The Tale You Tell

[andhiswife]

It's been a difficult week.

That's actually an understatement. But she can't let the full weight of it settle on her, not when she's out in public like this. So for as long as she's out here, doing some shopping, it's just been a difficult week.

She's told Baz and Simon about her situation. They'd offered to give her time off, but that wasn't what she wanted. The Gardens are one of the few places where she doesn't feel like climbing the walls. There's too much else going on, too many other things that require her attention. It's everywhere else that's the problem. Her apartment is too quiet and too empty and too immaculate; she can't even justify housework anymore because everything that could possibly need doing has already been done thrice over.

And she knows she has friends who would help her, who would be happy to provide company or distractions or whatever she needed. But that would require telling them. Repeating the story wouldn't make it any more real than it is already, but the thought of burdening anyone else with it -- and how could something this heavy not be a burden? -- turns her stomach. So much so that she's been politely deflecting the invitations she's received, rather than try to face anyone.

She'll say this for texting: it makes it easier to lie.

The thought of food rather turns her stomach, too, but she's getting groceries, anyway. Even if the chief appeal of cooking is making a mess that she would then have to tidy up, it's still a necessary chore. Her clothing is starting to hang a bit looser than it ought to, and she doesn't want to make new garments for what she knows, distantly, to be an impermanent state of affairs. So, groceries. She can do this.

[Find Greta looking terrible either at or en route to a grocery store, or on her way back to Candlewood. Closed unless we've spoken; hmu if you still want in.]

Comments

[andhiswife]

She doesn't even think to object to the arrangement. It's not as if her bag of groceries can weigh much to him, and she doesn't want to part ways when he's such a marvelous distraction.

As far as questions go, though, she doesn't know where to start. "I, er... I didn't think you'd grow up quite this much," she admits, craning her neck a little to look up at him. "How long did it last, you being a child?" That's safe enough. The only other one that immediately springs to mind is, 'what happened to you?' He might not fancy answering that one.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"My tamassran did. She was sure I'd go into the beresaad for a while. Uh, the army." Bull laughed quietly. "Yeah, hard to imagine me as that little guy, huh? I was like that for about a week. It was weird having both eyes again. It was weird to know, being a little kid again, that I'd lose the one someday."

He hadn't had a scar on him yet.

[andhiswife]

He looks as if he has been in an army. He looks like an army unto himself, quite honestly.

"I'd assumed it was an adjustment, but..." she trails off, figuring she doesn't need to finish that sentence. "I hope it wasn't too hard on you." As if being turned into a child wasn't hard enough. Someone so young shouldn't have to think about things like the horrible injuries they've yet to sustain. She frowns, all too eager to fret over something outside herself. "Are you all right?"

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"No, it wasn't, but felt good to be grown again when it was over. Ashkaari is so far away from who I am now. And it was hard to be so young but to remember, vaguely, what people like Krem and Dorian mean to me. I'm alright."

Bull offered a smile. It was a strange relief to be able to look down at everyone from his proper height again - that was something he'd missed. "You were kind to me. I remember that, too."

[andhiswife]

Greta ducks her head for a moment, shoulders hitching in a shrug and a bashful smile tugging at her lips. "It was no trouble." She wants to add that anyone would have done the same, but if that were true, someone else would have gotten to the lad before she did. Instead, she adds, "Being kind to a lost little boy was the least I could do."

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Well, if I can return the kindness, let me know. I'm a lot more useful as an adult," he quipped, and he winked at her. Despite having only one eye that was obviously what it was meant to be. Bull grinned.

"I'm the Iron Bull, by the way." He felt he should give her the nane he'd taken as an adult; it'd be strange to be called Askaari now. Especially if he intended to be Vashoth.

[andhiswife]

The improbable wink makes her smile widen for a moment. But then a dour little voice inside of her helpfully reminds her that she has problems kindness won't solve, and her smile fades, her gaze going distant as she attempts to squash down that part of herself. She's not thinking about that. She likes not thinking about that, thank you very much.

"The Iron Bull," she repeats, looking up at him. It's a fitting moniker, given the horns and the general sense of solidity he projects. "Was Ashkaari a sort of... baby name? Or is Iron Bull more like a title?" Back home, it would matter less, but most universes are more fussy about proper nouns than hers.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Hm... both. My people don't have names, but we get job titles when we're older. We don't have parents, either. We have tamassrans, and you get a number when you're born. But when I was about the age I was when you met me, my tamassran started calling me Ashkaari, and it was special to have a title at such a young age. She knew I wasn't destined for the army. Too smart, too quick-witted. When I was old enough, she sent me to the Ben-Hassrath for training. Ah, spies and sort of an internal police force."

Bull adjusted his hold on the back of groceries. He was keenly aware of Greta's shifting expressions, but he was also aware of the guarded tension in her shoulders. Whatever was on her mind, she didn't want to deal with it right now. That was fine; he could talk about himself.

"The Iron Bull is a name I chose. Uh... When one of my people chooses to leave the Qun, we call them Tal-Vashoth. You're more likely to see Tal-Vashoth on the mainland. When I became a spy, I had to create a cover story. The Iron Bull was it. My Qunari title was Hissrad."

[andhiswife]

Goodness, he really is from a different world. Aside from the slang, which he defines as he goes (and which she's certain she won't be able to keep straight, not with her head already a jumble), the way things are apparently done is unrecognizable. He doesn't have parents? He was born, though, so someone else must have been involved. And tamassrans sound like caregivers of some sort, like a wet nurse.

"Do they mean something in particular: Ashkaari and Hissrad?" It doesn't occur to her that these might be personal questions. If you have a title, you'd want people to know what it means. That's the point.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Ashkaari means one who thinks, or one who seeks. Hissrad means... keeper of illusions." He considered a moment, then added, "It means liar."

That's what Gatt had always said, even if Bull had never entirely approved of that particular translation. Didn't matter; it was understood among the Qunari, might as well be understood among the bas.

[andhiswife]

"Fitting for a spy, I suppose," Greta muses. She isn't put off by it; it seems the sort of thing he wouldn't share if he intended to lie to her, and there's not much reason for that, anyway. Spywork sounds thrilling, but not very... Darrow-esque. Especially not for someone who stands out as much in a crowd as he does. (She can only assume that there are far more people of his stature back where he comes from.)

"Though I can't imagine there's much call for that here," she adds, with traces of both amusement and sympathy. There's no shortage of professions that don't translate well, here, which is probably one of the reasons their stipends exist.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"You'd be surprised," he said. "Just because I'm not sending information to anyone doesn't mean the skills don't translate. Especially when you look like me, it's good to be able to figure people out fairly quickly."

Bull shrugged one massive shoulder. "The part I miss is being able to kill things," he admitted. "It's cathartic, and I've needed catharsis here. I'm used to standing out, there weren't exactly a lot of Qunari on the southern continent. But knowing I'm alone here is... different. My people were always out there somewhere. But here..." He trailed off and shrugged.

[andhiswife]

She does a double-take at 'kill things.' Maybe it shouldn't surprise her, given all the scars he's amassed. How else would he have collected them? Still, it's a little jarring to hear him speak of it so plainly.

It's jarring, too, to have him somehow segue straight from talk of killing things to the sorrows of being alone in Darrow. Not that he's alone, exactly -- she's met Dorian, and understands that they aren't the only ones from their world who live here -- but he's the only enormous horned fellow she's met.

For all that he towers over her, she finds herself reaching up to give his arm a motherly pat. "It's not easy," she says. That's about all she trusts herself to say on the subject without getting emotional and embarrassing herself, and she quickly takes a different tack. "Killing, er... things, you said?"

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Mmhm. Demons, giants, spiders. Giant demon spiders. Dragons. Sometimes Venatori, rogue mages, Tal-Vashoth, Vints... those are arguably human, but it's easier not to think of them that way. They're all just bas - things."

Creating that separation kept him sane in a lot of ways. Sometimes those lines weren't as easy, like in the event of an ambush, or some kind of betrayal. Then things got messy.

[andhiswife]

'Giant' isn't something she anticipated hearing, and she flinches before she can think to school her expression. Could he have stopped theirs? Given how massive she was, it's sort of hard to imagine.

Under different circumstances, she might have been more unsettled by 'arguably human.' As it is, she's more preoccupied by the sudden, absurd impulse to casually let drop, 'I was killed by a Giant,' as if it's a charming bit of common ground. God. She absolutely cannot say that.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

Bull noticed the flinch, noticed the strange sort of existential panic on her face. "Hey," he said gently, resisting the urge to nudge against her. He was pretty sure Greta would fall over if he did.

"Stay with me." His voice remained downright tender, warm and low. "Hard to distract you if you disappear in your head like that. Hard to resist asking what's wrong."

[andhiswife]

His voice draws her back out, and it's hard not to feel mortified -- not just because she almost fell to pieces in front of him, but because he knows. He's probably known ever since he laid eyes on her. Well, it's bound to be obvious. But she still feels caught out and foolish, and her eyes are overbright as she rolls them heavenward in a silent plea for continued composure. She nods, lips pressed together tightly.

"Sorry," she says, as if she's just made some sort of mildly embarrassing faux pas. "I'm--I'm listening."

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

Bull smiled gently. "We could talk about something else," he offered. "Even if it's not the thing you're trying not to think about." Reading people was what he did, and Greta wasn't particularly subtle. But she had been kind to him and if Bull could return that favor, he would.

[andhiswife]

Greta has never been a particularly gifted liar. Even if she could act the part, the slight but noticeable ill-fit of her clothes and the circles under her eyes would tell their own story. Of course he sees it, then... but he's not touching it, and she's grateful for that. The list of people she knows who might see her looking as she does and not ask is a short one, populated by those she's already told.

Leave it to a spy to show such restraint. Well, that's probably how it works, isn't it? Openly prying would be too obvious.

"How long have you been here?" she asks, unable to remember if it's a question she'd asked of Ashkaari. Small talk still feels inherently absurd, but it's preferable to the alternative.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Coming up on a year," he said. He couldn't believe it had been that long, but there it was. "Passed out drunk in a tavern, woke up on the floor of my lover's apartment. He'd been here for a year before I showed up. I was pretty sure I'd gone mad or something, or was being tempted by a weird demon until he brought me outside."

He remembered that day, waking up on the floor of Dorian's apartment and knowing, almost immediately, he wasn't anywhere near the Herald's Rest or in Skyhold. He remembered wondering if Dorian was some kind of demon, disguised as someone he cared about and tempting out madness. At least he'd been real. It was a comfort in the face of Darrow being real.

[andhiswife]

One unanticipated side effect of being told her story is that these longer sentences are starting to feel reassuring instead of appalling. Being in Darrow for years sounds more like a reprieve than a punishment (though the reprieve still has an inescapably temporary feel to it, which makes it hard to justify uncorking any champagne). She doesn't expect the Iron Bull to see things that way, and knows better than to reply with some variant of 'oh thank goodness,' but the shift in her own perspective is rather jarring.

"I suppose there are worse places you could have woken up." Honestly, his account sounds downright convenient. No long walk into town, no need to impose on a stranger. Granted, she's glad to have met Biffy, but it's not as if she was at her best.

They reach Candlewood, and she looks up at the building, not knowing whether she feels relieved or defeated by the sight of it. "This is mine," she says, nodding at it. She feels an impulsive desire to invite him up, though it's hard to say whether it would be a good idea. He's been willing enough to distract her, which she greatly appreciates. But in the privacy of her own apartment, she's not sure she trusts herself to keep politely ignoring the elephant in the room. So she hovers indecisively, neither shepherding him toward the door nor attempting to retrieve her things so he can be on his way.

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

"Eh... he was engaged to someone here at the time. It was inconvenient in different ways." He knew other people showed up here in different ways, and while showing up in Dorian's apartment had been jarring, Bull knew it, maybe, could have been worse. He didn't necessarily feel guilty for being the reason Dorian ended his engagement with Biffy, but he did feel bad that it had caused so much heart ache on each side. "Both parties seem to have recovered, though. Asit tal-eb."

When she stopped, he realized the building was probably where she lived. He also noticed Greta's hesitation. "How about I come up and make you some tea," he offered. "You can ask me awkward and invasive questions that I probably won't hesitate to answer."

He was quiet a moment, then added, "And if whatever is bothering you needs to wordlessly come to the surface, I'm warm and well-padded, and I will never speak of it to anyone if you need to cry on my shoulder."

[andhiswife]

Oh. Oh. It's an embarrassingly belated epiphany, though in her defense, it's not as if little Ashkaari and Dorian had presented themselves as lovers. That would have been appalling. But she knows Dorian was Biffy's fiancé, and she doubts it's some other engagement the Iron Bull coincidentally broke up.

She wonders if she ought to be indignant, on Biffy's behalf, but finds she doesn't have the energy.

The first half of his offer isn't particularly surprising, but the second half is. She can't help but think of what an absurd picture that would make, her sobbing on this enormous, battle-scarred spy. She'd need a stepladder just to reach his shoulder, unless he sat down on the floor for her. Which he just might, if she asked.

It's absurd, but it's touching, too, and she can already feel her eyes welling up. She inhales deeply, then nods, leading him into the building and up to her apartment.

At least she doesn't have to be embarrassed by the state of the place; it's neat as a pin. She's recovered herself enough to nod towards the cabinet where the tea's stored as she starts to put away her groceries. "Tea's up there, and the kettle's on the stove."

[shok_ebasit_hissra]

He saw the pieces fit together, saw as the picture form, and as Greta realized what the picture was. But Bull didn't say anything, just offered a small smile and let her lead the way to her apartment. He supposed thinking of he and Dorian as a thing would be difficult when she'd first met him as a child. He also saw the tears she held back, and he didn't press. The offer was there, and it would remain.

Bull wasn't surprised to find that Greta's home was neat and tidy, with everything in its place. He went into the kitchen and set her back of groceries down, then tended to filling the kettle and turning the stove top on. He found the tea and looked through the selection. "What kind is your favorite?" he asked.

[andhiswife]

She almost says that it's all the same to her, because it's true. Nothing tastes particularly good to her, these days; she eats and drinks because she must, and not because she enjoys it. But such an answer would be concerning at worst and unhelpful at best, so she says, "I think there's some mint in there somewhere." Probably near the front, in fact; she's been drinking more of that than usual, lately. It's easy to stomach.

She ought to offer food, but she's not sure if she can do that without her own lack of appetite stealing the show. Instead, she methodically tucks her groceries away, watching the Iron Bull out of the corner of her eye. He seems too big for the apartment, but he's also plainly used to such close quarters. He's able to putter about without knocking his horns against anything. She supposes it makes sense. There might be different apartment layouts between the buildings, but overall, the size is about equal. He'd probably have to look elsewhere for vaulted ceilings and extra-wide doorways.

She also can't help but note how easily he maneuvers despite his leg brace and eyepatch -- though he's probably had even longer to get used to those. "Is spywork normally so... injurious?" she asks, a bit hesitantly. He'd outright invited her to ask probing questions, and she'd rather take him up on that offer than share her own sob story. Still feels a bit rude, though, despite her curiosity.