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[ungovernable]

WHO: Benevenuta Thevenet, Dorian Pavus, Zevran Arainai, Nerva Lecuyer, Taashath, Rafael Viteri AND THE OTHER ONE. I don't know how to spell that and I already looked up Rafa's name.
WHAT: Pretty much what it says on the tin. And by tin I mean subject line.
WHEN: Covering a span of several weeks, after puppies and before showing up late to Emprise du Lion.
WHERE: Nevarra, mostly.
NOTES: Plotting post; original sign up post. Get at me at matriarchal or via PM if you have needs.

Having taken Ayse's information to the Inquisition leaders, Benevenuta is dispatched with a small group to handle the matter in Nevarra. Feel free to do individual closed threads within the subheaders of anything you want to achieve in Nevarra, and we can work out amongst ourselves how best to do plot elements! We will try to spread out plot contributions so that we don't get bogged down in a ten thousand person thread for any one part.

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[ungovernable]

At least for now, Benevenuta opts to do it the hard way - she doesn't doubt the command word will come in very useful later, but for now, there is nothing so urgent on the road as to make it worthwhile to play with his enchanted ring just because she can. Simple enough to bring her mount alongside his, and draw his attention with her presence.

She has to look up quite a way, even on her horse. It isn't as if people taller than she is are such a novelty - petite enough at five six, for all that that isn't dramatically small - but certainly the number of Qunari, Tal Vashoth and Vashoth in Skyhold is. One that she's been rather enjoying, for all that she's only really spent much time with Korrin, and that in a decidedly professional context. For the most part.

She'd enjoyed being dipped, First Night.

"How did you come to the Inquisition, if I may ask?"

--is a friendly inquiry, in the hopes of a better grasp on who he is. With the exception of Dorian, and somewhat less explicably, Nerva, the group that accompanies her is an eclectic one that she knows little. Taas least of all, which makes him the most immediately interesting.

[quietblade]

He turns to look at her as soon as he notices the horse matching steps with his own. She's a gorgeous little thing, all fine features from what had to be some fancy pedigree. It would be a lie to say that Taas didn't enjoy watching those lips move prettily over words, easy and crisp to read from a good education rather than the bot of drawl that followed most Fereldans. At least it wasn't so distracting that he forgot to actually read the whole sentence.

"It was a bit of an accident, to be honest. I was a bodyguard to a noble that arrived in Skyhold, and he cut me loose there to use Inquisition soldiers on his way back." He slows the steps of the large horse a bit so the lady's mount could keep up. "I had to stay for a while to either find another employer or gather enough money to leave. Meanwhile, I got to know many of the people there and learned more about what the Inquisition was doing."

He hadn't felt the need to be a hero, unsure what kind of acceptance a Tal-Vashoth would have in that mostly-human organization. But things had changed. He changed.

"When I finally got another employer and left, I felt oddly hollow. A week later, I made my way back to Skyhold to officially join." There's a small shrug following that, as if to smooth it over. It was the past now, and here he was.

"What about you, Lady Thevenet?" His pronunciation of her name is utterly atrocious.

[ungovernable]

Little fox creature that she is, Benevenuta manages not to wince at the appalling mangling of her beloved name. It's a near thing, granted, but she manages it - letting her horse (Buck; not hers, per se, but the same horse she tends to ride when leaving Skyhold, a willful creature whose temperament had ill-suited Dorian the first time they'd gone together) settle into pace beside his, her own mien contemplative.

"To join the Inquisition is why I came," she says, after a moment, which presumably comes as little to no surprise; she is in less of a position to 'just sort of wind up' anywhere. "I believe in their work - I believe that they are where I might do the most good. It is the responsibility, I have always said, for those who can act to do so." Noblesse oblige writ large, her bleeding heart staining her hands that she might try to wrap them slickly around the whole world.

Words that might sound trite given a weight that lends her back the years her girlish countenance tends to shave off. She's a sweet creature, but all edges.

After a moment-- "Your deafness - if I shape the sound more precisely, you can mimic that?"

A careful inquiry; she doesn't want to insult him by just repeating her name at him, louder.

[quietblade]

Taas is not surprised, and while nobles and their politics are mostly beyond him, he can appreciate the will to help. Even if it was entwined with other things - proving oneself, showing a sweet, heroic side to the world, pissing off your parents? It was all good as long as she helped the Inquisition.

It was a good addition, in any case. Pretty, engaging, sharp.

Proud, too.

Her careful question is fairly expected, and he shakes his head a bit. "It still looks like the same words to me, but I can try sounding it differently and you could point me to what sounds the most acceptable." He shrugs a bit. "Otherwise I can refer to you as my lady, if you so desire." It might be easier in the long run, but for her honor, he'd be happy to attempt to do better.

'Mistress' would be a better title later, deep in Nevarra with his servitude to her cemented in their cover.

[ungovernable]

She'd thought to write it down, perhaps, but she isn't sure that will be of any more help; his suggestion, she thinks, is a serviceable one. As is simply calling her my lady, and it is entirely possible that this adventure in pronunciation may end, ruefully, with just that - but it isn't in her nature to let things be, as a general rule. Even silly little things.

Pride, yes, but more than one kind: it pricks at her to hear her name mangled when she is so very proud of it, but it would draw her ire to hear him mocked for his mangling of it, later. There are strangers with her, here, but now they are her strangers and she extends to them the same fierceness with which she guards her own self. More, probably; Benevenuta has never considered herself more important than what she can give. (Ayse Thevenet had birthed a child, but she'd molded of her an acolyte.)

It's easy for her to do. One of many reasons why the Inquisition has fit her like a favourite glove; one of many reasons why her edges are so, so sharp.

"Let us try that," she settles on. "Sound it out a different way." Her sidelong smile, from beneath her lashes, is almost sly. "This is to be a long journey, after all. We will want for occupation."

And it'll probably take them a while.

[quietblade]

The warrior watches her, that smile softening a bit as he tries to think of ways to pronounce the name. It could even become a game, how he tries to form the different vowels and push on different parts of 'Thevenet'. He has a tendency to push the 'The' towards the 'Tevinter' pronunciation, but a few others are attempted as well.

It was most likely an amusing spectacle to the rest of their companions as the big warrior repeated the noble lady's name over and over again with a bit of humor in his brown eyes.

He's a pulled out of it by the warhorse tensing a bit under him, ears pulled back - but it's only a small caravan of refugees. Most likely leaving Orlais due to the brewing civil war. Watching them for a moment to make sure nothing threatening came from it, he then continues his endeavor.