WHO: Gwenaƫlle Vauquelin + assorted. WHAT: Sad elfblooded in snow. WHEN: Early Harvestmere. WHERE: Skyhold. NOTES: References to death; likely also to infidelity, substance abuse, general mental instability. Starters in the comments.
The voice is familiar, but where, exactly, she has heard it before is less easy to pin down. Cassandra looks up, eyebrows drawing down in confusion at the unfamiliar young woman peeking into her office. Interrupt her again? Who is this? Certainly she has never seen her before, which means she could not possibly have interrupted anything ever before. She's just opened her mouth to say so, to perhaps suggest, none too subtly, that perhaps she has the wrong Seeker in mind, when it clicks, and she cuts herself off just in time.
"Oh," she says instead. "Lady - Lady Vauquelin. The...poet." She nods, expression morphing from confusion and faint annoyance to something more like warm interest. "Of course. It is no interruption at all."
It was a great deal easier to feign something closer to usual composure with the distance of an entire nation and the crystals between them; Gwenaƫlle tries to look wry instead of just drawn and almost gets there, coming properly into the room when Cassandra's reception of her shifts in tone.
Though she isn't sure she has much more to say than what she's already said, so -
"It wasn't - very appropriate," she says, tucking loose hair behind her (round, disappointing) ears and taking in the office itself with some evident curiosity. "It was very kind of you to be so patient."
Young enough that she can't say, for all it would've amused her if she could, old in answer to that question; the gap between them is slightly less than a decade. Even under strain, though, she warms a little - visibly - at the question.
"Well and well-occupied in the forge." A beat; "I don't think I gave you his name - Lord Alexander Luthor, the Free Marcher smith that arrived not long ago. Yngvi, from the Boneflayers, recommended him to me when I was looking for someone to make a jointed dragon for Kieran."
Of whom she is excessively fond.
('An associate of Asher Hardie's Boneflayers' is not the first impression Gwenaƫlle is likely to give, you know, anyone at first glance. Strange bedfellows.)
Happily for Gwen, Cassandra has no opinion of the Boneflayers, either good or bad. She hums noncommittally, noting with satisfaction the positive effect the subject has on Gwen. Wanting to talk about one's (possible) future spouse is, she can say with some confidence, a good sign.
"I do not know him, I am afraid," she says, and tilts her head in thought as something occurs to her. "A lord and a smith? He's not a dwarf, is he?"
Not that there's anything wrong with that. With dwarves, in general. Or with noble human women becoming fond of them.
"No," she says, although she feels compelled to add a moment later, "though he isn't very tall."
It's just a trace of her humour, a flicker of something like a light behind a shutter, but not nothing for all that in a better mood she'd probably have expounded on this theme. Instead, she settles on, "No, but he did learn from them in Orzammar, before he inherited his title. The previous Lord Luthor, I think, died in the Blight."
An unpleasant business, but, also: Gwenaƫlle can be forgiven for a moment's solemnity on such a topic, and hide her own griefs beneath it.
A sleight of hand played with her own heart; she can never quite disguise her feelings, but she has deftly learned, instead, to disguise their causes. To seem aloof and not afraid, to be sad for this reason and not that one - to be underestimated, hiding her ability to turn eyes this way instead of that behind her known ineptness with the Game. To hide herself underneath the expectations of her.
It's an exhausting knife-edge to dance upon, and the most fascinatingly appealing thing about Lord Luthor is the idea that perhaps, actually, she wouldn't have to. Not with him.
"He's a great believer in what you're doing here."
"I am sorry to hear that," Cassandra says, and though the words may be rote, the sentiment behind them is genuine. Especially given Gwen's own evident grief - which does not make much sense on its face, given that the Blight is ten years past, and she does not even seem certain of the manner of the older man's death. A secondhand grief, then, passed on from her husband-to-be. "They must have been very close."
But on to lighter subjects. Cassandra lets herself smile. "Is he? It is good to know we have such support, from any quarter. I suppose that is why he is here? To lend his support?" Unless, of course, he had been drawn here by love of Gwen herself. How romantic.
Leaving behind the subject of anyone's parents dying - she can't be said to brighten in any lingering way, but there's another of those flickers of what must, when sustained, be a rather pleasing countenance. If Cassandra wants her very own love story to play out before her, she could do for worse heroines than a pretty, pensive thing like Gwenaƫlle.
"Yes, that's right. My work brought him here - he read my editorials, where I talked about what the Inquisition still needed, and saw a space to contribute." Loyally, "He's a very skilled craftsman."
Not quite love for her, but there's still something about it having been her words and her ideas that had caught his attention and brought him to the Inquisition. Certainly she'd been pleased with herself for it before she'd deeply considered being pleased by anything else in him; she'd written to anyone who cared to hear about her success, that her work wasn't pointless.
Cassandra nods, and though she would not recognize it in so many words, perhaps, she is pleased with the story. If it was not love for Gwen that brought Lord Alexander to Skyhold, it was, perhaps, something just as good, if not better. Respect for her, and honor, and a desire to put his own hands to work in the service of righteousness.
"In that case, we are very lucky to have you both here," she says, with satisfaction. "The Inquisition is lucky to have you."
Probably for the best that in the service of righteousness isn't something said aloud; what Gwenaƫlle's face would do in trying to apply such a phrase to Lex would probably not be the most reassuring to Cassandra regarding either her character or his.
But it doesn't happen, so that's all fine. They can continue to exist in slightly more idealised form - she would enjoy that, if she realised, for its concept. For the idea of a narrative version of herself that could be polished and tweaked in someone else's eyes; fitting for a young woman who so often examines her life through the lens of narrative tableaux. Who remembers everything, later, as she might a story.
"It's all worked out," she says, ignoring the way the words feel like digging her thumb into her own wounds. "I didn't imagine, when I first arrived. But it makes me optimistic for everything else."
It was truer a few weeks ago, but it's still -
She's found a place for herself, here, and she has to believe that they'll succeed.
Cassandra tilts her head, curious. There's something here, something Gwen isn't saying.
"You had reason to think it would not?" she asks, gently, trying not to pry. "If your reception at Skyhold was less than welcoming, I am sorry to hear it. Or did you simply mean that this was unanticipated?"
This, of course, being the great and wonderful romance that Gwen is lucky enough to be living out as they speak.
She's momentarily stymied; Skyhold was not, she can admit in retrospect, unwelcoming to her. Morrigan had been one of the first people she met here and is easily now one of the most important to her. Lex was unexpected in that how could she possibly have anticipated him, but -
She orders her thoughts, carefully. Tries not to think about her mother. Either of them.
"I didn't choose to come," she says, finally, fidgeting with the edge of her neckline nearest where the scars from the rage demon's claws become visible. (Beneath the fabric, they are extensive; winding long around her torso and scraping ugly down the back of her thigh.) "I spent the entire walk it took my lord to carry me from my bed to the carriage arguing that I shouldn't be sent away, that if you discovered what to do about the anchor-shards it could be sent to us, that I would have nothing useful to do and I would be all alone, that none of you would have time to bother with me and I might as well be at home if everything was so terrible, that it was all because of my last carriage journey ending in flames so what if I died going to Skyhold, then he would be sorry -"
Her tone shifts, halfway through that; a little self-mocking. She'd been so desperately, terribly afraid.
"He said he was sorry. He kissed my hair and he put me in the carriage and I went. Anders healed my wounds, when I arrived, so I wasn't bedridden any more, and..."
An awkward, lop-sided shrug.
"It wasn't unwelcoming and I haven't been useless and I wouldn't have ever met Alexander in Orlais."
Cassandra's gaze drops briefly down to Gwen's hand when she mentions the shard; strange, how very common the sight had become. She had noticed it, of course, but barely thought anything of it; this was clearly not one of the more dangerous, unknown rifters.
"I see," she says quietly. "I am sorry. It must have been very frightening." It has been some time since she gave much thought to the shards, beyond the risks they posed and their potential uses. Evelyn's had pained her in the beginning, that she knows...but what must it be like, to find one's hand suddenly a weapon - or a potential death sentence?
She tries her best to look reassuring, not to let her darker thoughts show in her expression. "I am glad that you have thrived here, despite your bad beginning."
There's some frustrating irony in the fact that her shard now produces a shield; it's hard to be grateful for something to protect her coming from the thing that's put her in danger in the first place. (And it didn't work, it wasn't enough - it didn't save Guenievre, and so what's the point of it? Nothing, she thinks.)
"I'm very proud," she says, after a moment, "of what I've done here."
It's oddly abstract; she can't quite connect words to feelings, but it is, nevertheless, indefinably something true. Just - something true that's very far away from her, now, when other feelings are so much closer and heavier. Eventually, it will be true in a way she can touch, again, and she shouldn't forget in the meantime, probably.
Maybe Guenievre was proud of her, too. Maybe Annegret would have been. Look, she wants to be able to say - look at all the things I've done, Mother. Maybe not the way she should have, but would the girl who'd done everything the way Annegret had wanted her to be sitting here making conversation about her courtship with the Cassandra Pentaghast?
She doesn't see any of those she fell short of sitting here. So, no.
(Another time, she'd probably linger in her smugness for a little bit-- but those bigger, heavier feelings are tiring, and we're all spared that for today.)
"One of your Seekers is my cousin, actually," after a slight pause. "Aleron Darton. Well; his wife was my cousin, Mirielle, but we decided to keep him. I haven't seen him much, I assume he's very busy, but he's always been very kind to me."
"You should be," Cassandra says loyally. Not that she still has a very clear idea of what it is, exactly, that Gwen does - apart from write about the Inquisition occasionally - but she's not about to discourage pride in one's good work, and any contribution to the Inquisition should be celebrated.
She brightens at the mention of Aleron, smiling fondly. "Of course! Aleron is a dear friend. He is very busy, as are we all, but he is a very gentle man. I was...very sorry to hear of his wife, of course. Your cousin. I understand she made him very happy."
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"Oh," she says instead. "Lady - Lady Vauquelin. The...poet." She nods, expression morphing from confusion and faint annoyance to something more like warm interest. "Of course. It is no interruption at all."
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Though she isn't sure she has much more to say than what she's already said, so -
"It wasn't - very appropriate," she says, tucking loose hair behind her (round, disappointing) ears and taking in the office itself with some evident curiosity. "It was very kind of you to be so patient."
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She pauses, looking at the young woman curiously.
"How is your young man?"
She assumes he's young. Hopes he's young.
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"Well and well-occupied in the forge." A beat; "I don't think I gave you his name - Lord Alexander Luthor, the Free Marcher smith that arrived not long ago. Yngvi, from the Boneflayers, recommended him to me when I was looking for someone to make a jointed dragon for Kieran."
Of whom she is excessively fond.
('An associate of Asher Hardie's Boneflayers' is not the first impression Gwenaƫlle is likely to give, you know, anyone at first glance. Strange bedfellows.)
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"I do not know him, I am afraid," she says, and tilts her head in thought as something occurs to her. "A lord and a smith? He's not a dwarf, is he?"
Not that there's anything wrong with that. With dwarves, in general. Or with noble human women becoming fond of them.
Not that Cassandra would know.
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It's just a trace of her humour, a flicker of something like a light behind a shutter, but not nothing for all that in a better mood she'd probably have expounded on this theme. Instead, she settles on, "No, but he did learn from them in Orzammar, before he inherited his title. The previous Lord Luthor, I think, died in the Blight."
An unpleasant business, but, also: Gwenaƫlle can be forgiven for a moment's solemnity on such a topic, and hide her own griefs beneath it.
A sleight of hand played with her own heart; she can never quite disguise her feelings, but she has deftly learned, instead, to disguise their causes. To seem aloof and not afraid, to be sad for this reason and not that one - to be underestimated, hiding her ability to turn eyes this way instead of that behind her known ineptness with the Game. To hide herself underneath the expectations of her.
It's an exhausting knife-edge to dance upon, and the most fascinatingly appealing thing about Lord Luthor is the idea that perhaps, actually, she wouldn't have to. Not with him.
"He's a great believer in what you're doing here."
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But on to lighter subjects. Cassandra lets herself smile. "Is he? It is good to know we have such support, from any quarter. I suppose that is why he is here? To lend his support?" Unless, of course, he had been drawn here by love of Gwen herself. How romantic.
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"Yes, that's right. My work brought him here - he read my editorials, where I talked about what the Inquisition still needed, and saw a space to contribute." Loyally, "He's a very skilled craftsman."
Not quite love for her, but there's still something about it having been her words and her ideas that had caught his attention and brought him to the Inquisition. Certainly she'd been pleased with herself for it before she'd deeply considered being pleased by anything else in him; she'd written to anyone who cared to hear about her success, that her work wasn't pointless.
no subject
"In that case, we are very lucky to have you both here," she says, with satisfaction. "The Inquisition is lucky to have you."
no subject
But it doesn't happen, so that's all fine. They can continue to exist in slightly more idealised form - she would enjoy that, if she realised, for its concept. For the idea of a narrative version of herself that could be polished and tweaked in someone else's eyes; fitting for a young woman who so often examines her life through the lens of narrative tableaux. Who remembers everything, later, as she might a story.
"It's all worked out," she says, ignoring the way the words feel like digging her thumb into her own wounds. "I didn't imagine, when I first arrived. But it makes me optimistic for everything else."
It was truer a few weeks ago, but it's still -
She's found a place for herself, here, and she has to believe that they'll succeed.
no subject
"You had reason to think it would not?" she asks, gently, trying not to pry. "If your reception at Skyhold was less than welcoming, I am sorry to hear it. Or did you simply mean that this was unanticipated?"
This, of course, being the great and wonderful romance that Gwen is lucky enough to be living out as they speak.
no subject
She's momentarily stymied; Skyhold was not, she can admit in retrospect, unwelcoming to her. Morrigan had been one of the first people she met here and is easily now one of the most important to her. Lex was unexpected in that how could she possibly have anticipated him, but -
She orders her thoughts, carefully. Tries not to think about her mother. Either of them.
"I didn't choose to come," she says, finally, fidgeting with the edge of her neckline nearest where the scars from the rage demon's claws become visible. (Beneath the fabric, they are extensive; winding long around her torso and scraping ugly down the back of her thigh.) "I spent the entire walk it took my lord to carry me from my bed to the carriage arguing that I shouldn't be sent away, that if you discovered what to do about the anchor-shards it could be sent to us, that I would have nothing useful to do and I would be all alone, that none of you would have time to bother with me and I might as well be at home if everything was so terrible, that it was all because of my last carriage journey ending in flames so what if I died going to Skyhold, then he would be sorry -"
Her tone shifts, halfway through that; a little self-mocking. She'd been so desperately, terribly afraid.
"He said he was sorry. He kissed my hair and he put me in the carriage and I went. Anders healed my wounds, when I arrived, so I wasn't bedridden any more, and..."
An awkward, lop-sided shrug.
"It wasn't unwelcoming and I haven't been useless and I wouldn't have ever met Alexander in Orlais."
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"I see," she says quietly. "I am sorry. It must have been very frightening." It has been some time since she gave much thought to the shards, beyond the risks they posed and their potential uses. Evelyn's had pained her in the beginning, that she knows...but what must it be like, to find one's hand suddenly a weapon - or a potential death sentence?
She tries her best to look reassuring, not to let her darker thoughts show in her expression. "I am glad that you have thrived here, despite your bad beginning."
no subject
"I'm very proud," she says, after a moment, "of what I've done here."
It's oddly abstract; she can't quite connect words to feelings, but it is, nevertheless, indefinably something true. Just - something true that's very far away from her, now, when other feelings are so much closer and heavier. Eventually, it will be true in a way she can touch, again, and she shouldn't forget in the meantime, probably.
Maybe Guenievre was proud of her, too. Maybe Annegret would have been. Look, she wants to be able to say - look at all the things I've done, Mother. Maybe not the way she should have, but would the girl who'd done everything the way Annegret had wanted her to be sitting here making conversation about her courtship with the Cassandra Pentaghast?
She doesn't see any of those she fell short of sitting here. So, no.
(Another time, she'd probably linger in her smugness for a little bit-- but those bigger, heavier feelings are tiring, and we're all spared that for today.)
"One of your Seekers is my cousin, actually," after a slight pause. "Aleron Darton. Well; his wife was my cousin, Mirielle, but we decided to keep him. I haven't seen him much, I assume he's very busy, but he's always been very kind to me."
no subject
She brightens at the mention of Aleron, smiling fondly. "Of course! Aleron is a dear friend. He is very busy, as are we all, but he is a very gentle man. I was...very sorry to hear of his wife, of course. Your cousin. I understand she made him very happy."