#yes hello!

"Hey, thank you!" Nel grinned and straightened out the lapels of his leather jacket. "I always appreciate a compliment from someone with good taste, eh?"

Ren paused when he saw the girl sitting in the library.  What was her name again?  He... couldn’t recall.  There had been a lot happening that day.

She was also the only one with room open at her table, though.  The library was still quiet, but it was packed with students studying for midterms.  It was his first time doing them at Shujin, and he’d thought the library would be fairly empty like it often was.

Nope.

So, with just another brief pause, he approached.  And he waited for her to look up before he spoke, because the library was not the place for a jump scare.

"Are you... um, I'm sorry, this is probably rude to ask, but are you–"

There it is, Victor thinks as he swallows a disappointed sigh. He's heard this question so many times that he doesn't even need to hear the rest of it to know what's coming.

"Yes, I'm blind."

There's a moment of silence that usually follows the reveal, tense and awkward. It's the only fun Victor gets to have with his condition anyway, so he's learned to bask in it. Somehow, though, it ends sooner that he anticipates.

"Oh," the man says and he doesn't sound ashamed or chided, or awkward, or struggling, and Victor's honestly surprised. "No, I meant to ask... Are you Victor Nikiforov?"

 Ah.

Through the surprise that makes his heart thump a single beat out of alignment, Victor fixes on a smile.

"Are you a fan?"

"Yes! A big fan!"

Victor can hear the grin in the man's bright voice and his own smile eases into something more natural, more genuine. After all, who is he to begrudge someone their joy, even if he himself does no longer find any in his music?

"I was only a kid when I saw it for the first time, but your Lilac Fairy program is still one of my most vivid memories of figure skating," the man says, and once again Victor finds himself surprised out of his bitterness.

He didn't think... didn't consider...

"You're a fan of my skating?" he asks before he can think to stop the words from leaving his mouth.

"I'm so sorry," the man replies. "I know you're composing now – and you're amazing at it, too, don't get me wrong! – but your skating was... it–" He pauses then, lets his breath go as if he's embarrassed of how flustered he got. "It changed my life. I wouldn't be who I am now, if it wasn't for your skating. So, I guess what I'm so awkwardly trying to say is, um, thank you? For skating."

The glove is light in Victor's hand, smooth, but an unspoken weight at the same time. Victor doesn't know he stopped breathing until his lungs start to burn, and when he speaks his voice sounds hoarse, raw even to his own ears.

"What's your name?" he asks of the man who he can't know, but somehow feels connected to in a way he hasn't felt connected to anyone before.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I should've started with that. Where are my manners... I'm Yuuri," the man introduces himself. "Yuuri Katsuki."

And suddenly Victor remembers – the boy, the skater, the Junior World Champion, and the clip of the blades on the ice that took his first creation to the level of perfection.

"Yuuri," Victor breathes.

@breachwielding: from [x]

  An interesting, if not entirely RELEVANT observation, given the sun’s design in drowning out every twinkle with light so many heeded OPTIMISTICALLY. The lips from whence it came caught him in surprise, and that which molded itself evidently across a visage the apostate slowly LIFTED to effectively address his Inquisitor. Overburdened, HINDERED in his ability to grow due in part to his fear of FAILURE, the Qunari had been–more so in days of late.

  Solas had seen his STRUGGLES–had witnessed firsthand the DOUBT which loomed over his shoulders ever so persistently. Particularly in the face of the Fade expert himself upon each decision with which he DISAGREED.

  Perhaps he now was LEARNING.

  "So you’ve come to UNDERSTAND.“ Even now, he remained TERSE. Respectful of the other’s AUTHORITY, and yet holding no mask over the disparity between their ideologies. “I imagine you may be one of the stars, Inquisitor. You walk a SHADOWY path, but must remain ever vigilant lest you allow hopelessness to sink in by means of DISCOURAGEMENT.”

  A pause. He looked away. “Are you WELL?”

    It was a quiet night at camp. Eon decided to stay up for a while and gazed up at the stars. The vast emptiness that very few understood made him solemn, almost sad. He didn’t tear his eyes away from the stars as he spoke. The stars were the one thing that stayed constant in life. Friends come and go, “home” is now a word with no meaning, and now he was the leader of an organization he barely knew the purpose of.

    “I imagine myself as a star and yet everyone else thinks that I’m the Moon. Bright and power, yet so easily misunderstood.” Eon honestly didn’t know what he was talking about, but it sounded wise and poetic. After a hum he finally looked down to the fire before them. 

    He stayed silent for far too long after Solas’s question-- his silence already speaking volumes. The Inquisitor opens his mouth to speak but his jaw hung open. Was he to tell the truth? Eon was sure that Solas could read him like a book based on how he had been acting lately. 

    “No.” That was all he answered at first. With a sigh he rubbed the back of his neck. He needed to avoid eye contact at all costs. “I wield a Mark of unknown magic and I am the only one that can seal the dozens of rifts spread across Thedas. I was named leader of an organization that I don’t know how to lead, nor willingly became the leader of.” He dared to glance in Solas’s direction for but a moment.