him in that moment, one of those times she's reminded exactly why she likes Tek as much as she does. For all he is, he can still be this, and that says so much about him whether he likes it or not. She smiles at him, reaches for him and slips her fingers right back into his hair.]

One day you'll tell me what that means.

[his smile widens and his eyes slink down to lazy slits, but he leaves his gaze on her.]

Oh, I think you can guess.

[Her fingertips go right to massaging his scalp again, almost like she never stopped. This is getting to be far too familiar.]

I'm sure it's something intimate, but I wouldn't mind knowing the specifics.

[if this is becoming a habit, he is not about to complain. and he almost answers her simply, without fight. it's right there on the tip of his tongue.

but, whether his train of thought loops around to something else, or the simple fact remains that he can't give something away without some sort of detour to navigate, he hesitates.

he opens his eyes a little more clearly as he takes the turn in his head.]

...Do you ever think about how little you know about me?

I balance it with the fact that you don't really know much about me, either.

[There's no real negative tone there, it's just an open statement while she's basically petting him. He doesn't know most of what she's been through, who she's lost and how she feels about it all. It could make whatever is between them unbalanced or less real, but to Jove it doesn't. She's seen his bad side, his weak side, and on occasions like this she sees his good side.

Undoubtedly there's worse, there always is, but she's content with what he's given her so far. Which isn't to say...]

I would love to know more, but I generally know better than to ask.

[he actually refrains from scoffing at her claiming that he doesn't know much about her, which is a monumental effort on his part. he's really biting his tongue on that one.

instead, he focuses in on the rest of that statement.]

Because of what you might find out?

[You're such a pal, Tek. The lack of scoffing does mean he gets a very gentle rub just behind the ear without the augment, though, and then her fingernails scraping idly and lightly against his scalp as she combs his hair to lay how it's supposed to.]

Because I don't think you'll tell me. I'd hate to waste our time.

[ugh, she is making it difficult to keep a solid train of thought, though. he's still keeping up his end of the conversation, but he tips his head to the side with an appreciative murmur when her fingernails go dragging.]

...Though, see... There's another fundamental difference between what we mutually don't know about each other.

[If she were feeling particularly devious she'd bring her other hand up to the side of his neck now that he's got it exposed, add a distracting massage to the mix, but she's starting to get the feeling he's actually trying to tell her something.

So she keeps her mouth shut, but she also doesn't stop petting him. So it's at least only one distraction now.]

[one distraction, he can handle--if only just barely. and he duly takes the pause as a sign to continue. it's as good as her asking him to elaborate, in his mind.]

--I doubt there are many of your secrets that would turn me away if I knew them.

[and this is the difference that he is convinced of, at least for the purposes of this conversation.]

You're probably right about that.

[It's just a small interruption, but one that's made to agree with him, so Jove expects that won't derail him much.]

[he's looking for some response then, so it fits right in.]

So, that is the difference between us.

[that's the important point. the things that she doesn't know about him would drive her away, he's sure of it. her opinion would change; it would all be over. as far as he's concerned, they are conditional friends only, just like Beverly had been.]

So you think that eventually I'll learn something about you that will make me stop caring about you.

[It's not a question, that's just the obvious direction he's going with this and it seems faster to just get there first.]

You may be right, but I've yet to turn on the people I've decided to include in my life. Your chances are quite good that I'll stand by you.

What would it take, I wonder?

[and he turns his head to actually look at her this time, signaling that this is not a hypothetical question. he really wants to know.

what would do it? what sort of thing could she find out that would change everything?]

[Absently her thumb rubs against his spine again, her fingers curling through the hair at the back of his neck as she tries to find a good way to explain without it sounding overly dramatic.]

I couldn't say for certain, because I don't know what you've done. I do know that my hands are already dirty, I've killed more people than I can count anymore just for the sake of the people I consider my family.

You called me a politician because of my title of Inquisitor, but I do much more than that. I'm at the front lines of most of the battles with a very small team, and I've never hesitated to kill someone who might want to kill me first.

[But that's not very personal, and he'd probably believe her better if she skipped the bloody battles and told him about hunting men down one by one.]

You know Cassandra. She asked me for help to see justice brought to people I knew nothing about. Five of them. I didn't question her, I didn't doubt her motives. I took her with me with two others and we slaughtered those men and their entourages.

[it's his turn to listen now, keeping his various comments and opinions to himself.

and him waiting in silence for her to continue is both him listening politely, and maybe signaling that he'd like to hear more because he is not quite convinced yet.]

[And she actually smiles, because that's kind of funny.]

Not enough, hmm? Perhaps you'd do better with a more personal story.

[The smile fades quickly after that, because this story is one that's still fresh, even after a year of being in the fleet.]

There's a man named Blackwall in the Inquisition. In Thedas there's a group of men and women who make it their life to selflessly sacrifice themselves should a very particular crisis happen, and it tends to make people think of them as heroes. Leaders of the world are forced to comply to giving them whatever initiates they might need for their wars and it's considered by most to be an honor to enlist. Being a Grey Warden has always had the habit of making people above reproach.

[She's still got her hand in his hair, but she's clearly lost in her own tale.]

Blackwall was a Grey Warden, and when I recruited him it was a turning point for the Inquisition. A lot of people trusted an elf with a human hero standing beside her, and I wouldn't have gotten near as far without him as I did with him to lend me that kind of power. He was a good man, strong in his convictions and painfully amusing to flirt with. You haven't lived until you've made a man with a full beard blush because you've told him you like the idea of him on his knees.

[She's getting off topic, but there's a point to that. She needs Tek to know just how highly she thought of him, how close she had been to him.]

And then one day, he had disappeared. No one, not even my spymaster, knew why. When we found him he was taking the place of a man on the gallows about to be hung for slaughtering an entire family, including the children under the orders of his superior. It wasn't until Blackwall revealed that he was the superior, that he had been lying about who he was, that the man was released and the man I knew as Blackwall was taken into custody instead.

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