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

[ungovernable]

Oftentimes, Benevenuta is taken for a younger woman than she truly is - an impression she does little to counter and plays into more often than not - but probably not now, with the slight tilt of her head and the quirked edge of her smile, the decisive steadiness of her in contrast to what actual fluttering youth looks like when it's been taken off-guard. Everything about her seems somehow both perfectly natural (as if she simply is the way that she is, like the wind shifted and there she was, fully formed) and entirely deliberate (even her traveling clothes are painstakingly embroidered, well-made and tailored to her specification, not a hair out of place or a moment of wasted expression) - and immovably patient.

"You don't," she assures her, her gaze dropping momentarily to the paper in her hands when inadvertently prompted and interest sharpening when she looks back up. "Lady Benevenuta Thevenet, of the Inquisition's Mage Council. Allow me to welcome you."

At this point, it's not really optional, but she is very sweet about it.

[anacardiaceae]

The woman's eyes are very blue, Pamelia realizes, and something in Pamelia's chest makes a frightened, abortive movement. She feels trapped, not caged as she does around Templars and unfamiliar, laughing men, backed into a corner and ready to lash out, all teeth and claws - but pinned, like a moth on glass.

She doesn't want to seem enthralled, or frightened. To that effect, she struggles to keep her shoulders down and back, her hands level. Her eyes go to the floor as she bobs in her kneel, inclining her head once more. Yet she suspects the Lady Thevenet can see right through to the core of her, all because she couldn't keep her eyes up and off the damned paper.

"M'Lady." Something should follow that, shouldn't it? Something that makes Pamelia sound less like a possible fool. "Thank you."

Well, that probably wasn't it. "I'm from the Circle in Dairsmuid. I...was not there when it was Annulled, nor later when the Inquisition sent a group to rescue survivors. I made my way to Halamshiral instead."

[ungovernable]

"I was only now there," Benevenuta says, reflectively. "But for happenstance, we might have met in Orlais. Will you return at all, with the Inquisition?"

She intends to, herself; this is a flying visit back to Skyhold, one she doesn't intend to be sufficiently long enough to justify changing out of her practical traveling attire for any purpose other than sleep. Work has been a gift of the Maker in a trying time, when there is too much to be done to make much space for one woman's grief at an inevitability. She keeps herself too occupied to retreat back into that quiet dark where she'd buried her head in Dorian's shoulder and allowed herself the weakness that had made her monstrous to some by its absence -

And every day it gets a little bit less tempting, but there is only one way to stay ahead, and that's to keep running.

"I've heard a little on the Annulment. May I ask how you avoided it? I understand if you prefer not to..." A small gesture. "I catch you quite unprepared."

[anacardiaceae]

"I suspect I will." There's uncertainty, as Pamelia hasn't quite figured out just what she's doing, or how best to be useful. It's apparent, she knows, but that's what she gets for joining a populist movement without any real ins. "I haven't quite determined where I'm best put to use, here." In Halamshiral she mixed potions and poisons alike; here they seem to have an abundance of those who can do both, and with greater proficiency than Pamelia can.

"It's fine." To be unprepared. She usually feels unprepared, these days. It's a fair question and the more chances Pamelia has to answer it honestly, the better. "I had been sent to gather rare herbs near the border, several day's ride away. When I returned...I did not know where to look for survivors. I only knew that everyone who had been in the tower was dead."

Papers in hand, she makes her way to her feet and shuffles her notes until she has a free hand to offer Benevenuta.

[ungovernable]

"There is a use for every tool," Benevenuta says, rising smoothly with her hand in Pamelia's; there's a warmth to the way that she says it, an earnestness that softens what could otherwise be a rather harsh sentiment when applied to. People.

(It is. The softness, though; that's true, too.)

"And a great many for mages who have not merely survived. As, I think, we might all say of ourselves, now that we are here; we have not only survived. The difference between life and death is sometimes so small as that..." A tilt of her head, and the quality of her smile is a wry and small thing, something coiled and coiling - surviving was easier for some than others. For her, than others. She knows. What they do with that matters, too. "What do we do, then? I would like to say 'what we must', but I see it is easy for some not to."

She presses Pamelia's arm lightly with her hand before she lets go, summoning Husband back to her heels with a click of her tongue, setting the papers down on the desk.

"To have come here to act is a valuable thing. A little thing, yes; but we need a lot of little things to do anything at all."

[anacardiaceae]

"Survivors always do what they must to continue surviving, or they are not survivors any longer." Pamelia fights the desire to smooth her hair, retuck it, something, and instead presses her palms against the skirt of her robe. Maintains eye contact, even though she wants to hide behind her papers, hyperaware of her own roughness and flaws in the presence of someone who appears to have few to none.

Yet the Lady touched her arm, a gentle show of camaraderie.

"Some are allowed to forget what that means, by design or circumstance. I don't assume myself to be one of that few and I don't know I would know what to do with such...settled complacency." Yet she finds herself here, uncertain how to move forward. In the Circle she was told, usually. While she doesn't miss it, per se, there's something to be said for knowing exactly where one stands amongst others.

She thinks of what it means, to be a tool, and whether or not she has always put herself to the best use. "I wish to learn. There are more teachers here than I would have imagined, but I also wish to be...effective. Not just a student."

[ungovernable]

"It's occasionally necessary to be the student first," Benevenuta observes, her lopsided smile rueful; she likes it no more, herself, has never set herself a task she didn't expect to be equal to in time. (In her mind, there are no such tasks - if she sets herself to it, it will be done. It might take longer, if she must learn, but it will be done. The world has yet to strongly correct her.)

Still; there's approval in the way that warmth lingers as the smile fades. Pamelia could have said a lot of things - could have, for instance, dismissed what was in essence an unasked for and possibly condescendingly unnecessary pep talk - but few of those things, probably, would have cemented her as swiftly in Benevenuta's mind as someone to keep an eye and perhaps a hand on. The uncertainty is there, yes; not only that, though, and she likes the hint of another, sturdier shape that can be found in those words.

"Don't discount the value of what you do when you learn, either. All eyes are on us in Skyhold, you know. This is what mages look like to the world, right now, when all is in uproar." The small way she leans in invites confidence; she smiles, again, tilting her head. "I, for one, take some pride in what they will see."

Most of the time.

The Council occasionally does her fucking head in -

but, while they might not all agree on what 'the best thing for mages' is going to be, at least she respects that that's what they all want.

[anacardiaceae]

It may be rueful but in that smile Pamelia feels a spark of something - comradery, perhaps, colored by her interest in this woman and all she represents, bolstered by her approval. She knows it is necessary to learn, perhaps to continue learning throughout one's life, yet her hands and mind itch to be more active than passive in that learning.

Thus, the notes that are on the table, where one of Pamelia's hands lingers to keep herself from fidgeting.

"I will strive to remember that." She smiles yet there's still a bit of shyness there, the way she ducks her head in slight. At home she was a fixture, but still an outsider; at Dairsmuid, even more of an outsider still. Here, with the Inquisition, that will not do. That all eyes are on the mages, that she finds herself as one of the many setting an example for all of Thedas, would be frightening if she allowed it to be.

Being frightened to the point of timidity is not an option.

With that in mind she pulls her head back up. "If I may ask, my Lady: what would you suggest I turn my attentions to? There are so many options, I fear....I don't quite know where to begin."

[ungovernable]

The only way to be brave is to be a little afraid, too, else it's just ignorance with a prettier costume. Benevenuta does not object, conceptually, to instilling a bit of healthy fear (not of her, of course, never of her) in the mages who look to her for this thing or the other; what they do with it, then, interests her greatly.

What Pamelia will do with it interests her.

Her fingers tap the treatise on diluting poisons and she smiles, again, which does have the potential to be a little bit unsettling - not in some sharpness, but in its easy lack thereof. As if this is all terribly normal. "Is this a particular interest of yours, dear?"

[anacardiaceae]

Pamelia can conceive of a variety of reasons not to be truthful, but in the end, she wants to trust the Lady before her, and that wanting wins out over any hesitation she might feel otherwise.

"Yes. It always has been." Even before the incident with the men and the bears, she'd wondered about potions and poisons begin distributed to groups at large, to help or hinder. "Poisons and potions both, how they move through water, if they can be tasted, if they can be neutralized." She nods, swallowing.

[ungovernable]

"Then I recommend you keep your attentions where they already lie," she says, immediately, glancing down at the paper once again. "On the subject of poisons, I might recommend a number of texts you will find very interesting - it is a particular area of expertise for me."

There's a reason that the assassins who trundle about with the Wardens in their camp are so polite to such a mild thing as Lady Thevenet.

"A very valuable area of study, if I'm to give my opinion, and the better to devote your time to something that will be no hardship to do. I would be very interested in your progress."

[anacardiaceae]

"Thank you. I would appreciate that." She'd been trying to read up on her own, pulling books more or less at random from the library, as long as it seemed to be on the nature of plants and their various uses; informative, but not the best method by far.

She clasps her hands together and smiles, looking away briefly before squaring her shoulders again. "What method would be best to communicate my progress to you?"