Then he lays back down on the floor again, the pillow still held to his chest.
"I see," he says to the ceiling. "You want us to be very separate. I will consider that flattering, mademoiselle. And usually I would share your opinion. Furthermore, I detest anyone who everyone cares for. It is a very boring position to take. 'Everyone'. I do not permit myself to be spoken for. And why should everyone like them? Of course I make exceptions when the person proves to be interesting. You should try the same for Fitz. He strikes me as worthwhile. Oh, perhaps that is where my standard lies. Worthwhile.
Where to begin? With the grossly misinformed theory that she wishes to keep them very separate? With flattery? With, I have just said that Mr. Fitz is perfectly agreeable, so what do you mean that I 'should try the same?'
"Oh. Worthwhile," has such faux sincerity, all murderous lightness and air. "Yes of course. I should have known as much. For what else might inspire respect in a person? You must tell me, de Foncé, what in particular about the man's person strikes you so, so that when next I am in his company I might make particular note of it."
Airy, but in an entirely different way, Val slings one leg over the other, his ankle pressed to his knee. He studies the ceiling as he considers what he might say to this.
"I don't know that I could say," he says eventually, with a little laugh. "It is a certain unsayable thing, I think. A quality that one cannot put their finger upon. Even you will notice it, if you think to look for it when you are next with him, mademoiselle. And he is amusing. I suppose that helps his case. I have invited him to dinner so that he might meet Freddie and Jeannot. Or I intend to. I do not think I have said the invitation yet. You must not tell him so that it might be a surprise."
"You are inviting him to dinner?" spikes shrill. —And then moderates in a monumental show of force, pitching higher and more pleasant still. "How fine. I'm sure the four of you will have a marvelous time. It is rather nice, isn't it? To have such reliable and interesting companions with which to spend the an evening. Now tell me, Monsieur. When shall I expect your list?"
"Yes, I am pleased to have found his company." Without looking around, Val stretches his hand out toward the cup of tea that he had abandoned. It is a bit too far for him to reach easily. Fumbling about, he does not move any closer or make any significant effort to get at it. "It should be a very pleasant evening. Engaging conversation amongst those of interesting company and intelligence, one can hardly ask for more. I have a plan to engage the services of a chef that I have heard of. He prepares food in the style popular in Orlais right now. Of course, it will not be precisely the same as if we were dining in Val Royeaux, but it will be a similarity. And one must make such a compromise when one lives abroad."
At last, he finds the cup and drags it closer. The sludge of sugared tea sloshes dully. "As to the list, I suppose I will find the time for it in the coming week or so. I will have to check my appointment book."
"In the next week or so should be perfectly agreeable," she says, pitched with such delicate effervescence that it hardly exists at all.
Claiming her own cup with a vice grip, Wysteria takes a fortifying drink before saying, "I ask only as Mr. Ellis and myself are soon to be away from Kirkwall for some time together on a trip whose particulars I am not presently at liberty to discuss, and I would vastly prefer to see this set in motion before then. You know how these things are; sometimes when one is away, it becomes difficult to pick up a thing right as you left it."
Val lifts his head from the floor so that he can take a sip of his tea. Not so that he can look at Wysteria. He has no interest in Wysteria. And he waits until he has set his head back down upon the floor again before he gives any further remark, which--
"A mission, I assume."
--who cares about liberty when he wants to know.
"I can only assume it is to be very dull, and that is why you will not speak of it."
"Oh no, not in the slightest with respect to either account. I cannot speak of it, as it is to be the very definition of clandestine. In fact," she says, taking a moment to gently correct the fall of her skirts. "I might ask that you do your best to put it out of your mind entirely. I wouldn't have even mentioned it if it weren't for the need to organize our work together around it. Let us instead return to the subject of your imminent dinner with your good friend Mr. Fitz, or dispense entirely with the diversion of small talk and return to the subject of—"
Of whatever else needs doing. It occurs to her all at once that she has entirely run out of prepared material for his digestion and that it is a singularly troubling prospect, something akin to running out into a busy thoroughfare without looking and realizing too late that she might be imminently struck by a carriage.
"Well, it cannot be very clandestine," Val says, with an exhale that might be a laugh. "And you are already speaking of it, so you might as well continue to speak of it."
With a slight bit of extra force, he sets aside his teacup once more and heaves himself up so that he is sitting, cross-legged and facing Wysteria once more. Elbows resting on his knees, he knits his fingers together and tents both forefingers, and fixes her with a piercing and thoughtful look.
"It is not for Riftwatch," he says, after a moment. "Is it some silly Warden thing?"
She can feel herself hesitating - a more reasonable part of herself demanding she steer the conversation elsewhere. As a means of distraction, Wysteria moves to pour him a second cup of tea over the remaining sludge of the first.
"No," she says at last (good sense being something of a sometimes impulse and not a habit). "It is something of a personal favor he is doing me. Although I will say that his duties as a Warden have lent Mr. Ellis some measure of expertise with the subject in question and so I believe he will make a most excellent travelling companion."
Val snorts, as stretches out his arm to grab for the sugar bowl again. "And what is that. Darkspawn? Brooding? Leaving town?"
There is a kind of comfortable symbiosis to the pouring of tea without him having to ask for it. This, then, is why Val does not offer a word of thanks, but starts dumping sugar straightaway as he continues their conversation.
"You do know that there are many of our number who are good at travelling. I do not see why Mister Ellis," a name that he manages to pronounce in a highly Orlesian way, despite it being a very non-Orlesian name, "should come so highly recommended."
"It's true. We are indeed rather an accomplished group," she agrees, setting the pot aside.
"And if my interests lay in a direction I thought they might be best suited to travel in, I might consult them. Why, I might even be tempted to ask yourself for a referral as I believe you have mentioned some interest in globe trotting. But as it happens, I have assessed the candidates already and Mister Ellis is without question the best man for the job given his familiarity with the route in question and our destination."
Somewhere in there she has fetched up her teacup and begun sipping at it, thinking at twice the speed she is speaking so she might find some subject to steer toward. What she lands on is:
"But you mustn't be concerned, de Foncé. I will ask Mr. Ellis if he might might set aside a moment to attend to that offensive tree branch outside your window before we leave. He has been pitting the garden in order and I doubt he would mind. That way should you feel any desire to reference the material we will keep in this room while I'm away, you may do so comfortably."
Val sets his spoon down on his saucer with a slight bit of extra force. He is well-mannered enough that the result is that it is very slight, because he is not trying to be caught out.
"I can hire that work out," he says, clipped. "Mr. Ellis need not trouble himself with such a small thing. As you have said, he is not a hired man. No indeed, he is some manner of scholar, by your very generous telling. Tell me, what is this route with which he is so familiar? Are you visiting his familial estate in some charming little backwater?"
Here, a pause that verges at the very edge of prudent before crumpling.
"No. He hasn't spoken much of his family. Though he is Ferelden, so perhaps if it were convenient to do so to or from our intended destination. But really, Monsieur," she insists across the surface of her tea. She is still restlessly smoothing, rearranging and smoothing again her skirts with her other hand. "I truly cannot say more than that. Not without swearing you to some manner of oath of secrecy or something like it. It is not wholly my secret which I might tell in full."
With a scoff, Val sets aside his cup once again, abandoning it to grow cold and sludgier than it already is. He scoots himself closer to Wysteria so that the distance between them is very small indeed.
"Swear me," he says imperiously, and thrusts out his hand, presumably for the swearing. "I will not be tantalized with such half information and then turned out into the cold. It is unfair. Swear me so I might know."
For a moment, Wysteria considers the potential of accidentally upending the tea try onto de Foncé's lap. But she rather likes that cushion and there is every likelihood that it might suffer unfairly as a result. So instead, after a long beat of hesitation, she takes the offered hand.
(Her fingertips are faintly ink stained; there is a small speckling of scars between her thumb and forefinger - a child's black powder burn there now forever.)
"Then you must swear that you will speak no part of this outside this room, and with no other individual regardless of where they might be standing. You may not even discuss the subject with Mr. Ellis. And should you break this solemn oath— Well, I will never forgive you. And you will have to write an essay in support of that scholar, Finlayson, from Markham University who you have said must have researched with his eyes closed to come to his conclusions. Agreed?"
"Finlayson is an ass," Val says, his lip curled. "I would sooner drive splinters under my fingernails then utter a word of defense of his abominable scholarship. You did read that laughable essay of his, yes? If he had spent thirty seconds at the dig in Nevarra he would have understood the critical hinge of its modern society is not the fork, but the spoon. The fork has been around in many forms in Nevarra for Age after Age. The teeth tell us this."
He shakes her hand firmly the whole time that he is speaking, as if he has forgotten that they are shaking hands in the first place.
(His hands are rougher than might be expected for the former heir of Comte de Falaise sur la Mont, callouses and old bite scars and healed burns. Dirt under his fingernails. A workman.)
"I swear, yes, because I will absolutely die before I defend Finlayson's research. To say nothing of his atrocious sentence structure. And I do not wish to speak to Mr. Ellis so I will have no trouble keeping that part of the swearing. Now on with it."
The acidity in his response satisfies her entirely. So much so that she forgets they have yet to stop (avidly) shaking hands. Rather than make any attempt to pry herself free, she simply proceeds to confess.
"Very well. Then, under pain of certain death should you speak any word of this to anyone whatsoever, I shall tell you. We are travelling to Orzammar with the intention of securing a contact who trades in, and will be willing to trade to us specifically, a very particular form of refined crystal lyrium. Mr. Ellis is familiar with the city, having been through some years ago on Warden business in the Deep Roads. And while I cannot imagine we will stray quite so far as that, one never knows what may occur when one is abroad. This is particularly true, I think, when one wishes to engage in business while there."
Impassioned, Val stops shaking her hand so that he might instead seize upon her hand and pull her closer.
"Orzammar? Mademoiselle! Without me? But I am so interested in Orzammar. This is unfair. Of course Mr. Ellis has experience upon the Deep Roads. He cannot have spent much time to immerse himself within anything of particular note. What has he told you of the Wardens? It is not as if he is some ambassador, with credentials that might earn you a place among those of high position in that city. If he has made some false promise to you, then you ought to be keenly aware."
The tug warrants a small noise of dismay for the tea jostling of the tea tray, but otherwise passes without remark for—
"Mr. Ellis has guaranteed nothing of the sort, Monsieur."
—she has a Warden's honor to defend.
"And indeed I have very little interest in dealing with anyone placed so especially prominently as to be accessible via an ambassador's recommendation. No, this must be an arrangement made quietly so that anyone might question it will see only a private interest and no tie to the organization which we are all a part of. I suspect it is imperative that this deal be one made under the table, so to speak, far from the eyes of the Chantry. In which case, I have rather more use for a sturdy arm than a scholar, no matter how well connected. Which is, for the record, all Mr. Ellis has ever claimed to be. A capable fighter, I mean."
Val was already letting her hand go, so wringing it is quite unnecessary. He looks extremely dissatisfied--and yet still handsome, unconsciously. Rather like a prize show dog given the wrong dish of food at dinnertime.
"Oh, so he is some sort of smuggler as well as a Warden. And a capable fighter besides. What a glowing review he has given you of himself. And I hope you are very happy in Orzammar and Mr. Ellis does not lead you over the side of some sheer cliff to your deep death."
Though-- "If he does, I will continue our project without you. It will make a fitting tribute to complete it."
Her bristling must be entirely for poor Mr. Ellis' sake - who is surely among the most respectable people she has had the pleasure of meeting, and deserves none of this harsh treatment from some Orlesian puffed up on his own opinion of himself (nevermind the fact that the man's accomplishments might warrant a little self satisfaction; that is entirely not the point). For she pivots smoothly toward this last point with no malice whatsoever, and indeed threatens to verge on (very firm, unsentimental) sincerity when she says—
"Good. No other guarantee could please me more, Monsieur. Indeed that is precisely why this partnership is so important, and indeed why it is so vital the design be something that might be pursued in my stead."
'And what is he contributing to this project, exactly? Besides moral support,' Mr. Stark had asked.
"I trust entirely your determination to see it finished."
So not-fun that Val actually frowns. It is a rare expression on him, lacking its usual flair and overstatement.
"Well, I do not actually want for that end," he says, a statement which borders upon the heartfeltedly sincere, despite its flippant delivery.
To make up for this weakness, he takes up his cup once more and takes a big sip of the sludge, and pulls a face. "This really is terrible. I have about half a dozen books in my private collection on Orazammar. I am certain Mr. Ellis is a wealth of knowledge of some of the place, as you have defended him with such steadfast conviction, and I know you to be not a complete idiot, but there are of course many things of it that are circulated in certain circles."
There is, for just the smallest moment, the slightest impulse toward the barest kind of magnanimity which catches her like picking up a splinter from some unlikely surface. Of course it has nothing whatsoever at all to do with him, with either his interest in the dwarven city or with his sullen capitulation on the point of the project's (her) longevity. No, it is entirely an act of truly stalwart charity from the goodness of her very own heart which leads her to relent by this narrow margin.
"Then perhaps, as you feel so passionately on the subject, you would agree to something of a consulting role, Monsieur."
She takes a small sip from her cup to make up for all this generosity she is displaying. "There is time yet before I leave Kirkwall. You might lend me one or two of these books, or we could at the very least discuss the broad strokes of them. And then when I am in Orzammar I might once or twice call on you by way of sending crystal should it seem necessary to do so."
"I detest acting the consultant. It is so boring," and Val drops his elbows onto his knees, carried forward by the heavy heave of his sigh. "To be left at home while all of the interesting things are happening abroad? I cannot stand it. At the University I was insistent that I would do the field research for whatever project that I worked on, because how is life best spent? Not in dingy little rooms or in libraries. But in the open spaces of the world, in the ruins and the deep places and the forests and every place that is interesting. Anything else causes me such pain, I feel very near to death each time I must suffer it."
Very sad. He drops his chin in his hands, dejected, with a mild pout.
But.
"As I have no choice, and as including me in some way is likely very prudent to you and your work and all, I will accept the position of consultant. And I will be available to you by sending crystal, if I am not very busy with projects and work of my own. And even then I will be able to lend at least half of an ear. Or half of a half. Or I shall have someone else transcribe my answers for me and give them to you. It is agreed."
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Then he lays back down on the floor again, the pillow still held to his chest.
"I see," he says to the ceiling. "You want us to be very separate. I will consider that flattering, mademoiselle. And usually I would share your opinion. Furthermore, I detest anyone who everyone cares for. It is a very boring position to take. 'Everyone'. I do not permit myself to be spoken for. And why should everyone like them? Of course I make exceptions when the person proves to be interesting. You should try the same for Fitz. He strikes me as worthwhile. Oh, perhaps that is where my standard lies. Worthwhile.
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"Oh. Worthwhile," has such faux sincerity, all murderous lightness and air. "Yes of course. I should have known as much. For what else might inspire respect in a person? You must tell me, de Foncé, what in particular about the man's person strikes you so, so that when next I am in his company I might make particular note of it."
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Airy, but in an entirely different way, Val slings one leg over the other, his ankle pressed to his knee. He studies the ceiling as he considers what he might say to this.
"I don't know that I could say," he says eventually, with a little laugh. "It is a certain unsayable thing, I think. A quality that one cannot put their finger upon. Even you will notice it, if you think to look for it when you are next with him, mademoiselle. And he is amusing. I suppose that helps his case. I have invited him to dinner so that he might meet Freddie and Jeannot. Or I intend to. I do not think I have said the invitation yet. You must not tell him so that it might be a surprise."
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At last, he finds the cup and drags it closer. The sludge of sugared tea sloshes dully. "As to the list, I suppose I will find the time for it in the coming week or so. I will have to check my appointment book."
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Claiming her own cup with a vice grip, Wysteria takes a fortifying drink before saying, "I ask only as Mr. Ellis and myself are soon to be away from Kirkwall for some time together on a trip whose particulars I am not presently at liberty to discuss, and I would vastly prefer to see this set in motion before then. You know how these things are; sometimes when one is away, it becomes difficult to pick up a thing right as you left it."
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Val lifts his head from the floor so that he can take a sip of his tea. Not so that he can look at Wysteria. He has no interest in Wysteria. And he waits until he has set his head back down upon the floor again before he gives any further remark, which--
"A mission, I assume."
--who cares about liberty when he wants to know.
"I can only assume it is to be very dull, and that is why you will not speak of it."
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Of whatever else needs doing. It occurs to her all at once that she has entirely run out of prepared material for his digestion and that it is a singularly troubling prospect, something akin to running out into a busy thoroughfare without looking and realizing too late that she might be imminently struck by a carriage.
"Of the project. Generally."
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With a slight bit of extra force, he sets aside his teacup once more and heaves himself up so that he is sitting, cross-legged and facing Wysteria once more. Elbows resting on his knees, he knits his fingers together and tents both forefingers, and fixes her with a piercing and thoughtful look.
"It is not for Riftwatch," he says, after a moment. "Is it some silly Warden thing?"
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"No," she says at last (good sense being something of a sometimes impulse and not a habit). "It is something of a personal favor he is doing me. Although I will say that his duties as a Warden have lent Mr. Ellis some measure of expertise with the subject in question and so I believe he will make a most excellent travelling companion."
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There is a kind of comfortable symbiosis to the pouring of tea without him having to ask for it. This, then, is why Val does not offer a word of thanks, but starts dumping sugar straightaway as he continues their conversation.
"You do know that there are many of our number who are good at travelling. I do not see why Mister Ellis," a name that he manages to pronounce in a highly Orlesian way, despite it being a very non-Orlesian name, "should come so highly recommended."
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"And if my interests lay in a direction I thought they might be best suited to travel in, I might consult them. Why, I might even be tempted to ask yourself for a referral as I believe you have mentioned some interest in globe trotting. But as it happens, I have assessed the candidates already and Mister Ellis is without question the best man for the job given his familiarity with the route in question and our destination."
Somewhere in there she has fetched up her teacup and begun sipping at it, thinking at twice the speed she is speaking so she might find some subject to steer toward. What she lands on is:
"But you mustn't be concerned, de Foncé. I will ask Mr. Ellis if he might might set aside a moment to attend to that offensive tree branch outside your window before we leave. He has been pitting the garden in order and I doubt he would mind. That way should you feel any desire to reference the material we will keep in this room while I'm away, you may do so comfortably."
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Val sets his spoon down on his saucer with a slight bit of extra force. He is well-mannered enough that the result is that it is very slight, because he is not trying to be caught out.
"I can hire that work out," he says, clipped. "Mr. Ellis need not trouble himself with such a small thing. As you have said, he is not a hired man. No indeed, he is some manner of scholar, by your very generous telling. Tell me, what is this route with which he is so familiar? Are you visiting his familial estate in some charming little backwater?"
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Here, a pause that verges at the very edge of prudent before crumpling.
"No. He hasn't spoken much of his family. Though he is Ferelden, so perhaps if it were convenient to do so to or from our intended destination. But really, Monsieur," she insists across the surface of her tea. She is still restlessly smoothing, rearranging and smoothing again her skirts with her other hand. "I truly cannot say more than that. Not without swearing you to some manner of oath of secrecy or something like it. It is not wholly my secret which I might tell in full."
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"Swear me," he says imperiously, and thrusts out his hand, presumably for the swearing. "I will not be tantalized with such half information and then turned out into the cold. It is unfair. Swear me so I might know."
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(Her fingertips are faintly ink stained; there is a small speckling of scars between her thumb and forefinger - a child's black powder burn there now forever.)
"Then you must swear that you will speak no part of this outside this room, and with no other individual regardless of where they might be standing. You may not even discuss the subject with Mr. Ellis. And should you break this solemn oath— Well, I will never forgive you. And you will have to write an essay in support of that scholar, Finlayson, from Markham University who you have said must have researched with his eyes closed to come to his conclusions. Agreed?"
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He shakes her hand firmly the whole time that he is speaking, as if he has forgotten that they are shaking hands in the first place.
(His hands are rougher than might be expected for the former heir of Comte de Falaise sur la Mont, callouses and old bite scars and healed burns. Dirt under his fingernails. A workman.)
"I swear, yes, because I will absolutely die before I defend Finlayson's research. To say nothing of his atrocious sentence structure. And I do not wish to speak to Mr. Ellis so I will have no trouble keeping that part of the swearing. Now on with it."
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"Very well. Then, under pain of certain death should you speak any word of this to anyone whatsoever, I shall tell you. We are travelling to Orzammar with the intention of securing a contact who trades in, and will be willing to trade to us specifically, a very particular form of refined crystal lyrium. Mr. Ellis is familiar with the city, having been through some years ago on Warden business in the Deep Roads. And while I cannot imagine we will stray quite so far as that, one never knows what may occur when one is abroad. This is particularly true, I think, when one wishes to engage in business while there."
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Impassioned, Val stops shaking her hand so that he might instead seize upon her hand and pull her closer.
"Orzammar? Mademoiselle! Without me? But I am so interested in Orzammar. This is unfair. Of course Mr. Ellis has experience upon the Deep Roads. He cannot have spent much time to immerse himself within anything of particular note. What has he told you of the Wardens? It is not as if he is some ambassador, with credentials that might earn you a place among those of high position in that city. If he has made some false promise to you, then you ought to be keenly aware."
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"Mr. Ellis has guaranteed nothing of the sort, Monsieur."
—she has a Warden's honor to defend.
"And indeed I have very little interest in dealing with anyone placed so especially prominently as to be accessible via an ambassador's recommendation. No, this must be an arrangement made quietly so that anyone might question it will see only a private interest and no tie to the organization which we are all a part of. I suspect it is imperative that this deal be one made under the table, so to speak, far from the eyes of the Chantry. In which case, I have rather more use for a sturdy arm than a scholar, no matter how well connected. Which is, for the record, all Mr. Ellis has ever claimed to be. A capable fighter, I mean."
Here, finally, she makes to wring her hand free.
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"Oh, so he is some sort of smuggler as well as a Warden. And a capable fighter besides. What a glowing review he has given you of himself. And I hope you are very happy in Orzammar and Mr. Ellis does not lead you over the side of some sheer cliff to your deep death."
Though-- "If he does, I will continue our project without you. It will make a fitting tribute to complete it."
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"Good. No other guarantee could please me more, Monsieur. Indeed that is precisely why this partnership is so important, and indeed why it is so vital the design be something that might be pursued in my stead."
'And what is he contributing to this project, exactly? Besides moral support,' Mr. Stark had asked.
"I trust entirely your determination to see it finished."
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So not-fun that Val actually frowns. It is a rare expression on him, lacking its usual flair and overstatement.
"Well, I do not actually want for that end," he says, a statement which borders upon the heartfeltedly sincere, despite its flippant delivery.
To make up for this weakness, he takes up his cup once more and takes a big sip of the sludge, and pulls a face. "This really is terrible. I have about half a dozen books in my private collection on Orazammar. I am certain Mr. Ellis is a wealth of knowledge of some of the place, as you have defended him with such steadfast conviction, and I know you to be not a complete idiot, but there are of course many things of it that are circulated in certain circles."
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"Then perhaps, as you feel so passionately on the subject, you would agree to something of a consulting role, Monsieur."
She takes a small sip from her cup to make up for all this generosity she is displaying. "There is time yet before I leave Kirkwall. You might lend me one or two of these books, or we could at the very least discuss the broad strokes of them. And then when I am in Orzammar I might once or twice call on you by way of sending crystal should it seem necessary to do so."
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Very sad. He drops his chin in his hands, dejected, with a mild pout.
But.
"As I have no choice, and as including me in some way is likely very prudent to you and your work and all, I will accept the position of consultant. And I will be available to you by sending crystal, if I am not very busy with projects and work of my own. And even then I will be able to lend at least half of an ear. Or half of a half. Or I shall have someone else transcribe my answers for me and give them to you. It is agreed."
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