[ The holograms and robots of Nadril put Nash ill at ease, and he'd spent the first few hours with eyes darting, like a cat following a speck of dust. By now, however, the immediate novelty has started to wear off— or maybe he's just too exhausted to be appropriately paranoid.
Drink is not his usual refuge, but at this point it is a welcome one. Drunkeness is at least comfortably straightforward. Or, so he thought until the waitresses start wheeling out cups of foam and spheres and color. ]
Is this the game of dares they were talking about?
[ Nash's elbows are on the table and his chin cradled in his hands, face turned as sour as he imagines something that yellow must taste. ]
[Drunkness is a sanctuary Prior would seek more often if it weren't hell on his insides. However, there are days when needs must, and when one has been dragged through snow and ice and thrown up into some Bladerunner knock off with little preparation and no chance to refuse - well. Needs must.
It's been a distraction, at least, creating muddles of color in the glasses before drinking them: taste barely considered. Though his early attempts all seemed to turn out a similar muddy shade of brown, with the taste of windfall apples, he may be getting the hang of the art at the exact same point he'll be too drunk to focus on it.
He hasn't really spoken since Nash settled in beside him. A few soft hums of answers to questions, and a little relief that the one he was expecting where have you been or even where's – hasn't managed to come up.
He's aware of the noisy games across the other side of the bar, but not invested.]
Not unless someone's asking you to drink it naked in a snowdrift.
[He laughs, more to himself than anything, then frowns and groans as the rainbow shades in his glass start to curdle.]
The color of soil and therefore of life! [ He speaks with an exaggerated good humor. ] I wouldn't knock it. At least it's familiar.
[ Part of him wonders when familiarity became a virtue, and not just a comfort. The neon drink glares back at him. He winces slightly and then takes an experimental sip. It's actually not bad. He always did like sweet drinks. ]
[Prior stares bleakly down into the glass, which is decidedly not the color of his life, thank you. He's about to say as much, except that by the time his thoughts have swum together enough to try, Nash has moved on.]
Have I?
[He's not quite sober enough to act innocuous about it, so it comes out more of a challenge.]
Well, what would you rather I do? Stand on a table and belt My Way? I'm settling in.
You're sulking. [ Though he's almost curious enough to ask for a rendition of My Way. ] But far be it from me to interrupt. I'm merely here to observe.
[ And drink this incredibly bright drink, which may be stronger than Nash expects. ]
[As if that's a fine and fair reason to sulk. Which, frankly, on a good day it might just be. But it's been a while now since Prior's considered a day good. There's the lonliness and the loss, and the dragon still somehow haunting them through the monitors on the ship. At least they're away from that now, if it's taken trudging through the arctic circle the achieve it.]
And I'm tired. Tired makes me quiet.
[It's a less graceful sentence than Prior would usually achieve, but small sentences and small words are easier for the moment. It's also true, he's tired of just about everything.]
What are you observing? The sports game? People hit sticks with balls [Wait.] Balls with sticks. Why, it's a revelation.
You can have this one, if you like. I'll trade. [ It's about halfway done with, but there seems to be a near infinite supply. ]
The people over there— [ he makes a small gesture with one hand, the kind that wouldn't be spotted by denizens at a nearby table ] are discussing the recent influx of people, whether we'll wind up going along with Magda, and whether the short one has a shot at daring that purple-skinned bartender to come home with him tonight. [ It's unclear how he can make out their conversation in the din of the bar, or if he really can. ]
Because you think I have a chance at daring the purple... purple... ?
[There's an ending to that sentence, but it's too much of an uphill climb, so Prior leaves it off and leans in to examine Nash's drink. Nothing non-toxic should be able to achieve that shade of yellow but - well, beggars can't be choosers. He edges his own drink across and tries a sip. The taste is sweetly lethal.]
You shouldn't observe me. I haven't had time to powder my nose.
In my family we were taught that eating was a moral failing. Ha.
[Mother's example was never exactly a good one, but it was dogged enough to be admirable in its way. Prior thinks of her every time he has a liquid lunch - which is more often than he manages real food, these days.]
Who knew I'd take to the lessons so well. [He's being over dramatic, of course, playing a caricature of himself as a mask over the real thing. Alcohol may be supposed to lower defenses but his are up already - waiting.]
I don't think so. Nauseous, mostly. Although maybe that's how the righteous feel - who knows.
[His flicks his fingers out, brushing the thought away, then curls them in under his chin, resting an elbow on the bar. If Nash can watch him, well then. Nash can be watched right back. It's not as if it's the worst of faces to narrow his eyes into.]
I'm not waiting for a lecture, no. Why, have I done something that might warrant one? [A beat - he's still performing.] I haven't even made a big deal out of being right.
[There's a little forward pitch to Prior's head, acknowledging the possibility here. But it's a bad move - moving at all is a bad move - there's so much inside him threatening to spill and if he lets it start-]
I met someone who did. [Prior smiles, eyes far too bright.] Fight it. [Smile far too tight.] He's dead now, and alive again, too. I may be one shitty prophet but at least he's a better Lazarus.
[And then he's laughing, and clapping a hand over his mouth before laughter turns to something else.]
That's what would've happened to me. Or what I thought would happen. But I didn't — [ And there was more, but something stops him from getting the rest of that sentence out. ] I guess I've become a coward in my old age.
[ There was definitely a time when he would have fought it anyway, no matter the consequence. ]
[Prior pulls his hand away when it becomes too airless to breathe behind his palm, taking a gasp of smoky air and screwing up his eyes.]
Yeah well, running off to die can be cowardly too. [It takes a lot, sometimes, to choose to keep living. To want to, in spite of everything.] Just - have an old age. A long one. See if you suit silver as well as gold.
[He's pushed a hand back through his own hair without thinking, catching his fingers there.]
Lazarus rose from the grave. I don't know the story well. It was some kind of miracle, and also foreshadowing, I think. I'm.
[He narrows his lips around the end of that sentence, snapping it loose.]
[ Well, Nash has his doubts about that growing older. He's always lived the sort of life that could end up ending in some anonymous ditch many wingspans from home. It is a risk of his position, or profession, or whatever it is that he is, real enough that he can't take it seriously.
But that isn't what he wants to say to Prior. ]
I know. Not about Lazarus, obviously. [ His gaze turns downward, to where one of his hands is resting. ] But about running off to die. I tried it once.
[ And then he drinks— well, a lot of what's left in the glass. ]
[Watching, Prior settles a little from that edge-of-something precipice he'd briefly skimmed. His eyes are sore but they've been in freezing weather for long enough that more or less everything is. He drinks, but the warmth never quite suffuses through his muscle enough to let it relax.]
When you offered yourself as an antipasti plate to a vampire, or was this a habit with you?
I couldn't make you sad, could I? [ Because you're obviously there already. ]
It's not much of a story. After my parents died, and I had to leave Crystal Valley, I decided to join the border guards, and hopefully, find some uncomplicated and respectable ending. [ He speaks matter of factly, almost casually. ] I was seventeen.
Oh, anything can make me sad right now. Old music. Hopeful dogs.
[Prior hiccups, which definitely isn't any trapped sadness trying to make it's escape, and comes up with a watery smile instead. For God's sake. At seventeen. Byerly and now Nash too.]
Well I'm glad you failed. Is that okay? I like you complicated and irres... unrespectable. At the risk of being off-trend, when I ran away from home I just wanted to live.
I didn't fail. [ His lips press into a mildly annoyed line, still casual. ]
I learned from my one spat of youthful melancholy that I didn't actually want to die. And since then I've tried very hard not to. [ Of course one of the consequences of this was actually needing to be good at his job.
He almost says that he didn't run away, but realizes that that isn't true. ]
That's almost more sad, you know. Was your home that… [ he still doesn't have the vocabulary for this ] glittering city?
Then I'm glad you changed course. Honestly, people can be so picky.
[Look, don't expect extreme levels of nuance from him tonight.]
I'm glad you wanted to live. Byerly never quite - well, never mind that. [Time for a drink and a gasped breath.] New York City's the home I ran to. The one I left was a...beautiful straitjacket.
[ Well, it's nice to know he can still be exasperating. ]
But you did leave. All the way. [ He doesn't say it like a question, but it is one anyway. Maybe the big question: how much of home can you ever really leave? ]
Except for holidays, and a phone call every Wednesday. To Mother, naturally. My father left a long time before me - all the way.
[And he drinks. Prior's as much as product of his upbringing as he is the antithesis of it, and he somehow manages to embody both at once. But, even if he'd been born into a different skin, his soul would never have fitted where it was found.]
He knew how to do it, of course— or magic knew him, or something. He'd studied the basics under the instructors at the Garden and with the Temple Guards. Most soldiers of any status were expected to know how to read a Rune Scroll, but he'd never had the kind of commission that demanded magical expertise, nor the talent that would inspire special designation.
But since waking up from whatever cradle-tale sleep that brought him here, he's presented himself as a magician. It was a simple ruse that he hoped might distract from his other abilities. And secondly, if what he'd been taught about magic in his world was true, and his world had really ended, then he shouldn't be able to do magic at all. He hoped that maybe, by learning more about the magic of other worlds, and this one, he could solve this contradiction. In his experience, one of the best ways to get information was to give it.
So here he is, about to cast a spell for Elera Lavellan. ]
( Magic has ruled her entire life. Never in a bad way, at least according to her, but it was always there in her, in the roles she'd taken on in life. So finding out that it worked differently for other people was endlessly fascinating, and she couldn't help but try and learn more.
And in Nash she'd found someone agreeable enough to demonstrate. Elera nods when he directs her, and she takes a fair few steps back just in case. )
I didn't think exploding anything was the go-to for a demonstration.
Do they have the saying where you're from? "Smoke follows beauty"?
[ Nash, you're married.
He doesn't wait very long to actually start the spell— which requires him to chant a few syllables under his breath. He raises his arm nonchalantly and orange sparks begin to swirl around him. At the moment the spell is cast, a faint outline of the fire rune appears overhead.
Then a line of fire appears immediately in front of him, the heat enough to blur the air, before it collapsing into emptiness.
Nash puts his hand down. At least he didn't miss.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
for prior
Drink is not his usual refuge, but at this point it is a welcome one. Drunkeness is at least comfortably straightforward. Or, so he thought until the waitresses start wheeling out cups of foam and spheres and color. ]
Is this the game of dares they were talking about?
[ Nash's elbows are on the table and his chin cradled in his hands, face turned as sour as he imagines something that yellow must taste. ]
no subject
It's been a distraction, at least, creating muddles of color in the glasses before drinking them: taste barely considered. Though his early attempts all seemed to turn out a similar muddy shade of brown, with the taste of windfall apples, he may be getting the hang of the art at the exact same point he'll be too drunk to focus on it.
He hasn't really spoken since Nash settled in beside him. A few soft hums of answers to questions, and a little relief that the one he was expecting where have you been or even where's – hasn't managed to come up.
He's aware of the noisy games across the other side of the bar, but not invested.]
Not unless someone's asking you to drink it naked in a snowdrift.
[He laughs, more to himself than anything, then frowns and groans as the rainbow shades in his glass start to curdle.]
Brown again. The color of disappointment.
no subject
[ Part of him wonders when familiarity became a virtue, and not just a comfort. The neon drink glares back at him. He winces slightly and then takes an experimental sip. It's actually not bad. He always did like sweet drinks. ]
You've been quiet.
no subject
Have I?
[He's not quite sober enough to act innocuous about it, so it comes out more of a challenge.]
Well, what would you rather I do? Stand on a table and belt My Way? I'm settling in.
no subject
[ And drink this incredibly bright drink, which may be stronger than Nash expects. ]
no subject
[As if that's a fine and fair reason to sulk. Which, frankly, on a good day it might just be. But it's been a while now since Prior's considered a day good. There's the lonliness and the loss, and the dragon still somehow haunting them through the monitors on the ship. At least they're away from that now, if it's taken trudging through the arctic circle the achieve it.]
And I'm tired. Tired makes me quiet.
[It's a less graceful sentence than Prior would usually achieve, but small sentences and small words are easier for the moment. It's also true, he's tired of just about everything.]
What are you observing? The sports game? People hit sticks with balls [Wait.] Balls with sticks. Why, it's a revelation.
no subject
The people over there— [ he makes a small gesture with one hand, the kind that wouldn't be spotted by denizens at a nearby table ] are discussing the recent influx of people, whether we'll wind up going along with Magda, and whether the short one has a shot at daring that purple-skinned bartender to come home with him tonight. [ It's unclear how he can make out their conversation in the din of the bar, or if he really can. ]
But I'm observing you.
no subject
[There's an ending to that sentence, but it's too much of an uphill climb, so Prior leaves it off and leans in to examine Nash's drink. Nothing non-toxic should be able to achieve that shade of yellow but - well, beggars can't be choosers. He edges his own drink across and tries a sip. The taste is sweetly lethal.]
You shouldn't observe me. I haven't had time to powder my nose.
no subject
[ And he grabs Prior's brown disappointing drink and takes an overconfident sip. ]
You know, in my family we were taught to eat and drink whatever was put in front of us.
[ "Finish your dinner, there are people starving in China," was the general effect. He's never been picky. ]
no subject
[Mother's example was never exactly a good one, but it was dogged enough to be admirable in its way. Prior thinks of her every time he has a liquid lunch - which is more often than he manages real food, these days.]
Who knew I'd take to the lessons so well. [He's being over dramatic, of course, playing a caricature of himself as a mask over the real thing. Alcohol may be supposed to lower defenses but his are up already - waiting.]
no subject
Maybe I've had too much to eat. [ A pause. ] If you're waiting for me to— I dunno, lecture you? I'm not planning on it.
no subject
[His flicks his fingers out, brushing the thought away, then curls them in under his chin, resting an elbow on the bar. If Nash can watch him, well then. Nash can be watched right back. It's not as if it's the worst of faces to narrow his eyes into.]
I'm not waiting for a lecture, no. Why, have I done something that might warrant one? [A beat - he's still performing.] I haven't even made a big deal out of being right.
no subject
About the dragon, you mean?
[ He raises a single eyebrow and takes another sip of his drink. Now's your chance, Prior. ]
no subject
Sometimes I think I'd rather find out I was crazy.
no subject
I don't know. I could have fought the dragon.
[ Crazy. ]
no subject
I met someone who did. [Prior smiles, eyes far too bright.] Fight it. [Smile far too tight.] He's dead now, and alive again, too. I may be one shitty prophet but at least he's a better Lazarus.
[And then he's laughing, and clapping a hand over his mouth before laughter turns to something else.]
Fuck.
no subject
[ There was definitely a time when he would have fought it anyway, no matter the consequence. ]
Who's Lazarus?
no subject
Yeah well, running off to die can be cowardly too. [It takes a lot, sometimes, to choose to keep living. To want to, in spite of everything.] Just - have an old age. A long one. See if you suit silver as well as gold.
[He's pushed a hand back through his own hair without thinking, catching his fingers there.]
Lazarus rose from the grave. I don't know the story well. It was some kind of miracle, and also foreshadowing, I think. I'm.
[He narrows his lips around the end of that sentence, snapping it loose.]
no subject
But that isn't what he wants to say to Prior. ]
I know. Not about Lazarus, obviously. [ His gaze turns downward, to where one of his hands is resting. ] But about running off to die. I tried it once.
[ And then he drinks— well, a lot of what's left in the glass. ]
no subject
When you offered yourself as an antipasti plate to a vampire, or was this a habit with you?
no subject
That was about living forever. A completely different cowardice.
[ But still something that clouds his ideas of growing older. ]
no subject
[-der?]
no subject
It's not much of a story. After my parents died, and I had to leave Crystal Valley, I decided to join the border guards, and hopefully, find some uncomplicated and respectable ending. [ He speaks matter of factly, almost casually. ] I was seventeen.
no subject
[Prior hiccups, which definitely isn't any trapped sadness trying to make it's escape, and comes up with a watery smile instead. For God's sake. At seventeen. Byerly and now Nash too.]
Well I'm glad you failed. Is that okay? I like you complicated and irres... unrespectable. At the risk of being off-trend, when I ran away from home I just wanted to live.
no subject
I learned from my one spat of youthful melancholy that I didn't actually want to die. And since then I've tried very hard not to. [ Of course one of the consequences of this was actually needing to be good at his job.
He almost says that he didn't run away, but realizes that that isn't true. ]
That's almost more sad, you know. Was your home that… [ he still doesn't have the vocabulary for this ] glittering city?
no subject
[Look, don't expect extreme levels of nuance from him tonight.]
I'm glad you wanted to live. Byerly never quite - well, never mind that. [Time for a drink and a gasped breath.] New York City's the home I ran to. The one I left was a...beautiful straitjacket.
no subject
But you did leave. All the way. [ He doesn't say it like a question, but it is one anyway. Maybe the big question: how much of home can you ever really leave? ]
no subject
[And he drinks. Prior's as much as product of his upbringing as he is the antithesis of it, and he somehow manages to embody both at once. But, even if he'd been born into a different skin, his soul would never have fitted where it was found.]
That was my fault, of course.
no subject
[ And you would know it, chimes a particularly exasperating voice inside him.
He drums his fingers softly on the table. In the din of the bar, they almost don't make a sound. But Nash is listening. ]
for lavellan
He knew how to do it, of course— or magic knew him, or something. He'd studied the basics under the instructors at the Garden and with the Temple Guards. Most soldiers of any status were expected to know how to read a Rune Scroll, but he'd never had the kind of commission that demanded magical expertise, nor the talent that would inspire special designation.
But since waking up from whatever cradle-tale sleep that brought him here, he's presented himself as a magician. It was a simple ruse that he hoped might distract from his other abilities. And secondly, if what he'd been taught about magic in his world was true, and his world had really ended, then he shouldn't be able to do magic at all. He hoped that maybe, by learning more about the magic of other worlds, and this one, he could solve this contradiction. In his experience, one of the best ways to get information was to give it.
So here he is, about to cast a spell for Elera Lavellan. ]
You might want to stand a bit further back.
[ Nash was never that great at magic. ]
better late than never ok
And in Nash she'd found someone agreeable enough to demonstrate. Elera nods when he directs her, and she takes a fair few steps back just in case. )
I didn't think exploding anything was the go-to for a demonstration.
( But she won't complain, and she's not. )
no subject
[ Nash, you're married.
He doesn't wait very long to actually start the spell— which requires him to chant a few syllables under his breath. He raises his arm nonchalantly and orange sparks begin to swirl around him. At the moment the spell is cast, a faint outline of the fire rune appears overhead.
Then a line of fire appears immediately in front of him, the heat enough to blur the air, before it collapsing into emptiness.
Nash puts his hand down. At least he didn't miss.]