#( maxima vc: 'once I thought about anything other than work for a single second and it was awful' )

[mercysought]

@inquistior​ : also dance for maxima because they should from word prompts compilation ( selectively accepting )

   “What an evening.”

She hums with a smile; one hand over Hawln’s after it drifts from his arm. Circling around him and towards the open space where the rest of Hallamshiral danced. The crowd at such gatherings was always hard to read; there is always an electric sort of energy that could very easily be simply made of nerves and tension or a byproduct of Orlais as a whole.

The Inquisitor, Celene and Gaspard were all in the same palace and Maxima wouldn’t be able to describe the energy as anything other than subduedly (albeit temporarily) chaotic. The tense calm before a large storm.

   “I’ve been a travelling lady from the North of Antiva. A bored lady from the South, quite ready to meet the Inquisitor!” her eyes fall on Hawln with a grin as his hand falls on her waist. She supposed he has now just fulfilled the dream of that imaginary lady “A musician that was lucky enough to be able to infiltrate the event.”

Morbid curiosity perhaps. Her eyes move to the musicians that continue playing. Without knowing all the information she could only imagine how excited they all were, how much of an honour this must feel. Knowing what was to come, she felt sorry for them, sorry for how hard their lives were about to be in the following months, perhaps years.

   “And you need not say that you disagree with my methods at keeping my boredom restrained.” she adds looking up to the man, unwilling to wait for his expression to shift, even if slightly. It was a half-truth, given her attire, it was a hard sell depending on which of the lies that she had gone with.

Still, this was her home, had been her home than Tevinter, than the own room that she had slept in. This was where she had learnt to exist, and old habits are hard to kick. On some conversations she allowed light to shine on the lie, playing it as a joke of a bored and vapid mind, others she simply excused herself. The scent of the cherry tobacco is etched into her fingers, her clothes “I fear that even a potential regicide can become a dull affair when one comes from Tevinter.”

The words are whispered to him and yet her eyes remain in all the dancing shapes, the colours that swirl all around them. She recognised some of them, though she doubted — especially with the mask that they would recognise her. A few years had passed and the voices and talents of musicians came and went as the seasons. She hadn’t had a mask of her own the last time she had attended this palace, and the Empress had not been there to see her sing.

Truthfully, it wasn’t about keeping boredom at bay but instead keeping the anxiety from overspilling, her hands from shaking and from reaching for the cup of wine. Said wine that wasn’t great, but it was serviceable when she felt herself having to control her breathing simply to keep up with a conversation. Anxiety because she was there, again, surrounded by people that would have been years back more than happy to see her die at the hands of their guards and templars.

Anxiety because, despite all this, she still didn’t want Celene to die.

She catches the coat and mask of the Grand Duke through the corner of her eyes. Long fingers brush curl against Halwn’s shoulder, a cold ball burst within her stomach, swiftly spreading over her spine. She could put on the charm, make sure that if things were to down a terrible road, that she would have his attention and his ear. First just an interest, but to allow for space for something to grow. Perhaps she still would until the end of the evening. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that the Inquisition was there to save Celene.

The Inquisition was there to make a decision: What was the lesser evil? And Gaspard, for all his flaws, was more than happy to make himself look like it, to paint himself the man played by the Empress, having had his fortune stolen from under him. Maxima held no particular love for Celene, but she hated to think what Gaspard would do once emboldened by the Inquisition.

Celene was many things, but a warmonger wasn’t one of them, and on that moment, it was all that Maxima truly cared about. To know that she would not reignite a war with the North. The thought that they might restart their feuds with Nevarra and Ferelden weren’t far from her mind, both could be potentially good to weaken an already vulnerable Orlais. She could think about it in such terms, but she preferred that the country could focus on self-improvement without the need to indulge in expanding their territory.

And she felt that Gaspard thought Orlais to be perfect. The only thing wrong being that they were stagnant, their hands bound.

Her attention returns to Hawln as they dance, a small smile forming on her lips and a sigh leaving through her nose. And all those decisions, their lives, these worries lay on one man’s hands. Hawln was a good man, but ‘good’ didn’t mean ‘wise’.

And they didn’t need a good man.

   “I also didn’t realise that there were so many Orlesian nobles trying to marry into Tevinter nobility.” she picks up once again, her fingers slowly moving up to the back of his brightly coloured coat. A stark contrast to the white dress, the only details in gold the beaded dragon and a single golden pin for the Inquisition. She smiles, finally taking in the Inquisitor’s face full, green eyes narrowing with warmth behind the mask.

The political climate might not require a good man, not in the sense that one might be simply described, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t have hope that he would make the right choice. And it gave her hope. A weary, tired hope. There were not many like him in those circles. Good men failed often in changing the world with no other reason but everyone else. Many died, many left, unwilling to carry the weight of those that would refuse to listen to them. Hawln didn’t have a choice and perhaps one day someone might write an obscure piece about the tragedy of it all.

Maxima might even read it “Then again, I am unsure if that’s a recent effect or an ‘aligning yourself with the Inquisition’ effect. Speaking of,” she hums with a chuckle as they twirl “Colour me impressed with the dancing, Inquisitor.”