faderift | [open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

Entry tags:

[open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

WHO: everybody who wants
WHAT: (lukewarm) BEACH PARTY (on rubble, in harbor)
WHEN: late Justinian
WHERE: the Gallows, amidst its newly-acquired sea view
NOTES: he's trying

I. Prep

He didn't ask for help overtly, but Benedict is clearly working hard setting up the space he's designated for the company to have their beach staycation: drapings taken from his own stash and salvaged from the Gallows' erstwhile guest rooms are drawn across glyphed-in-place poles to create shade. He's hauled out a table, onto which he proceeds to place a variety of whatever canapés he could afford to procure with his own wages-- it's not a feast, all right-- and beside which he rolls two barrels of decent-ish wine.

From the baths come a stack of towels piled high in his arms, hindering his vision to such a degree that he may crash into someone not paying attention; pillows and the like come next, in armloads that take multiple trips, by the end of which he's visibly out of breath.

Lastly, it's his very own water pipe making an appearance, which he arranges amidst comfortable ground seating mimics how his room used to look: in fact, most of the accoutrements here are his personal belongings.
As such, he knows just how to set everything to create an attractive, if minimalist, space for an afternoon's leisure.

II. Party?

It may not be an all-out bash like their excursion to the sandier shores of the Waking Sea some years ago, but this, if nothing else, is an opportunity for work on the Gallows to pause in palatable increments. One can be clearing rubble or cataloguing property for the morning, then pop over for an hour of sunbathing and a glass of wine; they're all within calling out distance of the courtyard, and the party likely bleeds into the day's work in a manner somewhat more comfortable than if it were sequestered.

That said: the early summer sea water is cold, the sun is out but meek behind occasional cloud cover, and the festivities are on clean-swept stone rather than sand. The view across the water is of mainland Kirkwall, and all that that entails.
But it's none of it so bad, for anyone looking to take a break. A few musicians even show up a bit later in the afternoon, and Benedict provides a bonfire in the center of the party space as the sun goes down.

Anything brought to share is met with effusive thanks from Benedict, who ensures its appropriate placement and distribution. He doesn't spend much time relaxing himself, instead making the rounds with the air of a fussy host, where he's quick to offer refills or alternatives in libations, or diversions for unsatisfactory activities.

[make your own starters, do your thing, go hog wild-- if you have logistical questions feel free to ask on plurk or discord]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Clarisse wouldn't have ever thought to throw a beach party here, so she has to give Benedict credit where credit is due. The beach is mostly just rocks, and the water's pretty cold, but there's music, drinks, and a bonfire—what else could they possibly need?

While the sun is out, Clarisse ventures into the water and pretends she's not freezing her ass off. She seems intent on finding someone to race with her, either in the sea or on the rocky shore, or if that doesn't seem appealing, to spar with her. Either way. Please do something with her, she might implode if she stops moving and lets her thoughts catch up with her.

"Come on, don't be a pussy."

Later, she's at the bonfire, glass of wine in hand. She's gotten quiet, but doesn't look particularly sad, just sort of blank as she gazes into the fire. It's anybody's guess what (who) she's thinking about, but after a minute she turns and says,

"Tell me a story."

Once the sun has gone down and the bonfire has been lit, Gwenaëlle has wrapped herself up in her bear slanket, a thing comically large for her frame, large enough that it had once easily accommodate two dwarves (one on the other's shoulders) delivering it to her room in Skyhold with their best impression of a fearsome animal. (They hadn't quite known how to play it off when she'd been delighted instead of terrified.) It is part blanket, part coat (it's hard to immediately tell, but when she shifts it's clear it has sleeves) and part trophy, the enormous bear head resting on her shoulder, glass eyes glinting in the firelight and gazing sightlessly at Clarisse (which makes three out of four eyeballs there false, for those playing at home).

It's cosy. She wonders sometimes at the others of the Inquisiton who Asher had made these for, where they all ended up; she thinks, though she isn't certain, that she might be the only one here. It is an excellent outfit for telling stories in, and it puts her in mind for a moment of the Boneflayers around a campfire, listening to Yngvi read from whatever he'd lately got his hands on.

He isn't even far, in Kirkwall, but absorbed back into the Carta he might as well be a world away. She's said, “Alright,” thinking of him, before she's realised she's decided to.

“Any sort of story in particular?” Is this a good time for a sad story, or a heroic one, or something sweet—

Hmm. The bear head thing is very Gwenaëlle, she has to admit. Intimidating and yet so very weird. And Clarisse has seen people wear much weirder shit, she can't really judge, but now that she's facing Gwen she does keep making awkward eye contact with the bear. So that's uncomfortable.

Anyway, she doesn't need to think about what kind of story she wants. She knows what she's about. "Something exciting." That's the most important thing. "And... not too short."

She's on a mission here. Mission Don't Be Alone With Your Thoughts. Gwen is the best person to help with it, too. She likes to talk and she knows a lot about a lot of people. It's perfect.

The wheels turning behind her eyes are almost visible as Gwenaëlle leans back, considering, rifling through the stories she has at her disposal and deciding—

not that. Or that. Definitely not that. A distraction shouldn't be depressing, so she's got to find something that doesn't end with of course, they are dead now. Best not to think too hard on how severely that narrows her options. Don't think about it at all, in fact, just settle on,

“My uncle and aunt live in a cottage,” she begins, “in the Free Marches. They've a retired war mabari, a cat,” and very probably a dementia related suicide pact, but frankly, in these trying times the fact they've got to retire of their own volition and have the luxury of probably being in control of how Luwenna Coupe's decline ends— that's plenty romantic, and anyway, she's not going to mention that part, “and if it were pressing, we could probably stash someone in their basement if we needed to hide a person for a week or two.”

This sounds like the end of a story. And it is, but:

“Ten years ago, what I knew about my one paternal uncle was that he was dead. He had been no more than a story for all my life— when he was a boy, he was taken away to the Circle. He and my father,” a kinder thing to call him than my lord, though this story will wind its way through crueller paths for that man in due course, “wrote each other diligently. I had never seen him, nor heard his voice; my father hadn't since he was not even at the beginning of manhood. I couldn't picture him. He was a stranger who sometimes asked after me, in letters that my father would read, and I would mostly tune him out. Sometimes in the letters that he would read to me, Oncle Gervais would speak of la roitelet, the wren, and I thought him a dull man in a tower who watched birds. I didn't think of him often. I would receive Satinalia gifts in his name, to his specification, that my father had paid for and arranged; one of them was a knife. Jeweled. He has its twin, and I don't know what sort of favours, bribes or threats were involved in my father making sure he was allowed that—”

But she is certain that there were threats.

“When I was sent to Skyhold, it was sent with me in its case. I wondered what had happened to the other; we were told that he was dead, after the annulment of his Circle, called the White Spire. There were survivors of that Circle, mostly who'd been elsewhere when it was annulled, but my father was certain and I had no reason to disbelieve him: if his brother lived, he would have word. There had been no word. The knife came with me from Skyhold, then, to Kirkwall, where I first met a woman named Luwenna Coupe.”

Clarisse is not typically the sort of person who sits quietly and still to listen to a story. Even when she's enjoying one, she fidgets and asks questions. Gwenaëlle is lucky tonight, because Clarisse has just hit the level of drunkenness where she's pleasant to be around—chill and willing to go along with pretty much whatever.

So she listens in silence, hardly moving, a little hypnotized by the flames and the weird bear head's glass eyes.

"Luwenna Coupe," she repeats when there's a pause in the story, sort of testing how the name feels in her mouth. Since this is a Gwen story literally anything could happen, but Clarisse is already suspicious of anyone new showing up in any kind of tale, since there's a decent chance they're going to end up being a villain. The Gwen factor only adds to it. "Then what?"

“I didn't like her.”

What a breadth of sins that covers.

“I'd heard of her, a little; la limier, the mage hunter. A Templar, but the Chantry hadn't recovered then the way that it has now, so that wasn't a straightforward thing any more— they'd all been disavowed with the war, and the Divine's death, and sort of no one was a real Templar any more, they were just a bunch of drug addicts with swords.”

Now, of course, some of them are Templars again.

“But what that meant for people was different. She came to Riftwatch representing some dried up Chantry mothers somewhere in Orlais; I don't think I ever got the entire story. She had an interest in the propaganda I had been writing— which didn't explain, to me, the interest that she took in every other aspect of my life. Coupe, Coupe, Coupe. Everywhere I turned, there she was, at my elbow, having a fucking opinion about what I was doing.”

(Wow, that doesn't sound like anybody familiar at all.)

“When she first met me, I was— a soft thing with sharp teeth. A hot house flower in fine dresses. The only knife I owned was the one that my uncle had given to me, and I'd never held it to purpose; I'd lifted it, once or twice. Examining the jewel settings. Showing a friend. But only that. Coupe had decided to put herself in charge of my further education, insisting upon my practise and study with the powers that the anchor-shard was developing, and when the second ability was more ... projectile than what I had had before, she decided that it was past time I learned to defend myself. I didn't want to.”

It's hard to imagine, now. Oh, she swans around the Gallows or about her Kirkwall errands in a fine dress often enough, but she's rarely unarmed doing it; always among the first to volunteer throwing herself bodily at whatever Forces needs of them. It's still strange, sometimes, to know that there are people who wouldn't recognise the girl who had been sent, wailing, into the Frostbacks.

“I didn't understand why it mattered so fucking much to her. And I could have made her stop; my grandfather is l'Duc de Coucy. If I'd told him I wanted her to leave me alone, he'd arrange it. If I'd told him I wanted her sent to the Emprise and left in the snow somewhere, he'd probably have arranged it. I didn't...” Her nose wrinkles. “I didn't like the idea of being unable to manage it myself. I could have ruined her life with a word, but we'd both know I'd had to go running to bon-papa to do it, and I couldn't stand that. So I tried to hurt her, instead. To make it so unbearable to be around me that she wouldn't bear it — no one had ever asked her to. I am exceptional at making people fuck off when I want to. I got to know her, as she was getting to know me; I tested every vulnerability I could think of. I pressed her past the bounds of patience or politeness. I was cruel,” matter of fact, “in the hopes that I would find the knife that hurt her so badly she would stop making me handle the one my uncle had given me.”

It's possible that Gwenaëlle is the villain of this story.

“And there she was, inexorable, at my elbow. I always remember when we were standing in what had been my ballroom, converted for the purpose, and I was holding that knife, and over and over she would say: who is holding the knife? She would make me answer, and it was ... worse than the demon. The first one I ever saw, the rage demon that did this to me,” drawing her thumb down the line of burned-in clawmarks that curve around her breast, disappear down her sternum into her decolletage. “It felt like laying in the dirt, burning, waiting to die. I was so sure that these people protected me only because they had to; that if I learned even a little to fight, that they would abandon me to die. That if they could tell themselves, it's a shame, but we expected her to be capable, they would— it would be a little diplomatic incident, but not impossible to smooth over. I didn't see what she was seeing.”

"How old were you?"

Not that their experiences are equivalent. Still, listening to Gwen talk, it's hard not to feel a connection with someone who is describing what she is: being sent away, or taken, or both, and being forced to learn to be a part of an entirely new world, and having someone at your back every day showing you all the ways in which you're not good enough.

A log pops in the fire. Clarisse watches its insides flare red as the flames consume it.

"And what was she seeing?"

party ota

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

water

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

water

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject