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

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

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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“The former owner acquired it as a flatboat,” she says, regarding him with an expression that doesn't really— it's not unfriendly, it's not friendly. He's a stranger with an anchor-shard, which does narrow down the various likelihoods, but makes none of them a guarantee when one of those is lodged just as perceptibly in her own fist, holding her dark skirts off the deck.

(Hardie, an Anders Shepherd, is more clearly interested in the stranger, but much too well trained to do more than only show it in the set of his shoulders and tilt of his ears.)

“He built it up into a houseboat, and when I acquired it, we had it gutted and refit entirely on the inside. The bones of it were surprisingly sturdy, by all accounts. I believe them, too, they all sounded bemused when they said it.”

"So do I."

Believe them. Given the way he's looking at it, maybe he can see the bones in question—perhaps intuitively, by the joints and angles and the way they react, or don't, to the easy motion of the bay. He's not ignoring her by any means, but it isn't the owner, nor her companion(s), he's here to see. This isn't some social contrivance; he just thinks it's neat.

"If it were going to fail, I think it would have done so by now... or... at least threatened to, in ways you'd find difficult to ignore. On the water, the way it moves, it wouldn't be able to keep that secret for long."

His own anchor is likewise in a fist, pressed to the crutch's support grip. Neither hand would have been preferable—but at least it doesn't hurt. (That list is long enough already.)

Gwenaëlle casts a glance up at it, shrugs—

“I imagine something like that would have been caught during the refitting. My grandfather would love an excuse to instruct them to take the entire thing apart and rebuild it from the bottom up and we weren't working with fools who'd have failed to capitalize on the opportunity.”

It simply wasn't done because it wasn't necessary, and she hadn't wanted it done unless it was.

"Well, it's fortunate the excuse didn't present itself. What a waste that would have been."

He's thinking copper roof tiles like dragon scales, he's thinking gutters on the eaves for rainwater collection, retractable ladder on a chain pulley (that he hasn't seen any roller chains doesn't mean they don't exist, or couldn't), new heavy shutters for the sea wind. A proper rainwater filter on the slip, maybe, to keep the weight down. Fashion a gravity faucet from a barrel and a tap. Sink an airtight chest into the water for refrigeration. Custom weathervane on top. Maybe a slide down the back for funsies.

"Do you think you'll try wintering aboard?"

“I intend to live it,” she says, which means yes— “The war might well end, and I might well not have the ready means to winter anywhere else when it does.”

Her head tips, thoughtful, and she studies him as he studies her home. Maybe trying to imagine what he sees when he does, but she doesn't know him nearly so well enough to guess.

“She still needs a little work,” is an acknowledgment, “but I think she's beautiful. She's my home, now. She can have whatever she needs.”

This fellow who studies her home, he looks quite small at a distance, though he's only a little under average height. His body is an arrangement of crooked angles, sloping shoulders, sharp cheekbones, bony wrists. Though his clothes are foreign, they may still read as modestly stylish; her skilled eye may note they're tailored, too, but don't quite fit, in a way that suggests they once did. His right leg is braced up with metal shanks and leather straps, hinges at the knee and ankle, his shoe encased in a shell. His hair is doing whatever it wants, and what it wants right now is to stick out like a bird's crest behind his ears.

The sentiment, the pronoun, it makes him feel like smiling, and the sense of that warmth surfaces despite its failure to turn his mouth. He shifts his weight, reseats his crutch under his arm. (The crutch and brace are a matching set, wrought by a single craftsman.) (Or a pair of them, together.)

"I'm certain she appreciates it." The impulse to pat this houseboat, like you would a horse, flickers down his arm. "Maybe the war will do you a favour and wait to end until she's finished... although, labours of this kind rarely end. There's always something."

He reminds her a little of Alexander, she thinks, who would probably make his own crutch and brace if he needed them. It makes her wonder briefly if this man made his. It's the slightness and the lopsided style and the focus, most of all; that she can't tell if it hasn't occurred to him someone might find marching up to her house and undressing it with his eyes odd or if he just finds that irrelevant, and even moreso for the fact of her willingness to entertain the conversation.

Gwenaëlle is of the latter school of thought herself, so it's not urgent, only curious.

“War seems that way, too,” she says, with a twist of wryness. Probably all the wars that have since ended felt so, in the middle. “Ellis, the Warden, has been doing some of the exterior work, since we moved her here. I haven't thought further than her repaint, though, I only wanted to be able to let the menagerie out without having to pick splinters out of them after.”

Ellis, the Warden. He's read about them, has yet to meet one in person, unless a Warden might appear so common that he did meet one without realizing... but he's met very few people directly, so odds are probably slim.

"Ah—so you're just getting started." The balance of his attention at last tips from the dwelling to her owner. "An exciting phase. Pure possibility."

It isn't that conversation makes him nervous, he's not avoiding looking at her, it's just, everything, all of this. He's still so new, and tentatively gathering shreds of the familiar, that they may one day resolve into a comforting shape—and that wry bit rattles pleasantly in his cup.

"Should you find yourself inexplicably craving a stranger's input..."

This he finishes with something like a shrug, a turn of the wrist and opening fingers, is there a stranger around here, maybe, who can say.

“Well, inside her is complete, unless a very good idea comes about,” she says, more thoughtful. “L'Duc wasn't going to let me move into this without being certain of that,” the exterior being their compromise, though it isn't as if Gwenaëlle had objected to the more luxurious appointment of the interior.

And she isn't opposed to a good idea coming about, either, for that matter.

“I'm not opposed to suggestions from someone who appreciates her.”

She loves Byerly; she is sure whatever suggestion he might have ,for instance, is 'this thing is hideous, let your grandfather rebuild it entirely'.

This appreciative stranger—who has thus far neglected to introduce himself, is both peripherally aware of that and entirely unconcerned—takes further steps down the slip, crutch tapping, paying less nervous attention to where his feet are going. Brighter, now. Encouraged.

"And this... duke." He is not even going to attempt to replicate the subtlety of that pronunciation. "Would he be opposed?"

“He opposes the boat on principle,” she says, not without affection, “but my grandfather doesn't like to say no to me when saying yes will make me happy.”

So: probably not, as long as Gwenaëlle is herself in favour.

“And he's in favour of anything that improves her for me, I know that much well.” A beat passes, and she adds, “Money is no object.”

At a glance from the outside, that fact may not be obvious.

Edited 2022-09-26 01:34 (UTC)

Not at a glance—not even slightly—but the way the duke entered this conversation makes it not much of a surprise. It does answer the question of whether he's a relative or some other variety of patron. Not that such details matter at the moment, though someday they might.

"Then she has a bright future ahead of her."

In his experience, the best way to answer that addition, and other such variations on I have all the money in the world, is to focus on the project at hand. Conveniently, that's how he prefers to respond to most things. Everything funnels back to work. Absolutely everything.

"So we understand each other, I should preface any brainstorming by telling you I'm not a carpenter." In case she somehow looked at him and thought he might be one. "But I have designed buildings. —Well, a building."

One very, very, very large building.

"Have you decided on colours?"

It's a statement made mostly for the sake of that project— don't think about what it'll cost, think about what you could make happen, I can worry about the other part. Most people here are already aware that l'Duc de Coucy could buy and sell Riftwatch several times over, if he were so inclined; it's rarely necessary to point out.

When they're talking about what he might design for her best girl, well. It seems relevant.

“I've access to carpenters,” she says, lightly, “but I'd not ask many of them to design me a house.” A house? Sure. Hers? Another story. (She's going to let any commentary she might have made about hard labor and his brace pass, but it's probably a matter of time before there's a joke about it doubling for a hammer that's too well timed to let go.)

“Beyond...dark? I want to keep the mood of her, as much as I can. Not so black she'll heat up past what's bearable to touch—”

"Mm-hm," yes, good, "and how do you feel about copper? Because," a few more steps, reseating the crutch in his armpit as he settles, "you may find it useful to install a gutter system to control rainwater. To collect it, perhaps even send a small quantity through a filter for use in your kitchen," or kitchen equivalent. "And against, say, a dark grey, copper would pop nicely. Or, since funding is of no particular concern," which is—not to be mistaken—good to know, "you could have the metal treated with sulfur to darken it in advance of installation."

But wait, his pitch isn't over yet: his hand flicks a gesture up, led by his index finger. "Copper makes a fine roof, so you could even tile your many eaves with it. Unless, that is, you intend to race your house, in which case you may want to keep the weight down. However,"

the tilt of his head says this is the good part,

"my recommendation would be bronze—which, while an unconventional choice, is significantly more resistant to salt."

Edited (one million nerd edits. nerdits.) 2022-09-26 15:23 (UTC)

Unless you intend to race your house nets him a laugh, a quiet thing, mostly air and the shape of her mouth and the way her head tilts as she moves down the stairs from her porch and toward the edge of her deck. Her sea-legs are quite able, thank you, with the slight shifts beneath her feet.

“Bronze,” she repeats, like she's committing it to memory; like she's committing much of what he's said, picking it apart and filing it away. The kitchen part is most interesting, especially because— there is Guilfoyle, for now, but there will not be Guilfoyle for always. There are things that she's having to learn because sheer stubbornness will not keep him here forever to simply do them for her, and those are things she has to think about, now, aren't they.

Her own home means her own responsibilities, especially given the unlikelihood she'll replace him in time. For now, it is well enough to take Florent and steal an entire pizza from the Gallows on pizza night, and for Guilfoyle to trek between the boat and the Gallows laundresses or supplement their kitchen with the Gallows' supply... for now. The point of La Souveraineté, though, is the idea of there being a future past now, where the conveniences of being parked up at the Gallows may not be there to be relied upon.

She's smiling, properly, when she says, “I'm known for my unconventional choices,” and even on first impression it may come across as something of an understatement. “Would you like to see some of what we've done with her interior?”

(She has actually just forgotten that she still occasionally needs to introduce herself to people.)

Bullseye.

He doesn't think it as a word, this isn't some scheme. Not much of a scheme, anyway—the satisfaction of a job well done isn't exactly a criminal bounty. It's simply a nice thing to push himself out of his mood, to make great effort to engage despite the big cold fist in his belly and the handful of guts in its persistent squeeze, and be rewarded for it. He's spent enough time feeling only sad and shy. Weeks, now. It's getting boring.

So he answers, "Absolutely," and looks to where he's meant to board. "Just, eh... just a second, I'm not really," accustomed to boats, but here he comes to the ramp anyway, grasping whatever's there to grasp (tightly, pale knuckles jutting), shuffling the first step as a gauge to be sure his legs aren't immediately going to get creative about this. So far so good—up he goes.

Sea legs: you're welcome, he has none. Expect him to stand with his feet spaced a little wider, the one unhinged knee turned in, faintly wobbling, like a three-legged calf... and completely game for it.

Gwenaëlle briefly considers offering him assistance, but he seems to be doing alright and doing it with great determination, too—

“Mind the stairs,” she says, “—there's sort of a lot of them,” more considering, looking back toward her home. The entrance has a short stairway up to its porch and front door, and given the size and shape of her from the outside...well, it can't come as a great surprise that she's mostly twists and turns inside, too.

La Souveraineté is, when he reaches the foyer, far more luxurious inside than she appears from the exterior; polished wood, hanging silks, velvet upholstery and brightly twinkling lamps of various colours, fashioned in metal and glass by local craftsmen. The general effect is a stark difference from the inhospitable appearance from the outside of the Gallows.

"Oh, yes." While he watches his step, his head takes an angle of wry, long-suffering humour—the kind reserved for when something is funny, but also not a joke. "They probably counted them before you were admitted to port. City of Chains is a misnomer."

And it's still early enough in the day that he can manage a few more without immediately having to rest for very long, though it remains to be seen how the vessel's relatively gentle play within its degrees of freedom will factor in. Not a bad thing to try out while his schedule is still light.

When he reaches the foyer,

he stops, with one hand braced lightly on the wall, and surveys the indulgent decor with slow sweeps of his eyes, his head pivoting after them.

"You weren't kidding."

The perks of being both an ill-gotten bastard and the Duke's own favourite grandchild: the benefits of his favour, and almost none of the responsibilities. (And if she feels some sort of way about not having the responsibilities, it isn't because she was good at or liked any of them, so there's that.)

“Why spend my money when I can save it and spend bon-papa's?” is probably rhetorical. She tips a hand to encompass the passageways from the main foyer, where there is space for a portrait to hang but nothing there, yet. “The gallery,” is a room directly off the foyer itself, a narrow loop of hardwood floor, cabinets and selected pieces of art encircling a deep, cushioned depression, “the below-decks,” a closed door, although she briefly opens it so he can see that the immediate view is simply darkened stairs, “through to the rest of this floor,” a hallway, which is a little wider, “and up to the rest.”

...stairs. She wasn't kidding about the stairs, either.

With interest he attends whatever she points out, the gallery, the nothing where something might eventually be (he can see a few of those), leans to see the spooky stairs, gazes up at Even More Stairs. Truly a house of horrors. Looks comfy, though. Definitely looks like someone's bon-papa paid for it, he's seen a few of those, and the resemblance is

—not exact. More undercity than topside. One would be hard pressed to achieve Piltover's unyielding symmetry in a shell of this character—given measuring tools, he reckons he would find a scarcity of perfect right angles—but some might try to force her into shape.

"It... reminds me a little of home. These especially," with light gestures to the nearest table lamp, to the one hanging just there, led by his finger. "The coloured glass. You see it everywhere, lit up like this... usually with," how do you explain neon lights to a person, "rarefied gases," no, "which... are visually similar to, eh. To glowstones."

Nice.

Most of the stairs spiral, for the sake of conserving usable space — and she's certainly made the most of that space, some of the rooms that various doors and stairs lead off to quite generously appointed. She touches the lamp he gestures to with the kind of absent fondness that she has usually applied, previously, to horses and dogs.

“Like veilfire,” she offers, after he's groped around his explanation sufficiently that she's more or less confident of having ascertained the shape of what he's grabbing at. “I've seen mages light veilfire torches, in elvhen ruins usually. And I've a dress that uses enchantments that look like candles— true fire would be a catastrophe waiting to happen.”

It's more of a wearable chandelier, and she's worn it both with and without an appropriate under-dress. Considerate of her to so expertly light the angles of her arse if it's going to be on display of an evening.

“These lamps are throughout, anyway, I rather fancied them.”

It's not like a torch, he wants to say, and almost says, and doesn't, though he wouldn't feel bad about circling back for a correction specifically because of the dress she's just described. That's a growing streak of bitterness, relatively new, and regrettably enhanced by his transplantation to Thedas: even here, worlds away, people are using miracles to make their evening wear a little fancier while the undercity suffers below.

But that's a footnote of its own, just a sour tickle somewhere in the periphery of this otherwise promising visit, so he can bite his tongue about it for a second and lean on this instead:

"You've seen veilfire," and that is interesting as hell. "Torches only? Or... did they discover any runes?"

And did they light it, and did it trigger an ancient spell, and did you feel it, and what was it like—

“Only in torches, although if you could make lamps with something that sounds like veilfire I don't see why it couldn't be done here, with these ones— except you'd really need a mage, more or less all of the time.”

Not a deal-breaker, necessarily, although it's like to put anyone in mind of Tevinter, the wide streets of Minrathous, and the rest of Thedas is still afraid of all the wrong parts of that nation.

In her view, at least.

“I don't recall seeing it other than on a torch, though, but we're constantly falling arse-first into complex ancient magics, so it may be that a veilfire rune just didn't stand out amongst whatever unhinged bullshit was happening around it at the time.”

It's almost too bad this conversation isn't happening after Arlathan—they could share a grim laugh, then. Or at least a laugh-adjacent acknowledgement of the concept of humour. But as all his fondest memories are yet intact, and she doesn't yet have a striking golden eye for him to try not to stare at,

"Whatever it was must have been truly unhinged. I can't think of much that would distract me from unanticipated ancient magics."

He's now clutching his crutch under his arm to hold it, releasing the grip to lift his hand—the left one, with the strange crease in the palm.

"I've been wondering if there isn't some way to store the energy produced by these anchors. It goes without saying a lamp wouldn't be the objective, but... perhaps a convenient side benefit."

“You'd need to find someone prepared to risk accelerating the deterioration around the anchor-shard in order to experiment enough to find it out,” Gwenaëlle notes, which is an incredibly casual way to refer to that, “which is not to say that such a person doesn't exist.”

Brave idiots are not in short supply, generally, and even besides someone who might just be game—

well, any benefit they can turn these things to before they kill them.

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

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