[open]

[heirring]

WHO: Flint, Wysteria, Miriam, Cassius & You
WHAT: Catch-All
WHEN: Post-dreams, nebulously Guardian-ish
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Warnings (if any) in subject lines.

((OOC NOTE: Anything in bold is closed to one thread, though group threads a-okay.
Feel free to turn this into action brackets if The Spirit Moves You.
Wildcards welcome, bespoke starters available upon request.))

Comments

[sulahnan]

"Yep," Athessa pauses to adjust her hold on the packages just long enough for Wysteria to get a two-step lead on her, and the elf has to just live with trailing along after because to hurry to catch up would mean potentially eating shit on these stairs after calling attention to her nice Antivan leather boots.

"What is all this stuff? You moving house?"

Advisable, considering how deeply haunted Wysteria's estate is.

[heirring]

"What? No." She laughs. What a ridiculous suggestion. "No, quite the opposite. These are all little things I have placed orders for in order to improve the place."

Well, and various custom made components for certain under the table research projects. But that's neither here nor there, and Athessa hardly needs to know the details.

"For example, I believe one of those parcels in your possession contain a new set of hinges for the side gate. Oh, but you mustn't say anything on that subject to anyone so it won't get back to Mister Ellis before I present them to him. They are meant to be a surprise."

[sulahnan]

"Wow," Athessa intones dryly. "Hinges. Romantic."

[heirring]

Wysteria, by this point having reached the top of the treacherous stairs, scoffs out a laugh.

"Maker, imagine."

She transitions into high gear as they cross the courtyard, skirts and insulating capelet fluttering against the bitter cut of wind which swirls, trapped, in these broad Hightown squares.

[sulahnan]

"You know, I've actually been meaning to talk to you," Athessa says, catching up to walk alongside the whirlwind that is Wysteria. The urge to say something more to-the-point than idle chatter has been building with each stair stepped, and now that they're moving faster and on a level plane and Wysteria isn't prattling on about this or that with so many unnecessary words, it seems like the best chance she'll have.

"About that auction you had."

[heirring]

For a very fractionally small moment—a split of a split second—the look which Wysteria cuts in Athessa's direction is pure alarm. The blood begins to drain from her face and—

"Oh, did you hear about that?" Is all bright and good cheer, her eyebrows rising very high on her forehead and her blue eyes opening very wide. This is what a guileless expression looks like, obviously. "I apologize if you felt left out. It was meant to be a very small affair, you see. For Riftwatch's benefit, of course, but myself and de Foncé thought it best to begin with a modest fundraiser effort rather than risk empty seats at the table."

Is it possible that her pace quickens slightly?

[sulahnan]

She scoffs, and speeds up to match. Her own eyebrows stay flat over eyes open a normal width as she gives Wysteria a sidelong glance.

"I don't feel left out," she insists, "I think it's kinda fucked up that you'd put a couple of elves on auction at the estate of a Vint family, is all. Like, did you even think about that?"

[heirring]

From the baffled pinch of Wysteria's answering expression—no, those factors have never before drifted even slightly to the forefront of her mind.

"I fail to see the point you're trying to—Oh." Her ha is a bright, cheerful thing. "Not to worry. I guarantee the donors who attended the thing were either unbothered or of no major consequence. Not that I would have been opposed to one or two more high profile benefactors if it would have served the raise a more handsome sum. And let's be honest—I can hardly do more damage to Riftwatch's reputation than the Diplomacy division does. Mister Rutyer was in attendance. If he were concerned, I guarantee he would have raised the point himself.

"Though you raise a good point regarding the matter of the estate. I will suggest to Lady Asgard that in the future we find some other venue for the work. A shame," Wysteria sighs wistfully. "The rooms are very lovely."

[sulahnan]

"Reputation?! I'm not worried about reputation or whether or not the people offering money to buy my friends are bothered? Wysteria—"

Athessa speeds up a little bit so she might be a more prominent feature in the other woman's periphery, rather than a disembodied voice complaining at her from over one shoulder.

"—How can you be as thoughtless as that? To put my kind up for sale without a thought that they might not want to be bought and sold like chattel?! Did you ask Mhavos whether or not he'd want you to sell him at auction?"

[heirring]

"Oh, come now."

Despite the circumstances, Wysteria seems remarkably more comfortable with this particular angle of this conversation. Gone entirely is that faintly mortified, anxious edge.

"We have all done things on Riftwatch's behalf which we might usually not. Why I myself have trudged through jungles and have on more than one occassion danced with irritating people who I otherwise wouldn't tolerate. And to suggest that it was in any way limited to—Well. That was hardly the way of it. Which you might know, had you been present."

[sulahnan]

"Selling people as commodities is hardly comparable to dancing with an irritating partner or being subjected to the wilderness and you fucking know it," Athessa snaps, not at all at ease or comfortable or even willing to entertain Wysteria's deflections.

"And yeah, I wasn't present. I wasn't invited. And because it's apparently been so under wraps that you were surprised I heard of it, I have to wonder if it was even for Riftwatch. Seems like the kind of function that a division head would have something to say about, after all."

[heirring]

Her face does a thing. And then it stops doing that thing and becomes very haughty, all tipped up chin and holier than thou eyebrows.

"Then you are welcome to discuss the matter with the Ambassador, as I have, and he will assure you of the event's provenance. And"—And—"If Monsieur Dalat has some complaint to make, then he is welcome to make it known to me."

[sulahnan]

"Monsieur Dalat who also wasn't invited?"

[heirring]

"Then you will know already that in fact no elves at all save for Mister de Vadarta who is a Rifter were invited to begin with. That Monsieur Dalat was in attendance at all was a matter of circumstance. Would you have preferred then that I sent him away merely on account of his—his personage? That hardly seems acceptable."

[sulahnan]

"I would have preferred you tell people ahead of time that they were signing up to be sold! How do you not hear how fucked up this all is?"

She really wants to start throwing packages, like really wants to. Too bad she's a good person.

"What other Rifters were there? Did they know you were commodifying them?"

[heirring]

"Oh really, Athessa."

It is amazing, given her momentum and the ice and the unreliable shoes and her armfuls of parcels, how quickly Wysteria can stop.

"First it was on behalf of Monsieur Dalat, now it is on behalf of any Rifter. First your concerns were with the venue, and then with whether the evening had proper approval from Riftwatch's leadership. It sounds to me as if this has very little to do with the particulars of the event in question at all. Have you considered the possibility that you may be somewhat sensitive to these matters? For perfectly understandable reasons, I grant you. But that hardly is warrants twisting the intention of the thing. You make it sound as if I personally packed the whole of them into a cage and send them off in the dead of night for the rest of their lives. It was a dinner. A few hours of their time at most. And--"

And.

"You cannot possibly say that if I had divulged every facet of the evening's plans that anyone at all would have agreed to the work. There is nothing at all in the entire world which the members of Riftwatch like less than themselves."

[sulahnan]

"What you intended doesn't change how it looks," Athessa fires back, though she doesn't notice Wysteria stopping until she's already a few steps ahead. Turning back, she comes to a decision: fuck this.

"And maybe, just maybe, if nobody would've agreed to the work if you were up-front about it, that's kind of a sign that you should reexamine the work."

All this said while reloading her armfuls of parcels onto Wysteria, going even so far as to balance one on top of the blonde's head. Athessa brushes off her hands, for effect, and starts back the way she was originally headed.

"Don't let me catch you selling any more people," she says, just loudly enough that someone might hear (if only there were anyone about).

[heirring]

In her wake, Wysteria huffs and puffs after her--blustering as she struggles to safely re-allocate the parcels so abruptly returned to her care.

"I hardly doubt you will ever be in such a position, Athessa," she calls, insistent to the last. "For I--"

Whatever the exact form her protests are meant to take go distinctly lopsided however. They are replaced by a squawk as one of the packages slips from her overburdened arms.