[It isn't as if he hasn't ever heard Van sound concerned for him before--but it's rare enough he's always taken aback when it does happen. Which is good, in a way, as it gives him space to think about just what the hell it is he's doing that's worried his cousin so much.]
Not unless asking him what his motives were is "meddling". No--just wanted to know how much shit I'm liable to be in for not thinking he did us a favor.
[It won't stop him from speaking out. But it will let him prepare for the consequences of doing so.
Hopefully this time they won't cost him anything so valuable as his eyes.]
...Right, well, there's the pretty opportunity to show how much they've rehabilitated a mass murderer, I suppose. [He tries for some kind of humor. Not working.] It's--fuck.
He's such a zealot, Van. It breaks my heart to listen to him--to think of what they were doing here, and seven years without a response from anyone who could stop it--but it narrowed him so much, you can hear it, and--I--
[He trails off into flustered, miserable silence.]
You can think anything you like. You can even say it out loud, to whomever you want. Nobody's going to shut it down around here. [The Inquisition doesn't forbid us from talking without armed sentries, or disband our discussion groups outright, he doesn't say. But he doesn't think he needs to.
His eyebrows arch to his hairline when Myr, for once, is the one to make a too-soon sort of a joke, but he doesn't comment--he knows it'll be taken back, or something like, quickly enough.
He hasn't spoken to Anders, at least not in any capacity he can remember well. Myr honestly knows the man considerably better. But--he'll believe that, even from a loyalist's perspective.]
I told you it was bad in Kirkwall. [It's not a moment for 'I told you so,' but for Vandelin, every moment is an 'I told you so' moment. Still, he doesn't mean it like that, not exactly.]
Look. If there's one thing the rebellion's given us--one thing even you have to admit--it's the chance to talk to people from other Circles without interference. We've all been shaped by our own, but--they weren't all the Gallows, so tell people that if you want. Tell them what Hasmal was like for you. Tell him that, if it's not just going to upset you more. He might not listen, but who knows. Someone will.
No one shut me down back home. There were still consequences.
[He knows exactly what didn't get said there, and some part of him resents it. Damn it, this isn't what he needs right now.
But that's on him for going to Van for help, and really, who else could he trust at all with this? The only other person he's got any kind of rapport with seems to agree completely with his assessment of Anders and, ergo, is prone to the same biases and blind spots he'd have. But traveling to the far opposite end of the spectrum to get a contrasting view only lands him with a lapful of different biases and blind spots he's got to sort through.
To say nothing of Vandelin's propensity to jump on every opportunity presented to remind Myr of his own failures of knowledge. Which see.
All the emotion drains out of his tone.] You told me.
I hadn't planned to do otherwise. [It's good advice and he has no doubt it's kindly meant, but for the embedded lacerating barb.] I'm glad of what I had, Van. Even if it was unique.
[And now it's gone, and he can't have it back, and there's something out there in the Fade that despises him for even dreaming about it, and--
No, you don't. [Vandelin never learns, not quickly enough. Myr might be the steadfast traditionalist of the pair of them, but when it comes down to it, he's always been the quicker one to adapt to change, even if Vandelin's the one agitating for it. Van's sworn to himself he would try harder to compromise, to sympathize without trying to rebut, but when push comes to shove, it always ends up like this. He sighs.]
I'm sorry. That was...unnecessary.
But I don't know what you wanted me to tell you. I can't make people think any differently about Anders. And I'm telling you that if you're glad about what you had back home--
[The word reveals more than he meant to, more than he even realizes, for all his usual eagle-sharp attention to every minute detail of word connotation.]
Tell people why. Explain it to them. Make them listen. Something is going to have to be done about the Circles eventually, and if they have to be rebuilt in some capacity--even a voluntary one--we can take what was important to you about them and use it. It doesn't all have to be so...past-tense.
[There's a long silent pause here where he seriously, thoroughly considers throwing his sending crystal across the room.
But they might be fragile and he's not sure he'll get another one if he confesses to having broken it deliberately because he couldn't handle his cousin backtalking him.
...And...besides, Van apologized. So there's that.]
It was. But--apology accepted.
[He's going to hold on to that, cling to it tight and remind himself that what Van does he does because he cares too much, not too little. That way he might get through this.]
I wanted--facts, that's all. Reasoned speculation if you had it. Some kind of map for what I've gotten into here. [Maybe if he's direct about it this won't happen in the future. Maybe. He hopes.] Not the rest of this that we've beaten to death before.
[Breathe in, breathe out. He heard that "home" and he lets it go because now isn't the time to go after Vandelin's vulnerabilities instead of the weaknesses in his arguments.] "If they have to be."
Who's "we," Van? Who gets a voice in this and when? D'you intend to hear us out about this before you install us back in our voluntary Circles or just check in on how we're finding the accommodations after all's said and done?
[With anyone but Myr, anyone else in the world, Van would have stayed completely silent in his outrage and bafflement, but Myr gets the benefit of hearing exactly how he feels about this pronouncement while he sorts it out himself.]
Let me just get this straight. You're upset about the idea of being 'installed back in a Circle.' Because you're afraid you won't be sufficiently consulted first. Because the word 'we' somehow, in your mind, implies exclusivity when I'm asking for your input.
I bring up the possibility of working together so that you don't have to give up all hope of regaining what you wanted all along, all your life, and this still somehow makes me the villain here?
[He doesn't like to raise his voice, not where anyone can hear him, but how can he not? There's a raw-edged pain to that last, and he can't hide it--not from Myr. He knows his cousin is a man of steady conviction, and yet he can't understand this as anything but moving the goalposts for punishment's sake. How is there no way for him to win here, even when he's desperately trying?]
[He wasn't aware, himself, that the goalposts had moved until the words were out of his mouth.
And not even then--it's not until he hears the pain in his cousin's voice that he's jarred loose of his own righteous indignation and left to consider what he's just said.]
I--
--forgive me; I need...a minute.
[There's a slide of cloth on cloth and a thump as he sits down on something heavily, then silence.
What the hell does he even think he's doing here?]
[The old Vandelin, perhaps, would have pursued it--chased him down while he was vulnerable, argued harder, demanded apology and restitution just for the sake of winning.
But he doesn't know what to say now, either. There's nothing he can promise Myr and nothing to argue for. He keeps his mouth shut, for once in his life, and thinks.]
[Quietly:] I don't want the Circles back because I'm weak and need shelter. I want them back because Hasmal was my home.
[He knows he can't leave that hanging without explanation, but it's harder to compose the path that brought him to the conclusion--to untangle the winding track of assumptions and blind leaps that ended in him lashing out at Van.
'Your need should inspire them to be charitable regardless, I should think.' 'Slow down, kid; you can't do this the way you used to.' 'You understand that I cannot continue to train you now; you would be a liability rather than an asset on the battlefield.'
'Sometimes, I believe you Southern mages got what you deserved.']
People assume I'm crippled now. Incapable. Want to put me back in a safe little box so I don't get hurt.
It doesn't feel any damn different if it's because I've never been out of a Circle in my life.
[An impression of someone formed over the course of a lifetime is not set aside in a matter of weeks. The very idea of Myr--strong, capable, athletic Myr, who was beating up miscreants on teenage Vandelin's behalf while still prepubescent, who could swing a staff and a spirit blade with enough force to lay out a fully-armored templar when he tried--being thought of as weak or crippled or helpless is too much to wrap his mind around without effort.
He'd swear that he hasn't been avoiding Myr, especially not so that he doesn't have to see the blindfold. He would be lying. But Myr's train of thought here still would never have occurred to him without explanation.]
That's not how I meant it. Not for a second. I'm not trying to keep you safe, I'm just trying to find a way to give you what you always said you wanted. I thought--
[He doesn't know what he'd thought. His vision for the future of the Circles, such as it is, had never truly been compatible with what he'd thought Myr would want anyway. He ought to be relieved that Myr doesn't seem to want everything put back the way it was after all, but the fact that he can't predict anymore what Myr wants from the future only makes him all the uneasier.]
It doesn't matter. For fuck's sake, Myr--the rest of the idiots here can see just fine, and you're still doing better than they are. Let the dumb bastards assume what they want.
[By 'rest of the idiots here,' he's perhaps projecting his own inability to navigate Kirkwall with the ease he'd hoped for. But he'd rather die than say it in so many words.]
Three years of pity from the remains of Hasmal Circle, as they watched someone who had been so capable struggle to relearn the simplest tasks, had left its mark on him. It wasn't maliciously meant--they simply didn't know any better--and yet it crept into his self-regard all the same, nibbling away at his confidence, leaving him estranged from the people he loved best.
But Van hadn't been there for any of it; he'd been off struggling for his own survival, unaware his cousin had been maimed. It's easy to forget that, with how readily they've fallen back into their old patterns in the past few weeks--but neither of them really fits anymore, do they, into the holes they'd left in each other's lives.
He doesn't like that feeling.
He sighs, pushing a hand through his hair.]
I know. I wasn't hearing you.
[He was listening to his own insecurities and you-can'ts instead.
In light of that Van's defense of him is heartening, even as it wrings a rueful half-believing laugh out of Myr.]
If I'm the best they've got, we're proper fucked next time Corypheus rears his head.
[A beat of a pause.]
He's got a lot of the same ideas you do--Anders, that is. No surprise there. But hasn't thought them through nearly so well.
Wouldn't have been much of a contest except I didn't think I could keep my temper long enough to work through all his assumptions.
[I know. I wasn't hearing you. How many vicious arguments could have been stopped in their tracks over the years if Vandelin had ever known how to say that? Even now, he still doesn't.
But for the moment, they're at their uneasy peace again. He laughs at Myr's self-deprecation in turn, but only because it's meant in jest. And as to the rest--well. That, from his cousin, is a high compliment indeed.]
I'd almost feel bad enough to give him some pointers, if he were anyone else. There aren't a lot of people I'd wish your temper on.
[He makes that low noise that serves him in the place of an incredulous whistle.]
Didn't know you hated him quite that much. [It's still partly joking.
But only partly.]
I backed off it after he started trying to convert me. Which he didn't do until I told him outright I was a mage, come to think--and that after I told him my name and where I was from. [Lightly,] Think I oughta be flattered he thought I was a templar or insulted he mistook me for shemlen with a name like mine?
[I don't, he would say, but it would ruin this, and there's too much he's missed about being able to talk to Myr like old times. Even his inability to whistle is endearing, when Van hadn't known a few weeks ago that he'd ever hear that idiosyncratic little noise again. It's worth playing along for.
And he can't help but laugh, really laugh, at the idea of that misconception.]
Okay, you already know what I'd say to that, but--he honestly thought you could be a templar? You gave him your full name and everything?
[It's good to hear Van laugh like that. It eases something in his chest he hadn't known was seized up.]
Give him the benefit of the doubt, though; I think he was in such a crashing great hurry to believe no mage would be upset with what he did that he turned a deaf ear to, well, everything else. If he's in the business of charity-healing he's got to see a lot of elves, right? [Because who else would, is the undertone.
Who else would but someone who couldn't look past his own prejudices of a different sort to notice one right under his nose.]
[Charity-healing, and charity-teaching, and other such pursuits that make mocking him leave a bad taste in Vandelin's mouth--but so too would defending him. He can't help but wonder, in the eternally wary part of his heart, if this conversation is some kind of test.]
Probably. I don't think anyone batted an eye when I walked in, but I'm not the one to ask. I was so concussed I wouldn't have noticed if Corypheus himself was ahead of me in line.
[It's a clumsy and slightly desperate grab at a change of subject, baiting Myr into asking about the circumstances. At any other time, and with anyone else, he'd be reluctant to bring it up at all--but he'd still sooner talk about it now than try to keep up a conversation so precarious.]
[Van's gracelessness goes unremarked upon; Myr's no less desperate to keep things on this temporary even keel and more than willing to follow a subject change if it avoids something more dangerous and liable to explode.
Besides which, he's been concussed that badly a time or two himself and hearing Vandelin confess to it evokes a sudden pang of worry.]
What the hell did you do to yourself? And how long ago was this? Did he keep you in for monitoring after?
[He might not be much of a healer himself, but when it comes to the kinds of injuries one can get in the course of a knight-enchanter's training, he knows his stuff.]
[He's relieved that Myr's willing to go along with it, and unexpectedly touched by the concern. It's hardly out of the ordinary for Myr; he's always been the one for explicit displays of affection and overt concern for others' well-being, but...still. It's one more thing Van wasn't sure he'd ever have the benefit of again.]
It wasn't long after I got here. It was fine, honestly. Just a mishap with that ogre-sized templar and a bookshelf in the library. [He ought to clarify, perhaps, which ogre-sized templar he means. He has only thus far had dealings with the one.]
He didn't...really keep me for long, as far as I remember. But all's well that ends well. And like I said, I didn't have to pay a thing for it, which is the important bit. [To him, anyway.]
[At this point it's so much of a reflex that even if Myr's anger at his cousin went deep enough that he'd want to deny Vandelin all affection...he couldn't. Caring about what family he's got is etched into him indelibly.]
--What! Ser Ashlock? [Of course that's where his mind would go.] What did he do? What did you do? You didn't pick a fight, did you? --No, you wouldn't. But what even happened?
[...Huff.] Well, if it was that long ago and he'd botched the job of healing you, you'd be showing effects by now. As long as you don't hurt yourself again that way.
Who? No, it--I don't know who that is. This one was a woman. Of course you know all their names already. [As if he hadn't been counting on that. He'd assumed, evidently at least half correctly, that Myr would already be familiar enough with every templar in the place that he could simply list a single trait and his cousin would know precisely who he meant.]
I told her I didn't need help reaching anything, and she practically climbed the damn shelf trying to prove me wrong. Of course, I got blamed when the thing fell over. [This is his version of events, and by the Maker, he's sticking to it.]
Anyway. It doesn't matter. I'm fine, the healing worked, the archivists have finally let me back into the library, and all is right with the world. Well. In a manner of speaking.
They still need stepladders, though. Maybe you can agitate for them. People like you.
Oh. [He sounds both relieved and embarrassed.] Ser Coupe, then. If she was Orlesian. Ser Ashlock's even bigger, if you can believe it. [...He realizes how fond he sounded there for a moment and rapidly clears his throat.] But yes, I'm working on meeting all of them.
[He sits and listens to all the rest of this with an increasingly puzzled frown on his face--why WOULD Ser Coupe do such a thing?--until that last bit slots the pieces into place.] ...If they don't have stepladders, how would you reach anything on the higher shelves?
[It's a leading question.
Absently,] People like you fine when you're not nettling them. But I'll try. Don't know how well my heartfelt appeal will work if it's obvious I won't be looking for any reading material myself.
[That tone of voice is not lost on Vandelin for a second, and his eyebrow arches sharply on the other end of the line, but he lets Myr correct himself without comment. It's just a bit of information to file away for later, with a secret little smirk.
That drops rapidly off his face at the pointed question, for which he does not have an answer that won't incriminate him. Myr knows him too well.]
Exactly.
And that's why they'd listen. [Myr says it so casually, so utterly matter-of-fact about his blindness, but Vandelin can't joke about it. He tries to match that tone, but the words sound half-choked.] They'll know that you're selflessly arguing on behalf of others, even if you can't benefit personally. I...
[His expression on the other end of the line is frozen, even if Myr can't see it via crystal (couldn't see it at all, no matter what, but don't think of that.) Myr has always had the dubious honor of being the one person Vandelin trusts almost as far as he could throw him--but in the scheme of things, that still doesn't say a whole hell of a lot, and he's now reminded why.
His voice, when it returns to him, is every bit as matter-of-fact as Myr's.]
On the other hand, it might not. You don't really have the best win/loss record.
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Not unless asking him what his motives were is "meddling". No--just wanted to know how much shit I'm liable to be in for not thinking he did us a favor.
[It won't stop him from speaking out. But it will let him prepare for the consequences of doing so.
Hopefully this time they won't cost him anything so valuable as his eyes.]
...Right, well, there's the pretty opportunity to show how much they've rehabilitated a mass murderer, I suppose. [He tries for some kind of humor. Not working.] It's--fuck.
He's such a zealot, Van. It breaks my heart to listen to him--to think of what they were doing here, and seven years without a response from anyone who could stop it--but it narrowed him so much, you can hear it, and--I--
[He trails off into flustered, miserable silence.]
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His eyebrows arch to his hairline when Myr, for once, is the one to make a too-soon sort of a joke, but he doesn't comment--he knows it'll be taken back, or something like, quickly enough.
He hasn't spoken to Anders, at least not in any capacity he can remember well. Myr honestly knows the man considerably better. But--he'll believe that, even from a loyalist's perspective.]
I told you it was bad in Kirkwall. [It's not a moment for 'I told you so,' but for Vandelin, every moment is an 'I told you so' moment. Still, he doesn't mean it like that, not exactly.]
Look. If there's one thing the rebellion's given us--one thing even you have to admit--it's the chance to talk to people from other Circles without interference. We've all been shaped by our own, but--they weren't all the Gallows, so tell people that if you want. Tell them what Hasmal was like for you. Tell him that, if it's not just going to upset you more. He might not listen, but who knows. Someone will.
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[He knows exactly what didn't get said there, and some part of him resents it. Damn it, this isn't what he needs right now.
But that's on him for going to Van for help, and really, who else could he trust at all with this? The only other person he's got any kind of rapport with seems to agree completely with his assessment of Anders and, ergo, is prone to the same biases and blind spots he'd have. But traveling to the far opposite end of the spectrum to get a contrasting view only lands him with a lapful of different biases and blind spots he's got to sort through.
To say nothing of Vandelin's propensity to jump on every opportunity presented to remind Myr of his own failures of knowledge. Which see.
All the emotion drains out of his tone.] You told me.
I hadn't planned to do otherwise. [It's good advice and he has no doubt it's kindly meant, but for the embedded lacerating barb.] I'm glad of what I had, Van. Even if it was unique.
[And now it's gone, and he can't have it back, and there's something out there in the Fade that despises him for even dreaming about it, and--
He swallows, hard.]
Thanks. Think I've got what I need, now.
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I'm sorry. That was...unnecessary.
But I don't know what you wanted me to tell you. I can't make people think any differently about Anders. And I'm telling you that if you're glad about what you had back home--
[The word reveals more than he meant to, more than he even realizes, for all his usual eagle-sharp attention to every minute detail of word connotation.]
Tell people why. Explain it to them. Make them listen. Something is going to have to be done about the Circles eventually, and if they have to be rebuilt in some capacity--even a voluntary one--we can take what was important to you about them and use it. It doesn't all have to be so...past-tense.
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But they might be fragile and he's not sure he'll get another one if he confesses to having broken it deliberately because he couldn't handle his cousin backtalking him.
...And...besides, Van apologized. So there's that.]
It was. But--apology accepted.
[He's going to hold on to that, cling to it tight and remind himself that what Van does he does because he cares too much, not too little. That way he might get through this.]
I wanted--facts, that's all. Reasoned speculation if you had it. Some kind of map for what I've gotten into here. [Maybe if he's direct about it this won't happen in the future. Maybe. He hopes.] Not the rest of this that we've beaten to death before.
[Breathe in, breathe out. He heard that "home" and he lets it go because now isn't the time to go after Vandelin's vulnerabilities instead of the weaknesses in his arguments.] "If they have to be."
Who's "we," Van? Who gets a voice in this and when? D'you intend to hear us out about this before you install us back in our voluntary Circles or just check in on how we're finding the accommodations after all's said and done?
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[With anyone but Myr, anyone else in the world, Van would have stayed completely silent in his outrage and bafflement, but Myr gets the benefit of hearing exactly how he feels about this pronouncement while he sorts it out himself.]
Let me just get this straight. You're upset about the idea of being 'installed back in a Circle.' Because you're afraid you won't be sufficiently consulted first. Because the word 'we' somehow, in your mind, implies exclusivity when I'm asking for your input.
I bring up the possibility of working together so that you don't have to give up all hope of regaining what you wanted all along, all your life, and this still somehow makes me the villain here?
[He doesn't like to raise his voice, not where anyone can hear him, but how can he not? There's a raw-edged pain to that last, and he can't hide it--not from Myr. He knows his cousin is a man of steady conviction, and yet he can't understand this as anything but moving the goalposts for punishment's sake. How is there no way for him to win here, even when he's desperately trying?]
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And not even then--it's not until he hears the pain in his cousin's voice that he's jarred loose of his own righteous indignation and left to consider what he's just said.]
I--
--forgive me; I need...a minute.
[There's a slide of cloth on cloth and a thump as he sits down on something heavily, then silence.
What the hell does he even think he's doing here?]
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But he doesn't know what to say now, either. There's nothing he can promise Myr and nothing to argue for. He keeps his mouth shut, for once in his life, and thinks.]
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[He knows he can't leave that hanging without explanation, but it's harder to compose the path that brought him to the conclusion--to untangle the winding track of assumptions and blind leaps that ended in him lashing out at Van.
'Your need should inspire them to be charitable regardless, I should think.' 'Slow down, kid; you can't do this the way you used to.' 'You understand that I cannot continue to train you now; you would be a liability rather than an asset on the battlefield.'
'Sometimes, I believe you Southern mages got what you deserved.']
People assume I'm crippled now. Incapable. Want to put me back in a safe little box so I don't get hurt.
It doesn't feel any damn different if it's because I've never been out of a Circle in my life.
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He'd swear that he hasn't been avoiding Myr, especially not so that he doesn't have to see the blindfold. He would be lying. But Myr's train of thought here still would never have occurred to him without explanation.]
That's not how I meant it. Not for a second. I'm not trying to keep you safe, I'm just trying to find a way to give you what you always said you wanted. I thought--
[He doesn't know what he'd thought. His vision for the future of the Circles, such as it is, had never truly been compatible with what he'd thought Myr would want anyway. He ought to be relieved that Myr doesn't seem to want everything put back the way it was after all, but the fact that he can't predict anymore what Myr wants from the future only makes him all the uneasier.]
It doesn't matter. For fuck's sake, Myr--the rest of the idiots here can see just fine, and you're still doing better than they are. Let the dumb bastards assume what they want.
[By 'rest of the idiots here,' he's perhaps projecting his own inability to navigate Kirkwall with the ease he'd hoped for. But he'd rather die than say it in so many words.]
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Three years of pity from the remains of Hasmal Circle, as they watched someone who had been so capable struggle to relearn the simplest tasks, had left its mark on him. It wasn't maliciously meant--they simply didn't know any better--and yet it crept into his self-regard all the same, nibbling away at his confidence, leaving him estranged from the people he loved best.
But Van hadn't been there for any of it; he'd been off struggling for his own survival, unaware his cousin had been maimed. It's easy to forget that, with how readily they've fallen back into their old patterns in the past few weeks--but neither of them really fits anymore, do they, into the holes they'd left in each other's lives.
He doesn't like that feeling.
He sighs, pushing a hand through his hair.]
I know. I wasn't hearing you.
[He was listening to his own insecurities and you-can'ts instead.
In light of that Van's defense of him is heartening, even as it wrings a rueful half-believing laugh out of Myr.]
If I'm the best they've got, we're proper fucked next time Corypheus rears his head.
[A beat of a pause.]
He's got a lot of the same ideas you do--Anders, that is. No surprise there. But hasn't thought them through nearly so well.
Wouldn't have been much of a contest except I didn't think I could keep my temper long enough to work through all his assumptions.
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But for the moment, they're at their uneasy peace again. He laughs at Myr's self-deprecation in turn, but only because it's meant in jest. And as to the rest--well. That, from his cousin, is a high compliment indeed.]
I'd almost feel bad enough to give him some pointers, if he were anyone else. There aren't a lot of people I'd wish your temper on.
[But he's missed it, in his way, all the same.]
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[He makes that low noise that serves him in the place of an incredulous whistle.]
Didn't know you hated him quite that much. [It's still partly joking.
But only partly.]
I backed off it after he started trying to convert me. Which he didn't do until I told him outright I was a mage, come to think--and that after I told him my name and where I was from. [Lightly,] Think I oughta be flattered he thought I was a templar or insulted he mistook me for shemlen with a name like mine?
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And he can't help but laugh, really laugh, at the idea of that misconception.]
Okay, you already know what I'd say to that, but--he honestly thought you could be a templar? You gave him your full name and everything?
Humans. Bless their giant hairy hearts.
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[It's good to hear Van laugh like that. It eases something in his chest he hadn't known was seized up.]
Give him the benefit of the doubt, though; I think he was in such a crashing great hurry to believe no mage would be upset with what he did that he turned a deaf ear to, well, everything else. If he's in the business of charity-healing he's got to see a lot of elves, right? [Because who else would, is the undertone.
Who else would but someone who couldn't look past his own prejudices of a different sort to notice one right under his nose.]
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Probably. I don't think anyone batted an eye when I walked in, but I'm not the one to ask. I was so concussed I wouldn't have noticed if Corypheus himself was ahead of me in line.
[It's a clumsy and slightly desperate grab at a change of subject, baiting Myr into asking about the circumstances. At any other time, and with anyone else, he'd be reluctant to bring it up at all--but he'd still sooner talk about it now than try to keep up a conversation so precarious.]
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Besides which, he's been concussed that badly a time or two himself and hearing Vandelin confess to it evokes a sudden pang of worry.]
What the hell did you do to yourself? And how long ago was this? Did he keep you in for monitoring after?
[He might not be much of a healer himself, but when it comes to the kinds of injuries one can get in the course of a knight-enchanter's training, he knows his stuff.]
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It wasn't long after I got here. It was fine, honestly. Just a mishap with that ogre-sized templar and a bookshelf in the library. [He ought to clarify, perhaps, which ogre-sized templar he means. He has only thus far had dealings with the one.]
He didn't...really keep me for long, as far as I remember. But all's well that ends well. And like I said, I didn't have to pay a thing for it, which is the important bit. [To him, anyway.]
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--What! Ser Ashlock? [Of course that's where his mind would go.] What did he do? What did you do? You didn't pick a fight, did you? --No, you wouldn't. But what even happened?
[...Huff.] Well, if it was that long ago and he'd botched the job of healing you, you'd be showing effects by now. As long as you don't hurt yourself again that way.
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I told her I didn't need help reaching anything, and she practically climbed the damn shelf trying to prove me wrong. Of course, I got blamed when the thing fell over. [This is his version of events, and by the Maker, he's sticking to it.]
Anyway. It doesn't matter. I'm fine, the healing worked, the archivists have finally let me back into the library, and all is right with the world. Well. In a manner of speaking.
They still need stepladders, though. Maybe you can agitate for them. People like you.
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[He sits and listens to all the rest of this with an increasingly puzzled frown on his face--why WOULD Ser Coupe do such a thing?--until that last bit slots the pieces into place.] ...If they don't have stepladders, how would you reach anything on the higher shelves?
[It's a leading question.
Absently,] People like you fine when you're not nettling them. But I'll try. Don't know how well my heartfelt appeal will work if it's obvious I won't be looking for any reading material myself.
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That drops rapidly off his face at the pointed question, for which he does not have an answer that won't incriminate him. Myr knows him too well.]
Exactly.
And that's why they'd listen. [Myr says it so casually, so utterly matter-of-fact about his blindness, but Vandelin can't joke about it. He tries to match that tone, but the words sound half-choked.] They'll know that you're selflessly arguing on behalf of others, even if you can't benefit personally. I...
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seesnotices what you did there, Van, but elects not to pursue it. He'll take the evasion as a point scored.And maybe go ask the archivists how far up the shelves his cousin managed to climb before toppling them.]
Well, and that's something I've got plenty of practice doing. [He keeps his own tone light.] There's just that extra bit of pathos now. Might work.
[He's being cruel. He knows he's being cruel and a part of him wants desperately to apologize--but why should he when Vandelin still hasn't.]
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His voice, when it returns to him, is every bit as matter-of-fact as Myr's.]
On the other hand, it might not. You don't really have the best win/loss record.
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I believe, [stay calm, stay even, don't let him know how much that hurt, though it's already too late,] I've taken up more than my share of your time.
Have a good afternoon.
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