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]

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.”