degenere: (07)
Valentine Nicasus Maxence Mérovée Olivier de Foncé ([personal profile] degenere) wrote2010-07-06 07:45 pm
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heirring: ([004])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-23 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
"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."
heirring: ([024])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-24 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
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."
heirring: ([029])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-24 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
"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."
heirring: ([035])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-28 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
"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?"
heirring: ([009])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-28 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
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."
Edited 2020-07-28 19:34 (UTC)
heirring: ([029])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-29 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
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.

Alas, needs must.
heirring: ([044])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-31 04:33 am (UTC)(link)
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.
heirring: ([030])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-07-31 07:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Well.

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."
heirring: (sassmastery)

[personal profile] heirring 2020-08-02 12:16 am (UTC)(link)
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.
heirring: ([014])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-08-04 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
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."
heirring: ([004])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-08-05 03:07 am (UTC)(link)
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."
heirring: ([030])

[personal profile] heirring 2020-08-05 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"A serious go of what exactly? Scholarship? Or seeing that you are kept comfortably enough to participate?"

The spoon is removed from the sugar bowl; the bowl's lid is firmly replaced to its rightful position.

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