faderift | feeling her boldest, she came around

Entry tags:

feeling her boldest, she came around

WHO: Adalia (

thunderproof), Gwenaëlle (

elegiaque, Alacruun (

coiledscales), you?
WHAT: Adalia gets into a barfight. Consequences will never be the same.
WHEN: Evening, Drakonis 26
WHERE: Returning to the Gallows from Straddle
NOTES: N/A, will add if any come up.

i. open

"I didn't want to drink in your shitty bar anyway!"

The clarion call of all barflys who did, in fact, want to drink in your shitty bar, but have way too much pride to admit it when they've been tossed out. For Adalia, at least, it's partially true — she'd wanted to drink there, past tense, found it an infinitely more palatable place to get drunk than The Hanged Man, but after that human asshole said shit about that uppity elfblooded cunt in Hightown, got what she deserves — if someone like that is welcome there, and she's thrown out for taking exception, well. That's no place she wants to spend her time anyway.

Nevermind that she took exception with her fists. ...and also, mostly, her face. Adalia is not one for getting in brawls, alright, but goddamnit, when you have principles, you stand up for them, no matter how beat to shit you get for it in the end.

She picks herself up from where she was tossed into the streets of Lowtown, wiping blood from her nose and wincing at the tenderness of it — there's a cut above her eye, bruising around her socket, it's entirely possible her nose is broken... But there's blood on her knuckles, too, and the vicious satisfaction of justice meted out in her stomach. She was, indisputably, the loser of that particular fight, but she gave almost as good as she got, and that's all that really counts. Brushing the dust off her dress, Adalia takes a deep breath, straightens her back, and begins to make her way toward the docks and the ferry to the Gallows.

ii. closed to gwenaëlle

The ferry ride is uneventful, and Adalia disembarks at the Gallows slightly less worse for wear — she hasn't healed any of her injuries, but the cut on her forehead has stopped bleeding quite so dramatically and her jaw hurts a little less than it had when she'd started the journey back. Charis is about somewhere, having made himself a nest in one of the towers, but Adalia's reluctant to call him to her when she's so beat up, so she heads for her room first, meaning to clean up her face before she whistles for her dragon to join her for the night.

There's a statue in the Gallows courtyard, polished well-enough that one can see their reflection in it when the light is right. Adalia pauses in front of said statue, pushing her tongue against the cut on her lip to test it, brushing dried blood off her temple where she can. It's in this state that Gwenaëlle finds her, muttering to herself as she assesses the damage done to her face.

"Fucking racist asshole... How dare a half-elf have opinions or be unpleasant. Well this half-elf split your fucking lip, so have fun with that, you dick."

iii. closed to alacruun

When Adalia finally makes it back to her room, looking better but still like she got hit multiple times in the face, it's with Charis in tow and chattering angrily over her shoulder. For her part, Adalia doesn't look at all chastised, and in fact has the mulish expression of one unwilling to reconsider her stance.

"Hey, that's just what you do when people are racist in front of you, okay? You punch them."

A moment, and then —

"Or, maybe you don't. You assaulting people for being racist would get... more problematic."

Charis snorts, angry, and crawls over to his little ice nest in the corner of the room. Adalia sets about starting a fire, dumping a few more logs into the brazier and holding her hand over it to let a few sparks catch the wood. It's the only way the room can be in any way a livable temperature — the large block of ice in the corner chills the air considerably, and what is comfortable for Charis is frigid for Adalia. That done, she crosses the room to her desk, picking up her mirror to check on her face again.

The door to the room is ajar, but only just — she'd meant to close it, but it didn't latch all the way.

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Shame that Warden got turned away are words Gwenaëlle has already heard trailing in her wake; when Coupe had advised her to remain in the Gallows for the time being, actually, it had been an easier decision to make than her pride entirely likes. She doesn't like it here—though Thranduil's quarters are comfortable enough, and she's bestowed her birds temporarily upon Casimir's office, and there are worse places she could be—and it makes her restless. Or maybe it isn't the Gallows, doing that, but so much in the air, in motion, out of her hands and control...

Speaking of out of control. She pulls her wrap tighter around her shoulders, slowing to a stop in her walk; Hardie stops, too, circling in front of her to put himself between his mistress and the stranger, relaxing incrementally when she indicates ease. Not a stranger, then, just fucking strange.

“You're perfectly aware 'half-elf' doesn't mean anything here. What did you do now?”

That tone is not entirely fair. The fact Gwenaëlle bothers to stop at all might outweigh it, or maybe not.

Edited 2018-03-28 09:14 (UTC)

Oh, just who she wanted to see. ...well, that's not actually inaccurate, even if Adalia is sort of annoyed it had to be now. It's — weird. To look at Gwenaëlle now. The benefit of hindsight makes their first conversation make a bit more sense, and maybe she could have been less shitty about cultural differences, but Adalia didn't have to get quite so nasty either, and making light of something that serious is not really a great look... Anyway.

It's weird.

Adalia turns to face Gwenaëlle, doing nothing to hide her split lip or the bruising around her eye or the swelling of her nose or the cut on her temple —

Basically, she looks like she got in a fight and lost. Badly.

"Some asshole human slumming it in Straddle said shit about the elfblooded cunt in Hightown, so I punched him in the face."

Matter-of-fact, blunt, no sheepishness or eagerness for approval. Adalia saw an asshole being an asshole, and she decked him. That simple.

The pause lengthens, awkwardly.

Gwenaëlle says nothing, regarding Adalia with an expression that's difficult to read—unusual in a young woman who ordinarily can't hide her feelings when wearing a mask. Eventually, abruptly, she says: “I see that ended spectacularly for you. Come on, then.”

Idiot is heavily implied; so is the expectation that Adalia will still follow her.

There are probably healers around, somewhere, but one of them might be Anders and Gwenaëlle is in no hurry to hear what he has to say about her misfortunes or some rifter elf involving herself in them. She has medicine supplies stored away, steadier hands than those trying to deal with one's own face, and nothing better to do.

And that's all. Or enough. Or not all, but still: enough.

Alacruun has been... lurking. That's really the only good word for it. Ever since they made it somewhere where it isn't snowing and sleeting outside, he's been hovering, getting his bearings and generally trying to keep an eye on the one person here who he actually trusts and maybe likes beyond a surface level appreciation for their potential usefulness to him. He hasn't been waiting outside of her room, but he has been finding excuses to pass back and forth in the corridor at different parts of the day. She went out earlier and he's only just discovered that she's back. Which is why the little muted words that she's exchanging with Charis are rather concerning. He simply cracks the door open and slips himself inside.

Which isn't much of a "crack" since he's like six and a half feet tall, but hey.

"Dearest - what's happened to you?"

His tone shifts in between "dearest" and the rest. Probably because he can see the marks on her face.

Adalia, however, doesn't follow — not at first, anyway. She stays where she is, leaning toward Gwenaëlle without reaching for her.

"Hey, first — I'm sorry."

It sounds... not quite like she's pained to say it, but definitely uncomfortable — apologies and sincerity are not really things Adalia is given to by nature. She's irreverent, likes to imagine that she's kind more often than not, and more than anything else she's proud. Apologizing isn't something she's practiced in because she doesn't do it often, and when she's sincere she usually ends up uncomfortably emotional, so she avoids it.

But Gwenaëlle deserves the apology, and Adalia isn't so proud she'll refuse to take her lumps when she's due them.

"I didn't know what I was talking about, when we first talked. I said some bullshit. I apologize."

Whatever Gwenaëlle might have expected—

that, even less than all that came before it. Pride is easier than apologizing, something as a general rule she'd rather eat glass than do—admittedly, because she's usually not actually sorry for whatever's come out of her mouth—and in that regard it's seemed obvious enough they're similar. She imagines herself entitled to more apologies than she's probably due, hears fewer than she is for reasons that she is perfectly aware of; expects little, and behaves in such a way as to ensure she is rarely surprised.

She's surprised. And, fairly or not, it means more to her come so steeled and unnatural; not carelessly given but particularly and singularly and a decision that Adalia must have come to.

“All the rifter elves are ignorant about the elfblooded,” she says, after a moment. “It's not unique. And we're not having a touching moment of understanding where any idiot leaning out a window can see, so either you're coming along so I can fix your face or you aren't.”

(It's not that she never softens, it's just sort of that even her soft parts have edges.)

Adalia freezes, staring into the mirror with her hand on her face, and then whips around to face Alacruun, mouth open as if to say — something —

but there's no real explanation for this except the real one, and she doesn't know how he'll take it or what he'll do or... anything about him, really, not when he's a person. As a dragon in some stupid prison he's annoyingly friendly, and weirdly... alluring, but... As a person? Flesh and blood, standing in front of her, in her room, calling her dearest —

She must be concussed. She was hit harder than she'd realized. She shouldn't be this dazed, just — seeing him. Eventually, Adalia drops her hand to her side and manages to speak.

"I... got into a barfight. In Straddle. I lost."

"If you give me their names, I can change that," There's something dark and threatening underlying the casual ease with which he says that. A flash of something in his eyes. He instinctively tries to reach out, to drag their faces from her memory, but he's stopped short when he remembers that there's nothing there anymore. No connection, no conduit for her (their) dreams and emotions.

"They'll regret it. I promise."

How dare they hurt her. She's his and she is not to be harmed by riff-raff and common barflies.

The idea of more violence is... well, it's not unappealing. Especially if it's on her behalf, because he... cares about her, or at least doesn't want what's his broken. It's more than anyone else has ever cared about her, anyway, and maybe an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind but sometimes it's nice to know you mean enough to someone that they'd throw down for you, if the situation called for it.

But more than not being unappealing, the idea is exhausting, because Adalia would have to come fish Alacruun out of the mess he got himself into misguidedly fighting for her honor, and she doesn't have the energy to make nice with humans right now, she just doesn't Not when she's still so livid.

"Give you their names, so when you inevitably dig yourself into a trench you can't get out of, I have to come grovel before the humans for my poor friend, doesn't understand this world yet, just came through and only wanted to defend me — please, messere, he doesn't need the lesson beaten into him, just let us leave and we'll never bother you all again —"

Adalia cuts off what was a rather convincing plea with a disgusted noise, turning away from Alacruun and clenching her hand into a fist on her desk.

"If you really want to do something for me —"

Destroy the systems and the hierarchies that make it so that when an elf gets beaten bloody, she's the one banned from the bar, not the human who did the beating. As if Alacruun would care, though — he's a qunari, here. This doesn't affect him at all.

Alacruun's lips twitch into something approaching a sneer, "I can handle a few drunks. It will be simple-"

It would be. Should be. He could find them, figure out who they were, where they worked, what they did and one by one they'd simply vanish or have accidents and they'd suffer for having the sheer gall to hurt her. To lay a single finger on her. There is that cold anger again, that desire to hurt something, a slow burn that reminds him that he's here, he's alive, this is him, not the body of another that he's just borrowing.

"I wouldn't need any digging out. You wouldn't have to grovel. You shouldn't!"

His voice rises for a moment until he bites back his emotion. She grovels to no insignificant welp. She can't.

"Tell me what to do and I will do it."

He'd tear their whole town down around their ears if he thought it would make her happy.

They're not just drunks, they're noble drunks, which means they would be missed, would be guarded, would be anything but simple to off. And why bother, when there would be others to take their place?

"They're a symptom. Making them regret it wouldn't do anything when the whole world is set up to encourage humans to do whatever they want to elves."

If Adalia were thinking clearly, maybe she wouldn't say what she says next. Maybe she would remember what happened the last time she made a deal with a dragon, and how much it cost her. Maybe she wouldn't be so ready to use Alacruun's possessive affection for her.

She is not thinking clearly. Alacruun's outrage feeds her own, as surely as if their bond still existed. She is right to feel this way, because he does too, and he's the only person who cares enough to do more than sigh and accept it and wipe the blood off her face and send her back to this glorified prison. Adalia turns around again, face stormy with barely-leashed rage, and she holds Alacruun's gaze.

"Thedas is broken. Not the way you thought Toril was broken, really broken. At least back on Toril half-elves existed and racism wasn't so ingrained in the very fabric of the world. Sorcerers could choose how to live. People suffered, but it wasn't nearly as bad as this. We need to give Thedas back to the elves, which means we have to take the Chantry down."

How? Who knows. Adalia is only one person, and here so is Alacruun. Even if they combined their efforts, they couldn't get very far. But something has to change, someone has to do something, or this is just the way things will be, forever, and it'll only get worse. She can't bear to see that happen. Thedas deserves better.

Adalia is right about one thing: Alacruun doesn't care a fig about the elves of this world (or most of its inhabitants, really), except as to how they can be of use to him and how he can benefit. There's no real degree of empathy there. No sympathy for their situation. There's a touch of mild disapproval regarding how these people treat magic, but it hasn't impacted him yet, so he's settled for mild statements and keeping a keen eye on what's happening. If he feels like he needs to take action, he will. For now, he wants to observe. Learn. Plan.

At least until it hurts her and then all of that goes out the window, because she belongs to him and no one, no one is allowed to do that to her - and by extension, to him. He crosses the space between them, eyes narrowed in thought, that cold anger still radiating off of him and permeating every movement.

"Then we'll destroy it."

He sounds incredibly self-assured for someone promising to destroy a centuries-old institution.

"They already have an idiotic reaction to magic. There's no point to keeping it around, is there?"

Destroying the Chantry will be easier said than done, if it even can be done. It won't be while this fight against Corypheus is going on, at any rate, and who knows if she and Alacruun will stay through even this war, let alone what revolution might come. Nothing is as guaranteed as Alacruun manages to make it sound, and later Adalia will remember that and accept it.

Now, in the moment, the only thing that matters is that Alacruun doesn't laugh at her. He doesn't tell her all the reasons that's impossible, or about how much good the Chantry can do, or how insignificant she is in front of an institution as vast and old as the Southern Chantry. He takes her seriously and he agrees with her and that — no one does that. People are more superficially kind here than the party was back in Toril, but still no one takes her seriously. She's not from here, she looks like an elf, she's young, she's excitable — why should anyone care what she has to say about the things that matter?

Because they care about her. Alacruun cares about her. Adalia stares up at Alacruun, heart in her throat and stomach all tied up in knots, nearly brought to tears by the simple act of being agreed with. After a moment she nods, crossing to her bed to sit down.

"And the Maker isn't even real. Or if he is, he doesn't deserve followers. At least you talk to your people, he just lets everything fall apart without doing anything. What god could just — allow this?"

She'd thought Alacruun was as bad as it could get. Turns out inattention is far worse in a god than arrogance.

Probably what Adalia should have expected, all things considered. There's a moment of pause before she sighs and falls in step behind Gwenaëlle, walking with her wherever she wants to go. She's uncharacteristically quiet as they go, rebuilding her pride and trying to keep her stomach from roiling quite so much. Apologies are the absolute most uncomfortable thing in the world, and she's been fucking skewered by a javelin.

It takes a few minutes for Adalia to realize they aren't going in the direction of the docks, and thus not heading to Hightown — this drags her from her thoughts and makes her look to Gwenaëlle, confused.

"Where are we going? Did you move in here?"

The stairs they ascend, in fact, lead up to the quarters and offices of the division heads—

“I'm temporarily borrowing the provost's quarters while he's absent Kirkwall,” she says, as if this is a perfectly reasonable thing for her to have done, despite how unclear it is whether or not the provost knows or gave his permission. So thank fuck you've not got the dragon with you, she doesn't say aloud, sparing them both whatever such a remark might have inspired. His fondness for elves is unlikely to extend to their dragons, and she'd rather not have him discover she let one into any part of his space. “We're going to his office.”

Hardie anticipates their direction, leading them upstairs—when she opens the door, there is a fire burning low, and a nug sleeping in front of it. Although she's left her mark on his private room, his office is entirely his own, reflected in the mask of Fen'Harel that hangs behind his desk, the tapestry (commissioned for him by Gwenaëlle) that intricately weaves the Inquisition's heraldry from branches and vines of deep greens, set upon a subtle backdrop of a repeating pattern that mimics the designs of his own clothes.

(The same design that flares in panels of one of her gowns.)

Gwenaëlle passes by the bookcases and lights a lamp, nudging Leviathan absently with her foot when she stops by the fireplace. Still alive. Great. Hardie settles around the much smaller creature, and she points at a chair beside:

“Sit. Stay. I need to get something from the other room.” To Hardie, she says, sternly: “Bite her if she touches anything.”

He lays his head in his paws. She sighs.

“Oh, some guard dog you are. Be that way.”

He nudges his head under Adalia's hand, optimistically, as Gwenaëlle excuses herself.

Alacruun rarely thinks about impossible. As far as he's concerned, he can do just about anything he puts his mind to. It might take time and effort and careful planning, but he'll do it and there will be very little that will be able to stop him. This hasn't always been borne out, but he believes it anyway. So of course his reaction is we'll do it. Of course his reaction is to give her what she wants - he cares nothing for this world or its inhabitants, so why would he hesitate to start plotting the downfall of an institution? Why would he stop to think about it? The one person he cares about, in a twisted, muddy sort of way wants something.

So he'll give it to them.

"I've heard it asked before - what would be worse? A turant god or an indifferent one? I think you have your answer."

See, this is why he thinks he'd be better at running things. He wouldn't ignore things. He wouldn't ignore her.

Or maybe he's in too deep.

He follows her to her bed, hovering like a worried sort of mother hen type, "You're not too badly hurt...?"

It's... mildly horrifying to find she agrees with Alacruun, given she's spent so much time trying not to agree with him. Adalia has been purposefully and deliberately disagreeing with Alacruun about every opinion he has, even as she's tried to understand where they come from and why, and so to actually come to a point where he says something and her only reaction is an emphatic yes...

It's not good.

"So you acknowledge that you would be a tyrant, then?" she says instead of verbalizing her agreement, looking up at Alacruun with her eyebrow raised. Her expression softens at his question, though, and she has to fight to keep a soft, indulgent smile off her lips.

"No, the fight was broken up before they went too far." A pause, and then — "I do sort of feel like I should admit that I started the fight. But I was defending a friend's honour, so it was entirely justified."

It's good that Gwenaëlle explains only shortly before they enter the room, else Adalia would have been full of questions about how she's taken over, and why the provost, and what he'll think about this when he returns. As it is, she's still full of questions, but now they're questions about the office. Before she can ask any of them, Gwen directs her to sit, and the dog shoves his head under her hand, and then Gwen is gone.

Immediately, just to be contrary, Adalia puts her hand on the provost's desk, and then she moves to more closely inspect the mask —

or at least she would, if Hardie weren't moving in her way every time she tries to take a step, nudging her toward the chair. No matter what Adalia tries, and somewhat perplexingly, she can't get around this gods-damned dog. For a moment, she just stands with her hands on her hips, staring down at Hardie with pursed lips.

"You are very inconvenient," she says, and instead of sitting in the chair she drops down to sit on the floor next to Hardie, sctitching under his chin.

From the door she'd disappeared through, Gwenaëlle says, “He is a very good boy,” serenely, returning with a bowl of water, a cloth and a leather-lined velvet satchel. “The provost gave him to me as a puppy, he's an Anderfels shepherd, he's trained to purpose.”

He thumps his tail on the ground, pleased with the familiar tone of his mistress's praise and the cooperation (and pettings) of the new, pleasingly obedient stranger. Gwenaëlle runs her hand over the back of his head, briefly, as she joins them on the floor—sits cross-legged, arranging her skirts not to tangle her, and takes Adalia's chin in her hand to critically study what's wrong with her.

Well, what's wrong with her face. There's no helping 'being nineteen' but time.

Clean it, first. She adds a powder to the water, then dips the cloth— “This will sting,” is all the warning she offers, and it barely counts for it when she says it as the cloth touches skin.

“My elven mother's name was Guenievre Baudin,” she says, conversationally, occupied with her task. “She'd been my lady mother's maid, before my lord made her his mistress, and then the housekeeper. She oversaw the estate for as long as I can recall. The year before last, when we were traveling there, a Dalish clan attacked our party. One of their archers shot her in the throat. Lord Luthor, who was with the Inquisition at the time, put a throwing knife in the murderer's forehead.”

It all sounds so clean, retold that way. Without the terror, the screams, the smell of blood. Without how Alexander had had to drag her from the body, how she'd struggled in his grip and clawed at his arm like an iron band around her waist.

“She'd been serving as my lady's maid in Skyhold.”

"I never claimed I would be anything but a benevolent tyrant," Alacruun offers her a sly smile, "Did I say I would bring freedom? No. I said I would bring order - although there is freedom in that..."

But they're not here to debat what it is he's done over the years or what his plans for world conquest would be. No, he's here because someone hurt her and he wants nothing more than to take some kind of revenge against them. He makes a low noise at the back of his throat.

"It doesn't matter who started it. They were wrong. You were right. And they shouldn't have hurt you."

He's a bit single-minded about this.

"At least you're not too badly hurt. That is the important part."

Order sounds like the exact opposite of freedom to Adalia — but she isn't going to press it, not when this is one of the first entirely civil conversations they've ever had and Alacruun is here about to ruin lives because she has a black eye. A black eye she could easily heal, but — darn it, it's the principle of the thing! She got these scrapes and bruises from standing up for a friend, and the whole point of the gesture would be lost if she just healed them away.

Of course, given that whether or not Gwen considers them friends is something of a mystery, the gesture may not mean as much to her as it does to Adalia. But still.

"No, I'm not," she says softly. Another pause as she deliberates — she'd been meaning to ask after his living situation, and now is as good a time as any.

"Would you like to stay here? There's another bed, we could be roommates."

Edited 2018-04-11 06:30 (UTC)

"You seem to be quite close with the provost."

There's no hint of suspicion or accusation in her tone — not that there would be if she knew, more like a certain amount of eyebrow waggling delight — but just a touch of questioning. Who is the provost to Gwenaëlle, other than someone who gives her puppies and whose quarters she's comfortable stealing? A close friend, one must assume, though Adalia wouldn't have guessed at Gwenaëlle's being overfond of rifters, elves, or rifter elves in particular.

There is, though, a wince as Gwenaëlle's wet cloth touches the abrasions on her face. Adalia inhales with a hiss but grits her teeth, straihtening her book and holding her chin up high — she won't look the whimpering child being patched up after a nasty tumble on the stone floors.

As Gwenaëlle speaks Adalia's posture softens, and there's a lot going on on her face as it's cleaned — pity, anger, confusion, conflicted shame and vindication — but she says nothing, letting Gwenaëlle explain what she will without interruption. In the end, she's silent for a moment before inclining her head just slightly.

"Thank you for telling me."

Anything else — apologies, sympathies, explanations — would be inadequate. Even as she runs through the other possibilities, Adalia can find nothing sufficient. Better to say nothing.

Gwenaëlle isn't—quite—done. In the same tone, she continues, “My mother had two true daughters. Alix and Magalie.”

Elven daughters, she means.

“A few years ago, the Empress ordered a slaughter in Halamshiral. Probably they were in one of the mass graves that was burned, afterwards; my lord used to pay for their upkeep. Assumptions were made when the money stopped being collected. Before Mistress Baudin was killed, there was an Inquisition visit to the city—she asked Provost Thranduil to look into the matter for her. Magalie was burned to death in the apartment that they shared, and Alix,”

her gaze is fixed on her fingers and not Adalia's eyes,

“was killed from behind by chevaliers, as she was trying to break down the door to get her out. To the best of my knowledge, they had no other family. I'm the last living thing, of my mother.”

The salve she begins applying smells bitter, but only feels cool, perhaps a touch numbing.

“Nothing elven of her will ever live again.” She does meet Adalia's eyes, then, to be sure her point has been taken— “That's what 'elfblooded' means, to elves. It's just a more inventive form of murder.”

This is all far beyond Adalia. Dead mothers, dead sisters, connection upon connection upon connection, each more fraught and complicated than the last. There are words that rankle — true daughter, as if because of the circumstances of her birth Gwenaëlle can't count, like it would have made her any less loved or real — but what does she really know about any of this?

Nothing. Less than nothing. All she has is her gut and her wishes and what she wants to believe of the world, and none of those things are helpful to Gwenaëlle. What does it matter what half-elves should be, when all there is is the elfblooded?

Silence doesn't suit Adalia. She's uncomfortable in it, and doesn't like to feel as though she's been caught out with no response. She shifts uncomfortably, trying to keep the most unhelpful of her reactions from spilling out where Gwenaëlle will have to deal with them, trying to figure out what to say, or what to say first —

in the end, she can't stop herself from being entirely unhelpful. It's clumsily done, she knows it, but she can't not.

"Maybe nothing elven." She thinks of Herian, and her trips to the vhenadahl, her attempts to help the elves in the alienage. "But not nothing."

Grand help it does the elves, but for this one moment — the abstract elves matter less than the young woman sitting in front of her.

Between them, there's only five years. Adalia's nineteen to Gwenaëlle's twenty-four. As young as they both are, as wretched the world, the gap feels like a chasm and on the one hand—at least the words don't wound. Sometimes it seems like all she's made of is knife-edges and raw flesh, quicksand where those around her expect solid ground.

The words don't move her to ache because they don't move her at all.

“That's a nice thing for you to say,” she observes, as if it's more interesting that anything nice can come out of that mouth than particularly what has.

It's meaningless bullshit, but it's sweet of her to think.

"I'm a very nice person. Ask the man I punched in the face."

Making jokes is easier than being vulnerable. Or... dealing with other people being vulnerable, or whatever is happening here right now. Adalia's shoulders don't... droop, exactly, because she knew it wasn't anything Gwenaëlle would care to hear even as she was saying it, but she sighs and looks down, heedless of Gwenaëlle's work.

"I'm an orphan. I was raised in a library-cum-temple by monks, some of whom were elven and some of whom were human and none of whom cared a whit about the lives they'd led before, or passing anything of their cultures on to me. The only thing I know about myself is that I'm a half-elf, and I got my magic from some kind of connection to the plane of air."

It's perhaps not entirely relevant to the conversation at hand, but — context. Explanation, if not excuse.

"I don't even know if Adalia is my real name. But I'm not an elf. I'm not human, either. I'm a half-elf, no matter what I look like here. The specificity matters."

"...you're really willing to invite me to stay here?" That derails his other trains of thoughts quite handily. He likes the idea of being invited to stay. To be able to be close to her again. She made it quite clear earlier that she has no memory of what they had together. What they shared. And that's disappointing. She also didn't seem to want to try and pick it up. In fact, she almost seems to fear him in some ways.

So why invite him to stay? He doesn't quite grasp her motivation and it shows through in his puzzled expression.

"I'd enjoy it, but I thought you wanted to avoid me."

Well, that's a bit of a fraught question, considering the most entirely honest answer is 'I want to keep an eye on you'. Alacruun has been less likely to fly into a rage than Adalia would have expected, but he doesn't like being rejected, and it does at this point feel sort of like kicking a bratty puppy — satisfying in the moment it's doing something stupid, but then you feel bad when it goes to pout in the corner. The other answer is... nicer, but a bit more revealing.

The indecision causes Adalia to sit quietly, unsure of how to respond, for several moments before she can bring herself to answer.

"Well, I want to keep an eye on you, sort of. I've never seen you around people before, I don't know how that's going to go. Even if you knew how to be normal once, you were in a prison plane for thousands of years, and I'm not sure how good that is for your social skills.

"And, if I'm honest... I'm curious."

It doesn't sound like it quite physically pains her to say so... but it's close. She's not meeting Alacruun's eye this time.

"I haven't been swayed by offers of power up to now. I don't want anything from you except for my party to be safe. So I'm curious about how we got to a point where I'm willing to kiss you."

An exhale. And then: “I know,” which might be the kindest thing she's said to Adalia, a thought she knows as soon as she has it doesn't actually say anything good about this moment, or herself.

“That it matters,” she says, after a pause, because she didn't know all of the rest, and doesn't know if it's because Adalia doesn't talk about that sort of thing or just because she hasn't been paying attention; the way the Dalish all seem much more informed about matters of Thranduil's lands than she had been, studiously disinterested for so long. “But there's not one single human in Thedas who'll ever think of you being as human as you are elven.”

Adalia knows that, probably. It's not as kind a thing to say. After a moment, she says, “I detested that about our erstwhile host, you know,” with a vague gesture to Thranduil's office. “I was born here. I'm my mother's child. But I'll never be my mother's child, and this great oversized fucking stranger who doesn't belong, he gets to waltz in with his stupid hair and stupid shoulders and everyone wants to be his fucking cousin. If it makes you feel better,” patting her hand, “I personally will never think of you as a real elf, either,” very dry.

And bitter, but that's a knife palmed inwards, always.

"I... will be the first to admit that being trapped in a prison for a thousand years doesn't do much for socializing," Alacruun replies, a touch haltingly, "But I assure that I can handle myself perfectly well."

A part of him is incredibly pleased to know that she worries about him. Even a little. It's attention. It means that she's thinking about him. That she cares in some way. And that's what matters - having her attention (all to himself). There's a glimmer of that in his eyes as he regards her carefully. Still, he's not as guarded as he could be.

He very rarely is when it comes to her these days. He allows his control to slip a little too much - but it's fine. He'll be fine. Honestly.

"...we respect one another," he says, as if that explains everything, "We... get along. We have so much in common-"

Which sounds laughable, yes.

"-and... you prevented me from being very severely injured after I refused to leave you behind."

Adalia is not, even when distracted, stupid. She looks up at Gwenaëlle and smiles, even laughs a little at her promise, but — Gwenaëlle did not so much sidestep the comment about the provost as ignore it entirely. Her comments now speak to a changed opinion, and familiarity Adalia would not have expected.

It's not something to ask about now, of course. Their truce is still too new to run it aground on the shores of a conversation they don't need to have. But her curiosity is now piqued, and the details of Gwenaëlle's relationship with the elven Rifter provost are something she is very interested in.

"I'm not really a real anything, so I appreciate that."

Which is... rather more dour and bitter and depressing than she meant it to be. Adalia flushes, looks down at her hands and huffs out a breath.

"Is it better, do you think, to have no family at all, or to have family you can never truly claim?"

Which of them hurts less? Which of them is the more full person? Which of them actually matters?

"Imagine I ask you," after the slightest, incredulous pause, "whether you'd rather have your arm cut off or your leg. And you start reasoning, well, I could use a crutch, or if it's my lesser arm then I could still write, and I say no, no. You won't ever heal. You'll just bleed and bleed and bleed. Which would you rather hurt?"

She tidies the cloths she's been using away, into the water bowl to be dealt with, busywork while she talks,

"What difference would it fucking make, then? It's just pain. No one's pain is better. Getting to do my crying into a silk pillow, maybe, I'd take that over a hovel somewhere. But, of course, any crying you do in private rooms with guards isn't really crying at all, is it."

Everything is bullshit, essentially.

"You can. Really."

The raised eyebrow Adalia levels at him as she looks up to catch his gaze should tell Alacruun exactly what she thinks of that idea, given how terribly he'd failed to do anything but make her angry for so long. Maybe it was a skill he had to relearn, and after being out of his prison and dealing with mortals who don't worship him for long enough he's figured out how not to be a massive tool to everyone he talks to... But Adalia doubts it. Not to mention how he's going to have to get used to treating people at least somewhat closer to equals than she's ever seen him be given to.

Respect nearly makes Adalia laugh out loud, but — well, isn't that what he just did? He respected her enough to take her seriously. Whatever else Alacruun is, genuinely infatuated with her seems to be one of those things.It's only this idea which keeps Adalia from saying something caustic and cruel, and instead her question comes out more genuine than it would have otherwise.

"I have a hard time believing that — you respect me, so you hold onto my soul and my future? You bind me into your service? That doesn't sound like respect. And I'd save anyone about to die. It's... instinct."

Not to mention that all the things they have in common are exactly the parts of herself that Adalia is doing her damnedest not to give in to. She's not unaware of her arrogance and her penchant for unilateral decision-making, but she's trying not to sacrifice a bunch of people in order to become a god. Alacruun decided that was an acceptable priceto pay, and Adalia... She really hopes she never gets there.

Alacruun respects her - for a given value of respect. Or perhaps it is just that he values her, as one does a prized possession, and he does not wish to see her driven away. How much of what he says is actual, deeply held belief and how much is simply empty words to try and keep her tame is up for debate. For the moment, he at least seems to exude a degree of sincerity - his expression folds into a frown, something a bit dark and unhappy and altogether displeased with the way that she's throwing his words back into his face.

"You made your choices, dearest. I did nothing to force your hand. I spoke to you - I laid out the conditions, I made you an offer, and you accepted. The choice was yours - has always been yours. I have never been able to force you to do anything."

Which is... technically true, from a certain point of view. He extends his hands to her, palms toward the ceiling, "Besides, what might be is very different from what is. You have an admirable spirit, a thirst for knowledge - an ability to make decisions and a sharp mind. How can I not admire that? How can I not think highly of you? We should not be enemies here. We should be friends."

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feeling her boldest, she came around

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