[ 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]

[ He meant what he said. ]

I usually took foreign assignments. I thought I explained that. As for your other question…

[ Dramatic pause. It's mostly to screw with Byerly. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ Dryly: ]

You are in a foreign land now.

[latkje]

And the humidity doesn't agree with me.

[ A pause. He looks upward. ]

What do you propose? Turning me in?

[vorrutyer]

Dear heavens, no. That would be simply rude. You teach me about magic, you confess your heart's truth, and then I stab you in the back? You think me quite the cad.

[ By follows Nash's gaze towards the sky, weighing the relative merits of...certain choices. ]

Tell me, dear fellow, are you generally willing to part with the information you collect?

[latkje]

I'm a very helpful person.

[vorrutyer]

So you are. That much is clearly true. Would you pass it along to me? I do so like to stay in the know, as they say.

[latkje]

Because you've been fishing for information as long as we've been talking.

[vorrutyer]

I'm a curious little cat. What can I say?

[latkje]

I suspect a lot more than that.

[vorrutyer]

Do you?

[ Byerly doesn't look at Nash; he smiles into the middle distance. ]

How unusual. There aren't many people who look at me and expect more than meets the eye. Have we not spent enough time together? Do I need to spend more time drinking where you can see me?

[latkje]

That doesn't seem like a very interesting way to look at people. [ I.e., not expecting more than meets the eye. ] I assume you at least try to picture them without their clothes.

[vorrutyer]

Wouldn't that mean expecting less than I see, dear maiden?

[ And then he makes a show of looking Nash up and down, nodding in approval. It's fairly transparently a delaying tactic as he struggles to decide just how honest he wants to be. His instinct is to avoid honesty altogether, to keep his job a secret, but...one does need allies, does one not...? ]

[latkje]

Hah. Okay, but less can be more. Do they say that where you're from?

[ He's indulging the stalling technique. Very helpful, he says. ]

[vorrutyer]

I've heard it.

[ He takes a drag on his cigarette - another delay - and then says - ]

What would you do if I were more than that? [ Echoing Nash's earlier question: ] Turn me in?

[latkje]

Byerly. [ A deliberate pause. ] Who would I turn you in to?

[vorrutyer]

You asked the question of me, dear maiden.

[latkje]

Because I knew the answer.

[ Pretty hard to endanger national security at this juncture. ]

[vorrutyer]

Do you really think I'm so harmless? There are ways I could use that information against you.

[latkje]

Sorry, wait. [ He moves one of his hands around, apologetic. ] Apologies, I think I've lost it.

Weren't we having a conversation where you were pretending to be harmless?

[vorrutyer]

And in which you were accusing me of being nothing of the sort. So you either gave me that information presuming I'm harmless, in which case I'm also useless, or harmful - in which case I can actually do something with it.

[latkje]

You're missing a third possibility. [ And, well, probably a forth and a fifth, but who's counting. ]

[vorrutyer]

Do share.

[latkje]

[ He brushes his hair out of his face, but his voice doesn't skip. ]

You don't have to calculate many risks when you don't have anything left to lose.

[vorrutyer]

Ah.

[ Byerly's smile twists. Yes. That...That dilemma, he knows well. Ah, desperation. He and Nash - they're like the last two people in the bar, right before the lights come up. No one left to go home with, eh?

No - that's not fair to Nash. It's clear enough his new bedfellow is...rather more desirable than Byerly. Better at this game. Not a surveillance operative suddenly thrust into covert ops. Sort of covert ops. ]

Well. I'm certainly no secret agent, but I have - shall we say - watched quite a few holodramas. I know a thing or two.

[latkje]

[ It isn't the first time Nash has lost everything, though it does seem like the kind of thing that should happen to a young man, with many steps left in him for walking. Really, at this point in his life, Nash prefers not to walk at all. And yet, here he is, legs moving in a dull repeat. He makes a mental note to complain about it more.

(It's a lie, of course; he hasn't lost everything before, not like this, and his memories tell him so. There's a man standing in the doorway, his hands held in fists. "You have a home to go back to," he says. "That's something to be happy about."

But you can't stay married for very long without being able to ignore the little things that nag at you. )

He assumes "holodramas" are a genre of plays, or something like that. ]

Probably one or two things that I don't.