{ CLOSED } An Unexpected Engagement

[aceso]

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!

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.

Comments

[foxsays]

"Leandra," Araceli says. Darts her eyes about to make sure because somehow this has stayed a secret because people either don't think or they don't wish to question very hard when it comes to what they see. "It isn't just the same but there's a holiness that comes with being Her Grace Above the Waves and, well, six of us in the queensguard including me in her bed, and behind a closed door we're all very much equals." You know exactly what she means Korrin, just because she doesn't show a blush as easily, you know what the other signs are with the cleared throat and looking right ahead, blowing her hair away from her face to cool her flushed cheeks.

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."

[gatheringstorm]

"True, but Sina does have that Dalish plant magic. If anyone could get something out of it, she could."

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.

[foxsays]

"Sina should probably be saving more of her magic for herself," Araceli murmurs quietly because even if she'd recovered from the voyage at last, it's not as if Sina's health is ever going to be close to robust and using a lot of magic for things she doesn't really need to? All Araceli can see is Sina moving closer to a place none of them can follow her to.

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.