Closed starter for @cfthornsandroses Setting: Highgarden, the Reach. After weeks of visitors, the Verdant Concord is about to come to an end.
The last day of the Concord had finally come and the Mistress of Whispers was barely hiding her relief at watching guests beginning to depart. Rhea had never been fond of vacant chatter, and though she could wear the mask of pleasant civility with expert ease when the occasion called for it, she disliked it greatly. Pleasantries and diplomacy weren't to her taste. Never had been. Rather than spending her time admiring artists or inventors, her attention had been placed on quietly tracing the vanishing trail left after the death of Lady Talia Hightower. She could wave off at the foreigners as they began to return to their keeps, for every whisper indicated that she shouldn't look at suspects outside of their own borders, but within.
Not everyone seemed so eager to retreat and leave the highly social season of the Verdant Concord behind, however. As the lady strolled through one of the exhibition areas, where sculptures and paintings were beginning to be taken down and packed away, she found Lady Matilda Tyrell engaged in conversation with a blonde-haired lord. 'Engaged' was perhaps too kind a word for the scene she saw. Rhea passed judgment immediately. No doubt he was a proud, little Westerner entirely convinced his opinions mattered to someone other than himself. Matilda, although nodding and appearing as polite as a lady could be, did look like someone who'd been trying to get a word in and was unable to due to endless monologue. It was perhaps the sort of thing only a woman might be able to detect, because time and time again it were women who were on the receiving end of interactions like this in which lords remained blind and gladly oblivious.
“Lady Matilda,” she called, approaching the pair. “The king has asked for you”. Rhea's tone left no room for question. She did not offer an apology for the interruption either, and only offered a sharp smile to the lord. “It is quite urgent. We should not keep King Cedric waiting”. She tilted her head to the side when her clear blue eyes found Tilly's, indicating the urgency to leave.
“Ced did not call for you, don't worry,” she said once they walked out of the exhibit's area and were well out of earshot from the gold-haired lord. “You mask exceedingly well,” Rhea added after a moment, almost praising the Tyrell lady's ability to keep such a well-crafted facade of politeness and grace. “I've been in similar situations before. Men talking my ear off, convinced they have fascinating notions that must be shared to enlight me,” she scoffed, shaking her head. Some men were helpless in that sense, too oblivious because of their ego and vanity. “I saw you and thought, 'She looks miserable and he has no idea', the buffoon”. Rhea glanced sideways at Cedric's cousin, the corner of her mouth curving into a witty smirk. “Tell me, was my instinct correct? Or whould you rather have stayed to finish that conversation?”.