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WHO: Gwenaëlle Baudin, et menagerie, and you?
WHAT: Baby got a houseboat, and it's move-in day. Find her at the Kirkwall docks as things are unpacked into it, or after that across the harbor at the Gallows slip where it'll be secured for the foreseeable future.
WHEN: Shortly after the return from Cumberland.
WHERE: Kirkwall harbour.
NOTES: Y'all I have coveted that houseboat since it went up on the rewards page.

Originally some manner of riverboat not intended for the purpose it presently serves, the houseboat that is for now moored perfectly in line with the anchored Walrus in the harbor is— something of a monstrosity, an eccentricity built up over time, not impossible to move under its own power but more commonly affixed to a more purposeful vessel and tugged along behind it. Having won it in a game of cards from a local who'd been tired of the lifestyle and tired of Kirkwall besides, it's taken some time for the Duke de Coucy to consider it sufficiently worthy to relinquish his granddaughter into—

which is to say, the interiors are now substantially finer, even if she'd put her foot down and insisted she didn't want anything done to the exterior that wasn't absolutely necessary. No need to turn it into obvious thief-bait, for a start, and besides: she rather likes the aesthetic. It's shabby and shambling but it was in otherwise good repair when it came into her hands, surprisingly sturdy and featuring beneath the water a wine-cellar kept cool by the ambient temperature around it where she's spent much of the morning while the rest of her belongings are brought in by de Coucy footmen and servants packing her stockpile of only slightly stolen Vauquelin wealth in the locked store-room behind the wineracks.

With only slightly stolen de Coucy wine, naturally.

Gwenaëlle emerges from below as trunks and furnishings are still being unloaded from carriages come down from Hightown, Small Yngvi the cat sleeping in a pinned up portion of the front of her skirts and Leviathan, the nug, doing laps of the exterior in an effort to understand his new environs. Hardie sits sentinel on the deck in front of the door, supervising the efforts of the de Coucy men (who are, in fact, being supervised by Guilfoyle—) and upon consideration Gwenaëlle sits down beside him, fingers in his fur, occasionally answering questions about where something needs to be put and if she would like it unpacked, also, or left to her (or Guilfoyle) to manage later.

Once everything's been securely stowed, a boat waits to haul it over to one of the empty slips surrounding the Gallows, where Gwenaëlle will finally have significantly less of a commute. The last thing to be done before that, of course—

“I have always wanted to do this,” Gwenaëlle says, and smashes a champagne bottle against the balustrade, just above the brand-new sign identifying the vessel as La Souveraineté.

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Water-worthy, at least, which is enough— Gwenaëlle follows him, her diminutive stature and ease on the water suited to this unpredictable home's navigation, tilting her head up to raise an eyebrow at him. Pleased, probably; his is without a doubt the best reaction so far.

“For as long as she'll float,” she agrees, “that's the plan. When we're done with Kirkwall,”

as she goes back and forth on believing they will be, ever,

“I'll take her some other place. On a river, I think. We could get her out of the harbor if a guide vessel hugged the coast.”

"I hope we have both hands when we are done with Kirkwall," Florent says, with a little bit of theatrical wistfulness. "It will be hard to sail a houseboat without."

Is that what you do? Sail a houseboat? Whatever.

He crouches down further until he is sitting, peering upwards at all the odd angles, as pleased with the lush interior as he is with the delightful exterior. Full of character, where character is wanted, on the outside.

"Well, now, I will be able to visit you so much more," he says, with the blandly glossy tone of someone who is deliberately not directly referencing the way he simply cannot wander Hightown the way he would its counterparts in Orlais. "Perhaps if there is a room that can be spared, I can stay longer."

Florent has never made this suggestion without fully moving in once agreement is reached.

Gwenaëlle gathers her skirts to come and sit beside him, and the skirts probably take up more space than either of their knees, in this little staircase, in her corkscrew of a new home.

“I have a spare bedroom or two,” she allows, the look she casts him as knowing as it is amused. “Guilfoyle's going to stay, I don't think he fully grasps what 'retirement' is meant to entail,” but when your two speeds are 'walk' and 'kill' that's probably a challenging concept. “I wouldn't mind the added company. I'm not hiring maids, though,” mildly. “And I'm not afraid to tip anyone into the harbor.”

Florent slots neatly in the space next to her, balancing his arms on his knees. He flips his hands on the end of long wrists, says—

"I have never had a maid," a little haughtily. What is he, rich? "But the Gallows is right there, for laundry and eating and," he stops to think of what else the Gallows meaningfully provides him, "its wine cellar," nailed it. "But it would be nice not to live in a prison sometimes."

“It wasn't bad when I lived in the central tower,” Gwenaëlle sighs, “but there's really no fucking my way back into that one.”

Gag, gag, gag, and Yseult is too heterosexual to make it work. She's done the math.

(Not seriously.)

(Though all firm nos are very serious.)

“Once everything's set up, I've got it in mind to decorate, too. I have a particular vision.”

Not with that attitude, says a crooked smile from Florent.

But they're talking about decorating, which is much better than someone's absence of sex life, as far as topics go.

"Oh yes?" Florent says. "It is already so powerful, you know, with its aura. I hope you don't wish to make it scarier." He gestures a little loosely. "You know, for your piracy thing."

“More cosy,” she assures him, “on the inside. When all the lanterns are lit— I suppose not lit all at once, most of the time, but—”

he gets the idea, doesn't he? If anyone would, she trusts.

“Silks,” she adds, thoughtful, casting a look up at nothing in particular. “Hanging silks. All the beds have drapes, we're surrounded on all sides by people who keep mad hours, so it's practical as well.” This adorable pretense that it isn't equally because she's been known to sleep through the morning and would like to do it in peaceful dark.

Sounds like exactly the kind of fire hazard that appeals to his sensibilities.

"I have done a little with what I can with my room in the Gallows," Florent says, pushing his hair back behind long, narrow ears. "Including painting on one of the walls, but it started to flake when the season changed, and so I had to," simply had to, "get some silks and things to cover it."

A splay of his hands. Likely Gwenaëlle has at least seen the interior of his room, like a butterfly ran away to join the circus and then exploded. "I could donate, some."

“That sounds ideal— I liked the idea of the colours lit up, you know, I think silks would set it off just so.”

She flicks her fingertips off the edge of the nearest lantern, unlit in the middle of the day, its colours presently dull but promising, nevertheless.

A bump of her shoulder into his, or near to, “If I make it any scarier I think Commander Flint will find an excuse to sink it.”

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