[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]

"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.