by arrangement; what no one ever talks about is how dangerous hope can be

[trouvaille]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, Benevenuta Thevenet, Martel + YOU.
WHAT: Bloomingtide catch-all.
WHEN: Bloomingtide.
WHERE: Mostly Skyhold.
NOTES: I am terrible at coming up with open starters, so this will be a place to keep planned threads tidily! If you want to do something, hit me up on matriarchal or PM my journals, or feel free to just whack up a starter if you have an idea.

 
 

Comments

[ungovernable]

"Why, Adelaide," Benevenuta says, lifting her hands as if to clutch at some invisible pearls of her own, "I could not have imagined you would say such unkind things about poor Knight-Commander Norrington. For shame!"

And then, with a sigh, "But to speak of things you can't imagine, what I'd have done with that man..."

...are in the top ten reasons Dorian is glad to have seen the back of Stannis Baratheon.

[fleurdesel]

"What is a shame is his taste in wine and company. Apparently he is keeping time with that strange Antivan Elf." Not that one, that one. She mimes lines on her face, lips twisted in a distasteful grimace. "Most unfortunate."

A beat.

"Could you spare me the mental image? It is like picturing you with pale, boiled jerky. All white and wrinkled and full of salt." Wrong in so many ways.

[ungovernable]

"Have you never looked upon a mountain and wished to conquer its peak?"

This probably isn't helping. She grins over her cup, settling back. "I have."

After a slight pause--

"Wait, James Norrington?"

[fleurdesel]

"Yes, but not with my genitals. Some men you climb like a tree. Some mountains do not need to be mounted. Even if it would've taken the stick from his ass." Which was in dire need of excavation.

She sips her wine, nodding. "Mhmm. What anyone finds charming in that man I'll never know. He seems so oily- even for an Antivan."

[ungovernable]

"Would it have, do you think? We may never know."

Wherever he'd gone - he doesn't seem in a great rush to return. A pity, Benevenuta thinks, though she knows her opinion to be the minority.

"But as for the Knight-Commander, I suppose he must find his comfort somewhere. I was disappointed to hear he wasn't courting Pel Ashara any longer, you know. It reflected well."

[fleurdesel]

"If it works for Senior Warden Hansen, it likely would have worked for Stannis. I take back my protests- Hansen is better suited to your company than the Knight Commander." Either of them.

They were, in their own way, a massive complication.

"It was a strange match- but they seem to have parted amicably. I worried for a moment that I might have to have words with him."

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta lets that pass without remark, her expression pulling wry for a moment - if she'd said anything, perhaps it would have been that Senior Warden Hansen has a sense of humour in the first place. (He thinks he's much funnier than he is, in point of fact.)

"A useful match," she says, gesturing a little with her wine before drinking. "None of the trouble as with that little affair you broke up. She was never in a Circle. But it looked well, didn't it? A Knight-Commander wooing an elven mage. And they say we cannot find common ground, fie. We find it in strange bedfellows."

The personal is always political. Always.

[fleurdesel]

"At the time I did not know James quite well and had my concerns...but it did look like a bridge being built." Not in the way she might have preferred- but it went fairly well. As well as all things could be considered.

That they came away from it and she could still call them both friend? Is a pleasant enough surprise.

"Please do not remind me of that affair. Salvatore was a sweet mage and I wish him the best wherever he is now- but that would not have ended well." It was unsettling it'd ever become a thing in the first place. "I can't imagine we'd find anything half so neat to show we have common ground now. I have tea with James regularly to keep him informed but that does only so much."

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta is herself too much a creature of the Circles - for all that she operated with such freedom and for all that she argues for their dissolution - to solve that dilemma herself, as cheerfully willing to do so as she would be. With Nerva, if she had her preference, now that Stannis is unavailable for the position.

(The numerous positions. This is great wine, she should make time to drink with Adelaide more often.)

"I play chess with Nerva Lecuyer," she says, with a sigh, "but it's all of a piece. And she's renounced the Order, besides."

[fleurdesel]

"But has she removed herself from thinking of us as dangerous things in need of minding? As close as she has become to an apostate, I should hope so." Adelaide doesn't know the depth of that association but Benevenuta likely could read the beginnings of the very same concern that had her talking to Pel months ago- that brought her to Benny today.

"I am somewhat surprised she has the patience for chess."

[ungovernable]

The hum of an answer - isn't an answer, really, but Benevenuta doesn't think Adelaide is expecting one. Or doesn't think she should be; how do you solve a problem like Lecuyer? Patiently or not at all.

"I would not ask her the question," she says, "merely treat her as a friend and allow her the space to do the same."

After all -

She's hardly going to learn to think otherwise of them if she has no opportunities to do so.

[fleurdesel]

It isn't an answer- as it isn't a question that needs answering. Observation would prove such a thing true or false but their first meeting is so deeply burned into the back of Adelaide's mind...

It is not so easy to let such things go.

"You are far more patient than I- but then again, this is nothing new."

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta clinks her glass against Adelaide's with a hint of a rueful smile -

"I am my mother's daughter," she says, and there is no regret in it. No small amount of pride, instead; Ayse Thevenet is a woman to be aspired to. A woman that Benevenuta has admired since she before she was old enough to understand what she looked upon. She's been molded for the tasks she takes on from that young age, and she is justifiably proud of the way she tackles them. "Patience is not a natural virtue of anyone, I think. It is a skill that must be honed. And you have others."

[fleurdesel]

"There are moments when I think I should like to meet her." And a handful, rare things that they are, where she feels like it might explain the vague disquiet she feels about Benevenuta when she manages some skillful twist of diplomatic manipulation. Though she truly has no room to speak, her mother being the way she is. "Playing at patience is equally important."

And something she cannot quite yet manage. Still. She lifts her glass to Benevenuta in a toast. "To varied skills."