open | neither snow nor rain

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Nari, Lexie, you~
WHAT: Guardian catch-all for some ladies. (Well, one Lady and one elf.)
WHEN: The Present!
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: prompts I have promised people will be appearing below as I get to them!

Nari

I.

With the sleet keeping everything near-constantly coated with ice, Guardian is hardly the right month to be jaunting about between the Gallows towers and the towers that hold the massive machinery designed to raise and lower Kirkwall's immense chain net. The massive machinery that hasn't been used in two decades, ever since Viscount Threnhold had used it to strangle Orlesian trade and the Divine had ordered the city's Templars to 'convince' him to lower it. Threnhold's successors had been loathe to use it with such a tangle in the recent past, and so its mechanism is full of two decades of largely untended metal shifting, weathering, rusting in places.

The winter seas are rough enough that an assault by sea isn't likely, but the thin dark Dalish woman had shrugged and said that the Archon's Palace raising into the sky above Minrathous hadn't been all that likely either, and so here she is, on her way to the Chain tower, a pack of tools slung over her back. A pack that has been repaired several times, and by the look of it is about to need one more: something heavy looking is inching its way out of the back of it with every step she takes. Won't be long before that's lost. Hope it's not important.


II.

What Guardian is the right month for is being here near the hearth in the Hanged Man's taproom with a hot mug of mulled wine and a mallet, tapping chairs back together and listening with quiet amusement to a harper on one side and two tipsy men one-upping each other outrageously in order to try to take the same woman home on the other.

The important thing, really, is that the weather is outside, but the entertainment isn't unwelcome.

“Are you listening to this?” she asks, looking up briefly with a crooked grin spreading across her face, “The taller one has gone from fisherman to ship's captain in the space of five minutes.”


[ or something else! ]


Alexandrie

Winter here has not brought the lovely romantic fluffy pristine snow she'd dreamed of. It's desperately horrible in Kirkwall, and what work she can do from home she does from home with great relief. Unfortunately there are still meetings to be had, new correspondence to discuss, and every so often new books, scraps, and sheafs of paper arrive for the Inquisition that are in need of translation. All these things are in the Gallows, and so, begrudgingly, is Alexandrie.

She can be found now, looking far less disgruntled than she actually is, sitting at a table in the library with a letter in one hand—at which she is frowning with extreme delicacy—and a painted porcelain cup of tea in the other, her maid doing a spot of embroidery close enough at hand to refresh it when that becomes necessary.

“Ah!” she exclaims quietly, her glance warm and pleased over her painstakingly painted smile, “C'est parfait. Have you a moment to spare?”


[ ...or something else! ]

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

It makes her smile to hear, the ever so subtle pride in the title—their victory. Alexandrie closes the door behind her.

"You, my Lord, as it happens. Although I should naturally be pleased to see her afterward, if she is in residence."

[rowancrowned]

"Thranduil," he corrects, after a moment more, drifting towards the fire, and the chairs there. It is less formal than the desk, at the least, and there is a stack of papers nearby, as if to give away what he had been at before she arrived.

"I believe she is with her grandfather in Hightown, but she will not be spending the night. How can I assist, mademoiselle?"

[coquettish_trees]

"Another evening, then," Alexandrie replies amicably, "Despite my joy in attending her, I hardly desire to waylay her as she returns to her beloved husband." She moves to arrange herself in one of the chairs Thranduil has indicated with what is most likely a rather familiar settle and smooth of her skirts, waiting for him to come to rest wherever it is he means to before she speaks again.

"To my business; I wish to make inquiry into transferring to your division."

[rowancrowned]

He takes the other chair, eases into it as he has before; this is hardly a unique scene. He likes his office a great deal, does find genuine pleasure in his work, his purpose here. He has assimilated as much as he can, and here is the result.

His smile is pleasant.

"May I ask why?"

[coquettish_trees]

"A number of reasons. It should not come as a surprise that chief among them is that I have found myself naturally collaborating with Lord Loki on a number of his endeavors and desire to be able to give such collaboration a larger measure of my attention." Alexandrie tilts her head, and returns a smile that is every bit as pleasant as Thranduil's own.

"But I must admit that closely following that desire is that my time away from Court and my experiences in Minrathous and at Ghislain have begun to make it both difficult and distasteful to ply the skills I was obliged to acquire in my youth and hone further over the years.

"It is not, I think, entirely vanity to say that I know myself to be a valuable asset to the Inquisition in that capacity, and I do not intend to refuse aid should a need arise that I may fill, but I should be better pleased to leverage my connections, my literacy in most Thedosian languages, and my ability to parse through and recall terribly dry material," her smile twitches wryly at that; family history and genealogies and collections of titles, oh my, "on behalf of Research rather than Diplomacy."

[rowancrowned]

"So you seek to shelter in Research," he surmised. The nug by the fire continues to sleep and becomes the focus of Thranduil's attention for a brief moment.

"It takes rather extraordinary circumstances to deny a transfer request- and, truthfully, I would quite enjoy your company. I think you will be a delight in the library. I would," and here concern slips into his tone as he watches her, moreso Gwenaelle's husband than the Provost, "suggest that you consider what effect your connection to the Vint in question might have in regard to your research, or the perception of that work."

It wasn't accidental that he wasn't his wife's Division Head, or that she was away during his working hours, rather than in the room with him.

"You cannot entirely separate yourself from politics, even here," he admits.

[coquettish_trees]

Her lips press together slightly at the casual—and common—pejorative.

"I know well enough that anywhere two people meet there is politics," she replies, spreading her hands slightly. "I well realize what thoughts might be had about my working with the Tevene in question," a gentle emphasis, "But one might say as much about working with any member of our organization who is less regarded by the whole that one is known to be closely acquainted with. A mage, an elf, a Rifter. We have made great strides through such associations, have we not?" And recently, too! "Granted, I shall needs be careful, but that is no change. It matters little where I am placed within the Inquisition. Sitting with him at the same table or across town, so long as I have chosen to be with him, whatever work it is I do shall be as suspect as his."

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil inclines his head graciously. It will be the simple matter of requesting some information from Diplomacy, the inclusion of her in his own notes, and it will be done.

“Have you decided to return to his homeland with him, once we are victorious?” There’s something in that, to speak it and make it so. The work he does here goes beyond the walls, or he tries to make it so. Better ‘once’ than ‘if’, it does not bear speaking of to bring upon so black a mood.

[coquettish_trees]

The distinction is both noted and appreciated.

"I shall, yes." There's something in saying that too. It's strange; for all her years of plots and machinations, Alexandrie has never really planned a future for herself. It makes her look softer. "And you and Gwenaelle, will you stay in the Marches?" There is little enough waiting back in Orlais for her.

[rowancrowned]

"There are-" a quirk of his lips, some suppressed expression, "several factors at play. I would like to go to the Dales, but will stay with the Inquisition as long as they have use of me."

Gwenaelle no longer has effortless funds and nobility at hand, but they could be comfortable, if they wished, somewhere quiet and forested. The shard cuts off many futures, as does his species. And then there are the promises he has made,

the mask no longer hanging on the wall.

"They have been good to me."

[coquettish_trees]

A lift of her brow, and then a slow nod.

"It is as much your home as any country might be," she says, not specifying whether the Dales or the Inquisition is meant. Then, the brevity of official business seemingly concluded, "What think you of what this fine institution might become, once we have vanquished the keen need for it?"

[rowancrowned]

“In truth, it depends much upon the Chantry.”

They will ultimately have to yield to a Divine, once there is one, unless they want to get heretical. And Thranduil, who is using his conversion as shield and cudgel both, cannot wield so well in opposition to the Most Holy.

“Forgive me,” he says. “I am a most unworthy host. I have not offered you anything to drink.”

He stands, crosses to a side table. There is wine, a pitcher—somewhere is the powder he reserves for Solas. He continues, while fussing—

“Whatever it will be, it will have jurisdiction over the Rifters, especially if we are so easily bound by the need for company.”

[coquettish_trees]

"Much is laid at the feet of the Sunburst Throne."

Alexandrie waves her hand easily to excuse him of the oversight, but will certainly accept whatever it is he offers.

"Know we if it is the company of the shards alone, or the company of other Rifters that is required?"

[rowancrowned]

"Shards alone, I think," he admits. His unease makes him uncomfortable as their numbers drop, but they have been lower before, and as of yet there is no pain Skyhold that could be attributed to too few shardbearers.

(Solas will find a solution. He is sure.)

He offers her a glass. The wine is cool, but not cold.

"Though it is something we have not tested. The pain involved, you see. I could not justify it."

[coquettish_trees]

"If it is only shards, then I suppose you and Gigi may indeed retire to the countryside without the necessity of other company, should that be what you desire," Alexandrie replies, murmuring a brief thanks as she accepts the glass and takes a small sip. "Quelle chance."