[ closed ]

[latkje]

Who: Byerly (vorrutyer) & Nash (latkje)
What: Magic!
When: After the conclusion of the disease plot.
Where: On the road from Wyver to Olympia.
Warning(s): 504 Gateway Time-out

[ The road from Wyver to Olympia is well-travelled and well-packed, the long stretches of monotony preventing Nash from enjoying the landscape. Travel was supposed to bring variety, he thought, new sights, new sounds— not the same thing, over and over. It was hard to tell how far they'd come, at least in the physical sense. ]

At least we're done with that awful humidity. [ He runs a hand through his hair— short and wavy, it had gotten unruly in the heat. ] I have a northern constitution, if you didn't know. [ And a northern fashion sense, as Harmonian clothes tended toward the dour and conservative. Nash was also in the habit of wearing gloves. He's wearing them now, in fact. ] There are some things I just wasn't made for.

[ That hangs in the air a moment, then he turns to actually look at Byerly. ]

But you wanted to talk about magic.

Comments

[latkje]

I'm a clerk for a bishop. Missionary work, mostly.

[ So yes, totally going around and patching up beggars on streets. Absolutely. 100%. ]

And what did you do, before your recent ascension? [ He's expecting the answer to be "a whole lot of nothing", but perhaps Byerly will surprise him. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ And By answers, lightly: ]

Me? Why, I was a secret agent, of course. A seducer of women and a foiler of plots, all in service to the empire. [ Then, with a light laugh - ] Nothing of any note, dear fellow. Bounced from party to party. Pleasant life, that.

[latkje]

"Secret agent" is just a glamorous term for lying voyeur.

And then the weight of the whole destroyed empire on your nothing of not head in the space of an instant. I would get whiplash.

[ He does wonder how seriously Byerly takes his sole survivor duties. Also, by his own observation, very few people who have waken up have really been "nothing of any note." ]

[vorrutyer]

Lying voyeur...hm. Perhaps I was a secret agent.

[ Byerly laughs. Ah, the act of confession. It's supposed to soothe the soul, isn't it? At least in the Betan theist tradition? Funny, he doesn't feel that his soul has been lightened in the least. Ah, well. Another point against the theists. ]

But, yes - from no one to Emperor. Hardly as though I'm the only one in that position, though. In a roundabout way, aren't you now Chief Bishop of your land, as well?

[latkje]

Maybe you're a secret agent now.

Chief Bishop? [ Shaking his head. One, because that isn't the term. Two, because you couldn't pay him. You really couldn't pay him. ] It doesn't work that way. I haven't taken vows.

It's the one thing my wife says I'm good at— dodging them.

[vorrutyer]

Ah, yet you made your vow to her...

[latkje]

She can be very convincing. Constricting? [ He feigns confusion. ]

Did you have other questions about magic? Marriage is barely a polite topic of conversation.

[vorrutyer]

True, true. It sends chills down my own spine, so I'll leave that be. Though now I am curious how you see your relationship to your dead world.

[latkje]

You mean, because I'm not the Chief Bishop?

[vorrutyer]

Because you are something. Aren't you? Or do you see yourself as completely apart?

[latkje]

Everyone's something, Byerly. Some of us are many things at once.

[vorrutyer]

Thank you for the philosophy lesson, dear maiden. Such insights into human nature. I'm asking what you are.

[latkje]

And after I've been so polite, letting your "nobody of note" charade slide.

[ Well, fine. Serious voice. ]

I'm a different person, when I'm at home. [ He has a different name, even. ] I'm worried that I won't ever be that person, again. Even if I wasn't ever very good at it in the first place.

[vorrutyer]

[ By's eyes narrow for just a split-second before he returns to his previous insouciance. ]

I see. And tell me, maiden, which self is more your true self? The one you display here, or the one you display there?

[latkje]

That's a pretty stupid question.

[vorrutyer]

So rude!

[ He doesn't retract it. ]

[latkje]

I think I already answered it. [ "Some of us are many things at once." ] But if you insist—

I don't know if you've convinced yourself you are the mask you wear, or that it's only a mask. But a true person is the whole person, and not any of its severed off parts.

[vorrutyer]

[ By flexes his hand, and then waves it to the side and brings it down to tuck into his pocket. Not a dismissal, not an agreement - something somewhere in between the two. ]

I didn't ask which self was you, dear maiden, but which self was more you. Every face we present is something of a performance - I'll acknowledge that freely. But different performances take more or less sweat and labor. Which performance is less effortful?

[latkje]

[ He actually considers. ]

I really don't know. It probably depends who I'm with. [ A sigh. ] That much self-introspection requires strong mirrors, and a lady must beware of vanity.

[vorrutyer]

True enough. [ By accepts this with a shrug. ] So are you heartbroken, then, to leave that person behind? Or is it a shift as easy as throwing out an unfashionable mask?

[latkje]

[ He frowns. ] I didn't actually have a particular person in mind. [ The truth. He has more than one person he finds it difficult to talk to! Or had, as the case might be. ]

Do you have someone you miss? I mean, you must. I'd feel very rude if you didn't.

[vorrutyer]

If you're asking about people I used to be...No, not really. I carry them with me. Everyone I was, I still am, I think, with only the most minor exceptions.

[latkje]

So we never change, then. I've always wondered.

[ Fine, here. ]

I left home when I was still young. It took me a long time to go back. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do. [ Not in the least because he had to go through a bunch of assassins to do it. ]

It's very strange, not being able to go back.

[vorrutyer]

I know that strangeness quite well.

[ He knows that whole sequence of events quite well. Well. He tilts his head slightly to the side - ]

Why did you leave?

[latkje]

[ This, he says breezily. ]

Oh, I was kicked out.

[ Untrue. He definitely ran away. Though he had become a wanted criminal, so there was an element of self-preservation there. ]