There, in the center of the empty room which will be their workshop, Wysteria straightens by a half degree. The lines of her expression refine briefly to the study of him as if he is some interesting bit of math or a passage in a book she will need cross-references for.
"Then, no. You'll be relieved to hear that you bear no resemblance."
Then the letter's edge is tapped resolutely into her palm before being folded away into a skirt pocket, her scrutiny of him gone with it. "Not the yellow chair, Monsieur," she reminds him, and is away in a swirl of skirts.
Val remains very still and smiling for the assessment. He is not watching, particularly, her exit. The fact that he sees it is only because he happens to be looking in that direction, by chance, and nothing more.
When she is gone, her skirts taken with her, her footsteps tapping down the hallway, then Val drops his act. He gets out his book from his coat pocket and flips to the page that he had written upon, makes a brief study of his own writing, and then tucks the book away again and pushes away from the window.
When she returns, there are chairs in the workroom. Neither of them is yellow. There is also a carpet--also not yellow--and there is a cracked pot that must have once contained a house plant, if the dirt within it is anything to go by. Val has taken off his boots and his socks and thrown his coat over the chair that is upholstered in dark blue, very Orlesian, and he is sitting cross-legged upon the carpet with the plant pot held up to the light of the window, studying the daylight that comes in through the crack.
"The yellow chair is very ugly," he calls, when he hears Wysteria's tread upon the floor. "You might have said only that. I did touch it but found nothing to be strange about it, besides its especial ugliness. Piss and mustard and the scrum that comes of infection, particular to the infection of an eye. Like custard. I hate it."
"We are entirely in agreement, Monsieur," she calls back before she has even reached the room, and continues while passing through the door carrying an especially grandmotherly tray laden with the sort of porcelain that will never forget it was once dusty. "It was removed to front of the house when the weather turned on the pretense of spring cleaning in the hopes that it would go conveniently missing, and would have been forgotten there if not for the uproar it caused."
If the arrangement she finds in the room waiting for her is odd, she is consumed enough by the pleasure of meeting irritatingly exacting standards (Tea! Sugar! In this economy!) not to notice it as she veers round Val and the cracked pot, his socks and boots to—
She stops. She regards his shoes, the question clearly all but vomiting out of her. Then, just as visibly, she thinks better of it and joins him there on the floor.
"I will admit I had thought we might sit in the chairs."
"'The uproar'," he repeats, with amusement. Old dirt sifts onto the carpet as he tips the pot in a new direction, to be considered from this angle. "Who could have such feelings for so terrible a chair. Your choice of friends remains remarkable."
And that might not be a compliment. It is difficult to say. Only when she is upon the floor does Val set the pot aside, with a small flourish, and give her his full attention once more.
"Sitting is for later. It begins upon the floor. To be close to the earth, it is grounding." He thumps a hand a few times for emphasis. The carpet muffles the sound; the stray dirt leaps and falls back down again. "We will know when it is the time to switch to the chairs again. It will at the least be after tea, which--?"
Expectant, as if asking to be served, except he is already reaching.
Her choice of friends has nothing whatsoever to do with it, but she has decided - very recently, yes; in fact, it occurred somewhere between this room and the kitchen - that she will not be in the mood to debate such trivial points with him today. She will reserve her spirits for the points of this discussion which matter, and most of all she will allow herself to enjoy his company. That is, she thinks, possible so long as she takes great pains to make it true.
"Stop that."
She intercepts his hand with a hiss and a smart slap to the knuckles, rescuing the teapot with her other hand. This is not a trivial matter. However, once in possession of the vessel and pouring both cups, the bite in her dissolves back again. She passes him the first, nodding to the tin and little copper pitcher in company on the tray.
"Sugar and milk is there. See to them as you like."
The quiet noise of indignation that he makes at the smack is undercut by his little smile. With great show, Val removes his hand and waits with patience until he is signaled to proceed.
"Oh," and he moves to accept his cup with one hand, grabbing immediately for the sugar tongs with the other hand, "my thanks, mademoiselle. A most generous hostess. Tell me, are you planning to have a grand opening of this house, whenever it has been brought up to current taste and standards? Or will it remain a place of exclusivity? Incidentally, I have some things to bring here, to furnish this room, that will assist us with our work. I will begin moving them in, now that we have designated this room. Do not worry, you will hardly be disturbed."
The quiet plop of sugar being dumped lavishly into tea plays along with this words, a constant accompanying line.
"If you have things which you would prefer in the space, you are most welcome to see them conveyed here. Though I would ask that your things attend to the house through the side door, as you did this afternoon. As for the house," she says, dosing her cup with some small measure of milk and no sugar at all. "I have great designs for its use as an extension of Riftwatch's Research and Diplomacy divisions - an independent locale, as it were, sponsored in part by the organization in order to host visiting academics and so on. I have already discussed the subject with the Ambassador, and am receiving a small bit of funding for the pursuit of the project."
Which is presently being spent almost entirely on solicitors and taxes and fees demanded by the office of the Viscount and so on, but that is neither here nor there and certainly is none of Valentine de Foncé's business.
"Do they have clubs of philosophy and the like in Orlais, Monsieur? They are rather popular in Kalvad. But as you say, it is hardly presentable in its current state. And then there is the matter of mollifying the house's inhabitant."
"Naturally Val Royeaux is full of such clubs. It is the most sensible place in the world for them to be, with the University as a guarantee for able minds. And some less than able, but affable, and some that are neither of each, but who are suffered at some clubs, and shunned from the best. I have no personal experience with this, but I have observed."
He pulls a face. It is very dramatic. This is what he looks like when he makes these observations. He may be sugaring his tea during these observations as well; in this moment, at least, he still is about that business.
"So, then, do you intend that these dinners be hosted here?"
One last plop of sugar and he reaches for the milk. The level in the cup has risen quite close to the rim already.
"Certainly not. It will be some time before this house is ready for visitors - present company excepting, of course, but I'm sure you will agree this is another matter entirely -, and the dinners must be held somewhere large enough to accommodate and fine enough to be comfortable to guests with means. If Lady Asgard agrees to assist in the development of the invitation list, then I will request also the use of one or two of her rooms. She and her husband keep a much more pleasant house than this one. And if that cannot be done, I'm certain an equally suitable place can be found somewhere in Kirkwall."
Her attention has been drawn, as filings to a magnet, toward the rising level in his teacup. Her hand, previously occupied by stirring her own cup with a delicate little spoon, has slowed considerably.
"My focus is first on the funding and development of the prototype. The house is another matter entirely, save for the discretion it presently provides. Do you require a larger cup, de Foncé?"
"Dear mademoiselle, I have seen derelict cottages more pleasant than this house."
But he says it so warmly it might almost sound a compliment. Val picks up the milk and considers his cup, then begins to pour, slowly. The level creeps still dangerously closer to the lip. "The cup is perfect, if in a style that is very dated. Much like everything here. Yet I must agree that the prototype is our focus and should remain as such. This house will apparently stand forever, no matter the rot and infestation that plague it. Perhaps it is charmed in some way. But our work must be completed, and the funds must be raised."
The tea now flush with the cup's edge, Val stops pouring and very casually picks it up, his hand remarkably steady.
In sympathy, she begins automatically to raise her own cup though fails entirely to do much of anything beyond looking past it to observe the precarious arrangement of pale sludge he has made for himself.
"Then it's settled," she says, entirely conversational despite her distraction. "All that remains is to find ourselves a few willing volunteers and the whole matter will be all but guaranteed. Which do you think would be best - a posting on the Gallows board, or an inquiry slipped into certain mail cubbies in the hall? I suppose an inquiry might be made by crystal as well, but we would have to be quite conscious in the phrasing."
He scoffs, so forcefully the breath disturbs the surface tension of the cup. A ripple skims across the tea: still, it does not spill.
"An open posting? What will that get us, except the dregs. Already it is a silly thing. Do we trust the raising of our money to any-old-one? No, we do not. We must be selective if we are to raise any funds with this plan. We must choose, and inquire, and populate our list in this way. Any open invitation to participation will get us nothing but head's aches."
Please. At last he takes a sip of his sludge. It is thick, this sip. Val does not flinch at all.
In her head, Wysteria does a swift calculation of the weight of sugar allotted into that cup, and from it gauges the percentage of which it makes up the larger bag in the kitchen hidden with extreme care behind a number of odds and ends so as not to be disturbed by Misters Fitz or Stark or Ellis, and so eventually comes to the working out of that sip's rough monetary value.
"In that case, I will leave it to you to make up the list of who we will approach. You're clearly far more discerning when it comes to matters of what is considered good taste here than I am. See, for example, the matter of the Antivan wallpaper."
She takes a slow slip from her own cup. It is perfectly adequate without the sugar - they have all been choking down bitter chicory coffee for so long that real tea is a balm -, though she thinks she would prefer it with just a little.
With the twinging preternatural sense of someone being asked to actually contribute to the group project, Val quickly pivots. That is to say, he takes a moment to looks around, as if ensuring that they are indeed still alone.
"Wallpaper is one thing, mademoiselle. I wonder that you have not noticed--" He leans forward, with a confidential air about him. The distance between them narrows. His tea, in defiance of all logic, still does not spill, though the movement does send another tremor across its surface. "I am unappreciated."
Despite herself, the instincts of a natural gossip rule over all others and she leans slightly forward in mirror to him and--
"Unappreciated?" --Is slightly too loud to be playing along, but by the time she continues her voice has dropped accordingly. "I really couldn't begin to imagine what you might mean, Monsieur."
Oh, she can think of one or two definitions. But far be it for her to put anything whatsoever in the gentleman's mouth lest he find some way of taking it the wrong way.
He sighs, sadly. "Yes, of course. I thought you would say that. But it is true: I am often unappreciated. It is a sadness of people such as myself. You see, if I were to make this request, I would be questioned. Valentine, why are you doing this? Valentine, why would we listen to you? Valentine, your ideas, we do not respect them, for we do not understand your value as a scholar, we are without the capacity for this understanding, and so on, and so on, and so on--but you? You are liked and respected by these simple and straightforward people, and if you were to make this request? You would be heard, instantly."
He snaps his fingers. Instant.
"It can only be you, mademoiselle, that does the asking. It is essential to this project that you do."
It's not as if it isn't sound logic. Given the opportunity to reflect on the possibility of him in conversation with—who? The other party hardly matters, really—, she can only picture a certain level of intellectual battery unlikely to engender good will among any of their prospective pool of voluntolds.
(She is rather well liked in Riftwatch, it's true.)
"Then perhaps," she says, still leaned forward over the tea tray between them. "You might draw up the list and I will do the actual negotiation. So as to use both our skills to their best advantage."
Val smiles, very suddenly, and reaches very suddenly between them so that he can tap Wysteria on the nose.
"Très très bien."
He leans away from her again and takes another sip of tea. This one nearly drains his cup by half, reducing its threat.
"It is always best in a project to make maximum use of the skills that one has at one's command. I am wasted; you are flourished. We will be a very good team, I think, despite what anyone might say of us. We will prove them wrong. And we will have the very last laugh when our project is complete, for nothing of its like will have been seen before in all of Thedas! You see," more conversationally, "this is where we would need the wine. For the toasting. Tea does not toast the same. Even you can see the sense in that, yes?"
She balks just slightly from the tap, wrinkling her nose as she straightens back, but that is the extent of her objection. For what could she begin to object to? She has gotten more or less everything she had wanted, save perhaps the dignity of sitting in a chair rather than on the floor, and his enthusiasm - if that is indeed the word for it - is most encouraging.
"Yes, yes. I see the logic in it now, de Foncé, and there is indeed a bottle waiting in the kitchen - you must make do with something simply white, I'm afraid - but in the mean time—"
(What could anyone possibly have to say about them as an 'us,' she cannot begin to imagine.)
Wysteria extends her cup, saying, "To something entirely new," and clinks it against Val's.
"It is bad luck," he cautions, without doing anything else to stop the toast from happening. "One should never drink to success with tea. I appreciate the daring, it is very bold of you. How blessed you are in your ignorance, to come out on the other side as a kind of innocence."
His next drink nearly empties the cup. With a critical eye, he peers at the dregs and the sludge of sugar at the bottom of it.
"We might find a better tea. Let this be another thing 'entirely new'."
There had been, perhaps, the faintest light of some fledgling good temper in her face - the kind born of a certain level of self satisfaction, yes, but nurtured along by the agreeable shock of finding him so unexpectedly amenable. She had anticipated that at this time they would still be arguing over the state of the house, or wrestling with the refusal of her plan, or, or, or— And so on.
Optimism's glow disappears at remarkable speed. Her cup clinks hard against its saucer.
"I'm sorry to hear it hasn't lived up to your expectations."
"Ah, no, mademoiselle. Do not apologize. This is not what I sought. Truly, it is my fault. I am used to a certain quality, yes? It is difficult to replicate. When Riftwatch was showing such bravery within the jungle, I was thinking, all along, how normally I would have such a supply of tea to drink while I am breakfasting on my adventures."
He sighs, as he settles back into a comfortable cross-legged seat once more, and rests both cup and saucer upon one of his knees. The perfect picture of composure.
"You are not to blame. It is whoever it is that does your purchasing for you. Who is that?"
In reply, Wysteria grows steelier still. While hardly looking, she takes a spoonful of sugar from the bowl and dumps it into her cup.
"Then it seems the blame is indeed entirely mine, Monsieur." It is light and airy, and continues to be so as she fetches her own spoon and begins to aggressively stir in the sugar. "For there is no one who does the purchasing, just as there is no one else who sees to the ordering of the wallpaper, or the arrangement of any other business in this house."
The teapot is fetched back up. Her half empty cup is refilled.
"But you must not be concerned, de Foncé. I won't force you to drink any more of it."
"But that is terrible. Not that I would be free of drinking it--of course, that is not unwelcome, but I would much prefer to have something to drink while working--but that you are being made to conduct your own purchasing. Where is the sense in that? Why would you undertake each and ever chore? I will say, I am not of Orlais in the way that so many others are. Of course I have an appreciation for work. I am a scholar, my research is always my own. But could I have written all that I have written if I was traipsing about purchasing tea? I will tell you: I could not have."
Imagine going to the market and purchasing tea, for yourself, always. Not just when it was amusing to do so, or when you did not trust someone to purchase the tea you wanted, or when you were in an exotic place where a trip to a market might be an adventure in of itself. No: an ordinary market, for ordinary, every-day, plainly serviceable tea. Quelle horreur.
"If you are to make a serious go of this, mademoiselle, you must learn what it is to delegate."
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"Then, no. You'll be relieved to hear that you bear no resemblance."
Then the letter's edge is tapped resolutely into her palm before being folded away into a skirt pocket, her scrutiny of him gone with it. "Not the yellow chair, Monsieur," she reminds him, and is away in a swirl of skirts.
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When she is gone, her skirts taken with her, her footsteps tapping down the hallway, then Val drops his act. He gets out his book from his coat pocket and flips to the page that he had written upon, makes a brief study of his own writing, and then tucks the book away again and pushes away from the window.
When she returns, there are chairs in the workroom. Neither of them is yellow. There is also a carpet--also not yellow--and there is a cracked pot that must have once contained a house plant, if the dirt within it is anything to go by. Val has taken off his boots and his socks and thrown his coat over the chair that is upholstered in dark blue, very Orlesian, and he is sitting cross-legged upon the carpet with the plant pot held up to the light of the window, studying the daylight that comes in through the crack.
"The yellow chair is very ugly," he calls, when he hears Wysteria's tread upon the floor. "You might have said only that. I did touch it but found nothing to be strange about it, besides its especial ugliness. Piss and mustard and the scrum that comes of infection, particular to the infection of an eye. Like custard. I hate it."
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If the arrangement she finds in the room waiting for her is odd, she is consumed enough by the pleasure of meeting irritatingly exacting standards (Tea! Sugar! In this economy!) not to notice it as she veers round Val and the cracked pot, his socks and boots to—
She stops. She regards his shoes, the question clearly all but vomiting out of her. Then, just as visibly, she thinks better of it and joins him there on the floor.
"I will admit I had thought we might sit in the chairs."
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And that might not be a compliment. It is difficult to say. Only when she is upon the floor does Val set the pot aside, with a small flourish, and give her his full attention once more.
"Sitting is for later. It begins upon the floor. To be close to the earth, it is grounding." He thumps a hand a few times for emphasis. The carpet muffles the sound; the stray dirt leaps and falls back down again. "We will know when it is the time to switch to the chairs again. It will at the least be after tea, which--?"
Expectant, as if asking to be served, except he is already reaching.
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"Stop that."
She intercepts his hand with a hiss and a smart slap to the knuckles, rescuing the teapot with her other hand. This is not a trivial matter. However, once in possession of the vessel and pouring both cups, the bite in her dissolves back again. She passes him the first, nodding to the tin and little copper pitcher in company on the tray.
"Sugar and milk is there. See to them as you like."
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"Oh," and he moves to accept his cup with one hand, grabbing immediately for the sugar tongs with the other hand, "my thanks, mademoiselle. A most generous hostess. Tell me, are you planning to have a grand opening of this house, whenever it has been brought up to current taste and standards? Or will it remain a place of exclusivity? Incidentally, I have some things to bring here, to furnish this room, that will assist us with our work. I will begin moving them in, now that we have designated this room. Do not worry, you will hardly be disturbed."
The quiet plop of sugar being dumped lavishly into tea plays along with this words, a constant accompanying line.
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Which is presently being spent almost entirely on solicitors and taxes and fees demanded by the office of the Viscount and so on, but that is neither here nor there and certainly is none of Valentine de Foncé's business.
"Do they have clubs of philosophy and the like in Orlais, Monsieur? They are rather popular in Kalvad. But as you say, it is hardly presentable in its current state. And then there is the matter of mollifying the house's inhabitant."
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He pulls a face. It is very dramatic. This is what he looks like when he makes these observations. He may be sugaring his tea during these observations as well; in this moment, at least, he still is about that business.
"So, then, do you intend that these dinners be hosted here?"
One last plop of sugar and he reaches for the milk. The level in the cup has risen quite close to the rim already.
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Her attention has been drawn, as filings to a magnet, toward the rising level in his teacup. Her hand, previously occupied by stirring her own cup with a delicate little spoon, has slowed considerably.
"My focus is first on the funding and development of the prototype. The house is another matter entirely, save for the discretion it presently provides. Do you require a larger cup, de Foncé?"
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But he says it so warmly it might almost sound a compliment. Val picks up the milk and considers his cup, then begins to pour, slowly. The level creeps still dangerously closer to the lip. "The cup is perfect, if in a style that is very dated. Much like everything here. Yet I must agree that the prototype is our focus and should remain as such. This house will apparently stand forever, no matter the rot and infestation that plague it. Perhaps it is charmed in some way. But our work must be completed, and the funds must be raised."
The tea now flush with the cup's edge, Val stops pouring and very casually picks it up, his hand remarkably steady.
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"Then it's settled," she says, entirely conversational despite her distraction. "All that remains is to find ourselves a few willing volunteers and the whole matter will be all but guaranteed. Which do you think would be best - a posting on the Gallows board, or an inquiry slipped into certain mail cubbies in the hall? I suppose an inquiry might be made by crystal as well, but we would have to be quite conscious in the phrasing."
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"An open posting? What will that get us, except the dregs. Already it is a silly thing. Do we trust the raising of our money to any-old-one? No, we do not. We must be selective if we are to raise any funds with this plan. We must choose, and inquire, and populate our list in this way. Any open invitation to participation will get us nothing but head's aches."
Please. At last he takes a sip of his sludge. It is thick, this sip. Val does not flinch at all.
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"In that case, I will leave it to you to make up the list of who we will approach. You're clearly far more discerning when it comes to matters of what is considered good taste here than I am. See, for example, the matter of the Antivan wallpaper."
She takes a slow slip from her own cup. It is perfectly adequate without the sugar - they have all been choking down bitter chicory coffee for so long that real tea is a balm -, though she thinks she would prefer it with just a little.
Alas, needs must.
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"Wallpaper is one thing, mademoiselle. I wonder that you have not noticed--" He leans forward, with a confidential air about him. The distance between them narrows. His tea, in defiance of all logic, still does not spill, though the movement does send another tremor across its surface. "I am unappreciated."
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"Unappreciated?" --Is slightly too loud to be playing along, but by the time she continues her voice has dropped accordingly. "I really couldn't begin to imagine what you might mean, Monsieur."
Oh, she can think of one or two definitions. But far be it for her to put anything whatsoever in the gentleman's mouth lest he find some way of taking it the wrong way.
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He snaps his fingers. Instant.
"It can only be you, mademoiselle, that does the asking. It is essential to this project that you do."
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It's not as if it isn't sound logic. Given the opportunity to reflect on the possibility of him in conversation with—who? The other party hardly matters, really—, she can only picture a certain level of intellectual battery unlikely to engender good will among any of their prospective pool of voluntolds.
(She is rather well liked in Riftwatch, it's true.)
"Then perhaps," she says, still leaned forward over the tea tray between them. "You might draw up the list and I will do the actual negotiation. So as to use both our skills to their best advantage."
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"Très très bien."
He leans away from her again and takes another sip of tea. This one nearly drains his cup by half, reducing its threat.
"It is always best in a project to make maximum use of the skills that one has at one's command. I am wasted; you are flourished. We will be a very good team, I think, despite what anyone might say of us. We will prove them wrong. And we will have the very last laugh when our project is complete, for nothing of its like will have been seen before in all of Thedas! You see," more conversationally, "this is where we would need the wine. For the toasting. Tea does not toast the same. Even you can see the sense in that, yes?"
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"Yes, yes. I see the logic in it now, de Foncé, and there is indeed a bottle waiting in the kitchen - you must make do with something simply white, I'm afraid - but in the mean time—"
(What could anyone possibly have to say about them as an 'us,' she cannot begin to imagine.)
Wysteria extends her cup, saying, "To something entirely new," and clinks it against Val's.
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His next drink nearly empties the cup. With a critical eye, he peers at the dregs and the sludge of sugar at the bottom of it.
"We might find a better tea. Let this be another thing 'entirely new'."
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Optimism's glow disappears at remarkable speed. Her cup clinks hard against its saucer.
"I'm sorry to hear it hasn't lived up to your expectations."
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He sighs, as he settles back into a comfortable cross-legged seat once more, and rests both cup and saucer upon one of his knees. The perfect picture of composure.
"You are not to blame. It is whoever it is that does your purchasing for you. Who is that?"
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"Then it seems the blame is indeed entirely mine, Monsieur." It is light and airy, and continues to be so as she fetches her own spoon and begins to aggressively stir in the sugar. "For there is no one who does the purchasing, just as there is no one else who sees to the ordering of the wallpaper, or the arrangement of any other business in this house."
The teapot is fetched back up. Her half empty cup is refilled.
"But you must not be concerned, de Foncé. I won't force you to drink any more of it."
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"But that is terrible. Not that I would be free of drinking it--of course, that is not unwelcome, but I would much prefer to have something to drink while working--but that you are being made to conduct your own purchasing. Where is the sense in that? Why would you undertake each and ever chore? I will say, I am not of Orlais in the way that so many others are. Of course I have an appreciation for work. I am a scholar, my research is always my own. But could I have written all that I have written if I was traipsing about purchasing tea? I will tell you: I could not have."
Imagine going to the market and purchasing tea, for yourself, always. Not just when it was amusing to do so, or when you did not trust someone to purchase the tea you wanted, or when you were in an exotic place where a trip to a market might be an adventure in of itself. No: an ordinary market, for ordinary, every-day, plainly serviceable tea. Quelle horreur.
"If you are to make a serious go of this, mademoiselle, you must learn what it is to delegate."
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The spoon is removed from the sugar bowl; the bowl's lid is firmly replaced to its rightful position.
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