Crystal

[keenly]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Colin
RECIPIENT: Everyone!
WHAT: An announcement
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Will update.

Um, all right. This is Colin. And as of tonight, I'm not running the general store anymore. I'm not sure who they'll contract after me, but starting tomorrow, I'm a full member of the Inquisition. I'm, um, coming on as an apothecary and spirit-healer-in-training. And part of that's going to be...

Lyrium. I'm going to be an official Inquisition member officially selling lyrium. So...templars. I'm your man.

[He sounds just thrilled about that.]

Comments

private

[keenly]

[She is keen. He is entirely unaccustomed to close scrutiny, being lower-class, a mage, brown, and rather stoic by nature. Somehow she clues in on every minute hint he shows.

...Is this what it means to be on the receiving end of an Orlesian's attention? Maker, it's unnerving. Maybe a bit of dry flippancy will throw her off the scent.]

I'm Fereldan, I'm accustomed to leashes.

private ∞

[coquettish_trees]

[ colin? dryly flippant? with her? ah, now she definitely knows something's up. something he's either so ashamed of (no, not ashamed. knowing colin even passingly that would be audible.) or so pressed to secrecy about that a fereldan shopkeep would attempt to make a play at misdirecting an orlesian noblewoman.

what need for a tighter hold on a shy and unassuming purveyor of goods?

ah. and a mage. a shy and unassuming mage who purveys goods, easily overlooked, being removed from his place of trade and placed where comings and goings are noticed. who pauses before saying lyrium as if it will still get him in trouble, and mentions being official twice.

colin, colin, colin.]

Even I am aware that Mabari are not leashed by those who trust and honor them, mon cher.

They do not punish you beyond this, do they? After all, it was the Inquisition itself that bargained for the release of the Templar from the Chantry's stranglehold on their lyrium chains. They know well enough that your work was necessary, and despite the type of men who usually ply that trade, a kindness on your part. I would not see you censured for your heart.

[ because it certainly wasn't about the money, or he wouldn't have needed a stall at the tourney for a tunic. ]

[keenly]

[She is damn close. So close that he briefly imagines (with a glimmer of satisfaction) Beleth summoning her to her office for a Serious Talk. And he probably has to report this, doesn't he? Given the terms of their arrangement.]

It was a joke. [If she's going to play dirty despite all his deference, he's going to be slightly less deferential. Though not enough that he'll get his head cut off.] And it's not like that. I'm not being punished. My position wasn't eliminated, just less specialized than the healing work I'm doing. I was going to make the move eventually, and thought it might as well be now.

[He'd just hoped he could leave the lyrium behind. He doesn't like the target it paints on his back, and he can't exactly leverage it for protection from the templars anymore.]

And, [he adds quietly,] officially being Inquisition protects me from anyone wanting to cut back the competition in the lyrium trade. I'm a merchant, I'm an apothecary, combine the two and lyrium fits in there somewhere. It made sense. Look, maybe things like this are most easily explained with elaborate tales in Orlais, but literally everywhere else in the world, common folk are just doing whatever work will get them fed. This arrangement is better for me. I get paid better and more regular. I have less independence but independence doesn't get me fed.

[coquettish_trees]

[ oh ho, the puppy does have a bite. so she was right. or at least, right enough. she briefly debates picking at him further: it is, for instance, so very obviously not his decision (he'd about said as much mere moments before), and the protestation that he has a mercenary nature is both far too strong and the young man spending his coin (and refusing hers) on something pretty for the future just in case gives it the lie as well.

but he, like most fereldans, becomes a stubborn wall when cornered, and just as at the shop, she'd only lose future ground by continuing to push. so instead she takes an audible breath and sighs through her nose.]

If you say.

[ read: I don't believe you even a little, but you seem determined to hang on to your story and I don't feel like fighting. ]

[keenly]

[When she backs down, his own hackles lower. He can't let anyone know. That's not his decision, either, only Beleth's very truthful belief that if word got out about what happened, he would be in much worse trouble. He cannot fail her as an agent before he's even begun. But Lexie has ceased pressing him, so he can breathe a little.

But there was a time about seven years in the past when he also kept a secret--a much worse secret--at the insistence of someone who would have taken any excuse to end him. He had been terrified, not merely twitchy, that the secret would be discovered anyway. And yet, he had begged the Maker, the ancestors, the Creators, the universe, any real or make believe higher power out there that someone would guess his secret and save him. No one had. He'd had to carve out his own rescue. But where the Maker failed him, Colin is watched now by the vigilant Lady of the Fountain. One present lady gives him more hope than an absent Maker.

He cannot discourage her from watching. Even if he did, she would only keep prying until she knew the truth. After, she might turn away from him. And who would know something is wrong, then, simply by the lilt of his voice?

When he speaks again, his tone is soft. Not cowed, the way it is by default with nobles, nor stern like when he tried to discourage her. This is simply Colin, with his naked, honest, introspective timbre.]

I don't say. I just can't talk about it. But I'm all right. I really did want to become a healer. And I'm not in danger unless the story gets out, all right? I promise.

[coquettish_trees]

[ and there, finally, the truth. in reward for it, she allows her tone to soften as well. ]

You have my word that none shall hear of it from me.

[ that said... where one has a hand laid it may be squeezed, no matter how they have promised else. the hand is the Scoutmaster's, of course. no-one else in the Inquisition with the authority to cause such a thing to occur deals in secrets like this save the Left Hand herself, and this is too small for the Nightingale. whether or not the others know (perhaps save Ambassador Amsel, who seems far too honorable for even small acts of subterfuge) is as yet unclear. if it is only the Scoutmaster, his position is more precarious, but either way, he has become a piece. a card to be held.

and even leashed... well. leashes have two ends. The Inquisition holds his secret, but as they have opted to keep it he now holds one of theirs, and that makes him as much a risk to them as they are to him. would such a warning be useful, or simply distressing?

the latter, she thinks. at least for now. ]

It is good that you have come to where you wish to be, even if it was not the road you wished to travel. It will suit you.

[keenly]

Thank you, Milady. For your word and for the compliment. [He thinks it's a compliment, anyway.] They taught us herbalism in the Circle. It was actually a bit shady, in retrospect, because if we weren't going to be soldiers we were supposed to be healers or researchers, all of which was used to the Chantry's benefit but not for the rest of society unless they were rich enough. When I got out, [he says in the same terms one uses to refer to a stay in prison,] I decided I would only be something I couldn't have been in the Circle. And since I could read, write, and cipher by then, I signed up as a ship's purser. So it's not like I was dreaming of being a merchant from boyhood, I was just...trying to get by, and not get caught by the templars. Now it's been a few years, the bad taste is worn off and I'm remembering why medicine was intriguing to me in the Circle.

So. I'm not exactly heartbroken about this. Selling things is only a job. This could be better than a job.

[coquettish_trees]

[ it was. ]

A ship! How diverting!

[ crisis being mostly averted, she's back to that classic breezy carefree sound ]