crystal.

[byblow]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Alistair
RECIPIENT: Everyone around the Gallows
WHAT: A survey
WHEN: Nowish
NOTES: This is only partly my fault

[ Let it be said that Alistair has backed down from all manner of challenges and dares and weird games of chicken, if they were stupid and he wasn't in the mood, but also let it be said that he hasn't backed down from this specific one. ]

I know we're all very busy preventing the world from ending, but if I could have a moment of your time for some important questions—

First, I need to know what sorts of things you consider good-looking, in a man, generally speaking. It doesn't matter if you're attracted to men or not, before anyone feels the need to explain their love lives to me. I only need to know what sort of man-faces you think are pleasant.

And then I need to know if you think Byerly Rutyer is good looking enough to make up for not being a nice man.

And he'd also like to know how much money each of you have. I think that's important for you to know before you answer the nice man part.

Comments

[swordproof]

I have fought a dragon before. I do not know how romantic it was.

[heirring]

Oh, fantastically so! It's exactly as in a book someone might read as a girl, isn't it? Fighting dragons is the sort of thing great poems and that sort of thing are written about. Which is how you tell a good poem from a lousy one. The best ones are all passionate and daring about a thing, I think.

[swordproof]

I did not read many books as a child, so I could not say. [ That's a sour enough thing, so moving on - ] They speak the heroics, not necessarily the truth. That is a lesson to learn.

[heirring]

Well yes, of course they're nothing like reality. Even I'm not that silly. But they say something about what we find most elegant and charming, don't they? Stories, I mean. Hence the romance.

[swordproof]

Are such things elegant? I do not think I have seen a fight that I would call charming - how are they detailed, in these books? I would... I am curious.

[heirring]

Oh, spirits. I don't know that I could quote anything off the top of my head. Recitation - of poetry anyway - isn't really anything I'm good at, I'm afraid. But I'll describe the general sense, shall I?

[Without pause, she launches into it:]

These things usually begin with a description of the knight in question and their armor and colors and crests, the latter of which all stand for something like virtue or honesty or some allusion to some virtuous Lord in the upper house who's commissioned the thing. And usually they carry some blessed sword or enchanted shield and there is an entire aside about their lover or their cause or the land that they come from and how the dragon has ruined one, two, or three. Oh and usually the dragon is really meant to be someone quite unpopular in one of the courts or Houses. And then of course they meet in some field of battle all rife with meaning and the brave knight slays the horrible dragon and so on and so forth. It's all very dramatic.

[swordproof]

I did own an enchanted sword, once, though I do not think it was blessed by Sarenrae. That is what my amulet was for.

[ Six hums, considering. ]

There have been towns plagued by ills. I aided them.

[heirring]

[Ah, vindication!]

Just so. Utterly romantic. --I mean, obviously and objectively terrible in reality, but in the sense of appreciating life intimating art it's wonderfully charming.

[swordproof]

I would not consider myself much an embodiment of art, my lady.

[heirring]

And yet here you are, being it entirely.

[swordproof]

I am not so sure I am it in its whole.

[heirring]

Oh please. Now you're just fishing for compliments.

[swordproof]

I assure you, that was not my intention.

[heirring]

[A laugh, bright and brilliant.]

Of course you aren't.

[How delightful.]