[ Care about is so odd that she stares at Thranduil, puzzled, after he says it. Who's he talking about? Gwen isn't really involved in this - or she wasn't until Kitty confided in her. So...?
But then Gwenaelle speaks, and Kitty turns a fierce little frown on her. ]
Don't be naive. His loyalty isn't to Riftwatch. If the secret I was keeping was related to Orlais, he'd have nodded and taken notes. But he saw that it could help out his war against Tevinter, so immediately it was threats and give me a list of your contacts or you will suffer the consequences and just - dreadfulness. Awfulness.
[ She turns her scowl downward onto a piece of cornbread, shredding it into the last crumbs. ]
I'm not being naive, I'm suggesting it's interesting my husband the division head thinks the division heads talking to each other is suspect. No wonder we're fucking losing. And I'll bear that in mind next time you're being extremely reasonable about the things you care about, ( tartly, over the rim of her glass. by three, there's only so much the water is going to do. )
I'd think you'd be on the same page. Tevinter's a fucking mess, I'd sooner see him do something about it than the Divine. I trust him.
( unlike the divine. and indeed most people outside this room. )
Edited (IM TAGGING FROM BED ITS HARD IM SORRY) Date: 2019-10-17 12:07 pm (UTC)
Yseult first, ( he says to gwenaëlle ) and then Flint, some days later. Both vague. Which is not being ‘on the same page’. If they had concerns about her character, specific concerns, then they should have shared them. This is not a position to amass personal power and play politics between heads, now that we are free from the Inquisition.
[ Kitty looks at Thranduil. The cynicism on her face is a depressing contrast to the lingering babyish roundness of her cheeks and chin. Then, to Gwenaelle: ]
I've trusted men like him before. Red-faced, greedy old men who'll toss you to your death if it means they get what they want. Make no mistake - he doesn't care about the resistance in Tevinter. He doesn't even care about Tevinter, not really. All he cares about is his precious possession, that nasty little island in that nasty little sea, and I could hang and you could hang and we all could hang as long as he got to hoard his greedy little lump of sand.
[ Then she squashes the crumbs of cornbread under her thumb and says, snittily and pettily: ]
The only real difference between Mr Pennyfeather and Flint is that Flint is fat.
I'm not dignifying that. ( of kitty's fat remark. )
So you publicly announced your decision to place in a position of access to sensitive information a noted headstrong type who recently trusted the wrong fuckwit and was nearly killed as well as inadvertently handing over goodness knows what information he had, and your colleagues were concerned. I know, ( to kitty, slightly less curtly, ) that that was an educational fucking experience, but I'm hardly going to entertain the idea that it's a great mystery why there were questions. I'd think less of them if there weren't, they don't know you like we do.
That isn't a conspiracy, that's what your bloody jobs are. To talk to one another and take into account what you say, since if he'd tried to dismiss your assistant over his concerns, you'd have lit on fire you'd have been so annoyed. Rightfully.
( she drains the glass )
You are all, and I'm including Flint in this and I am happy to tell him so to his face, being paranoid and reactionary. I don't know Yseult. I haven't heard her say anything mad yet. I'll reserve judgment. I'm not surprised you don't trust Flint any more than I'm surprised he doesn't trust you, and I don't see how this is helping, Thranduil, and I don't know why you ever asked my opinion of Flint if you were just going to Coupe it and not respect anything I say that isn't what you want to hear.
( that got a bit muddled, but one glass of wine will generally do it. three watered doesn't help. )
Kitty has been in the position since Justinian— ( and then he stops, exhales, and looks at gwenaëlle. )
You have blind spots, beloved. We all do. ( glancing kitty’s way, what’s a pennyfeather for another time. ) But if he is worthy of that much of your trust, I will speak with him and see if he is as forthcoming on the matter as you think he will be.
( back to kitty. he motions to the wine to see if, perhaps, she would like a cup— )
You think he would use the information to benefit he and his rather than the war effort, and that it is worth enough to do so— and genuine?
It's people - people who were slaves, or are slaves - who might resist Tevinter's rule. It's knowledge of how to contact them. It's -
[ The hard, rigid anger melts a little, leaving a miserable desperation. ]
They've been betrayed, these people, so much. All their lives. And the thought of someone like him, who's just keen on winning back his island, who might not see them as people, who might betray them in turn...I thought for a moment, just a moment, that I could trust him. That's why I admitted it. But then he was so eager, so hungry, and I realized right then what he really was -
[ She breaks off, shaking her head, looking down. ]
I forgot only you were allowed to be passionate about things, ( gwenaëlle says, acerbic and incredulous, as she rises from the table. ) If he hadn't seemed to care enough, you'd have pilloried him for that too. For fuck's sake.
When either of you are interested in having an actual conversation, someone let me know, and I'll tell you what he's had to say.
[ Fury, real and terrible, rises in her face, then. And Kitty spits at Gwen's retreating back a word that she's never before said in anger, in a tone far far more cracked and angry than Gwen has likely heard from her before - ]
[ And Kitty, in a fury, hurls her napkin so hard it bounces off the door - And then, promptly, bursts into tears. She tries to hide it immediately, burying her face in her hands, but...it's obvious. And really awkward.
( thranduil, whose jaw might have tightened several moment ago if the glamor did not keep him looking as placid and unreadable as an orlesian mask, still flinches when the door slams. and then he stands, and wets his own napkin in the pitcher of water, before coming to kneel beside kitty.
he’s dealt with crying before. )
Wipe your face, and breathe. She will not speak to us, but whatever she says to him might have him storming in here, and you cannot be crying when he is.
( he’d offer to hide it for her, but— )
All will be well, ( he says, but he says it with a specific sort of grimness. )
[ She struggles to get control, hiccuping desperately a moment, then grabbing for the napkin like it's a gnarled root and she caught in a river's vicious current. A deep breath, another, into the wet cloth, and then -
She looks up, misery arrested for a moment with fear. ]
Him - Do you mean Flint? Why? What do you think she'll tell him?
[ Is she three times the fool, now, for trusting? Putting her faith in Benedict, then Flint, and now Gwen? Is she going to betray her? ]
I, ( he starts, and then he stops. gwenaëlle has gone off to fix this, as she thinks it will be fixed, and thranduil— is not sure.
she is good, better than she was, but there were so many miscommunications while they were still courting, and she knows no other way to be other than how she is.
he realizes he is furious with her. it is something he has not felt in a while.
instead, he touches kitty’s cheek, still kneeling. )
I do not know. She may just yell.
( and— he doesn’t know flint. he doesn’t know any of the other division heads, when before he’d been among those he could confidently guess the behavior of, and now he is alone and outnumbered by humans he does not trust. )
[ It's weird, that touch on the cheek. She doesn't like it, not really - the intimacy of it makes her want to squirm - but she doesn't exactly want to pull away from it, either. What she definitely wants to do is cry more, though, which she definitely cannot do, and so she draws in a shaky breath and swallows and swallows again and sits back. You can't be seen crying. You can't. ]
( he stands and takes his hand away, refilling her glass (though he is of a heavier hand with the water than the wine). )
Because she is cruel, sometimes, and particular, and desires her audience to understand her point without always understanding their emotions-
( -and thranduil is also all these things. )
She may apologize, and she may not, but it will likely not be to the degree that you desire. For my part, I am sorry. If I had any idea how she would react...
( and here he falls off again. he goes and locks the door instead. he had expected her to be a comfort to kitty. to be witty and acerbic and enlightening during kitty's time of need, not to reduce the girl to tears. )
[ She shouldn't have what? Something. There was some step in there where she went wrong. I don't know where that little girl went, all that's left is this surly vixen -
She shakes her head to rid herself of the echo of her father's voice. No. Enough trouble here without falling into the trap of memory. ]
I'm sorry. For getting you in trouble. For not... [ Saying anything. ]
It is. he ( corrects, and firmly. ) And it is not your fault, Kitty. If I am 'in trouble' ( and this he doubts, but who knows, ) then I will handle it.
[ She winces. Had she really said his name? God, how much had she blathered on in the height of passion? How stupid. ]
I shouldn't have said anything. It doesn't matter.
[ But Thranduil's a Rifter, too, no less than she is. It's a little easy to forget sometimes, with all his confidence, with his authority, with his connections, but he is a Rifter. So he's been told a hundred times, just like her, that his home is fake and everything's made up and none of it matters. She remembers that, and so she takes a breath and says - before she loses her courage - ]
Back home, I had been a member of a revolutionary cell that was resisting the government and trying to take down the magicians, because magicians were in charge of our government, like Tevinter, and Mr Pennyfeather was the leader of the cell. It was me and ten others, and most of us were kids - [ And it's taken her this war to realize how truly dreadful that fact was - ] But he wasn't - he was an old man, who'd lost his wife to a magician, and so he hated them. Much as any of us. More, probably. And so he sent us out. And we died. And there came a point where I saw that none of it was for anything good, none of it was for freedom, that at some point he'd lost sight of everything and just turned it into collecting artefacts, to hoarding power that came from things, and that's what we were dying for. That's what all of us died for.
[ It comes out in a rather breathless flow. Soon as it's done, she flushes, because she's never told anyone that full story before, and it's painful and ridiculous and foolish. But it's said, and so she ducks her head and starts gathering up plates. ]
( he goes and unlocks the door, and listens to her speak while he picks the remains of food off the plates and onto one single one, which he places on the floor. leviathan comes out from under the bed and tucks into the leftovers, his little hands resting on the rim of the plate. it's adorable.
but it gives thranduil something to do while he listens, to give kitty the peace of getting to say it without having to look at him. )
I am sorry you were ill-used, Kitty. You burn so brightly- it is a horror that anyone would seek to turn that to their own ends.
( and she'd gone willingly, hadn't she, with no other way to fight back. children made poor soldiers, unless they were fodder. he would comfort her- a hand on her back, a kinder word, but he already offered her a large measure of that, and she might be overflowing from it already.
best to leave it be. )
Thank you for telling me. Whenever you wish it, I will tell you anything at all you would like to know about me or my past.
No, I - didn't get used. I wasn't tricked or anything. I - wanted it.
[ Even though she knows distantly that the Kitty of five years ago, that angry trusting twelve-year-old girl, didn't understand what it meant to fight. And even though she knows distantly that no kid really understands what it is to fight.
And yet you have to do it anyway. If she could do it all over again - She would. Because even if you're a kid, and even if life would be so much better if you didn't know what it was to hurt another person, you've still got to stand up to injustice. There is no peace in an unjust world.
But enough of that. She shakes her head and confesses - ]
I don't know anything about you. I don't even know where I'd start to ask.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
sorry I wasn't being bossy about tag order I was just shipping the three of us
Date: 2019-10-17 11:57 am (UTC)But then Gwenaelle speaks, and Kitty turns a fierce little frown on her. ]
Don't be naive. His loyalty isn't to Riftwatch. If the secret I was keeping was related to Orlais, he'd have nodded and taken notes. But he saw that it could help out his war against Tevinter, so immediately it was threats and give me a list of your contacts or you will suffer the consequences and just - dreadfulness. Awfulness.
[ She turns her scowl downward onto a piece of cornbread, shredding it into the last crumbs. ]
defies tag orders
Date: 2019-10-17 12:01 pm (UTC)I'd think you'd be on the same page. Tevinter's a fucking mess, I'd sooner see him do something about it than the Divine. I trust him.
( unlike the divine. and indeed most people outside this room. )
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 12:59 pm (UTC)( he leaves the food where it is. )
Why let her stay close, despite his concerns?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 01:23 pm (UTC)[ Kitty looks at Thranduil. The cynicism on her face is a depressing contrast to the lingering babyish roundness of her cheeks and chin. Then, to Gwenaelle: ]
I've trusted men like him before. Red-faced, greedy old men who'll toss you to your death if it means they get what they want. Make no mistake - he doesn't care about the resistance in Tevinter. He doesn't even care about Tevinter, not really. All he cares about is his precious possession, that nasty little island in that nasty little sea, and I could hang and you could hang and we all could hang as long as he got to hoard his greedy little lump of sand.
[ Then she squashes the crumbs of cornbread under her thumb and says, snittily and pettily: ]
The only real difference between Mr Pennyfeather and Flint is that Flint is fat.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 01:36 pm (UTC)So you publicly announced your decision to place in a position of access to sensitive information a noted headstrong type who recently trusted the wrong fuckwit and was nearly killed as well as inadvertently handing over goodness knows what information he had, and your colleagues were concerned. I know, ( to kitty, slightly less curtly, ) that that was an educational fucking experience, but I'm hardly going to entertain the idea that it's a great mystery why there were questions. I'd think less of them if there weren't, they don't know you like we do.
That isn't a conspiracy, that's what your bloody jobs are. To talk to one another and take into account what you say, since if he'd tried to dismiss your assistant over his concerns, you'd have lit on fire you'd have been so annoyed. Rightfully.
( she drains the glass )
You are all, and I'm including Flint in this and I am happy to tell him so to his face, being paranoid and reactionary. I don't know Yseult. I haven't heard her say anything mad yet. I'll reserve judgment. I'm not surprised you don't trust Flint any more than I'm surprised he doesn't trust you, and I don't see how this is helping, Thranduil, and I don't know why you ever asked my opinion of Flint if you were just going to Coupe it and not respect anything I say that isn't what you want to hear.
( that got a bit muddled, but one glass of wine will generally do it. three watered doesn't help. )
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 01:46 pm (UTC)You have blind spots, beloved. We all do. ( glancing kitty’s way, what’s a pennyfeather for another time. ) But if he is worthy of that much of your trust, I will speak with him and see if he is as forthcoming on the matter as you think he will be.
( back to kitty. he motions to the wine to see if, perhaps, she would like a cup— )
You think he would use the information to benefit he and his rather than the war effort, and that it is worth enough to do so— and genuine?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 02:27 pm (UTC)She nods. ]
The information I have - It could be exploited. They could be exploited.
Did Flint tell you what it is that I know?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 07:55 pm (UTC)It's people - people who were slaves, or are slaves - who might resist Tevinter's rule. It's knowledge of how to contact them. It's -
[ The hard, rigid anger melts a little, leaving a miserable desperation. ]
They've been betrayed, these people, so much. All their lives. And the thought of someone like him, who's just keen on winning back his island, who might not see them as people, who might betray them in turn...I thought for a moment, just a moment, that I could trust him. That's why I admitted it. But then he was so eager, so hungry, and I realized right then what he really was -
[ She breaks off, shaking her head, looking down. ]
I'd sooner die than hand them over.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 10:21 pm (UTC)When either of you are interested in having an actual conversation, someone let me know, and I'll tell you what he's had to say.
( is she leaving—she's leaving. )
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 10:30 pm (UTC)Fuck you.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 10:32 pm (UTC)And you're welcome! ( before slamming the door. )
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 10:35 pm (UTC)Sorry, Thranduil. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 10:56 pm (UTC)he’s dealt with crying before. )
Wipe your face, and breathe. She will not speak to us, but whatever she says to him might have him storming in here, and you cannot be crying when he is.
( he’d offer to hide it for her, but— )
All will be well, ( he says, but he says it with a specific sort of grimness. )
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 11:11 pm (UTC)She looks up, misery arrested for a moment with fear. ]
Him - Do you mean Flint? Why? What do you think she'll tell him?
[ Is she three times the fool, now, for trusting? Putting her faith in Benedict, then Flint, and now Gwen? Is she going to betray her? ]
no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 11:44 pm (UTC)she is good, better than she was, but there were so many miscommunications while they were still courting, and she knows no other way to be other than how she is.
he realizes he is furious with her. it is something he has not felt in a while.
instead, he touches kitty’s cheek, still kneeling. )
I do not know. She may just yell.
( and— he doesn’t know flint. he doesn’t know any of the other division heads, when before he’d been among those he could confidently guess the behavior of, and now he is alone and outnumbered by humans he does not trust. )
Whatever it is, I will be here.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 12:04 am (UTC)Why did she - ? [ Do that. Say that. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 12:39 am (UTC)Because she is cruel, sometimes, and particular, and desires her audience to understand her point without always understanding their emotions-
( -and thranduil is also all these things. )
She may apologize, and she may not, but it will likely not be to the degree that you desire. For my part, I am sorry. If I had any idea how she would react...
( and here he falls off again. he goes and locks the door instead. he had expected her to be a comfort to kitty. to be witty and acerbic and enlightening during kitty's time of need, not to reduce the girl to tears. )
I had thought having her here would help.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 12:44 am (UTC)It's not your fault. I - I oughtn't -
[ She shouldn't have what? Something. There was some step in there where she went wrong. I don't know where that little girl went, all that's left is this surly vixen -
She shakes her head to rid herself of the echo of her father's voice. No. Enough trouble here without falling into the trap of memory. ]
I'm sorry. For getting you in trouble. For not... [ Saying anything. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 01:00 am (UTC)All will be well. I told you so.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 01:18 am (UTC)[ A sniff, and a physical adjustment of her shoulders, and then a much firmer - ]
Is there work to be done?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 01:23 am (UTC)( he is- proud of her, but he knew that already. )
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 01:52 am (UTC)[ She winces. Had she really said his name? God, how much had she blathered on in the height of passion? How stupid. ]
I shouldn't have said anything. It doesn't matter.
[ But Thranduil's a Rifter, too, no less than she is. It's a little easy to forget sometimes, with all his confidence, with his authority, with his connections, but he is a Rifter. So he's been told a hundred times, just like her, that his home is fake and everything's made up and none of it matters. She remembers that, and so she takes a breath and says - before she loses her courage - ]
Back home, I had been a member of a revolutionary cell that was resisting the government and trying to take down the magicians, because magicians were in charge of our government, like Tevinter, and Mr Pennyfeather was the leader of the cell. It was me and ten others, and most of us were kids - [ And it's taken her this war to realize how truly dreadful that fact was - ] But he wasn't - he was an old man, who'd lost his wife to a magician, and so he hated them. Much as any of us. More, probably. And so he sent us out. And we died. And there came a point where I saw that none of it was for anything good, none of it was for freedom, that at some point he'd lost sight of everything and just turned it into collecting artefacts, to hoarding power that came from things, and that's what we were dying for. That's what all of us died for.
[ It comes out in a rather breathless flow. Soon as it's done, she flushes, because she's never told anyone that full story before, and it's painful and ridiculous and foolish. But it's said, and so she ducks her head and starts gathering up plates. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 02:04 am (UTC)but it gives thranduil something to do while he listens, to give kitty the peace of getting to say it without having to look at him. )
I am sorry you were ill-used, Kitty. You burn so brightly- it is a horror that anyone would seek to turn that to their own ends.
( and she'd gone willingly, hadn't she, with no other way to fight back. children made poor soldiers, unless they were fodder. he would comfort her- a hand on her back, a kinder word, but he already offered her a large measure of that, and she might be overflowing from it already.
best to leave it be. )
Thank you for telling me. Whenever you wish it, I will tell you anything at all you would like to know about me or my past.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 02:11 am (UTC)[ Even though she knows distantly that the Kitty of five years ago, that angry trusting twelve-year-old girl, didn't understand what it meant to fight. And even though she knows distantly that no kid really understands what it is to fight.
And yet you have to do it anyway. If she could do it all over again - She would. Because even if you're a kid, and even if life would be so much better if you didn't know what it was to hurt another person, you've still got to stand up to injustice. There is no peace in an unjust world.
But enough of that. She shakes her head and confesses - ]
I don't know anything about you. I don't even know where I'd start to ask.
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