[ By the time Bastien has her in his line of sight, she has been back a day. Perhaps two, depending on how much of the first she spent being difficult to find. On that note, perhaps three.
Enough time for him to know she's here and to sit alone for a little while with the stew of feelings—mixed but warm, you know, only a few chewy or slimy pieces in the bowl—that arrived with her. Enough time for her to have had any number of other conversations with other people and to know nearly anything new he might be able to tell her.
Their little Lowtown house, hardly lived in a week. Before that, Byerly's resignation. Before that, Byerly's temporary death, which is of course fine now. All patched up.
But what no one else could have told her even if they cared to is that in the undone time before it was fine, Bastien wrote her a letter, terse and desolate: He's gone. I don't know what to do. Don't come here. I'll come to you. If things had taken a little longer to be set right then the letter might have reached her (before it too was undone) and a few weeks later Bastien would have washed up onto her doorstep, too.
Now it has doubly never happened. It is only a vague plan born from a months-old feeling in a world that doesn't exist anymore. It animates him all the same, though, when he catches a glimpse of her hair and she stops being the vague idea of Alexandrie Back In Kirkwall. He's swift down the stairs cut into the side of the Gallows' wall. He says, ]
Alexandrie,
[ seeing as he's coming from behind her—hurrying briefly away from her, due to the direction of the stairs—and he would prefer not to be stabbed today, just before he plants a hand and hops over the pony wall protecting the stairs so he can skip the last ten of them and go the right direction instead. The warning (and the thud of his feet, then the slap slap of running after her, of course) leaves plenty of time for her to turn around before he's there and hugging her not a single ounce of deferential propriety. ]
v.
Enough time for him to know she's here and to sit alone for a little while with the stew of feelings—mixed but warm, you know, only a few chewy or slimy pieces in the bowl—that arrived with her. Enough time for her to have had any number of other conversations with other people and to know nearly anything new he might be able to tell her.
Their little Lowtown house, hardly lived in a week. Before that, Byerly's resignation. Before that, Byerly's temporary death, which is of course fine now. All patched up.
But what no one else could have told her even if they cared to is that in the undone time before it was fine, Bastien wrote her a letter, terse and desolate: He's gone. I don't know what to do. Don't come here. I'll come to you. If things had taken a little longer to be set right then the letter might have reached her (before it too was undone) and a few weeks later Bastien would have washed up onto her doorstep, too.
Now it has doubly never happened. It is only a vague plan born from a months-old feeling in a world that doesn't exist anymore. It animates him all the same, though, when he catches a glimpse of her hair and she stops being the vague idea of Alexandrie Back In Kirkwall. He's swift down the stairs cut into the side of the Gallows' wall. He says, ]
Alexandrie,
[ seeing as he's coming from behind her—hurrying briefly away from her, due to the direction of the stairs—and he would prefer not to be stabbed today, just before he plants a hand and hops over the pony wall protecting the stairs so he can skip the last ten of them and go the right direction instead. The warning (and the thud of his feet, then the slap slap of running after her, of course) leaves plenty of time for her to turn around before he's there and hugging her not a single ounce of deferential propriety. ]