[CLOSED] This is not my beautiful house

[katabasis]

WHO: Pariahs, Scoundrels, and Heretics
WHAT: A catch-all log for Riftwatch's satellite office in Kirkwall for the duration of Mother Pleasance's visit.
WHEN: Fantasy!March
WHERE: Hightown, the de Foncé haunted mansion
NOTES: Related to Mother May I; additional IC Assignments/OOC info.

Is the timing of this remote Riftwatch installation in Kirkwall perhaps too conveniently in step with a Chantry Mother's visit to the Gallows? And are the particular individuals assigned to temporarily work out of the gloomy Hightown mansion more or less the exact roster that someone might wish to avoid having engaged in prolonged conversation with the aforementioned woman?

No. And if anyone were to suggest such a conspiracy theory, there would be more than a half dozen perfectly reasonable points with which to counter such a paranoid claim.

As far as anyone need know, this posting is derived entirely out of a sense of prudent caution; with Tevinter's forces comfortably ensconced in the recently captured city of Starkhaven, it is only sensible to make any potential assault on Kirkwall by that same force less straightforward than the Venatori might expect.

The de Foncé Mansion

The mansion crammed into the corner of an otherwise reasonably respectable, albeit small, square of Kirkwall's Hightown has long been considered a nuisance and an eyesore by its neighbors. Long before Wysteria de Foncé started blowing things up in the mansion's basement and her companions began to curate a barnyard in its little garden, the house was held in the possession of a particularly curmudgeonly old man whose sole ambition in the years prior to his death seems to have been to stuff as much hideous old furniture, moldy books, and ominous paintings in the house as possible in addition to harassing his neighbors with threats of baseless litigation.

Suffice to say, this particular square in Hightown is well acquainted with this corner mansion being a source of what might be delicately referred to as 'some bullshit.'

Despite the outfitting done to make the place function as a secondary office for Riftwatch (much to Madame de Foncé's extreme distress; this is an infringement on her third amendment rights! Which she knows about because maybe she read the constitution while visiting New York, 20xx!!) and Wysteria's own efforts to renovate on a Riftwatch stipend, the house remains in a state of extreme dreariness. While a majority of the rooms have been organized and scrubbed down to their battered floorboards and peeling wallpaper, still others have been piled full to bursting with the hoard of ephemera left in the house by its previous owner with their doors shut tight and narrow windows shuttered, but otherwise surrendered to a thick collection of dust. The few rooms that have been fully refurbished have a faint air of desperation to them—gay wallpaper in bright Antivan styles, the best of the house's old furniture made to look slightly less shabby and so on.

It's a shame the weather is so miserable. The side garden—which must be very charming in spring and summer—might offer up a welcome relief from the morose interior. Alas, the grim forecast has managed to flood most of the planting beds and cast even that space in hues of drab grey.

Anyone who finds themselves quartering in the de Foncé house will be fortunate enough to have their very own gloomy bedroom which may either be nearly bare of furniture or so cramped with it that it's difficult to navigate. At least all the bedding has been brought over from the Gallows, so no one is sleeping on some dead guy's old sheets, and the expansive servant's kitchen has been stocked appropriately for cooking in. Just don't go down into Wysteria's cellar; she's growing something nefarious down there. With Wysteria's maid quitting on the spot when faced with the prospect of attending to all these guests, everyone will be fending for themselves when it comes to cooking and cleaning.

In addition to suspect fungal experiments, those living and working in the mansion will find themselves companion to: six chickens, an Avvar goat who lives indoors, a large brown dog who resembles a mop (who takes her job safeguarding the house very seriously), a small white dog resembling a nuisance, and an alarmingly large dog-sized Donark ant who may or may not be poisonous (it's fine! she's never bitten a person!), and a sullen poltergeist who takes exception to visitors. Luckily most of the breakable objects it enjoys flinging at people have previously been flung, so while ducking may be at a bare minimum there's no telling when a door will lock shut or a painting will attempt to fall off the wall onto someone while they pass.

The Work

Two of the least miserable rooms in the mansion have been converted into temporary working space for the duration of Riftwatch's quartering there. The library has been converted into a shared office space, containing a few worktables and chairs, a desk for Flint's use, and so on. What is likely meant to have been some kind of dining room is currently acting as a temporary armory.

For the duration of the time that this secondary Riftwatch office exists, those assigned to it will be expected to quarter within Kirkwall (be it in the mansion or otherwise) and report to these offices rather than traveling to the Gallows. Anyone who doesn't already frequent the mansion is barred from it. While those assigned to report to it may still attend to work in Kirkwall and beyond with their colleagues still living out of the Gallows, they are similarly barred from actually traveling to the fortress.

In the mean time, the work everyone will be turned to typically involves coordinating with the Kirkwall Guard to assist in reviewing, repairing, and bolstering the city's defenses should any attack occur. There are also refugees to herd, Tevinter supply lines in the Marches to disturb, and rifts still in need of closing. More than likely, those working out of the division will personally receive their orders directly from Flint rather than having them dispensed in any other fashion.

Everyone is very busy, and the house is very drab, and there should be little reason to think much at all about the Chantry Mother visiting the Gallows.

Comments

[heorte]

A beat of silence, looking back at her.

"You should tell me, whatever it is."

A mild sort of pressure. Something he doesn't necessarily expect to work.

[heirring]

So does it bring relief or some further degree of apprehension when Wysteria says,

"I would, obviously. But I'm afraid I'm not as liberty to discuss it."

With her knees under the tent of her skirts close in against her chest, Wysteria makes a small motion of the hand toward the bucket. Now, as to the water Mister Ellis—

[heorte]

In the midst of this, there is a sense of Ellis trying to assess whether or not this is a worthwhile battle to fight.

She returned whole and hale and presumably unharmed. Perhaps this is not worth dragging out, when they have gone months without issue arising.

And yet—

"But you can use Ruadh to accomplish it."

Yes, he sees the motion of her hand. He chooses to disregard it, for the moment.

[heirring]

This warrants a long look, and a certain skeptical downward tilt of the chin.

"Please, Mister Ellis. I think you and I both know that whatever this is I'm not at liberty to discuss was, I would have found some way of seeing it accomplished even if you hadn't lent him to me."

Which is also true; she'd promised to see it accomplished long before Ellis had willed Ruadh into her company.

"In this case, I'm merely expressing a very general sense of gratitude for his presence. I'm certain Ruadh kept me quite safe in all sorts of circumstances. This means you have a difficult act to follow," she adds, this last bit for the muddy little dog who has rolled back upright on the hearthstone.

"You need not be concerned, Mister Ellis. Clearly I'm perfectly fit and so is Ruadh. All is well, unless you or I were to catch cold today."

[heorte]

No, it is not all that reassuring to hear that she would have done whatever it was regardless of what kind of protection she had alongside her. (How useful is Val de Foncé in a fight, Ellis might wonder, were he in the habit of thinking of Val de Foncé at all.)

A long stretch of quiet, observing the little trail of mud left in Tab's take, before Ellis finally stoops to lift the bucket. Reallocate it into her reach.

"I don't like when you do that. Half tell me something."

This, of course, is very different when Ellis simply doesn't tell her anything.

[heirring]

"Well that's only because I'm quite used to telling you all of everything, Mister Ellis," is not an indictment on certain men who do indeed often choose to deflect or outright refuse to answer her questions at all. It's merely fact. "I can hardly be blamed for occasionally getting ahead of myself out of habit."

She turns her hand, reaching past the edge of the bucket's lip to test the temperature of the water with her fingertips. It isn't hot persay, but neither is it cold and that may be tolerable enough for their purposes. She removes her hand, flicking some droplets of water from her fingertips.

"Now, I'm going to take this bucket upstairs and see about washing up and changing into something dry, and being rid of these straps. If you like, I will set the bucket in the hall so you can refill it and begin heating more water, and then you may borrow my basin after me. I'll put a kettle on, and once all is tidy and relatively dry, then we may address the state of the cellar floor. Yes?"

[heorte]

There's things he's meant to account for, he remembers. There has scarcely been time to have the conversation he'd warned Tony of, begged his intercession for whatever followed after.

It is not easy to try and wrangle disagreement with Wysteria. She is a force of nature. Conversation simply goes. Ellis can feel the way it is slipping away from him now.

"I'll manage the cellar floor," he tells her. "And you can keep this from me, whatever it is, if you need to."

He is growing cold, having stepped away from the fire. It's a minor discomfort. Something that can be taken in stride.

"But I mislike it, knowing you did something that was likely dangerous and having no sense of it beyond that."

[heirring]

She will not make a flippant remark about Weisshaupt, she decides. That would be unkind.

"You have my word that I was in no danger whatsoever. And you ought to take me at my word, as I can't recall any time I've ever been dishonest with you." Whether that's true or not—well, she can't recall an exception, and that's all that matters.

With a decisive rock forward, Wysteria plants her hand on the warm hearthstone and pushes up to her feet. Tabouret, sensing further migration, hops directly up onto all four paws.

"Come along, then. You can carry the bucket for me and take it back with you."

holds out bow for this

[heorte]

Skepticism would be—

If not unfair, then at least the beginning of a real argument. An argument Ellis isn't truly ready to have at this moment.

He watches Tabouret shakes a small spattering of mud across the hearth.

"Aye," is flattened at the edges, but it still passes for agreement. Yes, he will lift the bucket for her, and carry it where he is bidden. Yes, he will accept this assurance, for the moment.

🎀

[heirring]

Wysteria's "Very good. This way, then," is not so prim or cool as to be condescending. Merely hurrying along, sensing that the sooner they leave off this particular topic the better off they will be. Indeed, Wysteria saves the snap of her fingers for the little white dog, and then the three of them (and the bucket) traipse from the kitchen.

What Ellis doesn't know is unlikely to harm him. Not just yet. And anyway, it's entirely possible that nothing will come of it at all. No, it is best not to rush into these delicate things unnecessarily when in short order they may reveal themselves to be entirely irrelevant. It would be inconsiderate of her, she is very certain, to be plain with him and so inflict some measure of damage over a thing which may fail to even come to pass.

And if it does—if, say, some agreement is brokered beneath his nose and against his wishes— Well. She will have time to apologize for it then. Of that she is quite confident.