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]

Yes, [ Richard agrees. ] Death is a possibility.

[ For natives, for Wysteria, for Rifters who are statistically far likelier to vanish without a trace. They might as well keep their options open. He looks down to hook the nug skull around into easier reach with his pinkie, and nestles the roll of his joint back into the open scoop of the jaw. ]

If I’m to function as a shield you should consider letting them lie after I’ve acknowledged their concerns.

[heirring]

[It's a fine point. That doesn't mean it doesn't elicit some dissatisfied squirming from her, Wysteria's fingertips drumming with brief vexation across the top of her notes.]

I suppose, [she allows after a pause.] You might not be incorrect.

—Although Serah Astarion is truly dreadful. And I would have said so before this moment, for the record.

[nonvenomous]

That’s charitable of you. [ Muttered under his breath, little effort made to mask word or sentiment. If she supposes. He might not be incorrect.

Divested of its elfroot, his propped hand is free to push at the furrows around his mouth, to smooth his whiskers, to chase the grit prickling up unkempt at his chops. It would be easy for him to agree on the subject of Astarion and his penchant for slinging his feelings around the crystal network like red paint across a fur coat.

He doesn’t disagree. Offhand, after a moment’s drifting thought that may or may not be filled by Wysteria starting back up again, he confesses without looking at her: ]

I’d like to become a Warden.

[heirring]

[She hasn't returned to the crystal. Instead, she has taken that moment to reorder herself or rather to reorder and absently square the pages on which she's been taking notes.

(And to sort, or at least attempt to sort, the varying degrees of her irritation and offense and virulent disappointment and a little embarrassment. It's exquisitely annoying to be so easily riled—)]

A Warden!

[Her attention rides abruptly.]

Have you said so to Mister Ellis? Or to Warden Adrasteia?

[nonvenomous]

I have said so.

[ Matter-of-fact. He levels back into eye contact upon sensing the shift in her attention, reading her like a creature plucked from a fade-touched thatch of grass. ]

I have said so more than once to Mister Ellis.

[heirring]

[She suffers only a moment of confusion. More than once—]

He has tried to discourage you.

[nonvenomous]

[ Silas thinks about it, knuckle under nose, the harder carve of his frown masked by the crook of his hand where it’s rested. The bones in his face are especially sharp when still.

Against his neck, a needle tongue feathers there and gone again from some creature buried beneath the turn of his collar. ]

I am discouraged.

[ That’s an apt word for it, upon his reflection. ]

I cannot in good conscience bring blighted materials back to the Gallows for study. They are best investigated in the field, where conditions are difficult to control.

[heirring]

But surely then the best alternative would be for you to join their—[She frowns, the confusion creeping in once more to tinge the line of her brow and the shape of her mouth.]

Why would he advise otherwise? Did he say? No, I doubt he did. And if he has, then I will be very impressed with your ability to extract information, Mister Dickerson.

[Is there anyone in Riftwatch so mercilessly tight lipped?]

[nonvenomous]

He’s fixated on the acquisition of additional research. [ This is easier to answer. The framework of the sentiment is already there, well worn into the walls of his skull and necessarily shadowed by the cloying illogic of continual delay. Suspicion gnawing itself in the unknown. ] Research we may never find. We’ve been searching for months. The excursions are deadly.

You’re familiar with the disquiet of not knowing how much longer you have to wait.

[ She is, as they’ve just reminded themselves, a Rifter. ]

Or how much longer you’re willing to.

[heirring]

[Yes, she is familiar. How many days had she lay in that ridiculous clinic bed with her fingers turning black at the end of her arm, wondering whether they might reserve themselves and no action at all would be necessary. That she might simply leave it as it was, because who knows what repercussions separating herself from the anchor might have?

(And before that—ignoring the debilitating urgency of the pain in her arm.)

There in the Felandaris office, Wysteria absently raises her hand to smooth the many flyaway filaments of hair at the base of her neck.]

I think—

[She thinks lots of things. The order of them takes another moment further to arrange.]

He's frightened of it. The Blight and what it may ruin. And so perhaps also Wardening. I'm not calling him a coward [—is punctuated with a swift, protective look flashing sharply in Richard's direction—], only... less objective.

[nonvenomous]

[ Richard is listening in a way he has before but doesn’t always -- when he’s only clocking the scaffold of her indignation over some misjudgment or insult, her excitement over weapons designed to grant the mundane power to blast great messy holes in their enemies. He’s curled his talons in, eyes gleaming keen amidst scruff and root, attuned because he wants to know her answer and not because he might need it to mitigate a mess she’s helped to make.

He’s quiet again while he considers it, no trace of disagreement in lines masked in part by the set of his hand. ]

There are Wardens in Orzammar.

[heirring]

There are. [There is a path into the Deep Roads there. Surely where one exists, the other is implied.] Would you like me to bring you one back as a souvenir?

[Under the point of his attention, Wysteria's mouth flexes wide into a smile that isn't really a smile and she laughs a laugh that isn't really a laugh before lapsing briskly back toward severity.]

[nonvenomous]

[ Her laugh hollows at the back of his jaw, pinches at his brow. It breaks his concentration, if not the spell -- enough for him to finish tracing around the knot at his throat, nicks of old scars etched in the grain there. ]

If you can find one who is handsome enough to be worth the trouble.

[ Ha. His crow’s feet crease. His hand falls away. ]

Just a name would be helpful, to start. Provided you have the time.

[ An easy out, half-hearted kindness. Madame de Foncé is nothing if not very busy. ]

[heirring]

A name, [sounds like a page being earmarked, though her own attentions remain equally fixed. Sitting there on that stool with her skirts all irritably arranged and rearranged in the last hour, she has all at once grown very quiet and pointed.

So:]

I could discuss this with Mister Ellis.

[nonvenomous]

[ Mr. Dickerson disliked that.

It’s subtle. A chilliness behind his eyes in their friendly crow's feet, a pinch of tension biting in under his throat when he swallows. ]

Do you really believe doing so would help either of us?

[heirring]

I don't know.

[She doesn't. It's a very immediate answer, instant and uncalculated.]

But what good will a name do?

[nonvenomous]

I can send a message to a name, [ says Silas, just as easily. ] Or travel to Orzammar myself to meet with it.

[ High risk, low reward. What does anyone who could wake up vanished tomorrow have to lose, really? He doesn’t blink less often than any other human in Thedas, but at times it certainly seems like it. ]

You should understand that I knew speaking to you of this would likely have dire consequences for my relationship with Mr. Ellis, such as it is. But he is fearful. This will upset him.

[heirring]

It will upset him more if you pursue this with some other Warden that I might simply happen across in Orzammar. Wouldn't it be better to find some way of—

[What? Convincing him? How tall an order. She pauses, revises swiftly, and then continues on.]

Have you asked him already to assist you? Has he explained at all what is required?

[nonvenomous]

Miss Poppell -- [ is incorrect, smudged out and corrected for behind closed eyes, ] Madame de Foncé.

[ His bony fingers flex themselves in and out of a fist before he opens them again. ]

He cannot be convinced. You are the only person in Thedas he will forgive for removing him from the equation entirely. The blame will be entirely mine -- is entirely mine, for asking this of you.

[heirring]

But that is precisely my point, Mister Dickerson! If I agree to fetch you the name of a Warden from Orzammar—and truly, I have no objection to the basis of the idea whatsoever—it seems to me highly unjust to allow the consequences of the thing to be entirely yours. I would be your saboteur. No, I would be the very instrument of the thing—

[Here, a sudden sharp course change—as pointed and as surgical as a dagger punched between ribs.]

Do you count him among your friends, Mister Dickerson?

[nonvenomous]

[ This proves to be a challenging bout of resistance to butt up against, and an even more challenging question to answer. Mister Dickerson thinks to the letters tied up neatly among the belongings he’d pawed through in Ellis’ pack, the carved mabari, the dirty playing cards. Up until the last few seconds, he’s watched Wysteria as closely as she’s watched him. Now he looks down to hook his joint up out of its nest of porcelain teeth.

There’s still a coal glowing dull in the cherry for him to coax life back into.

A toke, smoke flushed harsh through his sinuses, something resettled in the muscle and bone that keeps his posture polite, in that he is still mostly facing her. He has made a mistake. ]

[heirring]

[Like a small dog pacing, Wysteria shifts on her seat but doesn't lower the point of her attention from him as he fishes up the joint. It is still there when that first new exhale of bitter smoke has dissipated.

(She is aware, very distantly, that the back of her neck is no longer hot. The flush of embarrassment which had lurked there must have faded.)]

Do you think he counts you as one?

[(Yes, he has made a mistake.)]

[nonvenomous]

[ Dick rolls one foot at the ankle while he smokes, boot leather too oiled and careworn to creak. He’s back to studying her again after a puff or two, the side-angled slant of a man who knows he will not make better choices in the future but wishes he would. ]

No.

[ He takes his time thinking about it.

They are very far afield of the subject of lyrium and touching other Rifters with it. ]

[heirring]

[The trouble with Wysteria Poppell—or Madame de Foncé, or whatever she is insisting on being called today—is that she is clever.

Indeed, life would be much easier for a great number of people if she weren't, or were slightly less so, or perhaps even if she simply wielded her attentiveness a little more even handedly. How is anyone meant to protect themselves from the laser of her perception being turned so abruptly in their direction when it's ordinarily engaged so thoroughly toward other ends?

Though, really. Mister Dickerson had been in possession if no answer for her first question and had a ready one for this one. The math is hardly difficult.]

But you would prefer it if he did.

[nonvenomous]

It is nice to have friends, isn’t it. [ Fellow human?

Smoke twists silky from the increasingly stubby roll of the joint between his fingers. There is a kit of equipment on his table already; he keeps his eyes on her as he reaches for it, as if his attention is the only thing keeping her from flying across the room at him like a great skirt-ruffled bat.

It doesn’t last. He has to look down again to unthread a pair of tweezers from its loop. ]

I believe this is irrelevant to the matter of my becoming a Warden.