and, as some princess might, she still calls him a knight ( closed )

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin and Cullen Rutherford
WHAT: Sad jerks.
WHEN: Currentish.
WHERE: Kirkwall, near the docks.
NOTES: Warnings TBA if necessary.

It isn't difficult to find out where Cullen is spending his days, now they're in Kirkwall; he is a rather visible force in the Inquisition, perhaps the most visible now he's here and the rest of the leadership remains in Skyhold. A few questions asked by - not her, actually, but by Yva, a maid prepared to understand that none of her lady's whims should be ignored if any of her lady's ill-temper is to be appeased. Yva locates the space he's using at the docks, digs the wine out of the trunk to which it was relegated, makes the arrangements that her lady be escorted safely from the Gallows -

and Gwenaëlle is very nearly in something that resembles 'not the worst of humors' when she sweeps unannounced into Cullen's office space and wiggles the bottle between his face and whatever much less interesting paper he was poring over a moment ago.

"This cost my lord a small fortune," she informs him, "and I cannot drink it alone."

She has ulterior motives, but -

He probably needs a break, anyway.

Comments

[lionheartedman]

The room isn't really big enough for everything that's housed in it. A double space, since he's using it for both sleeping (theoretically) and work. The desk and the bookshelves take up most of the space, a few stools. There's a very comfortable looking deep couch against one wall, next to a massive wooden trunk, a table with a wash basin on the other side. That is where the theoretical sleeping doesn't happen. There are also piles of boxes she could sit on, short shelving units, quite a few trunks that have the Inquisition's banner painted on them, unlike the one next to the couch. Honestly, it wouldn't take much for her to get him out of his own chair if she wants it.

He accepts the cup without comment, because again, he knows better than to argue. Though he does open his mouth, as though to say something, when she calls Kirkwall a blight. As though he might defend it. He probably should. Yet... he's got nothing. "You're right. It is," he sighs in resignation, then tips his cup at her in a toast before taking a sip.

No one would believe him if he tried to say anything generous about Kirkwall, anyway. There's no part of him that honestly believes it.

When Puppy sees that Gwen has put food near Cullen again, the mabari lifts himself off his bed entirely, and comes to rest his head hopefully on Cullen's thigh. He doesn't want the fruit. He wants his human to eat it.

[elegiaque]

She tips her cup in answer, sardonic, dropping herself down onto the couch and swinging her feet out of her slippers, up underneath herself. Her thick skirts puff and puddle around her and she leans against the arm, resting her chin in her hand, shaking her head--

"My grandfather promises I needn't stay in the Gallows longer than it takes for the Inquisition to win some warmth here. As soon as we can, he'll take a house in the city." She's not happy about being in Kirkwall at all, but there's no question that she can leave, not now. The anchor-shard research will be based here. All of the reasons that sent her here in the first place - none of which she was consulted on - are still as pressing as they ever were. Her father will not let her leave. The Inquisition, likely, cannot want anyone with an anchor-shard bouncing around independently. And she wants to live, so.

But she doesn't have to be happy about it. Or any of the other things that go along.

[lionheartedman]

She looks like... pastry. It's a strange thought to have. Those ridiculous Orlesian pastries, covered in brightly coloured icing in great swathes. Lady Tea Cake. What an odd thought.

"So you're getting out of here soon, then? I'm happy for you. Some parts of the city are... nicer." Not by much, and his tone of voice probably makes that fairly clear, but nicer. "Though if you're here to ask me to hurry things along when it comes to earning good will... I might be the wrong person to be bribing with your wine." It feels very much like a conversation he's already had, but the ladies involved in that one hadn't been able to see his point of view, either.

[elegiaque]

Some sort of sombre mourning pastry, in her gown of deep, dark browns, the embroidery at her bodice in so near a colour as to be almost invisible without the flicker of light, just the white of her petticoats suggested at at her feet where the skirts shift to suggest there's any softness to be found in her severe wardrobe.

(She adjusts, to be sure not to crush the spectacles that hang from a chain at her waist. A nuisance to replace, this far from Orlais, where she prefers to have such things acquired.)

"If a Duke can't budge it, a Commander won't," she sighs, realistic rather than critical. Cullen, bless him, is not kept around for his skill in the deft handling of nobility and social politics - Gwenaëlle, who certainly isn't either, wouldn't have it any other way. He'd be much less tolerable companionship if it were different.

[lionheartedman]

If mourning pastry is a real thing, Cullen doesn't want to know about it. Leave it to Orlais. Though it would probably have the same look, voluminous skirts piped out of a pastry bag. No, enough with that. Maybe he is hungry. He picks up an apple, takes a bite out of it, and Puppy snuffles happily, strong tail flicking back and forth and thumping against the ground.

"Especially not this Commander." Cullen imagines that Kirkwall was as happy to see the back of him as he was to leave it. Work is a lost cause now. It was a lost cause long before she turned up, if he's being honest, but now he can't even pretend. So he gives up the pretext entirely, hauling himself out of his chair to cross the room and join her on the couch. It's far more comfortable.

[elegiaque]

Having already taken her shoes off and cracked the wine, Gwenaëlle is comfortable enough in Cullen's company that when he sits, she swings her feet out from underneath herself and into his lap, stretching like a cat settling and leaning her back against the far arm of the sofa they've occupied. She pulls a face, ostentatiously not paying any mind to what he does or does not eat (but- good, she thinks, see, she's helping) -

"There's no winning there." With him, or probably with most of the Templars. There's no angle that isn't complicated, no history that isn't fraught now...but she can imagine his, particularly, must be...

Specific. And that specificity means something here, where it might have been easier a sea journey away. Kirkwall seems set to tear apart half the people nearest to her and she can't do a damned thing about it; it frustrates her in ways she'd struggle to articulate to any of them, not least of all because she struggles to articulate the ways in which anyone is ever near to her.

After a moment, somewhat abruptly, "Ser Luwenna Coupe has decided I'm to learn how to protect myself."

[lionheartedman]

Cullen lets out a low sound, not a chuckle, not an exhale, somewhere in between. He takes another large bite of the apple, hungry now that he's started. "I can't imagine the man foolish enough to attempt to harm you. Nothing about you suggests a need for protection." All right, that's not strictly true. She is lithe and delicate looking, but he knows better than that. He imagines most people know better than that only a few minutes after meeting her. "How does Ser suggest you go about learning to protect yourself?"

[elegiaque]

Her face falls -

Cullen can't have been expecting the nerve he's struck, but she's always so easy to read; even as she scrambles to cover it (with less success than she'd like), that flash of fear was hard to miss. That look as if the floor had fallen out from beneath her, just when she was starting to get comfortable. Her feet draw back to herself, and the way she makes herself small - draws in, like a little thing folding up to protect itself - is not entirely conscious or purposeful.

"Well," she says, slightly blankly, "I imagine that's why that Dalish elf tried to put an arrow into my throat. Thought I could handle it."

(Alexander had put a knife in the elf's face. She remembers it only dimly; her mother's blood under her hands had taken up the lion's share of her attention. He had had a knife and then he didn't have a knife but the archer was dead.)

"I would very much like to suggest a need for protection," after a moment, a bit plaintively. "I would quite like to go on being protected, thank you. I don't - she's to teach me to use the powers from the anchor-shard. And to fight. She says I must. And then no one will protect me."

And she's so afraid it makes her sick inside. She hadn't planned to say it like that - she'd wanted to extract a promise from him that that wasn't the case, to have him promise her the Inquisition would never try to force her into the field, but her vague notions of leading up to it gently have slightly fallen apart. She feels terribly small, and terribly alone, and the fire of the rage demon she never stops seeing in her dreams feels far too close.

[lionheartedman]

“Hey.” Cullen is not always great at reading people, but the heart is big and the intentions are good. He screws it up a lot, but he tries to do the right thing. Still, you don’t have to be great at reading people to see that Gwen is in a bad place now. He puts the wine cup on the floor, looks around for a clean-ish place to set the apple, and finishes the bulk of it in two bites when he can’t find one. His cheeks are briefly puffed out like a chipmunk as he tosses the core to Puppy and tries to chew and swallow quickly without choking himself.

“That’s not true,” he says, coughing a little around a bit of fruit that’s decided to go down the wrong pipe. He’s fine. Totally fine. Please ignore the way his face is going a bit red for a moment. “It’s not.” He reaches for her hand, even though he knows she likely won’t let him take it. He reaches all the same. “I will. I can’t promise you that my protection will be worth all that much. Maker knows what we’re likely to face in the coming months. Worthless or not, it’s still yours. You aren’t alone, Gwenaëlle.”

[elegiaque]

I will, he says, and a small part of her unclenches; he will, and if she were reasoning instead of reacting then she'd know that he's one of many who would. She's never been alone here - there is a small standing army of those who care for her, who would raise up weapons for her. Who have done, already; Bellamy's voice carrying across the battlefield, shouting that she be taken to safety.

It isn't fair that she questions it, but neither is it rational. She is deathly terrified in a bone-deep way she will have to come through, one day - and probably, thanks to Wren Coupe, one day soon. Skyhold has long allowed her to hide in the places she feels safe, hide from the worst of the hurts she hasn't dealt with, but she can't hide behind walls and other people's hands forever. Some fears have to be conquered.

When she has to move forward, though, she won't be alone. And it means more to her than she can express in any way other than letting him have her hand, her thin fingers curling tight around his larger one.

"I hurt Alistair," she says, quiet. "He's all right - he is. I checked. I called a healer. But this stupid shard-- I've another power, and I didn't know, and I hurt him when we were trying to practise with the shield. I know I can't just go about, uncontrolled--"

It isn't safe for anyone else.

"I just, I don't want to fight."

She'll have to learn; she understands that, fears a worse accident than Alistair's bump to the head if she doesn't, but she fears being pushed into the field in a way that's much more kneejerk than rational.

[lionheartedman]

Puppy is crunching away at his portion of the apple, the picture of a contented pup, and so probably not very reassuring looking. Still, the look he gives Gwen, the little burbling whuff, it says that he will also protect her. She is far from alone.

Cullen is, predictably, out of his depth. He knows that her melancholy is not helpful. He's the only one who's allowed to be hating on himself in this office, madam. When she won't take his hand, he moves closer so that he can take hers. Across half the couch, into her personal space, causing her to either pull her feet in further or end up with his thigh pinning them to the cushions. It puts him close enough to take her hand, though, the one with the shard, and he's not the slightest bit hesitant, not the slightest bit afraid.

"Any weapon in untrained hands is dangerous. What is important is what you do now. Learning to control the power inside of you and actively using it in the field are two very different things. One is essential, one is by choice. And you do have the choice. No one will make you fight. Anyone who tries, you send them to me."

This is his most serious of faces, Gwen. Do not try to brush him off. He won't stand for it.