( open ) every girl’s got a moon inside pulling tidal waves to her heart

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin + YOU.
WHAT: A catch-all to get acquainted.
WHEN: During this month.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: Starters (open + closed) in the comments - PM or matriarchal if you'd like an individual starter or feel free to just pop one up of your own!

Comments

open → my kingdom is a world of worlds

[elegiaque]

Katell is not urgently needed by her mistress, much of the time; she finds errands elsewhere in the hold and Gwenaëlle considers begrudging it just for the sake of doing so, demanding her presence and attention because she can rather than because she needs anything. It isn't the sheer pettiness of the impulse that stops her - though she is perfectly aware of it - but the irritation stirred when Katell lingers to be sure there's nothing Gwenaëlle requires. It would be tiresome and she would be bored of having done it within ten minutes, only too stubbornly contrary to admit it and dismiss her. She lets it be, works a while at her desk until the silence and her own company become intolerable and send her out to find -

Not necessarily company, but at least sound. The library becomes dull very quickly, and she doesn't linger; she explores nearby where the soldiers train for a bit, an increasingly familiar sight with her spectacles on the end of her nose and her pen in her hand. She avoids the tavern, having seen Sabine there once and promptly decided it could most politely be described as 'low rent' and no place for a lady such as herself; she ends up, as she often does of an evening, tucked into one of the unused rooms in disrepair that punctuate the battlements, climbed up to the slightly precarious second level.

Her presence is easy to miss, at least until evening falls and the lamplight glows out from between cracked rock that used to be a window.

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan would find her on the battlements, looking down at the courtyard and scribbling. He looked like he was going to walk past, but he paused instead, squinting suspiciously at the movement of her pen.

He was still exploring the castle, following his first instinct to get the lay of the land, so he might know where to hide people, where to fight from, and where to get some bloody quiet when he didn't want the company. Of course, a pretty girl was enough to catch his eye, but the spectacles and pen were unexpected. "What are you writing in there?" he asked, though he didn't come close enough to try to read over her shoulder.

[elegiaque]

Not expecting to be interrupted, instinct has her flattening the paper to her chest - scarred, slashes from a rage demon's claws ridging her skin down her decolletage, tightly laced fabric hiding the full extent of the damage - as she looks up, gold-rimmed reading glasses resting right at the end of her aristocratic nose.

"Observations," she says, primly. "I publish an editorial on the Inquisition monthly."

She writes more than she publishes, of course, but that's for both safety reasons and because she'll need something to sweeten the deal when she releases a complete and unabridged version after Corypheus is defeated.

Which he will be.

She's sure.

[apostafuckyou]

Observations. Raylan raised his eyebrows as he came to stand next to her, planting his elbows on the stone.

"Seems all you noble ladies ever write is smut," he sniffed. His own accent would mark him as lower-class, a commoner from Ferelden, if his face and his clothes weren't enough. He wasn't dressed like a mage, preferring a simple trousers and shirt, with a quilted coat to keep warm. He'd never enjoyed the airflow of robes, anyway. "I've seen the Randy Dowager, I know what you lot like."

[elegiaque]

Her expression flattens, unfriendly, her bow mouth pulling into a moue of displeasure that doesn't suit her but does seem like a familiar sort of expression, the kind that Gwenaëlle is in the habit of making. Irrationally and unfairly, she immediately blames absent Gregoire for this insult, writing filth for money while she gets compared to the fucking Randy Dowager and he, presumably, rolls around in the proceeds of his appalling romances. 'Noble ladies', indeed.

Why is she only friends with terrible people who should have been drowned, it's a mystery.

"Then I don't need to say anything else to you on the subject," she says, flatly, "since you're so well-educated on it already."

[motherfucking_ghost]

Church's sleeping habits are only somewhat sorted out. There are plenty of days when he can still be found taking a nap in the stable hay, and nights when he has to let his feet wander around until he gets too bored and makes himself sleep. This sleeping thing is really balls.

So naturally a light on at the top of the battlements gets his attention, and it's at least better then to check that out in case someone's doing some secret shit, or something's about to catch fire, than to be bored as hell.

He makes a point to be careful, because this place in the dark, way up the fuck high? Yeah, he doesn't really want to die that way. That'd be a shitty way to die. Any shittier than getting team-killed with his own tank? Arguable. "Hey," he starts when he gets to the tower where he saw light poking through. Seems to be coming from above. "Hey, it's late, you know, and you probably shouldn't be up here. I promise if I've just interrupted a romantic evening I'll back out and we can pretend this never happened."

[elegiaque]

A long pause follows, but there are no suspicious sounds of human activity, and just one face that appears looking dubiously down from over the broken wood, lips pursed. He might or might not recognise that small face, belonging as it does to one of the least subtle denizens of Skyhold, but she doesn't place him at all - certainly not in the dark.

"I am writing," she informs him. "I know the time. I come up here often."

She does manage to be civil in answering, at least. It's good of him to check, probably.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Oh. Just a girl, then. That's...better than interrupting something way more intimate, yeah. He waves (with his sharded hand, awkwardly), wondering if maybe he should stop bothering someone so certain of what she's doing. "Oh. Okay. Good. So it's safe? I mean, with shit being all...still kind of fallen apart like. Isn't it drafty?" What part of Skyhold isn't drafty??

[elegiaque]

"I have a blanket and a shawl and a candle," she says, very reasonably, her eyes tracking the shard; a rifter, then. It doesn't always mean that, of course - hers doesn't, she's Orlesian from the top of her head to the tips of her toes - but...yes, this man is from no Thedas she knows, she's sure. "And I haven't fallen down yet."

She gives the wood a testing shove, which is - not the brightest idea, but nothing actually gives, so there's that.

Training yard, drive by

[fleurdesel]

Minding one's own schedule is difficult enough when obligations outnumber the hours in the day by far- but one can, on occasion, carve out a half hour or so to see to something personal. Or rather something tangentially personal as it is more a favor begged of her by the brother she's never met to check in on his dearest friend (like blood to me, he wrote, and were she one to be bothered by the distance caused by her being a mage she might find those words to cut deeply) and make certain she is...adjusting.

Or rather not finding trouble.

One is far more likely than the other, but Gwen seems to spend just as much time in the Library at the beginning of the day for Adelaide to consider a visual confirmation that the girl lives and is capable of writing to be sign enough that she is not finding trouble. But a quick conversation cannot hurt- which is when carving out the extra time to actually find the girl to check in has come in handy. Adelaide stands a respectable distance adjacent to the girl, peering at the troops she'd no doubt be mending in a few hours. "You've settled in well, yes?"

[elegiaque]

"I suppose I have," after a slight pause, not quite turning.

'Well' is awfully subjective. And ... well, she has, hasn't she? But she still feels ill-suited to it all, out of place and uncertain, and she wants to go home. Only she'd sort of like to be able to take the advantages of being here home with her, as well, and that is simply not going to happen. It's easy, day to day, to devote herself to what she's decided is going to be her responsibility; to take an interest.

It's just a bit oddly stark to hear it put that way; settled in well. She has, hasn't she? The thought is an unexpected splash of cold water, discomforting and strange.

She shouldn't have.

[fleurdesel]

"It does take some adjusting, life in Skyhold." Quite a bit if one lives well and wealthy in Val Royeaux, Adelaide imagines. The culture is a meld of all countries despite the heavy Fereldan and Orlesian influence, elves, dwarves, qunari all milling about- mages and templars, supporters and detractors. A potential powder keg of discomfort for most anyone.

She cannot at all imagine how difficult it must be and- truly- has not spared as much of a mind on Gwen as she probably ought to. "How is the shard?"

The stone that is not, the thing that anchors her here more than anything else.

[elegiaque]

It must be said that on the whole, neither of these conversational options - the shard or the adjustment of living in Skyhold, which she doesn't wish to have adjusted to, she doesn't want to do anything that resembles accepting that she simply has to be here whether she likes it or not and might as well get on with it, even if that's precisely what she's doing - are particularly appealing. A long silence draws out after the question, not awkward (not for Gwenaëlle, at any rate), until finally she settles on -

"It's fine,"

which she might say if it were in immediate danger of making her hand fall off, all the same, as she is historically much more stubborn than she is willing to submit to healers, physicians or most sorts of cosseting that have been tried on her over the years.

"I showed it to that elf that asked." Solas, she means; that she bothers to add anything at all to 'it's fine' is a courtesy to Adelaide she would not extend to someone else, for all it doesn't particularly look or sound like one. There. Something that's actually a contribution to the conversation instead of just dead silence.

[letterandspirit]

The mornings are blue. Soon, they'll warm into the glittering, unearthly eternal springtime customary to Skyhold, which is a touch more idyllic than Marcus Kane is comfortable with, who, like anything naturally thorny, thrives better in more stressful climates. He misses the grey overcast skies, the scent of impending storms and lightning out over the Waking Sea, the humidity of a coastal city. The unchanging comfort of the mild spring can't be trusted.

So it's early enough for the air to have some bite to it, and he's training.

The noisy clatter of swords and shields rings out around the grounds. He isn't surrounded by Templars only, and is only marked as one by word of mouth and the make of his sword. His armor is made up of a generic set of leathers. A backhanded swing of his blade drives down hard enough to send the younger man he's brawling skidding backwards, and puts a new scar in the wooden shield held against him. It's not that kind of sparring match, though, and Kane backs up a few feet, waiting for the other man to recover his balance, before they fall in again. Throughout, it's the younger man that bests him with smaller victories

Slowly, the rising sun is beginning to warm the dirt of the training grounds, and Kane breaks off earlier than some, being, himself, an early riser. The shield is standard issue, unimportant, and gets hung up on a rack for public use. His sword, though--

His sword stays with him, picking up the swordbelt he'd hung over a railing and fastening it into place.

[elegiaque]

"Does it have a name?"

Gwenaëlle is an unceremonious interruption; the usual sort for her, inquisitive and not particularly concerned with how interested other people are in indulging it. Her status has largely shielded her from the disinterest of peasants and her new authorial position has netted her a certain expectation of being spoken to that she is inclined to take full advantage of wherever she might. Such as here, now, smiling sunnily up at Marcus Kane from where she rests her hands upon the railing, gold-rimmed spectacles resting on her nose and a notebook against the railing in one hand.

"Only I gather that's a practise. Naming swords. And it is your own, isn't it?"

He takes particular care, she can see.

teren → i am not made of mist and shimmer and life lessons for boys

[elegiaque]

A bit of questioning provides her with the name of Warden von Skraedder, who had offered her services as a seamstress for the soiree that Lady Montilyet and Madame Vivienne had held; there's no word, of course, on whether or not she wishes to continue offering such services. Gwenaëlle discards the idea of sending Katell to handle it for that reason (better to speak with her herself, not sending a maidservant to negotiate), and the notion of sending for the Warden herself when -

It just strikes her as potentially unwise. Something about Wardens.

So she is an unlikely sight in pretty, impractical velvet - dark brown, the bodice subtly embossed, the overall effect rather more sleekly severe than is the usual Orlesian wont - when she finds her way down to their camp to find her. She has a sheaf of thin paper sketches clutched in one hand and her skirts held off the muddy ground with the other, primly determined.

the outsider → but there are monsters in my mirror and she's got my smile, my crown

[elegiaque]

One of the rifters is looking at her.

Well, he must be. There's no other explanation for - that. Whatever is happening there. It isn't normal or natural but no one is doing anything about it, so it must have come through the rift. A reasonable conclusion to draw, she thinks, irked for a moment by the way her attention is caught at all, the two of them the mirror of an instant. She observes. Other people don't get to scrutinize her, to weigh her and make their judgments.

She gets all the way across the courtyard before she changes her mind, spins on her heel, hands upon her hips;

"Well?"

Does he want something.

[extramural]

No, no. He observes. He has spent four thousand years doing so, and unless she is like the elves of Middle Earth, she is much younger than he is. The staring is not necessarily on purpose, because he's not used to being visible when he watches, but- it also is. Societal norms are for those who are a part of society, and he's still working on that.

The pamphlet in his hand is lifted, turned slightly, and then -- with a little flap -- the Outsider finally speaks. (He is, for the record, still staring.)

"You wrote this. Did you not?"

[elegiaque]

Staring is not observing. Staring is very rude, and she is not even a little mollified by the apparent cause of this sudden attention, her lips pursing to one side as she considers -

Well, there really is only one answer, but it annoys her a little bit to give it.

"I did. Terribly disappointed it was not your picture?"

...she doesn't actually think that's it.

[extramural]

Staring is observing. It's at least part of it, whether it's rude or not.

"Hardly."

He has been painted before -- sometimes by artists he favored, other times by artists who were only able to recreate his likeness because of stories and rumors. It was a lovely rendering of the lady Galadriel, but jealousy didn't spur him on as much as curiosity did.

"No, I am far more interested in the motivations of the author."

[elegiaque]

Her lip curls, slightly, which -

bodes well for the author's motivations, the damage on that front done before she measures her response out with careful precision. The curse of an expressive face; the masks she wore in Orlais never helped as much as one might imagine. For starters, they tended to cover only half of her face, and for another thing ... she just isn't that subtle.

"The Inquisition requires support," she says, evenly. "I hope to encourage those outside of it to see that, and do so."

And they won't support people harboring demons, for whatever good cause.

sabine, thranduil → hey, earthquake girl, tell me this – if you break the world, what’ll you

[elegiaque]

The important thing is, she definitely didn't intend to help Sabine.

It's an unfortunate by-product of having helped herself, that's all. In - a way she didn't mean to, stumbling backwards a step, flinging her hands up and discovering that one of them apparently does things she didn't know about, power coalescing out of nothing, out of the anchor-shard, forming a shimmering barrier that doesn't so much stop the rampage of the horse as startle the hell out of it and send it careening in another direction like the stupid, reactionary animal that it is. She jerks backwards (humans also being stupid, reactionary animals), which helps nothing and brings her shoulder-to-breast with Sabine, who she certainly did not intend to protect.

If anything, she had intended, probably, to shove Sabine in front of her.

Which would be just as the uppity miss deserves, frankly, this has all gone horridly awry and as soon as she can work out how to make her hand stop - whatever - it is doing, she's going to -

She's going to do something really decisive.

[glandival]

Chickens lift into the air like an explosion. Something knocked over. Angry yelling.

It's not the same chaos made distinct when an Abomination ravaged the courtyard, but has a similar effect of immediate flurrying activity. Sabine has her hands full of burlap and isn't looking where she's going when she suddenly finds herself in the wrong place and time, the panicked horse bearing down on her, and she flinches aside at the sight of hooves.

Oomf. She spills down into the dirt, off-balanced already. Cornmeal gushes out of burlap and dusts up into her face and her hair as she lands amongst it, but she's more distracted by--

--literally everything else. Gwen, her hand glowing green, standing over her, and the retreating horse, but back to Gwen, mainly, who seems to be having a hard time. Visions of big glowing green cunt-shaped dimensional rifts are probably the most noble reason that Sabine using her lower vantage point to plant a kick in the noblewoman's hip in an effort to knock her off her feet, but it's not the only one.

[elegiaque]

Being kicked down into the mud is not the most decisive thing Gwenaëlle has ever done in her life. It is also not the most dignified, and the shrill noise she makes as she goes down is nothing she cares to admit to later; the fall is cushioned mostly by the skirts that puff up around her as she lands, her inevitable bruises more likely to be from where Sabine kicked her, but her hands scrape against mud and rock as she catches herself and there are just so many things happening and she is angry about absolutely all of them.

The shield dissipates; she rolls over and lunges at Sabine.

(She is going to regret this, probably.)

[glandival]

Sabine is struggling to her feet -- her own skirts trapping her, getting under her knees, too angry at what just happened to be very graceful -- just as Gwen launches herself at her, which is both unexpected as well as entirely typical. It results in more mud and cornmeal and muddy cornmeal in Sabine's business, letting out a sound that is more growl than shriek, before she takes a muddy, cornmealy hand and finds a fistful of Gwen's hair, pulling her aside and off.

Scrapping on the ground is her territory.

Bystanders who aren't trying to set to rights what the escaped horse wronged are pitching glances over at the sight of the two women rolling around, finer Orlesian draping skirts and coarser brown, tidy dark waves and wild red curls.