and i still find pieces of you in the back of my mind

[paperwing]

WHO: Sabriel and semi-open.
WHAT: Sabriel goes about her business. Probably feelings. Probably talking.
WHEN: Latter Wintermarch, after she returns from Warden training with Felix and Kaidan.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: Catch-all, starters below for interested parties. If you'd like to do something, PM me or see this plurk right here and we can figure something out!

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[paperwing]

Of all the people to shout Husband across the courtyard, it was definitely not Benevenuta. Alright, she was more likely a bet than others. Maybe she did have a husband, maybe she didn't, but Sabriel didn't want to make it her business because she did not wish to get to know Benevenuta well enough to find out. And, as it happened, she did seem to have a husband. Just the pet kind. That was female. And was pregnant.

Husband gets an idle scratch behind the ears, and some steadying hands in case she decides to jump free or wriggles enough to take a tumble, but she seems very happy where she is. Unfortunately.

"Perhaps she is aware the chef would chase her out," Sabriel suggests. Her voice is pleasant enough, but her face does not raise into a smile, even with the dog and the thankful appearence of the owner. "She's expecting?"

An obvious question, but it's... conversation. It was not really Benny's fault, and was one of the reasons Sabriel tried to avoid interactions that were not in a group. The other council member just embodied the fundamentals of Nevarra, of the Mortalitasi, which is what her father could not stand for and had left. He had been the radical one, but Sabriel was inclined to agree with him. But it was difficult; it had soured her relationship with Salvatore to the point of breaking, and she'd rather not try another only to have that one tear, too. Avoidance was the answer.

Except Husband clearly thought that was a silly idea.

[ungovernable]

It would be difficult to be unaware of Sabriel's slight discomfort around her; the careful way that they are not accidentally alone, or left in conversation together. Were they not both Councilors, she supposes that she might not have noticed it - she thinks that she would have, because Benevenuta always thinks that she would have everything - but they are, and she can't miss the different tone of their interactions as opposed to their colleagues.

She has let it be, and graciously, feigned obliviousness and carried on - but she allows herself a moment of visible hesitation, not because she takes so long to decide upon answering but so that Sabriel might see it, and take or not take the opportunity it presents to explain herself.

It doesn't feel... personal, in the way that she's accustomed to being avoided or found distasteful. She wonders. Not enough to press it, when 'that she's unwelcome' has already been made quite clear, but...enough to let it be known that she does.

"She's a saucy little wench," Benevenuta says, with complacent affection. "I was mistaken for her owner, recently, and thought I might solve everyone's problem by becoming that. Dallying where a champion ought not be, you see."

The dramatic waggle of her eyebrows is not a pointed or coded message. She's just a problem.

[paperwing]

The hesitation, Sabriel does see, and not knowing Benevenuta well enough, she immediately feels a healthy dose of guilt coupled with irritation at the universe for their being a mortalitasi in Skyhold and that said mortalitasi had to have a dog that decided today would be far more interesting in her lap. Why, of all things, must it be this way.

Sabriel fidgets, taking a great interest in the dog on her knees and the description of her. Clearly not the first time Husband has been on a flight of fancy. "I can see why you'd expect her to head to the kitchen, if she has been where she should not before." It sounds a little forced. That guilt is getting to her.

"My apologies, Benevenuta, I don't mean to- be so dismissive," she continues, almost absently, looking upward. How useful it would be to know how to Fade Step right about now so this conversation didn't have to happen. But she doesn't say anything more.

My, this is awkward.

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta considers her words carefully, holding her skirts from the ground when she crouches down to scratch behind Husband's ears. It isn't accidental, that bringing them a bit closer makes the conversation they have a little less easily observed as being as awkward as it is - she is a deliberate thing, and she is very deliberately protecting their Council from rumors of instability. They don't have to be solidly always on the same page, but what concerns her first and foremost is not her own feelings so much as the potential of a true rift between them providing enemies with a weakness to exploit.

They don't have to be friends. Not everyone is going to care for her, however charming she exerts herself to be - that's well and good. But they must be able to work together, and she's waited for an opportunity to do something about the possibility that that might be more difficult than she thinks best.

"I am not offended," she assures her, after a moment, smiling down at her dog - ensconced snugly in Sabriel's lap and lolling under their hands. "But I do hope that if I have offended, you will allow me to correct the error."

[paperwing]

It's hard to look elsewhere when Benevenuta drops to her height; it's a good move with all the eyes that have an interest in watching those that stand out, for digging up information. It occurs to Sabriel late that this perhaps isn't the best time to have this conversation, which is why she stopped and clammed up. But with the both of them seemingly fussing over a dog to outside eyes, it is the best time. And there's no getting away from it, no meetings to hurry away from, avoiding paths or places she might go or-

-thinking back on it, it did seem almost silly. She fought darkspawn effectively for a living, but she'd run away from a mage that raised the dead? This wasn't a country. This was a castle, much like the tower she had grown up in, and social circles only went so far before they crossed over. And if Benevenuta was aware, either because she already knew (possible, likely) or because she just told her, it was a moot point.

Still, she could happily go the rest of her life in Skyhold without digging up (ha) this conversation.

"It is not something you have done," Sabriel assures, after a few seconds of silence. Hurriedly, perhaps, if only that it takes her several more to keep going. It's a part of who Benevenuta is, she's certain, and it's hard to separate the ire she has for necromancy from the people who wield it who have done nothing wrong to her personally. "Whilst with the Mortalitasi, did you ever hear of Terciel Abhorsen?"

[ungovernable]

"I did."

A simple answer that isn't to a question that feels more like an explanation; Benevenuta isn't so much older than Sabriel, less than a decade, but Terciel Abhorsen was before her time, and although such things are her business to know ... there have been more pressing things than scrutinizing what disgrace means specifically in this one particular instance of a man long since gone to the Grey Wardens. And gone, now.

"He was once of my Order, I know. My mother may have been acquainted."

Ayse is a woman who sticks in the memory, and she herself forgets little.

[paperwing]

Sabriel had not expected her to know him. But Terciel's reputation had remained long after he cut his ties; he had been an eyesore, an insult to tradition when she was sent to Perendale and not given freely. If nothing else was, that had been the final blow.

She would not be surprised if her father had known a Thevenet, but his life with that order was one he never really spoke of. Occasionally in passing, when he had something to teach, words to impart, what to do if a spirit passed through the veil, how to protect herself. But nothing of the internal politics, or the people he worked alongside. His life and his time in the Wardens meant a great many things to different people; but his life as a Mortalitasi was a greater mystery to Sabriel.

Still, it helps that Benevenuta recognises the name, as that makes the next admission simpler.

"He was wary of raising the dead, of beckoning to spirits across the Veil. Even to wisps," she says, quietly. "Terciel Abhorsen was my father. He told me a great deal about such things. But he allowed me to form my own opinions."

That being, necromancy is not something she can condone, nor accept. The dead should rest. Spirits should remain in the Fade, as they should be. Nothing more.

[ungovernable]

It isn't an alien perspective.

Well, it is; Benevenuta, for what are presumably obvious reasons, will never entirely grasp the difficulties so many other people have grasping her work, or accepting it. What it isn't is anything she hasn't encountered before - the Mortalitasi reputation is an alarming one outside of Nevarra, but the Abhorsens are clear enough indication that even within it, there are those who have their misgivings.

She doesn't begrudge them their opinions. They are wrong, obviously, and have no right to impede her with their objections, but the world has room in it for a great many people to hold a great many opinions. They can't all be correct, and if she defends only the opinions and people she likes best, she defends nothing at all. It is simple, if sometimes frustrating and difficult. Many things are.

"And so you have," she says, not unkindly. "Yes, I see."

Husband lifts her head a little as Benevenuta scratches her absently under the chin, and then reaches with care to lift her from Sabriel's lap into her arms. She's just large enough to make it awkward, but not so large as to mean she isn't absolutely accustomed to being carried around by noblewomen and expects this state of affairs to continue into her dotage.

Preparing to rise, she says, "I take no offense - and I will not press any on you. It is good that we are able to work together, even so."

She's had no complaint for Sabriel's professionalism in the Council. So long as that continues, that, she thinks, is what matters.

[paperwing]

Her replying nod is solemn. She has gaps in that knowledge, she knows; she's heard of the good, and so much more of the bad, but what to think was never forced upon her. She has the knowledge, the tools, to banish spirits back unto the Veil. She could bind a spirit to a corpse if that was what she wished, and it would be a lie to say that she hadn't wondered; but that was all the temptation she had ever had to explore it.

Death was final. That was the way of things.

"I had hoped I would not have to tell you." Despite her misgivings and discomfort, Sabriel did respect her, which had led to the quick and naive option of avoidance. She wouldn't confront her. But, with her knowing, and taking it on board, accepting it and understanding - it helped, helps now, adds to the respect. "For the better of the Council and those it protects in the future, I hope."