Her time in the Gallows having sufficiently braced her for what she continues to think of as commonplace camaraderie, the pause is brief and she doesn't miss a step or her smile (warm, sincere) as she says, “Cedoux,” diplomatically, a correction and compromise both.
It is a source of ongoing consternation that despite carefully introducing herself with her preferred mode of address—a lesson learned swiftly upon arrival that if she provided a given name, it would be used—it is insufficiently difficult to discover her given name, and proceed to use it regardless. Of course, it would be less than ideal for the diplomatic heads not to know the names of those beneath their command, and more than slightly awkward to request a woman who presently outranks her to use madame—
but Cedoux does not seem an unreasonable ask. She carefully cordons off the fleeting memory it raises of her father addressed the same way, and allows herself to enjoy it without remembering anything else.
She tilts the bottle in her hand: “I felt it appropriate, as I cannot help but recall the burdens of the work.”
"Oh, sure." She understands being tetchy about names, though Eshal mostly thinks of it as a personal feeling rather than a generalized rubric. Some people like titles. Some people like one half or the other of their name. It's all the same to her. Still sounds fucking hilarious when they call her 'Miss Fazon', like that's her family name. She just wanted two; everybody else had two.
She looks up. "This place and booze, I swear," but she nods, pulling up some glasses (well, hers is a beaten metal mug), and gesturing to a comfortable seat. "That why you left? The burdens?"
The business of her name resolved (and once resolved, forgotten), Petrana has a pretty laugh; she's the sort of woman who would, doll-like and soft and steel, underneath.
“No,” as she sits, sweeping skirts beneath herself neatly and opening the bottle to share it, “I had sooner leap than be pushed, only. I felt it was my duty to ensure that the Inquisition's mages had the voice in their own fate they were promised when they joined its cause, and my colleagues disagreed. Though,” lightly, “when it was his own skin in the game, the Provost was more than happy to expect my aid in doing what he had condemned me for.”
She is matter of fact about it, but that she has not forgotten—ah. She will not soon forget.
“Well,” and the slyness of her manner is in its absence, in how scrupulously correct she holds herself, tilting her wine-glass, “I do not tell you anything you could not easily discover another way in saying so,” so judiciously. It's true; she's sure that while Thranduil might dispute her perception of him, he would not argue the facts of the matter. Much of it is a matter of one record or another. It is merely less interesting than it once was—
“The Inquisition's possession of mage phylacteries—having come into the possession of numerous phylacteries, as had previously been an academic question—was a delicate matter, and the intention was to handle it behind closed doors and present fait accompli. Handled as intended, it likely would have led to an entirely different schism within the ranks than Riftwatch subsequently endured; a strong argument might have been made that the decision to keep and conceal that which had shackled them to Circles was, through the Inquisition's desire to maintain at all costs the comfort of status quo in the perils of war, rather the opposite to their intention. It would be a line in the sand. Choosing a side in a war that they had tabled by gaining the faith of both sides, at a time we could scarcely afford a second outbreak.”
She warms to her subject, some. Very few people have required the context of her decision, either agreeing with her or disagreeing with her so flatly as to not merit discussion.
“I passed the information that we had received to the mages within our stronghold, and their private discussions led to what would eventually be the mage and subsequent rifter negotiations with the Inquisition. As is common at the diplomacy table, no one left entirely satisfied, but neither was anyone broken across the top of it. That is, of course, the outcome—prior, when it became clear that mages were not operating blindly in the dark, our then-Scoutmaster Ashara informed me of the Provost and the former Commander Coupe's intentions to run to Mother Inquisition's skirts crying of my naughtiness, and I elected to act under my own power.”
"You..." this actually clarifies some shit. "You Flinted us-" Ahem. Give her a moment. "You gave out information they wanted to keep secret, and stepped down rather than get stepped on."
She's not sure she'd have agreed with the decision at the time, but it doesn't really matter. This puts in perspective a lot of shit she's dealing with right now. Fuck. "Well. Seeing as we still got mages here, some of 'em who I like pretty well--"
“In essence,” she agrees, not abashed. She'd known what she was doing when she did it; considered her conscience, considered the risks, weighed her options and what she thought she could live with. She had looked, very carefully, and then leaped.
She tinks her glass against Eshal's.
“It was and would have been difficult, after that, for any of us to work closely together. I made myself available to the Commander, regardless, but erred against presenting myself with any opportunities to push the Provost out of a window.”
They're not friends.
“May I take that to mean Commander Flint continues our respected tradition most profoundly frustrating Forces commanders?” Petrana still isn't wholly sure that the first one truly vanished back into the fade, or if he might not be in fact at the bottom of the harbor.
She considers lying, but why poison shit. "If I confirm anything, it doesn't leave this room, alright? We're still deciding what to do with him. And what he did has less to do with making sure people have rights and more to do with getting people potentially killed."
She sighs. "He did worse shit than you, but we can't take him out on the eve of a fucking war, you know?"
The way she inclines her head is agreement—naturally, of course. She considers disputing that the matter of mage rights and the possibility of many people getting killed over them were rather hand in glove, but she's more interested in Eshal's perspective on whatever it is Flint has done than she is in splitting hairs.
And most secrets are safe with her.
“Riftwatch is a different beast entirely than the Gallows outpost,” she observes. “It is one thing for the Inquisition to demote a subordinate, or for an ambassador under such threat to step down. It is another thing entirely for an independent organisation to slit its own throat.”
Were they still answerable to Mother Inquisition, Flint doubtless would have hit every single one of the tower steps on the way down. But here and now, there is no higher power. They cannot go through command staff like tissues and face no consequences.
"Yeah, yeah. But there's gotta be rules. If fuckers step outta line, and we don't do shit about it, what's that say about us? 'Specially since other people pull shit, and if they don't have a rank, we stick a fucking fork in 'em."
It's an argument she's been having with herself, and some others, for the last few days. They've all been going through a lot, here. She sips her drink pensively.
Refraining from something so uncouth as would that we did, even with the wine warming her cheeks and having once or twice despaired of the days when the tilt of her eyebrow or moue of her lips might have decided a man's fate more directly (the cost of that time never far behind in memory, how she has to stiffen her spine every time she steps upon the stairs of this tower), Petrana instead observes mildly, “We do not. Historically, more often than not, we have allowed them to cool their heels, and given them a stern talking to, and a second opportunity. Some have used this more wisely than others.”
She includes her own remorseless self among this number, and the fact that she is drinking wine in a division head's office talking shop speaks for itself. It is not an accident that she maintained her proximity to power, for all that she had released her grip of it.
“Nevertheless,” with a sigh, “you are right enough it can't stand. I had ambitions during my tenure to formalize procedures in the event of acting division heads indisposed—as we unfortunately nearly all were, at one point, though Scoutmaster Ashara did an admirable job in a difficult situation. It did not, I regret, come to much; I did not at the time consider the matter of procedures should we be at odds.”
Though she finds the idea of how close she might have come to handwriting her own fate another way briefly, mildly amusing.
“It's a delicate matter. To handle it without losing the confidence of the rank and file, moreso. A united front still must be presented, or else it will be exploited.”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vroom froom.
She's glad to see anyone coming in to distract her, though. She smiles, and it's genuine. "Petrana?"
no subject
It is a source of ongoing consternation that despite carefully introducing herself with her preferred mode of address—a lesson learned swiftly upon arrival that if she provided a given name, it would be used—it is insufficiently difficult to discover her given name, and proceed to use it regardless. Of course, it would be less than ideal for the diplomatic heads not to know the names of those beneath their command, and more than slightly awkward to request a woman who presently outranks her to use madame—
but Cedoux does not seem an unreasonable ask. She carefully cordons off the fleeting memory it raises of her father addressed the same way, and allows herself to enjoy it without remembering anything else.
She tilts the bottle in her hand: “I felt it appropriate, as I cannot help but recall the burdens of the work.”
no subject
She looks up. "This place and booze, I swear," but she nods, pulling up some glasses (well, hers is a beaten metal mug), and gesturing to a comfortable seat. "That why you left? The burdens?"
no subject
“No,” as she sits, sweeping skirts beneath herself neatly and opening the bottle to share it, “I had sooner leap than be pushed, only. I felt it was my duty to ensure that the Inquisition's mages had the voice in their own fate they were promised when they joined its cause, and my colleagues disagreed. Though,” lightly, “when it was his own skin in the game, the Provost was more than happy to expect my aid in doing what he had condemned me for.”
She is matter of fact about it, but that she has not forgotten—ah. She will not soon forget.
no subject
"Okay," she says, "we have fancy booze, and you're alone with me in here, and the door's closed. You wanna gossip, I'm all ears."
She even sweeps her hair behind her ears to emphasize it.
no subject
“The Inquisition's possession of mage phylacteries—having come into the possession of numerous phylacteries, as had previously been an academic question—was a delicate matter, and the intention was to handle it behind closed doors and present fait accompli. Handled as intended, it likely would have led to an entirely different schism within the ranks than Riftwatch subsequently endured; a strong argument might have been made that the decision to keep and conceal that which had shackled them to Circles was, through the Inquisition's desire to maintain at all costs the comfort of status quo in the perils of war, rather the opposite to their intention. It would be a line in the sand. Choosing a side in a war that they had tabled by gaining the faith of both sides, at a time we could scarcely afford a second outbreak.”
She warms to her subject, some. Very few people have required the context of her decision, either agreeing with her or disagreeing with her so flatly as to not merit discussion.
“I passed the information that we had received to the mages within our stronghold, and their private discussions led to what would eventually be the mage and subsequent rifter negotiations with the Inquisition. As is common at the diplomacy table, no one left entirely satisfied, but neither was anyone broken across the top of it. That is, of course, the outcome—prior, when it became clear that mages were not operating blindly in the dark, our then-Scoutmaster Ashara informed me of the Provost and the former Commander Coupe's intentions to run to Mother Inquisition's skirts crying of my naughtiness, and I elected to act under my own power.”
no subject
She's not sure she'd have agreed with the decision at the time, but it doesn't really matter. This puts in perspective a lot of shit she's dealing with right now. Fuck. "Well. Seeing as we still got mages here, some of 'em who I like pretty well--"
She holds up her glass. Cheers to you, sister.
no subject
She tinks her glass against Eshal's.
“It was and would have been difficult, after that, for any of us to work closely together. I made myself available to the Commander, regardless, but erred against presenting myself with any opportunities to push the Provost out of a window.”
They're not friends.
“May I take that to mean Commander Flint continues our respected tradition most profoundly frustrating Forces commanders?” Petrana still isn't wholly sure that the first one truly vanished back into the fade, or if he might not be in fact at the bottom of the harbor.
no subject
She sighs. "He did worse shit than you, but we can't take him out on the eve of a fucking war, you know?"
no subject
And most secrets are safe with her.
“Riftwatch is a different beast entirely than the Gallows outpost,” she observes. “It is one thing for the Inquisition to demote a subordinate, or for an ambassador under such threat to step down. It is another thing entirely for an independent organisation to slit its own throat.”
Were they still answerable to Mother Inquisition, Flint doubtless would have hit every single one of the tower steps on the way down. But here and now, there is no higher power. They cannot go through command staff like tissues and face no consequences.
no subject
It's an argument she's been having with herself, and some others, for the last few days. They've all been going through a lot, here. She sips her drink pensively.
no subject
She includes her own remorseless self among this number, and the fact that she is drinking wine in a division head's office talking shop speaks for itself. It is not an accident that she maintained her proximity to power, for all that she had released her grip of it.
“Nevertheless,” with a sigh, “you are right enough it can't stand. I had ambitions during my tenure to formalize procedures in the event of acting division heads indisposed—as we unfortunately nearly all were, at one point, though Scoutmaster Ashara did an admirable job in a difficult situation. It did not, I regret, come to much; I did not at the time consider the matter of procedures should we be at odds.”
Though she finds the idea of how close she might have come to handwriting her own fate another way briefly, mildly amusing.
“It's a delicate matter. To handle it without losing the confidence of the rank and file, moreso. A united front still must be presented, or else it will be exploited.”