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{ mostly closed inquire within }

WHO: Lex Luthor, Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, Anders, U if you like??
WHAT: Crafting materials for fun, profit and presumably destruction, small people being gross
WHEN: Endish of Kingsway, backdated to before some assholes go for a walk.
WHERE: The ramparts, the Undercroft, a place of your choosing possibly
NOTES: warnings for small people being gross. I am not writing any open prompts but if you drum something up and toss it in that is A-OK

A. is for Anders:

Blaming the fact that Lex has not been the most visible person alive this month on the fact that he rarely leaves the Undercroft, he is, today ...uh, in the Undercroft. Probably he has become a staple there by sheer force of will. By now he knows where everything is - or was, before he wrangled it in all different directions to his liking - and may or may not have established himself as competent depending on how willing a person is to handwave that sort of thing. Because just writing 'Lex is in the undercroft!! Like he nearly always is!!' is going to get swiftly really boring as a prompt, today not only is Lex in the Undercroft, but a thing has happened that surely must have happened in game, don't tell me it hasn't, and that is: that huge open wall, plus mountains, means there is snow all over the place.

Lex is dealing with this pragmatically, and by that we mean he is using it to cool iron. So this is definitely a good time for anyone to give him like literally anything else to do. Literally. Anything.

B. ....is not the letter Gwen starts with, shit

There is a grotesque on the ramparts.

Or possibly there are several of them, actually; we haven't taken advantage of the fact that there is no fall damage in Skyhold recently enough to check. Either way the fortress seems like the kind of place that should have freaky little creatures clinging to its corners, curled up into themselves and staring out into the cold, clear night, and thus, it does. The fact that said freaky little creature is not, ostensibly, made of stone and is in fact Lex Luthor changes nothing.

Then again okay, probably actual grotesques don't amuse themselves with tossing small pieces of loose rock at completely arbitrary targets of their own design below (none of these are landing on people, it's fine), because like, that would be the equivalent of a person tossing pieces of flesh and that is. Hideous. We're sorry we thought of it.

The point is Lex has chosen to perch on the edge of the closest uh, rampart (do ramparts even have a singular form) next to one of the little busted towers that litter the top of the fortress, where it is quiet and there is almost no chance of anyone breaking into a drinking song.

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Unusually, given that the second floor of said little busted tower is a broken-down thing unreachable by what used to be the stairs, there is a lamplight in its window; and then a shadow, and a bit of familiar Orlesian muttering, and a huge-eyed face appearing with all the tell-tale signs of someone prepared to deliver such a scold -

"Oh," she says, instead of launching into complaint about the noise from jostled rocks, "it's you."

There is a smudge of ink on her jaw.

Lex examines his own hands, absurdly, eyes also huge. By design, not just quirk of good genetics. "Ancestors preserve us, you may be right!"

...no, really. "I take it you weren't expecting company."

"Not up here," she admits, resting her elbows in the open window and clasping her hands loosely over its edge, the very stern expression she had been wearing softened into something that looks suspiciously like she's trying not to laugh. (She doesn't object to all humans that talk like dwarves, apparently, she's only skeptical of the ones that want her to call them 'Jim'.)

She withdraws for a moment, and when she comes back to the window she's moved her lamp to give herself more light here. "Ordinarily," she says, resting her chin in her hand, "I've it to myself."

Well, they've moved on from "Lord Luthor" to Alexander, at least, but uh...no, Lex doesn't expect her to dispense with enough formality to call him that diminutive any time soon; narrative just ends up forgetfully writing Lex instead of Alexander a lot, so uh--no, no equivalent of Jim. He would be curious to know if this was the same Jim he met in the library, the one who came perilously close to defacing library books.*

Anyway. Lex talks like--well, like exactly his history, which is that he threw himself on the very little mercy of Orzammar right around when his language center was solidifying, so bits and pieces got ingrained. Like a person who speaks two languages and thinks in a mishmash of both. He doesn't actually think she's going to permanently vanish when she goes for her lamp, but his expression, what is visible in the sharp night air, still skews a little pleased at her reappearance.

"Probably you'd have trouble being joined by anyone without wings, yes," he notes. "Or Sister Nightingale." ....who probably just apparates anywhere in a puff of smoke, stealing from completely another franchise. "Should I leave you to it?"

This is seven hundred times more considerate than he would be for anyone else. Not in Skyhold, like. Anyone else alive.

* no he didn't, Lex

It must be said that her thoughtful pause is not a pretense; she comes up here at this late hour for the quiet, mostly, for being so out of the way and unlikely to be bothered by anyone, least of all people who are unlikely to go looking for her clambering ridiculously up onto half-wrecked floors. It gives her peace to write, and keeps her out of the way, and -

"No," she decides. "No, I don't mind the company." Or, his company, particularly.

It isn't as if she's never chased anyone away from checking on her up here, it just doesn't happen terribly often.

After a moment, contemplatively, "I think Sister Nightingale takes an unwholesome pleasure in tipping me off balance, she'd probably enjoy that."

Ah, Lex remembers their meeting that was definitely not as brief as it seemed. Yes. "That's probably a sign that she likes you. I wouldn't lose sleep over it."

Then again they are both out here, clearly awake, at insomnia o'clock, so. Lex seems to realize this, the skew of his smile curving ruefully, and then since she isn't kicking him off the ramparts (....figuratively or literally), he unpeels himself from the ledge and picks his way carefully to her window, leaning comfortably on its outer sill. Which he can do without needing to lean down at all, because uh, the way he talks is not the only vague similarity he shares with dwarves.

"Then again," of the previously realized mutual sleeplessness, "it doesn't look like either of us are qualified to comment on that particular quirk."

Like, sleeping peacefully is just a colorful little attribute some people possess.

"I will sleep when I'm dead," Gwenaëlle says, lightly, "which I comfort myself will not be at her hands if only because it would upset Morrigan very much."

How premature it might be regardless is probably one of the many things she picks over when she isn't sleeping; the anchor-shards do not seem generous to life expectancy. (She thinks of the Dalish girl with one buried in her chest, and there but for the grace of Andraste goes she.) Hard to forget when her own hand is a light in the dark -

but it isn't as if she was sleeping so terribly well before, in Orlais.

This is probably a good time to ask if that canonical thing about elves' eyes reflecting light in the dark like cats do, except it's also like the worst time possible. Given Gwen's givens. But Lex was never going to ask anyway, so it's fine. He's equal parts wary of and fascinated by shard-bearers, like he is anything outside his immediate understanding; if he could unravel them from a good safe distance that would be ideal, but--well. Here he is, up close and personal, wanting to unravel is probably still a good word choice, but the reasons are different. Warmer, and unsettling.

Still, he laughs at all the angles of that information. "I'd like to have that insurance myself, but then wouldn't we all."

"We can't all be so clever and charming as I am," she says, arch, tilting to look at him properly now he's closer and she can without squinting out into the night. "What would be the point of being the best at anything if everyone was?"

Nothing, probably. Also, how could she then distinguish herself to the people whose attention she wants? (Not irrelevantly, 'warm and unsettling' seems like an apt descriptor for the fondness she inspires in most people she's inspired it in, all told, even the ones who actually know what the thing is and what to do with it. Here she is pushing things off shelves and staring around corners in the shadows, and somehow, clawing her way under the skin. Figuratively speaking. Mostly figuratively speaking.)

Hopefully not, since Lex isn't particularly interested in being one of many amongst a throng of adoring masses. It's not per say that she is unsettling, more the feeling she inspires in him. Which might be semantics but is in Lex's opinion an important distinction.

"To set the standard behind which others might struggle," he counters, which seems to him an adequate way to distinguish. Then again the corner of his mouth is crooked, so he's being somewhere between perverse and whimsical, probably.

"I think that's the point now," she says, pleased by the thought. Too pleased by it, probably, to sufficiently warm enough people to have anything like adoring masses; her charm is something of an acquired taste. "There's no one to be better than if everyone's marvelous. Someone has to be not marvelous."

Her lips quirk and she glances toward the castle -

"Aren't we lucky, then, with all of these people ready to fill that gap."

Speaking of claws.

"This seems exciting." Cold. It seems really cold, and he's not used to feeling that when he comes down here. Lex seems to be keeping himself busy, though, which means Anders feels a little awkward as he stands here holding his new staff. Then again, Lex's current work doesn't seem that... well. Interesting. Not everything has to be, but if Anders was doing it, he'd be bored.

"Would you like a change of pace, or are you enjoying yourself?" A beat. "Or is that something you've got to get done, because every job unfortunately has drudgery."

Lex is from the Free Marches and, sans Smith Arms (tm) kind of wafer thin, so he is wearing like four layers. He looks up at the extremely welcome intrusion, pffting a piece of hair out of his eyes as he does so. A faintly amused smile hikes one corner of his mouth as he straightens up, divests himself of snow as the latest blade he's stuck in a drift hisses, possibly for dramatic emphasis. "It's an environmental hazard I'm making work for me." A pause. "And drudgery. Tell me you've got slightly less mind numbing work for me to do."

Get it, because snow, cold, numbing. Lex is at all times just so enamored of how clever he is.

Edited 2016-09-26 23:35 (UTC)

His mild expression turns into a smile at the answer, and Anders lifts his new staff.

"It may be a project you'll warm to," he says. Resist a pun? Him? Never. "I'm used to carrying a staff with a blade, but this one is lacking. I was thinking of sawing a foot of the wood off and getting a blade attacked, but I've no experience attaching blades, let alone making one."

And it has to be tricky to balance blades on staves. Or so he thinks.

"Ooh," says Lex, who appreciates puns to a ridiculous degree, because he is a ridiculous person, "I have chills just thinking about it."

How long can this go on--anyway. He examines the staff critically, then Anders. "If you cut that much off you'll make it too short for your height. Or so it looks from here. Is there any reason you couldn't have a blade added as is?"

"I don't want the staff to be too tall for me, but I'm still a novice in the field of working on staves."

Puns and no judgement? He'll most gladly take this. "If it doesn't need to be trimmed, then let's not trim it. All I know is that I want a blade." Magic doesn't solve everything, as much as he wishes it would.

Edited 2016-09-30 03:35 (UTC)

Lex makes like, exactly the face in his icon. "Well. I wouldn't call myself an expert, per se, but I can avoid too many misfires."

... this is escalating quickly. Anyway. He also doesn't really make judgements in his line of work (...because he assumes everyone can't help knowing less than he does) unless he gives good counsel and it's ignored, for idiotic reasons such as not wanting to ~look silly~. So so far this is going swimmingly.

"What kind?" ...er. "Would you be more ah, stabbing or slashing, I suppose."

As a starting point.

He's about to joke about wanting a pointy sort of blade when Lex clarifies. Anders makes a gesture as if swinging the staff around.

"Slashing. I didn't know there was a difference; I thought pointy things did pointy jobs. It's a good thing I found that out before I got burned."

A lot of things escalate around him. At least no one's going to get hurt with this. Unless Adelaide is listening, in which case she probably has a budding headache right about now.

"Hmm, yes. Anyone with an discerning eye would have frozen you right out."

Preemptive apologies to the state of Adelaide's skull. But meanwhile--"What kind of materials can I use?" Lex inquires in like, some seriousness. Obviously a silverite blade is going to be more impressive and last longer than, say, an iron one, as a for instance. But Lex needs to know the ~~game appropriate tier level~~ expense involved.

"Instead of being thawtful, I agree."

He flashes a smile at Lex before leaning forward. "Something that's sturdy but not too expensive. My pay isn't exactly high. Maybe I can get something better for it later, but right now I simply need a blade on it."

With his luck, as soon as he doesn't have a blade he'll need it.

When you are the arcane advisor, turning over old fragments almost wasted into nothingness by the passage of time, finding one Alexander Luthor is hardly the most difficult of tasks set before her. Not when Gwenaëlle was so good as to provide her with a full name which is rather more than Morrigan has so often set out with.

How much did she have when she started work on eluvians? Nothing more than rumour and fragments. Half-forgotten and half-forgotten again.

Wherever he might be, there is a raven that alights for a few moments but ravens are everywhere in Skyhold, always going and to and fro with this message and that, until it departs after a moment of careful observation. And then there is the woman from the library, in her apostate garb, but a rather more amused curve to her mouth.

(Baring teeth, we must remember, is a sign of aggression in many creatures, and she is very capable of being a wolf should she please, even if this is just to be friendly. But it would be remiss of her, not to come for herself after the unexpected messages.)

"I do not believe we were properly introduced before, you and I, Lord Luthor." To give him the title Gwenaëlle used before dropping it so quickly for the familiar.

Oh dear Maker why, said the brain of--like, most of Skyhold, probably. Lex tilts his head, not actually unlike said raven, in a way that reminds the eye corvids are carrion eaters, and sets down what he's doing to perch up on his work table. She's probably still taller than he is.

"And are we now being properly introduced?" He inquires, eyes bright.

The brain still capable of rational thought, not the part just curled on the floor in a foetal position hoping to escape notice or waiting for the Maker to take them from this sinful world where dreaded apostates walk freely, openly advising the empress of the most powerful nation in Thedas.

"We have a mutual acquaintance. Or rather much more than that. Gwenaëlle Vauquelin?" It lilts up like a question: the ball is in his court.

(Is that a pun I don't even know what am I doing.)

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open to gwen if so desired; how to become spider food if you hurt her girl

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