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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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Then we’ll have some fun blowing things up later.
The question means she has to stop and think, squinting into the nothing over his shoulder as she tries to recall, or guess, or wonder if she ever knew at all,
“I think,” she decides, finally, “somewhere in her fifties. I don't think she's much off my uncle's age, and he's— Maker, nearly sixty now, I think? I don't know if I know her age precisely, although I don't know if she knows it precisely, either.” With how much precision such things are measured can vary, strata to strata, in Thedas; she doesn't know enough, she realises, about other Coupes and the woman's background before the Chantry to be sure if they would or wouldn't have strictly recorded that sort of information.
This does seem like a safer derail than we all might die, really.
“Before anything else I knew her as a miserable interfering bitch who'd inexplicably taken it into her head to elbow her way into my life and tell me what to do with it, first. When we were still an Inquisition outpost, she'd come here for some Chantry mothers, or something, and whenever I turned around there she was, having an opinion about everything.” Wow doesn't sound like anyone she knows, don't worry about it. “I didn't know she'd known my uncle. I didn't know there was anything to know about, and then— he was presumed dead for years. He was a mage of the White Spire, and when it was annulled, there wasn't any reason to think he hadn't been killed with the rest. He never turned up, not for years, but when I got word of him being alive, and when I mentioned as much to her, it wasn't new information. She knew already. Some other way. I think it was the time travel.”
“I think,” she decides, finally, “somewhere in her fifties. I don't think she's much off my uncle's age, and he's— Maker, nearly sixty now, I think? I don't know if I know her age precisely, although I don't know if she knows it precisely, either.” With how much precision such things are measured can vary, strata to strata, in Thedas; she doesn't know enough, she realises, about other Coupes and the woman's background before the Chantry to be sure if they would or wouldn't have strictly recorded that sort of information.
This does seem like a safer derail than we all might die, really.
“Before anything else I knew her as a miserable interfering bitch who'd inexplicably taken it into her head to elbow her way into my life and tell me what to do with it, first. When we were still an Inquisition outpost, she'd come here for some Chantry mothers, or something, and whenever I turned around there she was, having an opinion about everything.” Wow doesn't sound like anyone she knows, don't worry about it. “I didn't know she'd known my uncle. I didn't know there was anything to know about, and then— he was presumed dead for years. He was a mage of the White Spire, and when it was annulled, there wasn't any reason to think he hadn't been killed with the rest. He never turned up, not for years, but when I got word of him being alive, and when I mentioned as much to her, it wasn't new information. She knew already. Some other way. I think it was the time travel.”
“What a thing,” Stephen muses aloud, marveling, “that both of us can drop phrases like I think it was the time travel into casual conversation and that’s just fine.”
Very likely it’s one of the reasons they like each other so much: this offhand, shared straightforward matter-of-factness.
He shifts a little, readjusting his position; a little stiff on the wooden floor, but not as much as he once might have been. These days he stretches, he does yoga, he’s more limber as a sorcerer and mage than he ever was as a surgeon. He readjusts so one leg’s stretched out on the floor, thigh alongside hers. His foot nudges a piece of exposed chairback out of the way.
“And she’s… in the woods now?”
Very likely it’s one of the reasons they like each other so much: this offhand, shared straightforward matter-of-factness.
He shifts a little, readjusting his position; a little stiff on the wooden floor, but not as much as he once might have been. These days he stretches, he does yoga, he’s more limber as a sorcerer and mage than he ever was as a surgeon. He readjusts so one leg’s stretched out on the floor, thigh alongside hers. His foot nudges a piece of exposed chairback out of the way.
“And she’s… in the woods now?”
“Pulse is good, lungs are clear. Seems you haven’t picked up pneumonia or anything while you were shivering in a dungeon,” Strange says after a moment, giving his half-distracted verdict, retreating the stethoscope so his hand’s no longer half-plunged down Benedict’s robes. He had indeed noticed that scar.
And perhaps someone more polite and more tactful would know not to ask about that sort of thing, something so obviously gruesomely violent, but —
“What happened there?” he asks, matter-of-fact, with a gesture of his chin towards the other man’s neck. He’s curious. How Benedict survived it is, perhaps, the more pertinent question for the Head Healer.
And perhaps someone more polite and more tactful would know not to ask about that sort of thing, something so obviously gruesomely violent, but —
“What happened there?” he asks, matter-of-fact, with a gesture of his chin towards the other man’s neck. He’s curious. How Benedict survived it is, perhaps, the more pertinent question for the Head Healer.
He rearranges, adjusts; Gwenaëlle relaxes beside him, holding herself less as if she might at any moment launch herself across the room and off the balcony. Musters a sparse smile, not without humour,
“In a cottage,” she elaborates, “in the woods. The first thing my uncle did when he turned up at the Gallows was come to tell me that he'd had an heirloom ring off my lord and that he intended to propose to her with it. Sort of, the Circles have all fallen, did I imagine a vibe, did you want to get married about it?” It had been kind of him not to allow her to be totally blindsided, and she'd repaid that by doing her level best to make it slightly less obvious how much she hated everything he was struggling through saying to her.
She'd been very polite. It had been incredibly obvious, but she thought he'd appreciated her making the effort.
“They left together, a bit after she stepped down from Commander. They write me, sometimes. It's...we didn't fight again,” slowly, “after the fight that started about Casimir.” She can't say with a straight face that they'd argued about tranquillity, but yeah, it had started there. “We never really reconciled, either. And she isn't dead, but—”
A shrug. Helplessly: “Now we never will. It's just the past. I'll grieve her when she dies.”
She has begun, already; when that end comes, it will feel like relief.
“In a cottage,” she elaborates, “in the woods. The first thing my uncle did when he turned up at the Gallows was come to tell me that he'd had an heirloom ring off my lord and that he intended to propose to her with it. Sort of, the Circles have all fallen, did I imagine a vibe, did you want to get married about it?” It had been kind of him not to allow her to be totally blindsided, and she'd repaid that by doing her level best to make it slightly less obvious how much she hated everything he was struggling through saying to her.
She'd been very polite. It had been incredibly obvious, but she thought he'd appreciated her making the effort.
“They left together, a bit after she stepped down from Commander. They write me, sometimes. It's...we didn't fight again,” slowly, “after the fight that started about Casimir.” She can't say with a straight face that they'd argued about tranquillity, but yeah, it had started there. “We never really reconciled, either. And she isn't dead, but—”
A shrug. Helplessly: “Now we never will. It's just the past. I'll grieve her when she dies.”
She has begun, already; when that end comes, it will feel like relief.
Fifty-something, probably old age for a world like Thedas. Once a decorated templar, now hallucinating in a cottage in her retirement. This is what retirement looks like for templars.
How would Gwenaëlle even find out if she died. If her uncle’s even older, what if he goes first —
Stephen’s chewing over it, the thought like tough gristle. He remembers too well what it felt like to fight with family, and for them to die before you could fix it. “’Never’ is a strong word,” he says. “You don’t want to… I mean, if letters are able to get back and forth, you haven’t wanted to try to reconcile while you still can? If she’s still writing you, some part of her clearly still wants to communicate; you’re not, y’know, salted earth.”
(He hasn’t seen the letter. He doesn’t know quite how bad it already is.)
How would Gwenaëlle even find out if she died. If her uncle’s even older, what if he goes first —
Stephen’s chewing over it, the thought like tough gristle. He remembers too well what it felt like to fight with family, and for them to die before you could fix it. “’Never’ is a strong word,” he says. “You don’t want to… I mean, if letters are able to get back and forth, you haven’t wanted to try to reconcile while you still can? If she’s still writing you, some part of her clearly still wants to communicate; you’re not, y’know, salted earth.”
(He hasn’t seen the letter. He doesn’t know quite how bad it already is.)
Gwenaëlle starts to speak, stops.
She presses his shoulder lightly like a reassurance when she levers herself up off the floor; crosses the short distance to her desk and does not need to search for long to find what she's looking for, opening a slim wooden box that sits at the back of it (almost decoratively,) and removing the top-most folded missive. When she brings it back to him, it has already — in the time since it arrived — been folded and unfolded often enough to have grown soft at its edges.
Pressing the letter into his hands, she says, “I don't think she would understand what I want to fight with her about.”
And she does still, sort of, want to fight with her; news of Casimir's death had broken over her like a wave, hauling away the tide and leaving anger in its place. So much waste. So much loss. For what? Fuck her precious fucking Chantry—
Please don't go, she'd written. Among those losses: the time to have it out.
She presses his shoulder lightly like a reassurance when she levers herself up off the floor; crosses the short distance to her desk and does not need to search for long to find what she's looking for, opening a slim wooden box that sits at the back of it (almost decoratively,) and removing the top-most folded missive. When she brings it back to him, it has already — in the time since it arrived — been folded and unfolded often enough to have grown soft at its edges.
Pressing the letter into his hands, she says, “I don't think she would understand what I want to fight with her about.”
And she does still, sort of, want to fight with her; news of Casimir's death had broken over her like a wave, hauling away the tide and leaving anger in its place. So much waste. So much loss. For what? Fuck her precious fucking Chantry—
Please don't go, she'd written. Among those losses: the time to have it out.
While Gwenaëlle crosses the room, Stephen shifts over on the floor just enough to lean his back against the side of the bed, an easier position to get comfortable in. After he accepts the paper and reads it, first quick like lightning, then slower as he backtracks to re-read and fully absorb it—
“Ah,” he says, all that realisation sunk into that one word.
His first kneejerk thought, irrationally, is: there’s more than one poet in the family. The text reads more like a poem, disparate crystalline images, little sense in them, not much of a coherent conversation to be had. His hand quivers as he holds up the paper for reading; it’s not from emotion.
“She says I am sorry. Twice,” he says, his blue-green eyes lodged on the well-worn paper.
“Ah,” he says, all that realisation sunk into that one word.
His first kneejerk thought, irrationally, is: there’s more than one poet in the family. The text reads more like a poem, disparate crystalline images, little sense in them, not much of a coherent conversation to be had. His hand quivers as he holds up the paper for reading; it’s not from emotion.
“She says I am sorry. Twice,” he says, his blue-green eyes lodged on the well-worn paper.
“It's enough,” she says, and part of that is: it has to be enough because there is never going to be anything else, now. Another part of that is: we are not in the habit of apologising to each other. A beat later, “I did, too. I wrote her back, I mean, I apologised. I promised not to leave her.”
And then she'd sat in her dressing room with her head in her hands for a long time, but what the fuck else was she supposed to do. What do you say to that.
“One of the last conversations we had, before they left, she'd come to see me after I turned up alive. You know, having been presumed dead the first time.” The first time. Presumed, because in that case she hadn't been, actually. “It wasn't as if...”
She gathers the letter back to herself with the passing thought that maybe the best revenge is the fact in her right mind Coupe would be so annoyed she's showed this thing to as many people as she has, “You know, the dementia means we can admit we care about each other now, so there's that.”
And then she'd sat in her dressing room with her head in her hands for a long time, but what the fuck else was she supposed to do. What do you say to that.
“One of the last conversations we had, before they left, she'd come to see me after I turned up alive. You know, having been presumed dead the first time.” The first time. Presumed, because in that case she hadn't been, actually. “It wasn't as if...”
She gathers the letter back to herself with the passing thought that maybe the best revenge is the fact in her right mind Coupe would be so annoyed she's showed this thing to as many people as she has, “You know, the dementia means we can admit we care about each other now, so there's that.”
His heart twinges upon hearing that, and he can’t quite sort out the words for a moment. Condolences and apologies are probably just an inadequate balm on the wound. She hasn’t lost Coupe yet but she has, in fact, already lost her.
“Dementia is one of the great, inexorable, incurable syndromes even in my world,” Stephen says after a pause. “Your own mind betraying you. No matter the clean living, no matter our ridiculous technological advancements, there’s still no drug or surgery that can repair the damage done by neurodegenerative diseases. It’s not why I became a surgeon,”
(neurosurgery was the highest-earning specialty, and one of the most difficult, and both of those things played into the choice)
“But it scares the absolute shit out of me. It’s one of the worst things I could ever imagine. Personally, for me, with my priorities. Worse than this,” he gestures, splayed fingers, that quivering hand. “So I’m— it’s inadequate, but I’m very sorry. That that’s happening to her.”
“Dementia is one of the great, inexorable, incurable syndromes even in my world,” Stephen says after a pause. “Your own mind betraying you. No matter the clean living, no matter our ridiculous technological advancements, there’s still no drug or surgery that can repair the damage done by neurodegenerative diseases. It’s not why I became a surgeon,”
(neurosurgery was the highest-earning specialty, and one of the most difficult, and both of those things played into the choice)
“But it scares the absolute shit out of me. It’s one of the worst things I could ever imagine. Personally, for me, with my priorities. Worse than this,” he gestures, splayed fingers, that quivering hand. “So I’m— it’s inadequate, but I’m very sorry. That that’s happening to her.”
Vanya nods. It's a reasonable request, and Strange's own discomfort makes clear enough his interest isn't prurient or macabre. If anyone else in Riftwatch decides to quit, or if a shortage puts them into involuntary withdrawal, it will be important information. He considers where to begin answering the question.
"As I understand it, quitting is likely a little bit different for everyone. For me... I was under supervision in the infirmary, and others may be able to tell you more than I could about the first few days. I was severely disoriented. As you may know, lyrium can affect the memory; it felt, subjectively as if." He stops, evaluating his language. He's never described in this sort of detail before. "Subjectively, it felt as if my memories were a stack of printed cards, and when I quit, I dropped them all on the floor. It took a day or two before I'd picked them up and reordered them, so to speak." A pause before he adds, quietly, "I suspect there are some memories I've lost, partly or fully, but I think that's the use, not the discontinuation."
"As I understand it, quitting is likely a little bit different for everyone. For me... I was under supervision in the infirmary, and others may be able to tell you more than I could about the first few days. I was severely disoriented. As you may know, lyrium can affect the memory; it felt, subjectively as if." He stops, evaluating his language. He's never described in this sort of detail before. "Subjectively, it felt as if my memories were a stack of printed cards, and when I quit, I dropped them all on the floor. It took a day or two before I'd picked them up and reordered them, so to speak." A pause before he adds, quietly, "I suspect there are some memories I've lost, partly or fully, but I think that's the use, not the discontinuation."
“Everything feels sort of inadequate,” she observes, rolling the letter in her hands like a worry-stone, “when it's ... you'd think we'd all get better at it. Everyone dies eventually except, apparently, incredibly irritating elves. Everyone loses someone. Usually more than one person. And we're all...”
Some people, to be fair, manage to be worse at it than others. Certainly, both of them fall under that particular heading. And even still it strikes her: in hundreds of years and apparently across hundreds of disparate worlds, no one has managed to come up with anything that doesn't feel like nothing, somehow. To say or to hear.
After a moment, “It isn't. Inadequate. That you're here.”
To set aside her grand philosophising on the intangibly, existentially empty nature of condolences—
actually, it's good, a bit.
Some people, to be fair, manage to be worse at it than others. Certainly, both of them fall under that particular heading. And even still it strikes her: in hundreds of years and apparently across hundreds of disparate worlds, no one has managed to come up with anything that doesn't feel like nothing, somehow. To say or to hear.
After a moment, “It isn't. Inadequate. That you're here.”
To set aside her grand philosophising on the intangibly, existentially empty nature of condolences—
actually, it's good, a bit.
Stephen breathes out, a slow exhale. He’s still sitting on the floor and having to look up at Gwenaëlle, jaw craned up and up, which is going to give him a crick in his neck eventually; and so he finally just gives up the ghost and climbs up to perch on the edge of the bed instead. The moment on the floor finally seems to have passed, ebbing away in the wake of all that debris, that stymied anger and grief. He simply looks at her for a little while, taking her in.
“Well then, I’m glad,” he says; the words few but the warmth there, achingly fond in a way he otherwise struggles to express.
Maybe opening yourself up to someone else isn’t, in fact, the worst thing ever.
And he’s still half-mulling over what she’d mentioned, offhand, as a joke, but: Everyone dies eventually except incredibly irritating elves.
Meditative: “Elves and elfblooded in Thedas. You don’t, like, have preternatural longevity or anything, do you? I know that it varies, across worlds— back in our universe, I’d read about the Svartálfar, they were tremendously long-lived.”
“Well then, I’m glad,” he says; the words few but the warmth there, achingly fond in a way he otherwise struggles to express.
Maybe opening yourself up to someone else isn’t, in fact, the worst thing ever.
And he’s still half-mulling over what she’d mentioned, offhand, as a joke, but: Everyone dies eventually except incredibly irritating elves.
Meditative: “Elves and elfblooded in Thedas. You don’t, like, have preternatural longevity or anything, do you? I know that it varies, across worlds— back in our universe, I’d read about the Svartálfar, they were tremendously long-lived.”
Edited 2024-05-02 02:04 (UTC)
Gwenëlle inhales,
and doesn't immediately answer him. By now, the sound of her not saying the first thing that crosses her mind is not an unfamiliar one; it's very specific. There's a degree of effort that it takes. Somewhere in the back of her head it's Loxley's voice, asking her why she's being such an asshole to people for trying to have ordinary conversations with her, and the seven things she might have said that wouldn't have been cruel to him but wouldn't exactly have been easy listtening wither, unsaid.
And it takes her a minute to come up with something else. Finally:
“Ancient elves were like that, more like the elves that have come here from Faerun or Arda or — Iorveth's continent. Thedosian elves are—”
it's tricky, navigating around for once trying to have any tact, and what she knows and believes to be true, and she frowns.
“Remnants, a Dalish elf and one of elvhenan is like comparing a stray dog and a mabari,” she settles on, so we're going with points for effort and a shaky dismount. “Being elfblooded is nothing. We're indistinguishable from humans in every way— if I'd never been told, there's nothing about me that would have made it possible for me to learn. If I had children, I'm still a dead end, my mother's line ended with me.”
and doesn't immediately answer him. By now, the sound of her not saying the first thing that crosses her mind is not an unfamiliar one; it's very specific. There's a degree of effort that it takes. Somewhere in the back of her head it's Loxley's voice, asking her why she's being such an asshole to people for trying to have ordinary conversations with her, and the seven things she might have said that wouldn't have been cruel to him but wouldn't exactly have been easy listtening wither, unsaid.
And it takes her a minute to come up with something else. Finally:
“Ancient elves were like that, more like the elves that have come here from Faerun or Arda or — Iorveth's continent. Thedosian elves are—”
it's tricky, navigating around for once trying to have any tact, and what she knows and believes to be true, and she frowns.
“Remnants, a Dalish elf and one of elvhenan is like comparing a stray dog and a mabari,” she settles on, so we're going with points for effort and a shaky dismount. “Being elfblooded is nothing. We're indistinguishable from humans in every way— if I'd never been told, there's nothing about me that would have made it possible for me to learn. If I had children, I'm still a dead end, my mother's line ended with me.”
Then why the fuck do people still make such a big deal about it says that crinkle of consternation in his brow, but Stephen also, for once, doesn’t just blurt out the first blunt thing which comes to mind. Points for effort all around.
This is not the sort of thing they tell you in the rifter orientation. The history books don’t devote much space to it. The few medical textbooks he’s found don’t delve into it; non-human physiology is quite glaringly omitted, for likely obvious reasons. And there’s no guide to what to say here in terms of response, knowing there are complicated feelings here about her mother, complicated feelings about her mother’s line, that branch of the family tree already bloodily and awfully hacked off—
So what he settles for, in the end, is simply a pragmatic: “Got it.”
Which is the scholar replying, before there’s a pause and then the man tries to muster a thought together, an attempt made: “And it’s not nothing, I think. You’re still of her line, even if it’s not in… every respect. I see that portrait in the foyer every day; you look very much like her.”
This is not the sort of thing they tell you in the rifter orientation. The history books don’t devote much space to it. The few medical textbooks he’s found don’t delve into it; non-human physiology is quite glaringly omitted, for likely obvious reasons. And there’s no guide to what to say here in terms of response, knowing there are complicated feelings here about her mother, complicated feelings about her mother’s line, that branch of the family tree already bloodily and awfully hacked off—
So what he settles for, in the end, is simply a pragmatic: “Got it.”
Which is the scholar replying, before there’s a pause and then the man tries to muster a thought together, an attempt made: “And it’s not nothing, I think. You’re still of her line, even if it’s not in… every respect. I see that portrait in the foyer every day; you look very much like her.”
Factually, this is true. Gwenaëlle has always favoured her — her high cheekbones and big eyes, the curls that she'd never seen until Guenievre was sharing her quarters in Skyhold, even their high hairlines. Slight and slender, where her father had been tall and broad and rather more muscular than your average dandy. The nose is him, the jaw, enough that she and Marcellin have also always favoured one another, but with the Baudins, it's striking. If she'd been an elf, it'd have been inarguable.
She sits, slipping a hand into his while she weighs the things she wants to say. If anything. Maybe she could just leave it at that—
then again, when was the last time she left well enough alone.
“Before we separated,” she says, slowly, “Thranduil had talked about, he thought if we had children they'd be like from Arda. Half elves are a thing there— apparently fucking everywhere but here, but— I always sort of kicked that down the road, you know, because it's not as if I'm going to stop using birth control in a war zone. In Forces. Psychotic. And we might die. But I could never figure out if it would be worse if he were right, and then I have a baby that I'm jealous of, which is fucked, or if he's wrong, and then is he disappointed? And what do I feel about every elf I share blood with being dead and now I've got this human baby that I'm sure I'd feel very normal about,”
reader, she was not sure of that at all,
“and I'd just think, Maker, I sort of hope I just die before I have to deal with that. I think it's more complicated than I used to believe,” a concession that he cannot know the magnitude of, coming late to this particular journey, “but—”
she breathes out something very like a laugh and leans against his shoulder. “I think I only want to figure it out for myself. So this would be a terrible time to tell me you want children.”
She sits, slipping a hand into his while she weighs the things she wants to say. If anything. Maybe she could just leave it at that—
then again, when was the last time she left well enough alone.
“Before we separated,” she says, slowly, “Thranduil had talked about, he thought if we had children they'd be like from Arda. Half elves are a thing there— apparently fucking everywhere but here, but— I always sort of kicked that down the road, you know, because it's not as if I'm going to stop using birth control in a war zone. In Forces. Psychotic. And we might die. But I could never figure out if it would be worse if he were right, and then I have a baby that I'm jealous of, which is fucked, or if he's wrong, and then is he disappointed? And what do I feel about every elf I share blood with being dead and now I've got this human baby that I'm sure I'd feel very normal about,”
reader, she was not sure of that at all,
“and I'd just think, Maker, I sort of hope I just die before I have to deal with that. I think it's more complicated than I used to believe,” a concession that he cannot know the magnitude of, coming late to this particular journey, “but—”
she breathes out something very like a laugh and leans against his shoulder. “I think I only want to figure it out for myself. So this would be a terrible time to tell me you want children.”
He makes a strangled noise; also kind of a laugh, also kind of horrified at suddenly contemplating that prospect, the pinprick stab of tension being released in the conversation as his shoulder shakes in a chuckle.
“No,” Stephen says, not too fast but not too slow, “I don’t. And I don’t even have your giant stack of complicated reasons about it. I just don’t think…”
I wouldn’t be good at it, I’m too selfish, I was never in the right sort of relationship for it, there’s always too much going on, and none of that has really changed—
“I don’t know, it’s never really been a priority. I value my independence. I always rather savoured the idea of being the fun cool rich uncle if any of my friends had children. I could give them presents and take them on outings but not have to do any of the hard work,” he adds, wry.
“No,” Stephen says, not too fast but not too slow, “I don’t. And I don’t even have your giant stack of complicated reasons about it. I just don’t think…”
I wouldn’t be good at it, I’m too selfish, I was never in the right sort of relationship for it, there’s always too much going on, and none of that has really changed—
“I don’t know, it’s never really been a priority. I value my independence. I always rather savoured the idea of being the fun cool rich uncle if any of my friends had children. I could give them presents and take them on outings but not have to do any of the hard work,” he adds, wry.
However complex Gwenaëlle's feelings about motherhood are and have been, there's a moment where she just sits with the recognition of what it is that she feels, listening to him now: relief.
It's relief. It's a relief to hear him say no, that she isn't going to disappoint him with coming to the conclusion that maybe I've thought it would be easier to die than have that conversation isn't the thought of someone who should be considering pregnancy in any context other than its prevention. It's a weight off that she hadn't realised she's been holding onto, this twist of guilt—
Maybe she'll make peace with these things. But maybe it's fine, after all, if that doesn't mean she has a baby about it.
“You'd be good at that, I think,” she decides, tipping her head to scrutinise him as if she's considering his qualifications for the role in the edge of his jaw and the sharpness of his goatee. “I have some practise. Especially with the presents and the outings part, though I don't know what I'm going to do when I can't spend my grandfather's money any more.”
This isn't true. She has the sort of books that suggest a mind that would have really taken to spreadsheets.
It's relief. It's a relief to hear him say no, that she isn't going to disappoint him with coming to the conclusion that maybe I've thought it would be easier to die than have that conversation isn't the thought of someone who should be considering pregnancy in any context other than its prevention. It's a weight off that she hadn't realised she's been holding onto, this twist of guilt—
Maybe she'll make peace with these things. But maybe it's fine, after all, if that doesn't mean she has a baby about it.
“You'd be good at that, I think,” she decides, tipping her head to scrutinise him as if she's considering his qualifications for the role in the edge of his jaw and the sharpness of his goatee. “I have some practise. Especially with the presents and the outings part, though I don't know what I'm going to do when I can't spend my grandfather's money any more.”
This isn't true. She has the sort of books that suggest a mind that would have really taken to spreadsheets.
“Your gift-giving skills are tremendously good. That’s another one of the first things I learned about you.”
His fingers curl into hers, with a squeeze of acknowledgment. Even for him, there’s that little internal jab of relief at hearing they’re on the same page, at finding out that he’s not going to be disappointing her in this regard (if rifters even can have children at all, which— the jury’s still out). And besides, Stephen’s of an age now that that’s probably a conversation he ought to be having with partners, some women aware of their biological clocks ticking.
And so, only now, it finally somehow belatedly occurs to him, looking at Gwenaëlle, that he’d never actually asked—
There’s another faint crinkle in his brow: from mild perplexment this time, as he considers. They’ve had some surprising gaps in knowledge between them, thanks to instinctive acts of omission on his part, which she’d practically interrogated out of him. But he’s realising now that somehow there’s another gigantic gaping everyday omission which they just never filled in. He hadn’t thought to ask.
There is a small chasm opening up in his stomach with a kind of slow-dawning horror, a cold-sweat worry that this answer might skew lower than he thought.
“Gwenaëlle,” he says, “you know what I just realised— I mean, I don’t think I ever— I don’t think I even know how old you are.”
His fingers curl into hers, with a squeeze of acknowledgment. Even for him, there’s that little internal jab of relief at hearing they’re on the same page, at finding out that he’s not going to be disappointing her in this regard (if rifters even can have children at all, which— the jury’s still out). And besides, Stephen’s of an age now that that’s probably a conversation he ought to be having with partners, some women aware of their biological clocks ticking.
And so, only now, it finally somehow belatedly occurs to him, looking at Gwenaëlle, that he’d never actually asked—
There’s another faint crinkle in his brow: from mild perplexment this time, as he considers. They’ve had some surprising gaps in knowledge between them, thanks to instinctive acts of omission on his part, which she’d practically interrogated out of him. But he’s realising now that somehow there’s another gigantic gaping everyday omission which they just never filled in. He hadn’t thought to ask.
There is a small chasm opening up in his stomach with a kind of slow-dawning horror, a cold-sweat worry that this answer might skew lower than he thought.
“Gwenaëlle,” he says, “you know what I just realised— I mean, I don’t think I ever— I don’t think I even know how old you are.”
“Huh,” she says, after a moment.
It strikes her suddenly that he's right — they'd talked about his birthday, but not the age he turned on it, and she's so expertly avoided her own for years now (Alexandrie got away with silently presenting her a gift, once, just) that her own age has just not been a conversation she's had with anyone recently. She can't remember the last time it came up. It's almost strange to do the math and say,
“I'm thirty,” a little as if it's only just occurred to her that she has in fact (at some unspecified time in the presumably recent-ish past) hit that particular milestone. Who'd have thought. “I'd have been, I think, twenty-two when I was first sent to the Inquisition.”
With substantially less trepidation: “How old are you?”
It strikes her suddenly that he's right — they'd talked about his birthday, but not the age he turned on it, and she's so expertly avoided her own for years now (Alexandrie got away with silently presenting her a gift, once, just) that her own age has just not been a conversation she's had with anyone recently. She can't remember the last time it came up. It's almost strange to do the math and say,
“I'm thirty,” a little as if it's only just occurred to her that she has in fact (at some unspecified time in the presumably recent-ish past) hit that particular milestone. Who'd have thought. “I'd have been, I think, twenty-two when I was first sent to the Inquisition.”
With substantially less trepidation: “How old are you?”
He’d girded himself for the worst, so it’s actually yet another relief, that the hammer lands and it is in fact less than he expected but not what he feared. And then his expression takes on the abstracted look of someone trying to do some very quick math. Divide by half, add seven?
Stephen’s pause goes on a little too long. Not because he’s still agonising over her age, but because now he’s frankly struggling to pin down his own. He and Cosima have bonded over how hard it was to reckon these things.
“It’s hard to tell,” he admits, “between the vanishing for five years and then crossing over here and the timelines don’t really line up. But I was forty-two when I sort-of-died, and then came back the same age, and Thedas wasn’t all that long after. So I’ve generally assumed I turned forty-three here.”
He does the math. They’re in the clear.
Then, before he can think any better of this irrational absurd kneejerk question, “Is that alright? I mean, I’m fine with it if you are—”
Stephen’s pause goes on a little too long. Not because he’s still agonising over her age, but because now he’s frankly struggling to pin down his own. He and Cosima have bonded over how hard it was to reckon these things.
“It’s hard to tell,” he admits, “between the vanishing for five years and then crossing over here and the timelines don’t really line up. But I was forty-two when I sort-of-died, and then came back the same age, and Thedas wasn’t all that long after. So I’ve generally assumed I turned forty-three here.”
He does the math. They’re in the clear.
Then, before he can think any better of this irrational absurd kneejerk question, “Is that alright? I mean, I’m fine with it if you are—”
To be fair to the momentarily blank look she gives him as she parses that question, there are a couple of elves really fucking with her average here. To be fair to the many things that are and have been independently wrong with her before any particularly long-lived, pointy-eared individuals came into the picture, she still might have done, anyway. The idea of it being an issue is not totally intuitive to her, though she catches on — visibly — after that moment of incomprehension.
“Well,” she says, bracingly, “it has been a while since there was anyone under the age of a hundred, but I don't think you're that young—”
Okay.
So she holds that for about a millionth of a second before she laughs, sliding her hand familiarly and fondly over his knee, “Stephen, you're a very handsome man and I like the streaks of white very much but I hadn't taken them for belonging to a man under forty.”
“Well,” she says, bracingly, “it has been a while since there was anyone under the age of a hundred, but I don't think you're that young—”
Okay.
So she holds that for about a millionth of a second before she laughs, sliding her hand familiarly and fondly over his knee, “Stephen, you're a very handsome man and I like the streaks of white very much but I hadn't taken them for belonging to a man under forty.”
Edited (punctuation ) 2024-05-02 12:54 (UTC)
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