OTA | And She Was

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Alexandrie, et al
WHAT: Slice of life and catch-up catch-all!
WHEN: Mostly now~
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Adding as I go! ♥

The Lady Alexandrie's return to Kirkwall society is not so much a splash as a gentle slip into the water; for a long while, she was gone. Then, of a sudden, she isn't. She resumes her patterns with little fuss: goes to the theatre, frequents the Hightown market, can be found again in good weather wherever there is a good vantage point to paint the sea, the gloves she wears to shield her fingers from the cold doing little to hinder her practiced brushstrokes.

She does not come yet to the Gallows, but does go often to the docks, and anyone wearing Riftwatch colours may well find themselves the object of the lady's benign scrutiny. Perhaps she's vaguely recognizable from someone's reminiscence. Perhaps she's just another member of the Orlesian gentry being a bit nosy. Either way, she is here.

[ Here and happy to wildcard too; send ideas~ ]

Comments

[elegiaque]

( the exasperated, withering look that gwenaëlle fixes alexandrie with is one that the latter is already well immune to, lacking the bite of any real irritation: of course she had a set, that does make a great deal of sense. if they were only alike all the way down this wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

for both of them, but definitely for alexandrie, who gwenaëlle strongly suspects thrives on occasionally inspiring the people around her to throw their hands in the air.

also, it's a little funny. a little. )

He's a rifter, ( she says, allowing the piano thing to be correctly assumed and the matter of an earnest duel dismissed with a roll of her eyes, ) from the same as Tony Stark, and Loki. We even— I've seen a mimicry of their world, through the Fade. Stark's home and his.

[coquettish_trees]

[ It's the combination that does it. While her mind is reorganizing itself quickly around rifter and what that means, from Loki's world throws her further, and then—

For an unbalanced moment there's a naked flash of envy in her eyes. Hunger to have known, to have seen, to have shared. Even if it wasn't Asgard. Even if it wasn't real. She has to unclench her hand from where it went tight around the stem of her glass, feel her way back to the place of delight and curiosity she'd fallen from. We are happy for our friend.

Alexandrie could ask about the trees, the birds, but her heart has ever been a moth to the flame of things that bruise and so instead she softly asks: ]

What did it mean to you? To see where he came from.

[ Unsaid: If it meant a great deal, you will forgive me this, I hope. ]

[elegiaque]

It's str— ( don't say strange, ) ... thinking back on it, it's odd, I guess, because more now? Much more now than then— we'd known each other for, I don't know, four months or something?

( just a guess; it might have been less than that, even. she mulls it over, conscious of the way that alexandrie's been struck and preferring that it happen here, them together, that she doesn't hear later that gwenaëlle hadn't told her. )

I wanted to be good at it, ( after a moment. ) Do you know? I know it's all very— I know so many rifters, I've fucked three of them, I know rifters might not necessarily first think of me as the most sympathetic to them but certainly all of Hightown does. The court. But I hold them to a high standard, I know that.

( and they're not bad people if they don't meet it, but she doesn't exactly make a secret of thinking less of them for it anyway. )

I felt that I had to ... I don't know if anyone else cared about what I did or not, but I felt that I should hold myself to the same. So I wanted to see everything, and learn everything, and— I made Stark give me money and I roped Stephen into taking me to buy clothes the way they do it, which is not as dissimilar as Stark made it sound like it would be, ( very expressly because she took a credit card and a manhattanite and swanned around private boutiques with personal shoppers, it's not like she went to a mall, ) and I tried to blend in. We spent a lot of time ... he showed me his Sanctum, he made a portal to take me halfway around the world like an eluvian because I wanted to go swimming—

they were both, I think, they were so excited to share it. That whole experience was mad, but I wanted to soak it all up. I wanted to do it well. And now there are just things that I— remember. That I can talk to him about. That I understand, that I wouldn't have understood, but it felt as if I saw and touched and experienced them.

( it's still so vivid, when she thinks of it. she thinks sometimes about recreating some of the clothing that she'd bought, the things she'd liked. )

[coquettish_trees]

I am glad of it.

[ Still soft. A cushion for herself, as she moves thought-fingers internally, checking to see what is hurt and where and how much. The next time she and Loki are together she will kiss him very softly, and he will look a little lost and not know why.

His return is already a gift. How much more does she need? ]

It is so lonely, I think. To be the only one who knows a place. Its people. Its small things. If I could put my hands around that and hold it even a little, I would wish to.

[ Alexandrie sheds tears for it, sometimes, his lost home. She calls him kjæreste. She does what she can. ]

I am glad you can.

[ And that is a true thing, if not an easy one. A pause, then a little crooked smile to show she has found her bearings again. ]

Although I admit freely, if it had been Asgard you had traveled I would have waited until you left and then told the modiste you had changed your mind and wanted the yellow.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is maybe going to say — something, to reflect on how she'd become conversant in sindarin and familiar enough with elder speech to know it upon hearing — but the last thing takes her off-guard and it's a small explosion of laughter, holding her wine glass not to spill, her eyes softening with affection.

her gaze is different, with only one true eye, but at the same time: no, it isn't. )

I would have led with it, ( she promises, ) not all this other nonsense, and I wouldn't even be very mad about the yellow.

( you know, a bit. still. but alexandrie says small things, and she thinks, )

...it's how I got here, though, I think. Little things. We drank tea in his kitchen. We've had tea in mine. In Halamshiral, I was only thinking— if you were in the middle of someone, ( byerly, loki ... bastien? ) or Maker forbid, I bothered Julius and Captain Rowntree just heard I'd been tapping on his window at night—

You know, it had just become natural that I should go to Stephen. It has.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie hums softly, pleased again. ]

It is...

[ A friendship. A good one. Something real, already. Love is an addition, not a change. Another colour added to make the painting of them richer. ]

It is well built, Gigi.

[ A sip, thoughtful. Alexandrie rolls the flavour around her mouth, noting the tastes of her home. The grape, the soil, the water, the weather. Every moment of its growth recorded and poured into a glass to be remembered all at once. ]

I was wrong, I think, about the perfect moment. You need not wait for it; it is already here and is waiting patiently for the both of you.

And you are not awful, to take it.

[elegiaque]

( it had just been so suddenly, crystal clear as he'd knelt down to help her pull her boots off — whatever story she'd been telling herself about that friendship, it wouldn't have been the same if it had been alexandrie doing it, or loxley. then she'd have balanced on a shoulder, made a joke, kicked her boots off—

thought nothing of it. the casual intimacies of friendship. the easiness. he had been close to her and it had felt different. easy, too, but not the same.

she takes a long breath in. drinks her wine. sits quietly in you are not awful to take it for a while, lets it sink in. at length, )

Lexie, he gave incredible head.

[coquettish_trees]

[ There is a long pause, during which a small smile forms on Alexandrie's lips. It spreads, slowly at first, and then it is broad and delighted and accompanied by a shriek of delight and the admonition ]

I cannot believe you are still here right now! Get out! Go home!

[ She is laughing, taking up the fur-lined cape she had draped over the edge of the couch to mime a fierce beating, ]

That should be present tense!

[elegiaque]

My wine— ( is a yelp, laughing, leaning back as sentiment dissolves into outright merriment, exaggeratedly protecting the (probably quite expensive, to be fair) liquid from spilling. ) Lexie!

( oh, it's good advice. how'd she ever think she was going to just go without sex for the rest of her life. absurd. madness. she's been thinking about him since she climbed out of his bed, it's embarrassing. )

He's working. I'm working! ( she is not working right this very minute, but to be fair: he probably is. ) Oh, I just—

I have missed it. Being touched like that.

[coquettish_trees]

[ An arch look for he's working. Something like he does not have a door? A desk?

She'll let it go.

For now. ]

Satisfactorily?

[ Absolutely transparent bait. ]

[elegiaque]

( the quelling look she returns would be more effective if she weren't quite so restless to follow up on just those thoughts—

but it's so good just to be here, actually, a proper reunion between the two of them, the terribly ordinary oasis of gossip and couture as if for an hour or two the war isn't beating down their door. picking the pockets of the war for time, indeed. alexandrie's worth spending it on. )

I should have stayed in that bed, ( she says, arch, ) it was— that's one more thing. Everything's so easy with him. Extremely satisfactorily.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie hums in her own satisfaction, gained via the transitive power of near-sisterhood, and raises her glass to mime a toast. ]

Such fortune! Why did you not? [ Clarification: ] Stay.

[ She imagines she could guess, but she is asking anyway, in case the answer has pieces of truth that need to see the air. ]

[elegiaque]

Oh—

( there are good reasons. ordinary, guessable, obvious: )

Well, the point was to discreetly return to my room, where all of my things were,

( except, of course, if the point was — and it was — discretion with regard to what she had spent her night doing (prior), emerging hair askew in last night's dress from stephen strange's bedroom would have been a neat cover for any other reasons she might have been sneaking about. a ready made explanation. useful, if she'd made use of it, except, of course, )

and, I don't know, maybe he was being polite.

( there it is. girl. )