there is a glory without equal

[filotimo]

WHO: Madi, Bastien, Byerly, and others
WHAT: Closed starters and maybe eventually some opens
WHEN: Now-ish
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: hmu on disco for a starter if u wanna! or feel free to wildcard me

byerly.

It's respectably early but respectfully not too early when Madi's carefully neat handwriting appears in the Lord Ambassador's enchanted book:

Lord Ambassador Rutyer, I would like to request an audience at your convenience. Rest assured it is not urgent by any means.
- Madi Scott

bastien.

"I am looking for a man called Bastien."

That's Madi's opening line, after appearing in the doorway to Bastien's office and knocking on the open door. She looks about the office, naturally curious about what the contents might say about the owner. Not that she has much of any context to place anything in, but there's still value in seeing things without any bias.

When she looks to the man in question, aware of who he is even if they haven't been introduced formally, it's with a slight tint of amiable amusement.

"Do you know where I might find him?"

Comments

[cozen]

Bastien's eyes dart up when she knocks–a very good impression of someone who wasn't idly, half-consciously tracking the footsteps in the corridor too closely to be taken by surprise—and his smile is automatic. For a few seconds he's quiet, an extended finger floating this way and that as if trying to remember which direction to send her in to find who she's looking for.

The room he is vaguely pointing around, during those seconds, says little about him actually. Much more about Alexandrie d'Asgard, who often occupies the vacant desk opposite his. The decor all belongs to her. But the desk is his: sparse but not neat, its most prominent feature an uneven stack of mismatched documents and letters both opened and unopened, waiting to be put somewhere more organized, eventually, probably.

His compass-needle finger lands on his own face. Of course. Then manners kick in and he stands up for the lady.

"Ici. Hello, Madame—Scott, right?"

[filotimo]

"Right. Or Madi, if we are to be friends." Her smile suggests that that is the hope. She steps into the office, coming to stand near his desk. Her hands are folded in front of her, polite and not touching anything — perhaps the posture of someone who was once a child who was told to look with her eyes, not with her hands.

"I have heard that you are in possession of a printing press."

[cozen]

"I am."

He offers a hand out across the desk—not to shake, quite, if she lets him have her hand in answer, but to lift her hand and dip his head toward it—a less formal, less deferential, less presumptuous echo of kissing a hand.

"It barely survived the journey, but I have tightened the screws since then, so. It works. Do you have need of it?"

[filotimo]

She gives him her hand and returns his nod with one of her own, instinctively. Her eyebrows lift as she considers his question.

"No, not that I am aware," she shrugs slightly. "But I have never seen one before, and would like to."

[cozen]

"Oh, I see. It would be my pleasure." He straightens a few things on the desk before he comes around it. "It is downstairs."

Presumably she doesn't mind the walk.

Once they're on the stairs, he says, "Is it very cold here compared to what you are used to?"

[filotimo]

"It is," she nods. "I had never seen snow before coming here."