[The call is unexpected and alarming, if not as much so as when she'd barged in on him naked, and he is fortunate to be alone in his room again when she startles him.
The rusted gear he's polishing slips from his grip and rolls into a corner, and he swears to himself with uncharacteristic virulence, making the resentful and deliberate choice to leave Wren's summons unanswered until he's found it and cleaned it of dust bunnies. Finally, he deigns to respond.]
Is that an order?
[Heavy with sarcasm though the question is, it is a worthwhile warning, and he knows it. The ripple of shame that washes around him is belated, but he knows that childish sulking is no way at all to prove her wrong about him. If he can't work for her, he can still try to demonstrate himself worthy to work with her.]
...I didn't like the sound of it when she introduced herself, no. There's something about her that doesn't sit right. [It's those too-innocent questions-that-aren't-questions, redolent of bad faith, but he doesn't know how to articulate that.]
[ Is that an order? Her hand strays, makes to cast the crystal back into sheets. A momentary impulse —
The edges grind into her palm. She tightens her grip. ]
Knight-Enchanter Petronella Voss, [ Maker, she hopes that’s right. There'd been a great many names about the Hightown affair, and no pen to hand. ] She is cautious; her slips have been brief. I may have surviving contacts in Nevarra. I will make inquiries. But until we can be more certain of her aims —
[He's not good with names, except when he tries to be. He writes that one down, lest he forget it. It would be easier for all involved if it turned out to be a forgettable name for a forgettable person, but Simon doesn't think they're ever that lucky here.
His own hand stills at those words, grip tightening painfully on the pen, swallowing a laugh that would barely conceal its underlying anger. Have they, now? Have they really?]
It's a kind sentiment. But you've made it abundantly clear that you were never keeping me around for my instincts.
[ It’d be true to say that she hadn’t meant it: All those red wounds she'd gladly opened. It'd be true. It just wouldn’t be believable. She creaks off the end of the bed, steps a quiet pace about the room. ]
You were right about Vedici.
[ Information not to be spread — but Simon guessed, Simon took him in. Simon ought to know. ]
He aimed for capture. Defection. He claims he sought access to our research.
[A "you were right" would be gratifying if it were about anything else. In this case, it's...a mixed bag, at best. He remembers giving her his account of the capture, remembers second-guessing his own analysis of it, and it means something to know he'd had the right of it, but at the same time--]
Then we're still barely tested against an actual Venatori threat.
[No wonder it had felt like cheating to claim it as a victory. He leans his forehead against his palm, fingers clenched in his hair as if it might somehow press the humiliation back inside.]
At a guess, the anchor shards. [ Not the rifters alone; he wouldn’t have shown such interest of Sina. ] He was brought on to study the rifts, and there is little we offer that the Venatori cannot.
[ They have him now, but for how long? Guile and training won't strike the chains from his wrists, but the deals he's made may well. The victory of an answer, a pattern at last — shot with alarm in the days since. ]
That he sought to use the odds, [ To use you, there’s no way around it. ] Does not diminish them. Vedici was not alone on that field, the Venatori were not without casualty. His confidence will be misplaced.
[ That twinge, ever so brief: Octavius. He hadn’t accounted for everything, isn't at peace with the cost. ]
I am, [ The words rasp. She coughs, tries again. ] I mean to say, only,
[ It falls away. Her fingers curl open over the crystal, can't force her tongue to shape. ]
Wants to know how to open new ones as well as close them, does he? I'm not about to assume a magister's got any goals that would line up with ours.
[Simon has never been one for reading between the lines--not when words are involved, anyway; he can read a battlefield well enough, but interpersonal nuance tends to be lost on him.
As before, it is both blessing and problem. Wren's words, at face value, are comforting. She's right. Influential though he is, and capable of masterminding a gambit this complex, Vedici is one man. For all Simon knows, the other Venatori could well have been oblivious to his scheme, and fighting back in earnest. And the ones who fell in that battle are out of the picture now no matter what their motivations might have been. It's something.
But the reassurance doesn't speak for itself, when it confuses him in its inherent conflict with everything she'd said to him before. When did he work his way back into her good graces? He hasn't spoken to her in weeks. He's done nothing to change her mind about him, and knowing that makes it impossible for him to guess at what she's trying and failing to say here. It doesn't occur to him that she might not have meant it; that even if she had, she might have reconsidered of her own accord.
Still--he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, should he? He pauses for a moment, long enough to be sure no clarification is forthcoming.]
Whatever you mean to say, you don't need to say it. Unless I need to know it for the task at hand.
[ It's an out, as much as it's a shield set against her. It's an out, and the whisper in her blood says to take it; what he's done once, he'll do again. The motives don't matter. Circumstances shift, history turns, but people? ]
You do.
[ Cade can't stop himself apologizing, trips over it on every breath, sincerity worn into frantic repetition. The words only leap sarcastic from Amsel, from Gwenaelle, and she has to believe: People, too. People change, too. ]
You are dear to me. I, I will not always know how to say it — so you need to know. [ Her voice grinds out, hoarse. ] You are dear to me, and I trust you.
And you need to know that, for yourself. Because there will be times that I cannot.
[In his private and embarrassing daydreams about Wren realizing the error of her ways and telling him she was wrong about him--and those daydreams are even more embarrassing in their frequency--he had imagined this being brusque and businesslike, impersonal, your judgment call was acceptable, you deserve another chance, come and prove yourself again.
It would have been enough. He would have left his hero-worship buried in its shallow grave, where it could gradually have grown over with grass and been left to lie, and he would have followed her orders with still less resentment than he affords her superiors, though more than before.
But this bypasses his hopes altogether and strikes right at the deep-set part of him that's never understood why the much-vaunted camaraderie of the Order has always sounded fictional, that's traveled from one end of the Marches to the other and back in search of a fable he's never actually had faith in. No templar, superior or equal, has ever said such a thing to him, or anything remotely of the like; even now, his instinct is to protest that he doesn't deserve to be dear to her, because he's done nothing to earn it. The denial halts mercifully in his throat before he can. For a long moment, the only sound on his end of the crystal is a deep and slightly tremulous inhalation.]
I--
[Steady. Don't embarrass yourself, for Andraste's piteous sake.]
Thank you, ser. ['Ser' again, like a rush of relief, after weeks spent trying to force himself to use the kind of naked disrespect that comes too easily to him with other authorities. From anyone else, using her title now might be a mark of distance; from Simon, it's the most affectionate thing he could be calling her.]
I'll...I'll take that to heart.
[Another pause, and then--]
I feel bad now that I didn't get you a Satinalia gift.
[ Waiting in the silence, waiting for an answer, is worse than all the rest. She's fought, argued with others before. Of course she has. Arnault, Averie (a constant battle Averie); all the old faces, old friends.
She's been shut out before. But the old faces, old friends, they're gone now — and such shows of affection, more dangerous for it.
The remark of Satinalia shakes her from memory. A puff of amusement, small, surprised: ]
Maker, do not. If one more person gives me a doll, my ego may not recover. [ she loves them they're all out on her desk right now ] Save your stipend for an alehouse, or the poor. Either could do for it.
[ A beat. She recollects, voice lowers about itself, ]
I am aware, the present structure of things, it is not — [ A breath. They're all trying, but trying isn't enough. ] — I've a proposition for you, if you will hear it.
A doll? [This does not call to mind the mental image she means to paint. Not by a long shot. It rather boggles the mind that any one person in the Inquisition, let alone multiple, would have the poor judgment to get Wren what he is envisioning as a baby doll or some kind of befrilled porcelain monstrosity.]
I wouldn't dream of getting you another. I'll get you a pram to put them in, or maybe a bonnet you can trade between them.
What...sort of proposition?
[All joking aside, that's enough to sober him quickly, swallowing against the hot wash of unwelcome nervous adrenaline through his gut. Time to prove yourself again, it tells him, and things are still unsteady, and don't fuck this up like you always fuck it up.]
[ She catches the trepidation. There's little to be done but move forward. ]
We need answer to three parties. The Seekers, [ For all her manuevering, it's a battle they've lost, and perhaps to good end. They yet need Pentaghast held in regard. ] The Inquistion leadership,
[ Changeable, ]
And a direct commander.
[ Three parties, and what had she told Yngvi? Only two hands? ].
This last is for the public eye. We are soldiers; without orders, they see us as thugs. It is insurance for society -- and for us. When one decides we are a problem, they will look to go around or above us.
[ Ashara. Anders. Darton. All of them so eager to turn to Norrington. The man acts half-addled at times, and all good intentions won't make up for it. ]
They will look to the highest title, particularly when it is worn by a malleable party. I answer instead to a Mother in the Chantry. It allows me a measure of pushback, and is difficult to argue improper.
There are tradeoffs. [ Levelly. ] But her Grace has expressed interest in speaking with you. An introduction, not a commitment.
[He listens, snorts with quiet shared disdain at two of those mentioned powers-- but no more than that, nothing like the surly and petulant litany he might have launched into a month or two ago. He's not the quickest study, perhaps, but he can learn judiciousness nonetheless; he can be taught where and when and how to keep his smart insubordinate mouth shut.
He's never been so naive or foolish as to fail to realize that any unofficial complaint about Norrington would roll off the man's inexplicably well-shielded back and rain entirely back down on his own reputation. Likewise with the departed Iskandar, though Simon had been somewhat less close-mouthed about his concern at the man's pride in remaining unable to find the largest city in the Marches on a map.
His own quiet resentment at his low rank has ebbed away of late, become less pressing as he reflects on what any kind of promotion would entail--to whom would he need to appeal for such a thing, and what good would it really do him? The Order remains in no shape to provide stable career opportunities, and any advancement within the Inquisition would feel vaguely suspect, given their judgment in selecting authorities in his division thus far. Wren is right about all of it, he knows, but more than anything about the Order and its remaining structure. Its primary use is as a painted facade. Let it be that, so long as they're still powerless to keep their superior's impressionability from working against them.]
--Has she?
[It's surprise, not skepticism; he has not dared hope that Wren would have put forth his name in any setting like this.]
What is it that she'd like to see done? That would be within my power to do; if your business with her is sensitive, I'm not pressing.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crystals; vague point in time waves hands
The new one, the northerner. Nell.
[ It's late, and it's halting, and it tastes like cracked teeth. ]
She deserves our caution. [ Silence. At length, ] Please do not hang up.
no subject
The rusted gear he's polishing slips from his grip and rolls into a corner, and he swears to himself with uncharacteristic virulence, making the resentful and deliberate choice to leave Wren's summons unanswered until he's found it and cleaned it of dust bunnies. Finally, he deigns to respond.]
Is that an order?
[Heavy with sarcasm though the question is, it is a worthwhile warning, and he knows it. The ripple of shame that washes around him is belated, but he knows that childish sulking is no way at all to prove her wrong about him. If he can't work for her, he can still try to demonstrate himself worthy to work with her.]
...I didn't like the sound of it when she introduced herself, no. There's something about her that doesn't sit right. [It's those too-innocent questions-that-aren't-questions, redolent of bad faith, but he doesn't know how to articulate that.]
no subject
The edges grind into her palm. She tightens her grip. ]
Knight-Enchanter Petronella Voss, [ Maker, she hopes that’s right. There'd been a great many names about the Hightown affair, and no pen to hand. ] She is cautious; her slips have been brief. I may have surviving contacts in Nevarra. I will make inquiries. But until we can be more certain of her aims —
[ To pull these words now: ]
— Your instincts have proved sound.
[ Not the tune she's been singing, of late. ]
no subject
His own hand stills at those words, grip tightening painfully on the pen, swallowing a laugh that would barely conceal its underlying anger. Have they, now? Have they really?]
It's a kind sentiment. But you've made it abundantly clear that you were never keeping me around for my instincts.
no subject
You were right about Vedici.
[ Information not to be spread — but Simon guessed, Simon took him in. Simon ought to know. ]
He aimed for capture. Defection. He claims he sought access to our research.
no subject
Then we're still barely tested against an actual Venatori threat.
[No wonder it had felt like cheating to claim it as a victory. He leans his forehead against his palm, fingers clenched in his hair as if it might somehow press the humiliation back inside.]
Do we know what he wants with our research?
no subject
[ They have him now, but for how long? Guile and training won't strike the chains from his wrists, but the deals he's made may well. The victory of an answer, a pattern at last — shot with alarm in the days since. ]
That he sought to use the odds, [ To use you, there’s no way around it. ] Does not diminish them. Vedici was not alone on that field, the Venatori were not without casualty. His confidence will be misplaced.
[ That twinge, ever so brief: Octavius. He hadn’t accounted for everything, isn't at peace with the cost. ]
I am, [ The words rasp. She coughs, tries again. ] I mean to say, only,
[ It falls away. Her fingers curl open over the crystal, can't force her tongue to shape. ]
no subject
[Simon has never been one for reading between the lines--not when words are involved, anyway; he can read a battlefield well enough, but interpersonal nuance tends to be lost on him.
As before, it is both blessing and problem. Wren's words, at face value, are comforting. She's right. Influential though he is, and capable of masterminding a gambit this complex, Vedici is one man. For all Simon knows, the other Venatori could well have been oblivious to his scheme, and fighting back in earnest. And the ones who fell in that battle are out of the picture now no matter what their motivations might have been. It's something.
But the reassurance doesn't speak for itself, when it confuses him in its inherent conflict with everything she'd said to him before. When did he work his way back into her good graces? He hasn't spoken to her in weeks. He's done nothing to change her mind about him, and knowing that makes it impossible for him to guess at what she's trying and failing to say here. It doesn't occur to him that she might not have meant it; that even if she had, she might have reconsidered of her own accord.
Still--he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, should he? He pauses for a moment, long enough to be sure no clarification is forthcoming.]
Whatever you mean to say, you don't need to say it. Unless I need to know it for the task at hand.
no subject
You do.
[ Cade can't stop himself apologizing, trips over it on every breath, sincerity worn into frantic repetition. The words only leap sarcastic from Amsel, from Gwenaelle, and she has to believe: People, too. People change, too. ]
You are dear to me. I, I will not always know how to say it — so you need to know. [ Her voice grinds out, hoarse. ] You are dear to me, and I trust you.
And you need to know that, for yourself. Because there will be times that I cannot.
no subject
It would have been enough. He would have left his hero-worship buried in its shallow grave, where it could gradually have grown over with grass and been left to lie, and he would have followed her orders with still less resentment than he affords her superiors, though more than before.
But this bypasses his hopes altogether and strikes right at the deep-set part of him that's never understood why the much-vaunted camaraderie of the Order has always sounded fictional, that's traveled from one end of the Marches to the other and back in search of a fable he's never actually had faith in. No templar, superior or equal, has ever said such a thing to him, or anything remotely of the like; even now, his instinct is to protest that he doesn't deserve to be dear to her, because he's done nothing to earn it. The denial halts mercifully in his throat before he can. For a long moment, the only sound on his end of the crystal is a deep and slightly tremulous inhalation.]
I--
[Steady. Don't embarrass yourself, for Andraste's piteous sake.]
Thank you, ser. ['Ser' again, like a rush of relief, after weeks spent trying to force himself to use the kind of naked disrespect that comes too easily to him with other authorities. From anyone else, using her title now might be a mark of distance; from Simon, it's the most affectionate thing he could be calling her.]
I'll...I'll take that to heart.
[Another pause, and then--]
I feel bad now that I didn't get you a Satinalia gift.
no subject
She's been shut out before. But the old faces, old friends, they're gone now — and such shows of affection, more dangerous for it.
The remark of Satinalia shakes her from memory. A puff of amusement, small, surprised: ]
Maker, do not. If one more person gives me a doll, my ego may not recover. [
she loves them they're all out on her desk right now] Save your stipend for an alehouse, or the poor. Either could do for it.[ A beat. She recollects, voice lowers about itself, ]
I am aware, the present structure of things, it is not — [ A breath. They're all trying, but trying isn't enough. ] — I've a proposition for you, if you will hear it.
no subject
I wouldn't dream of getting you another. I'll get you a pram to put them in, or maybe a bonnet you can trade between them.
What...sort of proposition?
[All joking aside, that's enough to sober him quickly, swallowing against the hot wash of unwelcome nervous adrenaline through his gut. Time to prove yourself again, it tells him, and things are still unsteady, and don't fuck this up like you always fuck it up.]
no subject
[ She catches the trepidation. There's little to be done but move forward. ]
We need answer to three parties. The Seekers, [ For all her manuevering, it's a battle they've lost, and perhaps to good end. They yet need Pentaghast held in regard. ] The Inquistion leadership,
[ Changeable, ]
And a direct commander.
[ Three parties, and what had she told Yngvi? Only two hands? ].
This last is for the public eye. We are soldiers; without orders, they see us as thugs. It is insurance for society -- and for us. When one decides we are a problem, they will look to go around or above us.
[ Ashara. Anders. Darton. All of them so eager to turn to Norrington.
The man acts half-addled at times, and all good intentions won't make up for it. ]
They will look to the highest title, particularly when it is worn by a malleable party. I answer instead to a Mother in the Chantry. It allows me a measure of pushback, and is difficult to argue improper.
There are tradeoffs. [ Levelly. ] But her Grace has expressed interest in speaking with you. An introduction, not a commitment.
no subject
He's never been so naive or foolish as to fail to realize that any unofficial complaint about Norrington would roll off the man's inexplicably well-shielded back and rain entirely back down on his own reputation. Likewise with the departed Iskandar, though Simon had been somewhat less close-mouthed about his concern at the man's pride in remaining unable to find the largest city in the Marches on a map.
His own quiet resentment at his low rank has ebbed away of late, become less pressing as he reflects on what any kind of promotion would entail--to whom would he need to appeal for such a thing, and what good would it really do him? The Order remains in no shape to provide stable career opportunities, and any advancement within the Inquisition would feel vaguely suspect, given their judgment in selecting authorities in his division thus far. Wren is right about all of it, he knows, but more than anything about the Order and its remaining structure. Its primary use is as a painted facade. Let it be that, so long as they're still powerless to keep their superior's impressionability from working against them.]
--Has she?
[It's surprise, not skepticism; he has not dared hope that Wren would have put forth his name in any setting like this.]
What is it that she'd like to see done? That would be within my power to do; if your business with her is sensitive, I'm not pressing.