"Shdnkl," Val says, through his distorted face. He smacks his free hand against the wall and shoves himself back. The ship lurches again, but he already has an arm braced, so he manages this time to save himself from another fall. Ruadh has raised his head, ears turned forward, eyes focused with (perhaps?) concern. More concerned than Wysteria, certainly.
"Say nothing more," Val says, curtly, to both observing parties. A faint pinkness is already beginning to rise up on his skin, discernible even in the inconsistent lighting of their quarters. He pushes away from the wall and scrambles--somewhat awkwardly--off of the case before another lurch truly breaks his face.
"As I was saying," as if he had been interrupted, "I had thought to save this to present to you at some later date. You know how it is, when one has something that begs to be presented. To leave it secreted away is like clutching a burning coal with one's bare hand: unbearable."
With the knife, he begins chaotically slashing at the cords that have been wrapped around the case to hold it closed.
She might, really, have indeed thought of absolutely nothing more to say on the matter of Val's face becoming intimately acquainted with the bulkhead. Save perhaps that he ought to be more careful about how he plays this game of delaying and protesting over every little thing lest one day he actually hurt himself.
(No, she would never say that. It would serve him right.)
But when presented with the option of either scoffing with some high, thrilled pleasure at the mysterious contents of the case actually having been intended for her or paying very close attention to the unexpected tinge of embarrassment lurking under the dismissal—
Well.
Ruadh may follow instruction perhaps well, but Wysteria de Foncé generally is less reliable in these matters.
Pop, pop, pop, go the cords under the sharp knife's edge. It's a field knife and she keeps it in good working order, particularly when she is traveling like they are now. One never knows when a kidnapper might need to be stabbed.
"I do know. You remember how I brought you It in the field, of course. It wouldn't have done for it to sit on some work table finished waiting for you to do your work and come all the way back to Kirkwall."
This is a sweet thing to say to him. She knows it is because it's intentionally selected. And also because it's true, but what does that matter.
"Your shirt collar has been turned up in the wrong direction."
He turns his head as if he might be able to see over his own back, to the offending shirt collar--then down toward his shoulder, but the collar is still not visible.
"It has not been," he decides. "It is a fine collar, surely. And what does it matter! There is this," as he smacks the top of the case, now free of its binding cords. The knife is still in his hand and it adds an extra dull thud. "This is much more interesting. Well do I recall the It--and my first beholding of It! And I would not say that this," and the knife thuds again with the impact of his hand, "is at all comparable, for how could it be? Though the It was hardly a gift for me, was it. All the same, I am glad you are familiar with the feeling: the anticipation of the unveiling. Which--"
He throws aside the knife with certain carelessness, and seizes hold of the case's lid. It is opened without any real effort at all on his part. The interior is full of wood shavings.
Val sits back. He puts one hand to the back of his shirt collar, feeling at it, to see if it is indeed turned wrongways.
"In truth, I cannot imagine the grip the It would have had upon you. How you managed to keep at all discreet about It! I myself would never have managed, never! I would have told the first person I saw."
If he twists his face just so, maybe she will see some mark on him left by the bulwark, she is thinking (no what end? To tease him, surely), but this is more or less forgotten as Val flings her knife casually away. Wysteria makes a noise of rebuke and bristles as the little instrument clatters off into the swinging shadows at the edges of the room.
Ruadh has once more lifted his nose from his paws, his much battered ears and canny eye cocked with some interest toward the wood shavings slipping free of the stuffed case's edge. Even very clever, very patient dogs are not entirely immune to the impulse to snuffle at the edge of things that aren't necessarily their business.
"Yes, well. That is the difference between us, Valentine," Wysteria says, flicking back the edge of her blanket at last so she may kick her legs out of the narrow bunk and shimmy to it's edges with relative security despite the sway of the ship about them. From under the hem of her skirts, her stockings are very red.
"I am entirely discrete. Why, if it weren't for the important work we do in the Research division, I imagine my next best place would be with Scouting. Nearly anyone can be a spy, you know."
(Further evidence of her good sense: she neglects to actually name Byerly as her example.)
Comb and shawl and blanket left to their own devices, Wysteria bends to help herself to picking through the wood shavings.
"Nearly. For it is as you say, that is the difference between us. You might join Scouting and take up all the little intricacies of spy work and subterfuge. Whereas I would be a miserable spy."
Val flips his collar so that it is correctly laid. He also takes this opportunity to press his cheek into his shoulder. The sting of the impact, the blow to his pride: these are not eased by this action. Nor does the action cause further harm.
"And miserable besides. I have read that some spies remain in one place, on an assignment of some sort, for years--decades--why, I grow restless if I am asked to remain in place for an hour, never mind a year! I would simply pass away. You would have to burn my corpse in the most interesting place you could think of to make up for it."
There are a great many wood shavings. Wysteria's hand within them causes a good amount to spill over the side of the case and scatter like crude autumn leaves upon the floor of their little cabin. Some of them even reach Ruadh, who will find his patience somewhat rewarded, delivered right beneath his nose. For Wysteria, there is a shape within the shavings, nestled deep in the case. Its edge is very solid and rough. There is no mistaking the feeling of unpolished stone.
"But I do think you might make a spy." Val removes his cheek from his shoulder and settles himself. He puts his back to rest against the side of the bed, folds his arms across his chest, displaying a manner entirely devoid of any interest in assisting with the ongoing excavation efforts taking place just before him. "You would get yourself invited to some function, purely upon the strength of your own conviction and verbosity. Once there, you would talk a great deal and confuse everyone. No one would know which part to pay attention to. And you would listen to, let us say, a little less than half of what everyone was saying to you, and from that you would collect one or two interesting pieces of information that might be suitable to your purpose. In fact I can picture it all very perfectly."
There is a noticable pause here in the scattering of wood shavings and Wysteria's attempts to unearth The Object hidden inside them. For a split second, a kind of silence falls in the cabin—excepting, of course, the groan of the timbers and the sway of the overhead lamp and the soft soft of Ruadh taking various filaments of packing wood into his jowls to chew and slobber over. Wysteria, bent nearly double off the edge of the bunk in order to paw about inside the case, has shifted her attention to look directly at Val.
"Do you really think so?"
It's a very genuine question—so achingly pleased that only after does she think any better of it. The realization of her own eagerness turns a flush up the back of her neck. Happily, it's concealed by the abundance of loose curly hair and the collar of her shirt, but she can feel the hot burn of it.
Val casts a look back at her. Well: over at her, really, as Wysteria is leaned over the side of the bed. And now they are looking at one another, with the light from the lamp overhead thrown madly by the rocking of the ship that they together are upon, sailing home. In Kirkwall, two carts will be secured to carry their things, hers to her little mansion and Val's to the Gallows. And immediately the next morning Val will forgo breakfast and will go to board the ferry back into Kirkwall, and walk to the little mansion in Hightown where he will let himself in and find Wysteria somewhere within. And they will start to argue.
"Mademoiselle. I never say things that I do not mean. I should hope that by now you would know so obvious a thing of me."
They cannot remain like this. The cabin is small. Ruadh is eating wood shavings but will soon look up. Val refolds his arms, making a show of obstinately settling himself in, and taps twice against the side of the case with his heel.
"Now be useful and look within this case! I am growing impatient again."
No. She does as she's told. It's a rare instance of being bid with protest, the impulse to argue swallowed up without notice in the opening twinge of silliness behind her ribs. It's true that he is very faithful to his conviction. Also, there is no reason to be so pleased with his assessment. She knows very well what she is capable of. It should hardly matter that he agrees. And she shouldn't wonder, abruptly, whether she might have left some work unfinished in Orzammar and perhaps she'd been very hasty in hurrying them back out into the daylight and across the Waking Sea to Kirkwall. Never mind how eager she is to have her machine built in the dwarven forges delivered into Tony's hands. A slightly more moderately paced return would hardly have done anyone any harm.
(She had carefully prepared three arguments to greet him with when he'd first arrived in Orzammar. She'd been very happy with those too.)
Wysteria obediently closes her hand back about the rough edged object and draws it up out of the case's packing.
The object is revealed to be a very ugly statue. Dense, broadly carved, and heavy. Upon inspection, the subject of the ugly statue is further revealed to be: humanoid. The body is a thick stub, limbs fused to the torso. Its bare feet (the square toenails!) are rendered by a few simple lines. One arm is kept at its side, while the other curves uncannily around to its back, where it clutches a large smith's hammer.
The artist cared more about its head. It is larger than the body, freakishly so, with eyes shaped like large ringed almonds. They are gathered so close together they are nearly joint, and set above a nose which begins very flat at the bridge before tapering down to a short tip--once sharp, now worn to a crumbled stub by time. A single slash makes up an unimpressed mouth.
The glory is in its crown. Two large geometrical cogs are positioned over where the ears would be set. From their center, rings of studs radiate out. Over the rough rock brow, three narrow bands of those same studs bridge between the cogs, a barrier between the face and the top of the head, from which are raised a series of square shapes. Artfully, deliberately placed, it is clear that they used to be something, but again, time has done its work, so that now they are of different heights and sometimes even widths.
The stone is unpolished, unpainted, and rough. A few wood shavings cling to its sides, caught on the raw stone.
Val has looked around again. His arms are still folded. He is beaming.
To say that Wysteria deflates like a stuck balloon would be exaggerating. That would require her to have thought far enough ahead and to have come up with some imagined idea as to what might be contained in the box in order to have had her expectations be so dashed.
So, no. She doesn't do that. But there can be no mistaking her bafflement over the hunk of rock lodged heavily there in her hand.
(Nearby, Ruadh licks up another tongue-ful of wood shavings on the not quite sly. The sound of his heavy jowls fails to be entirely subtle.)
"Oh," she says. "Could you not find any of the vases you were after?"
"Of course! The vases are in the case that was taken to the hold. This needed to be nearby," and he again thumps his foot against the side of this case, still very full of wood shavings. Certainly it would not do to have the statue harmed during this journey, and Val has spared no expense in packing materials. "I shall send at least two to the dear Baroness, I think--she will be very interested and very pleased to have them--and I can think of a place in your little mansion where a particular one might be featured, where sunlight will bring out its hue quite nicely. Perhaps I should send three to the Baroness. I will have to inventory."
Quite abruptly he turns around so that he might lean his elbow on the side of the bed. He is very much recovered from the impact and its shame. Ruadh might consume the whole crateful of shavings. Val's attention is now for Wysteria. And the statue, of course, which he again beams at.
Yes, of course. Three to the Baroness, says the vague and mostly agreeable sound that Wysteria makes as she turns the ugly stone statue first one direction and then the either (because it seems the correct thing to do moreso than she has any real impulse in studying the statue from all its directions). It's only when Val hooks his elbow there at the edge of the bunk vaguely in the company of her knee that she musters up a somewhat more convincing illusion of interest.
She straightens her back. She clears her throat. It's a very hideous carving.
"I've no idea who Branka is. Is it a very old piece?"
Here, a only slightly violent slap from the sea sends the little ship rising and falling under them. But they're all quite secured now, Wysteria with both her stocking feet on the cabin's floor, and Val with his steadying elbow and Ruadh with all his patient bulk. Some bits of luggage shift and miscellany left carelessly untethered roll along first in this direction, then that one.
"Oh no." Very cheerfully, Val hangs on, steady in the elbow and now hooked very much like a barnacle. The sea is nothing to him now. Their things will be all right. Wysteria is holding the statue and it is not very likely to go flying across the cabin. The sea would have to perform a doubly vigorous toss for that to happen. "Not very old. It is of the Dragon Age--Branka only completed her work early on--which is why its weathering is so very interesting and striking. I knew her immediately--the tool of the smith in her hand, and the curious shapes at the ears--these are markers of her craft and of a very particular and reoccurring artistic--hm, hallmark, perhaps, we shall say. In any case, she is one of the Paragons--you will know of them, of course--but she was named so because she invented a smokeless coal. And then she disappeared. Not so soon after as that, of course--and she was not named a Paragon because she disappeared--"
His tone is very fond and monologous, in a way doubtless now rather familiar to Wysteria. Not quite a lecture--there remains a conversational lilt to all of it--but it is rather close to a lecture. This is the way that Val might talk upon topics he very much loves, over a late supper in a small and expensive establishment with no one in attendance save perhaps a single barmaid who appears only to refill cups and never to impose upon the conversation--or the lecture, whichever one prefers to call it.
"That would be ridiculous, to name someone a Paragon for disappearing. Unless of course the world was better off without their presence, in which case I can see being tempted to bestow such an honor upon their disappearance. But! She did disappear, or so the story goes. A modern living Paragon, gone. And who knows what else she might have invented but alas, she was lost. And so was this little statue, I think--which does explain its hideous state. What a story it has seen."
Occasionally when Valentine de Foncé falls into this very particular, and indeed now entirely familiar, patter, Wysteria finds herself in the irritating position of growing more and more agitated while she chafes at his sermonizing. More than once she has sat at such an aforementioned little table and been struck with an unquenchable thirst for whatever may be had from the nearest bottle(s) in an effort to starve off a kind of sullen dismissiveness which generally overcomes her in place of boredom.
But less occasionally, indeed so often that it might annoyingly even be called regular, she finds herself rather pleased by that easily noted cadence. It is often the precursor to an excellent discussion—or argument, if one is being very selective about their semantics. And sometimes, though she usually only feels it in the moment, she almost enjoys how much he loves to prattle on. As an expert prattler in her own right, she is somewhat fond of the impulse.
Most irritatingly, this particular 'conversation' slides securely into the latter category. The longer Val talks, the more her exasperation fades in favor of the warmer shape behind her ribs. As far of subjects for recitation go, he could pick far worse ones.
—its hideous state, he says, and so much has her opinion of the ugly statue been softened by then that Wysteria actually laughs. It's a bright, cheerful sound and not at all ladylike.
"Oh good. I was mortified that you might actually be under the impression that it was attractive."
This is not known to the mademoiselle--or not directly known, perhaps it is guessed in a certain way, since he has used it upon Wysteria, on occasion--but the smile that Val gives her is un sourire du compartiment privé. It is normally given only to one's friends at the end of a very long and occasionally tiresome party, full of people one only half wants to see at best, and is obligated to entertain at middle-worst, and sociably loathes at the very worst. It might also be given over a pile of maps and towers of empty wine glasses and snack plates, or over a campfire in the middle of a sweltering and dense jungle, or in the back of a muddy tavern--or, apparently, in a small cabin upon a ship on a return journey from deepest Orzammar.
Un sourire du compartiment privé isn't wielded with any sort of purpose. In fact it occurs only naturally, by mistake. As in: here, when Wysteria laughs, and Val feels that he has somehow won some prize.
Really, it is nothing.
"Of course it is not attractive. It is miserable! I would not waste your time, mademoiselle, upon objects that are merely attractive. How tiresome and predictable. Any attractiveness of a Brankanian figure comes of its symbolism. It is for this reason that it was selected in particular for you," no, wait, swiftly correcting, "r, your little mansion. And I suppose for you by extension."
It is nothing. It is only a little thoughtful, really, and it is entirely possible that Val merely would like to keep the hideous and symbolically relevant statuette somewhere safer than in his death trap of a Gallows office and so bad made some excuse about it being intended for her. That was possible even before she had gone so far as to casually and very thoughtlessly and not at all after much embarrassed reflection offered him the use of maybe one or even two of the rooms in her little mansion. Obviously even if he weren't to be staying there even occasionally (Wysteria does not expect him to be in permanent residence; Maker, she certainly isn't), that place would still be a secure place of confidence. He has left Veronique there, after all. And the safeguarding of that place is of course the specific purpose of faithful Déranger!
So, yes. Really. It is nothing.
And she should not be so pleased with any of it. —Though at the same time, there is hardly any harm in being so. It is perfectly understandable that she might these little throwaway gestures amusing.
"Well," she says as the ship lurches and the lantern sways harshly over them. Ruadh's nose is snuffling back in this direction in an effort lick a few more shavings from the decking. "I suppose I will forgive you for implying that my little mansion is miserable. But only because we both know that is patently false, particularly as I expect the new wallpapering to have come along while we've been away."
"It could become less miserable," Val says, with perhaps surprising agreeability, "over time, with work and effort and a correct eye--and yes, wallpapering will certainly be of service in this area. Remind me, which rooms will be so repaired when we return? The workmen had not yet arrived when I had departed, and I recall nothing of you telling me of this project. No, I have changed my mind, do not tell me a thing, I should prefer to be surprised."
It is easy to attempt to talk over Wysteria. It is nearly impossible to succeed, and still more impossible to prevent her from speaking by speaking before her, no matter how quickly one might rush to speak. She might very well begin telling him of the rooms that have been wallpapered, and so Val makes a great show of putting his hands over his ears.
"Now I am pleased that you mentioned nothing of the project. It is very exciting. Perhaps I might guess. The large eastern room."
He stretches one leg out toward Ruadh and traps a few of the wood shavings under the toe of his boot, so he might pull them clear of the mabari's questing nose, and continues: "The terribly dingy room on the first floor, beside the kitchen. The little bedroom with the smallest windows."
Yes indeed, she has begun to speak. And she continues valiantly on even as her husband clamps his hands dramatically over his ears, saying first "I hardly see why I should keep you informed of every small detail regarding the renovation of my own home, Valentine—" before presumably being reduced to a shrilly insistent womp-womp-womp.
Eventually, Wysteria sets the ugly statuette beside her in the bunk and makes to slap away one of the offensive hands away by its wrist.
"—not dingy. It is charming. I believe it is meant to be a little gentleman or a ladywoman's study, for when I first arrived it was home to a great desk and a shocking array of all manner of chairs and the ugliest portrait you have ever lain your eyes on. The portrait has of course been removed to the attic, along with a vast majority of the furniture. But I suppose if you should be in desperate need of a desk, you might look to retrieve that one back down again. I recall it being rather ugly, but I trust you will only go about covering it with papers and books and Maker only knows what else in any case."
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2023-01-06 04:43 am (UTC)"Say nothing more," Val says, curtly, to both observing parties. A faint pinkness is already beginning to rise up on his skin, discernible even in the inconsistent lighting of their quarters. He pushes away from the wall and scrambles--somewhat awkwardly--off of the case before another lurch truly breaks his face.
"As I was saying," as if he had been interrupted, "I had thought to save this to present to you at some later date. You know how it is, when one has something that begs to be presented. To leave it secreted away is like clutching a burning coal with one's bare hand: unbearable."
With the knife, he begins chaotically slashing at the cords that have been wrapped around the case to hold it closed.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-06 05:35 am (UTC)(No, she would never say that. It would serve him right.)
But when presented with the option of either scoffing with some high, thrilled pleasure at the mysterious contents of the case actually having been intended for her or paying very close attention to the unexpected tinge of embarrassment lurking under the dismissal—
Well.
Ruadh may follow instruction perhaps well, but Wysteria de Foncé generally is less reliable in these matters.
Pop, pop, pop, go the cords under the sharp knife's edge. It's a field knife and she keeps it in good working order, particularly when she is traveling like they are now. One never knows when a kidnapper might need to be stabbed.
"I do know. You remember how I brought you It in the field, of course. It wouldn't have done for it to sit on some work table finished waiting for you to do your work and come all the way back to Kirkwall."
This is a sweet thing to say to him. She knows it is because it's intentionally selected. And also because it's true, but what does that matter.
"Your shirt collar has been turned up in the wrong direction."
no subject
Date: 2023-01-07 09:34 pm (UTC)He turns his head as if he might be able to see over his own back, to the offending shirt collar--then down toward his shoulder, but the collar is still not visible.
"It has not been," he decides. "It is a fine collar, surely. And what does it matter! There is this," as he smacks the top of the case, now free of its binding cords. The knife is still in his hand and it adds an extra dull thud. "This is much more interesting. Well do I recall the It--and my first beholding of It! And I would not say that this," and the knife thuds again with the impact of his hand, "is at all comparable, for how could it be? Though the It was hardly a gift for me, was it. All the same, I am glad you are familiar with the feeling: the anticipation of the unveiling. Which--"
He throws aside the knife with certain carelessness, and seizes hold of the case's lid. It is opened without any real effort at all on his part. The interior is full of wood shavings.
Val sits back. He puts one hand to the back of his shirt collar, feeling at it, to see if it is indeed turned wrongways.
"In truth, I cannot imagine the grip the It would have had upon you. How you managed to keep at all discreet about It! I myself would never have managed, never! I would have told the first person I saw."
no subject
Date: 2023-01-08 12:59 am (UTC)Ruadh has once more lifted his nose from his paws, his much battered ears and canny eye cocked with some interest toward the wood shavings slipping free of the stuffed case's edge. Even very clever, very patient dogs are not entirely immune to the impulse to snuffle at the edge of things that aren't necessarily their business.
"Yes, well. That is the difference between us, Valentine," Wysteria says, flicking back the edge of her blanket at last so she may kick her legs out of the narrow bunk and shimmy to it's edges with relative security despite the sway of the ship about them. From under the hem of her skirts, her stockings are very red.
"I am entirely discrete. Why, if it weren't for the important work we do in the Research division, I imagine my next best place would be with Scouting. Nearly anyone can be a spy, you know."
(Further evidence of her good sense: she neglects to actually name Byerly as her example.)
Comb and shawl and blanket left to their own devices, Wysteria bends to help herself to picking through the wood shavings.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 05:11 am (UTC)Val flips his collar so that it is correctly laid. He also takes this opportunity to press his cheek into his shoulder. The sting of the impact, the blow to his pride: these are not eased by this action. Nor does the action cause further harm.
"And miserable besides. I have read that some spies remain in one place, on an assignment of some sort, for years--decades--why, I grow restless if I am asked to remain in place for an hour, never mind a year! I would simply pass away. You would have to burn my corpse in the most interesting place you could think of to make up for it."
There are a great many wood shavings. Wysteria's hand within them causes a good amount to spill over the side of the case and scatter like crude autumn leaves upon the floor of their little cabin. Some of them even reach Ruadh, who will find his patience somewhat rewarded, delivered right beneath his nose. For Wysteria, there is a shape within the shavings, nestled deep in the case. Its edge is very solid and rough. There is no mistaking the feeling of unpolished stone.
"But I do think you might make a spy." Val removes his cheek from his shoulder and settles himself. He puts his back to rest against the side of the bed, folds his arms across his chest, displaying a manner entirely devoid of any interest in assisting with the ongoing excavation efforts taking place just before him. "You would get yourself invited to some function, purely upon the strength of your own conviction and verbosity. Once there, you would talk a great deal and confuse everyone. No one would know which part to pay attention to. And you would listen to, let us say, a little less than half of what everyone was saying to you, and from that you would collect one or two interesting pieces of information that might be suitable to your purpose. In fact I can picture it all very perfectly."
no subject
Date: 2023-01-12 05:37 am (UTC)"Do you really think so?"
It's a very genuine question—so achingly pleased that only after does she think any better of it. The realization of her own eagerness turns a flush up the back of her neck. Happily, it's concealed by the abundance of loose curly hair and the collar of her shirt, but she can feel the hot burn of it.
(Like a coal, he'd said.}
no subject
Date: 2023-01-13 01:13 am (UTC)"Mademoiselle. I never say things that I do not mean. I should hope that by now you would know so obvious a thing of me."
They cannot remain like this. The cabin is small. Ruadh is eating wood shavings but will soon look up. Val refolds his arms, making a show of obstinately settling himself in, and taps twice against the side of the case with his heel.
"Now be useful and look within this case! I am growing impatient again."
no subject
Date: 2023-01-13 02:35 am (UTC)No. She does as she's told. It's a rare instance of being bid with protest, the impulse to argue swallowed up without notice in the opening twinge of silliness behind her ribs. It's true that he is very faithful to his conviction. Also, there is no reason to be so pleased with his assessment. She knows very well what she is capable of. It should hardly matter that he agrees. And she shouldn't wonder, abruptly, whether she might have left some work unfinished in Orzammar and perhaps she'd been very hasty in hurrying them back out into the daylight and across the Waking Sea to Kirkwall. Never mind how eager she is to have her machine built in the dwarven forges delivered into Tony's hands. A slightly more moderately paced return would hardly have done anyone any harm.
(She had carefully prepared three arguments to greet him with when he'd first arrived in Orzammar. She'd been very happy with those too.)
Wysteria obediently closes her hand back about the rough edged object and draws it up out of the case's packing.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 03:40 am (UTC)The artist cared more about its head. It is larger than the body, freakishly so, with eyes shaped like large ringed almonds. They are gathered so close together they are nearly joint, and set above a nose which begins very flat at the bridge before tapering down to a short tip--once sharp, now worn to a crumbled stub by time. A single slash makes up an unimpressed mouth.
The glory is in its crown. Two large geometrical cogs are positioned over where the ears would be set. From their center, rings of studs radiate out. Over the rough rock brow, three narrow bands of those same studs bridge between the cogs, a barrier between the face and the top of the head, from which are raised a series of square shapes. Artfully, deliberately placed, it is clear that they used to be something, but again, time has done its work, so that now they are of different heights and sometimes even widths.
The stone is unpolished, unpainted, and rough. A few wood shavings cling to its sides, caught on the raw stone.
Val has looked around again. His arms are still folded. He is beaming.
"It is wonderful. Yes?"
no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 04:03 am (UTC)That is certainly a word.
To say that Wysteria deflates like a stuck balloon would be exaggerating. That would require her to have thought far enough ahead and to have come up with some imagined idea as to what might be contained in the box in order to have had her expectations be so dashed.
So, no. She doesn't do that. But there can be no mistaking her bafflement over the hunk of rock lodged heavily there in her hand.
(Nearby, Ruadh licks up another tongue-ful of wood shavings on the not quite sly. The sound of his heavy jowls fails to be entirely subtle.)
"Oh," she says. "Could you not find any of the vases you were after?"
no subject
Date: 2023-01-25 03:18 am (UTC)Quite abruptly he turns around so that he might lean his elbow on the side of the bed. He is very much recovered from the impact and its shame. Ruadh might consume the whole crateful of shavings. Val's attention is now for Wysteria. And the statue, of course, which he again beams at.
"Do you know her? She is Branka."
no subject
Date: 2023-01-26 05:38 am (UTC)She straightens her back. She clears her throat. It's a very hideous carving.
"I've no idea who Branka is. Is it a very old piece?"
Here, a only slightly violent slap from the sea sends the little ship rising and falling under them. But they're all quite secured now, Wysteria with both her stocking feet on the cabin's floor, and Val with his steadying elbow and Ruadh with all his patient bulk. Some bits of luggage shift and miscellany left carelessly untethered roll along first in this direction, then that one.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-27 12:56 am (UTC)His tone is very fond and monologous, in a way doubtless now rather familiar to Wysteria. Not quite a lecture--there remains a conversational lilt to all of it--but it is rather close to a lecture. This is the way that Val might talk upon topics he very much loves, over a late supper in a small and expensive establishment with no one in attendance save perhaps a single barmaid who appears only to refill cups and never to impose upon the conversation--or the lecture, whichever one prefers to call it.
"That would be ridiculous, to name someone a Paragon for disappearing. Unless of course the world was better off without their presence, in which case I can see being tempted to bestow such an honor upon their disappearance. But! She did disappear, or so the story goes. A modern living Paragon, gone. And who knows what else she might have invented but alas, she was lost. And so was this little statue, I think--which does explain its hideous state. What a story it has seen."
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Date: 2023-01-27 02:24 am (UTC)But less occasionally, indeed so often that it might annoyingly even be called regular, she finds herself rather pleased by that easily noted cadence. It is often the precursor to an excellent discussion—or argument, if one is being very selective about their semantics. And sometimes, though she usually only feels it in the moment, she almost enjoys how much he loves to prattle on. As an expert prattler in her own right, she is somewhat fond of the impulse.
Most irritatingly, this particular 'conversation' slides securely into the latter category. The longer Val talks, the more her exasperation fades in favor of the warmer shape behind her ribs. As far of subjects for recitation go, he could pick far worse ones.
—its hideous state, he says, and so much has her opinion of the ugly statue been softened by then that Wysteria actually laughs. It's a bright, cheerful sound and not at all ladylike.
"Oh good. I was mortified that you might actually be under the impression that it was attractive."
obscures date stamp with confetti (but drop if this is 2old)
Date: 2023-03-04 01:11 am (UTC)Un sourire du compartiment privé isn't wielded with any sort of purpose. In fact it occurs only naturally, by mistake. As in: here, when Wysteria laughs, and Val feels that he has somehow won some prize.
Really, it is nothing.
"Of course it is not attractive. It is miserable! I would not waste your time, mademoiselle, upon objects that are merely attractive. How tiresome and predictable. Any attractiveness of a Brankanian figure comes of its symbolism. It is for this reason that it was selected in particular for you," no, wait, swiftly correcting, "r, your little mansion. And I suppose for you by extension."
Really: it is nothing.
wow get a load of all this confetti
Date: 2023-03-04 07:30 am (UTC)So, yes. Really. It is nothing.
And she should not be so pleased with any of it. —Though at the same time, there is hardly any harm in being so. It is perfectly understandable that she might these little throwaway gestures amusing.
"Well," she says as the ship lurches and the lantern sways harshly over them. Ruadh's nose is snuffling back in this direction in an effort lick a few more shavings from the decking. "I suppose I will forgive you for implying that my little mansion is miserable. But only because we both know that is patently false, particularly as I expect the new wallpapering to have come along while we've been away."
🎉🎉🎉
Date: 2023-03-06 04:48 am (UTC)It is easy to attempt to talk over Wysteria. It is nearly impossible to succeed, and still more impossible to prevent her from speaking by speaking before her, no matter how quickly one might rush to speak. She might very well begin telling him of the rooms that have been wallpapered, and so Val makes a great show of putting his hands over his ears.
"Now I am pleased that you mentioned nothing of the project. It is very exciting. Perhaps I might guess. The large eastern room."
He stretches one leg out toward Ruadh and traps a few of the wood shavings under the toe of his boot, so he might pull them clear of the mabari's questing nose, and continues: "The terribly dingy room on the first floor, beside the kitchen. The little bedroom with the smallest windows."
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Date: 2023-03-10 07:22 am (UTC)Eventually, Wysteria sets the ugly statuette beside her in the bunk and makes to slap away one of the offensive hands away by its wrist.
"—not dingy. It is charming. I believe it is meant to be a little gentleman or a ladywoman's study, for when I first arrived it was home to a great desk and a shocking array of all manner of chairs and the ugliest portrait you have ever lain your eyes on. The portrait has of course been removed to the attic, along with a vast majority of the furniture. But I suppose if you should be in desperate need of a desk, you might look to retrieve that one back down again. I recall it being rather ugly, but I trust you will only go about covering it with papers and books and Maker only knows what else in any case."
Short breath.
"Your first guess, at least, was correct."