faderift | SHOULD GLORY COME AT SUCH A PRICE, Part II

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SHOULD GLORY COME AT SUCH A PRICE, Part II

WHO: Characters in Minrathous
WHAT: Daring escapes
WHEN: End of Solace
WHERE: Minrathous
NOTES: OOC plotting post!

It's become a running joke that wherever the Inquisition travels, disaster follows. It stops being funny somewhere around mid-afternoon: not long after a cadre of Inquisition representatives departs to speak with the Archon at a secretive location, the atmosphere in the palace shifts. The staff is watching the Inquisition's movements more openly, and guards are watching their own colleagues with more interest. In the late afternoon a woman arrives with a small entourage, and while she doesn't visit the visitors' quarters where the Inquisition is housed, she might be glimpsed through a window or cracked door, with twin blonde braids looped behind her ears and serious eyes above a gap-toothed smile. Only those who were at Haven would recognize her for certain.

In the meantime, back doors and side exits that were previously open and unguarded begin to close, here and there, with enough subtlety that it would be easy to miss at first, until the scattering of guards throughout the palace suddenly doubles. Most remain tight-lipped, offering only the most cursory explanation: routine security response. A few are willing to offer more, but their stories vary: rumors of a potential intruder on the grounds, a visiting petitioner causing trouble, unrest in the city over a recent vote, some sort of controversy in the Magisterium. It's increasingly clear that something is happening, but equally that those in the palace willing to speak of it have no idea what it is.

The main doors remain unbarred, and members of the Inquisition are not stopped from leaving, but warned that once they do, they're on their own. Those who venture out will find the city in a similar state: thrumming with unfocused anxiety, gossip flying, wild stories about attacks on the city gates, the harbor blockaded, a purge in the assembly, a slave revolt, armies on the march, fires on the mainland--too much to parse through and find any kernel of truth before it's too late.

Thankfully, there are sending crystals. Eventually, there comes a whispered warning: leave the city, now, without anything that might slow them down. There is no way for the entire delegation to safely meet, so instead spots are chosen both within the palace and without, places that small groups can congregate without drawing attention to arrange an escape toward the city gates.

It's as much advance notice as anyone could hope for, but it still isn't enough to make this simple.

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Thor is not the biggest fan of strolling and shopping. He likes it on occasion, but truly only the presence of his mother has made this long trip palatable. He's missed her more than he'd thought he would, which was already a large amount. Then Alexandrie appears and he realizes this could get amusing. Orlesian, no magic, how will Loki handle this introduction? Thor will handle the names. Loki can explain who this woman is to him.

"My Lady Alexandrie," Thor says warmly enough, dipping his head the required amount. "Allow me to introduce our mother, Lady Frigga."

He doesn't mind Lexie. She's pleasant enough, especially for an Orlesian. But there is a deep river of brotherly rivalry that wants to see complication here, that wants to see Loki sweat. Especially because Thor still has no word on who his parents would like him to marry. Kirkwall has... temptations, and a name or a picture, some sense of shape for the future, would ease that.

Loki, unlike Thor, found no end of calm and respite in trailing along the streets with his mother. Thor is happy to see her, as he always is, but it was Loki who volunteered to carry her things and Loki who has kept the pace at the exact, gradual amble that he knows she prefers and is likely to drive Thor to distraction. Their conversation, a casual discussion of some tailor who is gaining popularity, is derailed in a heartbeat when Alexandrie de la Fontaine appears before them from the idle mid-morning crowds.

Loki freezes mid-step as she curtsies and nearly makes a face as she reconsiders and curtsies lower. Thor's delight is plain--he jumps in without pause to introduce her--but his mother seems more confused than anything. Being suddenly interrupted by random Orlesian woman does that, unfortunately.

"A..pleasure, my dear," Frigga greets and shoots Thor a questioning look. It does not occur to her to look at Loki, not at first, and for that he is grateful. It grants him some time to compose himself. A beat of silence passes between the group and Lexie before Frigga, being the most diplomatic and sympathetic of the three, breaks it and closes some of the distance to Lexie.

"You have traveled to Minrathous with the Inquisition, I presume?" Frigga asks, her brows lifting in a way that is somehow a perfect split between Thor's sincerity and Loki's attentive nature. "How are you enjoying your time in the Capitol?"

"Just so, my lady," Alexandrie replies, recovering as quickly as she is able. She manages to look delighted and entirely unruffled despite the furious spin of her mind.

She and Loki were meant to be in quite the tiff. Thor coasting past that sort of purely social politicking was perhaps par for the course, but had the gossip reached Lady Asgard? She'd looked at Thor rather than Loki after her introduction, so rather likely not, unless Alexandrie is being spoken of as 'some Orlesian chit with the Inquisition', of which there might be several. The other half then: who is watching now to speak of it to those she was meant to be catching with the ruse, if she is kindly now? They shall perhaps simply believe her opportunistic, which suits her fine.

As for Loki himself, well. She shall act friendly acquaintance unless otherwise prompted. His country, his city, his mother, his play to call.

So decided, everything is well again. As well as it can be, that is.

"It has been quite the experience," Alexandrie replies warmly, "Both in seeing a city so proud of its history in the line of every structure and in having never had the opportunity to witness magic existing in harmony with the world in such a way as it does here," that said with a tinge of rather honest wonder. "I wish only that I had the opportunity to see more of the countryside in something other than passing." Her smile widens slightly. "I have been told that Marnas Pell is surpassingly lovely."

"Coward," Thor mouths at Loki, angled so his mother cannot see and in Tevene so it's unlikely Lexie knows what he's saying. For all that he's willing to consider that Loki has found someone he genuinely loves, there's still a little suspicion there that this is really just a ploy to piss off Odin. Frigga's unfamiliarity with Lexi's name feeds that suspicion; surely if Loki was in love he'd tell his mother right away. He'd need her as an ally against Odin if there was to be a wedding.

"Forgive me, mother," he says, every bit the proper heir. "I thought you would have heard her name by now. Lady Alexandrie de la Fontaine? A... particular acquaintance of my brother's?" Thor doesn't get a lot of chances to mess with Loki. Outshine him, certainly. The Tourney had been good for that. But do mischief to his far-more-mischievous brother? Those opportunities are rare. Thor will take this... and make a mental note to buy a healing potion or two for when Loki stabs him again in the next few days.

"Surely Loki has not neglected to tell you of her." He'll pay for being an asshole later, but Gods is it fun.

His mother steps ahead of them and, as she does, gives him a perfect view of Thor mouthing insults at him. He glowers at his brother, a quick and heated look but has to rein it in quickly. His mother turns to him, a curious smile on her face, and arches a brow.

"Oh? I am afraid he has failed to bring her up. She is a friend of yours then, Loki?" she supposes and Loki manages a polite if slightly delayed smile and laugh. It is a very poorly constructed cover and his mother both sees through it immediately and shoots him an almost apologetic look.

Her mind for mischief is as bad as Loki's own and, in her polite sweep forward, she threads her arm through Lexie's and gently ushers her along with them. Loki has forgotten completely about their ploy, and their plotting, and that is probably for the best. He barely manages to refrain from audibly groaning as it is and, once they start walking again, punches his brother in the shoulder as quickly and subtly as he can.

"Tell me all about how you met my sons, Lady Fontaine, I am ever so curious and, apparently, ill-informed."

Alexandrie does speak Tevene, which means her smile twitches briefly with amusement that she covers with a gloved hand and a delicate cough and a renewed and purposeful attention to Frigga, whose following appropriation of her arm and terribly innocent inquiry redoubles her amusement as she is forced to consider how she is meant to answer as she is fairly sure the actual story in its fullness is not all that appropriate to the occasion.

"I am entirely shocked to find you know nothing of me," she replies lightly with no small mischief of her own, "after all, Lord Loki is always so entirely forthcoming in everything." Was her tone perhaps too obviously affectionate? Ah well. It had only taken these short moments of watching the interplay between them all to immediately become fond enough of Lady Asgard to relax slightly. She darts a quick look of half apology and half mirth at the poor targeted fellow before turning back.

"Truly, though, I had the great luck of witnessing them both engaged in combat with a dragon," she is still slightly incredulous. Dragon, "at the Grand Tourney in Wycome some few months hence when I came to join my sister in the Inquisition. It was a rather exceptional showing on all accounts and although the crowd did not quite immediately allow for it, I was lucky enough to happen upon your younger son later on to offer my congratulations, which turned into such an enjoyable conversation—" there had absolutely been some words exchanged, "—that I simply had to continue the acquaintance. There are too few in Kirkwall who are both clever and appreciate the arts. I have yearned less for home, I think, than I might have otherwise."

This last is a truth she had not precisely thought on until saying so.

"Lord Thor and I are less acquainted, but what little we have shared has given me naught but a fine opinion of him."

...she really does like them.

Thor snorts at the punch. Quietly. It stings, but it's more satisfying than painful and he doesn't want his mother to get after them for squabbling. They're not children anymore.

And Alexandrie's words are far from childish. They actually sound genuine. He finds himself a little at a loss, which is rather new. He isn't used to Orlesians who aren't fake and she seems to mean her affection. It's... odd. Loki's playthings tend to be infatuated in other ways with him, not... this.

"He was eliminated before I. He had more time to... socialize." There. That was teasing and not too crude for his mother. Not like she was some fakely proper Southern noble who would have to be aghast at anything, as the faintly amused glance she tosses over his shoulder at him attests. She knows what he's doing. She's always known, really, with the both of them.

Thor gives her a completely innocent smile back. He's good at them, even if Frigga knows better than believing it.

"We shall have plenty of time to socialize over lunch," Frigga says to them all. "You will join us, I hope, Lady Fontaine."

Brothers.

"I should be delighted," replies Alexandrie, sounding so. She looks about to seek out and then nod at Emile to dismiss her, and the lady's maid bobs a brief curtsy before turning back towards the Archon's palace to return to their room with the purchases, leaving her mistress free to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

"Excellent," Frigga says as she leads Alexandrie ahead of Loki and Thor. They walk a while before they find themselves at a fashionable cafe. The outdoor seats are prepared for them, quite promptly, by a series of waiters. When they sit, Frigga releases Alexandrie into the seat beside her and then gestures for Thor to join at her other side. This has the uncomfortable and predictable result of putting Loki on the end of her stare and between both his friend and his ~~shitheel~~ brother.

Thor is being insufferably smug and because he has given their mother something fun to grill Loki about, he is being encouraged. She smiles at Thor, pats his hands where he folds them on the table, and then turns her attention to Loki.

"I remember the Tourney, it was quite some time ago wasn't it?" Frigga asks, a note of disapproval in her tone mixed with...something Loki dislikes analyzing. "Perhaps you were too busy to write--that would be understandable."

She turns her attention back on Lexie and her smile remains.

"Tell me about yourself, my dear," Frigga requests. "You came to Kirkwall with your sister, you are titled, Orlesian--tell me, does magic run in your family line?"

That Loki refrained from groaning aloud was, perhaps, a minor miracle.

Alexandrie would be more sympathetic if this weren't so very very fun. As it is she smooths her skirts around her, primly tucks one leg behind the other to cross at the ankle, folds her hands in her lap, and returns Frigga's smile albeit with the slightest hint of apology. "An aunt, my great granduncle, but not directly." Such things were, naturally, weeded out rather than bred in in the South, especially in the peerage. "A thing I had never had cause for the slightest regret in." She sighs the very smallest of sighs.

"As for myself, I of course both play and enjoy music, relish the study of language, enjoy an energetic ride in the country," If Thor can do it, she can do it, "but I think my only true distinguishing feature to be my painting; a great part of my wistful desire to spend more, or indeed any, time in the countryside here.

"Why, I recall being told there might be some of my work hanging in your estate somewhere!" The exclamation is accompanied by a slight foxlike widening of her smile. There is a very great chance Loki had been lying as a matter of course, which doesn't seem to bother Alexandrie in the slightest.

Odin and Frigga had never taken exception to anyone Loki had entangled himself with though, in truth, he had not actually introduced any of them directly to one of his parents before. Their concern for the family line rested squarely on Thor's shoulders but, if he'd had to guess, Loki would not have predicted the response his mother had to Lexie's admission. He would have expected her to be disappointed, to shoot him a look of warning and sympathy, because clearly he could not be serious about her, but she did...none of that.

"It's is alright, my dear, creativity is a far rarer art than magic," Frigga replies and settles back in her chair, her expression perfectly even and contented. "Unfortunately many of our countrymen forget that fact."

Loki stares at her a moment, confused and a bit stunned that Lexie's lineage was not a point of contention, and tries to calculate why. His mother had surely deduced how they knew one another, she could not be so well insulated from society that his exploits had never reached her ears, but she took no issue with it? Not even enough to merit a mild, silent reprimand?

"Um, yes," Loki interjects and clears his throat. "I believe there is one in our estate in Marnas Pell--the...landscape of the seaside by Val Royeaux I think it was."

"That painting?" Frigga asks and brightens up instantly. "Oh, I adore that painting, it's above the hearth in our music room. Your father always felt it clashed with the gardens, but I felt it matched the view quite nicely. One sea beside another."

Thor goes from looking like he's having two birthday parties at once to showing how absolutely confused he is. He hadn't thought Frigga would be particularly hard on Loki as far as who he courted, but dismissing the familial lack of magic that easily is unprecedented. Is it a massive amount of confidence in whomever she and Odin are thinking of as a match for Thor? Is it a massive lack of confidence in Loki shaping up to be a decent second if something goes wrong? Magic is everything in Tevinter.

He's at a loss for words as he looks between his mother and Loki and sees the same amount of surprise. Thor has a great deal of faith in his abilities, at running the estate and surviving and making heirs, but this?

"I did not realize that was your work, Lady Alexandrie," he says, feeling clunky and awkward and out of place all of a sudden. This had been so much fun and now it seems like it's no longer a silly joke. This could be serious. Loki could have found someone, their mother might be approving, and Thor, despite all of his efforts to be the best son possible, is no closer to having a wife than he was five years ago. He's jealous. Terribly so.

...And suddenly feeling alone when surrounded by people. The glass of wine dutifully poured by a branded elf will have to be company enough for him for now, and he raises it in mute toast when all have their glasses filled.

Well, that makes everyone at this table—except, presumably, Frigga—confused, and Alexandrie an entire palette of other feelings as well. Chief among them is the sort of curious suspicion that inevitably arises when one expects difficulty and is met with its lack instead.

There is something else at work here. It is, however, something entirely beyond her ken for the moment, and gnawing upon such things within eyesight of the person who has posed the puzzlement always ends up being terribly obvious, which is, in and of itself, terribly gauche.

So she marks it, and then lets it flutter away. Other pieces may come by in time. In the meantime, in addition to her already fine mood, it is a beautiful day that is well-observed from their outdoor seating, there is a lively hubbub in the background that reminds her of home, glasses are now being lifted, she is in truly agreeable company (that she... may... be continuing to enjoy in the future? how strange that feels.), and the mentioned painting is actually one of her favourites.

And there actually was one.

It is all together a terribly soft set of feelings, and it shows.

"Ah, I remember that one well!" Alexandrie claps her hands with a delighted beam, "And the lucky days I spent sitting there; it was uncommonly fine that year. Perhaps someday I shall have the opportunity to paint the Nocen seaside and I may take it back and hang it in our music room so that we may have complimentary views." She looks over at Thor, intending to absolve him his being unaware of the artist, and instead notes the loss of cheer. Ah, pauvre homme. Perhaps she can provide a little back.

"But!" she exclaims, turning back to Frigga with a gleam in her eyes, "Since this is a rare and unexpected opportunity, and your fine sons are shackled here by decorum, I find myself entirely compelled to beg you tell me some tales."

Frigga's laugh is unrestrained and delighted. It is a throaty, honest sound, more like Thor's than not, and she grins broadly at Lexie as it concludes. She does not reach across the table to take Lexie's hand, but it is a near thing, interrupted only by their waiter coming to take their orders. Loki orders for the table without hesitation and, if Frigga's acceptance of it is any indication, this is generally tradition.

"What tales I could tell, the choices are nearly limitless," Frigga says once the waiter has departed and glances between her sons as she considers what secrets to reveal.

"Thor, my son, since you are less close with the Lady I shall embarrass you less," Frigga decrees and Loki scowls. "Would you prefer I tell her the tale of the first time Loki managed to shapeshift properly, or the tale of your tenth birthday?"

This is better. Thor brightens, lifting his glass as he considers his options (and lets the stress of not knowing build for a few more seconds on Loki's shoulders.)

"Those are both good choices," he says with a grin for Alexandrie to say that she's in for quite the story. "There are also the many times it took before he had his first shape figured out," and his voice is loud for how conspiratorial it sounds, "but let us dwell on something that is fun and successful, shall we not?"

No one's ever claimed shapeshifting was easy. There are precious few shapeshifters out there and Loki's abilities there have proven invaluable before... but this is not on the field. This is at lunch, when he is free to laugh and let down his guard and relax. And not be stabbed - Loki would never stab him right in front of Frigga.

Alexandrie, of course, prefers to have everything, so it matters little which story gets told first, although she imagines Loki may stew less if his is promptly dispensed with.

This appears to be Thor’s choice, if not his motivation, and so she settles into her chair and turns back to Frigga, a study in attentive delight, her wine glass dangling from her fingers, to wait for the tale.

Thor is very lucky that his assessment is correct--much though he would like to, he would not actually stab his brother in front of their mother. Frigga, it seems, knows this as well and gives Loki an almost saccharine look as she takes his hand between hers and rests it on the table. She beams at him, all motherly pride, and Loki has a terrible moment of foreboding--she then begins.

"My lovely son was--oh what was it, dear, you were eight? Very young," Frigga starts, doting and cheerful and glances sidelong at Alexandrie. "He always had a talent for magic, almost from the moment of his birth, and he excelled especially at obscure and strange feats. For reasons I still cannot fathom, he was fascinated by the idea of making himself very small.

"Most boys prefer to be as large as they can, men who move mountains, but Loki was different. He tried first with creatures that were middlingly sized--cats, hounds, the small creatures that lived in the trees outside our estate--and, as Thor reminds us, those did not end well.

"One day, however, I came into my garden to find my son had vanished and, draped across my books there was a little black snake."

Loki groans audibly at this part, well aware of where this story is going, and is tempted to excuse himself and find the waiter. Unfortunately his mother still has hold of his hand.

"I called Thor over to ask if he had seen his brother. Thor had not and was immediately charmed by the small snake. He picked it up, snatched it right off my books, and immediately ran to show his father."

Frigga pauses and glances first at Loki, then at Thor.

"Tell me, how long into that conversation was it before he turned back? I remember you broke something spectacularly, but I cannot recall what."

He purses his lips, trying to look like he's bothered by the trick when the opposite had been true. The attempt fails in part due to the way his eyes sparkle, and in part due to the warmth in his voice.

"I did not even make it to the conversation or Father. I was too excited to play with the snake to look well for him." Thor leans a little toward Lexie. "I have always been fond of snakes, and there were few on our estate. I thought I had made a new friend, and then fangs sunk into my arm, I ran into one of the chairs in our casual dining hall, and when the snake fell from my arms he turned into my brother."

Now the smile is full. What's a little physical pain when it comes to a memory of his brother?

"I was so startled that I tripped over the chair I'd run into and broke it and my ankle. He could become a snake! It was excellent! Then our father found us, with me bleeding, and was... not as pleased as I was. But he is notoriously hard to please."

Alexandrie was already fully delighted, but Thor's genuine unfettered enthusiasm about having been bitten by Loki and then breaking both chair and ankle along with her attempt to imagine the two of them as young boys is enough to set her to a burst of silvery laughter which she makes a perfunctory effort to cover with her free hand, joining them to lace around her glass once it subsides, her eyes sparkling over the rim.

A brief glance at Loki revealing him as rather aggrieved by the proceedings, Alexandrie’s smile twitches slightly wider before she turns back to the rest of the table, surreptitiously shifting so she can hook an ankle around his beneath the cover of the table and it’s cloth as she sips her wine.

“It was precipitated by nothing so exciting as turning to a snake,” she acknowledges with a tilt of her head, “but I feel in the interest of parity and similar subject matter I should now tell the story of Evie’s broken ankle. My twin sister,” she appends for Frigga’s benefit.

“I believe we were much the same age, seven or eight, and were both still quite stubbornly attached to remaining identical,” Amusing in itself; ah, how times change. “If one of us had a new dress, then so must the other, of the same pattern and cut. If one of us was given a toy horse, then so must the other be, of the same breed and coat.” Perhaps, given her introduction of the tale, they can already see where this is headed.

“Thus when Evie, who was given to running and jumping and clambering up trees, climbed halfway up her favourite tree on the grounds after a rain and fell from it and broke her ankle... well,” her eyes glow with mirth as she takes another very prim drink. “There was of course nothing for it but that I must also have one—and I am so very intent once I have decided I must have something,” the last is asserted with, of course, profound innocence.

“I ran off to climb the same tree as swiftly as I was told about the accident and dropped myself out of it with the proper leg extended. Naturally I injured myself, and hobbled back to the house quite proudly to show Evie,” she turns to Frigga with an apologetic smile, “our mother was, of course, thrilled.

I was less so, when mine was pronounced only a sprain. Oh, but I wept so bitterly at the unfairness of it! Our poor parents finally had the doctor splint mine as if it were broken as well, and the two of us were cheerful again in our shared recovery.”

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SHOULD GLORY COME AT SUCH A PRICE, Part II

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