weep little lion man

[lionheartedman]

WHO: Cullen and you
WHAT: jumping in head first! (by which I mean generic open log so that I can get all up in your inboxes)
WHEN: WHOLE MONTH OF JUNE - the afternoon of the 11th to the late morning of the 14th, he will be away from Skyhold.
WHERE: predominantly his office and the battlements around it, with a healthy helping of training his soldiers on the grounds, and the potential for a few other places if someone wants a custom starter
NOTE: When you tag, please tell me what day so I can figure out in what order it all happens. If you don't pick a day, I will pick it for you.

IMPORTANT!!! If you have not already left me links here and had me respond, but you plan to keep any past CR with Cullen, please do not tag this. I will be assuming that anyone who tags here and has not already had their past CR hashed out with me wishes to begin with a fresh slate. Don't worry, he will have another open post soon. I just don't want to wait too long to start playing, and since there are plenty of new characters and plenty of characters who've already been to my OOC post, I figure it's a safe bet that I can get some play now.

OFFICE
One thing that remains constant, that has not and probably will not ever change, is the endless stream of paperwork that crosses his desk. Cullen stands, hands braced and shoulders slumped, reading over a stack of intersecting and conflicting messenger's reports and trying desperately to figure out how to spread their forces when they simply do not have the resources to meet all needs as things currently stand. He sighs deeply, and raises one hand to rub at the knot of tension at the base of his skull. It's not going anywhere. The same can be said for the impressive model of the Frostbacks that messengers have created with scrolls and sheaves of paper and leather pouches along the short edge of his desk.

BATTLEMENTS
Some people say that Cullen has no aptitude when it comes to taking care of himself. Those people are, on the balance, entirely correct. He will argue that he pushes himself too far out of necessity, but that doesn't mean he's half as responsible as he should be when it comes to sleeping or feeding himself. It takes its toll. Usually, he can chase the fatigue away with a brisk walk and a little fresh air. A trip along the battlements to clear his head and gather his scattered thoughts is his go to solution. One he employs quite often.

TRAINING
Cullen does not always survey his troops with a mind toward picking apart their performances and needling them to do a better job. Often, but not always. Sometimes, he just watches. He takes note of particular skill, of someone ill at ease with the weight and balance of their weapon, of someone distracted. Their numbers are not so great that they can afford anything less than 100% from each person under him. Of course, the unfortunate extension of that is that their numbers are not so great that he can afford to turn away willing help. Particularly in light of the disturbingly large contingent of people within Skyhold who push back against the structure of authority whose protection they enjoy. It makes his job, this part of it as well as the less hands on ones, infinitely more difficult. At least the training remains direct and straightforward. Here in the courtyard, it is his job to foster the skills and determination of his volunteers to make them all that they are capable of becoming. It is their job to then give all they have in the service of the Inquisition. He knows he asks for more than is fair. He also knows that he has no choice. He is grateful for every person with the compassion and foresight to give it, anyway.

NEW OPTIONS - PUPPY!
PUPPY OFFICE
As of Thursday the 16th, there is a new addition to Cullen's life, in the form of a blue and white mabari puppy, and his daily routine just got a whole lot more interesting. The dog doesn't have a proper name, and is mostly being referred to as Puppy. Whatever Cullen thought dog ownership would be, it wasn't this. He seems to spend half his day in constant frantic motion, and the other half sleeping and eating. During the quiet times, Puppy can be found sleeping underneath the desk, or occasionally in the crook of Cullen's arm. He can also be found chewing on scrap leather or lengths of knotted rope as he tumbles about the office, though he won't wander too far from the desk and/or Cullen.

PUPPY COURTYARD
He also needs to be walked, and socialized, so a few times a day, Cullen finds himself in quieter areas of the courtyard. He brings treats and teaches Puppy simple tricks, sending him running along the wall to tire himself out, assuring anyone who wanders into the area that the dog is loud, but friendly.

PUPPY WALKWAYS/STAIRCASES/WHEREVER
Puppy might be smart and well behaved, but he is still a puppy, and occasionally one might be treated to the sight of the Commander of the Inquisition running along a battlement, trying to catch a tiny blur of fur with a roll of parchment clamped in his mouth. This is his life now. This is what his life has become.

[[OOC note about Puppy! While he will definitely be energetic and boisterous and do things that people might not like, he will not be outright bad. Please don't write about him breaking things, hurting people or other animals, or antagonizing someone who seems afraid of him. He is a Mabari, well trained for his young age, and very smart. He wants to play, and will absolutely steal things from people, tug on their clothing, and bark for attention, but Puppy will not be destructive or violent. Thanks.]]

11th (full)
visiting puppies
meeting Henry
talking with Bethany
leaving for recon/rescue mission

12th (away from Skyhold)
traveling
rescuing Meoni

13th (away from Skyhold)
traveling

14th
Mia brings him tea
Sera brings him dinner

15th
properly meeting Christine
Cassandra comes to clear the air
Gwen brings her latest publication

16th
Adelaide brings Cullen a puppy

20th
Josephine helps catch Puppy

Comments

[elegiaque]

A good guess, and once placed she's hard to mistake in darker, somewhat sleeker silhouettes than most High Quarter women of her and age and station, scars from a rage demon's claws dragging down her decolletage and disappearing beneath tightly laced fabric. Something about the way she styles and carries herself is a faint echo of Morrigan, which was coincidence at first and now, her admiration for her new role model in full bloom, is not.

(She didn't have the bangs when she first arrived.)

"I'm sure I'll find it in me to forgive you," she says, dry, obliging him with the pamphlet, fronted as per usual with a serviceable sketch of herself, her name, and the current, contentious title of On the Inquisition; a Lady's observations. It's insipid, she'd complained, but she hadn't had a better idea and the editor and publisher had combined forces to overrule her. What she gets, she supposes, for having so many times said it's only an observation so primly to someone turning at the sharp edge of her tongue.

The addition of, "If you've any thoughts, of course, I welcome them," is not entirely offhand. She'd consulted Leliana more extensively, before this edition; she is still feeling her way through how influential the advisors will and will not be in what she writes and how she does it, but she won't pass up an opportunity to sound them out. She writes down much more than she publishes - she observes a great deal.

(And it is her voice, still, at the end of the day. She takes some pride in that, even if she isn't thrilled about what she used it for this month.)

[lionheartedman]

Someone taking after Morrigan. Exactly what his life needs. Still, the bangs suit her face very nicely. Not that Cullen consciously knows the difference.

Any thoughts. Oh. So she's expecting him to read it right now. Well, he could probably do with a little mental break, pull his head away from this particular problem. So he thumbs open the pamphlet and reads over it quickly. Since he's already read the content once, all he's really doing this time is looking for any differences or additions. It doesn't take long. "It's very..." He tries to think of the words she probably wants to hear. "Entertaining." If this is what they want to read in Orlais, what will do their cause the most good, he trusts Josephine to know how that angle works.

[elegiaque]

The flash of disappointment is hard for her to conceal; a mask would not have hidden it any better, her lips pulling together and unattractively flattening her expression. It isn't immediately obvious to her whether he means the insult that lodges where her nails press to her palms, or if he's merely trying to be - kind. Uncharitably, she also considers that perhaps Fereldans are just particularly tasteless and find nothing so engaging as treatise on what a demon might do to them, but -

That is just the sort of thought she'd tear strips off from someone else, unworthy of her, and she decides that discretion being the better part of valor, she will presume it was well-intentioned and take it in that spirit. It is Thranduil's terribly kind something for you to write home about all over again, making her feel sixteen years old and foolish, but the set of her jaw when she smiles is decisive.

She will simply have to do better. And better, and better, and better again -

"What an unkind thing to say of my readers," she says, very lightly, angling it to tease him instead of letting herself be as sharp as she'd like. "I hope to persuade them to take it a bit more seriously than that, but I suppose I can't deny it as something of an uphill battle."

[lionheartedman]

Cullen looks taken aback, confused. "Are you not writing to entertain your readers?" People are often most invested in things that entertain them. The fact that anyone in Orlais is caring enough to want to know how life here progresses seems like a win to him. Her featured Rifter is most definitely not the one he would have chosen, but it is not his periodical.

[elegiaque]

"No," she says, emphatically, bewildered - it's out before she can stop herself from saying it and there's a moment of awkward silence immediately after where it's clear she might have preferred not to. Or at least to have done it differently, or -

Gwenaëlle is ill-suited to being an Orlesian noblewoman for various reasons, not least among them being her inability to lie very well, and her dubious grasp of subtlety. In for a penny, in for a royal, though...

"I'm writing to inform my readers," after that pause has stretched long enough that something has to follow it, whether she likes it or not. "I don't see anything entertaining about what's happening and I don't see that they should expect to be entertained to see the importance of it. I thought the inclusion of such images to be more - confronting. As apparently people need to be confronted with what ought to be patently clear to them already. People are dying. What's amusing about that? What about making that amusing to people would help anyone?"

[lionheartedman]

All right. So entertaining people, this is a problem. All problems have solutions. Just break them down. "What do you want them to feel?" She seems distressed, but not sad. Angry, but he doesn't feel like it's directed at him. He's just caught in the backlash. "You might want to try pacing? I find that helps, sometimes."

[elegiaque]

His remark about pacing catches her off-guard and nets a short, startled laugh as she realises he probably means--

"With these ridiculous skirts? I'll start a little whirlwind in here and have all your papers in the worst sort of disarray, it would be the worst sort of ill-mannered carry on." She is quite fond of her ridiculous skirts by the affectionate tone in which she casually denigrates them, but that's how Gwenaëlle likes most things - sharply, with her claws out. Gregoire Leblanc is her very dearest friend and would be forgiven for strongly suspecting that she actually keeps an itemized, alphabetical list of his flaws in chronological order of first demonstration.

(It isn't chronological and she doesn't know where she left it; she'd go for the throat of anyone else who thought to criticise the self-same things.)

There is no seat to dramatically fall into in a flounce of fabric; she settles for leaning against his desk, her back to him as she thinks, not quite prepared to go so far as perching on its edge but with a sentiment similar to that very gesture. "I don't give a tinker's damn what they feel," and her tone is more candid, now, not intentionally presuming an ease with him so much as forgetting to be anything but interested in her subject.

"They will pick it up to be entertained, I know that. To scandalize each other and have something to gossip about, it's the stupidest thing in the world but it's unavoidably true. It's only I refuse to pander to stupidity. They will read it, Commander, they daren't be the only one who hasn't. And I'd have them learn something while they're being twats. See the value. If not the value, then the threat, and what they might contribute to fighting it - and it will filter. It will go further than some Duchesse's salon, and if it can prompt others to follow my lord's example in his generosity, that is very well. But it seems to me it would not be amiss if it also, perhaps, showed that someone is doing something to those who are, perhaps, less well-cushioned in the event of a fall."

Gwenaëlle has done a lot of things since arriving in Skyhold, and not least of them has been to find her own voice.

[lionheartedman]

He smiles a little to hear her call her own clothes ridiculous. Impractical, certainly. Pretty, though, in a very abstract way. Which-- yes, all right, they are ridiculous. He'd never say it, because he doesn't need that fight, but he's still amused right now. He picks up a couple of pieces of stone, broken off chunks that he found early on, the most rudimentary and ugly paperweights, but effective. There are only a couple of piles of paperwork that don't already have something heavy on top of them, be it a bound book or a pouch of map markers or a neglected apple, and he places the stones on them. Just in case.

"So they will pick it up out of fear of being the only person who does not? Which gives you a captive audience. So... you can continue with the gossip, the lessons, the profiles of the Rifters you think are pretty." He's not trying to be upsetting, but he can't think of any other reason that Galadriel would make a better Rifter to profile than so many others. Besides, looking at Gwen, it is hardly a stretch to think that she favours pretty things.

Perhaps she doesn't want to pace, but it does help him to think, so he begins. "If you want to show the difference one person can make... why not pick one person? One person who has joined, has made a sacrifice for what they believe in, and is fighting for the future of this world?" A better profile, though better is probably subjective. Still, Cullen can think of scores of individuals he would consider more worthy of highlight in Gwen's writing.

[elegiaque]

"Oh, absolutely not. I've no interest in profiles - I wrote nothing of that woman but her name, she only made a convenient contrast visually. You see, a demon can be catalogued. Diagrammed and defined. If we assume these rifters are people and not demons,"

If.

"Then they can't, and a woman's portrait says all it needs to by itself." Galadriel is beautiful, certainly, but Gwenaëlle's motives were colder and simpler than appreciation of someone she has no affection for. After a pause, "Sister Nightingale asked me to make a point about rifters, so I did. As I was asked. There's nothing that can't be verified factually and no nonsense personal details that no one cares about, it's..."

How to put this. She struggles for a moment to find the words, finally settling on - "I don't want to write about singular people as if that's...it's not to showcase any one person. A person is easy to dismiss as remarkable. I think the impressive thing about the Inquisition as an organisation is the organisation. What I mean to do is show the way that each contribution makes the whole. Not profiles of individuals, but verifiable details of how people work together to do more than they could alone. How much more is still needed."

She brightens as she says, "A living history. People will gossip without any help from me, I want to give something... Meaningful. Something people can see themselves in, not some ideal of a person who is far away from them, something that anyone can be even a small part of. Not heroes, heroes fall, heroes falter, heroes and sacrifice are stories that we tell. Let them see that the Inquisition isn't a story yet. That it's men and women, cohesive."

A glance toward the door. "Maybe it isn't exactly. I know the tensions. But that's what it's meant to be, isn't it? That's why everyone's here. That's what people who can't be here want to know, that the herald's loss was a blow but the Inquisition is more than one sacrifice. More than one woman."

[lionheartedman]

"The Inquisition is all of us. Even the Rifters." His steps get quicker as his mind works through things that Gwen could write about without giving too much away. More difficult than that, he has to figure out what in Andraste's name an Orlesian might find interesting. That is more challenging than anything. "You and I, we both know that most of them are no different than anyone else here. Worlds are different, experiences are different, but people are people. That's the tricky thing, isn't it? Bringing that experience to people who don't know those who have come through the rifts, who don't know what life is like here, how mundane the intricacies of the day to day life--"

He stops pacing. "What if you didn't give them faces and names? What if you just gave them voices? I don't know if you'd want to. I don't know if you'd be up to it. It would be more work that just refining your own observations. It would take longer." It might not be something she has any desire to do. It might not even be a good idea. He is not a writer, and he absolutely does not have any idea what goes through the mind of your typical Orlesian.

[elegiaque]

"It would be different work," she says, diplomatically; not dismissive of his idea (it's a good idea) so much as aware that it's not one for her. "A different work, I think, but I am not by any means the only writer in Skyhold and it would be a valuable endeavor for another." And while in someone else's mouth the observation might sound dismissive -

It isn't. Gwenaëlle's affront at Varric's response to her initial announcement of her work had nothing to do with a sense of competition and everything to do with objecting to the fact he thought there ought to be one; her voice is not his, her work is not his. What they each produce is a product of their own perception, what they see, who they are, what they value, and there is a great deal of space for a great many perspectives. If anyone asked, she would quite like to read the others, too. Maybe not specifically what he's describing - she sees its objective merits; she doesn't have a blind bit of interest in listening to, for example, these fucking rifters talk about how hard it is to have been treated with such kindness and generosity and how ungrateful they are for the unearned trust they have been shown - but generally speaking, it had seemed a terrible waste no one had already stepped into the gap that she'd seen and filled herself.

After a moment, with a shrug - "If people will dismiss the work I do now as frivolous because my name is Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, I think the only thing such a drastic overhaul of my work will do is tell them that they were right, and that now I'm nakedly desperate to prove otherwise. It'd undermine any hope of a useful message." Because then the story could become Lady Vauquelin embarrasses herself publicly trying to be useful and Orlais is unlikely to turn down the opportunity to sharpen its knives on someone's downfall in favour of compassionate understanding when the opportunity for typical vindictive glee is right there. "All I can do is write work I'm proud of and hope that if it isn't quite good enough, learning more will make it better."

[lionheartedman]

"I don't think Orlesians will care for the work of anyone but an Orlesian. I think your name is the only thing that would make it worthwhile there." Still, he shrugs, stops pacing quite as quickly now that the lack of interest is clear. Not sullen or upset, just winding down his thought process now that there's no need for it. He runs down to a stop and leans his hip against his desk. "If you don't want to entertain, and you don't want to give an immersive point of view, what is it you do want? What response are you looking for? Maybe that will help. I find that working problems backwards is sometimes the only way to solve them."

[elegiaque]

He isn't wrong about her name - but neither is she wrong that that's only the beginning, and there are a hundred different ways to tumble back into irrelevance (at best). Especially when that name is far from unknown already, and she's not exactly made a lot of friends. The number of people who'd quite like to see her fall on her face--

She'd rather not think about it.

Here and now, she bites back the protest that she's said what she wants and what response and - stops, for a moment, thinks about the conversation, the exchange, and abruptly laughs, more rueful than anything else.

"I think that I've solved the problem," she says, in the same tone as her laugh. "I think it's simply that what I'm doing is neither to your taste nor of interest to you, and it needn't be." He is more or less the polar opposite of the audience, after all; even when taking into account her hope that it will spread farther than Orlais, farther than noble households, Cullen Rutherford is the Inquisition and her work is designed to introduce it to people who aren't. The thought isn't an unkind one, and any exasperation she has is only for herself - of course she wants everyone to be interested, to like what she does, but they don't have to, and she'll get in her own way worrying about whether or not they do.

"Not to say," judiciously, a moment later, "that I don't appreciate your time or your perspective, Commander. I very much do." Genuinely; she's an appalling liar, he'd know in a moment if it weren't true.

[lionheartedman]

"I haven't actually been much help, have I?" Still, he's smiling. It doesn't matter than he's had no hand in her problem solving. All that matters is that she has solved her problem. That's what counts.

He chuckles a little and shakes his head. "I would say that any time you need help, my door is open, but... How about any time you want to talk?" She's a break from the norm, if nothing else. Not that the norm is all that normal any more. It may never be normal again. This might just be his life now. What a thought.

[elegiaque]

Instinct makes her look for the catch - the cue to tell her that he's being polite, but that the truly polite thing to do would be to know better than to take him at his word. The survival instinct of Orlais, where taking people at their word is ... ill-advised, at best. Cullen isn't Orlesian, though, and is in a position to be as openly disinterested in her company as he likes, and - doesn't seem to be, so -

"I might take you up on that, Commander." And, she thinks, she actually might mean it. What a novel idea.

She's halfway out, blowing out of his office like a breeze had carried her in to begin with, when she changes her mind on impulse and - it requires a bit of effort, he's much taller than she is, but she rolls up onto her tiptoes, holds onto the arm of his coat, and presses a kiss to his cheek.

"Thank you!"

[lionheartedman]

Yup. He's still surprised. Enough that he's looking a bit shocked even after she's back on her flat feet. Just a bit, though, and at least his tongue isn't tied. "You're welcome." He means it. There's something that simply can't be gained in a discussion with someone who shares your life experiences. Gwen's life is about as far from his as a person can get, and maybe that's what he needs occasionally. He's going to have to search out a little more of that going forward.