this ass is not an ass of honor
"I don't believe you," Mòrag sniffs. And Mòrag never sniffs. Brighid's touch is an attempted placative at her elbow, but it's much too close to the waist for Mòrag's comfort, at this moment.
"I'd never met him before," Brighid concedes. "But he is the very same man I wrote of in my journals from my travels with Emperor Hugo. Undoubtedly." She crosses the few remaining steps across the room to where Mòrag's satchel sits slouched upon a desk chair with cushion far too plush for anyone with any more hind end to speak of than Mòrag has. The current journal lies within, and Brighid inserts one precise, cool blue finger between leaves, as if considering adding another entry with this evening's...remarkable events.
"He said that five hundred years ago, you know. It was a favorite line."
Maybe Mòrag scoffs more than she ever does sniff, and now she scoffs. "Why are you defending him, Brighid? He insulted you, boldfacedly. Have you that much vanity that you would be groped by an unknown vagrant, just to feel flattery?"
She pushes off the bedpost with a mighty snarl. "Do I not flatter you enough, Brighid?!"
Though her pupils cannot be seen, Brighid quite clearly looks down, cowed. "Your defense of my honor is...deeply appreciated, Lady Mòrag. I could never make light of what you mean to me."
"And so?" breathes Mòrag. She has not yet come down from her rage; her fists clench not at her hilts but above them, purposeful in their futile grasp of air.
"And so I must ask you to understand."
Ah. Once more to placation, to mollification even as Mòrag remains mortified.
"I feel a connection to this man, this roguish Sir Cole." Brighid looks down once more, now at the journal in her hand. The wear it bears is the gritty rub of used leather, not gathered dust nor brittle pages. "He was dear to that past Jewel. And she was incensed at him nigh-constantly."
"You didn't consent. Neither did she." Disbelieving though Mòrag is of how she continues to entertain this blasted dialogue, a thread in her begs to be picked up and carried along the needle of Brighid's narrative. If her beloved Blade would persist for this long in justifying what has transpired...
"Did you see how he treated Pyra?" inquires Brighid. "Respectful. Grandfatherly, even."
It's true; Cole had been immensely complimentary of Pyra, and yet his mention of her cooking skills bore no trace of self-reference, of showing himself in on the action. Pandoria, too, he had kidded around with, as if the Tantalese contingent together brought to a battle of wits only the original half of the Core. He'd exchanged significant glances with Nia, and she'd bitten her lip to keep from grinning back in the middle of a sentence. And Poppi...he had absolutely adored Poppi.
"It sounds as if," Mòrag begins reproachfully, "you're allotting him his due course of female mistreatment."
"Oh, he'll receive female mistreatment," Brighid assures her Driver. "Now that I know how much anguish this has brought you."
"Only for my sake, and not for yours, Brighid?"
Must they run in only more circles?
A knock sounds at the door, bringing Mòrag's anguish real and present to her stomach. She'd left her hat in the room when embarking downstairs, but now jams it onto her head with a harrumph.
If he so much as asks about their decency--
"Ladies? Might I trouble you for a moment?"
An equally greasy sentiment. But Brighid gives Mòrag her firmest version of an entreating look (somewhat reminiscent of the scolding hue), so she calls out, "Enter." If you must.
Cole opens the door with one hand held behind his back, ostensibly not gripping flowers but instead waiting to recatch the other wrist, propped there in the case that the door had been opened for him, that he might appear appropriately supplicative - supplicatory - suppliant.
Mòrag says nothing. Brighid appears neither encouraging nor condemning. If any thought could travel between their heads at this moment, it would likely be the fact that Brighid has not yet changed for sleep, so there's no additional fabric for Cole to feel, if that is his errand.
And since when did playwrights- but no, a craftsman of five hundred years would surely have sewn his own costumes at least once, if not many a time.
Cole clears his throat. Already Mòrag is against him, again, because rhetoric will not please her, here.
"Just wanted to apologize, again, for my...indiscretion, earlier. I was more comfortable with the Lady Brighid than I should have been." He nods to her, though the quip about "both parties" is maintained thoroughly, if not sincerely; his gaze remains upon Mòrag. "Memories come flooding back, you get nostalgic." He chuckles, snorts. Again, those shockingly normal teeth. "Sort of an odd position for a Blade to be in. But, that's me."
Mòrag nods, taking neutral inventory of the Core Crystal that displays freely above an open cloak. At least he didn't swoop in and kiss her hand.
"Rex is young. He is naïve. I wish to be able to trust his judgement of character, but there is much he does not know. Intuition cannot count for everything."
The statement is opaque, reserving nothing to any particularly clever implication. Either Cole gets it, or he brushes it off as obtuse.
"You think I'm loose," Cole replies. So he gets it.
"You were not just too comfortable with Brighid, you were altogether too comfortable presenting yourself as a slippery character. Self-deprecating remarks, indulgence in knavish humor despite knowing immediately what you had done and when you would be called to apologize for it."
"You're delivering me a sentence, Special Inquisitor?"
That upright officer of the Ardainian Empire glances to Brighid, then back to her prey. "I am finding it difficult to trust you, Sir Cole, as my Blade and ultimate confidante does." As she says it, she sees Brighid swish across the carpet to stand at her side, uniting them once more where they had been divided on this topic.
A shot of laughter erupts from Cole, but he quickly swallows it, deft.
Mòrag says nothing, shows no offense.
Cole remains silent.
"Well?"
"Well?" he echoes.
"Going to share with the class, Minoth?" asks Brighid.
"No, no," he waves a creaking hand above his head, "it's just...Architect, the way this all played out it feels like you're asking me to be your third!"
A squint seizes Mòrag's entire array of facial muscles for one unbelievable second, and then she bursts out laughing herself.
All this fuss, for that? A farce?
"Look, all it is, is, I grab her ass, she grabs mine. If she's against that, she'll tell me." Cole throws Brighid a last, furtive wink. "But I don't think she is."