faderift | ( the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire )

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( the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire )

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, Thranduil, Wren Coupe, & division heads and anyone in their quarters or offices.
WHAT: A quiet night in goes awry.
WHEN: Forward-dated slightly to the 6th.
WHERE: The Gallows, main tower. Also, Halamshiral.
NOTES: Violence, drugging, attempted assassination. Also, the division head quarters are slightly on fire. Toss any queries in here!

CLOSED

In less than a week, the Vauquelin household is shut up for the remainder of the winter; savvy enough not to want to have to instruct an entirely new staff on her particular idiosyncrasies, Gwenaëlle sends most of her servants home with generous stipends to cover the lost work and the expectation of seeing them all again in the spring. Kieran decamps for Sundermount and his mother, and with her small menagerie (birds, hound, horse, Thranduil's fucking pony, the elk) she retreats to the Gallows and quietly takes up residence in a fifth floor room of the Templar tower.

Or, at least, is seen to have done that. Many of her belongings are there, certainly, and her lady's maid occupies the second bed. Were anyone to glance in, they would have every reason to assume that they have merely caught her out - indeed, when Felix Guilfoyle is discreetly dosing the wine that will be taken up to the research division head, it's where he expects her to be for the evening. An oversight, one of several, that he will live to regret—

but he is not as young as he once was.

It's only late into the night, having set the fire and preparing the final touches, that he discovers his mistake in the sight of Gwenaëlle's slight form sleeping peacefully beneath the weight of Thranduil's arm over her waist, their sleep-murmurs echoed dozily by a pair of peculiar birds in a cage in the corner.

OPEN TO PEOPLE IN THE DIVISION HEAD QUARTERS & OFFICES

It's a slow start - increasing warmth, the faint smell of burning and then the stronger smell of smoke -

but there is definitely a fire spreading from the division head quarters.

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Getting to the Dales takes the better part of three days. He sells the horse and buys a new one rather than stop, secure in his glamour as a Man and Guilfoyle’s as a sack of potatoes. Which is apt enough for his approximate moods—mood. Thranduil makes sure he eats, sleeps, is kept clean. Other than that, the journey is quiet, and unremarkable.

They come upon the Vauquelin estate on the morning of the third day. Thranduil unloads Guilfoyle, checks the ropes, and pulls a strip of clean cotton from his pack. He pinches Guilfoyle’s nose closed, somewhat apologetic but elf-quick and strong when he is given the chance to hold his mouth open, mindful of his fingers as he gags the assassin.

“You have been quiet so far, and I thank you for it,” he says, as he has occasionally spoken to him during the trip, treating him as a free audience. “—but I cannot risk an interruption.”

And then it is back over Thranduil’s shoulder.

The glamour comes upon them like a shiver, like stepping into a warm room. Thranduil covers his face with Guilfoyle’s, changes his clothes to match, makes himself appear shorter—and does the same for Guilfoyle, but with his own—and a face that is corpse-pale and limp, the bruising around his neck suggesting a garrote.

Getting into the house is easy. The servants flow around him like water—he has been given enough of an education in how Guilfoyle moves from the man himself over the last few days. He remembers the layout of the estate—pauses only to ask a servant where my lord is, is told the bed chamber, and goes to it. He does not knock, only slips in, and lays the false corpse down on the rug, stepping away from it and waiting to be acknowledged.

Edited 2018-01-06 04:25 (UTC)

When Thranduil enters, Emeric doesn't immediately turn from what he's doing - pouring a drink - making a small sound of acknowledgment, one hand flat on the hard wood of the sideboard. He stands in shirtsleeves beneath a rather arresting portrait of the late Guenievre Baudin, painted - oh, at least some twenty years ago. She sits in a high, leather-backed chair in what's more than likely his study, lushly pictured in one of Emeric's own shirts; one bare leg crossed over the other, one shoulder exposed by the slip of fabric, her chin resting in her hand and her gaze settling calmly, directly upon the viewer. The necklace that hangs about her throat is a Vauquelin heirloom, one lately seen by Thranduil upon the throat of his own wife, her daughter—

“For pity's sake, Felix,” he says, involuntarily, when he does turn and takes in the scene before him. He doesn't immediately object, though his displeasure is clear; trust enough between them that he presumes his man has his reasons, did only what was best. This can be salvaged, he tells himself. It must be salvaged. Presumably, Gwenaëlle remains unaware, it can be...the Freemen aren't so far use of them couldn't be made, worst come to worse. An acceptable scapegoat.

He looks—drunk, but habitually. Tired. Older than his years, which are not young. He downs the glass in its entirety and sets it down behind him, exhaling, his gaze holding on what he believes to be the elf whose death he'd demanded. “Sweet bride, I'd forgotten how big he was. He'll be missing, then. If aid is asked for the search, we'll give it without condition.” His expression twists and he rubs his palm over his mouth, curls his fingers at his chin, “What's she to do when I'm gone?” a rhetorical question, one he doesn't expect a true answer to, exhausted and despairing.

She doesn't listen. He can't protect her from herself forever—

Thranduil-as-Felix cannot stare overlong at the portrait, but he is aware of it. Hyperaware, and a mixture of emotions that has anger as their king. How many other men and women in Orlais live like this, and hypocrites all given their public stances. Emeric is not unique. Yet another reason, he supposes, to justify what will eventually come.

(Guenievre Baudin will have more influence than she ever knew.)

Felix-as-Thranduil lays mutely between them, dressed as Thranduil had been when he'd woken-- in sleeping clothes, Gwenaëlle's embroidery along the cuffs, the neck. Thranduil leaves him there, and decides to see how long the farce can be made to last. It isn't as if he can keep it forever-- Felix mute for the trip and Thranduil unsure of how he conducts himself in private-- but if he can pluck at his heartstrings, all the better.

There is very little empathy in him. Not very much of anything at all, in truth. But he has already decided he won't do any of the making Emeric gone, at least.

"A husband," delivered in Felix's flat tones, well aware it has been tried and failed, usually magnificently.

“You old optimist,” he says, barking a mirthless laugh at what he perceives immediately to be a joke—Emeric at the Winter Palace had been a man putting on a show, and a good one, but the undone version of him with the person he trusts most, ah. This Emeric is a man far more like his daughter than she likes to confront. He crouches, turning 'Thranduil's' face gently in his hands exhaling a genuine regret few would credit.

How little he likes the lack of dignity in the man dropped at his feet like a sack of potatoes is apparent, the absent-minded way he tidies glamoured hair and shakes his head before he rises.

“Did think Anne might finally have her way on the matter when the Luthor boy came calling, but much good he did her, didn't he, the Marcher wretch.” The frown lingers. “You know I won't force her, but I can't—I promised her mother, Felix.”

(He doesn't mean Anne.)

“Our little victory. Ma petite belle. Orlais will destroy her if we aren't fucking careful—”

“She made her choice,” Thranduil says, still approximating Guilfoyle’s manner. And that choice was like as not to get her killed in the Game, he does not say. He knows, but he does not know— and the turmoil about the Inquisition and Orlais means that he has bet on a future where they can be open. Celene, Briala— he has been more selfish than he would care to admit in some of his machinations.

He watches Guilfoyle as he really is, the still expression, the hatred he might think brewing under all of that, and steps forward once Emeric is done arranging him as he likes, much more gentle this time as he picks him up, mindful of old bones. He waits until Emeric finishes speaking, and sees himself out.

There is a linen closet he passed on the way in. He makes use of it, slipping inside. Guilfoyle, he sets down at the far end, bending over in the dark to loosen his bonds just enough that a clever man might be able to work himself free if he works for long enough. And at the other end, he sets down the weapons he removed from his person, a neat little pile. As utterly disconcerting for Guilfoyle as it is to do this while still wearing his face, Thranduil keeps it, and drops Guilfoyle’s, motioning a finger over his lips as he leaves, and closes the door—

—only to return back to Emeric’s office, slipping back inside, silent once more. The effect, he thinks, will be better if he drops the glamour in sight of him, though not necessarily facilitating his truth of wanting to speak with him, in private.

“What sort of father would allow their child to ruin her life because, ah, it was her choice to do—”

He doesn't stop Thranduil from leaving with the body; it fits far better than having turned up with it in the first place. Something must have gone badly wrong for Guilfoyle to feel the need to bring it back to Orlais—he trusts that it will be rectified, and he has never yet been disappointed in his old friend's results. He assumes, not unreasonably on that basis, that if there were a real problem to be addressed past Guilfoyle's ability, he'd have been told already.

It doesn't occur to him the man wearing his face might be anyone else.

When Thranduil returns, he has sat in the chair by the fireside, beneath Guenievre's portrait; gazes at it and does not look away at the sound of entrance.

“She should have been my comtesse, you know,” he remarks, swirling a second (...it's probably not his second) drink in the bottom of the glass, indicating her image with a finger lifted from its rim. “None of this would have happened if Guenievre had been my wife and not Anne. Gwenaëlle would have been happy—”

The glass shatters in the fireplace when he throws it.

Thranduil makes for the sidebar, and pours two glasses, carrying them both to the fireplace. He offers one to Emeric, and takes the other to the chaise, where he perches, one leg crossed over the other.

And then the glamour drops, falling away like so much dust, and Thranduil sits, dressed for the road, contemplating Guinevere’s portrait.

“I regret not knowing her better,” he says, soft and genuine in his admission. “But Gwenaëlle did not tell me until much later, and I was— distracted.”

He takes a drink of whatever Emeric has on offer. The man has good taste.

“She is happy. Perhaps less so at the moment, but recent events were distressing.” He makes a dismissive gesture, focus moving from the painting to Emeric. “She has asked me for your head.”

The only part of any of this that isn't shocking—Emeric swears in startled Orlesian—is the idea that his daughter would have asked for his death. He is sometimes surprised she's done nothing to that end sooner; it isn't as if he's unaware of how she feels about him. What she blames him for. If he could have done things differently, better...

But he didn't.

The colour drains from his face—Felix? What's happened to him? What was the body? Felix, is he dead, no, Gwenaëlle wouldn't countenance that, surely—and Thranduil can see it, the math he's doing in his head on how far away his weapons are and how hard he thinks he can throw a punch in his current state of inebriation. (Harder than anyone else would like him to be able to; just ask Yngvi.)

“Headstrong little fool,” he murmurs, with awful resignation. “Move heaven and earth for the sake of you or her fucking brother, she won't listen to her mama, she won't think to her own future.”

He realizes, and he grits his teeth, jaw tight before his face settles into blankness. His eyes burn despite that.

“What sort of monster would kill his father-in-law? No,” he says, gesturing with the hand holding the glass. “Sit. Relax. We are simply long overdue a conversation, the two of us. Barefaced and truthful, you owe me this for what you tried to do, and for her sake.”

He would have settled into a chair if he had one, but he has the chaise, and he is not comfortable enough to kick up his feet. He exhales, takes another drink, and some of the rigidity leaves him, but not the elegance.

(He files ‘her brother’ away for later.)

“The laundress,” he guesses. “I was not as careful as I ought to have been on her birthday. Rest assured, it will not happen again. I was... sloppy,” to their ruin. He will speak to Galadriel about handling the finer details. “Name your terms.”

How Emeric would like this to go, from now on. They must have a baseline to move from.

Emeric drains the glass Thranduil had handed him, and says, flatly, “I want you out of her life.”

As if that wasn't apparent.

“No,” he says patiently, the exact same tone he’s used with this man’s daughter. “And you know that is impossible. Try again. I am willing to be reasonable and make concessions if you are.”

“I know no such thing,” Emeric returns, incredulous, tossing aside the glass as carelessly as he'd done the first. “You will ruin her life. We have nothing to discuss—there are no concessions that you could make to me that render it acceptable for you to destroy my only child. I swore a promise to her mother. I want that promise honored.”

He, too, finishes off the last of his drink, and sets the glass on the nearest table.

“It would aid me if I knew what the promise was,” he says. Explaining elven biology is pointless. He is pointless. Gwenaëlle's father cares only for his daughter, which is admirable. And the two of them—the stubbornness is so silly.

(That he himself can be just as bullheaded is ignored.)

So pleas to her happiness, her safety, her love: these he can and must do. The discord between Gwenaëlle and her father should not stand. It injures both of them.

This is how much he loves her.

“Please, Comte. It does not help her if we are at odds. I will beg if I must,” and he will. He thinks for a moment of Beren—he does not bother to compare himself, or her to Luthien—and all the ill it caused.

“I swore to Guenievre all we'd done would be worth it,” and it's quieter, half to himself. “All she gave up. All we did for her to give her everything she deserves. I told her I'd protect her children and two of them died at that woman's hands,”

he does not name Celene, not even in his own home, not in Halamshiral. Not even when Celene's grip on power seems so weak. His show of support for Briala (such as it was, attending the ball, flirting with her as if she's any other noblewoman he might encounter) had been support of Briala; it's unfortunate that it lends support to Celene, as well.

“and I will not see Gwenaëlle undone by her own stubbornness. Her future's not a thing I'm prepared to barter away.”

“What do you want for her?” he asks. All the protections of wealth, which he’s given, the insulations of nobility. Gwenaëlle, who has never been cold or hungry, but still so, so afraid and angry and sad.

He remembers her poetry. All the ones who came before who were not gentle. The things she has told him about Emeric. All the protestations he will not utter because they are childish and not convincing, where they would be, to another elf.

“She is—unlikely to be tied down. What do you think she will do, if I was willing to break her heart? Wed another? After what that smith boy did,” Thranduil, quiet distaste and cold about it, “—after so much, she may well be jaded and stubborn. And she has met all the bachelors in Orlais. Would you have her be alone?”

He does not presume to lecture, but he ventures very close in her defense. “What did you imagine she would do if I had died?”

It's the wrong tack to take, at least to mark it by Emeric's bitter, tired laugh; “Anne was a fool to think she could be forced into marriage,” he says, dismissing the whole of the conversation as irrelevant, pointless. “She wants none of it and she'll have none of it. None of them would do. She deserves better than to be buried in the countryside with whatever name would have her.”

He might have harbored marital ambitions for her—if she indicated even the slightest hint of interest, he'd tear apart the Veil to give her whatever she willed. A Duke. The throne, if he thought he could get it. The sun plucked out of the sky.

“Much good marriage did Anne or I. I want her safe. I want her the space to find her joy of the world. I want her untouchable, you understand. You will bring her nothing but sorrow and ruin. How many of these rifters still walk Thedas? You can't even promise her tomorrow.”

It is the best knife to drive into his heart. He looks away, displays that weakness for Emeric to see. Does not protest or argue. He will never have Emeric’s approval—he does not want it. An accord, though, that he needn’t fear the knife at his back or a repeat of the events in the Gallows—

He ran off before he could comfort her. He left her in very capable hands, but he left before she was calm, and settled again, and their conversations on the crystal could not be called that. He aches to be near to her again. He blames the magebane for his stupidity.

“It is done,” he says. “It cannot be undone. We are where we are—we may only plan for the future.”

He wants her beyond scandal. He said and did nothing to prevent what Thranduil read in her poems, the normal sort of scandal, that is fine to these Orlesians, but an elf is too much to stomach.

(Galadriel’s plans cannot come to fruition soon enough.)

Gwenaëlle has always prized her father's ignorance above all else—he can't interfere with what he doesn't know. She'd miscalculated how badly the distance between them would worry him, enough to be a good deal more proactive, to stop trusting so much that she could keep little from him—she'd not anticipated his finding out about Thranduil in truth because he never found out about the rest of them, before.

Only Asher, and only because she wanted him to. He still doesn't know about Guilfoyle, either, and like as not never will.

Speaking of Guilfoyle: he forces the door, only to pause:

“My lord.” Without inflection, a query. He looks roughly as well as one might expect him to, but some things are in the bone.

Emeric looks up, smiles brittle and wintry. “Felix. I'm delighted to see you alive.” Quite sincerely. “Leave us.”

“My lord.” No shift of tone, expression—or body from doorway.

“Felix,” he repeats, and Guilfoyle's jaw very briefly clenches. “I will send for you,” he promises. As the other man leaves (weary, aching), he says to Thranduil as if they'd not been interrupted, “Look on Orlais and see what your future holds, then. Look what they do to an elf raised so high. The Empress has her throne, but what power is she wielding from it? The power to be snubbed by her own courtiers? My Gwenaëlle has no throne. If you ruin her life, she will not rebuild it. The only future is one in which this can be undone. She must be able to walk away with nothing of you clinging to her.”

Emeric looks back up at Guenievre—

“I could have married her,” he says, after a moment. “An elf bears a title in her own right. I could have made her a Comtesse, if she'd lived, but what kindness would there have been in doing that? Hold her up for all to see and all I'd fucking do is change the shape of the hands pulling bow-strings. It's small wonder Gwenaëlle's always been alone—what examples must we have set her, that she finally looks to be loved by something that will ruin her.”

Edited 2018-01-07 03:20 (UTC)

He takes it all, silent and watching. He says nothing about Guinevere, about this private picture, these private thoughts that he has intruded on. He does not spare any thought for ‘if only’—he has every confidence in Galadriel, in his ‘machinations’, as she calls them. It is only when—and he will only stand beside her once he is sure they are secure and safe. He is patient.

(But she is mortal.)

“I am not holding her captive,” he says. “She is free to leave me if she finds herself with the inclination, to take another lover.”

It would break something in him, but so many things have splintered over the long years, so many shattering, the deaths he could not stop, but the betrayals have been the worst of them. Elves could be reembodied. A knife in ones back was not so easy to exorcise. But he would not have married Gwenaëlle if he doubted her, if he thought her the sort of Man to hold his heart in her hands after his careful, persistent explanations until she grasped the whole of what marriage to him meant, and then throw it away.

“There will be no further—connections to any Rifter elf.”

“I'll hold you to that,” he says, evenly.

He thinks: I will never see her again, and the realisation ages him unkindly, knuckles to his mouth and his weight on his elbow as he looks into the fire and not at his unasked for companion. He knew—

She will not forgive this.

She will appear to have a lover—no reason not to deflect, to obfuscate, he has guarded his glamour well and it will be little trouble to take on the form he wore in Nevarra when he wishes to stay the night, perhaps a bit of extra theatre where he and the other appear in the same room. Difficult, and draining, but not impossible.

“Thank you for the drink,” he murmurs, and stands. “I will see myself out.”

And for that purpose, he uses the face from Nevarra, slightly weathered but still some of himself in it, dressed far more plainly, and leaves Emeric alone with his thoughts.

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( the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire )

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