she planned ahead for a year, he said let's play it by ear

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, Benevenuta Thevenet, and YOU.
WHAT: A catch-all.
WHEN: This month.
WHERE: Skyhold, Orlais.
NOTES: Hit me up on plurk (matriarchal) or discord (demis#8828) if you want a starter! Or feel free to pop something in yourself, ~wild cards~ I'll roll with it. This is just the ~ladies~ because I want to hold off on new Martel stuff until plot progresses. Also, starters in the comments because #aesthetic.

Comments

cosima ; i thought i saw the devil this morning

[elegiaque]

( GENTLY BACKDATED to shortly after cosima contacted her. )

For all Gwenaëlle's not terribly subtle dubiousness of rifters in general and being pestered by one in particular - Cosima's efforts to engage politely and thoughtfully does bear some fruit, or at least it does result in the young lady herself making herself known in the library in due course. She's hard to miss for all that she's a small thing, finely dressed in dark hues and her very accurate depiction on her pamphlets making her promptly recognisable.

Which is for the best, because she doesn't really know who on earth it is she's meeting and when she sits down it's with some exasperation on that count. Why did she agree to this.

[youwonscience]

Cosima smiles - small, brief - with pleasure that Gwenaëlle deigned to actually show up. She knows that she has very little to offer, in her current situation, and has been trying to avoid actively pestering anyone, much less the nobility. That said... she likes to know things, and the pamphlets are very well-written.

(And, perhaps a little vainly, Cosima is glad that it's been a good week, health-wise. She may be slightly pale, but Gwen is distractingly pretty in person, and looking like death warmed over might have made her more self-conscious.)

The smile doesn't linger, though, given Gwen's attitude. Instead, she says, frankly, "Lady Vauquelin." She either asked or got lucky pronouncing it like French. "Thank you for talking with me. I know it was presumptuous to just write you the way I did, but I really did find your pamphlets helpful."

[elegiaque]

"Cosima," she guesses, by way of greeting - she does manage to pull together something that looks a bit more receptive than the heavy way she'd dropped into her seat as if in anticipation of lessons she isn't interested in, so there's that. (And she's a bit prettier when she's a bit less sullen, so there's that, as well.)

Not butchering her name is another tick in the 'pro' column.

"I'm happy to discuss my work," which might be a slight exaggeration, but - maybe not that much, really. She is passionate about what she does, for all that she sort of sidled into it out of slight despair for what on earth to do with herself. "I hadn't really intended it for a Skyhold audience, but I suppose it might be useful."

To foreigners. Really, really foreigners.

[youwonscience]

Cosima is totally capable of dealing with pretty, demonstrably smart women of vastly elevated social standing who are no longer frowning. That's. It's fine. This is all going to be fine.

"I mean, there's nothing that's really aimed at Rifters so far, and I know some people who came the way I did are pretty much not interested in anything besides 'can I get home' and 'if so how.' But for those of us trying to actually catch up to a whole world's worth of current events at once..." Cosima shrugs, with a half smile, a little rueful. "If you don't mind my asking, how did you come to start them?"

lexa ; you're a doll you are flawless

[elegiaque]

( GENTLY BACKDATED prior to shardbearer plot. )

It isn't that she doesn't expect Lexa, per se.

She is still, as she'd said to Bellamy when the subject first arose, quite interested in learning more about the Avvar; it isn't really something that her friendship with Asher had touched on (a tangle to be unraveled another day, or maybe never), and though she's recently spent time at his hold, it hadn't felt like an appropriate moment to start pumping relative strangers for information about their lives and ways. Opportunistic in a way that -

Well, maybe she is, but she hadn't wanted to be, right then.

So. It had been an impetus to make it known that she would quite like to speak with the Avvar woman, Lexa, if she would be - willing, and there's been so much else to think on that she'd done so and then thought no more of it, and the long and the short of it is that when Lexa does arrive, Guenievre visibly hesitates before,

"Oh, let her in, maybe she'll have an opinion,"

prompts her to show Lexa properly into Gwenaëlle's room.

The reason for her hesitation is probably obvious immediately; Gwenaëlle scrutinizing a full-length and fully nude portrait of herself in front of her fireplace, the soft robe she's typically not out of until a bit later in the afternoon only loosely belted around the not-oil version of her body, one small fist pressed to her mouth as she contemplates her own back view.

[heda]

Lexa has also taken her time responding to the invitation. Entertaining the curious scrutiny of some Orlesian noble does not sound like a fun or worthwhile way to spend her time. But eventually curiosity wins out, and not only because she's discovered the Lady Gwenaëlle is the woman she saw with Clarke in the baths that day.

(Not a day she likes to dwell on. She's almost certain that no one but Clarke would have noticed her reaction at all, in the split-second between recognition and resuming her usual stony mask, let alone been able to read it for the flare of surprise and envy and hurt [stupid, unwarranted hurt] it was. But still.)

She's curious what this lady wants, curious to learn more of the people she'll be encountering on the trip to the Inquisition camp at Halamshiral she's already decided to make. Curious to see whether she is good enough for Clarke.

When she'd wondered that she hadn't meant physically. And yet that is the question that gets immediately, surprisingly answered as she is ushered into the lady's room and confronted with the lady herself and her even-less-dressed avatar. The Avvar are far from prudish, but Lexa's not immune to sudden and unexpected and unfairly attractive asses. She comes close enough to blushing that she wishes for her war paint, just in case. But it doesn't quite go that far, thank the gods, and she swallows her initial surprise and lifts a brow in cool question.

"Am I interrupting?"

[elegiaque]

For a moment the poses almost match; the painted version of Gwenaëlle glances back over her shoulder at the artist, and the physical one half-turns as well, having apparently decided to brazen this out as if nothing that's happening right now is at all out of the usual.

"Not really," she sighs. "I've had this thing sitting here for weeks, I've been trying to decide if I should have it finished or not. Well; I suppose it was finished," and the artist paid handsomely for his work, "but it was painted before I had any of these scars," one hand smoothing down her torso, around her hip, following the line of a slash that's not impossible to catch the shadow of through her robe.

The scarring is extensive. It would be more accurate. Maybe it wouldn't be as nice a picture, though.

She wrinkles her nose, turning properly, a little laugh in her voice - "I don't even know what I'm going to do with it either way, now. You must be the Thane. Is that the title I use? In conversation?"

[heda]

That's a very sheer robe, to allow Lexa to get the general impression of the scarring beneath the path of Gwenaëlle's hand. She considers it for a moment, and then the painting, inuring herself to the sight (of her naked, not her scars), which apparently she will have to endure throughout this interview unless she's prepared to flee, which she is not.

Still, she isn't prepared to offer an opinion on the portrait, and thankfully has not been asked for one. Her own title is a much safer subject, and (hopefully) one more relevant to the conversation for which she has been invited.

"I am Thane of Towerhold," she confirms, "But above that I am Commander of the alliance. That would be the appropriate title, Lady Gwenaëlle. What caused you to seek this audience?"

pamelia ; grace is just weakness or so i've been told

[ungovernable]

In Orlais, there has been much to do.

Probably that has something to do with why Benevenuta has not been about to sweep purposefully through the library for some time; she comes in not like a breeze or something light, like a controlled hurricane, her traveling coat flaring behind her in place of her curls with her hair tightly braided into the soft brown coronet she wears to keep it out of trouble on the road. The small, pretty spaniel that sometimes drifts about between the stacks - well trained, well behaved, prone to watching the staircases and lowering her curious head sadly at the various comings and goings - rushes her feet and those of the mabari at her heels, and -

Benevenuta softens, and for all that she has a sharp little face, fox-featured, it seems far more natural than the chilly distraction that has wrapped about her like a cloak for weeks now.

"Hello, my darling," she murmurs, Nevarra in every word, "my little love, are you missing us very terribly? I neglect you, it's awful - perhaps I will bring you this time, they will adore you in Orlais, pretty thing--"

[anacardiaceae]

It's the movement of the dog that first brings Pamelia from the depths of her sleep, tucked into a stuffed chair, limbs folded underneath and around her - the tinny clip of nails on stone, and then the breathing of a heavier dog, and then...

Nevarran. High Nevarran, as her mother would call it, and her chest twists at the memory. Yet Pamelia's curiosity gets the best of her; she tilts her head and then her whole self from the stacks into the hall proper, near the curve of the stairwell. She'd fallen asleep near a table still covered with her drawings and tree-like notations on reagents; without intending, she manages to knock half the stack of papers onto the floor.

Thus, she only gets the barest of glances at the woman before the noise has her starting, immediately kneeling down to gather up the mess. Her own hair is in a haphazard twist that's come half down since she began nodding off, and there's a quill amongst the riotous curls.

She glances up just in time to make unexpected eye contact, immediately inclining her head out of respect but keeping her mouth firmly shut. It would be just her luck to annoy someone in power here before she even managed to learn names.

[ungovernable]

"Beg your pardon," Benevenuta says, politely, straightening from where she'd ducked down to reacquaint herself with Husband - who whines, immediately, pressing her head into her mistress's ankle - to take in the burst of chaos she seems to have caused. "I don't believe we've met yet...?"

But 'probable mage doing research in the library' is immediately relevant to her interests, and she only needs to give herself a little push to slide smoothly into familiar grooves. Time passes - not enough - but it gets easier, carefully undoing the brittle way she'd withdrawn.

That isn't her. Isn't how she operates, and she isn't useful like that.

No; much moreso when she smiles, head tilted, coming down to help Pamelia gather her papers.

[anacardiaceae]

"Ah," is what Pamelia manages at first; she hadn't expected the woman to come down to her level, and she's suddenly struck with the scent of rose water, light and soft.

She's aware of her own heavy woolen robes, meant more for the impending winter than for any sort of fashion, even amongst mages. Aware of how she likely smells mostly of upturned earth and dried white baneberries, and how the hem of said robes are stained with said earth. There's ink on the tips of her thumb and index finger on the right, and on the whole she feels a bit young and a lot frazzled, but perhaps she should actually say something now.

Yes.

"I've only just arrived." Her accent is Rivaini, through and through, though it carries with it the rougher connotation of one educated a little later in life than childhood. "Pamelia Islain. I didn't mean to..."

In Benevenuta's hands are notes on poisons best diluted in water. "Disturb." Her eyes are large, and dark, as she looks back up from the papers to the woman holding them.

josephine ; pink toes pressed against the carpet show your face and finish what you started

[elegiaque]

It's only later - Yngvi on his way, now, and Emeric Vauquelin's liquor-soaked rage a fading memory - that specific consequences to this series of actions begin to occur to Gwenaëlle, for as anxious as she'd been almost immediately at the amorphous 'trouble' she might as a result of all this be in. A few ideas she dismisses out of hand, but there is one not-unlikely inconvenience that can probably account for the fact that when she reaches Josephine's office she is slightly out of breath, clutching the skirts of her gown off the stone floors with one hand -

Gwenaëlle composes herself. He couldn't have done anything yet. And probably Yngvi won't arrive for a few days. It isn't urgent.

Everything is fine, and she's very calm.

This is all fine.

It takes her a moment to unclench her fingers from her skirts before she opens the door and it occurs to her, belatedly, that she'd taken such care to do so that she forgot to, for instance, knock or announce herself.

"--my lady ambassador, may I steal your attention? For a little. It's a small thing."

[theproperglove]

Fortunately, Josephine is still in her office on this occasion - these letters won't write themselves, however much she is beginning to wish they could - when Gwenaëlle bursts into the room in a relative state of disarray. Josephine doesn't let much surprise show on her face but it is there, in the almost imperceptible lift of her eyebrows. "Lady Vauquelin," she starts, laying her quill across her parchment and giving Gwenaëlle the courtesy of her full attention, "I do believe I have the time. Is something wrong?"

[elegiaque]

"No."

The answer is automatic; she reconsiders it, smoothing her skirts fastidiously as she comes properly into the room - takes a seat opposite Josephine's desk without waiting to be invited to, lips pursed.

(The problem is how often she catches herself only afterwards, and what she can often get away with as the charming eccentricity of a pretty girl in Orlais is less likely to play well in Skyhold, where people play games with other people's lives that actually matter. At least, in Skyhold, if they're less likely to be charmed they're also less likely to have someone killed for minor failures in etiquette.)

"Well, probably not," she amends, "or, well, maybe, but not in a way that will actually - I don't know if you've been listening to the crystals."

[theproperglove]

With the remark about the crystals, things start to fall into place, but only just. She does her best to keep up-to-date with the conversations but sometimes, busy as she is, she can only skim some days.

Her brow creases slightly as she tries to remember. "I do believe I recall something about a dwarf... and a burglary?" She finds herself wishing she had paid more attention now, so she wouldn't feel so caught unaware.

[tactical_alert]

While Benevenuta has been in Orlais seeing to her own business and, occasionally, the Inquisition's business, Malcolm has been mostly holed up in Skyhold, or out on missions. The latest has taken him into Orlais properly, and Cassandra's birthday get-together even saw him around Halamshiral.

Perhaps he'd been missing Orlais in a way, as much as anyone still Fereldan at heart might be able to. That, and the tense political atmosphere he had avoided before intrigues him now. Whoever takes control (or keeps it) might impact the Seekers, should they ever get rebuilt and resettle in the country, and it will certainly impact the Inquisition.

It strikes him that it's been some time since he's seen Lady Thevenet. And there is no reason to not be social here. Much has happened, to each of them or to those around each of them. Things that they aren't likely to speak about, of course. Things they will speak around, at best.

The cafe is small (for a given definition of small, in Orlais) and tucked into a corner in which one can see all the entrances. He recalls the food being well-priced and the drinks sweet, a small treasure of a hole in the wall, and it is here he has suggested the good Lady carve out a little time from her busy schedule to converse with a friend. (For a given definition of friend, to Benevenuta.)

[ungovernable]

In Orlais, all of Benevenuta's business is the Inquisition's business; she would argue strenuously to include even her portrait sitting, given where she and Dorian intend it ought to hang. A light-hearted bit of business, but all the same: it is a gift to the Inquisition, for morale. Hers has been so low - can anyone begrudge it?

Probably. Certainly if they were to, as speculatively discussed, inflict it on Cullen Rutherford. Still.

But it's rare enough that Seeker Reed wishes to be social, and she is more than passing fond of him, in her peculiar way - so she is prompt, at designated time and place, dutifully wearing the fine Orlesian mask that the former Templar Nerva Lecuyer had crafted for her some months prior, matched well with the silver-grey gown that fits here a little better than it ever does in Skyhold. How convenient, she had thought, that she'd not had need to select another when coming here. It costs her little to bow to Orlesian social conventions, and gains her much.

"My friend," she greets him, warmly, and if it is still a little less than it had been -

She's getting there.

[tactical_alert]

If it were pointed out to him, he would certainly admit that his socialising, at least outside of Skyhold, is unusual. But how else should he make time for one he knew before the formation of the Inquisition--summon her back to the mountain fortress? No, he is here, and so is she.

Despite being in Orlais, despite having been in and around Orlais for many years, Malcolm doesn't adopt the customs of masks and finery outside of balls and events. He is still Fereldan and an outside force, as a Seeker and as part of the Inquisition. Not to say he looks rough; of course he's cleaned himself up. But perhaps he sticks out. Let it be so. As much as her following of customs is a political move in itself, he can see his willful ignorance of such the same.

One must always be aware of the Game in Orlais, and one must always be aware of games with Benevenuta. He stands, takes her hand and bows over it, and pulls out a chair for her. "My dearest Lady. I'm so pleased you could find the time to join me. The work here must never be done, I imagine, but I certainly hope you will eventually find yourself back in Skyhold more frequently. The halls are so dreary without your presence to grace them."

[ungovernable]

"Why, Malcolm, you incorrigible flirt."

--is said terribly dryly, as she pauses before sitting to bestow kisses upon his cheeks. Or near his cheeks, at least; the half-mask doesn't make it impossible, but kissing the air is a bit easier, and he will probably find it in himself to survive without the touch of her lips. When she does sit, she arranges her skirts with habitual fastidiousness, back straight, small smile firmly in place, a pretty picture of someone who is perfectly in control of how she wishes to be seen.

Grief does not loosen its hold so easy, but Benevenuta does very few things in her life the easy way.

More candidly, "It has been too long. Seeker Pentaghast keeps you busy?"

A perfectly innocent inquiry.

Gwen - Battlements - After Posting Her Observations

[universal_charm]

It is not all that often that Kirk sees a face he recognizes when he walks across the battlements, especially at night. Usually he is rather alone up here, which is just fine by him. He liked to come up high to look at the stars, to continue his somewhat pointless exercise of creating constellations, and to turn over his thoughts about this strange world he found himself in even six months on.

"You're Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, aren't you?" he asked of the woman, putting a somewhat Earth-French inflection on her name. It looked like a French name to him, so he took a stab at it, but for all he knew he butchered it. Wouldn't be the first time, honestly. "The one who puts out the observation pamphlets?"

[elegiaque]

"Lady Vauquelin," she corrects, automatically, for all that he does win her willingness to acknowledge him without it by dint of not entirely butchering her given name; close enough and with that other accent that his effort is apparent, and not begrudged. "I do write those pamphlets."

He isn't immediately recognisable as... anyone or anything in particular. She studies him for a moment, trying to place the face; one she's seen around, a voice she might've heard on the crystals, but nothing springs immediately identifying to mind.

"You have the advantage of me, ser."

[universal_charm]

He inclined his head in apology at the correction, making a mental tab in his head that she was one of the ones who insisted upon rank. He wasn't much of a fan of it, personally, but no sense in ruffling feathers unnecessarily - and he was a stranger to her.

He took no offense for not being recognized. He hardly expected to be and he kept his shard wrapped up beneath bandages on his hand. Even in Skyhold it had become a habit, a process in his waking routine that simply felt wrong not to do after six months of the practice. And he didn't want to much stand out anyways. This wasn't his world, he would rather not make his way into those history books.

"James Tiberius Kirk," he introduced himself with a slight bow at chest level. "But Jim will do just fine," he grinned.

Benevenuta: Overdue Apology

[fleurdesel]

It is easy to put something off when there are piles of paperwork at hand. When a professional relationship hasn't suffered- for Benevenuta is nothing if not perfectly civil when they must discuss business. Work is one thing- the cool void where there had once been comfortable camaraderie? Is another. For a time it had been simple enough to put it from her mind- finding the right words to make amends for so gross an assumption, so deep and unfounded meddling-

She does not have them. She has only a gesture learned from her father, something idly mentioned before the mission that saw her misstep so gravely. A tart, carefully made, perfectly baked, still warm in her hands when she knocks upon Dorian's door to speak to Benevenuta.

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta has expected her, though she'd made few guesses as to how long it might take; before First Night was so far as she'd commit to, the intricate interplay between pride, the value of friendship and the simple fact of how much else they've both had to do a complicated thing. And, she thinks, the wisdom of leaving it--

there are those who would seethe, all this time. She isn't one of them. She is one who will cut harder the sooner she's pressed; time for the harshest edge of her temper to ease is necessary. She would not have forgiven Adelaide quickly. She hasn't entirely decided if she wishes to now, when she opens the door, but she hasn't dismissed it, either.

So there's that.

The tart gets the barest trace of a smile that doesn't quite soften her, but she makes no move to take it as she steps aside to let Adelaide come in and say her piece.