faderift | open | intro log.

Entry tags:

open | intro log.

WHO: Mhavos Dalat, resident newbie, & YOU.
WHAT: Mhavos takes stock of... all this... weird fucking shit.
WHEN: Aug 1-3ish, presumably everything in here doesn't happen the same day.
WHERE: Various places around the Gallows and Kirkwall proper.
NOTES: Poetry, discussions of slavery, a nerd whining about religious authenticit. Will update if anything intense happens.

a. OUTSIDE THE CHANTRY.

It's All Fool's Day. Mhavos has read of this holiday, but he's never been given leave to witness the celebration. He fins himself curious, and a little daring; he's got nothing else on his schedule, anyway.

Outside the Chantry, a play is being put on. In front of a respectably sized bonfire, play actors dance about, mimicking the sacred immolation of Andraste. Mhavos stands in the crowd, watching intently. At one point, he almost flinches, before crossing his arms and shaking his head. To himself, he murmurs, "That's not what happens."

b. GALLOWS LIBRARY.

Among the rows of long tables, Mhavos has collected around him a fair pile of books. He pages through one, writes something down in a ledger, scoffs, and returns it to a different pile, before selecting another. This pattern repeats, complete with Mhavos moving his lips to read each word, several times. Coming close, one will find the books are written in both Orlesian and Trade, and detail a large range of subjects.

Occasionally, one may hear Mhavos murmur, "terrible, terrible," under his breath, his Orlesian accent thicker than usual.

c. THE STREETS OF KIRKWALL.

You are presumably minding your own business, wandering aroun town, doing whatever it is you do with your day. That's fine. That's fair. Allowed.

A gentle hand taps your shoulder, or, if you're particularly tall, your elbow. Turning around, you'll find Mhavos Dalat, an elf with an Orlesian accent. He hands you some coin, or an object that's definitely yours.

"Excuse me," he says mildly, "I believe you were pick-pocketed."

d. LOWTOWN.

After memorizing a map of Kirkwall, Mhavos is set and determined to explore as much of it as possible on his free time. Lowtown is inevitable, and Mhavos isn't much afraid of it. He's just an elf, after all, and he elects to bring none of his belongings. It's easy enough to pass through without making any waves. Any ripples.

He watches a street performer, an elf juggling a series of hard wooden balls. The performer is a bit clumsy, and their clothes are tatty, and the balls are chipped from old paint, dented from years of use. It's clear why the performer hasn't moved their act to Hightown yet.

The performer drops two of the wooden balls, and they thud on the dirty ground before Mhavos deftly kicks them up into his hands, balancing them gracefully in his hands before throwing them back. The entire maneuver is quick and fluid, betraying far more grace than Mhavos had meant.

The performer thanks him, and Mhavos quickly makes his exit from the scene, walking fast, face down.

e. HIGHTOWN.

There are street preachers in every part of Kirkwall, but from Mhavos' survey of the city, the worst are most certainly in Hightown. He listens silently, walks by them, ignores them, until he can't stand it anymore.

On matters of faith, Mhavos has little care. But being uninformed...

You'll find him standing before one such preacher, an annoyed look on both their faces.

"That's inconsistent," Mhavos says, voice mild despite his expression. "Either we are bidden to choose the direction of our lives-- as you say, to be with the Maker or against Him-- or we are all acting in accordance with his will, but you cannot have both. If you preach, you are asking us to choose. If you preach that His will shapes our lives in every aspect, you are contradi-"

He's cut off by a loud shout from the preacher, and the words 'knife ear' are heard. Mhavos massages the bridge of his nose. "You clearly haven't read the Messendrine Epistles..."

f. WILDCARD.

[yo i'm down for anything, mix and match prompts, come up with new stuff, whatever. hmu @ wehwalt (i'm open to adds!) or a dm if you want to discuss anything!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“Oh—good. Then we're going the same way, but we're going to miss the ferry—”

that a moment ago she was indifferent to in pursuit of unraveling this confusing interaction,

“—so we should probably get a move on before someone else interrupts you.”

Not her, but she's not insensible to the fact that her timely intervention might just make him a target in the next hour or so. Not enough, she thinks, to merit a lingering grudge; enough to prompt a petty retaliation, though, the moment her back is turned.

Mhavos is just confused. This interaction has, continuously, failed to go as expected, and he's somewhat at a loss. Having only gut instinct and decades of conditioning to guide him, he falls into step immediately. "I'll see if I can catch it."

After all, a well-dressed noblewoman (or a woman who looks like a noblewoman; in many situations, there really is no difference) is enough to stall a ferry a few moments in hopes of getting a few extra coin in thanks. Mhavos dashes forward, fleet-footed through the crowd at the docks.

There is some shouting. In Kirkwall, Mhavos has learned, there is always shouting. He lets out a shrill whistle, and says a highborn woman is coming; as predicted, the ferryman eases his oar back, paddling in reverse.

An odd feeling settles in the pit of her stomach that Gwenaëlle doesn't know how to identify, and behind her, Guilfoyle folds his hands behind his back and continues at an unhurried pace, observing. She doesn't need to decipher his behaviour the way he does hers; she understands what's happening, what she's looking at. That it's been a while since she inspired it doesn't mean she's forgotten.

She wonders what her mother would think. It occurs to her she doesn't know which of them she means.

Deciphering her own reactions is set momentarily aside when the ferry comes to enough of a stop that they can board it and the ferryman's expression clears into familiarity, “Head too delicate to run for it yourself, girl?”

“Excuse me,” she says, very primly, as if she has never crawled hungover into the bottom of this ferry in her entire life and has absolutely no idea to what he could possibly be referring. Guilfoyle meets his eyes over her head, and when all of them are stowed, he pushes off.

Mhavos is deferential to this woman; that, he can't escape. But he's not so deferential to take offense for her sake. He just keeps his eyes blank and focused on nothing, letting himself slide into the comforting nothingness of a servant, living furniture.

He could say nothing. Some part of him wants to ride it out in silent oblivion so he can hide elsewhere. This is what he's doing with his freedom? Really?

But he's a fool, so he says, "I am Mhavos," quietly, carefully, "should you have further need of me." Quietly, carefully an idiot.

For some reason, a modicum of tension in her shoulders releases. (Not all of it, but she's Orlesian; has she ever been without tension in a public space in her entire life? It seems unlikely.)

“Gwenaëlle,” she says, although she's aware the likelihood he was expecting her to treat it as a trade is low. “I'm with Forces,” and there are less likely looking candidates for that, but not many, and fewer still whose pretty faces had been sketched onto the covers of informative Inquisition pamphlets a couple of years ago, with a different surname.

(Copies of the editions she'd published remain in circulation, mainly in Ferelden and Orlais; the Gallows library has several, though she dimly remembers Adalia struggling to locate one of them when she was new.)

“Or the central tower. If you need anything. You look new.”

A pinscratch appears at the corner of Mhavos' mouth, the closest to a frown he'll allow himself. The name Gwenaëlle is a rather unusual Orlesian name, held principally by one writer of note (making the name even more rare, as it's attached to some scandal about the writer).

There's no earthly reason to point out that if she didn't want to give a name, there was no reason she had to give a fake one. He expected to be met with silence. He always expects to be met with silence.

He ought to return the expectation with more. He would if he were smart. But this 'freedom' makes him stupid; he doesn't know the rules, and he's eager to say all the things he's never been able to.

"You've read her as well?"

Her surprise is genuine; all of her expressions are, which is one of the more interesting things about her face besides the fact that she's only worn a mask on it perhaps three times in as many years, now. Orlais is not kind to someone as easily read as she is, and divorced from that immediate context she knows there's a tendency for new acquaintances to assume that it's false, to ascribe her more complicated motives than she has.

But it isn't. She's just surprised. It takes her a moment to parse what his question means, and she says, slightly cautiously—

“Have I read Gwenaëlle Baudin?”

It's a politer ask than why you're giving me a false name. But he doesn't say it. He doesn't think he ever will. Not to people like her. It seems impossible, like the moon getting up and walking away.

So he just nods, polite, as though he hasn't noticed the shock of being caught out on her face.

In spite of herself, she starts to smile.

(It suits her better than the supercilious way she'd said assist him, earlier, negligent. She can still shrug on the trappings of that life too easily for her own comfort, the more she's obliged to examine it.)

“You've read my work,” she says, turning towards him in the ferry seat, her hands curved around her knees, an ease in her obvious delight that lightens her entire affect. Alexander had cited her observations of a lady as among the reasons for his joining the Inquisition when he did, and it had been tempting at the time to tell absolutely anyone who would listen. (She'd restrained herself to a small handful of confidantes, who had demonstrated what she feels was the appropriate level of pride in her accomplishment.)

"Ah..." The sound escapes him unbidden. How does he proceed? Is she lying? Telling the truth? There's nothing to be gained in either outcome, and none of it makes sense. And he remembers, suddenly and without meaning to, a line from Baudin's Réverbères: to you he was never the giant he believed himself to be.

It makes him nostalgic, but for what, he couldn't say.

The logical part of him returns from its respite; if this is some elaborate hoax, there's nothing for it but to play along. But damn him, he can feel his cheeks heating.

"I'd heard she was with the Inquisition," he said. "I'd not read the latest periodicals." Is that the right word in Trade? "Riftwatch as well?"

“I stopped writing them after the Winter Palace,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear; in Iorveth's absence, it isn't braided as tightly as she likes. Thranduil doesn't always has time. Sometimes her arms ache, from archery practise, and she hasn't the patience to wind it so precisely. “I have an anchor-shard, so when they sent everyone to the Gallows...”

She tilts her left hand so he can better see the dull green glow in the center of her palm binding her to the war effort long before she made the choice to throw all in.

“So. Riftwatch as well. You've read the re-releases, I take it,” since he recognised Gwenaëlle Baudin where Val de Fonce had been so fucking appalled to discover that Jehan's wretched little baby cousin was the Ilde Sauvageon he'd so admired, “those were all—I did that after we came here, but before we. Seceded. Whatever the fuck it was we did.”

There is a similarity to her writing voice in her sharpness, but her casual conversation wants for editing. She can polish what she puts down in a way she's never mastered, face to face.

“It was appropriate to use a pseudonym when I had a reputation to protect, but I'm not a Vauquelin any more.”

And her reputation is an entirely different beast.

His brow lifts slightly, inspecting the oddity. Magic in the hands of a non-mage. And then, the absurd emotion: I'm horribly behind.

He inclines his head a quarter inch. "I have- had... My selection was limited to the library of whomever employed me." Or is it whoever? He hates Trade. "And what time I was afforded. Le Comte de Tiratlé was a fan."

And he has no clue how to offer condolences, and why should he want to? But it's clear he believes her utterly, now. He can't help it. He wants to believe it's true. The logical part of his mind squirms for purchase, and is ignored completely.

"I preferred the re-releases. Your edits and commentary gave them more context."

Not what he meant to say.

A good point, though, and an observation of what had been a pointed decision about works whose lack of context had been a deliberate choice in the first place. An artistic rebellion to go with all the rest of them: if you will look, then I defy you not to see me. She's never courted attention the way some of her peers did; the lack of control she had over it had always frustrated her. She asserts herself, the ways that she can. The ways that she knows how.

There is no need to offer condolences; she's still smiling. Warmer, if anything, for his stated preference.

“Art when it leaves you is a hundred little deaths,” she says, thoughtfully. “You die and are remade every time someone reads it. What you intended didn't matter. The impact matters. But I wanted—”

She hesitates.

“I wanted to remind everyone whose words they were. Thank you.”

He cocks his head to the side, unable to stop a genuine smile. Poetry and song, paintings and sculpture, have always touched his heart directly. He let them, because they could not hurt him. Now, he can't help but feel that familiar warmth. The world is not the cold place it pretends to be, if people can rise above their petty wants to create something more than immortal.

"I read your books over and over; I'm sorry to have killed you so many times."

Too close to the metaphorical, far from literal. That's what art is to him, anyway. A freedom from the bounds of the actual, wrapped in the words of something just close enough to be familiar, uncomfortable, gentle and sharp.

"I admit, I have a preference for more strict metered form, but your verse was always... it was touching enough that I forgot the indifference to structure. Or perhaps that aided it."

my feet remember the way / twenty-one steps, staircase, balcony, the third door / the graze of stone under my palms, a collision

He knows it was a poem about loves and lovers, but he always felt that one line, that little verse, encapsulated how he felt when leaving the scene of a murder, halting and intimate and horrid.

I wanted to die would be a melodramatic and absurd thing to say out loud, even if she laughed when she said it, even if she meant it. Especially if she laughed, and if she meant it. So she doesn't, she says, “I have the luxury of being able to make my own rules, about structure,” which is and is not a statement about poetry.

A statement about expressing something, through poetry. A luxury that she might not have had when she wrote those things, and expelled them from herself under a carefully chosen nom de guerre. She wouldn't say she isn't indifferent to structure because the point has always been that she would like to be; that she could take refuge in this thing where she was allowed to be. Where she allowed herself to be.

It's been a while, she thinks, since she talked to anyone about her poetry. The thought doesn't tilt one way or another; she only sits with it.

“I've thought about publishing newer works, but we've been—”

A gesture, towards the Gallows. She's hip-deep in Riftwatch's war effort, and has been for some time. Poetry had fallen somewhat by the wayside, or at least sharing it. “I gave my husband a book of everything I'd written about him for a gift.”

I have sharpened the blade for you, she had whispered to paper in a piece she might say she has half-forgotten and she has not, which had not been about him but about her and republished with all the rest, unedited, without comment, I have held myself still.

His expression softens incrimentally. It keeps doing that. "A worthy gift," he says, "and a lucky man."

He's not jealous, and a moment of pinched anxiety at the back of his mind hopes dearly that she doesn't think him so. Nothing can be done for it, though. Keep on, keep on.

"I'm glad to see you here. I'd wondered... how you'd fared." After everything I'd heard. And a line from a poem he read long ago, written anonymously. "Orlais eats its own."

Orlais eats its own,
Hunger never fed.
Children without shoes,
Offer elves as bread.

What she's about to say is probably something along the lines of I'm going to tell him you said that, because she likes to remind Thranduil at every opportunity that she probably deserves to be honoured in some fashion for her extreme forbearance in putting up with his shit—

Orlais eats its own. Yes, doesn't it.

“My fall from grace has had a cushioned landing,” she says, wry, aware of Guilfoyle sat behind them in the ferry, patient as a rock. She does not have the current means to maintain his previous salary. She had said so, and he had looked at her for a long time until she gave him something to do, anyway. Then, instead of what she's sure she's going to say (moreso than if it had happened in Orlais, which it did, but not with her there as well) until she opens her mouth, she says, “My mothers didn't die for me to waste my opportunities.”

Annegret who had chosen not to speak at the end and Guenievre whose throat had been a wreck where the arrow struck her and could not, and Gwenaëlle, carrying their legacies in hands dripping their blood.

"Far be it from me to presume to give you advice," he says, and the smallest touch of humor reaches his voice as his accent gets thicker. "But one must make the best of what they had."

He listens to her story. He hadn't heard of her mothers. He never knew his, but he understands the wanting for a lost past. If his Alienage had not been purged... who would he be?

"It only takes one boat to keep many from drowning."

The late Comte de Vauquelin had had the starring role of Gwenaëlle's scandal, in which she might have been a footnote to her own story had she not made the decision to republish those works, and in that fashion. The mistake his. The disgrace his. His daughter reduced to a piece and not a player; his wife forgotten beyond the occasional, viciously pious expression of sympathy for all she must have endured, his mistress a blur that might have been any pretty elf with legs to spread.

She has pinned her birth mother's name to herself like a badge of honour. How she feels about that is less relevant than the importance of doing so.

“It hasn't turned out so badly,” she says, her smile small and lopsided and like a poem, private. “Now, I might have something to say about the world needing to come to the brink of absolute catastrophe in order for me to find a better place in it to stand, but—”

Her eyebrows rise meaningfully.

“It's probably my artistic temperament.”

She thinks she's hilarious.

He lets out a huff of laughter. She's funny, too. Her poems and prose often were. It shouldn't be a surprise, and yet.

"Since I've come here, I feel as though the world has forgotten itself. Is that always the state of Kirkwall?"

“More or less,” she sighs, in the manner of one who has had to put up with a great deal of Kirkwall this past year and some. Occasionally, though less and less with every turning season, she finds herself missing the straightforwardness that was hiding themselves away in Skyhold and emerging only to make trouble.

This is better, but it's also exactly what anyone might imagine it would be. And, probably, could only have ever been done in Kirkwall, because Kirkwall is terrible.

“My husband is the Provost for Research, he's always,” her nose wrinkling, some poorly defined gesture communicating much less than her writing might. “Something is always on fucking fire.”

Figuratively.

Occasionally, less figuratively.

Mhavos frowns in something like contemplation, thinking a moment on a snatch of memory his mind became caught on. Provost Baudin. I took my wife's name.

Cautiously, Mhavos says, "he... wouldn't happen to be, ah... forgive me, I can't think of a gentler way to say it; he wouldn't happen to be an irregularly tall elf?"

“Oh, you've had the pleasure of the dirty great nuisance.” Her tone is plainly fond, her expression softening in a way she hardly seems aware of, at odds with the particular way she expresses it. “Yes, he would. He came through one of the rifts several years ago, not long after I had my own close encounter,” tilting her shardbearing hand illustratively.

And what a surprise he and Thedas were to one another.

“He's less tiresome about it than he once was, but he takes a general interest in elves. I expect he'll remember you, too.”

Mhavos turns his head to the side, clearly thinking, clearly unsure what to think. "So I'm correct in my assumption that he is, indeed, an elf."

He shakes his head. "Forgive me; that was rude. Only, I've never encountered..." He's at a loss for words. "He was perfectly polite. If anyone as a nuisance, it was surely me."

Her amusement is clear in her sidelong glance, the quirk at the corner of her mouth. “Based solely on this one meeting, I doubt that extremely. You've quite clearly encountered an aristocratic ego a time or two before.”

It's a little droll. A little self-aware, even as she's quite rudely calling out what ought to go unmentioned; the careful way that such interactions are navigated by those who have been obliged by circumstance to become skillful. Gwenaëlle has always thought there's something ironic about how much better some elves are forced to become at the game Orlesian nobles play, and it's hard not to find it bleakly funny at the cutting edge.

She'd have been as oblivious as her peers, in another life.

“Imagine him with round ears and suddenly he makes sense. But elves are—very different, where he's from. I'd have had pointed ears if I were born there, for a start. It's a source of great consternation to him.”

open | intro log.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)