we all keep our sadness cupped safe in our hands ( semi - open )

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin + YOU?
WHAT: Settling into Hightown.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: The new Vauquelin residence, Hightown.
NOTES: Open to anyone who'd have a reason to visit her at her home. Deliveries, pick ups, important conversations as need having.

Actually moving into her new townhouse is not as involved a process as it might be; Gwenaëlle's brought her bedroom with her, not the entirety of the Vauquelin household, so most of the interiors are what had belonged to the current owner the property is now being rented from, purchased on her behalf by the Duke before he left so that she can do as she pleases with them, replace or keep the pieces she likes at her leisure. She'd not been expecting it to be her own home in quite so literal a way, and in overseeing the airing out of the place and some rearrangements made, she finds she's not entirely -

She didn't want to rely on her grandfather, but she misses him. Maybe living together here would have been pleasant.

No sense in dwelling on it, though, when there's still a hundred things to be done - messages sent to her friends and acquaintances by runner to inform them of her new abode and ensure everyone who ought to have her address has it and will have no trouble locating her now that she's (finally) out of the Gallows. She leaves Yva to unpack her belongings, pens a request for Alistair to come at his convenience because she requires his assistance, spends a solid several hours sorting through her new library inventory to see if any of it is useful or if it's all just What This Merchant Thought Would Look Impressive On His Shelves - a selection of tomes are set aside to be donated to the Inquisition, she supposes someone from the research division might come and collect them or she'll have to have someone take them down. Her own books go up, and she has the remainder of what she certainly isn't keeping out boxed up to be delivered to her landlord's current address.

It is a very nice house, and she's more pleased with it than she isn't. Visitors will be shown to the walled courtyard, where she's spread a blanket on the grass and is settled there with her writing, reading glasses balanced on her nose, hair swept back in curls.

Comments

[byblow]

Alistair's class resentment (which he is entitled to, thanks, no matter who his absent father might possibly, according to rumor, have been) is selective. On the way up from Lowtown, he huffs to himself about the entire concept of the wealthy nobility living where they can look down on everyone else. He gives a very small amount of lip—inclusive lip, elbow-in-the-ribs am I right? lip—to the city guards at the top of the stairs who want to know where he's headed. He spends the rest of the walk playing which of these people hit their servants—

and then he stops outside of Gwenaëlle's enormous house, cants his head, and smiles, because it's pretty, and she's different. She doesn't hit her servants. Surely Sabine wouldn't have kissed her if she did.

For his part, Alistair demonstrates that he knows how someone with no title ought to behave when visiting nobility, gracious and quiet and cheerfully compliant, so if he ever pretends otherwise with anyone else it's just to be an ass. Fortunately the only witnesses to this secret are Gwenaëlle's staff, until he's guided to the courtyard.

"Lady Vaquelin," he says, with a shallow bow and a smile like he's including her in a joke. The punchline is both of their personalities. "Do you know how many steps there are between here and the docks?"

He didn't actually count, and he isn't actually inconvenienced. If he hadn't wanted an excuse to get away he wouldn't have come. His real point:

"If you don't feed me before I leave I don't think I'll survive the journey back. I'll waste away to nothing and crumble into dust, and both of my other friends will be horribly upset with you."

[elegiaque]

"What other friends?" is her charitable answer to that, pushing herself up to demonstrate a bit more ladylike posture, sifting through the papers spread around her until she finds what she's looking for in amongst her many to do lists and the various invoices for recent purchases.

"You can have something to eat, I'll send for it in a minute. Do you think a dragon rug for a boy's bedroom is stupid? I already bought it. If Kieran wouldn't like it, you can take it back to the Inquisition with you and someone else can have it, but I want you to help me with his room--"

See, it was worth coming all this way.

[byblow]

Alistair presses—no, he doesn't even press his hand to his heart, really. He touches his hand to his chest in a light, glancing way that matches how much that dig actually hurt his feelings, which is not at all, and then lifts it the rest of the way to unnecessarily smooth his hair back. When he drops it, he also drops the extra puffiness to his chest and stops trying to act like a man who bows and says things like horribly upset. Instead he is a man who looks sort of stupid for a moment.

"Kieran's room?"

Only a moment. He recovers.

"Uhh." Sort of recovers. "What do you mean, a dragon rug? Not a dragon skin." Surely there's such a thing as too great an expense. But he's hooked, yes, good job. He drops down, knees on the edge of her blanket, to see what it is she's looking at.

[elegiaque]

"No, the dragon design is woven into the carpet," as if it should have been obvious. She sits back slightly to give him room, turning the list of things she has thought of for Kieran so he can see it; she seems to have been very preoccupied with the idea of how nice it would be for him to have things that were only his own, new things just for him.

"It's breathing fire," she adds, glancing up. "Do you think that's a bit much?"

(Gwenaëlle thought it looked terribly impressive when she was looking at it to buy.)

"He'll stay here a bit," after a moment, by way of clarification.

[byblow]

After a second's delay, Alistair smiles. It's a good thing—not something he'd ever presume to have any say in, and not something he resents not having a say in either, but if Morrigan had asked his opinion he'd have thought it was a good idea. His willingness to tell everyone else to buck up and get over their qualms with the Gallows or the docks doesn't extend to Kieran.

"No, I think that's brilliant," he says. "He likes dragons. And they ought to breathe fire. The ones that breathe ice or lighting, they're cheating. And the ones that don't breathe anything—what's even the point? Anyway, I think he'll love it." He reads the list with all the attentiveness it deserves. "You're going to spoil him."

That's not a complaint.

[elegiaque]

"A little," she allows, glancing up, pleased - "I think he should be a little spoiled." She doesn't bother with something like don't you, because - well, he does, obviously, or he'd have used a different tone to make the observation.

By way of explanation, "He's shown me a little of your sword lessons. I thought you might like to help." She mightn't know why, but: does it matter? Gwenaëlle's love for Kieran is fierce and crushing; it isn't for her to ask why someone else cares for him. Why wouldn't an - acquaintance - of Morrigan's not see that Kieran is the very finest of fine little boys?