Lady Alexandrie d'Asgard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
coquettish_trees) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2018-08-09 04:45 pm
coquettish_trees) wrote in faderift2018-08-09 04:45 pm
OPEN | Looking Down on Empty Streets
WHO: Lexie, Evie, Loki, Thor, Fifi, Gwen, anyone else who wants to deal with this actual mess of a woman (special shout out to anyone who has a four letter (nick)name apparently)
WHAT: Late nights, early mornings, a bunch of processing the horrible things that happened!
WHEN: Post return from Tevinter (so... mid-month?)
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: cw: a nice violent nightmare, general mental trauma. hmu if you want something special, will do brackets or prose as desired.
WHAT: Late nights, early mornings, a bunch of processing the horrible things that happened!
WHEN: Post return from Tevinter (so... mid-month?)
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: cw: a nice violent nightmare, general mental trauma. hmu if you want something special, will do brackets or prose as desired.
I. The Apartments (Day)
When Alexandrie is home, much of her time is spent laying on the chaise out on the balcony staring into nothing and hardly seeming to care about the oppressive heat that so irked her the month before. Her hair, if it is styled at all, is woven into a simple braid and pinned up, a far cry from the way she used to wear it. Sometimes she is a fury of diplomatic paperwork, sometimes she is repetitively and grimly throwing a knife into a target that is a new fixture in the area. Sometimes she will, all of a sudden, snap into the light and cheerful woman she was, although her laughter is harder to come by. Whichever it is, she is still welcoming of callers.
II. Hightown (Night)
She haunts the streets like a ghost; all loose hair and pale wan skin and simple white dress, dressing gown layered over it against the slight chill that still manages to cover Kirkwall by second or third bell despite the heat of the day. Often, she is in the memorial garden, sitting and watching the fountain or pacing the paths repetitively. Sometimes she makes her way to wherever the sea can be best seen. Like a spectre, too, she is gone by the time the sky begins to lighten.
Anyone else out and about in the dark hours?
III. Loki/Evie:
Smell. Noise. There's so much of it. The screams of panic, the mortal ones unlike any other, some far too high to have issued from fully grown throats. The ozone of magic ripping the air mixing with the choking char of burning stalls, the metallic smell of blood. Blood. Far too much of it. How can there be so much. The visceral nigh-unbelievable revulsion at how thickly it drips. It clings to her hands, sliding, sticking. The wink of sunlight on silver. The noise he makes around it is so desperately wrong: liquid, bubbling. The same thing, then, on a far slenderer throat. Sudden. Silver again, but streaked with red. Silver where it doesn't belong. Cannot belong. Disbelief. Overwhelming horror that grips so hard she is frozen and the sound, the sound that comes from them.
She never quite screams. While there is noise that accompanies Alexandrie's gasping terrified surges to consciousness, the shriek in her throat never truly makes it past the hands that fly reflexively to cover her mouth to fiercely stifle it as her knees shoot to her chest, her heart pounding like something is trying to fight its way outside of her. Sometimes they are clapped flat against her face; sometimes it's the side of her hand between her teeth, her jaw clenching hard enough to bruise, even to draw blood, although that is more rare. Always it is a desperate bid to prevent her horrified shuddering panic from waking her bedmate.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not.
IV. Thor/Fifi:
There is a small disturbance in the kitchens. The pour of water, the clink of metal, of china, rummaging through dry goods. Investigating will reveal Alexandrie, wrapped in a white silk dressing gown, her hair finger-combed and tied around itself in a simple knot, quietly looking through the selection of tea as the glyphs on the kettle do their work of setting the water to boil.
She looks tired and subdued—she often looks so, recently—but she manages a small smile all the same.
“Pardonnez-moi. Did I wake you?”
V. Gwenaëlle:
[ she has come looking for Gwenaëlle for a reason she can't really fathom. Perhaps it is because there is precious little in Kirkwall that is familiar and they had walked the same streets and halls, seen much of the same art, known many of the same faces, have the same mother tongue. Perhaps it is because Gwen too had been abruptly thrown from that world into one that so immediately included brutal violence and death that stood close enough to feel the hot splatter of it. Perhaps it is both things.
Whatever the reason, Alexandrie is knocking now on the door to the Provost's rooms in hopes of finding the small, concentrated, dark-haired woman, wearing a simple summer dress with her hair pinned up just as simply, the neck of a bottle containing something substantially stronger than the wine she'd offered at the Tourney in her fist. ]
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so she gets up, already smoothing her skirts. ]
Now is agreeable.
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Right. We're headed to the Gallows, then. I copied down a few things from the libraries up in Tevinter - do you read Tevene?
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I do. Although I am only versed in its ancient counterpart in the most cursory of manners. If that is needed, you may wish to submit inquiry to Lord Loki.
[ she's entirely sure that Kitty does not wish, but perhaps a shared desire for the downfall of the corrupted Magister will temper their perennial fighting a slight.
And Loki might want for the distraction as much as she. More, perhaps. She calls back over her shoulder: ]
Marceau, I am going out. If Evie returns before I, or I receive any other callers, you may tell them I have gone to the Gallows library.
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I'd prefer you, thanks. I feel like a joint research project with Lord Loki would end with me shoving paper down his throat till he choked to death. And I wouldn't want to do that to the poor books.
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Lexie would rather avoid that situation all together. ]
Noted. I shall, then. If we come to a need for it.
[ The door to the apartments is opened for them as they approach it, and out they go into the heavy oppressive heat and humidity of Kirkwall ]
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As they emerge onto the street, a dog falls in behind them. Massive, broad, and phenomenally ugly, it's recognizably one of the famous Ferelden mabari. Kitty shoots it a look that contains a bit of bewilderment but no surprise; the dog's been following her around for a few days now, and she's gotten used to it, even if she doesn't fully understand it. She doesn't comment on it, either, because she feels a little bit embarrassed by its clear devotion to her. So, instead - ]
What other languages do you know?
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[ a litany, although said offhandedly. With a slight more interest: ]
Whose mabari is that? They do not run stray, that I know of.
[ Maker preserve us from that ]
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Oh. Mine, I guess.
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You guess.
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[ Kitty looks behind her at the dog, who wags cheerfully at the attention. ]
Someone at the Gallows - he said that they imprint. Whatever that means. I guess she decided she liked me, and now...
[ A puff of air. ]
Don't suppose you know anything about dogs?
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If you wish knowledge of mabari, may I direct you to any given Fereldan? Most of them will wax what passes for poetic in their country for hours about the breed.
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I mean, to be fair, this dog seems really...Well, it's, like, really smart. Like, here -
[ Kitty says to the mabari - ]
Walk in front of us.
[ And the dog, obediently, trots out front instead of trailing behind. Kitty looks over to Lexie with raised eyebrows, a very well? so? sort of gesture. ]
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Yes, Kitty. They are all clever. Well observed.
[ she is immediately ashamed of it. The sudden surges of irritation were uncontrolled, and she hated them. Hated the way the lanced through her training again and again. In addition, Kitty had become a friend in the way she had only two others (and Evie hardly counted, they were inextricably bound together) and lashing out at Kitty was different that being curt with Gwen. So, more gently: ]
Pardon, cherie. I am... strange to myself.
Yes. I have heard they are near as intelligent as we, and both faultlessly loyal and well suited to battle. If she has decided she is yours, and you hers, then you have a dog now.
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Don't apologize, please. It's all right. If you need to bite at me, bite at me. Whatever you need.
[ And she offers a smile. It's not exactly all right - no one likes someone harping at them all the time (something which has, no doubt, limited Gwenaelle's social circle) - but it's close enough to being all right with the knowledge that it's out of grief. Kitty's seen people do mad things out of grief. Just as long as Lexie stops short of taking a bomb with her in an attempt to murder the Prime Minister, she can do whatever she likes. ]
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I do not know what I need, besides to do something.
Tell me about these things you copied, and how I might be of help with them.
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I just sort of grabbed everything I could. And I haven't had a chance to look at them yet.
[ What with all the rescuing and all that. ]
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[ or, you know, as far as she's heard, having never done it. she has little concept of the work that had been done for even the comparatively short strand of them around her neck.
she furrows her brow in frustration of a sudden and tsks. ]
Merde. I did not bring any of my writing supplies. Think you the library will have paper and ink with which I might transcribe?