@fallgrim as vann : you can talk.
MOST OF HIS LIFE, TRISTAN HAS HAD LITTLE ISSUE MAKING CONVERSATION WHEN HE WISHES – OR MUST. nearly always, he's used his words as yet another of his tools, to get what he wants, what he needs. to survive. without vann's intervention some time ago now, the viper knows he would not have survived, and it is likely that fact which now holds his tongue so tightly. a number of weeks, now, they've traveled together, or at least parallel to one another, after tristan's recovery somewhere outside of oxenfurt. he'd been a fool, he knows perfectly well. there's a reason he only ventures south of the pontar when circumstances grow dire, these days, and breaking his own rule had brought him only a poisoned knife to the ribs – a poison he frustratingly still hasn't identified, if largely because any remaining sample wasn't testable by the time he came to again.
it had been vann who pulled him out of the muddy shallows of the riverbank, vann who tended him as he fought weakly in the clutches of vivid hallucinations and illness. without the owl-eyed witcher, a man he'd encountered a small handful of times before the incident and had certainly never intended to owe a thing, perhaps the last remaining viper would be dead. tristan cannot pretend like that debt does not make his blood boil. surely, despite the fact that tris has uttered not even a word since returning to his senses in a room he did not recognize, vann knows at least that much. for as silent as he's remained, he knows his resentment is deafening even as he chooses to continue on as the other witcher's shadow.
from the darkness of the rafters above vann's head, tristan glowers, crouched with his back against the corner of the room and eyes glinting like a wildcat. the truth is, he hadn't intended to say a damned word and he knows, to some degree, that he's been played. worse yet, he knows any play was well intentioned, like so much of what vann does seems to inexplicably be. tristan had determined long, long ago that he does not care to be forgiving, to be kind in a world which had never received him with kindness. so, too, does he resist the other man's attempts, subtle as they may be, content apparently to mostly allow tris to exist in his orbit without interference – and evidently remaining unfazed by the utter oddness of the viper's habits, unlike most.
frustrating, for a man who endeavors to keep others at a distance with those same habits. gods, he wishes he could bring himself to slit the bear's throat in his sleep.
" sarcasm doesn't suit you, " is all he says in response, his voice even deeper and raspier than usual due to disuse – and his audible annoyance. he doesn't like being baited, even innocently ; the simmering anger in his chest is as much directed at himself as the man below, for he'd known perfectly well what other witcher had been doing and chose to react anyway. and all because he couldn't bear to watch vann bumble about in search of an item that had been right beneath his nose.
that's how he'd known what horseshit the charade had been – any witcher, after all, possesses perceptions well beyond the average mortal – and yet he took the lure easily as a brainless trout, despite intending to mind his own business and continue indulging in some stolen sweets in the rafters. " on the windowsill, you great lug, " he'd grunted from his silent perch after the pastille he'd tossed found its target against van's temple. the glint in those owl eyes as they gazed up into the darkness told tristan everything he needed to know. had he been in a better mood earlier, it's certainly now soured in the wake of his lapse in self control.
" neither does trickery. " he shifts quietly on the thick wooden beam, pulling the blanket he sleeps beneath closer to his chest, even propped up against the wall as he is. always, the viper has chosen such places to listen and observe without being observed in return ; always, too, he has told himself it is strategy, but being so easily perceived by the owl leaves him wondering if it weren't security he's always pursued from his vantage points. " thought such things were below you, all virtuous as you are. "
the secret of us starters.
