OLD YOU IN THE GARBAGE, NEW YOU IN DISPLAY CASE

[bouchonne]

WHO: Byerly, Alexandrie, Petrana, Sidony...and Helena???
WHAT: Going to reconcile a married couple
WHEN: Prior to the battle
WHERE: Orlais, in Val Fermin
NOTES: This post is part of a player plot leading into the Battle of Ghislain

Two months ago, Comte Michel du Val Firmin found a new lady-love. It's a familiar sort of story, one that hardly even raises an eyebrow in Orlais - the Comte and Comtesse have their lives taken over by duties; their relationships cools, their love is forgotten; one or the other or both meet someone a touch more comely, a touch more exciting. For the Comte, that someone was a lively peasant woman named Eloise, an educated literate young lady with curly hair and strong opinions.

Truly, this wouldn't be grounds for any attention at all...save for the fact that Eloise has strong opinions about world politics, and a strong willingness to voice them to the people around her. Including the Comte. Who listens to her. And so now, on the eve of a major battle, he's debating withdrawing his troops, suddenly (under her influence) troubled by the questionable morality of sending common people off to die.

Byerly Rutyer got word of this looming disaster through a dear friend of his*. And so he recruited a few diplomats, friends, and complete oddballs to help him sabotage this turn of events...by ensuring that the Comte's heart is taken away from Eloise and is instead returned to the Comtesse.




*Monarchies tend not to like nobles - even nobles of other countries - turning all democratic. The peasants tend to get ideas. So this info got slipped courtesy of a few attentive folks down south.

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

If she is surprised, which she is, mildly, it is only because it is as if she has summoned him with her thoughts. For the rest, well. On the subject of sensibility, Alexandrie is not most ladies. Her shriek has little to do with who it is, or where he has been, or what he was doing (or how long he has been there doing it, if that were something she had been privy to,) so much as she knows that pond to be preternaturally cold even early in the season, and would also lay a guess that he had not brought overmany changes of clothing with him—if indeed Byerly had overmany changes of clothing—and the party is, of course, this evening.

"Sortez de là, Byerly!" She demands loudly as she hops down from the swing, her lips pressing together against the laughter that would only encourage him. "Pensez-tu que tu êtes une carpe?"

Already, she is wondering if Mathilde might re-fit a pair of Matthias's trousers for him.

[bouchonne]

He responds by flipping over back and luxuriously back-stroking out further towards the center of the pond. Maker, it's freezing. He might die. But he doesn't let his smile flag for a second.

"Lexie, my dear, how fine the water is!" he calls. "Come and join me?"

[coquettish_trees]

"I most certainly shall not!" Alexandrie retorts, her hands resting on her hips as she makes her way closer to the edge of the pond. "You know quite well it is stubbornly frigid in there save at the very height of summer." When, for a bare few weeks, it grudgingly turns to something like sun-warmed silk even into the evening, and is eminently perfect for...

Which he knows quite well because...

She hadn't actually thought about that before saying it, but she is now. Damn. Rather quickly, then, "and if you do not come out immediately you shall catch a chill, and perish from it, and I shall not mourn you in the slightest!"