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[portalling]

stephen strange

crystals · correspondence · private scenes

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[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.

[portalling]

( a beat, a consideration. if this isn’t safe to ask, so shoot him, but historically she hasn’t minded the asking. so far. )

What’s the difference between Vauquelin and Baudin?

[elegiaque]

( it doesn't come up often, any more. mostly — people know, or it's not relevant, or there's just no reason to ask. she doesn't answer immediately, but: )

You've seen the portrait on La Souveraineté? The elven woman in the foyer.

( elegant, beautiful; a little confronting, a woman wearing only a man's shirt and gwenaëlle's locket. long limbs. probably not tall, when she was stood up, with gwenaëlle's same colouring and an expression that's hard to read. )

[portalling]

Yes. ( it was a small, fleeting detail, but he has a photographic memory and the woman was striking. ) There’s a familial resemblance.

[elegiaque]

My parents were the Comte and Comtesse de Vauquelin — “Vauquelin de Vauquelin”, it's very funny,

( she doesn't laugh, but she doesn't sound torn up, just: says it, a thing that she is saying, )

— and Guenievre Baudin, in the portrait, bore and birthed me. La comtesse couldn't carry a pregnancy to term, here's my lord's pregnant mistress who shares her colouring, so she goes from lady's maid to estate chatelaine in the space of one pregnancy. Well, one real pregnancy. “Her” baby “dies”,

( and so does the midwife who delivered her, and the entire small family she had been attending to a week later, in a tragic housefire that gwenaëlle has never heard about, )

and I am named Gwenaëlle Vauquelin, my lord's legitimate heir. It's still my name, ( for the sake of clarity and correctness, ) in an, I suppose, legal sense. But I annoyed a few of the wrong people a few years ago, and the whole affair was exposed, and I've used hers the Empress stripped me of my titles and inheritance.

[portalling]

( it’s a deeper dive on topics she’s hinted at before, and all so removed from the things he knows: this sounds like peak historical intrigue, a soap opera storyline for the nobility, all mistresses and hidden pregnancies and empresses. nobility still exists back on modern earth, sure, but this still seems a step beyond the celebrity trysts plastered all over the tabloids. royalty would still care about this sort of thing, maybe.

no wonder there’s that whole thing about wanting to tell her own details, rather than have it told for her. there’s a pause for a moment, strange trying to find the right words. in the end he tries to hit the same matter-of-fact note, just, here it is, a thing that he is saying: )

You’ve had such a very colourful life.

[elegiaque]

My grandfather fucked his way into a title, and my lord fucked his way out of one— I don't think that's my colourful life.

( it's very dry. )

I still have ties to that world, but not as many as people tend to assume.

[portalling]

I suppose that is, among other things, why you’re in Forces rather than Diplomacy.

[elegiaque]

I'm in Forces because the previous Commander in the position would never have forced me into the field when I was unready,

( a thing that she clearly does and did not take for granted across the board, )

so hers was the only division that I was willing to consider being in, at the time.

[portalling]

And now, ( genuinely impressed, ) you can just about break someone’s spine with an anchor gauntlet punch. Someday you’ll have to show me how you do that.

[elegiaque]

( primly pedantic: )

I can definitely break their spine.

[portalling]

I was trying to be polite. Some people get weird about snapping spines.