nysalogs | [open] channeling angels in a new age, now.

[Prior's focus is distracted, head tipped to watch the butterfly until there's only a speck of light to follow, blinking out high above them. But he looks back in time to catch the look on Byerly's face. And he's not an idiot. His self-esteem may be riddled with bullet holes, but his self-worth's a less vulnerable edifice.

It's the kind of look Louis would have spit nails for a week over someone giving him, before, while he'd have gracefully pretended not to be pleased and amused. And Prior remembers Louis, too, back when Prior falling in love with him had felt like being chosen for some higher purpose.

No more. He won't mark out his future in terms of looks like these. He can't allow them, only to watch them die as the reality of what his daily life with all its little indignities really looks like gradually settles in. Or, worse, watch them turn pitying or resentful. He's too young to forgo looks like these, but even the knowledge of that makes him feel ancient already. Better to keep this to whatever it's been, so far. Mutual distraction? Prior's sure he wouldn't allow himself to agree to so much without the feeling that it's giving Byerly some purpose, too.

But that look. Prior looks back and lets himself be aware, for one moment, how much just looking at Byerly sometimes feels like cheating on someone who no longer has the slightest claim.

And then he laughs, bites his lip.]

Oh, I trust I'll learn. Just, not too soon? For now I think I'd rather be taught how to keep myself here as long as can be arranged. [Gently deflecting, he lets the need to shift his stance pull him away just enough.] Though I'm really not sure assaulting people will ever be my thing.

No? No plans to become a soldier or nightclub bouncer? Pity.

[ He lifts his hand to tug gently on one of Prior's stray locks of hair. The length looks almost silly to his Barrayaran eye, where even the town clowns like him keep it military-regulation short. It's charming, truly.

With a small sigh, he turns towards more serious matters. He's very nearly sincere when he says: ]

But it doesn't have to be your thing, dear Prior. Just a thing you can do. I can teach you marksmanship instead, if that pleases you better, but one must always be prepared to be disarmed.

Marksmanship. That's shooting people, right? [No, fine, sure, marksmanship. He cards fngers back through his own hair only to bunch it between them and tug lightly in faux despair.] You have no idea what a constant affront this place is to my delicate liberal sensibilities.

[Never so much as a gun in the building once out of the family home. He exhales slowly.]

I think I'll be very prepared to be disarmed. There can't be that much difference between learning to fire a gun and learning to look like I could if they pushed me?

Ah, there are certain people who can get away with just looking like they could if you pushed them. Those people tend to be six foot seven and muscly all over and have a scar across their cheek. Neither you nor I exactly fit the bill.

[ He reaches out and interlaces his fingers with Prior's. ]

But come. Let's go in. Have a nightcap. I hate not being able to see your lovely face clearly.

As if you don't light up the night on your own. [His smile is wry, a look cast down into the dark where their hands are linked. Nothing but a blur and the sensation of warmth spreading far beyond his fingertips.]

Though what assumptions you make. You have no idea the things I keep hidden. [Prior's free hand plucks at the lapel of his coat with a flourish, as though muscles like Popeye's or an extra five inches in height might somehow be lurking beneath.] The scar, anyway. I can wear a cropped shirt and petrify enemies with my absence of an appendix - oh, wait.

[Breaking away, he ducks across to where he'd been waiting and retrieves a small paper bag.]

I came bearing gifts.

[ With a laugh - ]

A gift! Do share.

I was right, strawberries are out of season. But blackberries are close enough and these are... [He shrugs.] Close enough to blackberries.

[Prior rustles the bag as he comes back over, clasping it against his chest. One small favour gone unforgotten.]

They should really match with gin, but it may be a little late for something so abrasive. [Certainly for his sensitive system.]

[ Just a little blink, a tap of his long eyelashes. A moment of genuine surprise. By is not...accustomed to these sorts of gestures. Not at all. Not accustomed to promises kept, just those made idly and forgotten. ]

Ah. Do I try one now? [ He gestures to the bag, miming taking one. Do they need to be washed first? ]

[Prior raises a warning finger to counter Byerly's mime.]

In a bowl, sweetheart, we're not savages. Besides, I have my reputation to think of. I can't greet the neighbors after standing out here, pressing things into your mouth in the dark.

[Oh, he could, and with a smile too. But Prior's stood for long enough, and inside there will be light and he won't need to compensate so much for his eyes and his leg. So he affects a southern accent, fans himself in a thrill of affronted sensibilities, and sweeps toward the door.]

[ And By bows him inside - though he watches him go closely, looking for signs of weakness, of trouble. Takes note of it, and frowns very slightly.

But he's all smiles again as he makes his way into the kitchen, fetching a bowl down from the cabinet. He sets it out for Prior. ]

Well, go on then.

[There are always signs of weakness to find, for anyone who looks at him long enough. But there are signs of someone refusing to give in to it, too. His leg's bad enough now that he can't quite erase the limp, even on the good days, but there's a grace to his movement despite it - the rest of his body accepting the shockwaves and turning them into a sashay.

He turns on the spot, taking in the room before leaning over the table and tumbling berries into a bowl.]

The imperial palace. I am honoured. Incidentally, I assume that whole declaration earlier was trying to attract attention?

Just trying to have a bit of fun.

[ The lie is easy enough. But Byerly hesitates just a second before adding something more honest - though it's delivered with the same smooth confidence as his lie, given no more significance than it. ]

And find out a thing or two. Collect biographies.

[ He reaches out and plucks out a berry, though he doesn't eat it quite yet. ]

Well, it is a town full of displaced queens. I don't know that the title's enough to get you a visit to the inner sanctum.

[Though Prior has to wonder how an empress would feel about someone else throwing the title around. Either think him dangerous or dismiss him - and with the drunken piano concerto the later far more likely. But it seemed like a performance intended to catch someone's eye, and that's the purpose that makes Prior curious.]

Did you find out anything interesting?

[He selects a berry of his own - careful, slow.]

Like who could be looking to poison you with forest fruit?

[ That last, damnably perceptive comment makes Byerly flinch just a bit. In no small part because he hadn't registered what he was doing - but Prior's completely correct; he'd been hesitating because he'd been waiting for Prior to eat one of the berries first. To check to see if he was being poisoned.

Well. Paranoia does run deep. He still doesn't take a bite. ]

A few things. To begin with, who's willing to share, and who isn't.

Does that really tell you much? I could give you half my life story without sharing a single secret. And I never did get a poem. [Lips pressing to a performance of a pout, Prior lets his elbow rest on the table, reaching across - thin wrist, long fingertips curling out - to coax Byerly's berry from him.] That's enough to make someone resentful.

[Both berries in his palm, he tilts it, lets them swap places.]

But then you're the one with the weaponry. I thought you were worried about the motives of the people on the ship? Not the rest of us who got thrown off the boat.

[A quick, wry smile and he tips both berries into his mouth. They're not quite what he could pick up from the store at home but the taste's fresh and bright, autumn fruit.]

The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

Ah.

[ His gaze drops. He's a little ashamed before that casual, unquestioning, unjudgmental demonstration of the harmlessness of the gift. Some gratitude, eh, Vorrutyer? ]

Well. Malice can come from any and all directions. And often does. I think the best definition of life is still possessed of the capability to really royally fuck something up. [ He shrugs, and takes one of the berries, and eats it. ] This is remarkable, Prior. Delicious.

Really? I thought that was just the cover line of all my report cards.

[It's Byerly's expression that Prior waits on, not what he says. Well, there are all those stories about the first time british people tried bananas - coming from an oversaturated age it's rare to see someone really trying something new.]

I'm fond of flawed things. Maybe that's why I like people so much. Most people. But I think there's a second part - something like and live to fuck up again another day. We're tenacious, aren't we?

[He picks another berry from the bowl. They're stupidly ripe staining his fingertips already.]

Malice sounds dramatic. [But so does war before the bombs fall.] Did anyone ask for a rhyme about plotting our downfall?

Which part was the cover line of your report cards - delicious? What inappropriate teachers you had.

[ He gives a wistful little sigh, and grabs another berry. Strange things. Half sweet, half bitter. Rather like Prior himself, now that By thinks about it. ]

But no, naturally they didn't. You don't use this sort of exercise to find out intentions. You use it to find out about pasts, sordid and otherwise. About character. About who you can trust to chatter and who you can trust not to chatter.

Oh, but the inappropriate teachers were my favorite.

[Sordid past: certainly, but only by other people's measures. Chatter: constantly, because silence is too much for him to stand anymore. Intentions: who knows, selfish and unselfish in the same turn. A quick run down of Byerly's checklist and Prior realises he's told the man more than just about everyone else here, and still not enough that he'd believe his character could be fairly judged.

An exercise.]

Most people use exercises like that to make friends. Does anyone ever pass all the tests?

[ By lifts his eyebrows, rolls his shoulders in a shrug. He pulls apart one of the little berries, separating out its meat, staining his fingertips black-purple. ]

These are not the sorts of tests that one passes or fails, dear Prior. No more than one passes or fails a psychiatric evaluation. It simply gives...insight.

People pass. Maybe not to a psychologist, but to me. I think they do. [He doesn't say 'for most people' - nobody's most people.] There's an easy way to know.

[But he's biting down on a berry.]

These could use something. Sugar or cream?

There's sugar in the cabinet.

[ Byerly waves vaguely behind him. He's hereditary aristocracy, Prior. He got a bowl. He's not going to do more chores than that today. ]

And so what are your criteria, dear Prior? How does one pass your test?

[...Fair enough. Allow limpy mcgee to get up and fetch the condiments. Prior doesn't answer until he's walked purposefully around Byerly, searched a cabinet, placed exactly two spoonfuls of sugar into the cup of his palm and returned to sit and dip only his berry into the little white pile.]

It's not how they pass, exactly, more how you know they've passed. [A second dipped berry.] This is better, I thought as much.

[He looks across the table.]

Well it's obvious, really. You know when you stop testing. When you pick up the phone without thinking because you know having them on the other end will make things better, even a little bit. It works for business associates, too. [Which seems closer to what Byerly's looking for, somehow.] When you stop checking the local prices because you know the place you go to isn't going to screw you over. You have to stop testing sometime, don't you? To do otherwise would be exhausting.

[ A wry little smile. Or perhaps it's bitter. ]

In the land of honest men, the liar is king. You need at least one suspicious mind out there.

[ He reaches out with one of his berries to dip it into Prior's sugar. ]

Exhausting and lonely.

[He curls his fingers closed, trapping the berry and Byerly's fingertip between them.]

Don't be so dogmatic, I never said trust everybody. I never said men were honest, either.

[Dipping a berry of his own in sugar, he offers it across.]

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