It was Winslow's idea, really. The old clown had overheard the dark-haired passive's fears and knew well enough the threat that Vienda posed for the magicless son of a galdor, marked as he was,
"I don't have to cover up anything." The grey-haired human smirked, reaching for the drawing and letting his eyes wander over the female red crow artfully nestled with a poignant yellow-eyed rose, watchful but looking away from the outline of Tristaan's passive tattoo for an indication of the new ink's placement, "It's like a magician. It's like tricks. It's all distraction. Put something pretty near something you want unseen, and poof, it seems to disappear. You know?"
The passive smiled, wistfully, a rueful hardness in his grey eyes, "Oes, I chen. Look, y' sure you're up t' th' work? Loyan's drawin'... it's ..."
"Clokin' lovely. Amazing, even. Aye. Just because I dress like a fool doesn't mean I am one. I've been ... around, Tristaan." Winslow replied flatly, but his grin was mischievous, knowing. It would have made the shorter man uncomfortable had there not been a weighty, warm kindness to the words, as if the old clown knew far more than he was letting on, "You haven't been inked since, huh?"
"I were eight." Tristaan grunted, and he watched the human wince with the thought of someone so innocent and young being outed as something the galdori had decreed so terrible and dangerous, "An' ne, I ent tried t' hide it. It's who I am now. It's who I'll always be."
"Badge of honor." The older man laughed, shaking his head, "You don't have to say it, but that's what you mean."
"Ne, that's no'—"
"Yes it is. For you, anyway, balach. Shush now. This is gonna take more than one day, you know, and we're leaving on the seven. Let me get the lines down and we'll go from there, eh? You didn't tell her did you?"
"Ne." Tristaan admitted with a slow exhale, calloused fingers reaching to unbutton his vest and shirt, slipping out of his clothes and allowing Winslow a far closer view of what passive life had left in terms of markings on his body, and it was much more than some clocking tattoo. The old clown attempted to ignore the smaller man, but he couldn't, not meeting his grey-eyed gaze while he spoke quietly from in the human's kint, "W' ent talked much 'bout Vienda things since Baldur's announcement. Jus' a little. I've been unkind. An' afraid."
"There's a few things you haven't said, then. Important things."
"M'haps." The passive smirked, chagrined and uncomfortable and yet comforted and suddenly self-aware of just how exposed he felt in front of the older man who wasn't always just a walking sense of humor. His layers ran about as deep as his own and he shrugged, unable to admit his cowardice on so many levels, "But that there, that says somethin', Winslow. An' I mean it."
"Yeah you do. Alright, have a seat then and let me get to working." The human cackled loudly, rolling his eyes and moving to open the window and let the sunlight spill into his small, rolling home mostly full of strange tricks and costumes. He settled Tristaan in the bright spot, leaving the door to his kint open to let as much light in as possible while he took his own seat next to the passive's right side, preparing his tools and getting ready to trace the beautiful tattoo design onto the younger man's skin as an inspiring distraction from the passive brand that so boldly had stood alone on his tanned, scarred flesh for almost sixteen years of his life.
every wound they can mend.
— Passive Proverb