InsaneJournal

Thayet missed a lot of things back home, but she was getting used to this: the quiet of the street, houses crowded with trees and painted in muted colors. Everything about it was foreign, but still managed to feel nostalgic, as if there was an inherent part of the street even if it was brand new. She missed autumn in Skyhold, but this wouldn’t be awful.

She’d spent the morning at work, come back home, changed out of her clothes, and just… sat down on the front steps for some quiet. Her left arm was aching today, trying to convince her that it still existed, and to relieve it she was running her fingers over the smooth metal crevices of her prosthesis, focusing on the parts that were clearly unreal to remind herself of it, the light crackle of the lightning rune warm against her fingertips.

She was distracted when Erik’s feet came into her field of vision, breaking up the empty stretch of road she had been watching, and she looked up, waving with her metallic arm. “Coming my way…?”

Erik had gotten some new clothes after settling into his house, and he was dressed simply in jeans and a maroon flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up. It made him look far different than he had when all he had was a suit, casual and comfortable. He probably needed a shave, too.

"I am, actually," he said, his hands tucked into his pockets. "That is, if you don't mind the company."

He was lonely. Thayet knew he was lonely, even though he didn't like to talk about it. He was somewhat solitary and was still getting his bearings in this new place, and even though he wasn't unfriendly he seemed wary of making new friends in a new place. He wasn't terribly open, he didn't go out of his way to make friends — he wanted to have a community, but he didn't know if he trusted anyone enough to get close. Thayet, however, seemed to be his best and only friend here.

“Not at all. Everyone else is out, if you wanted to come in.” Thayet gestured to the house. Her doors were generally open to just about anyone; she had adopted that kind of welcoming mentality when she’d settled in Haven and had never let go of it. There was a reason that she had immediately moved in with her friends after arriving: the thought of being alone, of not being a moment away from them, had been too lonely. Most scattered after Corypheus was defeated, then her advisors had gone their own ways after the Inquisition was disbanded, and now at home Thayet spent her days trying not to feel alone in her Kirkwall mansion. After the last few years, a smaller house that was constantly full of people? Sounded like heaven.

She looked like she belonged there, in comfy-looking capris cargo pants and a purple shirt made of soft jersey fabric. Her feet and arms were bare, showing off her arm and the bottom half of the harness that stabilized it on her shoulder. She must not have gotten her friend to put her hair up in the morning, because today it was just in one messy braid, loose around her face, and there was a lot more of it than it seemed when it was all pinned to her head.

"I'd like…" Erik trailed off, his attention going immediately to her prosthetic arm. He'd never seen it before, and he was suddenly fixated on it like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"What is this?" he asked, glancing up to meet her eyes with a surprised smile. "You didn't have this before."

“The… Oh, that.” Thayet flexed her left hand and rested it back down on her knee. “I wasn’t wearing it that day. You want to see?” She reached out with it and motioned for him to come closer. “It doesn’t bite that often.”

Her arm was pretty, the hand a smooth, almost perfect replica of her right. The arm itself was mostly black, curved to imitate muscles, veined with metals that reflected silver and violet. There were runes etched into the inside of her wrist, dulled now that she wasn’t actively using them.

In Erik’s senses, the metal hummed with magic.

Erik moved closer to her, lightly touching her wrist. He didn't mean to use his powers on her, but he instinctively used his abilities to lift her hand, taking his time in observing her arm and all of the intricate craftsmanship. "Exquisite," he breathed. "Who made this for you? This is perfection."

“A dwarven arcanist named Dagna. Or… the only arcanist, I suppose, she founded the study.” Thayet let him look, gently flexing her fingers. “She followed me after I disbanded my army. I let her live in my basement, she made me an arm. I feel like I did her more favors than she did me, though, she’d been begging to poke and prod and use me as a test subject for years.”

"Why would she be using you as a test subject?" Erik asked vaguely, still far too interested in her arm. He traced his fingers along her palm, curious as to how it actually managed to work. Her world was supposed to be technologically backward, and he couldn't quite wrap his head around how magic could do such a thing.

“I’m an interesting person,” she answered dryly. “But Dagna had theories about creating working limbs and no one else was stupid enough to let her test it on them.” Her fingers twitched when he touched her, as if she could feel him. If he was feeling around the metal, he could tell that there was more than just her arm; there were little panels that hid hollow areas, one for small bombs, then a thinner one for throwing knives.

Thayet didn’t have true feeling in that arm, but she could feel the electrical impulses and it was like the ghost of a touch. She was physically affectionate with her friends, sure, but no one had touched her in fascination in a long time. She shifted a little, tucking her right hand around the curve of her knee and squeezing the back of her own thigh.

Erik pulled his hand back. "I'm sorry, I'm making you uncomfortable."

Did she look tense? Thayet dropped her right hand, bracing it on the step in an attempt to look more casual, though she let her left hand hover for another second between them. “You’re really not. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

"No, I just … Metal speaks to me," said Erik, aware of how silly that sounded. "I see the pulse and energy of magnetic fields, I feel its presence." He was happiest around metal, around that energy, and the ten years he'd spent in a concrete cell with nothing but plastic had been absolute torture. It had driven him nearly mad.

"It's beautiful," he said after a moment, pulling his hands back. "And beautifully made, you should be proud of it."

“I miss the real one, but barring that, I guess.” Thayet let her arm drop into her lap. “What does it feel like? Just out of curiosity. Does the magic change it?” She wanted to hand over the daggers and armor she had brought with her now to see what he thought of those, but that felt like an odd request with how little they knew each other.

"It's… humming," said Erik softly, his eyes lidded and nearly closed. "Crackling softly under it all. There's power there, pulsing through it, but it's delicate. It's not clumsy, or aggressive. It's … elegant."

A slow smile pulled at her mouth, and she knew right that second that she was already more attached to Erik than she should’ve been. Her habit of collecting people hadn’t stopped with the Inquisition, it seemed. “You want to come inside?”

Erik smiled, just barely. "If you have the time. I'm not trying to appeal to your vanity by telling you your arm is exquisite." But he had come over here with the hope that maybe he'd spend some time with her, instead of alone searching for a job. He had a few ideas but they weren't terribly promising. He'd take any work, but at this point he really was still getting the lay of the land. He was still learning whether these were people he could trust, or people he needed to hide from. The other drifters had powers and abilities and were unlikely to fear him, but he was reluctant to get a job in town.

So his days were spent looking over the newspaper — because he did his job search using the newspaper — and trying to get acclimated to the current year and the technological advances made (though he still did his job search by newspaper).

"Can I ask, actually — do you have a job here? In town? Do your friends?"

Thayet braced her hand on the railing of the stairs and pulled herself up, briefly taller while she turned and led the way into the house. “We all do. Varric and Dorian for the Department, Cass works in administration for them, Bull and Krem work for the Drakes at Fairharbor Salvage, and I work in a shop in town with another drifter named Isaac.”

Once they were inside, it seemed to take her a second to remember that the lightswitch was a thing. It had been months and she was still getting used to modern conveniences, sometimes content to wander in the dark or look for a candle before she remembered it was easier than that. “If you’re worried about working with the natives, about half of us here do without a problem. They don’t notice much.”

"I used to work in a small town with friendly neighbors," said Erik quietly, and though he didn't elaborate it was clear that the story didn't have a happy ending. He didn't trust humans. His willingness to work with Charles and rebuild the school had nothing to do with the idea that humans and mutants could happily coexist. He didn't believe it for a second. He did, however, believe that mutants deserved a school of their own, a safe haven where they could live and work and study, without being harassed by humans. That, Erik could get behind.

As for humans, he wouldn't shed a tear if they were all killed. There were exceptions — Magda having been one — but he was no longer interested in giving people the benefit of the doubt.

"Bull disguises himself to be in public so he doesn't frighten anyone?"

“When he has to. I know it bothers him, though. He won’t use the disguise unless he leaves Breakwater Point, and even then only if he’ll be around civilians.” Thayet nodded sympathetically. She hated that he had to hide (though not as much as he hated it himself), but that was the price of being here, wasn’t it? “The natives here don’t know that anything odd even exists. They’ll notice weird things here and there, but they’re ignorant. The Department keeps us under wraps if there’s an incident and I think all the townies have had their memories wiped so many times that some of them are…”

She paused, looked for a word, and decided on, “Stupid.”

Erik grunted with approval, but: "I don't trust the Department, either." But, he'd take the organization that was taking care of them over the locals, if he had to choose for now. "But they don't bother you? They don't interfere?"

“Not really. Todd gets cranky sometimes, but they don’t seem to have an interest in controlling us. They could if they really wanted to, but Todd is the only one who’s even a vague authority from the Department itself. The people who actually run the community are drifters like us.” Thayet shrugged and waved him into the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”

"If you're offering," said Erik. "Anything is fine, it's too early for lager." He chuckled, stepping into the kitchen, and helped himself to a seat at the table. He was observing his surroundings, picking up on little details and taking it all in with significant interest. "You live here with your friends, yes?"

The house was clean and showed signs of being crowded, but not unpleasantly so. Dorian was largely responsible for the decor because he wouldn’t have it another way, but it wasn’t overwhelming. They all felt comfortable leaving their things laying around, their shoes piled up on a mat by the door in a mish-mash of sizes.

“I was thinking coffee, but if you want to drink, go for it. We’re not about to run dry around here anytime soon,” Thayet said, her voice lilted with sarcasm. Everyone in the house seemed to prefer something different, and despite spending so much time at the bar, it was like they didn’t want to risk not being able to drink without putting pants on and leaving the house. “Bull, Dorian and Varric are upstairs, I live in the basement, just in case you had the impression I lived glamorously around here.”

"Coffee would be fine," said Erik. "And wherever you've lived, here or previously, I've probably had worse."

He wasn't trying to compete, but he had a wry sense of sarcasm about it. Any place seemed comfortable next to some of the places where he'd lived. He didn't need very much in order to be happy with a living space, and being in a basement didn't sound terrible to him. It was a nice house with her friends, they lived comfortably.

The discovery of coffee — good coffee — had drastically changed Thayet’s life, but she still had to reread the instructions on the coffee maker every damn time she used it. Her back was to him, but she was definitely listening, even while she was over at the counter and looking distracted.

“I spent most of my time in the last few years living in a tent — which sounds fun, until you’re freezing your tits off in the Emprise or sweating to death in the Wastes. This whole ‘air conditioning’ thing is like black magic to me.” Glancing over her shoulder, she added, “But you sound like you’ve got a story.”

"It's not a good story," said Erik solemnly, warning for her sake rather than his own. She wasn't from his world, and simply saying a name like Warsaw or Auschwitz would mean nothing to her.

So, he shrugged a shoulder and instead of really elaborating on anything, he started with: "I was in prison for ten years."

“Shit.”

Leaving the coffee on to make itself, Thayet turned back to face him and pull herself up onto the counter. “Can I ask why?”

Erik nodded, running his fingertips over the table. "I was arrested for the assassination of the president," he said, glancing over. He wasn't sure whether they had presidents in her world, so he went on to explain. "The leader, of this country."

Thayet didn’t actually object. Instead, she asked, “Yeah, but did you do it?”

"No. Or, I..."

Erik shook his head. "He was one of us," he said. "A mutant, elected to the highest office in the country. It — it wasn't well-known, but those who knew fell into two categories. Those who wanted to protect him at all costs, and those who wanted him dead."

He closed his eyes. He still had regrets about that day, and he'd replayed it a thousand times over in his mind. "I tried to stop it. Sometimes I think that the bullet would have missed if I hadn't interfered."

Thayet cocked her head, carefully watching his expression. It had been some time, but it clearly still bothered him. “Sometimes you can’t stop it,” she said empathetically. “If you can believe it, I’ve… kind of been there. You can’t look back with those kinds of questions. There’s no payoff, no way to comfort yourself.”

"I had ten years in solitary confinement to think about it," said Erik. "Every possible scenario has been thought out and dissected, so it's a bit too late to advise me."

“,,,Sorry, that was arrogant, wasn’t it? I’m so used to people asking me for that, it’s hard to turn it off.”

"You aren't wrong." Erik's smile was faint. He hadn't been asking for her advice, really, and he wasn't used to sharing anything about himself except with very few people.

He hadn't been this open with anyone since Magda, he realized. He'd told her so much in the first few weeks they'd known each other. Maybe as he was getting older he just needed to talk to anyone who would lend a sympathetic ear, or … maybe Thayet was special.

"My life isn't…" Hm. "The life I've led, I don't know if it's the topic of polite conversation." He wasn't shutting things down, but he was giving her a warning that if she kept asking about his personal life, she'd hear things that were unpleasant. He'd already told her about his wife and daughter, and it only got worse from there.

“Please, I’ve had enough polite conversation for a lifetime. If you don’t want to tell me something, you certainly don’t have to, but…” She shrugged, body language open. Thayet was used to people telling her things that were dramatic or intimate. It was largely a product of wartime, but it had let her get close to her friends fast enough to work well with them.

“You can always ask me questions, if you don’t feel like talking. I’m not a very secretive person.”

:I am," Erik admitted. "Mostly because I don't …"

He wasn't sure how to word this, really. "I haven't felt like I belong anywhere," he said. "I believe that mutants — all mutants — are my family, and I'll do anything I can to protect them, but they don't connect to me. I keep to myself, not because I'm not interested, but because I know I can't relate to most people."

He rested his chin in his hand, lightly tapping the table. "You. Tell me about you. You told me about your brothers, and I understand you're rather important where you're from, if Inquisitor isn't a sarcastic title."

“It isn’t,” she said, although the way she did, she didn’t seem to have that much respect for the title. Or she was a little embarrassed. “The Inquisition is — was — founded as kind of a neutral force to maintain order. It was meant to be religious and run by the Divine, but she died and the Chantry wanted nothing to do with it, so we were on our own for a long time. —The Divine is like… your Pope, I guess. The event that killed her gave me this magical anchor mark thing that could close rifts in the—you know, it’s complicated.” Thayet gestured, trying to wipe it away and start over.

“I’m important by accident, let’s put it that way. We didn’t have an Inquisitor for a good long time, but people were under the impression that I was touched by Maker or some kind of bullshit, so I was a convenient symbol of the cause, and when we needed an official leader, I was just the best choice. The Inquisition’s been gone for a year now, my friends are just used to calling me that.”

"What happened?" Erik asked. "The Inquisition disbanded? You gave up your power?"

“Eventually. Did what we came to do, more or less. It was never going to last forever.” The coffee maker clicked, and Thayet pushed herself off the counter so she could pour the coffee into a pair of mugs. “The Divine created it to regulate peace between mages and Templars, but it ended up being more focused on stopping an ancient monster from destroying the world. We defeated him, then spent the next couple of years cleaning up after it or helping where we were needed.”

Eventually she made her way to the table, dropping off the mugs and briefly leaving again to get sugar and milk out of the fridge. “The problem—” The gestured, vague airquotes. “—was that we were an army with no country. No monarch or government to regulate us. Our base was near the border between Orlais and Ferelden, but we were in a nigh inaccessible mountain range, so trying to enforce boundaries on us wasn’t going to work. None of our leaders shared a nationality, either; Cullen is Ferelden, Leliana was Orlesian, Josephine was Antivan, I’m a Free Marcher with Tevinter and Rivaini blood. No one place had sway on us, and many governments in the South and the North owed us their places of power, or at least their lives.

“We terrified them. Eventually they asked us to leash our power to the Chantry, which I’m sure felt like a good idea, given that the Divine owes me her place on the Sunburst Throne as well. I disbanded us instead. There’s more to it, but that’s the quick version.”

"You should have crushed other governments underfoot," was Erik's immediate response. "They were terrified of you, they had no power over you, you were clearly needed for a reason — or so you say, at least."

He had mixed feelings when it came to invading countries and seizing control.

“I could have, but then what? Run Orlais? Take over a city-state?” Thayet sat across from him and gestured vaguely. “That wasn’t the point of me. The Inquisition came up to fix things, to stabilize people and move on. I’d done that, and I didn’t want that power in the hands of the Chantry. If they used the alliances I helped them make and turned on me? We would have put up a good fight, but we would have lost eventually. It was better to send people home. I fucking hate politics, anyway.” She shrugged, clearly content with it, and started spooning sugar into her coffee.

"Noble of you," said Erik. "I've known men who would take the opportunity to seize power simply because they could. You were probably a good leader." He said it as someone who didn't feel he'd been a good leader, someone who'd failed, and horribly.

“Good or tired. Maybe both,” Thayet admitted, largely devoid of arrogance. “I was never good at the parts that involved being polite to people I didn’t want to. I was always happier with my feet in the dirt. But…” She shrugged again, waving her hand in a you know how it goes kind of motion. “I’m nobility, so I was used to some of the bullshit. I didn’t get squeamish when things turned a little morally gray. I don’t miss the pressure, but I miss feeling useful.”

"Mm." Erik added a small amount of milk to his coffee, but no sugar. He took a sip, contemplative and quiet. "You and I come from very different places, and have very different lots in life."

“You know, I get this feeling that that’s true for us no matter who we’re interacting with.” Thayet leaned back in her chair and brought her mug to her mouth, gently blowing on it before taking a sip. “But I think we have more in common than it seems.”

"My mother was a schoolteacher," said Erik after a moment. "My father was a soldier before I was born, and after the war he mended watches. I don't imagine that we had a lot of money, but I think my parents were comfortable. Not noble, by any means. My friend Charles is — he's not, either, as far as titles are concerned, but he grew up with wealth, the kind of thing you'd see with nobility."

“You totally ruined my segue, but nobility wasn’t what I was talking about. I was going to say: for example, we both like it when you appeal to my vanity.” Making a face, she added, “But it’s been a few years and I’m clearly rusty. So.”

Erik leaned back a little, smiling vaguely. "Are you flirting with me?"

He looked somewhere between baffled and amused, but it wasn't clear what he thought about it.

“I was trying, but we can pretend I wasn’t if you want to.” She smiled, self-deprecating.

Erik chuckled. "I…" He was awkward about it, clearly charmed but trying to find a way to politely turn her down. He'd lost his wife recently, Thayet knew this, and he didn't feel like he'd come to terms with his grief. He didn't think he ever would. Losses like that built up over time, they didn't fade away.

"You're not rusty," he said. "And I appreciate the sentiment."

“I think that’s the most polite rejection I’ve ever had,” she replied, oddly cheerful about it. “Thanks for that.”

"I'm sorry, I'm not … mm." He cleared his throat and took a sip of coffee instead of finishing his sentence. He was going to say he wasn't interested, but that wasn't true. He wanted to apologize for being, what, an inconvenience? Disappointing?

“Erik, it’s fine,” Thayet insisted, leaning in a little. “The last two men I was interested in were either only interested in other men, or dumped me to put himself in prison. You’re not hurting my feelings. You can just say no to me.” She said it like someone who always needed to remind people no, it’s fine, I’m not in charge of you.

Erik raised his eyebrows at the mention of a lover who'd put himself in prison. "Then no," he said, his smile light. He felt comfortable being reassured, at least. He liked her enough to care about disappointing her, and even as he turned her down he felt a sting of regret.

“See? I’ll live.” She smiled and leaned back. “Anyway. Anything else you were curious about, or…?”

"How do you feel about chess?"

“More fun than actual war. I should have a set around here if you’d like to play,” she offered, grateful for the change of subject.

"I would, actually. It's been some time, and my usual partner's a universe away." Erik took another sip of coffee, glad to have some of the tension lifted.

“Good, I might actually win. I play Dorian and Cullen; Dorian cheats and I haven’t beaten Cullen in four years. It’s starting to hurt my ego.” Thayet took another drink before setting the mug down, eagerly pushing away from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

"I'll warn you, I've played against a psychic for twenty years. As a result I'm rather good." Erik grinned, all teeth, and he resettled in his chair. "I don't want to crush your high hopes about winning, but..."

He trailed off, watching her go.

The past two minutes could have gone differently, he thought.

Thayet was gone for a couple of minutes, digging the chess board out of its corner in her room. She’d gone out of her way to buy one of the heavier sets, made of polished wood and lacquer, with the box that turned into the board. Something had felt weird and wrong around the cheaper plastic sets (plastic unnerved her in general, to be honest), and this one had some heft.

“All right,” she declared, setting the box on the table with a thud. “If I lose, you can’t tell my friends that I cried. Deal?”

"Deal," Erik breathed, but before she could say something else he was up out of his chair.

He kissed her, his hands cradling her jaw and pushing into her hair. Sudden, impulsive, definitely not something he'd intended on doing until the moment he did it. In this new place he felt unbearably alone. Without Magda he felt unbearably alone. He needed to come together with someone, just for a moment, just to feel connected.

He'd think about the rest later.