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Do I? You're the first person to accuse me of it.

( there's a mild curiosity as to where he's going with that, tempered by suspicion; the assumption that wherever it is, she won't like it. it seems like a safe bet. she hasn't disagreed with every single thing he's said, but she hasn't liked much of it, so far.

if he thinks she's angry at the empress because of her inheritance, let him. )

Very much so. I can recognize it quite well. You see - there was a time that I was like you. Right after my disinheritance, when I first came to Denerim. I couldn't see my way out of the trap I was in: I could envision no way to live with honor and dignity as a proper nobleman, but to take my own life would have been to give my enemies too much satisfaction. So I sought death a more appropriate way. I tried to be rude enough to be challenged to duels - but ah, though I was rude enough, I was so dissolute and low that for the other fellows to duel me would be beneath their dignity. So then I tried to drink myself to death, but I simply am too good at drinking. I barely even gave myself a hangover.

You understand the problem here, of course, perceptive as you are.

[ He smiles over at her. Throughout all of this, his voice has been light and wry - like telling an amusing anecdote. It is true, though, all of it. Her position as her father's daughter has won her a bit of honesty and sincerity; her position as a member of the Society of Disgrace has won her quite a lot more. He can count the people he's told all of this on a single hand. She's receiving a truly dubious honor, here. ]

My desire was to live with honor and dignity. As a proper nobleman. The codes of propriety had fucked me, and yet I still wanted to honor them.

You're doing the same. Bowing your head. Calling yourself Mademoiselle. You're no Mademoiselle.

( it's a startled laugh and she regrets it, not for her own sake but for his when he's given her this and she understands what it is—because she does understand the problem. she understands very well what he is saying to her, he isn't describing her present but her very near past. it had been ironic, probably, to realise that she finally wanted to live when it seemed least likely that she fucking would. her father dedicated so much of his life to protecting her and she worked just as hard at making it impossible for him to adequately do so; there were so many dangers he never knew to shield her from, herself chief among them.

he had never wished to see a mirror of his own broken heart in his daughter.

gwenaëlle is usually honest. selectively so, though, and she selects this moment on impulse, a more than able enough horsewoman to gracefully rein closer, to give to impulse and reach out to press her hand over his wrist at his reins. )

No, ( warmer, quieter. ) I'm not.

( but she is doing something right if he thinks this is what she needs to hear, and what lingers where a knot of tension in her shoulders has loosened now is relief. she's getting away with something, if he thinks so. if the implied concern is earnest, maybe he'll find that comforting, and if it isn't maybe she's just exposing herself in a different way, giving him a glimpse at something else that can be twisted to use against her—

but fuck it, she's got this far by her nails and her teeth and her own softness. she'll get further yet, whoever looks. )

Edited 2018-09-16 12:45 (UTC)

[ There's just the quickest flicker of a glance over to her, trying to read her expression when she touches him. Warmth and laughter can hide quite a lot. But he doesn't see anything in her except for that laughter...

Well. He smiles back at her in return. ]

So why act like it, dear lady? You don't really think someone would murder you here merely for claiming your old title. Especially not here, where we might as well all be ruled by elves and mages and Rifters.

( emeric had been opaque, when he wanted to be; destructively charismatic, he was rarely ever seen to be anything but what he wished to be. he appeared at almost all times as careless as orlais would never truly allow him to be, the calculation behind it both constant and invisible. it becomes clear—and rapidly—that this is not a gift shared by his daughter, that even beneath an orlesian mask (and how quickly she had shed those, in skyhold) she would be as easily read as an open book that someone is reading aloud to you.

she wears her heart openly; all its hurts and hates and these moments of terrible loveliness. there is nothing to see but the ease, except perhaps how unfamiliar ease is to her. she always seems to relax like it's an entirely new experience. )

Oh, not as far as that. They grumble, and maybe if I were still in Hightown they'd do it louder. I know there was talk the Warden floozy should have tried harder to hit me in the mouth.

( there had been some precarious days in hightown, where she had truly not felt safe, but she'd been alone at a delicate time; she'll never know how much was fair to fear and how much was her own anxious heart eating itself. also, she shouldn't have provoked the warden in the first place, which she knows but will ignore as irrelevant where it suits her.

eventually: )

It's always benefited me to know how I'm perceived.

( it's always benefited her for that perception to underestimate her; to dismiss her, even. she's always found it so much easier to get things done when no one is looking closely at what she might be doing. she doesn't wish to honor propriety; just to wring use from it. to keep her head down, yes, because when she's looking down she might see where everyone's hands are. )

[ They're an odd pair, perhaps. The honest Orlesian and the duplicitous Ferelden. He cannot help but search for underhanded intent - not simply because he knows that she was raised in the Game, but because he cannot do otherwise. He looks for it in everyone. ]

And it benefits you to be perceived as humbled and shuffling and low?

I'm not nearly good enough to believe anyone is going to think me humbled. But cautious. I'm cautious.

( sometimes. in certain ways.

not cautious enough to hold her tongue on just what she thinks of celene, granted, but the discomfort when my lady is bandied about is real, too; not that it disrespects the sanctity of the nobility (she has known too many too well to think there's much of that) but because it seems as if embracing scandal requires a flair she doesn't really think she has. she doesn't enjoy playing with it, and it's easier to wear that discomfort one way than another; to be perceived as a little bit more afraid than she really is.

she knows how to be afraid. she spent so much of her life that way; her father pushing her forward while she struggled, desperately afraid that what he'd done would be discovered. terribly, constantly aware of how quickly it all could be taken from her, afraid of how much worse it could be—

well, the worst thing has happened and it wasn't that bad. now she could do anything, probably, if she set her mind to it. but maybe it's better if no one is looking for her to. )

[ He arches an eyebrow at that. She seems more likely humbled, in his opinion, than she does cautious. A girl with a mouth that foul and a fury that raging, who openly calls her empress cunt - such a beastly word, that - is not cautious.

But he bows his head a moment later, and agrees: ]

Your lowly ass can do naught but agree, dear lady. If you see yourself as a cautious woman, I shall not contradict you.

[ Then he lifts his head again, and says: ]

But perhaps it is the Ferelden in me that compels me to point out: you can leave the Game. I hope you'll forgive me when I point out that you are truly a piss-poor player. So you needn't focus on duplicity in the way Orlesians do. You needn't be cautious and try to fool people into underestimating you. You ought to lean into your strengths.

You're not pointing out anything I don't know, ( and while she isn't above taking offense at someone else saying something she has said (frequently, frankly and at length), this is not one of those moments. ) Or anything that I'm not in full agreement with.

It's not a question of—the point isn't that I want to crawl back, it's that if they think that, that's fine. If that's the prism they look through what comes next at, fine.

Leaning into my strengths doesn't mean playing my hand before time.

[ He hums, noncommittally. And then he asks: ]

Then what is it you want, milady?

I want Corypheus to win, ( very seriously, ) wasn't that your conclusion?

( the pond coming up in the distance is picturesque, inasmuch as gwenaëlle is prepared to describe anything in the free marches generally and near kirkwall specifically in as kind terms, and persistence at least seems pleased to be approaching it. )

I'd have liked to be entirely free of politics, but that's not going to happen.

( for tall blond reasons, more than anything else. )

And consequently I still wait to hear what you want.

[ His posture is perfectly relaxed. His eyes are on the view. And he murmurs, pointedly - ]

How altogether lovely.

You strike me as a patient man.

( well, no. but he does seem like someone who must be, or who consequently has been obliged to become so, and either way, he doesn't strike her as someone who should be confided in too readily. )

What do you want? Besides your nose in my personal affairs.

What any simple cad wants.

[ His gaze shifts from the countryside to her. His smile is quite pleasant. ]

An income steady enough to keep me in wine until my insides give out. Charming companionship. A bit of mystery now and then.

You've come to the right place.

( wry, then, a moment later: ) Maybe too much the right place. What about a lot of mystery, all the fucking time?

Are you talking about the Inquisition, or yourself, milady?

( she starts to say the inquisition, her mouth shaping the words, and then she laughs.

she is so like her father, when she laughs; emeric had always made brittleness lovely. )

I don't think I'm very mysterious.

Ah, thou art woman, and therefore a riddle.

Regrettable that so many of those were written by semi-literate children unaware that riddles are supposed to have some kind of meaning, which sort of takes all the poetry out of being grouped in with every idiot with legs to spread.

( god, she's charming. )

Dear lady. Do you consider yourself a meaningless riddle, then?

I don't consider myself a riddle at all. I think you just haven't met enough women.

( she squints at him. the thought that can't possibly be right is so visible it's all but actually written on her forehead. )

Have you considered speaking to one or two of them sober? The novelty.

I make it a policy never to speak to anyone sober.

I'm starting to understand why you might find women difficult to follow.

I find everyone difficult to follow. I am, I fear, a foolish man.

You know that bad at the Game and gullible aren't the same thing, I hope.

( a lazily said thing, rather than a push, because the thing is that she is (as he so ably observed) bad at the game. and she knows it. which means, first of all, that she knows better than to think it's so extraordinarily clever of her to realise he is probably at least as clever as he is drunk. she is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel, she thinks it unlikely she's caught him out.

the best of them always seem to be up to about seven different things at once, artfully layered. a keen eye for other people has never translated into knowing how best to handle them, so she circles. she studies. she observes the absences, the shape of the whole. she hoards knowledge, both because it might become useful and because she can't help herself.

if she could, she'd not have answered him, or spoken to him so long the first time, or come today—but what she can and can't see sparks her interest, brings her back to prod at the puzzle. )

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cw suicide

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