therookery | crystal.

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Gwenaëlle Baudin
RECIPIENT: All y'all.
NOTES: There's a new junior dad in town. Tell her all about your sick magic weapons and how buff or noodly your little nerd arms might be. (Happy to do action spam here or in her inbox for any office threads!)

Alright, Riftwatch, I assume I don't need to introduce myself,

( possibly because she hasn't been paying strict attention to recent arrivals, but she is certainly not herself a new face, )

but if you have somehow mistaken my accent for Alexandrie, this is Gwenaëlle Baudin, and if you haven't noticed my taking up the office, I am now your acting Captain of the Watch. ( because they are still pretending that dad might come back (with smokes) and that rowntree's appointment might be temporary. she has already begun studying nevarran, but she isn't all that optimistic about when she's going to need to know it by. ) I've started with inventorying our armoury, and as such I have a couple of requests to make of, primarily, those of you not in Forces. If you are in Forces, I need to know if you possess any personal weaponry of note that we should be taking into account. You can provide details by crystal, book or at my office. If you are not in Forces, I would like to know that, but disclosure is voluntary unless your division head decides to make it mandatory.

( yes, she checked with rowntree before announcing it's mandatory for forces. )

Further, if you are not in Forces, I'd like to have an overview of the combat readiness of our ( nerds ) general non-combatants and what their, your needs are. If you'd like particular training, or if you specifically wouldn't. If you're going to be particularly vulnerable in the sort of emergency we recently experienced, or if it'd be useful for me to be aware that you won't. Again, we can have these conversations by whatever means suits you.

( there's a brief pause. )

And to be clear, I'm not assuming all diplomats and researchers need to be provided personal fainting couches, and you will not be considered clever for getting up in arms about having your toughness questioned. If you would like to be provided a personal fainting couch, ask the Seneschal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( she thinks, that wasn't the part that puzzles me, but she also doesn't think now's the time, necessarily, to get into the other part—

the templars get lumped together, but they aren't all the same animal. that she thinks so is not necessarily kinder than lumping them all together. )

Well, we're shorthanded everywhere, but most of all there. Anyone willing's an asset.

[ first bit he's got from diplomacy? well, it was that orlesian is pretty hard, actually,

second bit? non-answers. ]

You ever get bored of this, we can swap.

Nothing short of the entire division getting tipped into the sea could move me that way.

Missed our shot on beach day.

So swimming lessons need to go back on the itinerary.

Really think you'd hate it that bad? 'S mostly just answering letters. Finding new ways to say we don't have any money.

Have you tried 'when the world is saved, I'll remember each and every one of you cunts that didn't help'?

Wish that were further off.

[ the maker might've turned his face from this world, but divine beatrix hasn't ]

To be clear, I have a list.

Who's first up?

Celene.

( this sounds like it should be a joke, but. )

What'd she do?

[ specifically. she runs orlais, atrocity's a given. ]

( he hears— the start of a word. there's no shortage of things she could be mad about. she'd made her distaste for celene clear long before she'd been anything but the spoiled vauquelin inheritrix,

but other conversations they've had linger. standing in the alienage the day herian had returned. and she starts again, plainer: )

My sisters were in Halamshiral.

She'll take credit now for the reforms, for putting the Marquise into her role, but she didn't put any force behind those reforms, and she wasn't going to raise Briala up on her own— we already saw exactly what the elves of Orlais are to her.

[ flames — almost slips his own mouth. maybe it'd be funny, the way terrible things sometimes are; maybe it will be, later tonight with hands pushed over his eyes, wondering if it's different to burn to death a martyr, a sister, a scared kid. a scared vint.

here and now it's just char: she didn't have to worry about her older daughters. ]

Your mother wasn't,

[ a guess. there's no gentle way to grip a torch, but light comes the same ]

No, she wasn't.

( a breath. a beat. )

The first time Thranduil was here, he knew her. I know what happened to them because she asked him to find out. I think that he hoped he'd find word of them alive, but I know she didn't— expect. She only wanted to know.

It's how I know there weren't any— she didn't have living family, or not any that she had connection to. After they died and she died, the budget allocated to their family's upkeep was. Dispersed. Guilfoyle used to let me mind all of the books with him.

What were their names?

[ something in the way a pyre deconstructs, grinds face and story and the whole fucking thing into grey. dispersed. how would she even know? of course she'd want to know.

(maybe some day he'll know) ]

( a beat. )

Magalie and Alix. I knew Alix a little more, but neither of them well.

Magalie never got out of their house.

You ever... do anything for them? T'remember them.

[ can hear it already: all the weight of some grief she hasn't the right to. but grief passes around, never comes up dry. ]

You know the haircomb that I wear, most days? I weave it into my braids.

I know it.

[ hasn't stopped to think on it, to notice, really. but gwen rotates the more obvious flash — the eye, the scarves, the closet. the comb doesn't change.

mourning jewelry, then, one way or another. can't think they'd own something like that; a hank of woven hair, pressed flowers, maybe bone or a silhouette picture. that's what he remembers of home. anyone digging through ash would've picked the jewels out clean. so it's half a question, when he says: ]

'S fine work.

Mmm. Not Dwarven make but Dwarven trained. The original piece was woven flowers— it's traditional in the Starkhaven alienage. Herian gave them to me when my mother died, and I couldn't wear them as they were, so I took them to Lord Luthor—

Not exactly his usual work, but he was kind to do it.

It was for her, but it's for them, too. I wouldn't have even known what to look for, of their own, if there'd been... there was never time, anyway.

[ it's for them, and it's got to be a bit for the living, too: herian. this luthor. funerals aren't for the dead, not really. ]

Feels like time oughta stop for that. Feels — dunno, crazy sometimes, that it doesn't. Like something's moving all around and y'just... can't catch up.

[ he was kind to do it. she was kind to do it. kind of anyone, to wait a moment. to stand still. ]

crystal.

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