therookery | (no subject)

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(no subject)

FORM: sending crystal
SENDER: Val de Foncé
RECIPIENT: Riftwatch
NOTES: unrelated to anything

A question of great importance: who is the most interesting person in Riftwatch?

I am composing a list, which I very easily could make alone. But that is not amusing. So, the winner of the list will of course receive a prize. An extra point will be awarded to a Rifter, quite obviously. Points deducted for, hm, [totally at random here,] let us say.... Wardens. I have nothing against them. Once I admired them! Then I had my sixth birthday, and I grew bored with them.

All suggestions will be considered.

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I knew you would argue this!

Why should a Rifter not benefit from his novelty? It might be his one and only point in the game. Whereas a man stumbling from anywhere else will have other points that will put him very naturally above Monsieur Snooze, the Rifter. If anything, it is a spirit of charity that has inspired my scoring.

Oh! A spirit of charity is terribly interesting in a man of Orlais; are you included upon the list, Monsieur de Foncé?

I have withheld my inclusion, on the grounds of complete and total unfairness, madame.

And he reports a thought for considerate fairness!

It is true, you are indeed too interesting.

And what a burden it is. But I do not have to tell you this, of course.

The burden of being terribly interesting I know well, [ a grand sigh of sympathy, ] but I cannot say I am familiar with those of charity or consideration for equitable action.

[ With genuine concern: ] Do they weigh very heavily on you?

[Sober and sad:]

Ah, madame. Like lead. My shoulders are quite strong for having carried this burden all of these years now. But it is a burden that I bear gladly, for what good would come of a complaint?

And as you have noted, these are qualities which make me very interesting. Or they would, if I were allowed to boast of them. Which I am not.

Then you ought to have heeded me sooner! Let us suppose we have before us two men who are, in their souls, equally boring. Two men who each might cause even the Dean himself to slump into his soup. But one of these men is a Rifter and one is from Tantervale, by far the most boring of the Marches. Surely the Rifter will benefit from his novelty by receiving more votes than the Tantervalian even without your donated point?

On Tantervale and the Dean, we are agreed.

But Freddie, I would sooner speak with a Rifter than a Tantervalian. Dinner, eh, it could go either way. But a conversation? A Rifter, every time. At least I would hear something new. Surely that earns him his point!

Then he may earn his point from you honestly and there is no need for charity! I will not quarrel with that choice should you make it, simply with the notion that the man ought to earn some extra reward for the accident of his origins.

But it is the accident of his origin that makes him interesting. He did not seek it: true. But nor could he prevent it. So this accident merits this.

I am afraid we will simply have to disagree. But! I shall forgive you as long as you promise not to invite any deathly dull fellows to dinner, rifter or otherwise. And if you tell me who gets your vote. Other than ourselves and Jeannot of course.

You trust me so little, that you must secure a promise from me, so that I will curate a decent guest list? What infraction have I committed?

You seem far too attached to your Monsieur Snooze the rifter! You might invite him just to argue your point.

That would be entirely possible, to prove or to argue a point. If you and Jeannot were not the only other attendees. I would not do that to you.

I would do that to you at lunch, maybe. But not dinner. Dinner is sacrosanct.

I suppose that is acceptable. So long as you also provide some warning.

Now, who shall we vote for? I've been so busy with my monograph I feel I've forgotten who half these people are, if indeed I've ever known at all.

It is not your fault; most are forgettable. Of course my nominations are primarily Rifters. And you and Jeannot, naturally, but I would assign you both to myself, so there would not be much a point in adding you to the list. We will say that you are both a known and given quantity.

What thought have you given the heads of Riftwatch?

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