open | and now that you don't have to be perfect,

[elegiaque]

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.

Comments

[armd]

Abby grins at the joke, turning to look toward where the stairs snake up and down. The bedroom is probably- up? To see out of windows, rather than downstairs in the guts of the ship, however cozy, and she can imagine the bed as she saw it the first time, with the bear-skin and the cat curled sentential at the head of it. Such cat currently occupies Gwen's skirts, and when Abby turns back to look she catches one beady eye peaking at her from the apron, perhaps in silent recognition.

"Yes you do," she scoffs, having missed her almost-emotion entirely, "But I think you should do it anyway. S'kind of a power move."

[elegiaque]

“It is, isn't it,” she says, thoughtfully, and by the time she glances back over her shoulder at Abby she's smiling, sly.

“I should have a new one painted in the bearskin, with all my scars,” speculatively, “but I'd have to find a new artist. Mm. Well, that can wait. I'm really very pleased with these—” flicking a fingertip against an unlit lantern, all wrought iron and coloured glass, filigreed and elaborate. They are hung carefully throughout the houseboat, to warmly light it, setting off the hanging silks and velvet upholstery, giving the place a cosy kind of decadence.

You can take the girl out of the aristocracy, etcetera, etcetera. Bitch is still spoiled.

“I've never had a place all of my own, to build however I like. It's got much to recommend it.”

[armd]

Just as casually Abby shrugs, and says, “Ellie is an artist. She does portraits,” like it doesn’t matter either way if Gwen acts on the tip off. It just pleases her to know that one day Gwen very well could ambush Ellie with a request to paint her naked on a bearskin rug. The mental image is very fucking funny.

She fights to keep the little smirk off her face that would like to be there, and appreciates the lanterns.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” is thoughtful. “Having another place, I mean. I’m gonna have to do it eventually, cuz Wags isn’t slowing down any time soon, but I dunno where to look.”

[elegiaque]

As good as that would be— “I really don't think we're that kind of friends,” is more than a little dry. Some wobbly established civility is a far cry from comfortable enough with each other for nude portraiture; it's not totally out of the question it could ever happen, but it's hard for Gwenaëlle to imagine wanting to broach the idea.

Reaching out an olive branch is one thing. Stripping naked for something more significant and vulnerable—

yeah, they're not there right now. But more interesting than that, “Well, Lowtown,” seems obvious to her. “Or I think there are dockside apartments, though I don't know what the arrangement is there. Or how much extra space you'll get on Riftwatch pay,” to be fair.

[armd]

"I don't need a lot of space," is honest, "I'll only be sleeping there." Or reading, lying on her side on top of her mattress. When she first arrived at the stadium she was in barracks, and then when she moved higher up the ranks of soldier she got into one of the old stadium boxes, with Manny. It felt ridiculous at first. The two of them didn't have enough possessions between them to fill it. Still didn't, even after two years in. "Dockside would be nice."

Hmm. Something to think about later?? "If I go live there, will you come be my neighbour every so often."