RP:Grooming a Succesor

Part of the Surface Tension Arc

Synopsis: Gevurah invites Laezila's House Mage Lanlan to visit her at House D'Artes. During the tense meeting, both drow try to figure out the other's angle, and whether or not they may be of use to each other one way or another. Gevurah tries to undermine Laezila in Lanlan's esteem, but it is unclear if she is successful.

House D'Artes

Lanlan is in his own special room in the D'l'Sel D'issan headquarters, Lanlan is alone and in the midst of carving symbols into the air with his magic wand. Sometimes frantically, sometimes tentatively, visualizing what he imagines helps him understand and predict the conclusions. A rap on his door interrupts him, and he steps back to glance over the entirety of the floating script one last time. He purses his lips and squints. In another moment there's a more deliberate knock. Instantly the calligraphy disappears when he waves his hand across the letters. He cracks the door open just enough. After some back and forth mumbling, he exclaims, "From Gevurah...!?" Then he reverts to the calm stern countenance, "About time." After reading the letter for a moment, he decides he should head over immediately. Not much of a hold up by the guards, they were expecting him and tell him where to wait. Expecting her to be a moment, he takes the time to notice the various doorways about this place, or the portraits. Then more closely, the so-called "elven artifacts".

Gevurah is in D’Artes private shrine to Vakmatharas when Lanlan arrives. His presence doesn’t rush her away from her faith. It wouldn’t do to choose Lanlan over a God, and Gevurah has a lot of penance to do after her spiritual adventure with Lanlan’s matron. About fifteen minutes after Lanlan arrives, Gevurah enters the foyer dressed down in a black robe wrapped around her body by some trickery of design. “I am glad you could make it. Come. We usually receive dignitaries in the throne room, but I trust you’ll be more comfortable in the lounge.” She leads him down two hallways to what appears to be the D’Artes nobles’ “family” room. Well furnished, cozy by drow standards, and clearly lived in. She slips into a chaise and invites Lanlan to sit on a couch across from her. Between them sits a low coffee table with a few books on Trist’oth history, her own father depicted on the cover in a lovely, fearsome illustration. “May I offer you wine?” A chamber slave stands at her post in the corner of the room awaiting instruction from either noble. Already she pulls wine and glasses from a cabinet, expecting at least one of the two to drink. Gevurah smiles patiently at Lanlan, waiting to see what he assumes is going on here.

Lanlan expected her to take a while, but only to make him wait. He took the time to groom himself, not that he wasn't clean enough. But he delicately pulls his long eyebrows through his fingers to keep them sharp at the ends. The purple cloak he used to wear always was destroyed a few months ago, and instead he wears a black shirt in sharp contrast with his white pants. When she finds him, he's examining one of the great tapestries. He comes to some conclusion about it apparently and turns slowly to stare into her eyes for a moment, intentionally so she could see his bright red ones. He nods and wordlessly follows her down the hallways, standing only just a step behind and walking stiffly. Once they make it to the lounge, he says, "In my opinion, if you have to commit the path to the lounge to memory, it is too far." He flattens his shirt against his stomach and sits on the couch, gazing all over, resting at the portrait. He glances over to her "Yes please," he says and the slave brings a wine glass over. Looking back at the portrait, "I'm not familiar with this one. A very prominent figure?"

Gevurah grins at Lanlan’s comment about the path to the lounge and tries a joke of her own, “Don’t want the rabble to get in.” Of course they won’t. This is D’Artes. Get it? Get it? Haha, wealth and power! Gevurah’s favorite jokes, though she doesn’t often tell them, for obvious reasons. Then Lanlan makes a second joke, for surely, as Gevurah believes, everyone knows who Keter is, and she says not displeased, “I didn’t know you were funny.” She doesn’t mind the slight. Irreverence of the dead is a long tradition in drow culture, and while Keter and a few other historical figures have been allowed to be remembered, it is atypical. She watches him silently, still waiting for him to make the first move. A surfacer’s clock ticks on the credenza behind her. Footsteps shuffle down a distant hall. Gevurah slides her fingers across her bottom lip just once, then she sips her wine, still watching him expectantly over the lip of her glass. A cough echoes into the lounge from another room. The chamber slave clinks wine bottles as she rearranges them by year. Clearly Lanlan has also taken a page from the book of Gevurah and doesn’t intend on revealing his hand first. Fine. She’ll bite. After a solid minute of awkward silence, which feels like much longer, she says, “I don’t believe you’ve been very involved in the war. I wonder what has kept you.”

Lanlan doesn't get it. "Oh of course. The rabble." He remains quiet when she calls him funny, not knowing if she's making fun of him or not, since he's only been acquainted with these people and places over the past few months. Everything except a cricket makes a noise as they stare at each other. She never asks him anything, yet expects an answer. He moistens his lips with some of the wine before speaking, taking a small sip and letting the cup sit without trembling on his knee. "I've been involved enough. If my actions are secret they're more likely to go over without hindrance." Of course he'd had basically no effect on either side. "Is that why you summoned me here? I expected something you wouldn't feel comfortable discussing with Laezila."

Gevurah inhales sharply at his response, face calm and collected in a mask of patience worn over a short-temper. “I wouldn’t think that in matters of the war D’l’sel D’issan would have anything to hide from me, but alas recently the relations between our two great houses have soured, as I am sure you are aware. But I wouldn’t dare ask you here to undermine your Matron’s decisions. In fact, I have a grudging respect for everything Matron Laezila has accomplished in so short a time, for she is very young.” She pauses, makes a show of looking conflicted before saying, “Perhaps that youth in part influenced her most recent decision to withdraw soldiers. I should have seen it coming a few months ago when she risked starting a war with House D’Artes over a human male she has taken a fancy to.” She’d shudder if her spine could remember how to do it. She’s been bred not to show weakness, even in circumstances such as these. A big gulp of wine washes down her distaste.

Lanlan flickers a smile, and greets his lips to wine quickly. "Of course, some would call her affinity prodigal." Probably not any drow. He swirls the wine methodically as he waits for her to finish, before abruptly halting his glass. A bit crests over the edge and stains the outer thigh of his pants. "Excuse me? Surely you know spreading such a vile rumor can do much to sour relations between houses. And something so..." in remembrance, his face reels back in disgust. He plants the wine on the table before them and hides the stain under his hand. "This time I'll pardon you as a courtesy. Next time I'll be forced to inform her of this vicious slander." Deciding that it is behind them, he picks the wine glass up once more and washes the whole business away, curiously, the stain is gone. "As for her withdrawal, I can't comment on her reasoning, only that it was sound." Actually he had no idea, but nobody needed to know that. "But if you're worried you can't beat the elves without us, I suppose I can ask her to reconsider...after all, you are yet an ally."

Gevurah waves a hand as if to say go ahead, tattle. She reopens the topic he closed. “Matron Laezila would not deny it. There were plenty of witnesses, among them her guard. I captured a human who killed many drow during a battle a few months ago, and she came here to demand his freedom, and threatened me if I did not comply. She was moved to the brink of tears when she saw his… condition.” A shrug meets his offer to speak to Laezila. “I’ll be frank, Lanlan. I would like D’l’sel D’issan’s soldiers back on the frontline, but I doubt that even if you should succeed in convincing her that she’ll keep the soldiers there very long. In fact I very much expect you to be able to convince her, for she has shown a remarkable vulnerability to persuasion. First the human, then Nymh the traitor — against my better advice — and then myself.” Her open palm extends over the table between them and she summons a small fireball. “That was not within my power until recently, but it was within hers. I took it from her with little persuasion and surprising ease. As you said,” She folds her hands together and leans back in the chaise. “Her power is prodigal, and she is a powerful ally to have, but a capricious one. I always thought power alone was enough to rule, but...” She shrugs, as if the evidence speaks for itself.

Lanlan flared his nostrils as he sighed, but then smiled curtly. He isolated himself recently and clearly he was unprepared for this meeting. "I see. What is this human's name?" There was infinitely more he wished to say on the subject, but it would have to wait until he talked to his matron. She was sewing seeds of doubt, and they were taking root. Not for lack of awareness on his part, but because she was almost certainly telling the truth. "As I um...Ahem, as I said she has sound reasoning. Leading the vanguard is stressful and risky. Now we're fighting the might of Frostmaw? It's natural we should reexamine our strategy." He looked away callously and twirled a finger lazily straight into the air. As he did, a spark spun into a fireball similar to hers. "Maybe you overestimate the gift you received." It diminished quickly until it was gone without a trace of smoke or ash, and he leaned in. Balancing a substantial cheek bone on his knuckles and his elbow on his knee, "What an interesting word choice; you say you took the power from her? Don't you mean she taught it to you?" Then he leaned back and nodded thoughtfully. "You're right," he conceded, "Power alone isn't enough to rule. It takes support, confirmation from your peers." He said it with such conviction as to make her think he knew more about it. "I think in my absence she looked to you. You have wisdom garnered from experience, and there's a very specific air about you. Your confident and dangerous." He held his wine glass out and in a moment it was refilled, he took a sip. "I can see why she was drawn to you," he said raising his glass in a small toast.

Gevurah grins against her wine glass as Lanlan wrestles with her revelation about Laezila. "Krice," she answers when prompted. When he shows off his own pyromancy she laughs, maybe cackles, it's hard to tell the difference with her. "No, Lanlan... I took it." She slides a finger against her lips as she relives the memory. Her red eyes shimmer with the flame of victory as she recalls, "I strapped her to an altar in chains and forced it from her. She mewled like a frightened kitten and begged me to stop." His compliment catches her off guard, and she hesitates before lifting her glass to receive it graciously with a nod of her head. She eyes him in a new light. Her gaze drifts over his posture and dress. "You speak as if she once leaned on your for guidance. Are you suggesting you once swayed the Matron's decisions?" Lanlan commits the human's name to memory, "Krice. Sounds ugly." That's all, nothing else can be said or it might incriminate him later. His eyes widen and he becomes evidently enthralled by her description of the ritual. "But you didn't stop; not until you were finished. And what she gave you, was it only that little bit of fire that satisfied you?" He nods knowingly, and rests against the back of the couch. Then with manifested modesty, "I'm only saying her decisions were always made with very sound reasoning," and he looks deviously at her from the side.

Gevurah smirks as Lanlan clarifies his meaning. Right, ‘Laezila’s’ decisions. Understood. Lanlan’s ability to stay beneath the First Daughter’s radar until now intrigues her. Rarely does the political acumen of any noble escape her. It’s a mystery how he pulled that off, and she determines to figure it out. Intrigue crystallizes in her stare as it narrows on his sidelong glance. She taps her glass and the servant fills it quickly. “No, I did not stop there. I took -all- her pyromancy. She cannot create flame. Your Matron is damaged goods.” She shrugs a shoulder as if dispensing with trash. “You say you were away. What were you doing?”

Lanlan placed his half empty glass on the table. Obviously he was getting a little more comfortable because he stood up, lightly stepped around the table, dragging a finger across the other end of the couch and rubbing his thumb against it like he was checking for dust. Rather quickly he glanced over the various artifacts of luxury in the room before he spoke. Not even enough time to notice what each of them looked like, but it bought him some time he hoped. "Oh pshaw. Damaged goods. She's damaged, I'm damaged. Did I say I was away?" He turned away for a moment, when he returned he appeared quite confident. "That's not important. I'm here now, and with such good timing." He looked down, catching his chin in his open hand. "At first I thought you invited me here so I could offer a new angle on Laezila. But you're doing more telling than me. Do you want to turn me against her, perhaps?"

Gevurah‘s stare follows Lanlan’s sweep towards her; her head doesn’t move. She regards him from the corner of her eyes. Her body stiffens with distrust. “I didn’t say that, but now that you mention it, you do seem eager to have a reason to turn on her.” The shoulder nearest him shrugs and she slinks slyly behind it as she says, “Far be it from me to manipulate the inner workings of D’l’sel D’issan.” She grins like she doesn’t believe that lie herself. “Once the dust clears, I’ll deal with whoever holds power in the Second House.” She rights herself and turns her cheek to Lanlan, more interested in her wine than in him. “You do how you see fit.”

Lanlan rolls his eyes very intentionally and overdramatically. "Oh! don't be so callous, I was just asking. Besides, her people love her, and I think they're jealous of how close we are. There need not be any dust." Did it seem very reassuring? "And yes I know, you're very much preoccupied. You have this war on your hands, and all the pressure...hardly any support from your patron anymore is there?" He tsked, "Of course you're more than capable. And you won't have to 'deal' with me, I'm sure we can these talks much more enjoyable. We can be honest with each other!"

Gevurah faces Lanlan head on, her glare tightening on his face. “My Patron supports me. I act on his wishes and represent the ambitions of House D’Artes, which are his. Get that right, and you’ll find these talks much more enjoyable indeed.” Her lips purse, shoulders roll back, neck pulling this way and that to relieve the tension he so rightfully pointed out. There is a lot on her shoulders, and no true ally to trust. Who needs trust anyway? Another sip of wine and she recollects her calm. “I’m not sure I’ve gotten much honesty out of you thus far,” she says without venom. “I don’t begrudge you.” Her empty glass clicks on the table as she sets it down. Each movement is precise, meditative, as one may expect from a priestess trained to singularly focus on one thing at a time. She turns that focus on him now, and closes in slowly as she says, “Our kind dispensed with honesty long ago.” Invading his personal space, she cuts through his inflated confidence with a penetrating stare. Some of the venom returns to her tone as she says, “I’ll find your truth regardless. It’s a matter of time.” She takes a step back, smiles falsely. “I should let you get back to your Matron. I look forward to our next honest chat.” She winks humorlessly at him, or as humorlessly as she can muster. Whatever game she plays it, it’s undoubtedly fun — for her.

Lanlan felt his eyebrows quiver, an unfortunate tell amplified by their length; the vibrations reverberated and became more exaggerated as they reached the fluffy tips. "Of course, First Daughter. My deepest apologies if I've inflicted any offense to you or your patron." It was extremely methodical and void of sincerity. "I'll be honest with you once I've vetted you. My matron warned me about enemies I might not expect." He holds his glass away from her and he so it won't be in her way as she approaches him. He attempts to resist avoiding her stare, and manages to limit himself to half turning his face away as he feels her breath near him. The whole time he holds his, and releases it once she steps back. The wine glass claps on the table and a crest flips over the lip. "I disapprove of tradition, to be honest, and I look forward to meeting with you again."

Gevurah waves an arm towards the door. “The feeling is mutual. Izzerin will see you out.” She watches him go and doesn’t realize she’s appraising his figure until the second scan. Ack, no. That’s the last thing she needs right now. And it simply isn’t her style. And he’s shifty and hard to read. She forces herself to look away and return to darker plots. It isn’t clear to her if the conversation today was enough to push Lanlan to betray Laezila, and thus she designs plans B and C, just in case.