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

[coquettish_trees]

The Lady in question adopts an absolutely thunderous expression upon seeing the position of her guest's hands and pitches her voice towards the foyer rather than replying to him.

"Marceau! You know how I feel about paws!"

There is a reserved "Yes, Lady Alexandrie," from the doorway, where Marceau is holding Leander's already neatly folded coat over his arm. He stands there attentively as if he fully intends to grant credence to whatever it is she says next.

"I adore them," she finishes. Marceau bows slightly and departs, and Alexandrie breaks into a brilliant smile and gestures to the empty chair across the pastry-bearing table from her. "Come and have a seat and tell me what manner of beast you are."

[sarcophage]

Well, that was a slightly insane display at the expense of poor old Marceau. Leander grins after him, waves goodbye by just wiggling the fingers of one hand—paw, rather—and then gives up the clowning to make his way to the hostess like a relatively normal person might do.

By her side, he lingers just long enough to ask for her hand with a gesture. This seems to be his custom, as she'll have learned by now: no symbolic ring-kissing, no bowing, just a brief clasp of at least one hand in both of his own, and a moment of eye contact if he can take it. For her, he smiles.
(She may also have noticed that his smiles rarely fill his eyes.)

The seat, then: he takes it. "The savage and insatiable kind, starved for company. And for pastries, and frilly little cakes and things, as luck would have it."

[coquettish_trees]

The hand clasp is both received and returned warmly with a smile of her own. (Alexandrie's smiles, in comparison, rarely leave her eyes, although that means little enough from a woman like her.)

"I should quake in abject terror of such ferocity save that I have both company and petits fours as shield. White flowers for cream, red for jam, pink for chocolate," she points to indicate each, despite knowing the description would do well enough, "and the price of them only the story of how you came to art." A brief pause and tilt of her head, and then "Tea?"

[sarcophage]

"Please," he answers, as though he's done this many times before, which he most certainly has not—but he's not about to advertise it, even if she's already guessed. Which, he reckons, she probably has.

Leander carries himself well enough, but there are certain behaviours a person can only absorb by spending much of their time in refined settings, and while Circle mages are decidedly privileged in their own way, they're hardly royalty. He's also spent most of the last several years living in the wilderness, often without a shirt on. So there's that.

But his nails are impeccably clean, and his hand slim and graceful as it reaches for little white flowers.

"How I came to art... well, I didn't, really. It wasn't any decision of mine, it just happened, the same as my magic did." Interrupting himself with a single tut, "Look how lovely this is. It's almost a shame to eat it."

[coquettish_trees]

"Almost," Alexandrie agrees cheerfully while Marie responds to the affirmative by filling Leander's cup, "but is not a great deal of the beauty of fragile lovely things that they are impermanent?" She picks through to find her own, pink, and considers it.

"All things are made to be destroyed. I think perhaps those of us who seek to preserve them in some way know that best." She neatly bites the small cake in half, chews delicately, and waits for its complete disappearance before speaking again. "To which, if it was like your magic, do you mean you simply began to make it one day? Or that consequently the campus guard appeared in the night to take you to a Conservatory."

It's said lightly enough, but her gaze grants it the weight it deserves. She knows enough Circle mages now.

[sarcophage]

All things are made to be destroyed.

It's as though she opened him up, cracked his spine flat, and with absolute confidence read him aloud—but it's only words. If the person who knew him best couldn't bear to understand him, how could anyone else?

"That's a grim way to put it," he says, with a puckish look. If the subject is a heavy one for him, he bears it well. "Same thing, I suppose, since I've done most of my work in Circles. I can't remember making the decision to start, though, if there was one... it's something I've always done. Sounds trite, doesn't it?"

Moments ago, Leander was happy to ignore Marie, and a moment from now, once he's sucked the cream from his fingertips (silently, of course, he's not a barbarian), he'll sip what she served him.

[coquettish_trees]

"Is it?" Alexandrie asks, her eyebrows curving upwards slightly as she sets down the small half-cake to gesture mitigation with an open hand, "I mean only that we delight in the bright blooming of flowers because we know they will depart from us. Love brighter because we might lose. What we paint will both leave us and stay with us, although one day even the memory of violets we caress with heart and brush may tear or burn or rot away as well. And that is beautiful. We will fail, but it is beautiful that we try."

She smiles, and sips her own tea.

"Or did you mean my framing of your entrance to the Circle? Perhaps I should have inquired. It seems as varied as clouds, how mages are brought to them.

"But in any case, I find your journey hardly trite. Or, at least, platitudes are oft repeated for a reason. I think perhaps a sudden turning to bright inspiration more rare."

[sarcophage]

Leander is listening, quiet; he's tilting his head just so; he's watching her with a gentle, pensive expression, the faintest crease between his brows. Attentive. Soft. Cup hovers just above saucer, and both above his lap, both hands steady. The tea's surface stills.

(Paper limned in embers, coiling itself dark, unbecoming. Breath hissing softly, vital warmth smeared over skin by fingertips. A moment of desolate clarity. Buzzing of flies.)

Presently, his personhood returns with a slow smile, one that presses itself coy as he lifts his cup to meet it. Over the rim, while his gaze slips sideways, "Well, if you're counting inspiration... I did meet someone. And that is when I become more serious about it."

[coquettish_trees]

"Ah, l'amour," Alexandrie sighs, the sparkle in her eyes perfectly self-aware of how terribly Orlesian she is. "Or so I assume. I first began to care about light when it touched something I loved. Do tell me about them, if they are not a secret you keep for yourself."

[sarcophage]

"That's exactly it," he says, and settles back from the table, keeping his tea in hand. "He wore the light beautifully. Neither of us really expected—he was three years my elder, and painfully shy. If I weren't so persistently obnoxious, we might never have spoken at all."

A slow blink, a twitch of his lips. It's easier to shrug off the temptation of reverie when the past has begun to bloom anew.

(And if one happened to suspect those eyelashes of his were weaponized to great effect in said past, and will continue to be in said future, one would be correct.)

"We happened to share common interests," in magic and beauty and death, "and soon enough," he finishes with a cant of his head: you know. "This was in the Circle, so of course we couldn't do anything about it at the time."

[coquettish_trees]

She smiles against the rim of her cup, the careful press of porcelain against lips just so to prevent the marking of it with the sharp-edged red of them, and is tempted into a little indulgent daydreaming of her own. The early morning light made diffuse by curtains, the softness of him in sleep that belonged to only her. Alexandrie had never wished to paint people, but she would paint him.

"How very rule-abiding of you," she replies, her eyes focusing again as she lifts her smile from where it rests to return it to her guest. "I hear a small rebellion, however—did the break of the Circles allow for your joining, then?" She'd be pleased enough about their dissolution only for that reason.

[sarcophage]

"No, this was years ago, before the uprising. I'd just turned seventeen. A much less dramatic change of circumstance made it possible. There were still rules, it just became easier to break them. And break them we did—mannny times."

And they thought themselves so clever for it; but they were boys, not masters of subtlety. As an adult, Leander still wonders who it was that allowed them their intimacy, and if that person felt sorry for them when he was sent away.

"I saw that look, by the way, and you are not getting away with it on my watch. Who were you thinking of just now?"

[coquettish_trees]

"The owner of a terribly fine spread of shoulders that I am breaking rules and incurring the almost certain disapproval of the Chantry for." She smiles, catlike and pleased. The Lady Alexandrie's persistent (and insistent) affair with the second son of House Asgard is hardly a private one, and so it often amuses her to make play that it is.

"Do you think such entanglements would be as fine as they are without knowing that somewhere, someone is at the very least muttering crossly about it?"

[sarcophage]

A mirror moment, both of them smiling the same way, both pleased with themselves in their knowledge of secrets (and play-secrets).

"Absolutely not."

While he lazily eyeballs the palette of petits fours, Leander makes no move to help himself to another. Maybe in a moment; he's comfortable just where he is. Maybe when his teacup is empty. Speaking of which, just before another sip—

"The owner of those fine shoulders—will you tell me about him?"

She might be involved with a particularly broad woman, of course, but his mind has its own habits. (Thinking about a particular set of shoulders, and the arms attached, is one of them.)

[coquettish_trees]

Sometimes the owner of those fine shoulders is in fact a woman, although they slope even more gracefully then. But telling?

One of the things about this love she has, perhaps the most central point of her life in its entirety, is that no-one cares to know. Loki is irascible, smug, vain, prone to dramatics, cares little for who he slights, has moods like quicksilver, has committed the unforgivable crime of being unapologetically Tevene...

And guards with infinite care the softness with which he kisses her forehead, the way their fingers absently seek after each other's when they are within reach. The breakfasts he's made and brought her, the hesitant delicacy of their hearts, each a garden stake to the tender new-green growth of the other. He is kind to her, warm to her, wonders at her sometimes as she does at him, and—save the brief moment she threw it at Byerly as misdirection—it will only ever be for them to know.

And so, when she says "I shall tell you anything you like!" with the glee normally reserved for one woman confiding in another, she lies. The following "It is exceedingly rare that anyone wishes to hear pleasant things about men from Tevinter," however, is true enough, perhaps, to make up for it.

[sarcophage]

"From Tevinter," he repeats, with his eyebrows in an excited arch, as if he hasn't done enough casual leafing through Kirkwall's gossip catalogue to know at least this. (And barely more than this; when there's nothing specific to be gained, he only cares so much.) "Well, now you definitely have to tell me everything. What's his name? Is he a member of the Inquisition?"

Aborting a moment of getting cozier before it can really begin, "Wait, hang on—" He wrinkles his nose in polite apology, indicates his feet with a little twirl of one finger. "Do you mind if I take off my shoes?"

[coquettish_trees]

"I should hardly be able to have Merrill over for tea if I objected to unshod guests," Alexandrie replies with thorough amusement, taking the opportunity afforded by the pause to finish off the half-cake that remains on her plate.

[sarcophage]

Merrill's a name he's heard before, he thinks—some project business or other—but he doesn't care enough to ask after it. None shall turn him from this convenient trajectory of romantic gossip, to be nudged toward his advantage in a moment.

Down to the table goes his tea (which could certainly use a top-up), and off come the shoes, one toed free, then the other, both left to lie as they land just under the table. Now he may tuck his stocking foot up under his thigh, comfortably, like a grown man definitely should.

"All right. I'm ready for you."

[coquettish_trees]

The Look which accompanies Marie's solicitous refreshing of the now-shoeless Leander's tea is just this side of impertinent, although her mistress doesn't seem to mind in the slightest.

"The Lord Loki is indeed a member of the Inquisition," she replies, answering two questions at once and taking up her teacup largely as a method of keeping her hands engaged and affecting the demeanor of a woman too thoroughly engaged in gossiping to pause for a drink. Despite her genuine desire to talk of him to someone who didn't immediately curl their lip, she is ever and always alert when speaking of it. "I should hardly think the Inquisition would be fond of his presence in Kirkwall, else."

Alexandrie arches a wry brow. "Fond is a strong word even then. House Asgard is largely tolerated, but both he and his brother have found their way to positions of rank despite their audacity to have been born in the North."

[sarcophage]

Good for Marie, expressing herself when she can; stick it to The Man and so forth. Leander's just glad for the opportunity to disregard people without social consequence. Case in point: he glances to make sure Marie's hands are out of the way before taking up his cup again, never acknowledging her face.

Alexandrie, on the other hand, retains consistent command of his attention.

"How dare they, honestly." Dryly spoken, with nary a curl of his lip. Whatever he thinks of Tevinter, it doesn't seem strong enough to jerk his knee on mention. "I might've heard his name, come to think of it. Does he spend much time in the library?" Before a sip, he adds, "My office is there."

His office.

[coquettish_trees]

Ah, the great wonders of being affluent. It comes with a free pass to disregard everyone beneath your stature without social consequence, save the consequence that people beneath your stature tend to notice and remember that you choose to do so. They also remember when you don't, which makes it a useful tool overall.

(Marie, having a vindictive streak, remembers.)

"Truly an unforgivable slight against us all. As to his time, he is more inclined towards spending it in his own library, but when he is obliged to be in the Gallows," which is often, since he has taken up an office there, "he can be found in there quite often." And it quite often amuses Alexandrie to go and sit across the tower from him and idly watch him until he notices. "Head and shoulders taller than I, dark hair, a preference for clothing of a similar shade, excruciatingly handsome." She leans her cheek on her hand with a small impish smile, "Appears as if he should be as well pleased to stab you as speak to you should you interrupt him at his reading."

[sarcophage]

"Lucky girl," he says, and his head turns coyly behind his cup, still raised. "I might've seen him there. Pale eyes? Cheekbones that could shave ice?"

Already congealing in his thoughts, the vague urge to see if he might befriend such a fellow, perhaps slip into his peripheral thoughts, and eventually into his bed, in the name of his favourite sport: to see what might happen. What the Lady herself might do. His curiosity always did have teeth of its own.

She may glimpse one or two of them now; he's not trying to be subtle.

"He's got a brother, you said?"

[coquettish_trees]

"Just so!" An acceptable response to all: the statement of her fortune, the description–although she would never say 'pale' of Loki's eyes–and the matter of Thor.

"Although if one brother is to your taste, the other is likely to be despaired of. They are like sun and moon, those two." Alexandrie's smile twitches amusedly... even as something unexpected announces itself with a displeased possessive hiss at the idea of someone else eyeing her lover and having any such taste, which is a fool's game. The both of them are terribly hedonistic creatures given to manipulation through charm (and what naturally follows), and neither has any expectation of fidelity in that sense. Or any true desire for having it.

Of course now Alexandrie's brow pinches ever so slightly with the sudden uncomfortable realization that she may, in fact, have that desire.

Bordel de merde.

[sarcophage]

That's lovely, that little wrinkle, there—like a wink of light in a fountain's basin.

Leander's smile fades to a demure hint, lips still pressed. It's very rare that he grins, whether to show his bite or otherwise; he finds he doesn't need to. She'll have seen him laugh, of course, but never with a delight deep enough to peel him back completely. (It's possible she never will.)

"Do I look nocturnal to you? Don't answer that." Alas, his few sun-freckles have faded completely away these last months—the last trace of Rivain, gone from his skin. But he's not finished:

"Hmmm," humming through his next delicate sip of tea, faux-thoughtful, and obviously so, because he's not embarrassed to let her know he's been waiting this whole time to bring it up, "Of the mages living in the Gallows... how many do you know?"

writes an essay entitled 'i see u'

[coquettish_trees]

She opens her mouth and then closes it again, to appear as if she meant to do the very thing he had instructed her not to, before waiting to receive the true prompt for her next line.

And there it is. He's curious, and it's almost certainly after whether or not she knows someone in particular. Given their discussion thus far, she can only assume that means that muse of his is here in Kirkwall, and not just here in Kirkwall, part of the Inquisition. His playful obviousness in that curiosity makes a fine show of being both fish to be caught and fisherman using live bait.

Leander is not simply playful; he plays.

This realization means also, she thinks, that his interest in Loki was meant largely as a tournament barb to see if she might be pricked to greater wrath for the amusement of the crowd, and that makes her delighted, curious… and immediately on guard. Because she recognizes such a play, and can see no reason for him to have made it save for his own amusement. There are not many who play the Grand Game for sport--and fewer mages who do, at least outside Tevinter. She used to be one such sportsman, when she had hit her stride: a hunter who killed not to eat, but simply for the dark and feral joy of watching beasts die.

Alexandrie knows this: Leander has claws. She knows also, by the casual flair with which he wields them, that they are not unblooded. She has invited into her home a manner of creature who is even now deciding whether or not she is a fellow predator or prey; and then if the former, whether or not she is a threat, if the latter, whether or not chasing her would be fun. And so, the dance.

“How many mages living in the Gallows do I know?” she repeats with her own affected thoughtfulness, casting her eyes skyward and tapping one delicately tapered finger against her chin. “Should you like a rounded estimate, or shall I list them one by one?”