i try my best to become poetry. i take a bath and stain the water with black ink.

[trouvaille]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin + YOU.
WHAT: Gwenaëlle arrives in Skyhold, etcetera.
WHEN: The current AC period.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: She is arriving with a retinue, including resources for the Inquisition (a physician who will join the healers included) and her own maid. Also, if you prefer spam to prose, no problem! I will match however you tag in.

( FOR ANDERS )
Gwenaëlle does not seek out a healer herself.

She sends her lady's maid - Katell, a Halamshiral-born elf - to give the anxious request that her lady does not wish to come to the healer's tents and won't he please accompany her back to the lady's rooms?

The small suite that Katell shows him and his accompaniment to is still in the midst of being unpacked for Gwenaëlle's comfort, but even in the arrival chaos it's plain that someone (presumably the Comte Vauquelin) has gone to great efforts to make her as comfortable as can be done, making the rooms a small oasis of Orlesian familiarity, decorated as befits a young woman of her station and inclinations. Silk hangings, art, an already mostly full bookshelf, a full length mirror, her own bedding - and the prideful creature herself sitting on a cushioned chaise, her back stiff and straight, her small hands fidgeting anxiously with the edge of her robe until a moment after the door opens, flattening immediately.

It presents an immediate explanation as to why she might not have wanted to come down to the healing tents; the bandages pressed against the thin robe tell a story that she might not want to go down where she doesn't feel entirely safe to undress.

( FOR ADELAIDE )
It's with some reluctance that Gwenaëlle seeks out the woman she persists in thinking of as Councilor Leblanc rather than Gregoire's sister; he had been persuasive, but she hadn't forgotten that he'd never actually met his older sister. A person could write anything in a letter. Had they even exchanged letters? It hadn't occurred to her to ask, too fixated on the fact he hadn't done anything else - only there's no one else here she might claim anything like acquaintance with and he did promise, and inasmuch as she trusts anyone, she might trust that Gregoire wouldn't make her a promise he didn't at least try to keep. She will, she decides, graciously not blame him for it when this goes awry. She won't even say she told him so. She will let her disappointed silence speak for itself. It will be a very short letter.

He will be so sorry.

At least Cyprienne isn't here to see her fall on her face. She squares her shoulders and dismisses Katell, carrying on up to the battlements (a bit of privacy at this hour - no one needs to see her fall on her face) unaccompanied with a shawl pulled close against the chill in the air, her face bare of the Orlesian mask she'd worn on her journey. It feels strange and uncomfortable to go without it, but she's observed enough of Skyhold in the short time she's been here to hesitate to so visually separate herself, however much she might like to be separate in as many way as possible. Even Madame de Fer is seen here bare-faced -

And if it's good enough for her, then Gwenaëlle is not going to be the one to suggest Lady Vivienne has misstepped. She's stuck here for the foreseeable future; she has to try to adapt. To learn. To be smart whether it's comfortable or not.

"Lady Leblanc?"

( FOR ANYONE )
Having reached the end of her journey to Skyhold, Gwenaëlle isn't entirely sure what - happens next. Her father had sent her here because what else could he do, but he'd been understandably vague about what he imagined being there might entail for her, and she had her doubts that anyone would be interested in helping her figure it out. They all had better things to be doing than paying any heed to some Orlesian debutante with a shard in her hand; what use is that going to be to the Inquisition? It isn't as if they could send her off to close rifts.

It probably isn't as if they'd do that, she thinks, with a spike of fear.

So- for a lack of anything to do with herself (and with Katell engaged in the business of unpacking and organising her accommodation, and for the time being no relief to be found in retreating there), she explores. She goes to see what everyone else does with their time, peering into anywhere she isn't hurried away from, huge eyed and a little bit suspicious.

Comments

[trouvaille]

Tellingly, she doesn't take the time to dispute his if; she smiles at him, polished and untrustworthy, knowing. When. Now or however long it takes her to disentangle herself from this mess-- and if it's that, she abruptly decides, she will make a point of ensuring he receives a copy of his very own. She'll have to find out his full name and where on earth he's from between then and now, but these are details for later. She is as utterly confident in her ability to do it as she is in the inevitability of getting her way.

So she'll be vexed if he dies first.

"People often say," she says, in the tone of slightly critical observation. "A little more rare they actually mean it."

[nonsibi]

She's not wrong about that, in the very general. Nor is she wrong to be suspicious of how much Bellamy means it. People often say a lot. That's part of his problem with people.

Which means he meets her observation without flinching. "I've heard a lot of nice lies." He shrugs, one shouldered. Not much bothered, which might suggest that somewhere in the very recent past he was very bothered, but has taught himself not to be, or learned not to be. Or maybe his shrug is just a shrug. "And a lot of shitty lies, too. I prefer the truth to either of those. And I actually mean that."

Stress on the actually, mimicking her tone. He smiles, dryly, to show that there should be no hard feelings.

"I think I can take reading a few honest truths about the Inquisition. Hell, I think I'll enjoy it."

[trouvaille]

"That, I believe." He definitely seems like he'd enjoy it.

And the critical tone that lingers is softened - or just differently edged - by the playful way she pushes her shoulder against his before she rises, dusting off her skirts absently and ineffectively. (The worst of it is really at the hem, and there is neither anything she can do about that now nor indeed any inclination in her to fuss over it immediately. Katell will sigh over it, later, but they haven't the sort of mistress-and-maid relationship as to invite familiar scolding; Gwenaëlle in all probability hasn't had any kind of scolding and certainly not any earnest dressing down since the late Comtesse's passing.)

"What is your name? I don't believe you gave it."

Nor did she give hers, but in fairness, she's usually introduced by someone else. It's the done thing. Skyhold is all manner of new experiences.