[Open] A Romantic Atmosphere

[overharrowed]

WHO: Julius and you
WHAT: Help Julius attempt a Romantic Gesture. (Business/project-focused inquiries also welcome.)
WHEN: Throughout Justinian
WHERE: Various (see prompts)
NOTES: No warnings for now.

I. I forget these unimportant matters

Julius has taken steps to ensure he doesn't miss his second anniversary as he (and Petrana) missed the first. It's still novel to have a relationship he can openly celebrate, and while they both have their hands full with the war, he also feels it's important not to take his partner for granted.

...he has, however, slightly underestimated how difficult it will be to get his hands on some of the components of his intended romantic gesture. His quest for special occasion provisions has taken him throughout the Gallows. Flowers have him combing Hightown. And he winds up in Lowtown looking for assorted decorative elements. In any of these places, he has the slightly harried air of a man who could use some help, or at least someone to get a second opinion from.

II. Just maintain a true perspective

Members of Project Sashamiri, the Diplomacy division or anyone else who seek him out in his office at other points in the month will find Julius much more like his usual self. His office hours regularly extend well past when he claims he will be there as he tries to stay on top a slowly growing mountain of reports and routine duties. When a visitor comes in, they will likely find him frowning absently over a letter, quick enough to look up gratefully at the distraction.

III. Still I'm incandescent [closed to Petrana]

Eventually, Julius puts together all the elements he was picturing. (And, on second thought, removes a few upon deciding they are too much.) When she comes back to their shared room for the evening, she will find a late supper, kept warm and fresh with magic, the fare somewhat elevated from what is usually available in the dining hall. Candlelight is hardly unusual, but he's secured some fancier candle holders for ambiance, as well as a tablecloth and a small, tasteful flower arrangement.

(And if she's late enough, he may come fetch her; he knows that there is a nonzero chance of her distractedly working into the night if he doesn't intervene.)

IV. Wildcard

[If you want to talk something through before you set it up, just grab me on Discord or Plurk and we'll make it happen.]

Comments

[ipseite]

“You are very generous to me, having remembered where I did not twice now,” is rueful. Probably it would have eventually occurred to her by herself, but it is fair to say that Julius's wry remark about having missed it was the only reason in the first place she'd been prompted to recall last year, and though she had resolved to keep it in mind afterwards

self-evidently, she had not succeeded. This, though, seemed a wonderful success: a little thing for the two of them, carved out of the chaos they were constantly wading through, hip-deep. (At least. Julius's hips, too, the taller.)

She lets go of him only to sit, since it seems the thing to do, touching the crystal grace's edge lightly with her fingertips. “I don't mean you to feel taken for granted, either.”

To be fair, he's read her notes about his performance in bed. He probably doesn't.

[overharrowed]

He sits opposite once she's settled. "I don't. It is still novel, you know. To feel I have the resources and the right to make such a celebration, even a quiet one like this. I'm glad to do it with you, but you pay me plenty of attention other times." Not all the time, but that wouldn't suit him any more than it would her. They both have ambition, as well as a sense of responsibility; hers was part of what drew him in the first place.

Reaching for the wine, he adds, "I also trust you to say, if you were unhappy or... if things didn't suit you as well as they did before. It isn't always easy for me, to do that. But I do."

[ipseite]

“I have never doubted that I might speak my mind with you,” she observes, resting lightly on her forearm, elbows carefully off the table, “and that I might also speak my heart with you is a privilege.”

One that she's enjoyed for some time, now, and it's a strange thing to realise. Not unpleasant—far from it—but the careful way that they have navigated one another has allowed them to become comfortable almost without noticing. Periodically turning, and examining themselves, and being pleased with what they find.

It has been an effort to think to speak of what would please her more—what she wants instead of what she might merely tolerate. Something not entirely natural to her, and something that has been most rewarding to attempt. Thedas has given her so much,

this, too.

[overharrowed]

The observation wins a smile from him, small but warm. "I am glad to hear it. I know that I sometimes am... perhaps I hesitate to press, where another man might not. But I don't wish you to think it is out of lack of interest."

He doesn't mean to think of how many details of her marriage he'd heard for the first time with Marcus there, but he does, if briefly. He'd wondered then, if she'd thought him avoiding it was out of apathy, and not sensitivity to her feelings. If he should have asked. Still, he doesn't dwell on the thought now.

"I know your candor is a gift not easily given. I don't hold it lightly."

[ipseite]

(Are they both thinking of Marcus, now, on the matter of her candor? How swiftly that came.)

“I am not accustomed to being questioned,” she says, wry, instead. “Nor—confiding. But I do welcome—”

She considers how to put it, for a moment.

“There are certain things that I have hesitated to discuss not because I thought that you wouldn't—wish to know, or care to hear, but...that in knowing how deeply you would care, such things were difficult to voice.”

Yes, they are both thinking of Marcus.

“To speak for only myself, and to so generous an audience. It feels—more exposed than to another purpose. But I don't wish to hold myself apart, from you.”

[overharrowed]

He reaches across the table to catch her hand.

"I can understand that, certainly. It's not as if..." He smiles, a bit self-skewering. "I am certain you recall how you had to press me to speak much of the Selwyns after you met them. It isn't as if I have nothing in my past I fear might profitlessly pain you if I spoke of it. But some of my scars you can guess at from other sources." Uldred's rebellion, the Fifth Blight, the Mage-Templar war: Even if his part in them was particular, the outlines are all common knowledge, easy enough for an interested party to pick up. He has fewer options, with what she'd been through.

[ipseite]

“It is useful in some respects to be so much a mystery,” she noted, in response to the implicit point being made as she tangled her fingers loosely through his. “Perhaps not in the personal realm.”

Perhaps.

[overharrowed]

"Perhaps," he agrees, still smiling. "It is not always an easy habit to leave off, even with those we love." A pause, then: "It has recently come to my attention that we have been together two years, and there are still people in the Gallows who don't know it, which suggests my habits of being discreet are also rather difficult to leave off."

[ipseite]

It startles her, at first, but she looks more thoughtful before she says, “Your discretion,” agreement, so far as it goes, “and, perhaps, my own stand-offishness.”

When she considers whose business she might consider where she spends her nights and with whom—the list isn't terribly long. She isn't unaware that she's not cultivated a particularly large circle of confidantes, or that those she might consider in a friendly sort of regard still might not be those she'd discuss, say, her romantic entanglements with. How easy it is for all things personal to exist seemingly separately from all things professional, and

well. A lot of her life is all things professional. She's not bantering with James Flint about Julius waiting up for her.

“Another habit. I don't mean to be cold.”

[overharrowed]

"You aren't cold with me," he says, promptly, reassurance but also plain fact. "I don't think we are doing so badly, us two, it just is easy to carry on without thinking about things that ... perhaps some things that served us before, and might not be serving as well anymore."

The talk is good, even necessary, though Julius can't help the brief, rueful thought that he'd meant his gesture to be a bit more "romantic surprise" and a bit less "referendum on the state of their relationship."

[ipseite]

Perhaps it's a step back in the right direction, then, when his remark prompts a warm look: “Not all things,” more arch, drawing their clasped hands closer to her.

[overharrowed]

"You allow that there are some things we're doing well at, then?" he asked with a quiet laugh off her look.

[ipseite]

“Perhaps when you travel from me next, I will put my thoughts on them to you directly,” in perhaps the most prim delivery anyone has ever offered to write their lover filthy letters to keep warm by on the road.

[overharrowed]

"I'd be delighted if you did," he said with a warmer smile. "I've never received that sort of letter, you know. Well," he amends, "someone wrote me a filthy limerick in Orlesian once, but unfortunately he later threw it on the fire in a pout and I hadn't memorized it."

[ipseite]

“I will hide letters in your traveling bags,” she decides, pleased with herself, “you will have to find them.”

She can be romantic. Sometimes. It happens.

“I promise not to burn any of them.”

—though it honestly wasn't outside of her own capacity for tantrums, but it was so rare, now, for her to reach that level of vexation.

[overharrowed]

"Appreciated, though in the meantime I've learned not leave things of value lying out on the side table. Not that you've given me any cause for concern," he adds, with a small laugh, "but in general. And I promise to try not to drive you to want to throw them on the fire."