crystal.

[elegiaque]

FORM: Crystal!
SENDER: Gwenaëlle Baudin.
RECIPIENT: Anyone with a crystal.
WHAT: Summary of content.
WHEN: Currentish.
WHERE: She's in Halamshiral; wherever you all are.
NOTES: Optional side quest. Also I know the difference between Kirkwall and Halamshiral and didn't edit her misspeaking a day later. You don't know.

This is Gwenaëlle Baudin. I need to make a brief trip from Halamshiral to an estate in the Dales, and given what happened the last time I took that road—

( understandably tersely, for those who do know what it was that happened, )

—I would prefer to do it with several able warriors. I've some other contacts I can reach out to closer to hand if no one is available, but I'm not in a great rush to do it, so if anyone is bored of the unrest in Kirkwall and would like to make a bit of coin on the side while touring some different, exciting unrest in what I assume will be remembered as the last days of Orlais before it was overrun by Corypheus, do be in touch.

Do not bother responding if you can't bring yourself to refrain from embarrassing the Inquisition in the High Quarter.

Comments

[elegiaque]

Most people are fuckwits. How much money they have has very little to do with it beyond how long some fuckwits astonishingly manage to survive in the world.

What was your name?

[shri]

Maharani Lakshmi Bai.

[ a pause, taking a small amount of mercy of foreigners who stumble over the name and titles. ]

Lakshmi or Rani will do.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle clothilde decima vauquelin de vauquelin turned baudin

has never taken mercy on anyone in that regard. she repeats, )

Maharani Lakshmi Bai, ( just to be sure she has the right of it, before settling on, ) Lakshmi, if you prefer.

I prefer Gwenaëlle. ( it's a tricky one, but she does not supply anything easier to pronounce. )

[shri]

[ And nor does Lakshmi stumble on it in return - in fact, there's a mild amount of being impressed. She's rather used to the chiding from well... most people in Europe. ]

Gwenaëlle.

I take it this means I am to be hired?

[elegiaque]

Mmm. You, Ricart and Nell Voss. I expect it to take a week or a little more.

( she names the pay, then; generous enough that no one would have asked her for that much. )

[shri]

[ Low fucking whistle. That's not bad at all. ]

I will be in contact with them. Do you know if either of them happen to be near the Gallows?

[elegiaque]

Probably.

( a beat. then: )

You'll get farther here in general if you refrain from mentioning your former title.

( neither hostile nor derisive; advice. )

[shri]

[ And would that it were that easy. ]

If only it were as simple as that. But I will be keeping it, all the same.

[elegiaque]

( more dryly, ) Then you can be an idiot on your own time, but if I hear it mentioned in Orlais you will be left behind without payment.

[shri]

... Titles bother you particularly?

[elegiaque]

Am I to assume that 'being particularly bright' was not a requirement for queens in your imaginary land where you can tell me you were anything you want to.

Let's say I fall through a hole in your world. And I tell you that I am the Empress of Orlais. Because I can. Convincingly, probably. How much does that matter? How seriously do you take the madwoman desperately telling everyone that she's empress? Some mercenary wanders around a city in your world, declaring herself to be queen of a far-off place no one has ever heard of that might not be real, or possibly full of demons.

Because she wants to be thought experienced and competent, she tells people who have no reason to think she's not a con artist or a demon that she's definitely a queen.

I'm not saying you're a liar, ( forestalling the argument: ) I am saying it doesn't matter. If it's a lie, it's a stupid one because no one cares. If it's true, it's irrelevant, because no one cares, and it hurts you, because now either you're a liar or you're just not very good at getting by.

All you need to be in Orlais is a sword who knows when to shut her mouth.

[shri]

[ Well - that's a great deal isn't it.

But whose she to say not to decent money? ]

I see, Mademoiselle. My apologies.

[elegiaque]

( it would be rude to say and she's getting the hang of it already, and while gwenaëlle is not particularly opposed to being rude—

she's made her point and they're going to be in close quarters. she's not antagonistic to no purpose (...presently), but whenever she tries to make a point there is the small problem that this is the only way she talks. this is what trying to help looks like, even if it's self-interested help in the sense of really preferring that no rifter steps in it in the high quarter—

a little exhalation. )

If you want to talk about your past around the fire of an evening, I'm not a complete fucking lunatic. ( mostly. ) But introducing yourself that way while we're traveling would be a problem, is my point. So I'm glad we understand one another.

[shri]

[ She shrugs, then remembers that she can't see her. Ah, right. Still getting used to more than a few things here. ]

Your problem is not with me, and nor a yelling that you can't stand anyone to be above you, as many I know would. [ A sigh. ] As you say, I would be a fool to ignore a simple matter of practicality, especially in a country I do not know well.

[elegiaque]

( the laugh is quiet, and—ugly, a painful thing that she chooses not to explain. something there struck bone, but she wills it not to matter. )

Yes.

* nor are you .... fingers please

[shri]

[ It's something to note, at the very least. This has been a problem with a great many before. One more thing to file into what to manage whilst she's here. ]

Anything else?

ah the good old i swore i typed those words

[elegiaque]

That's all.