![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
[ closed ] go ahead and cry little girl, nobody does it like you do
WHO: Gwenaƫlle Vauquelin, Lex Luthor, Alistair, Bellamy Blake, Thranduil, Herian Amsel.
WHAT: Comte Vauquelin has information and records for the Inquisition. A small group including his daughter go to collect it. Everything is fine.
WHEN: End of Kingsway.
WHERE: Orlais, the Vauquelin estate.
NOTES: Violence, character death, assholes.
WHAT: Comte Vauquelin has information and records for the Inquisition. A small group including his daughter go to collect it. Everything is fine.
WHEN: End of Kingsway.
WHERE: Orlais, the Vauquelin estate.
NOTES: Violence, character death, assholes.
no subject
But she supposes if there were anything else behind it, it must have been her father's doing. He hasn't tried to speak with her, but she sees his hand in the small ways the party is accommodated in their stay, in the provisions made for her herself. She hopes -
He does hurt, she knows it. How she feels about that is complicated.
Another shrug, then, "No. I'm fine." Physically. When he moves she doesn't, folds her hands in her lap and looks down at them; she is running out of subjects to shift to, if he will insist in not being segued. "Councillor Amsel has gone on early. The Inquisition is sending her with some of the tame Dalish to make some sort of," and her evenness can't disguise the contempt with which she uses this next word, "'diplomatic' effort with the clan that sent that attack."
no subject
"I should be with them." His hands curl into almost-fists; he sounds nothing so much as disappointed in himself, angered at the restrictions this state puts upon him. He should be with them. He is here, this is part of his purpose, this needful death and aggression needs to stop, and if not, be redirected. Thranduil reaches up to tuck hair behind his ear. "Herian is a poor choice to send on a task that will doubtlessly require tact and diplomacy. This will only lead to more bloodshed."
Thranduil finds himself curious as to how the Dalish sent by the Inquisition are handling her.
He... respects Herian, if for nothing else than the strength of her convictions. That those convictions will likely lead her to murder or deplorable cruelty means he'll never particularly like her but- it takes a strong personality to maintain such fallacies and juggle them against the facts of reality.
no subject
"I certainly hope so, but she told me that martyring them for what they've done would only create more violence and give them an opportunity to think themselves justified in vengeance."
And it still annoys her. The archer that had loosed the arrow killing her mother was dead - dead within minutes of his actions, Lex's knife buried in him - but it didn't feel anything like enough. It leaves her cold to think of, which perhaps might mean that bloody vengeance is not going to satisfy anything, but on the other hand, maybe it just means there hasn't been enough.
no subject
Instead: "I wish her luck." That's the best way about it, when Gwenaƫlle seems upset- on edge- not about what might have been done to her but what, instead, was done to Guenievre. Who was possibly bedding Gwenaƫlle's father, but he can't be sure. There's very few other ways to explain the odd push-and-pull between the two of them. The behaviors that were, he thinks. Gwenaƫlle will never speak with him about it. They are not close enough and she wouldn't make herself vulnerable.
"Will you come to see me tomorrow?" He, however, isn't wholly above asking. His head is cocked, even if by degrees, still not reaching out to touch her, still not asking much of her.
no subject
It's not as sharp as it might be; as she can be. It's not spiteful, but - tired, a little, when the matter of what she wants done to the Dalish for attacking them is set aside and she has to sit here in living with it. For the rest of her life. She'd been reluctant to come when he asked for her and having done so -
It isn't any different than she imagined it would be, and besides how swiftly they'll run out of conversational topics that aren't going to start a fight (if she were thinking of it more clearly, perhaps she'd be surprised she got away with that tame Dalish remark), she simply doesn't have the energy required to sit with him and keep her composure. That she doesn't know how to grieve Guenievre doesn't mean she doesn't need to. Whatever it is he needs of her, she doesn't think she has it. Later. When the worst of all this passes, when she doesn't have to think so hard about not screaming, when just sitting here doesn't feel horrifically exposing - not now.
She shakes her head, shrugs, and doesn't explain herself.
no subject
"The door is closed, Gwenaƫlle, and there is hardly anyone with their ear pressed to the wall-- what are you hiding from, to be so indifferent? I will not harm you, I admit freely to being frightened, there is no shame in it." He touches his chest, a short gesture, sharp. He's at a loss. He wants to do something. Why does she have to be so difficult? "Please. Let me aid you in whatever way I can."
He isn't invincible, he's more than proven that, but there must be something he can give willingly to her. Something he can do.
no subject
"I'm not afraid," she says, and it's careful. It's polite, the clean and neat tone she takes when she doesn't wish to say anything else. Of course, she is - and she will be again when they leave these walls and her father's guardsmen behind - but for the time being, not any more than she ever is. Fear isn't the problem (or, at least not the largest one, and not the sort that he can fix when it's his reactions she doesn't trust), so -
It's easier to deflect when he gives her something to do it with. She can easily dismiss what it isn't.
"We just haven't got anything to discuss at the moment. I don't need anything from you, I just want to be done with this place and leave."
no subject
"Thank you for coming. I am glad to see you hale and whole." He smiled, or at least attempted to affect it, warmly as he could manage despite the edge of concern from her precise manner and silence. Thranduil was aware it felt flat. "It is considerate of you."
He worried, after all.
no subject
The door is closed, no one has their ear pressed to the wall. It's only him that she's hiding from; him that she doesn't want to see something. Maybe it's the way she flinches when he calls her hale and whole, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach when she makes herself nod and agree, like she can't still feel Guenievre's blood coating her hands, see her eyes go sightless whenever she closes her own. As if it doesn't feel like she's herself a wound on the landscape -
All that's left of Guenievre is her, and it's wretched.
She says, "Yes," very tersely, and doesn't trust herself to say anything else before she turns on her heel and flees.