Gwenaëlle doesn't make it easy for Marcellin to pin her down in conversation. Her letters returned to her unopened; his and the Rouxes silence on her scandal. The distance between them that had always had a tension to it become chasm-like and seemingly insurmountable — she had put it aside. She hasn't spoken of him in nearly so long as he's seemingly forgotten how to speak to her. Their tenuous kinship brought to an inglorious end, until he needs something.
Of course. Of course, but—
she makes it difficult. Not impossible. The simmering fury under her skin is the tell that they have finally spoken, brother to sister, prodigal to disgrace.
“You're a fucking idiot,” she tells him, first of all, and hates the way he waits her out across the table. Hates that she says, “I need every fucking detail, Marcellin,” instead of I'm going to call the guard and you can get yourself out of it for once.
She does not do that. Over the course of the next several weeks, instead, she traipses between eluvians and makes preparations: there is a family with a property in one of the finer districts of Nevarra City that has no intention of returning to it, and a bitter dispute with several neighbours such that they are particular about who they might sell to. The matter of abandoned prime real estate has recently become a more pressing one, given the prospect of having it back, and the willingness (Gwenaëlle twists her brother's arm so hard if it weren't figurative it'd probably have broken) to pay up front ahead of the districts opening up is an appealing solution to an irritating problem.
“You own the house,” she informs Marc, “but you're not going to be living there right away.”
“Mm, well. My just desserts for that slumming it joke, I expect—”
Heroically, she does not hit him. It is not off the table.
No: into the bargain is a small selection of the original owners' staff, currently among the finest tent city this side of the Grand Tourney, where Marc will be whiling away the hours for the foreseeable future, and in the meantime ... the matter of getting him there.
The townhouse is darkened when she leads Ness and Abby to a back entrance by dusklight,
“Lord Roux thinks he's amusing. Feel free not to entertain him on that point,” she says, dry. “We're going to come back here after we've settled him, I want to search the house absolutely top to bottom after.”
abby, ness & special guest; val royeaux to nevarra city.
Gwenaëlle doesn't make it easy for Marcellin to pin her down in conversation. Her letters returned to her unopened; his and the Rouxes silence on her scandal. The distance between them that had always had a tension to it become chasm-like and seemingly insurmountable — she had put it aside. She hasn't spoken of him in nearly so long as he's seemingly forgotten how to speak to her. Their tenuous kinship brought to an inglorious end, until he needs something.
Of course. Of course, but—
she makes it difficult. Not impossible. The simmering fury under her skin is the tell that they have finally spoken, brother to sister, prodigal to disgrace.
“You're a fucking idiot,” she tells him, first of all, and hates the way he waits her out across the table. Hates that she says, “I need every fucking detail, Marcellin,” instead of I'm going to call the guard and you can get yourself out of it for once.
She does not do that. Over the course of the next several weeks, instead, she traipses between eluvians and makes preparations: there is a family with a property in one of the finer districts of Nevarra City that has no intention of returning to it, and a bitter dispute with several neighbours such that they are particular about who they might sell to. The matter of abandoned prime real estate has recently become a more pressing one, given the prospect of having it back, and the willingness (Gwenaëlle twists her brother's arm so hard if it weren't figurative it'd probably have broken) to pay up front ahead of the districts opening up is an appealing solution to an irritating problem.
“You own the house,” she informs Marc, “but you're not going to be living there right away.”
“Mm, well. My just desserts for that slumming it joke, I expect—”
Heroically, she does not hit him. It is not off the table.
No: into the bargain is a small selection of the original owners' staff, currently among the finest tent city this side of the Grand Tourney, where Marc will be whiling away the hours for the foreseeable future, and in the meantime ... the matter of getting him there.
The townhouse is darkened when she leads Ness and Abby to a back entrance by dusklight,
“Lord Roux thinks he's amusing. Feel free not to entertain him on that point,” she says, dry. “We're going to come back here after we've settled him, I want to search the house absolutely top to bottom after.”