"It's not too late," the demon is trying to say; "we can go back to how it was."
It's trying to change shape to prove it, to reverse the swelling and bruising. But it doesn't have the strength anymore. Every other pleading word is lost under Byerly's ridiculous song, and there's nothing that can make Bastien not regret the fact that Vincent is dead, but there are things that overshadow it. He's crying a little, but he laughs, too, huffing and silently mouthing along to the punchline of the chorus against Byerly's sturdy winter traveling clothes.
Winter creeps back in. Lydes recedes, the sun dims until it's gone. They're in a castle in the Free Marches. The thing that was Vincent, struggling to latch onto another regret, for a moment looks like a dozen different people, then like none of them. Just a shadow with too many teeth, which is uses to hiss before it dissipates, in search of someone else to bother.
Bastien doesn't move his head. Counting the number of times he's sincerely cried, even just since coming to Kirkwall, would require the use of both hands. But the number of times he's let anyone else see any evidence he's cried requires no hands. But into the silence, muffled against leather and/or fur, he says, "By? Is it gone, or are we about to die?"
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It's trying to change shape to prove it, to reverse the swelling and bruising. But it doesn't have the strength anymore. Every other pleading word is lost under Byerly's ridiculous song, and there's nothing that can make Bastien not regret the fact that Vincent is dead, but there are things that overshadow it. He's crying a little, but he laughs, too, huffing and silently mouthing along to the punchline of the chorus against Byerly's sturdy winter traveling clothes.
Winter creeps back in. Lydes recedes, the sun dims until it's gone. They're in a castle in the Free Marches. The thing that was Vincent, struggling to latch onto another regret, for a moment looks like a dozen different people, then like none of them. Just a shadow with too many teeth, which is uses to hiss before it dissipates, in search of someone else to bother.
Bastien doesn't move his head. Counting the number of times he's sincerely cried, even just since coming to Kirkwall, would require the use of both hands. But the number of times he's let anyone else see any evidence he's cried requires no hands. But into the silence, muffled against leather and/or fur, he says, "By? Is it gone, or are we about to die?"