[Open] A Proper Party

[thorndergod]

WHO: The brothers Asgard and everyone else.
WHAT: Loki and Thor throw a party for everyone.
WHEN: Right after the quarantine is lifted.
WHERE: The Asgard Estate in Hightown.
NOTES: Loki gonna Loki, probably other things. Directly corresponds to this rookery post.

The new manor has come a far sight from where it had been, cleaned and updated significantly, but the aesthetics are still in keeping with Kirkwall standard...mostly. The exterior features a large iron scrollwork fence with matching gates, currently flung wide open, and a cheerful array of fresh floral decorations. Beyond the gates there are a number of hedges, bare but thick enough that once spring has properly taken over, they will likely be shaped into large living sculptures. There are a few torches scattered among the flora, but they lead toward the front of the manor.

The building's superstructure has not been overtly altered, but there are several exceedingly Tevene touches. The front doors, once made of hardwood, have been wholly replaced by a pair extremely detailed, solid, white marble doors. The fittings are all custom made, snake themed, and plated in gold.

The interior of the building is far more obviously Tevinter styled. The floors are the original wooden, polished to a mirror shine by the staff and bedecked in places by rugs with complex woven designs and thick piles. The foyer is well lit by a series of gold, wall-mounted sconces, and a large chandelier made of serault glass with a distinctly magical light-source in the center.

The staff, all elven in matching black uniforms, are waiting just inside the threshold and are ready to assist anyone who requires it. First and foremost they will offer to take any coats and curtsy with proper depth to anyone who passes by.

There is still some construction going on, deeper in the house, but it is up the grand staircase and beyond the realm of the party. Occasional hammer-falls resound from upstairs but they can only be heard if one is being very quiet.

Comments

[thorndergod]

"That is more my brother's speed of things." Thor side-eyes her. "Or so some artwork would suggest."

And plenty of experience coming across his brother with various paramours. The life of a second-born mage is much simpler, who they form attachments to not as closely watched. And politics is even more dull than sitting down with a dull woman with proper bloodlines who expects nothing more than duty and affairs for both of them. Thor sees no reason to join in with Gwenaelle's laughter. There's a purpose to him being here, as there is with everything he does, and he finds the ambivalence of the Inquisition a little personally frustrating.

"I have some standing. I am not used to people not wishing to make use of that standing for their own purposes. I do not know what additional seduction the Inquisition would require." He's not going to make a donation. That could go wrong very quickly. But he does have to admit he's not sure where to go from here.

[elegiaque]

It takes her a moment to place what he's talking about, and he doesn't have to be particularly adept to see; it's a pointed comment that he makes, but it's been perhaps seven years since she last saw Loki and it was not a gift made for him, particularly, so much as something she had which became a gift. It doesn't immediately come to mind, and when it does—

Her lip curls, very slightly, and she takes a small step away from him without thinking. She'd been almost relaxed a moment before, hoping they would not prove traitors, but if he'd been charming in his blatant attempts to keep Loki's hands from her person before then he is significantly less so in his equally unsubtle references to the stupid things she did as a teenager. Namely, his brother.

“You have some standing in Tevinter,” she agrees, less friendly.

But they are not in Tevinter.

[thorndergod]

He raises an eyebrow, looking sidelong at her. Her reaction is a little bit of a surprise. The portrait had implied confidence in her body and appearance, but perhaps he's misread that.

"You regret the gift," he says slowly. The thought is mulled over before he nods and tilts his head to indicate the upstairs. "I can direct you to it, if you wish to take it back. Or destroy it. Or I can leave you be."

None of the prospects bother him. She's interesting and has some standing, but he's not here to use other peoples' standing. He's here to earn it himself, to show that he's worthy of it, and he has no doubts that he will. Thor has confidence in himself.

[elegiaque]

“Exactly what part of 'nudge nudge I know you fucked my brother' was I supposed to find complimentary?”

Her eyebrow rises. Her expression remains flat.

“Whatever happened in the past,” and she stresses that past, “is so far from being your affair that it you couldn't see it on the horizon if you squinted. What you can do is apologise to me for your rudeness towards a guest in your home.”

The smart, Orlesian thing to do is—none of this. The Orlesian thing, even the thing Loki would probably do, would have been to swallow her affront, to smile at him and remember the slight, to plot some petty retaliation at a later date—but that isn't who Gwenaëlle is. She's never been good at the game, at maneuvering like that, at pretending to be anything other than what she is.

So she responds with honesty, sharp as it is, and expects to be shown what sort of man he is in return.

[thorndergod]

He blinks at her, surprised again, before taking a step back and bowing. This is not Tevinter. He is in a foreign land, and clearly he's crossed a cultural line. Thor is not exactly clumsy at politics, he's been around them for much of his life, but he's only truly familiar with what he's run into at home. He, clearly, still has much to learn about the international stage.

"I apologize, my lady." The question had been rhetorical so there will be no answering that, only fixing what damage he's done. "I am sorry for my rudeness, and will not refer to it again. Is there a way I can make it up to you?"

He straightens back up, expression open and honest. Dishonesty has always been a waste of time in his opinion.

[elegiaque]

The flash of surprise on her face—

it may say more about her than it does him, how clearly braced she'd been to be dismissed at best and mocked at worst. However cleverly she can navigate behind the scenes, when she's beneath the harsh scrutiny of court life and gatherings like this one she is out of her depth and uncomfortable; Orlais has little sympathy for a jewel that's prettiest with her mouth shut, and Gwenaëlle has always been bright enough not to expect the Inquisition to be full of people with a great deal of time for the plights of a sad little rich girl from Halamshiral.

Aleron wouldn't apologise to her when she asked it of him. She did not expect Thor to, and her hackles lower, a little. It isn't the portrait, particularly, that bothers her; a similar if more recent piece hangs in her own home, where anyone she invites within might see it. Ah, and there, perhaps, is the distinction: her invitation, within her control, her territory. She's long preferred to keep her trysts more discreet, and indeed it's unlikely any in Orlais had known at the time what she was up to—certainly her father did not—and to have it bandied about as something sordid to be alluded to, gossiped about by people who were not a party to the moment in question, that makes her feel exposed and uneasy as simply removing her clothes did not.

“Be mindful of other's privacy in future,” she says, gathering her composure and letting the moment settle, instead of any of that. It would be difficult enough to articulate it to someone she knew better, nevermind a relative stranger. “I think most I know would prefer that personal gestures they made, particularly when they were younger, not be considered public consumption.”

Gwenaëlle is barely twenty-four, to speak of being young, but then in some respects she'd been awfully precocious.

[thorndergod]

He is not sure how to take her surprise. Perhaps she has been treated rudely usually, and most do not apologize. Perhaps she thought him to be like many of his countrymen, proud with power and having no care about who they trample. He is from Tevinter and there is no love lost between Tevinter and the Orlais that lingers in her words.

Her words get a nod. Younger seems odd, he's not sure there's much difference between the woman in front of him and the woman in the painting, but he's also not studied it. The painting had been given to Loki, not him. And perhaps that's where the privacy comes in, though a large painting seems about as far from private as one can get. Orlais, perhaps, is the explanation for that.

"I will even not ask how old you are," he says with a hint of a smile back in his voice and eyes. The apology seems to have been accepted; there is no reason to dwell on it unless she sees it as needed.

"May I ask what brought you to the Inquisition?" There, that seems safe and possibly interesting.

[elegiaque]

“My anchor-shard,” she says, shifting with the change in topic and not, although she might have considered it, leaving it and the conversation entirely at that.

He's making an effort; she can, too.

“It was not by choice,” with a small, bitter twist to her faint smile. “These,” touching the neckline of her gown lightly, where the scars from the rage demon's claws emerge (and she did not have those, in the painting of a younger, softer Gwenaëlle), “were still new. My lord carried me from my sick-bed and put me in the carriage to Skyhold entirely against my wishes, but it's not as if there was much else he could have done.”

Which is about as generous as she's ever been on the subject. She wouldn't change it, now, but she doesn't enjoy the memory.

[thorndergod]

He follows her fingers to the scars that had been seen, and not remarked on, the first time they'd met, nodding along.

"They like to have the shards accessible," Thor remarks. They have more than they need to close rifts, he's pretty certain of it, but they want them... watched? Centralized? Is there something tactical to this? He'll consult with Loki later.

"You would not be here if the shard had not found your hand, then." He can't blame her. Plenty of his peers think this a stupid idea, and he's the sort that seeks out combat and action. She does not seem to be. "Will they not allow you to leave, or have you chosen to stay?"

[elegiaque]

“No one with an anchor-shard is given a choice in that matter, but it's not entirely the Inquisition's decision, either,” she says, after a moment. “I'm not, as we discussed, a member, but the anchor-shards...”

Her expression is a slight frown.

“The Inquisition is the only place that has the slimmest hope of solving them. The anchor-shards have already killed one person, I don't intend on being the second just for the sake of not particularly liking Kirkwall.”

[thorndergod]

"They have killed someone," he repeats, surprised yet again. This time there's concern in his voice. It's not for any particular person; the prospect is disquieting. Be too near a rift and you can wind up with a lethal condition? His father may have been right in calling coming to the Inquisition a fool's errand, but while this knowledge isn't comforting, Thor isn't really ready to agree with Odin yet. Corypheus is too dangerous, and Thor could be just as easily killed by a freak accident tomorrow as hit by a shard.

"Is closing the rifts with them that dangerous? Or is there more to the anchor shards?" That's probably the topic the Imperium is most in the dark on - what all the shards are.

[elegiaque]

“They're slowly killing everyone who has them,” she says, brightly, and drains the wine-glass.

Parties like these ill suit her—this conversation may not be particularly enjoyable, but at least it's a conversation, a matter of some weight and not interminable smalltalk, the effort to decode a hundred things people aren't saying to her to figure out what they're actually about, and how to respond to it gracefully.

Apparently, 'I don't care' is not an appropriate response to most of those conversations, no matter how true it is.

[thorndergod]

"I had no idea." A shard is a lethal condition. Are the rifts harming the world more than they can see too?

Thor signals a servant over with a full glass for her, slowly sipping his own drink. There had always been a need for getting at the problem of Corypheus sooner rather than later, but now there's more reason for speed.

"Has anyone found anything that helps, or buys time?" Have they tried? The Inquisition does not seem all that organized.