faderift | OTA | And She Was

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~ ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sturdy is a word to describe her.

[ Every part of the dog is miniature - her tiny tail even thinner than Alexandrie's own delicate pinky finger, her paws the size of a bent knuckle. But there is a sort of sturdiness about her. This is a creature that is confident in her skin. ]

How has your time in this fair city been, so far? No ghost sightings of your own, I hope.

The city... has been profitable, if gruff. Trade negotiations go as well as they might, when all are feeling under pressure. I have made little headway on my other business.

For ghosts, I have seen none outside of the eyes of those who carry them.

[ There it is. It's not a large movement, but the hand not extended in canine amnesty has turned to the small nervous tell of worrying a bit of fabric between thumb and forefinger in her lap, and hesitant clouds drift across the sea of her eyes. ]

It was not easy, and became less so once I found there was someone purposing my father's ailing, but it was not...

[ Her lips thin as she presses them together, light distress around the not-quite-knowing of how to craft her words. ]

The world moves at the pace of the land, in the country, and it was in times of rest that I read the letters that came from Kirkwall and learned that the war had ground on and eaten part upon part of those dear to me whilst I— [ Lived in relative comfort. Useful and useless at the same time. ]

What good, my worries and fears? What good my voice, or my arms, or my blades?

[ A rueful shake of her head. ]

None. I may as well have been a ghost. I feel a ghost still. That if I—

[ A pause, and then whatever storm of feeling is building inside her, Alexandrie smothers decisively. Her body draws smoother lines, contains itself again, and when she finally speaks it is soft and smooth. ]

It is foolish and selfish of me to speak of this to you. Do you... [ a steadying breath, then ] how is it you would like me to be in your world?

[ Byerly blows out a breath. He half wants to protest - that sometimes a fellow wants to make pleasant small talk and become accustomed to the dynamic before jumping right into how would you like me to be and I feel like a ghost. Sometimes it's preferable to become accustomed to the temperature of the water in ankle-deep surf before striking out into the deep ocean.

But Alexandrie has always been thus with him, so long as they've been in this place together. Even without the distress caused by her current circumstances.

So he speaks evenly. ]

How is it that you want to be? I think you know more of me than I know of you, by now. You know what it's like here, but I don't know what life you've lived. What choices you've made when on your own.

[ Protest flickers to life in Alexandrie's eyes because she doesn't, she doesn't know what it's like here. It feels irrevocably shifted, and she cannot tell exactly how. All she knows that she feels like a visitor, a stranger, even as the articulation of why continues to elude. But there is rarely space for the depths of her frustrations between them, unless it is something that they both hold, aimed at a target they both have chosen. Aimless, it makes him close, or turn, or harden.

She knows she is little better with his own; if she cannot see what his displeasure is bent upon, she assumes it is on her. And so Alexandrie closes her eyes for a moment, and tries to be even too. ]

Val Fontaine is... It is the same, and it is changed. So is Kirkwall. So are you. So am I.

I cannot tell how I have changed, since I have been myself each day. You may well be a better judge than I, but—

[ Her brow furrows slightly, as she searches for words to offer. ]

I have been humbled somewhat, perhaps, by the work. By the work of my people. And I became... lonely.

[ The last is softer; gently bruised, like the petals of an over-handled flower. ]

As part of Riftwatch, I had peers. True ones, not simply others of the same rank. At Val Fontaine...

[ She spreads her hands slowly, palms turning up to show the emptiness they hold: nothing. The curve of her lips is gentle, muted, a vague sorrow mixed with acceptance. ]

Only letters. So much happened to you, and so little to me, that I began to feel as if Kirkwall lived a week for each of my days. That the true distance between myself and all that I loved here was not something I could take a ship across, and that it was widening all the time, and yet every day I woke and chose blood and land and duty over the fervent desires of my own heart.

[ Wryly: ] There is a seeming change, non?

I would think that choosing land and duty would be choosing the desires of your heart. Isn’t it?

[ Byerly might be half-Orlesian, but in his way, he is still all Fereldan. There’s no irony or even self-awareness in that question. Even though he himself has lived through the exact same struggle - even though he has recently chosen the desires of his heart over duty. Even though he has resigned from his position to live in this happy, cluttered little townhouse in Lowtown.

But regardless - ]

And I can’t imagine that it was a simple life. The administration of an estate is a complicated thing.

[ But that’s not what she’s talking about, is it? Her speech is not about whether or not the work was easy. It’s about the strife and turmoil. The work might have been complicated, but it’s true that it’s not work that sparks great change in a person. Not the way that dying, and then returning to life, does. Not the way that war does.

And so he runs his fingertips through his hair and says: ]

That is the life you’ll live, in time, isn’t it? After the war?

[ Whereas he, Byerly, will live a life rather closer to this. Adventure and chaos. This reconnection, her returned to the war, may be a brief interruption in which they are re-aligned with one another, rather than a return to normalcy.

That thought brings him a bit of strange grief. And so he says, lightly, trying to reclaim some bit of humor - ]

Assuming we don’t all die, of course.

[ There is tension around her eyes, in the thinning of her lips, as he says it. After the war. It is a grief for her too. ]

I did not think— I never thought—

[ Of anything. Nothing past art and music and love and marriage. And then after Rolant, she had not thought of anything but vengeance. Then everything was love again. And after she had broken it, the bitter stretch of thinking only of clawing for enough power that she could never be hurt by anyone ever again. And then the sky broke and they were at war. But none of that litany comes out, only a soft ]

I am the fifth daughter. Val Fontaine should never be mine.

[ Her hands twist in her lap as her mind follows the thread of what "should" be, then. If it wasn't Val Fontaine, it would have been her husband's estate, and she might have wanted it together with him, but now she is a widow, and the thought of what had been the last year— her, alone— stretching off into the distance of the future makes her shudder. It had not been bad, but it she not been... her. Not the her she had come to know whilst serving with Riftwatch. ]

I do not want it. Not as things are. I want... the war will end, and Matthias will come home, and I will...

[ Will what? Alexandrie looks pale, at a loss. ]

I cannot tell. I only know that the parts of me that have come to life here will slowly fall away there, and I am not ready to let them go.

OTA | And She Was

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