open | well i've lost it all

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Lexie and the brave people who feel like maybe getting things thrown at them/being yelled at/cried on/some other flavor of ridiculousness.
WHAT: Breakup Drama ♫
WHEN: nowish (end of Haring)
WHERE: De La Fontaine apartments in Hightown
NOTES: if you're a melodramatic noblewoman with a sudden case of regency constitution clap your hands
[ if you want a certain flavor of ridiculousness, put it in your title or hmu on plurk (@shaestorms) or discord (shae#7274) ♥ ]



It has been three days since she returned to the apartments the Comte keeps for her and her sister in the middle of the night, and Alexandrie de la Fontaine has not emerged from her room. In fact, Alexandrie de la Fontaine has not emerged from her bed. The only mark of her continued residence is the persistent heartbroken sobbing from behind the door. It is largely quiet, muffled, a background sound to be filtered out like the ocean waves. It does on occasion become more energetic as some thought—new or revisited for the hundredth time—sets her off, or disappear entirely when the expenditure of it all sends her to sleep.

Meal after meal is brought, left, and found again untouched; the tea over-steeped, the coffee stale, and both quickly rendered cold, for she will not stand for a fire being lit in the hearth. (The first maid to find it silly and begin to kindle one in any case for her lady's own good received a thin bruise the shape of the side of an expertly aimed hairbrush and a tongue-lashing for her trouble. There have since been no other attempts.) Instead, she has wrapped herself in the covers of her bed, her attire unchanged since her return save to become rumpled, her hair slowly coming free over time as the pins vex her and are yanked out and thrown to disappear in the rug.

She is missing entirely. Silent on the network when she would usually be flip, absent from both duties and regularly kept company. Crystal messages go unanswered, and callers are turned away with the vague explanation that Lady Alexandrie has taken ill and is not receiving visitors; that they may leave a card, or a message, and she shall respond once recovered.

Some callers are, of course, slightly more insistent.

[ Here you still are! If you're not Evie and you're coming in the normal person way, Marceau is chasing after you right now in that sort of eminently austere way fourth generation lifelong butlers have. If you're a scalawag or something, she has a window. There's probably a trellis. We'll figure something out. Prose or brackets are fine! ]

Comments

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty's eyes widen in a mixture of surprise and outrage when Lexie slaps her. How dare she. Kitty was the one who instructed her in slapping in the first place. For a moment, Kitty's hand curls into a fist, and she comes this close to punching her right back - but instead she whirls on her heel.

Not to leave, though.

Instead, she marches right over to the window. She unlatches it, and she hurls it open. Then the next window, flung wide. It's cold out there today, and windy - that stiff draft draws all the warm air right out of the room. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ Cold is fine. The rooms she had shared with Loki had always been warm—often overly so—and the dissipation of the warmth that had not already leeched through the outside walls gives Lexie nothing but grim satisfaction as she curls tightly back into herself, drawing up her knees and burying her face into a pillow. Her shoulders shiver slightly with the chill and she is perversely pleased by it.

Then, remembering why she is perversely pleased, they shake for another reason as she begins her quiet muffled sobbing yet again. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty snatches up the little pot of water at Lexie's washbasin, about to use it to quench the fire. But - no. It's clear that chilling her has no effect. So -

A quicker, easier solution: Kitty throws the water directly on Lexie.

The compassionate thing would, of course, have been to ask why are you crying. But, ugh, Kitty is furious over that poor maid. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ This time she doesn't even yelp over the betrayal, but slowly draws herself up to stare at Kitty with a cold and absolute wrath, the wetness of her tears that continue to fall lost in what had been thrown on her.

So. Kitty is here to fight over her treatment of a disobedient maid remiss in her duties rather than care in the slightest for her? It's not surprising. No-one has ever stood by her side and stayed there, why should Kitty be any different. Geneviève left her with the wolves to become a Chevalier, Rolant betrayed her so utterly she had never recovered, Byerly so easily believed her ruse and let her drive him off, she had never made any acquaintances at court who would not have sold her with a smile, Emile is gone, and Loki, whom she fought so hard to let herself love, whom she thought, finally, a fixture, someone who would be as much hers as she was his, had turned her out as if it had all meant nothing. As if she meant nothing.

She is alone, she has always been alone, and she will never be important enough to anyone to have it be otherwise.

Fine. She draws on all her knowledge of everything she has ever seen hurt the young woman and proceeds to venomously, one by one, hit them all. ]

You base clod of a child. I graciously allowed your behavior despite your stubborn insolence, despite your rudeness, despite your not belonging in Thedas at all let alone in my sphere, and here, now, you repay me by choosing to align yourself at the first chance you get with a disobedient servant who you know nothing of in the name of what you believe yourself to share with her over the friendship and welcome I showed you. Well and so, perhaps I shall do the same. Perhaps I too shall choose my position over the affection I bore you.

[ Her expression slams shut to something cold and distant, lined with the distaste one might show after stepping in something unpleasant. ]

You stand in the presence of your better and debase floors you should never have been allowed to walk to begin with. Get out, or I shall call my staff to have you put out like the yapping dog you are.

[rathercommon]

[ Unfortunately, when Kitty's in a high temper, she's nigh-impossible to hurt. She's a fiery girl: and when a fire burns low, a toss of water will smother it, leave it miserable and tiny - but when it's burning high, it'll just smoke and crackle and roar all the fiercer. So through all that, Kitty's jaw juts out further and further, and her thick eyebrows draw further and further down, and her fists clench - but she just straightens her spine further. Doesn't flinch at all.

When Lexie finishes, Kitty just responds, her voice astonishingly haughty for a girl from the lowest rungs of society: ]

I'm not going to use that word. The word that Gwenaelle loves so very well. But right now, Alexandrie, you are being precisely that word, and I've half a mind to call her up so she can use that very word on you.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie laughs, and it is as hard and cold as any she had ever emitted in Orlais. ]

What, a cunt? You shall find I lack both the warmth and give. As do you, apparently, and so eager to show it! Bravo! Were you not so basely born, you should fit right in at court.

[ Then, without turning her head, she calls: ]

Marceau?

[ Waiting, always, perhaps all the more attendant because he is the last in this house who remembers her sixteenth year, the door clicks open precisely enough to show him. ]

Call the guard.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty looks all the haughtier, now. Her chin tilts up a little further, and her eyelids lower a little more. Oddly queenly in her countenance. ]

Not the first time I've been arrested. Won't be the last.

[coquettish_trees]

Perhaps you belong in prison.

[ It is idle and dismissive, and she turns away again to curl back into the now sodden bedding, not making even the slightest of attempts to rectify the situation, the surge of angry energy passing and abandoning her to hollowness. ]

Leave or be dragged, I care not which.

[rathercommon]

Oh, yes. That's what I've heard all my life. Had a fine lady like you look me in the eye when I was just thirteen and tell everyone in the courtroom that I was a lying thug. Heard it again from my mum and dad, right to my face. D'you think you're original?

[ She delivers that with a sneer, though there's a slight tremor in her shoulders for just a moment. Maybe not so untouched after all. But a shake of her head, and she dismisses the twist of pain - ]

So this is your priority, then? Petty punishment over my work? 'Cause I don't know if you remember, but we used to work on stopping Corypheus, and I still do. So you want me in a little jail cell rather than working on stopping massacres like the one we just came from?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Nothing, except, after a moment, the resumed slight shake of her shoulders and quiet empty repetitive gasping of her grief. For all her haughtiness, all her airs, all the snapping immensity of her anger, Alexandrie looks... small. ]

[rathercommon]

[ And Kitty watches her a moment, then shakes her head sharply. Her tone doesn't gentle. ]

We all suffered through that battle, Lexie. Is your bloody response to it really to beat your bloody servants? Because that is not someone I want to be friends with.

[coquettish_trees]

[ muffled by the pillow, and punctuated by her shallow gasping: ]

This is not about Ghislain, you fucking cow, and you would know so if you had cared to ask. If this is your friendship, I welcome its withdrawal.

cw a bit of fatshaming

[rathercommon]

[ Since Lexie isn't looking at her, Kitty feels well within her rights to flip her off. ]

I wouldn't call me a cow, Lexie. You're fatter than I am, so what would that make you?

[ Sneering more: ]

So what's it about, then.

return poor-shaming 8)

[coquettish_trees]

It makes me able to afford food.

[ Which she is not taking advantage of. ]

You hardly care. Do hurry up and abandon me like everyone else I have ever allowed myself to care for. I tire of your voice.

[rathercommon]

Oh, God.

[ That's so ludicrous that Kitty actually lets out a harsh laugh. ]

I need you to turn around and look at me so you can see how hard I'm rolling my eyes right now.

[coquettish_trees]

[ she does no such thing. ]

And I need you to leave, but yet, here we are, with you again selfishly demanding respect and care for yourself and your needs and wants that you categorically refuse to grant others.

[rathercommon]

[ A scoff. ]

You hit your servant.

[coquettish_trees]

[ with what tired, flat venom she can manage: ]

Oh hurrah, no visit would be complete without the flexibly inflexible morality of Kitty Jones, high judge of good and ill, who believes a single ill-thought action she did not witness and has told herself an entire fable about to be justly punished by repeated, protracted, purposeful cruelty and derision.

You know nothing, you ask nothing, you make light of my pain, and for some cursed reason you are still here tormenting me.

[ There is low conversation at the door—apparently the guard has been successfully summoned.

Quietly: ]

I only meant them to remove you, but perhaps I will have you jailed if it will summarily relieve me from what you deem your good graces. I have had ‘friends’ such as you before. I need no others.

[rathercommon]

And then - let me guess - afterwards, you'll have a good cry and tell yourself, oh, I'm so unlovable, no one loves me, and it's because fate conspired against me in my romantic suffering and definitely not because I'm being a complete arsehole. And all of this is terribly ridiculous, you know - you sobbing about how everyone's abandoned you then hissing at me for not leaving.

[ Kitty props her shoulder against the wall. She's not going to go until they drag her out. And she's not going to go in a dignified manner, either; let Lexie watch her be humiliated. ]

And I don't think you have ever had a friend like me before. Part of your problem, I expect.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Now she turns, glaring balefully at Kitty and managing to draw on the reserves she seemingly keeps for fits of pique to manage a decent volume to go along with her incredulity. ]

I am being a complete arsehole? You are in my house, in my room, after having been informed I did not desire visitors, not to inquire after my state but to snidely match derision to my woe, browbeat me at length, and cause me to catch my death of cold.

[ She sits up, refusing to hug her shivering arms against her in the chill, despite the cold water and wind having leeched the warmth from her. ]

Although that I may yet have cause to thank you for.

[ Finally, movement at the door. Alexandrie looks at it grimly. It is not that she truly wishes for this, but she is every iota as stubborn as Kitty and, like Kitty, has already drawn her line and dug the trench behind it. ]

Well and so. If you have further complaints of me, you may address them to the guard.

[elegiaque]

( the door opens.

it is not the guard. or rather: the back of them, having been roundly dismissed by gwenaëlle, surveying the scene with marked skepticism. absolutely no part of this sounds helpful or productive, and all of it immensely exasperating besides. rather than a greeting, )

She may not.

( 'because you are being a fucking child right now' surely seems to go without saying. it certainly seems self-evident to her. she sits down on the edge of the bed, just out of easy reach of either alexandrie's hands or feet, and says, very evenly, )

Are you about done with this, Alexandrie? It's been several days. If what it takes to get you out of this bed is that man, you may as well stay in it.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty is flushed, the redness having come into her face when that door opened. In spite of her bluster, there's still a primal sort of terror involved in being arrested - memories of Tim, nabbed by the Night Police and never seen again - memories of her own close brush with the Tower. She hadn't expected the fear, because she hadn't felt it when the guards were abstract - it had come on so suddenly.

When it's Gwen instead of them - She feels a little weak and a little hot and a lot grateful. Her eyes close a moment, and she swallows, and she pushes it all down and away. No time for it now. No place for it.

A breath out. Then, squaring her shoulders, trying to look collected: ]

Hullo, Gwenaelle. What d'you mean, that man?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Is it a relief, that the situation with the guard has been taken care of without her having to had back down? She doesn't know. She also doesn't know if she's 'about done with this', or what indeed it might take to get her out of bed, only that with so many attempting to get her out of it, the lingering defeat of staying within its confines has now twisted to look like victory, and so she will hang on to her position with her claws, her mouth set in a thin mulish line.

It is childish, perhaps (not perhaps, it is), but now that it is a contest of wills, now that there is a concrete goal she has hope of attaining, Alexandrie is determined to abide exactly. Where. She. Is.

She speaks past Kitty, her eyes narrowing to unwelcoming slits. ]

I am trying to.

[elegiaque]

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were abdicating responsibility for any sort of self besides whatever's convenient to Loki in the throes of whatever suffering he's decided to spread around with a shovel.

( do you know, she doesn't sound sorry. she does seem to have answered both of them at the same time, though. it isn't that she doesn't think it's likely something is, honestly, happening with him—

just that there's nothing that could justify his behaviour. whatever it is, it isn't alexandrie's fault, and if he can't grow up, she ought to. )

You can't imagine how disappointing it is to know that you'll just stay down when he kicks you there. When I said decide who you are, I wasn't aware we were considering 'exactly what he's treated you as' a serious option.

( they're probably best friends. )

I can't make you stop being pathetic. But you're not going to wallow in delusion while you do it. My seamstresses are going to be here in about two hours for the fittings and our needlework. You can have bathed or not. Kitty and I will be happy to help you make yourself presentable, ( did kitty know that she was going to be happy to do that, or ) or not. And you can talk to us, or not.

( but as she remains too busy to simply drop everything to be here—well, she can't. it's both a compromise and a dare. )

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty's jaw drops open - quite literally - as she looks between Gwen and Lexie. Sorry, she can't - ]

This is about a - a break-up? [ And then, to Lexie, even angrier - ] I thought this was about something that mattered!

[ Kitty Jones: Always ready to offer sympathy. ]