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~ ]

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[coquettish_trees]

[ 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.