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

[rowancrowned]

Pleased, he notes the state of the shubbery with keener eyes. Whatever house and table Romain would build for Gwenaëlle- whatever Romain would have built and kept for himself, had he not been pulled away- is the exact sort of taste Thranduil must come to associate and judge class and decorum of the rest of Orlais by. Romain has always been tasteful, a hawk among songbirds, and Thranduil resolves to find his hand wherever it might be in the decoration and organization of the house.

Elven and Orlesian manners meld well enough as she settles in next to him, and she could be any lady. This, he knows how to do, matching his steps to hers and allowing himself to be guided while giving the appearance of escorting her.

"A cook?" he supposes. "And Yva, and perhaps someone to aid her, maids..."

He will not have a Yva, and he will learn their names on his own. They pass through halls and he notes the start of projects, contemplates what she might do, and the tall walls and high ceilings that Kirkwall's wealthy seem to favor.

"May I beg a favor of you, my lady?"

[elegiaque]

"I've no need of two lady's maids," she says, dismissively, of Yva being given any assistance. "There is a housekeeper, a cook. Maids, footmen, a groundskeeper. I've a woman from the Inquisition minding my horse, but she's other duties as well, so there's a stablehand, of course..."

The thought trails off into nothing in particular. He will acquaint himself with the household in due course, and she is admittedly still a little bit vague on all of the details herself. There's much to be done, though she favors much the same decorative restraint as her grandfather; her home will never be gaudy.

She's leading him upstairs, to show him where he will be quartered, and the way the room between theirs catches the sunlight; she glances up, from his side.

"What favor?" Too much herself to just say yes. Naturally.