do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?

[elegiaque]

FORM: A published work, and a letter.
SENDER: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin
RECIPIENT: Anyone who purchases a copy; Martin Mercier.
WHAT: On the Inquisition: A Lady's Observations, by Lady Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, part five. A gossipy letter home.
WHEN: Mid-Kingsway.
WHERE: You know, around.
NOTES:

• Previously.
  
• This publication is always fronted by the title and a bust sketch of the author, making her easily recognisable around Skyhold to any characters who want to talk to her about it.
  
• There continue to be no references to the Grey Wardens.
  
  
  
  Circling back to subjects that she's repeatedly touched upon throughout the publication of this editorial and building on the previous edition's theme of ~understanding one another to better work together~, this month Gwenaëlle turns her attention to the concept of Thedosian unity in a broader sense than just what she's consistently praised the Inquisition for. With sincere thanks to Baroness Frédérique Durfort-Lacapalette (an eminent Orlesian scholar recently come to Skyhold) for bringing the works of Lord Alexander Luthor to her attention, and therefore providing a framework within which to discuss how the general lack of said Thedosian unity is in itself a weakness being exploited. Her criticisms of the Orlesian civil war in this context are framed as piously apolitical, not taking sides (nor, indeed, acknowledging them in any kind of detail beyond that 'two sides exist'; she doesn't even bother naming Celene or Gaspard specifically) but rather focusing on the immediate consequences of a divided Orlais. Namely, that in one of the darkest chapters of Thedosian history, one of its most glorious nations that obviously ought to be leading such efforts as the Inquisition makes cannot even unite itself sufficiently to offer better aid.
  
  Which is to say that there remains an authorial bias in terms of Orlesian nationalism even as she attempts to bring to a greater audience Luthor's arguments for a widespread perspective shift, but she is trying. She builds from this rather Orlais-oriented point to the broader one, that the harshly drawn lines between people present their own dangers when preventing the sort of cooperation that, as she has argued before, is essential to preventing the fall of Thedas, and that the borderlines of nations need not be erected quite so high within the minds of their people. Then, and only then, will they cease threatening the prospect of a future in the present with repeated mistakes of the past.
  
  
  
  M.M.,
  
  Did you know Jeannot and his stupid friend are here? de Fonce is a diplomatic disaster looking for somewhere to happen, presuming he survives his fellow members of the Inquisition long enough to go anywhere, which in fact I do not presume. Of course it is very good of Jeannot to lend his efforts and we are certainly not over-burdened by the Chantry but I am not sure at all that the efforts he is lending are those most needed. It troubles me.
  
  
  I hope you and your family are all well. I miss Orlais very much.
  
  Affectionately,
  Gigi

Comments

[elegiaque]

( at last, her brows pull together-- )

I haven't got any suitors, from the Free Marches or any other place, I don't know what you're talking about at all.

( this is like one third true. )

[apologist]

No? The servants know what I am talking about.

[ He smiles. Sweetly! The sweetness is not entirely for show. She is his favorite obnoxious little quasi-cousin. ]

But perhaps it is nothing I should trouble him with. Perhaps we should not be troubling him at all.

[elegiaque]

( maybe she shouldn't hold hands and giggle over sending crystals in public places with strange men. is that the lesson she's learning here?

no. the lesson is definitely that jeannot needs to be taught one more vigorously and she is going to plan it out much more carefully next time!! but not with arrows, despite threats casually made elsewhere, because - not that she likes him, any, she just likes being someone's favourite, that's all. he is the worst, actually.

(she might like him a little bit. suddenly less.) )

I don't trouble him. He gives me excellent advice.

( that she ignores nine out of ten times. )

[apologist]

He is very good at advice. But I do not imagine you need any advice from him about me, and I do not need any about you.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is not completely convinced jeannot wouldn't benefit from some advice along the lines of stop obsessing about someone else's childhood!! actually!! val is much more irritating, though, and he has very neatly solved himself for her as a problem.

so there's that. )

I don't see,

( more thoughtfully, )

why I should agree to anything when you are still going to be unpleasant to me anyway and I don't have any suitors to worry about.

[apologist]

Unpleasant. [ Scoffing. ] It is affection. And whatever I tell him now, I will tell him with affection. You are right not to worry. He has only your good interests in mind.

[elegiaque]

It is not affection, your stupid friend hates me and you--

( wait none of that is an argument she can win. gwenaëlle reorients on things less likely to get her into a fruitless shouting match about why everyone is so mean!! to her!! for no reason!!

because she is a grown up, thank. )

And I'm never marrying, so it doesn't matter what anyone has in mind.

[apologist]

No? [ He pauses. He looks Concerned. Does she know that he is permitted to hear confessions? He is. That is a thing that he is qualified and allowed to do. ] Why not? Perhaps we should sit.

[elegiaque]

( wait, what. )


I don't like what your face is doing and I wish you wouldn't do it at me.

[apologist]

You sound troubled. If you need to talk--

[ Then he is here, and so patient, and very much A Chantry Brother. He gestures toward a bench, where they could sit to talk about her feelings, if she wants. ]

[elegiaque]

I'm not troubled.

( an automatic and unconvincing answer, delivered even as she sits. she does not want to talk about her feelings - she wants him to go away speculating as to what they might be even less. she looks a bit like a startled halla, and composing her expression at least buys her a little time.

deflection, yes? yes.

eventually, )

They loathed each other, you know, my lord and lady. I heard one of the servants speculate it was why she should live so long in spite of herself. Just out of pure spite. He's free of her now she's dead, and she was never other than his wife - I think it's as good an explanation as any

I suppose it isn't unusual. To be young and lovely and marry someone who seems so handsome and dashing and all the correct things and find he's one disappointment after another. That he's selfish and stupid and careless. You don't know, do you? What it is to have to live with someone, all the rest of your life, til you are.

I don't know, I think I'd prefer other options, and my lord will never push it, so I can do as I like.