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[portalling]

stephen strange

crystals · correspondence · private scenes

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[elegiaque]

- that is a reassuring thought, actually. He's got a lot of practise.

[portalling]

Spray them all with cold water. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

[elegiaque]

I might try that on the ghosts in de Fonce's place, if we're stuck up here much longer.

[portalling]

Is that where you’ve all been squirreled away? What’s it like up there?

( he knew, ish, that they’d been shunted off to a secondary location — the gallows was a little more empty, with a chunk of its personnel relocated into kirkwall proper — but he doesn’t know the assignees that well, besides mobius and gwenaëlle.

still. it’s been quieter around here, without them. )

[elegiaque]

I'm staying in my grandfather's residence, I only have to go to the haunted house for work. I've offered the mages rooms with us if they want a reprieve, though. And the pirates.

( not the templars, though, who are included among the things that everyone else might want a reprieve from. )

It's tolerable, for now. But it won't hold indefinitely.

[portalling]

( an assessing beat. ghosts had sounded figurative at first, but she’s mentioned it twice now, so he just has to double-check he heard right— )

Is it literally haunted?

[elegiaque]

How did you think a rifter could afford a mansion in Hightown? It's not the husband, she married the de Fonce they disinherited and having known the man for more than a decade, I'm not sure what possessed her for why.

[portalling]

I suppose it’s a tried-and-true method. Back in New York, you might’ve noticed how the Sanctum Sanctorum stood out from all the buildings around it— part of the reason the Masters of the Mystic Arts were able to hang onto the real estate is because it’s terrifically haunted. No other owners held it for long.

I feel like I need your gossip notes on all my colleagues. I work with the woman and didn’t know this about the husband.

[elegiaque]

People try to gossip with me and they find it dull, historically.

( mostly because she's boring about the fun parts — very little of it interests her all that much, unless it seems relevant. )

But I'm very observant. I had the advisors permission to document everything about Skyhold during the early days, I guess I'm in the habit.

( she "guesses". she has kept meticulous notes, unfailingly, every since; has long thought of writing a detailed history, once publishing won't risk active engagements. )

[portalling]

Ah, so you’re our Mother Pleasance.

( don’t kill him )

[elegiaque]

That's not my kink.

[portalling]

( another bitten-off chuckle. and herein lies the trouble with this conversation being over the crystals rather than written, while he’s already half-multitasking and turning back to the workbench: it means it’s like having a cell phone to his ear again, and so his response is quick, off-the-cuff, and he doesn’t have the chance to rein in that unthinking mouthiness. so, flippant: )

You could probably still rock the robes, though.

[elegiaque]

I feel as if I'm learning things about you, Strange.

( which is a worrying sort of thing for her to say under circumstances that don't involve nun kink. )

Is it that dire without us there?

[portalling]

Some details, I’ll have to take to the grave.

And— ( a beat, contemplating, ) not dire, precisely. Just a little quieter and more tense around the Gallows. This came on very suddenly for everyone. This whole arrangement also robbed me of my sparring partner. And I’ve been appointed as a Nun Wrangler, somehow.

[elegiaque]

( about to inquire about the sparring partner, she is instead derailed by: )

What? Why?

( which is a harsh review from someone who isn't even allowed to talk to the woman, really. )

[portalling]

( caught somewhere halfway between “right?? that’s what I said” and: )

Do you not think I can be nice to an old lady? I can be nice to an old lady. … Probably.

[elegiaque]

I'm just curious as to whether the old lady will know you're being nice to her or not —

[portalling]

— Hmm. Fair point. People do misinterpret my good intentions sometimes, can’t imagine why.

Is there anything I ought to know about Chantry sisters? Strategically.

[elegiaque]

( considering, )

Well, no matter what she comes across as, most Chantry Mothers are knuckle deep in politics,

( which doesn't sound like much until you consider what that metaphor probably is, )

and certainly any of them sent here. And she's going to benefit extremely from being, probably, a tiresome old woman it's difficult to take seriously. Take her seriously.

[portalling]

Underplay oneself as a meddlesome old biddy which everyone will underestimate, then use that underestimation to gather crucial intel. That sort of thing?

Has the Chantry often spied on Riftwatch?

[elegiaque]

( on the other end of the crystal she hums, thoughtful— )

Maybe. Probably not, things would probably be different if they'd done it very successfully. The Chantry has more ties with the Inquisition— that's half the reason we exist in the form we do, now.

[portalling]

You’re the only person I really know from that far back— was it in order to go independent, then? Get out from under Chantry supervision, have more freedom to operate? I could see how that could still leave them interested. Checking in on the rogue stepchild, as it were.

[elegiaque]

Something like that. It wasn't unanimous, but it was...

( hmm. she's almost audibly considering how to put this. )

All the rifters, all the anchor-shard bearers, all the most ... controversial thinkers and work got sent to Kirkwall, out from the thumb of the Inquisition and the advisors— far away from them, from the Inquisition's methods and priorities. If we didn't go independent, half of our people probably wouldn't have been allowed to work at all. And, you know, there's no way the Kirkwall outpost, when that's what it was, would have cooperated with being folded into an Exalted March.

It was in order to continue existing, I think. It was probably inevitable as soon as they created the outpost.

[portalling]

Hmm.

( is stephen strange’s own thoughtful noise, absorbing that information. he likes these inadvertent history lessons with gwenaëlle; he’s always carefully mentally filing those tidbits away, as useful context for the organisation and situation and world he now finds himself in. he shuffles some of his papers, moving them into tidy piles, but his attention’s on that crystal on his desk instead. )

So, all the personae non gratae got shunted off into an out-of-the-way corner, basically. ( whichever magic renders his words into the common tongue, does it work for latin? is that a tevene saying here too? how the fuck does any of this work? he needs to stop thinking about it. )

And now, apparently, ( dryly, because he cannot help but tease, ) the undesirables’ undesirables have been shunted even further out of the way.

[elegiaque]

Kirkwall turned out to be less out of the way than hoped, I think.

( is dry, in answer. hightown— probably won't. hopefully, it will be a sight more temporary. )

I was still Lady Vauquelin when we first came here. So much has changed since Trevelyan ate shit, but we're still fighting the same fucking wars, so, I don't know.