crystal;

[heirring]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Wysteria
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: A very heartfelt announcement. No shenanigans here, no siree.

[The sun is—well, not quite shining as it is rather very overcast. The birds are—shrieking is really more in line with what the seagulls swooping about the Gallows do. But at least Wysteria Poppell is this morning at her most aggressively bright:]

Good Morning, Riftwatch. This is Miss Wysteria Poppell with a very brief but quite happy announcement.

For those of you who are not otherwise engaged outside the Gallows on the date in question, I should like to cordially invite you on Summerday to bring your best clothes and join the company which will be travelling from here to Edlingham Hall in the Vinmark foothills.

Warden Andrasteia has helped to arrange a very lively party there. We will be camping in the ruin overnight, and expect to engage in all the usual dancing and playing of music and general revelry which is typical in celebration of myself and Monsieur de Foncé's most sincere wedding vows.

Gifts are not unwelcome, but are hardly necessary; we wish only to celebrate our most enduring happiness with anyone who should care to share it. Thank you in advance for all your kind words and congratulations.

Comments

[bouchonne]

[ He wants to rip out his own hair as he grates out: ]

Concern does not answer to necessity or a lack thereof. It remains regardless.

[heirring]

Then I can do little for it.

[bouchonne]

[ UGH. ]

You can at least offer it a few tiny droplets of respect.

[heirring]

[?????????????????????????????]

For stating your mind?

[bouchonne]

I did not request respect for me. I requested some respect for the concern itself. The fact that there is some bit of - care for you out there in the world isn't something to scorn.

[heirring]

[In some other circumstance, where she is not holding a fistful of lies in the one hand and hurt feelings in the other, maybe there is room for some measure of charity in this moment. Patience enough to hear what he means, or to say the right thing in reply to it.

But in this one she is quite sick of him.]

Oh really, Mister Rutyer! As if I were not perfectly aware of it! And as if you were the only source of it! Consider, sir, that surely there are people in my life with which I share a much close friendship than ours and that none of them have raised any objection.

[But would they? Who knows. Certainly not Wysteria, perpetually forgetful of soliciting anyone else's opinions on her impulses.]

Your concern is not for me. It is for who you imagine I am. To say nothing of your brutish assessment of de Foncé.

[bouchonne]

It is for whom you have pretended to be with me.

[ There's frustration audible in his voice. ]

Maker, Miss Poppell, you have studiously endeavored to make yourself seem a proper young lady, concerned solely with propriety - [ that's the same thing as proper, whatever - ] and then lash out at me for - what, for not recognizing how phenomenally iconoclastic and intellectual you are. I have seen you how you have portrayed yourself, and you blame me for that.

[heirring]

Oh yes. How dare I be offended when a person jump to some conclusion based off an assessment made during their first meeting which they then never bothered to revise. I can think of no one else in the world who has ever been so affronted.

[bouchonne]

Yes, you did not a single thing that continued to contribute to that impression. It was only that first time. Never again. Maker, why do you think I said you acted frivolous?

[heirring]

Really, Mister Rutyer. Do you even hear yourself?

[bouchonne]

What am I supposed to be hearing, Miss Poppell?

[heirring]

You of all people, scolding a person for their—their habit of personality.

[bouchonne]

[ He bites his tongue to swallow his habitual response. Instead: ]

I will confess that there are occasions when I do play up being a scoundrel and a cad. Yes. But the roots of that are far deeper than anything that goes on here.

[heirring]

So, what? Yours is the only history which matters? Or is it because I stepped through the Fade to come here and you believe everything which came before it to be irrelevant or false?

[bouchonne]

No. The difference is that I don't scold you, or call you a cruel little fool, for being on your guard around me. Unlike you, who's ever so offended that I'm not - what - simultaneously taken in by your facade and also awestruck at the truth of your phenomenal intellect? That you don't both get to win my admiration and preen in satisfaction that you've played me for a fool?

[heirring]

You are scolding me in this very instant, Mister Rutyer. After I have told you—

There is no single conversation we've ever had where you didn't purposefully bait me into being cruel to you and then treat me ill because of it! If I'm am to be held responsible for it, then you might at least equally bear the burden. Don't pretend like I'm some villain as if you've never been purposefully horrible to me.

[bouchonne]

I -

[ He scoffs. ]

When did I ever bait you into being cruel to me? That doesn't even make sense. We've had a great many conversations in which you weren't cruel at all. Until you turned astoundingly chilly, for no reason I can remotely recall.

[heirring]

When? You do it with such regularity that it can be nothing but intentional! If you truly believe propriety is my chief concern then you have made every effort to offend it and none whatsoever to afford it any respect. I hardly expect you to be polite, but to think you believe it matters so much to me and then to make not even the smallest attempt to—

I know I don't fit here. And I know I am sometimes unpleasant or stupid because of it. But you are the one with the sharp stick who is offended when I don't say thank you for being jabbed by it. I can only assume you learned it in Orlais.

[bouchonne]

If I were acting like a bloody Orlesian, I wouldn't be poking anything; I'd be sneering at you and condescending to you and treating you sweetly like you're too dull to know the difference. I - [ He could rip off his own mustache, he really could. ] And Maker, why would you say those sorts of things about yourself? You're nothing of the sort.

[heirring]

[Trampling resolutely over that last part, as it's deeply inconvenient to her current grievance—]

Is that not what you've done? Treated me as if I'm blind to the fact that you will pick and prod whenever we are in conversation until I at last stumble over something, and then come to my defense only when someone else might overhear or see it?

And the worst part is I've no idea why you even do it. I have seen you be a sort of kind and even generous, and Alexandrie insists upon your good qualities and your wife—who is far more well mannered than I have ever claimed to be—evidently must find something to recommend you by. But somehow I've offended your sensibilities so thoroughly that even saying that I would prefer not to argue with you becomes an insult!

[bouchonne]

[ Why does he do it? He opens his mouth, then closes it, feeling beyond frustrated. What can he say that won't sound absolutely awful? I do it because any time anyone is pompous - and you are pompous, Miss Poppell - I cannot not needle them. But that sounds so dreadfully cruel. Because there's also - How else can one be, with others? He never learned the softer arts, how to be kind and gentle. How to speak in a way that makes people glad. He must be nasty. He is nasty.

But also - ]

Because the world deserves to be laughed at. Society deserves to be laughed at. The things that deserve to be treated with reverence are few and far between. And a person's pride certainly doesn't fit that category.

[heirring]

And what of yours have I wounded exactly, if not your pride?

[bouchonne]

I don't claim to be wounded.

[heirring]

Then—

[As if looking up and all at once discovering herself in a familiar room she dislikes, she cedes into an abrupt, harsh silence. Maker, if he were in front of her right now she would strike him for it.

Which is exactly the point.]

Fine. Congratulations, Mister Rutyer. You have once again tricked me into making a fool of myself. I hope you savor it.

[bouchonne]

[ Taken aback - ]

I haven't tricked you into anything. And you haven't made a fool of yourself.

[ What is it, then? He shakes his head, then says: ]

If there is some offense, it's that you treat me so persistently as though I am your enemy. When it is, in truth, my fervent desire to see you well and happy.