[closed] the heart of the matter

[heirring]

WHO: Bastien, Ellis, Wysteria
WHAT: Seriously investigating a Merchant-Prince's allegiances.
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Antiva
NOTES: OOC Info

Comments

COVERT AFFAIRS

[heirring]

Merchant-Prince Daniello Bassadoar's study is really more of a library than it is a place of business. Certainly there is a desk littered with correspondence and the appropriate number of associated paperweights, each more ornately or absurdly shaped than the last, and there is a closed cabinet with a lovely little brass key hole which likely belies a rather sophisticated lock behind the walnut panel, but it is clear that the purpose of the room is at least partly Daniello's refuge from the world and its demands (and, say, whomever is making those demands).

All things said and done, it makes for a pleasant place to carry on a casual discussion of literature on one side of the room, particularly when one definitely has no ulterior motive whatsoever with regard to the desk and upright cabinet on the other.

How she is the one casually sidling around the back of the desk while Bastien and Ellis whisk Daniello away to review a series of especially risque novellas from a rare Ferelden small press is beyond her. But needs must, and she has some practice with picking locks these days.

[heorte]

What actually happens if they fail here? The stakes of this mission are so far removed from Ellis' usual scrapes that it's almost absurd. They fail, they're tossed out, someone else comes to make amends. No one is killed.

But somehow, Ellis still feels sweat pricking at the nape of his neck as he and Bastien try to engage Daniello in discussion on the finer points of wedding rituals as seen in the Lady Johanna's earlier works. The conversation is getting a little bit away from Ellis, just as their earlier study had done, but for the moment it seems the prince is happy enough to answer questions as long as they seem suitably enthused.

He is very determinedly not looking in Wysteria's direction, but he's painfully aware of her.

"And you said she was the first to incorporate this kind of accuracy in her work?" Ellis says, prompting, as he subtly tries to move himself into the best position to block Wysteria from sight.