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

[elegiaque]

Are you?

( gwenaëlle tilts a glance down the end of her nose, her reading glasses perched there quite charmingly, sat atop the covers and working with her lap-desk. she sets it aside, although she doesn't take the glasses off— )

Honestly, I thought that part would take longer. You're catching up to me very quick.

[coquettish_trees]

I have ever been a swift student.

[ Alexandrie throws an arm over her eyes and heaves an immense and heartwrenching sigh, pauses for effect, then rolls over onto her stomach, kicks her feet up behind her girlishly—an amusing look, given that it causes her petticoats to settle in a thick poof of fine fabric over her back—and laces her hands to perch her chin on them.

While she looks terribly nonchalant, and she's smiling prettily, there's somewhat in her eyes that betrays an honest hurt. ]

I have received word from Papa that the Game sweeps forward without me. Those who had most to gain from my losses have kept firm tabs on me and waited, and the company I have chosen to keep [ an elfblooded false heiress her closest confidante? A famously murderous Tevene mage her devoted lover? A common mage living as a peer in her home? ] has proven more than adequate fuel to significantly damage my influence.

Tch. [ She examines her nails. ] I am quite sure the vast swath of the court Loki fucked his way through have all decided to pretend they were above such a thing. [ A wryly amused smile. ] Which they may well have been.

[elegiaque]

( ah, her company—yes, gwenaëlle can more than draw her own conclusions. that, she supposes, is the difference in swiftness: the company that she kept, in that first year, had flirted with influence that she might yet have learned to wield. that she did, on occasion, albeit more as bludgeon than scalpel. she had cosied up to power, initially.

as has alexandrie. in a different way. )

You know Orlais.

( sex is not the same as association. these orlesian girls with their dreadful ideas—that they learned somewhere, from someone. that did not happen spontaneously in their empty, curly little heads. she pokes lexie with her toes— )

It's not "without you" if you don't lie down and die, it's just you're standing in a different place. With different leverage. That's the trick no one wants you to notice.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie sighs as if she had been filled with air, and the poke of Gwen's toes released it. ]

I still have a hand I might play, yes. It is simply that I mislike having my keep taken. I built it rather carefully, after all, and still had use for it.

[ Especially now, when the Sunburst Throne waits for its eminent new occupant, and the court overflows with information and gossip like honey from the comb. ]

[elegiaque]

I find it very hard to believe you didn't know what you were doing in giving it up.

( the life alexandrie's living and the life she left behind were never going to peacefully coexist; it has seemed clear, from this near distance, which she'd decided to prioritise.

she supposes it doesn't mean not grieving the loss, but it seems a little too cute by half to suggest it was taken from her. )

[coquettish_trees]

Oui, oui, on ne peut pas avoir le drap et l'argent, [ it's a recitative singsong that ends in a terribly arch look. ] But I hardly believe you could say you have never tried to.

[ Of course she can't have everything. The stiff social structure of home hardly allowed for the actual utilization of the Inquisition's flexibility. Alexandrie had gambled on growth and by-and-large had found it. That it was perhaps more personal and martial than social would have irked her when she moved to Kirkwall, but she is happy now, and for the first time since her childhood, she feels whole.

Even so... ]

I do not like losing things, Gigi.

[ She doesn't like losing anything. ]

[elegiaque]

( it would, equally, be entirely too cute by half to suggest that gwenaëlle hadn't been vexed and grieved when the decision that she'd made was taken out of her hands entirely, reframed—she had never intended to go back to orlais, to take up the position she had been bred for, but to be told she could not...

she had already decided. and yet. she knows. )

Well, and look how that turned out for me.

( treading the path first, and all that. object lesson front and center—

but here she is, in comfort, in a marriage of her own choosing, with elbow-room to grow that halamshiral would never have offered her. yes: just look how that turned out. )

You didn't lose. You're playing a different game. Which, I grant you, doesn't make it feel any better that my brother ( sorry, her what, ) no longer replies to my letters, but—

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie's legs stop bobbing back and forth as she processes this new piece of information. ]

Due to your mother, or your husband?

[elegiaque]

I can't guess.

( then, )

It's well-known that my lord was rather more at ease with the Viscomtesse Roux than the Viscomte.

( and it had never been of any real interest that the rouxs' only son and heir shared so many traits with gwenaëlle, as after all, he was so much the son of his mother—who, it must be said, was not unlike annegret charnier vauquelin, or indeed, guenievre baudin. the familial connections were unremarkable; comte vauquelin had been close in his youth to lady roux's brothers, remained friendly with the family, raised his children alongside theirs.

emeric always had a type.

gwenaëlle shrugs. )

[bouchonne]

[ He's not sure what to say in return. Some bit of sarcasm is tempting; so, too, is sincerity. The issue is that...

Well. He doesn't know what to expect. They had been pretty words in her letter, no question of that, but they'd been - strange words. They've never talked to one another like that before. Honestly, he's never talked with anyone like that before. It leaves him feeling, still, uneasy and unmoored. But, well - Here he is. In a rare act of courage, here he is. ]

If you didn't think I would come, why defend the seat?

[ It's murmured softly. His face gives little away. ]

[coquettish_trees]

I promised to.

[ Simple words, for what they say. That she'd meant what she'd written. That she meant to be faithful to it, despite no guarantee that the letter should ever have been read at all.

Even though her hand rests on her work as she looks at him, Alexandrie holds the needle still. Deft between her thumb and forefinger, waiting to see if he will stay or if its watch will begin again. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He turns his attention from her for the moment. Lifts his hand with his usual lazy elegance to summon the attention of the waiter; then, with all the assured arrogance of nobles all over, orders a bottle of brandy. Perhaps it's not the most responsible decision, but, well - If he is to endure heartfelt conversations, he has no desire to do so sober.

Before the waiter leaves, By asks Lexie - ]

One glass or two?

[coquettish_trees]

Were you planning to join me in it?

[ It's said with exceptional innocence. Her lips twitch slightly. The needle tucks into the cloth. ]

[bouchonne]

I see nothing but tea in your chaste cup, dear mademoiselle. You cannot pretend this inspiration was yours.

[coquettish_trees]

I can pretend all manner of things.

[ But she nods slightly at the waiter: two. She'd refused the drink before, she won't this time.

Especially since she's paying for it. ]

[bouchonne]

[ She is definitely paying for it.

He looks off into the middle distance. He's not trying to be difficult, or cruel; he's not trying to punish her with silence. But he genuinely doesn't know how to start this conversation, and seeming petulant feels safer than seeming to be at a loss. So he says nothing. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ His silence hardly bothers her. It is a different kind of silence than the empty chair had provided for the hours she had kept its company. A present one, that spoke enough in itself. She'd asked him to the floor, and he'd come. That was his part, this was hers.

She almost waits for the brandy, so they can hide in it. She almost begins with apology for her departure, starting at the beginning of what she'd written to put off what she'd penned at the end. What she'd promised would be the first line of this act.

But that would be the same, and that dance had played its final measures. This is new coastline, a map wet with ink. And so she says it, pitched for him alone amidst the lively conversation of the Hightown flowers enjoying the first afternoon of their blooming. ]

What is it that you wish?

[ It's nearly left there, save that she can see innumerable holes for him to flutter away through off into the sky. An addendum, then: ]

Of me.

[bouchonne]

[ A finger raised, halting her. ]

Let's wait for the drink.

[ He has no compunctions about finding a hole to hide in. It isn't long, fortunately, before the drink comes; he pours himself a dram - or, well, perhaps dram is a modest term - and takes it before he even begins to speak. ]

You understand, of course, that wishes are not the relevant unit of discussion here. Wishes cannot shape reality.

[coquettish_trees]

I should argue that wishes shape the actions that shape reality, but...

[ But they tear at you vengefully when the shape is one you will not, cannot, choose.

No, wishes have done enough. ]

You are right. In what terms ought we to speak?

[bouchonne]

It's hard to say.

[ A shrug, and a dry smile down at his drink. ]

A fellow like me must be like a demon of the Fade, dear Lexie. I must take the shape of what is desired - or feared, or lusted-for. Do you understand that?

[coquettish_trees]

Of course I do.

[ What else had she been all these years but such a thing. A shifting creature that played whatever part allowed a step farther along the path of power. Eating hearts, stoking rage, encouraging fear, playing with the imbalances that fell behind her. ]

[bouchonne]

[ An exhalation. ]

Then that is where we may begin. Anything that can exist must, by necessity, grow from that soil.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Knowing what soil they till makes her want to reach all the harder. For in the space where she and Loki loved, she had tasted the wine of truth between liars and known the wonder of it. What it had done, as nothing else could have, to give her a home. To make her whole.

That is what she wants. To help him remember he has a shape of his own. To make a space where he can wear it. To lie on the autumn balcony with him as she had with Colin, that he, too, might re-learn how to be held with care as himself.

But it was selfish to want to be such a thing, and immensely presumptuous to think that she could be. And she had promised this would not be about what she wants.

And so, brandy. ]

I imagine you plant what seeds are given. That is the way of those who work that land, no?

Have you a garden of your own?

[bouchonne]

[ He runs his thumb around the outside of his glass. There's a grim sort of satisfaction in having her acknowledge it. No arguments, no protests - It's not good, but it's right. ]

My dear woman. You know full well that a disinherited heir receives no land to till. No; I simply work the plot that was given to me to work, knowing that neither the dirt nor the fruit truly belong to me.

[coquettish_trees]

Where is it, then, that we may plant this?

[ Whatever it is. ]