It is not desperation that causes Wysteria's crystal to crackle to life, some days later. Nor is it despair, or loneliness, or frustration. In fact one should not mistake the tone of Val's voice for a tone of frustration. It has been a long day, that is all, filled with work and projects and avoiding talking to certain people and consulting with Babin on the mural, and then dinner and avoiding conversation and then--at last!--what should have been a bit of light and relaxing code-breaking by the fire with Veronique and Déranger for company, which leads him now to this message--
"If your handwriting were better, this message would have been easier to untangle!"
She had assured him that she would be unlikely to be in a position to immediately receive and reply to any message might possibly choose to send. She is, after all, very busy. That's true! And she can hardly avoid the pretense of being a guest in someone's house every evening. One can get away with poor manners only so often! In fact, with all this in mind it would be a little unseemly to respond directly even if she happened to be to hand at the exact right moment. Were she to answer right away, it might seem as if she'd exaggerated the scope of her work in Orzammar.
Which is why, when the crystal crackles to life on her little bedroom desk as she is copying down all her notes for the day, she restrains herself from immediately snatching up the crystal. Instead, she springs to her feet. She paces around the little guest room. She makes herself change out of her day clothes and into her nightshirt.
She does not, however, get as far as combing out her hair before the impulse to valiantly defend herself (obviously; there can be no other reason) overrules prudence.
"My handwriting is excellent. Everyone says so," comes crackling back (not very many) minutes later. "Maybe you need spectacles."
Val has no patience to delay his response. Above the ground, absolute leagues away, he is pacing before the fireplace in Wysteria's Hightown home. Déranger watches his progress for a few paces before she springs to her feet and falls into step just behind him, attentive and pricked-eared. Too engaged, Val does not look down at her.
"Lying to you," he repeats, "or laboring under a particular blindness. This little mark, meant to represent an E--I spent nearly an hour thinking it was a U. I only discovered it when I realized the letter began by addressing me. And all this time I have been critical of Mister Ellis, when it was you that I should have been critical of all along!"
"In fact," Wysteria says, in some lofty tone designed to either speak over him or as if she'd failed to hear him at all. "I believe you yourself have remarked how neat my penmanship is on prior occasions."
The papers on her desk are shoved unceremoniously into her little working journal, which is just as thoughtlessly snapped shut.
"So indeed, it seems someone has or is lying to me."
Val frowns, and not because Déranger has begun to lick his hand. This would not be enough to inspire a frown from him. He cares nothing for dog spit. But to be so caught--this is what causes him to frown.
"Perhaps," he says, slowly, "I might have made some off-handed remark in this fashion in the past, without really realizing what it was that I was saying--certainly not realizing that I was fashioning for myself a noose that would be used against me in future! Possibly I even committed this remark to parchment--which I can only admit now was a mistake, one should never commit compliments in writing--but the fact of the difficulty remains! So, I can only conclude that it is very dark in Orzammar and your penmanship has suffered for it."
This conclusion comes out more snappish than lofty. Certainly better than having nothing at all to say, and being caught out in it. Val reaches the wall and turns on his heel to pace back in the other direction, Déranger dogging his steps. Now his tone turns more conversational.
"The E character really does look like a U. I have saved the letter so that I can show it to you upon your return. What are you doing at present?"
In the little room, Wysteria pivots to shoot her mabari companion (who takes up a great deal of the floor directly nearest the clever little stove) a labored look. He reciprocates it with a flick of a nubby ear and little else. Ruadh apparently has no great affection for gossip and has become totally enured to Wysteria stamping impatiently about this room or any other.
"I'm cleaning up my notes from the afternoon," she says, turning once more from the desk on her heel. The crystal comes with her this time. There is a loud, overly close clack as she gathers up her comb in hand with it.
"I prefer to do so at once while everything is still fresh. There is nothing worse than reviewing your own writing weeks later and finding that the past you has become impenetrable. Why?"—is required to be at least faintly accusatory—"What are you doing?"
Val stops in the center of the room and considers his surroundings. Here, a plate and a cup and crusts of bread upon a tray. Here, a half-drunk bottle of red wine, and a glass that has been used and reused. There, a stack of parchment weighed down by an inkwell, beside a tower of books, and all of it surrounded by still more books, open and face-down, spines raised so that they look like tents of some encampment. Here, a half-pinned beetle upon a board, with tools of that work scattered about--and a half-eaten beetle, the legs of which are still in the corners of Déranger's mouth. Now that Val is still, she presses against his leg, tail thumping, and licks again at his hand.
"In fact I have only a few moments." Under a nearby chair, Veronique makes a soft scuffling sound, unique to her attempts to burrow into solid wood. Val leans down to attempt to see her. "There is something--several somethings, actually--that I absolutely must attend to before the day ends. I had a moment to spare and thought to sit down and make work of your cipher--which would have gone much more quickly, had it not been for the poor light in Orzammar, which is what I now blame for this quality, or lack thereof. I do hope you do not come back entirely ruined by it. You know, sometimes I like to leave my notes entirely unread for weeks at a time. I find that, in then returning to them, I can be brutally honest, or brutally complimentary--because I have so forgotten writing them that it is as if their author is another soul entirely. You might try that."
She will not. But it's the polite thing to say when she has caught him out so badly as to necessitate a serious revision to his story. What is slightly less polite—
"But if you're very busy then I won't insist on keeping you. Clearly my little note has already taken up far more of your time than you were ready to give it. And curious as I am to have answers to the questions in it, I doubt they're more pressing than the various things otherwise occupying your time."
With a fhwump from the thin duvet, Wysteria hops far enough onto the edge of the bed to keep her feet from the floor. The headboard is near to the same height that she might hold the crystal, and so makes for a good ledge on which to prop it while she picks out various pins and ties from her hair.
Val snorts, loudly. He kicks at a patch of rug, then decides it is soft enough that he will sit down on it. Déranger rushes upon him instantly, tail wagging, and bashes her shoulder against his.
"Veronique approves very well of the renovations. She is here upstairs at present, with me, naturally--but she will eventually make her retreat. I have been giving her a choice of where she might be and I do find her in the cellar more often than not, when I am able to find her. I appreciated the blue of the ribbon. A summer's color. Do you think--" He interrupts himself to address Déranger as she tries to drop into his lap and half bowls him over, recule, ma chérie, pas bouger, then continues as if he had not interrupted himself at all, "Do you think it would be novel, to have you presence missed whenever you are away, or would it merely be annoying? I have been thinking of this and cannot decide which."
Yes, in addition to being her favorite, blue is a very summery color.
A long way away, on the bed where she is sat, Wysteria draws her legs up so she may sit criss cross and form a collection of pins on one of her knees.
"Well first, I think that's a very silly question. Of course it should be novel to be missed, as then it means someone has thought of you and what could possibly be more pleasant. But I suppose if I were to entertain the possibility of it being otherwise—for the sake of the argument, as it were—, then I think it would depend entirely on the person in question who was doing the missing and how you felt about them. For example, say it was someone you disliked. It might be highly aggravating to discover they'd thought at all kindly of you, as it would somewhat ruin your ability to disapprove of them without reservation."
The collection of pins is transferred thoughtlessly to the little side table overflowing with books and a porcelain washing basin and a mostly empty cup.
"You haven't let her into the little library, have you? Veronique. I believe you said she has a fondness for paper."
"I am offended by the very question, mademoiselle."
Val dips his forefinger in a nearby cup of wine, and uses it to begin to trace, from memory, a plan of the house on the bare floorboards beside the rug he is sitting upon. Here is the hall, with its little table at the end, and the stairs here, and the door to the sitting room, and the door to the little library, which he renders immediately after, with its bookshelves and the window with the cushions. Déranger watches, head cocked.
"Your argument is rather difficult for me to comprehend--for I believe that everyone who dislikes me does so with such completeness that they never miss me. Though I suppose one might miss a favored adversary, yes? To dislike someone does give a certain sense of purpose which, in certain circumstances, can be quite sad and pathetic--but in other circumstances is perfectly understandable and indeed logical. For what joy is there in simply being unopposed? If there were nothing to argue against, one could not argue. One's point would simply be correct, but unable to be proved as such. Through opposition comes proof."
"See, but that's entirely in support of my point. Imagine, by some strange happening, you came to realize that your favored adversary had been harboring some secret fondness for you. Picture if it were—remind me, which is your least favorite colleague from University?"
The comb is fetched from its make-do shelf and the great heap of her hair drawn forward over her shoulder so it may be picked slowly through.
"Picture if it were them, and you stumbled across some note where they spoke kindly or your scholarship. If I found myself in such a position, I would be furious. Although, honestly. I don't see why you of all people should even struggle over the idea of missing someone or being missed in the first place."
"Must it be a mere one? I have so many least favored."
A point that must, must be made. Val dips his finger again in the wine and, floorplan complete, begins to trace Veronique's path through the halls. From this room, to that, to this, to that, to the little library. He should look in on the little library and take in the state of things. Surely she was not within the room long enough to wreck unimaginable havoc. Only a havoc one could imagine.
"I suppose," he begins to say, and then draws Veronique's path out of the little library, a sharp straight line, into the cupboard across the hall. There.
"No: I suppose nothing. What a soft word. Strike it from your recollection of this conversation. My argument is, forcefully, that one needs not to speak kindly of another--privately, or publicly--to appreciate an adversarial bond. In fact one should not speak kindly, or else ruin the adversarial nature of the relationship--for it is a relationship. One in opposition of the other, two lodestones that cannot meet. But if one lodestone is alone, it is merely a stone."
"Ah, yes," she says, the scrape of the comb through her hair so vague that it must not sound like anything at all through the crystal. Well, I can see the logic in it. I lost a shoe once, which rather ruined the effect of the one I still had."
They are not, she suspects, discussing the various schoolmates he despises. Maybe. Possibly. But it might be that they're discussing his two most dear and sincere friends, and he is merely taking the most circuitous and infuriatingly confusing route to arrive at that fact. One must either simply allow him to continue on, or brook some argument with this detail or that in an effort to chase him through the various twists and turns at , or (in exceptionally rare circumstances)—
"All the same, you may say so if you miss me. I assure you that I will be appropriately disgusted."
—simply hack straight in the direction one feels is most irritating and observe the results.
In the cupboard, Veronique's path takes on the shape of a squiggle. Around, and then around, and around again--then straight through the wall into the adjourning room. In the mademoiselle's little mansion, this room is some sort of parlor or receiving room--small, not very remarkable, likely destined to be shut up and shuttered unless absolutely needed for entertaining. Veronique's trajectory takes on a destructive air. When she is grown quite large, she will make a ruin of this room.
"Very well," Val says to his crystal. To his wife, through the crystal, some many miles away and then somewhere still miles below. "I miss you."
Veronique, represented by his thumb, strikes the wall and barrels through into the next room. The wine is running dry; he dips it in anew and has her circle where the shabby chandelier hangs.
Through the crystal, some many miles away and then still miles more below the surface, the regular motion of Wysteria's hand pulling the comb through her hair pauses. Partly—no, primarily—she stops because the comb has snarled on a tangle. Indeed, if there'd any other point to it then it's so negligible as to be practically—
"Good," she answers abruptly. He wasn't meant to have actually said it and she can feel an embarrassed heat prickling at the base of her skull. But over the crystal, she may make herself sound very high handed indeed.
"Did you miss me while you were in Val Royeaux, or only once you'd returned to Kirkwall?"
Val makes a (by now very familiar) noise of disgust.
"Do not ask me such a thing, mademoiselle." He keeps pushing at Veronique's path, around and around and around the chandelier. "It is unfair and unsporting. I have done as you asked--no, commanded--and said this thing, and so it has been said, and so--"
Déranger leans down to sniff, delicately, at the shape of one of the walls, and sticks her tongue out to lick the line of wine. Val veers Veronique toward her, and Déranger prances back, ears cocked, eyes fixed now on his hand again.
"Because." Here, the briefest pause so she may untangle her comb and for no other reason.
"It was a clever ploy to resolve your quandary and remind you to be entirely unsentimental. I knew you would object to being obligated to do or say anything, and for me having been dishonest, and it seemed the most expedient way to rankle you. You're very welcome."
Across the little room, the big scarred Mabari sighs and shifts his block head from resting on one beefy paw to the other. Wysteria shoots Ruadh a hot a look. No commentary from you, sir.
"Is that so?" Maybe a bit more loudly than necessary, and certainly very archly. Val drags his thumb back, recalling Veronique to the confines of the house. A hole has been blasted through the wall. Let it stay there. Let the rain come, and the winds, and the seabirds and the rats and the insects and the thieves. Let plants grow upon the floor. Let rot set in. Why not!
With more control (and yet still slightly clipped), he continues. "Then let me say: how very clever, ma poule. I admire your ability to see so clearly and plainly what must be said and done to get the desired result. And how greatly do I appreciate the reminder toward unsentimentality. Imagine, if I had said aloud that I had in fact missed you while I was in Val Royeaux--that I left early because I was so dissatisfied, that I had thought to come to Orzammar myself and came instead to Kirkwall, only to remain dissatisfied--that I am dissatisfied to this day, this very hour and moment--that this feeling is unsettlingly unique--that your company has become somehow, impossibly, something that I could not say that I enjoy but that I at least look forward to, upon occasion--imagine, if I had said all of that. I could never return from that shore of sentimentality. Thank you, thank you, for the reminder."
The ribbon tied about the books had been very blue, and in not so different a shade from the coat he'd worn to that silly pretend wedding that had gone so fortunately terribly that no one at all since had questioned its veracity. The coat hadn't mattered. He'd simply asked her favorite color and had worn it as an admirable commitment to their shared little subterfuge—a different and more secret sort of partnership, and certainly not one predicated on any kind of regard save perhaps for the kind which sensibly recognizes opportunity and cleverness both.
(Yes indeed, she is very clever).
But receiving the letter and the books and the absurdity of the runner sent so far—she'd been outraged to receive the poor man. Good gods, you are a man of singular dedication, sir! What a beast he is, to have sent you all this way! And then having to explain to sweet Caprin the apprentice who had sent the parcel; never have the words My husband been so venomously regurgitated!
Yet there on her little desk, draped like a question mark among the papers and books and drawings, is preserved the little blue ribbon. And here, sitting cross legged in the bed, Wysteria furiously bites the end of her comb to keep from squawking in reply to imagine if I said all of that.
Nevermind that she is quite prompt to respond after, all very knowing and cool as she contemplates pummeling the pillow at the head of the bed.
"Again, you're very welcome. Indeed, it's a very good thing we agree on this point. Because if you had made the error of saying any of those things, I might have compelled to say something along the lines of 'If that's how you feel, then you should simply bring your next letter in person and join me in Orzammar.' Yes, such an arrangement might technically be of benefit to the both of us. After all, I'm very busy and taking the time to seek out your vases and various little articles that would seem to suit only takes away from my time in the smithy. And then you would be convenient to hand to judge said pieces for yourself without anyone's questionable judgement serving as your interpreter.
But I clearly can't say that," is most firm. "As we have agreed this very evening on the important of preserving a particular equilibrium of disregard. Also"—also!—"because if you look forward to my company upon occasion, then I would judge that I look forward to yours slightly less than that."
So. How fortunate that no one has said anything at all!
Here, upon the floor, there is a little carpet, very lightweight, the end of which one might seize upon and pull sharply so that whoever is standing upon it has their feet pulled out from under them and so that they would fall, hard, upon the floorboards. Ha-ha! A good joke. To think you are standing very firmly and securely one moment, and the next, to find that this was not so at all, to have the very ground whisked from beneath your feet, unsettling you and changing the direction of any conversation that you were having. And you, the fool, who thought you were so in control, now laying upon your back.
With Veronique (his thumb), Val circles the space that the little carpet occupies. Once, twice, a third time.
"Of course it would be slightly less than my upon occasion. When it comes to companions and acquaintances, you do not have the most discerning of tastes. Your circle is polluted. I have said it before, I no doubt will find reason to say it again. I suppose it would not be at all helpful to have someone else on hand to distract Vanderak the Dull. You know, saying that--"
Veronique flies away from the carpet and back out into the hallway, a smooth glissando of a flight.
"There are times where I do enjoy conversing with dull people. Before you scoff, I will say, do not, for it is true. It can be an interesting exercise. How long can they be dull for? Can they be coaxed to be interesting, at any point? Can you match their dullness, and if so, how long can you sustain it? One might say it would be a social experiment, of a sort. Indeed, if presented with the opportunity, I would keep a little record of it in one of my commonplace books and review my record, and see if I might improve upon it the next day. Of course even I--or perhaps particularly I--would grow bored of it before very long, but if it were a brief enough time, and if there were, perhaps, vases to distract myself with--and other things too, of course, there would be doubtless enough to take an interest in, while one is in Orzammar--"
Veronique flies down the stairs. There is nothing below: not another story, not a cellar, not a sub-cellar lovingly commissioned. Certainly there are those things in the real standing version of the little mansion, but in Val's floorplan, there is nothing at all. Empty air.
"Thinking of it," Val says, and lifts his thumb off of the floor, "I should finish my correspondence. I had started it, before this, but it remains unfinished."
Her various noises of protest—her circle is not polluted; she will scoff whenever she pleases, and he shouldn't tell her otherwise—do very little to functionally interrupt this entirely hypothetical musing. Surely this is in part due to them being slightly muffled behind where the comb has been set, which is not between her teeth but rather against her mouth as if to discourage her from opening it and saying anything very foolish.
It's only here, cued by the brisk reorientation toward reality, that she sniffs primly and returns the comb to the task of doing battle with the previously discovered snarl.
"You should. After all, I recall you claiming to be very busy, and now we have spent all this time discussing something that I believe we both agree is obviously the very least of either of our concerns. To say nothing of the fact that I have a very early morning, and all this time you've been keeping me from going to sleep. Indeed under ordinary, I would ask you whether you'd had a chance to look at my drawings or how Bronagh is getting along with things. But given all of this, I'm afraid I'll have to insist you address them in your written reply, or else at some more convenient hour by crystal."
"Convenient? How am I to know what hour is convenient to you? It is not as if I have some method of observing your activities while you are so far away--or, even if you were close by, perhaps in Kirkwall, an interest in doing so--though upon reflection it is much more convenient, to me, at least, when we find ourselves situated in the same city, so that I can prevail upon you frequently, and know at a glance if you are inconveniently occupied--"
Val takes the wine glass that has been serving as his inkwell, and finishes its contents. It is some hours, or perhaps days, old, and the sediment that has gathered at the bottom is peppered with house dust. He makes a little face, but gives no other complaint. Déranger moves in to lick the inside of the glass, and Val tips it toward her obligingly.
"Bronagh is getting along adequately. Once we had dinner together. She does not make good conversation, at all, but I am not terribly surprised by this. Déranger trusts her, Veronique does not--which I am, similarly, not terribly surprised by--oh, but I have already started to speak of this in my correspondence. I will save my thoughts upon this topic, and those upon your drawing--it would be better to have them written down, then we might conveniently speak of them--I might ordinarily feel the smallest amount of pity for Vanderak, but it will be a good test, as I said before, to see if a dull person can be coaxed into being an interesting person, and made to contribute toward a worthwhile conversation. Yes, good night, mademoiselle. I hope your very early morning is productive and that our conversation does not distract you too much from sleep--though I find sleeping to be rather overrated, myself."
"I assure you, I will be perfectly capable of going directly to sleep once this conversation has finished." There is nothing at all in it which will keep her awake for an hour or two long after she has turned down the lamp's light and made herself as comfortable as she's able, in turns both very furious with herself and very pleased.
"In fact, I've become terribly tired as we've spoken and so am even going to refuse the impulse to tell you of all the beneficial things which proper sleep provides, particularly with respect to your eyesight." It was a perfectly legible representing symbol for a U. "I look forward to receiving your next letter, Monsieur. Good luck with it and your other bits of correspondence. Good night."
Having set aside the comb, she takes up the crystal so as to neatly sever the line to him. There. Done. And indeed her hair is all combed and ready to be stuffed into her felt sleeping cap, and she has only a few little things left to attend like cleaning her teeth and washing her face and reading the next three chapters of Chapdelaine before closing her eyes and going most directly to sleep. But first—
"He truly is entirely unbearable," she assures the mabari by the fire. Ruadh, evidently only half dozing, sniffs in apparent dismissal.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-06-30 12:02 am (UTC)"If your handwriting were better, this message would have been easier to untangle!"
Perhaps this is a husband pining for his wife.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-30 12:40 am (UTC)Which is why, when the crystal crackles to life on her little bedroom desk as she is copying down all her notes for the day, she restrains herself from immediately snatching up the crystal. Instead, she springs to her feet. She paces around the little guest room. She makes herself change out of her day clothes and into her nightshirt.
She does not, however, get as far as combing out her hair before the impulse to valiantly defend herself (obviously; there can be no other reason) overrules prudence.
"My handwriting is excellent. Everyone says so," comes crackling back (not very many) minutes later. "Maybe you need spectacles."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-01 12:14 am (UTC)Val has no patience to delay his response. Above the ground, absolute leagues away, he is pacing before the fireplace in Wysteria's Hightown home. Déranger watches his progress for a few paces before she springs to her feet and falls into step just behind him, attentive and pricked-eared. Too engaged, Val does not look down at her.
"Lying to you," he repeats, "or laboring under a particular blindness. This little mark, meant to represent an E--I spent nearly an hour thinking it was a U. I only discovered it when I realized the letter began by addressing me. And all this time I have been critical of Mister Ellis, when it was you that I should have been critical of all along!"
no subject
Date: 2022-07-01 01:12 am (UTC)The papers on her desk are shoved unceremoniously into her little working journal, which is just as thoughtlessly snapped shut.
"So indeed, it seems someone has or is lying to me."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-01 03:41 pm (UTC)"Perhaps," he says, slowly, "I might have made some off-handed remark in this fashion in the past, without really realizing what it was that I was saying--certainly not realizing that I was fashioning for myself a noose that would be used against me in future! Possibly I even committed this remark to parchment--which I can only admit now was a mistake, one should never commit compliments in writing--but the fact of the difficulty remains! So, I can only conclude that it is very dark in Orzammar and your penmanship has suffered for it."
This conclusion comes out more snappish than lofty. Certainly better than having nothing at all to say, and being caught out in it. Val reaches the wall and turns on his heel to pace back in the other direction, Déranger dogging his steps. Now his tone turns more conversational.
"The E character really does look like a U. I have saved the letter so that I can show it to you upon your return. What are you doing at present?"
no subject
Date: 2022-07-01 05:20 pm (UTC)"I'm cleaning up my notes from the afternoon," she says, turning once more from the desk on her heel. The crystal comes with her this time. There is a loud, overly close clack as she gathers up her comb in hand with it.
"I prefer to do so at once while everything is still fresh. There is nothing worse than reviewing your own writing weeks later and finding that the past you has become impenetrable. Why?"—is required to be at least faintly accusatory—"What are you doing?"
no subject
Date: 2022-07-01 11:31 pm (UTC)Val stops in the center of the room and considers his surroundings. Here, a plate and a cup and crusts of bread upon a tray. Here, a half-drunk bottle of red wine, and a glass that has been used and reused. There, a stack of parchment weighed down by an inkwell, beside a tower of books, and all of it surrounded by still more books, open and face-down, spines raised so that they look like tents of some encampment. Here, a half-pinned beetle upon a board, with tools of that work scattered about--and a half-eaten beetle, the legs of which are still in the corners of Déranger's mouth. Now that Val is still, she presses against his leg, tail thumping, and licks again at his hand.
"In fact I have only a few moments." Under a nearby chair, Veronique makes a soft scuffling sound, unique to her attempts to burrow into solid wood. Val leans down to attempt to see her. "There is something--several somethings, actually--that I absolutely must attend to before the day ends. I had a moment to spare and thought to sit down and make work of your cipher--which would have gone much more quickly, had it not been for the poor light in Orzammar, which is what I now blame for this quality, or lack thereof. I do hope you do not come back entirely ruined by it. You know, sometimes I like to leave my notes entirely unread for weeks at a time. I find that, in then returning to them, I can be brutally honest, or brutally complimentary--because I have so forgotten writing them that it is as if their author is another soul entirely. You might try that."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-02 01:27 am (UTC)She will not. But it's the polite thing to say when she has caught him out so badly as to necessitate a serious revision to his story. What is slightly less polite—
"But if you're very busy then I won't insist on keeping you. Clearly my little note has already taken up far more of your time than you were ready to give it. And curious as I am to have answers to the questions in it, I doubt they're more pressing than the various things otherwise occupying your time."
With a fhwump from the thin duvet, Wysteria hops far enough onto the edge of the bed to keep her feet from the floor. The headboard is near to the same height that she might hold the crystal, and so makes for a good ledge on which to prop it while she picks out various pins and ties from her hair.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-07 03:54 am (UTC)"Veronique approves very well of the renovations. She is here upstairs at present, with me, naturally--but she will eventually make her retreat. I have been giving her a choice of where she might be and I do find her in the cellar more often than not, when I am able to find her. I appreciated the blue of the ribbon. A summer's color. Do you think--" He interrupts himself to address Déranger as she tries to drop into his lap and half bowls him over, recule, ma chérie, pas bouger, then continues as if he had not interrupted himself at all, "Do you think it would be novel, to have you presence missed whenever you are away, or would it merely be annoying? I have been thinking of this and cannot decide which."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-07 05:01 am (UTC)A long way away, on the bed where she is sat, Wysteria draws her legs up so she may sit criss cross and form a collection of pins on one of her knees.
"Well first, I think that's a very silly question. Of course it should be novel to be missed, as then it means someone has thought of you and what could possibly be more pleasant. But I suppose if I were to entertain the possibility of it being otherwise—for the sake of the argument, as it were—, then I think it would depend entirely on the person in question who was doing the missing and how you felt about them. For example, say it was someone you disliked. It might be highly aggravating to discover they'd thought at all kindly of you, as it would somewhat ruin your ability to disapprove of them without reservation."
The collection of pins is transferred thoughtlessly to the little side table overflowing with books and a porcelain washing basin and a mostly empty cup.
"You haven't let her into the little library, have you? Veronique. I believe you said she has a fondness for paper."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-09 05:02 am (UTC)Val dips his forefinger in a nearby cup of wine, and uses it to begin to trace, from memory, a plan of the house on the bare floorboards beside the rug he is sitting upon. Here is the hall, with its little table at the end, and the stairs here, and the door to the sitting room, and the door to the little library, which he renders immediately after, with its bookshelves and the window with the cushions. Déranger watches, head cocked.
"Your argument is rather difficult for me to comprehend--for I believe that everyone who dislikes me does so with such completeness that they never miss me. Though I suppose one might miss a favored adversary, yes? To dislike someone does give a certain sense of purpose which, in certain circumstances, can be quite sad and pathetic--but in other circumstances is perfectly understandable and indeed logical. For what joy is there in simply being unopposed? If there were nothing to argue against, one could not argue. One's point would simply be correct, but unable to be proved as such. Through opposition comes proof."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-15 07:16 am (UTC)The comb is fetched from its make-do shelf and the great heap of her hair drawn forward over her shoulder so it may be picked slowly through.
"Picture if it were them, and you stumbled across some note where they spoke kindly or your scholarship. If I found myself in such a position, I would be furious. Although, honestly. I don't see why you of all people should even struggle over the idea of missing someone or being missed in the first place."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-19 04:29 am (UTC)A point that must, must be made. Val dips his finger again in the wine and, floorplan complete, begins to trace Veronique's path through the halls. From this room, to that, to this, to that, to the little library. He should look in on the little library and take in the state of things. Surely she was not within the room long enough to wreck unimaginable havoc. Only a havoc one could imagine.
"I suppose," he begins to say, and then draws Veronique's path out of the little library, a sharp straight line, into the cupboard across the hall. There.
"No: I suppose nothing. What a soft word. Strike it from your recollection of this conversation. My argument is, forcefully, that one needs not to speak kindly of another--privately, or publicly--to appreciate an adversarial bond. In fact one should not speak kindly, or else ruin the adversarial nature of the relationship--for it is a relationship. One in opposition of the other, two lodestones that cannot meet. But if one lodestone is alone, it is merely a stone."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-20 01:06 am (UTC)They are not, she suspects, discussing the various schoolmates he despises. Maybe. Possibly. But it might be that they're discussing his two most dear and sincere friends, and he is merely taking the most circuitous and infuriatingly confusing route to arrive at that fact. One must either simply allow him to continue on, or brook some argument with this detail or that in an effort to chase him through the various twists and turns at , or (in exceptionally rare circumstances)—
"All the same, you may say so if you miss me. I assure you that I will be appropriately disgusted."
—simply hack straight in the direction one feels is most irritating and observe the results.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-20 03:36 am (UTC)"Very well," Val says to his crystal. To his wife, through the crystal, some many miles away and then somewhere still miles below. "I miss you."
Veronique, represented by his thumb, strikes the wall and barrels through into the next room. The wine is running dry; he dips it in anew and has her circle where the shabby chandelier hangs.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-20 05:47 am (UTC)"Good," she answers abruptly. He wasn't meant to have actually said it and she can feel an embarrassed heat prickling at the base of her skull. But over the crystal, she may make herself sound very high handed indeed.
"Did you miss me while you were in Val Royeaux, or only once you'd returned to Kirkwall?"
no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 12:02 am (UTC)"Do not ask me such a thing, mademoiselle." He keeps pushing at Veronique's path, around and around and around the chandelier. "It is unfair and unsporting. I have done as you asked--no, commanded--and said this thing, and so it has been said, and so--"
Déranger leans down to sniff, delicately, at the shape of one of the walls, and sticks her tongue out to lick the line of wine. Val veers Veronique toward her, and Déranger prances back, ears cocked, eyes fixed now on his hand again.
"Why good, when you have promised me disgust?"
no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 12:38 am (UTC)"It was a clever ploy to resolve your quandary and remind you to be entirely unsentimental. I knew you would object to being obligated to do or say anything, and for me having been dishonest, and it seemed the most expedient way to rankle you. You're very welcome."
Across the little room, the big scarred Mabari sighs and shifts his block head from resting on one beefy paw to the other. Wysteria shoots Ruadh a hot a look. No commentary from you, sir.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 04:04 am (UTC)With more control (and yet still slightly clipped), he continues. "Then let me say: how very clever, ma poule. I admire your ability to see so clearly and plainly what must be said and done to get the desired result. And how greatly do I appreciate the reminder toward unsentimentality. Imagine, if I had said aloud that I had in fact missed you while I was in Val Royeaux--that I left early because I was so dissatisfied, that I had thought to come to Orzammar myself and came instead to Kirkwall, only to remain dissatisfied--that I am dissatisfied to this day, this very hour and moment--that this feeling is unsettlingly unique--that your company has become somehow, impossibly, something that I could not say that I enjoy but that I at least look forward to, upon occasion--imagine, if I had said all of that. I could never return from that shore of sentimentality. Thank you, thank you, for the reminder."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 04:49 am (UTC)(Yes indeed, she is very clever).
But receiving the letter and the books and the absurdity of the runner sent so far—she'd been outraged to receive the poor man. Good gods, you are a man of singular dedication, sir! What a beast he is, to have sent you all this way! And then having to explain to sweet Caprin the apprentice who had sent the parcel; never have the words My husband been so venomously regurgitated!
Yet there on her little desk, draped like a question mark among the papers and books and drawings, is preserved the little blue ribbon. And here, sitting cross legged in the bed, Wysteria furiously bites the end of her comb to keep from squawking in reply to imagine if I said all of that.
Nevermind that she is quite prompt to respond after, all very knowing and cool as she contemplates pummeling the pillow at the head of the bed.
"Again, you're very welcome. Indeed, it's a very good thing we agree on this point. Because if you had made the error of saying any of those things, I might have compelled to say something along the lines of 'If that's how you feel, then you should simply bring your next letter in person and join me in Orzammar.' Yes, such an arrangement might technically be of benefit to the both of us. After all, I'm very busy and taking the time to seek out your vases and various little articles that would seem to suit only takes away from my time in the smithy. And then you would be convenient to hand to judge said pieces for yourself without anyone's questionable judgement serving as your interpreter.
But I clearly can't say that," is most firm. "As we have agreed this very evening on the important of preserving a particular equilibrium of disregard. Also"—also!—"because if you look forward to my company upon occasion, then I would judge that I look forward to yours slightly less than that."
So. How fortunate that no one has said anything at all!
no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 09:48 pm (UTC)Here, upon the floor, there is a little carpet, very lightweight, the end of which one might seize upon and pull sharply so that whoever is standing upon it has their feet pulled out from under them and so that they would fall, hard, upon the floorboards. Ha-ha! A good joke. To think you are standing very firmly and securely one moment, and the next, to find that this was not so at all, to have the very ground whisked from beneath your feet, unsettling you and changing the direction of any conversation that you were having. And you, the fool, who thought you were so in control, now laying upon your back.
With Veronique (his thumb), Val circles the space that the little carpet occupies. Once, twice, a third time.
"Of course it would be slightly less than my upon occasion. When it comes to companions and acquaintances, you do not have the most discerning of tastes. Your circle is polluted. I have said it before, I no doubt will find reason to say it again. I suppose it would not be at all helpful to have someone else on hand to distract Vanderak the Dull. You know, saying that--"
Veronique flies away from the carpet and back out into the hallway, a smooth glissando of a flight.
"There are times where I do enjoy conversing with dull people. Before you scoff, I will say, do not, for it is true. It can be an interesting exercise. How long can they be dull for? Can they be coaxed to be interesting, at any point? Can you match their dullness, and if so, how long can you sustain it? One might say it would be a social experiment, of a sort. Indeed, if presented with the opportunity, I would keep a little record of it in one of my commonplace books and review my record, and see if I might improve upon it the next day. Of course even I--or perhaps particularly I--would grow bored of it before very long, but if it were a brief enough time, and if there were, perhaps, vases to distract myself with--and other things too, of course, there would be doubtless enough to take an interest in, while one is in Orzammar--"
Veronique flies down the stairs. There is nothing below: not another story, not a cellar, not a sub-cellar lovingly commissioned. Certainly there are those things in the real standing version of the little mansion, but in Val's floorplan, there is nothing at all. Empty air.
"Thinking of it," Val says, and lifts his thumb off of the floor, "I should finish my correspondence. I had started it, before this, but it remains unfinished."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-22 07:23 pm (UTC)It's only here, cued by the brisk reorientation toward reality, that she sniffs primly and returns the comb to the task of doing battle with the previously discovered snarl.
"You should. After all, I recall you claiming to be very busy, and now we have spent all this time discussing something that I believe we both agree is obviously the very least of either of our concerns. To say nothing of the fact that I have a very early morning, and all this time you've been keeping me from going to sleep. Indeed under ordinary, I would ask you whether you'd had a chance to look at my drawings or how Bronagh is getting along with things. But given all of this, I'm afraid I'll have to insist you address them in your written reply, or else at some more convenient hour by crystal."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-23 08:47 pm (UTC)Val takes the wine glass that has been serving as his inkwell, and finishes its contents. It is some hours, or perhaps days, old, and the sediment that has gathered at the bottom is peppered with house dust. He makes a little face, but gives no other complaint. Déranger moves in to lick the inside of the glass, and Val tips it toward her obligingly.
"Bronagh is getting along adequately. Once we had dinner together. She does not make good conversation, at all, but I am not terribly surprised by this. Déranger trusts her, Veronique does not--which I am, similarly, not terribly surprised by--oh, but I have already started to speak of this in my correspondence. I will save my thoughts upon this topic, and those upon your drawing--it would be better to have them written down, then we might conveniently speak of them--I might ordinarily feel the smallest amount of pity for Vanderak, but it will be a good test, as I said before, to see if a dull person can be coaxed into being an interesting person, and made to contribute toward a worthwhile conversation. Yes, good night, mademoiselle. I hope your very early morning is productive and that our conversation does not distract you too much from sleep--though I find sleeping to be rather overrated, myself."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 05:27 pm (UTC)"In fact, I've become terribly tired as we've spoken and so am even going to refuse the impulse to tell you of all the beneficial things which proper sleep provides, particularly with respect to your eyesight." It was a perfectly legible representing symbol for a U. "I look forward to receiving your next letter, Monsieur. Good luck with it and your other bits of correspondence. Good night."
Having set aside the comb, she takes up the crystal so as to neatly sever the line to him. There. Done. And indeed her hair is all combed and ready to be stuffed into her felt sleeping cap, and she has only a few little things left to attend like cleaning her teeth and washing her face and reading the next three chapters of Chapdelaine before closing her eyes and going most directly to sleep. But first—
"He truly is entirely unbearable," she assures the mabari by the fire. Ruadh, evidently only half dozing, sniffs in apparent dismissal.