Strange's first glimpse of the interior of La Souveraineté comes around the silhouette of a man roughly of a height with him, older by some indeterminate number (twenty years, at least? but he is well preserved—) and dressed in unfussy, unmemorable black. Well-tailored, but not so as to catch the eye in admiration of it; workmanlike, if that workman might be expected to be presentable for his betters. The warm light from the coloured lanterns affixed within, lighting up the shifting shadows of hanging silks, spills out around the shadow of him, gaunt and severe—
“That'll be the rifter, he's expected,” and without changing that expression, if Felix Guilfoyle can be said to have an expression (or a speed other than 'walk' or 'kill'), he simply stands aside, that Stephen might walk past him into the foyer.
The polished hardwood, the rich velvets and the fine fixtures— the shape of this place is as curious as its exterior suggests, but the interior is perhaps more in line with what he'd been expecting. Baba Yaga's luxury yacht, and the young lady herself: slight and striking in the doorway of what is the main space for receiving guests, a room dominated by a wide cushioned depression, surrounded by hardwood flooring wide enough for perhaps two people to walk abreast and cabinets, art. More of those lanterns, that drapery.
Gwenaëlle is nearly a foot shorter, one eye — the right — false and golden, only golden, the other dark amber and frankly appraising. She doesn't look like any sort of soldier, in summer-weight silk (black, or some colour so dark it needs daylight to be anything else) and barefeet, her hair braided back from her face and then curling down her back. Old scars, the scrape of a rage demon's burning claws, drag down her décolletage to lend support to the story she'd told earlier of her arrival with the Inquisition, those and the eye wrong notes in a pretty, simple melody.
“He's nearly as bad as the dog,” she says, to Stephen, which is actually maybe ruder than that'll be the rifter, and equally casual. “You'd think I couldn't walk myself down a street. Do you know how many knives I have on my person right now?”
It's a non-zero number. Guilfoyle, wordlessly, withdraws.
no subject
“That'll be the rifter, he's expected,” and without changing that expression, if Felix Guilfoyle can be said to have an expression (or a speed other than 'walk' or 'kill'), he simply stands aside, that Stephen might walk past him into the foyer.
The polished hardwood, the rich velvets and the fine fixtures— the shape of this place is as curious as its exterior suggests, but the interior is perhaps more in line with what he'd been expecting. Baba Yaga's luxury yacht, and the young lady herself: slight and striking in the doorway of what is the main space for receiving guests, a room dominated by a wide cushioned depression, surrounded by hardwood flooring wide enough for perhaps two people to walk abreast and cabinets, art. More of those lanterns, that drapery.
Gwenaëlle is nearly a foot shorter, one eye — the right — false and golden, only golden, the other dark amber and frankly appraising. She doesn't look like any sort of soldier, in summer-weight silk (black, or some colour so dark it needs daylight to be anything else) and barefeet, her hair braided back from her face and then curling down her back. Old scars, the scrape of a rage demon's burning claws, drag down her décolletage to lend support to the story she'd told earlier of her arrival with the Inquisition, those and the eye wrong notes in a pretty, simple melody.
“He's nearly as bad as the dog,” she says, to Stephen, which is actually maybe ruder than that'll be the rifter, and equally casual. “You'd think I couldn't walk myself down a street. Do you know how many knives I have on my person right now?”
It's a non-zero number. Guilfoyle, wordlessly, withdraws.