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

[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?"