#*fiona voice* au revoir

[inquisimer]

wip wednesday

thanks for the tag @dreadfutures :3 a lil start to a backstory fic for Neria, that will go somewhere....eventually

tags below for wip whenever because it's pretty late on wednesday💜

~~~

"It is time."

Duncan kept his voice gentle, laying a hand on Fiona's arm as a slip of a serving girl entered the room. In her arms was a tiny bundle, with bright green eyes and the smallest of noses just showing from her swaddle. Aside from the pointed ears poking out on either side of her cap, she was a perfect match to the babe Fiona held tight to her breast.

When Duncan spoke, the mage tensed. Her fingers tightened around her son.

"Perhaps...perhaps I was mistaken." She chewed on her bottom lip, eyes darting everywhere but at Duncan and always coming back to the baby. "I—it would be safer, traveling together--"

Her fellow Warden watched her fumble sadly, somber until she trailed back to silence.

"I cannot, can I?" she asked softly. Duncan shook his head, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and slipping the other beneath her cradled arms.

"No," he answered simply. There was nothing better to say.

Fiona clenched her eyes and jaw, then dropped her face, murmuring Orlesian fast and low against her son's head. When she looked back up, her gaze hardened to that of the woman who had made hard choices to keep her convictions—and would do it again, if needed.

"Take him," she whispered. "Keep Maric's promise for him."

"I will," Duncan vowed. The weight of a child in his arms was a bit foreign, but he shifted young Alistair securely into the crook of his elbow as Fiona pressed tear-salted kisses to his cheeks.

"Au revoir, Duncan," she murmured.

"Maker go with you."

Once she'd left for good, Duncan steadied himself with a deep breath and turned to the serving girl. He gestured with his chin to the elfkit she held.

"This is the one?" The servant nodded, scurrying forward at a gesture and laying the second babe in his free arm.

Only a few days in this world so far, and yet she did not fuss or cry at the absence of her mother, or at being passed about like a hot potato. She was lighter than Alistair, smaller, and her too-large eyes stared knowingly up at him.

"Does she have a name?"

The serving girl stuttered out uncertainties until Duncan waived her off. She scraped and bowed her way out of the room, leaving the Warden to settle his new charges in their wicker traveling bassinet.

"No matter, young one," he told the elf, tucking a blanket securely about them, "We'll find something that suits you."

Having nestled the babes to his satisfaction, Duncan slung his waterskin over his shoulder and hooked his thick cloak atop his armor. His horse waited at the stables, fresh and tacked for the surely frigid ride to Redcliffe. He lifted the bassinet and, giving it one last reassuring glance, pinched out the final candle. He plunged the chambers into darkness and left the palace, and Denerim, behind.

@rosella-writes | @exalted-dawn-drabbles | @nirikeehan | @effelants | @plisuu | @demawrites

[twyllodrus]

"marquis’s son unused to wine"

tl;dr i’ve mistakenly concocted a conspiracy where evelyn waugh purposely wrote in tragic stories for non-straight characters who happened to be a part of the aristocracy in order to punish alfred douglas for being a scoundrel (where wilde was concerned) and a shoddy poet, in general oh and also, there are some downton abbey spoilers for seasons 5 & 6, beware

d'you ever feel the incessant need to vicariously live through some of the waugh’s characters? particularly, the marquis of marchmain’s youngest son who’s ‘unused to wine’ while on your marry way to cirrhosis?? or maybe the disgraced offspring of some lord, who gets double-crossed by a beau, after your group of friends gets tight on some champagne, disrupts a motor race & thrashes his car, and so now you’re forced to flee the country ?? it’s worth mentioning that – while i find there’s something visceral to the stories of sebastian flyte & miles malpractice – this is in no way me woobifing the man. honestly? kinda sorta fuсk? evelyn waugh ?? yea

but still there’s something almost universal about the sons of aristocracy being queer and getting the shorter end of the stick. well, for obvious reasons, especially, if we’re talking the first half of the previous century :/ yet, inadvertently, quite often, it has something to do with/is related to the title of the marquis specifically??

in short, the conspiracy goes: the son of the marquis of queensberry, – that is alfred 'bosie’ douglas, oscar wilde’s lover – was to blame. in part and while, after having done some research, i don’t believe waugh drew on the inspiration from him, not even partially – still there’s just smth to the idea of punishing the man by writing stories where someone of aristocratic blood is the one who’s being betrayed by his love; and maybe throw in the fact that he’s the one who is left forever pining, withering away & drowning in alcohol?

although, as i’ve said earlier, i don’t believe that was waugh’s mindset or motivation – according to waugh’s biography, he wasn't particularly fond of bosie on purely literaly grounds: 

while “Waugh was "very sorry indeed to hear of Lord Alfred Douglas's distressed condition", and was glad to do anything he could to further the lord's "public recognition", after Douglas had died, “Waugh declined to join a committee to produce "an appreciation of the late Lord Alfred Douglas from a purely literary aspect" [...] "Waugh supposed that the commitee wanted to declare Lord Alfred the "greatest sonneteer since Shakespeare." He "could not agree with the judgement".” (Evelyn Waugh. A literary biography, 1924-1966 by John Howard Wilson, p. 102)

welp. take from it what you will 

in truth, the conspiracy mostly stems from me misremembering the adaptation of vile bodies (written & directed by stephen fry) and assuming that, in the film, miles maitland was made into not just a son of a lady, but specifically of a marchioness ?? why, you might ask? i mean, it could’ve been a neat lil’ call back to brideahead revisited, just like with plover's eggs being off-handedly referenced in the bright young things (2003) – so why not the marquis part as well ?? ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

but still, my primary reasoning, for the change, used to be this: fry changing miles into being from the family one title away from the royalty – was done out of spite. fry’s spite towards alfred douglas, mm yes.  you see, there’s this one quote by him floating around: 

“I think he genuinely loved Bosie, and Bosie genuinely loved him. Even though Bosie was mad, petulant, impulsive, I don’t think he set out schemingly to manipulate Oscar. I think he manipulated Oscar in the way that a child manipulates a parent.”

and so, my single braincell perceived this information & ran with it by creating a link where there was none to begin with!!

plus, now that i think about it, it’s unlikely that fry would’ve revamped miles’ character on the grounds of something like this but, since that is not the case, and miles is no son of any marquis, on screen or otherwise – this theory completely falls apart.

unless, you count the fact that, after all, there is some slim connection between the characters of sebastian flyte & miles malpractice and bosie – waugh, in part, based their characters on someone named stephen tennant ('the brightest of the bright young people’), whose mother, in turn, happened to be a cousin of the son of the 9th marquis of queensberry... the guy’s mother was alfred douglas’ cousin, i’m–

the dots are connecteth…… reality ?? hacked…..

there’s also another instance of this, sort of? (and not to commit sacrilege on the main by mentioning downton abbey and stephen fry in the same post, but) circa season 5 we’re introduced to bertie pelham (edith’s future husband), who eventually becomes the marquis of hexham due to his cousin suddenly dying, off-screen, and passing the title onto bertie. 'tis worth mentioning that the said cousin, peter, the former marquis of hexham, was heavily implied to not have been 'a ladies’ man’ (julian fellowes answer for your crimes) at any rate, there's still something to the notion of being from an aristocratic family, yet not being expected to carry certain responsibilities by the virtue of being the younger sibling? – thus allowing for some freedoms, but not quite ridding oneself from the high probability of a public scandal