Sending Crystal

[overharrowed]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Julius
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: New arrival
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: They'll just give anyone one of these, won't they.

Good day, Inquisition. I apologize if there's some etiquette for using these things that was not explained to me, but otherwise I wished to introduce myself. My name is Enchanter Julius, formerly of Kinloch Hold, and I'm a new addition to the research department. I look forward to working with you.

If anyone is need of assistance on more personal matters, too, do let me know. I'm handy with both glyphs and runes, especially, and I'm happy to do what I can.

Comments

[elegiaque]

--Kinloch Hold. Not Marius's Julius?

[overharrowed]

...I know a Marius.

[Where is the privacy setting on this thing, he's sure he remembers someone mentioning it had one.]

[elegiaque]

Yes, you helped him with his personal matters. He said.

( young lady. )

private

[overharrowed]

[THERE it is.]

Marius Bellrose, do you mean? If so, I doubt those were his exact words.

private ∞

[elegiaque]

He described you as sexually adequate.

[overharrowed]

I asked for that.

[It certainly sounded more plausibly like Marius.]

May I ask why he was writing you about it?

[elegiaque]

I don't know if he's mentioned his lord patron, Comte Vauquelin. I'm Lady Gwenaëlle Vauquelin. We correspond.

( Of course her favourite relation is Romain's bastard - if anyone can understand being a chess piece. )

[overharrowed]

Ah. A pleasure.

[Despite the warmth in the greeting, it sounds like something's niggling at him, though he can't quite place it.]

I haven't heard from him recently, though given my lack of fixed address, I'm not entirely sure whether that was deliberate.

[elegiaque]

We've all got a few pressing things on our minds--

( d r y l y )

[overharrowed]

Obviously. [It's not annoyed, but he's not ignoring her tone either.]

Oh! [Before they can get too derailed by whether or not Marius meant to ghost Julius deliberately:] Vauquelin. Not Gervase's Gigi?

[He can't imagine there are many Gwenaëlle Vauquelins running around.]

[elegiaque]

( Gigi, for fuck's sake--

Gervais is dead. He's dead. They've all said he's dead, for years now... )

When were you at the White Spire?

( Because he's dead. Isn't he? )

[overharrowed]

[He wasn't prepared for the sudden strength of that reaction, entirely. Perhaps he should have been.]

...never, I'm afraid. I met him on the road.

[elegiaque]

Wait right there. Where is right there?

( -- the sound of a door slamming, and footsteps, and a confused servant-- )

In the Gallows, obviously--

[overharrowed]

I'm in a small workroom, not far from the library. Or if you'd rather someplace else, I can meet you?

[Mildly concerned.]

action ∞

[elegiaque]

( No answer is forthcoming, which he might take to mean that she is already on her way - but it takes time to get from Hightown all the way to the Gallows, no matter who you are or how urgently you feel you need to be somewhere, and so she doesn't entirely expect him to still be precisely where he said when she finally arrives, trailed by a bewildered lady's maid that she leaves milling slightly awkwardly around to wait for her.

A few well-placed queries - she remembers how Marius described him, can more or less accurately repeat it to find the man - and then there she is interrupting him, timely or not, a polished and pretty little thing with a probably-familiar intensity-- )

Gervais Vauquelin. You met Enchanter Gervais Vauquelin on the road.

[overharrowed]

[He is, in fact, still where he said he'd be; between conversations on the sending crystal, he's catching up by reading some existing reports, finding out where the state of knowledge is as best he can.

He looks up, not quite startled, but giving her his full attention all the same.]

I did, yes. About six months ago, more or less. I'm afraid he rather pointedly didn't say where he was going, but we traveled together a few days. We had some fascinating discussions.

[Fascinating in this context meaning theoretical and arcane, probably.]

[elegiaque]

( A few days - six months ago -

She could scream, but what good would it do. She sits down, instead, rather heavily in the other chair; he's alive. Or he was alive six months ago. Where is Enchanter Leblanc, to care about this? Maker only knows where that woman went. Somewhere. Orlais, probably, home to her family, as her father was so sure his brother would go - she is less surprised to find it wasn't his first stop, even if she's shocked to find news of him at all.

So long, without. He has always been a name, an idea, a stranger. Now for a moment he had been almost within reach, and then...nothing. )

He's my uncle.

( Julius is perfectly aware of that. )

[overharrowed]

He mentioned.

[Julius feels like he should apologize, but he isn't entirely certain what for, so he doesn't. Instead, he says,] I'd have sought you out, if I knew you were here and waiting on word. There are a lot of people [especially mages] unaccounted for these days.

[elegiaque]

We weren't waiting.

( There was no reason to believe there was anything to wait for -

It's so strange to think of. She presses her hands together - the dull green glow of one speaking for itself about the presence of such a thing as herself in all this. )

[overharrowed]

He seemed well, [Julius offers, after a short pause.] I mean, under the circumstances. I was certainly in no state to judge a bit of road dust.

[It's a bad time in the world to be a mage, Julius feels, and most of them are doing what they can.]

Clever man, your uncle. Careful. I liked him, for all I don't know him well. I have no particular reason to think he's in any worse state than I left him, as far as anyone can know that sort of thing.

[elegiaque]

( Good times to be a mage seem few enough-- )

He's been -

There wasn't any word, other than that he hadn't been at the Spire when it was annulled. He never turned up anywhere, or wrote anyone, or... anything.

[overharrowed]

Considering the annulment, I suppose that makes some sense. [Quieter.] I hope at least telling you that we met counts as good news, under the circumstances.

[elegiaque]

I -

( Does it? She can't write home with ... this isn't news, this is a scrap that her father will drop everything to pursue when who knows what they might need of him. They can't have him chasing down ghosts he might not find. She can't have that. He can't earn back whatever it is he lost when her mother died by expending himself on a fool's errand like trying to find Gervais Vauquelin on so little information--

What does it fucking matter. She didn't know the man. Let her father keep wallowing in his grief. He deserves to. )

Yes, ( finally, not sure that she means it. ) Thank you.

I never knew him, really. He sent me gifts, sometimes. I have a dagger to match his.

( There's a beat, and it occurs to her; perhaps Julius had seen his? She never did - she fusses with her pockets and the hidden sheath and produces a small, jeweled dagger that, thanks to Wren, she handles less gingerly than she might have done. Carrying it is ... uncomfortable, but she grows accustomed, and so. )

My lord had them both made to my uncle's specification.

[overharrowed]

[He clearly recognizes it, even before he nods in confirmation.]

He still carries it, yes, though he's wrapped the handle.

[To deter thieves or to disguise where he's sold jewels to support himself, Julius wouldn't venture to guess.]

I wish I could give you more. I didn't know you'd be here with the Inquisition, I'd have offered to carry some message.

[He's never had a family of his own, not one that he remembers. But that doesn't mean he's ignorant of how much they can matter.]

[elegiaque]

He might have known.

( And chosen not to send one -

It isn't as if it's a secret, not when her bloody face is all over those pamphlets she used to write, the face of the Inquisition, Coupe had said. On the other hand, Julius hadn't known, probably because mages on the run have more pressing things to do than read about the Inquisition, so. It's even odds either way.

But it's been - what, three years since the White Spire?

If he wanted to send a message, he'd have done it, wouldn't he? Maybe they shouldn't look for him at all, anyway. Maybe he simply doesn't wish to be found.

She stirs herself from her thoughts, sliding the dagger safely back into its hidden sheath; )

I wasn't even born when he went to the Circle, I don't know if he'd have much to say to me.