But the Stars are not gods, they say

[foxsays]

WHO: Araceli, Yngvi, Morrigan, Brónach ; open
WHAT: Catch-all for Drakonis
WHEN: Handwaved points through Drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall + Sundermount
NOTES: If you want a specific starter, grab me on deathwailart or bansheesquad#0389 and we can work something out. Starters in the comments

Comments

[elegiaque]

The offer briefly requires some math—Gwenaëlle's tendency to tactile friendships, Thranduil's particular ... quirks ... about hair—but she says, “Yes, please, actually,” and sits forward so she isn't inconveniently leaned against the nearest settee.

Managing something like an intimate friendship with a girl in shouting distance of her own age is not to be sniffed at, she thinks, it's different to carelessness. The value of a connection between two people who can sit around in their stockingfeet agitating against the powers that be while braiding one another's hair, well: how could she possibly not have always wanted that? Intelligent conversation and an ease that feels earned.

It's not that she takes her other friendships for granted—indeed, she takes none for granted, precious things made moreso for their rarity before the Inquisition, by the unusual honesty in most of them—but they're different than this, and having all of them is sometimes, she thinks, worth every time she reads something and says are you fucking kidding me to the ceiling. If that rift hadn't derailed her life, where would she be?

Safer, maybe, but probably not. Angry at different things, but not less angry. Less happy.

She tries not to be glad about the war. What a chilling indictment of a life, to even for a moment not wish for peace—

“I think that Antivan with the boats will stay,” she muses, offering Araceli her comb. “I think she'll complain about it as loudly as I do, and less discreetly than you, but I don't know that she'd be able to stand not having a hand in matters.”

Gwenaëlle is inclined to approve of that, being an interfering so-and-so herself.

[foxsays]

As casual with her touch as Araceli tends to be; a hand resting on a shoulder, a friendly nudge, arms linked with someone she knows well enough when they walk, this is-- Outside of Korrin or when she was too hurt to move one hand to do it herself, it's a thing rarely offered or done.

Going from so many people that she could share this with and her fingers almost itch with it, settling more comfortably to find the end of a braid, working carefully. A thief's fingers. A gambler's fingers. A sailor's fingers. Calluses no amount of careful tending will do away with but no less gentle for it.

It's a very fine comb. (And speaking of Herian, what a tale to tell one day: Gwenaëlle did you know I first met Herian naked in the bath where I combed and oiled her hair because she was so honourable and it was a snarled tangle? Somehow she doesn't imagine Gwenaëlle would be surprised.)

"Lady Vivas? You know she mistook me for a native, that's out the fucking window now." Thanks to what happened since there wasn't any chance for it to be discreet, because it affected all of them and people just open their mouths anyway to let things fall out. But it was nice for a little while to have that complete control. "That she has strong opinions she's inclined to share, as well as news we might do something with. She's part of Naval Presence so even if something takes the ships away, I can still bend her ear when she has to report to me.

"She agrees about the rifter collective identity...movement?" Her hands still a moment to think better on how she'd like to phrase that, if it's quite a movement or just a spectacularly poor lapse in judgement shared by too many minds. "About the idiocy of it, there were other words but let's be blunt about what it is. She's a mage with a title for all that mages don't get to have their titles mean anything outside of Tevinter. And she does listen. Even to things she might not like, she doesn't go spoiling for the fight, it makes a change. Or I've spoken to too many men."

[elegiaque]

“You've been speaking with too many men,” Gwenaëlle says, critically, tilting her head back with the pull of the comb and looking up to nothing in particular on the ceiling, its elaborate molding. Free of braids, her hair is heavy curls to her waist and soft, well-tended. Clean, spoiled thing fond of her baths that she is. Black ribbon unravels from it, a simple adornment. “I never understood the idea of rifters banding together. Remind everyone how different you are and stand in a group where its easier to aim. And just imagine someone like Thranduil with some of the other rifters, for that matter—”

She met Church, the once, that's probably who she's thinking of.

“It's even less smart, now. After what happened.”

How easily they could all have been forgotten. It's a lesson she's taken quite to heart.

[foxsays]

"A hazard of the job." How much better life is now that both her superiors are women but it's the way men seem so entitled to the last word that she can't stand. How many of them there are about. Maybe she's so used to being surrounded by women, she thinks, where she'd spend so much time being able to have just this sort of conversation while they were getting ready for the day, or for bed, or going somewhere else.

"There was a time very early on when things in Skyhold were," what's the best word for it that she can grasp, "reactionary to say the least that the idea of at least having some common ground was there. I was younger. Things changed. I saw where I needed to be and what was being asked, that this Inquisition has to succeed and that it's selfish for me to stand separate from it, to not give my all."

Her hands slow. It's-- there's not an exact word for how she feels about what happened to her, to any of them, she hasn't talked about it to Korrin and doesn't imagine that she ever will unless it erupts one day from wherever she's hidden it. The agreeable noise doesn't quite come however, even as she resumes combing through one section.

"I forgot. Before. I already forgot things, not the same way, not enough that others forgot me but I forgot everything about this place once."