I hope this finds you well, or finds you at all. I hope that you aren't in prison, or that if you are in prison it's temporary and not a prelude to the gallows, and I also hope that you haven't thought I was dead. I tried to write once during the war, but I learned later that the messenger didn't make it out of Orlais.
I've joined the Inquisition now. It's a long way to Antiva City, but maybe while everyone is too distracted by this new war to decide what to do about us, I can visit. Even if you are in prison, this insignia gets me places.
I've sent a letter to Mother and Father, too, so you don't have to tell them anything, but if your friend is still hanging around, tell him I didn't say hello.
[ He hasn’t been avoiding Nikos, this past month. There has been wine. There have been cards. Between discarding Songs and trying to surreptitiously reacquire discarded Serpents, Kostos has commented on the weather at least once, which counts as talking.
And if that seems like its own kind of avoidance—wine, Wicked Grace, weather—well, it might be, but only as a cover for unseen and unheard but nonetheless determined readjustment to the idea of a brother as a living thing with toes and eyebrows instead of a story being written in irregular installments.
He’s nearly there. Close enough that. He asks, ]
Do Mother and Father know that you’re here?
[ It’s an important question. He’ll have to answer their letter eventually. He needs to know what to say.
It’s also cover, somewhat, for an attempt at the idle sleight-of-hand cheating that’s all but required in the game. He isn’t bad at it, for someone who learned playing against mages instead of Antivans. ]
[An important question answered with a casual question. Nikos, attention fixed on his hand, does not look up.
Which means he misses this particular instance of Kostos cheating. He has already called his brother out at least once this game. He will call him on it again before the game is done. He is better at cards, because he has spent more time playing cards, in Antiva, in Cumberland, in dining halls and taverns and basements and storerooms while someone else kept watch for the intended target.
But he has forgotten, somewhat, what Kostos looks like when he lies. So. There's a handicap.
Deftly, Nikos slips out a card and places it face-up on top of Kostos' last discard. Serpent of Dismay.]
There's a holiday coming up. One of the meaningless little ones they do in Antiva. I expect they'll figure it out when I don't come around. Unless Marisol has preemptively sent a flamingo with the news.
[As he picks up his cup of wine, it occurs to him to ask, flatly:]
[ A nice disembodied question for a nice rainy evening. The voice asking it is quiet, and beyond it there's periodically a murmur of someone else's conversation. He's in the room the mages are sharing while they refuse to work, likewise refusing to work, but not fully capable of refusing to think about work, which presently means thinking about Caius Van Markham's severed neck and the forces his family his consolidating outside the capitol.
There would not have been forces consolidating for the Averesches. Perhaps that also means Nikos would not have been important enough for an axe. Hanging is kinder, anyway, in its way—easier to mummify. ]
Mm, [Nikos says, thoughtfully, which sounds more like disinterest coming from him. And he says it once he's over the what-even-is-this surprise of his brother contacting him out of nowhere.
It's not that they don't talk. They don't talk much. Certainly not in the evening, and not remotely. Not without a hand of cards and a few dozen drinks to protect them. Although--capable of drinking alone--Nikos has been drinking alone, in the blessed quiet of personal isolation.]
I would fucking hope not. People can live for seconds after decapitation. Imagine.
[Not the horror. Imagine how annoying it would be to still be alive.]
Think hanging would have been more likely. [And also,] Planning on handing me over?
—that requests for favors made in the midst of unresolved arguments should be prefaced with some sort of apology, even a nonverbal one. Other people have those sheepish sort of half-smiles in their arsenals of endearing facial expressions, the ones that say let's put it all behind us without anyone having to talk about it. They're effective. They've even worked on Kostos. But he's never arranged his face in that particular way before, and he doesn't start now.
When Nikos comes back from wherever, doing whatever, in whatever state, Kostos is standing outside his door with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall so minimally that it barely counts, and glaring at a sentient little wisp of light. He remains glaring while his attention shifts down the corridor to his brother.
He is willing to lose this round of who will talk first, but only after first making a respectable showing. ]
[Partway up the corridor, Nikos stops. Marks the movement he'd thought he had seen. Waits, until he sees it again. He doesn't reach for his dagger. His arm tightens, unremarkably. He walks forward a few more paces, comes more fully into view.
It is light, he realizes, a moment later. Too faint, too shivery to be any flame. And, now he sees it: Kostos, and with a sigh, Nikos picks up his pace. Because he might as well.
He's wearing a dark cloak, and as he gets closer, he shifts his arm so the package he's carrying stays well beneath it. There's a faint smell of wine to him, as usual. If he'd not had so much to drink he might have concealed the package a little sooner. As it is, it might go unnoticed.
Then again, Kostos is an irritating shit.
Nikos walks right past his brother, and the tiny light. Shoves open his door and goes into his small room and immediately starts banging around in there, taking off his cloak, chucking it on the bed with the package wrapped within, fumbling to light a candle and get wine and, you know, things. Things people do in their room. He pointedly does not talk first.
[ Deposited on Nikos’ doorknob on Satinalia using its drawstrings is a tiny burlap bag containing a ring that’s pretty tasteful, dark metal with a thin visible strip of lyrium giving it away as enchanted in some way, and a note that says: ]
The man I won it from said it steadied his hands.
[ No he didn’t, and no it didn’t. It’s actually a ring that will shatter and heal its wearer back out of danger, though not completely, one time only, if they attempt to shuffle all the way off the mortal coil. But Kostos threw it at the stone walls a few times to make it look used, and steadier hands are subjective and psychosomatic enough that the lie might pass? Maybe?
Anyway, it’s one (1) free ticket for a dramatic death scene, minus death, someday. ]
[In due time, Nikos finds the bag. Opens it. Reads the note. Feels, weirdly, something like-- well, there is no word for it, really. The cousin of surprise, with a crust of bizarre anticipation. It's confusing; so he spends the next few moments looking, blankly, at the ring. It's confusing, so blankness tints toward a faint irritation. So, what. They do Satinalia now?
He does not write or respond to Kostos. He certainly does not get him a gift in return. His sole interest in Satinalia is the drinking parts. And even if he did celebrate, it's not like Kostos has given him gifts in the past to mark the occasion. It's not like he and Kostos exchanged gifts, ever, not properly, even when they were small. Once and once only, at six, or so the family legend goes, a tale trotted out at parties: that time their mother put a package in Nikos' hand and said, Give this to your brother, and without hesitation, Nikos opened the package himself--but it was only fair, because Kostos was doing the same thing with the package he was meant to give to Nikos.
[After some accidental detective work, and sounding like he's found some feline contentment in the meantime—if the tip of the cat's tail were still twitching—]
So—Nikos, is it? However did you come by that accent?
[ Today’s tone is brusque with an undercurrent of confusion. ]
Aunt Contanze wrote to me. [ Him! ] She wants us to meet her to discuss a matter of urgency that she can’t write down.
[ From where he’s standing, obliviously, it feels equally likely to end in a surprise family reunion and a surprise Venatori infiltration of the Antivan oligarchy. ]
Of course she wrote to you, idiot. You're firstborn, and now they know where you are. Congratulations on having that honor restored.
[ p r i c k . If he's bitchy enough, will Kostos go away, so he doesn't have to think about the matter of urgency.]
Why would I know what would motivate Aunt Contanze to put ink to parchment. Maybe she's dying and leaving you everything to clear the family name of debt.
[A small cough; someone clearing their throat, before-] Messire Averesch. This is, ah, Mhavos Dalat. We met... earlier. [He doesn't expect him to remember. He also isn't entirely sure which Averesch this is; he's not entirely sure there's a reasonable difference, given their interaction earlier.] Could I have a word?
[Once, he had Kostos pinned against the stones of the garden ( someone else's garden, their parents were visiting, they were bored) with an arm twisted behind his back, and Kostos had screamed TRUCE, and Nikos had let up, and Kostos had turned around and slapped Nikos in the eye.
Once, a well-meaning but unfamiliar third cousin--older than them by only fifteen years, used to kind children, driven mad by their particular brand of sibling savagery--had locked Nikos and Kostos in a room together and told them rather hysterically they would be left there until they apologized to one another, and it wasn't until the next morning that their parents realized they were missing, tracked down the cousin, who led them to the room, where all involved found the Nikos and Kostos sitting right where they had been left, glaring at one another.
Once, Kostos and Nikos had, at the same time, in a feat of synchronization that would have impressed in another setting, shoved back their chairs and stood up and screamed I WOULD RATHER DIE within a breath of one another, and this after a tutor told them to stop deliberately dripping ink on one another's letters and apologize.
All of which means that Nikos scans the almost-apology for anything suspicious. But it's suspicious by nature, in that it is even close to an apology--even when the second bit comes.
Hm.]
Why, so I could have fully beat your brains into a wall? There's always next time.
[And, also--]
What is this?
Edited (changed my direction there oops) 2019-08-21 23:09 (UTC)
I know Max had some measure of faith in your ability to pass information under difficult circumstances, so I suppose I may as well ask if you'd do me a favor if I ever have a need.
Whether or not they did, or would-- [Mm. Nikos swirls his wine in the other direction, exposing a flash of dregs that clumps like pulp in the base of the cup.] We could write. Ask politely.
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ACTION.
And if that seems like its own kind of avoidance—wine, Wicked Grace, weather—well, it might be, but only as a cover for unseen and unheard but nonetheless determined readjustment to the idea of a brother as a living thing with toes and eyebrows instead of a story being written in irregular installments.
He’s nearly there. Close enough that. He asks, ]
Do Mother and Father know that you’re here?
[ It’s an important question. He’ll have to answer their letter eventually. He needs to know what to say.
It’s also cover, somewhat, for an attempt at the idle sleight-of-hand cheating that’s all but required in the game. He isn’t bad at it, for someone who learned playing against mages instead of Antivans. ]
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[An important question answered with a casual question. Nikos, attention fixed on his hand, does not look up.
Which means he misses this particular instance of Kostos cheating. He has already called his brother out at least once this game. He will call him on it again before the game is done. He is better at cards, because he has spent more time playing cards, in Antiva, in Cumberland, in dining halls and taverns and basements and storerooms while someone else kept watch for the intended target.
But he has forgotten, somewhat, what Kostos looks like when he lies. So. There's a handicap.
Deftly, Nikos slips out a card and places it face-up on top of Kostos' last discard. Serpent of Dismay.]
There's a holiday coming up. One of the meaningless little ones they do in Antiva. I expect they'll figure it out when I don't come around. Unless Marisol has preemptively sent a flamingo with the news.
[As he picks up his cup of wine, it occurs to him to ask, flatly:]
Why.
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crystal;
( She isn't worried. Except for how she is, but let's not point fingers. )
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[ d r a w l e d ]
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crystal;
( so like, pros and cons??? )
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[A very normal response to a very normal start of a very normal conversation.]
How do you feel about re-gifting.
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crystal.
[ A nice disembodied question for a nice rainy evening. The voice asking it is quiet, and beyond it there's periodically a murmur of someone else's conversation. He's in the room the mages are sharing while they refuse to work, likewise refusing to work, but not fully capable of refusing to think about work, which presently means thinking about Caius Van Markham's severed neck and the forces his family his consolidating outside the capitol.
There would not have been forces consolidating for the Averesches. Perhaps that also means Nikos would not have been important enough for an axe. Hanging is kinder, anyway, in its way—easier to mummify. ]
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It's not that they don't talk. They don't talk much. Certainly not in the evening, and not remotely. Not without a hand of cards and a few dozen drinks to protect them. Although--capable of drinking alone--Nikos has been drinking alone, in the blessed quiet of personal isolation.]
I would fucking hope not. People can live for seconds after decapitation. Imagine.
[Not the horror. Imagine how annoying it would be to still be alive.]
Think hanging would have been more likely. [And also,] Planning on handing me over?
[Not why do you ask.]
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action!
plausible
—that requests for favors made in the midst of unresolved arguments should be prefaced with some sort of apology, even a nonverbal one. Other people have those sheepish sort of half-smiles in their arsenals of endearing facial expressions, the ones that say let's put it all behind us without anyone having to talk about it. They're effective. They've even worked on Kostos. But he's never arranged his face in that particular way before, and he doesn't start now.
When Nikos comes back from wherever, doing whatever, in whatever state, Kostos is standing outside his door with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall so minimally that it barely counts, and glaring at a sentient little wisp of light. He remains glaring while his attention shifts down the corridor to his brother.
He is willing to lose this round of who will talk first, but only after first making a respectable showing. ]
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It is light, he realizes, a moment later. Too faint, too shivery to be any flame. And, now he sees it: Kostos, and with a sigh, Nikos picks up his pace. Because he might as well.
He's wearing a dark cloak, and as he gets closer, he shifts his arm so the package he's carrying stays well beneath it. There's a faint smell of wine to him, as usual. If he'd not had so much to drink he might have concealed the package a little sooner. As it is, it might go unnoticed.
Then again, Kostos is an irritating shit.
Nikos walks right past his brother, and the tiny light. Shoves open his door and goes into his small room and immediately starts banging around in there, taking off his cloak, chucking it on the bed with the package wrapped within, fumbling to light a candle and get wine and, you know, things. Things people do in their room. He pointedly does not talk first.
He does leave the door open.]
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crystal.
Why is he here?
[ Proper nouns will cost a copper apiece, but there’s a bit of a tone there, on the pronoun. Almost italics. He. ]
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But like, an annoyed oh fuck.]
You'll have to elaborate. There's a lot of men in Kirkwall. I imagine you know more of them than I do.
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You went back to Tevinter, right? To help the people who got captured. Right?
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Who is this?
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( None of this is part of a villainous scheme. )
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[but this is Marisol so isn't it probably some kind of a scheme at least]
And what do you want?
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crystal, waves hand vaguely at timeline.
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Depends on what we're speaking about. What is it you want?
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crystal.
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crystal;
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delivery.
The man I won it from said it steadied his hands.
[ No he didn’t, and no it didn’t. It’s actually a ring that will shatter and heal its wearer back out of danger, though not completely, one time only, if they attempt to shuffle all the way off the mortal coil. But Kostos threw it at the stone walls a few times to make it look used, and steadier hands are subjective and psychosomatic enough that the lie might pass? Maybe?
Anyway, it’s one (1) free ticket for a dramatic death scene, minus death, someday. ]
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He does not write or respond to Kostos. He certainly does not get him a gift in return. His sole interest in Satinalia is the drinking parts. And even if he did celebrate, it's not like Kostos has given him gifts in the past to mark the occasion. It's not like he and Kostos exchanged gifts, ever, not properly, even when they were small. Once and once only, at six, or so the family legend goes, a tale trotted out at parties: that time their mother put a package in Nikos' hand and said, Give this to your brother, and without hesitation, Nikos opened the package himself--but it was only fair, because Kostos was doing the same thing with the package he was meant to give to Nikos.
So why fucking start a useless tradition now.
He does start wearing the ring.
Don't say anything about it.]
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[Surprise, surprise.]
And yourself?
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crystal.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
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crystal;
So—Nikos, is it? However did you come by that accent?
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[Disappointed and a little irritated, to have the game ended, Nikos sighs.]
Who are you, exactly?
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crystal.
Aunt Contanze wrote to me. [ Him! ] She wants us to meet her to discuss a matter of urgency that she can’t write down.
[ From where he’s standing, obliviously, it feels equally likely to end in a surprise family reunion and a surprise Venatori infiltration of the Antivan oligarchy. ]
Do you know anything about it?
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[ p r i c k . If he's bitchy enough, will Kostos go away, so he doesn't have to think about the matter of urgency.]
Why would I know what would motivate Aunt Contanze to put ink to parchment. Maybe she's dying and leaving you everything to clear the family name of debt.
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crystal.
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The contract-- [excuse him while he throws up in his mouth a little] --is gone. If that's what your word will be related to. That's over.
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crystal.
[ That’s as close to an apology as he’ll likely be able to manage.
Actually, no. It’s too close. ]
I should have done it somewhere more private.
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Once, a well-meaning but unfamiliar third cousin--older than them by only fifteen years, used to kind children, driven mad by their particular brand of sibling savagery--had locked Nikos and Kostos in a room together and told them rather hysterically they would be left there until they apologized to one another, and it wasn't until the next morning that their parents realized they were missing, tracked down the cousin, who led them to the room, where all involved found the Nikos and Kostos sitting right where they had been left, glaring at one another.
Once, Kostos and Nikos had, at the same time, in a feat of synchronization that would have impressed in another setting, shoved back their chairs and stood up and screamed I WOULD RATHER DIE within a breath of one another, and this after a tutor told them to stop deliberately dripping ink on one another's letters and apologize.
All of which means that Nikos scans the almost-apology for anything suspicious. But it's suspicious by nature, in that it is even close to an apology--even when the second bit comes.
Hm.]
Why, so I could have fully beat your brains into a wall? There's always next time.
[And, also--]
What is this?
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wow hi sorry
hi wow good
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crystal, time is fake;
extremely
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crystal / after all the fade creatures, before the kissing party ig.
[ a beat ]
This is John Silver, by the way.
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I don't agree to anything open-ended. No matter whose name you put in front of your inquiry.
What's the favor?
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backdated to the crystal thing with Teren
What's going on? You're in Nevarra, right?
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Nothing is going on. Exactly the problem.
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crystal, pre-nevarra.
[ Not him. Not Nikos. Their father, maybe? Their remaining, more distant relatives in Nevarra? ]
—someone.
[ Right? ]
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Whether or not they did, or would-- [Mm. Nikos swirls his wine in the other direction, exposing a flash of dregs that clumps like pulp in the base of the cup.] We could write. Ask politely.
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crystal.
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