faderift | OPEN - Rooks, Pawns, Bishops and Knights

WHO: Vivienne and OPEN
WHAT: Catchall post for Madame de Fer to get to know the players great and small in the Inquisition.
WHEN: Wintermarch, all month
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: There's a specific bit for the Council members, but the remainder is open to everyone. Anyone who's been wanting CR with Viv, feel free to assume your character got one of the vaunted invites and tag in!

For the Council
Early in Wintermarch, all members of the Council receive a gilded paper invitation. No impersonal sending crystal for this message. The contents invite all the Councilors to join Madame de Fer at the hot spring for a day of relaxation and massage. To her mind, this is no frivolous social gathering meant to impress or irritate the others. (Though if either of those become true, that is useful as well.) There needs to be a dialogue enough amongst them that they do not dither away precious time and resources having to renegotiate their relationships upon meeting. That and none of them are any use to the Inquisition if they are tired, weary, and not well taken care of.

Some of her most comfortable chairs and lounging couches have been brought to the hot spring, and tables set with with a full tea service, both sweet and savory, and a few bottles of champagne. There's even imported Antivan cheese wheels, for the eyes, not for snacking. She is determined not to be caught out letting any of the others languish behind in attending to the important business of self-care. Anyone who brings up anything of a political or divisive nature, however, will find that they are most unwelcome. Relaxation and learning more is the point, not to posture and jockey. Not today.

For the Advisors and Companions
All the advisors and previous companions of the Herald likewise receive Spa Day invitations, albeit the day after the Council. Thank the Maker Sera is not around to make a mockery of such generosity. Knowing that Cullen is most likely to be the most stubborn about leaving that musty office of his, Vivienne plans to drag him along by the ear like an errant child if he dawdles too long in arriving.

Open to All, All Month
Before everyone can scatter to the four winds on business following the start of the new year, Vivienne sets out to some business of her own. She needs to know as much as she can about anyone within the Inquisition who might be a considerable piece in the Game, whether they are aware of such or not. Invitations to join her at her balcony begin to go out to anyone of interest: mages, templars, second sons of minor nobles, people from out of the rifts. For those whose invitation falls in the mid-afternoon, it is to join her for tea. Others receive invites for drinks, well after the dinner hour, but clearly with the intent of having uninterrupted time for getting to know the other better. As much as anyone is allowed to learn more about the Iron Lady.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To be honest, Vivienne expects something of some nature to disrupt Spa Day. Maker knows keeping the peace for the duration will be a test akin to the trials of Andraste herself. The one thing she absolutely did not consider as a possibility was that she would find Cole as her spa attendant when her cheese wheels treatment was complete.

She is not pleased.

Not for the first time, she quite wonders why the late-Herald's pet demon is still permitted to stay. He is a demon and ought to be excised from the Inquisition before he can bring more of his kind to plague them. There are impressionable young apprentices here, still children. Children who have been traumatized already by an Abomination in their midst and she won't have them terrorized further. Neither Cullen, nor Cassandra, have seen fit to remove him and it boggles the mind why.

But even more than all this, she dislikes him for his maddening knack of rooting about in one's thoughts and expressing things that ought never see the light of day. She does not want him sharing his ruminations on her fears of being rendered insignificant. Nor does she want him touching on what is most present and immediate in her thoughts these days: Bastien is succumbing to age and she cannot bear the thought of life without him. Her love for him runs deeply, more than anyone could possibly guess, and she'll do practically anything to keep him with her.

"I'll thank you not to come any closer, demon. Whyever are you here?" Sera's obnoxious snorting laughter would almost be an improvement.

Cole has no illusions about the way Vivienne sees him. It bothers him only so far as he has to endure being called a demon whenever she speaks to — or more often, about — him, and he has been called as much before. And it will not stop him from approaching her when there's help to be had. If she cannot see him for what he is — what he is trying to be — then he can do no more than show her. Perhaps she'll see it eventually.

"The Commander left his invitation out on the desk." For quite a while, actually. Cole had taken to relocating it to the top of the pile of papers it had been buried under, to make sure Cullen acknowledged it eventually. The relaxation would do him good. "Paper soft as petals, warm as a fresh cup of tea."

He sets the dish down on the side table, keeps his distance otherwise.

"The attendant's ankles were aching. There's life inside her, but she didn't know. Now she wants to fall into her husband's arms, laughing." Though for now, she is resting her feet.

For only the briefest of moments, Vivienne listens to that information. It sounds as if the demon is telling her the spa attendant is expecting and that it's somehow had a hand in ensuring Cullen cannot dodge her invitation.

And then she pulls up short and becomes exceedingly angry. At herself. And at Cole. She was listening to that demon. No. Absolutely not. She will not have it. Promptly she wills herself to hear or think on nothing it's said.

Because someday, someone will identify it for what it is. And she'll be damned if she gives anyone even a hair's breadth of an inkling she's paid any heed to a demon. Mages have been executed or rendered Tranquil for less and she will not have it. She's worked too hard for every scrap of control she holds over her own life to have it ruined by some nosy demon that doesn't just go back to the Fade where it belongs.

Perhaps it's time for her to bring up the subject again with Cullen and Cassandra about having it removed. The Herald is no longer with them to keep it around as a pet? Misplaced sense of gratitude? Whatever her reasons, she is no longer present to keep it under control and away from Vivienne.

OPEN - Rooks, Pawns, Bishops and Knights

I am so so sorry about her. She's awful to Cole...

oh, I knew what I was getting into <3

<3 !