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

[justice_is_blond]

He's tense, at first. It could be a trap considering how many people aren't exactly fond of him. His companion is equally tense and not sure, but the sight of the blood itself and the setting has Anders deciding to wave the other man out of the room so he can see to the woman's wounds and leave her a little privacy.

Maybe it's stupid. That wouldn't be anything new.

"You can lay down if you'd like," he says, stepping closer. "And I'm supposed to inform you that I'm known as Anders before I heal you, if that makes a difference."

She's pretty seriously hurt from what he can see. Logically, it wouldn't make a difference. But some people clearly prefer pain to certain sources of help.

[trouvaille]

The blank look she presents him with says it doesn't, and that she's mildly annoyed by the delay; she forces herself to relax the tension in her hands and lower them from her lap to the chaise, watching him with undisguised suspicion that has nothing to do with being Anders and everything to do with being a mage. Mages are not something Gwenaëlle has had a great deal of exposure to; she can't claim great acquaintance with Madame de Fer, and is generally of the opinion that she doesn't really count. She's in her own league, obviously. All of these other people - and him Fereldan, too, probably. Or...something, she doesn't place the accent.

After a moment, "I wouldn't and it doesn't."

So get on with it is sort of heavily implied, and that's when her hard as diamond exterior cracks a little and uncertainty shows through - how does it work, with mages? The wounds are extensive, as he can tell at even a glance, cauterised slashes on her torso and thigh that bleed sluggishly from exertion even as she's been tended to by her physician all the way from Orlais. Should she take her robe? What does he have to do?

Instead of asking, she sets her mouth and waits. He can just tell her if he needs anything.

(Katell excuses herself. Gwenaëlle doesn't acknowledge it, which is the same as permission.)

[justice_is_blond]

He approves of practicality. Healing is healing, no matter the source, and while the initial comment is a little more like an order than he appreciates, her expression changes it. She's hurt and tense and in pain.

"Breathe. This will feel warm, and may hurt initially if there's anything trapped inside the wounds. Could you tell me how you got them? The means, weaponry, that sort of thing."

His hands glow green as he focuses on what comes first, stopping the bleeding. Only then can he focus deeper on the muscle and tissue damage, seek out any possible poison, and so on.

"It's most important in case poison could have been introduced," he continues. Talking tends to help most patients, though he's not entirely sure this will be the case for her.

[trouvaille]

Poison makes her momentarily blanch; she doesn't seem particularly comforted by his bedside manner, but then, she doesn't seem as if she's terribly willing to be comforted, either. It takes her a few moments after he says breathe to remember to actually do it, exhaling so quickly and suddenly that it hurts before she measures her next breath with a bit more forced steadiness.

The journey from Orlais was not a comfortable one, and she'd been worn out at the beginning of it. There's an element of bloody-mindedness in how stiffly she can still manage to hold herself, here at the other end.

"It was a rage demon," she says, her gaze fixed at some point over his shoulder. "The - claws. It burned."

Her terse recounting is almost clinical. The experience had not been.

[justice_is_blond]

"Thank you." Rage demon he knows, and knows well. It also explains the cauterization he's finding and having to work with. It's never easy to mend around burned flesh, but at least the victims of Rage demons never bleed out.

"If you need to lean back or lean on me you may, the pain will get worse for a short time as I undo the burn damage while weaving flesh back together." His voice is more gentle now. She's been through a lot, and it's a mark of stubbornness or shock (or both) that she's still upright.

"In a few moments I can give you something for the pain, as well. I'm sorry, I'd give it now, but I need you conscious and aware for a time longer so your body has a chance to begin to accept the healing." Pain is not negligible. He doesn't like when his patients hurt, but she needs to make it just a little further as he works. "If it hits a point where it becomes unbearable, I'll adjust what I'm doing. Simply let me know."

And then it's time to focus and start bringing nerves and flesh back to life.