crystal.

[cozen]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Bastien
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: Nonsense. If your characters will not say anything but are obviously/observably involved with people, please feel even more encouraged than normal to "not here" reply with the deets for everyone's gossip-gathering purposes.

Bonjour, mes amis.

[ Faintly sing-song, but in a drawling and subdued way. It doesn't do to sound too chipper and excited about asking people semi-invasive questions. ]

I have been talking to the Seneschal, and we thought—well, it's possible we might need a fraternization policy. Or a record, at least, in case it becomes a problem later. And to decide whether that is necessary: information about fraternization.

[ It's obvious from his voice that he's pleased that that rhymes. ]

So who is together? Or involved, if together is a scary word.

Please feel very free to rat out your bashful friends.

[ As an afterthought, ]

If you have opinions about the policy or record part, I will take those, too.

Comments

[apocalypsegrown]

A man with the name Richard Dickerson is subtle?

[cozen]

I’m sure he didn’t choose it.

[ Who would ever. ]

[icasm]

I'm rather sure he did.

[cozen]

Are you? Why?

[icasm]

No mother names their child that.

[cozen]

I think you are underestimating what mothers are capable of.

[icasm]

But it's just a repeating dick joke.

[cozen]

Yeah.

[ His tone makes that yeah mean obviously.

He stands by his point. ]

[icasm]

Perhaps I think too highly of mothers.

[ He sounds doubtful, though. ]

[cozen]

Did you have a good one?

[icasm]

Yes, I did.

[cozen]

Then perhaps you do.

But that’s not so bad.

[apocalypsegrown]

Unless he's actually the master of subtilty by being wildly unsubtle as a diversion.

[cozen]

Hmm. That's possible. But I'm not sure it's more likely than his parents not knowing what they were doing. Or perhaps he had a grandfather Richard his mother was determined to name him after, and then she married a Dickerson and said, oh no, what have I done—but followed through on the name. For her father.

[apocalypsegrown]

Yeah I'm sorry but I'm pretty familiar with choosing pseudonyms and that one is just too perfect not to be one.

I bet his real name is something like Nigel Cornswallop or something. And he had to spice it up.

[cozen]

Nigel Cornswallop sounds much more fake.

[apocalypsegrown]

More fake than what amounts to Penis Penis’child.

[cozen]

Tell you what. You and I, we go to the city guard and say we want to join. I will tell them my name is Richard Dickerson, and you say your name is Nigel Cornswallop, and we will see which of us they don't believe.

[apocalypsegrown]

Hardly fair unless you provide me with a convincing disguise and mustache.

[cozen]

[ Damn, she saw his very clever and subtle trap. ]

Nigella Cornswallop.

[apocalypsegrown]

…Nigella. That’s the best you can do.

[cozen]

We cannot test the plausibility of the name by inventing an entirely new one.

[apocalypsegrown]

[ Honestly this far too tempting. Had it been any other time in any other world, such a bet would be cinched even before it was tested. All she'd need is a featherlight brush of fingers against the guards arm and Nigel Cornswallop would sound like clearly the most common name, and the favorite friend of that particular guard's great aunt or some such nonsense.

But here? Where her magic is so completely reduced, and the connotations she's seen in her particular brand of focus...

No, winning this one probably was not worth the trouble it would cause. ]

I suppose we'll never get an answer then.

[cozen]

[ He is too much of an adult to actually boo in disappointment, but the noise it makes conveys he same idea. ]

[nonvenomous]