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

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

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.

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( 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. )

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.

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."

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.

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.)

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.

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.

“Do I need a reason to check in on the most beautiful woman I know?”

And there he pauses, head tilting just so, eyes lifting towards the ceiling as though a thought has just occurred to him.

Is she the most beautiful woman he knows?

“Well— aside from Derrica, I suppose. And the dear Lady Seeker. And of course the spirited Adrasteia, not to mention Margaery, or— “ He inhales quickly, smiling wide. Knowing full well his attempt at teasing her won’t net him much of anything worthwhile.

“I was passing by and found myself curious, that’s all. A place like this is suited only for a woman who has somewhere to be— and you, my dear, haven’t exactly been in the most jovial moods as of late.”

In some respects, Gwenaëlle is—no, in many respects, Gwenaëlle is appallingly over-sensitive. So many things about her, and about the world around her, so many things are terrible mage-traps, like to explode without even as much warning as stepping on an ice mine might give. With regards to her own personal beauty, however, she is borderline (it's not borderline at all) insufferably self-assured; it is perhaps the only thing about herself she holds as having objective, observable, inarguable value.

She's a babe, and you're all welcome.

It makes her hard to rile up with that sort of teasing, which if she were more sure of where she and Astarion stood in regard to one another might be an easy opportunity — to banter back at him, to see if she can find the lines where she can make the same light of him without seeing the edge of his fangs in anything but play. The problem, then, is that she isn't sure about that. Where they stand, and why, and if she likes standing there, and if he does. It hadn't really become clear in a way that she feels sure of, so the way she regards him is the narrow-eyed gaze of someone who recognizes that he might have been trying to hurt her, and hasn't decided if she trusts him enough to laugh and think he wasn't.

“Is this meant to be helping that.”

One thing to take a punt on it on the crystals, and another entirely to have been followed into a dressmaker's shop in Hightown with the acute awareness that the weakest part of their plan here is her. “Well, no,” correcting herself, immediately, “you only said you're curious.”

Edited 2021-09-04 07:10 (UTC)

She is a babe. Even in tugging at her sleeve he can’t truly hold out for long. Not with her looking the way she does in that robe, all sleek lines painted in dark, silken contours.

“It can be both, darling.” He puffs in return, all relaxed contentment for the sheer joy of having wormed his way in where he clearly doesn’t belong— and for her opting to tolerate it, more importantly.

Still, tea has never been his drink of choice. In fact, he’s not fond of it at all, bypassing it in favor of the delicate trays of treats instead. Chasing that choice by scoffing out something low about whether or not this place has the decency for wine. Or champagne, at the very least.

“So what’s the occasion? For the finery, I mean. Surely you’re not going through all this trouble for a typical, run of the mill outing.”

Petite little cake in hand, he uses his other fingers to gesture towards her, beckoning her closer.

There’s plenty of room, after all.

Astarion might correctly interpret the series of glances between the attendant (eyebrows raised) and Gwenaëlle (a curt shake of the head) following his complaining undertone as evidence that there absolutely is champagne and that currently, all that's standing between him and a generous pour that someone else paid for is her mood.

Bow-mouth and ingenue's looks, unbroken lines of softness and black silk, she isn't exactly unappealing in a sullen pout, but she is withholding what's probably a very nice bottle on ice.

“According to my grandfather,” she says, dry, “I don't need an occasion to spend his money.” If anything, she thinks Romain is more comfortable when she wants something he can so easily get for her; a line of credit with her preferred craftsmen and women is an uncomplicated good, and resolving the deep unhappiness she's worn a groove in more difficult.

She does not lean forward. She does not move, when beckoned, but after a few moments hold out and reconsidering, she puts her bare feet in his lap instead, and if that means her robe slides down to bare her legs to above the knee, well, everyone in this room except Astarion has already seen her in less. “I'm going to spend more time in Hightown. I'm making myself useful to that new rifter, Tyrell—Margaery,” correcting herself, again, although it's less clear why. “I can open doors for her. And I'm tired of my wardrobe, so I want a new one to do it in, and Maker knows she can't turn up to a salon dressed as she is.”

Ket Perrino, also, is set to benefit from Gwenaëlle's stylish splurge; she has it in mind to offer Loxley something, too. Hardly seems fair to leave him out when it was all his notion in the first place. And he might know someone who'd like to see him in frilly underthings.

(None of this is technically a lie. It's just—not the whole of the truth.)

Edited 2021-09-04 09:14 (UTC)

“You’re making yourself more useful to her but not to me?” Some days he wears jealousy like a coat or a necklace: there and bright and unmistakable, shamelessly open.

Today, apparently, is one of those days.

“Darling, I’m hurt. In the grand scheme of things I could certainly use your benefit more than some exquisite creature possessed of curls as soft as the arch of her ears.”

One hand finds the ankle of a bare heel, thumb massaging almost beseechingly, though it’s an absent effort— and his cold fingertips are no doubt less than pleasant against warm skin. But the pressure's nice at least. And the attention sincere.

“What’ve I done to offend you so?”

The coolness of his hands is more pleasant than it isn't, if only for the contrast—like rolling a chilled glass against her throat to steady her nerves—but it doesn't stop her from rolling her eyes. More tolerant, but ready with an answer,

“Margaery might actually use those benefits for the war effort,” she says, pointedly. “When the idea of you exerting yourself on that front doesn't make me laugh a full five minutes, maybe we'll talk, but it's so...”

A grimace.

This part is fine. She likes a shopping trip, likes a new dress and a new hair-piece and to be doted on in a way that feels uncomplicated even if she knows it isn't—it's the parts that will actually be of use that she's bracing herself for, steeling herself.

“I'm not doing this shit for my health. Or yours.”

“Nonsense, I’ve been a perfectly good sport about helping the cause.”

As for how much of an impact he could possibly make here— or elsewhere for that matter in terms of either societal or political sway— well. All right. Fine. Even he has to concede that point.

But not with grace or dignity.

His exhale is thin through his nose, he pauses to slowly press a single, soft-padded thumb to the rise of her arch, dragging down. It’s the most she’s ever let him touch her; he doesn’t intend to waste it.

“But I suppose if you’re going to suffer through all this, you shouldn’t be suffering alone.”

He tilts his head slightly to one side. Tips his chin.

“So I’ll stay.”

The claws stay out, but it's remarkable all the same how much more pliant she is for being touched at all—it doesn't change the shape of the things that she says, but very little ever does. Tangible, still, how susceptible she is to the tactile; how much more tolerant, how much more readily persuaded. It seems so improbable that she could somehow still be so starved for touch as seems to run through her,

but probably she'd protest a bit louder if she weren't relaxing under his hands.

“Oh, I won't be,” is droll, anyway. She watches him from beneath her lashes, more contemplative than anything else, and then: “Do you think I'll be able to convincingly look as if I fancy her?” which is only a half idle question. “It seems like the easiest way to launch her on society.”

The visual of smashing a champagne bottle across Margaery Tyrell's arse is fairly compelling. The HMS We're Desperate.

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?"

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.

Edited 2021-09-05 03:15 (UTC)

“Well that depends, my dear.” Conversational, his tone— uniquely so. The majority of his attention focused on his work: thumb running high, knuckles meeting the pad of her foot, kneading in alternating rhythms.

He is, to his credit, exceptionally good at this.

“Have you ever done it before? Pretended, I mean. In depth.”

Gwenaëlle assumes he's expecting the answer that she gives, because he's met her—

“Of course I haven't.”

Maybe it isn't of course. There are a lot of reasons why someone might have to do that, and a lot of scenarios in which there might have theoretically been a time before Gwenaëlle's cushioned fall from grace where perhaps she might have tried harder to be something else. She did try, she thinks, but it was effort to a particular end, and self-protective, and drawing the attention of someone whose attention she didn't actually want would not have served the precariously balanced priorities she was juggling (badly).

There were other ways, but Gwenaëlle is a hammer and everything looked like a nail. It's a direct approach to problem-solving.

She tips her head back against the arm of the chaise, sinking lower— “I've pretended I was just generally aloof and didn't specifically hate particular people. I'm good at that.” Better to be thought cold and haughty than frightened; an easier disguise for her to wear when he can observe for himself she's not exactly without a curious amount of arrogance for someone with so little inherent self-worth. “I can be haughty.”

But softness comes less naturally.

Another bow, then, and he does not reach for her hand to kiss it (push his luck) in the Orlesian fashion.

"Alexandre Boivin," he murmurs, in introduction. Under his lashes and out of the eyes of his plain domino mask, he glances up at her, amusement twisting his own mouth into a self-effacing smile, he could not resist, but then his expression is neutral once more, no acknowledgement of the private joke.

Standing, he is still taller than her, but he offers her his arm, to courteously prevent any further incidents with drinks and risk her lovely dress. He nods to the faint green glow of her hand, and steers them through the crowd, making for a side room where there is less comotion and more conversations, everyone eavesdropping on one another, also in the Orlesian fashion.

"You are a member of Riftwatch, are you not? One hears the most interesting rumors about what goes on in the Gallows."

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?"

A game, she thinks, but—

less obvious, the rules. The win conditions.

How she's supposed to feel when he's this close to her.

“Forces,” she says, automatically, conscious now of there being more scrutiny rather than less in the quieter room where they can hear themselves think and hear everyone else's conversation, and be heard again. No one is so gauche as to make it obvious, but of course: they wouldn't be. It's the sort of fragile thing that she would ordinarily feel perfectly at ease elbowing her way past, heedless of what she might leave in her wake,

but she told Loxley she'd help. She can't shoot herself in the foot that quickly. She straightens in a way that's only perceptible because of how close they're standing, removing her hand from his elbow when he's guided her away and taking a glass of her own from a passing server like it's a lifeline.

“And what's your interest in those rumors?” —after a long enough pause to have been awkward, nearly. Her gaze cuts away from him and her voice is tight when she says, “I've heard some, too.”

Edited (thisisfine.jpg) 2021-09-05 09:46 (UTC)

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.”

Edited 2021-09-05 14:01 (UTC)

“Mm.”

It’s quiet, that thoughtful sound, made as he continues working at her with absent, rhythmic strokes.

For a moment, there is nothing else— and then his red eyes lift, surveying the look on her face where she’s slung across the opposite end of the chaise.

“Practice with me, then.”

Gwenaëlle's incredulous look could speak for itself, all by itself, but:

“What's that supposed to help? I am attracted to you.”

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Page 1 of 7

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

loki.

abby.

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hightown. (you know who you are.)

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salon

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make way for margaery tyrell's ass pls

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lowers the gangplank

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