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{ CLOSED } An Unexpected Engagement
WHO: Christine, Church, a rival suitor, Korrin, Araceli, Sam, and Jim
WHAT: Christine's mother plays matchmaker and the groom has come to collect his bride-to-be. And to rid her of her current beau.
WHEN: mid-Justinian
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: No tag order. Just throw yourselves in as often as you want!
WHAT: Christine's mother plays matchmaker and the groom has come to collect his bride-to-be. And to rid her of her current beau.
WHEN: mid-Justinian
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: No tag order. Just throw yourselves in as often as you want!
It's an hour before supper when an impeccably dressed man enters the Inquisition's holdings along the docks. Guillaume Thiebaut walks stiffly but with purpose, carrying a long, thin briefcase with him like a man on a mission. He stops the first person he sees to ask where one might find the man called Leonard Church. This random person doesn't know, and points the visitor along to someone else. Eventually someone has actually heard of Church, and directs Guillaume towards the Gallows. The man pales, adjusts his tasteful coral colored jacket, and offers to pay for someone to fetch the man from the island. He sets his briefcase down at his feet and waits, staring out towards the imposing group of towers, and sets his hands on his hips, turning out his foot like a true Orlesian gentleman.
But waiting is boring and his foot taps impatiently. His gaze turns shrewd as he looks about him at the members of the Inquisition. Perhaps a little more information on this man he's about to face is needed.
"I do beg your pardon. Would you happen to know a man named Leonard Church?" The first rule of battle? Know thy enemy.
sips rum
"Finally," she breathes when she appears back at Korrin's side though it's no guarantee that she'll actually stay there for long. Her hip flask is offered out to Korrin because this is a duel, you need a drink in you. "This is where almost all of Thedas goes wrong, no one gets things out properly."
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Not that it truly matters, they know she'll be cheering Church on anyway.
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This is something that gets Araceli's own blood racing from the way she's talking, glancing up at Korrin and if she touched her cheeks, she'd feel the flush on them.
"His name is Guillaume Thiebaut at any rate, Orlesian." Araceli stumbles a little over the name as ever, her accent and Orlesian still not getting along.
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She wrinkles her nose, not at Araceli's pronunciation but between the man's nationality and bearing she's already unimpressed. "Some Orlesian fop? All that it takes to offend one of those is breathe in their direction. At least in Orlais; seeing it in Kirkwall is pretty odd." Any disagreements in the City of Chains are settled in a myriad of ways that have nothing to do with finesse or honor. "Why does Church give a shit, though? He's not the dueling type."
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(Araceli would hope she does. For Church's sake. For what it means. Because if not she's going to have to go challenge Christine and it'll all spiral into something ridiculous.)
Sighing, Araceli uses her position to shove an elbow into Korrin's side where it won't hurt because she's not a terrible person. "I had Malcom the Seeker and your friend Mal duel for my pleasure and the right to a name, I've had to fight duels and wear the scars today for walking in the wrong part of my home in the eyes of some, for casting my eyes too long in the wrong place, at the wrong person. That's not getting into duels over ladies or actual offenses. Church will care because I have intervened. Because I am his friend who knows these things of course. Because this is a matter of passion and he has much and more of it."
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"You'd think our actions on the field would be enough to keep our reputation solid, but this is Orlais we're talking about. Some of the elite would be awful enough to side-eye us for something like this." She shakes her head, because the Orlesian elite and poor priorities go hand in hand. That was spelled out clearly enough for all of Thedas to see, with the civil war.
That elbowing gets a smirk from her, though mention of her Mal has it faltering for a moment. He still hasn't returned and at this rate, she's stopped expecting it to happen. That brief heartache is not something she wants to dwell on, though, so that smirk returns. "Missing the dueling life, kadan? You seem fairly itching to have one of your own. At any rate, Church couldn't ask for a better mentor. If he can hold back from more punches, that passion will carry him far."
Even if Korrin privately thinks hitting below the belt would be more entertaining, and more in line with what the noble deserves.
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Duelling used to keep her place in that world. Before she was ever a guard and after. It was who she was and how she was measured, now she always has to measure her impulses against bigger things because the rules are different. It's no different to what people here have lived with their whole lives but she's not so impulsive as she was. Not now. Not ever again so long as she lives in Thedas.
"I was the one that fetched the gauntlet," she says instead, because she needs to say something to fill the silence as a place opens up in her that roars like the sea and laughs like the guards and Leandra when it's the end of a long day and they're all calling one another out for imagined slights to make their queen laugh because they love her. "It was that or a filthy glove. What else was I to do? That's tradition too, I had to teach him quickly."
She was meant to fetch a glove. She hasn't answered the first question. She won't. She can't. (It feels very odd even now not to be someone's guard.)
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"I wouldn't have minded my glove being used to strike that pompous twit. If something like this happens again and I'm around, it's yours." White dragonhide gloves, very high quality and made from one of the dragons killed at Emprise du Lion. She normally won't part with them, but in this case, it would be a welcome exception.
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Imagine that, an obliging guard floating around the Gallows. Or: Araceli is very good at batting her eyelashes and saying the right things as she asks for a gauntlet she promises to return right away, if you please, this is a matter of utmost urgency, my reputation is at stake too Serah and maybe how a foreign word rolls off her tongue tends to do it.
"You can use cloths too, or you can where I'm from and we would sweat our fingers off in gloves but it's Church and I love Church." Araceli can say that freely because he's one of her best friends, able to make her laugh and smile, someone she can easily just sit with and talk about less comfortable subjects. "Of course I was going to give him something like a gauntlet, he needed the advantage."
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She darts a fond smile at Araceli's admission and looks on with a chuckle. "I'm sure he appreciates your thoughtfulness...and the weight of that thing. Count Pompous won't, but if he's going to be a stickler about honor, then too fucking bad.
...now I wish the food carts were closer, this deserves snacks." But who wants to leave and potentially miss something exciting? No one gathering around, apparently.
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Korrin knows Araceli's life. Knows Araceli wouldn't overstep even if this is still (over a year in) a new thing but she darts a glance up of her own to check that she hasn't read it wrong when it comes to flirting with other people if she wants to get something from them. So let's talk about Church again because zero danger there. "I could send Lux to fetch something if you're that desperate but usually? You don't eat at a duel - what terrible books have you read?"
Araceli reads trashy romance novels in her spare time. There are a lot of duels. If she wanted to turn herself into a martyr she'd point out all the inaccuracies but she needs to have her own escapism too.
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That comment about terrible books prompts an easy laugh from her, probably the most merriment she's displayed since certain qunari revelations. Those still tear at her heart, but for just a moment, she can block them out. "Varric's, of course. And some of yours, when you're done with them. Maker, you can't go a page or to without someone loudly challenging someone else." Not that she's criticizing, it's still fun to read even if (or because) it's trash. "I didn't know it was all so set in stone. Are there any other hideous sins I need to know about before I commit them, too?"
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"Well if I ever see Varric I will throw the book at his head from a rooftop." Seriously, she will. The Tale of the Champion doesn't help when you arrive in Thedas and you're actually trying to figure out what the hell really happened in the world not so very long ago. "You lay down a challenge, you agree to the terms - usually it's to first blood or the death, but sometimes it's whoever can score so many hits or best a person to flat on their back in a time or out of three or five. I liked first blood, that was what I always fought to when I was setting the terms. There's a chance of a public apology too or another way to make it up, money, goods, favours - you know what nobles and rich folk are like, especially the young men when they realise what they're up against."
That tends to be the thing about them; they're all swordtails as Araceli likes to say, all flash and no substance, and once they realise they're against someone prepared to go at them they're terrified of what'll happen to them when some common girl and a thief at that bests them.
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And then she pauses and stares and snickers because it's the first time shes' gotten a good look at the fop's hilt, which is...something else. "I wonder how Andraste would feel about her tits taking part in random duels. And yes, they're slapped on staves all the damn time but with sword hilts, they're practically fondling them!"
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Obviously that doesn't matter in Orlais but she can hear Marjani telling her that, a younger Araceli who was wet behind the ears with too much passion and no technique to her, the hours of aching muscles and blood she never thought would come out of her clothes. The gritted teeth then the laughter. Araceli can't summon flames and lightning at her fingertips but she's held a blade to the hollow of a throat with her boot on a chest, soaked with sweat and shaking, and called it good and alive.
And Church, at least, will fight with true blades with a heritage and a history, with their ornate and gilded hilts to protect his hands same as hers. It gets her to laugh. Again, she's the one meant to be enjoying this most, why is she getting lost in her damned head today? "I asked if he was sure about which blade he would be fighting with."
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That laugh provokes the return of her grin, though, as that sound is always music to her ears. "It went right over his head, didn't it. Or let me guess, it was a blade of his distinguished ancestor, Count Stuffyface. I couldn't take him seriously before, but this doesn't help. C'mon, Church, you can't be defeated by tits-on-a-hilt."
She raises her voice enough to be heard by other observers, and a few of the nearest ones chuckle and mutter to their own companions.
"Before I forget, I extended the invite to Sina. She'll think about it."
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"There's probably a verse from the Chant he can quote to justify that, Andraste is everywhere, statues, amulets; what's a little Andraste to squeeze for good look. It isn't as if the Maker is looking to see another man fondling the image of his wife." Araceli that's some blasphemy right there but who else is around to hear it when she's dropped her voice, risen to her toes to speak it only to Korrin.
"I'll make sure there's a space for her," Araceli agrees with a nod, "but if you see her before I see her, let her know I won't be offended if she doesn't want to stay with us, the smell and sound of the docks isn't for everyone."
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She wiggles her eyebrows, then nods at the response about Sina. "She knows. I think she and Nari are trying to decide whether or not they want to be at the alienage or not, to help the elves there. But nothing's set in stone yet, and I think I tempted her with mention of a possible rooftop garden."
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On the one hand, a rooftop garden is good and Araceli doesn't need to trespass into the alienage more than they'd want extra humans about to check in on friends, vouched for or not. (No matter how parts of alienages are more like home, all these strange places where parts of her can fit but never actually the whole.) On the other, being near plants? "There's enough salt in me that anything Sina tries growing is going to die, or if the winds and tides whip the waves high enough."
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It's not that Korrin isn't well-aware of what went on before Araceli's arrival by now. Of course she is, and she's accepted that as she has everything else about her rifter love. Well, she does best. As someone who decidedly doesn't share, she can't say it's always easy to hear about Araceli's bonds with that queen/her queensguard, but she knew what she was getting into when she gave Araceli that dragon tooth necklace. That was a promise to accept all of her, just as Araceli accepted her in turn. So, Korrin would never think to ask Araceli to hide her thoughts and feelings; that's not the kind of relationship she'd want them to have. She reaches up to trace a flushed cheek, Araceli able to draw her in even with a duel happening right before them.
"You know, we could just slip away afterwards. You can always get your rapier back from Church later." How can she not want to take advantage of the heightened mood that the duel provides? Hell, there should be more of them just for this alone.
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She knows it's coming. She isn't so naive as to think that Sina will be saved but the longer she can have with her, the better. Even if Araceli sat by her in her wedding gown with flowers in her hair quietly encouraging her to break the vows she hadn't given voice to yet because duty is duty and love is love, and sometimes they go hand in hand and it's a wonderful thing but all too often they don't. Sina should be selfish like Araceli can be selfish, go follow her heart for whatever time she has it still before the shard consumes it. Maybe not the way Araceli would do it. Still, Sina should have the happiness Araceli's found here in a world that isn't hers.
Turning her cheek into Korrin's hand, she smirks. "No. I can't leave that rapier behind, it'd be cutting my arm off if I did, besides wouldn't I look strange if it was just one on my hip?" You know. One rapier on the belt. And maybe nothing else.