"Living a lie….it feasters inside you, like poison. You have to fight for what's in your heart," – Altus Doran Pavus of House Pavus of Tevinter, Agent of the Inquisition, Tevinter Ambassador to the Inquisition, Founding Member of the Lucerni.
~ The Ravencrest, off the Coast of Highever, the Waking Sea, 28th Bloomingtide 9:21 Dragon ~
Art leaned back against the railing beside Bran, keeping his gaze focused on the bustle of the deck while Bran brooded while staring down at the sea below.
"So," Art began almost lightly with his arms crossed his chest, "are you going to tell me what your sulking about now?"
"I'm not sulking," Bran informed him with an offended tone, "I'm thinking."
"With you, it's the same thing," Art shrugged one shoulder as he glanced down to see his older—but shorter—cousin glaring up at him with annoyed blue eyes. "Five years is a long time, you can't honestly have expected things to remain the same, right?"
Bran's jaw clenched—not in the stubborn way his little sister, Kenna, would stubbornly clench and set her jaw, but akin to it though it was with mild anger than pure stubbornness, Art recognised—and he turned his glare to the sea below as it was the cause of his problems and not the symbol of his freedom.
"I didn't expect things to change so much," Bran admitted after several long moments when Art was almost convinced that Bran would just ignore him and continue to brood—something his cousin/captain/best friend had done in the past and was rather good at. "Kenna was Mother's precious youngest, even a blind man could see how much she adored her, and Mother was always happy to keep her as close as possible.
But somehow, in the five years I've been gone, that changed. Mother no longer keeps Kenna close, Kenna no longer turns to Mother for affection—and I don't know if it even occurs to her to go to Mother, no, now it's always Cait or Fergus that Kenna turns to, that she looks to first, and Mother, Mother seemed to have accepted that, but why?"
"Isn't that part of growing up?" Art offered making Bran scowl slightly—obviously the simplest answer wasn't the correct one in his mind.
"No," Bran decided firmly, stubbornly, "not like this. Something is wrong, something happened, something that Cait won't tell me and something Fergus would prefer me to ask him about only, so I don't upset either Cait or Kenna—which means it's upsetting, that something had gone wrong."
"Are you going to ask him?" Art asked for a moment on thinking about Bran's words, thinking about how Caitlyn had bristled whenever Bran would turn his watchful gaze on their little sister, the thin smile that Fergus would offer Bran when he looked like he was one step away from confronting Caitlyn, and turning his head so he could watch his Captain.
"Yes," Bran decided after a long moment of his own, "when we return to Highever, I'll ask him."
"Does that mean you'll stop sulking for now?" Art asked after a beat and Bran bumped him with his shoulder and a scowl making him boom out a laugh in return.
~ Cousland Castle, Highever, 5th Justinian 9:21 Dragon ~
Without Bran, Caitlyn found it easier to return to duties towards the Alienage, the ongoing problem of finding a human member of her personal household—because Maker forbidden that Caitlyn only have nonhuman household members, the shock and horror of it all—and her continued studies.
(It was easier to relax without Bran's eyes—Cousland blue, her eyes, watchful and questioning—on them, on Kenna.
Without Art—a stranger, yet family—around, and able to pick up things that was best left unsaid, things that had nothing to do with him despite the fact he was meant to be family.)
The Alienage project was going well, it really didn't need her input, but she liked to keep an eye on it and Rosina enjoyed knowing how things were progressing with her former home.
Davia helped her progress with some of her studies, and it was enjoyable to be able to be intelligently challenged by someone around her own age instead of at least a decade older than her—Caitlyn didn't regret to agreeing to house/employ Davia as she connect to the dwarf on a different level then she did with her elven lady-in-waiting.
It was the interviews of the human girls and women that were the problem, and thus Caitlyn had enlisted Kenna's help—as part of her punishment for worrying Nan and everyone by sneaking out and training until she could hardly move.
Not that Kenna actually had to do anything apart from glance up as the girl or woman entered Caitlyn's small study—it may have been small but it was hers, her own personal study that Father had gifted her, so she didn't have to meet with people in her bedroom like she had before when she first started the Alienage project—before she'd continue with her studies with Lileas across from her—they had sat themselves on the floor around the small low table in front of the divan and covered it with parchment, books and the odd bottle of ink for their quill-pens.
Caitlyn had come to recognise the way Kenna would look at people that were important or that she could see their future, it was something she noticed when Kenna had met Davia.
Kenna had looked at Davia it was true, but her gaze had flickered away almost immediately. Kenna's mismatched eyes had focused just to the side of Davia, her eyes distance in a way that told Cait that her sister was seeing something that Cait couldn't. It was that gaze, that flicker away, that touch of distance, that Caitlyn was looking for when she met her possible ladies-in-waiting.
So far, Kenna had glanced up—looked right at them without her mismatched gaze flickering off to the side for even a moment—before she would return to frowning at the essay that she was writing for Aldous or something like that; Caitlyn would smile at the girl/woman with her practised pretty smile and let them prattle on about their skills for a while before dismissing them without second thought—they weren't the right one obviously, Kenna didn't see them as part of them after all.
And then Alouette Mac Sullivan—Orlesian first name, but Fereldan last name, which was interesting, especially as Mac Sullivan was the name of one of the senior Guardsmen that Fergus had talked about—came in for her interview and Kenna looked up and to the side of the dark-eyed dark-haired young woman instead of directly at her and Caitlyn smiled as Alouette smiled back at her—just as practised, just as pretty as Caitlyn's own.
Yes, she had found her human household member—and she was going to cause almost as much gossip and scandal as her nonhuman household members, Caitlyn knew without a doubt, and she found herself strangely looking forward to it.
Dark hair braided back and affixed to a bun at the base of her neck, a silver mask with golden laurel-leaves and silver and gold roses covered the top half of her face, full painted lips pulled up into a pretty smile as dark eyes gleamed with hidden cunning.
She wore a gown of soft yellow-gold with rich blue—royal blue, part of Kenna insisted—roses, blooming flowers and laurel-leaves embroidered across it and a shawl of white fur held shut with a golden pin of a small song-bird with a laurel in its talons—that is what Kenna saw, and something inside her recognised Alouette Mac Sullivan as the Ferelden Ambassador to Orlais, a woman sworn to Caitlyn, but also helping out Kenna as shown by the pin she wore.
Alouette Mac Sullivan was a daughter of two countries, of the Orlesian Empire and the Kingdom of Ferelden, a girl caught between two cultures and looked down upon because of it.
She was too much of a dog lord for her to be accepted by the Orlesians if she had any inclination to stay in her mother's homeland, and there was too much of Orlais in her blood for her to be truly accepted in her birth country and the homeland of her father.
Her parents had a real star-crossed lovers romance story—he had been a soldier fighting to free Ferelden during the Rebellion and she had been a bard under the employment of one of the Orlesian nobles that had taken over on behalf of their 'King'—that had the remarkable luck of having a happy ending.
Mother ended up killing her employer before using everything she learnt to become a skilled bard to ferret out information and relay it to her lover and his fellow rebels, which helped them greatly if Mother was to be believed and Father never denied it.
When King Maric was finally able to claim his throne, Alouette's parents married before deciding to settle in Highever as it was the largest port city that wasn't ruled by Orlais-hating Teyrn Loghain Mic Tir or the bitterly grieving King Maric that had the misfortunate of falling in love with a bard himself—only that love story ended up with the bard dead by his own sword if the rumours that Mother had gathered were true (something that Alouette—and Mother—had always believed was true), and was in fact ruled by the young war-hero Teyrn Bryce Cousland who counted the half Orlesian Arl Bryland as one of his best friends.
They made a home for themselves in Highever; Father joined the Guardsmen and Mother decided to use her hard-won skill in a different way by taking over the Sirens' Pearl from the rather lacklustre previous Madame.
It was through one of her 'cousins'—as the Pearls' workers and their children were akin to family to Alouette and her siblings—that she learnt about the Cousland sisters.
Benji was an eager little scamp that was always getting into trouble and only kept out of serious trouble by using the skills that Alouette's own mother had taught his by maximizing his cute looks and young age in a way that made most people soften and let him off the hook—he was going to grow into a heart-breaker, Alouette could already tell, and would probably become terrifying in his own way when he grew up.
Alouette supposed that it was that ability and good foresight of how that ability would grow that caught Giles'—or Halfhand as some had scornfully called the partly crippled boy—attention and he quickly recruited little Benji as one of his 'little birds' that ultimately answered to Kenna Cousland.
Most would be angry that their five-year-old cousin had been recruited into a budding spy-network, but 'most' weren't a part of Alouette's family and Alouette had quickly learnt all she would want about Kenna Cousland from her excited little cousin—the way he gushed about her was adorable.
Most would also think that would make her more inclined towards Kenna Cousland and joining her spy-network—something Alouette would no doubt excel at by the virtue of the bardic training that her Mother had put her through and Alouette's own interesting in acting—but Alouette had her eye on a bigger prize.
Kenna Cousland was a loyal, hard-working fiercely stubborn little thing that Alouette was perfectly content to allow to protect her little cousin and others, but Alouette wanted more, something different.
She wanted cunning, ambition and a sometimes-ruthless intelligence that would challenge her, which led to Alouette to the older Cousland sister.
Caitlyn Cousland, at the age of thirteen, was in charge of rebuilding the Alienage after successfully getting both the Alienage Elder and House Cadash to agree to her plans for it. She was well known for being a gifted scholar—Aldous wasn't shy about bragging about his favourite and gifted student after all—and was known for her silver-tongue already—if only for convincing both the Alienage Elder and House Cadash to agree with her plans.
Caitlyn Cousland had cunning, ambition and intelligence—the three key traits that Alouette looked for in an employer. Time would tell, Alouette supposed, if she was also able to be ruthless with those things.
Benji had kindly informed her that Caitlyn Cousland was still searching for a human lady-in-waiting, and Alouette had been able to get an interview with her would-be Lady.
So, now she was standing before Caitlyn Cousland and Alouette smiled—the pretty practised smile that her Mother had taught her—and Caitlyn Cousland smiled back—just as pretty, just as practised—and rich blue eyes gleamed with intelligence, with cunning, and Alouette was pleased, she knew her dark eyes would shine the same way.
Like recognised like, Alouette inwardly mused as the battle of words began between the thirteen-year-old Lady and fifteen-year-old 'Bard'.
The patrons of the Gnawed Noble didn't really take notice of the new serving girl in the tavern, no they had much more important things to gossip about after all.
"Did you hear about the Grey Wardens?"
"Terrible isn't it,"
"What has the Queen been doing?"
"You can't blame her, it's such a difficult time,"
"Did you hear what happened in Highever?"
"The Couslands—"
"I never would have thought he—"
"I never trusted that man—"
"Do you think this is really a Blight?"
"Have you heard about—"
Alouette smiled as she placed the tankards of ale, cider, mead or goblets of wine in front of the various gossiping nobles, merchants and such.
She tucked every nugget of information away in her mind, she would write all down later in the code that was the brain-child of Giles and Davia and see about what she could do from her place in the heart of Denerim.
With the addition of Alouette into Cait's personal household, Kenna was finally released from the last of her punishment—something that she was going to take fully advantage of, she had decided.
Her Little Birds needed to at least know how to defend themselves, to be able to read and write, Kenna had decided it.
(It was Giles' fault really. She hadn't even thought about training them until Ser Kenneth collared Giles and Giles, in turn, complained about it to her.)
~ Cousland Castle, Highever, 6th Justinian 9:21 ~
"You want to teach them to fight?" Giles asked, slightly incredulous, but willing to listen thankfully.
"Spying isn't a safe job," Kenna leaned back in her bed, a slight frown on her face. "Teaching them to fight could save their lives one day."
"And the reading and writing?" Lileas glanced up from her leather-bound notebook, a quill-pen tucked behind one ear as she almost absently turned to a blank page for new notes.
"They can write reports then instead of having to relay just on their memory," Kenna said making Giles nod in understanding and Lileas to write it down with a hum of understanding.
"Who are you going to get to teach them these things?" Lileas asked after a moment and Kenna frowned.
"That….I still have to figure out," she admitted making Giles snort, not surprised, and Lileas just nodded, also unsurprised, making her pout at them. "I'll figure it out!"
"Sure, you will, Boss," Giles smirked making her glare at him before a smirk crossed her face as she remembered something from her latest dream making him eye her warily. "What's that look for?"
"I want you and Davia Cadash to come up with a code to teach our Little Birds," she informed him making him stare at her.
"…..what?" he asked flatly making her smirk widen, something that just made him groan and flop sideways, so his head was resting on her lap in a boneless cat-way that screamed how done he was. "You'll have one problem with your plans when it comes to Souren."
"Souren?" Kenna asked curiously as she decided to play with Giles' hair—she should probably actually meet all of Giles' 'Little Birds' as the only one that Kenna knew without a doubt was Benji.
"She's blind," Giles informed them making Lileas look up and Kenna to pause briefly in her twisting Giles' short locks around her fingers.
"You have a blind spy?" Lileas asked with some disbelief, making a mental note that she should probably get to know Giles' Little Birds or at least make a record of them because this was the first time she had heard about Souren.
"She has sharp hearing," Giles defended, and Kenna twirled some of his hair around her finger while Lileas almost smirked, it seemed that Souren suited her name then. "Anyway, she comes with her twin, Itha."
Lileas actually cringed at that and stared down in disbelief at Giles, he only shrugged back as he understood her disbelief, but it was their parents that named the twins so what could they do about it?
"Doesn't mean she can't learn something from the lessons," Kenna decided firmly, and that was that as far as she was concerned. "I should probably also find out a Theatre troupe that wouldn't mind being hired to teach."
"A Theatre Troupe?" Lileas asked as Giles frowned almost thoughtfully.
"Huh," he said sounding more thoughtful then he looked, already seeing where Kenna was going with that thought. "That's clever, Boss."
"I'm not an idiot," Kenna poked Giles' forehead in reproach, her lips twisting in the littlest snarl with the clear sentiment of 'bastard' being delivered soundlessly to him as he stared up at her with that smug smirk and laughter in his sea-blue eyes—the bastard, she thought to herself in the mixture of annoyance and affection that only Giles inspired in her.
"What else have you got knocking in that big brain of yours then, Boss?" he asked, still smirking up at her, all smug and plotting, and Kenna grinned down at him.
"Lots of things, Giles," she told him and glanced up at Lileas, dual-sea-coloured eyes dancing with thoughts and plots and Lileas smiled back, an echo of her future-self in the calm and steady-fast confidence in Kenna that was starting to appear. "Ready, Lileas?"
"Of course," Lileas held her quill-pen poised to write, and Kenna grinned again as she laid-out everything she had thought of for her friends.
~ Sirens' Pearl, Highever, 9th Justinian 9:21 Dragon ~
The Sirens' Pearl was a rather classy place for a brothel, Giles thought as he lounged on one of the deep blue velvet divan—with its number of pillows in various shades of blue and made out of silk, velvet and crushed velvet—his back was against the armrest and his legs had been carelessly thrown over Kenna's lap—she hadn't even blinked at him, one hand rested on his calf and absently rubbing a circle with her thumb against the dark trousers though Madame Mac Sullivan had eyed him when he first done it and he had simply smirked at her to the delighted giggles of Benji.
The brat was cuddled up with his mother on one of the nearby chairs—Giles had taken one look at the young woman with her dark curls and sea-blue eyes, a coy smile curling her lips as she noticed Giles' attention, and had realised that Benji would one day grow up into a very pretty young man—and was watching everything with deviously glinting sea-blue eyes.
The curtains with some sort gauzy blue material that did little to keep the light out and seem to be there just to obscene what happened inside into shadows. Stained-glass of blues and greens concealed glow-lights and candles alike.
There was a large fireplace framed by what looked to be coral, but was probably some sort of stone painted and sculpted to look like it was coral straight from the reef—big enough to warm the whole of the large room with its long bar, mirrored wall filled with shelves of coloured bottles—and above that was a beautifully detailed mural; a rocky and treasonous cove, several ship wrecks, a ship that looked like it was just sinking under the sea, about half-a-dozen beautiful sirens lounged on the rocks in the foreground—pearls threaded through flowing hair, hanging between half-concealed breasts, wrapped around a reach arm—that were mostly painted as female—but there was a few males in the mix—all of them beautiful, tails silvery blue and mouths opened in a silent song, one of them was on the edge of the flat rock with one hand out-stretched towards a sailor treading water and a smile pulling her lips as she sang, and the sailor—bloodied from the rocks, half-drowned—with a look of besotted obsession on his face as he stared up at the siren, seemingly ignorant of his ship sinking or his drowning crew behind him, as he reached up with a revered hand like he was about to touch something holy instead of something that had lured him to his death.
Giles wondered idly if the patrons that visited the Pearl realised that the sailor in the mural was meant to portray them but found himself distracted by the amusement of the Knight—the same Knight that Kenna had brow-beat with the sheer force of her personality and stubbornness outside his house—assigned to Kenna and the way he tried to keep his gaze from drifting and lingering—he was failing, horribly—as he stood rigidly beside the divan that they had claimed with Madame Mac Sullivan had waved them to join her.
The man beside the Madame stretched almost catlike, his blue silk robe slipping from one shoulder and exposing his chest as muscles rippled under tanned skin and the Knight followed the movement before catching himself and snapped his flushed face away with an almost audible snap of his bones.
Giles felt a smirk curl his lips as the man smirked at the Knight before sending a wink towards Giles that made Benji muffle more giggles in the silk of his mother's own silk robes.
"So, what is it I can help you with, Lady Kenna?" the Madame asked in her softly accented voice, one finely boned hand holding a delicate pipe close so she could smoke as she eyed the young noble with the same dark eyes she shared with her daughter, greying hair perfectly done up, make-up understated in a way that enhanced her looks and wearing a dress of the darkest blue of the coldest ocean. "Or have you finally come to gain my blessing for your poaching of several of my children?"
Kenna's jaw clenched, the set of it familiar, as she stared at the older woman.
"I wasn't aware I needed your blessing," Kenna informed her, bluntly, straight-forwardly, with no political cunning or double-speak, and Giles felt a spark of fondness in his chest that quickly morphed into pride at the note of surprise that briefly showed on former Bard's face—yeah, his Boss was a strange girl for a noble's daughter and that was why Giles chose her. "I actually came to see if I could hire someone."
One dark eyebrow arched and painted full lips pulled in a coy smile.
"Aren't you a bit young for the services that mine offer?" the Madame asked, voice lilting suggestively.
"My Little Birds need teaching," Kenna ignored her words, her suggestive tone, ignored the flustered spluttering of the Knight, and charged ahead with her usual bull-headedness that Giles found endearing rather than annoying. "I can hire people to teach them to read and write, I can hire a Troupe to teach them to act, I can arrange for them to taught to fight, but there are skills, knowledge, that they need or could need that I don't know where get for them."
"What skills do you think mine and I could teach your Little Birds?" Madame asked after inhaling from her pipe, a trail of silvery smoke blowing from her mouth as she exhaled and spoke.
"Reading people, weapon concealment, lock picking," Kenna shrugged, "things like that, things a Bard would no doubt know."
"So," Madame drawled, "you wish to hire me?" she cocked her head to the side, show casing the curve of her neck in a way that was vulnerable and seductive and familiar from Benji using it to maximum his cuteness level when he widened his eyes and pouted just so, "I am not cheap."
Lileas leaned forward then, nerves having been tramped under Kenna's full-force and pig-headed affection and complete—sometimes baffling—faith, and brand-new leather-bound notebook opened on her lap and a silver dwarven 'fountainpen' in hand ready to note down the agreement and such.
"Shall we talk price per lesson or a steady wage?" the pale elf asked, pale green eyes focused on the Madame—Lileas would be the one that dealt with money, with the accounts that Lady Caitlyn had arranged for her little sister and her projects, because Kenna had almost no head for numbers.
There was a beat, an air of almost disbelief surrounding the Madame, and then she threw her head back with a bright and full laugh.
"Oh," she grinned at them, all teeth and poisoned words, "I'm going to have fun with you, you will be terrors when you grow up."
"Thank you," Giles decided to add his two coppers in, his smug smirk firmly in place as she glanced at him. "We try our best."
"I'm sure you do," Madame chuckled, amused as she leaned back on her divan. "Yes, little Surana, let's talk money."