freedom_is_grey | Building castles in the mud

Cullen has himself let out an undignified snort or two.

...and makes a note to ask to see the kennels, if Ysalwen doesn't consider that an integral part of the keep already.

(It totally is.)

Idly: "I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to fashion some kind of headdress with antlers."

"No. No, I can't -- "

Ysalwen buries her face in her hands for a moment, laughing.

"Out. Out, it's time for us to go. Now."

Though before they actually leave --

"Though if anyone here gets ideas on that score, I'm sure Liranan will be only too pleased at the opportunity to experiment."

She's just saying.

And now she is leaving, munching contentedly on a venison sandwich as she goes.

"He seemed to like the idea," Cullen protests, trailing into the corridor after her. "If nothing else it might be a good look for Satinalia."

"Does this mean Liranan gets to suggest your Satinalia costume, as well?"

Ysalwen is asking for a friend!

And being careful to keep one hand cupped under her mouth as she eats so that too many crumbs don't get on the floor.

"Only if I get to give him suggestions before he makes the final determination," Cullen says mildly, glancing about.

"And I won't be anything four-legged. Or six-legged, for that matter." Beat. "Or eight."

"Unfair evocation of giant spider imagery. I call foul."

She pauses before entering the great hall, popping the last bite of sandwich into her mouth, licking her fingers clean of juice, and then smoothing her robes and tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear.

Liranan's cheerful yip can already be heard from somewhere off to the left.

As can a sharp female voice, tinged with an accent that is distinctly not Fereldan.

"And I can see why the interest in flowers, suddenly."

That gets muttered under her breath, and then she steps into the room, her walking pace picking up into something a lot more brisk and less rambly.

"Velanna. Report?"

He's heard that name before.

And Cullen follows Ysalwen's cue, walking a few steps behind and to her right, stopping when she stops, clasping his hands loosely behind his back in a casual approximation of parade rest.

He's had a lot of practice being the (less-)bad lieutenant. It's easy enough to fall back into it, shoulders squared, expression blank.

"Who's thi -- "

The blond elven woman starts to ask a somewhat waspish and defensive question, but Ysalwen's raised eyebrows appear to cut it off at the pass.

"A party of darkspawn moving this way, Ysalwen. No emissaries, no alphas. I came back to take some of the recruits out to deal with it. It should be an easier blooding. Did you want -- "

Ysalwen shakes her head, flicking a quick glance at Cullen as she does so.

"Not this time. You'll manage well enough. Just don't take Galen, Merana, or Leomund. They're not ready, and they might never be. Tell me how they do afterward, once you're all back. See if you can beat Nathaniel's record, if you like."

Velanna nods once, sharply, shoots Cullen a suspicious and measuring look, then departs, step hitching only a little as Ysalwen lifts her voice to be heard for just a little longer.

"Sigrun's taking bets."

Cullen makes a noise that could quite easily be mistaken as throat-clearing.

Well. Ysalwen's got the knack of how to motivate her people as individuals. He'll have to tell her, later.

"Oh good," says a bustling woman with neatly upswept graying hair, a lined face, and several flowers held in one hand. "She found you. Or you found her. Never does like taking direction, does she? Not from shems, at any rate. And I was only just saying you were in your office."

Ysalwen turns, cracking a slight smile at the woman's approach.

"Aggi. And here I was just looking for you, too. Thank you for the flowers. She'll appreciate it more when she's back, I imagine. And -- I've a guest who will be spending at least the night -- Stanton, here. He'll need a room, one of the smaller chambers not on Wade and Herren's side of the Keep, please? Maybe near the library? I'm sure you know the set I mean."

Well away from any current occupants, recently renovated and repaired, and quiet.

For the nightmares that no one here is talking or even thinking about.

"Yes, m'lady Ysa," Aggi says promptly, looking the guest over once or twice -- he is handsome, after all. "Any luggage or parcels to be put in there as well? Or notice given to the stablehands about when he'll be wanting to leave?"

Ser Stanton very carefully does not assume that it's that kind of look. Of course anyone in her position would size up strangers close to the arl.

Smoothly, then, he says, "I'm afraid the answers are no, and not yet, mistress -- I hope that won't cause you trouble."

"Oh, no, no," Aggi says dismissively. "I'll just send one of the girls along to freshen up the sheets and get a fire going. Do you take a warming pan of an evening? Some people like things crisp, I know."

Nathaniel.

Ysalwen laughs quietly.

"You could ask Aggi to be ready to receive one hundred guests in two hours and she'd still insist it was no trouble, I swear."

Aggi looks skeptical. "You say that, but you and I both know, my lady, that you'd never dream of doing such a thing."

Ysalwen presses her knuckles to her mouth, eyes sparkling with badly-suppressed mirth. "Just so you admit in advance that it will not be my fault if our King ever decides to pay a spontaneous call."

Aggi actually swats at Ysalwen's shoulder with the flowers, almost reflexively.

"Oh, go on with you, then. Just know that my husband will take it out of you when yon mabari there goes to stud."

That -- is a good thing, like as not. It's not as though Cullen's spent a great deal of time in the great houses of Ferelden, to know if such things are typical for young nobles and their -- chatelaines? Is that Aggi's role?

More questions to be answered later.

"Ah -- no, mistress, thank you," Cullen says, when he can get a word in edgewise.

That is largely Aggi's role, and it's not as if Ysalwen has spent oodles of time in great houses, either. She's begun how she means to go on, however, and most here have been so relieved at Howe's departure that they've allowed it, even against previous instincts.

It -- makes for an odd little household, but still. It works!

"And now, I think, I ought to take this one around to show off the troops. Someone should see the results of all the training they've been putting in, no?"

Aggi seems pleased to agree, then gets back to making sure everything is clean and arranged neatly as a pin.

"Her husband is the kennel-master, in case you wondered. He has a breeding plan all laid out already."

"Has he asked Liranan's opinion?" says Cullen drily, following after Ysalwen.

" -- and one other thing." He stops, once they're outside the hall. "I'd like to see them, but at a distance. Don't introduce me. Let me do that in the morning, at breakfast, and we'll move to the yard from there."

"Where do you think he got the first part of the breeding plan from?"

As if Liranan would let it be any other way. (Or as if Ysalwen would.)

She stops as he does, looking up at him.

"I can do that. Well, we can do that. There's a not-terrible vantage point halfway between the kennels and the stables, which also gives us an excuse to be there. Though, do you -- do you want to see them just without me, or see them just with me and without you, too? If -- if you think that's a useful distinction?"

"It is," Cullen says, thoughtful gleam in his eyes. "Could we do... all of that? Or would that be too difficult?"

Ysalwen taps her mouth with her fingertip for a moment, gaze distant.

Then she focuses back on the here and now, shaking her head just a little.

"No, no I think it should be doable. We'll take Liranan to the kennel to say hello, walk across to show you the stables, and then I'll leave you there after you've seen your fill and head for the training grounds myself. It's -- actually not something I haven't done before, so no one will think it odd. Or they shouldn't."

Again, it's all the running around everyone does, honestly. It covers a variety of sins.

Cullen nods.

(He is very quietly thrilled that they are going to the kennels. The only thing better than one dog is more dogs.)

"We don't have to do it all right away. Or even today. But while I'm here -- it would be... good."

"Well, it's certainly good timing to do it today. Not for the Wardens so much as for the regular Keep recruits. Tomorrow will be better for the Wardens, as most will be back from their various training exercises."

Including Zevran, which will be -- nice.

She exhales, consciously relaxing her shoulders.

"But first, mabari. And the other hounds, of course."

But mostly mabari.

Edited 2016-02-02 02:12 (UTC)

"Of course," Cullen says, cheerful.

And, as they move:

"Should I address you as Warden-Commander in front of others?"

No. Please.

"Um."

She swallows a little heavily.

"Probably, yes. Most people who don't know me do that."

Cullen doesn't miss that reaction.

Quiet:

"Probably isn't yes. What would you have me call you?"

"Ysa, really," she says quietly. "My friends do. But here -- just Commander, if that would be best? Warden-Commander is, um, too much."

Too much playing into recent history. For one.

"Elsewhere, it's different," Cullen says -- gently enough.

"Here, you're the Commander. Just as I'm Ser Stanton. Elsewhere, nothing's changed."

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