crystal;

[heirring]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Richard Dickerson & Wysteria de Foncé
RECIPIENT: You All
NOTES: The highly scientific results from studying a not-so-recent amputation, and a call for volunteers (don't worry, it's not volunteering to get your limbs chopped off). Wysteria is in blue. Richard is in green.

Hello everyone. This is Madame de Foncé speaking, accompanied by Mister Dickerson. There is a whole report written up on the matter which we wish to discuss today. Anyone curious will find it filed among the Project Felandaris records. However, we agreed [sure that's the word for 'Wysteria bullied Richard into it'] that discussing the broad points in a more public venue might do some good.

Go ahead, Mister Dickerson.

Dissection of Madame de Foncé’s arm revealed extensions of the anchor growing outward along the vascular system, confirming the existing supposition that as much of the affected limb should be taken as possible to ensure an anchor is truly separated from its host.

[ There is an odd beat where it seems likely Mister Dickerson is hoping for Wysteria to chirp back in before he continues: ]

It further appears that lyrium has an affinity for -- [ more quietly ] Rifter flesh, for lack of a more delicate distinction. When exposed to Madame de Foncé’s arm it made a fleeting attempt to regrow the parts of her that were missing. [ So the rest of the Wysteria? Another pause. He doesn’t deign to specify. ]

We believe it may hold promise as a healing agent for Rifters if applied topically.

[Which brings them to the true aim of this whole endeavor, the enthusiasm for which has Wysteria's clipping in so briskly after him that there's almost no pause at all between 'if applied topically,' and—]

And so Mister Dickerson and I would like to make a request for volunteers from among the Rifter population. We would like to make a more thorough study of the effects of lyrium on us. I have prepared a sort of sign up form and have posted it on the door of Project Felandaris' office. If you would please add your name to it, Mister Dickerson, and myself, and indeed the general record would be most grateful.

That's all. Thank you. Ask whatever questions you wish to.

[Slightly muffled then, as if the crystal has been lowered away from the general nexus of conversation, Wysteria continues on in the same breath, 'You see, Mister Dickerson? That wasn't painful in the slightest. I hardly see why you were so hesitant—']

Comments

[nonvenomous]

Your hysterics have been registered, Astarion. You're excused from consideration. Please reach out to Madame de Foncé privately if it occurs to you later that you owe her an apology.

private forever;

[heirring]

[Privately, as in they're in the same room and Wysteria has clamped her hands down over her crystal so no sound may transmit over it.]

You don't feel as if I've swept you up into machinations, have you?

[nonvenomous]

[ A stool creak, a scuff of elbow over paper as he turns to consider Wysteria and the clamp of her hands over her crystal. ]

Not this time.

[ Richard Dickerson is seated some feet away so as to spare her the smoke from the absolute unit of a joint he struck a light to shortly after issuing this announcement. An open window is drawing the worst of it out into the spring sun. ]

Are you alright?

[heirring]

[Where she is seated over a great sprawl of papers, she is that particular pale which is a combination of mortified embarrassment and fury. That said, she is perfectly brisk and level in her assertion that—]

I'm fine, thank you. In fact, I would say it's a relief to be certain that the whole lot is somewhat intractable and that it isn't—

[She studies him for a blank second while in search of a way of putting it that sounds less petty and childish than Just me, and then instead settles on a shrug.]

I wish you hadn't been right about this whole matter of compensation. I don't know what any of them expects us to be able to offer them that they don't already have. What? Shall I give them my pay for the week?

[nonvenomous]

[ The tension wound up in the furrow of Richard’s brow is more subdued, studying her as she studies him. There’s a weary poise to his presence here, wreathed in oily smoke, one boot heel hooked to the rung of his stool. He might not have been swept up, but he was certainly braced for thrown fruit. ]

It’s human instinct to crow for scraps. No offense.

[ That Astarion’s hostility is an entirely different animal goes without saying. ]

There are more practical minds among them. Given time they may come around.

[heirring]

[She begins to remove her hand from about the crystal in the general trajectory of impatiently rubbing a spot behind her ear or her temple, and then instantly reverses it to cover the crystal firmly once more.]

This is why people find us so embarrassing, you know. Rifters. The fact that none of us can agree on anything. We're worse than the mages are.

[nonvenomous]

[ The crystal shuffling provides him with a stretch for him to hold his smoke in, and he keeps it held longer still, ashes dusted off into the overturned skull of a nug he’s temporarily dedicated to that end. A fresh turn of smoke is chased out by a wheezing cough.

He clears his throat, adds a note to his list once it seems certain Abby has terminated her line of questioning. ]

Who do you think finds us embarrassing?

[heirring]

Enchanter Averesch comes instantly to mind. [But lest Richard think she is giving Kostos' opinion any measure of respect, Wysteria briskly continues:] And Mister Rutyer, and the Inquisition and the Chantry, and a great deal of Thedas in general. We are, generally, an inconvenience to them. Even if everyone is frightened of mages, they at least believe they understand them and can see the use of negotiating with them if only so their arcane talents can be leveraged.

No one knows what to do with any of us. And why should they? We don't even agree what to do with ourselves, or why any of it matters. And half of us may disappear before it even matters, so why bother sorting it out?

[Then, amidst the smoke:]

Are you alright?

[nonvenomous]

Averesch is deliberately abrasive. Rutyer is a coward. The Chantry would see us all caged or exterminated. [ He’s listening to others debate amongst themselves while he writes, the volume little more than a murmur beneath his scratching. ] I fail to see why you’d care to elevate yourself in any of their regards.

[ Ellie has requested more specific documentation and he pulls a thicker folder over from one side of his table, flops it open, and replaces it with another. A convenient break in the clip of this debate, if it is one. ]

Why wouldn’t I be?

[heirring]

[Coward or foolish or reformed or whatever it is that Byerly Rutyer is now (she would be hard pressed to name exactly what that is if pressed to), she still can't help but think of the thing he'd once told her a long, long time ago now. That eventually the war will be over, and that what happens to Rifters after it will be wholly determined by the friends they make today and how useful they've become.

Not that there seems to be any imminent risk of peace, of course. But still—in hours like this one, the irritating specter of that thread lingers in the room as palpably as the smoke from Mister Dickerson's veritable elfroot cheroot does.]

Because this seems like exactly the sort of thing you wished to avoid when I suggested we make a conversation of our work. I know you to be selective when it comes to having your— interests known.

[nonvenomous]

That ended the day the Provost published a list with my name on it.

[ He doesn’t say your friend the Provost. He doesn’t even pause to leave room for an implication, so busy writing now that he’s tilted his elfroot down to rest idle between two nuggy cuspids.

And yet. ]

Which isn’t to say this wouldn’t have been easier if we’d simply arranged for an accident to expose new arrivals without their buy in.

[heirring]

Yes, well. I suppose if no one volunteers after all—

[This is sullen, more childish and grumbling than she actually cares to be.]

[illithidnapped]

Hysteric—

You come onto the network in a blink, spill a quick rundown on how lyrium reacts to a severed limb, ask for volunteers and then consider it absurd how we might vehemently balk? [No, Astarion, it's likely your barking that was the hysterical part, but that's fine.]

Oh you'd be so lucky to have me in your little trial.

But no, for the record, I won't apologize to her. I've nothing to apologize to her for. And if she didn't have you wrapped so blisteringly tight around her little finger, you'd have enough sense in that head of yours to see it.

private;

[apocalypsegrown]

What was it you said to me about thinking before letting emotions or some-such, honestly I cant remember the exact words, being loud where everyone can hear you?

[illithidnapped]

Normally I'd appreciate the callback to my own genius, but in this case, darling, I'm within my rights to call it different: tweedle dee and tweedle stoic are both Rifters without any amount of standing for one, and second I absolutely want to be heard voicing my entirely legitimate dissent— barbs and all.

This is dangerous. For all of us.

[private]

[apocalypsegrown]

Legitimate dissent noted.

[ A pause, and then she switches to private. ]

I dunno, I see an opportunity.

[illithidnapped]

[Oh Sylvie, what are you up to?]

...an opportunity for what, exactly?

[apocalypsegrown]

I need my own guinea pig, preferably someone who I don't actually care about. Besides, I'm very tired of healing like a human.

[illithidnapped]

Guinea pig? Darling if you want someone to unethically experiment on we could go out shopping for a random Venatori.

[As for the rest, he doesn't disagree...but also he hates Wysteria, so.]

[apocalypsegrown]

Not unethical if she gets what she wants too issit? And what could be the worse alternative, die here in a short forty some odd years after decades of back pain and getting injured getting up out of a chair?

[illithidnapped]

I— [Mm.] Look, even if their tinkering pays off and there's some sort of understanding of our anchor shards gained in turn, there's no guarantee it'll revert us back to the way we were.

Hells, we don't even know if we're technically mortal to begin with, and the only way to truly find out isn't the path either of us wants to take.

The worse alternative is the populace starts thinking we're nothing but lyrium because of all this, like some sort of enchanted mistake, and you and I spend eternity locked behind closed Chantry doors.

[A beat, before:]

...or Tevinter's, I suppose, depending on who wins.

[apocalypsegrown]

[ She patiently lets him speak, pressing her lips together as she shakes her head a little at the end. She respects your input Astarion, but clearly you're seeing things differently than she is. ]

Or, we do nothing and let these shards eventually either zap us right out of this world or eventually grow so large it consumes us while we wait patiently for some kind of answer to materialize out of thin air. That also doesn't stop the chantry from just up and deciding we're too much of a risk and locks us up or puts us on pikes anyway, just for being what we are for too long. Religious groups really like doing that the moment they think their little outsiders aren't benefiting them anymore.

Or we lose the war and then there's the Tevinters to deal with, and then back with the pikes. Either way, I'm not a fan of leaving my own fate in the hands of others, hasn't worked out for me before. When you're not the one handling your own interests, your interests don't matter in the grand scheme of things Astarion.

I'd rather suffer a few cuts and gain something from it than just hope something falls in my lap.

[illithidnapped]

[His huff is a thorny thing; he's not inclined to argue only because—

Well.

Furious as he is overall, and much as he's driven to gnash his teeth, she's one of the few creatures whose cleverness might actually match his own. If they disagree on this, they disagree. Won't stop him from trying to get it all shut down, of course, but it's still a truce.]

Oh please, they don't favor pikes here.

More likely to be burned if not locked up— they're not barbarians, darling.

[Mostly.]

[nonvenomous]

Thank you. [ Without inflection. ] I’ll endeavor to make better choices.

[illithidnapped]

Ugh.