faderift | Is No An Emotion (closed to Gwenaëlle)

WHO: Romain de Cocucy and Gwenaëlle Vauquelin
WHAT: Family time
WHEN: late Cloudreach (after the very last boat)
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: None to start

Romain has, very deliberately, given his granddaughter some space. He did not chastise her after her very alarming (and very public) incident on the ramparts; he has not insisted that they travel to Kirkwall together. She might even have gone so far as to wonder if he would follow her there at all, as his ties to the Inquisition thus far have been mainly "giving them money so no one makes him leave."

And yet, here he is, eyeing the Gallows in the way he has (outwardly unjudgmental but with a definite judgmental undertone). It will not do for long, but he feels it important to demonstrate cooperation for now. He's not going to be done with the Inquisition as long as a shard remains in his grandchild's hand, and as long as he's there, he doesn't not find it useful to needlessly alienate people by acting aggressively superior and refusing to do what he can.

That said. It's time he checked in on Gwenaëlle, whose reaction to the new accommodations he's fairly certain he can guess in advance.

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"Gwenaëlle." For all Romain is never truly gentle, it's quieter. "Perhaps I should have come sooner, at that." Before the Winter Palace, he had perhaps not taken the Inquisition as seriously as he might, but what truly worries him is the distance she has strictly maintained since his arrival. Because of her father, they had never been truly close, but she'd always been affectionate, blooming under his propensity to spoil her.

He had not truly expected to find her so changed, beyond the inconvenience of the anchor shard. He wonders, now, if he's given her more space than he should.

It's been hard - harder than she knows how to tell, even when this once much of it is likely not outside of his understanding. If it feels selfish to cling to him when she isn't, truly, what he thinks, that isn't the most of what has kept her shut up like a fan. She's thrived, she's grown, she's come through so much, and it had felt like risking a backwards step; to be only a little thing who runs to her grandfather when something doesn't go her way.

Her lips press together, but she tries a smile; it wobbles, a little.

"I'm twenty-three, now, bon-papa," she says, quietly. "I'm to solve my own problems."

"I do realize you have reached adulthood." Debatable. "But that does not mean you are suddenly forbidden from reaching for the resources available to you, familial support among the rest."

Romain tilts his head, as if a modified angle could help him see through her walls.

"A great deal has been asked of you, you needn't shoulder the entire burden yourself." to make a point he doesn't add, but it's clear that he suspects that might be at least part of the cause. It's not as if he lacks experience with young women wishing to do things in their own way.

Familial makes her lips twist, but it could so easily be the whole of the phrase, the whole of her stubbornness; a little thing determined to be wholly her own. Quiet and sullen and with set jaw, she is less Allegra than she is Anne, never wishing to be told, never wishing to let anyone else's hands touch what she could do herself -

It might not please any of them to hear.

"I have it well enough in hand. I need to pull together something for publication, again, I suppose after we go to Kirkwall. See if the Marches are any more inclined to listen to me than Orlais."

Yes. Speaking of.

He doesn't observe aloud that she is, in the moment, very much Anne's daughter. He may not need to. Either way, it certainly does not escape him.

Instead, of her last comment: "Did you imagine there was no effect at all, in the latter audience, or simply not the one you'd hoped for?" Perhaps for once, he's not arch. Even if her methods are not the ones he'd have suggested ... he does not believe (all) her points are so far wrong.

And he does not believe everyone in Orlais was so caught up in the civil war as to ignore the rest of the world completely, for all that it would be easy to miss at a remove.

"I haven't been assassinated yet, so I got what I hoped for."

It's droll, but - not insincere, really, when Gwenaëlle had written that piece in a towering rage, expecting little but the backlash. There was not a group in Orlais that she anticipated receiving her words well or warmly, and that she's not faced worse consequences for what she wrote. For all the high-minded words she capped it off with, she had wanted nothing more than that night to end with Celene's death, and it hadn't, and what the fuck was any of it worth if it didn't?

Her shrug is brittle.

"I don't know that I have anything else to say. We shall see."

"I suppose we shall." Finally, he thinks they've arrived at a point where bluntness might serve best. "So. Have, you been avoiding me because you do not wish my company, or because you feared I would sweep in and meddle with the problems you would prefer to manage yourself?"

'Both' is the answer that comes most swiftly to mind - he is a born meddler, too, whatever pious things he thinks of himself - but it isn't the whole answer. And the whole answer is...nothing she can give, so she sits back, a moment, tries to order her thoughts into something palatable. Something she can share. Use.

"It's been some time," she says, eventually. "And I've been accustomed to being..."

On her own? No, not quite.

"You're so much Orlais, bon-papa," she says, finally, a little bit wry, a little bit bitter. She's grown used to how far away it is, and he's brought it so much nearer. She didn't ask for that.

"Guilty as charged, I suppose. I didn't think it would be so very unwelcome." His look is evaluating, not hurt -- never that -- but still, she does really seem to have given him pause.

"Would you have me go then? Truly." They both know he is very unlikely to take his fingers out of the Inquisition pie entirely; she really isn't the only reason he's there, after all. But there is much he can do in the field, or even back home. He doesn't wish her abandoned, but she is his favorite, and as such she is one of the few people who can sway his mind by simply asking.

"Not you," she sighs, a bit grudgingly. "I just didn't - expect you, I wasn't prepared."

Gwenaëlle being unprepared is not exactly unfamiliar. Particularly in the context of there being altogether too much Orlais to deal with.

She hesitates for a moment, and then, remarkably frankly, "I don't care for Kirkwall and I don't like being chained to the Inquisition, but I don't miss Orlais, either."

"Even I cannot say it has been at its best, of late." Which, coming from the duke, is something to hear. "It is clear that you will not be free of the nonsense associated with your shard as soon as any of us would like, so I suppose at least 'homesickness' is one less thing to worry about."

Under the circumstances.

"I am rather too Orlais for much of the Inquisition, I suspect, so at least you are not alone in your assessment."

Is No An Emotion (closed to Gwenaëlle)

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