Post #2579518 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

Amalia was an exceedingly rare sight at the Hanged Man, having been there exactly twice in all the years she had lived in Kirkwall. Obviously, someone who did not drink and could cook quite well for herself—and who did not enjoy loud, debaucherous forms of socializing—had little need to visit the place. Still, her lack of familiarity was not at all evident in the way she conducted herself. Lucien had told her which rooms Sophia occupied, and she knew to head straight for the back. Mounting the stairs, she came upon the door she was looking for in short order, cocking her head to the side when she found it cracked open.

Sophia was visible through the sliver of open space, apparently bent over some reading, further stacks of it beside her. Perhaps now would be an inconvenient time. If so, she might still make use of it to find a better one. Rapping the doorframe with her knuckles, Amalia pushed open the portal with her fingertips, stepping smoothly inside. ”I thought those who grew up a certain way were more inclined to ward themselves from danger,” she commented, her tone thoughtful more than anything else. “And yet were I an assassin, I am afraid this would have been simple.” She leaned back against the door, crossing her arms beneath her chest.

“May I ask what holds your attention so perilously?”

Sophia was indeed taken by surprise, for one because she did not expect a visit from Amalia here in the Hanged Man, and also because she... was making a joke? Possibly? It was difficult to tell, but Sophia smiled a bit awkwardly anyway. "Should I be epxecting assassins? It seems like everyone wants me quite alive and well, for a job I'm supposed to be doing. It's good to see you too, Amalia." She supposed a few people might still benefit from her being removed, but most of them wouldn't resort to hiring assassins.

She shut the thick tome in her lap, looking down at it somewhat distastefully before setting it upon her desk, leaning back in the chair in which she sat. "Old records, mostly, from years ago. I'm... looking for someone. It's a personal matter. Sadly, none of this seems to be helping. It's all too official to be of any real use." The details that would interest her were not the things kept in a guard captain's reports, or historian records. She needed personal accounts, journals and diaries. She needed what Dairren had taken from her, from her father.

Sophia might have given Amalia more information, but it seemed unnecessary to involve her. Ash already had all his resources on the job, and while Amalia was extremely proficient in matters of subterfuge, it seemed increasingly clear that the best way to get Dairren out into the open was to play his game.

"Come in, please. What brings you here? Not the drinks, I take it." This place seemed almost the antithesis of Amalia's demeanor.

Amalia trusted that if she would be of use, someone would have requested her assistance by now, and so, given the absence of such a request, any further inquiry was unhelpful on her part. It was a personal matter, and that was that. It was no longer her business to pry into the business of others, and even had it been, she probably would not have done so directly. Spying was interesting work, to be sure, but she didn’t mind that she no longer had to enact it. At the invitation, she moved slightly further into the room, selecting a chair and sitting at it, pulling her legs up underneath her and wrapping her hands comfortably around her ankles.

“Indeed not.” She shook her head slightly, recalling the typical behavior of those under the influence of such substances. It was not something she saw the appeal in, even though she was no longer bound by the Qun’s injunction against it. “I was hoping you could help me with something, though if you wish to return to your… records, or pursue something else related to your personal matter, I would understand.” She paused for a moment, as if to check for the emergent excuse, but when none was immediately forthcoming, she explained further.

“I think it is… rather obvious, from my manner, that I am not… like other people.” This observation was accompanied by a small furrow of her brow. “It does not bother me, exactly, but… I think it may be more useful to me now than it was before to be able to act… more human.” Qun-bound or not, she was still Qunari, from her words to her walk. She didn’t necessarily desire to change that about herself, only to blunt it a little. In a way that would make sense. She could pass well enough, blending into a crowd and the like, but those things were only temporary. She knew how to feign humanity, not to live it.

“There are many things I must know in order to do that, but I think it would help to start where our last discussion left off. I know why social classes exist, but not how they interact. Not truly. I would know modes of address, rules of etiquette, how to comport myself as you do, from the talking to the eating to even the dancing, if you will instruct.” As it was, she knew better how the elves did these things than anyone else.

“Of course, if you are disinclined, I shall not be offended.”

Sophia couldn't help but find it a bit funny, a half smile creeping onto her face, though she felt a bit poorly about it. "You... want me to teach you how to dance. Among other things." She could see the benefit as well, of course. Amalia didn't have the most approachable manner, at least to those not of the Qun, which now made up the entirety of the people around her. Sophia could help with all of it, certainly, but...

"I... might not be the best woman to ask, Amalia. I can teach you all of that as I learned it, but I don't know how much of it will actually be useful here. In Lowtown, that is. Everything is different here, the addressing, the etiquette, the bartering, the eating, and most certainly the dancing." It still felt like a foreign city on some days to her, most commonly when she was alone, without the usual routines of the upper classes surrounding her.

"In truth, I'm still learning how to live here myself. This is nothing like what I've known my whole life." It didn't seem like as great a leap as departing from the Qun, but the gap between human upper class and lower class was large indeed. And like with Amalia and the Qun's teachings, she could not simply stop being a woman born and bred in Hightown. She could change herself, but it was taking a great deal of time, and no small amount of patience.

The nagging thought that she wasn't supposed to be heading this way didn't help matters any.

Amalia shrugged slightly. “Then teach me what you do know, and I will tell you what I have seen, and perhaps together we will learn what we need to.” She was quite aware that Sophia was more likely to understand noble manners than common ones, but this perspective was also necessary for a complete understanding of what it meant to live in a place like this. Besides, there was no telling when knowing what Sophia could teach would be useful. She had given up on attempting to predict much about where she would end up and what she would need to know there. Certainly, she had never pictured any of this. But that was a failure of her imagination, not a fault in her circumstances, and it was one she wished to rectify.

“Is it so strange, that I should want to know?” She hadn’t missed that the request was at least somewhat amusing to Sophia, and while she was far from offended, that was not to say she understood the reason for the humor the other woman clearly saw in it. “This is my life now. It is… what I have chosen. I cannot let myself do it poorly.”

"No, no, not at all strange," Sophia said, attempting to backpedal a bit. Her look became somewhat apologetic. "These things are always just a little... well, funny. To watch. And not just you, certainly. Ashton in a guard uniform? Nostariel at a noble party? Me living in the Hanged Man, of all places? We make choices sometimes that don't seem like they make sense for us, even if we know full well the reasoning behind them. I don't know why I find it funny... I just do." It was also possible that Amalia simply hadn't developed very much of a human sense of humor yet. But surely Sophia Dumar living in a small room in the Hanged Man was funny to a great many people. And she had decided that it was simply not worth it to take herself too seriously. Laughing at her own struggle to adapt made it a lot easier than stewing over doing it just right.

"Forgive me, though, I would love to help how I can. I needed a break from reading, anyhow." She said this with a slightly scornful glance at the things she had yet to begin reading. If Dairren had earned his nickname from writing many interesting things, he certainly hadn't included any of them in his guard paperwork. "Shall we start with forms of address, then? The two you'll need to use most often in the Marches are serah and messere. Serah is used when greeting someone of equal or lesser rank to yourself, whereas messere is for respectfully addressing one of greater status..."

If Amalia was good at anything, she was good at operating within determined sets of rules. She could navigate through a system with strict requirements on behavior and decorum, smoothly adapting herself and changing whatever facets of her tone, demeanor, body language, or appearance were necessary to pass muster. That said, she really didn’t understand why half of the things she was learning were necessary. Qunari titles were informative. The rules regarding the preparation and consumption of food served a purpose, usually for the health of the people involved, and to make sure that there was enough in an environment that was not always resource-rich. She was unsure why a separate fork was necessary for each course of a formal dinner, but she tried to table her skepticism and learn the details faithfully.

She nodded at the end of Sophia’s lecture, indicating that she had retained everything. She had stopped a few times to ask questions, or inquire into the history of a custom, if Sophia knew it, but otherwise, she had been an attentive listener and not much else. It was admittedly quite interesting, to say the least. “You were right,” she said at last. “We have… made very odd choices. I should think a Qunari in the Alienage is just as peculiar as yourself here. Perhaps there is some humor in it, though I did not think it very easy to find, at the time.” She’d felt more like she was being torn in two than anything. On the one hand, there lay everything she had ever known, everything she needed to know. On the other… there had been many things she did not yet understand, and yet they felt so crucial somehow, so important.

Here, Amalia paused for a moment. “I… am sorry, for how it happened to you. The Arishok’s actions were not mine, and I cannot apologize for them. All the same, I understand now, what it is to have people I do not want to lose, and I am sorry you lost yours.” The gravity of Sophia’s losses would not always have been evident to her, but it certainly was now. She could also understand how conflicted the other woman must feel, about what she wanted to do with herself now.

"Not all of them, thank the Maker," Sophia said, turning significantly more solemn, though her bearing was not overly heavy or weighed down by the words. "Even if it may have felt like it at the time. I am more sorry that I almost caused the people I care about to lose me. The Arishok was hardly alone in the responsibility for my loss, even if it was his blade that took my father from the world. You yourself removed the other party, if I recall correctly." And it wasn't as though she could forget the night her brother died, and Mother Petrice soon after.

She wondered for a moment how Amalia would have reacted, in a situation like hers. Now that Amalia professed to having people in her life she did not want to lose... if one was lost in front of her, would she respond irrationally, with more violence, fighting that was entirely unnecessary? Sophia was certain that Amalia the Qunari would not have done so, if the way to the greatest good was to stay her blade. But Amalia was clearly no longer that cold of a woman. Perhaps she had never been. Sophia could not say whether or not she believed it was a good thing.

It seemed warm of her to admit her attachments, to confess that there were people in the world she cared for enough to behave irrationally for their benefit, but... surely that was not a quality of a good ruler? For Sophia was most certainly that way, always fighting off a wretched fear that her loved ones would come to harm out of her inability to defend them. Making sacrifices was never something she had been able to do. She was too human, perhaps.

"I hope this turns out well for you, Amalia. It could not have been easy, to watch the others leave and decide not to join or follow them." It wasn't something Sophia would have predicted when they'd first met. She had seemed so... immovable in her beliefs. "Personally, I'm not sure I've ever been happier than in the last year or so. But I'm beginning to see that this won't be permanent for me." Like Lucien, she could not turn away from duty forever. She could... but she would likely never forgive herself for it.

“Little if anything is truly permanent,” Amalia pointed out quietly. “If that is how you feel, then enjoy this while you can. Do not ruin it by thinking only of what must eventually come. Take the time this gives you to bolster yourself for what is to be, but do not let the future haunt you any more than you let the past.” That was the attitude she herself was taking towards life at the moment, anyway. Perhaps it would be of some benefit to Sophia as well. Amalia did wonder, from time to time, if the life she had now would not eventually come to an end as well. There were certainly many ways in which it could. But always letting that occupy one’s thoughts was no way to live. That much at least, she knew very well indeed.

“And thank you. I am rather hoping it turns out well, also, though I know not what that means, exactly.” She was content now, but she was not blind to the fact that there were still unsettled matters. She was still without a place, in some sense. She still didn’t fit quite the way the others she knew did, into this place, this life they had all built together. But she would try. Because, however unlikely it seemed that she’d be able to, she wanted to, more than she could recall wanting anything so specific, ever.

Letting out a soft breath, she stood. “Well, I believe you have satisfied my curiosity on matters of address and etiquette for now, but I still do not know how to dance as humans do. The one I played at your birthday… this is called the waltz, yes?” The humor on her face indicated that she knew it was—she knew how to play one, after all, but it wasn’t for the answer that the question was asked.

"Yes, indeed," Sophia said, also rising. "I'm no Orlesian dance instructor, but thankfully we aren't playing the Game just yet." She supposed the best way to explain things would be to demonstrate and practice. She almost wished Ashton or Nostariel would walk by, to see the noble and the ex-Qunari waltzing in a backroom of the Hanged Man, to the ill-fitting music being played outside the door.

Surely that would be funny.

Snippet #2579518

located in Kirkwall, a part of The City of Chains, one of the many universes on RPG.

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