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

[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.

[heirring]

A thing which you only moments ago said was impossible.

[bouchonne]

With de Foncé.

[heirring]

Who I chose, and who likes me perfectly well as I am. Who almost certainly has never given any indication he cares much what you think of him and absolutely isn't privy to this conversation. So who do you think you're injuring with it?

[bouchonne]

Miss Poppell, he's disinherited.

[ He hesitates a moment, then: ]

Someone who has been rejected by his family can bring you only disgrace. By association with him, people will think less of you. A man who has been disinherited injures those around him through association.

[heirring]

I know he's disinherited. I don't care. It makes no difference to our—[work] regard for one another.

And what harm could truly come to me? It's hardly the worst sin in Riftwatch, and as I'm like to be gone before the war is over there's little chance I'll ever have any opportunity to suffer from it. And if I am, it's quite clear I will have other matters to be concerned with.

[bouchonne]

[ Bitterly: ] You would be shocked to learn just how much damage such men might do.

[ Well. ANYway. He finally lets out a hard sigh, the melancholy reminder of her short life pulling him away from some of his righteousness. ]

This is truly for love?

[heirring]

[With remarkably certain seriousness:]

If it weren't but was still wholly my decision, would you act to stop it if I told you otherwise?

[bouchonne]

To stop it?

[ He sounds taken aback. ]

No. I'd just try to help you find other paths, so that you were not reliant upon something of this magnitude to resolve your problems. Or I would applaud your choice, if it was one that gained you a significant advantage of some ilk.

[heirring]

If you are lying to me I will hate you forever.

[Is a promise a child makes, but is not less true for it.]

[bouchonne]

I...give my word that I am not.

[ ???? Is this progress? ]

[heirring]

[She will regret this. She feels it in her bones before she even says it, but she is so intolerably tired of being made to litigate all the fine points of Byerly Rutyer's personality. She is exhausted about talking about him. Any other subject at all is preferable, and if he ruins this then at least that will be definitive.]

Then no. It's not for love. And if you say so to anyone else, I will hear it. It isn't the sort of secret Riftwatch knows how to keep.

[bouchonne]

[ Well, thank the Maker he hasn't lost his touch. If it was a love-match, he'd have to give up all his poisons and hidden compartments and all the other little spy tools that make one a spy. Because he'd clearly be failing at the job. Anyway.

Cautiously: ]

Then what is it for?

[heirring]

I have identified a loophole in the documents of the property I have inherited which will exempt it from a great deal of the taxes presently levied against it if it were to transfer into another person's name. The deed stipulates I cannot sell it, but marrying will do the trick just as certainly. Everyone must be very convinced of the match so that no one will have cause to look to closely at its legitimacy until the papers are settled. And then in six or seven months, it shall be annulled and de Foncé will return all rights of the property to me sans a good deal of tax owed.

And not that it is any of your business, but that he is disinherited will, I think, go a good long way to confirming cause for the separation.

[bouchonne]

[ Oh.

Well.

There's little judgment or disapproval in his voice - just caution - when he asks: ]

What are your grounds for annulment?

[heirring]

Perhaps marriage in Kalvad is entirely different and I misunderstood its purpose. A Rifter can hardly be expected to understand the contract of marriage in a world which doesn't belong to her, much less reasonably consent to it.

[bouchonne]

[ He clicks his tongue. ]

Before the wrong judge, that won't work.

[heirring]

Then de Foncé will simply have to object on more intimate grounds. Which are certainly not your business.