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

[limier]

Being as none of the rooms in question will boast the security of a fortress maintained to hold people who can blow things up at will —

One’s much the same as another.

"Thank you," Still, she’s a touch curious to see, "I’ve no doubt they shall suit."

Given a more expansive domain, how does Gwen plan her little kingdom? Skyhold's room had been little if not eclectic.

She’ll follow at close enough pace, full of a stiff courtesy that eases whenever they pass out of company. If she's grown... not comfortable perhaps, but used to Gwenaëlle's presence, to Yva's, their surroundings are yet foreign; the rest of the staff is. Probably she should be more comfortable here than the Gallows, with all their weighted history.

Probably, but she's not.

"I had heard your uncle recalled to Orlais,"

A manner of asking: Are you here alone? The sort that doesn't require her to voice aloud the sentiment that the servants don't count.

[elegiaque]

"My grandfather," she corrects, after a small pause, adding dry, "so far as I know the only place my uncle has been recalled to is the Maker's breast."

The grief she feels for him is a slow thing, slowly winding its way into her heart, real but not presumptive - what she grieves is the lack of opportunity. Watching the Lady Leblanc adjusting to life outside of the Circle, hearing tell from Gregoire about how they sought her a husband, how she imagines that lady will adapt to being back in the bosom of her family instead of kept so separate. If she'll stay there; if she'll carve out a place somewhere else. That Gregoire might know the sister who had been the most a mystery to him. That she'd had the opportunity to know her.

...but not to know her own uncle, who is gone. He will always be a signature on a letter written to someone else; a knife she remembers being told was the perfect match for his own. The echo of a smile in his brother, her father, who was his softest when he remembered the boy he'd been before the Circle.

(His grief she finds she's perfectly able to live with, these days.)

"But yes," a moment later, more briskly. "He has obligations there, and he only came to see me well." Whether or not that's what he saw notwithstanding-- "Morrigan's son will live with me, the Gallows is hardly the place for him, and the rifter elf, Thranduil, has accepted my offer to stay as well. There should be someone here who can wield a blade competently, as much as I enjoy it when Kieran shows me what Alistair has been teaching him. I'm certainly no judge as to whether or not he's learning anything useful."

There's no real heat in that habitual derision, it's just - how she talks about the people she loves, her affection as edged as the rest of her.

[limier]

She blinks. Looks — however briefly — startled. Out of focus.

Damnit, Coupe.

"Of course," Her expression stills, one hand lifts free in acknowledgment. Templars and their memories, ever a useful excuse. Moreso if it weren’t true. She’d thought she was back to form, after this most recent exercise in ill judgment, but evidently not. "My apologies."

Evidently not, because she’d swear she just heard Gwen say the words Morrigan’s son.

"The rifter elf," She begins in echo, and if she sounds dubious it’s not entirely for Thranduil's sake. This is, somehow, the safer topic to begin upon: "I had not known him for a swordsman."

Protection certainly isn't what she assumes his presence is for. Maker. Surely Kirkwall has discreet healers, should anything go amiss,

"I am glad you will not be without companionship. How old is the boy?"

[elegiaque]

"I wasn't aware you knew him at all." So what would she know about what he is and isn't capable of? The remark is a closed door, behind which Gwenaëlle's well aware of the potential raised eyebrows around what she's decided to do, the suspicions; she's no wish to begin by inviting debate, as if she's to be debated with.

She has made a decision, and it's done, and it's not anyone else's business to question it.

On the other subject, she speaks far more warmly-- "Kieran is ten, eleven. A very clever boy." And who knew that Gwenaëlle is so easily won by children? And dogs, for all that she objects on principle to being overly Fereldan; Hardie trots at her heels, a shadow as they move through a house that, so far, is not significantly changed. There is much she has in mind, truthfully, but she isn't rushing - it will occupy her when she runs out of other things to do.

The room she opens the door to must have been intended for a ballroom, polished floor and wide open space, lacking windows but high doors instead that open to balconies. It's been cleared of most of its furnishings, stripped bare; it's apparent at a glance that even if not fit for Wren's purpose, Gwenaëlle hasn't any intention of it serving its original one.

pretend i bothered to research a setting-appropriate dance name

[limier]

Past time, evidently, to see that she does know him.

The corner of her mouth tugs aside and down, bares a brief sliver of teeth, but she doesn’t comment further. No purpose to pressing it, when that’s only more likely to settle her in stubbornness —

(Wren has been a young woman; she’s also led recalcitrant mules.)

"Receiving schooling, I assume," In what, well. If there are certain assumptions she’ll make about the son of perhaps Thedas’ second most notorious apostate; she’s no desire to have them confirmed or denied. Better that some things she simply not know, "Will his mother be in residence?"

The ballroom is marvelous. And a security nightmare. Wren steps to a balcony, luxuriates a moment in the fact of the view, the breeze unbarred and not stinking so heavily of port city, before turning her eyes sharp upon its detail. How likely a climber, unobserved? How steep the fall?

"If we are not careful," She turns back: It’ll do. It’ll more than do. "They will think that you dance."

Dryly. How good to know, that her distaste for the Game extends to the waltz.

[elegiaque]

"No," Gwenaëlle says, feigning thoughtfulness, her amusement real if from a great distance, "I daresay they won't."

The list of dance partners she was prepared to be scolded for snubbing at balls is long, after all, and here is one new law in her little kingdom: there will be none of that. None of the tiresome and tiring parties that she doesn't care for, no endlessly pretending to find each other interesting in salons, no being obligated to agonise over seating arrangements and who to invite to what. There's not going to be any fucking thing to invite anyone to, problem solved.

(She likes to dance - but that isn't what it is, in a ballroom. It's only the same maneuvering, in a different gown, with different shoes.)

"And no; I believe she has something particular in mind for herself that wouldn't suit him well at all, so he will stay here. Of course she's always welcome," the little, subtle ways that she always warms up when she speaks of Morrigan, a more uncomplicated adoration than the strange thing between herself and Thranduil.

uses the wrong account for my freakin gagtags

[limier]

"Of course. The residence seems suitably detached from the neighbours, you may all have some privacy."

And what the neighbours will make of the nature of that — as they certainly will — well, an Orlesian lady attached to the Inquisition was always going to attract a certain amount of attention. If the discretion of the arrangement draws further interest, the practicalities of it at least discourage active snooping.

She’d like to nose around the point of Morrigan, nearly as concerning a woman as it is possible to be (while remaining a surprising conversationalist), but she’s little forgotten the affection with which Gwen’s spoken of her: Here and now, there and later. When the purpose of this particular visit is judgment, better not to associate that with — with whatever Morrigan is to her. Enough will have been rightfully assumed.

"Have you spoken with them, or have your staff?"

Those neighbours. Have they been vetted? Or, far more likely: Reassured that the Inquisition isn't about to open a rift in their backyard?