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]

[ A shake of his head. ]

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

[coquettish_trees]

[ with self-recriminating amusement: ] And such fine quality, my best.

[bouchonne]

Come, now. There's hardly enough room for both of us to be worthless and self-pitying. We'll get nowhere.

[coquettish_trees]

You guard it so jealously, I despair of ever being let to take my turn.

[ She pauses, then tilts her head slightly in quiet appeal. ]

Perhaps we might attempt being kind to each other, if we cannot manage being kind to ourselves.

[bouchonne]

[ A hesitation. ]

We could try. You know, of course, that I am not exactly skilled at being kind.

[coquettish_trees]

[ she lifts her shoulders and smiles self-effacingly. It's a strange look on her, out of place amidst the oh-so-careful upsweep of her hair, the few falls of ringlets that had been painstakingly made to look as if they had simply gotten free. The pearls, the lace, the gold threads in her shawl, the sharp definition of her features that had been crafted for something brighter, more sure. ]

My stitches are as uneven. And I mislike any such crass thing as being witnessed so unpolished. However, we are both sufficiently skilled at keeping secrets.

[ Now she looks like herself, if a softer version, her lips curving impishly upwards beneath the merriment in her eyes. ]

I shall not tell, if you will not.

[bouchonne]

[ And he meets her eyes. It's a strange look on him, too, a face devoid of artifice, for once utterly uncamouflaged. When he is not posturing, when he is not calculating about his image and his appearance, he looks...He looks like a man whose bones ache. He looks like a man who doesn't sleep at night. When they're not screwed up with mocking laughter, his exquisitely beautiful eyes are simply sorrowful. Byerly, as Byerly, has a wounded and weary soul.

But he never lets that look last long. He swallows a bit more brandy, and fixes a lopsided smile on his face, and throws an arm back over his chair. ]

And if we come in opposition to one another? What if we lose our desire to keep secrets?

[coquettish_trees]

[ She moves her foot again, this time simply to rest against his. Little fine slipper to the shoe of a tall man who has worn himself less kindly than its sole. Two veterans of living false lives. The cloth is kindly long enough for this to be a small secret too. ]

If it is Ferelden and Orlais, you need not worry. On that day, you will be my country.

If it is you and I, and we find no other recourse, let us share a dance and a song and a bottle of terrible wine and then honor each other with the most elegant hands we have ever played.

[ Alexandrie looks up at the sky, the small specks of birds there. ]

And on the day you stop wishing to keep secrets, [ she looks back at him, as if she still looks at birds, ] you may come and find me. And we shall sit on a park bench somewhere in the springtime and then, perhaps, finally, we may meet one another.

[bouchonne]

[ He has no answer for that last offer. Is he still unknown to her? Still hidden? He feels as raw and exposed as he's felt in years, ever since...No. More exposed, now, than he was in Orlais. When she threw him aside, she didn't throw all of him aside; he'd held much of himself in reserve. (How ridiculous a thing it is, that even that was enough to damage him emotionally. It is a dreadful thing to live life with such thin skin.) Now, on the other hand -

Now, has he given all of himself over to her? No. Not nearly. He doesn't think he could even if he wanted to.

So he glances off to the side. Asks softly a question that holds, in his heart, immense importance. ]

You love me better than you do your motherland?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie fills her glass again and thinks about exile.

About trees, and fields, and flowers, and the wind in them. About the sea. About the dappled shadows of summer, and the gardens of Val Fontaine, and the years she has spent committing all of it to canvas, the land the only thing she had let herself love. About Geneviève at the Empress's side, her heart full of such love for Orlais, such honor that Alexandrie swears upon it rather than on the poor shadow of her own

...and she laughs quietly, because she has made herself cry in a streetside café on a sunny day in springtime. She sniffs as daintily as she is able, and produces a handkerchief to dab exactingly at the evidence. ]

I cannot say better.

But should there come such a day as I have said, I would choose you.

[ She smiles. It is sad, but light as the breeze. ]

Even knowing you would not do the same.

[bouchonne]

What makes you think I would not?

[ A sane man would not choose Ferelden, after all. A land of mud and brutality, where cruelty was as likely to win you admirers as it was to win you a reprimand. Ferelden was the land that bred his tormentors; because, at the end of the day, men like Richars are much more beloved of his country than are men like Byerly. Ferelden was a land of poison, of destitution, of bloodshed and heartbreak. It's ugly, it's cold, it's rotting, it's a breath away from returning to its barbarian roots; it returns affection no better than a spider does. It rips its lovers' heads off and eats them whole. And when its lover is a foppish, foolish, delicate fellow...

Yet even so, he knows the question is disingenuous. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie only looks at him through her eyelashes and adds a bit of wryness to her smile. It blends with the gentle sadness like watercolor. She turns her glass just so to catch the afternoon light and cast its shifting amber on the crisp white of the tablecloth.

They are both too clever for this. He had known the answer before he asked the question. But there has been enough knowing silence between the two of them, and in some way perhaps it will help to hear herself say it. ]

If you ever meant to, you would have done so then. And you would not think it cruelty to have bid me stay.

[ She turns the glass again and watches the light dance, then looks at him, calm and quiet and sincere in it. ]

Let us attempt friendship, if you would have that. But let us be true about the lay of it. It is unkind to prompt me to consider else when you do not.