faderift | or so the story goes.

Entry tags:

or so the story goes.

WHO: Bellamy, Lexa, Leliana, maybe others
WHAT: Bellamy has a prisoner. Lexa has a broken leg. Leliana has mud tracked up the stairs to the Rookery. Nobody is having a good day.
WHEN: Backdated to before everyone left for the Western Approach
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: this explains the injuries. grudges explains the explanation. otherwise we'll just have to see!

At a glance Bellamy and Lexa look as if they’re part of a matching set. Dip-dyed head to toe in mud and blood, a wash of rain-streaked grime now caked on thanks to the colder climes closer to Skyhold. Their mess has a certain permanence that only hot baths and magical intervention might someday wash clean. They leave a trail up the front steps to the Great Hall.

Matching livery often suggests at an affiliation, an association. Bellamy and Lexa have no such affiliation, and the subtler onlooker who views their arrival to Skyhold will be able to tell. It’s very obvious. Here’s the big tell: Lexa, under her mud, is tied up. Her hands are bound behind her back, and she’s wearing a gag. No ropes hobble her steps; she’s hobbling quite well on her own, thanks to her broken right leg, all but hopping after him in her effort not to put weight on it. Walking on it might make it worse, but you can’t ride a horse up the stairs to Skyhold’s inner chambers, and Bellamy isn’t going to carry her, so here she is.

And you shouldn’t, maybe, stride into Skyhold demanding to see an adviser without making some kind of an appointment. Bellamy’s request for an audience was a quick brusque thing: now, and no please. It’s important, a point both stressed and underscored by the way he holds up the lead he’s got Lexa on, a rope looped around her waist and well-knotted. He’s learned, since her escape attempt, to keep her in line however he can. To the casual onlooker it probably seems like over-kill. Who needs to leash a young woman who can barely walk?

Despite his insistence they’re made to wait, while an adviser is informed. Politely standing around an entrance hall isn’t Bellamy’s speed. He does his best to find patience, but anger and weariness and blood loss have leeched his reserve, and after only ten minutes he grabs the nearest servant and gets a name and a location out of him.

Leliana. The rookery. Fine. He knows where that is, and while the thought of directly confronting Leliana -- who Bellamy has heard of; Kaiten might be a spit of a town but he’s read history books and paid attention to news as it’s come, through travelers and bards and the ranks of the templars, and even if he hadn’t, he’s now been near Skyhold long enough that confronting Sister Nightingale might seem, at first thought, intimidating. But it’s hardly in him to be intimidated for long. He’s been around, and this is important.

So Bellamy and Lexa, still badged in mud, take their leave of the hall where they’d been waiting and head for the rookery. Bellamy takes the lead, walking as quickly as he can without outright dragging Lexa behind him. He’s clearly disinterested in how comfortable or uncomfortable she is. The way he favors his left leg leaves his pace a little slower anyways. The bandage around his wound is a piece of fabric torn right off his cloak. The ragged hem slaps at the back of his boots, both of which are thick with mud. Underneath, his colors would show him for a Templar -- a poor Templar, mismatched armor, only a few gleams of steel plate, supplemented by pieces of leather and thick cotton padding -- but a Templar all the same, and one with something to report.

They’re just turning up the stairs into the rookery when Leliana appears before them. Bellamy stops short. His salute is a deferential gesture, one he makes without thinking. He doesn’t offer explanation, but he waits, with Lexa behind him. She has stopped as well, but now steps out from Bellamy's shadow to position herself at his shoulder whether he likes it or not, drawing herself up straight despite the mud and the pain, chin raised back to its usual regal angle. She'd go ahead and start, but for the gag.

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The silence she affords before speaking to either of them is deliberate and drawn out, the Nightingale standing entirely still as she takes in the sight before them, the Templar and... the young woman from the balcony. Interesting. There are myriad possibilities that she cannot fully pin down, not when she is relatively unfamiliar with both and when there has been so much else consuming her thoughts and her time. She'd feel irritated by the suddenness of the demand and their arrival, if she were inclined to allow herself such an indulgence when it came to work.

"This," she stars, with another pause before continuing, "was entirely necessary."

Spoken like a statement, and yet carries a question. Her gaze remains on the young woman quiet and assessing, taking in the injuries and blood and mud, before she resharpens it on the Templar.

Lexa had assumed that Leliana would recognize her. That is basically her job, after all, and everything she has ever heard about the spymaster has suggested that she is quite good at that job. But still, there was a chance. When last they met it was only for a few minutes and she was a young woman with pretty hair and a slightly too-modest dress, polite and a little shy, hiding from a nug-fearing lech of an aristocrat. It is a far cry from now, standing before her grimy and blood-smeared, bound and gagged, her hair a mess of intricate braids, her clothing the light armor of an Avvar warrior with a few added plates and bits of mail though it takes some peering through the mud to make any of that out.

She doesn't flinch away from the Nightingale's attention or the recognition in her face, returning her gaze with one that is cool and steady, as if they were eyeing each other across a throne room or a war table. It's not challenging, precisely, though there is a hint of defiance in the way she placed herself at Bellamy's side, and in how she ignores her bonds and holds herself more like a queen than a prisoner. She is tightly strung with pain and wariness and anger, but if there's any malice in her it doesn't show in her eyes.

She doesn't bother trying to speak around the gag, but a little huff of breath out her nose and a drop of her eyelids that suggests rolling eyes give her answer to that question.

Edited 2016-06-05 19:33 (UTC)

Bellamy's mouth tightens, but that's about as far as he goes with snapping back any kind of answer. Even that reaction might be barely perceptible beneath the mud. He's peripherally conscious of Lexa's superior queen act, and conscious, too, of how all of this looks. Should've been patient.

Too late for patience, and it probably wouldn't have looked any better. He doesn't relax his stance, or loosen his grip on Lexa's rope. (But he doesn't tug her forward, either. Small favors.)

"Your pardon for interrupting." It's a little too gruff to be entirely sincere. "I requested an audience. Waited what I could, didn't feel right hanging around with her down there. She's an Avvar commander, and she's been sneaking around Skyhold for months now."

So, yes. Necessary. As are the ropes, and the gag, which he keeps in place.

If she were not so very much the Nightingale then Leliana might turn her eyes to the ceiling and offer a brief prayer for patience in the face of adversity, as well as for the library carpets. Instead she continues to watch both of them, no matter the Templar's response or the Commander's manner, lets the moment drag out. It may be whole minutes together, or it may only be a matter of a single one, where the uncomfortable stretch of seconds warps into something longer. Waiting, she has found, can sometimes yield interest results, little tells.

"Come with me," she says finally, and it is not a request, all that she offers the Templar being a moment of eye contact to confirm that she does, in fact, agree with his assessment of the situation. She leads them through the Rookery at a pace that is not especially forgiving to injured legs at the best of times, and does not stop there. This, she suspects, requires a slightly more private audience, and thus they find themselves in a small room spiralling off the Rookery proper.

"Perhaps introductions are in order," and though she would like to know the Templar's name and rank and other such specifics, her gaze sharpens on the Avvar.

The prickle of justification Bellamy feels, at that eye contact, is rewarding enough that he follows Leliana without jostling Lexa too much. Just because he punched her in the broken leg before he trussed her up and dragged her all the way to Skyhold doesn't mean he's unreasonable. This is, again, all out of necessity.

Not everyone fears the Avvar. If it comes down to it, Bellamy doesn't fear them either. But he's not stupid. He's cautious, to the point of aggression, because that's what he's learned as effective. You strike before they strike at you. This is striking first to the highest degree. Lexa can mouth whatever protests she wants, but he doesn't trust her. He won't be divulging why he doesn't trust her, for Clarke's sake. Bellamy will bite off his own tongue before he confesses anything to that end. Lexa, who knows what she thinks. She pretends at a common interest, but he'll gladly kill her if she starts toward any confessions, and suffer consequences later.

And if her death were to trigger some action against everyone they've left behind, that's a consequence that Bellamy will deal with later. Preferably himself.

All of these thoughts move grimly through him, without playing across his face. He keeps his expression serious and as masked as he's able. Just because Leliana has granted this audience, she's sharp. He knows that much. He fights down the urge to grimace when his own wounds cause him pain, and by the time they reach the side chamber, he's mastered himself enough. He pushes Lexa forward, lets her into the room first, and shuts the door behind them.

"Bellamy," he tells Leliana, "Templar of the Free Marches. And this" --he strides up behind Lexa, rope still coiled around his fist, and tugs down on her gag in one quick swipe. It's enough that she'll be able to speak for herself, but he doesn't give her the pleasure-- "This is Lexa. She'll give you whatever titles she's claiming, and whatever story."

Nothing he believes. Nothing he'll be inclined to believe, either.

Lexa endures the silence and the forced march across the tower though by the end of it all it will be clear that her injury is more severe then Bellamy's. She has gone a shade paler beneath the dirt and puts no weight at all on her left leg once they stop, though it does nothing to change her expression or her posture except to draw the careful precision of them both even tighter.

That doesn't change when Bellamy finally removes the gag. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of showing how irritating it was, but there is a flicker in her eyes as he speaks. 'Titles she's claiming' is one more indignity heaped upon the pile of them she has endured at his hands the last few days, and it is a testament to her self-control that she keeps her temper in check, the simmering just behind her eyes visible for a moment and forced back as she focuses on Leliana. The Nightingale is the important one here, not Bellamy.

"I am Lexa Stone-Heart, thane of Towerhold, Commander of the twelve holds of the Avvar. Your Inquisition occupies mountains my people have called home for thousands of years. I came to investigate what manner of neighbor you are likely to be." She could say more, but she lets the dryness of her tone at the end speak for the impression this particular incident is making.

Edited (fiddling with wording, nothing to see here) 2016-06-06 21:09 (UTC)

"You are both welcome to sit." Her tone makes for a rather instructive invitation. "Rennard," Leliana continues, looking to one of her scouts when he begins to walk up the stairs after Lexa's introduction, only to look back to Lexa and continue to study her as she speaks her instructions, "if you could procure some wine and send word to a healer to ready their tent I would be most grateful."

There is a coolness in her tone that undercuts the politeness of her words. For now she does not touch on Bellamy's prickly comments about claimed titles.

"It is curious that you felt the need to," and a pause, as she uses Bellamy's word of choice, "sneak. It places you in a rather incriminating position, do you not think? We have found Corypheus having allies in the most unexpected places."

Especially in the wake of other revelations. The presence of Anders, for one, although she remembers Lexa from the soiree and is not certain in any way if she was here before Anders was identified. Perhaps that particular note was injust, though that does little to keep her from watching Lexa intently.

Lexa does not rush to sit, but when 'invited' she moves toward a chair. She would reach the end of the leash Bellamy still has her on in a stride or two, but while he is distracted she suddenly jerks hard on the rope, snatching it right out of his hands. She takes it with her to the chair, sitting with more grace than her state ought to allow, and coils the leash in her lap, beginning to unwind the other end from around her wrists. She looks up at Leliana as she does.

In answer to that question she arches just one brow, and holds like that for a moment before turning back to casually untying herself. There are a half-dozen smart-ass retorts on the tip of her tongue about the spymaster finding 'sneaking' curious, but she just calmly wiggles her wrists free.

"Rumors lie and so do diplomats," she says, "And I have a duty to my people. I wished to see for myself what you are."

There is a brief moment where the sudden motion has tension climbing her spine, her hands behind her back slipping higher to reach for one of her daggers before the action it rendered unnecessary. Under other circumstances she might have looked amused.

"You aren't wrong, although I think your candour might injure Ambassador Montilyet." Evenly, dryly. The words are not unreasonable, in and of themselves. They are not without basis. That does not, however, mean they are genuine, and not all leaders truly act with consideration for their people. Their subjects might be tools, rather than people worthy or protection.

She is standing, still. She has no particular desire to sit. "And what do you make of us?"

Bellamy, now in the background of this conversation, also has no desire to sit--though his reasons are quite different than the spymaster's.

Whatever triumph he'd felt is short-lived; whatever measure better he'd felt, that Leliana is taking this seriously, that she shares suspicions--sneaking is suspicious, the Avvar are suspicious, and whatever reasons Lexa is giving for her presence here, these are equally suspicious. It's not just what she's done, in the past, to Bellamy and everyone he gives a damn about. It's bigger than that, and he's done the right thing, acting first, protecting them all.

Anger pretty much erases all of that. His attention is jerked around to Lexa again, when she pulls free; his focus narrows down to a burning stare that bores into the back of her head as she takes her time arranging herself like a fucking princess on the chair offered to her. Reflexively, Bellamy's hands close--his right hand on nothing, bunched into a fist; his left hand on the hilt of his dagger shoved into his belt.

Maker, but he hates her.

"She's no ambassador." He's happy to supply that much. Still behind Lexa, he can see the movements of her arms as she coils up his rope. He's about three seconds away from stomping across the room and snatching it away from her, keeping her tied up. Sheer will keeps him where he is, tense and still very angry. "You heard her. She's a commander. And I wouldn't leave her to talk with your ambassadors. Do that, and you'll come up short. You can't let them in here," a comment he addresses right to Leliana, talking over Lexa's head, his voice strung taut. "Not them, and not her."

(Never mind that technically he's the one that let her in.)

Edited (woops some words) 2016-06-10 20:52 (UTC)

Lexa is very nearly at the end of her patience with Bellamy. That much will not be difficult for a woman of Leliana's skills to discern, even as Lexa lowers her head for a moment as he speaks, the better to focus on tugging the last knot free with her teeth. The rope unravels and frees her hands; her wrists are sore and chafed beneath her cuffs but she rubs at them once with gloved palms before she tugs her sleeves straight. The gloves are fingerless and beaded, the design on one like a skeletal hand traced over the real one. She sets her elbows on the chair's arms and folds hands in her lap.

It's all very deliberate, the tense, careful motion of someone weary and wary and angry all at once and trying to keep it under wraps. Bellamy keeps talking and Lexa's jaw works side to side, teeth clenched tight. She breathes in once through her nose and out and then, when he has finished, she carries on like he hasn't said a word and answers Leliana's question. She doesn't shy from scrutiny as she does it, holding eye contact as long as the spymaster likes. Her eyes are a muddled shade of green, and as much as she can convey her seriousness this way, she does.

"I believe you are sincere in your desire to bring peace. None of you agree on what that means beyond stopping the rifts and the thing that made them, but that is a priority my people and I could support. We wish to see an end to the demon plague just as you do."

"I will take your concerns into account," Leliana replies, very calmly. Too calmly, perhaps— so very controlled and so very careful, drawing a stark contrast between her own manner and that of Bellamy, Templar of the Free Marches. "If you cannot control your outbursts, however, I will have you removed from the Rookery and held elsewhere for your own questioning, Ser."

She looks at him, then, sharp and direct, her back and arms taut for all that she appears to hold herself easily. "Do not believe me so naive as to assume that all who investigate are in the wrong, nor that all knights and soldiers have conducted themselves in a manner free from malice, especially when they drag in a woman suffering injuries that are not insignificant. I will speak with our Avvar visitor," she bites it out, very deliberately no matter how calm she might sound, "and I will thank you not to intefere, nor to dictate the decisions of this Inquisition's leadership. Do you understand? Or should Bonheur take you to separate chambers?"

(Bonheur, an elven woman with blonde hair who has apparently been here the whole time, steps forward. Ever ready, ever helpful.)

Lexa's words deserve due consideration, but one matter at a time.

A woman suffering injuries. Bellamy almost laughs aloud. He doesn't--probably fortunate for him, that he restrains the urge. If Leliana doesn't appreciate his input, she sure as hell won't appreciate him laughing at her. Making an enemy of her would be unwise, to say the very least.

And Lexa is still sitting there, straight-backed and composed, while Bellamy gets told off like a kid. He throws his stare to the back of her head again. And now he gets it. She wanted to be here. Not dragged in like a prisoner, maybe; not tied up and gagged. But she's free now. She's got an audience, the attention of one of the advisers.

Bellamy's hands tighten again, a creak of leather.

Then he throws his gaze back to Leliana, mutinous, tight-jawed. He doesn't look at Bonheur when she steps forward. He doesn't say anything. He does walk over, deliberately, and sits in the chair right beside Lexa. Even seated, he's drawn up angrily, tight lines, clenched hands. But if she's going to talk, he's going to listen.

Lexa says nothing through this, and has the good grace not to look at all pleased or gratified or even briefly smug at the way Leliana lays into Bellamy. That's not to say she doesn't enjoy it, secretly, in her heart of hearts; but she knows she is far from being in the clear just yet. (That and it just doesn't quite live up to her dreams of stabbing him in the other leg.)

In fairness to Bellamy, (and she does believe in fairness, despite mutterings otherwise) Leliana can appreciate some degree of his ire. Everything he has said, his apparent knowledge of her and his tone smacks of history. She'll give you whatever titles she's claiming, and whatever story. It makes her wonder quite what manner of dissection this meeting will require.

The silence draws out, once Bellamy is quite finished with his move across the room. An attendent appears with wine, and only two cups, one poured for each of the visitors. "For the pain," Leliana eventually states without sparing the wine a look, or the attendent. It is another matter of curiosity, if people drink or not.

"How does an Avvar Commander come to be so known to a Templar of the Free Marches?" She says, voice soft.

Bellamy takes the wine and holds the cup in his hand with a grip that suggests he would rather smash the cup in Lexa's face than drink it. That's what Leliana means by 'for the pain', right? For causing pain.

He does not like the itch of scrutiny, of sitting under the spymaster's gaze. Then again, he subjected himself to this, so he endures it without comment or prompting, a muscle working in his cheek. When, finally, the next question comes, it's not one that he likes either.

He doesn't look at Lexa. They didn't corroborate this. They aren't here to discuss what's passed between them. How badly does he want to say it? We met when she betrayed me and everyone I care about. Said she'd help us, then left us for dead. And then he'd have to talk about Clarke. Clarke, her face pale and worried, something beyond worry, a certainty and a fear and a resolution, the same that Bellamy had felt. They had all made choices. Lexa's won't get her executed.

And if he doesn't answer first, who knows what the hell answer Lexa will give.

"My people crossed her lands, looking for safety." Bellamy gets there first, grits the words out. They're all true. "The Avvar took offense to us being there. We've had our run-ins."

There. Partial truth. He leaves it simple, leaves it for Lexa to try to contradict.

Lexa takes the wine at about the same time as Bellamy, sipping only briefly before cupping her palms around the bowl, fingers lacing. She doesn't look at Bellamy, but tenses faintly as he begins to speak. She knows that he would want to protect Clarke, but she also believes he's a hotheaded moron who doesn't think things through all the way before he does them. (Exhibit 1: her presence here)

His answer doesn't exactly ease her, though it is better than it could have been. They're on the same page about Clarke, at least, it seems. But it rankles, and it also doesn't tell enough. She lets her lip twitch at 'run-ins', the briefest little curl of distaste before they settle back into a flat line.

"One of his friends killed a dozen of my people," she says, and she allows the tightness back into her voice, the hint of both anger at the crime and irritation at Bellamy's characterization of it, all tightly reined. She looks like she wants to turn and glare at him pointedly as she adds this information, but she resists. "Not warriors, villagers. Elders and children. I ordered him executed. Bellamy disagreed."

So much for this ever having had a chance of this being a simple matter to see to. Leliana nods her understanding.

"Your people— Templars? Mages?" The latter could, under closer scrutiny, sound like she thinks it is unlikely. Not quite incredulous, but she has grown accustomed to tales of what mages and Templars have been doing to each other since Kirkwall and the Conclave.

She pauses, considering. Based on Lexa's claim, she would have had the man killed before there was a chance for debate. Then again, weeks ago she had felt that would have been the best resolution to Anders, and now he appears to be at least cooperative, leaning into useful. Admittedly she was more biased against Templars then mages. Regardless of her own feelings, however, it remains a claim.

"Did you feel an alternate sentence was merited?" Her ire is cooled, now; the question sounds less like a ready knife, and she looks at Bellamy with controlled curiosity rather than any immediate judgment.

"Both. Templars and mages both." Bellamy looks straight ahead with fixed concentration, and doesn't surrender to the temptation to turn a glare on Lexa again. Templars escorting mages, templars with mages held in a kind of captivity. No one gets it. How little it all mattered. "And what the commander is failing to leave out is that I disagreed with her stepping in and deciding he needed punishing. It wasn't her right. He was one of ours. We'd have handled it."

Which is what ended up happening, in a very roundabout way. Another decision Lexa forced someone to make; another decision she would resent them for, if their roles had been reversed. Would Bellamy have gone easy on Finn? Who knows. If their roles were reversed, would Bellamy have killed elders and children? Well, he did. They did, because Lexa forced their hand. That's what he's really thinking of, and thinking of the way that fault works, how far back and back and back it all goes.

"That's all in the past now," he says to Leliana, in a way that suggests it very much isn't. "But we learned from the past. I learned, from the past. And that's why if she's hanging around here, she better have a damn good reason for it. Because I learned not to trust her, or any of her people."

Lexa doesn't have a lot to say, and she isn't going to bother contesting Bellamy's distrust, or even getting into the details of 'hanging around here' though it is clear that there is something in there to argue about from the way the clenched muscle in her jaw twitches when he says it. She wants to argue it but can't let this devolve into them bickering like children sat before a teacher.

But she also isn't going to just sit in complete silence this time and allow everything he says to stand for itself. Bellamy isn't going to change his mind, she knows, but this is important, and it is important that Leliana hear in Lexa's voice and see in the set of her mouth and the hardness of her eyes that this is important to her. It's the principle, it's her duty, it's who she is and they are.

"It was my land and my dead. My people deserved justice our loss, and it was my duty to give it to them."

"A complex situation."

Her tone balances neutrality rather well. Conceivably this could be an inconvenience or an offence or saddening or myriad different shades of emotion, and she offers no indication what.

"Who here can corroborate these events?"

They do not conflict, as such, but with such weighted matters of perspective and opinion the views of others would not hurt. "Such matters could, if verified, be escalated for a more... thorough investigation. Is that what you had intended, Ser Bellamy?" Her tone is careful, measured. "Or did you intend to aee it settled here?"

Clarke.

That's the answer to the spymaster's question: Clarke, and Kane, too, maybe, though certainly to a lesser extent. Kane wasn't there. Regardless, neither of them are people Bellamy wants under Leliana's scrutiny. He still does not look over at Lexa. If she names Clarke, he might push her over the side of a muddy cliff himself.

But she won't name Clarke. Whatever Lexa's ends, whatever her goals, she doesn't seem eager to give up Clarke's name. At least they share that much.

"I intended to make the Inquisition aware of the Avvar Commander Lexa. Her movements, her intentions, and her presence here." And he knows what he wants done; even if he's keeping his face controlled and his tone careful, right now, he was full of suggestions not five minutes ago.

"You wanna call her a guest? Fine. But you should know who your guest is. I don't want an investigation for what happened back then. I know what happened back then. It's this, now--her, here--that's why I brought her in."

Every action has a reaction. Every reaction is followed by an action. This is how things happen, how things escalate. When Bellamy seeks justice, he's not going to ask the Inquisition for it. What he will do is tell them what they need to hear, as best as he can.

Edited (oh my god a tiny spelling error i'm sorry ) 2016-06-20 15:40 (UTC)

Lexa does not like the idea of a "more thorough investigation". Not because it scares her, the idea of it just makes her angry. There's a subtle flaring of nostrils and hardening of her jaw as Leliana suggests it, clear--if subtle--signs that she would oppose such an idea. But she can't quite tell if this is a real proposal from the spymaster or a test of some sort, and so she waits to see what Bellamy says.

It's about what she'd hoped.

"Knight-Captain Kane, his superior," she puts only a tiny emphasis on superior, and again resists the urge to turn to Bellamy with a pointed look to ensure he and Leliana both know that she means that word both ways, "Will speak for me, if necessary."

"Then the matter is settled." Not spoken with the certainty of one so has settled it or deluded themselves into such an opinion, but rather the manner of one calmly confirming facts, filing informing away. "Very well. I appreciate your.... Illumination on the situation, both of you."

Starkly differing views, but she does make a note of Kane's name. Someone else to remember, something else to keep track of, tensions to potentially monitor. This is a headache, one that Josephine is doubtless better equipped to solve - slashed throats will achieve little, here.

"I sympathise with the losses on each side. Ser Bellamy and Templars and mages across Thedas have suffered much, especially since the Conclave. Much has been stripped of them - the loss of agency... Would be no easy thing. Their losses do not undermine those suffered by your people, and for that I am sorry." Quiet, still, though not so even as before. Emotion hardly bleeds through, nothing so dramatic, but there is something unhappy in the line of her mouth - genuine.

A long pause. "I will not raise this matter with the other Advisors, if I can rely upon your discretion. Ser Bellamy, your determination to see the Inquisition kept abreast of potential threats does you great credit, and I am grateful. However, the Frostbacks are home to the Avvar, and we their newly arrived neighbours. Commander Lexa's actions were prudent for the safety of her people." She looks from Bellamy to Lexa. "I have no interest in inciting the ire of your people, and our cause to see Thedas safe from demons, at the very least, is a common one."

There has been too much loss already, she thinks. There will me more, she will deploy whatever blades are necessary, but here with these two and in this tower, she does not need more blood spilled. They do not need Avvars at their back with a ready knife, and neither do they need Templars and Avvar at each others throat. "You are both welcome in this tower and in this Inquisition. Those within the Inquisition acting against one another is not, however, well favoured."

It's not the answer he wants, obviously. It's not as bad as it could be. But it's not the answer that he wants. Bellamy, sitting rigid in his chair, stares up at Leliana rather than look around at Lexa.

She won't look smug. She's too careful for that. He hates that about her too.

Later, the spymaster's words might feel more like a compliment, less like they're laced with the poison of what she says next. Bellamy's mouth tightens, his arms tense, his chin lifts. He barely registers the rest of it, the layer of warning. Don't act against one another? Just wait, he thinks, viciously; just wait, when it happens again.

Instead he nods, once, curtly. Behind his eyes he might be seething, but to Leliana's face Bellamy tries, at least, to keep together. He won't let Lexa be the only one of composure.

"As you say." Practically through his teeth, but not completely uncivil. Not that it would take much to guess his true feelings. Bellamy pushes himself out of his chair, the first of the two of them to stand. "Will that be all?"

Like she was the one that came seeking them. Bellamy's jaw stays tight.

Lexa's stays shut. She inclines her head minutely in agreement with the spymaster's point, and then waits in silence until the Templar is dismissed, not sparing him another glance. It's a deliberate cut, how easy she makes it seem to utterly ignore his presence or lack thereof (though of course she's not actually ignoring it at all and everyone in the room knows it).

When he has either gone or been told to stay, she waits a suitable moment and then says to Leliana, "I need to return to my people. There are things I was on my way to do when I was waylaid and brought here. Afterwards I would meet with you or your diplomat, Lady Josephine, to discuss in more detail how your people and mine might assist one another."

Will that be all? A fine question, indeed. Leliana's brow quirks upwards ever so slightly. He seems proud, Ser Bellamy, tightly drawn as a bowstring at full stretch, a poised weapon. She is not entirely certain whether she thinks that a good thing or not. That is he so vigilant is a fine thing, certainly, and commendable. Another day, another time, and she might be considering whether he might suit as an agent. He had brought the Commander here, after all.

She suspects that perhaps such venom as what he seemed to hold for the Avvar might be offended by the Spymaster's decision. In either case, they have both of them been marked. Both deserve attention, both will have her focus when next they find themselves in her presence, and perhaps even before.

"It will," she concurs, clipped and quiet and even. "We will speak later." Perhaps not this day or even this week, but she fully counted on further conversations with this Templar, and understanding the matters in more detail. The horrors so often lay in the details; simple summaries rarely allowed a proper grasping of it. "Attend the medical tents, if you would, before you return to your quarters." And with that she nods, a polite dismissal, but a dismissal all the same.

Leliana, for her part, remains silent for long moments after the Commander speaks. "Of course. With your leg in its present state I daresay that it would be wise to travel with an escort, to ensure you suffer no further injury. After you medics see to you I can have scouts ready to accompany you at your leisure. Alternatively," and she suspects she already knows the answer, "the Ambassador might arrange a room for you. Allow yourself some days recovery while more forgiving travel arrangements can be made."

The Nightingale is difficult, ruthless, stubborn, and any number of bad things. The offer is not one borne entirely of kindness, but the threads of diplomacy that overlap enough with her suspicion. The Avvar has her consideration, but nothing so close to trust. Still, she is in no rush to shovel an injured Commander back to her people, or cause offence. Her gaze remains cautious, analytical.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

or so the story goes.

I AM SO SORRY :C

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she can actually do the eyebrow thing but somehow i don't have an icon of it??

idk lack of evidence is incriminating

you know the law, pics/icons or it didn't happen

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