[open]

[katabasis]

WHO: Wysteria Poppell, Flint, & U
WHAT: Catch-all for Kingsway
WHEN: Throughout the month - backtagged and forward dated to your heart's content.
WHERE: Kirkwall, various
NOTES: Wildcards welcome; let me know if you want some specific and I'll pull something together for us.

[Starters are in ye olde subthreads.]

Comments

[WYSTERIA]

[heirring]

Afternoon Lessons

[heirring]

The trouble with being determined about not looking like an idiot is that it's thoroughly exhausting. She's read more in the last few days than she'd usually do in a year - or, well, at least when it comes to geography and politics and history - and it's all rather draining and dry. Not that say that most of the essays she'd been forcing herself to consume in the last few months had exactly been riveting reading, but the substance was at least intriguing. The novelty of Kirkwall, indeed of Thedas, hasn't worn thin per say but it's doing its damnedest to exhaust her and there are moments like this one where Wysteria finds herself distinctly unmotivated by a pile of books in the dusty Gallows library.

Which is why she'd stuffed a few of the slimmer tomes under her arm and made her way outdoors. at the very least, she can get some fresh air as the information pours in one ear and straight out the other. That's the intention anyway. The reality is after an hour she's given up reading entirely and the books have been re-purposed as a tripping hazard for passerby as she's taken up a place on the stairs leading up from the broad, sun-baked courtyard. She's wearing a hat against the sun, but has taken to fanning herself with a sheaf of what were probably meant to be notes.]

"Good gods, what a positively stifling afternoon."

[pyrazine]

She is moving, fast, and then faster, and there's a reason for this. In her hand is a squirming thing - it is, in fact, a pair of rats. Why Luana is holding a pair of rats is a mystery for now - she's heading pas the girl with a pile of books, and this isn't going to end well, because she literally runs past her, skidding on a stray leaf of paper, tripping over the books (who the hell put books there?), and then barrels over her with the grace of a creature whose legs are too long for her body.

That's not the case in this form, though, so they just end up tangled, and-

"Holy mother of god, what the hell-" she shouts, just as the rats squirm, one bites, and Luana throws the other into the air, and it lands on Wisteria. "Shiiiiiiiiiiit!" Luana manages, just before the rat scampers away. Both of them.

[heirring]

Papers: decimated. Perfectly ordered stack of books: scattered down the length of the stairs. Her lap: briefly full of girl before said girl tumbles farther in a tangled knot of knees and elbows, and then, horrifically, full of rodent.

Wysteria slaps the rat with her make do fan, makes a strangled noise that isn't quite a shriek but isn't really anything else, and is well on her feet and two steps removed by the time the rat and its liberated friend have disappeared. She's making repulsed sounds, beating the front of her skirts with the papers like she means to knock the dirt from them and--

"Just what do you think you're doing?" It's unmistakably a demand, the brisk word of a young woman well used to scolding a younger cousin or five. "Running around like a child! You'll crack your head open on a stone like that if you haven't already!"

[pyrazine]

The rats are gone, and Luana is rolling back onto her back, her hair looking huge and manelike. She stares up at Wysteria and looks at the papers, and she manages, somehow, not to scream. Instead she just snaps. "Hey, I'm not the one who put their entire library on the ground!"

She flops over, then. "At least they're gone," she sighs, and her head is on the floor. "My head is fine. How can you be wearing so many clothes?"

[heirring]

She makes a short noise in the back of her throat - a scoff or a laugh or an affronted little sniff - and settles finally on stamping her foot on the stair. "My clothes are none of your business. And my books were there beside me - a perfectly reasonable place to have them if it weren't for girls running all over and in every direction without paying attention to their own feet."

Honestly.

Sounding just as offended, Wysteria asks to be certain: "You're sure you haven't hit your head? That you're not bleeding. Someone will want to know if you've bled all over the front steps, you know."

[pyrazine]

She tugs at this girl's skirt, tug tug, easily and without shame. It's not hard enough to move it, but enough to make it clear that her opinion is this shit is ridiculous, girl. She shakes her head. "I haven't hit my head," she says, and tugs again. "How are you not boiling? Haven't you considered something more reasonable?"

Trust a Brazilian to immediately latch on to someone wearing too much in the way of clothing.

[heirring]

The toe of her foot finds the girl's wrist, poking it discouragingly with all the violence of gently nudging away a mouthy puppy. Excuse you, and Stop that.

"These are the clothes I have, thank you very much." She twitches her skirts farther out of Luana's reach. "Get off the ground. Come now, someone will trip over you. Don't be a child."

She snaps her fingers - click click. Come along now. Up and at em!

[pyrazine]

She sits up then, sitting next to the girl, and smiling a little. She seems. White. And rich. Luana isn't friends with a lot of white, rich girls. "Aren't you hot though?" she asks, lifting her trouser legs over her knees and taking a breath, trying to memorize the smell of her.

She isn't usually so easily nice, but she's in a good mood, despite having lost her rats. The rats were going to torment someone - probably Byerly, but Luana hadn't decided yet - but she can get more. She has a nose for it. She pulls a ribbon out of her hair - somewhere in her mane - and ties her trouser legs up so they don't fall.

360 No Scope

[heirring]

Let no one say Wysteria lets herself be idle for long. Some might argue that that's just the trouble, isn't it? A certain lack of commitment to the concept of for long in general speaking to an overall lack of well rounded-ness or maybe a troubling weakness of overall character, as only fools are prone from flitting from one thing to the next with such rapidity. But if books are of no interest, then she must find something to entertain herself with outside of walking up and down Kirkwall's seemingly infinite number of staircases.

She finds her way to the training yard - specifically to a stool which she has roused from somewhere and positioned carefully within view of the make-do archery range so she might watch from the shade of the high wall and ask a seemingly infinite number of questions of anyone who makes the mistake of pausing for too long or wandering too close in their search for a practice bow.

"Tell me, have you been practicing long?" She might ask. Or: "Did you shoot as a child?" Or: "Your aim is really rather good, actually. Have you shot in any tournaments?" Or: "Is there a particular way in which you must draw back the string?" Or--

And so on and so forth. It's no doubt delightful.

[onlyhymns]

Archery being one of the only combat-related things Cade is technically, legally allowed to do, he does it with the same religious abandon as he does with praying.
He's not used to being addressed by most, and looks a little surprised by Wysteria's question, reddening instantly and looking like a child called on for an answer he doesn't know-- even though the question was about his aim.

"I... um. Yes," he stumbles, "the Grand Tourney."

[heirring]

"Oh, how marvelous! At least, I assume it is. One doesn't exactly go putting the name 'Grand' in a thing unless it's meant to live up to it, I suppose." Tipping her head to keep the broad brim of her hat between her face at the sun so she can look at him properly, she bowls on despite any and all hesitation her poor target might have about being interrogated.

"Did you do well there? You really must tell be everything."

[onlyhymns]

As frightening and as exhausting as they can be, heavy talkers are actually some of Cade's favorite people, because not being able to get a word in edgewise translates to him as not being required to speak. He could stand in silence and be rambled at all day, and it would be a good day, as long as the attention isn't on him.
But then she asks a question and ruins it.

"Oh-- uh--" Caught off-guard. "I did all right." He clears his throat. "...it was nice."

[heirring]

"Really, you must be more descriptive. I've never been to a tournament, grand or otherwise, and honestly can hardly imagine it. What kind of competitions are there? Archery, obviously. And swords, I expect. Oh! There must be horses. Is it racing or fighting from the saddle. Now races I have seen, actually. There's one every year in Clarmere. Which of course you won't know at all, but suffice to say it's always quite the to do."

Not to worry Cade, she clearly only requires a word or two of encouragement with which to carry on the conversation.

*SWEATS AUDIBLY*

[onlyhymns]

Though she asks a question, she then blows right past Cade's opportunity to answer, which would suit him fine if it didn't mean he's constantly opening and closing his mouth in trying to keep up.
When it seems the woman has finally taken a real pause, he carefully ventures, "...there's a joust."

R i p cade

[heirring]

Here she lights up like the sun, attention suddenly rapt rather than rambling.

"A joust! With armor and great monstrous lances, you mean?"

[onlyhymns]

He's alarmed, but gives a small, timid nod. Oh Maker he didn't anticipate this

Hightown Gardens (for lexie)

[heirring]

So much of Kirkwall is stone and high walls and towering dark cliff faces that Wysteria finds herself developing a great fondness for even the relatively cramped Hightown gardens. There's a certain soothing quality to greenery in any measure, she thinks. It helps too that there are city guards posted at nearly every corner in Hightown so she might forget briefly about the need to watch her belongings or a certain healthy suspicion about being followed or kidnapped or robbed as when she charges up through the Lowtown streets. Sure, there's a particular charm to that brand of excitement, but it's not exactly relaxing now is it?

And she could do with a bit of that, even if it comes at the price of Hightown ladies giving her clothes or her hair or her gods know what sidelong glances over hedgerows and planters. She isn't the only stranger in a strange land here; surely they'll learn to live with whatever offensive thing she's done. She does her resolute best to ignore them as she drifts along the strictly organized flower boxes and patches of lawn, her gloves hands tucked absently in the small of her back as she bends to smell this flower or that.

It's only when she's spent some minutes studying a particularly strange growth of what looks like some kind of peony that she happens to glance up across the planter and happens to find herself directly across from a woman behind an easel.

Wysteria starts.

"Oh! Pardon me. I'm in your way, aren't I?"

[coquettish_trees]

"Not at all," is the light and cheerful accented reply, "today is a day for sky."

And it is, really. Bright and blue in the way that belongs to the first stirrings of autumn, the air filled with the restless energy of the seasons changing and the light breeze with the promise of brisk evenings to come. Even if it hadn't been a sky day, Wysteria still wouldn't have been in the way; Alexandrie has been watching her wander about in the garden rather than painting for the last ten minutes or so, musing about all the many reasons why a lady would be out walking prim and straight enough for her very carriage to be a preemptive riposte of any disparaging look or murmur. New here, for a surety, but unattended so soon? Perhaps a titled woman, down on her luck, or a Rifter, newly let out beyond the boundaries of the Gallows. Or simply an eccentric and willful lady such as Freddie is. (Although no-one is really such as Freddie is, the rare gem.)

Whatever the case, Alexandrie's curiosity is piqued.

"Do continue to enjoy the greenery to your heart's content," she continues, her smile bright and painstakingly painted, "I shall not protest."

[heirring]

Her relief is instantaneous and written on her face as clearly as words on the page. She'd been expecting something of a lip curl and a poised, sidelong glance for so much as deigning to speak to the woman -- all perfectly manageable with a sharp look and breezing on her way with a flick of her skirts, but it's so much nicer not to have to resort to either. It's been a fine afternoon of avoiding sour looks and tart remarks and Wysteria finds herself pleased to see the streak unbroken for the present.

She tips back her head, the shadow of her hat falling away just enough so she might get a proper look at the patch of sky in question above them. It's-- fine, she thinks. Blue mingled with steel and streaked clouds, poked through by chimneys from the surrounding Hightown estates roofs and drifting streaks of smoke from unseen Lowtown industries. There isn't very much of it, is there? Not really. Kirkwall's walls are very high indeed. But strange, how it seems more pleasant for the fact that someone has decided to put it to canvas. That's a little endearing, isn't it?

"Yes of course, I see what you mean entirely. It's a perfectly pleasant view." She squints not quite at the sun. "Though wouldn't it be better painted from a tower or a high window than down here in the gardens? It might afford a better view of more of it, I mean."

[coquettish_trees]

"Perhaps," Alexandrie replies with a light unconcerned lift of her shoulders, "but then I should not be able to properly add the trees, or the trellised vines, or the lovely flowers that attracted your attention so."

She's not all that bothered by the buildings or their chimneys. In fact, she is merrily editing them all out. Her sky is wide over the gardens. Her light, extrapolated, is unhindered by the grey dour walls.

"You are new to us, yes?" she inquires, wiping her brush and setting it down to indicate she'd be pleased to begin a conversation, her head tilting slightly towards the chair to her left that she has brought along for such eventualities as visiting with the others who regularly frequent the space.

[heirring]

Well. Who is she to turn down conversation, particularly when it doesn't come paired with dose of suspicion or the soft, overly placating tones of someone doing their best to explain to an imbecile how the sun rises and sets as it does. She feels between the Hightown ladies and the Inquisition members doing their best to make sure she didn't fall into a hole the minute she stepped outside the Gallows, she's been subject to quite a lot of both lately.

A normal conversation - or as normal as one is likely to get - is something of a relief. Gamely, Wysteria circles around the planter to join the woman at her easel.

"That's right. Quite new, as it happens." What a perceptive young lady to guess as so much. But then she imagines there are all kinds of people coming to and from Kirkwall on account of the Inquisition's presence - people who do so willingly, more often than not. One would hope anyway. "I'm with the Inquisition here in Kirkwall. Technically speaking. --Oh this is really rather nice!"

She's close enough and at the right angle now to see the work in progress on the canvas. It's a much better fiction than the reality. "My mother would love it. She's very passionate about drawing."

[coquettish_trees]

Part of the Inquisition 'technically speaking'. A Rifter then. She hums, pleased, to hear about an artistic mother, and then tilts her head with a sympathetic smile.

"I imagine it quite the difficulty, to be separated from ones family and acquaintances so." Sympathy in her tone as well, and genuine rather than too-saccharine or patronizing; after all, Alexandrie is quite far away from hers... albeit not as far. "Especially in the circumstance when one is of good breeding that is very suddenly outside what is considered so by ones new surroundings." She inclines her head toward a walking couple, dressed in the height of what is very distinctively Free Marcher fashion. Not that Wysteria would recognize such after her short time here.

"With the Inquisition bringing so many peers from so many places, those who 'belong' here are all too happy to inform the rest of us of that distinction."

[heirring]

Wysteria would ordinarily make a remarkably less subtle examination of the passing couple in reference, but she's spent all morning shooting people like them sidelong glances from under the brim of her hat and has seen quite enough, thank you.

"I find myself quite sturdy against it, actually," she says, all cheer and good temper. "But I've had practice and haven't been in Kirkwall so long that the rest hasn't caught up to me."

No, even before falling through a hole in the sky she'd been anticipating quite the separation from everything she knew and cherished, the frequency of letters from home included. Give it a few more weeks and she may yet develop some real heartsickness.

"--Oh, but I have found a way to been rude in the mean time, haven't I? You must call me Wysteria. Or Miss Poppell if you prefer. Are you with the Inquisition too, miss, or only just far from home for some other reason entirely?"

They really need lapel pins or matching handkerchiefs to be worn in a particular breast pocket or something.

[coquettish_trees]

When familiarity is offered, it's always a bit of a balancing act to decide which way to go. The title, coming from a Thedosian peer, would perhaps grant a modicum of respectability to a woman obviously accustomed to it. The given name's use a gesture of familiarity... which in this case ought to grant the same respectability of the first option with the addition of a new kinship; at least if she offers her own in return. And so:

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," she replies with a tilt of her head and nod of acknowledgement. "Lady Alexandrie de la Fontaine, lately of Orlais—and even more lately of the Inquisition—but if I am to call you Wysteria, then you must call me Alexandrie." Here we are, strangers in a strange land together.