rowancrowned | fade rift ✧ inbox

( the comings and goings in the gallows as gwenaëlle returns to it have a particular flow to them—they are mostly goings. the excursion to tevinter is soon, by the busy activity and its particular direction; perhaps within the day. she thinks perhaps she might have missed thranduil entirely, isn't sure whether she prefers to have done or not—

but, no.

she imagines he intended for her to find this, after he left; it has that look about it, and she knows he's attached to the party that'll go as far as minrathous. it can't be entirely a surprise that she beats him to it, when serving staff have already brought up her belongings, but she'd dawdled long enough he might have thought he'd be gone before she finally climbed the stairs.

there are flowers still in his hands, his back to her, when she says, )

This is an approach.

( —neutrally. )

Edited 2018-08-01 10:02 (UTC)

[ he has put (what seems like) nearly every flower available in kirkwall to use. they are in vase and then pot when they ran out of those, and whatever was watertight when pots ran scarce, and the nug is eating what looks to be thistle where it was placed too near to the ground, so yes, the room is awash with flowers in several colors.

he turns, peonies in hand, and says: ]

An approach.

[ he agrees with her, and shifts the flowers to the crook of his arm. with his other, he holds out a hand, palm up, a little glass vessel is in it. ]

A gift, [ he says, ] to smash on the flagstones, if you please. I was not expecting to see you until I returned to Tevinter.

[ he's caught in the act, you see, unprepared and underdressed, still weary from the ride back from skyhold, making his explanations for the negotiations all afternoon and evening. ]

I owe you a conversation, if you will have one.

( she takes an involuntary step back—not from him, precisely, but her instinct with regard to that thing in his hand is not to take it. her hands fold behind her, neatly, and she ignores it entirely. )

I'd love to know,

( after a moment's pause, her gaze shifting from his face to the flowers, surveying all manner of blooms, )

what conversation you think it is we need to have.

( that he went to this effort—but she's not so sure they're on the same page, entirely, about why. if he knows what it is that upset her, in that lingering way. )

[ he closes his hand, withdraws it, loses it in the folds of his robe, and when he next moves his hand, it is open-palmed. he has missed her, it would be impossible for him not to. ]

I was, [ he begins, ] Lord of my people for what counted as a long time, even for an elf. I had no need to explain my actions nor did I often seek council.

I am not accustomed to behaving otherwise.

[ which is true. it is alien to him to bend. he chafes under the hand of the inquisition still, though less often now that he has standing enough to feel steady. ]

You, most of all, are entitled to my thoughts and my secrets.

( this would be easier if it were easier to be angry. which is strange, because for so long that had never felt like a problem—she's always had something to rail against, something to sharpen her edges on. but for her own life, for her own heart, her own hurts—

she doesn't want to be angry, particularly. she doesn't like the tiredness that takes its place. )

I thought so.

( mildly, of what she is entitled to. )

I don't make drastic sweeping decisions without you. I don't just go around you when you're inconvenient, because, for the record, that would be all of the fucking time, you're the least convenient person in my entire life.

( is emeric dead yet? is it too soon to make that joke.

at length: )

I don't want to have to just—what, plan nothing and wait about? Because at any moment I might turn around and you've decided what the rest of our lives look like without speaking to me?

I am stubborn, [ he admits, and easily. it rolls off the tongue when talking about him, hand-in-hand with the old and the tall. ]

You knew from the start that I am deeply disturbed by the order of things here, and on that account I have not changed, I will not change.

[ to do so would be to change every bit of himself, and as much as he has yielded in thedas, bent with the coming storm, he has not broken. she knows him, she can see the tiredness that etches itself to how he must now devote attention to how he stands, to the extra measure of awareness of his limbs, the set of his shoulders.

he is still gentle with the peonies. ]

That is not negotiable. And for as long as I have known you, I assumed it would begin after your death.

The romantic thing every woman wants to be told by her husband, ( sharply, ) that she's just somewhere amusing to put his prick until death solves the problem for him.

( if that's an extremely unfair reach on the precise meaning of his words—

and it is

—her frustration is a palpable thing. she doesn't move from the doorframe, though she'd let it close behind her; her jaw works, an expression emptied of warmth or willing. when she speaks again, it's quiet and flat. )

I didn't assume that.

You're right, I knew what I was signing up for, and I assumed that it was—I assumed that our lives might fucking intersect, at any point. ( the bite is out of it. this feels like dismissal, not a resolution, and she doesn't know how to push back. ) That you would be honest with me. That I would know what was going on, that we would do things together.

I thought we were going to have a life. Not just a diversion for you.

[ he doesn't... dignify it with a response. she knows him better than that. ]

For as long as we are here, [ and it isn't long, it's a breath, the space between movements, the blink of an eye. ] we will have whatever we can take from the world. I am greedy; we will take a great measure. I am afraid of your death, but that is my problems to solve.

[ he hates this, hates putting his weakness before her. love with her is putting the knife in her hand and hoping she does not cut too deeply with it. ]

You are not that sort of woman, and that is why I love you, or a portion of it. We are one flesh, one house, you not knowing my plans does not protect you from them, but perhaps-- perhaps I feared your anger, or this conversation. I am a coward. [ he puts the peonies down on the bed, mindful of them, but does not step closer to her for fear that she will run. ]

Ask, [ he says. ] Whatever you wish to know, or would you simply have the outline of it?

( it's probably better that he doesn't, but it would be so much easier to just fight with him—

and it would solve nothing. it is better. this is better. she tells herself this, knows it, wishes knowing it would better quiet the parts of her that wish only to lash out until she satisfies them. they are never satisfied. )

I want to know that I can trust you.

( the enormity of it is impossible. when was the last time she trusted anyone? why should she expect that of him, anyway? maybe she's a fool for ever having imagined. maybe it's just the same fucking mistake that she keeps making, alexander again, the worst of it always that she thinks it'll be different. )

That you're not going to do this a second time. That you actually intend to tell me what's going on, that I might be even slightly involved in my own life. I don't want an outline. If you have plans you haven't fucking told me about, I want to know exactly what the fuck they are, because I have been careful not to make any. I thought we were going to make our plans together. I thought what came after the Inquisition and how that's going to work was a conversation we were going to have.

If you want to piss off in the dark and make plans by yourself, then you can. By yourself.

[ without hesitation: ]

The Blights cannot be allowed to continue to occur. Nor can Darkspawn spread their filth both under and over the land. To that end, Galadriel and I intended to find some way to access the rest of our-- soul, if I must-- which is now trapped behind the Veil. If we were the whole of our selves, she especially, purging the corruption in the Deep Roads would be of little effort.

[ he looks, then, at her hands rather than her. ]

To that end, I have been-- you know me, Gwenaelle, I have been cultivating friends. Seeking rumors that might lead to a way to access that power for Galadriel. Trying to change perceptions now so that we may live in comfort. [ firmly: ] The Inquisition comes first. Nothing is more important than defeating Corypheus. I am not the sort of fool to put my side interests before that.

If you tell me things I can help.

( that is not a small thing that he says to her, his plans—and it's very tempting, the thought of blights dealt with on a permanent basis, the thought of cutting out the troublesome middle-man of the wardens altogether. whether or not he can actually achieve it is a conversation for another day; if it had come up more naturally then she'd have holes to poke and things to worry at, and without a doubt those will come up, but it isn't the point of the conversation that they're having now.

the point is that even if it's a bad plan, if it's his plan then it's hers and she has no intention of twiddling her thumbs while he does as he pleases.

but: )

We haven't spent two and a half years arguing about elves for you to expect me to believe you're not up to anything there. If you get your stupid wedding, that's a setback—

( but thranduil plans centuries in advance. as amusing as she's found the idea of him losing his cultivated elven bonds to the chantry—it's in the 'pros' column for this clusterfuck—she's never imagined it would actually put an end to anything permanently. )

Will you keep my secrets? Even when you are displeased with someone or moved to heights of anger or annoyance with me, will you make sure they do not slip to anyone else?

[ she's made known that they were lovers and more a handful of times, and a handful more (though these more purposefully) since he offered wedding her as an option for their future and for the good of the inquisition, but as it stands now, he cannot risk the solas' secrets lest it come out to morrigan, to coupe, to anyone. ]

No, [ he says. ] It is not. The Dalish may think of me what they like, and the city elves too, but it is not their opinions that matter. I do not need their affection to help them.

The only person I don't keep any secrets from is you. And I kept plenty from you, before.

( it's not unfair, though, to note that she is a terrible liar. that some of those things she kept from him came out through her hand being forced; that while most of those she confided in about their relationship were purposeful, she was caught out at least once. she frowns past him, allows— )

I can understand, ( and dislike, immensely, ) if there are things it would be safer for me not to be able to be caught out about, but what I can't countenance is having to just take for granted that you're going to spend the rest of our marriage lying to me and leaving me in the dark and that's just how it has to be.

That isn't a marriage, that's something you play with when it suits you and set aside when it doesn't. You can't even tell me that you're doing something and I need to trust you? You'd rather just have me find out with every other idiot when you do something?

What am I supposed to do with it when I trusted— ( past tense ) —you and you're telling me you never trusted me?

Edited 2018-08-03 02:05 (UTC)

You continue to accuse me of wanting you for-- what, for use of your body? Why that, again and again?

[ he looks disgusted, he cannot help the curl of his lip, the near flinch. ]

You mistake me for the men who came before me.

[ calmer now, steady. ]

I told you when I had crafted the thing and not before because why trouble you with failed attempts? Why risk the sort of bleed that removed Petrana de Cedoux from her position? And when I did tell you-- how many others knew it from your lips? I am lucky that Adalia did not have her dragon with her when she attacked me, and she attacked me because you told her one had been crafted. You were angry with me enough to let that slip. If it had happening during the crafting process, what if she had come for Myrobalan? Mages enough here would want his head for what he had done.

[ he presses a hand to his head, shakes his head, struggles. ]

I have trusted you enough to bind my life to yours. We do not do this by half-measures, Gwenaelle, if it were not for the Veil, my fea would be yours as well. I speak openly of my opinions and trust you not to report me.

Because if you had troubled me with the failed attempts—if you had explained to me you were going to attempt it, on yourself, then I wouldn't have been so fucking angry with you utterly blindsiding me with it that I was prepared to do that!

That's why!

And maybe if you hadn't been perfectly happy to do exactly that to me at the tourney, I wouldn't make the comparison—

( they're not past that.

this would, maybe, have been easier if they were. but gwenaëlle was on such shaky ground already; it's so easy to see it crumbling around her, to look on it in the worst possible light. )

You are comparing this to, to-- my ineptitude?

[ he's speechless, a brief stuttering pause where he's fighting for a word that doesn't exist in trade, his syllables lyrical as he nearly switches back to sindarin to grasp for it. ]

How. [ he says. ] How are they the same.

Ineptitude!

( incredulity prompts the first motion away from the door, her hands coming up as if she's framing the word in mild disbelief— )

You're not inept. You ignored me.

( isolating, lonely, irrelevant—

how it made her feel. )

[ softly: ] I am sorry for ignoring you.

[ and that is sincere, not by rote. the hand falls. again, he hesitates before speaking. ]

You must understand-- must, because I can no more change this about myself than Yngvi could grow taller-- that I will never be able to behave like that. I am Quendi, there are consequences for such things that I would not impose upon Iorveth unless he wants them.

If I could break that rule, then what next? Kinslaying? It does not mean I do not love you.

I don't know what you mean by 'like that'.

( her frustration is acute, and though the apology—the sincerity—blunts some of the sharpness, that lack of understanding between them is still cavernous enough that she can't quite feel reassured. she can't be sure she's even managed to explain what upset her; it didn't feel at the time as if she had, and it doesn't, now. )

We don't have to be intimate with him, you don't have to do anything that you can't do. But we weren't. There wasn't anything intimate or personal about what happened. I might as well have not been there for all it mattered that I was, and it was—

I was miserable. I don't know what it is you think I wanted except you. With me. To matter that I was there.

You matter, [ he says. ] You are everything.

[ in an unsent letter: 'perhaps I loved you from the moment on the balcony.' ]

It was too much without the promise of it being anything at all. I will not-- bind myself to him in that way without it binding him too. [ he drags his hand through his hair to bring it being his ear, too violent for such a simple movement. ]

That is what it would have been, with him there. I should have stopped it before that, but I did not. And I was raw, then, and all I wished to do was hold you, hold him, but as I was of no use to you, like you had no utility for any part of my but my prick, you left.

[ softer: ] Do not put me aside like one of your toys. You cannot.

That isn't what I-

( it's the same, she realises, abrupt. they had the exact same fucking problem from different angles and in spite of herself, she laughs, sudden and hard to precisely read the mood of.

of course. they've always, in some ways, shared more than they don't. the ways that tie them together. )

I can't do that, either, ( she says, more carefully. ) I can't...that felt so...

( her teeth press into her lip, and she says, ) It's the same. I don't want to just screw. And that's all it was, I just-

You weren't with me. At all. It's not about using your body, it's what's the fucking point if we don't feel together? I love you. I want him, but if it has to be like that, let's just not, all right? It made me feel...exactly like that. Exactly what you're talking about. And I understand what you mean, because that. I don't know how to make you understand that's how you made me feel, that it's -

It's not all right for me just because I'm fucking human. You can't treat me like that and then complain I didn't hold you nicely afterwards.

( a little more moderately, catching herself: ) I was trying to do the right thing. To not just bring that back to bed. I felt sordid and lonely. I didn't want to, I don't know, make those things something I felt with you. I didn't want to be held later and not be able to forget it making me feel unloved. I thought if I just swallowed it and was quiet it'd stop bothering me.

Edited 2018-08-04 23:30 (UTC)

No, [ he says. ] It only sits between us until it becomes this.

[ this being not talking to one another until the space between them felt like a rabid, angry thing. how often during the negotiations had his thoughts turned to her, and his hand reached for his crystal, only to pull it back as if burned. ]

We make a great deal of trouble for one another, Gwenaëlle.

[ he holds his hand out for her, as solicitous as a gentleman asking for a dance. she has not drawn all the way back from the door, but he thinks that maybe she could be persuaded to come away to him. ]

( her tense indecision holds, taut, teetering on an edge; she thinks, how much fucking time have I wasted already resisting what I want, makes the smallest noise of exasperated frustration with herself and relents, lets him have her hand and draws into his orbit. inevitably.

she says, into his chest, ) I didn't want to be angry with you.

( and it twisted into resentment, instead, insecurity poison that curdled everything after. )

[ he dips his head to kiss her hair, and the arm that encircles her waist enforces the likelihood that she's not going anywhere for awhile. ]

We both thought the other was being cruel.

[ and then they talked it out, like adults. ]

We are becoming better at this, [ he allows. his fingertips press into the small of her back, right before her skirts bloom out, as if he can just keep her close with so faint a touch. ] If not for our duties to the Inquisition, we would have spoken of this sooner.

( her exhalation breathes out the tension in her shoulders and under his hand, and she curls her fingers into his sleeve, crumpling it in a tight grip. )

You caught me completely off-guard, with the phylactery. I needed to be somewhere else, I didn't know how to speak to you yet.

( an offer: )

If you can't tell me all of something. At least that there is something. As much as you can tell me. That I'm braced, that I know we'll be able to talk about it eventually, so I can trust you. I know there'll be things, but - I don't have to be that ignorant.

( it self-evidently did not help. )

Edited 2018-08-05 01:35 (UTC)

when gwenaëlle returns, before thranduil leaves for tevinter.

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cue the rihanna

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