[ open?? closed? schrödinger's log?? ] heroes always get remembered

[goodforsaken]

WHO: Lex Luthor, assorted guest stars, and YOU??
WHAT: General intro purposes? Get you some arms and armor made, Inquisition! Geek out in the library! Be confused by the incongruous noble all up in the Undercroft!
WHEN: Approximately now - the end of August.
WHERE: Skyhold: the Undercroft + Library + the buffet option
NOTES: Starters in comments. As it stands no warnings are required; I'll edit here a/o subject lines if that changes. Here is Lex's info post for anyone who'd like to run with the idea that they've heard of him/had contact before!

Being possessed of the incredibly informed opinion most not!Orlesians have of Orlais when they've only ever visited and spoken mostly to people wearing silly hats, Lex is more than comfortable with his first forays into the Inquisition taking place in Skyhold and not Halamshiral. That's where he's ultimately most useful anyway; he suffers no illusions regarding any diplomatic capabilities that don't involve ensnaring largeish globs of money.

The day side ....globbage occurs, however, is not this day or, nor is it whatever other days this log ends up involving. No, instead here we are in Skyhold, where Lex's general occupancy encompasses the following:

Comments

[goodforsaken]

It's true, according to a certain unofficial Skyhold census the people shorter than he are pretty much entirely elves and dwarves, hurr. Whatever, that just means he's closer to the Stone. Which if he believed in any religious concept, it would be that. He doesn't, however--what he does believe in is the ability of a person to be exceptional on their own merits. To wit:

"Do they? Should I be pleased to be upholding common standards? Or embarrassed to be so common?"

Ha, ha ha. He's just going to rest on the idea that while it might not be dire, he could probably hold her attention here. At least a little. With ridiculous wordplay and dragon parts.

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle scrutinises him carefully, which is really only helped by the fact she does it over the thin, gold rims of her reading glasses, lips quirked to one side, a little tilt back of her chin to get, presumably, the more thorough picture of the man. That she doesn't actually frame him with her fingers is presumably a show of unprecedented restraint in a young lady not known for that at all, except when trying to get Sisters Nightingale to become less interested in her and her affairs.

"I don't think," she says, at length and after apparently much deliberation, "that you are either very common or think yourself to be."

And she doesn't mean the title, although 'nobleman becomes blacksmith' is sort of inherently unlikely, and one of the things which caught the attention he now has and might yet hold. He doesn't seem quite in step with everything around him, but indifferently, in the same sort of a way as she's so admired in Morrigan.

Standing in the middle of a river and saying, you, water. Go around me.

[goodforsaken]

That's damn right. Also, carry my bags upstream, if you would.

Uh. Anyway. He does what is only semiconsciously a similar lip quirk; his mouth turns down at the corners, giving his resting face a deceptively pensive cast, so his one-sided smiles are S-shaped. As it's been said before but must be defined again.

"The lady is perceptive." He's ...like composed entirely of ego and good hair. "I do strive not to be. But the same could be said of yourself, no? You can't be what's common in Orlais."

Spoken like a Marcher who has never been there, even if he's. You know, correct.

[elegiaque]

A factual observation. Possibly nothing more or less, although she thinks it's a compliment, actually. She wants it to be a compliment, it tastes like one, it isn't even as if she so admires all of those things she isn't - but where it lodges between her ribs is an old wound still sluggishly bleeding and although her smile comes quick it isn't pretty, not those first few moments.

After that. She can be winsome, when she wants to be - but not at first.

"The lady is a thing unto herself," she says, playful, as if pretending that never happened means it didn't. "It's more interesting that way."

[goodforsaken]

Lex often lets things like that go by, because the last thing he wants to do is poke the sluggish wounds of other people--then you have to either deal with the fact that they're bleeding, or not deal with it, and frankly although he is far more comfortable with the latter than sane people, well.

"It was a compliment," he clarifies, looking at her with far more bald scrutiny than she would probably like, then, look softening: "But I can see that."

That the lady is a thing unto herself. On anyone else it would be flirty, but it cannot possibly be on Lex, because like, that would mean the world was ending and it's already doing that.

[elegiaque]

A number of protests come to mind and the tip of her tongue; that she knew that, what's he fucking looking at, everyone compliments her because she's perfect, thanks much. How presumptuous, to reassure her -

The other thing his face does, though. The thing that isn't looking uncomfortably through her and all of her weaknesses. She likes that, slightly more than she wants to - to embarrass herself any further with transparent objections.

"I think I do better here."

Stop the presses because she's not said as much out loud before.