Wysteria Poppell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heirring) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
therookery2022-05-21 09:48 pm
heirring) wrote in therookery2022-05-21 09:48 pm
crystal;
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—']
no subject
[Ellie says it like a confession. Unlike him, she's never had trouble with telling someone she cares, as selfish as it might be. What she has trouble with is hurting him.
So it sits in the back of her throat instead. For all that Astarion snarls and shows his teeth, he cringes at the thought of the people he loves hurting. Especially for him.]
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[Puncturing as the question is, he's not saying it to be mean or harsh; it's just the weight of it that seeps in, not the way it's said.]
All they can talk about is knowledge. How this might somehow help— topical solutions. Easier mending. And for what?
What if it accelerates the shard's growth? What if it weakens its magic and our ties to this world? We don't know.
[No smart man bets his fortune on curiosity alone. Not because he wants to know what the next card overturned might be. Red. Or Black.]
But they're willing to find out.
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I'm just saying that I don't want to ignore it completely. Because it is growing.
[They're living on borrowed time, the two of them. They always are.]
And if shit blows up with the Chantry, I'm sure as fuck not gonna to be chained to Kirkwall. Just 'cause I'm willing to live in a sewer with you to stay ahead of the Templars doesn't mean we can't do better.
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Entirely true.
Strange, and miserable, to realize he's the one standing still this time around— but then again, he's happy now in his present lot (he's so damned happy at long last, when he thought he'd never so much as brush anything quite like it with his tirelessly grasping hands), is it such a crime to want to hold on to the one thing he's always been violently denied? Let the world eat itself like a serpent, so long as he can stay in Hightown in the company of the only people that matter.]
As you like.
[The words flat and dull as bitter ash.]
1/2
[Ellie cuts off, with a small sound in the back of her throat. She hates this. She's never been good at this. He's not hearing her, and it's cutting, and it's in ways that he probably doesn't mean at all.]
I want--
[Ellie's voice cracks, just barely.]
I want this place to be safe for you? Because you haven't-
You haven't had that, and, um... I.
[Fuck it.]
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She already knows that. They're having this conversation because she already knows it— because it's just as inescapable here as anywhere else they've ever been (and for Astarion, the bliss of being lucky enough to stumble into something beyond wonderful is inescapably chased by the dread of its loss). His heart is rabbiting, his thoughts are dagger-sharp; he needs to walk away before he snaps at her for nothing she's done or believes, but still she presses on, and he's about to cut the line for their own good—
When her voice cracks once more.
And his own rotten heart follows.]
...I...
[Now he's the one helpless. Floundering and hopeless. Emotions sharp as glass and sticking in his throat.
Lucky for them both this is private.]
You know I—
This isn't.
[Wrong, and wrong, and wrong again, and it's only worse than his own fumbling attempt to be articulate in Leto's arms on Rialto's shore if only because she's upset. That she needs this while he's stuck choking on his own words.]
...I'll be fine.
[There, start there.]
Iffy on how at present, given the growing number of problems we're facing, but you know that I'm not about to let anything tear us away from one another. Or this place. Or my very pretty mansion and very pretty—
[No, getting off track. Don't deflect. Don't run.
His voice lowers again, soft and subtle and shockingly deep:]
I love you, too, darling.
[He does. Truly— undeniably— he does. After all this time, after everything they've shared...how could he do anything but love her for all her endless worth?]
And I can promise you, we'll both be happy. There's always a way out.
[His sigh is paper-thin. As tired as he feels.]
...so long as you don't go leaping into sacrificing yourself when I still need you here.
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A couple of wayward souls, finding that gravity works on them, too.]
I promise.
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[Good. It wasn't as if he thought she'd been lying, only that if she keeps teetering on the edge of the notion of this sort of effort being important— albeit not this one in particular—he can't help but envision tipping points and terrible, pitching moments filled with words like I had to or I can make this count or worse still...
My life can mean something.
When already she means the world to him now.]
I am happy, you know. [Said after the longest pause. Added right at the point where she might've assumed he'd already hung up.]
For what it's worth.
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But tonight, there's not a lot left. She breathes out.]
Good.
[It's soft, gentle in the way that she isn't, but she means it with all her soul.]
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Well, for it, they still have enough fight left in them to offer up warmth, despite everything they lost.
So, good, yes. And later, when things have gone quiet, he'll hold her until she doesn't feel it anymore. All that pain, all that fear, all that guilt—
Just for a little while.]