faderift | MOD PLOT: SHOULD GLORY COME AT SUCH A PRICE, Part I

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MOD PLOT: SHOULD GLORY COME AT SUCH A PRICE, Part I

WHO: The Inquisition's Minrathous delegation
WHAT: A diplomatic visit to Tevinter's capital
WHEN: Mid Solace
WHERE: Minrathous, Tevinter
NOTES: Slavery cw. OOC post here.

I. SWEET DIGS

The Archon's palace is a vast complex at the northeast of the island, buildings of stark black and white stone drawn straight up out of the ground and shaped by magic alone. Ringed by a wall of the same, it is made up of the palace proper and dozens of outbuildings, stables, barracks, baths, gardens, and the like. The Inquisition delegation is housed in the guest quarters, a single long hall in one wing of the palace. They are not its only occupants: special emissaries from the Anderfels occupy several rooms at one end of the hall, and other visitors are scattered throughout—trade envoys, out-of-town courtiers, relatives and guests of the Archon. There is also a veritable army of staff, constantly fetching, carrying, cleaning. Skyhold will have sent stern reminders for the Division Heads to pass down to the rest of the party: assume you are being watched at all times and mind your tongue accordingly.

The areas of the palace open to foreign visitors are somewhat limited: aside from the Archon's personal apartments, several wings apparently house massive bureaucracy behind the throne, and guests are not permitted without an appointment and an escort. The library and hall of treasures are free to be wandered, though they are carefully guarded against theft or vandalism, and the gardens are lovely and imposing testaments to the wonders magic can wring from nature.

II. GUIDED TOUR

The delegation's first day in Minrathous is fully booked, beginning with a guided tour after breakfast. The tour focuses on the nicer parts of the city and is led by a friendly elven mage, Caeso, who works for the Archon—someone is trying to make a point, perhaps, about how high elves can rise, as long as they're the right sort.

Minrathous is ancient, and it shows, with not even the care and pride Tevinter has in its heritage able to stave off signs of wear. The buildings are enormous and dark, made largely out of black stone and metals, but they indicate a majestic history more than a majestic present. There are also signs of magic, everywhere. The foundations of many buildings seem to have been pulled up straight from the earth, rather than built on top of it, and towers and bridges that should have collapsed ages ago are permanently enchanted to defy gravity. While he doesn't take them inside any of the buildings, Caeso points out the Argent Spire, the headquarters of the Imperial Chantry and Divine; the Minrathous Circle, the oldest in Thedas; and the Ambassadoria, where dwarven ambassadors work underground to preserve their castes. Then he guides them through a colorful central market where they're able to have lunch around a fountain and enjoy open displays of magic and enchanted objects by street performers and merchants. He's happy to answer basic questions about the city and Tevinter in general, and after lunch provides everyone with maps that are, possibly, designed for tourists who aren't particularly trusted (or aren't believed to be particularly bright). They only show significant landmarks and the streets required to reach them from the palace.

III. FANCY PARTY

That afternoon, everyone is due back in time to dress up, fix their hair, fix other people's hair as needed, and sit down for dinner with the Archon—distant, at the end of the table, and quiet—as well as a number of members of the Magisterium and other notable figures, with an over-the-top sixteen course meal served by a quiet, respectful staff that may be slaves or may be servants. Afterwards, and after a break to allow a little bit of digestion, the entire group migrates to join even more guests for an evening of music, dancing, and mingling in a ballroom adorned with floating lights.

The locals will shy away from discussing anything too sensitive, like Corypheus' origins or Tevinter religion and politics, but they'll be happy to discuss history and to ask questions of the delegation. A southerner is as rare a sight for them here are a Tevinter is in the south.

IV. FREE TIME

Under the Archon's protection as long as they remain his guests, and despite what the maps they're given might suggest, the delegation has been given more or less free rein in the capital, with only sensitive areas of the palace, naval yards, and the Circle and Spire off-limits for casual visits. Minrathous is a city like any other: tightly-packed buildings, bustling streets, opulent theaters and rundown shops, markets selling vegetables and flowers and fabrics, cafés packed with students arguing politics or beleaguered bureaucrats taking tea, pristine gardens filled with elaborate topiary, or small squares of green tucked between buildings, flowering vines draped down their walls. Of course it's also like nothing they've ever seen further south: street performers here make common use of magic, not just breathing fire but shaping it into a flock of birds or a dragon in flight. Slave markets are kept to the outskirts of the city but those near the docklands are vast and busy. In the harbor, among the forest of masts of trading vessels from every corner of Thedas, sits the Imperial Navy, four ships always on guard at the broad mouth of the harbor, a reminder that this is a nation at war.

Outside of specific missions, everyone is free to wander the city and explore, though they are given strict instructions to stay out of trouble—no matter what. They are also asked to keep their eyes and ears open as they do, to mingle and talk with anyone who seems willing, and to keep watch for anything unique on sale in the markets. Rare books, unknown potions, unusual enchanted objects should all be purchased if spotted: this may be the Inquisition's only opportunity to get its hands on the wealth of magical and historical knowledge hoarded by Tevinter (and reimbursements will be offered, within reason).

Potential agents are another invaluable commodity, and the delegation is charged with taking note of anyone who seems sympathetic to the Inquisition's cause and bringing their names and information to the attention of the Scoutmaster and her aides. Those capable of carefully sussing out the depth of that interest are to do so, but given the delicacy of the situation everyone should proceed with the utmost caution, and under no circumstances is any non-member of the Inquisition—no matter how friendly—to be trusted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Loki arrives, as expected, in a secluded area of the garden. It is late enough and he is proficient enough in spell-craft, that he doesn't expect they must maintain their charade here. Anybody listening in will assume this is an illusion, regardless of the contents of their conversation.

Her expression is equal parts mischievous and exhilarated, he can read it in the gleam of her eyes, and it twangs something in his chest. She is dramatic as she speaks, as she reprimands herself, and as she tosses him the bloodied ladies glove. He snatches it out of the air and rubs the fine cloth between his fingers before tucking it into the pocket of his jerkin. It is not as ideal as a vial, but it will suffice.

"That is a very good start," Loki commends her, his own smile positively smug and delighted.

"Tell me, which one was this?"

"Renatus. The elder, amusingly," Alexandrie had, indeed, bagged a Magister with their ploy. "Rather ideal for a first catch, in that it illustrates what lengths I am willing to go to in order to get at you. And," the pride of her smile becomes nearly predatory, "I think there is a very good chance that he shall not be able to stop himself from displaying enough self-satisfaction to be noticed by others."

Looking terribly entertained, Alexandrie leans forward to rest her elbow on her knee, her chin on her hand. "He is quite spry for his age, you know," she says, cheekily, and then, leaning back again with a silvered laugh: "Mon dieu, you would not believe what will be granted you if you are seen as merely a useful pawn, more ambitious than clever and so very powerless in and of oneself. Easily discarded or dispatched." It is said lightly, but she seems well aware that it is still a dangerous game she has invited herself to. Nevertheless, the playing of it has made her nearly sparkle with life.

"It is truly astonishing what they will give up with the very slightest provocation," Loki agrees and moves to stand by the bench. "Assuming they find you harmless, which I expect they do."

His grin splits a bit then as he recalls Bene's face and his tantrum.

"Which, by the way, our friend Artemaeus does not. Oh the things he called you once you were out of earshot--truly impressive. I think you wounded his feelings."

"Ah, I am desolate," Alexandrie mourns exaggeratedly, casting her eyes downward with a pretty frown before looking up at Loki through her eyelashes, allowing the hint of a smile to pull at the corner of her mouth.

Granted, she does actually feel poorly about how things had ended up. It had to have been Benedict, of course, both for the initial and then the adjusted plan, but she could have been far softer on him had he not had the temerity to include her in his disparaging repartee. Allowing such a thing to stand would have depreciated her value far too much.

"Shall I send him a terribly apologetic note?"

"If you like," Loki agrees almost off-handedly as he peers down at her. There is an honest fondness in his expression that he doesn't bother to hide.

"Though I think he could stand to stew in his own incompetence a bit longer."

He pauses then and takes in the Archon's gardens. They are appropriately lavish, borderline ostentatious, and the evening air is finally, old gods be blessed, appropriately warm. He takes a deep breath.

"Tell me, how are you enjoying the trip to the homeland, thusfar?"

Somehow that fondness is... difficult to see. Despite the part of her that reaches for it. Perhaps because of the part of her that reaches for it. It is a release, then, when he looks away.

"It is beautiful," Alexandrie replies, honestly. (He was, in it. The turn of his head, the line of his neck, the way his shoulders relax minutely as he breathes in the air he knows.

No.

Stop.)

"Enough so that it was difficult to find what I should paint here."

"I imagine it would be," Loki says.

"I do recommend choosing something that isn't the Archon's palace...though I suppose that would sell well in Orlais." He looks back at her, his expression more conversational. "Very...mysterious, no?"

At that he seems to recall something and reaches into his pocket to withdraw a small satchel. It is black and green with a gold snake embossed into the exterior. From it he withdraws a coin. He looks it over and then flips it into her lap.

"A diversion, should you become bored with the standard fare or our project. Come find me and we can go somewhere more lively."

Were it anyone else, Alexandrie might have let the coin fall. With Loki, however, given the time he'd spent on developing such skills with her? She snaps a hand out to catch it, palm it in a way that makes it disappear into her voluminous skirts. Such tricks are, of course, obvious to him. So she knows. That makes it a performance for him rather than any trickery.

"I am not sure, how I might become bored with such a thing," Standard fare, their project; she leaves both as a possibility. "But I am sure that I shall find you."

She pauses, and then, "The quiet places. The ones that are not gardened. Where it is at least in part the choice of the vines and their flowers. That is what I have chosen."

Loki watches her catch the coin and, while he spots the movements and knows the execution, he is fully aware that anyone apart from them would have trouble noticing either. He stands a little taller and a little smugger, but he still listens as she tells him what she has decided to paint. There is silence a moment and Loki hums.

"You would like the rest of the country better," he informs her quite certainly. "Quarnis, Marnus Pell, perhaps Vyrantium.

"Minrathous is exceedingly well groomed. They make a show of it, here, especially if it can employ magic. Nature is not so well contained elsewhere and it grows with more fervor outside the capitol."

He thinks a moment longer and his hands shift and settle before him. It is an unconscious gesture, one he adopts when he ponders things. One that is a nervous tick but, fortunately, not one she would recognize. He picks at his palm idly and shots her a speculative glance.

"Our estate in the city is not so well kept as it should be. If you want a quiet place, there is a garden there that might interest you."

Quiet places are not things that Alexandrie de la Fontaine should desire. She, however, does.

"I—"

It is interesting, perhaps, how it exchanges. How even as her face softens slightly she physically closes; shifts her gaze and the tilt of her legs away, thins her lips, folds her arms beneath her breasts to hold her elbows, her shoulders rising slightly and curving inwards as if guarding herself against a chill that is certainly not present in Tevinter's summer heat. Even so, her tone remains light.

"...We jest, certainly, but I fear that despite my best efforts it has become slightly more earnest on my part." Then, immediately thereafter, as if she can't bear to leave such a statement sitting out exposed like a stripped nerve in the air, "Do be gentle with me, in return for my efforts on your behalf, if on yours it is simple enjoyment of our game."

It's not stated as a question, but it is one nevertheless.

For perhaps the second time in their acquaintance, Loki is confused and uncertain of what she is trying to say. She is a very clever person, often omitting the obvious from her conversations, but he feels that he has missed something rather important. Something is implied and he knows not what it is.

His brow furrows in thought as he regards her, expression caught in a place between consideration and recollection.

Finally, after some long pause, he says:

"I've no idea what you're suggesting." He does not say it kindly or unkindly, simply as fact. With the same lilt he had announced the garden. "Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that you detested gentleness in all things."

She... does. Ostensibly. Shit. Saying anything about such a thing as this foolish flutter in her heart had been a mistake on her part. A terrible one.

Like a doe spotted in a clearing, Alexandrie becomes very still. Then the previous exchange in reverse, her body and posture opening to a relaxed careless ease as she stands, her expression snapping shut to a look of dramatic and affected regret. The window of her willingness to be so bared is apparently more arrow-slit than else, and her fear of this very moment too large to allow for the possibility that such a professed inability to understand means anything different than what she expects it to: refusal with the kindness she had asked for. After all, she feels she has been as transparent as might be asked of anyone.

She should not have asked for such gentleness. Does not want it. It is worse.

“Ah. It has been a joy, then, our acquaintance,” she says with a too-gusty sigh. “It pains me to end it, but c'est la vie.” It does pain her. Terribly. More so than could be allowed. Such feelings remain unshown, however. Alexandrie is no longer a naïve child, to willingly allow for the possibility of being led about and used again for the sake of any hoped for affection. Especially his. It is, after all, as Gwenaëlle said, dangerous for Loki of House Asgard to know you want something of him.

And so she looks at him; briefly but consideringly, as if purposefully creating memory, and then turns to disappear back into the larger garden.

Edited 2018-08-03 06:31 (UTC)

Alexandrie's demeanor shifts in an instant, moving to something airy and detached as she rises and frowns at him. He regards her the same way one might look at a strange puzzle or a man walking on his hands down the road. Her sudden talk of ending their acquaintance is cause for alarm, however, and before he can reconsider the action he surges forward and snatches her upper arm.

His grip is tight, perhaps overly so, but this was unplanned. Loki enjoys spontaneity but not when the risks outweigh the reward--not in moments like this--so he is not at the very top of his game.

"Surely you're joking," he declares with a bit less bluster and a bit more earnest incredulity than he'd have liked. "Over an invitation to an unkempt garden, truly?"

He is openly baffled, even as he steps closer and into her space.

His hand closing hard around her arm makes Alexandrie draw a sharp breath through her nose, hardly hearing him speak through the sudden panicked heartbeat in her ears. More fool she, thinking to so easily escape.

“Let go. You cannot—” The demand is hardly as strongly stated as she would like, especially given the falter on the next words as she whips around to face him only to find Loki already closed with her, rendering the defiant raise of her chin entirely useless for its intended purpose. The only thing it accomplishes is a sudden direct line of sight to his expression of seeming bewilderment, making her eyes widen in shocked surprise.

(Seeming, Alexandrie. He is so very good at this. And you would be so very easy now, to take in.

That is why you are afraid.)

It is easier to turn such things to anger than remove them, and so her eyes narrow again, her jaw tightening as she begins again. “You cannot truly believe my departure is over a—“ she makes a sweeping gesture with her free arm, briefly speechless, “—of course it is not. Do not dare play with me so!”

"Play with you?" Loki asks, aghast in a way that holds more than a solitary note of offense. "I am not the one being intentionally vague."

He shifts his grip on her arm to her elbow, a more respectable hold and a gentler one, but still enough to keep her near. He stares her down, his expression hard and assessing, as he runs through what she has been saying. He can find no common thread--if this was not about his invitation, not about crossing a line, he is at a loss.

"If you wish to terminate our alliance then so be it, but do not accuse me of toying with you in the process."

He has been remarkably restrained about that. Usually he's quite terrible but he actually likes Lexie.

"Intentionally—!" Oh, she'll give him intentionally vague.

(There is a moment, behind her suddenly blossoming temper, in which she registers this hard stare, his words, as evidence of a possibility that Loki had genuinely not taken her meaning. This moment is lost in the general flood of simple anger that has kept her from freezing like a rabbit in her continued captivity.)

"I adore you! Unreasonably!" This, exclaimed in a tone that could really not be called adoring at all; more of an accusatory 'how could you do this to me'. "And your knowing so feels much like I have offered you the hilt of a dagger already ever so conveniently embedded within an inch of my heart so that you need not even trouble yourself to aim." She presses her lips together obstinately and exhales strongly through her nose. "Now unhand me!"

Loki's first instinct is to laugh and, given that he has no idea where this has come from, he does not have the wherewithal to rein it in. He laughs, sharp and startled as she pouts at him, huffing and livid, and laughs again as he tries to run through what she's saying. She adores him? He would take it for a lie but it is absolutely clumsy and ham-fisted. After a moment, cackling like a man about to come unhinged, he reels back just a bit and shoots her the most incredulous look that has ever graced his face, bar none.

"What? Why?" Loki asks, his utter disbelief so plain that it has humor wound through every word. It is absurdity, this. "Certainly I am skilled at sex, and I am not hideous to be seen with, but you can't possibly adore me--I mean, you've met me."

There is, to his knowledge, only one person who loves him despite his temperament, his tendency for lying, and his nature in general. It is not Alexandrie de la Fontaine, he is certain.

"You will grow tired of me, just like the last woman who likened love to a blade in my presence, and then you will leave me in a flurry of skirts and cruel accusation.

"No, you are mistaken or you are lying and, for the first time, not well. If you wish me to avoid earnest gifts, so be it, I shall keep from intertwining us further but I thought--"

Here he comes up short and his cackling and manic energy tapers off. He looks down at his hand on her elbow and recalls her demand. He releases her quickly, then, like a man burned.

"I thought we might..." he has already begun the thought and it taxes him to finish it. It is honest and he hates it already. "We might remain friends, even once you have departed. Kindness is what friends do...or so I am told."

At the first, Loki's response is startling. Then, as he continues—

Ah, no.

Alexandrie had truly reveled in their complimentary ways, but being like her in this is not something she would ever have wished on anyone.

It is, however, perhaps, a single chance for remedy; or the beginning of one. And a risk, on her part, if it is not desired of her, but... well. Alexandrie will happily be called a liar at all times save one: she cannot abide it on that rare occasion when she speaks truth.

When Loki is finished, there is a brief space of quiet. That, and the hesitance of his previous speaking, are the only things between him releasing her and her taking hold of him with an indrawn breath, both hands rising to fist in the fabric near his collar and pull. Whether it is to aid her upwards or him downwards or something of both, Alexandrie is as intent now on getting her mouth to his as she had been on her escape.

At once he is hauled forward, downward, and his lips come crashing down against hers. He does not resist in the slightest, though he utilizes no finesse in their sudden embrace. She slants her mouth against his, her fingers all but ruin his collar, and he is no less confused for it.

Still, this he knows well, and has no small amount of confidence in. His hand finds the back of her head and the other settles against her side. He presses forward and kisses her harder, falling into old rhythms for something less startled and less off guard. He is uncertain when he began to move, but somehow he advances far enough to press her back against the trellis and frame her red hair in the green vines and foliage.

He kisses her for a long time and, at some point, realizes that he will have to stop--it is a moment he dreads, in truth, because it will demand he confront what has just been said. He would have to deal with the idea that she actually cares for him and he is uncertain where to even begin processing that.

Loki is not alone in his uncertainty, nor in this clinging to what had become quite familiar. Even so, Alexandrie cannot find escape or avoidance of what has changed in the well known--yet somehow simultaneous unknown--of her press against him. It is, writ large, full of the feeling that had begun to cause her so much consternation: that her head, her side, any place on her he touched thrilled at it not because his hands were skilled but because they were his hands.

So, perhaps it is not to be avoided at all. Perhaps the tremble she can barely still in her fingers any time they move between places they are able to find purchase where she can tense them is not meant to be stilled. Perhaps she is meant to do as she does now; recklessly abandon the application of her own skill in favor of the simple force of raw ardor.

Backed into the trellis of a sudden, the leaves of its twining vines tickling her cheek, she pushes at it with her back, testing. Satisfied, she reaches to settle her arms behind his neck, raises a knee to his waist: an ask to be lifted.

If she has her way it will be a bit longer before anyone has to think about anything.

This is easier, so much easier than talking--she presses against him, curls her fingers around whatever bit of him they can reach, and sighs against his lips as he kisses her. He obliges her silent request, her arms around his neck and her leg at his hip, and shifts an arm beneath her thighs to lift her up and brace her against his pelvis.

This is an excruciatingly compromising position and is not easily done in her heavy gown against a garden trellis. It is, however, far less risky than talking about feelings so here we are.

He occupies himself with her lips, then with the slide of her hands into his hair, and hardly notices when he breaks off kissing to move down her neck. He is too busy to speak and it does not occur to him that she can do so at her leisure, now.

Even though the fashion here is far less bulky than that of Orlais— there are, for instance, no hoops here to make this shift in position absolutely preposterous— the rustle and bunch of the numerous layers of her skirts between them as Loki so obligingly lifts and braces her against the latticework makes things rather more complicated. For one, it separates them rather more than they had been previously. For the second, the skirts are caught about her knees, and even if they were not, an exploratory tug on the fabric beside her thigh reveals there's really no way to move the mass of fabric out of the way without both some awkward contortion on her part and his having to somehow support her without the aid of his hips.

"Ah, non," Alexandrie laughs helplessly with a near-giddy breathlessness even as she lets her head fall back into the curling twine of the vines and interrupts her mirth with a shallow gasp, the hand she'd slid to the back of Loki's head attempting to pull him closer still as he runs his lips down the line of her throat. "I have made an error."

"So I pointed out, but then you kissed me," Loki says as he draws back from her neck. This position is awkward but also, fortunately, very disarming. Neither of them look their best and, as such, it is easier to avoid adopting his usual facade.

"A very poor decision on your part, really."

Alexandrie is torn, here, between returning to the well-worn track of their easy banter and continuing to be so terribly uncomfortably sincere. But the way they are now, with her looking down at him, Loki having drawn back to lightly quip not simply because it is amusing but perhaps because he truly thinks so, and it is always easier to hurt oneself before another does it?

She looks at him intently, moving her hands to frame his face, the pads of her fingers a near whisper against his skin.

"Not in that," she says quietly, "Never in that." Then, having said so, she bends to slowly kiss him again with the sort of deliberate surpassing gentleness with which one might touch something precious.

It is immediately apparent in how he freezes, how still he goes, that he does not know how to reciprocate this sort of kiss. He holds her up without effort but he cannot make himself move toward or away from her as she brushes her lips so softly across his. He is, again, stunned and several seconds of silence follow after she draws back.

He starts to speak and halts as he begins. This repeats once and again before he finally moves to let her down. He does not draw away once she is standing.

"I will do poorly at this, you realize?" Loki prompts with a shade of his old bravado reinforcing his admission. "You do not mind?"

MOD PLOT: SHOULD GLORY COME AT SUCH A PRICE, Part I

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Do not be alarmed, this will ftb. We're sfw here, people.

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