( open* ) for all i know, maybe everyone is screaming as they go through life,

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Baudin + &c
WHAT: A catch-all for pre-planned threads. * open for BUSINESS by ARRANGEMENT.
WHEN: September.
WHERE: Various.
NOTES: Content warnings TBA if necessary! Feel free to hit me up if you want to do something here; I am notoriously terrible at creating open posts but I'm always happy to brainstorm something bespoke.

starters in the comments.

Comments

loki.

[elegiaque]

( diplomacy is boring.

this is not news to gwenaëlle, who has strenuously avoided being involved in as much of it as possible over the years, but all the more tiresome when her own purpose for inclusion is...

well, not much more of a purpose. loki self-evidently doesn't actually need the extra muscle urgently; he is twice her size and perfectly capable. which doesn't mean it wouldn't be hypothetically useful to have a second pair of hands in the event of it all kicking off somewhere along the way, but in the absence of anything actually kicking off, she is left feeling restlessly superfluous.

this pan had better be gold fucking plated, honestly. especially as it hasn't even got her out of kirkwall, and this isn't remotely what she had in mind for spending more time in hightown—

making her presence in the background all the more ambiguous. under the circumstances, it had seemed sensible to dress for hightown rather than being explicitly and visibly armed; her skirts are sleekly pleated, and the boning of her corset designed to protect her from a knife slipped between her ribs, but escorting him here she might be any fashionable young lady of a melancholic bent. it makes her a figure of interest, which would be helpful if she hadn't just found somewhere to sit within shouting distance to read a book. )

[icasm]

[ To be honest? Loki is a little jealous of Gwenaëlle's role in all of this; namely that she can simply tuck herself away with what one presumes is a good book, and ignore all the goings on of these two kitchens. He'd much rather be doing that, certainly, than interviewing the cook's and the cook's workers, apprentices, sous chefs, what have you.

It doesn't take long for him to determine who is lying to him. It takes several hours to procure proof, namely the missing pan in question — it does have some gold in the handle's decorative elements, but mostly it is cast iron. During that time Loki takes inventory of the entirety of Lady Margaretta's kitchen and most of Lord Crofton's. A tournant working for the latter eventually admits to the theft of the pan but Loki is in no mood to hear confessions he's not sure he believes, so the pan is simply returned by hand back to the kitchen in which it belongs without additional information. ]

I found it, [ he announces as he approaches the room where Gwenaëlle has been holed up in. ] Which I suppose means we can leave, now, unless you wanted to stay for the banquet.

[ Loki kind of does, and kind of doesn't. He's hungry but tired of these people in particular. ]

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle variously reads her book, strikes up idle conversation in the background of loki going about the business of his actual business, and while everyone else is busy wheedles one of the kitchen maids into making her a sandwich. it is this last that's most immediately relevant when he joins her, because she offers him the other (cut, unbitten) half of it: )

I can't think of a single thing I would prefer to do less in this moment. Shall we?

( the book, which she had picked up here, goes back on the shelf she found it. the plate she picks up, to return politely as they exit. her coat, which in the context of her dress looks like a rich girl's affectation, gleams tellingly when she lifts it over her arm from where she'd slung it on her chair—long tails high cut in the back for ease of motion, and knives winking in the light at the bottom of each half. )

abby.

[elegiaque]

The training yard is not the only place where Gwenaëlle trains—not when she'd gone to such trouble and expense to refit Romain's ballroom when she was sole mistress of that house, not when Flint is so conveniently available to chase her around the top of the central tower with a sword and a book of poems—but it is familiar. Convenient. Easier for most people to get to than the de Coucy residence, and so.

She is not an imposing figure, when Abby makes her way down to find her. Standing, her boots don't bring her all the way to five foot four, and seated—as she is—with one boot tucked underneath her and the other swinging off the end of a hay bale, she looks like a pretty figurine of a pirate that got lost from someone's box of dolls. Her coat, she has laid next to her; there's a suspicious glint of metal near one dark, forest-green fold of supple leather. The shade matches the soft, slim-fitting trousers and the corseted vest she's wearing over her blouse, sleeves rolled up and the glaive that Tony outfitted with her next to her on the bale rather than armed and ready.

(Useful to demonstrate, but what you might describe in such circumstances as these as fucking overkill.)

Her hair is pulled high and tight, and then braided to fall near to her waist; there is a suspicious gleam of metal at the end of that, too. She is more visibly armed with knives in assorted sheathes at her hips and in the top of thigh-high boots, but there's a swordbelt that she's set beside the glaive, and an unusual looking bow that sparks ice magic and doesn't appear to be strung. Next to her, a dirty great king shepherd sat upon his haunches, accepting pieces of jerky while they wait.

[armd]

She's right. Abby recognises her by the dog.

Its presence actually causes her to relax a little on her way down, when she spots them first from a distance and takes Gwenaëlle's state of dress in with a roil of foreboding in her stomach. The way that people dress around here is so alien to her and it causes Abby to automatically assume they're of status (though in fairness, everybody around here is compared to her). She's dressed in basic armor. She has a basic weapon. Everything she has is something Riftwatch gifted her upon arrival, all of it previously owned. The breast plate in particular has a ding in it near the sternum.

The walk over was a good warm-up. She feels light on her feet despite the extra weight of protection, and eager to fight, eager to learn. Keener still to focus on something for a good few hours, get out of her head for a bit. It hasn't been a great place to be, lately.

"Hey." Okay, it's– impossible to ignore the dog. Abby's gaze flickers to him, the corners of her mouth curling. "... Didn't know you were bringing an audience."

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle visibly considers that for a moment, bouncing up off the hay bale to her feet and her full height of 'significantly less than Abby's', before pointing out: “Ouais, you did.” This is because she's an intolerable pedant, and there was literally no way she wasn't going to zoom straight through an opening that wide. Hardie makes an excellent signpost, being as he is massive; as Abby approaches, he lumbers to his feet between them.

It isn't aggressive, but it is particular. A guard dog, then, and at first glance, all fine lines and the exaggerated smallness of her waist, she does look more like someone you'd think needs one than someone who makes an appropriate introduction to magical combat training in Thedas.

“Hardie,” briskly, accompanied by a jerk of her head, and the beast examines Abby for a moment longer but obeys—he follows Gwenaëlle's gesture to sit, only a bit begrudgingly, beside the nearest door into the Gallows instead of out in the yard proper. There is a brief standoff of eye contact, and then he lays down, too, melodramatically putting his (enormous) head over his paws and regarding his mistress as if he is enduring an incredible hardship.

hightown. (you know who you are.)

[elegiaque]

Kirkwall's upper echelons are seeing more of Gwenaëlle Baudin, of late.

Oh—she's spent enough time here, over the past few years. Mistress of what's generally now accepted to be the de Coucy residence solely or in addition to the de Coucy in residence; she'd been a frequent enough guest of it even after decamping to join Thranduil in his obligatory quartering in the Gallows during his appointment as Provost. She has a preferred modiste, a jeweler who knows her by name — Hightown's art scene, such as it is, is not unfamiliar with her either solely or more usually in the companionship of the lady d'Asgard. She attends the theatre when Florent is performing, and if Alexandrie wants to see this or that art exhibition in particular,

but it's been deliberate. Particular. In particular company, and uninterested in taking advantage of her grandfather's insistence on forcing her on polite society to expand that company. Occasionally there are still invitations to salons, but she's comfortably certain they are now sent in the full knowledge that she won't accept, and only so that her grandfather can see the cards come to his house and know that it isn't anyone else's fault, your grace, please.

So they're going to get a rude fucking awakening when she starts accepting with a plus one,

thank the Maker for Margaery Tyrell,

and she's certainly interested to see who's brave enough to keep sending them (or start?) when she starts showing up. Still. It can't come out of absolutely no where, which means she needs to be seen. And the gowns cluttering her de Coucy suite and the room she's never actually slept in at Alexandrie's place (when Alexandrie has a perfectly enormous bed anyway—) would all be perfectly acceptable and have been perfectly acceptable and she wore one just the other day for something about a pan, it's been a while since she's frivolously spent someone else's money on a pretty dress or seven and a while since she's chosen herself a gown that she wasn't mentally picturing Thranduil and his palette next to.

It's as good a place to start as any. Often, Gwenaëlle prefers to have her dressmakers come to her, but it isn't completely unheard of for her to make use of the dressing suite that Madeleine Hofer reserves for her particular clients. There is wine, and dressing gowns, and patient attendants armed with fabric swatches, fashion plates and measuring tape. There are chaises. There is Gwenaëlle, having carelessly informed Mistress Hofer that she expects a guest, and if Hofer doesn't mind they'd like to take their afternoon tea here as well.

(Hofer, mentally revising her estimated invoice for the duke by double, does not mind.)

[illithidnapped]

He’s not expected.

Just treated like he is.

In he comes as though he belongs there, chased by a parade of tea and delicate cakes— though perhaps also chased by glances from the staff, given the circumstances in total.

He snakes his way onto one of those chaises, stomach to it, ankles crossed high behind him, one hand tucked beneath his chin. If not for the dark poet’s shirt and the high leather boots, he could easily be mistaken for a doting teenage girl, here to watch his best friend find the dress of her dreams.

In truth, meandering through Hightown with wicked intent, he’d simply spotted her and given chase.

“This was far too nice of you, you know.”

The tea, the appetizers— why, he practically feels spoiled.

[elegiaque]

A series of appointments has been made, naturally, for the sheer volume of shopping that she intends to do and the higher than one number of people she intends to accompany her on it—which makes it very easy for Astarion to slip in on the presumption that sure, he looks like someone that Mademoiselle Baudin might be expecting to join her.

Which—

is fair, albeit an assessment of her character she is immediately not sure she cares for.

The nearest of the modiste's attendants pauses when Gwenaëlle says, irritably, “Oh, what are you doing here,” though she doesn't follow it up with anything else and so they hover, not so gauche as to dither awkwardly but not certain that they shouldn't be within shouting distance if it turns out that madam's highest paying client expects something to be done about it.

salon

[rowancrowned]

Dark hair, the faintest etching of a scar along the cheek, grey eyes. The man is handsome, if slim, the build of a fencer rather than a knight. The clothes are of a fine make, all darker leather and oxblood, and he carries himself like he belongs. He speaks like it too, the rounded vowels slanting more towards Halamshiral than Val Royeaux, some third or fourth son from a country seat.

The rooms are crowded, everyone with a drink in hand, so when he bumps into Gwenaëlle, he must pull back his glass quickly lest risk splashing her, and staining her gown.

"Mademoiselle, my apologies," he says, and sketches a quick bow. But his eyes flick back up to her face, and linger. "I do not believe we have met?"

[elegiaque]

Even if, somehow, the recollection of Thranduil's human glamour—and the peculiar feelings it had stirred in her, trying to decide what exactly it meant that she preferred him in his more habitual guise—had somehow faded in the years (has it been years? that's insane) since she saw it in Nevarra,

Gwenaëlle has known Thranduil for what is now a significant chunk of her own adult life. She knows his voice. He knows the way her eyes narrow when she recognizes something out of place, and that she has recognized him, and the delay as she decides what she's going to do about that. It had struck her, in setting Loxley the task of finding her a partner for this Hightown affair, that if she hadn't covered her marriage in pitch and naptha and lit it on fire—well, he'd have been ideal. In this guise, or even simply as Thranduil Baudin, de Coucy's shockingly elven grandson-in-law. She already had a charming politician in her pocket that could have served the role she now asks Margaery Tyrell to play for her, stalking Fiske discreetly around her haunts.

“No,” she says, slowly, twitching her heavy, wine-dark skirts out of the range where their closeness might brush them against his knees, “I don't believe we have.”

Her gown is a new one, rich and dark and fuller skirted than she's been in the habit of since he knows exactly how long; the low neckline highlights her scars rather than drawing the eye away from them, and the deep garnet brooch attached to the black ribbon tied choking-tight around her throat is almost violent in its imagery. Someone has attended to her hair, more elaborate than the plain braids she's worn to pull it back from her face lately, and if she hasn't brought back her Orlesian masks she has pressed a red gem to each cheekbone. She looks sullen and lovely and a little dramatic; has at least managed to parley her work with Riftwatch into some vigorous military discussions, so the night hasn't been a total loss attending by herself.

She isn't, actually, completely incompetent; Lex, once, had thought that without Emeric's protection she'd have found her own way. But it's hard to remember that when she would rather not have to try.

make way for margaery tyrell's ass pls

[molineux]

It hasn't been so long that Margaery doesn't remember what it feels like to be ushered in like a guest of honor, rose petals littering her path and servants stumbling to fulfill her every need even before she's lifted a finger, but to be treated as such here, even in her finest dress (her gown from the rift reworked and sewed to create a more flattering silhouette), means there's minor discomfort visible in her body language when she's ushered in.

It's a rather unwelcome reminder of the life she's lost, but she'll live. It melts away easily anyway, when she takes notice of where Gwenaëlle's seated and curtsies smoothly. While her smile is as immediate as ever, it's not coy for once - all business.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, madame," the term is an easy favorite, ever since Petra's gentle correction. "I'm Margaery. I hope I haven't been keeping you waiting for too long?"

lowers the gangplank

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle's regard, this first time they've properly seen one another, is a franker thing still. She sits up—the robe she's been provided for between fittings is sleek black silk, where it gapes toward her navel baring jagged, long-healed scars from a rage demon's claws that dragged between her breasts and along her torso as she rolled out of its reach. A wrong note in all this luxe loveliness, and a reminder.

Madame is,

not inappropriate, she supposes. She and Thranduil are still married, even if her ring is in a box in her room and her husband's affairs no longer her business by her choice. It sets a tone that she dislikes, though, so her correction is swift: “Gwenaëlle. I'm not going to call you madame and this certainly isn't going to work if it sounds like you're waiting on me, Margaery.”

She brushes past the niceties, not because she was kept waiting but because explaining that she was happy to relax here doesn't seem important and it doesn't, really, occur to her to think about whether or not Margaery might actually need reassurance that she wasn't impatiently tapping her fingers on the chaise (an impression it'd be easy to take from her manner) or that a bit of easy small-talk might, you know, set her at her ease.

“I'll be sending all the bills to my grandfather,” she says, instead, briskly gesturing Margaery to sit where she'd like—on the same chaise or the second? afternoon tea is set out, and this time the champagne is already chilling, too, waiting. “You'll need a few different dresses. I'm not, especially, a...” She wrinkles her nose. “I like what I like. But I know what's appropriate, if you're not sure.” She doesn't look unable to dress herself, but she does look foreign, so the offer is sincere. “In terms of protocol, you don't need to curtsy to me but you will to my grandfather.”

[sohighandwild]

The odd thing about the situation, from Ket's perspective, is not the outline of it. Having a wardrobe furnished for her by a duke feels like something she could have worked to arrange before. But the introduction to Gwenaëlle had been unexpected, and the resulting dynamic was not what it might have been.

For one thing, she isn't here under an assumed name, though if she uses 'Caterina' for the day rather than her nickname, she can't be blamed. Similarly, she is not hiding her nationality, but her usual, distinct Antivan accent has been sanded back into a genteel hint, just enough to be interesting. She wears small fitted gloves, but readily removes them to reveal the glow of an anchor shard when she needs to try something on. She will likely be noticed, but she will not be an embarrassment.

After all, they are here on business and not only to refill Ket's wardrobe. (Though the latter is an undeniable bonus. She thinks writing the duke a thank you note would probably be pushing her luck, though it's tempting.)

[elegiaque]

Caterina Perrino isn't exactly a new face—Gwenaëlle is sure that she's seen her around the Gallows, less sure that they've ever met before. Frankly, it always seems strange how the sparse population of their island manages to separate into its disparate pieces. The benefit of the Gallows themselves, she supposes: they don't really live in one another's pockets, if they don't wish to. Work clusters, but lives unspool.

“Who are you avoiding?”

—is only going to be a surprise if Ket thought Gwenaëlle needed a second pair of hands in Hightown because she isn't clever. (It isn't that.) The question is posed as Caterina is being posed by an attendant adjusting a measurement, over the top of a glass of champagne, head tilted, quizzical.

“In Hightown.”

Because why else would Gwenaëlle need Margaery to tiptoe through salons and ballrooms with, when she's right here, and clearly able?

[bouchonne]

Byerly does not actually show up with the purpose of seeing Gwenaelle. He certainly doesn't intend to take advantage of the misunderstanding that leads the dressmakers to assume he's her guest. Byerly is, in truth, here only to communicate to Hofer when the latest shipment of silk ribbons is coming in (because, you see, the silk ribbons coming in from the North have been rather moth-chewed lately, and so being able to intercept the shipments in order to pick out the best of the lot is as good as gold; Hofer has, in exchange for Byerly's reliable information, agreed to sell gowns to the daughters of some of the butlers and footman to the finest families here in Kirkwall; in turn, those butlers now ensure that Riftwatch agents get the plum meeting times with these families, and every day those butlers become more and more receptive to larger and larger favors).

But old habits die hard; for many years of By's life, being mistaken for someone who was to be given dainties and finger sandwiches was the line between survival and starvation; and so, when they begin offering him Gwenaelle's tea, he doesn't say no.

And that's why, when she looks up, at some point, there's Byerly, sitting on the couch, saying, "Don't get it in that fabric."

[elegiaque]

Byerly is not the top of her list of people she anticipated taking haphazard advantage of the way she has more or less made Hofer's dressing room her own for the next week and change; neither is he bottom of it, and she isn't displeased to see him so she doesn't even object when one of the attendants provides him, further, with a glass of wine.

(That might be because of the ribbons, and not just because he was mistaken for her guest. Astarion didn't get complimentary wine when she didn't give the nod.)

She regards him in the mirror, standing on a small dais in the muslin toile of what looks like it's going to be a characteristically sleek piece, holding a swatch of velvet against herself. Apparently deciding that her frown is not doing enough work in the mirror, she turns:

“Why not?”

i'm very tardy, please forgive me

[hornswoggle]

Of all the unlikely plus ones for a shopping expedition, John must hover somewhere near the top of the list.

However, here he is, nearly an absurdity among the pastels and gold and expense of the shops interior. There is a cup of wine in one hand, the other loosely clasped over the wooden supports of his crutch where it juts out from where he's rested it against one arm of the chair.

"Mistress Hofer seemed to expect someone else," John is saying, pitched to carry over to Gwenaëlle where she is presently obscured by a heavy curtain. "Not that I didn't enjoy appearing as a surprise."

hightown. loxley.

[elegiaque]

Fiske had a luncheon. It had been a little bit more exclusive, and it had taken some actual exertion to secure invitations, so the fact that she hadn't actually turned up had been a source of some frank irritation—and, in consequence, the explanation for why there is now a black carriage parked in the wide, clean street on which the Fiskes live. It has no livery, and the dark, translucent curtains in the carriage's windows make it as difficult to see into in the daylight as it is to see out of from within.

Gwenaëlle's skirts take up slightly too much of it, but she'd erred on the side of being able to smoothly go about the rest of her day as if this is all normal behaviour rather than being perfectly comfortable, and anyway, it's a spacious carriage. It'd have to be, to accommodate even a slight qunari (they really need more words for that species with less baggage, but weirdly, no one has asked her for her input on that).

Presently, she's sat on the floor between the seats, her foot against the closed and locked carriage door, watching nothing very interesting happen.

(There is a picnic basket.)

[charmoffensive]

It's a bit of a risk, coming through Hightown—it'd be stupid to try to stealth his way inside, but he can faff together an excuse that passes muster, something something Riftwatch business, something something sensitive documentation, a little light forgery and a fuck load of patience for the game of twenty questions that ensues. But here he is, and, he'd said, it's no trouble at all.

The nice jacket he'd worn has come off, and he's now seated in naturally rakish recline on the plush seats on one side of the carriage, his back against the wall and an arm resting on bent, raised knee. Wearing a few purchases from Antiva, included a full-sleeved shirt of sunburnt orange that apparently doesn't close very well at the throat, and a ring of metal decorating one horn, he at least seems more dashing agent of Riftwatch than nefarious denizen of Lowtown today.

"Was the luncheon at least well catered?"

He reaches one long arm to flip open the lid of the picnic basket. Please have wine, please have wine, please—

—it's actually a terrible idea to drink while staking out a location, for multiple reasons, and he never learns.

"Perhaps you'll be reinvited to the next."

wow *as difficult to see into as it is easy to see out of

[elegiaque]

It is a terrible idea to drink while staking out a location,

however, there is wine in the basket. Guilfoyle had sent them off to commit crimes with a very generously packed lunch; sandwiches and cakes wrapped up individually in greased paper, a selection of seasonal fruits and artisanal treats, and two bottles of wine. Felix Guilfoyle is a lot of things (including "close to the age of Gwenaëlle's grandfather"), but chief among them is still Orlesian.

(Increasingly, however, he is also sitting down and delegating.)

“It was all right,” she concedes, trying to decide if she wants to eat a sandwich now or later. “I am curious to see who keeps inviting me to things now that I've started actually showing up to them.” With mocking relish, “They all thought they were safe.”

alexandrie.

[elegiaque]

For an assortment of reasons, it's time to go home.

Gwenaëlle is not insensible to the fact that it's tricky to investigate and disprove the disreputable tarnish of alleged financial ties to Tevinter while living in a Tevene-owned home, just the same as it's probably best not to involve Alexandrie in the investigation—not because she, herself, isn't trustworthy, but because it's like to muddy the waters. And they don't need, Gwenaëlle specifically does not wish, for Alexandrie to get caught in any kind of crossfire if attention is drawn to how much easier it would be to discredit her, having done half the work for anyone who wanted to already.

And her grandfather's strumpet is off doing whatever it does she does outside of Kirkwall, somewhere, so it's only family, in any case—

it has been a safe harbor, but she can't wallow in it forever. She'd told Alexandrie already, promised that it isn't any unhappiness with her, but when the door opens while she's packing up the last of her belongings remaining here it is clear that there is not no unhappiness as she looks up, stark, and says, “I'm not angry,” before she says anything else, because she doesn't want Alexandrie to be angry on her behalf, even if she isn't sure that what she's just said is true.

Her face crumples.

[coquettish_trees]

Concern, before anything else. Concern on her face faster than she can stop it— partly because concealing her reactions comes slower in these unpracticed days, mostly because she cannot remember Gwenaëlle ever looking like this before.

"Gigi, what—" comes in hushed Orlesian as Alexandrie lifts her skirts to allow for a swiftness to her friend's side almost as unforgivable as the concern, hands held out tentatively once there in an offer that could either be to hold the woman's hands or the woman entire.

as discussed; Forces outing

[wearyallalone]

Getting out of Kirkwall meant a lot of practical odds and ends, which kept them both occupied at the outset. And he's not a man who minds quiet. In fact, his general approach to most of his missions has been to let the other person set the level of conversation, responding when spoken to but not presuming to start an exchange. In part, this is temperament. In part, it's the knowledge that a lot of his fellow agents have no love for templars, former or otherwise; he has no desire to force them into an interaction they find distasteful beyond what necessity requires.

That said, he's yet to have an outing quite so silent as this one. They haven't said anything that wasn't about practicalities to one another since they began. They haven't said anything at all for a few hours. There has been nothing practical to say, as the road is straightforward and not difficult, and there's been no hint of any particular dangers they need to ward off.

Vanya has begun to see the shortcomings of his approach.

Finally, he says, "Forgive the question, but are you alright, Madam Baudin?" He's not overly solicitous, as she gives the impression of a woman who knows what she's about, but it is also a genuine question.

[elegiaque]

Maker, there are few questions she dislikes more.

Probably if she were alright, actually, it would be perfectly acceptable; it is intolerable because there isn't an answer she feels equipped to give, and it's only because Orlov does not know her better that she curbs the instinct to snap at him for the audacity. Her lips press together, and she considers digging her heels into Persistence and cantering ahead of him, a silent rebuke and zero stars review of his smalltalk.

Eventually, she says, “I was under the impression you weren't the conversational sort, Orlov.”