you still can't look me in the eye

[fightingale]

WHO: Leliana & various!
WHAT: catch all for July/Solace
WHEN: from roughly the 8th on throughout the month.
WHERE: Skyhold, various.
NOTES: set ups all in prose, but will happily match brackets if you prefer them! Open starters and a bit of a timeline on Leliana's health in the post (more to be added as we plod through the month), closed starters in the comments. If you'd like to do something that isn't in the open feel free to get in touch with me via pm or pp @karmacharging!
WARNINGS: Likely reference to illness, attempted murder, actual murder, and the range of terrible things that come with being the Nightingale. Will update as necessary, and endeavour to label subject lines.

OOC Recovery Deets.
After the team returned from the Brecilian Forest on the 27th, Leliana was given a series of potions with the ingredients that the team has acquired. Her recovery was not immediate, given the brutal effects of the poison, but the groundwork was laid. By the 1st of Solace she was able to speak again, although her voice sounded terrible, and some of the scarring had receded. By the 4th she was able to stand, although No One Approved. Since the 6th she has been walking, but only a very little. She normally has to sit in the presence of others, but from the 14th onward her strength has noticeably improved, although she's still thinner than she was before. Report on the Plot here.


OPEN.
8th - 11th - The Rookery.
It is safest to linger about her tower, still. Better that she be seen beyond it and that her recovery be confirmed, and yet if she were to falter or fall or appear weak that would only do harm. Her mind has recovered far more quickly than her body, and some motions still feel strange and foreign. Writing takes longer than it used to, but she is nothing if not determined. A hideous sort of stubbornness has been one thing that has never changed, not since she was a little girl.

She is writing or reading letters and orders and reports near constantly. Beleth and several scouts did much in the way of dealing with smaller matters, while Charter saw to other more pressing matters. Despite their efforts, however, there were a good many things that only the Nightingale could see to.

Pausing in her writing, Leliana flexes her hand, shaking it out a little, before looking towards the staircase. "Enter."


14th - the day after the Snow Battle Royale.
Though she did not stray down to the valley for the fight itself - such a move seemed a singularly poor decision. The Nightingale was not a social butterfly, and though it would have been an opportunity to assert her good health it would have been... inappropriate, she suspects, to attend.

That is not to say she didn't watch from the Rookery, and receive regular reports from her scouts on the progress and any Events of Note, whether they were interpersonal reactions or displays of skill, or just particularly amusing instances of people being decimated with snow.

Now she walks through the valley, observing the remains of the fortresses, still largely intact with the cold that always lingers this high in the Frostbacks, snow and ice crunching underfoot as she moves carefully, curiously, through the field. The cold bites into her lungs, and she swallows a cough that threatens to rattle her back, resting her gloved hand against the polished ice.

Comments

( closed ) Dorian.

[fightingale]

Leliana did not have a sneaking suspicion that she was indebted to several members of the Inquisition so much as a burning awareness. Some matters could not be easily overlooked as borrowing a book for a longer time than was polite, or being brought a generous number of drinks in the tavern. No, Leliana was well aware that her life had been saved by the efforts of many, but that all might have been for nothing without Dorian's hand.

She sends a runner to him; a chicken had been tempting, but the message was rather pressing, and she did not trust Eggbert (fine rooster as he was) not to get lost.

And then it is a matter of waiting, Leliana in the Rookery, writing letters and reading reports and slogging towards what she hopes will be the sweet victory of being caught up in her work, but that she knows better than to truly expect.

[liberalum]

When Dorian arrives, he doesn't swan in, gesticulating with a bottle of spiced wine, announcing his arrival with some remark about Leliana's taste in company and how it's drastically improved. Instead, he slips into the Rookery as unassuming as anyone coming to and fro, and in his hands are a collection of scrolls. He's dressed for a day of sitting down and reading and writing, robed with discreet smears of ink on his hands, and that sort of thing is wont to put him in a comparatively serious mood.

Comparatively. He approaches and takes a seat, kicking one leg over the other, and tossing the documents he brought with him on to the desk. "A very long time ago," he starts, before Leliana can even think about beginning, "a man named Tiberius of House Pavus proposed before the Imperial Magisterium a piece of legislation that any enslaved individual who demonstrated magic should automatically be granted their freedom. To do anything otherwise, it was argued, was a perversion of our wretchedly northern understanding of the Chant.

"Of course," he adds, with a gesture, "this never accounted for elves, because we can't be too crazy, now can we. But nevertheless, the suggestion that the value and agency of a slave might warrant some interrogation was enough to create quite the stir. As you might imagine."

Does she herself have wine? He darts a look about the desk to see if there's anything to pour something into something else.

[fightingale]

Leliana, perhaps understandably, is a little reticent by reflex when it comes to taking offered wine. The scent of wine in general makes her stomach still churn uncomfortably, so instead of the warm, rich comfort of a heavy red wine with honey and spices, Leliana has to hand some brandy. She has a fondness for it, even if that has its own more painful attachments. It is not Antivan plum, and thus it is not reserved for more serious events. The bottle (horribly expensive, horribly delicious, and a Tevinter vintage to honour her company) and cups stay to the side, Leliana leaned back in her chair to watch Dorian's performance (it is never simply an entrance, with Dorian) with a brow just slightly quirked.

"Maker forbid," she murmurs very quietly and very archly at the mention of elves, head canted to the side as he goes on.

"I, for one, find it hard to imagine any member of House Pavus making a stir." The faintest hint of a smile lurks at the corners of her mouth, though. "Shocking, indeed."

[liberalum]

He smiles at that, while helping himself to brandy once it's identified. At least he pours for her first, a lady-like dose that he matches in his own cup out of an instinctive propriety that works counter against his tendency towards being a lush. The cloying smell of Tevinter alcohol is an immediate fragrance, settling in the space where conversation lies.

"We have a legacy for feather-rustling," he concedes. "A deadly sort of inheritance, I'm afraid. Tiberius was killed and his voting block dispersed. He was found facedown in a fountain before which I was told this tale as a young boy. He hadn't drowned, not exactly -- his neck was said to be roped in magically induced scarring. A cautionary tale, of kinds. Every House worth its reputation has likewise charming anecdotes."

He takes his cup into his hand, foot rolling on ankle with the kind of thoughtful twitch of a cat and its tail. "The manner of death being at least somewhat exceptional. The circumstances, even more so."

[fightingale]

Aha.

"Feather-rustling. A fine choice of words." But now is not the time for fowl matters; indeed, her expression sobers a little, as much as there was room for it to sober. Once Dorian has poured his own brandy, Leliana contemplates the bottle and pours her own, as well.

She is pensive, which is really only remarkable in that it is Leliana being more pensive than usual, and she hums a brief, thoughtful note, apparently making a study in the grain of the wood prior to look back up at Dorian, the polished, pristine manner of his appearance and the contrast of his more posturing which could almost past for a feline sort of laziness.

"It seems rather a grim story to tell a child," Leliana finally replies, "when it has the reality of falling within their own family." Her gaze, is sharp, focused, and entirely different from what it had been when she was lying on the healing bed and struggling to communicate her thoughts within her own mind, let alone anything beyond herself. "One could contend you are not one to learn the lessons of your family history, all things considered."

[liberalum]

The lift of his eyebrows has no idea what she means. The narrow smile in his eyes over a sip of brandy certainly does.

And as for grim stories to tell children, he inspects his fingernails, which could in fact use a little attention after a hard day's penmanship. "I'm a lost cause," he agrees, brightly, attention swooping back up and fixing on her. Glad to see that sharpness returned, in the same way he had been when Bull had, too, lurched out of his own illness, or the dull edge present in Benevenuta's regard when she isn't grieving. It's been lonely, of late. "In more ways than one. You, on the other hand--"

He gestures with his brandy. "--have the luxury of being no magister, and to have survived that which poor great-great-great uncle Tiberius did not."

[fightingale]

"Be well aware, Dorian," she starts, not without a note of severity, "that if anyone else labelled you in such a way I would be forced to less than diplomatic action."

She would have been difficult before he saved her life, because she rather enjoyed Dorian and his dramatics, appreciated to some small degree what it was to lose everything and value freedom for others, even if imperfectly. Now he had saved her life? Well.

"It goes without saying that Uncle Tiberius might have fared rather better if he had the likes of you as a Wicked Grace partner."

[liberalum]

"Better to say that had my father not impressed upon me such a grim tale, I might not have acted so quickly."

And here they are in this territory, as they inevitably would be. She summoned him here, after all, even if you'd scarcely be able to tell due to the fact Dorian has a way of wrangling a conversation in the first instance like it's a duel, or a dance.

But he cedes territory, now, allowing a faint kind of smile -- the kind that is only present as lines at his eyes -- at this first, Lelianaish sentiment.

Ahhhh sorry a family call happened

[fightingale]

"Perhaps that is so." That may be absolutely so, in fact. The pause stretches on for long moments, and she allows herself a very slight smile, a secret lurking at the corners of her mouth.

"But Tiberius never got to appreciate your reaction to the nug card set." And that, let's not forget, is the true moral of the story.

Finally she allows herself a sip of brandy, the warmth rolling on her tongue and down the still-fresh, healing stretch of her throat. "I am indebted to you, Dorian. Thank you."

[liberalum]

Ah, the matter of debt, which always strikes a note with someone like Dorian, no matter how innocently or figuratively someone like Leliana may mean it. (Or not innocently or figuratively at all. He's seen what the future could twist her into.) Grey eyes slit cattish in a rueful kind of way, looking down then at his cup of brandy.

"All of this sincerity. I'll thank you for keeping me in my cups."

But he doesn't drink, just nods at her. "Of course, you're welcome. I'd advise against doing it again. But you can pay me back by not letting such a small matter of near death sway you from your principles, and the voicing thereof."

[fightingale]

"Don't worry. A spymaster can only uphold sincerity so long before we start to lose our edge. It shall all fade away, soon enough."

Quite unseemly, all this emotion. She is softer in her jokes than she might have been before, however, swirling the brandy before her, and then her mouth tugs into a smile. Not so sharp, not so close to a weapon.

"You need not fear that. Neither," Leliana continues, quite calmly, "need you be concerned that I have gotten the glitter in the Rookery. I do not abandon those causes that lie close to my heart."

Saving her life only goes so far.

[liberalum]

The sound Dorian makes is pained, head falling back on the hinge of his spine, but just for a moment. There is still a smile nested subtle at the corner of his mouth. "All that hand wringing and fuss and gallant behaviour for nothing," he says, his relaxed, leg-over-leg poise not adjusting an inch. "I can hardly take the suspense."

But he had thrown some documents on her table, you'll remember in the first tag, and now he picks one of the scrolls up. The seal on this one marks it as belonging to the Grand Archivist of the Imperial Library.

"If I can't call off your revenge, I have another favour to ask."

[fightingale]

"Diversion tactics?" A quiet little tsk tsk. "Rudimentary, Dorian."

And yet she picks up another of those scrolls that I definitely didn't forget about, no no, with an air of indulgence for a moment. Only a moment, mind, before brow quirks as she examines the seals.

"May I?" she asks, raising the scroll just slightly, checking if she might break the seal and make a closer inspection. "I don't imagine your favour involves a recommendation on how best to store your documents."

[liberalum]

"And yet."

There she is, inspecting his offerings. The one she selects is the emblem for the University of Orlais, a one-pager with what is, no doubt, a supremely elegant refusal. Dorian opens the one he's holding after gesturing for her to go ahead, his casual lean listing all the more casual.

"No doubt mine's nicer than yours, but will amount to the same. This one reads, let's see -- Altus Pavus, thank you ever so for writing us, the Inquisition's honours us, blah blah blah, I'm afraid we do not possess the tomes you have requested, if there is anything else we might provide..." He trails off, there, looking to Leliana to confirm the much briefer, if still polite version from the University.

He rolls up his own letter. "As you might have deduced, I'm in need of some reading material."

[fightingale]

"Lulling you into a false sense of security," she replies all too easily, looking over the letter. Her expression still as she reads, the habit of one who keeps secrets and will not let even the reading betray her.

"Ambassador Montilyet would be appalled if we sent correspondence with such penmanship," Leliana adds, more to herself than to Dorian. Her voice is still rougher than it used to be, but it is not quite so monstrous as it had been.

"Do you suspect that they deny you based on your name, or do you think that more resourceful methods and channels of acquisition might be necessary?"

[liberalum]

Dorian picks back up his brandy, knocking back the rest in a neat tip, turning it in his hand as she considers the letter, and asks her questions. "As tempting as it is to indulge in my own notoriety, I've an inkling there's more to it than just that. The document in question is what I expect to be a very unwieldy tome called the Liberalum, something that delves very deeply into certain aspects of Tevinter history -- concerning lineage, to be precise -- and may help us trace the mortal origins of our Corypheus.

"I've done my own digging, and by rights it should be housed in the Minrathous library, but the Archivist, who is an unhelpful shambling cadaver on a good day, denies its presence. The matter warrants some investigation."

[fightingale]

"I see."

It made rather more sense than Dorian simply being on a quest for his own entertainment. "And here I thought you were trying any means possible to escape Cassandra's recommendations."

Droll commentary aside, Leliana sets down the scroll, and picks up the bottle of brandy in a silent offer to refill Dorian's cup, should he wish.

"I could deploy scouts for the task, though something makes me suspect you'd be ill-satisfied with so distant an involvement."

[liberalum]

Dorian lazily proffers his cup for the refill, and smiles thinly at her words. "No, please, by all means, send your scouts if you've any to spare. If we've been lied to, horror of horrors, and it really is in Minrathous, the light touch of your little birds will be necessary for its extraction. I wouldn't call it the best time for me to swan back into the Imperium, you'll understand.

"But if it isn't, then you'd be able to cast a wider net than I, and if you manage to catch anything--"

He tips his head. Involvement, as she put it. "I want to know where it is and why it's there almost as much as I want its contents."

[fightingale]

Plot twist: she refuses to refill his cup.
No, just kidding. She's not quite so trollish as that, or at least not to Dorian.

"Of course."

To all points, really. She is entirely in agreement. "I will dispatch ravens at the first opportunity. Identifying Corphyeus' origins could be key to learning more of how all might be unravelled. Do you have any particular suspicions?"