bakerstreet | when things break bad...

Well this isn’t something he has ever done with Fran. If he hadn’t used the spell, he’d likely have flung off into a heap. Even knowing his grip is secure, his stomach flips at their speed and how strong snd smooth David’s movements are beneath him. It’s not often he feels someone could destroy him with little effort. To be so aware of his own fragility - truly he is in awe, and thanks.

A thanks that grows with David’s approving stance toward what Fran has shared with him. He expected hostility. “She was an excellent teacher and extremely creative problem solver. I learned a good deal from her.” About magick. About being alive.

There was no way that David could destroy Balthier with no effort. First he would have to wish to do so, and he did not wish to do so.

"Humes did much to limit the true ways of magic," he agreed as he hauled himself hand over hand with ease up to the higher branches. "It is good when the old ways are remembered. The Mists are powerful, and need to flow for them to refresh the world."

Balthier can’t help a sigh at that. “You’re right. I fear what the state of Mist and Hume behavior will be going forward.” Venat and his father had succeeded. The time of Ocurria was over. How long until the license system broke down? How long until something new and more rigid took its place?

“More reason the old ways are important.” That, at least, is a belief of his that hasn’t been shaken, and there is comfort in that knowledge. A tiny ledge to find his balance on.

"If your people have their way, it will not be of a state," David noted as he finally hauled himself up onto the high limb he had been taking them to. From here, just barely in the distance, one might even make out a small hut, built in against the sturdy trunk of the tree he had brought them up.

"The old ways are not always without their flaws, though it is not a thing often to be said."

“You are a curious Viera,” Balthier says. The candidness of the response is a testament to how good interaction is for his grieving spirit. “All things have their flaws. Best to have a broad tool kit.”

He can see around the Viera’s head and spots the hut. He’s never been in one, and some shadow of curiosity stirs, like a muscle memory he hasn’t used in ages.

"How many of our men do you know?" David countered in an almost off hand manner. No, the man cannot truly say he's curious, even if David truly is.

"Not all fit the molds made for them, the will expected of them by the Wood. But ours is to duty, and so duty is taken. Tell me, do you eat meat?"

While it was not as common of the female viera, it indeed was more common of the males. They were, so often, hunters after all.

David’s words are fair, but Balthier has a hunch, and those hunched have been right a good deal more often than they haven’t. So he doesn’t argue.

“I don’t refuse food, especially offered from a hunt.” It’s kind David asked, but Balthier was without food for enough of his youth to be above denying it. Besides. An surefire way to insult someone in almost any culture was to refuse their food.

Perhaps it was a sure way to do so, however he merely would have found and prepared something else for his guest. Instead he keeps going at a brisk pace, clearly confident on these higher, thinner, and yes, more bouncy branches than rightly someone of his size wearing heels should rightly be.

But hey, that's just the way he works.

"I am glad for it. It will do you good to have a full meal. You feel light."

These thinner, bouncier branches are making Balthier a little queasy. He prefers the skies, thanks, and he’s glad for the spell keeping his grip. Still, newness is good for him, and something stirs at having this experience that’s so unfamiliar.

“And do you know the weight of many men?” He shoots back. It’s light, but he amends, “I only tease. I know I haven’t been eating well.”

Ah, well there is that. David offered a sigh as he slowed his advance to the structure built so tightly to the tree. From here it's clear that the supports are over several branches, and it spirals around part of the tree and even up it some, like a proper Viera village, but in miniature for it was clearly only a single hut and a storehouse near it.

"I withdraw my comment then, for I have not met many Humes before, nor carried them."

“Then your intuition is good,” Balthier says. He feels some camaraderie with that. “Did you build it yourself?” He hasn’t spent much time around Viera architecture, and always it leaves him in awe, the way it works with the trees instead of separate from them. This one is so self-contained, and yet still a piece of the Wood.

His intention was, more than anything else, to keep his attention on caring for this Hume while the man was in his care.

"No. This was left to me by the one who raised and taught me. That is the way of we males. When we come to the village to bring goods or trade for supplies, we take away whatever male child there is, if they are old enough. I was taken a long time ago."

And his trainer had been quite old.

"That sounds exceptionally lonely." He winces at his own candidness. It's muscle memory from Fran, and realizing that just makes him want to bury his face and fall into the ache at her absence. At his failing her. She would not have been happy as a male viera, he thinks, not if it meant being stuck alone in the Wood.

"My apologies. I am not myself and that is not my place to pass judgement. I am honored to be invited into your home. All the more for how private it is."

"It is amazingly lonely," he agrees with no hesitation. It was not a thing he would often confess to. In fact it would not say it to one of his own kind.

This is a thing he cannot control. It is just his place, and accepted. But that is not the concern for now. They are nearing his home and soon he is nudging the door open with a foot. Once that is done he steps onto the sturdy floorboards and goes to a knee so the Hume can get down.

The easy agreement with his claim and lack of acknowledgement of his apology tells Balthier more than he expected.

Well, then, perhaps this exchange is less one directional than he'd assumed. Maybe it's fortunate he lost is way and needed the assistance; the Wood seemed to have something of the sort on Her mind in sending David to retrieve him.

David kneels down, and Balthier releases the stop spell so he can slide to his feet. He winces, needing to stretch and roll the kinks from his neck and back, but it he is better for not having tried to climb.

"Can I assist you with preparing tea or dinner?"

Of course he could assist. David waved toward the small stone fireplace, where not only was there clearly a kettle, but where a fire would clearly need to be set.

"I shall fetch what will need heated."

He has of course used magic to preserve it for another meal. He went to his stone cool-chest and opened it to lift out a reasoned meat roast and a container of vegetables. It would be wise to let things warm by the fire.

Assisting makes him feel more himself, more useful. Like he has a purpose, like he needs to be present. He falls into the routine like someone returning home after a long journey; everything is familiar, but there's a strangeness to it. A newness and a welcome all at once.

He sets the wood, then coaxes a small fire spell to catch on it, another trick Fran had taught him. For a moment, it feels good to remember her, to feel her presence, instead of just overwhelming, and he's thankful for it.

David returns, and Balthier's nose reacts before his eyes. "You like to cook," he observes.

Ah, that was an interesting conclusion to come to. But also hard to answer.

"It assists in adding variety to one's life. And takes time."

Fills the hours is more like. He moves close to the fire to put the things to warm. Then he moved to find the small, fired clay cups that he used for tea. There were only the two, with uneven amounts of wear.

"Visitors are rare here. Forgive me that I may not make things more homely."

Balthier nods. He understands that, even if his days haven't been long and needed filling for a long time. Well, until recently, he supposes.

"I draw," he answers. Or, he did. It's been a long time.

The cups bring a smile to his face -- more good memories, of his mother, of the joy of making things that don't have to be exceptional. "Nothing to forgive," he says earnestly. "I've always preferred real spaces to performative ones."

"The path of art is one of value. It is a means by which the world is seen."

There is nothing unreal about this. He was the third hunter to use it, and all had enjoyed their home here.

"The bed will be yours. No arguments will I take."

And a way to feel seen when he otherwise wasn't. Maybe that was why he'd drifted off; he'd lost the need for it.

David's preemption of the argument gets a single, breathy laugh from him. But it brightens his face all the same. "Alright. No arguments." Fran was the one who had taught him that sometimes the best way to show gratitude for care was simply to accept it.

It wasn't like Balthier looked in any state to take the floor anyway.

"Good," David said as he got down a tin of tea. "It is right for you to rest well."

No, he probably wasn't.

"I'm not sure I deserve it," Balthier admits. "But I'm no use to anyone exhausted. I've made a clear point of that."

"You are of use in preparation of tea," David reminds the man as he moves to check over the warming of the food.

"Can you speak of how she came to pass?"

Yes, he was curious over Fran.

Yes that’s certainly something he can do, and he’s glad to have a way to contribute. Measuring the leaves, he sighs into the soothing smell. It’s been awhile.

The sigh turns darker at the question, but he owes it to his savior, and it may make tomorrow smoother.

“Not easily, so I beg your patience. We were — trying to stop the Empire. My father.” His voice halts, chest so tight he can hardly breathe.

Yes better to get the emotions out here.

Bad End AU Meme

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