open (like hermione's heart)

[reparo]

WHO: Hermione Granger + you
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: end of Harvestmere to Haring
WHERE: Gallows, Crossroads, anywhere else that suits*
NOTES: * I will write you a starter, come at me with any idea at all. Otherwise, generic starters around, pick and choose

Comments

lands in here

[succise]

Tomorrow after breakfast is a cold mid-morning, one that sees Vega approach in a beautiful, dark blue coat with bell-shaped sleeves. The long hem is kept from touching the floor entirely by the heel of her boots and she's drawing gloves on after having eaten, off-white and woollen, wriggling her fingers into one at a time.

Her greeting is a question. Straight to business once again: "You'll be warm enough in the courtyard?"

'If not too bad' is implied.

[reparo]

The memories of Akhuras hit her every now and then unexpectedly. She used to own a cloak in that colour, the bottom of it embroidered with enchanted thread to look like it was on fire, the inner lining of it enchanted to stay warm. It had been made for her, not on request but as a gift, but someone she has kept nothing from and someone she'll never see again. She misses that cloak, but she misses its maker more.

It hit her as she walked towards the Lady Arany in her dark blue coat. Hermione manages to shake it off.

"I'll be fine," she answers, refusing - stubbornly - to feel embarrassed over the clothes she's wearing. It's all serviceable, but it is Riftwatch uniforms at best. She is wearing a woolen vest at least, tucked inside her trousers and topped off with a coat that has seen better days and probably been worn by others before. But this is fine. She's fine.

"I spotted the sparring grounds are empty, so let's head there."

[succise]

She's fine if she likes to look like she's a member of Riftwatch and nothing much more than that. Vega raises an eyebrow at her approach, smiling, but says nothing at all. Let Hermione come to her own conclusions about what exactly the look on her face means.

"Let's."

She extends her arm toward Hermione so that they might walk there together. It isn't far but the ground is hard and cold, as is the air outside. "You've been here — how long?" There's no time to remember such things about other people. "What do you think?"

[reparo]

So the Lady in Vega's titles is very much real. It would be an extreme faux pas not to take the offered arm, and so Hermione does take it. They walk.

"A few months now." She's not sure how to count the time, if her concept of months vastly differs from Thedas. Either way.

"What do I think of - what , exactly? The Gallows? Kirkwall? The world at large? The people here?" She huffs a tiny laugh. "Do you have the whole day?"

She shakes her head a little, and then hopes she's been disarmingly charming enough to get an honest answer from her companion-in-walking.

"What do you think of Rifters, Lady Vega?"

[succise]

Vega laughs too but it's a sound well-practiced, polite and eager, only there to encourage the other person to please do go on. She's made it many times: dinners, soirées, in public, whenever anybody thinks that she isn't paying any attention or could be dim—

And then when Hermione does not answer the question she thins her lips out, thinking. Presses her teeth against the soft inside of her cheek.

Sometimes you have to give to get back, something Vega knows all too well.

"I'm not sure what to think of you," she says, honest and a little irritated. "You're all so different. You come from different places and know different things. I would have to assess you all individually.

"And you didn't answer my question."

[reparo]

"You didn't answer mine, either," she points out, amused. Not her first rodeo with politicians, even if she's more fond of the direct approach.

But they're going to work out the diplomatic angle later, while practicing spells on each other.

For now, she presses on. "So I'll answer all of them. The Gallows are dreary, and I might just hate the statues. I do like the library here, it's been very useful to get used to existing in Thedas. Kirkwall feels like a complicated city with a complicated story, but I like some parts of it better than I enjoyed being in Minrathous the one time."

She shrugs here. "The world at large, it's hard to answer on, as it is - well - large. And as for the Riftwatch, I appreciate what the organisation is doing. Let's leave it there."