closed | why you gotta be so rude

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Lexie, Gwenaëlle, Byerly, Merrill, Wysteria, Leander, you maybe
WHAT: A collection of prompts!
WHEN: Right now!
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Hit me up on discord (shae#7274) or shaestorms if you want to do a thing. :)

Gwen

[ their friendship a well worn glove at this point, Alexandrie has little compunction about sweeping unannounced save for her footfall into the chamber that Gwenaëlle and Thranduil share. The latter is keeping office hours, and she cares little about the state of readiness of the former, only that she is in residence.

So, sweep she does, and continues her curving trajectory until she is near enough the bed to fall gracefully upon it and stare upwards. ]

Ah, Gigi, [ she intones dramatically, ] I am a fallen woman.


Byerly

[ Time passes, and true to her word each Thursday finds Alexandrie at the same table, at the same cafe, at the same time, the same chair sitting empty across from her. One week she reads. One she embroiders. Another she spends watching the bright birds of spring return to the still barren trees. Always, she looks like a seawife standing on an outlook who watches for sails out of habit rather than hope.

This week, it is finally warm and clear enough that they have set tables outside and they have quickly filled. Alexandrie sits at one, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to stave off the still persistent chill of the breeze, a bit of finework in her lap. She is partway through a stitch when the sound of the chair pulling out comes, and she begins to speak before looking. ]

I am afraid I still require that, I am waiting for--

[ Stitch pulled taut, her gaze finally swings upwards, and her smile is like the dawn; small, and furtive, and spreading with the promise of brightness. Softly: ]

I did not think you would come.


Merrill and Wysteria

It came by courier, in both cases an enterprising looking urchin who stood a little straighter for the fun of being on a posh errand. A little rectangle of very nice paper with a little watercolored rose in the corner for the purpose of informing the recipients (one Mademoiselle Merrill and one Miss Wysteria Poppell) in very lovely handwriting that their presence was requested for tea the next Saturday at one o'clock at the residence of their mutual friend (one Lady Alexandrie de la Fontaine). They should feel free to wear whatever they liked best (with a note appended to Merrill's that if what she liked best was to poke about in the hostess's closet she was welcome to come early), and to let her know directly if they should be available to attend. (A true répondez, s'il vous plait.)

And lo and behold, all is made ready at the appointed time: a complete tea service, down to the matching porcelain cups and saucers, cloth napkins folded carefully to the swans of the de la Fontaine crest, and a little wheeled cart topped with shining engraved tiered silver platters of little finger sandwiches of varying types, another smaller tower with a selection of several tiny pastries and cakes, and several exquisitely carved boxes of tea from which to choose. One butler, for the purposes of greeting, one butler's son for the purposes of coats, one maid for the purposes of serving, and one hostess, who looks particularly pleased with everything in its entirety including an extra bit of pleased to see you.

"Ah, but it has been so very long since I have had a proper afternoon tea," Alexandrie sighs happily, sweeping into one of the three chairs placed equidistant around the circular table set in the middle of the room which, naturally, is precisely the correct size for a genteel afternoon with your girlfriends.


Colin

She's been going out on Thursdays. Always leaving at the same time, always returning at the same time, always gently insisting on going alone without even Marie to attend her, and always with the air of someone going out to look again for something lost long after the search has been called off. She returns the same: empty handed, expecting to remain so. But it is a gentle thing. There are no tears, no sobs muffled in her pillow on the rare occasion that she spends the night at the apartments.

One day, though, a small smile. And for Colin, as she passes the door to his room, seemingly apropos of nothing,

"You may meet here again, if you like."


Lea

At 5 o'clock on the dot, there are pastries. They can be smelled from the entryway, as if the apartments themselves were an Orlesian patisserie. Let no-one ever say that Alexandrie de la Fontaine doesn't keep her word.

Upon his arrival, there is a cheerful call from the sitting room.

"Has he both arms and legs, Marceau? Do not let him in unless he can properly account for all four, I shall have no oathbreakers in my home."

(Let no-one ever say that Alexandrie de la Fontaine doesn't insist on parity.)

Comments

[bouchonne]

Well. And prevented boredom.

[coquettish_trees]

Only with an acceptable partner.

[bouchonne]

Do you often find yourself bored during a dance?

[coquettish_trees]

Not since I have begun to enjoy the immense luxury of dancing largely for my own pleasure.

[ She tilts her head curiously. ]

Have you been often obliged to take to the floor?

[ What do they teach at Fereldan spy school? ]

[bouchonne]

[ An easy shrug, and he answers a different question. ]

You don't recall the times we've danced together? You know how I do love a minuet.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie sighs through her nose and looks down at the embroidery she'd brought. It was a new pattern, she'd only just started it today, and she briefly considers using it to keep tally of every time he dodges her. Sets bait for her. Misdirects her. A stitch for each.

She could make him a handkerchief adorned by lovely curling vines of his own avoidance.

She could make him two. ]

I do. Never once did I have cause for boredom.

[ Then, softly, of the dance they do now: ] I prefer the minuet.

[bouchonne]

[ It's simply so easy to hide. The courtly language they speak is so full of indirectness, metaphors, half-truths; it's a simple thing to use that familiar tongue to disguise his own half-truths. To retreat, as he always has. ]

Well, we shall have to dance it again sometime. You're a fine partner.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She smiles absently in response, and turns her glass with her fingertips. ]

Will you tell me, Byerly? How to be a friend to you?

[ A short pause, and then, ] If that is what you would have of me.

[bouchonne]

[ He looks away and shrugs. ]

Is that what you want?

[ Poor Byerly: somehow, in spite of being a self-obsessed hedonist and libertine, he's rather incapable of thinking of his own needs and desires. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ She sips at her drink, just enough to be able to taste it at the tip of her tongue, and watches the shadow of a lone cloud meander its way across the cobblestones. ]

Why did you come?

[ It's not said unkindly in the slightest. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He looks at her, then looks away. Takes a drink. Finally: ]

Isn't it what you wanted?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Quietly: ] I cannot deny that.

But it is the perennial primacy of my desires that I wrote to tell you I regret. I do not—

[ Her fingers tighten slightly on the glass. ]

I do not want you to have come only because I wanted—

[ The words elude her, and it feels recursive, and it's still about her and she can't make it not about her, and she looks into her glass with a sort of despairing frustration. It melts into quiet again. ]

If you have no wants of your own and are now concerned only with being a demon of the Fade, why did you not lie to me and bid me stay.

[bouchonne]

[ He has an easy answer to this; it's something he's thought on at length. ]

Because that would have been cruel to you.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie's chuckle is quiet, mostly air. ]

And then I shall ask 'why do you wish to be kind?' and you shall say 'would you prefer me cruel?' and I shall feel again as if I am trying to catch smoke in my hands.

[ She watches the cloud again, edging up the wall of the shop across the way, and waits for a long moment before speaking again. ]

Do you think it more cruel to let me sit here each week alone with my regret, or to let me sit here with you, but still alone?

[bouchonne]

[ He's put away enough of the brandy that it's loosened his tongue a little. He swallows a bit more for good measure - just to fortify him. He is not a slurring drunk; rather, the more he drinks, the more clipped and precise his speech becomes. Now, at this moment, he's halfway to clinical. ]

A brief thought experiment. How do you think one does good in the world?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Piquishly, moments before fluidly tossing back the remainder of her glass: ] With difficulty.

[ But she purses her lips afterwards, sighs through her nose, and tries to look for some of the quiet she'd managed to have before he'd settled back into evading her. ]

By... extending ones desire to improve ones own situation such that it becomes a similar desire to improve the situations of others, perhaps.

[bouchonne]

Ah.

[ He tilts his head back. ]

And if you're not capable of giving a damn about your situation?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Softly: ] You make of yourself something that you then entrust to one who does to use to those ends.

[bouchonne]

I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else.

[ A slow exhalation. ]

There is only one thing that brings me any measure of...contentment. Beyond that, Alexandrie...I don't give much thought to what I want. Aside from the simple pleasures - a drink, a screw, a laugh.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She watches him for a bit, and finds she can't in good conscience ask him to consider it. Genuinely wanting things, after all, is a terribly painful experience. Moreso, the less one believes one can have them. Ought to have them.

So, for now, minuets.

Alexandrie heaves a stage-worthy sigh, and gestures to the bottle on the table. ]

I suppose I might yet be an acceptable enough purveyor of two of the three.

[bouchonne]

Most acceptable.

[ With a shadow of his trademark flamboyance: ]

I shall use you ruthlessly for your money, Lexie.

[coquettish_trees]

[ her eyebrows loft. ]

You shall do no such thing!

[ as primly as a girl just out of finishing school: ] I meant laughter and fucking.

[bouchonne]

[ An arched eyebrow in return. ]

Did you now.

[ A bold joke, given the circumstances. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ She looks for it again, but the cloud has escaped entirely now. ]

I imagine I should not have laughed either.

[ She looks at, in turn: a tree, the cobblestones, her embroidery, her hands, her glass, him. ]

Je suis desolée. I shall be often poor at this, I think. [ She picks at the seam of one glove ineffectually with the blunted fingertips of her other. ] It is distressing, to be so fine at such navigation when I do not care, and so awful when I do.

[bouchonne]

[ A shake of his head. ]

The fault is mine. You are - trying your best.