faderift | CLOSED | Far too many notes for my taste

WHO: Teren and Nathaniel, plus Anders for fallout purposes
WHAT: Teren's mastery of passive aggression reaches a new height.
WHEN: Late Cloudreach
WHERE: Kirkwall - warehouse
NOTES: Hahahahahaha. Notes.

Nathaniel has set up a cramped little pseudo-office in the corner of his bedroom--some boards on a couple of empty barrels and a camp stool, but it works. He has a sign on the door saying messages and parcels directed to him may be left there during the day.

It starts off a fairly dull setup; not a great deal of mail comes to the Wardens besides desperate letters of relatives hoping to reach a loved one. Nathaniel passes them on or redirects them as seems appropriate, but then he starts getting other things. Business Teren has as the Warden liaison to the Inquisition, specifically. Letters, memos, notes. Since a new liaison hasn't been set up, Nathaniel forwards them to her.

They get returned. Nathaniel didn't even know you could return a return.

Well, fine, if it's going to be a run-around until things settle down here in Kirkwall, he decides he'll do some of Teren's job for her. All of them are recent--since the move to Kirkwall--so there aren't many, and they can't wait to be addressed. But more keep coming. There never seems to be a lad in the docks who knows they're to go anywhere but Nathaniel's office, no matter how many times he tries forwarding them.

Late in the month, the last of the ships with the Inquisition's people come in. Early the next morning, Nathaniel answers a knock on his door.

Two burly sailors barge in, slam a crate on his desk, and barge back out.

Nathaniel approaches the monster with some trepidation. Probably some of his things, shipped from Skyhold. Only he doesn't remember having that many things. Probably a mix-up then. He finds a bar and opens it.

It's full of every note, every requisition letter, every damned piece of paperwork that accumulated on the desk of one Teren Skraedder, quartermaster and Warden liaison to the Inquisition, since he demanded she step down as Senior Warden. To the day.

There is silence outside his office. The Hero of Purrelden has stopped scratching underneath the door to be let in, and is instead napping peacefully just outside it. The door slams open so hard it richochets off the wall, and the Cat goes from asleep to fleeing through the air with no time lapse whatsoever. Nathaniel stands in the doorway, seething.

"Terennnnnn!" he roars.

She's not there. No, she's not even in her tent by the docks. When he asks (much more quietly and with respect) several people if they've seen her, they point to the Gallows. Because of course she is going to make him get in a damned boat and get ferried to a damn island just to yell at her. And he's gonna do it.

Of course by the time he finds her on that stone island of despair and human sacrifice, he doesn't have another Terennnnnn! left in him. He has, however, brought a couple of young paid hirelings with him, and they set the crate on the tarpaulin she is repairing where it pools on the ground in front of her. And so, he crosses his arms and waits for her to be unable to pretend not to notice any longer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She always knew this day would come.
In fact, she's been banking on it. Teren can't even be too indignant about her work getting interrupted, because the look on Nate's face is well and beyond worth it.

"What can I do for you," she asks, smiling audaciously, blinking with as much innocence as she's ever had. Which is to say... none, but she might fool a stranger.

Nathaniel's eyes narrow. She is so smug, she really must think she pulled one over on him.

"Your job," he answers lowly, in a hiss. "As quartermaster and liaison."

Teren tilts her head pleasantly. "But I am, Warden Howe," she replies, her voice silky, "unless you mean the positions of which I was relieved not long ago." Her hands move automatically, stitching through the heavy canvas.
"Should I not be helping with the cleanup effort, ser?" As innocuously as she says the word, 'ser' is still somehow a joke, and she has to fight to keep from smirking.

A slow blink. He doesn't know why, he just knows Anders' cat does it and it always freaks him out.

"You were not relieved. You were requested to step down as Senior Warden and you complied, and there has been no transition that has been able to take place regarding your formal positions, least of all with the Inquisition, with whom any change of personnel must be mutually agreed-upon. I'm willing to pay both these strapping young folk here to aid in Gallows clean-up to free you for sorting out this mess."

"Oh dear," she continues, with a small, theatrical sigh. "You see, having learned the error of my ways, and with His Lordship being rather unspecific at the time, I've done my very best to stay out of his way. In as much as I am capable."
It seems impossible that Teren could ever look frail, but she hunches slightly as she frowns, clearly intending to play up her age. "Will His Lordship be requiring anything else of me?"

No, don't. Don't do this, Teren. Don't look all frail older woman. You are well younger than many who have served in the military, well younger than his father was when he was at his most...active, we'll call it. But it plays to Nathaniel's innate sense of chivalric guilt. He feels bad for making this witch do her job.

"Yes," he seethes, "that is exactly why you hoarded all your paperwork for nearly two months now only to ship it to me in a crate from Skyhold. Please don't tell me I'm about to be saddled with a bill for that, by the by, because my stipend is not actually greater than yours."

Aha, she can see his resolve starting to crack. Ideal.
"I'm shocked His Lordship would make such accusations," she breathes, resting a hand on her chest in theatrical affront, "I'm certain I don't know what you mean."

Her eyes are fixed on his despite her apparent distress. Do it, they're saying. Lose your temper, make my day.

Now that is pure theatre, and so damn patronizing that the fight comes right back into Nathaniel. His Lordship. Does she have no idea how low a blow that is, how you don't just bring up something like that on a professional disagreement?

"You have till the count of three to agree, or you're paying for these young peoples' time helping on this island instead of me. One...two..."

Of course she knows. If there is a low blow to be made, Teren will reliably find it and use it. In fact, there's a certain satisfaction to bending it against someone in the nobility, who, even if he isn't anymore, still bears so many of the trappings and hypocrisies of the people she used to serve. Well. "Serve".

She continues to sew, not even bothering to change her posture as she angles her head, watching him count as though she were an errant child. Even when he's through, she doesn't move, and barely acknowledges that he gave any order whatsoever. Stitch stitch stitch.

Fine. She thinks herself a member of the working class, she can be responsible for them not getting paid.

"One sovereign in advance," he says, turning around to the young people who carried the cart. "Three sovereigns--each--at the end of the day. As agreed."

And, because he doesn't trust her, he pays them each their sovereign in advance. Also because of chivalric guilt. And genetic guilt. And general guilt, for bringing them into a professional fight. He turns and walks back to the ferry without another word.

It's almost too rich. She's actually about to say something to the workers, but then Nate... pays them, and Teren is left staring in abject amazement. He just... he just gave them the money he's demanding she give them. He just showed her that he won't stand by what he demands.

How exquisite.

She shakes her head slightly as she watches him go, smiling bemusedly at how easy that was. It's almost enough to make her feel guilty, if she had any sort of guilt reserve for tormenting aristocrats.

Naturally, if any other Warden asks her to pick it back up again, she'll gladly liaise and quartermaster and all that. She will, in the end, even see that the workers get paid, because this isn't their fight. But Nate won't know about it. Poncey blowhard.

CLOSED | Far too many notes for my taste

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