[ OPEN ] We shift and turn and swear and yearn

[fleurdesel]

WHO: Adelaide & you
WHAT: Catch All for the month
WHEN: June/Justinian
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Wine, swearing, PUPPIES, allusions to demonic violence. Prose or Brackets are fine, roll with what you like most. If you want a specific prompt hit me up on plurk @ here!

[ Courtyard -> Stables ]

When her sister wrote 'their arrival is imminent' Adelaide had not quite considered how imminent Juliette meant. Perhaps she might have been better prepared for signing off with the courier when they herd the rather rambunctious litter of several month old mabari pups to one of the few empty stalls in the barn. Playful things that they are- Dennet is a horse master not a hound master and it will be some time before the appropriate point of authority finds their way down to check on the five puppies ready for imprinting or...whatever it is these dogs do- but they will need minding until they are handed off and as she'd had the fortune to sign for them- Adelaide finds herself sitting in the barn, trying to keep the dogs from gnawing on one another, on her, or on anything valuable. Moments like this are a thorough reminder as to why she is a cat person.


[ Library ]

She can be found, as ever, at her table tucked into one of the unoccupied nooks of the library- a cold cup of tea at her elbow, a sheaf of notes she writes and reorganizes- a quill on occasion hovering over a sheet of blank paper and mimicking her notes stroke for stroke so she might produce them in duplicate. So long as she remembers exactly how she's laid out the paper, it works well enough. For questions, comments, concerns, condemnations or complications that have arisen during research she has made herself thoroughly available.


[ Return of the Attache ]

"No." That is all she has to say. No. She won't bother to stop or listen, she won't bother to mind him in the slightest- that same family attache doggedly tails Adelaide about the hold, hovering just behind with a leatherbound sheaf of papers in his hand while he awaits for some sign that she'll take them or at least listen. He spends the bulk of his time holding the odd extra book or pen or, in a singularly distressing moment, a pad of gauze against a seeping wound as she mends a patient in the healing tents. He's a step down from a personal valet- he is not meant to be dealing with literal bloody commoners and yet- this is his life. Someone please help him convince Adelaide to at least take the papers and look at them.


AFTER JUSTINIAN 19th

[ Stairs ]

After the final ritual is all said, done, and finished Adelaide finds she has a wealth of extra time due to no longer needing to spend several hours picking apart what went wrong with the last and what could go wrong with the next- and at least a few hours extra that she'd otherwise spend training with Martel in the evenings due to the incontinence that is her leg. Magic, even hers, can only do so much and the nasty break in that last fight leaves her less walking with the calm poise she's known for and more hobbling from place to place, staff less an afterthought and more a requirement for keeping her weight off her leg. At the moment she's glowering at the stones underfoot as she takes one slow, shuffling step up the stairs at a time. Her research is in the library- and eventually she would make her way there. Just- give her some time.


[ Healing Tents ]

Here, at least, there are fewer stairs. Adelaide splits her time between minding patients and beginning new notations on old research she'd set aside- tending to those she could while moving as little as possible for the first few days. Her humor is...subdued, somewhat, but that is easily explained by the weight of her work of the past months finally catching up now that she is forced to spend less time on her feet. Now and then she might be caught dozing, chin tipped to her chest, fingers still holding the page of her book in place.

Comments

[apostasia]

Eyebrows high in his hairline, processing that explanation for the papers in front of him still requires actually reading them before it seems anything but nonsensical. It remains, upon consideration, somewhat surreal; his gaze lifts from document to Adelaide to - attache, where it settles, contemplative. He has no intention of doing other than signing, but it is -

It is a great deal to be offered. And it isn't that he hadn't taken her seriously, that he hadn't imagined she would try to keep her word, it's only a surprise that anyone else had, that her efforts had borne fruit, that here is this gentleman he recalls quite vividly from the last familial outreach in Skyhold and here is a piece of paper before him that will secure him safely to something more permanent than an organisation that is built in the hopes of one day rendering itself unnecessary.

A life beyond what he carves out with a sword. A home to go to, when this is all over. A name.

He tilts the pen in his fingers.

"How many sisters is this?"

[fleurdesel]

"Six. And a younger brother." That he still has not quite yet promised to not make cry, but she will not hold him accountable for things said when they were both fairly certain she was going to die. That'd be foolish. "There will be something of a process, after, but nothing too terrible."

There is a glimmer of something in her eyes- close to mischief, tempered with humor, something borne of a pain that would now be shared. As much as this would give Martel his own place, a title, and possibly even some land in Thedas? There is much that comes with the boon. A meddlesome and opinionated family, an attache to follow him about- but he'd been noble once before, in his world. Perhaps he'd find this simpler. Or at least more familiar than Adelaide has.

"They will want to meet you in person eventually, I suppose."

[apostasia]

"Doubtless."

He pens his name, briefly; for the sake of both thoroughness and what to him makes it feel the more secure tie, he gives it in both Orlesian text and Elenic. A through-line from one life to the next - a transition between the two, a quick scrape of ink on paper and Martel, former Margrave of Damerel and greatest disappointment of the Pandion Order becomes Martel Leblanc, upon whose shoulders the full burden of a House's expectations will not fall. Some, certainly.

But it is one thing to be the heir, to be the Margrave, and another entirely to simply be another pair of hands to build alongside.

The novelty will probably wear off; he will find things about which to gripe. He knows that, too. Even so - in some ways, it's more than he had even before. And what he knows most of all is to be grateful for it.

[fleurdesel]

François nods, pleased to have at last managed that for which he was sent- or at least to have begun the process. A few signatures and then the questions, the measurements, these things are why he steps around Adelaide and pulls a measuring tape from across his shoulders. "Arms out, if you please."

He wouldn't be given much choice. Adelaide, for her part, stands back, dimly amused. "To outfit you in the house colors, I suppose. There will also be a casting of the house crest, a signet ring, most likely some manner of interview as to your preferred sort of woman-"

As she has deftly avoided a marriage match thusfar it shall fall to Martel. At least until he is able to sidestep it as well. "And a few other details, I am certain. Welcome to the family, Martel."

[apostasia]

"How novel," he remarks, obliging Francois by straightening slightly and raising his arms; there is little to complain of in his posture or comportment, at least, and he is already a good deal more compliant than Adelaide, but that probably only means he's going to be an entirely different sort of problem. "I don't recall my preferences making a blind bit of difference to my mother, the last time."

Granted, certain natural limitations had given him his choice regardless -

This time, well.

He will not be any easier to marry off, he suspects.

[fleurdesel]

"The Comtesse is exacting in her matches and prefer there be some measure of compatibility- as to provide a lasting and fruitful marriage." François murmurs as he takes down Martel's measurements, sneaking Adelaide a look. This one complies. This one isn't stubborn for no reason whatsoever. This one will be getting the good chocolates on his pillow when they visit the LeBlanc Estate in Val Royeaux.

"There must be some sense to it- as she has attempted to force nothing for me and all of my sisters are more or less pleased with their husbands. I do not recall much of them from my youth but I do remember that they are particular and I do not expect that to have changed." If nothing else, they have likely become more particular.

[apostasia]

This one's affable cooperation will not make him any less of a nuisance to see safely married off, in all likelihood, and well he knows it. His low chuckle says as much, though perhaps more to Adelaide than to Francois, who will have time yet to become acquainted with the surface nuances of his moods and ways.

"The Margravine settled for a woman who would have me," he observes, relaxing his stance somewhat as he shifts to accommodate various measurements taken. "What an adventure."

A bit dry, yes, but unconcerned. Marriage is -

Not an unpleasant prospect. A family is not an unpleasant prospect. If he doubts the likelihood of finding something suitable, he is at least charmed by the notion of trying.

[fleurdesel]

"Then we shall find someone better suited. LeBlancs do not settle, My lord." The man himself is not exactly insulted by the implication, but it is a very near thing.

Adelaide remains off to one side, hiding her smile behind her hand as the Attache goes about noting down the appropriate measurements- holding swatches up against Martel's skin and eyes to have the best possible idea of what ought to be made for him. "I shall have to thank you for taking the weight of her expectations from me for some time, Telquet."

[apostasia]

"I didn't consider it settling," in his mildest tone. "I'm sure the man who married my Petrana thought himself very fortunate."

(He betrays more than he realises with the casually proprietary way he speaks of her, perhaps, when it wouldn't take such closeness as Adelaide can claim of him to conclude from his previous remarks that their friendship had been deeper than their romance. He isn't carrying a torch all these years later, his true fondness muted by regret and the simple fact that he had loved her without ever being in love - but she had been his to have or not, he'd known it, and even now, he can't fathom that Davidias has her for any reason other than that Martel did not lift his finger to stop it.

Hers was the love he could rely upon to remain. Hers was the heart that was his to break.)

"As I can't be sure any woman here will consider herself to have me, your charming surname into the bargain or not," with a wry look. "Thank me when I manage to do it, Adelaide."

[fleurdesel]

The Attache has the good sense to be silent, whether or not it is an act of contrition or politesse, Adelaide cannot say. What she can say is that she's unsurprised by the sentiment, nor by the idea it would be difficult to find a match for Martel in Orlais. He is, in a way, a handful. As charming as he seems (and he does seem quite charming) as devoted (and he can be) there is an uncomfortable intensity to his attention that some ladies might enjoy-

And a great many others might take as a sign of warning.

Adelaide herself looks forward to whomever might wish to take that risk. "It is an honor, not a bargain- though I am not certain it would be prize enough for most to make up for the rest of you."

[apostasia]

"I can't imagine the woman who'd consider being my wife an honour," he says, more dryly.

At least he knows.

[fleurdesel]

"One that does not know you well." Or at all, honestly, but she says this with all due affection- which is considerable.

[apostasia]

"You cut me to the quick," he informs her, remarkably unfazed for a man apparently sorely wounded. Probably, he is just used to this.

To the attache, by way of an unhelpful aside, "Are they all like this?"

The rest of his 'sisters'.

[fleurdesel]

"I am not at liberty to say." The attache murmurs, though the dry tone and cant of his head is reason enough to believe it is so.

Adelaide rolls her eyes and makes a vague gesture. "Go on. You'll suffer nothing from me."

"Wouldn't that be nice." He mutters. "But it is remarkable how she has continued the trend of temperament despite being raised elsewhere."