faderift | [OPEN] deal me in

WHO: Fitcher + you and also you
WHAT: A weekly card game
WHEN: At some point every week, without fail
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Catch-all mingle space; threadjacking encouraged and time is an illusion. Threads are not required to have anything to do with cards or even include Fitcher; may be before/after the game etc. No rules, just right; get your banter and gossip on.

There are really only two rules to play at Fitcher's table: you mustn't be a bad sport, and come prepared with conversation.

In theory, an invitation and the lady in questions presence are also required but both those guidelines have been broken: anyone who shows up in the the dining hall on the right evening who displays any interest in the game being played at one of the tables earns themselves an invite; and at least once Fitcher has appeared, slung back a single glass of wine, then announced, "I've work elsewhere tonight, but I expect a full account of all that occurs," before disappearing into the night.

It's sometimes loud and it's sometimes quiet. There are nights where more drinking is done and others with only a single shared bottle. Sometimes there are enough players to warrant splitting the game and sometimes it's just Fitcher, lying out a spread for Solitary as she smokes from a pipe and occupies herself with a little evening bookkeeping.

It's pleasant. It's a good distraction. One should never think too hard about these things.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kostos, take off that wig at once. You're fooling no one.

[And here, with a last exhale, the pipe is turned and tapped with a rap, rap of the well worn basin against the step. Ash and dying flecks of light scatter and melt away. She sets her chin in her hand.]

Tell me, is the rift shard what brought you to be here among this illustrious band of scowling ne'er-do-wells or is that merely a byproduct of hard work?

( the way she glances down at her hand is almost as if she'd forgotten it were there, which she can't have done. the hand, or what it bears. anchoring her to this new life— )

Hard work is the byproduct of poor fortune, ( is a little glib, but not untrue, except for the part where she calls her fortune poor. obviously, it isn't ideal that they are at war. obviously having a rage demon land on her was not her idea of a rollicking jaunt in the countryside.

but there's a sort of bruised pride about the admission, that slight cattish air as if she might at any moment feel moved to defend herself and the awkward truth that choices came later, and not first. she flexes her fingers— )

My father had to carry me to the carriage, ( an idle recollection, not idle at all. ) Because I couldn't walk, from my injuries, and because I wouldn't have fucking gone. I'd never even been out of Orlais before I went to Skyhold.

[A soft clicking sound of the tongue and a flicker then of something like-- it's hard to say exactly. Annoyance doesn't seem quite right. Resentment, maybe? Not for the girl, but for the circumstances. The world was a dangerous place before it started popping stitches and opening at the seams. How fortunate, to have a father to be carried by and a carriage to be delivered in; how wretched that the demand was made of them at all.

But her smile is there regardles, faintly softened.]

And now here you are in the Kirkwall, alive and well, wed to a Rifter and playing cards with all of us. Your father must be very proud.

[It seems like a genuine statement. Or at least a genuine question. Isn't he?]

Oh, he's dead.

( she could sound a little bit more broken up about it, but she doesn't; blithe, instead, for all that she studies the shadows in front of them and not fitcher's smile, how the smoke curls in the night air and maker, but she is difficult. )

Ghislain, you know, it's all heroes and martyrs and him.

( mightn't he have been proud of her, regardless?

it doesn't matter. )

[The woman beside Gwenaëlle makes a soft sound, and then her hand is there: touching her lightly on the shoulder. It's a brief thing - a squeeze and then gone.]

I'm sorry. Fathers are difficult creatures.

[Alive or dead, she thinks, and can't help some small habitual pang of homesickness. But such things are natural and when complicated.]

Do you miss Orlais?

( the brevity of it means she doesn't have to decide how to respond to it, especially when the way she laughs at the idea of missing orlais is so immediate, so sincerely uncomplicated. it isn't the sharp sort of laugh of someone mocking the question (not because she isn't capable), but the sudden reminder of relief. a release valve.

no. she doesn't miss orlais. and she tells herself, so firmly that it will become true, that she doesn't miss her father, either. )

What's not to miss?

( other than everything. the things she does miss are, for the most part, things that she can or has taken with her; things that she can live without. orlais, itself—

the homes she lived in, the lives she led. the thought of being pulled back into them makes her skin crawl. )

I hear the food is quite good.

[Which is a mild, neutral thing to say. The sidelong look Fitcher gives her says she knows it is - that she picked it to be so. Fetching up the pipe from its resting place, she makes a point of tap, tap, tapping it further before tucking it away into the pocket of her coat.]

Have you a thought for where you will go? When this business is over and done with.

( easier and more difficult to think on than her father. gwenaëlle toys with her skirts, swaying a little where she sits, something about the wryness of her expression when she returns that sidelong look more generally telling. she is a tolerable gambler, but by and large does not have much in the way of a poker face.

it's easy to see her become more and more comfortable. )

Thranduil wants...

( an exhalation. wants what, wants to not be in a fucking circle tower? she doesn't have to finish that sentence for it to be immediately clear that the question of where gwenaëlle will go at the end of all this is still an open one, the moreso for the steady ground beneath their marriage license having lasted less than a year.

he would not go easily. it goes without saying. it's probably better not to say it. )

I think he'd actually quite like to go to Orlais, ( for reasons both political and petty, ) but I don't know.

[From where her chin is tucked in the palm of her long hand, Fitcher's eyes narrow in something like exaggerated study of her company. It doesn't quite outstrip the warmth of her, some latent easiness beneath or maybe because of all the put on faces, and yet--]

And in which direction would you prefer to go?

( away from orlais? away from war, and the unceasing wrangling, and— )

With him.

( she is very young, yet. )

[Something in her face softens behind against the palm of her hand. It's sweet, and sweet things deserve-- well, nevermind the particulars. The sentiment at least warrants some respect.

She isn't so old and hard as all that.]

I felt the same.

[Which is not like telling a secret. It's only a statement of some gentle fact, held tenderly for its delicacy in the warm night.]

[OPEN] deal me in

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