[ It doesn't take long for Daenerys to get a minute, or have one forged especially for her. When she replies, she's back in her apartment, her hair let down and a little damp, made greyer for it, and dressed in an appropriately fluffy robe. ]
Gwenaëlle?
[ Her concern is mild treatment, more curious than worried, but there. ] Is everything alright?
( the face that appears on the other end of the message is -
gwen's. recognisable. but not, in a very immediately apparent way, the face that daenerys is expecting. the colour has leeched out of her skin; she is nearly so pale as daenerys's hair, with a bluish cast that extends to her black hair, her black eyes, wider and larger now than they were before, set above exaggerated, sharper cheekbones. she's pearlescent, catching the light in a way that makes her gleam from the inside out, almost a glow; the strange, cool smoothness of her hands explained and made consistent.
[ Daenerys has little skill in schooling her expressions. Even at her most diplomatic, thoughts are hidden behind a mask forged only of the most genuine contempt. Here, diplomacy and contempt don't apply, so the flash of horror glimmers across her face too quickly, too obviously.
It's smoothed a moment later when that stark paleness of Gwen's face resolves into the other, odder, somehow less scary details, and horror falls to confusion, and squinting, bringing her device closes to her face. ]
You look--
[ 'Inhuman' is a little impolite, as well as guesswork. She ought to at least ask. ]
( stripped briefly of artifice - and it has to be briefly, after that reaction - gwen is not miraculously any more subtle in her own expressions. she'd led with don't freak out so she can't be surprised, she's just
she ripples like water and softens into something more familiar. )
I'm not - human.
( so! )
I thought I was. I looked like this for most of my life. My grandfather a few times removed is a rhinelord - I'm not completely clear on if that's a species thing or a title thing, because he has a King and the King has a court and it's this whole thing he has insufficiently fucking explained to me which is-- irrelevant, anyway.
( gwen talks a lot of nothing when she's nervous. )
I didn't get powers here, and they're not just illusion. I'm a faerie. I look like - that. Koschei called it, like, the process of being undomesticated. The more I learned, the more I lived. And I'll live, you know, kind of a long time. Probably. I'm less human the more I'm magic. But I was always magic. I just didn't know. I found out - a couple of years ago. Unpleasantly. I wanted to know more. To, um, be in control.
[ It isn't lost on her that Gwen replaces her mask as quickly as she does, but now is not the time to comment in a fluster. Daenerys listens instead, and can't help but give a smile -- teeth and all -- when the word 'faerie' enters the dialogue, just a brief bloom of a grin.
'Magic' does not garner the same response, more used to such things than the rest, and less than enamoured with it -- but what girl hasn't, at one time, believed in faeries? ]
I know how that is, [ she says, at this last thing. ] That is to say, I've known my heritage, but not all of its mysteries.
[ She shakes her head. Back to the matter at hand. ]
Has anything happened to-- move you to tell me, or is it freely given?
( it would be nice if she could say she just got brave. )
I'm going to stop lying about it, ( after a slight pause. ) More people have ended up knowing things about me than I'm entirely happy about, and I just think it's going to be smarter if I don't have so many secrets people can get ideas about telling.
Not that anyone has. But I don't like having things hanging over my head, I guess. I'd rather be the one who tells my own story.
If it helps, I don't feel as though I've been lied to.
[ She certainly isn't owed every truth, and every truth has its time, and not every truth's time is raucously, over wine. ]
I didn't mean to startle, or-- freak out, as you put it. Your message worried me, and then all I saw was how pale you appeared... [ She trails off. ] But it wasn't a sickly pale. More like how the moon is pale, but glows with it.
Can I see, again? Or perhaps not over these devices.
[ Some part of her is conscious that, perhaps, Gwen might need more space rather than what could be seen as further scrutiny. But another part of her believes Gwen would assert this if so, and perhaps wouldn't mind the company. ]
I have a present for you, besides, from my travels.
( that does merit a small smile; really worry when gwen can't be momentarily diverted by the prospect of gifts. )
Well, I'll be right over.
( maybe a bit of space is what she first thinks of. maybe space would just mean stewing in her own uncertainties, chasing herself to all the worst possible conclusions. maybe the best possible place for her is not, as a rule, alone with her own thoughts -
it doesn't take her long to get to daenerys' home, registration making swifter the travel between cities, familiarity making quick work of the best route there; she brings a bottle of wine out of mostly habit, though it's tucked in her purse rather than out in her hand, and knocks. )
[ Daenerys answers the door, and Gwen has been by enough times now that the dim lighting of low lamps and candles is Dany's preferred way of fending off the evening darkness. The artificial lights are still too overbright to her eyes. ]
Come in, [ she invites.
On the table are some things to nibble on, deli meats and cheese and a bowl of grapes. It might seem fussy until it's not, which is when Daenerys takes a seat on the ground, cushioned by a throw pillow that's probably not meant to be squashed so. She is barefoot, dressed in an easy, slippery robe, hair loose. If she can get away with not wearing something with an inseam for the next few days, she will. ]
Here you are. If you dislike them, they can be exchanged, I'm told. There was a lot to choose from.
[ She gift-gives by picking it up two handed and offering. The first is quite apparent -- a designer stationary journal of good paper and binding, and the other is a small, skinny box that, likely, Gwen can guess conceals a fountain pen of thoughtful design. Both gifts are a little out of place of one another, between the kind of journal you'd give your little sister who aspires to be a novelist someday and a pen you'd gift your favourite professor at the end of her tenure--
( For all that, they are both the sort of gifts that Gwen would give and the sort that she appreciates; had she grown up in a different family, she probably would've received variations on the theme all her life and had time to get tired of an ever-growing collection of notebooks and beautiful pens going inevitably unused, but growing up in hers it isn't in their particular culture of gift-giving and thus still has the charm of novel thoughtfulness. )
No, ( not too quickly to be sincere, more appreciative, popping open the slim pen box and taking it out to turn over in her hands, settling in the cushions, pumps readily toed off, ) these are lovely, Daenerys - thank you.
(She has one (1) friend that she isn't actually a cunt to, and it's the dragon queen. Well, if it was going to be anyone. )
I used one of these to write on my ex, ( tossing and catching the pen, ) and he had it tattooed the next day. Men are weird.
( Also, she still looks human. But. Give her a minute. )
A love poem, then, [ she both guesses and teases, because it probably was not a love poem.
Satisfied, though, that her gifts have been well received, she sets about pouring wine. There's the sound of leather buffeting the air, and a dragon the size of a small cat suddenly comes winging around the corner, landing upon the arm of her sofa (which, indeed, has little claw marks etched into the leather). Drogon tips a look at Gwen, and then tips a look at the food, mouth parting to taste the air.
Picking up a curl of pancetta, Dany tosses it for him to catch. ]
( Surprise. Gwen writes love poems on her boyfriends. Or she did, until Wes tattooed it onto his skin and she didn't - she didn't feel a way about it that she would describe in so many words, she just for one reason or another never did that again. So.
She wiggles her fingers in lazy greeting to Drogon, does not reflect on the things she's got used to about this place because he's-- more like the things she was getting used to at home, really, a reminder of the short time she spent in the court, the strange things she saw that became if not normal then not unpleasant, either, to be around. )
It's the only one his brother doesn't have as well. They're pricks like that, identical, covered in identical tattoos as well. What the fuck, right?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Gwenaëlle?
[ Her concern is mild treatment, more curious than worried, but there. ] Is everything alright?
no subject
gwen's. recognisable. but not, in a very immediately apparent way, the face that daenerys is expecting. the colour has leeched out of her skin; she is nearly so pale as daenerys's hair, with a bluish cast that extends to her black hair, her black eyes, wider and larger now than they were before, set above exaggerated, sharper cheekbones. she's pearlescent, catching the light in a way that makes her gleam from the inside out, almost a glow; the strange, cool smoothness of her hands explained and made consistent.
her teeth are sharp. )
I left some things out.
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It's smoothed a moment later when that stark paleness of Gwen's face resolves into the other, odder, somehow less scary details, and horror falls to confusion, and squinting, bringing her device closes to her face. ]
You look--
[ 'Inhuman' is a little impolite, as well as guesswork. She ought to at least ask. ]
What things are these, exactly?
no subject
she ripples like water and softens into something more familiar. )
I'm not - human.
( so! )
I thought I was. I looked like this for most of my life. My grandfather a few times removed is a rhinelord - I'm not completely clear on if that's a species thing or a title thing, because he has a King and the King has a court and it's this whole thing he has insufficiently fucking explained to me which is-- irrelevant, anyway.
( gwen talks a lot of nothing when she's nervous. )
I didn't get powers here, and they're not just illusion. I'm a faerie. I look like - that. Koschei called it, like, the process of being undomesticated. The more I learned, the more I lived. And I'll live, you know, kind of a long time. Probably. I'm less human the more I'm magic. But I was always magic. I just didn't know. I found out - a couple of years ago. Unpleasantly. I wanted to know more. To, um, be in control.
no subject
'Magic' does not garner the same response, more used to such things than the rest, and less than enamoured with it -- but what girl hasn't, at one time, believed in faeries? ]
I know how that is, [ she says, at this last thing. ] That is to say, I've known my heritage, but not all of its mysteries.
[ She shakes her head. Back to the matter at hand. ]
Has anything happened to-- move you to tell me, or is it freely given?
no subject
I'm going to stop lying about it, ( after a slight pause. ) More people have ended up knowing things about me than I'm entirely happy about, and I just think it's going to be smarter if I don't have so many secrets people can get ideas about telling.
Not that anyone has. But I don't like having things hanging over my head, I guess. I'd rather be the one who tells my own story.
no subject
[ She certainly isn't owed every truth, and every truth has its time, and not every truth's time is raucously, over wine. ]
I didn't mean to startle, or-- freak out, as you put it. Your message worried me, and then all I saw was how pale you appeared... [ She trails off. ] But it wasn't a sickly pale. More like how the moon is pale, but glows with it.
Can I see, again? Or perhaps not over these devices.
no subject
I could come over.
no subject
[ Some part of her is conscious that, perhaps, Gwen might need more space rather than what could be seen as further scrutiny. But another part of her believes Gwen would assert this if so, and perhaps wouldn't mind the company. ]
I have a present for you, besides, from my travels.
video → action.
Well, I'll be right over.
( maybe a bit of space is what she first thinks of. maybe space would just mean stewing in her own uncertainties, chasing herself to all the worst possible conclusions. maybe the best possible place for her is not, as a rule, alone with her own thoughts -
it doesn't take her long to get to daenerys' home, registration making swifter the travel between cities, familiarity making quick work of the best route there; she brings a bottle of wine out of mostly habit, though it's tucked in her purse rather than out in her hand, and knocks. )
no subject
Come in, [ she invites.
On the table are some things to nibble on, deli meats and cheese and a bowl of grapes. It might seem fussy until it's not, which is when Daenerys takes a seat on the ground, cushioned by a throw pillow that's probably not meant to be squashed so. She is barefoot, dressed in an easy, slippery robe, hair loose. If she can get away with not wearing something with an inseam for the next few days, she will. ]
Here you are. If you dislike them, they can be exchanged, I'm told. There was a lot to choose from.
[ She gift-gives by picking it up two handed and offering. The first is quite apparent -- a designer stationary journal of good paper and binding, and the other is a small, skinny box that, likely, Gwen can guess conceals a fountain pen of thoughtful design. Both gifts are a little out of place of one another, between the kind of journal you'd give your little sister who aspires to be a novelist someday and a pen you'd gift your favourite professor at the end of her tenure--
But Dany does her best. ]
no subject
No, ( not too quickly to be sincere, more appreciative, popping open the slim pen box and taking it out to turn over in her hands, settling in the cushions, pumps readily toed off, ) these are lovely, Daenerys - thank you.
(She has one (1) friend that she isn't actually a cunt to, and it's the dragon queen. Well, if it was going to be anyone. )
I used one of these to write on my ex, ( tossing and catching the pen, ) and he had it tattooed the next day. Men are weird.
( Also, she still looks human. But. Give her a minute. )
no subject
Satisfied, though, that her gifts have been well received, she sets about pouring wine. There's the sound of leather buffeting the air, and a dragon the size of a small cat suddenly comes winging around the corner, landing upon the arm of her sofa (which, indeed, has little claw marks etched into the leather). Drogon tips a look at Gwen, and then tips a look at the food, mouth parting to taste the air.
Picking up a curl of pancetta, Dany tosses it for him to catch. ]
no subject
( Surprise. Gwen writes love poems on her boyfriends. Or she did, until Wes tattooed it onto his skin and she didn't - she didn't feel a way about it that she would describe in so many words, she just for one reason or another never did that again. So.
She wiggles her fingers in lazy greeting to Drogon, does not reflect on the things she's got used to about this place because he's-- more like the things she was getting used to at home, really, a reminder of the short time she spent in the court, the strange things she saw that became if not normal then not unpleasant, either, to be around. )
It's the only one his brother doesn't have as well. They're pricks like that, identical, covered in identical tattoos as well. What the fuck, right?