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chapter nine. a touch of dark
"Don't you think you're going a little overboard?"
Fallon lowered the wine, exhaling audibly. Every puff of air felt like fire in her throat; whatever was in this must include a dose of smokepowder. She took a step backwards, away from the fire, out of caution, and annoyance, because frankly, after the day she'd had, a little drink was the least of her problems. She would count it as healthy, actually, given the fact that the alcohol had calmed her nerves long enough to get some food down. The mere sight of meat had been turning her stomach: a perfectly reasonable reaction to being strapped down and almost forcibly inseminated with a tadpole, naturally.
But Marth didn't know that. All he knew was the confusion of Astarion and Fallon arriving back late, flustered, and empty-handed; confusion that only compounded with Fallon's insistence on standing at lengths from the trio, as if to hide in Astarion's skirts, and their mutual request that they convince the goblins to let them dine together (she was not ready for Orikas to reach into her mind, to know what she had done, distance, distance was what she needed).
Now, as Fallon swirled the remainder of her drink, staring down the neck and wondering if her getting drunk meant the same for her little passenger, she attempted to muster a speck of sympathy for Marth, who'd made her entirely too aware of how her behaviour had made him 'nervous', or whatever, yet this gesture was like a wave in the sea of her self-pity, lapping against the shore like salt to a wound. Because, really, how was she meant to care how he felt after that day she'd had? If anything, she thought he could be a touch more empathetic with her, regardless of his current ignorance.
"Would you prefer I took smaller sips?" She said into the bottle.
"Aren't you at all concerned for your wits? I mean this all quite ... Merry, until they find out how many of their maces Dalaia stuffed in her pack." Marth pressed his lips together as a rowdy pair of men began to moon the fire, crying out when hot oil from the rotisserie pike spat at their nethers. "Silvanus above, what am I saying."
"And you know what you can't spell Silvanus without," she gestured to the sky as he gawked at her. "What! It's a party! We haven't had liquor in a tenday! And we had a bet I couldn't make it that long. You owe me some coin."
Marth made a noise of exasperation. He took a step closer. Fallon began to chug. He recoiled with a grimace, eyes thrown distant.
