WAR TABLE MISSION: People of Riftwatch

[bouchonne]

WHO: Diplomacy interviewers and interviewees
WHAT: As outlined in this ooc post, Diplomacy members have been asked to interview other members of Riftwatch to gather information so they can have pamphlets written about them.
WHEN: Whenever
WHERE: Diplomacy office
NOTES: None as of yet

The Diplomacy office has a rather nice set-up: there are a few comfortable chairs and couches, and the offices themselves are well-supplied with coffee, tea, and drinks of a stronger nature. So, at the very least, the interviewers and their subjects will feel relatively comfortable during their conversation.

If things go according to plan, each interviewer will be set up in the office when their interview subject arrives. Benedict Artemaeus will have opened the door and shown the interviewee inside and will have gotten them a drink of their choice. From there, it falls to the interviewer to ask the first question.

Comments

[elegiaque]

It's strange, to be on the other side of the figurative desk. The literal one, even, since Gela needs somewhere to write even if Gwenaëlle has spread her lightweight skirts over one of the more comfortable chairs, considering the Diplomacy office with some interest as a place she doesn't spend a great deal of time for reasons that tend to become clear upon early acquaintance.

Raleigh Samson had not been nearly so finely accommodated, when she'd interviewed him. Probably it remains to be seen which of them is more or less forthcoming, but she supposes they might break even on cooperative— in neither case has anyone been pressed into it.

Into prison, in Samson's case, but no one had forced him to speak with her.

“Straightforward,” she says, after a moment, reflecting only briefly that it's hard to say it's a surprise where the interview starts when she'd come in with really no notion of where it might. It's a little akin to her old project, and with many of the same goals; she had, and she imagines they will, cast a wide net. “I have a literary agent in Orlais who handles all of that for me, and they were a personal recommendation from a friend, and had the connections I needed to make it happen discreetly. For anonymity, at the beginning, I never handled any of it directly, only through my agent. And there's no need to change that, now, just because I'm less anonymous; it works well.”

If it ain't broke, etcetera.

“She also handled everything that I published under my own name, mostly art critique until my brief foray into propaganda for the Inquisition during the time I was at Skyhold.”

[sprent]

Gela did a bit of research the night before, or rather, she kept her ears opened and listened to a few conversations, and she has her starter. The rest, she's winging, but she doesn't feel worried about it. If there's one thing that Gela loves to do, it's chat, almost as much as she loves to listen to other people tell a story. She leans forward eagerly across the desk, and writes, literary agent Orlais, and taps her pen a few times. Adds, agent handled anonymity AND published name propoganda art critic and then she circles art critic, in reminder.

Right. A quick breath out, before she scrapes some hair back from her face to tuck behind her ear (it curls free again, almost instantly). She says, "Congratulations, by the by. On the publishin'. You must be proud."

And, "I haven't read any of your work before," as she scans through her notes. "If I wanted to, where would you suggest that I start? Is all of your work available here for others to read?"

[elegiaque]

“Sure,” she says, of you must be proud. Moreso, when it was more recent and pressing; now it's combing back to experiences that she's years removed from, a thing that she's had to set aside for the war, and it feels raw and uncomfortable in a way that she's taken off-guard by, a sense of loss that she hasn't reckoned with suddenly exposed by a stranger.

It's not Gela's fault. She knows that. It's not something Gela could have predicted because it's not something that she knew, so there's no point snapping at her about it and she doesn't, just sets her jaw and looks at some point over Gela's shoulder, shrugging—

She is proud. It means a great deal to her, and at first she can't figure out what the difference is. How thrilling it was for Mhavos to know her work, why this grates, and it's — easy, actually, when she examines it. She hasn't published new poetry since she left Orlais, half a decade ago now, a different person entirely. She's written, still, of course, but it stings to be congratulated on a publishing career that's been stalled out for years by someone who might not care for her writing at all, once she reads it.

Is her most interesting accomplishment something she did years ago in another life? Believing that she'll live to do it again is still wobbly—

“My work isn't the sort of thing that you can casually recommend to a person you don't know,” she says, finally, “and I don't know you. You're free to seek it out and find out for yourself. I believe the library carries much of it.”

[sprent]

And because she conducts herself in much the same way through a twinge of sudden pain, Gela will always recognise a pinched nerve when she sees one. She presses her teeth together sympathetically, but doesn't say anything. Gwenaëlle is free to work through the realisation in silence; Gela is only waiting for the answer to her question.

A soft hum accompanies a doodle on her page: a bird. Or, the shape of a bird. Maybe something bird-like, but only to her. "Why do you say that?" She doesn't sound put-out. She adds, "Would you like me to ask you about somethin' else?" Because she was thinking that she would put a note about where to find Gwenaëlle Baudin's work should any reader reach the end of her interview curious, but if they're all under another name and not casually recommended...

Her pen hovers above the notes she's taken, ready to strike them out.

[elegiaque]

“Because it's true,” is a sort of verbal shrug, accompanied by one more literal, “and if you read my work, you'll understand.”

It would be frankly unkind to recommend her writing to some people, unwarily and without caveat, and that that's all the warning she provides is— a choice. But a choice from which she moves swiftly on:

“Someone who is interested in my poetry has any number of resources to draw upon, my writings themselves, speculation in Orlais from before I was publicly associated with them. Associated works,” Lady Cyprienne's suite of poems — she's never used a pseudonym, lives her scandalous life out loud, shielded in part by the reputation of her family — had pointedly mirrored and referenced some Sauvageon works, leading many to wonder which of her known lovers Sauvageon might be.

No one had actually guessed Gwenaëlle, before she took credit.

With a shade of actual humour, “It was profitable to me to take credit. I was briefly able to take some ownership of being a footnote to my father's fuck-ups because sex sells, and I am the unwanted remains of quite the sex scandal. But,” frankly, not because she's offended by Gela but because she's almost certain she lacks the context that Gwenaëlle acutely understands, “dwelling on that profitable poetry, when I have published nothing new and done nothing publicly but brazen out the embarrassment for money, is going to start to make me look desperate and grasping. I am proud of my work. I don't need it to be spoken of with malicious pity by people who would have liked to see me fall further. Hopefully,”

with a quirk of her mouth,

“I've done anything of note within the last six years. What sort of scope are we working with? What kind of portrait are you looking to paint?”

[sprent]

Gela listens, chin in her hand, and slowly drags her pen across parchment in a single, telltale line. Right. Well, it was a good conversation starter at least, because not only has Gwenaëlle not told her to fuck off yet, she’s got a little curl at the corner of her mouth, and she’s at obvious ease across the desk.

Matters can always be worse. Gela thinks for a moment, and taps her implement against the page.

“Well,” she ventures unperturbed, “The scope was to do a little profile on each of you, nothin’ especially large, or wordy. I thought I’d profile you as a writer but it might be more excitin’ to talk about other things… like that new boat of yours, in the harbour there. Could do a little piece on the decor! Or on your place in Riftwatch, and the work you do. Is there anythin’ about yourself you’d love for more people to know about?”

[elegiaque]

Well, the most honest answer is—

literally nothing, but Byerly had asked her to do it and caught her without an immediately good reason not to besides general disinclination which had not survived being pressed. The dubiousness of her expression as she thinks her way through it probably makes that at least somewhat obvious, mulling over the options.

“I've trained with Riftwatch specifically,” she says, after a moment, having weighed it up and decided she'd rather venture into this territory than risk strangers reading about what her private space is like. “I came to Skyhold and the Inquisition because I received an anchor-shard, and I was with the Inquisition for several years as...” The word prisoner seems strong, but she'd been unwilling and not allowed to leave, so she finally settles on, “A guest,” a little dryly. “I had no combat experience nor any interest in getting any. One of the previous division heads, Commander Coupe, before her retirement from the position with Forces, took my initial martial education somewhat...forcibly in hand. That could be interesting.”

[sprent]

Gela starts to write again as she talks, the scratching of pen drowned out by Gwenaëlle's chatter. Having been shot down in the attempt to write an interesting little exposé of an author might have thrown somebody else off, but this is equally exciting.

(Of key note: Skyhold Inquisition (circled), no combat forces recruit)

"That is interestin'," she muses, extending out the line of that last t along the page, meandering with the tip of the pen, "Did you agree to the education because of the shard? What did you learn?"

[elegiaque]

After a brief pause, visibly deciding how to word this, Gwenaëlle settles on, “I didn't agree to it, no, but I wasn't given the option of declining. It was required of me regardless of my feelings or wishes, and the lengths I would have had to go to in order to exert my own wishes would have been...distasteful.”

Could she have leaned on her grandfather? Probably. Would he have brought his weight to bear, if she'd asked him to, and prevented this from happening? Probably. But at the time, she was more prepared to be forced into something that terrified her than to be seen to hide behind his influence— in part a matter of pride, and in part because it wouldn't always be there.

It wouldn't always be there, but people would remember how she used it. And they'd remember that when he was gone, and she wasn't able to any more. She isn't above exploiting that connection, merely judicious with its use and consequence.

“Initially, I was taught to handle daggers. The reason I was in Forces as a noncombatant— when I originally joined Riftwatch in the role Silver holds now, master of information, I joined as a member of Forces because I felt it'd be inappropriate to be a member of the division my then-husband was then responsible for, and of the other division heads at the time, Commander Coupe was the only one I trusted not to force me into a situation that would get me killed due to my inexperience and Riftwatch's lack of alternative competent hands.”